Chapter 97: The Endless Desert

1st September 2005, Valley of Kings

(Mystique POV)

For the first time in her life, Mystique was absolutely speechless. What she has just seen, what she has just experienced, was something that both humbled her and scared her out of her mind. Here in the sands of the desert, in the heart of Egypt, she stood still, in shock.

To be honest with herself, the shapeshifter entered this fight knowing that she had a small chance at surviving it. They weren’t fighting some upstart mutant who got a taste of power and got addicted to it. They were fighting someone who was able to take control of both Charles and Eric. No, they’re Xavier and Magneto now. It’s sad that the people she had once considered to be her closest friends are now nothing but strangers to her.

Magneto stopped being her ally and became her superior. The man actively frightened her into obeying his orders, and who wouldn’t be terrified at someone of his power and skill. Xavier on the other hand, lost her trust when she decided to leave with Magneto after the fiasco in Cuba. He had tried to persuade her using his powers to stay with him, removing the point of her having a choice in the first place. Fortunately, Mystique was familiar with his telepathy, having lived in his house, or mansion, for years. She was able to resist his powers somewhat, which was something she did when she noticed the mental compulsion. He stopped being Charles after that, he became Xavier instead.

The shapeshifter stayed under the thumb of those two super mutants for decades. Truth be told, she disagreed with both. Magneto was too violent, focusing on the extermination of humans in general. The master of magnetism was still affected by his childhood in the concentration camps during the second world war. Charles, however, was too pacifistic. He put his faith in the understanding nature of humans, hoping for some sort of coexistence. It was a beautiful dream, but that’s the problem; it’s just a dream.

Charles never understood the true nature of humans. When you remove all threats or supervision, they became little more than animals. Mystique saw this side of the world before she met Charles and moved in with him. On the streets, might makes right. However, society punishes those who break the rules, and that allowed the people to feel safe and secure, but also to curb their instincts. The reality of mutants throws that security out of the window. If Magneto decided to one day kill the president, there was little that anyone could do to stop him, or apprehend him after the fact.

Fear breads anger and anger breads hatred. Charles never understood that, he hadn’t suffered much, nothing more than neglectful parents and his paralysis from the waist down during the shitstorm that was Cuba. Charles always put humanity above mutants and that belief scared the crap out of her. She chose Magneto, not because she supported him, but because it was the only path in front of her that had a chance at her kind’s survival. Irene said so herself, and she was rarely wrong when she divined the future.

But now, Mystique understood how outclassed she really was. They fought a foe so much stronger than them; it would have been impossible for them to survive. The shapeshifter had held hope after their little team defeated the three horsemen, Jean Grey proving, surprisingly, to be a valuable asset to their makeshift team. After Magneto being free, she thought they had a chance. She thought wrong. Apocalypse played with them, and beat them soundly.

To be fair, Mystique didn’t mind dying. She was far older than she looked and she lived a full life. She knew misery, and knew great love. She has seen conflict and experienced true serenity. What she wouldn’t accept was her son, Kurt, dying as well. Mystique had many regrets in her life, but losing Kurt had to be one of her worst. It was nice to see that he was well taken care of, and was overjoyed when she saw him in the institute, recognizing him the moment she laid eyes on him.

However, his joining of Xavier’s little team posed problems to the missions he will be expected to accomplish in the future. The thought of having her little teleporter in a conflict like the one she just experienced sickened her. She’ll need to talk to Xavier about it.

Thankfully, her son hadn’t gone out of his way to enter the fight, choosing to teleport people out of harm’s way instead. The kids were uninjured in the fight and that was her priority. Except for the Grey girl. The shapeshifter had no idea what the hell Xavier did to her, but when she returned to fight Apocalypse, she was more than powerful. Mystique had no idea how to explain it properly. There was something inhuman in her gaze, and the shapeshifter shivered at the memory of the empty look in her eyes as she easily overpowered the so called father of mutants. She would have been amused at Apocalypse getting his ass handed to him by a teenage girl if she wasn’t scared out of her mind of the girl.

Said girl had been knocked out by the blast from the temple opening. She still didn’t understand the mumbo jumbo that Apocalypse was trying to accomplish and she was too tired to care about it. But the aftermath was Jean being knocked out somehow and Apocalypse fighting a figure in black, Wadjet if she heard correctly. The issue was the Mystique knew who she was. One of the teachers at her school, Jasmine Sayre.

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They had met through Irene decades ago; she went by a different name back then. The green eyes woman had taken upon herself to protect Irene, something about the rarity of true seers. Mystique had no problems about someone protecting her beloved, but whenever she stood at the presence of the history teacher, she felt like something more. She had once questioned her ability to protect Irene. That was until a group of some sort of Vampires attacked her beloved and was defeated soundly by Sayre. She was wearing the same outfit, and the bloodsuckers had trembled in fear at the sight of her, so she must have some sort of reputation in certain circles. All she did then was unleash a wave of shadows that pulverized the attackers.

