White Queen gave her subject one final look, a sliver of attention sliding toward Daisy at the same time. Something about Mystique's cellular structure had a faint resemblance to Daisy's signature—but the details were off. For a dozen different reasons, Emma kept that observation to herself.
"Please find Jean." Cyclops, uncharacteristically, said something close to a gentle request. Emma gave a derisive snort and returned to her work, pushing the scan radius outward past New York's boundaries and into the wider world.
Magneto, meanwhile, was baffled. The old man had made his dramatic exit from the train station and had been cooling his heels at the pre-arranged rendezvous point ever since. He waited and waited, but Mystique never showed. The old man was genuinely confused—what on earth had happened to her? What was the point of snatching Rogue if she wasn't going to bring the girl here?
Mystique, as it happened, was in serious trouble. Very serious trouble.
It had all gone flawlessly at first. Taking on Wolverine's face to lure Rogue had worked perfectly. She'd played the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents—played even Daisy, who was effectively a faction leader in her own right—for complete fools. Not even mildly surprising. In the grand sweep of her exceptionally long life, it barely registered as a footnote.
The problem had started the moment they stepped outside the train station, when a group of workers stopped them cold. Wolverine's face was simply too recognizable as a threat.
Mystique had to maintain the performance—couldn't go on a killing spree in front of Rogue while wearing a hero's face—so she'd peacefully accompanied the workers for "questioning." She'd watched Rogue get escorted into a separate room, made short work of the workers the instant she was alone, and shed the Wolverine disguise immediately—that face had become a liability she couldn't afford. Without much hesitation, she shifted into Daisy.
The shift felt different from becoming Wolverine. That shape came with certain sensory adjustments—gaining some things, losing others. Becoming Daisy was considerably more comfortable. Same sex, high fidelity, smooth execution.
The Brotherhood had compiled an extensive file on Daisy Johnson. Mystique worked the imitation with practiced ease—FBI credentials, a convincing cover story, an impressionable young girl pulled back out the door and moving again.
Along the way, Rogue started asking questions. Where were they going? Why were the streets getting emptier? Why are you shaking like that?
Mystique had no time to answer.
Because she was shaking. And she couldn't stop.
At first she'd dismissed it as a minor anomaly. But it escalated. When it became undeniable, she finally acknowledged the obvious: something was very wrong.
Her cells were completely out of control.
"What on earth is that woman's power? Some kind of hidden gene?" Magneto had spent an entire battle getting properly acquainted with Daisy's abilities. Mystique, who hadn't been present for any of it, had no such primer. She fell back on standard mutant-pattern thinking to contain the runaway cell behavior.
Her power could replicate many physical-level traits—just the surface layer, nothing fundamental. She could manifest Wolverine's claws, for instance; that was a physical-level change.
Daisy's vibration was also a physical-level power. So when she'd copied it, she'd automatically inherited a partial version of the ability.
But she was no Azazel—someone who'd lived for several thousand years and actually knew about Inhumans. She had no idea what an Inhuman even was.
She'd been treating Daisy's cellular template as standard mutant. The result: the simulated Inhuman cells on her surface layer had entered violent conflict with her native mutant cells. The incompatibility was absolute.
Inside, it felt like a typhoon had taken up residence in her bloodstream. Her blood was boiling. Her organs were churning. Pain from crown to sole—worse than childbirth, considerably worse—and the external symptom was vibration, her body shaking at a cellular level, completely beyond her control.
Mystique forced herself forward two more steps. Then a shudder tore through her at a depth that felt like it reached her soul, bringing her to the ground. The pain surpassed every threshold she possessed. Her cells were experiencing blowback—the consequence of mutant cells attempting to simulate Eternal gene encoding.
Deep in Earth's primordial past, the cosmic entities known as the Celestials had conducted their great experiment on this young planet. They'd engineered two genetic templates: the first was mutable, the ancestor of mutantkind; the second became the blueprint for the Eternals. The two templates existed in a state of total mutual antagonism. Even the Celestials, at the height of their incomprehensible science, could not reconcile them.
In short: Mystique was thoroughly, catastrophically screwed.
"Aaaah—!" The pain dropped her to one knee. Sweat ran freely down her neck and began pooling on the pavement beneath her.
"What's wrong?" She was still wearing Daisy's face; Rogue had no way of knowing what had happened. Had she been injured in the earlier fight?
Mystique desperately wanted to drop the transformation, but the two cell populations had already tangled far beyond quick separation.
Human. Mutant. Inhuman. Eternal. Every cellular strain native to Earth, converging in a single body. Her powers had gone catastrophically haywire.
Watching the woman sweat through her clothes, blood vessels rising visibly under the skin, Rogue panicked. She wanted to call for help—but they were somewhere completely isolated, not a soul in sight.
"What do I do, what do I do?" She paced in place, helpless. She wanted to help, but her first-aid knowledge was essentially zero.
"Quick—quick—" Mystique's cellular collapse was accelerating. She fought to stay conscious long enough to communicate what she needed.
She didn't know what Daisy's secret was. But she knew the problem had started the moment she copied her. Whatever the cause, the investigation could wait—survival came first.
Mystique had studied Rogue's file thoroughly. She understood her power. This girl might be able to absorb the runaway energy out of her. A long shot—but dying was worse than any long shot.
Rogue's ability was genuinely broken. It wasn't limited to mutants. She could drain Thor. She could drain Captain Marvel. She could drain She-Hulk. On Earth, there was almost no one she couldn't touch—and with zero backlash, no side effects, clean transfer, immediate deployment. The only downside: borrowed powers faded. She couldn't generate what wasn't native to her.
Mystique wanted exactly that—have Rogue pull out the simulated energy and she could manage the rest herself.
But her explanation came out fragmented and barely coherent. Rogue didn't get it.
Mystique cursed Charles Xavier's teaching standards internally, labeled his students dangerously slow, and crawled forward two agonizing steps to reach for Rogue's hand.
"You want me to call for help?" A headshake. "You want water?" Another headshake.
They cycled through an absurd number of wrong guesses before Rogue finally landed on the last option: "You're in too much pain, so you want to die? You know what I can do?"
Mystique nearly coughed up blood. Under any other circumstances she would have throttled this girl. But the outcome was irrelevant—only the action mattered. She nodded vigorously. Yes. I want to die. Please, by all means, get on with it.
Watching Mystique writhe against the pavement, Rogue couldn't bear to stand there doing nothing. In her own mind, her power was a curse she'd carry her whole life—a guilt she could never put down. If it could at least give someone peace at the end, that had to count as doing good.
She peeled off her glove. She reached down and touched Mystique's arm. And quietly, she activated her power.