Mutant Plus Ultra (Marvel MHA SI)

by PollackFish

All power for one, one power for all.

3. Chapter 3

I woke up to a strange sight.

A little girl, crouched on her haunches, is staring directly at me.

While I was sleeping.

That's… not creepy at all.

Spider-Sense is still on, so at least she doesn't want to shiv me—yet.

Doesn't make it any less creepy.

I blink away the crust of sleep and try to focus on her. She can't be older than five or six. Her most obvious feature—besides the unnerving intensity—is the jagged bones jutting from her arms, shoulders, and ribs. Sharp edges, no symmetry. Just raw, unfiltered mutation.

Her skin is a map of scabs and scars, angry red welts crisscrossing with pale lines like she's been drawn on by tragedy. Pinkish-red hair hangs over her face, brushed strategically to hide some of the damage, though it doesn't do much.

Blue eyes study me like I'm a puzzle she's trying to solve. Not afraid. Just... curious. Cautious.

Marrow.

A familiar face, though I've only known the older version—angrier, harder, tougher. This one? Still a kid. Still figuring things out. Still human.

"Hi," I offer.

She jumps back, startled. Her eyes flick between me and the exit like a feral kitten looking for an escape route.

"Hi," I tried again.

"Hi…" she parrots, suspicious but braver than she should be.

She starts picking at a scab on her elbow, tearing skin until a small bead of blood wells up. She winces—but only a little. Like she's used to it.

"You smell weird," she says bluntly.

"What?"

"You smell different." She sniffs again, audibly this time. "Like that thing Mr. Caliban brought back from the surface."

Her brow furrows as she tries to remember. "It rhymed with Mr. Facade. Fluh... Flew..."

"Flower?" I guess.

"Yeah! That's it!" Her face lights up like I just solved a riddle. "Only smelled it once, but it was weird. Nothing down here smells like that."

I don't know what's more heartbreaking—that she remembers a flower like it's a once-in-a-lifetime event or that she compares me to it.

"You're new, right? From the surface? Is that why you smell like flower? Does everything up there smell like flower?"

She fires off the questions like a machine gun, barely pausing for breath.

"Whoa, whoa—slow down," I say, holding up my hands in the universal 'chill' gesture. "Yes. I'm new. Caliban brought me in last night—at least, I think it was last night. What time is it?"

She counts on her fingers. "Breakfast is... two hours away. So five?"

Three hours.

Thank you, healing factor. Or adrenaline. Or both.

"Well," I yawn. "Then yeah. Last night. As for the smell—no idea, kid. Most people say I smell like piss and bad decisions."

She stares at me, expression deadpan.

Damn. Tough crowd.

"Anyway," I say, shifting topics, "what are you doing up at this hour? You know you can't grow tall without sleep, right?"

Her expression hardens. "I can't sleep. One of my bones grew wrong. It hurts. I can't pull it out yet."

Oh.

Well. That backfired fast.

"I, uh… I have trouble sleeping too," I say, uselessly.

Smooth.

Still, her expression softens. She smiles—small, crooked, genuine. It hits harder than it should.

"Yeah. It was annoying at first, but then I smelled the flower scent and found you."

There's a pause.

"So… what's your name, kid? Can't keep calling you 'kid' forever."

She shrinks a little. "Most people call me Marrow. Because of my bones."

She doesn't say it with pride. Just resignation.

"Well, that's not a very nice nickname," I murmur.

She shrugs. "It's fine. I can take it. I'm a Morlock."

"That's brave of you, kid. But you don't have to like what people call you. You're allowed to be angry about it."

She looks surprised. Like the idea never occurred to her.

"Is there another name you like?"

She hesitates. Her mouth opens, then closes. Again. And again. A hundred things unsaid.

I wait.

Finally, she whispers, "My mom used to call me Sarah…"

Sarah.

Wait—seriously?

I thought that was a fanon thing. Pretty sure it never came up in the comics.

My hand moves before I think, resting gently on her head—

—and I immediately regret it.

Spurs dig into my palm. Sharp. Unforgiving. Freshly healed skin tears open.

But I don't pull away.

Her eyes widened—not in fear, but in stunned awe. Like no one's touched her gently since her mutation began.

Christ.

"Nice to meet you, Sarah," I say softly, ruffling her head even as my hand stings like hell. "I'm Maquet."

She blinks. "Masque?"

"No, no—Maquet. Mah-ket."

Her face contorts trying to mimic the syllables.

"Just call me Mouse."

"Mouse. Mouse." Sarah murmurs it a few times, like she's tasting it on her tongue. "Okay, Mr. Mouse."

Mickey?

"No, no. Just Mouse is fine. No need to add Mr. — I'm not a cartoon rodent."

I pause for a beat, then add, almost to myself:

"It's short for something anyway."

"Like what?"

"...Just a nickname. A really old one." I wave her off before she can press. "Mouse is easier."

"Weird."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

She beams. "Okay. Just Mouse!"

That smile is worth the bloody hand.

"Well," I say, glancing at the faintly glowing tunnel. "Since breakfast's a while away, you up for showing me around?"

She grabs my hand—gently, this time—and nods with wide-eyed excitement.

…

The first place Sarah led me to was also the first place I had truly seen since coming down here.

The Alley.

Maybe it was just the early morning gloom, but the whole place simmered with quiet contrast. The light down here didn't flood the space—it crept in, like it had to earn its place. The cavern was cast in a dim orange haze, slowly sharpening into muted gold the deeper we went.

The reason became obvious once I looked up.

Dozens—maybe hundreds—of wires twisted across the ceiling like creeping vines. Thick cords and bundles snaked along the walls, disappearing into junction boxes or vanishing behind rusted sheet metal. They fed into an eclectic mix of lighting: industrial flood lamps, exposed bulbs, mismatched lanterns. Some dangled by frayed rope, others were embedded directly into old concrete walls, humming faintly.

The warm lights had a makeshift quality, like someone had cobbled together power from whatever scraps they could find—and then made it last.

"Ms. Soteira did that," Sarah said, seeing me stare.

"Who?" I blinked, halfway tripping over a raised pipe embedded in the ground.

"Ms. Soteira," she repeated with a toothy giggle, proud as a kid showing off a science project. "She's the smartest Morlock. Rewired everything after one of the floods ruined the candles. They say she used to live aboveground, in the big buildings with numbers. Caliban says she could fix anything except manners."

I followed her finger to a group of Morlocks gathered by one of the stairwells. They were working in tired silence, gently snuffing out the stubs of candles, scraping melted wax into old buckets. Their movements were slow but practiced.

No one spoke. Not out of tension—just habit.

It struck me then how deliberate everything was. Every action had a purpose. Candles saved. Wax recycled. Light repurposed.

This wasn't chaos.

This was a community.

The Alley wasn't just a shelter. It was a system.

And it functioned because it had to.

Sarah tugged my sleeve. "Come on, Mouse. You gotta see the best part."

We go up a winding case of stairs into the open maw of one of the tunnels.

The light fades fast here. One moment you're bathed in a soft industrial hum, the next you're swallowed whole by half-shadow and concrete echo.

Sarah doesn't slow down, so I keep pace behind her. Her tiny bare feet slap lightly against the cracked stone. Occasionally, I catch glimpses of her bones shifting subtly beneath her skin as she walks—little spikes and ridges twitching with movement.

I don't ask. She doesn't explain.

