The ill-fated last Hellfire Gala:
Orchis extorted Charles Xavier into forcing the mutants to walk through the Krakoan gates. Some X-Men had the mental tools to resist his telepathic order, but most mutants obeyed… and then there was Mystique. Refusing to give in, she ran and, under the telepathic onslaught, finally jumped down a cliff to her seeming death.
The psychic bamf that has been following Nightcrawler introduces itself as Greek chorus for this story and narrates it.
Having survived and hallucinating about her baby, Mystique later attacked an Orchids guard. Despite remembering the forest, some part of her knew she had to leave for New York.
Months later, a confused and indigent Mystique makes her living in Central Park, where finally she is confronted by Nightcrawler, who is hiding his true identity behind a Spider-Man suit and is called the Creepy Crawler.
She shouts at him to leave her alone, while he pleads that they need to talk. Again, she mutters: what happened to her baby? She stalks away. He follows, pleading that he doesn’t want to shock her but she can’t run from this. Her baby - her son – is fine. He is right here.
She trains her gun at him and shouts, what does he know about facing death? Hypocrite! She’s watched him. Avoiding whatever broke him by helping the sapiens scum who… who…
She breaks down, sobbing that she left him in the forest, but they’ve taken him…
He tells her he thinks her mind has returned to a point of trauma. She presses her gun against his chin and snarls he doesn’t know anything! He begins carefully that she was masquerading as the wife of Baron Christian Wagner, exploiting his wealth, home and power. He has always assumed Wagner was just an easy stopgap during a separation from her true love Dest… Mystique warns him not to mention her.
She turns and remembers Christian wasn’t an easy stopgap. He wasn’t an easy anything! He was as boring as he was weak.
Hence the affair with Azazel, Kurt suggests. Azazel, Mystique murmurs. She thought she was in love with him. She pictured herself as a mutant queen with a darkling prince on her knee. She was a fool! He was nothing but a lecherous old immortal who abandoned her the moment he’d left his mark. Christian grew suspicious, of course. The charade couldn’t last.
So, she murdered him, Kurt states. Mystique warns him that it’s dangerous to boast the secrets of a killer. She lived as a human for two years in that backwater. Does he know what finally caused the mask to slip?
He stammers that he assumed the pain of childbirth… No! she scoffs. It was the moment she felt her son’s skin against hers. The townsfolk heard, of course. Lynch mobs, Bibles. She fled with the child… her recollection turns hazy. The thugs had circled back to the castle and… She wonders why things are hazy. As though whichever way she tells the story, it doesn’t add up. She knows she had to go back for something. All she remembers for sure is that she dropped the child, then… she went to rescue her wife.
What? Kurst bursts out in surprise.
Mystique continues. But Irene wasn’t there and, when she went back, the baby… She groans. Is she telling him Destiny was involved in all this? Kurt asks.
Blood bursts from Mystique’s nose and she screams in agony, then trains her gun at him, screaming what did he do to her ba… Scheiße! Kurt swears, manifests his Hopesword and cuts through her gun. He explains that it is the embodiment of hope, that a better world is possible. It has taught him that in the darkest hollows the brightest flames are lit. He carefully puts the sword into her hand, stating it is his hope that she will not will not turn her flame upon him. And that that little borrowed light might help her face the dark place in her mind that has become her prison. He takes hold of the hopesword, and a psychic block in her mind shatters.
She sinks down exhausted and groans that it is all about Destiny. Crying she begins that they never had a simple love…
Mystique’s narration:
Irene’s mind is ruled by chains of ifs and whens, whereas hers cannot be ruled at all. They are so different. So often they part, only to reunite again. And they agreed long ago that they would take lovers if loneliness or desire demanded. Politicians, warlords, aristocrats… Raven came to see them as toys to be enjoyed and exploited. That was the only rule that mattered, whatever they did, it had to benefit them. For the love of each other, they bled the world dry. Her toys tended to break quite easily.
So, during one of those phases, she married the Bavarian count Christian Wagner. After some time, she hired Irene as their new maid. Patronizingly, Wagner permitted her that, as the household was female business. He just chided that she not to spend too much. They would not want to waste their son’s inheritance before he was even conceived.
