Post by Pyro on Sept 25, 2006 12:09:41 GMT -5
Mystique carried the file down the hallway with a care she hadn’t observed in herself before. She was a master of deception and yet somehow, she wasn’t sure she could keep from Pyro just how important what she had to tell him was.
She knocked on the doorway of his office. “Hey,” she said a little less than casually. “I need to go over something with you. Do you have a bit?”
“Hey,” he replied, not looking up immediately, but instead finishing whatever he was doing and closing down the document he’d been writing. THEN he looked up. “Come on in, sit down. Coffee?”
At least THAT hadn’t changed in him. The kid’s capacity for caffeine was still bordering on the legendary. He'd had a good couple of hours rest in his room after talking to Angie and hand come down here to do a bit of catch-up.
“I’ll be fine,” she smiled a bit, and shut the door behind herself,
though it was customarily kept open.
Sitting in the chair opposite his desk, Mystique carried a quietness about her he’d not seen before she left Genosha. It was hardly a defeated or withdrawn demeanor, but perhaps a little less aggressive than she’d been the first time she returned to the island. Something was on her mind, and she didn’t bother hiding it. Not that half, anyway.
Opening the file in her lap, she picked through papers. “The information I was able to gather from NovaTeX gave us just what we needed to be able to reverse engineer the drug- or at least, begin work on it. There were pieces missing from the data, it was being dumped –as- I was accessing it from the site. There wasn’t a lot of time, but I was able to grab a partial trace on where the information on the network was being sent.” She shook her head a bit. “I haven’t had time to pursue it yet, and I will, but something’s.. come up.”
Mystique addressed him directly as she explained herself. “I went to the school in the hopes of copying over the Cerebro records Charles and Jean were compiling. I was able to access the records once, briefly, but they have a mutant there who has some sort of mental connection with all the technology in the building. What I –did- find while I was there…”
She looked down at the papers detailing Hannah Creed. There was a picture of her included, and Mystique’s eyes lingered on it a little too long. Finally she handed it over to him.
“This little girl was abandoned in the doorway at Xavier’s in the middle of the night a few weeks ago. According to the information that was sent by mail a week or so later, she is part of an experiment undertaken by a company called the Sombra Corporation. They isolate mutant children into a training compound from a very young age with no contact with their families. According to their abilities they are trained... it seems a lot like Weapon X but I don’t have enough information yet to tell you if the government’s involved.”
“Knowing Graydon Creed, it is. He owns Sombra. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him.” She paused, only the very slightest lilt in her voice betraying anything other than a very nature outrage. “He’s also Hannah’s father.”
Creed, Creed… The name rang a bell. He remembered Magneto talking about someone called Creed who’d once been a member of the Brotherhood, but hadn’t really listened to the specifics…
Hang on.
John turned to his desk and rifled through a number of papers on it.
“Here,” he said, a faint hint of triumph in his voice. “Graydon Creed. Turns up in any number of pharmaceutical magazines. Quite the celebrity. I can understand why he’d be ashamed to have a mutant for a daughter with a profile like that, the asshole.”
He pushed the printouts over to her. “Training children up. That sounds particularly…” He was annoyed, she could tell.
He knew the name. She was glad. He’d really grown a lot since they first picked him up a few years ago. But still, each time she heard her son’s name, her heart lurched. It was like living in a nightmare.
“Victor Creed, Sabretooth. He’s still alive and still a member of the Brotherhood. He’s Graydon’s father.” She only pause a moment before continuing on.
“I need to get into Sombra for more information, so I won’t be staying here for long. Obviously we can’t let those children stay there. But Pyro..”
She leaned both arms on the desk, leaning in a little towards him, and met his eyes. “I believe in your abilities. But this is personal. I need you… I need your help. The Brotherhood’s help. But I need it done my way, at my pace. If needs be we don’t have to tell the others until we’re sure we can act.” She shook her head a bit. Her words were clipped off just to keep from sounding emotional. “I can’t do this one alone.”
“Personal?”