The tunnel opens up again after a short walk, leading us into another wide, high-ceilinged space that smells of smoke, salt, and stewed vegetables.

The cafeteria.

At first glance, it looks like someone scavenged a dozen public school lunchrooms and tried to Frankenstein them into a single cavernous mess. Rows upon rows of mismatched plastic tables and chairs fill the space—some bolted to the floor, others stacked against the walls. The place isn't crowded yet, but a handful of early risers shuffle between tasks: dragging chairs out, wiping tables with old rags, lighting burners under steel vats.

The ceiling—far above—drips from humidity and condensation. There's a haze in the air, not unpleasant, but thick. Lived-in.

And in the middle of it all, standing over a massive steel pot the size of an inflatable pool, is Chicken Wings.

I know it's him before Sarah even says his name.

Although a minor character in canon, he was described in quite vivid details in one of my favourite fanon projects.

He's tall—taller than me by at least a head—but hunched, his spine curled slightly forward like he's permanently shielding himself from judgment. His arms are long and feathery, coated with sparse, quill-like protrusions that catch the glow of the fire beneath his cook pot, holding what can honestly be described as paddles or oars of kayak. The feathers don't shimmer. They look more like bristles than plumage.

His legs are unmistakable. Chicken legs. Scaled and sinewed, ending in backward-bent joints and three thick talons, all curled around the concrete floor like it is dirt.

His nose juts out like a hawk's beak, and his eyes—wide, bulbous, on either side of his face—dart toward us with a faint shimmer under his purple bucket hat.

The hat looks old. Like it meant something once.

He wears oversized sunglasses, the kind you'd find in a gas station spin-rack. Together with the hat, they form a shield. A flimsy, sad kind of dignity.

"Chicken!" Sarah calls, tugging me toward him.

He doesn't flinch at the name. Just gives a slow, side-facing nod, eyes flicking toward us, one at a time.

"Sarah," he says. His voice is gravelly, like someone who's swallowed too much smoke and decided to keep it in his lungs for later. "You're up early."

"I couldn't sleep again," she replies. "But look, I brought someone!"

His gaze drifts toward me like a lazy tide.

"This is Mouse!" Sarah chirps. "He's new."

I open my mouth to correct her. "Actually—"

"Mouse, huh." Chicken Wings doesn't smile, but I get the sense that he would if his face let him. "Well. That's a name. You eat exotic meat, Mouse?"

What.

Ignore it, just answer as if it's normal.

I pause. Shrug. "I've eaten worse."

"Good. We've had worse," he says, deadpan.

The big pot bubbles behind him, some kind of thick brown stew slowly churning under a lazy boil. The smell is not bad—spiced, earthy, with the unmistakable undertone of protein; what kind I had no idea.

Sarah leans over the counter to peer in. "Is it ready?"

He shakes his head. "Nah. Breakfast won't be up for another hour or two. Still tenderizing. You want cold bread, I got that."

Sarah makes a face. "Ew. I'll wait."

"Suit yourself." Chicken Wings stirs the pot slowly, each turn sounding like a shovel moving through wet clay.

I eye the massive ladle, the steel pots, the other ingredients stacked in crates behind him—flour, onions, dried herbs, vacuum-sealed pouches I don't recognize.

"You run this place?" I ask.

He snorts. "Nobody runs anything down here. I just cook. People eat."

Fair enough.

He turns one eye toward me again. "You new-new, huh?"

I nod.

"You'll learn quick. Or you'll leave quick. Either way, I'm not burning extra stew for you."

"Understood."

There's something bluntly comforting about him. Like a deeply bitter uncle who gave up on manners but still makes sure you're fed.

Sarah tugs my sleeve again. "Come on. If breakfast's not ready, we should go see the other places."

I glance at the pot, then back at Chicken Wings.

He grunts and waves one clawed hand. "Go. Let the kid give you the tour. Just don't touch anything that's labeled or locked."

"And if I do?"

He tilts his head.

"Don't."

Fair.

Sarah pulls me away before I can ask more. Back into the tunnel. Back into the half-light of the waking hubs.

…

I soon figured out that the Alley proper serves as some sort of central hub—a town square, a spinal cord, a bottleneck.

Every corridor and facility in this underground society seems to loop back into it eventually. Like spokes on a wheel, always turning inward.

There are connecting tunnels, sure—shortcut veins carved out by Morlocks over decades. But they're incomplete, jagged, and often flooded or collapsed.

At least, according to Sarah.

And she's six. So her survey data might be a little suspect.

The next place she decided to show me was what she excitedly called the Ranch.

"It's just past the sleepy tunnel!" she chirped, skipping ahead.

The "sleepy tunnel," as it turned out, was a defunct subway line—tracks long ripped up, roof sagging in places, the concrete walls crusted in mineral stains like fossilized tears.

A chill settled in the air here, heavy with disuse and the staleness of rot.

Then the smell hit.

Not the bracing metallic sting of the tunnels. Not dust or rust or old piss.

This was a new category. Musky. Organic. Pungent. A rotting compost of animal sweat, feathers, feces, and something chemical underneath—like formaldehyde wearing a fur coat.

We rounded a bend, and I saw it: a reclaimed subway platform, repurposed and reeking.

A crooked wooden sign dangled from a rusted overhead beam:

RANCH — the paint uneven and smudged.

Inside, the place was lit with scattered hanging bulbs and makeshift UV strips, casting everything in a sickly pale green glow. The flicker gave the impression of movement, even when nothing moved.

But things did move.

Dozens of strange creatures shuffled in low pens and nesting boxes.

At first, I thought they were just massive rats—New York subway classics, scaled up. But then I saw feathers. Talons. Extra limbs.

Imagine a rat and a goose got shoved into a blender. Now imagine the blender got struck by lightning halfway through.

The result was these things—rat-geese.

Long, muscular bodies like sewer rats, but feathered in bristled down, their snouts stretched and duck-like, with black, wet eyes that blinked far too slowly.

Six limbs, four webbed duck legs, two vestigial wings, useless and twitching. A few hissed in greeting, revealing double rows of sharp teeth.

Sarah grinned and waved. "Mornin', boys!"

A few of the creatures honked back at her.

What. The actual. Hell.

Two figures were working amongst the pens.

The first was a man, hunched, with a mane of tangled purple hair and a beard to match. He wore a tattered coat, faded green, and dangling from his hip was a silver flute tied with leather straps.

He stood on a raised platform, waving his hands in rhythm while a chorus of actual rats obeyed—climbing over the hybrid creatures, biting, harvesting feathers, cracking eggs, working like well-oiled tools.

I knew him as well.

Piper.

Canon character. Minor Morlock. Powers: sonic command over animals. Looked like a cross between Rasputin and a forgotten glam rock bassist.

The other figure… I didn't recognize.

She was massive. Her whole body swaddled in thick navy robes, hood pulled deep over her face. Her skin, what little I could see around the lips and hands, was pale and waxy.

But what caught my eye were the rats.

Half a dozen of them perched on her shoulders and arms, one nestled beneath her chin like a kitten. They didn't move nervously. They nuzzled her. Listened when she whispered.

The two worked in tandem—Piper guiding the butchering and plucking with practiced precision, and the woman whispering soothing nothings to the beasts, calming them as their feathers were stolen and their eggs pried from underneath.

Sarah dragged me forward.

"Hey, Mr. Piper! Mother Inferior! I brought Mouse!"

Oh goddammit.

