Mystique walked through the camp with a practiced gait(not her usual saunter) and headed towards the cooking area with the lazy drag of an annoyed adolescent.
"Are you on lookout this morning?" Beatrice, one of the older cooks with a skin texture that looked like tree bark, asked as she came into the secluded area.
"Hmm." Mystique mumbled.
"Don't look so glum, Terri. You know the morning shift is the easiest, at least that's what Richter says. Your food is over there. Tell Danny not to lose his spoon again." Beatrice pointed at the stack of takeout sitting on top of the drum of water.
"Hmm." Mystique grunted in thanks as she picked up the food and left the kitchen.
Her current disguise was one of a petulantly lazy boy who hardly spoke—a perfect disguise.
The poor boy's mutation was that he was a living battery and everything he did drew from that battery, even speaking. He could draw more energy from this internal battery to boost any aspect of himself but the drawback was that he grew sleepy the more he drained it, that and the energy capacity of his battery was extremely limited that it could hardly keep him up for 24 hours with little to no physical exertion.
It was why the boy was so intentionally lazy and silent, and also why Mystique decided to use his appearance for her infiltration.
She observed the camp as she walked through it. New beds, new tents, new clothes, clean water, a storage full of food and a cabinet full of medicine, and also some interesting security measures.
She noted all these and more subtler ones and the question came back to 'how'. If she wasn't keeping a lazy eye on the Morlock's activities then she would have thought that they recently came across a lucky stash, or the most possible one, they somehow acquired a sponsor or a benefactor.
She knew for a fact that it wasn't Charles or any of those sycophants from the Club. 'Maybe they came across an open will?' She joked in her thoughts.
Well, she didn't really care about it. If anything she was glad that they were doing really well for themselves. That would have been it and she would have given Eric a boring report and the two of them would have been done with it, except for one teeny tiny factor.
Some of them were humans and she didn't mean that in a general way. Some of them were no longer mutants.
That. It was that tiny fact that changed this from a boring recon to an emergency revelation.
Some of them had lost their mutation and yet they looked happy. They were living better off from it. Mystique did not for once think that there wasn't a relationship between the lost mutation and the camp's sudden wealth.
It was such a jarring thought to her that she did not know where to start from. If that was how she felt, then she knew without a doubt that Eric would see it as a taboo. The danger lay in the implications.
Were they giving up their mutation for some sort of cure and using the compensation to fund their camp?
Her thoughts were rather vibrant as she lazily walked past the camp and headed towards the exit tunnels carrying take-outs.
"I thought I warned you and yours not to come down here. Give me a good reason not to kill you here right now." The dagger that was pressed against her neck wasn't Callisto's usual daggers but that didn't make it any less dangerous.
"The big guy will be angry." She said easily even as the dagger pressed in threateningly to draw blood.
"I fear Magneto, but not enough to not kill you for sneaking around my place." The dagger angled seductively over her sound pipe.
And wasn't that the whole reason why she hated coming down here? Callisto was a downright crazy woman and Mystique did not for once doubt her word.
Callisto was a very dangerous woman even from afar, something Mystique knew from experience. To have her sneak up on you was another type of danger, and unfortunately it was one that was hard to avoid.
Oh what she wouldn't give to see her current captor run circles around that red-headed bitch who stupidly thought she was the best there ever was.
"Now now, no need to involve the pointies. Come on, Callisto, I was just doing some harmless snooping around. And look," she raised the packaged food in her hand. "I was even going to bring your boys some food."
"I'll ask for the last time, Mystique, why are you here?" Callisto asked, ignoring Mystique's failed attempt at humor.
Mystique raised both hands in surrender. She wasn't stupid enough to pick a fight with Callisto. She wouldn't do it out there in the open and she wouldn't think of doing it in here. They both knew that the feral leader of the Morlocks was just looking for a reason to skin her, and they both knew that she could do so with relative ease.
"I thought you guys were behaving weird. No new jobs and yet you were buying a lot of foodstuff. He told me to check it out, but whatever I expected was not what I found." She breathed easier as the knife around her neck retreated. She turned around slowly to face Callisto and noticed the new changes. A rag over her eyepatch and a glowing dagger. Cool.
"You mind telling me what's going on? Magneto would want answers."
Callisto scoffed as her lone eye stared at Mystique in a way that made the polymorph uncomfortable.
"Then he should find his own answers. I don't care about what Magneto thinks. My Morlocks answer to me, and I don't answer to him."
Mystique frowned. "Callisto, he would want to know if you're end—"
"He's the last person to lecture me about endangering mutants." Callisto cut her off. "I'm putting my people first the same way he does his boyband. If they lost their mutation then It's because they wanted to. I don't take that choice from them."
