Logan's eyes shot open, he was slightly disoriented as he looked at something that seemed to be very turquoise. He focused his eyes on it, realizing the item was a lava lamp. He lifted his head, having to tilt it as he continued to stare into the lava lamp while it changed colors. He blinks, looking down at the arm draped over his shoulder. Gently, he lifts it in the air and drops it so it was no longer on him. Shifting in the bed, he looked down at the woman he was with, he could barely recognize her. As he tried to get up the entire bed jiggled, he groaned as he realized it was a water bed. Pulling himself up from the bed, he stood completely naked looking around the old room.
He walked up to the mirror and looked at his facial features, he touched his sideburns and noticed there were no grey hairs coming from his head. He peeks through the curtains staring into the beautiful city, there was smog in the air but at least it did not look like some apocalypse, "Holy shit..."
"Hurry the hell up!" Logan flinches at the sound of Izel's voice in his head, he didn't even want to question why he could hear her but she even sounded younger somehow.
He glances down at himself before he grabs the jeans from the dresser and pulling them on, just as he buttoned it up the door came crashing open. Logan looked around in confusion, "Hey, what's going on?"
"Gwen!" One of the men yells out, causing the woman in the bed to wake up.
Logan looked at him, "Who are you?" He could not believe this is what he got to wake up to, "Hey, I don't know what's going on-"
"What's going on is you're supposed to be guarding the bosses daughter!" The man snaps in anger, pointing to Gwen, "Not screwing her!"
Logan not remembering one bit of it mumbles, "I didn't sleep with her."
"No?"
"No, I mean, yes, I've slept with her many times, but that wasn't me, that was the old me." Logan honestly did not remember what actually transpired during this time, "I just here twenty seconds ago."
"Really?" The man cocked his eyebrows up in disbelief, "Then what happened to your clothes?"
"My clothes?" Logan shrugged his shoulders, he already knew how this was going to end so he might as well be an ass, "Oh, would you believe me if I told you I was sent here from the future?"
"Oh, you fucking idiot."
Izel was connected to Logan so she saw and heard everything through his eyes, she even felt the pain as the gunshots entered his body.
"Goddamnit!" Logan yells out in pain, he flexes all of his muscles with a grunt as the bullets fell out of him, hitting the carpeted floors below. The men scream as Logan beat the ever loving shit out of them, then he took the man's car keys.
"Peaceful thoughts..." Logan muses with a long groan.
Izel wanted nothing more than to completely sigh, "Okay, let's just get to the damn strip club now."
"I'm not judging you-" Logan started as he placed the key in the ignition, "-but a strip club?"
"Just drive the damn car."
***
Beth walked around the strip joint in black lingerie with a tight netted skirt that revealed her skin, a black garter belt keeping her laced socks up in place. Her black heels clicked against the tiled floor as she trailed her whip along some of the men in the place. She was using her sister's form, the messy ash blonde hair, and the grey-blue eyes. Beth would change her form every day, most of the men knew she was a mutant and enjoyed being able to create the perfect woman. Never once was she herself though, that was the one thing she refused.
"Cordy!" Her boss calls in the distance. With the fakest pout she could muster, Beth faced the men and blew them a kiss, caressing a few more men with the tip of her whip as she sauntered away.
Beth leaned her body against the wooden doorframe, watching as her boss counted a pile of cash, "What is it, Dixon?" She reverted back to her normal form, her dark brown locks rolling over her shoulders. Dixon was the only person who knew what she actually looked like, and despite being quite the pig, he respected her in some sort of way.
"You've got a new customer." He grunted while cocking his head to the side where one of the private rooms were at.
Beth shifted to multiple different women while kicking herself off the frame, "Did he request anyone specific?"
"None." Dixon shrugs his shoulders, "Just go out as any of them."
Raising an eyebrow, she shifted to her sister's form, "Guess I'll go out as Cordy."
Dixon looked up from his money, "She is a fan favorite after all."
"Any chick with some tits and an ass," Beth spoke in a soft tune while leaving Dixon to his own business.
Logan sat looking around the dark pink room, he rolled his eyes at the disgusting color, even knowing some of the things that had most likely happened here. He could still hear Izel in his head, especially telling him to not be a pig when he sees her younger self. Just as he was about to say something to her, the door opens and closes shut. Logan had a blink a few times at the woman in front of him, he was warned that he wouldn't see Beth but another form, especially since this woman looked far too different from the woman he knew.
"You requested me?" She asks, taking in the well-built man in front of her, his gruffness was definitely attractive to her.
"You're... Izel right?"
Beth froze in her spot, Raven was basically the only person who knew her by that name, "I'm sorry." She responded calmly, "But my name is Cordelia. I don't know anyone by the name of Izel."
"Oh..." Logan could hear Izel in his head telling him to just grab her already, "Then I must be at the wrong establishment." He looked over at Beth, watching as the woman continued to look at him suspiciously, "I'll be taking my leave then."
Beth nodded her head, she popped the door open and waited for him to leave but as he got to the door he took hold of her wrists, "Hey! You-" With a small gasp, Beth fell back as a wave of blue scales took over her, revealing her true face.
"Izel!" Logan caught her, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah..." Izel responded groggily as if she just woke up from a long nap, "Goodness-" She shifted uncomfortably, rubbing her hand down her front and over the revealing lingerie, "Why would I ever dress like this?"
Logan purses his lips and checks Izel out now, which earned him a dark glare from the woman, "Please, you flirted with me when you first met me."
"That was because I was helping Mystique." Izel shot back recalling how she almost had sex with Logan, "God, I need some different clothes."
