Chapter 14

"English"

"Japanese"

.o.

Mystique walked over to where Magneto stood at the top of a half-finished building overlooking the downtown area of Bayville. He glanced sideways at her as she drew level with him but didn't speak.

"Pietro's group is still not committed." She said, "They don't seem to care very much for the overall status of mutants. You might have more luck if you give them some sort of personal reason to go along with your plan."

The taller mutant nodded slowly. The teenagers' reaction wasn't entirely unexpected, but neither was he pleased about it.

"There is something else." She began, and he turned slightly toward her, indicating that he was listening, though his gaze remained on the city blocks below them. "I spoke to you of the rumors going around town that the group of Japanese students that have seemed so interested in the X-men have a mutant among them." He nodded slightly. "Well Lance thinks that at least two others may be mutants as well, if not all of them."

This seemed to catch more of his attention, and he turned to face her fully. "Why does he believe this?"

"Apparently they are both stronger and faster than a human has any right to be; and they are very comfortable, almost casual about the childrens' powers."

Magneto's eyes narrowed. "while it may be not mean they themselves have powers, it seems this group is worth looking into more closely. Do that if you would? I have a different visit to make."

.o.

Charles was floored. It wasn't a feeling he was accustomed to. Being a telepath tended to let one avoid surprises, unpleasant or otherwise, and it had been a long time since anything so totally unexpected had occurred.

"Is this the only such clip you found?" He managed to keep his voice calm and steady. Sounding interested, but not overly shocked.

"No, this was the first," Hank replied, "but there are numerous similar clips; all from the same day. This event was mainly localized to a specific region of Japan, but Rikuo seems to be the focal point of it."

"And they were really trying to kill the boy?"

"Yes, apparently there was an urban legend about a creature that could make prophesies, and it said that the world would end unless Rikuo Nura died."

Charles sat back, frowning, "But this occurred years ago, how did we not hear about it? We've been listening for decades for any type of event that could possibly be related to mutants."

"That's the really strange thing Charles. There seems to have been no aftereffects. No news coverage, no further videos. It's as if all these people went crazy for a day, and then forgot about it."

"And Rikuo himself?"

"I don't know, his school records don't indicate that he even missed class."

Charles folded his hands together. "Did you find anything regarding the others?"

"Well Tsurara, Kitty's friend, appears to have been with him during this event, though there's no footage of the others. Actually, it's a bit odd." He trailed off.

"Yes?" Charles nudged him.

"Well, all of them except Rikuo and Tsurara have very average records. But they just seem, off."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, it's just that given what we know about those two who have been spending time with the brotherhood teens, I'd expect to see numerous delinquency markings. But there's nothing."

Charles nodded, picking up on the blue mutant's train of thought. "You think these records are forged, or at least tampered with."

Hank nodded sharply, "that would be my best guess."

Charles frowned, "See what you can find."

.o.

Kubinashi walked along the busy sidewalk only half paying attention to his surroundings. Cars whizzed by on the street next to him, the winds they stirred up pulling at the ends of the scarf he had tied around where his neck would have been. He turned absently down a side street, making his way back toward where he'd parked the rental car.

Distracted as he was, he still caught the subtle movements behind and ahead of him moments before his way was blocked. The yokai turned slightly so that his back was mostly to a wall as he sized up the man who had stepped in front of him.

He was big. His hair was cropped close to his head, and he had an overall militaristic look to him. He didn't seem like he was going to attack immediately though, so Kubinashi risked a glance to see who had been following him.

The man behind him was familiar. Kubinashi's mind raced as he tried to think of where he'd seen the man before, but nothing came to mind immediately. The man was also tall, but leaner than his companion. He wore a long brown overcoat with strange-looking clothing underneath and was flipping a deck of cards between his hands as he leaned against the wall across from Kubinashi grinning.

"Well?" Kubinashi said after a few moments passed without either of them saying anything. "Is there a specific reason you've blocked my way back to my car? I really don't want to get a ticket when the meter runs out of time."

"Be patient," The grinning man said, the cards making a flicking sound as he passed them from hand to hand. "We're waitin' on someone else."

It suddenly clicked. This man was the one from the footage of the explosion downtown several nights ago. Kubinashi eyed the cards in his hands warily, his fighting instincts telling him that they were likely related to the man's powers, and so, dangerous.

A large shadow passed overhead and Kubinashi looked up to see a large bird descending in a sharp dive. As it neared the ground it sudden;y morphed into a blue-skinned woman standing on the ground before him. Kubinashi blinked at her, he sensed no aura of fear from any of the three surrounding him, they must be mutants then.

"Hello," The woman began, "My name is Mystique, and you are the chaperone to the Japanese foreign exchange students attending Bayville high."

