iv.
Mystique could no longer bide her time. She'd come for Laura, but had other pending projects and deadlines to tend to and couldn't afford to waste another day in the mansion convincing Laura that she was better off with her than with Xavier and Erik. However, that didn't mean that she'd leave Xavier's empty handed.
While Laura and all the others were in class, Mystique made her way back to the base floor of the mansion, passing one locked room after another before finally arriving at the one laboratory she knew contained the very latest in mutant research, DNA manipulation, and various chemically based methods of defense. Picking the lock and sweeping into the room, Mystique stabbed a syringe full of a mild tranquilizer into the stunned lab tech's neck before she could even attempt to cry out or defend herself. Letting the syringe drop over her shoulder as the woman collapsed to the floor, Mystique shifted into her natural form for the first time in quite a while and began going through the cabinets.
In hacking certain intelligence records, she'd discovered an organic formula that humans had created by accident while trying to devise a liquid that once exposed to air would turn into a gas and tranquilize mutants on the spot. Unfortunately, their research was flawed…at least for humans. The toxin turned out to have a placebo effect for mutants but was deadly to humans. The entire team of researchers that had created the formula was killed in the process and any remaining sample or attempt to recreate it was banned worldwide. But Mystique knew if anyone had a sample of the PlaceboX formula, it would be Charles. He would waste such an opportunity on research whereas Mystique could replicate it tenfold and use it as an offensive strategy in dire situations.
Hearing footsteps approach the lab, Mystique looked to the technician on the floor behind one of the tables and rapidly changed her form and clothing to match hers. Mystique turned around to face the doorway and put her hands into the deep white lab coat pockets.
"Can I help you?" Mystique asked in a pleasant tone, only assuming what the mutant sounded like based upon the dimensions of her frame.
"Uh, no. Sorry," Laura replied, backing out of the lab when she saw that she was obviously in the wrong place and intruding on forbidden territory. "I was just looking for someone. I thought I saw her come down here somewhere," she replied.
"You did," Mystique replied, shifting back into Raven. There was still time and if she could leave Xavier's with PlaceboX and Laura, she'd really be pleased with herself.
"That's just messed up," Laura said, laughing lightly and surprised all again by Raven's ability. "Where have you been?"
"I don't know…around?" Raven replied, turning away from Laura and getting out her notes so she could identify the formula.
"Around? No you haven't because I've looked 'around,'" she said, using air quotes even though Raven's back was turned. "You disappear all the time – and on purpose, which is totally not even fair, Raven." Raven offered her no response at all, only climbed up onto the counter to search through the top shelves, so Laura walked over to her by the cabinets and vials of mutant blood work.
"What are you looking for? Are you even listening to me?" She asked. "Oh my God, what happened?" Laura exclaimed when she saw the real lab tech on the floor beside Raven.
"Oh, her? She's just sleeping; she'll wake up with a mean headache, but otherwise, she's fine."
On the counter in front of her, Laura noticed that Raven had an entire list of chemicals on paper, most of which had been checked off, a journal with all sorts of notes and scribbling of dates and locations in it, and an unlocked box containing six or seven vials of different colored liquids.
"This isn't the real you, is it?" Laura asked, looking closely at her friend now as though she may find some external flaw that gave away her true identity.
Raven shrugged with a smirk while she continued to rummage through the top shelves for any information that would lead her to the storage location for PlaceboX.
"Is your name even Raven?" Laura asked, her voice rising slightly, concerned that she'd been lied to.
"Does it matter?" Raven played, hopping down from the counter.
"Of course it does! I commended you for what you did at the rally and I could be suspended for something like that!"
Raven snickered. "That's not what you're worried about."
"No, it's not," Laura snapped. "I kissed you and I deserve to know who I was really making out with the other night."
"Scott, as I understood it," Raven teased, closing another drawer and walking to the back of the lab, thinking the formula was probably in one of the frozen incubators.
"Don't walk away from me," Laura barked. "What are you looking for that's so important right now?"
