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the end where i begin; [magneto]
Topic Started: Mar 27 2011, 12:42 AM (293 Views)
Primal
Unregistered

Time of Day: 13:00
Place in Timeline: April 29th




Paradise was lethargic. The city was bright and cheerful and startling and it stunk of cut grass and freedom, and mutant children played unhindered on the streets and everyone pissed rainbows and sunshine, and Primal was just pissed off. He found fault in everything, most of it imagined. He hadn’t yet gotten used to his new arm. It had never been as simple as connecting ligaments and frayed cartilage and shattered bone to a lump of tech and being able to use it as if he had been born with a contrived limb. It still ached. They said phantom pains were a common neurological artefact of amputation, and Primal had told them to speak English or he’d feed them their testicles.

Saurian physiotherapy sessions lasted for over an hour, five minutes of which were productive.

Mr Therapist would go, 'Can you squeeze my hand?' and Primal would say, 'Suck my fucking cock you two-bit son of a whore,' to which the therapist would take offence, responding with something like, 'I do not have to be here taking crap from an armless lizard', which he or she would instantly regret. And then there would be dramatics and tension and long days without assistance during which Primal would stubbornly insist that he could learn to work the prosthesis alone, growing increasingly frustrated with fingers that wouldn't twitch and curl when he wanted them to. He could throw punches; the ruined decor was testament to that, his couch mangled and splintered. The little things escaped him, those delicate, fiddly manipulations, gestures he had taken for granted like handling a spoon or flipping someone the bird, now awkward and difficult. A clot of anger lodged in his chest. He felt indignant, every little handicap a personal insult. He was an Acolyte without the use of a limb and eyes that saw only an alien spectrum and despite having command over much of an autonomous city-state believed those disabilities rendered him virtually useless.

Primal didn’t give in to that sense of ineffectuality, but it dragged at him, his temper paper-thin.

He was half an hour into trying to kill a physiotherapist when a slim man in an oversized shirt slunk bandy-legged into the clinic and announced in a sonorous voice that didn’t suit his stature that Magneto required the feral’s immediate presence. The messenger interrupted a classic scary Primal speech and loped away before the saurian could redirect his fury, leaving him stranded between two different sets of sentences and unable to continue with either, which only annoyed him further. He stalked the distance calculating the possibility of severe consequences should he decide to violently discharge the next dickhead who tried to butt in on one of his irritable rants. If it hadn’t been on Magneto’s orders there might have been a bandy-legged messenger flopping on the polished floor bleeding out of ten different holes.

Inside the complex Magneto’s secretary glanced at him over the top of her computer screen as he passed, ushering him forwards with a pointless reminder that the president was expecting him. Primal shot her a lingering stare full of scorn before shouldering into the office, letting the doors swing shut behind him.

The smell that hit him was sour. Primal’s impatience flatlined, cooling into concern that he hid behind his usual half-scowl.

“Sir?”
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Magneto (old)
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Magnokinesis / Flight
Ice blue-gray eyes flickered back and forth over the pages of the thick book in Magneto's gloved hands; even the Master of Magnetism needed a brief respite from the arduous affairs that Sanctuary posed on him. Even he – a man considered by most to be cold and unaffectionate – knew that life without certain pleasures proved to be a hell of one's own making. That's why the mutant utopia was not simply sterile walls and gleaming, perfect efficiency. There were allowances for the joys and pleasures that catered to a being's needs beyond the physical and mental... music by mutant and human alike, art galleries containing amazing displays of creativity, and books that challenged as well as entertained. Sanctuary provided sustenance for the soul.

Currently reading Volume Five of À la recherche du temps perdu or A Remembrance of Things Past, Erik couldn't help but be amazed at the workings of a single human clearly ahead of his time. The way Proust delicately presents the idea that art triumphs over the destructive power of time spun out in a very intricate tale that required seven volumes...

It was works like these that reminded Magneto that there was still a reason to seek peace with humanity. Not a wary alliance that required mutants to bend knee to homo sapiens, but one on which they can benefit from the leadership that homo superior could provide. Such an alliance would allow humans to enrich mutant culture with their own contributions while benefiting from the enlightened rule of their evolved descendants. It was so simple... why couldn't they see it?

