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Sharpening a Knife; [Longshot]
Topic Started: Dec 13 2008, 10:55 AM (343 Views)
Mesmero
Unregistered

Time of day: 11 PM, December 8th
Place in the time-line Mesmero's introduction


Vincent Oliver Benson's boss wasn't happy. When Counselor Benson's boss wasn't happy, there was a good chance that the United States of America's armed forces would go to high alert. Furthermore, he wasn't just unhappy, he was pissed. When the next President of the United States of America is pissed, well, lets just say a small country like Guyana might want to watch its back. Carpet bombing is cathartic.

While Vincent had no particular allegiance to the Guyanese, he did know enough that the nation couldn't take another war on top of the other two. (Plus, the secret war in Latveria, though Benson has had a hell of time getting that information from his predecessor.) If his boss lost political capital over this, it would make Benson's job harder.

So Mesmero, the White Bishop of the New York Court of the Hellfire Club, was going to have do things that Deputy Attorney General-Designate Vincent Oliver Benson couldn't do. If anything was traced back to the associate counsel for the President-Elect's transition team, it would be the end of many things, including some nice immunity for the Hellfire Club that Benson had arranged.

Benson walked into the foyer of the Hellfire Club, handed his overcoat to a buxom Pawn, and clicked off his image inducer. If she was disgusted by his green skin, she hid it well. He would have to remember her. She'd be perfect for the BDSM schoolgirl catfight he was planning.

He asked another pawn for the location of the Black Knight. Centino was a trained assassin, which would have been very embarrassing for Benson if word ever got out. The Hellfire Club has been extraordinarily successful about keeping its membership secret since 1770, so Benson wasn't particularly afraid about a leak.

Mesmero walked into the champagne room in his pinstriped suit. He looked around for Longshot. The Black Knight was too good looking. Mesmero didn't like that. Still, he needed to shiv someone, and it didn't matter what the goon looked like. It could be Marilyn Monroe, really.

He grabbed a champagne from a passing waiter, and scanned the room for the Black Knight.
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Longshot
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Probability, Psychometry, Cloned Origin, Empathic Charisma
Longshot was sitting in a dark corner which was not his standard habit. He was alone, having shooed his usual fawning attendants away in sullen bad humor. He was unhappy, many things were amiss in his life, and he was not accustomed to it... not anymore. Without his King, without his savior... there was no real purpose for him. The encounter with Gambit had been over a month ago, but he was still thinking about what had happened and why it had happened. Longshot was also not accustomed to introspection. Too much thinking and not enough action. Once upon a time, he might have been better at it, might have had a brain more capable of handling such deep thought.

But he was damaged in many ways not entirely attributed to Jean's rough treatment of his fragile psyche.

He was dressed simply tonight, a black t-shirt and jeans, though he was barefoot because it pleased him to be so. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail, but he had not had his pawns tie it with the satin ribbon he favored. He was still very pretty, though he was sad, because he knew how to wear his depression with a degree of style that only the naturally gorgeous were capable of.

Throughout the night, many people both staff and guest had approached him, drawn by his sullen beauty. He sent them all away though he kept the drinks they brought over to tempt him. He had quite a collection of shot glasses before him, and he was stacking them up in an impossibly balanced castle.
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Mesmero
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He despised the champagne room. All the Pawns here would do whatever they were ordered to do. Where's the turn-on in that? God didn't give him his powers so he'd hang around a bunch of common whores. Not that Vincent believed in God. Still, he had no attraction to just telling them what he wanted. He had to make someone do what he wanted.

He finally spotted his mark, and began walking forward. He had to broach the subject carefully. From everything he had heard, the Black Knight had been restless the past few weeks. That was in Vincent's favor. Giving the young man something to do when he had nothing else. Mesmero did his homework on this. He was a lawyer; his job was knowing what was in any room before he ever walked into it.

The White Bishop approached the Black Knight from the only way it made sense: diagonally. He was in a corner, after all, and Vincent believed in facing his problems head on. Some may have not wanted to see the assassin's face when they gave the order. Some may wanted to have that plausible denialability. They were cowards and idiots. As the number two man at the Justice Department, part of Vincent's duties would be ordering exactly what 'enhanced interrogation' techniques would be used. Muttering around in the darkness, keeping the left hand from knowing what the right was doing, it was just a coward's way of avoiding responsibility. Vincent didn't promise the president-elect that he was always going to do the right thing, but he did promise that anything that he did do, he would be willing to do in front of his own mother.

In this case, the thing he'd be willing to do was hire an assassin to kill one of the president's-elect political enemies.

