"Shadowed Secrets: A Mutant's Vigil"
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A low whine of pain still hovered somewhere beneath Gambit's cultivated nonchalance as he slumped boneless on the sunken couch, one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. He rummaged absentmindedly through the battered backpack, fingers closing over old receipts, lint, a bent pack of cards, and a burner phone scarred with impact marks. Beside him, the white-washed walls of the little basement room hummed with a herbal musk so thick it sat heavy on the tongue, a blend of ginseng, dried citrus, and other, less-familiar roots pressed for their secrets in the cramped apothecary above.
Laura Kinney—X-23—took in each detail like gathering intelligence. She didn’t trust safety; she didn’t trust rest. The shop owner’s small, sharp eyes had pinned her as she’d lied about Gambit, icy suspicion only melting when she pressed a low, urgent promise of money for silence. In a city that treated mutants as targets or commodities, money was better than loyalty. Still, the hidden room, veiled by crates of dried mushrooms and crates of glass bottles, would hold for now. For a few hours, perhaps a night—never more.
Gambit asked about his digital life, words curling with faint hope, but she hadn’t checked his messages. She couldn’t trust that. Every phone was a liability, every connection a tangle of invisible threads winding back to them. No, she’d rather watch him bleed and banter, as long as he remained alive.
Her own body catalogued hunger, a dull ache under her ribs, but habit made her ignore it. Not until Gambit found the Styrofoam boxes left behind the curtain—rice and roast duck, swimming in glossy brown sauces. His gratitude for the food was silent, but she noted the way his hands shook with the fork, the way he tore into the meat with more desperation than grace. Hunger had a way of equalizing, blurring lines of pride and power. Gambit was always arrogant, but desperation was in the set of his bruised jaw now.
She waited until he’d opened the box before claiming her own, the ritual comfort of food outweighing paranoia. Each sticky grain was a salve, a memory of kitchens and stolen meals, of cold rain and hunger and sometimes—just sometimes—a belly full enough that she could drift and let her guard down. Her claws itched, but she let them rest.
Inside the walls, she catalogued every sound. The fan’s uneven pulse, the hot pipes clicking behind the fake wall, the distant creak of footsteps upstairs. The herbalist’s patience upstairs was a temporary thing, born of her own unease; this was their borrowed time.
A muffled complaint floated from Gambit as he shuffled for the ancient, tiled shower in the closet-sized bathroom. She understood. Men who deal out danger don’t like to be rescued by it. She almost felt a smirk threaten her lips. Gambit nursed his pride as gingerly as he nursed his ribs.
With him out of sight, the silence deepened. Laura’s nerves hummed as she stood a fraction, scanned the walls for hidden doors or vents. Satisfied, she found a stack of newspapers behind the closet door—pages folded in with the raw, inky scent of last week’s newsprint.
Old habits surfaced, reading by headlines and not stories. Unrest in the city. Another anti-mutant rally. A third page whisper of a mutant sighting in Chinatown, speculative and faux-sympathetic. Nowhere in the stories did she appear; nowhere was Gambit’s name mentioned. But safety was never in the news. Safety was a margin that shrank with every breath.
She flicked through the papers with clinical interest, trained to look for patterns. If their trail had been picked up, if agency men or rival mutants were closing in, it would be in the subtext, not the front page. She read tone, not words. Nothing. For now, at least.
The comfort of the meal warred with the prickle of nerves. There was too much risk, but no choice. The walls smelled of warm spice and old secrets, the floor was hard, the couch was lumpy—but Gambit was safe, and she had chosen that. Not even Charles Xavier could ask more of her. The trade—the pain, the sacrifice—was hers to make.
In this hole, beneath an apothecary’s censure and the city’s suspicion, Laura Kinney watched the door, counted the heartbeats, and waited. The threat might come from outside, in the twist of a stranger’s footsteps. Or perhaps from Gambit, as his pride healed faster than his wounds. Maybe from herself, when hunger faded and her senses sharpened with predator patience again. But for now, she ate, she read, and she watched. That was enough.
This story was generated by user ziggo.zane with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.
Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.