I held up a hand, mildly flustered. "It's not Mouse. It's Maquet."

Sarah blinked, surprised. "But you said—"

"I didn't say—I gave up. There's a difference."

Piper turned, giving me a once-over. His eyes were sunken, rimmed with red.

He looked like he hadn't slept since the Bush administration.

"You smell like piss stains and vomits," he rasped. "Good. You'll fit in."

Mother Inferior tilted her head. The rats mirrored the movement perfectly.

"He's new," she said softly, voice muffled by her cowl. "Doesn't know the rhythm yet."

Piper spat to the side and waved a dismissive hand. "They never do. He'll learn or he'll leave. Or he'll die."

"Always such a poet," Mother Inferior chuckled.

"What is this place?" I asked, honestly trying not to gag at the smell. "Is this… livestock?"

"Rat-geese," Sarah said proudly. "Meme made them."

"Meme?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Younger mutant, if I remember correctly, has the ability of Lifeform Fusion, merges stuff with his body. Explained these abominations.

"He's my friend. You'll meet him soon. He's weird."

"I can see that the gene pool down here is thriving."

Wait a minute, is this what Chicken Wings mean by exotic meats?

I was going to have to eat these things?

"We use the feathers for pillows, the meat for stews, the eggs for omelets," said Piper. "Everything has value. Even the screechers."

"...The screechers?"

Mother Inferior pointed to a far pen, where one rat-goose hybrid had clearly grown too large—its eyes rolled and vacant, its beak fused partially shut. It slammed its body against the bars again and again, mindlessly.

"Some of them don't come out quite right. But that's okay. Everything has a place."

"Even monsters," muttered Piper.

There was a silence between them, weighted and familiar.

I cleared my throat. "Well. Lovely. Industrial-scale rat farming. That's new."

Sarah tugged my sleeve. "Wanna see the Drop next?"

"...The what?"

She didn't answer. She was already pulling me back into the tunnel.

I gave Piper and Mother Inferior a nod. They didn't nod back.

But one of the rats on Mother Inferior's shoulder waved at me. I think.

As we walked, I glanced at Sarah.

"You sure you're not dragging me into a horror movie?"

"Nah," she said cheerfully. "That comes after lunch."

…

Turns out, the Drop is exactly what it sounds like—

A giant, gaping hole in the earth.

But calling it a "hole" doesn't do it justice. This thing was a chasm. A man-made canyon carved out by time, erosion, and the unchecked bowel movements of New York City.

The space opened up suddenly, with no warning in the narrow tunnel. One second we were walking along a rusted catwalk, and the next… vertigo. The air grew hotter, thicker, humid with something foul and ancient.

Before us lay a circular depression at least fifty feet wide, maybe more—too large to judge at a glance. The ceiling arched high above like the dome of a cathedral, but it was cracked, stained black, and dripping in places. A single beam of daylight filtered in through some forgotten grate far above, illuminating a cascade of thin waterfalls.

Brownish-grey water poured from ancient aqueducts along the walls in segmented streams, falling into the depths below. It looked like rain falling from the corners of a ruined sky.

And it stank.

The humid air curled inside my lungs like steam from a cafeteria dumpster. The stench wasn't as sharp as the rat ranch's raw ammonia punch, but it was heavier. More saturated. The kind of smell that soaked into your clothes and never came out. Sweat, mold, old chemicals. And something else. Something biological.

Morlocks were already here. At least two dozen of them—men, women, children—all gathered near the railing or squatting near the edges of stone platforms. Some worked pulleys with ropes and metal hooks, others leaned over with handmade crank lifts. Nearly all of them were handling buckets.

And they were… drawing water?

I blinked, watching as one burly Morlock reeled up a plastic jerrycan, its sides stained but sloshing full. Another poured the retrieved contents into a plastic tank. Someone nearby gave the filled container a satisfied sniff before carting it off.

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered. "Are they drinking sewage water?"

"It's clean," Sarah said with complete confidence.

My eyes bugged out. "That's not clean. That's brown. That's glowing in some spots!"

Sarah rolled her eyes with the unimpressed energy only a six-year-old could muster. "Mouse, you're so weird."

"Kid, this water smells like a Taco Bell bathroom after a mass burrito incident."

"It's not that bad," she said matter-of-factly. "Way better than that gross thing you said—whatever it was. You're just being a baby."

She skipped ahead toward the railing and pointed proudly at the churning sludge below. "Ms. Soteira fixed it. A long time ago. She changed the tunnel system so the water flows here instead of the Alley."

I took another whiff and winced. "Fixed it? With what? Bleach and prayer?"

"No!" Sarah laughed. "She fixed the pipes! She rerouted everything. And then her daughter cleaned the water."

That made me pause.

"Her… daughter?"

"Uh-huh," Sarah nodded. "She's not her real daughter, she's, um… she's uh… she's adopted. Yeah! That's the word."

"Adopted… right." I filed that away with growing suspicion.

"Ms. Soteira calls her…" Sarah scrunched her face, looking at the ceiling like the word might be floating up there. "Rev… rev-re… re-something. But we all call her Cistern!"

I stopped cold.

Cistern?

That name landed like a stone in my stomach.

No. It couldn't be. There's no way. Right?

"Huh? What's wrong?" Sarah looked up, her head tilting like a confused cat.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "Just… Cistern is a weird name, that's all."

"Not really. It means toilet water."

"Exactly my point."

"But she likes it! …I think."

"Does she actually say that?"

Sarah paused, biting her lip.

"Okay, maybe not. But it's what everyone calls her."

"Well, maybe next time you see her, you could ask if she wants to be called something else?"

Sarah blinked. "You're silly, Mouse."

She looked around theatrically, then leaned close like she was about to spill the secrets of the Illuminati.

"No one's allowed to see her."

"Why not?"

She pointed across the Drop to a massive, sealed iron door.

It was set into the stone wall like a bunker hatch, with faded red lettering across it that read: RESTRICTED. DANGER. NO ENTRY.

Chains looped around the handles. Symbols were scrawled across the surface—chalk runes, crude sigils, symbols from languages I couldn't place.

"Anyone who goes in there… dies," Sarah whispered, with the solemnity of a ghost story. "Only Ms. Soteira can go down."

I stared at the door. Cold dread settled in my spine.

This sounded like—

No. No, it couldn't be.

Right?

"Come on!" Sarah chirped, tugging at my hand. "Sun's up! You gotta see the Garden next!"

I followed.

But I couldn't help but glance back.

The waterfalls hissed. The door sat there. Silent.

Waiting.

…

Ascending from the depths of the Drop to wherever this "Garden" was… felt like a religious experience.

We climbed slowly up the winding staircase. The stench—the fetid cocktail of decay and sewage that clung to your skin and crawled into your lungs—slowly faded with each step. The muggy, suffocating dampness of the undercity gave way to something light, almost cool. A breeze. A draft that caressed the walls and gently tousled our hair and clothes. A whisper of something sacred.

But as the air changed, I felt something stir in my chest. This must be what Heaven felt like—rising from shit to light, lifted on celestial wind.

Maybe I missed my calling. I should've been a preacher.

"How's the wind even getting down here?" I ask Sarah. "We're underground."

"It's the Wind Tunnels," Sarah replied, her voice taking on a proud, almost reverent tone. "Ms. Soteira did that too."

Her eyes sparkled with the same light the air now carried. But then they dimmed.

