I admit, even I, soone who had traveled from different realities, having seen all this as fiction, knowing the lore of the FATE universe, and that is sothing strange, more so, since I was Arthuria, and had all of well… my mories, I knew just how strange things really were.
But even for , hearing that Fantox had a sentient techno-organic organism as his nervous system, an honest-to-god spaceship for a nervous system, was beyond shocking and downright confusing.
How that ca to be… I truly didn't know, nor did I want to think about it.
How did he get that? Why did he get it? So many questions.
I wasn't even very scientifically interested, but I was still struggling to understand it. If soone like Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, or any of those learned of it… I think they would just break.
With my head filled with that confused storm, I mostly just nodded a bit as we all agreed to return Sœur Laure to the church for proper help, and so she could report what had happened.
As for the rest of us, we all agreed to go to Nightcrawler's hideout.
He once more teleported us there, and well… Mordred's reaction was very pretty, spot on.
"Now this is what I expected the headquarters of the French Resistance should look like!" she said, arms wide open as she took in the sight before her.
A rundown, abandoned warehouse, with a couch and a few other anities around, like an old, dirty TV.
The place slled like mildew and dust, the kind of scent that clung to your clothes and reminded you of forgotten basents and post-apocalyptic video gas.
The floor creaked ominously with every step, and there was a pile of mismatched furniture in the corner that looked like it had been rescued from half a dozen different flea markets and possibly one haunted house.
All in all, it very much fit the feel of a hideout of a mutant on the run… yeah, it was nothing impressive. Which was sad in its own way.
Nightcrawler might look like a monster or a demon, but not a single person, not even , could deny how useful and valuable his mutant power was.
Honestly, he could put Amazon out of business in a week. For him, becoming rich in a minute was child's play… ten minutes? At that point, he would be staggeringly wealthy.
The power to just teleport freely around the world was just that valuable, even without thinking about the darker uses, such as spying, infiltration, or assassination. Just the ability to move people and goods around was invaluable.
He could also just work in fields that did good. Teleport people from accident sites to intensive care units. He could save lives and be paid for it.
Which rich guy wouldn't be willing to pay a high insurance to have him flash by when they needed it?
Yet, here he was, clearly living the life of a holess person, and worse yet, hunted down as a criminal just for the way he was born… truly, this world was crazy.
Nightcrawler gave us an apologetic shrug as he stepped into the room. "It's not much, but it's safe. Off the grid. And more importantly—" he gestured to a rusting mini-fridge, "—it has cold drinks."
"You call this a safehouse?" Fantox asked, raising one perfect white eyebrow. "I've seen more structure in a burning brothel."
Nightcrawler only grinned. "They burned the brothel down after I left."
Mordred spun on her heel and flopped onto the battered couch like she owned the place. "Get off his back, white guy, this is perfect! It's a pile of trash! Like the French Resistance!"
Fantox gave her a flat look. "I'm French."
"Yeah, I feel bad for you." Mordred shot back.
Nightcrawler chuckled, vanishing in a puff of sulfur and reappearing by the fridge. He opened it and pulled out a mismatched collection of bottles. "Soda, tap water, one old beer… and sothing I think is pickle juice."
"I claim the beer," Fantox said instantly.
"No one was fighting you for it," Maxi replied, wrinkling his nose as he eyed the inside of the fridge like it might bite.
anwhile, Manon took a slow walk around the space, running a hand across the dusty brick walls and ancient pipes. "How long have you been staying here?"
Nightcrawler shrugged, handing her a soda. "Off and on for a few months. I've had worse."
"Worse than this?" Mordred asked, throwing her boots up on the table. "You must've lived in a sewer."
"Once or twice, actually," he said casually, popping the top off his own drink.
Lancelot remained standing, leaning against the wall near the door, arms crossed and eyes watchful. He said nothing, but I could tell the surroundings didn't sit well with him. He was used to castles, not cracked linoleum and sagging couches.
I took a mont to sit as well, brushing off a cushion that probably hadn't been cleaned since the 1990s. It squished slightly. I tried not to think about it.
"I was sure you had joined up with Charles Xavier, given his resources. I don't see why you live like this." I couldn't help but ask.
Nightcrawler tilted his head, then gave a slow shrug, his yellow eyes glowing faintly in the low light.
"I did," he said. "Once. I still believe in his dream… But when Magneto went out, started all this chaos… The Professor he… just sat there, didn't do anything, even as people were hunted, and well, I couldn't sit still and do nothing."
"No way you are French!" Mordred said, clearly not wanting to acknowledge soone like him as French, she never did want to let that one down. Lancelot was French, so clearly, the French are bad, because Lancelot is bad.
"Well," he scratched the back of his head. "I'm not really, but I do owe a lot of people here a lot, so I wanted to help once things got this bad."
