A reinterpretation of Mystique's backstory by Gabriela del Mar.
“It’s
2023, and I am a terrorist…” I told myself last night before going to bed. “My
past I wish I would love to obliterate,
but what’s done is done.” I closed my eyes everything I saw felt more real than
ever.
I found myself on the streets again,
hungry, cold and alone. My mother had abandoned me and my father was dead… He
was a pugnacious man, there wasn’t a
single day in my childhood in which he wouldn’t fight with someone; I hated
that about him. This was the saddest night of my life, and to mar the already horrible mood, it had
started to rain. I closed my eyes in frustration, and when I opened them, I
found myself in the front yard of what seemed like a very familiar house. It
was painted white, had a nice porch, with a swing that swung hard with the
abrupt wind; I reached for the door knob turning it and walking in. All I can
think of right now is about how badly I want a savory treat.
I am a burglar and a terrorist, but I
was acting like a novice. I went upstairs,
opened a door at my left and found a woman sleeping on her bed, slim; more than
I am, pale like the snow that falls on a cold winter’s night and black hair. I
turned into her; literally, I couldn’t seem to control my powers. I exit the
room and head downstairs and into the kitchen. I searched the cabinets and
found instant soup; I took out a cooking pot and simmered it. Many days alone at home taught me how to cook for
myself. I took some cutlery from the
dish washer and found decomposing
bread next to it, and still I made a sandwich with it. I devoured this meal and a boy walks down the stairs scared. “Who are
you?” he asked trembling “I’m your mother…” this words felt weird in my mouth, “who
are you and what have you done to my mother?” he said louder “honey,” “My
mother would never set foot into this kitchen.” He said as he looked at me with
his big blue eyes and I turned back into Mystique, now I knew where I was, in
the past. The year two thousand, I was ten and standing in front of Charles Xavier.
“I
can’t believe it! It was all a fallacy!
You have them too” he said jovial, but this time he wasn’t moving his mouth, he
was in my head, like the words of the memory of someone reproaching me for my actions but this time they weren’t criticizing
words.
He took me in, we grew up together
and eventually fell in love, we got married and had a wonderful son named Charles
Xavier II who looked just like his father but with greenish yellow pupils. He
had long, soft, wavy, brown hair was tall, strong, smart and a gentlemen; all
the girls were after him. As a kid, he was always ravenous, then as a teen, he was so smart, he created havoc at school between his teachers
and classmates. “He is not even human” they said, and of course, he wasn’t, he
was the son of two mutants that could rule the world and be adulated with the powers of mind
control, telekinesis and shapeshifting.
Slowly they found out about us. We
had duped society for so long but
somehow they found out about us, like the way sugar in a milkshake reacts in a kid’s
body after they quaff it down only
to get a sugar rush, slowly but surely.
On
November 2nd 2013, they broke into our house or at least that’s what
I could infer. All I can really
remember is being hit in the head and dragged away.
I woke up in an incipient lab somewhere in Area 51. All the blinding lights and
ropes around my body were a red herring
for what they were doing to my husband and son. They were tied up to an
electric chair each with wires coming out of their heads, both being
experimented on like if they were some kind of lab rats.
-“Let
them go!” I managed to let out. “I said, let them go!” I yelled turning into my
blue self again without noticing. One of the doctors sais “she’s awake” as he
turns to face me but when he does, he backs away like if I was some kind of anathema. I see men approach me in
white plastic suits and masks as they tightened up the ropes that tied me down
to a cold metal table that was then inclined so that they could research on me.
They placed some kind of mask over my mouth and nose, but my body fought back.
That instant, I turned into my pungent
friend, Beast. I broke free from the table and jumped the man closest to my
head leaving him unconscious on the ground and the attacking others that tried
to stop me. Then, I turned into Cyclops and pulverized every man that dared to stand in my way and last but not
least into the cataclysmic Magneto,
a very close friend of ours that can control metal. I freed Charles and Charles
Xavier II and trapped the other men that were left behind the metal objects in
the room as I headed out into the hall. With our powers, we destroyed every
doctor and guard that came our way.
As we headed out, I noticed some Ts
on the walls and doors and implied
that only one man could be behind all this, and even with Charles tries to dissuade me he couldn’t stop me, and my
son was no apologist of this idea
either, nor commended it.
I tracked this man down for months,
Charles saw this as a quibble but
for me it meant saving all of the mutants around the world. I finally found him
on July 26th. I heard he was going to convene with the senate of the United States of America at the
capitol in Washington D.C. to talk to them and the president, so I took action.
I found Mr. Chris Murphy, a democratic senator at the time. He was at a bar,
drunk, I was now Raven Darkholme, and he wanted me, so I took him to his room,
and kicked him in the head when he least expected it and shapeshifted into him.
Trask was talking about his sentinel
program “With this devise installed into my robots, they can identify any
mutant within a mile from them, even shapeshifting ones.” “But how do we know
it works?” said Angus King, senator of Maine. “Well if I turn it on here it wouldn’t
beep because none of us are mutants I suppose.” He said, but to everyone’s
surprise, it beeped. Men grabbed me by the arms but this was when I turned into
Mystique, making them let go of me in fear as I pull out a gun and put a bullet
through Trask’s chest.
Ones again, I manage
to escape the guards, but my actions drove my dear son and husband away from
me. My eyes opened as I screamed in anger and sat up in bed; I couldn’t hold my
tears back nor stop the voices in my head of the many victims begging for mercy…
If only I hadn’t killed Trask or all the others that lost lives and families
members because of me, but this is Raven Darkholme, Mystique… The world’s
biggest terrorist.