Christian’s novelty wore off quick, but his resources warranted the long game. However, she did become interested in a business associate of his, the rakish Azazel. They became lovers and he revealed himself as a mutant, fancying himself a demon lord, whereas Raven saw a lecherous old narcissist cosplaying as a demon. She grew bored with him even more quickly. All she ever wanted was longevity, liberty and luxury. What could he offer that she couldn’t take herself?
She couldn’t understand why Irene encouraged the affair. And yet she had been distracted lately. Raven feared another separation was coming. And so, one time in bed, she asked the whimpering Irene what the future held. Irene admitted she hadn’t had a vison for months. Her mind had been eclipsed by other signs. Suddenly, she announced she would like to build a family with Raven.
Mystique muses there were other pregnancies before and after. Accidents, inconveniences, tragedies upon arriving, but never a child conceived in love.
Present:
Crying and smiling, Mystique reveals that the two of them made a baby. After some silence Kurt sputters they are both w…
Mystique cuts him off and orders him not to be pathetic. She has lived for years as sapien males. Years more as females. Does he know what she has observed? They are all as awful as each other. The one true binary division lies not between genders or sexes or sexualities. It lies between those who are allowed to be with whom they wish and those denied that right.
She gets up, fists formed. She is Raven Darkholme. Whatever else she is, whether for a lifetime or a single night, is only for her to say!
Kurt stammers he gets that part, but the science… the genetics! He doesn’t’ get…
Raven scoffs. If he thinks she just shifts skin like a clever blue squid? She has an instinctive command of cells, hormones ribosomes. Does he think she can’t rewrite every disgusting trace of sapien code if she has to?
He points out that’s close to playing… Don’t you dare! she hisses. These creatures will pierce their ears, laser their retinas, and fit metronomes to their hearts, but adjust a thread of RNA? Retool one molecular factory into another, and suddenly you are tampering with the divine? There is no magic in them! There is just the machinery of monkeys! Normally, she wouldn’t dirty her hands with gametes, borrowing traits from the flesh she’d touched. Christian, Azazel and countless others, they were but the shades on her palette… and yet Irene’s always had the knack for persuading her. Still, she was hoping for a daughter. She gets hit by more memories and continues narrating.
Mystique’s narration:
She ended the relationship with Azazel immediately, which apparently no one had done before. He shouted at her that he was ending things, but she was sure he was sobbing between bursts of anger.
At home, she grew a bump at the same rate as Irene to keep Christian happy. Still, his paranoia grew. He’d seen how Azazel had looked at her. There was talk of paternity tests. He began to spy on her and finally caught her in bed with Irene. He began shouting homophobic epithets and threats. Mystique wasn’t having it. She shifted to her true form and stabbed him.
She then took his identity and dismissed the rest of the staff. Sometimes, she showed up in town as his pregnant widow to keep up appearances, and yet she found herself continuing to affect the belly, even when it was only her and Irene. They were both carrying him. Those were among the happiest months of her life.
Finally, Irene gave birth with a doctor and nurse in attendance. She knew in advance she would labor for 22 hours, that she would lose a lot of blood and be on painkillers for days. That foreknowledge didn’t make it easier.
The doctor was horrified when he first saw the child, whispering to Mystique that her servant’s child was blue and deformed. He believed it was a lack of oxygen and that the child would die. She ordered him to give her the boy and pronounced him perfect. Instinctively, she shifted to her true form to let her son’s first look at her not be a lie. The three were happy in their world, not noticing the horrified looks of doctor and nurse.
There had been rumors of devilry ever since Azazel had been there, so when the doctor talked it didn’t take much for a mob to storm the castle.
Irene, still bedridden, told Mystique to get the child to safety, she would be fine. Mystique ran into the forest but then saw the mob laying fire to the castle. She left the child sleeping at the roots of a tree, promising to be back in a few minutes. She ran to the burning castle but it was empty and, when she returned to the tree, the baby was gone.