A from his desk pulled the Master of Magnetism out of his reverie, alerting him to the fact that Primal was about to enter his office. His posture never changed nor did his eyes ever leave the pages in front of him as the door opened, Raen admitting himself into the inner offices of Magneto. Erik could feel the young Acolyte more strongly than he ever could have with the addition of the artificial limb that had been installed by Sanctuary's best, making his presence that much more glaring, as if the sharp energy he exuded wasn't enough of an announcement. He couldn't help but wonder what was going through the young man's mind... surely he could sense the mood in the air. After all... Magneto was far from pleased with some of the latest information he had been given on events over the last few months.

Snapping the book shut, Erik laid it on his desktop beside his helmet and finally looked up at the saurian mutant, eyes fixing on those odd violet ones, fully aware that his gaze did not hold the sway over this young man that it did over so many others. Primal couldn't see those cool blue eyes; hopefully the scent would suffice.

“Have a seat, Primal,” he said as he gestured to a chair, “It has been some time since we talked. How are you adjusting to the mechanical arm? I've had conflicting reports on how you were responding to therapy. Several of the doctors have had some interesting things to say about you as a patient.”

The medical staff was strange in that way – an Acolyte was an Acolyte, and a patient was a patient.
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Primal
Unregistered

When Magneto broke the silence there was nothing indicative in the ferrokinetic’s voice, no subtle intonations of displeasure or disappointment or simple anger and nothing to suggest he was ready with a criticism or a dirty order. There was just this sharp calm and the stale smell of almonds, and Primal compared it to cyanide, poisonous little emotions leaking unexplained from his leader’s pores.

He glanced at the chair and remained standing, only partly because chairs didn’t agree with him. The tension set him on edge. Primal straightened the metal arm and flexed it, rotating his wrist, half expecting to hear clanking and whirring and the mechanical grinding of pistons, hearing only the swish of his sleeve.

“It ain’t bone n blood n muscle. It ain’t warm. Fucking hurts, too. I can deal with real pain, but this don’t make sense. Tossed back a bottle of ibus one time but it didn’t do much difference. Docs said something about cortical crosswiring, whatever that means.” He shrugged, shoulders shirking in a motion more languorous than he felt. Could just be paranoia, he thought; could just be dregs of suspicion still rolling over from all that bad shit back in November. That month hadn’t yet ended. Time had jelled at the beginning of winter and gotten stuck. He made an awkward fist and stared at the hard green outline of semiwarm adamantium-and-steel.

Regarding the doctors, Primal grated, “I hate the condescending pricks. I hate their sly insults and their passive aggressive one-liners and their piss-poor attempts at pretending they’re actually nice, their endless prodding and their cold fucking fairy hands. It’s one long step down from bein’ jabbed with a spatula: limp-wristed medics with baby-soft skin and crappy circulation.”

He knew he sounded ungrateful. It was impossible for him to appreciate the craftsmanship that had gone into the construction of the prosthetic limb, his throat clamping shut, something burning like bile in his chest. Pieces of him were breaking off; he was eroding at a geological rate, thousands of years of weathering playing out across his body. Scar tissue and scales and reptilian eyes and now amputation, handicapped yet again by something beyond his control.

Being a cyborg didn’t suit him. Those patches of normal skin were the only things still human about him.

Primal’s nostrils flared, tail twitching; Magneto’s stench didn’t match the empty small talk and he didn’t like being passed off with spurious concerns about his well-being. Yeah, it was the president’s prerogative, but Primal hated doubletalk and hidden meaning, expecting as much brutal honesty as he dealt.

“All due respect; you ain’t asked me here for my personal opinion on the medical staff.”
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Primal
Unregistered

Years ago Magneto had met a stupid boy with a face like a pit bull. He had watched that boy, wild and foul-mouthed and lost, kill two men without breaking a sweat, then crumple and vomit as if sickened by what he had been built for. Now one of his finest soldiers, it was hard to imagine that the saurian had ever been fazed by the thought of taking a life in self-defence, had ever hesitated on the battlefield, or had ever questioned his orders. Magneto studied the scarred features of his lieutenant, savage claw marks and the twist of burnt flesh ruining the skin between scales, and considered that he was yet again about to ask the Acolyte to bear another scar under the premise of doing his duty.