It was more a statement than a question, but Kubinashi nodded slowly, "I am one of the chaperones, yes."

"We are here as part of the brotherhood, a group that provides support and protection for mutants. It has come to our leader's attention that several of your students are in fact mutants. We're here to offer them our protection from the prejudice that will arise as their abilities are discovered."

Kubinashi kept his face in a slightly confused expression as his mind raced. Several of the students were mutants? They knew of the rumors surrounding Kappa, but as far as he knew none of the others had blown their cover as normal teens. "I'm afraid you must be misinformed," he said carefully, "no one in our group is a mutant. It appears that the local obsession with them has led to some hasty assumptions because the students I supervise are new, but those rumors are incorrect."

The woman cocked her head to the side. "But you're so nonchalant about our powers and abilities. And by all reports your students act the same. Not nervous, awed, or even overly curious about the powers of the mutants they've befriended. You have to admit it's suspicious."

"What you see as suspicious is only good manners to us." Kubinashi said firmly, "To ask such questions of new acquaintances would be rude and prying, so they do not do so. I am afraid your evidences are nothing more than cultural differences."

The three of them regarded him but didn't seem convinced. Honestly Kubinashi didn't believe their protests would stand up much longer, but for now, Rikuo would want to know of this interaction. "If that is all," He said aloud, "then I really must be going. Have a good day."

He stepped around the bulky man, nodded to them, and continued toward where he had parked the car, his hand gripping tightly to the string in his pocket in case the mutants behind him decided to attack. They didn't.

He entered the car and started it up. As he drove past the alley, he could see that the mutants who had confronted him were gone.

.o.

Rikuo listened to Kubinashi's report with a frown, this was not good. "You're sure she said 'several' students."

"Yes, although that could just be an exaggeration of the current rumors."

"This is two main mutant factions that have approached us on it. I wonder if we could manage an infiltration; it would…"

"Rikuo-sama" A voice interrupted. They looked up to see Kejoro leaning in from the sitting room. "I think you need to see this."

Rikuo stood and walked quickly into the other room. Kejoro gestured to the television, which was on and Rikuo stepped closer with a frown. On screen a large group of people were milling about, chanting something. He opened his mouth to ask what was occurring, when the camera zoomed out, showing the Xavier Institute. His eyes widened slightly in realization.

"Anti-mutant protestors."

"Yes, it would seem that tensions are rising quickly across the whole nation." Kejoro commented. "Just earlier there was an announcement that Edward Kelly, a recently elected official, would be giving an interview on his 'plan for dealing with the mutant threat'."

Rikuo frowned, "hopefully he doesn't try anything too drastic, humans often do crazy things when they're afraid."

.o.

Tsurara glanced out the window again. The mob of people were still outside the institute gate. They'd arrived shortly after Tsurara and Kitty had begun studying and weren't letting anyone in or out of the gates. That had been several hours ago. The project was done, and they'd been sitting in the main living room for a while.

Kitty caught her glance and winced. "I'm really sorry Tsurara, if I'd known this would happen I'd've suggested we study somewhere else."

"No worries," Tsurara said with a bright smile. "They can't stay out there forever. I should probably call Kejoro and let her know I'm alright though, and that I might be late getting back."

Kitty shifted in her seat. "Yeah, I don't want you to get in trouble for being late though."

Tsurara shrugged, "Not much we can do about it." She said as nonchalantly as she could manage. In truth she was glad for the opportunity this presented. It wouldn't be unreasonable for her to be more openly curious about mutant abilities while she was here right?

"So, what's it like having, I think the American term is 'superpowers'?"

Kitty looked at her in surprise.

"I understand if you don't really want to talk about it," Tsurara added quickly, trying to mimic the way some of Rikuo's human friends from school acted when they were nervous. "But I am curious."

Kitty sat back slowly. "It's not like I don't want to talk about it... it's just that you never know how people are going to react. Will they be afraid of what I can do? Will they think I'm dangerous?" She looked down at her hands, "I guess with so much about mutants on the news and stuff, I kinda pretend it's not real when I'm around normal people."

Tsurara shifted slightly, she didn't want to push the other girl, but with tensions escalating the way they were, they needed more information before the paranoia started to spread to other countries.

"Is there a theme to it?" she asked, "the way the different powers work I mean."

Kitty looked up, "what do you mean?"

"Well in Japanese folklore," she thought quickly through the various things Kiyotsugu had said before he knew Rikuo was the head of the Nura clan, "There are supernatural beings called yokai, and they have lots of different types of abilities, but they're dependent on the type of yokai. Do mutant powers work the same way? Like predictable abilities in different groupings?"

