Chapter 37: Crazy Talk
Life was bad.
Mystique smelled smoke from miles away. It was the first sign of trouble, but she kept her mouth shut--Rogue didn’t need any more distractions. When red lightning struck the Big Apple, she knew she’d gotten herself into another train wreck of a mess. Bad enough Magneto captured Xavier and company, bad enough Rogue flew at top speed to reclaim her Cajun, bad enough the wind chill froze Mystique’s very core, bad enough, but now, the closer the mother and daughter tandem got to Manhattan, the more traffic jams and random acts of violence came into view.
“Ah never seen people panic like this...”
“They’re humans. They’re stupid.”
A mutant with overgrown arms leapt onto the Long Island Expressway and tried to wallop oncoming cars. He’d overestimated his strength, however, and a speeding Escalade launched him kicking and screaming onto the shoulder. The mutant tumbled into a ditch, out of sight, out of mind.
Rogue glanced at her mother who cut her off.
“Not a word, Rogue.”
“Ah didn’t say nothin’.”
“You just did.”
Manhattan proper appeared underneath, and humans lessened, the streets taken over by mutants. Pockets of SWAT teams and patrolmen did their best to stem the pandemonium, but nothing went their way. From being overmatched to outnumbered to outgunned, any semblance of law got routed by mutants. Further into the city, gunfire couldn’t even be heard anymore. Screams, explosions, and celebratory chants became the prominent sounds. The only humans about were fleeing or dying.
Mystique smiled. Maybe life wasn’t so bad after all: those insignificant homo sapiens got what was coming to them.
Rogue didn’t share those sentiments. “Mama, this ain’t no time ta laugh!”
“You want me to cry for seeing our people finally fighting back?”
Another gulf between the two stuck its head up. Years spent living under Xavier’s reign opened the road of mutant-human coexistence to Rogue. A better future lay in peace and acceptance, not bitter fighting and genocide. As the Professor said once, civilizations born from the blood of others were doomed to their predecessors’ fate. On the other hand, Mystique believed in battling for a better tomorrow. Might was the only language humans understood, and until mutants showed their awesome might, their inferiors would forever torment them. Peace and happiness weren’t free: they had to be earned, many times through bloodshed.
Mystique disliked Magneto for his hubris, but she agreed with his methodology. And Rogue?
“Ma Gawd, Magneto n’ Lorna’s on top o’ that skyscraper n’ they have Storm!”
Not so much. She almost changed directions and flew into a new ruckus, but Mystique stopped her. “Your Cajun,” she reminded, pointing to an incredibly active but darkened North Cove, “Get out of the sky before Magneto sees us!”
Ororo... Remy... Ororo.... Remy...
“Rogue! Snap out of it!”
Her mentor, her friend, her leader versus the man she loved--what kind of choice was this? Ororo looked battered; Remy just finished a sparring match with Vargas and had to be beat up. Rogue loved both these people, but there was only one of her. Sirens and alarms covered his voice, but Rogue assumed Magneto’s gesturing meant he was about to make an example of Storm. All those frenzied mutants marching through the streets couldn’t be peaceful protestors.
Actually, the calls to “Finish her” pretty much grouped most of them into the angry mob category. “Mama, ah need ya ta find Remy fo’ me.”
After hovering the air for so long, one brunette and her blue mother drew the stares of many. Only fact which kept them unharmed was their very obvious “mutantness.” One particularly brave flier--a pretty black haired woman with hornet’s wings--buzzed up to the deep in thought brunette.
Her gleeful smile and sunny disposition served as a counterpoint to the surrounding destruction. She asked in a helpful tone, “Looking for someone?”
Well, she did seem nice enough. “Ah’m lookin’ for a man, got red pupils and always wearin’ a trench coat. Ya seen him?”
The woman giggled. “Sorry,” she shook her head, “that could be anyone down there. I’ll tell my friends to keep a look out for him though. He your boyfriend or something?”
“Yeah.”
A raking gaze, which could only be described as a visual undressing, startled Rogue. Sighing, the woman smacked her lips and looked disappointed. “Too bad.”
Time for a topic change. “Thank fo’ lookin’ n’ all.”
“No problem,” said the woman, recovering nicely, “We mutants have to look out for each other. Anyway, you going over to Magneto? Says he’s got a plan AND he’s going to execute an X-Man. Bunch of us got up to the front. Gonna be fun!”
Fun? “How can a execution be fun?! That’s someone’s life yer havin’ fun with!”
A store of revulsion built up in the woman, her jovial attitude disappearing like a drop of water in the desert. “I have no sympathy for human lovers,” she bristled, “If the X-Men are against our freedom, then they can die with the rest of these flatscans!”
