Author's note: ALL ART COMMISSION OFFERS FOR THIS STORY WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY DECLINED
...
After the trip to Germany...
Caliban sat back in his secondhand office seat brought into the outpost as Kurt described everything that had happened once Mystique and Toad arrived in Germany.
"Hell of a story kid. An actual Mutant Shapeshifter. I thought those were just myths..." the gargoyle like Mutant said. "But then again we thought teleporters like you were just myths..."
He leaned forward on his scuffed, used wooden desk.
"Level with me, kid. The Shapeshifter. Can she be trusted?"
"She helped us escape. Besides, ORCHIS would want to cut someone like her open to see how they tick way more than they would be tempted to use her as a field agent," Kurt speculated, his German accent poking through. "I suspect that Mutant they deployed, Wolverine, probably went under the knife for months before they decided to give him a chance..."
"And you are certain you lost them?"
"One hundred percent." Kurt replied, yellow eyes betraying no uncertainty.
Caliban leaned back.
"She's your responsibility while she remains at this outpost. We have an underground route leading from here back to Austin in case you have to travel, but given your physical appearance due to your mutation I'm afraid while in the United States you must abide by Morlock Laws, which means you cannot walk the surface streets of a human city at daytime, only at night and in isolated areas, where any sightings of you can be dismissed as yet another cryptid," Caliban explained. "These restrictions exist to safeguard our existence from discovery until we have measures in place sufficient to guarantee our ability to safely live with Humans...or defend ourselves from them. Whichever comes first, though we would, of course, prefer the former."
"It's pretty much the same for every mutant like me no matter where I travel..." Kurt replied.
"Until such a time as you re-establish contact with Natisk's European Mutant Pipeline, you and the others you brought with you are considered our guests..." Caliban said, rising from his seat.
"Enjoy your stay," he grunted.
Kurt nodded heading out of the office dug into mountain rock. It was an hour after they had arrived, and Kurt had been the one to give the debrief as he was the most recognized face. 'Emma' was still fretting over Blob and Toad, blaming herself for their vanishing, last he saw.
Kurt threw on his hood over short, curly blue-black hair, passing by Mutants whose appearance was downright grotesque, going quiet as he went past them. American Mutants were supposedly more accepting of those amongst them with unusual powers but so far, he got the same looks of uncertainty and fear that hurt even more than it would have if it had come from a human. It had nothing to do with his appearance-an irony that also served to make it more horrible.
It reminded him of earlier days, when the crew at Checkpoint Charlie hadn't fully trusted him...the memories stung more than he would have thought, which surprised him.
He headed to a security checkpoint manned by deformed Mutants, who asked him to remove his hood as he stepped out.
"Sorry. We gotta run scans on you, make sure you aren't carrying any diseases. Standard procedure," The guard explained as he was checked over.
"He's clean," one of them said, staring at an unusually flat computer screen that made Kurt do a double take at the sophistication.
Kurt was photographed, and a high-speed printer spat out a plastic I.D. Card with his face and a barcode.
"The card marks you as a visitor. Please keep it with you at all times," a three faced member of the security told him.
Kurt nodded. "Hey what's a fella do for work around here?"
The guards went curiously silent for a moment, exchanging knowing glances.
"Whatcha good at?" The guard asked him a second later.
"Transportation. Courier," Kurt answered, though he knew instinctively that by the way the guard had asked, he probably already knew what Kurt's powers were, and asking had only been a formality.
"We always need those sorts," The Mutant Guard told the teenager. "The Mutant known as Blink runs the local delivery service. Speak to her if you wanna earn some quick cash."
Kurt thanked the guard and headed towards the outpost proper.
The outpost was much larger and was as close to anything resembling what he imagined a true Mutant City might be as any such as him were likely to witness in this life. He saw crops, gardens and canals, all literally carved from the rock. There were actual streets. He saw a sign in solid steel and embossed gold that read DISTRICT X.
Kurt walked to the main gate into the district, dark blue barbed tail that ended in a lone natural bone blade tough enough to deflect high caliber rounds and sharp enough to casually slice through titanium with minimal force applied as he approached, a full color hologram of a red, medieval knight's helm with his visor open, with two glowing dots of light serving as eyes staring from out of a field of darkness within that helmet appeared.
"Welcome, New Arrivals," The floating Helmet said in an unsettlingly deep baritone. "I am Natisk, one of the chief benefactors of The Euro-Mutant Pipelines and a happy friend of the American Morlocks. In English, my name translates into the word 'Onslaught'..."
"Yeah, there's nothing creepy about being a floating head with a super villain voice. Nothing Spy Film about that at all..." Kurt muttered with a roll of saffron eyes as he approached.
"Why Onslaught? Well, why the hell not? Do you have any clue how many laws I'm breaking doing this?!" The floating helmet asked rhetorically. "The name refers to the number of charges I'll be going down for if I can't squirm my way out of it with my expensive lawyers should I get caught. Not that that's your problem, of course, heh heh-"
The hologram went back on topic. "District X is but a shadow of the prosperity I dream for. Here, District X serves as an active experiment in setting up larger scale communities of Mutants, with trusted humans also sharing residence. Here we can safely explore Human and Mutant cohabitation, and help Mutants adversely physically altered by the X-Gene adjust to the reality of their circumstances. District X contains one of the most advanced medical facilities for Mutants on Earth after Muir Island. District X also retains the full capabilities of other Morlock Colonies in its abilities to ferry supplies to Mutants, as well as arrange travel to other areas of the world. For those fleeing persecution from unscrupulous sorts with more knowledge than the rest of Humanity, this is the place to rest your head and think about your future. I pray for all our sakes that your path leads you to being a true and permanent friend of ours."
With that, the Hologram vanished, and Kurt walked the rock streets, seeing the buildings in what looked to be the inside of a mountain rise up about three stories in height, the lamp posts, all made of the same rock.
He had never seen such a large community. For once he didn't stand out. Damn near everyone here barely looked traditionally human.
As Kurt explored the place however, it became apparent that the appreciation of human aesthetics remained. Human looking mutants were displayed on self-made posters far more than non-human looking ones. Especially if they were considered classically beautiful and female.
Kurt saw something that made him blink, rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating, as he saw what looked to be actual law offices labeled OFFICES OF POINDEXTER AND WHEDON, the building dome like and with an elaborate facade of a female representation of Justice, blind folded, holding scales, but on the blindfold was a prominent letter X against a background of a double helix DNA strand.
Out of pure curiosity, Kurt walked into the building and saw a clean interior of stone with cubicle spaces carved from it, in which two or three deformed mutants were waiting in rows of stone seats to be called to a stone desk behind which sat a tall, buxom, yet muscular and curvaceous woman with lime green skin and dark green hair wearing a revealing strapless leopard print mini dress with a low cut down the middle and high heels with the same pattern, hair tied in a ponytail. Kurt unconsciously did the sign of the cross at the sight of her.
Kurt waited until the other mutants had been called and directed to nearby cubicles to speak to other deformed Mutants before he approached.
"Yes, young man?" she asked, with a noticeable Texan accent. "Welcome to the offices of Benjamin Poindexter and Evangeline Whedon."
Kurt stared at the name plate on the desk that read JENNIFER WALTERS.
"Gutentag," Kurt greeted trying not to stare ANYWHERE but her eyes, which were admittedly quite beautiful. "Is this real? Is this like a law office for Mutants?"
"You're new here..." she noted.
"I have never been to America before. It is my first time here in Morlock territory. I'm from the Euro-Mutant Pipeline in Germany," Kurt said to her enthusiastically. "I've never seen anything like this for our kind over there."