Present:
She cries, reliving the horror. Nightcrawler has sunk to his knees, shaken as well. Then he takes off his mask, he apologizes for not doing this sooner. He was trying to be gentle and he admits he was trying to see past her sins. How can he speak of hope when he is so slow to forgive! But he is here now.
Mystique just harumphes sullenly, not at all surprised. She thinks she’s probably known deep down, since she first saw that ridiculous outfit. But… he tries to protest. Angrily, she continues that those events happened half a world away. Why would she come here – to the heart of the mutant story? Some part of her below the trauma has been keeping her close to the big picture. Perhaps it hoped to find her tangled up in all of this. She gets up announcing she doesn’t need his pity. She is not insane. Xavier pushed too hard. Her mind reacted by regressing to a point of pure focus. Pure hate.
Kurt ventures that they need to talk about what this means for them. No, they don’t, she cuts him off. They have lived a lifetime apart. She is not that mother anymore – and he is not that baby. This is on him! she shouts agitated. With his magic hopestick and his unsolicited *$%& forgiveness! He couldn’t help poking! So, they will see this through! They will see where those unchained memories lead, no matter the pain!
There were several years of numbness, sex, murder, money nihilism and the illusion of meaning. A lot of fun in its way, until… She groans. Until the day she let herself be found.
Mystique’s narration:
She stands behind Destiny, who is sitting on park bench, overlooking a playground. Mystique holds a gun to her head. Irene calmly greets her. She knows, Raven hates. That she hurts. Irene does too. But, right now, she needs them. She refers to a little girl with a white streak in her brown hair, sitting dejected on one of the rides.
Irene explains that Anna Marie has been on the streets for a month. Irene has been dreaming about her.
Angrily, Mystique snaps that it has been five years. Where has she been? Irene promises answers but points out the pimps and pushers have already noticed the girl. She has fifteen minutes before fate pulls her under. Please go!
And so, Raven talked to the girl and the two of them took her in.
Present:
Mystique muses Irene always knew how to convince her and she had always wanted a daughter, but how could she give her the love she deserved, when half her heart was lost? She flailed and then Irene told her how she had originally brought Azazel into town and encouraged their horrible affair. She had had a vision of that obnoxious fiend, bestriding the cosmos. She had seen him become ultimate evil and putting an end to their love, unless a child was born which he’d assume was his own. Over Kurt’s protest she continues, unless his obsessions with heirs would allow the boy to sabotage his big stupid ambitions.
Narration:
Irene told her she didn’t want to let him go… didn’t want to tell that old witch Szardos where to find him, but it was the only way. Their boy weaves through the night in every dark future! He is the one that drives back the night!
Present:
She said he had to be raised just so. An outcast. Beaten and burned by a world that despised him… and yet? Better with each blow. Rising above each blow and lash…
Kurt begs her to stop. He is more than a…
Narration:
Mystique attacked Irene shouting that her son is more than tool of fate! Irene offered a way to fix this and so soon they asked Charles Xavier for help to take away the memories that hurt them. Irene wanted to lose all her memories of ever having a son, so she could focus on her wife and daughter. Looking away, Mystique agreed that she wanted to be free from the loss and hate, but she needed to know the boy was hers.
After assuring them he would purge the matter from his own mind afterwards, he agreed to do it, but added they would have the lingering feeling of owing him a favor. He warned Mystique that, when memories are perforated rather than excised, the mind may create its own false memories. She may find the version she remembers even uglier than the truth. She snapped at him to do it.
Present:
Mystique curses Xavier for making her think she had abandoned her son. Kurt realizes that, at the gala, Xavier didn’t break Mystique’s mind but his own work. Mystique cries that she let him steal her love for her son, the life they should have had together! What has she done to her baby? she begins again.
Kurt takes her hand and reminds her that her son is here. She doesn’t have to be alone ever again. He is here not because of fate or prophecy, but because he needs her. As much as she needs him. Because he has needed her his whole lonely life. And it is in the darkest hollows that the brightest flames are lit.
The two cling to each other, and the bamf remarks there is a new beginning everywhere you look.
