Marvel: Pay to Win Gambling 18

Chapter 18: That’s Not Where a Child Should Be

“Cerebro’s a hell of a device, isn’t it?” I asked the girl lounging upside-down on my bed, her head dangling over the edge, legs crossed at the ankles like she owned the place. “Pinpoints the exact location of a mutant, and with Hank’s latest upgrades, we even get a snapshot. He basically turned it into a mutant GPS with facial recognition.”

“Megan Gwynn,” Jean read from her screen, her voice casual. “Eighteen. Student. From Wales. Loving family, decent grades, your average teenage life with sparkles on top.” She flicked the phone onto the bed and turned toward me with a smirk. “She’s Beta-Level. You shouldn’t have any trouble, even if things go sideways.”

“Fighting a teenager isn’t exactly on my to-do list,” I replied, amused. “Don’t paint me like I go around picking brawls in my spare time.”

Jean rolled her eyes so hard I swear I heard them strain. “Ororo caught you facing down an armed guy before your powers even kicked in. Day one at the mansion, you’re throwing hands with the Brotherhood. And don’t think I didn’t notice the mess you got into after I left last night.”

I paused. “How’d you know about that?”

She pointed at my face with a perfectly manicured finger. “It’s written all over you, Daniel. You need to work on your poker face. Seriously.”

Damn. That bad, huh?

All I could do was offer a shrug. “Not my fault,” I muttered. “Both times last night were… justifiable. With the Brotherhood, Magneto and the professor forced my hand. And the incident with Ororo was… personal. Something from the past. Irrelevant to this conversation.”

That last part was a half-truth. That past wasn’t done with me—not by a long shot. I was just lucky the person behind it wasn’t actively hunting me.

Yet.

But that would change. Eventually. Sooner or later, the past always came knocking.

“Sure, sure,” she said with a chuckle, brushing it off. “Anyway, are you really sure you don’t want me tagging along?”

The way she asked caught me off guard. Amused curiosity, layered with genuine concern. A far cry from the haunted woman I first met. Jean Grey was sweet, fun, full of life when she wanted to be. And underneath it all, she hid her demons like a pro.

“The professor already picked the team,” I said. “Me, Ororo, Bobby. And like you said—Megan’s Beta-Level. Three Omega-level mutants tracking down one teenager? We’re a walking overkill squad.”

I didn’t know much about this Megan Gwynn. The world’s full of mutants, half of them with names pulled straight out of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Can’t memorize every side character in the story.

“If anything,” I added, “you should be worried about Logan, Scott, and Illyana. They’re the ones tracking an Alpha-Level. If someone’s gonna end up in deep shit, it’s them.”

Seriously, what kind of logic was that from Xavier? Send the dream team after a Beta, and the discount Avengers after an Alpha? Made zero sense.

Not that I am discrediting them.

“Don’t worry about Logan,” Jean said, brushing it off like lint. “He’s got more battlefield experience than any of us. And Illyana—she’s young, sure, but that girl’s a natural. She can handle herself.”

She conveniently left out Scott.

Can’t blame her. I would’ve done the same.

“But you,” she pointed at me again, tone dipping serious, “need to be careful. You’ve got Beyond Omega-Level potential, sure, but zero real-world experience. That makes you the wild card.”

I didn’t argue. Because she was right. I might be powerful, but power without control is just a flashy way to get your ass handed to you.

So instead of arguing, I turned and started packing.

Not much to take—just a change of clothes, the new phone I bought a few hours ago, its charger, and some cash. The money was already stored in the new bank account, so no need to carry around stacks.

“Still don’t want to grab an X-Men uniform?” Jean teased, the corner of her mouth curling in mischief. “You’d look good in it. Black and yellow could be your thing.”

“Yeah, no.” I deadpanned. “I’m not about to strut around in spandex.”

The day I throw on one of those skin-tight crime-fighting jumpsuits is the day I give myself a cringey superhero alias like ‘Electric Phantom’ or ‘Voltage Knight.’

And the odds of that happening? Absolute zero.

