A Shapeshifter Comes To Visit, a Hunt and a Glimpse at Something Bigger

Walking into the room, I sniffed around and found the scent of lavender quite easily, "Oh honey, I'm home~" I sarcastically remarked, only to hear a scoff in reply.

"You wanna call me 'honey', Victor? Marry me then," came the sassy voice I'd gotten so used to over the past few months. Walking further into the room, I entered what passed as a bathroom during these times, and I saw the curvy and supple form of a redhead as I entered.

Smirking, I shook my head, "Sorry, Jessica, you know I don't do serious stuff like that. Otherwise you'd be at the top of the list," I admitted before sitting on the side of the metal tub the voluptuous woman was currently using. Running a hand through her wet hair, I felt something was...off. Being this close to her, I could smell that he scent was...all wrong.

But I kept that suspicion away for now.

Jessica just clicked her tongue before standing up and over me, before bringing her soapy hands up and resting them on my cheeks, "I know, darling, but a girl can dream, you know?"

"Even if the dreams impossible?" I retorted with an amused smiled. But the scent difference was really starting to bug me.

Her eyes formed into crescent as her lips spread into the familiar smile I'd seen her make every time before she tried something, "Especially if the dreams impossible..." her voice trailed off as she bent down, planting her lips on mine. Feeling her kiss me, I kissed her back, dropping a hand down to her lower half and testing the 'waters' so to speak.

She mewled as I began rubbing against her clit before sliding a finger in and rubbing a spot that always got her going.

But as I was kissing her, I felt my body begin to lock up.

So, is this what she had planned? Betrayal via poisoned lipstick? Was that the scent difference? Eh, whatever. Not like it'll kill me.

My body locked up like a statue and with a sigh, Jessica lifted herself away from me and my hand which was surprisingly wet. Seems even wanting to poison me can't stop my wild charisma from effecting the ladies, huh?

I would've smirked if I could actually moved but I could do nothing but watch Jessica.

Or what I thought had been Jessica.

Before my very eyes, a very familiar sight appeared. 'Jessica's' red-orange hair became blood red and her milky pale skin darkened and took on a dark blue color. Whereas her smoky green eyes quickly became completely yellow, even her sclera became yellow and her pupil just vanished into more yellow. It was odd-looking but at the same time exotic, I guess.

I could dig it, at least.

She lengthened in height and despite her curves diminishing somewhat into a more slender and athletic look, I found myself not minding it one bit. I'll always have a space in my 'heart' for short and voluptuous women but tall, slender yet buxom women are definitely tied first with them.

"I must admit...you truly had that body wrapped around your finger. Literally," her voice was different again, more regal sounding. Sounded quite English, actually. The posh kind. "You nearly had me purring like a cat within a few seconds. Shame I've been sent to take you out. We could've had some fun like the other times," she said as she walked past me and into the main room. She returned shortly, dressed in a skin-tight white dress that left little to the imagination:

Just the way I liked it.

Sadly, she also seemed to have brought something with her. A garotte wire if my eyes didn't deceive me - and they rarely do - and I got a glimpse of it as she raised it over my head and around my neck.

"We don't know your powers," she grunted as she began to pull the garotte wire back, "But the higher ups guessed you'd die if we cut your throat so thoroughly you'd bleed out like a pig," she said and if it weren't for he paralyzing agent flooding my system, I'd have been laughing like a madman.

My neck being slit killing me? Bitch, I've had a stick of dynamite blow a hole in my chest and I barely even fucking flinched!

But alas, I couldn't tell her how fucked she was and I didn't want to. But what had me wondering was...what the hell is Mystique doing acting as an assassin in the 1800s? Earliest she ever appeared in a comic was, like, what? The late 1920s? Granted, I know she had a life before then but still, I didn't think I'd be meeting her so soon.

And who is she working for? I mean, a lot of people want to kill me but very little of them know about my powers. The only people who know that I have powers have been threatened with such brutality from me that they'd piss themselves at the thought of coming after me with an assassin.

Even if it were them who came after me, they'd know a slit throat wouldn't stop me.

The technology that could kill me hasn't even been invented yet.

Luckily for me, and frankly for Mystique, the paralyzing agent had numbed my sense of pain and pretty much all my sense of touch, so I couldn't really feel the wire cutting through my throat. But I could hear Mystique swearing about how tough my flesh was.

Guess those work outs I put myself through actually are doing something. Interesting. For reference, I've been working my body to the bone ever since I walked out of that town all those years ago. I was right about my strength being abnormal, even for Sabretooth. I could lift about 4000lbs back then and I'd improved that to around 5200lbs in all these years. My flesh and bones got stronger and harder without stopping. It was odd.

I spent these past few years learning biology and genetics as well. I wasn't a genius but I definitely absorbed information quite quickly.

I quickly found out that I had very, very little myostatin. In fact, I seem to have a new kind of protein in my body that encourages muscle growth while also giving the muscles instructions to bunch together closer. Meaning despite having more muscle than I did all those years ago, I haven't changed too much appearance wise other than gaining much more muscle definition.