"Oh, I'm not a Mutant, I'm a Gamma Mutate. I'm interning here..." Walters replied. "Got a blood transfusion once that, uh, heh heh, had some complications..."
"You're an intern?"
"And secretary, when the situation arises," Walters added.
"I had no idea the Morlocks were thinking this far ahead..." Kurt admitted. "But Americans tend not to think small...so I'm not as surprised as perhaps I should be."
"Superhuman representation in the legal system is blowing up just from the court cases involving Mutates alone, kid," she replied, filling out forms and other paperwork, stamping some with red ink. "Most of our experience lays in insurance for property damage and negligent homicide cases involving Mutates. Cases which are providing a base for us to handle stuff involving Mutants..."
"How soon can we expect court cases involving Mutants hitting the news cycle?" Kurt asked, folding his arms.
"Less than a year," Walters answered in a matter-of-fact fashion. "Oh, about...nine and a half months by my estimate. Slightly longer than the government will be able to keep Mutants out of Public Knowledge..."
"Are we truly so close to discovery?" he wondered glumly. He didn't want to admit it, but he wasn't ready to have his existence exposed to the world. Wasn't ready to stop fighting his war in the shadows. It was something he was used to, a perverseness of viewpoint he prayed that God would someday relieve of him, because he wasn't sure how to shake off the excitement at fighting, even though he NEVER killed.
Walters put down the papers.
"Now, you didn't hear this from me, youngin', but I know a feller, who knows a feller, who KNOWS a feller that works at SHIELD, and they are saying that SHIELD is close to being overwhelmed by the effort to keep Mutants hidden from the Populace, so much so that the effort to keep you folk out of the media is compromising their ability to complete other operations..."
"Really..." Kurt replied, eyebrow raising in intrigue.
Walters nodded. "Governments are spending money hand over fist to keep Mutants a secret, to the point they're risking bankrupting their own economies..."
She took out a folder and opened it up, perusing its contents.
"To my knowledge there are about fifteen major federal court cases in waiting to start where it's inevitably going to come out during trial that one or both parties will be discovered to have been born with superhuman powers. Once that happens, we will be in virtually unknown legal territory."
"So, what's Mutant Law Practice turning out to be like?" Kurt wondered, folding his arms in both curiosity and skepticism.
"Everybody is real interested in any law restricting or limiting the use of certain abilities. A lot of people are frightened to use their main ability for fear of opening themselves up to federal charges. We're actually having to consult documents regarding weapons regulations as much as we're looking up human rights laws..." Walters answered. "And that's just on the client side of things. We're trying to get data on what happens when the legal representatives, jury, and judges are also Mutants or Mutates...and how each rules cases amongst themselves and against each other...but the client side of law is taking up most of our research, and how we believe governments will legislate..."
"You can't legislate people's right to live..." Kurt said almost scornfully.
"Maybe. But what happens when a single individual can unleash an ability more devastating than a shotgun or a grenade blast?" Jen asked, chewing on the end of her pen as she contemplated her words. "What if a Mutant commits a crime and they have nearly impenetrable skin? What constitutes excessive force in bringing said individual to justice? What constitutes self-defense for the common citizen against such a person? To what degree is the mutation affecting their ability to think and reason, which may call into question their full culpability in said crime..." Walters asked before shrugging.
"Ninety-nine percent of Mutants won't want to break the law, I imagine, but you need something in place for the one percent who will and do commit crimes. and you need policies to address the medical and mental complications Mutation will bring. Unfortunately, the only way to build up policy, and precedent, will be to get Mutants in court for stupid or evil things they may or may not have done with their powers aiding in the commission of said activities that brought them into court to begin with."
"So, this law firm is trying to get in on the ground floor of Mutant Jurisprudence?" Kurt asked.
"Again, you did NOT hear this from me, but Mister Poindexter believes we stand to make billions in this industry alone, but he's also got his...err...sights...on other...unintentional consequences of the revelation of Mutantkind's existence."
Kurt raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
Walters leaned forward.
"Well...most of us in the office think he's daffy to even consider it a possibility, but he believes Mutantkind being exposed to the world will cause a near total collapse in firearms regulations in the United States alone almost overnight..." Walters said to the boy in a conspiratorial whisper.
Kurt tilted his head in fascination at her answer.
"Absurd. What makes him think this?" Kurt wondered.
"Poindexter doesn't think the Governments of the world will be able to justify keeping weapons out of everyone's hands if the Public perceives the danger from mutants to be great enough. Doesn't matter if the weapons would actually be effective. It's better than nothing," Walters added.
Kurt had to think about it. "No ordinary law enforcement official or civilian will have any experience at fighting a Mutant Criminal on a regular basis. And you WILL have ordinary folk being forced to respond to crimes committed by powerful mutants, or even simple low-level ones..." he whispered, getting a chill as the theory of a man he had never met started to scare him.
"Exactly." Walters added conspiratorially, clearly taking this theory seriously more than she initially let on.
"He really believes all the regulations will go just because Mutant's exist?" Kurt pressed, clearly intrigued by this theory.
"Almost all of them." Walters answered with great confidence.
"But what happens to the Governments if they tear down their own weapon laws to stay in power? How will they assert authority on the populace?" Kurt asked.
Jen Walters leaned forward with an utterly serious expression.
"My personal opinion? Giant. Robots."
Kurt was silent a moment, wrestling with his own terrors of what came after exposure.
"Good day, Fraulein. Thank you for the conversation," Kurt said. "Perhaps this really IS the place to start thinking about the future..."
"No problem, Sugar! Take care!" Jen replied happily as Kurt wandered out in almost a daze.
Kurt wandered the streets more, knowing he was putting off the meeting with Emma as long as he could, because it terrified him that he didn't believe her to be lying to him at all about anything she had said to him in Germany.
He had always been curious of course, about his origins. But he had never dared to build up a fantasy of what they were like, fearing disappointment. He had imagined his mother hadn't wanted him, but from what Emma had said, it made him think it was much more serious than that.
He wished he could find somewhere to pray and talk to God about his fears, and his terrors.
That was when he spotted the large rock church with unmistakable Catholic markings at the end of one stone street, and a highly detailed rock statue of Jesus on the cross, the rock pedestal on which the carved cross stood having two double helix symbols, one normal, the other having the letter X overlaid over it.
Kurt had never been to a church at mass. Only after dark, when the cathedrals were empty. There was simply no truly organized group of Catholic Mutants in Europe beyond very small, isolated groups. It was difficult for them to do the rites correctly and on a regular basis without the assistance of friendly, allied humans already in the church, of which there were not many in Europe. Taking it as a sign, he approached.
Kurt hesitantly stepped in, entering a church during the day a new experience for him. The ceiling was high and vaulted, with stained glass windows containing various scenes from the Bible. Giant statues in alcoves of the walls depicted the Apostles, with the statue of Jesus above the Altar bigger than all the other ones, his hand raised in the sign of benediction, face and figure looming serenely over those who would pray in the pews of the church.
He saw small numbers of Catholic Mutants kneeling in prayer before taking the Saint's Walk. He did so as well after taking a few moments to pray, but all his thoughts came out disjointed, ridden with anxiety and paranoia, and regretting that he could not stay longer to sort his own head out.
He had a war to fight.
He walked the Saint's Walk in daylight and saw the stares. Everyone who didn't know him always feared him for the teleporting ability more than his looks. That ESPECIALLY included other Mutants. He kept his hands clasped together in reverence and prayer, kneeling down before the fish like mutant dressed in rags vaguely resembling a Catholic Priest's outfit, holding a chalice of communion wafers.