He raised one eyebrow at her quizzically, but it was not mocking or in any way meant as a light-hearted gesture. It was merely an unspoken opportunity to open up to him if she so wished, but also said that he would not if she did not want to. “I don’t see why we can’t help you out, Mystique, after all, you’ve done so much for us, it wouldn’t hurt to give a little back, right?”
Oh yes, he’d grown.
“And in return…there’s something I’d like you to do for me. But we’ll come to that some other time.”
Damn.
There was only one thing holding her back from telling Pyro the truth; and it was entirely ridiculous. The fact was she didn’t want Pyro to think less of her because she had a child old enough to be his father.
But then, what was left of her and Pyro, and why did she care so much?
And if he was Magneto’s successor… shouldn’t he know the truth Eric had known?
Mystique sat back, closing the file and grasping it a little too tightly in her hands. She looked aside for a moment, keeping her eyes away from him.
He’d grown so much. Maybe Emma had truly helped him after all.
No. She couldn’t. “Graydon is Victor’s child,” she said, in a voice so filled with ice the past nearly came screaming between the syllables.
Mystique rubbed her forehead for a moment. “What is it you want in return,” she said, forcibly shifting her mind back to business.
“Your guidance,” he said, simply. “You know how to get what you want and who to speak to when you want it. I need you to show me how to be like that. How I can get off this damn island and become a man of substance.”
Grand words for a twenty year old who couldn’t even grow a proper beard.
“Where exactly is this Sombra place? Because I’ll cut a deal. Beforehand, we swing via New York. Dominic’s there – which believe you me, will come in pretty handy if you’re thinking of trashing the joint. Plus, there’s a couple of things I need to deal with. Ties to cut, y’know what I’m saying?”
She smiled a bit at his mixture of maturity and youth, and nodded.
“You’re asking me that to flatter me,” she said. “Because you think my allegiances have turned after our fight.”
It stopped their conversation in its tracks, but she didn’t let the silence linger long.
“I know you know that the Brotherhood is bigger than you. If you are its leader.. then I am with you. You had to know that.” She frowned just a little, as if almost hurt by the thought that he might doubt her.
“I know that,” he said. The easy way in which the fight had been brought up had left him speechless, breathless even. It wasn’t that he had been avoiding talking about it with her, no. It was more…there was nothing to be said. Nothing could fix it, nothing could change the fact that it had happened. He hadn’t been in his right mind – which was no excuse – and he wasn’t going to start using excuses. It wasn’t his way.
“Then we’re on,” he said. “Python’s gonna blow his stack about me getting off the island, but he’ll have to deal with it.” He looked at the picture of Graydon Creed in the magazine again. “What IS it with these suited and booted types? Is all of freakin’ corporate America bent and twisted?”
She smiled. “Some in better ways than others. You’re just jealous.”
Relieved that she’d gotten out of explaining things to him just yet, she set the file on his desk for the moment. “I brought you identification. You have a passport, United States driver’s license, ID through France and Great Britain, a birth certificate and a social security number. It wasn’t something I was going to tell you about yet, but if you’re that eager to take off, you might as well know. It’s… kind of a necessity if you’re going to be a professional criminal.” She smirked. He knew she didn’t consider herself- or any of them- criminals.
“You bet I’m jealous,” he said, good-naturedly. “Those sons of bitches earn more in a week than a rat like me could ever have hoped to make in an entire year.” Then she mentioned about the ID. “You did?” He sat forward, his eyes lighting up. “Who am I?” He laughed lightly, a sound she wasn’t used to hearing from him at all. “Please tell me you haven’t ended up calling me Hubert Derbyshire or something crazily exotic like that.”
She laughed. “Um… well, you may think it sounds exotic but to me it’s entirely familiar. Johann Zauber. It links you to an identity of mine from the cold war that you may find comes in handy if you’re in the right prison or talking to the right people. I thought…” she cleared her throat, almost looking shy for a moment. “I thought it might be better for you to be Leni’s husband than a random no one. To an average police officer, you will be a nobody. But to who it counts, they’ll take better care of you.”