"Don't know if I can tell you."
"Why not? I've never betrayed your confidence before," she argued.
"I've never trusted you with anything substantial before," Raven countered.
"Try me," Laura said, grabbing Raven's arm and pulling her to look at and focus on her for once. And focus, she did. Raven remained silent, lifted her chin as though testing Laura's daring, then looked her up and down, waiting for Laura to prove her worthy somehow. Feeling a sudden loss of breath combine with the fury she felt from the realization she'd been successfully baited, Laura asked, "Who are you?"
Unable to stop the formation of a smile at the sight of those bright lilac eyes watching her so critically and with such passion, Raven's skin rippled and stretched until she became the taller more elegantly framed and stunning Mystique.
"My name is Mystique. I operate an underground revolt against human controlled governments and corporations that seek to harm or use mutants against their will. It's been suspected for some time now that Charles has been assisting the humans in researching mutant genetics and in turn, humans are using that information to test on mutants locked away from civilization. I intend to stop them."
"Charles wouldn't do that," Laura reasoned, lightening her grip on Mystique's arm, but not letting go. She didn't even bother to acknowledge the dramatic change she'd just witnessed; for all she knew this was just another smokescreen.
"No, I don't believe he would, but he is too foolish to assume that humans wouldn't use his research against his own people. I pity his naivety…and yours," she said sharply.
"I'm not naïve," she countered, shoving Mystique's arm out of her grasp and stepping away from her.
"No? Your petty hang up over one little kiss says otherwise."
"You're wrong. That's why I've been looking for you. I knew I wasn't kissing Scott and that it was you I was kissing the other night. I might not have known it was this version of you, but I still knew it was the Raven I knew, and news flash! I liked her."
"So come with me," Mystique proposed with a softer tone.
"What?" Laura blurted out, shaking her head as though water had somehow flooded her ears and she'd heard Mystique incorrectly.
"You heard me."
"I can't just leave with you. I don't even know who you really are," Laura deflected. She wanted nothing more than to leave this place she'd never called home and be part of something important, something that changed the way mutants lived in this country and around the world, but she was extremely wary of doing so with a complete stranger – and a dangerous one at that.
"I really don't see how that matters," Mystique said, stepping up to Laura and hesitantly tucking a strand of her long dark hair behind an ear. Shimmering her form back to that of Raven's, Mystique gently held Laura's face in her hand. "But there's always time," she offered.
Laura lost sight of her doubts for an extended moment as she looked into Raven's eyes. They were the same captivating color as when she was Mystique, but the added darkness and wisdom she saw now made leaving with her all the more alluring. Tearing herself away, Laura rubbed her fingertips against her temples and hid her face from Raven, considering the proposition.
Walking back to the counter in the other room with Raven following close behind, Laura read over Mystique's list of samples she was collecting from the lab. Noticing the one still unchecked, Laura picked up one of the miscellaneous vials the lab tech had been working on, wrapped her hand around it, reviewed the formula written out in Mystique's journal once more, then closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she held the vial out to Raven.
"What?" Raven asked, confused.
"PlaceboX," she answered, putting the vial into the box full of samples beside the journal then locking it shut. Looking over her shoulder at Raven, "How soon do we leave?"
--------------
"This really isn't the place for me," Raven announced to Erik after breakfast when she ought to have been in her first class.
Erik pushed his lips out and shook his head as he set down his cup of coffee. "Stay. You can help me change this, and you know it. You're still young, but the more you–"
Raven laughed, and she could tell it confused and delighted him at the same time. She stepped up to Erik, covered his hand with her own and lifted it. She touched the tattoo that showed just beyond the edge of his pushed-up sleeve. She knew he wanted to pull his hand away, but to his credit, he didn't.
"That will never happen to you, Raven."
"I know," she replied flatly.
"That's what we're trying to prevent, don't you see? What we're trying to do here. It doesn't have to end up as you might imagine."