Anyone else might have thought it cruel; however… wilfully retaining critical information about the duplicitous actions of members of the Brotherhood went beyond insubordination, and it was only Primal’s relationship with the perpetrator that gave Magneto cause for considering a compromise. He was embittered by this war, perhaps, but not desiccated.

“It has come to my attention that there is a spy in Sanctuary. I want you to deal with it.”

Through surreptitious channels he had heard betrayal whispered in the mind of the lizard, and his shadowy police had delved deep enough to find an idiot girl who had made a very silly choice, and Primal’s bifurcated loyalty. The reptilian had bent the trust Magneto had placed in him and was being given a chance to straighten out that ugly kink.

Primal’s finger twitched and his eyebrows buckled lower a fraction but he gave no real sign he was aware of what his leader was telling him to do… and because there was no fucking way that Magneto could possibly know about Jesse’s involvement in Gambit’s escape, Primal didn’t know how to react, uncertain and twitchy and battling a swell of nerves that pinned him to the spot like a straightjacket, his body language frozen.

It couldn’t be about Jesse. His paranoia was overloading.

Keeping his tone neutral, Primal asked, “Spy?” and disappointment flickered like exhaust through Magneto’s scent, settling briefly around his eyes, hardening his lips into a thin line.

“Is there a problem?”

Primal shucked a languorous shrug, as if dismissing the issue. As if it could just slide right off him. “Just ain’t much detail to go on. Got a name?”

The office dropped suddenly in temperature, a thrill of goosebumps crackling under Primal’s scales until the saurian realised with a jolt that the air was singing, and it wasn’t that the room had chilled: his blood had become sluggish, crawling like sludge through his veins. Magneto’s grip on him was a block of ice. The president reeked of cold fury.

“Do not press my generosity. I am well aware that you and Miss Milano-Firth are intimately acquainted, but should you choose to continue protecting her I will be forced to treat the both of you as traitors.” Magneto leant forward, hands meshed on the desk next to his helmet. His face reflected ballooned and angry in the metal. “Do whatever you have to, but I expect the issue to be addressed by you personally. Do I make myself clear?”

The ferrokinetic released him and blood surged hot through Primal’s limbs. Everything gave way.

He stared straight ahead, unblinking, his vocabulary dwindling. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, swallowing sticky air. There wasn’t… Thoughts scattered stupefied from his mind, the saurian wracking his brain to try and remember if he had in some moronic moment let slip Jesse’s betrayal, knowing he hadn’t, stumbling lopsided over the past few months. Primal shot a desperate look at his leader, his façade cracking. The man he most respected asked him to do the impossible: split himself in two.

He waited for something in him to react, searching for that boiling nugget of rage. What he found was foggy and threadbare and untranslatable.

“That all?” Primal’s jaw muscles worked. His eyes wouldn’t focus. “Sir?”

For a weary moment, Magneto leant back and regarded his lieutenant with something between contempt and pity, and then stood, fists knuckling against the hardwood tabletop.

“Do you understand the trust I placed in you? The position of influence you maintain? I can’t help but wonder if you’ve started to take that role for granted. As my longest standing Acolyte you above all others should understand the level of responsibility we hold in the mutant community, and yet next to a whole city of innocent children and their families who want nothing more than to live a life free from persecution and bloodshed, who have come here trusting that we can provide that level of protection and reside in that trust directly under our care, you choose to ignore it to protect a woman who would and has put them all in harm’s way to forward her own selfish agendas. I should demote you. By all rights I should have you arrested.”

He was right, and at once Primal remembered their first meeting and his uncertainty and his stupidity and Magneto’s sickening charisma, and regretted ever following the terrorist out of that warehouse.

“I’ll deal with it,” he responded flatly.

“Frankly, Primal, I hope you do. You’ve given too much of yourself, physically and mentally, to throw it away over this.” Magneto gestured at the door and it slid open. “Dismissed.”

Primal hesitated, and then on autopilot turned and marched out of the office until the door swung shut behind him with a soft click. There he ground to a halt, unable to decide which direction to take, whether he needed to turn left or right or continue straight ahead, who he needed to speak to, what orders to give, what the fuck he was supposed to be doing. He couldn’t move, his feet like boulders, cemented to the floor. And then he visibly sagged, deflating, slumping back against the door, his mind tuned to a dead and empty channel.
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