“I kind of like it,” he said, easily. “Johann Zauber. I can do that. And then if anybody calls me ‘John’ by mistake, it’s an easy mistake to make to untrained non-European ears. Nice thinking.”
He leaned back in the office chair and shifted his booted feet onto the desk in an easy way; not as a gesture of smug arrogance, but because he was comfortable like that.
“How… have things been,” she said, shifting the conversation once again. “There are some new faces here.”
“It’s been…interesting,” he said, choosing the word carefully. “I think you should meet Dharma – I reckon as how you and he will get on well. He’s been encouraging me to work outside. We’re building. Building a village that’s not inside the compound. For when this becomes the true safe haven for mutants in this world.”
The feet came off the desk and he leaned forward.
“Me, personally – I have my ups and downs, but I’m getting there. If that’s what you were asking as well.”
“Maybe I was.” Her voice softened just a little. “I left you in a bad state. Gill played it off but I could tell.”
She didn’t say anything about asking Emma to help him, or even having heard from her. And sometimes, that sort of restraint could make Mystique come across as otherworldly. But not now. There was a quirk to her expression that was almost funny. “You look great.” She smiled a bit.
“You think?” he said, and damn him if he didn’t actually preen, even if was only a little bit. “I’ve been working hard, putting some muscle on.”
Didn’t stop him still looking thin, still too thin for his build.
She’d already noticed that he was still eating next to nothing, although at least he seemed to have some sort of structure in his day.
“You look good yourself,” he said. “But then, you always did look good. No reason for that to change now.”
Mystique smirked. It was a good try. He was progressing anyway.
Picking up the file, she took back the paperwork on Hannah and tucked it in, closing her hand around it. “Let’s talk more about the rest of it later. I have some phone calls to make to get the info on Sombra that I need.” She stood and walked to the door.
Opening it and taking a step into the hallway, she looked back at him, and smiled a bit. About to say something, she changed her mind.
“Thanks for understanding.” She gestured to the file.
“Not a problem,” he said. “Thanks for the new identity.”
He too looked like he would say something else, but either changed his mind or simply couldn’t do it. “Just tell me when you want to go and consider it a date. I’ll need to contact Dom, too, have him on standby.”
She knocked on the doorway of his office. “Hey,” she said a little less than casually. “I need to go over something with you. Do you have a bit?”
“Hey,” he replied, not looking up immediately, but instead finishing whatever he was doing and closing down the document he’d been writing. THEN he looked up. “Come on in, sit down. Coffee?”
At least THAT hadn’t changed in him. The kid’s capacity for caffeine was still bordering on the legendary. He'd had a good couple of hours rest in his room after talking to Angie and hand come down here to do a bit of catch-up.
“I’ll be fine,” she smiled a bit, and shut the door behind herself,
though it was customarily kept open.
Sitting in the chair opposite his desk, Mystique carried a quietness about her he’d not seen before she left Genosha. It was hardly a defeated or withdrawn demeanor, but perhaps a little less aggressive than she’d been the first time she returned to the island. Something was on her mind, and she didn’t bother hiding it. Not that half, anyway.
Opening the file in her lap, she picked through papers. “The information I was able to gather from NovaTeX gave us just what we needed to be able to reverse engineer the drug- or at least, begin work on it. There were pieces missing from the data, it was being dumped –as- I was accessing it from the site. There wasn’t a lot of time, but I was able to grab a partial trace on where the information on the network was being sent.” She shook her head a bit. “I haven’t had time to pursue it yet, and I will, but something’s.. come up.”
Mystique addressed him directly as she explained herself. “I went to the school in the hopes of copying over the Cerebro records Charles and Jean were compiling. I was able to access the records once, briefly, but they have a mutant there who has some sort of mental connection with all the technology in the building. What I –did- find while I was there…”
She looked down at the papers detailing Hannah Creed. There was a picture of her included, and Mystique’s eyes lingered on it a little too long. Finally she handed it over to him.