My weight has increased somewhat though. I went from 275lbs to around 290lbs. Not too much but far too little to gain 1200lbs of strength. Further research showed that my muscles were more efficient at contracting and use smaller amounts of energy to make stronger contractions. The same goes for my muscle composition - it was better than a normal human's. Much better. From the amount of weight I could lift, I'd even say it was better than Captain America's.

Coming out of my thoughts, I realized that Mystique had finally done what she felt was a good enough job and just left the garotte wire in my neck.

I took a big, albeit silent, whiff of her scent and memorized it for what I was about to do.

I was about to have a hunt.

As soon as she left, I got up and removed the wire from my flesh and felt it wiggle back into place before fusing together and healing. Suppressing a shudder, I realized how I'd never get used to the feeling of my flesh fusing together. It was both painful and odd. A bad combo, honestly.

Why didn't I get up while she was here? Well, I'd just been blue-balled, so I need a little fun tonight. Hunting her down will definitely be fun.

Wrapping the wire up, I pocketed it and walked over to the window. Cracking it open, I took a big whiff and easily caught onto the similar scent. I was sure I'd smelt this before tonight as well - had she been stalking me or something? Would make sense if she was trying to assassinate me. Bad news being that is that if she has been watching me, she should know my more obvious powers like claws and fangs. Probably made some assumptions about an animal-based mutant power.

Then why hasn't she washed or covered her scent? Probably thinks she's covered it with her shapeshifting. What an arrogant bitch.

Grabbing the gutter above the window, I pulled myself out of the window and onto the roof before I began to track the scent.

And here I thought I'd actually get a good hunt out of someone like Mystique.

. . .

I followed her throughout the city as she constantly went in and out of alleyways, changing her appearance and then re-walking the same route, following the crowds. It wasn't until an hour had passed of her doing this that she actually started walking toward the outside of the city.

I followed her, jumping from roof to roof without fear of falling and it was quite easy for my unique physique. Leaping was quite natural to me, after all.

It was also some time past 8PM, so the dark winter night covered my jumping about like a madman, so I didn't have to worry about being seen or having rumors come about that there's some kind of wild animal prowling New York.

Anyway, I followed Mystique as she entered a small building. Looking through the windows of the building, I could see a multitude of people, dressed in formal suits and all of them with the insignia 'H.F' embroided onto their blazer pockets. Looks like some kind of fancy men's club. I'd been invited to loads of them, of course, but I never really joined one. Their idea of a good night was sitting around drinking brandy and champagne while my idea of a good night was drinking bottles of whiskey, doing drugs and fucking as many women as I could.

A clash of ideals, I guess you could call it.

But this one seemed a bit more fancy, honestly. Not in that it had more expensive things but rather that Mystique, in the form of a brunnette who was particularly busty, entered the room and, surprisngly, changed back to her blue form.

The men looked at her with obvious disgust. A gaze I clearly remember seeing on people who looked at slaves. Or rather people who used to be slaves. It was the look of, well, a racist looking at the race/color they didn't like.

A man, who seemed like the most pompous of the lot, walked toward Mystique and waved for her to speak.

Meanwhile, I was getting closer to the building. I perched myself outside the window and made sure to keep myself hidden from any eyes inside the building. As for outside the building? I didn't really care at the minute. Finding out about these people was much more important. Not that people could really recognize me this far up a building and in the dark.

Using my index finger, I carved a small hole out of the glass and focused my senses.

I could hear through the glass, sure, but I wanted clarity for what was about to be said.

"The target, Victor Creed, has been eliminated," Mystique said in a near emotionless voice which struck me as odd...because it sounded so subdued and meek, "He will be found in that brothel and the murder will be placed on the prostitute I was posing as," she said, causing a round of laughter to spread through the room.

Multiple people began mummering about whether or not she actually did something with me before she murdered me. A few people even called her a whore.

"Good," came the reply from the man who seemed in charge or rather, who seemed to be the host, "But to think the biggest oil Tycoon in America turned out to be a dirty Mutant," his disgust was obvious and I refrained from growling as he referred to me as disgusting. "Anyway, Raven, we have another job for you. Creed's right-hand man is a mutant as well. His name is Jeremiah. Find him, investigate him, and kill him," he ordered and once again, I had to restrain my instincts - otherwise I'd have burst through the window and murdered them all.

"But, sir--" Mystique, or rather, Raven tried to get out, her meek tone giving way for one of slight indignation. But she was quickly put to a stop as the man backhanded her. She barely even reacted to the pain and only took a step back as the man spat at her feet.

"Do not reply to your betters, filth. Now go and fulfill your duty or die like the rest of your kind should," he spoke with such disgust that I could easily say he was some kind of uber mutant hater.

...Sadly, I can't let that go. Especially after he had someone sent to kill me.

Raven just nodded before she turned around. There were a few jeers from the crowd, mainly about asking her to change into the prostitute she posed as earlier - Jessica - but she just ignored them and left the room.

I saw an old man leave the building but the old man was actually just Raven in disguise. Seeing her leave I jumped back up to the roof and followed her until she entered the nearest alley way. Then I jumped down, silently, next to her. Why?

Because I had a business proposal for her.