"I remember when they started rounding you up like cattle," she said, her voice lower than before, a deep satisfaction stemming from the look on Erik's face. "At first it was criminals, political prisoners, dissident Poles. And then the camps went from forced labor to extermination. Meanwhile, this country's government did little but sit by and watch. You were an entire people unable to imagine the atrocities in store, offering little resistance because you saw no immediate need to do so. That's what you're teaching them here. That the differences don't matter. And they may not to Xavier or to these children, but to the rest of the world – the world I know, that you know – they matter a great deal."
Taking a step away, Raven watched the other students run out into the courtyard between classes. "No, this is no place for me, Erik. It's no place for you, either. But I think you already know that," she said, looking back at him.
Erik's face…she'd never forget the expression he wore. It was like surprise and realization dawning all at once. "You remember?"
She nodded, walking back to stand face to face with Erik, the man only a head taller than she. "And before," she elaborated. "I remember when Germany declared war against Russia just over two decades earlier. The U-Boats and the grand liners sinking in the sea, Gallipoli, deaths from influenza, Versailles," she paused, considering. "I wanted to celebrate the turn of the century, but I was young then and it was difficult. It was exhausting to hold a form for long. Just looking at someone long enough would start a transformation. But I learned."
Erik stared at her a long time. "It's not exhausting to hold a form now, Raven?"
"No. Just infuriating that I have to." She paused, looking up at him. "And my name is Mystique," she said, her voice now laced with a hint of something unknown.
"Mystique." He whispered the name as if he'd heard it before, and only just been reminded of it, or as if it were a delicacy he'd just tasted for the first time in years. "Show me," he asked, his eyes glinting with anticipation.
She changed then, the teenage clothing gone, the youthful face and smooth blue skin, it rippled and shimmered, clicked and hissed into place one inch at a time, until she stood several inches taller, glimmering in the faint light, fully developed beneath the ridges and satin plates of reflective blue. She saw Erik's hand lift and thought he was going to touch her. He didn't.
"You're good," he whispered.
She rippled, smiled, and spoke over her shoulder as she walked away. "You have no idea."
---------------
Charles had been disappointed, but not surprised. He'd suspected something wasn't quite right, after all. Erik knew Charles was concerned about her out there, on her own, even though she was probably far older than both of them put together. What she could do – the damage – that was Charles' worry. He also wanted her to stay, not just out of fear of what she might do, but fear for her. Erik knew that Charles believed all mutants would be better off inside the school.
Charles stood at the window and from across the room Erik could see the leaves blow across the yard and the students dashing from place to place, hoping to beat the coming rain. One of them literally disappeared from one place and appeared in another. Erik stepped up behind him and put a hand on the back of his neck, let his fingers ruffle through the thinning ring of brown that was getting lighter by the month, it seemed.
He realized that Charles had never met the real Mystique. Erik thought of how she'd so easily shed one mask and donned another. He thought of the blue, ridged skin she'd so proudly revealed to him, with its shimmer and serpentine roll as she changed. She was so beautiful and able to be anyone. Anyone.
"Erik, is that…?"
Erik recognized the girl by her signature red hair, watched as she approached one of the students. Laura Lewis, Erik realized. Laura's parents left her at the school only for Charles and Erik to come to realize that she could rearrange the cell structure in any type of organic material. She had no idea how to apply her gift yet. She was only 17 and had been abandoned, so her lack of control wasn't surprising. She had great potential, though. Laura was thrilled to see Raven – skipping over to her and giving her a quick kiss – clearly they'd gotten close in a fairly short amount of time.
Clever girl, Erik mused to himself, watching the two girls whispering to each other in the courtyard.
Laura handed Raven her backpack, a backpack that could have been full of schoolbooks but Erik knew probably wasn't, over to her new friend before she bent to tie her shoe.
Mystique's golden eyes flashed at the dark clouds drawing near as she smiled over her shoulder at the two men watching her from the mansion.
Charles sighed. "Do you think she's going to pose a problem?" He caught Erik's eyes in the glass.
For Charles' sake, Erik didn't smile. "Yes."
