“¿Qué es el apoyo de back gather?” Laura questioned…

“No estoy seguro.” Sprite replied to Laura, but shook her head in understanding to Logan “Pero solo sonríe y saluda cuando no sabes lo que está pasando. Es el arte de la negociación.”

“What are you talking about?” Logan questioned, casting suspicious glances at Laura and Sprite…

“Are you going to take her to the border or not?” Sprite asked, jumping straight into the business negotiations…

Sprite may not like her much, but she at least wanted to ensure that Laura ended up in responsible hands…

A demented old man in a wheelchair…

An animalistic father trying to assert his alpha-male status…

And a half-vampire wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence in Sprite’s mind…

“But who will we be looking for at the border?” Caliban inquired, eyes never wandering from the stacks of cash on the table…

Where Logan saw an escape plan, Caliban saw an opportunity for better things…

Sprite’s eyes glimmered as she gazed at Caliban, finally observing the strange, pale man for the first time…

Of course, Sprite had ‘seen’ Caliban before, but this was the first time that she truly looked at the man with eyes able to discern value…

And Caliban was valuable for reasons Sprite had yet to discern…

“The little girl’s friends…” Sprite hummed…

Logan frowned “That’s a very vague description. How will we find them?”

“Can’t you and Laura sniff them out or something?” Sprite questioned, not caring the least that she was being a bit presumptuous…

“Grrrr…” Logan and Laura growled at the same time, unaware that they were proving Sprite’s point for her…

“I will take that as a yes…” Sprite muttered, eyes wandering to Caliban once more “But we have no place for useless people…”

“Excuse me…” Caliban finally removed his eyes from the cash on the table, seeming surprised “Are you referring to me?”

“Yeah…” Sprite brazenly stated “Logan is the girl’s father and a skilled father. The Old Man is a walking Psychic Weapon, but I don’t know what your role is…”

“I am a finder!” Caliban shouted…

“Of lost things~” Sprite hummed in a sing-like voice, mocking the half-vampire…

“No… no… no…” Charles interrupted, shaking his head so hard that Sprite thought it was about to fall off “Caliban has the unique ability to detect other mutants…” he clarified…

Laura and Sprite paused briefly, sharing a look that could mean only one thing…

It was Sprite who spoke after a couple of seconds “Do you think you can find someone for us?”

“That’s now how my ability works…” Caliban explained, looking at Charles to see if he should continue explaining…

Charles nodded, and Caliban continued “I can only detect Mutants within a range of one hundred and fifty miles…”

Laura lowered her head in disappointment, but Sprite keyed into a few keywords…

“You can only actively detect mutants within a range of one hundred and fifty miles, but what about inactively…” Sprite questioned, trying not to show her anxiousness “Your nose twitches a lot, so I can guess it has something to do with your ability. Can you track fading scents, so to speak?”

Caliban frowned but slowly nodded “I can, but it is very difficult, and usually not worth the risk of the sun…”

“What if I made it worth the risk?” Sprite questioned, twirling her fingers as a half-cut safe stolen from the casino appeared on the table “And you get enough money to buy a small island…”

Caliban’s eyes lit up, but he still cast a glance at Logan to ensure that it wasn’t a trick…

Logan sniffed the air twice, noting that the safety-deposit box on the table was an illusion, but the scent of the money coming from the car outside was very real…

And the money was fresh…

It has been years since Logan smelled money that fresh…

Logan nodded in confirmation, and Caliban met eyes with Sprite…

Any other day, Caliban would be a timid man, but when it came to money, even Caliban could be brave enough to fight an Eternal…

In the art of negotiation that is…

“We would need to assign limits to the search…” Caliban reason, aware that Sprite was full of tricks “Limits such as – we cannot search beyond a thousand miles. If the person in question leaves the continent, I get to keep all the money and call off the search…”

Sprite frowned since many of the loopholes she would normally use are now off the table…

Still, finding Tyrone was the priority, and though she couldn’t explain the feeling, Sprite just knew that Tyrone needed her aid more now than ever…

“We search for a month, and if we cannot pick up a trail, you get to keep the money and leave…” Sprite stated and leaned back into her chair, showing this was her final offer…

It was her first and final offer…

Where Tyrone was concerned, Sprite didn’t want to play around too much…

Caliban thought for a couple of seconds and nodded “Deal…”

----------------

A tense, yet nonchalant, silence followed the negotiations…

Caliban left the table in favor of packing some luggage…

Unlike Logan, who only needed the shirt on his back to go anywhere, or Charles, who needed the wheelchair and some pills, Caliban required a special form of protective clothing to go anywhere…

Sprite and Laura remained seated around the table…

Laura was contended eating all the cereal in Logan’s home, while Sprite couldn’t move even if she wanted…

There was a sort of balance between Sprite and Logan…

As long as neither of them made any sudden moves, the peace would persist…

Logan couldn’t allow Sprite to move because he was sure the small girl would immediately go for Charles’s head…

Laura couldn’t allow Logan to move because she was sure the Animalistic Man would take the money and run at the first chance…

And Sprite really needed Caliban to find Tyrone…

Finally, Charles couldn’t move because, even if his psychic abilities had dimmed a lot over his sickness-ridden years, his earlier glimpse at Sprite’s mind was a lot to process…

Currently, the story of Sprite’s life was unfolding in Charles’s head, but he was much more interested in the memories that pertained to Tyrone…

‘That mutant can be the answers to all our problems…’ Charles thought, but with the demented state of his mind, Charles forgot what he thought about a second ago…