"The Body of Christ," the Fishlike Mutant with blue scales said, his biology making it difficult to use human speech properly, so much so that he clearly had to force himself to pronounce the words correctly in the phrase on a constant basis, which was a clear strain on him as long spindly fingers held out the communion wafer for Kurt.
"Amen," Kurt said, having it placed on the tongue. He shut his mouth, made the sign of the Cross, rose and walked back to a stone pew, letting the wafer dissolve in his mouth as he went into contemplation, trying to pray, but having flashes of past acts of violence, of nights hiding from the world. The cracks of gunfire that made him shoot awake in his sleep. He was only a teenager. He tried to focus on the old verses he had been taught, tried to think about anything but the strange, shape shifting Mutant calling herself Emma Frost, and the secrets of the past she might possibly hold for him.
He flinched as he heard another gunshot in his head.
"Have we another member to the flock? I have not heard your footsteps before, and I know the footsteps of many of the people here..." called out a gruff, elderly voice as it approached him just as he had started to rise and leave after his moment of contemplation in receiving what Communion he could. Most of the Mutants were leaving to carry out essential tasks in the outpost that could no longer be put off for the day.
Kurt stared as an old man with trimmed short white hair and a thick goatee wearing a crimson T-Shirt, a damaged pair of jeans with a few holes in them and old army boots walked up to him, wearing crimson sunglasses and a straight collapsible walking stick.
"Are you one the local priests?" Kurt asked as the man came up to meet him, the Fishlike Mutant putting away the Communion supplies.
"I'm what passes for one in these parts. Not ordained any longer unfortunately," the blind man chuckled, holding out his hand. "I'm Matt Murdoch. My friends call me Stick. Happy over there's my Assistant..." he said of the fish like Mutant.
"Nice to meet you, Mister Murdoch...I'm Kurt." Kurt said, shaking the offered hand. "Are you a Mutant?"
"Nope. Not even a Mutate," Stick replied. "Hundred percent human, Kurt."
"How did you come to be in charge of this place without being ordained?" Kurt asked as he walked with Stick to the front of the rows of stone pews.
"Well, Natisk was understandably a tad hesitant about trusting the Church with a secret like this place, and me and him know each other from our days in the service together..." Stick replied as he walked with Kurt. "But he recognized the needs of Catholic Mutants and commissioned this place. Catholic Mutants in America are even less organized or united than the ones in Europe. There's just less of them here, and all are greatly separated most times and NONE of them are in the Priesthood unlike in Europe because we haven't found a Catholic Mutant over here who can fully pass for a normal human and we don't have a lot of friendly humans in the American Priesthood. Someday, when Mutants can come into the open, this church will hopefully get recognized."
Kurt noticed that Stick's face frowned almost imperceptibly.
"I know all the rites, but I...had a lot of trouble when the war ended and couldn't continue my duties in the state I was in..." he admitted quietly as he headed to the pulpit and opened up a Catholic Bible with a simple red leather cover and a gold cross, tracing his finger over the letters within to make sure he was on the same page he had left it. "Not until relatively recently, anyway."
Kurt perked up as he noticed the Bible wasn't in Braille. It was a regular one, yet Stick was somehow still able to read it.
"Forgive me, Stick, but I thought the physically blind need Braille, raised letter typeface or audio."
Stick gave a small chuckle.
"Let's just say I have a good sense of touch."
Kurt raised an eyebrow but said nothing at this.
"Which is your favorite book? I find reading my favorite section in the Bible helps calm me down a lot when I feel anxious..." Stick suggested... "All that fighting that happens in the Pipeline taxes the soul."
Kurt's head shot up.
"How did you know I was a Pipeline Guard?"
"I heard it in your voice," Stick replied. "I always know the poison of war in someone's tone."
Kurt snorted.
"Am I that obvious, friend?"
It's not a matter of being obvious. It's a matter of being able to recognize pain in another."
"What happened?" Kurt asked quietly.
"Pardon?"
"What happened to you?"
"Same things that always happens in a war, kid. Chewed me up and spat me out, like it does with everybody," Stick answered as he turned the page. "Shrapnel from a VC trap took my sight. Only God's Grace allows me to be here, not my own gifts."
"Here Kurt. Have one..." Stick offered, pointing to a small stack of copies on the table. Kurt immediately went over and grabbed one.
"Just be sure to put it back when you're done. I only have a limited supply of those and I have to be careful how I obtain them," Stick advised.
"Your breathing is steadying..." Stick noticed out loud as he heard Kurt turn the pages to Proverbs.
"I haven't had a chance to read in a while...Pipeline work keeps me constantly busy..." Kurt answered. "But it does help. Thank you."
Kurt glowered. "There are days I feel the same...chewed up and spat out..."
"I know exactly what you are going through..." Stick assured gently. "The fear. The stress of being hunted. It is during times like these that we must wrap the Armor of God around ourselves tighter than ever."
"I wish I felt like I was wearing that..." he said, spotting his reflection in a nearby donation tin.
"But then I get a look in the mirror...and I wonder..." Kurt said, closing the book a moment, reaching into his pocket and depositing his single bit of German Currency into the tin before sitting back down.
"Wonder what?" Stick asked, going over and sitting next to him.
"What sin could I have committed before drawing breath, that would make God place me in this...shell of mine? How could I have angered him so terribly that I must go through life looking like a Demon even though I try my best every day to live his word?"
Kurt sighed as he turned the pages.
"Things are coming to a head, Stick. And I have no idea what I will do with myself once they do. I ask God for answers...yet I have heard no reply..." he admitted, as Stick sat next to him.
"I fear my past. I fear my future." Kurt said quietly, leaning forward, pinching the bridge of his blue-black nose.
"I fear what happens when there are no more shadows for me to hide in... when there is nothing but daylight, and the whole world can see me..." he admitted, closing the bible.
"It'll be difficult, no denying..." Stick replied. "But the Lord did not craft the world so that the righteous could NOT be as bold as Lions within it...your faith is being tested as a shepherd of others. Matter of fact...I think you coming here is a sign..."
Kurt raised an eyebrow. "How?"
"I have indeed felt this tension you have expressed long before you came here..." Stick confessed. "I...I cannot explain it, but-"
"What? What is it?" Kurt wondered.
"It's just..."
Stick trailed off, trying to put it into words.
"It's like I can sense stress in the very earth itself. Stress in the air, the birds. Felt the same way just before an ambush in 'Nam, but it's everywhere...the people around me aren't aware of it, but they react to it unconsciously..." Stick explained. "I believe God is trying to warn me. Warn me that something terrible is coming. And I cannot explain my second feeling either..."
"Which is?" Kurt asked in almost a whisper.
"My second feeling after meeting you...is I think...I think you will be right smack dab in the middle of this...crisis..."
Kurt raised an eyebrow.
"You disbelieve..." Stick observed.
"I do not wish to doubt as Saint Thomas did...but yes..." Kurt replied.
Stick gestured Kurt to follow him while he went to a nearby cabinet. Kurt set his barrowed bible back on the stack he had gotten it from.
"Natisk had a priest in Europe get this...the last known Relics of the Latverian Catholic Church before it was wiped out by Doctor Doom..." He trailed, retrieving the contents.
Kurt blinked as a silvery, all metal, hyper detailed Crucifix about a quarter the length of Kurt's arm that displayed every wound on the representation of Jesus' body was presented to him.
He took it, observing it to be a Processional Crucifix, one designed to be connected to a rod. "It's pretty heavy..." Kurt noted, though he also felt it fit nicely in his grip and easily and snugly in his ragged longcoat.