"I can't show you though," she added, dragging her feet a little. "I'm not old enough to go there yet."

"Oh?" I raised a brow. "Is there some kind of security system? Barrier? Forcefield? I doubt a wordy sign would stop a hellion like you."

Sarah pouts. "There's nothing like that. We tried once. Me and Meme. We snuck in through a side tunnel, but we got caught by Miss Soteira's cameras." Her shoulders sag. "Analee was really sad when she found out."

"Analee?" I ask, tilting my head.

"She's this old lady who looks after us. She's really nice. Her power makes people feel things—like happy or sad." Sarah fidgets. "You don't wanna make her sad. It makes everyone else feel it, too."

Ah. Empath mutant. Great for childcare. Horrifying for self-esteem.

"I see…" I murmur. "Any other off-limits zones I should know about? I'll have Caliban give me the grand tour later."

Sarah counts on her fingers, then chirps, "The Lightning Farm, too. Can't go there either."

"Got it. Wind Tunnels and Lightning Farm. Big 'nope.'"

We fall into a brief silence. A pleasant one. The kind you can only have after climbing your way out of a sewer.

Then Sarah sprints ahead.

"Come on, Mouse! We're almost there!"

"Coming, coming. Don't sprain anything, Speedy."

The stairwell opened up into a circular chamber—and I stopped dead in my tracks.

The room was enormous, easily the size of a small plaza. Dozens of tunnels fed into it like spokes on a wheel. But the real jaw-dropper was the light.

Sunlight. Real, actual sunlight.

It poured in from a massive oculus at the ceiling's peak—an uneven, hand-crafted echo of the Roman Pantheon dome. How sunlight reached that far underground in the first place was anyone's guess, but I didn't care enough to ask. It was there, and that was enough. More light spilled in from an intricate web of mirrors mounted along the walls and ceiling. Bolted panels of steel and scavenged glass caught each beam and scattered it across the chamber in golden fragments. Ropes and pulley systems, strung like the rigging of a ship, allowed workers to adjust angles throughout the day. Some mirrors even drifted lazily overhead, suspended like satellites, turning gently in the stale underground air.

The air was warmer here, scented faintly of soil, dust, and something like citrus.

At the heart of it all, in a large circular planter made of crumbling stone and repurposed concrete, stood the Tree.

Tall and proud, its trunk wrapped with thick corded rope. Colorful fabrics flutter from every branch—yellow, red, green, blue—fluttering in the light breeze like Buddhist prayer flags..

Paint covers the bark. Swirling murals in brilliant hues. Fire and ruin. Green titans. Battles between red-and-blue figures. Strange, abstract symbology all spiraling around the trunk.

"The mirrors," I say. "Let me guess—Soteira again?"

Sarah giggles. "How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess."

Who the hell is this woman?

Just how many engineering degrees does this woman have?

I'd consumed so much Marvel media—comics, fanfics, films—and never once heard of a tech genius hiding among the Morlocks.

I thought they were just a glorified hobo tribe.

But this… this was a society. A strange, patchwork society—mutant, discarded, outcast—but a society nonetheless.

Around the edges of the room, Morlocks go about their work. Some clean the mirrors. Others tend the soil, prune the tree, compost the roots. Still others just sit—leaning back against the old brick walls, basking in the warmth. Children climb through the branches, laughing and yelling as only kids can.

"Leech! Mikhail!" Sarah waves both arms overhead. "Over here!"

Two boys scampered down from the tree.

Mikhail was tall for his age, all limbs and mischief. He wore a Yankees cap over unruly brown hair, and though his ears were a little too large for his face, he could've passed for a surface kid easily.

The other boy—Leech—was decidedly not.

Green, scaly skin. Bald. Giant yellow eyes with no sclera. He grinned wide when he spotted us, exposing slightly serrated teeth.

As he got close, I felt it.

My powers dulled. Not gone, but quieted. Faint. Muted.

Leech. Yeah. He's in the source material. Not much, but enough. Power nullification by proximity. No wonder he's kept around.

"Hey, Marrow. What are you doing here?" Mikhail asks, a slight Slavic accent clinging to the edges of his words.

"I'm showing Mouse around," Sarah says proudly. "What're you doing here? Don't you have school up top?"

"Psh. It's Saturday. And my mom's at work, so I gotta watch over Uncle Gregor."

"He move yet?"

"No. I brought Leech over—thought maybe his power could help—but… nothing." Mikhail shrugs.

Leech looks down, shoulders hunched.

"Wow, Leech. You're pretty useless, huh?" Sarah says without malice.

"Sarah," I say sharply. "Don't."

She looks down, chastised, but not apologetic.

"Who're your friends, Sarah?" I change the subject before the awkwardness sticks.

"Sarah?" Mikhail echoes, clearly confused.

"Oh! This is Mikhail and Leech." She beams. "Leech is like us. He shuts down powers. Mikhail's human, but his uncle is Tree Man."

She waves vaguely at the massive tree, disinterested.

"Hey, I'm a Morlock too!" Mikhail objects, folding his arms.

"Are not."

"Are too!"

"Are not! You live up top!"

"Are too! I come down all the time! My uncle's a Morlock!"

"Are—"

"All right, break it up." I step in before the slap-fight begins. "Let's try names before war."

"Maquet," I say, extending a hand.

Leech tilts his head. "Mu… mur… Market?"

"Close. It's Maquet."

"Magnet?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Just call him Mouse."

"Mr. Mouse?" Leech offered hopefully.

"No—ugh. Yeah. Sure. Just 'Mouse' is fine."

I placed a hand on his head unconsciously and he froze for a moment—then relaxed. He wasn't startled. He leaned further into the touch like he hadn't been touched in weeks.

God. These kids…

"You smell nice," he murmured. "Like Mama."

What?

I give my clothes a tentative whiff, and immediately regret my decision. A mix of bloods, sweats, and the horrendous odor punched me in the face.

I stagger backward, knees almost collapsing.

What's wrong with these kids?

"No he doesn't," Sarah said. "He smells like flower."

"Nu-uh. Like Mama."

"You're both wrong," Mikhail chimed in. "He smells like vanilla ice cream."

"What's that?" Sarah and Leech asked in unison, tilting their heads at the same time.

Mikhail recoils. "You don't know what vanilla ice cream is?"

Time to intervene again.

"Why don't you guys show me the tree?"

Mikhail lights up. "C'mon!"

He dashes off. Sarah sprints after him. Leech and I bring up the rear.

Up close, the tree is massive. Tangled roots web through the soil. The trunk twists upward like a dancer, limbs spreading wide. Embedded in the bark—entwined in roots—is a man.

Tree Man.

I've seen clips of him before—YouTube, maybe TikTok. His hair and beard have fused with the tree, clothes melded to bark. Twigs sprout from his arms. He's part of it now.

High above, white flower buds sway beneath the canopy.

Someday, they'll bloom.

Hopefully I can snag a fruit before I leave.

"They take the branches to the Ranch," Sarah says, misinterpreting my stare. "Rat-geese eat the leaves. Miss Soteira says pruning might wake Tree Man."

"It didn't," Mikhail says softly. "But we keep trying."

We fall quiet.

A man in a green cloak steps into view, paintbrush in one hand, palette in the other. He murmurs to himself as he works, painting visions in swirling colors on the bark.

"Uncle Nemesio!" Mikhail calls.

"Ah, Mikhail. Skipping school again?" The man glanced up. His face was drawn and tired, receding hairline graying at the temples.

