magnetic ◊ criminal minds

xxxiii.

xxxiii. mutant affairs
( season five )

"COME on, Lehnsherr," Prentiss said. The two women were in the elevator, arriving to work at the same time. "Give me something. I'm tied with Rossi right now!" Prentiss was trying to get one point up on Rossi for their bet, but naturally, Lyra was not budging.

"Try harder," Lyra signed.

"'Try harder'," Prentiss mocked, doing an awful impression of Lyra's accent. "What about women supporting women?"

"What about women wanting entertainment?" Lyra retaliated, walking towards her desk the moment the elevator doors opened. Prentiss followed after her.

"You're evil. Do I get a point for discovering you're evil?"

"Hey, no cheating, Emily," Rossi said, walking by from the coffee machine.

"I'm not cheating! It's an observation," Prentiss defended herself. Both Rossi and Lyra gave her disbelieving looks. When the others got into work as well, JJ came up to them.

"We have a case. It's bad," she said, leading them up to the briefing room. Lyra was in for a shock when she saw who was in there, Strauss at his side.

"I assume you all know of Secretary McCoy?" Strauss said, walking the Secretary of Mutant Affairs to the briefing room where the team had gathered from the other door.

Henry 'Hank' McCoy, a mutant with blue fur all over his body, gave a toothy smile. "It's nice to meet you all, though I wish we wouldn't have to meet under these circumstances," he said.

Lyra glared in warning. To anyone else, it would seem like she disliked him. That was not the case. The problem was, Hank, as a former member of the X-Men, knew she was a mutant. She could not allow that fact to slip, and otherwise compromise her. She just could not.

Hotch shook Hank's hand. "Aaron Hotchner, nice to meet you. These are agents David Rossi, Lyra Lehnsherr, Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, and Doctor Spencer Reid," he introduced, gesturing at each agent as he said their name.

"I'll leave you to it," Strauss said, leaving to get back to her work.

"We should get started," Hotch said.

JJ nodded, putting up a picture of a woman who had been violently beaten and shot in her home. "This is Katie Chapman, twenty-nine, shot and killed in her apartment midday yesterday. All the lights in the apartment were out." She put up another picture. "Karla Hampton, twenty-five. Shot and killed almost a week ago, same thing. Lights burnt out."

"What makes us sure it's the same UnSub?" Rossi asked.

"Because he was caught on camera," JJ responded, putting up the video on the screen.

"He's a mutant," Morgan realized. The video playing from one of the victims' apartment showed footage of a figure, black shadow-like mist in the shape of a man.

"Garcia's getting as clear an image as we can get," Hotch said. "Secretary McCoy is here to help us with this case."

Lyra was glad to see Hank, she really was... but there could not be a worst place for them to finally see each other after so long.

"I'm just here to provide some insight," Hank said.

"Lehnsherr, will you take Secretary McCoy to the crime scene?" Hotch requested, his eyes fixated on her. He had no idea why she kept glaring at him, and frankly, he was suspicious. Lyra was an expert on mutant cases, he knew that when she first joined his team. Hell, it was one of the main reasons he hired her. Ever since he had first met her, she had become the biggest mutant activist he knew. She did not so much as look at mutant UnSub's the wrong way. She had even defended the worst of the worst, Magneto, before. So why was Hank McCoy an exception?