AI Prompts
Prompt: Write a long story about the mutant X-23, who brought her friend Gambit to a hideout in a herbal medicine shop. The mutant freed him from his kidnappers and had to ensure their safety. When the shop owner saw that the mutant had come with a man, she was not pleased. But the mutant lied that Gambit was her brother and needed rest because he was injured. The shop owner agreed and led them to a hideout in the basement under the shop. When they entered the basement, Gambit sat on a couch and looked through the things in her backpack. When he asked if she had checked his emails and if anyone had called, the mutant shook her head and sat on the bed. She listened as Gambit mumbled something under his breath that he would no longer take orders from dangerous women. After a moment, he praised her for finding them a hideout, to which the mutant shrugged. She watched as Gambit reached for the Styrofoam boxes of food that the shop owner had left for them. The mutant immediately felt hungry when Gambit opened the box and began to eat. She nodded slightly and reached for the second box and began to eat. She was so hungry that she ate the entire contents faster than he did. When the man went to take a shower, the mutant for reached a stack of newspapers from the closet. Describe everything in the form of a mutant's thoughts without dialogue.
Response: A low whine of pain still hovered somewhere beneath Gambit's cultivated nonchalance as he slumped boneless on the sunken couch, one leg stretched out, the other bent at the knee. He rummaged absentmindedly through the battered backpack, fingers closing over old receipts, lint, a bent pack of cards, and a burner phone scarred with impact marks. Beside him, the white-washed walls of the little basement room hummed with a herbal musk so thick it sat heavy on the tongue, a blend of ginseng, dried citrus, and other, less-familiar roots pressed for their secrets in the cramped apothecary above. Laura Kinney—X-23—took in each detail like gathering intelligence. She didn’t trust safety; she didn’t trust rest. The shop owner’s small, sharp eyes had pinned her as she’d lied about Gambit, icy suspicion only melting when she pressed a low, urgent promise of money for silence. In a city that treated mutants as targets or commodities, money was better than loyalty. Still, the hidden room, veiled by crates of dried mushrooms and crates of glass bottles, would hold for now. For a few hours, perhaps a night—never more. Gambit asked about his digital life, words curling with faint hope, but she hadn’t checked his messages. She couldn’t trust that. Every phone was a liability, every connection a tangle of invisible threads winding back to them. No, she’d rather watch him bleed and banter, as long as he remained alive. Her own body catalogued hunger, a dull ache under her ribs, but habit made her ignore it. Not until Gambit found the Styrofoam boxes left behind the curtain—rice and roast duck, swimming in glossy brown sauces. His gratitude for the food was silent, but she noted the way his hands shook with the fork, the way he tore into the meat with more desperation than grace. Hunger had a way of equalizing, blurring lines of pride and power. Gambit was always arrogant, but desperation was in the set of his bruised jaw now. She waited until he’d opened the box before claiming her own, the ritual comfort of food outweighing paranoia. Each sticky grain was a salve, a memory of kitchens and stolen meals, of cold rain and hunger and sometimes—just sometimes—a belly full enough that she could drift and let her guard down. Her claws itched, but she let them rest. Inside the walls, she catalogued every sound. The fan’s uneven pulse, the hot pipes clicking behind the fake wall, the distant creak of footsteps upstairs. The herbalist’s patience upstairs was a temporary thing, born of her own unease; this was their borrowed time. A muffled complaint floated from Gambit as he shuffled for the ancient, tiled shower in the closet-sized bathroom. She understood. Men who deal out danger don’t like to be rescued by it. She almost felt a smirk threaten her lips. Gambit nursed his pride as gingerly as he nursed his ribs. With him out of sight, the silence deepened. Laura’s nerves hummed as she stood a fraction, scanned the walls for hidden doors or vents. Satisfied, she found a stack of newspapers behind the closet door—pages folded in with the raw, inky scent of last week’s newsprint. Old habits surfaced, reading by headlines and not stories. Unrest in the city. Another anti-mutant rally. A third page whisper of a mutant sighting in Chinatown, speculative and faux-sympathetic. Nowhere in the stories did she appear; nowhere was Gambit’s name mentioned. But safety was never in the news. Safety was a margin that shrank with every breath. She flicked through the papers with clinical interest, trained to look for patterns. If their trail had been picked up, if agency men or rival mutants were closing in, it would be in the subtext, not the front page. She read tone, not words. Nothing. For now, at least. The comfort of the meal warred with the prickle of nerves. There was too much risk, but no choice. The walls smelled of warm spice and old secrets, the floor was hard, the couch was lumpy—but Gambit was safe, and she had chosen that. Not even Charles Xavier could ask more of her. The trade—the pain, the sacrifice—was hers to make. In this hole, beneath an apothecary’s censure and the city’s suspicion, Laura Kinney watched the door, counted the heartbeats, and waited. The threat might come from outside, in the twist of a stranger’s footsteps. Or perhaps from Gambit, as his pride healed faster than his wounds. Maybe from herself, when hunger faded and her senses sharpened with predator patience again. But for now, she ate, she read, and she watched. That was enough.
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