"It's Saturday."

"Ah, right." Nemesio's smile falters before it ever forms. "Another vision of doom today. The omens grow worse."

He turns back to the tree.

Mikhail rolled his eyes and twirled a finger by his ear.

Sarah and Leech giggle.

"Hey, Mr. Nemesio—this is Mouse," Sarah said. "He's new!"

The painter turned—and froze.

His eyes locked onto me.

They widened. Dilated. Pupils trembling. His mouth opened, soundless. Then—

He screamed.

High and raw and feral, like something ancient being torn from his throat.

He flailed backward, palette clattering to the stone. Tears streamed down his cheeks. His voice cracked, shrieked, howled. It wasn't pain. It was prophecy. Horror. Reverence.

Every Morlock in the Garden stopped.

Turned.

Stared.

The kids' heads pivoted between us like a game of the world's most intense ping pong match.

I straightened.

"Sarah," I said.

She blinked. "Huh?"

"It's time to go. You said there's one last place before breakfast."

She hesitated—then nodded.

We left quickly.

I didn't look back.

…

After the whirlwind that was the Garden, our final stop on the tour was something Sarah called the Healing Room.

Unlike the other places, there was no grand chamber or elaborate signage announcing our arrival. No elegant architecture, no carved murals. Just a plain tunnel, sunken deeper into the system and tucked away behind the Alley proper. We passed back through the hub, which by now had come fully alive.

Bright. Brighter than I'd seen it so far. Industrial lights lit every crevice and corner, bouncing off metal pipes and glinting against the damp concrete. A crowd of Morlocks milled about in conversation, gathered in clumps and lines. The line in front of the cafeteria was already forming, watched over by a pair of heavy-set bouncers and a handful of patrolling muscles—the sort of mutants who looked like they could bench-press a tank and not break a sweat.

Sarah tugged insistently at my hand, keeping me moving before I could take in too much.

She led me down a broader tunnel, one that bustled with life unlike the quieter corner I'd been assigned. Here, buildings pressed up against one another, sharing walls like old tenement houses. Improvised two-story structures rose above the crowd—sheet metal, rotting plywood, scrap insulation—held together with rope, screws, and sheer desperation.

People leaned out of makeshift windows to shout greetings. Some swept their porches or cooked over barrel fires. Wires twisted across the ceiling like vines in a jungle, snaking between lights, fans, heaters, and who-knows-what else. The path underfoot was uneven, interrupted by crates, discarded tools, and the occasional feral-looking pet.

Even among the outcasts, it seemed, there was a pecking order. My branch was a quiet dead-end. This was the heart of their residential quarters. A proper mutant shantytown.

A few gave me curious glances as I passed—new meat, new face—but no one stared for long. In a place like this, you learned quickly not to ask questions you didn't want answers to.

Eventually, we came to a fork in the tunnel. One side was clearly newer—rougher than the others, like someone had taken a pickaxe to solid concrete and decided, yeah, good enough.

A painted sign above the entrance read: Healing Room. The cursive was careful, almost elegant. Someone had tried.

The tunnel led to a carved-out chamber, rectangular and surprisingly clean. The floor was tiled—chipped in places, but intact. Cement lined the walls, and the scent here was different too. Not iron or mold or sewage. Here it smelled sterile. Like rubbing alcohol, old medicine bottles, and vitamin chews.

Rows of cots lined either side of the room, each one separated by thin, makeshift dividers. Near the back stood a bar-height counter and what looked like an old kitchen cupboard retrofitted with a digital lock and retina scanner. I followed the wires with my eyes—they vanished behind another locked door.

Healer stood behind the counter.

Exactly as I remembered from the comics: wrapped in white bandages, long gray beard falling past his chest, draped in a thick black coat with absurdly high collars. Like Tim the Enchanter who'd traded riddles for penicillin.

He was speaking to a woman I didn't recognize.

She leaned slightly over the counter, one arm supporting her weight. She was tall, striking, with short black hair that framed her face like a 1920s film star. Her black one-piece suit was immaculate—form-fitting, simple, elegant—and it left her arms bare, revealing corded muscle and faint scars along her wrists.

Although her beauty was unmistakable, there was a hollowness to her eyes—a weary, sleepless haze. She coughed softly, covering it with a hand she quickly wiped clean.

She looked like she belonged in a fashion shoot, or a superhero team.

Yet here she was.

They spoke in hushed, fragmented bursts—like a conversation that kept skipping over the worst parts.

"...she's stabilizing, but it's not enough... not with the last dose gone—"

"...I can't stop now. If I give up now—everything I've done will—"

"You're burning through yourself. Revelation—she's not—"

"...You saw what the suit did. Her power… it weakened."

Revelation? The name curled in my head, sharp and strange. Another Morlock? A patient? A code?

Soteira. That had to be her name. The one Sarah kept talking about. The one with mirrors and tunnels and technology no one else down here could've built.

And she was clearly dying.

"Hey, Miss Soteira! Old man Healer!"

Sarah's voice rang out like a gunshot.

Both heads turned. Healer's eyes narrowed. Soteira straightened slowly and turned toward us.

Her smile came like a reflex. Small. Strained. Real, but fraying at the edges.

"Marrow. You're up early."

Sarah lifted her chin. "My bones grew wrong again. But it's okay—I found Mouse and started showing him around instead."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Soteira said gently. She leaned down, brushing the side of Sarah's head. She was careful not to touch the exposed bone, running her fingers along the patchy tufts of thin red hair instead.

"We'll fix it. One day."

"Really?" Sarah whispered. She looked at Soteira like someone waiting for a miracle.

"Of course," Soteira said, voice warm and low. "God doesn't abandon his children."

I tilted my head at that. A devout genius. Not the most common archetype in Marvel.

Before I could comment, both she and Sarah were looking at me.

Sarah's eyes were soft with hope. Soteira's were assessing. Not hostile. But wary. Like she was trying to calculate how I fit into this delicate machine she'd built.

I managed a smile. "She's right. There's brilliant people out there. Someone's gotta have a cure for you, Sarah."

Someone does.

A single touch, and I could neutralize the bone growths. Smooth the jagged mutations. But everyone would notice. Sarah was known for her condition—removing it would be like setting off a flare in the dark.

Not to mention the risk of exposing Singularity. Of what that might attract.

But she's not "just anyone," is she?

"...Mouse," Sarah whispered, tugging on my sleeve again. "You're spacing out."

"Sorry." I swallowed. "Just tired. Long night."

"You're so weird," she grinned. "Anyway! This is Miss Soteira. She's super smart. She's like a genius inventor! And that's old man Healer—he fixes people."

"Hello," Soteira said, offering her hand.

I took it, careful. "Maquet. Good to meet you."

Her grip was firm, warm.

"Maquet. Nice to meet you." I shake her hand. Ignoring the confused looks she gave me and Sarah.

She blinked, glancing at Sarah. "Mouse?"

"It's a nickname."

Her grip was firm, warm.

Singularity stirred—quiet, curious. Her power brushed against mine, like wind against static. I felt it. Not raw intellect, but intuitive brilliance. The ability to look at broken parts and see potential. To build impossible things without blueprints. Her brain burned like a forge—ideas rising out of instinct. The second mutation, the support system, was a heightened cognition. Together, they made her something else.

