080

Unknown location.

Betsy only felt a small feeling of nausea and a slight pressure in her body before the place her eyes saw changed completely, instead of the vast green jungle she was currently in a somewhat large room that probably was a medical area.

Although it hadn't been the first time Norman had used his ability to transport great distances with her, it really wasn't a sensation a person could get used to quickly, much less in the condition she was in.

Braddock soon noticed how Osborn placed her on one of the gurneys in the room and after that he moved to another area of the room, he seemed to be in search of something.

"So" the woman with purple hair began to say, "Where are we?" she asked curiously, the woman who had a serious and defiant countenance as well as keeping alert at any moment seemed to have disappeared completely.

Norman did not turn his gaze to answer the question asked of the woman, "It is a safe house, I currently have zero information on the situation you are in, and I prefer to take extreme caution" he replied calmly.

"So many precautions that you can't tell me the exact location?" she continued questioning, seeing that in a roundabout way Osborn had not answered the question, or at least not in full.

"I didn't distrust you" mentioned the Osborn, "I distrusted the situation you got involved in" he continued as he disappeared and reappeared at Betsy's side.

"Hold out your arm" he commanded simply.

Being cooperative with the man, Betsy followed the order that was given to her, soon she felt light touches on an area near her forearm, a few seconds later she felt a slight twinge.

"Did you know?" she asked Osborn, who was taking a blood sample.

"I have my suspicions, after all you are not an easy opponent, and I am almost certain that if you wanted to escape few people would be able to stop you" he replied in a somewhat flattering manner.

"So, I need to be sure if you have any kind of poison in your body and if that is the case then I need to find out its effect and how to counteract it" as he spoke, Norman had finished taking the blood sample and released Betsy's arm.

After those words and without waiting for the beautiful woman to respond, Norman's figure disappeared without a trace. In Betsy's beautiful blue eyes, a slight trace of irritation formed due to the actions of Osborn.

A few seconds later Norman had reappeared at her side, "You know I hate it when you do that, don't you?" was the first thing Betsy said to him as soon as she looked at him.

Norman didn't respond and simply took a seat in the chair next to the gurney where Betsy was lying, "I honestly don't care" he made it clear, "Besides I think you owe me an explanation don't you?" he asked seriously.

…

"About three months ago I lost contact with one of my informants" she began to say "She is one of us, she has a knack for technology, although she manifested in a different way than your subordinate" she added letting Norman know an important fact.

Osborn just kept silent not wanting to interrupt the woman's talk at least not for the moment, however, his mind was going over about possible mutants that could be the informant Betsy was talking about.

"Originally I didn't think too much of such a situation, as there were times when either of us had to stay hidden completely, however, in all cases we had a procedure to follow" she continued.

"It's not something too complicated, it was simply a matter of giving the message that we were still alive to each other" at this point Betsy paused for a moment, as she didn't think she needed to explain the implications of what she was saying to Norman.

"There was no such message this time" Norman stated, having deduced what Betsy meant to imply.

Betsy just nodded, "No, there wasn't" she replied curtly, "Once I became suspicious I couldn't help but think that something had happened, so I went to the last location she was at" she continued calmly.

"A safe house in Germany" she continued, "When I arrived at the location I only found the ruins of it, it had been destroyed thanks to a strong explosion produced by a gas leak" after that Betsy paused a bit organizing her thoughts before continuing.

"Only one death was reported" before she could say anything else, Norman's voice reached her ears.

"But it wasn't her" his voice was neither high nor low, but it was loud enough to be heard.

"Once I became aware of that fact I began the search for answers, but due to the explosion everything had been destroyed and was completely useless and the information I was able to collect was of no use" spoke Betsy, agreeing with Osborn's reasoning and then proceeding to explain what her course of action was.

"What happened next?" Norman asked pointedly, "You had no clues, nor did you have the knowledge of where to look for them, so how is it possible that you ended up in an unknown jungle and in a situation with high-risk potential?" he continued questioning quickly.

"A week ago, I received a coded message, you can imagine its contents and who the sender was, however, there was no explanation of its status and I could not trace where it was sent from" Betsy explained quickly to Osborn's question.

Norman said nothing, but that didn't mean he didn't have some opinion about the course of action Betsy took, after all it had been somewhat stupid to make such a hasty decision without reliable information.

"It comes down to a matter of loyalty, I recognize that my action was stupid and rash however it was something I had to do" Betsy said almost as if she could have seen Osborn's thoughts.

"I thought you couldn't read my mind?" questioned Norman at the Braddock's words.

"I don't need to do that to know what you're thinking right now" without the slightest hesitation and fear, Betsy met Norman's suspicious gaze.

Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds, "Continue" until Osborn spoke again.

"When I arrived at the coordinates I encountered what could be considered an army with advanced armament, however, what really got my attention was the sight of dozens of our kind captured and treated as mere cargo" her tone of voice denoted a trace of anger.

"No matter how I felt, their situation was not something I could change, I was outnumbered and even if I managed to free them nothing assured me that they would have the ability to help me" she continued, but this time with a tone of helplessness.

"So I made a decision and infiltrated the camp to gather information, however, the soldiers had some mental protection which made it difficult for me and delayed my actions" spoke Betsy revealing her course of action.

Norman remained silent, in previous conversations with Betsy he had learned that there were people who were born with a natural mental barrier that kept telepaths away.

Although of course there were also those who managed to have that mental barrier in a different way, perhaps by receiving constant mental attacks, which over time created a certain immunity to those kinds of attacks.

Lastly, if a sufficiently skilled and talented telepath wanted he could place mental defenses on other people, although of course for that kind of achievement a great skill would be needed.