“This little girl was abandoned in the doorway at Xavier’s in the middle of the night a few weeks ago. According to the information that was sent by mail a week or so later, she is part of an experiment undertaken by a company called the Sombra Corporation. They isolate mutant children into a training compound from a very young age with no contact with their families. According to their abilities they are trained... it seems a lot like Weapon X but I don’t have enough information yet to tell you if the government’s involved.”
“Knowing Graydon Creed, it is. He owns Sombra. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him.” She paused, only the very slightest lilt in her voice betraying anything other than a very nature outrage. “He’s also Hannah’s father.”
Creed, Creed… The name rang a bell. He remembered Magneto talking about someone called Creed who’d once been a member of the Brotherhood, but hadn’t really listened to the specifics…
Hang on.
John turned to his desk and rifled through a number of papers on it.
“Here,” he said, a faint hint of triumph in his voice. “Graydon Creed. Turns up in any number of pharmaceutical magazines. Quite the celebrity. I can understand why he’d be ashamed to have a mutant for a daughter with a profile like that, the asshole.”
He pushed the printouts over to her. “Training children up. That sounds particularly…” He was annoyed, she could tell.
He knew the name. She was glad. He’d really grown a lot since they first picked him up a few years ago. But still, each time she heard her son’s name, her heart lurched. It was like living in a nightmare.
“Victor Creed, Sabretooth. He’s still alive and still a member of the Brotherhood. He’s Graydon’s father.” She only pause a moment before continuing on.
“I need to get into Sombra for more information, so I won’t be staying here for long. Obviously we can’t let those children stay there. But Pyro..”
She leaned both arms on the desk, leaning in a little towards him, and met his eyes. “I believe in your abilities. But this is personal. I need you… I need your help. The Brotherhood’s help. But I need it done my way, at my pace. If needs be we don’t have to tell the others until we’re sure we can act.” She shook her head a bit. Her words were clipped off just to keep from sounding emotional. “I can’t do this one alone.”
“Personal?”
He raised one eyebrow at her quizzically, but it was not mocking or in any way meant as a light-hearted gesture. It was merely an unspoken opportunity to open up to him if she so wished, but also said that he would not if she did not want to. “I don’t see why we can’t help you out, Mystique, after all, you’ve done so much for us, it wouldn’t hurt to give a little back, right?”
Oh yes, he’d grown.
“And in return…there’s something I’d like you to do for me. But we’ll come to that some other time.”
Damn.
There was only one thing holding her back from telling Pyro the truth; and it was entirely ridiculous. The fact was she didn’t want Pyro to think less of her because she had a child old enough to be his father.
But then, what was left of her and Pyro, and why did she care so much?
And if he was Magneto’s successor… shouldn’t he know the truth Eric had known?
Mystique sat back, closing the file and grasping it a little too tightly in her hands. She looked aside for a moment, keeping her eyes away from him.
He’d grown so much. Maybe Emma had truly helped him after all.
No. She couldn’t. “Graydon is Victor’s child,” she said, in a voice so filled with ice the past nearly came screaming between the syllables.
Mystique rubbed her forehead for a moment. “What is it you want in return,” she said, forcibly shifting her mind back to business.
“Your guidance,” he said, simply. “You know how to get what you want and who to speak to when you want it. I need you to show me how to be like that. How I can get off this damn island and become a man of substance.”
Grand words for a twenty year old who couldn’t even grow a proper beard.
“Where exactly is this Sombra place? Because I’ll cut a deal. Beforehand, we swing via New York. Dominic’s there – which believe you me, will come in pretty handy if you’re thinking of trashing the joint. Plus, there’s a couple of things I need to deal with. Ties to cut, y’know what I’m saying?”
She smiled a bit at his mixture of maturity and youth, and nodded.
“You’re asking me that to flatter me,” she said. “Because you think my allegiances have turned after our fight.”
It stopped their conversation in its tracks, but she didn’t let the silence linger long.
“I know you know that the Brotherhood is bigger than you. If you are its leader.. then I am with you. You had to know that.” She frowned just a little, as if almost hurt by the thought that he might doubt her.