But replication? That wasn't her strength. Like Forge, she made things in the moment—but rarely understood them after. A tinker trapped by her own genius. That's where the second effect shines. It took time, but if she breaks down her stuff, she can understand, then replicate.

I let go before I stared too long.

She didn't comment. Just tilted her head slightly, then turned back to Sarah.

I moved to Healer instead, extending a hand.

"Caliban brought me in yesterday."

The old man didn't shake it. Just gave me a long look and grunted.

"You're new."

"Yeah."

"You best learn quickly. If you don't—"

"Or I'll die quickly? Or leave quickly?" I smirked. "You're the third guy to say that. Is that the Morlock motto?"

A snort. The barest twitch of a smile under the beard.

Behind me, Sarah was going full monologue again. Rattling off every rat-goose fact she knew. Soteira nodded at all the right times. If she was pretending, she was damn good at it.

Then…

A woman shuffled in—older, hunched, sniffling into a tattered cloth. Her face was pale, but her eyes were wild.

The entire room stiffened.

Soteira straightened. Healer's shoulders slumped.

"Plague" Healer's sigh. His eyes wishing to be anywhere else but his current position.

"Healer" The woman sniffles. Her voice wet and crackly.

"Please," the woman said. "You must have something. Just enough to take the edge off."

Healer didn't even look up. "We're out."

"I'm not asking for anything strong!" she pleaded. "Just a painkiller. Anything. It hurts—"

"You're not sick," Healer snapped. "You feel sick. There's a difference. Your body is fine. I'm not wasting medicine."

"Come on," Sarah muttered, already pulling me by the sleeve. "This'll take a while."

I didn't resist.

As we slipped out, I could still hear Plague's voice behind us—raspy, ragged, pleading.

And Healer's—flat, tired, unflinching.

"Does that happen a lot?" I asked once Sarah finally stopped dragging me by the hand.

Soteira exhaled through her nose, the faintest trace of weariness slipping through the calm. "More often than I'd like," she said, brushing a speck of dust off her shoulder. Then, with a gentle cough into her elbow, she added, "But enough about that."

She turned to Sarah, her expression softening into something warmer. "It's breakfast time, and I, for one, am famished."

"Me too," Sarah agreed immediately, perking up. "C'mon, Mouse—let's go quick before all the stew's gone!"

I raised a hand apologetically. "Actually… I left something back at my spot. Shouldn't take long—I'll catch up."

"But…" Sarah looked between me and Soteira, her face scrunching with uncertainty. "Okay… but you better not take too long. I'll tell Caliban I gave you the tour."

"Deal," I said, flashing her a quick thumbs-up. "Save me a bowl if you can."

Sarah beamed and jogged off toward the Alley proper, already halfway into a story before she even reached Soteira's side. The older woman lingered for just a second longer, her eyes still on me. Not unfriendly. Just… thoughtful.

I watch them disappear into the brighter part of the tunnel, laughter trailing behind them. The moment they're gone, it's like the silence rushes back in—too loud. Too empty. That's when Hive Mind begins to itch.

…

Back in the comfort of my little plywood-and-shower-rack cubicle, I finally have time to think. Time to reflect.

My mind thrums as I fully engage Hive Mind again.

It's always on—humming quietly in the background to keep my more exotic senses operational—but I rarely call on it fully, especially around Sarah. Not because I'm hiding anything—more like I forget. Which is ridiculous, I know. But Hive Mind doesn't boost my intelligence. It just... broadens it.

Hive Mind doesn't make me smarter. Just more. Every thread is still me—still my voice—but when too many split off, running calculations, sorting memories, watching doors, plotting contingencies... it starts to feel like I'm missing pieces.

Maybe that explains my discomfort with using it casually. Not because the pieces aren't mine—but because I'm not feeling them anymore.

It's not numbness—it's distributed pain.

Like stretching one scream across a thousand mouths, so it never gets too loud in any one of them. Efficient. Cold.

It would be easy to forget this power exists. Lock it away. Let it quietly manage the exotic senses in the background. Let the "human" part of me live wrapped in a warm, soft bubble. Feeling safe. Feeling sane.

Another reminder that I'm a toddler with a loaded gun.

Still, once I decide to "man up," the efficiency is worth it. And right now, I need that efficiency.

The first issue to tackle? The smell.

Sarah said I smelled nice. So did the other kids. But my own nose? It tells a very different story—something more in line with sweat, sewer muck, and rotten brick. I should smell like a decomposing possum that lost a fight with a bottle of malt vinegar.

Yet Sarah tracked me down through scent. That's... odd.

She doesn't have enhanced senses—not in any version of her mutation I know. Bone spurs, healing factor, combat monster? Sure. But super-nose? Not a chance.

So how did she find me?

And it wasn't just her. All three kids I interacted with today—Sarah, Leech, and even Mikhail—commented on how I "smelled nice." Leech I could maybe write off as having extra-sensitive sinuses, mutation-related. But Mikhail? He's human. No powers. No mutation.

So either the kids have a shared delusion… or it's something about me.

Thousands of mental threads hum to life. It doesn't take long to reach a consensus:

Lilac Heart.

It has to be. It's the only power I currently have that's scent-based. Pheromone-based mind manipulation. The pattern fits too well.

It makes people more comfortable around me. Softens hostility. Lowers their guard. And what was today, if not a perfect showcase of that exact behavior?

Sarah, for all her youth, is still a born-and-bred Morlock. A child of hardship. Raised in a society where trust gets you killed and hesitation breaks bones. She should've been cautious—terrified, even.

Instead, she adopted me on the spot.

If this is power-induced, that changes things. And if pheromones are the delivery method, it explains why Leech's nullification didn't completely cancel the effect. His power can suppress my active abilities—but it can't scrub pheromones already in the air or clinging to my skin.

Physical particles. Residual scent.

Hell, that might even explain why only the kids commented. Smaller body mass. Lower resistance to the dose. The adults probably aren't affected unless they spend a long time near me.

Wonderful. Creepy mind-control pheromones that work better on children. That's just—nope. We are not exploring that thought train.

...but then another memory strikes me, and everything lurches sideways.

The blood.

My blood was in contact with someone this morning.

I bled. My palm—Sarah's head—

I ruffled her hair and the bone spurs cut me. I bled.

I bled on her.

No.

No. No no no no no—

Wait. Wait. Hold on. Please. Please no—

Social Spider tugs.

A ripple in the back of my mind, one of the partitioned streams glowing with soft urgency.

A thread, taut and trembling.

Sarah.

A presence—not quite conscious thought, but a shape, a flicker. Tangled. Familiar.

Lilac Heart nudges the connection gently.

And for a breath, a blink—I'm in two places at once.

I'm sitting here, alone on my mattress, the smell of dust and mildew thick in the air.

And I'm also in the cafeteria, sunlight bouncing off metal spoons, kids chatting around me, laughter ringing off old walls.

I see her through two sets of eyes.

One from where I sit.

One from where she sits.

STOP.

The second feed cuts. A clean sever. No images. No sound. Just silence—and the faint pressure still lingering, curled up at the edge of my awareness.

Still there. Still waiting.

Oh god.

I did this.

I actually—infected her.

That's what it is, isn't it? Not mind control. Not domination. Just… presence. Influence. A slow root growing through the cracks. She trusted me. She looked up at me with hope and kindness and—

Was it ever her choice?

Did I tilt her toward me, like a magnet dragging filings into place?

Did I make her like me?

What the hell am I doing?

