It had been a long journey, a game of hide and seek to be precise, but Mystique was always up to the challenge. After attacking the many police officers that followed her to the train, she escaped the car, running headlong into the woods and vanishing without a trace. She tried reading the signs on the road and near the railroad as best as she could, but opting to stay away from people was the better way to go. Besides, nobody truly knew her destination and her mutant charges seemed to be safe for now. She was not worried about them or even herself.
Tomsk was just looming ahead as night approached. By the time Mystique walked out of the woods and into society, she was now an older man, with identity papers ready and a background nobody could question. She hailed a taxi upon her mysterious appearance, gave an address and was driven to a house on a corner, rented out by them and another family she did not know. As soon as she was dropped off though, Mystique immediately went into the house, carefully walking up the stairs to their rented portion, and knocked on the door. Footsteps were heard from nearby, but they were slow and timid. A few minutes later, the door opened slightly, but was stopped by a lock. A face peered out with sad, dark eyes, but they looked to Mystique warily.
"What do you want?" the female voice asked slowly, scared of what was behind the door.
"Peace," Mystique answered promptly, the code word to announce that she had arrived. Oddly enough, a word she heard from Xavier, but she wiped that memory clean away.
I am done with your world, Charles…now and forever.
The locked was undone and the door opened a little more. "Come in," the shy mutant said as her hands tried their hardest not to cause an electric shock. She even moved aside so Mystique could enter.
Mystique came in, noting the dim surroundings, and changed back into her blue form when she saw that she was safe. The mutant watched from her position some feet away, but she could not comprehend what she was seeing. Mystique saw that too and studied the girl, for that was what she appeared to be. She had been shaved, so no hair was visible, but that was slowly growing back into dark and white patches. Her sack of a dress covered a thin frame deprived of food for a long time, but Mystique imagined her to be a vibrant person at one time, with an electrifying personality and power. She knew who this person was, but could not figure out how she came here.
"Jubilee," Mystique greeted, which caused the girl to jump in fright. "What are you doing here?"
"I thought I was safe here," Jubilee replied, but very quietly. "I thought I wouldn't be judged here."
"What do you mean?" Mystique had no patience for people in pity. She just ran the last miles to Tomsk and was not able to handle someone who was just going to whine. "Where is everyone?"
"They're in bed. They asked that I stay here and let you in. They gave me the codes."
"Yet, they didn't tell me that you ran all the way from Salem Center to here."
"Actually, I didn't come from New York."
This surprised Mystique, who thought Xavier's students, after escapin their hellish holes, would have gone home if not assigned to do something. "What happened to you though? I would have thought they would have needed you…you know, somewhere else. I'm sure Roger Mortimer has units running almost two continents."
"I was captured at the school," Jubilee explained, motioning to Mystique that they sit at a nearby table. When they did, Jubilee shaking, the story was continued. "They sent me to that…that camp in Kansas. After the assassination of Senator Ellis, they saw that I was too dangerous and caused too much trouble. They thought that I had something to do with the escape that day, but I didn't know about it. After my…my disgraceful behavior, I didn't care. But this made me scared, more than being at the camp. They sent me to some facility. They tested mutants there, tortured and experimented on us."
Mystique hissed, remembering her own experiences years before. Nothing had changed, she saw, and it was continuing towards the future.
"I thought I was going to die," Jubilee admitted. "I thought they would kill me. Every morning, they would take me out of my cell and…do things. Terrible things. And one morning, I thought they were going to be merciful, but they locked me in a smaller cell. I couldn't move. I couldn't sit or stand or anything. It was very dark. The next thing I knew…I don't know. I knew that I was free."
"How?" Mystique was confused. "A facility like that couldn't have been freed that quickly."
"I heard that some mutant was brave enough to be captured and get us out," Jubilee said, reciting something stupid, almost out of a romance novel and sounding that wistful too. "He heard that his lover was trapped inside and planned it out so that she, as well as everyone else, could be freed."
"It sounds too convenient to me." Mystique rubbed her chin, thinking. "I'll look into it and get some names. Something like that will surely have paperwork linked to it."
Jubilee nodded, but said nothing more. Mystique looked at her again. She thought she saw some tiredness in the young adult's eyes, but it could have been just her. But there was one thing Mystique was sure of. This one could not stay long with her group. She had to move Jubilee along. If someone liked her enough to experiment and torture her away from a camp, there was something about her that would improve their machines of destruction. They liked her enough to keep her. While Mystique was willing to help, she also wasn't going to endanger her other group members either.
"For now, bunk here," Mystique continued, as if saying the obvious. "I might have a place for you east of here. Our goal is to reach Japan, where is the most lenient towards mutants, and hide in the rural areas undetected, like we are here. When you go out, keep your head down, wrap your head to cover the baldness and say nothing unless spoken to. Did you receive any new paperwork on the way here?"
Again, Jubilee nodded.
"Good." Mystique relaxed a little, stretching her legs and changing back into her male identity. "Use the identity and make sure it's your first skin. It will save your life later."