"Or you can just show up to the Professor in that and convince him with your assets." Logan quickly remarks, but as soon as the words leave his mouth, Izel shifts into Cordelia, "What are you doing?"
"I'll go to Charles like this." Izel says while walking out of the room, "Let's go to the back room, I should have a change of clothes there."
"You're going to go see the Professor as someone else?" Logan cocked an eyebrow up, "Wouldn't it be easier to speak with him as yourself, you did know him after all."
"I knew him." Izel presses as she pushes the doors open to the back room, none of the other strippers inside at the moment, "I don't-I don't feel comfortable with him knowing it's me."
"But-"
Izel faces Logan looking up at his tall form, "No buts, I don't think Charles needs to see me either. I don't even want him to see me, let alone see him, but I came back to help with Raven." She started to tug down the skirt, "Only for Raven."
Logan turned away as Izel dressed back in normal clothes, "What happened between you and the Professor? You lovers or something?"
"That's none of your business, Logan." Izel pulled the messy blonde curls up in a ponytail, "Let's get going."
"Won't you get fired for leaving?"
Without looking back, Izel scoffed, "One could only hope."
***
"We are reviewing all of our defense expenditures. And all the black books are being opened, we can't support a weapon that targets our own citizens. If these mutants, as you described, are already living among us, then they are living here. Peacefully."
"We haven't had an incident in over ten years!"
"After what happened in Cuba?"
"That was never confirmed! We have real enemies, like the Russians, the Chinese."
"We are talking about a tenth, of a tenth, of a tenth of our population."
Bolivar Trask, who had sat in complete silence, finally voiced himself, "Allow me to read something to you."
"Please."
"This was acquired by our friends at the CIA. It's a dissertation, written by a mutant, at Oxford University. And I quote, 'To homoneanderthal enzes, his mutant cousin homo sapiens', which is us, 'Was an aberration, the arrival of the mutated human species, homo sapiens, was followed by the immediate extinction of their less evolved kin.' Well, now we are the neanderthal."
"Speak for yourself, Doctor Trask."
Trask chuckles at the overused joke, "You knew when you sent our soldiers to Vietnam, without the weapons they needed to win the war, you underestimated your enemy. You do that with this enemy, mm, it won't be some border scrimmage halfway around the world. This time the war will be for our streets, our cities, our homes. And by the time you see the need for my program, it'll be too late. And you would have lost two wars in one lifetime."
"We're sorry, Doctor Trask, but your sentinel program. It ain't gonna fly."
***
There was the loud sound of helicopters and the groans of injured soldiers. The camp was bustling with noise and movement, and yet the tent full of mutants was oddly silent.
"Can I help you Colonel?"
An elder Colonel walks to the front of the tent, not affected by the dirty expression he was receiving, "Just here to give our boys a proper send off."
"Sorry, sir, but we have orders. This is a quarantined area."
Not backing down, the Colonel closed the distance between him and the soldier, "Stand aside soldier, that's an order." Without waiting for him to move, the Colonel walked into the bunk. He stared at the obvious group of mutants sitting down, as he passes a young blond soldier he sends a wink his way. Which only made the young man scrunch his eyebrows together in a mixture of disgust and confusion. The second his eyes land on a table with all of their blood in sample tubes, he stopped, "What is all this?"
"Lab reports, blood tests." One of them answers, "It's all getting packed up and shipped off."
"Where is it going?" The Colonel snatches a paper from the table and reads the bold letters, Trask Industries, his eyes darkened in anger while setting the paper back down.
"The same place they're going, Trask Industries."
A soldier came storming into the tent, making the Colonel turn around, "Let's go gentlemen! We're taking you out of this shit show!"
The young blonde man looked up in a mix of hope, "Shipping home?"
"Not just yet." They then open a case that was full of needles with clear liquid inside of them.
Another one of the soldiers, mutant, in the tent, stared warily at them, "What are you doing with those?"
"It's just something that will make the ride more smooth. We're transferring you to a private facility, where we can run more tests."
The Colonel eyes the men, "Your men are not military."
"Private outfit." He says while facing him with a fake smile, handing his papers over to the Colonel, "We're authorized to remand these men."
"Hm..." Colonel gave him the papers back, "These troops are going home."
"Well, Colonel, I don't believe you have jurisdiction in this matter."
"I'm afraid I do son."
"I'm sorry, who are you?"
The Colonel ignores his question and lifts up the man's dog tags, reading William Stryker Jr, Trask Industries, "The question is major, who are you?" As he rips the dog tags off violently, his skin shifts to a wave of blue scales, revealing the female mutant known as Mystique. In seconds, Mystique took the men down easily, even throwing one of the soldiers onto the table of blood. Other mutants joined in to help her, knowing she was their way home.
Major Stryker tried to shoot her but Mystique blocked the attack, her hand gripping his neck tightly.
"Raven!" Alex, the young blonde male, calls out to her.
"That's not my name." She was absolutely unfazed, not willing to let Stryker go. Alex frowned at her action and shot a light plasma blast at Stryker, sending him flying back. Mystique gives Alex a glare, "I had that."
"I know."
For a split second, she stares at him as she felt slightly relieved and happy to see his face, "Let's move out! Come on, let's go!"
"Where's Erik?"
"I'm on my own now." Mystique responded coldly, when she got out of the tent she wore the face of the Colonel, "Hold that plane! I don't want to leave these boys in this godforsaken country!"
Before Alex was fully on the plane, he faced his old ally, "You're not coming with us, are you?"
"My war's not over. The enemy is still out there."