"Solid piece of Adamantium," Stick answered. "I feel I am being guided to give you this..."
"What's Adamantium?" Kurt asked.
"A nearly indestructible metal," Stick answered. "It needs to be exposed to absurdly hot temperatures before it even starts to warm up even extremely mildly..."
"How could they have forged it?" Kurt asked in fascination. "And where did they get it?"
"No one knows the answer to that except maybe Doctor Doom himself," Stick answered. "And he's certainly not about to talk. Which leads me to our second relic..."
Stick pulled out a silvery, hand sized bible whose cover was like a super polished, reflective mirror with an image of the crucified Jesus on the front, and whose pages were almost like fine metal foil that never dented or distorted, even when handled repeatedly, as Stick demonstrated, by flipping the pages to show Kurt. The text was looked almost frosted to the surface somehow yet could be read perfectly.
"The Vibranium Vulgate, in Latin," Stick explained. "One of the only known examples of a Vibranium product not made by a military organization..."
"I've heard of Vibranium...ORCHIS sicced a guy on me once whose power armor was covered in it. Supposedly nearly indestructible like this Crucifix you just gave me..." Kurt said in fascination as Stick handed it to him. This felt heavy, but Kurt naturally had a mild form of superhuman strength so he wasn't as bothered by the weight as others might have been.
"In Latin, you said?" Kurt asked. "How strange...I...I actually taught myself to read, write and speak Latin when I was younger..."
Stick smiled. "Then your presence here, I think, is indeed a sign..."
Kurt did the sign of the cross and put the Book into one of his coat pockets, where it fit snugly.
"A-Are you SURE about this? These are priceless relics to simply trust some teenager fresh off the street with. I...I hope your faith is not misplaced," Kurt said, still doubting, but willing to accept the relics.
"I don't think my faith is misplaced, Kurt. I think it was the Lord who directed you here. And The Lord who directed me to give you these," Stick asserted, placing a hand on Kurt's shoulder.
"May Christ keep you in your journeys."
Kurt nodded, trying not to flinch as he recalled the bullets he had dodged earlier with perfect, unsettling clarity.
...
Kurt had left the Cathedral of Stone soon after, and it wasn't long before he ran into Piotr, the teenage boy who looked like a statue of living, animated steel with shiny but messy black metallic hair in fresh new clothes, waved him over.
"Comrade! So good to see you again!" Piotr called out to him, waving at him from a nearby safety railing which overlooked a small water reservoir.
"Piotr!" Kurt called out, going over quickly to him.
"Man, am I glad to see you..." Kurt said.
"Did you finally get done debriefing?" Piotr asked.
"Yeah. Where can we find something to eat?" Kurt asked.
"I found a food stand not too far off. Follow me!"
Kurt followed Piotr down the street, passed many deformed Mutants who looked at them in a mix of fear and wonder.
"I hate how everyone stares at us..." Kurt said, drawing the hood over himself as he followed Piotr.
"Do not judge too harshly, friend. Word of our arrival and encounter with ORCHIS spread," Piotr replied quietly.
The food stand was open air with a wide covering. Kurt smelled breakfast being cooked, raised an eyebrow at the sign ALL MEAT AND DAIRY PRODUCTS FROM CLONED CATTLE. APPROVED BY THE MORLOCK FOOD SAFETY COMMISSION.
"What do we pay with?" Kurt asked.
"That's the best part. We are guests...Food and Shelter are covered. Simple basic stuff like this though. Only Morlock's can own property. More expensive stuff like weapons can only be purchased with Morlock Currency..."
They both ordered a breakfast burrito from the eight-armed Mutant chef handling multiple tasks at once and were soon served up.
"Where's Emma and Zarda?" Kurt asked as they sat on a nearby bench, eating his gigantic foil wrapped burrito.
"Not sure. I know people are staying away from both. The Brunette, Kurt...she is not natural. She is some kind of golem, made of clay which only looks like flesh on the surface," Piotr noted. "The big one they sent after us, he tore at her continuously with his claws yet drew out only this weird slimy mud with golden veins..."
"Mein Gott..." Kurt said quietly, crossing himself.
"Forge said she was Asgardian Tech. What's Asgardian?" Piotr asked.
"No clue. I don't keep up much on science unless I gotta break the toys ORCHIS likes to use..." Kurt replied, taking another bite.
"Can you trust that abomination, Emma, though?" Piotr wondered.
"She did help save my life, Piotr," Kurt pointed out. "I will say to you what I said to Caliban...ORCHIS would sooner kill someone like that than dare risk the possibility of her accruing power in their organization."
"Before I fought an ORCHIS-aligned Mutant, I might have agreed with you..." Piotr replied. "Do NOT take your eyes off her, Kurt. Not for one second..."
"I'm not. I'm as terrified of her as you are..." Kurt said. "But she's not with ORCHIS. My gut tells me that much."
"The enemy of my enemy may end up being MY enemy after my enemy is dead," Piotr replied firmly.
Kurt was silent as he considered this.
"But, no worries, dear comrade..." Piotr said reassuringly after finishing his burrito. "You have ME around to punch through walls and streets for you..."
"Heh..." Kurt chuckled, finishing his burrito.
...
Kurt, after separating from Piotr, went around looking for the Delivery Service, asking around until he was directed to a white domed building that read PARCEL OFFICE, and stepped inside, inside it was a beehive of activity, with deformed mutants everywhere rushing to whisk large packages off in carts, some who had up to twelve arms carrying way more than they could have otherwise. Kurt stopped a Mutant with an Octopus-like head.
"Where's Blink?" Kurt asked.
The Mutant pointed with a tentacle towards a tall, leggy and utterly voluptuous woman with pink skin and short, reddish-purple hair, wearing only a highly revealing sling bikini and knee-high green boots, bobbing her head up and down as she listened to a cassette tape on headphone while leaning on her desk reading paperwork, blowing a bubble out of the chewing gum in her mouth. She noticed Kurt walking up to her, trying to stare ONLY at her face, having once more made the sign of the cross before approaching...
Whatcha need, Kid?"
"Besides a week off from Comic-Book Logic? Work." Kurt responded succinctly. "I'm told this was the place to go for courier duties."
"Oh, yeah! You're that Nightcrawler fella!" Blink said. "Security said you might be showing up!"
"Nightcrawler?" Kurt asked in confusion.
"Yeah, it's what the locals call you. Didn't you know?" Blink asked, blowing a bubble with her chewing gum.
"I did not, Fraulein..." Kurt admitted, rolling his eyes. "The American conventions for naming Mutants have not spread too much in Europe. Even my friend Piotr, only kind of plays into it in an ironic way."
"Well, word's spreading about what went down in Germany..." Blink said, "I heard through my own channels that ORCHIS is furious you all escaped. They're practically tearing Europe apart to find you."
"They'll never take me alive..." Kurt said firmly.
"Yeah, well, just make sure we don't end up going down with you. So, you need work, eh?" Blink asked, spitting her gum into the trash.
"Yes. I can teleport people and objects, but you all probably know that..." Kurt mentioned, rubbing his head.
"How far away? Can you teleport yourself?" Blink questioned directly.
Kurt shook his head. "Can't. I've tried, believe me. But it's only other people and things, not myself."
"And as for range...well...I haven't found an upper limit..." he added very quietly to Blink, whose eyes went wide at the statement.
"Well, it just so happens we have a special job for you, Kurt...we need you down near Austin proper, as soon as possible. More will be explained once you get there..."
"What does the job pay?" Kurt asked immediately.