Jubilee said nothing, but Mystique saw that she was thinking about something. But what the woman of many faces did not know was the repentant woman inside of Jubilee. There were so many things she had yet to mend and running away from home was one that surely saved her life. What she left behind was unknown. What fences she wanted to fix might not be standing when she returned. However, Jubilee was determined to return to the United States, no matter the cost. She did not care about her life anymore. The humans showed her that no life was worth saving, especially a mutant's life. But there was one person that Jubilee was determined to talk to, to ensure that one mutant would at least give forgiveness when it was begged.
Rogue had to be alive, Jubilee reasoned. And she was bent on finding her and making sure she knew how sorry she really was.
~00~
The camp had been freed, but many miles still separated Sunspot, Blink and Warpath from the truck they needed to be on, to continue to Brazil. Speeding on foot by night and resting wide-eyed by day (because Blink was too weak to make the needed portals), they used the desert to their advantage and camouflaged when they thought they were being spotted. Now, as midnight approached and they saw the truck up ahead at a stopover, Blink and Sunspot had to wonder if it was safe to run in, with so many other truck and soldiers around. A fire was even started in the center, inviting everyone in that wasn't a mutant. However, it appeared that Warpath had it covered.
When Warpath spotted the two glancing at the camp-like place, a caravan of trucks making a circle of protection, he pushed himself between them and pointed to the truck in the center left. "That's where we need to be," he stated, feeling stupid that he said the obvious. "We're sneaking in about an hour from now, but it's been agreed we will be prisoners."
"So, we're basically going to be guarded, treated like trash and sent into one of the worst prisons on this continent?" Sunspot asked, incredulous.
"For show, I would assume." Blink studied the camp again. "I can make a path to the truck, easy. Having them explain how we got there will be another matter."
"And one Roger Mortimer can figure out when we're there," Warpath pointed out.
"True," Blink replied, "but that's just another lie for him. It's more paperwork."
"Again, it's his problem, not ours." Warpath crossed his arms stubbornly, which made Blink roll her eyes.
"Anyway," Sunspot interjected, "we need to get in there. You said another hour?"
Warpath nodded, motioning the other two to sit down in the dunes and watch the camp with him. The hour crept past them slowly, but when the second came, Warpath stood up to signal their entrance. Blink did the same and with a gesture of her hand, the truck they needed to catch up to was in front of them, but that sapped her strength. Roger Mortimer was keeping guard around the truck, but spotted them as soon as Warpath and Sunspot entered, Blink behind them to close the portal. Roger appeared visibly relieved, but that was soon replaced by a scowl.
"What took you three so damned long?" he asked the group instead. "You all were assigned to free camps and send them to the States and come back this way. You could have used your abilities."
"A few delays," Blink immediately replied, not wanting to remember the raided safe house. "Now, where do you need us?"
Roger did not show his surprise, but he felt it with Blink's bluntness. "Stick around, make some noise and we'll make a scene about catching you, to make the story seem plausible. Or we can make this quiet and I can supposedly catch you all out there in the sandbox of hell. Your choice, but make it a good one. I don't feel like standing out here all night and waiting for you to make up my mind."
Warpath nodded. "Out there would be easier, I think. If you catch us here, people would wonder how we got in and question you."
"The other way would do the same," Sunspot pointed out.
"But it wouldn't be so bad," Roger added. "Catching you out there would make someone ask fewer questions."
"Roger, who's there?" A lone voice called out, all of them realizing that it was Ororo's nearby.
"Later," Roger called back. He then turned back to the three, his tone quiet and more menacing. "Get out of here and head east maybe half a mile. I'll be along shortly. I'll just consider it a good thing people know that I snoop around a lot and keep information to myself."
Warpath smiled, nodding his head. "Exactly what I was thinking. How long should we wait for you?"
Roger blew out some air and looked at his watch on his wrist. "Give me half an hour, tops. I'll bring Bobby with me."
Blink had to snort. Bobby wasn't a strong person, in her opinion, and seemed pretty weak when they were at the camp in Kansas, especially when it came to confrontation. He was a link she wanted to break, but was forced to keep and hold up because people vouched for him. Granted, he made some pretty nifty pathways in ice and could battle like no tomorrow, but he still needed to learn a few things about fighting and life in general.
"We need someone to back Roger up," Warpath reminded Blink, even though she knew that he had the same opinion of Bobby as she did.
"Sure," Blink replied. "Half an hour and half a mile away. Anything else?"
"Yeah," Roger answered, trying to keep his own amusement at the drama is a minimum, "don't struggle. I don't want to have to kill ya."
Sunspot saluted sarcastically, seeing the purple portal now formed by Blink, who thought it better to get a good head start. He jumped in wordlessly, followed by Warpath and then Blink, the latter of which waved a weak farewell to Roger. They acknowledged the orders before leaving, Roger saw too, which made his life a little easier. Now, he just needed to find his backup.
Ororo soon came to where Roger was finally, her face concerned. "Did you see them?"
"Yeah, they came." Roger knew who Ororo was referring to. "I told them to get out of here and we'll capture them properly. Just get me Bobby and I'll be on my way."
"Right." Ororo then watched as Roger dashed off to the east in a sudden burst of energy, chasing a mirage, as far as she was concerned. She then turned away, intent on enacting on their new plan and the next step towards Brazil.