When they had such a conversation Betsy had hinted that Norman had the first one, of course Osborn didn't deny it, but he didn't accept it either, he simply kept it ambiguous.

"Still that wasn't something that could stop me, I just had to be more careful" Betsy's words forced Norman to stop thinking about the past, "It was when I was retreating that it all went to shit."

"From the air landed four large robots or androids, they immediately surrounded me, I didn't have time to think how they found me when one of them launched an energy blast from its hands" Betsy's tone contained only a huge amount of seriousness as she recalled the short but intense battle.

Norman didn't need to think too hard to be sure that it must have been a model of the Sentinels, machines that had been created in most of the Marvel universes for the sole purpose of hunting down and eliminating mutants.

The only consolation Norman could find was that it was certain to be a model that must not be particularly advanced, since if it were the models that had been created in the Days of Future Past timeline, then he wouldn't be having a conversation with Betsy.

"The fight was short, as I needed to finish it as quickly as possible before anything else happened, honestly speaking they were tough opponents, but they represented no danger to me" commented Betsy, although the fact that it had been a small number of opponents had also helped a lot.

"After that there were a few chasers after me, but in the end they couldn't catch me until I came across a woman, skilled in combat as well as being in possession of an excessively annoying ability" her tone of voice contained a slight amount of respect, though it was overpowered by disgust.

"In the course of the fight she managed to make a clean cut on my left arm" as she said that, Betsy pointed to the wound, "After that my body began to weaken dramatically and using my powers became an extremely difficult task" she continued.

"Before I could kill the woman two men arrived on the scene, without even thinking about it, I decided to escape, one of them followed me being the one you murdered a short time before, the other stayed to check on the condition of his companion" with those last words the story had ended, as the next thing that happened was something Norman could deduce.

"What do you intend to do?" after a few seconds Norman asked, due to Betsy's words he knew he had managed to get relevant information, otherwise he would not leave the place.

"I underestimated the danger of the situation" Betsy commented, "It won't happen again, I'll make sure of it" the answer was one that Osborn had already been expecting from the beginning.

"Sounds like a stupid course of action to me, but acceptable, however, more planning and research will be needed before a move can be made" Norman voiced his thoughts.

Betsy just looked at the green-eyed man with mild suspicion, after all, she couldn't believe that Osborn would get involved in a situation where he would get no benefit.

Braddock clearly knew that the only reason Norman rescued her was because Osborn felt he owed her a debt, but that debt had already been paid.

"Where did all the trust you have in me go?" Norman questioned with a slight tone of amusement as he saw the suspicious look on Betsy's part.

Before Betsy could answer Norman continued speaking, "Don't overthink it, it's just that it's obvious that the people you fought with are after individuals like us, so before they get to my door I will make sure to eliminate as many of them as possible" Norman spoke revealing his thinking.

This decision was only a logical action, after all the truth is that there will always be someone who wants to eliminate mutants, that seems to be a rule that all Marvel universes must follow.

Also, it had to be considered that Norman was a Gen X possessor, the question of whether his teleportation ability was the result of Gen X or not didn't really matter much at this point.

Being a Gen X possessor was basically having a big red target on his back, so undoubtedly sooner or later he would have a confrontation with whatever organization was hunting the mutants.

"For a moment there I thought it was because you were worried about what might happen to me" Betsy spoke with a tone of voice in which her disappointment could practically be palpable.

Norman left her thoughts and brought his gaze to the woman lying on the bed. A mischievous smile was present on her beautiful face.

"Maybe in the future" was the only comment Norman gave her.

The conversation between the two people flowed for a considerable time until Norman left the medical room so that Betsy could have a comfortable rest while he took care of analyzing the blood sample he took from her.

…

Misiones Province.

A team of heavily armed and uniformed people were in the depths of the Argentinean jungle, the eyes of all those people were focused on the immobile and headless body of a man.

Despite the scene, none of the people present showed any kind of disgust, after all they had seen worse things, however, among them stood out a woman with long black hair.

That woman was using a communication device having a conversation with another person, everyone could see the woman's somewhat hesitant attitude something strange about her.

"Do you realize your mistake?" a question asked by a deep voice reached Kimura's ears.

"Sir-" in an attempt to explain herself, the woman began to say, however she was interrupted before she could say another word.

"Keep quiet" a full-fledged order was spoken and Kimura did not dare to disobey it.

"I don't care to hear your excuses, the facts won't change even if I do" he continued, "It was your mistake not to eliminate the intruder in the first place, and you made another one again when you let Wild Child and Kestrel go after it" he mentioned in a calm manner, but a restrained anger could be heard in his tone of voice.

Kimura didn't respond to the man's accusations, even though she didn't agree with them the facts didn't lie, and she couldn't find any word of defense that could get her out of such a situation.

The man was silent for a few moments, "Creed and North are on their way" he said after a few seconds.

"Sir?!" with surprise in his voice, Kimura asked.

"It is as you have heard, we don't know who is responsible for attacking us however Kestrel's disappearance is a possible indicator that he has betrayed us" giving little importance to his subordinate's reaction the man continues to speak.

"Kestrel is an elusive bastard and the fact that you haven't found his body is a proof that he is alive, both, Creed and North will help you track him down and once you find him use any method to make him talk" he continued.

Kimura just listened to the orders given as she memorized them completely, once she finished the conversation she threw the communication device to one of the other men.

"Incinerate the body" she ordered without a blink of an eye once Wild Child's body was reduced to ashes Kimura gave the order to leave.

The orders had been given, and they had no choice but to obey them.