Kitty blinked at her then sat back with a slight smile, seeming to relax at Tsurara's apparent innocent curiosity.

"Not really. They're really random actually. Like I can phase my molecules between the molecules of solid objects, Bobby can freeze things, Evan could shoot these weird bony spikes outs of his hands and arms and stuff, Kurt can teleport, plus his mutation made him look… different." She trailed off. "So no there's not a lot of reason to it. Even inside categories like telepathy, it's different, or at least that's what Jean says."

She suddenly bolted to her feet. "Oh, I'm an idiot! Kurt can probably teleport you out past the protesters. Let's go ask him."

She grabbed Tsurara by the wrist and dragged the surprised yokai behind her as she dashed through the mansion in search for the teleporter.

.o.

Callisto looked up sharply as movement rushed through the Morlocks' camp in a wave. Pipes on the walls shuddered, metal debris on the ground began to rush toward the east wall, and a few of the lean-tos fell down as their supports were wrenched loose. Voices cried out in surprise and fear and she saw people running from the west side of camp.

She stood up with a scowl and stalked towards the disruption, against the flow of people.

"Alright Magneto, what do you want!" she shouted as a figure hovering a few inches off the ground came into view.

"Why Callisto, so good to see you again." The brotherhood leader smiled down at her and she suppressed a shudder. She hated this man.

"Although," he continued glancing around the cavern, "You certainly haven't been doing very well for yourself."

"You know well enough why we're down here Magneto," she snapped, "now what do you want?" To the sides she could see other figures, probably some of his thugs, lingering in the shadows. This wasn't good, most of her people weren't any good at fighting, that's why they'd been chased into the sewers. The few fighters they did have she could sense coming up behind her, trying to create some sort of a barrier between Magneto's 'brotherhood' and their own.

"No need to be so hostile my good lady," Magneto's smile never left his face, "I'm simply here to offer some… assistance."

She snorted.

"My, such skepticism. I know your people have been struggling down here, the leakage from power 8 caused many to get sick didn't it?" He looked at her somberly, she glared back.

"That was weeks ago Magneto, we've almost completely recovered from that. What's your real game?"

"Aren't you tired of having to hide from the humans? Tired of living in fear?" He'd raised his voice; he wasn't just speaking to her anymore. "All you wanted was to be left alone to live your life. But could they let you? No, they had to cast you out. And now they build weapons to hunt you down, to hunt all of us down! Soon not even these sewers will be safe for you."

Murmurs broke out through the entire cavern, Callisto clenched her fists, never breaking eye contact with Magneto.

"I've seen this before," he continued, "they will never be satisfied so long as we mutants live freely. If we wait, they will strike, and we will be scattered and unprepared. But if we gather now, join together, and show them that we are not going to simply lie down; then we will have a chance at living a better life!"

The voices behind her seemed to be agreeing with him. Damn this man, he was too good at working with crowds.

"You ask me what my game is?" He said more quietly, drifting down to stand on the ground before her. "This, showing the world that they cannot simply stomp mutants into the ground. A solid front, to face them and rebuff their attacks. This is my 'game' Callisto, and it's their only chance for survival. Or did you really believe the humans would let you live down here in peace?" He smiled at her, like a parent to a dense child.

"You're going to push us into a war Magneto." She spat at him. "A war we can't win."

"Oh, I think we can win." He retorted with a smile, then raised his voice again. "If you wish to continue hiding here in filth until they come for you, feel free. But if you wish seek safety, come with me. I will take those who wish to fight as well as those who don't, for this second group I merely offer my protection to live on the surface." He ended his speech with a slight bow and drifted off back into the tunnel.

His minions left the shadows then and began speaking to the people who approached asking questions. Caliban, Cybelle, and Spyke approached her.

"What do you think?" Callisto asked in his whispery voice.

"A lot of them will probably go with him, and whatever he's about to do it'll bring trouble for us." She said angrily. "We won't be able to face this alone." She glared at the tunnel Magneto had left through, "Evan? Can you contact the X-men?"

The younger boy started, "Umm, yeah sure. But why?"

"Magneto was right about one thing," Calisto said grimly, "we'll never survive what's coming on our own, and if we don't want to join him in starting the fight, we'll have to ask Xavier for help."

A/N a few things:

1st, I think my writing style has shifted since I started this. so now I want your opinions, Is it a significant change that it's distracting and should I go back and rewrite the beginning chapters, or is it fine?

2nd, while doing a bit of research for this chapter, I realized that I had messed up one of the names of the Morlocks in Chapter 2. I will fix that shortly.

Lastly, Please let my know your guys' thoughts. My muses live off reviews and they're starting to get a little thin...