“Is this enough for the trip?” Caliban questioned, gesturing to two suitcases sitting next to the door…

“Don’t forget to bring some eye shielding…” Logan reminded, his eyes never leaving Sprite for a second…

“Oh right…” Caliban hummed, darting back into the room to pack yet another suitcase…

“Están tardando demasiado. Me estoy poniendo nervioso.” Laura whispered, causing both Sprite and Logan to frown simultaneously…

Sprite and Laura had experienced too much to dismissed ‘nervousness’ as just an overreaction, especially when it comes to someone as sensitive as Laura…

“We need to wait for the detector to find Tyrone…” Sprite urged, hoping Laura would calm down for another thirty minutes…

Thirty minutes was all Sprite needed to leave this place…

“Now is not the time to look for the boy…” Charles mentioned, a bit of his clairvoyance peeking through his sick mind “And when you do find him, the boy will be too broken to even recognize himself…”

“How do you know that?” Sprite asked calmly, but Logan and Laura could tell she was anything but…

They could feel the rage rippling off of Sprite’s small body like waves…

Even Logan was unsure if he could stop an attack from Sprite in this state, but luckily, she seemed to be lashing out emotionally, not angry at Charles specifically…

“His mind cried for help in the desert a couple of days ago…” Charles replied, finally remembering the instant a shadow whispered sweet nothings into his ear…

Gold sparks started to flicker around Sprite’s body, her wings appearing for a split second, but with a severe depletion of Cosmic Energy, Sprite knew she could not afford to waste the energy…

With great effort, Sprite calmed her mind, banking on the hope that Caliban would be able to find Tyrone in one piece…

“Grrrr…” Laura’s growling came unexpected, but whether it was the unique undertone of this growl or the way she growled…

All Sprite knew was the fact that Laura’s growl was different from all the previous times…

This time it was more aggressive…

More cautious…

More contained…

But also, infinitely wilder…

Sprite was the second person to detect the change…

Spending time with Makkari had taught Sprite to sense vibrations, and the table was vibrating a bit too much for Sprite’s liking…

Sprite, Logan, and Laura rose to their feet simultaneously, and made their way to the door…

Laura, being the odd one out, rose to her feet with the rest of her cereal in hand…

She wasn’t about to leave behind a perfectly good meal, but thankfully, Sprite made the decision for her…

Sprite waved her hand, causing the bowl of cereal to disappear into motes of golden light…

“Grrrr…”

“Shut up…” Sprite scolded “All you think about is eating. Time to concentrate…”

Sprite, Logan, and Laura exited the house, stepping into the blazing sand of the desert…

Caliban came out of the house a couple of seconds later, pushing Charles along in the wheelchair…

Sprite waved her hand, shrouding Caliban in his very own illusion of darkness, offering the man a reprieve from the sun even with his protective clothing on…

“Thank you…” Caliban whispered…

Sprite frowned, eyeing the horizon “I don’t think you’ll be thanking me for very long…”

Logan started to sniff the air, and finally, something became detectable to his extremely sensitive nose…

“Gunpowder…” Laura muttered…

Without another word, Logan dashed towards Charles, scooping the old man into a bridal carry that turned into a mad dash towards the limo a couple of feet away…

Logan almost looked as if he flew…

Logan pulled open the door and gently placed Charles in the front passenger seat, ensuring the old man was properly secured and everything…

“Here…” Lara mumbled, and Sprite’s eyes narrowed…

Logan also seemed to realize that escape wasn’t possible, and he crouched a bit near the limo, acting as a protector for his long-time friend and mentor – Charles Xavier…

“Move back a bit…” Sprite urged Logan, and after hesitating for a bit, Logan did as requested by Sprite and backed away from the Limo…

Sprite waved her hand, a golden pattern dancing in the air for a bit before the doors of the limo disappeared entirely…

“The Old Man will be safe inside the Limo, but you will have to stay and fight…” Sprite reminded, and Logan nodded solemnly, thanking Sprite in his heart…

Little did Logan know that Sprite protected Charles not because she wanted to, but because she had to…

The last thing Sprite needed was to be in the middle of a battle when Charles’s psychic attack spirals out of control, rendering her and everyone else unconscious…

Slowly, Laura’s claws started to emerge, but suddenly, she paused mid-emergence…

Laura never stopped halfway when it came to her claws, so Sprite was immediately aware that something had profoundly changed…

Laura sniffed the air twice more as if to confirm what she was actually smelling…

“Demasiado familiar.” Laura muttered then paled and turned to Sprite “Este aroma es... La de Tyrone.”

Sprite didn’t reply…

She didn’t know how to…

There were no words that could explain the depth of Sprite’s feelings at this moment…

It was thousands of years in the making, and it was ready to explode…

Sprite tilted her head downwards, and her body started to shimmer with golden light, but the longer it flickered, the more the golden light around Sprite started to turn scarlet…

Cosmic Energy tainted by rage…

Sprite’s rage…

Logan, Laura, and Caliban gave Sprite a bit more breathing room, taking a couple of steps away…

They could feel that something was wrong with Sprite, her usual golden light seemed to grow brighter, but somehow darker as well…

---VRROOOOOOM---

---VRROOOOOOM---

Cars roared across the desert, and soon, the cars broke through Logan’s makeshift fence, drifting to a stop in front of Sprite and the others…

Dozens of men exited the cars, decked in enough gear to subdue an elephant…

One man made his way to the front of the soldiers, performing a mock bow that highlighted his single mechanical arm…

“The name is Pierce…” Pierce introduced himself, not thinking much of two small girls and an old man…