“I know that,” he said. The easy way in which the fight had been brought up had left him speechless, breathless even. It wasn’t that he had been avoiding talking about it with her, no. It was more…there was nothing to be said. Nothing could fix it, nothing could change the fact that it had happened. He hadn’t been in his right mind – which was no excuse – and he wasn’t going to start using excuses. It wasn’t his way.
“Then we’re on,” he said. “Python’s gonna blow his stack about me getting off the island, but he’ll have to deal with it.” He looked at the picture of Graydon Creed in the magazine again. “What IS it with these suited and booted types? Is all of freakin’ corporate America bent and twisted?”
She smiled. “Some in better ways than others. You’re just jealous.”
Relieved that she’d gotten out of explaining things to him just yet, she set the file on his desk for the moment. “I brought you identification. You have a passport, United States driver’s license, ID through France and Great Britain, a birth certificate and a social security number. It wasn’t something I was going to tell you about yet, but if you’re that eager to take off, you might as well know. It’s… kind of a necessity if you’re going to be a professional criminal.” She smirked. He knew she didn’t consider herself- or any of them- criminals.
“You bet I’m jealous,” he said, good-naturedly. “Those sons of bitches earn more in a week than a rat like me could ever have hoped to make in an entire year.” Then she mentioned about the ID. “You did?” He sat forward, his eyes lighting up. “Who am I?” He laughed lightly, a sound she wasn’t used to hearing from him at all. “Please tell me you haven’t ended up calling me Hubert Derbyshire or something crazily exotic like that.”
She laughed. “Um… well, you may think it sounds exotic but to me it’s entirely familiar. Johann Zauber. It links you to an identity of mine from the cold war that you may find comes in handy if you’re in the right prison or talking to the right people. I thought…” she cleared her throat, almost looking shy for a moment. “I thought it might be better for you to be Leni’s husband than a random no one. To an average police officer, you will be a nobody. But to who it counts, they’ll take better care of you.”
“I kind of like it,” he said, easily. “Johann Zauber. I can do that. And then if anybody calls me ‘John’ by mistake, it’s an easy mistake to make to untrained non-European ears. Nice thinking.”
He leaned back in the office chair and shifted his booted feet onto the desk in an easy way; not as a gesture of smug arrogance, but because he was comfortable like that.
“How… have things been,” she said, shifting the conversation once again. “There are some new faces here.”
“It’s been…interesting,” he said, choosing the word carefully. “I think you should meet Dharma – I reckon as how you and he will get on well. He’s been encouraging me to work outside. We’re building. Building a village that’s not inside the compound. For when this becomes the true safe haven for mutants in this world.”
The feet came off the desk and he leaned forward.
“Me, personally – I have my ups and downs, but I’m getting there. If that’s what you were asking as well.”
“Maybe I was.” Her voice softened just a little. “I left you in a bad state. Gill played it off but I could tell.”
She didn’t say anything about asking Emma to help him, or even having heard from her. And sometimes, that sort of restraint could make Mystique come across as otherworldly. But not now. There was a quirk to her expression that was almost funny. “You look great.” She smiled a bit.
“You think?” he said, and damn him if he didn’t actually preen, even if was only a little bit. “I’ve been working hard, putting some muscle on.”
Didn’t stop him still looking thin, still too thin for his build.
She’d already noticed that he was still eating next to nothing, although at least he seemed to have some sort of structure in his day.
“You look good yourself,” he said. “But then, you always did look good. No reason for that to change now.”
Mystique smirked. It was a good try. He was progressing anyway.
Picking up the file, she took back the paperwork on Hannah and tucked it in, closing her hand around it. “Let’s talk more about the rest of it later. I have some phone calls to make to get the info on Sombra that I need.” She stood and walked to the door.
Opening it and taking a step into the hallway, she looked back at him, and smiled a bit. About to say something, she changed her mind.
“Thanks for understanding.” She gestured to the file.
“Not a problem,” he said. “Thanks for the new identity.”
He too looked like he would say something else, but either changed his mind or simply couldn’t do it. “Just tell me when you want to go and consider it a date. I’ll need to contact Dom, too, have him on standby.”