…

…

—Megan Gwynn—

She ran through the crowded street, blending into the sea of bodies, her frame swallowed by the oversized shawl wrapped tight around her. Her grandmother’s shawl. The old fabric smelled of herbs and age, of warmth and something long gone. It was all she had left that felt safe.

She didn’t know where to go. Didn’t know what to do. Couldn't talk to anyone about what had just happened—what she had become. Not her friends, not even her family. Especially not them.

They loved her, sure. But love can be blind. And her family’s eyes were sealed shut by faith.

To them, every joy was a gift from God. Every hardship? Either a divine test or the devil’s whisper. There was no middle ground. No room for explanations or… wings.

If they saw her now—really saw her—they’d call a damn exorcist before they asked if she was okay.

It wasn’t just the wings.

There had been a boy. Skin dark as midnight, ears sharp like an animal’s, a tail twitching like a devil’s signature. A stranger out of a nightmare—or maybe a fantasy, depending on who you asked.

Her father had caught a glimpse of them talking. One look, and he’d lost it. Called a priest. Talked about demons in the streets. Didn’t even ask her why.

At the time, she’d been terrified of the boy too. But now?

Now she couldn’t stop thinking about him. His eyes. His voice. His words.

‘You will soon awaken something… and when you do, do not be afraid.’

Easy for him to say.

She whispered under her breath as she darted through the oblivious crowd, “Where are you?” Her voice trembled. Not from fear—but from urgency. From desperation. She needed answers. And she wasn’t going to find them until she found him.

The shawl fluttered slightly as she moved, and she held it tighter, wings hidden beneath the cloth. Concealed like a sin.

Because what is a fairy to a devout believer but a smiling lie of the devil?

…

…

We were above the clouds now, cruising in silence. The Blackbird hummed beneath our feet—cloaked in tech so advanced I didn’t even want to understand it. It bent light, masked heat, ghosted radar. Honestly, it might as well have been magic.

“So…” I leaned back in my seat. “Why didn’t Illyana and the others take the jet?”

Japan was easily triple the distance compared to where we were headed. And yet they'd gone on foot—or whatever teleporting shortcut Illyana preferred these days.

“We don’t have a base in Japan,” Bobby explained, biting into an apple like this was all normal Tuesday talk. “Something about some ancient ultra-secret organization operating there. They don’t really welcome foreign meta groups planting flags on their soil.”

The Hand? Yakuza Mutants? Demon Ninjas? Could be anything honestly.

He wasn’t wrong, though. Japan’s always been… different. More traditional. More territorial. In the West, you could swing your powers around as long as you didn’t piss off the locals. In Japan, you sneeze wrong and suddenly you're being hunted by ancestral sword-wielders with blood vendettas.

“We’re close,” Ororo said, eyes on the holographic screen near the cockpit. “But high probability she’s no longer at the original location.”

And that was the problem.

The Cerebro signal had come from a street—not a house, not a school. Just a spot. One point in time.

“She’s not at home either,” Bobby added, sighing through clenched teeth. “Parents haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

He’d called their house pretending to be from some elite academy, trying to shake loose any info. What he got instead was panic. A voice cracking under pressure, begging for help, begging for answers.

But no leads.

Unless… they were forgetting something.

While the two continued brainstorming possible locations, I quietly pulled out my phone and messaged Hank.

If my hunch was right…

A few seconds later, my screen lit up. Bingo.

“I think I found her,” I said casually.

Two heads whipped around in perfect sync.

“How?” they both asked in unison, the word almost echoing off the jet walls.

Grinning, I held up my phone for them to see. “She didn’t turn her cell off. Not surprising—she still needs it for GPS and light. Hank tracked it using our internal network. Sent me a live ping.”

Simple. Effective. And something the girl’s parents couldn’t legally do—not this fast. Not without going through the labyrinth of privacy laws around GPS tracking. She’d barely been missing for a day, and that wasn’t enough for the authorities to lift a finger.

But Hank? Hank worked faster than the system.

“That’s…” Ororo’s eyes narrowed as she studied the map. “That’s not a great place.”

“The red light district?” Bobby choked on a bite of his apple. “You serious? She is a child!”

I sighed, already feeling the headache forming.

“Told you this wasn’t going to be simple.”