"Hah! I knew it!" Mordred laughed, though since most people there with us were in fact French, she wasn't making many friends. Even if most people just shook their heads rather than really disliking her.
"I heard about this Professor, but really, I don't like him much, he feels like I don't know… like he isn't doing anything? I might not like all the problems Magneto caused, or him calling himself king of mutants, but hell, at least one can't say he isn't fighting for you all." Maxi said, flopping into a beanbag chair that let out a concerning squish.
Nightcrawler gave Maxi a faint smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "He fights. But sotis the way he fights leaves too many behind."
Both have their problems," I muttered, half to myself. "One doesn't do enough, the other pushes too far."
"Yeah, sounds about right." Manon said as she sat with a can of cold soda in her hands.
"But, what have you been doing since leaving him? If you have been around for months?" I asked, curious about what was going on in France, as he might know plenty of useful information for my own search for Morgana.
Nightcrawler sat down on the edge of a rickety desk, the wood groaning beneath his weight as he took a sip from his bottle. He didn't answer imdiately.
"Helping where I can," he said at last. "Smuggling out mutants who are being hunted. Getting people across borders. Disrupting the darker elents that Magneto stirred up without realizing—or maybe realizing and not caring."
He twirled the bottle cap between two fingers. "There are so out there, working under his banner, claiming it's for mutantkind… but they're not freedom fighters. They're butchers. They want a world where only they matter. And that's not the world I believe in."
"That's not the world anyone should believe in," I said quietly.
He nodded. "Exactly. So I do what I can. I get ssages where they need to go. I help the injured. I sabotage the worst of the warlords pretending to be revolutionaries. And I try to make sure there's still sothing left standing by the ti this is all over."
"And people know to contact you for that?" Lancelot asked, finally breaking his silence.
"So do. I have friends. Allies. I'm not a one-man network, just… a reliable node. There's a mutant girl in Marseille who can read locations from blood. An old man in Tours with a voice that bends minds if you listen too long. There's even a priest who hides runaways in his wine cellar. We all do what we can."
"A priest?" Manon blinked. "I thought the Church condemned mutants."
"They do," Nightcrawler said with a slight smile. "But so of them still rember compassion. I suppose I'm proof that even demons can have faith."
Mordred tilted her head. "That's a little poetic for a guy who teleports through hell."
"I like poetry," he said.
"And I like stabbing," she replied. "We all have our thing."
Fantox lounged back, his coat draped dramatically around him. "So. You're a teleporting underground railroad. Good for you. But there is more than mutants going on in France these days… just look at tonight, while I'm sure the dia might bla it on mutants… we all know that it wasn't them."
Nightcrawler didn't argue. He stared into the distance for a mont, then nodded.
"There've been stories," he said. "Disappearances in the countryside. Whole villages waking up to find one house full of ash and bone. Black birds gathering over cities that don't migrate. People falling into comas after looking into mirrors. It's not mutation. At least… not the kind we know."
"Sounds like magic." I said softly, not a question.
He glanced at . "Yeah, I an, I don't really know magic, I an, until recently I didn't believe in it… But with Calot and all that, yeah, magic is real, and it's dangerous… so many suspect that so dark mages are taking advantage of the situation.
Nightcrawler glanced around the room, as if checking to make sure no one was listening—though we all already were.
"They say one of the train tunnels near Dijon collapsed overnight. No earthquakes. No explosives. Just… vanished. The walls were like lted wax. And not a single cara caught anything. People whisper it was a spell gone wrong. Or right, depending on who you ask."
Manon frowned. "And the police don't do anything?"
"They're overwheld. And afraid," he replied. "They bla it on radicals, mutant terrorists, even environntal collapse. Anything but what it really is."
"Magic," Maxi muttered. "Dark magic."
"Sothing old," Nightcrawler said, his voice low. "Sothing that doesn't care if it's seen anymore."
The room fell quiet again.
Then Mordred exhaled sharply. "Well, I was promised monsters. I guess I should be happy I'm getting them."
"You're not scared?" Manon asked her.
"Scared? ? Mordred? HAH! I'm fear itself! Monsters are scared of !" She shouted, jumped up, and held Clarent II to the sky.
Honestly, if I didn't know the truth, I would think she was so crazy cosplayer, playing a bit too hard.
But at least she was selling the lie pretty well, even while only saying the truth.
Maxi gave a theatrical slow clap. "So brave. So loud. Truly, the knight of our generation."
Mordred grinned down at him. "Damn right."
"Can you at least not wave the gun indoors?" Fantox muttered. "You'll shoot a hole in the ceiling."
"There are already plenty of holes in it." She said, glancing up at the very much not whole ceiling.
"Maybe," Nightcrawler sighed. "But I wouldn't want more either."
Lancelot rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This is chaos."
"Let the kids have their fun, Lancelot. This war is no place for them, so let them enjoy it while we take care of the real work." I said.
"As you say, your majesty."
(end of chapter)
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