The White Bishop didn't particularly like the Black Knight, but he was the right tool for the job. "I need you to owe me a favor," Vincent began. It was the first rule of negotiation, give them a carrot. Vincent was honor-bound not to use his powers on his fellow Inner Circle members.

"There's a particularly loathsome man in Chicago who is about to cause a lot of headaches for me. He's flying into Dulles tonight, and it'd be a lot better if he never made the return flight," He said pointedly.
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Longshot
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"You need me to owe you a favor?" Longshot looked up at the White Bishop, confused. He casually shot back whatever this latest gift from one of his admirers was and flipped the shot glass on his fingers like a juggler, spinning it on the tip of his index not as if he was showing off, but rather like anyone else might doodle or idly carve their name into the table. He was bored, and bored was bad. It made him quite open to whatever the White Bishop wanted to talk to him about, though he didn't recall if he had spoken to the member of the opposite court before. "I don't quite understand what you mean by that, but I'm interested to find out more."

The Bishop revealed what he wanted in a roundabout way and Longshot smiled, his eyes glazed from drink, but nothing sloppy about him. "I could very easily take care of this 'loathsome man.' That's what I was built for, cell by cell, all the unwanted frailties taken away and everything twisted for the utmost skill in taking life. But my master and my creator are dead by that self same skill, and since then... well, we should just say I don't kill for free anymore. I do it to serve the court, or to serve honor, or because it is what is necessary..."

He flicked his fingers and the shot glass was launched into the castle of empties he had created, sending them crashing to the table with a noise and commotion that brought a delighted smile to Longshot's pretty face.

He looked up and asked, "Why is making life easier for you at all necessary to me, My Bishop?"
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Mesmero
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This is why Vincent didn't like young people, especially young mutants. He had to lift himself into the White Bishop position, and this young man, playing around with shot glasses, got himself a spot in the Inner Circle on nothing more than luck and good looks. It was aggravating, and now Vincent had to flagellate himself in front of the young fool just to get the tool to do its job?

Vincent's voice dropped low. "You'll do it for precisely those reasons. Because you are a man of honor, and I came here as a man of honor in efforts to defend a man of honor. Well, as honorable as the President of the United States can be." He wasn't going to beg a Knight to kill someone, especially not one who had killed so many before.

"If that is not enough for you," Benson said these carefully, each word passing through the steel gate of his clenched teeth, "I am the most highly placed Hellfire Club member in the Justice Department ever since Dick Thornburgh was the Attorney General. I have helped our members escape prosecution more times than I can count. My powers have helped me wrangle this, but there are 93 US Attorneys, along with their assistants, deputies and staffs that I have to deal with, and I can't keep them all under hypnosis. I simply do not have the time to refresh their triggers, so I need to have political support."

"These 93 US Attorneys, while having been politically appointed, all have their own ambitions, from running for Congress or parlaying this into a cushy private sector gig. The last thing they want to do is be seen as being pushed around by the White House, especially an unpopular White House," Vincent was worked up a bit by the Knight's insolence, so he was getting the long version.

"If this loathsome man, and if you ever actually meet him, you'll agree, he is a fraction of a man, releases what he's got, political support for the White House plummets, and now, I'm spending all my time herding US Attorneys into doing their jobs, instead of using my job to help the club. What part of this sounds like it'll benefit the club?"

Vincent stared directly into Longshot's eyes, but he did not activate his powers, "Do I need to go on?"
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Longshot
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The Bishop went off on a lecture, and there were several things wrong with such a tactic. One, politics bored the hell out of the Black Knight. He was technically just approaching five years old, though he looked like a man of twenty-two, and much of that first year was spent a mindless puppet. He'd never voted, knew nothing of governmental process and technically wasn't a citizen, even before his donor had died. Two, his attention span matched his chronological age and so when the man went into his self righteous rant, Longshot, though he had honestly tried to pay attention, had found his focus drifting away to the pretty girls and boys in the club, who cuddled in pools of candlelight and puddles of lust. Three, he was drunk, or at least for as close to it as he could be. It wouldn't last. His body processing the effects of the alcohol quickly. There were still drugs in his system that sped his metabolism, genetic changes that made him superior than his donor, twists in his DNA that only Arize understood.

Longshot leaned across the table and cupped Mesmero's green cheek in his three fingered hand, "All you had to say, My Bishop, is that it would be fun." He smiled prettily, his empathic charm probably having no effect on the hypnotist, but making several of those who watched from across the room gaze a little more longingly, "Entertainment is the most necessary component in my make up, after all. So, where do we go from here? I will be your blade. But if this proves to be a dull conquest, I'll have to find other pastimes to alleviate my boredom."
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Mesmero
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This unthinking thug. This stupid ruffian. If fun was all that he required, why did he say he only killed for the Court, for his honor and for utility? What was fun had little to do with what was good for the court. A pointless murder for fun was certainly not an honorable path, and no utilitarian would justify murder for a pouting pin-up's enjoyment.