"Four ounces of Bullion Coin..." Blink said, reaching into her desk which she was leaning against previously, fetching out a gold coin that had a symbol of a double helix DNA strand overlaid by an X, the same symbol he had seen on both the law office and the cathedral. On the edge of the image were the words IN GOD WE TRUST, IN LOVE WE UNITE. She handed it to him, and he examined it.
Kurt blinked, having never seen honest to goodness Mutant Currency before.
"Just one buys you a few AR-10's..." Blink said. "Everybody has at least one here..."
"Why's that?" Kurt wondered, staring at the shimmering surface of the gold bullion coin.
"Most Mutants's in general possess higher physiological tolerances for the increased recoil. We miss less frequently with them, and of course we hardly ever miss at all with lower caliber rifles." Blink answered as he handed it back to her
"So why not carry more of the lower calibers?" Kurt asked.
"Mutants just seem, in general, to instinctively like the 'kick' of a 7.62 by 51 millimeter caliber weapon or higher..." she explained patiently. "The AR-15 makes more sense tactically, so we make the guards carry it, but the 15's feel like toys to a lot of us, even though you can carry more ammo."
"Hmm...I saw Russian Mutants favoring their AKM's in a similar manner..." Kurt admitted.
"If it comes to war with humans, 7.62 rifles will almost certainly become the preferred rifle of any American Mutant that can hold one. Get 'em while they're hot..." Blink advised. "AFTER you take care of that job I'm sending you on..."
Blink held out her hand, and Kurt saw a pink edged portal appear, leading to a cavern with mining lights on the carved-out support pillars.
Kurt stepped through the portal. Blink tossed him a radio.
"Don't change the frequency! Call me when it's done!" Blink said before closing the portal...
Kurt shrugged, said a quick prayer and proceeded forward down the lit tunnel, eventually hearing sounds of drilling, jackhammers and digging, he found a bunch of Mutants in the tunnel, busily creating other passages. He also noticed it was starting to become distinctly cold. He heard thuds. Kurt's eyes widened as a giant of ice lumbered towards him, a crude humanoid shape, cracking and creaking and freezing over with every step.
"Name and business..." the ice covered Mutant growled, his voice barely deeper than Kurt's.
"I'm told around here that I'm called Nightcrawler. Blink sent me for a job. Now, what am I here to fetch?"
"Follow me..." the glacier-like Mutant replied, leading Kurt down a tunnel that eventually began to reveal some kind of ruins in the tunnels.
"Everything you see and everything you hear while in the section we are heading to, is a National Secret of the Morlocks. You are to communicate nothing of what you learn next..." the Mutant told Kurt, who nodded.
"I know a thing or two about keeping my mouth shut..." Kurt replied.
"God, I hope so..." the glacier mutant replied. "Because you could cause a panic back in District X if this gets out..."
Kurt's mouth fell open as he entered a very large chamber carved into a deep, underground cave system filled with strange, magnificent looking but ancient buildings of crystal and steel melded to the rock somehow, that was being carefully, patiently dug away by excavators. At the exact center he spotted a faint, burning orange light, where swarms of expensive machines surrounded it, fully staffed.
"Mein Gott in Himmel, what IS this place?!" Kurt sputtered quietly as he followed the ice mutant through crowds of deformed mutants and mutant-allied normal humans moving away carts of strange statues and technology he didn't recognize. He started to suspect this was the real reason Caliban had waved him through without grilling him more: The Morlocks probably would have approached him with this job later themselves if he hadn't so conveniently wandered into their post office for a job.
Or perhaps it was The Lord guiding him, he mused. Kurt could not tell.
"Eggheads on the staff say it's some kind of ancient Mutant City. They say it's called 'Threshold' or some such. What the tablets we found translate as, anyway."
"But how can Mutant's have an actual city? Even District X isn't really an actual, honest to God city...more like a large village" Kurt questioned, peering at the wondrous buildings.
"I just work here. I don't really bother trying to understand any of it..." the glacier like mutant grumbled as his massive armor of ice thudded across the ground, voice struggling to get through the thick, smooth, blank layer of ice that served as his 'helm'. "My life's been one long clown car act after another ever since I started freezing stuff. I ain't paid enough to care in any case."
"Whoa, ease up, sunshine, I just got here, myself..." Kurt replied dryly.
"Heh," the Ice Mutant chuckled. "Bobby's the name. Yours?"
"Kurt." Kurt said to Bobby. "So, what's your Mutant name? Frosty?"
"I don't have a Mutant name. I think that tradition they started is dangerous," Bobby said. "Fancy codenames detach some of the people around here from cold, hard reality..."
"Cypher! Blink finally sent the courier!" Bobby called out as they walked up on a blond man with a surfer tan, cheap shorts and sandals and a tacky Hawaiian Tourist shirt, reading something from a clip board in front of a bunch of large, fancy computers whose model Kurt had never seen before.
"About time!" Cypher replied with a hint of a Scandinavian accent. He put down the clip board and walked up to Kurt.
"Hello, Mister Nightcrawler. I've heard so much about you over the last few hours..."
"I hope it was good things..." Kurt replied.
"They were. You saved a lot of mutants from certain death, Kurt."
"It's a team effort," Kurt said. "So, is what Bobby said true? Is this whole place some sort of Ancient City for Mutants?"
"Looks like it..." Cypher answered. "We found it about two years back while trying to extend our territory underground. The city itself is enormous, takes up about a solid tenth of the state of Texas. Over three thousand years old. But what we are stumbling onto here..."
"You should bury it all, if you ask me," Bobby grumbled. "No good will come of digging up any of this."
"What if we bury it, as you suggest, Bobby? Only for it to be found later, and by someone who might wish to use the knowledge therein to attempt to destroy our kind?" Cypher questioned.
"Is destroying it out of the question?" Bobby asked snidely in response, voice muffled through a layer of smooth white ice that constantly frosted over.
"You would dash our history just to earn a little security?" Cypher asked, folding his arms in disbelief.
"We don't know who these people were. What they believed. What their powers corrupted them into believing," Bobby said very crossly, clearly against the whole idea of the excavation. "Whoever they were, their powers weren't enough to save them from whatever took them all down. And maybe we shouldn't risk getting the attention of whatever wiped them out if it's still here."
"This site is of incalculable scientific and cultural value! To destroy it would be a crime against humanity!" Cypher sputtered, turning to Kurt.
"Mister Nightcrawler, do you believe this amazing archeological wonder, which could advance not just Mutant Society, but Human Society as well ought to be just obliterated out of fear?"
"Dude, straight up: We're clearly in Lovecraft Territory right now..." Kurt replied acidly, hands going to his hips. "An underground, lost super advanced looking city with what I am presuming has no bodies in the ruins? I'm just waiting for the tentacles to appear. Or demons."
"Oh, come on, that only happened the one time we found that old projector from Latveria in that pawn shop! I've learned from those days!" Cypher said with a roll of his eyes and a sigh of exasperation, folding his arms. "Nobody EVER lets me forget about the Bathroom Portal!"
"Moron, he wasn't here for that!" Bobby snapped, gesturing to a Kurt that had a deadpan expression and a raised eyebrow. "And you deserved to get dunked on for the Bathroom Portal! By everyone!"
"That was four freaking years ago, though!" Cypher snapped.
"It was the worst screw up you ever made!" Bobby hissed.
"Guys?" Kurt asked innocently. "I was sent here to fetch something. What am I fetching?"
He glanced at the burning orange light behind Cypher's massive computers.
"And what is that?" Kurt asked, pointing...
It was the shape and size of a large marble yet seemed to contain burning flames that spun and rolled constantly from within. It hovered over a large stone circle with a bizarre language he couldn't make out.