No—no, that doesn't matter right now.

The link is gone. That's what matters. Break it clean. No more.

Deal with the consequences later. The guilt. The questions. All of it.

I look inward again, searching for the shape of the power.

Social Spider slackens, its massive lattice dimming as the trapped thread drifts away into the mist.

The collective web nest that is Hive Mind, slacken, before collapsing all on itself. Some threads ring loose, still attached to different objectives, but the rest have swirled together.

Lilac Heart hums faintly. Not angry. Not upset. Just… puzzled. Like a dog nudged away from food it wasn't supposed to eat. It presses in again, a quiet protest at losing something it believes I meant to keep.

I push back.

No.

I'm not that man. I'm not Killgrave. I will not be.

I'm not going to pull strings I didn't earn. Not with kids. Not with anyone.

But even as I think it, another part of me whispers.

Lilac Heart is working. It's subtle, effective. Mikhail warmed up immediately. Leech trusted me. Sarah adored me. I'm integrating. I'm not just surviving—I'm being accepted.

That voice is quieter. But it's still mine.

The problem is, I know what I need to do. I need this power. I can't afford to throw it away. I'm not built for this world, not like they are. I wasn't born in fire. I wasn't raised in the shadows. I'm soft. Weak. The only reason I'm not dead already is dumb luck and borrowed power.

So I need every advantage I can get.

But…

I can't become the monster I fear.

I can't be the kind of person whose first instinct is to manipulate a child.

Even if it's accidental.

Even if it's necessary.

Even if it's easy.

So. A compromise.

A dedicated partition of Hive Mind—just for Lilac Heart. A full sensory sweep, monitoring pheromone output, potential link formations, environmental effects. If it changes, if it spreads, if it so much as breathes wrong—I shut it down.

No half-measures.

No second chances.

And I'll start being careful with fluids. No more accidents. If it's not blood, then it's saliva. Or sweat. Or god knows what else. I'm a walking CDC nightmare. From now on, gloves stay on. Long sleeves. High collars. Mask, too.

No more contact. No more risk.

No more mistakes.

And still, beneath it all—anger. Not at the power. Not even at the situation.

At me.

I should've been more careful.

I should've thought.

I should've known.

I almost—

No. I didn't. I didn't force her.

But that doesn't mean I didn't still cause harm.

That doesn't mean I'm innocent.

I rub my palm. The skin there's already healed—pink and tight. No sign of the blood I lost. No sign of what might have transferred.

But I remember. I remember the warmth of her skull under my hand. The way she leaned into the touch like it was the first real one she'd had in a long time.

I have to check on her.

I have to make sure she's okay.

God, what a fine mess I've already made.

Stop it. No time to wallow in self-pity.

I need to focus. On something I can control.

There are still problems to solve. Even putting aside the Sarah mess… two other things from today keep rising to the surface.

Soteira.

I'm no X-Scholar, but I know more than your average Netflix binger. The Morlocks? I've known about them since childhood. Wolverine and the X-Men, some comics, wiki dives—enough to understand the basics.

And in all those years of knowing about this underground band of mutants, I have never heard of someone like her. Not once. Not in canon, not in fanon.

No tech genius. No tinker archetype. No Soteira.

The Morlocks have always been presented as barely scraping by—a fractured tribe of outcasts hiding in the shadows, not… this. Not organized. Not structured. Not with engineered wind tunnels and mirrored light systems and rat-goose farms.

Not a society.

And yet, here she is. This woman who builds miracles out of scrap and systems from rust. Changing everything I thought I knew.

Maybe she's canon and obscure. Maybe she's fanon, bleeding into this world from the same meta-muck that pulled me in. It doesn't matter.

She's real.

And she's dying.

Even without powers, you'd notice. The sallow cheeks. The dark circles under her eyes. The slight, persistent tremor in her hands. The coughing she keeps trying to suppress.

But with my enhanced senses? It's like watching a candle burn down to the wick.

Her heart beats slow—too slow. Her lungs rasp like torn bellows. There's blood in her cough, microscopic splatter barely hidden on her sleeve. Her body's giving out, one system at a time.

She's circling the drain.

And I know the cause.

The Drop. More specifically, Revelation—the girl sealed beneath it.

Sarah said everyone who goes down there dies. Everyone but Soteira.

Back in the Healing Room, I caught fragments of their conversation. She's trying to save the girl. Trying to fix something.

She called her Cistern.

The name stirs something faint—an old fan project, I think? There was a mutant called Cistern. Quarantined because her power passively killed everything around her. I thought it was fan-made. Non-canon. I dismissed it.

But now…?

What is this world?

Is it canon? Is it fanon? Is it some twisted fusion of the two? Characters that shouldn't exist… do. Stories that never were… are.

This is bad.

My plan—my whole survival strategy—depends on predictability. On canon events. If those aren't solid, then I'm walking blind into a world of black swans and butterfly effects.

I need my knowledge to mean something.

I need it to work.

If I can't anticipate the disasters before they hit… I die. That's it. Full stop. Game over.

But panic gets me nowhere.

Think, Maquet. Focus. Sort the chaos.

Work the problem first. Shit yourself about canon later.

If Soteira dies, the Morlocks are screwed. Not immediately, but soon. She's the brain behind the infrastructure—engineering, maintenance, energy flow. Without her, the tech will sputter and collapse within a few years.

The tunnels would rot. Systems would fail. They'd fall into decay. Fast.

Like the Imperium in Warhammer 40K. Only on fast-forward.

So. She can't die.

How do I stop that?

Option one: take out the source. Revelation. If she's the cause, then solving her solves the problem.

If her power is anything like the fanon Cistern's, it's a passive death aura. Everything near her wilts and dies. Biological entropy.

I've got life force stockpiled. More if I walk the streets of Manhattan for an hour or two. A quick tap could neutralize her mutation. Problem solved.

Assuming I survive getting close.

Option two: heal Soteira directly. A combination of Parasitic Predator, Healer, and maybe Masque, if I get close enough. Failing that, there are other mutant powers up top. Caliban can sniff them out. A quick touch to analyze and maybe absorb. Many wouldn't even miss their mutations. Some might thank me.

Worst-case, I can give Soteira a power—Social Spider, or even Lilac Heart. Anything to slow the decay.

But… both solutions come with a price.

I'd have to reveal myself.

Truly reveal myself.

No more hiding behind "I'm just durable" or "I got lucky." Full exposure. Powers that don't make sense. Absorptions that can't be explained.

And once that happens, I can't put the genie back in the bottle.

I know what's out there. Sinister. Apocalypse. Orchis. Hell, the X-Men wouldn't look kindly on someone with my kind of power either.

And the cosmic threats—Jaspers. Franklin. Wanda. People who treat time like Play-Doh and rewrite existence on Tuesdays.

What if they decide to erase the current-me because future-me is an ass.

Do I really want them to know about me?

Do I want to shed my armor… for Soteira?

For the Morlocks?

Or should I run?

I could. Disappear. Head west. Dig a bunker. Survive in solitude.

Safe.

Alone.

I close my eyes.

Thread it. Pin it. Shelf it.

Come back later. There's a more immediate issue waiting.

The most immediate problem.

The freakout in the Garden.

Out of everything that's happened today, this might be the one thing that gets me killed right now.

Nemesio—that was his name. The old guy with the haunted eyes and the brush. Definitely a mutant. No question. That wasn't just senile rambling. I recognized some of the murals on that tree.