"If you're willing to do what I ask, Black Knight, then when I ask, all you must do is say 'Yes, my Bishop'" Vincent sneered, "Assume that what I ask is in the best interest in the Club. Don't talk to me about prerequisites."

Vincent took out a piece of paper from his briefcase. It was a faxed photo of a grim-looking man, a scrawny little thing. He was balding, and trying to cover for that fact by growing a beard. His eyes already seemed to have been dead for quite some time. Edgar Flumm was a photographer of moderate success. He did however, have something very embarrassing, of Vincent's boss's wife, from her college days.

"He has something that he's going to share with a tabloid. He's flying in this evening to give them the material. We know this because he has tried blackmailing my boss with this information before. He'll be meeting with the Post in the morning, and be staying at the..." Vincent whipped out his Blackberry and checked the information again, "The New World Hotel in Chinatown."

"You have his photo, you have his location. Make it look like an accident, like he slipped in the shower, or something. I don't know, that part is up to you; I don't want to get in the way of a professional. If this isn't fun for you, then, take some small solace that you're helping the club."

"Oh, one last thing, the man will have a couple rolls of film in his overnight bag. Grab those and bring them here. You never know when having something over the president will be helpful. I'm sure your royalty would look favorably on someone giving them so much leverage."
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Longshot
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"If you're willing to do what I ask, Black Knight, then when I ask, all you must do is say 'Yes, my Bishop'" Vincent sneered, "Assume that what I ask is in the best interest in the Club. Don't talk to me about prerequisites."

Longshot snorted and said, "I don't play chess, but there is a debate over which piece is higher. Some say the bishop, some say the knight. It seems to me that the fact that you are in need of me makes me the more valuable, so perhaps you should say 'please, my knight,' before I say, 'yes, my bishop.'"

He looked at the pictures and said, "A fat worthless man. But a lot of stories I'm sure he'll have." He ran his three fingered hand over the image, "I'll do this deed for you, and for the good of the club as long as I am allowed to keep these stories. You can have the film, the pictures, I have whatever interesting things he has to tell me... Maybe I'll take that greasy ponytail of his."

He pushed the picture back and said, "You've handled this picture too much. It's stories are only your stories, and your stories aren't interesting to me... though it tells me that you don't like me at all. It's a good thing we are not in the same court... or is it? Someday Knight will take Bishop and I probably won't be all that inclined to show mercy to someone who doesn't like me." Longshot's face puckered in a picture perfect pout. "If you're lucky though, my blades will pluck your eyes from your skull quickly. That's where your power lie? In your eyes. I wonder if I took them what would I see."

Suddenly bursting into laughter, Longshot threw his head back and said, "Ha! I'm just playing with you, Bishop. I would never hurt one of the court unless they desperately needed it, and you're a bit of an ass, but that's not a killable offense... yet." His spirits had clearly lifted. Something interesting was happening and that always made him happy. "So, have you a plan or do I improvise? Are you joining me?"
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Mesmero
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Amusing, the Black Knight wasn't. Mesmero didn't find these strutting peacock antics amusing or productive. He already humbled himself enough to not use his powers on this insufferable idiot, and now he dares lecture Benson on chess?

"That's a funny joke, Black Knight," the Bishop said icily, "You keep any stories from this man you want. Of course, if you use the stories to damage my boss, and therefore me, and therefore the Club, I'll have you spending the rest of your days thinking you are a meth-addicted truck-stop prostitute, and make you unable to committ suicide."

"That's my funny joke," Vincent gave the briefest of smiles, a thin ugly thing. "I don't want to tell you how to do your job; you obviously have had much more experience than me in the art of assassination. I make it a policy to let experts use their expertise."

"I won't be with you. I would want to confirm the kill, but I can't take part in the actual hit. I wouldn't want any nasty rumors spread about me."

Vincent got up. He fussed with the cuffs of his shirt. Despite his loathing of the champagne room, after all this sordid business, he wanted to take the edge off. Perhaps one of the Pawns was a bit more innocent than she let on. His inner lawyer got the best of him, and he went over business in triplicate. "This man meets a reporter at 9 AM. He can't make that meeting. Any questions, you have my number. I'll want proof when the job is done. Room 316, New World Hotel."

With that, Vincent walked away, looking for a brunette with doeful eyes.
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