"The Circle says it's a holy relic called The Phoenix Stone. A gem from space..." Cypher answered in almost a whisper as he stared at it. "They built their city around it."
"It's my primary suspect for why we haven't found so much as a trace of a corpse around this place," Bobby grumbled. "Bad idea, what you're planning, Cypher..."
"I have no choice. The energy readings from this thing...I'm not so sure it's safe for any of us to be around it..." Cypher said with a frown. "Just because it's not emitting lethal radiation doesn't mean it's not potentially altering us as we speak. And its signature is only spiking in the last few days on all sensors. The Circle its hovering over? I have reason to believe the Circle is its containment system. They were wirelessly harvesting the energy."
Cypher looked at it again.
"I think the containment system is failing..." he mentioned. "Because I couldn't get 'any' readings from that stone until recently."
"I'm not touching that," Kurt said immediately.
"Wasn't gonna ask you to. I just need you to fetch me something that 'can' touch it. Or at least, contain it."
"If it were that easy, you'd have done it yourself," Kurt observed. "It's behind something you can't open, isn't it?"
Cypher nodded. "Some sort of crystal barrier that needs a physical key that is long gone, but all signs point to what's inside being a portable containment system for the Stone."
Kurt snorted. "Oh well, I'll have a look."
"Take him to where it is, Bobby," Cypher instructed. "If he can't get it out...well, that will be a problem."
"On it," Bobby said, crudely gesturing for Kurt to follow him through the excavation teams.
"So, why's he called Cypher?" Kurt inquired as he followed Bobby.
"He's good with languages..." Bobby grumbled.
"That's his mutant ability?" Kurt said in surprise, getting a chill as the implications started to hit him about Cypher's power.
"Yeah. And it's a VAST range as to what can be considered a form of communication. Hieroglyphics, Pictograms. Cuneiform. Computer Code. Body Language. Voice tone. Color arrangement. It doesn't matter what the language is. Written or spoken, tapped out or painted, Cypher understands it, even if he's never seen or heard it before that moment."
"Body language..." Kurt repeated in growing horror, the full terrifying capacity of Cypher's gift having become nearly crystal clear. "How good is he at body language?"
"Why do you think I'm wearing this ice shell?" Bobby asked. "He's basically a telepath if he's staring at you. It's why everybody keeps him down here. They don't want to be read. It's impossible to lie to him."
"I wonder what he learned about me?" Kurt asked as he processed what Bobby told him. The exceptional were just as feared by Mutants as they were by Humans, no matter where you were in the world. Just because you had some broken, overpowered ability yourself, doesn't mean you shouldn't be one hundred percent terrified of someone else with an ability you know cannot help but be inherently broken and overpowered.
"Does Natisk know about this place?"
"You kidding? This is Mutant Eyes only," Bobby answered as he thudded along to a massive crustal and steel done surrounded by what looked like still functioning generators of a strange, transparent design that reminded him of a giant version of Tony Stark's Arc Reactors. "Besides, we only discovered it two years ago...there's still a lot of debate as to whether or not he should be let in at all on this. I, for one, maintain that the whole place should be destroyed and that it never reaches his ears. This is too big a problem to trust just a bunch of scared people hiding in the shadows with."
Entering the dome, Kurt could make out high tech but long abandoned engineering bays filled with strange wonders he lacked the language to describe, all being meticulously catalogued by the heavily deformed Mutants he saw everywhere in District X.
"You do know I was being a tad facetious back there, right?" Kurt replied as he followed the young man in the lumbering, blocky and jagged ice armor. "Is it really so bad we start finding out about our history? Especially if its longer than even we thought it was?"
"Mutants have been in survival mode ever since we started crawling out of the woodwork in the twenties and organizing underground. Our people still have good reasons not to fully trust one another, just like normal humans. And you want to give these people, many of whom have no idea what to do with their Mutant ability, a fat head by revealing a super-secret lost Mutant city?" Bobby questioned rhetorically. "It's a recipe for disaster. You'll have the Mutant Equivalent of Manifest Destiny springing up overnight if the wrong Mutants find out about it. Its why we had to psychologically profile everyone working here, making sure they would be the type that would be too frightened to talk about this place. We cannot AFFORD a Manifest Destiny movement springing up amongst us. Not now. Not when we're already too busy figuring out how to avoid suffering a mental breakdown because the X-Gene screwed almost all of us over in the looks department when it activated."
"Cypher is not in agreement with you, clearly," Kurt observed as they approached a ruby red door that sparkled in the overhead lighting. Bobby waved a thick, ice-covered arm over a pedestal that had a glowing pyramid near it and the doors opened.
"Cypher fully believes Natisk's ideology..." Bobby answered back cynically as he led Kurt to the end of a corridor. "And he's loyal to it to a fault. He really believes we'll all end up holding hands and singing with normal people...but then again, he has the advantage of being able to pass as a human with nothing that would give him away."
"And what do you believe, Bobby?" Kurt wondered.
"I believe that if I didn't have to be a Mutant, I wouldn't be..." Bobby answered crisply as they finally reached their destination. "I had it going good. Nice parents, a brother, a dog. Now I'm always cold..."
"Don't your parents love you?" Kurt asked softly.
"Yeah. But they don't know..." Bobby replied almost scornfully. "I once froze someone's hand solid by accident. Can't put them in danger...and I can't have them finding out their son's a freak."
"If they really love you, then it shouldn't matter if you're a Mutant..." Kurt said firmly.
"Oh, you sweet summer child..." Bobby replied dryly.
Bobby and Kurt stared at the golden object behind a barrier of transparent crystal. It was a standing figure of a voluptuous woman with long hair in the nude, holding out her hand, and resembled Loki.
"Huh...that's weird. It looks like that woman from The Avengers..." Kurt observed.
"You aren't the only one who noticed, trust me," Bobby muttered. "But what's the likeness of a Superhero named after a Norse Mythology Figure doing in a supposedly abandoned Mutant City that's way too advanced for the time period it was created in? The theories we started floating around to answer that scared the hell out of us."
"The Hebrews had their Golden Calf. Perhaps our ancestors also had their own equivalent..." Kurt theorized.
"If that were the case, we'd find shrines to her everywhere. But no. Just in this one area is a likeness of Loki present."
"Maybe she has an X-Gene. It would certainly explain a few things..." Kurt replied. "Our genetics do lead us into weird mysteries, don't they?"
"Can you get it out of there?" Bobby asked, not in the mood for Kurt's musings.
"Lemme see..." Kurt said, rubbing his hands and concentrating.
The statue vanished and reappeared next to him...
"Wow. You did it..." Bobby said. "Well, there's one thing that's gone right today...c'mon, let's get this thing back to Cypher."
Bobby picked it up with his massive ice gauntlets and slung it over his shoulder, trying to be careful to avoid damaging it as he didn't know what it was made of as he and Kurt headed back to Cypher, drawing stares of astonishment from both Human and Mutant as they walked through the ancient engineering facility that even the best scientists amongst them barely understood the principles of.
"Yeah! Go Nightcrawler!" one of the severely deformed Mutants yelled enthusiastically as Kurt and Bobby passed them by.
Okay, I have to admit, that name IS kind of growing on me...Kurt thought in private as he waved back with a grin as he continued walking. It's catchy. It gets to the point quickly. And most importantly, it describes the only time it's safe for me to go outside.
He prayed he was doing the right thing. Whatever his issues, Kurt agreed with Cypher: That...thing...at the center of the circle, burning like a tear drop from one of The Lord's Seraphim, needed to be hidden away, because Heaven forbid whatever should happen if their enemies got their hands on it, or even some of their friends.