Either way, Mystique had assumed that she was a mutant capable of some sort of shadow manipulation and that was somehow extremely long lived; she hadn’t aged ever since the day they first met. She expected a powerful mutant, she didn’t expect this.

First of all, she and Apocalypse seem to be familiar with each other. Which means that she had lived for far more than the shapeshifter thought, thousands of years at the very least. Mystique had a very difficult time processing this. But what truly made her jaw drop was her power. The shapeshifter didn’t get to see the first part of the fight, as she was knocked out when the pyramid was destroyed but the battle of giants that happened between Apocalypse and Jasmine pretty much woke everyone up; their blows generated shockwaves that were enough to wake people from miles away. The history teacher ended up easily triumphing against the father of mutants, killing him in minutes, not looking winded in the slightest and then melting into the shadows.

This was a fight between gods, and Mystique was especially out of place in a battle like this. She specialized in infiltration and assassinations, not front line combat. She was a good recruiter but she would always lose when it came to people like Magneto or Storm.

After the fight was over, all that was left was to get back to New York. Yet, no one moved, staring at the devastation in front of them. What was once an ancient burial site, is barely more than a crater. A large section of the mountain had collapsed. The valley was covered in a thin layer of ash and sand. The Mystique was sure that they will have to redraw maps of the area after today.

Her teammates were feeling the same, considering they were still frozen at the sight in front of them. Even Magneto kept looking at where the valley once stood with wide eyes.

Logan was the one who broke the silence, “Well, that was a thing.”

Yeah, that’s the best way to put it and Mystique turned around to check on the children. They seemed relatively unharmed, just a few concussions and Pietro’s broken leg. Considering his passive healing factor, this shouldn’t be much of a problem. They looked pale though, either from the fight with Apocalypse or the display of power the ‘Wadjet’ expressed. The important thing was that the children were safe and that was what mattered in the end.

Summers’ brain seemed to have rebooted, “Jean!”

Oh, yeah. Mystique had forgotten about her. The redhead had been impressive, especially with her fight with Magneto. The Summers boy seemed obsessed with her though, considering she noticed him pretty much stalking her whenever they were in school. She wondered why Xavier was letting this happen and he must be. One has no right to privacy in Xavier’s school to gifted youngsters.

The boy ran towards the rubble with no concern. Was he planning to look in the entire valley by himself? Mystique just gave a look to Logan and he nodded. He sniffed somewhat loudly and said, “She’ over there.”

The rest of the team followed him, Summers joining them when he noticed they went a different way. They found the redhead lying unconscious. When Hank checked her for injuries, he cleared her, “She’s alright, but there’s something you need to see.” He was addressing Ororo directly.

He pointed at a rip in her suit near her belly. At a closer inspection, she was able to see underneath, and there was some sort of tattoo under it. Ororo ripped open the rest of the suit near her stomach and gaped at what was underneath. The tattoo was far larger than it appeared, it looked like some sort of lightning bolt, but with thousands of small symbols coming around it. The shapeshifter had seen something like this before. She had no doubt that this was magic.

Yes, Mystique was aware of magic, but only in passing. She had an acquaintance in the form of Agatha Harkness, who was also a witch. She also seemed to be as ageless as Jasmine but appears to have a few screws loose. It was safe to assume that Jasmine was a witch as well.

Logan picked up the unconscious teenager and Mystique noticed the lustful look on Summers’ face when he looked at the exposed belly of the redhead. Seriously, what was wrong with that kid? The was unconscious for crying out loud. What kind of school was Xavier running? Mystique knew that she shouldn’t criticize him, especially with how the members of the Brotherhood acted. But these kids came from very poor backgrounds, and only respected power, a survival instinct so to speak.

Logan sniffed once more, “Chuck’s that way.” He pointed at another direction. And once again they followed him, with Pietro being carried by Fred because of his broken leg.

They were tired and sore. They were barely standing but they carried on to get to Xavier. Perhaps he could explain what the hell actually happened to the Grey girl. They found the telepath lying down next to Kurt, looking visibly relieved at their survival, “I’m so glad to see you’re okay.”

Magneto interjected, “This changes nothing, Charles.”

“Surely you can see how much we could achieve together.”

God, they’re going to have that absurd argument again. The shapeshifter was rather sick of it to be honest.

Magneto shook his head, “We are fundamentally different Charles. My ideals have not changed and you still won’t give up your ridiculous dream.”

Scott interrupted them, “Hey!”

One look from Magneto and the kid crumbled. Mystique didn’t think less of the boy. Magneto sometimes terrified the hell out of her too.

“You once believed in that dream too, Eric.”

Magneto didn’t respond to Xavier and just turned to face Mystique, “We’re leaving.”

Suddenly, a sphere of iron came from the sky. It opened up, showing the fact that it was hollow. Magneto stepped inside in utter silence and Mystique mentioned to the members of the fellowship to follow. Once the sphere closed, she heard Magneto mutter, “Goodbye, old friend.”

Mystique smiled to herself; perhaps Eric was still in there somewhere.