Mystique wanted to calm her daughter, but Rogue’s fist moved too fast. With a thunderous boom, the winged woman plummeted to the pavement below. Plenty heated stares attached themselves onto the brunette, but Rogue seethed too much to care.
A familiar annoyance welled up in Mystique. Maybe her daughter needed a good smacking to wise up. She almost acted on her impulse too, but her keen perception halted her. An annoyance... an unreasonable, familiar annoyance... sure, she was reasonably ticked off right now, but not to the point of losing her cool. Mystique never lost her cool, but in one night, she found her easy calm a difficult thing to hold on to. This happened at the mansion, disappeared, then happened again here.
The common link? Magneto.
He invaded the mansion earlier, and when he left, the annoyance subsided. She and Rogue entered Manhattan, and low and behold, the feeling returned. Magneto was too much a plotter for this to be a coincidence. Mystique’s instincts just pointed at his involvement, and if one thing Mystique trusted, it was her instincts.
Having a hunch of the cause made fighting the mental suggestion much easier.
“Hang on, Mama. Find Remy n’ ah rescue ‘Ro.”
Speeding like a bullet, Rogue deposited Mystique near North Cove and rocketed back into the air to face Magneto. Stubborn girl, her body moved quicker than her brain, and sooner or later, her body would cash a check her brain didn’t write. She loved her daughter, but that girl... never knew what she’d do next sometimes, even in the face of extreme danger.
Especially in the face of extreme danger.
Since yelling for her to come back was a moot point now, Mystique resigned herself to the task of playing fetch. If this was anyone else besides Rogue, she would’ve told the person to shove it and look for their own damned boy toy. Why even look for him? What was wrong with someone less complicated, like that pretty girl who just got pasted? Why this card throwing Cajun? What was so special about him? Men like that were a dime a dozen in New Orleans.
Not so much the card throwing part, but everything else wasn’t hard to come by.
“Gah, kids these days...”
Love. Can’t explain it, can’t stop it.
A wet jumble struck a tree to her left and pulled her out of her musing. Up ahead, a single man massacred a host of monsters straight out of a Clive Barker novel. Didn’t notice it before, but a swirling cloud of red loomed not far away, sparking and growing like a fetid sore. More monsters fell, cut into ribbons by a sword and the body swinging it. Basking in the pale moonlight and wrapped by shadows, the lone warrior conjured visions of death as he moved with frightening grace and deadly efficiency. Not even the quickest of the beasts got close. Not even the strongest of them stood up to his blows.
Mystique recognized that silhouette.
Finishing off the last of his opposition, Vargas plunged his sword into the soft grass and tightened his gloves. “Destiny’s champion,” he greeted. “Your presence is unanticipated but welcomed.”
Oh hell, not this nut job. Wasn’t he suppose to be in New Orleans? Well, if the Cajun could get from there to here in two blinks of an eye, guess Vargas could too, but just... just...
“Shit.”
Vargas was a nut job, pure and simple. He followed Irene’s predictions religiously, calling her a herald of mutantkind’s true fate. Ever the resourceful one, Irene obliged him, using him like a burlap sack on a twenty acre farm. Neither she nor Mystique trusted (or even liked) him, but a nigh destructible brute who fancied himself a scholar had his uses.
Unfortunately, he considered mutants an aberration and that the homo sapiens superior--those humans who’d reached their full potential--would do away with “Nature’s mistake.” Apparently, Irene’s diaries fit into his twisted worldview about human domination, so in his eyes, she was about the only ok mutant. How a man who took down a building with his sword considered a human Mystique had no clue, but in her estimation, anyone strong enough to accomplish the feat could claim to anything and none would protest. Didn’t might make right?
Whatever the case, Mystique didn’t like Vargas, didn’t want to use him, didn’t want to have anything to do with him, didn’t want Irene to manipulate him, didn’t want Rogue to even know him.
“Destiny,” he mumbled, pulling his sword from the ground, “My Destiny eluded me. My death was to be my glory and my gift to humanity, but Destiny’s daughter wouldn’t see to my fulfillment. I will find the one who took my fate away and inflict an eternity’s pain upon her.”
Yup, nut job. He went beyond nutcase and firmly wedged himself in the nut job category. Any other person would be glad to have their life, but no, not Vargas, not by a long shot. He obsessed himself with fate and destiny and the rise of a hitherto unheard of homo sapiens superior. Did any other human come out of the woodwork and start smashing things to smithereens? No, at least not the way Vargas smashed things.
God, and the worst part of all this? Mystique was stuck with him.
The man wearily tested his sword and cast his eyes toward the blue skinned woman. “Since Destiny was the one who ultimately betrayed me, my revenge will extend to her chosen.”
Life was bad and on a crash course to unbearable. Damn it, the shit she went through for her daughter.
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- To be continued...
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