Kurt would say this much for the Morlocks: They were a paranoid bunch, and it served them very well.
On arrival, Kurt saw Cypher running up to him in stunned shock.
"YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT!" Cypher shouted excitedly. "I can't believe it. I was almost certain you would fail. Even Blink couldn't open a portal into that chamber. Even people who can control technology couldn't open the chamber to that statue. But you...the chamber might as well not have been there, am I right?"
"Correct." Kurt admitted.
"That's amazing...a Mutant who can actually get past Threshold's security chambers..." Cypher whispered as Bobby set the statue down gently.
Cypher held out his hand and Kurt took it, shaking it.
"Kurt, you've been an immense help to us. Now that we know you can get past these chambers, I think my bosses will flat out offer Morlock citizenship to you just so you can help us uncover more of this place's secrets."
Kurt shook his head. "I'm a courier, not an archeologist. I'm needed back at the Pipeline," Kurt said, not wanting to be around a man who could essentially tell exactly what he was thinking just by staring at him.
"The Pipeline's important but this place? This Mutant City? This concerns all of Mutantkind. Probably all of Mankind also."
"Mein Freund. We are all God's children, no matter the...gifts...we are given at birth. If whatever is holding that Stone in place is starting to go, we must do whatever is necessary to contain it so innocent people are not hurt. But I am very hesitant for too much to be dug up about this place, especially when our own position is so precarious," Kurt tried to explain in a way that would not offend, wondering if Cypher could tell how many nightmares he had when he went to sleep.
"I can see Bobby's thinking in your response...very well..." Cypher nodded with a sigh, "But as a token of Good Will, I'd like you to accept something..."
Cypher led Kurt away from the circle where the Phoenix Stone burned in the circle brightly to a small tent.
"What I'm about to show you next was recovered in a much less secured chamber, suggesting it was standard issue in this place," Cypher explained as they walked into the tent. Kurt stared at a circular, but transparent chamber lined with mechanical overlays that had constantly, silently turning gears at the upper edges.
"What is it?" Kurt asked.
"It's a matter re-arrangement device that alters clothing."
Kurt raised both eyebrows.
"Really?"
"Allow me to demonstrate..."
Cypher himself proceeded to walk into the chamber, its door, pushing outward and then parting, hovering by some unknown means as he went past them. The chamber proceeded to close and a flash of multicolored sparkles over his body halfway below his neck.
Kurt watched in fascination as Cypher emerged in what looked like a form fitting black jumpsuit with a bulky, wide blue overlaid vest with pointed shoulder pads that seemed to be made of some sort of metallic material with multiple pockets. The gloves were white, like the boots.
"We believe this was issued to all Threshold Citizens." Cypher said. "Our Scientists say it's material is some sort of Unstable Molecule, like Reed Richards was rumored to have created for The Fantastic Four. Very tough. Resistant to pistol grade rounds or energy weapons. Self-repairing, even."
"Looks like something a circus performer would wear." Kurt commented dryly.
Cypher shrugged. "No accounting for taste."
Kurt thought about it a moment.
"Bound to catch a stray round sometime..." Kurt muttered. "Besides, my enemies know who I am anyway. Might as well make me easy to spot..."
"Oh, but that's the fun part, see, I just got a new program in it working again. You'll be getting the variant I believe was issued to Threshold Military Personnel..." Cypher said, going to a strange, jet black, bulky, personal computer with an integrated keyboard and miniature satellite dish pointed at the chamber integrated into it.
"Please, step inside..."
Kurt removed the Vibranium Vulgate and Adamantium Processional Cross from his cloak, along with the radio Blink had given him, setting them on a nearby table and proceeded inside. The chamber closing behind Kurt as he stood in the center.
Cypher typed in some commands on his bulky console, yellow text flashing by as the machine reworked Kurt's attire at the molecular level.
Kurt emerged in similar gear as Cypher, save that the vest overlaying his black jumpsuit and white boots and gloves, fitted to his particular physiology was a bright red color and seemed to have slightly bulkier plating on the front and back, along with a strange, circular metallic nodule on the bottom side of the right wrist.
"Hey, what's this thing?" Kurt asked, pointing at the wrist nodule.
"I'm so glad you asked..." Cypher replied as he stood up, going over immediately to Kurt. "This was the standard melee weapon issued to Threshold Security Forces, integrated into their uniform itself..."
Cypher stood to the side and pressed the center of the nodule. A soft pink aura surrounded his right hand, and a long, narrow, almost rapier-like blade of energy shot out from the top of the aura just over his fingers.
"Threshold texts call it a Psi-Blade." Cypher explained. "Cuts through almost anything. Turn the edge of the module right to adjust the length or left to adjust the lethality. Press the module again with your free hand to deactivate it."
Kurt tested it out, watching as he kept making incremental adjustments to the length until it rounded right back to being the length of a dagger. He ten adjusted the rim dial left, watching it go from pink to blue.
He pressed the module again and shut it off.
Kurt was silent, but only a few moments.
"I...this might well buy me a few extra minutes..." Kurt said. "Danke, Mein Freund...but I really must be going."
Cypher nodded. "Safe journeys, Kurt."
...
Kurt came back through the post office with Blink's portal after he Radio'd her, and she happily paid him what he was owed, The Vibranium Vulgate and Crucifix magnetized to his belt somehow like they were utility items.
"Nice threads. Play your cards right and you got yourself an absolutely prime superhero look," she advised with a friendly grin.
"I guess fetching cats stuck in trees would be a nice change of pace from getting shot at," Kurt remarked, clinking the coins together. "Take it easy, Blink."
"Right back at you, Nightcrawler," Blink replied good naturedly. "And thanks for helping with our...problem."
"Let's just hope I didn't create a bigger one," Kurt replied, nodding to the voluptuous woman before leaving the post office.
To his surprise, he found Emma Frost waiting for him, her body morphed to look like she was wearing a long white gown.
"Any news on where Toad and Blob are?" Kurt asked immediately.
Emma shook her head. "I've been trying to locate them in my own way, but I'm drawing blank so far. The Morlocks couldn't find a trace of them even if they wanted to..."
Emma didn't sound happy about that at all.
"It was my job. My responsibility. I didn't think it would get so complicated..."
"We'll find them. Something tells me we shouldn't worry..." Kurt assured her. "All we can do right now is pray that wherever they are, they are currently safe. Er...how did you find me, by the way?"
"Security told me you were busy doing courier work-and what are you wearing?" she asked, tilting her head slightly in bemusement. "It looks almost like something you'd see performers wearing in The Munich Circus...no offense..."
"Sold my cloak..." Kurt trailed dryly, looking at the module attached to the bottom of his wrist.
"...bought a sword..." he added a second later, before looking back at her. "Now, Emma-I believe it's finally time for us to have our discussion."
"Of course," 'Emma' agreed. "Oh, and for future reference, My Mutant name is Mystique."
"Mystique, eh? Well, everyone around here's calling me Nightcrawler, I guess something was bound to stick with either of us..." Kurt replied. "Lead the way, Fraulein..."
Emma smiled and held out her hand. Hesitantly, Kurt took it.
To his surprise, they were teleported to the top of a stone roof, what looked like some sort of small apartment complex.
"You...you can teleport..." Kurt said in astonishment, stepping back a second.
"Not like you though. Only myself, and anyone or anything touching me..." Mystique confirmed.
"You...You can shape shift...turn into diamond...and you can teleport..." Kurt trailed. "That's three powers. No Mutant I ever met had more than two main abilities max, and the second one was never anywhere near as broken as their first one was."