"But—"
"But nothing." Callisto cut her off again. "If anyone is in danger then it's just us down here. I don't see how that is any of his business. This will be the last time you sneak into my house, Mystique."
Mystique sighed in relief as she saw Callisto sheath her strange glowing dagger and turned around to leave. She asked one last question at the retreating woman.
"Then will you tell me who it is?"
"No." Callisto replied without stopping and promptly disappeared into the darkness.
As always, Callisto was a very hard woman to talk to. No amount of history between the two of them changed that.
'How did she track me?' Mystique's mask turned solemn as she picked up the food and continued her departure. 'When did she start tracking me?'
She dropped the food near where Terri was sitting half asleep and slinked out of their tunnels.
Her thoughts were undoubtedly on the ex-mutants down in the tunnels. She and her group, along with other mutant groups, did not have good history with ambitious men wanting to make mutant cures. It never brought anything good, and usually caused the most public altercations between mutants and the government.
She knew for a fact that Eric wouldn't like this. She too didn't like this. Yes, the Morlocks never involved themselves with anything happening above ground and stayed removed from everything else, but this was such jarring news that she was certain that the few people who knew about the Morlocks would not respect their isolation and come to seek answers.
And just like Callisto said, the Morlocks didn't listen to anyone but her.
It was ugly business, she knew and though she hated it, that was the way it was.
Whatever it was, she knew the last thing anyone wanted was for Eric to come down and start asking questions, and further escalating and exacerbating a manageable situation. She would have to keep a closer eye on them and see if she could figure out who was responsible for the cures.
..
...…..
The last few months for Jessica Jones was nothing short of a success story. Her career and reputation as a PI was experiencing a good upward trend that left her so content with herself, not just because of moral justice but also because of the payment increase.
The adrenaline boost was also one of those things and it was even more potent because sometimes she never knew when one case led to another or how far it could escalate. She even ended up working alongside some undercover police detectives on two different occasions.
The last case she worked on with the detectives escalated so quickly that she had to use her Estus on them to save their lives after they almost got blown up in an elaborate trap.
From cheating spouses to smuggling rings to off-site mutant experiments. The bounce between ranges was so absurd and spontaneous but she wouldn't have it any other way.
She looked at pearl-sized cameras and the silicone mask. She owed most of her success to these bad boys. They made infiltrating and spying on a location way easier than it should have ever been. They had their own limits and she was aware of them, but personally they had more than paid for she spent for them.
"Jess, why is your place like this?" She groaned as she closed her drawers and turned to face her sister.
"I clean up." The way she said it was not entirely believable given the look on Trish's face. "You know how it is. Sometimes I spend the whole night outside and when I come back I'm too tired to clean."
Trish placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head to look at Jessica and let her expression tell her exactly what she thought of her excuse.
"Mm mmn. You're not tired now, so clean up."
Jessica deadpanned at her sister who was still trying to play the strict one despite the both of them being adults.
"I'll do it later, Trish. I have a short errand to run." She said as he picked up a shirt from the bed and turned around to put it on.
She wanted to make a quick stop at Isaac's and restock her Estus med and maybe browse through his catalog to see if she could buy one or two things to make her job even easier.
"Nope." Trish said with a shake of her head. "You can do that later. And besides, I want us to clean up together. So take off that shirt and pick up a broom or something."
Jessica looked at her sister who was smiling at her and despite wanting nothing more than to head towards Queens, she relented with a groan and changed into something better for cleaning, while Trish smiled like she did on TV, except this one was a little wider by a millimeter.
"Thank you." Trish said and then pointed at her room. "Maybe take care of here first before coming out. I'll be in the kitchen."
"Fine." She grunted and started picking up and separating the clothes scattered all over her room. Isaac's shop wasn't going anywhere so she could do that later after cleaning up as Trish forced her to do.
..
... … … .
Frank stared at the gun in his hand. The Lawgiver Mk II was a very apt name because Frank had been a bit skeptical of its performance but all that changed the moment he pulled the trigger for the first time.
Obstacles hardly posed a problem when the gun was involved. He quickly found out that his favorite combination was the gas round and the heat-seeking bullets.
The only thing he had against it was the bullets. It was custom-made and the only place he could get it was at that damned place.
"Well, needs must." He looked at the gun and nodded to himself as it convinced him of whatever decision he came to.
He didn't get a chance to test the coat and that was okay. It meant he was yet to make a mistake. The same mistake that those scums made by getting shot at.
He was in no rush. If Isaac was to be believed then he wouldn't have to worry about getting new weapons. He would familiarize himself with this one before he'll go for the shotgun or any other monstrosity that the man had.
Sooner or later he'll find that bastard and give him his personal dose of punishment.
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