Those two green giants locked in battle? Gamma mutates. Hulk types.

The blue and red figures? Looked suspiciously like the first Civil War.

Maybe I'm reaching. Maybe I'm projecting. Maybe his mutation is just "emotionally unstable artist" with a flair for superhero allegory.

But the moment he saw me—he screamed.

And not just a little startled cry either. Full-blown, shrieking meltdown. Like I am the Antichrist and Judgment Day rolled into one.

And everyone saw it.

Not just Sarah and her little friends—everyone in the Garden. Word travels fast in places like this. I'd bet my left lung that by now, at least half the Morlocks have heard some version of what happened.

Which means I've got a very real problem with the Morlock leadership.

Forget the X-Men. Forget SHIELD or Krakoa or Sentinels.

Callisto. Masque. Sunder. Those are the names I need to worry about right now. Because if any of them decide I'm a threat?

I don't know if I will walk out of here alive.

Sure, I've got powers. More than a few. And I could probably get away. But not without revealing what I can really do—and once that mask comes off, it's never going back on.

And to get out clean…? I'd have to kill.

Not just a few. A lot.

That's not paranoia. That's math. Callisto gives the word, and half the Tunnels would dogpile me without hesitation. And even if I win…

What about the kids?

Sarah. Leech. Mikhail. They're not fighters—but they're loyal. They'd side with Callisto. I know they would.

Am I really prepared to fight children?

To kill for survival?

Don't answer that.

Don't ruin what little illusion of decency I have left.

I need to believe there's still a line I won't cross.

Okay. Think. What are my options?

I can lie. Play dumb. I don't know why Nemesio freaked out, even if I've got a pretty damn good guess.

If they've got a lie detector mutant—and they probably do—I just have to word things carefully. Stick to half-truths. Technicalities.

It might mean getting dragged in front of Masque, but so what?

Let him do his worst. I'm not exactly winning any beauty contests as-is. A few extra facial scars aren't gonna tank my chances with the mutant dating scene any lower than what it currently is; especially with the power I am now packing.

And if that bastard tries to get fancy—tries to "remodel" me with one of his flesh-melting surgeries and gets so much as a drop of my blood in the process?

Well. Good luck, Masque.

The little girl gets the gentle touch. You? You'd get every curse in the arsenal.

So for now, the best bet is to play it cool. Keep my answers tight. Let them think I'm harmless. Meek.

I doubt Callisto's crazy enough to start a war over a painting and a scream. Especially if she still sees me as weak.

Sunder and the other heavies won't move unless she gives the order.

That just leaves Masque. The wild card.

So. One problem tentatively handled.

Two more breathing down my neck.

Let's go see how fast this situation can spin into a full-blown catastrophe.

…

By the time I step out of my makeshift cubicle, I feel more exhausted than when I went in.

Hive Mind is still splintered—each fragment off doing its assigned task—but I've merged most of the idle threads back together. I need to feel whole again. Human. I need emotion. Even if it hurts.

Letting your thoughts run one way and your feelings another? That's a surefire path to crazy town.

I've read enough fiction to know where that road ends.

Looking at you, Taylor Hebert.

The narrow stretch of tunnel just outside my corner is already waking up. My two neighbors are up, too. Older women. Mid-fifties, maybe? It's hard to tell—stress carves its own kind of age into a person, mutant or not.

One of them, with greying shoulder-length hair, is sitting cross-legged beside the other, spooning food into her mouth with a careful, steady hand. The woman being fed doesn't blink. Doesn't react. Her eyes are glassy and fixed upward, unmoving.

The caregiver notices me as I approach and offers a gentle smile—warm, unguarded. A rarity down here.

"Oh, hello," she says, her voice soft, like worn velvet. "You must be our new neighbor."

"Yeah. I'm Maquet. Just arrived yesterday."

Her eyes brighten slightly. "Ah. That explains it. I was surprised to find someone setting up shop on this end of the Tunnels."

She rests the spoon in the bowl and gently pats her companion's arm. "I'm Delphi," she says. "And this… this is Qwerty."

"Qwerty?" I echo, eyebrows raised.

Delphi chuckles—low, kind, a touch bittersweet. "Yes, I know. It must sound strange. Everyone down here knows our story, so I forget what it's like to talk to someone new."

She glances at Qwerty, her smile tightening at the edges. "Her name might sound funny, especially if you're from above, but... it fits. She sees things. Futures, probabilities, like sequential letters on a keyboard. Her power pulled her too far into the stream of time. She's... lost in it now. Locked away."

I glance down at the tray of food. Two servings, neatly arranged. She can't even feed herself. And down here… mercy is rationed.

"Then… why?" I ask. "Why do you take care of her?"

Delphi blinks at me, as if the answer is obvious. "My gift. It's a form of empathy, the others say. I don't just feel what someone feels. I become them, in a way. I walk a mile in their skin."

She smiles again, but it's worn at the corners. "That's how I understood what happened to her. What she needed. And… well… how could I leave her alone?"

She shrugs, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

"The others help in their own way. They take on my chores while I care for her. We all do what we can."

"That's… incredible. You're incredible."

"Oh, don't say that, dear," she says, waving me off. "Anyone would do the same in my position."

I almost laugh.

"No, they wouldn't," I say, and it comes out a little too honest. "Most people wouldn't give up their whole life for someone else. Especially for nothing in return."

I wouldn't.

That truth, quiet and bitter, coils in the back of my throat.

"Well aren't you a sweet talker," Delphi says with a warm chuckle. "You must be heading to the cafeteria, no? Don't let us old hens keep you."

She gently props up Qwerty so her vacant eyes face me.

"Say goodbye to the nice young man, Qwerty."

And then the air changes.

Stillness.

Her eyes—once blank, fogged glass—focus. Pinpoint. Locking on me like a tracking beacon.

The air feels charged, like right before a lightning strike.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Qwerty screeches—high-pitched, wet, inhuman. Her frail body flails, arms spasming. And then, impossibly, she lunges. A blur of bones and parchment skin, faster than she should ever be.

I don't move. I can't. I'm too stunned.

She crashes into me, and it's like being struck by a hurricane wrapped in a corpse.

Thin, skeletal arms wrap around my torso in a death grip. I hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of me. Her watery eyes scan my face like she's seeing God.

"Messiah… messiah… messiah…" she whispers. Again. And again. The word falling from her mouth like broken teeth.

What the fuck is happening?

"Qwerty!" Delphi's voice cuts through the chaos. She dives, trying to pry her off me, but Qwerty won't let go. Her grip is iron. Desperate.

"I don't think I can hold her much longer!" Delphi grunts, struggling to wrest her friend away.

I still don't move.

Not because I'm pinned—but because I can't look away from Qwerty's eyes. That… look. Like I've been burned into her future. Branded onto her fate.

And it's wrong.

She's wrong.

I didn't do anything. I didn't touch her. I didn't try to connect. But a part of me still wonders—still fears—if Lilac Heart had already soaked its claws in deep. If some pheromonal whisper had brushed against her broken mind and sparked this madness.

And worse—I was careless.

Careless with Sarah. Careless with my blood. Careless with this whole fucking day.

Now this.

I scramble upright as Delphi finally pulls Qwerty back into her lap. The woman twitches and mumbles, but the grip is broken.

I didn't even say thank you.

Just like with Sarah. Just like everyone else.

It's always confusion. Panic. Retreat.

I run.