"I have a lot more than three powers Kurt. I basically have a form of cellular immortality..." Mystique explained, approaching the exterior of an air conditioning unit and molecularly phasing her hand through it.
"I also recently discovered I can phase through things..." she added, removing her hand from the interior of the device with a noticeable form of concentration.
Kurt tilted his head. "What are you?" he asked in genuine bewilderment. "How can any mutant be that powerful? Is this even your real form?"
Mystique shook her head. "I didn't want to frighten you, because I wasn't certain what I would be walking into when I found you..."
Mystique's flesh warped and rippled until it retook her red skinned, elderly but muscular, bald headed, and yellow eyed form with barbie-doll-like anatomy, her golden skull implant bubbling up to the surface on her forehead.
But now that we are alone..." she said, taking on her East German accent which he caught immediately. "...and more importantly, out of danger, I am ready to answer whatever questions you have. But I warn you, Kurt. Some of what I have to say...may be extremely painful for you to hear..."
"I have been living with the fact that I look like a Demon since I was four, Mystique. I've heard painful things all my life. I was never under any illusion the circumstances of my birth were less painful than what I have had to endure since. But I do have one prudent question, and I would like a straight answer, in light of seeing you teleport..."
He looked her dead in the eye.
"Are you my mother?" he asked very softly and pointedly.
Mystique looked crestfallen.
"I...I wish I could tell you yes, Kurt. But no. I didn't conceive you. And you're right...I'm not a Mutant, like you understand it. My...ability is to mold my DNA to that of host bodies. It just so happens that my DNA happens to have been built off that of your Mother's DNA. And I suspect now...partly from you..."
Mystique folded her arms, turned away from him.
"In my early existence, I was essentially what you would call a parasite, seeking the perfect doner DNA to create a body from. It came natural to me. I thought nothing of it. My...species...we don't have consciences normally...our personality and viewpoints come from being the opposite of our host's."
Kurt was listening intently for any hint of a lie in her voice, growing more agitated that he was finding no trace of lie. Even with her back turned, she was being a hundred percent truthful...
"But you seem so nice...so helpful..." Kurt said softly. "So does that mean my mother is the exact opposite?"
Mystique turned back to him. She nodded.
Kurt processed it.
"You sought me out...went out of your way to try and help me in Berlin. Then...then that means...that means my mother...she...she would've..."
Kurt sat down on a ledge with a highly disturbed expression.
"Why did she want me dead?"
Mystique's head hung down
"You didn't look human enough for her needs..." Mystique said. "I swear on whatever passes for my soul, Kurt Wagner, son of Richard Wagner, I did everything I could when I was part of your mother's body to stop her from trying to throw you into the Danube River. I failed..."
"So, I was just another Killcrop..." Kurt whispered. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Ninety seven percent of Mutants are Killcrops whose parents didn't have the nerve. But...but if what you're telling me is true...my mother not only had the nerve, but it is only by God's grace that she failed, and it was God's grace that you would show in Berlin to aid us against that almost overwhelming assault from ORCHIS...and you even gave me my father's name. That was something I never had before you said it..."
Kurt slowly turned his head up at Mystique.
"Why is it so important to you to help me? By your own admission, you were just a parasite once..."
"I...evolved..." she said. "Remember what I said about my kind basing their personas on being the opposite of their hosts? This...this probably won't be easy for you to hear but...I think I developed the maternal instincts that she never had. Even though you are not my son, I...I can't help but want to protect you, like you are my actual son. I know that doesn't make sense. Doesn't make it right or proper...but I can't help being what I am, any more than you can help it, being what you are..."
The pair stared at one another. You could have heard a pin drop between them.
"God has placed us both on difficult paths, Mystique..." Kurt said with a sigh, standing up. "I will pray for you, you strange creature. You definitely need it...and I thank you for telling me the truth..."
"Do you want me to stay away from you?" Mystique asked. "I'll be honest, Kurt...I'm shocked you're believing me so quickly..."
Kurt shook his head. "After the things I have seen today and all the things before it, it is obvious God has allowed our paths to cross for a reason. Besides, your story is so completely insane it must be the truth."
Mystique managed a small sigh. "I...I don't know if I should start to feel relieved or not...Kurt, I DID come to Germany to find you. But me and the boy I arrived with...we were on another mission before I took what I thought would only be a mild detour to locate you..."
Kurt raised an eyebrow. "What sort of mission?"
"Kurt...this is probably the most important thing I have to tell you. I'm on a mission for Natisk. We're trying to prevent something terrible from occurring on the Island of Genosha, off the coast of Wakanda. It's due to happen in less than nine months from now."
"Nine months..." Kurt trailed, narrowing saffron eyes at the information. "That's about how long some people I've talked to here estimate it is before Mutant Awareness is born in the public discourse...and on Genosha, you say...that's one of the few places Natisk's pipeline doesn't run through..."
"Something terrible is going to happen there, Kurt. A full-throated attempt to wipe out Mutants..." Mystique asserted, hands going to her hips.
"And where did you get this information?" Kurt asked.
"From Loki. One of the Avengers..." Mystique answered.
Kurt's eyes widened, remembering the statue in Threshold.
"It is a sign..." Kurt whispered. "It must be..."
"Of what?" Mystique asked.
Before Kurt could answer, something smashed through the upper parts of the mountain above them, causing massive amounts of debris to fall. Reacting quickly, Kurt teleported each of the largest pieces he could spot into the canal before they could hit anyone as whatever had crashed through and impacted into what looked like the security area he had gone past on his arrival.
"Time to go to work, Mystique..." Kurt said. "People out there need us...and God desires we work his will..."
"I've got your back...Nightcrawler..." Mystique said with a small smile which he returned in his own small way. Kurt still did not know what to truly believe or think of her. But she hadn't lied to him. That was something, in his mind.
Plus, it was the first time in his life he'd ever met somebody who WANTED to be his parent. That...had a certain weight to it...however strange the source itself was.
Kurt took her hand, and she teleported them both to the crash site. He saw that fair skinned, raven-haired woman Zarda, already on sight, wearing a strange, revealing black leotard that covered as little skin as possible without being obscene, made of scales and golden stilettos, wrists and head covered by golden, slim gauntlets and a tiara. She clutched a long golden chain that seemed to glimmer, almost glow, even in very low lighting.
"Zarda? Did you see what hit? Could it have been an aircraft of some kind?" Mystique asked as people scrambled to get away from the impact crater, which smoked still...
"I don't know what it was, but it was definitely no aircraft..." Power Princess answered. "Much too small..."
They all went still as they heard a slow, heavy hum on the ground, coming from the thickest, heaviest cloud of debris smoke...
What emerged from the smoke had a deep purple, almost violet chassis, with limbs crimson like blood. It was eight feet tall, slim and almost skeletal, and it floated above the ground, yet maintained a posture like it was standing perfectly still with its arms to its side, fists clenched. Its face was a crude, angular version of a human face with red lenses.
Kurt's mouth fell open. "Wow...Miss Walters was right...Oh God, Miss Walters was right..."
"Who?" Mystique asked before the robot spoke.
"Mutant Subjects Acquired. Commencing operation." The Robot said.
A pair of concussive blasts similar to the blasts emitted from Cyclops eyes made them all scramble out of the way.
"Never mind! Let's stop that thing before it kills someone!" Mystique said to Kurt.
All three charged at it from different directions as it fired at buildings, floating forward in that strange, standing-in-mid-air posture...
God, I could REALLY use that armor of yours right now! Kurt thought as he leapt for its head...