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You've Gotta Break a Few Eggs; [Manslaughter]
Topic Started: May 16 2011, 04:37 AM (538 Views)
Mystique
Unregistered

May 3rd
Noon Sanctuary Time



Norris sputtered and coughed, the drugs that kept him quiet and complacent wearing off. Deep in the heart of wherever they were, he stood bound in a room, the lights off all but one in the center of the ceiling, it's white phosphorescence glaring down on the restrained traitor like a spotlight centering on the lead of a play. He could see ahead of him, and turn his head from one side to the other, but beyond that his mobility was restricted, arms pulled back, yanked tight to the point of verging on painful.

In front of him, blue skin picked up what little white light bounded off of his form, off of the metal contraption which held him in place, off of the floor, which below him was speckled with blood and spit and sweat. Her eyes, yellow in her proper state, glinted in the dark, and if he could see her face, he'd see one that was cool, cold even. One collected and almost intrigued by the fact that he still held onto consciousness, clinging to sweet awareness as an infant may cling to the finger of it's parent.

She took pause, running her hand over her deep red locks while he grunted out something she couldn't quite understand. Taking a few steps forward, she squatted down, elbows resting on her knees as she looked up into his glazed eyes.

"Norris, honey. You're going to have to speak a little clearer than that." It was her own fault. She'd gone to town on him when he'd refused to speak. She could offer him insurmountable amounts of physical pain, through various tools and more corporal punishments, but none of that was working, and so she'd summoned someone who she though could genuinely help her give this man incentive to reveal the names she was looking for."

Stepping back, she motioned over to the side of the room, a man coming forth in medical garb; one of their many healers. As he went to work on Norris with her powers, she moved back over to the trays which housed various blades and other instruments of torture.

"I've told you, it's only going to get better if you cooperate..." She picked up her own report, the one she'd been putting together for Magneto since he'd assigned her to this. "The thought police picked you and several of your friends up dissenting against the Brotherhood. I've been following your leader for months now and quite frankly I don't think he trusts me any more...well, I should say I don't think he trusts you any more."

She thumbed through the intel she'd gathered, shaking her head. "I mean honestly, what could you hope to accomplish with this little bit of preaching, anyways? This isn't the outside world, Norris."

He grunted something guttural, but understandable. No manners, this one. Realizing that he had been fixed up to the point where he was again able to talk, she put the paperwork down and dismissed the healer, who moved to the side of the room once more, his face showing less shock and more of a clinical interest in the proceedings.

She cupped his face in her blue hand, pulling it upwards to face her. "I need the names of all your high ups, Norris, and all of this stops. I want to know who put this idea in whose head. I want to know why, how, and what you were planning." He jerked his head away, snapping at her fingers, but she was too quick, her hand recoiling.

"I've been here for months, too, lady. I haven't said shit yet. What makes you think I will now?"

She smirked, her head tilting as her yellow eyes looked his form up and down.

"Because I haven't asked you yet."

A ring sounded throughout the room, a voice following announcing the arrival of someone outside. Mystique looked to the medical staffer, who's stoic face hadn't moved since he'd returned to his position. "Loomis is here, Howard. Let him in."

She watched as the healer moved to the door, keying it open as could only be done from the inside while the room was in use. "And Howard, take a break. We shouldn't need you right away. At least not with the tools we have now."

The door opened and Howard walked out, nodding to Roger as he passed. Mystique didn't turn to look at him, her arms once again crossed against her chest, the familiar white-dress forming over her skin so as not to offend her comrade.

"Manslaughter..." she said in greeting.
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Manslaughter
Unregistered

At his arrival the door opened, and Roger quietly surveyed the task of a man before him, hardly acknowledging the departing Howard with more than a flicker of his gaze--such was his way. He had been summoned to acquire information, a task that he was not unfamiliar with in his line of work. For this task, the assassin of many blades needed no arms, his formal uniform absent and replaced with swaddlings of jeans and a sweatshirt. In this manner, he appeared no older than a budding adolescent, but the cold glint in his eyes always foretold otherwise. Although when it pertained to the assassin and the shapeshifter--looks were always meant to be deceiving.

His voice rarely above a murmur, Manslaughter respectfully cast his eyes to the floor as he approached Mystique. "Sister.. the grapevine says you have a birdie that will not sing."

A snort interrupted the redhead's greeting, Norris looking with contempt upon his slight sentry that was supposed to extract information from him. "What are you.. five?"

Roger's eyes darkened to eager slits, setting his mouth into a firm line as he smoothed his twitching fingers inside of the front pocket of his hoodie. It was a shame he was not allowed to kill the man, the cogs of his dark mind already surmising a number of different deaths that would suit his excessive cheek--cutting out his tongue included amongst those choices. A sharp stab pierced the back of Norris' skull in warning, as if a railroad spike had penetrated the soft flesh of his mind, a sensation that seemed so fierce that the captive's vision suddenly went fuzzy at the edges, unable to see anything in his peripheral line of sight.

He grunted in surprise but squared his shoulders, decided already that this boy would not get anything out of him. But Roger was hardly one to give up so easily, and he shuffled into the captive's limited range of vision, looking both almost excited and disinterested at the same time. Dual pricks of sensation drew themselves in a loop across Norris' shoulders. "Sing, little bird," Roger crooned, as if he were demanding information from a pet,"Or you get your wings cut off." For him, this was being gracious, as he had been with Vickers so long ago--but everyone knew how well that turned out.

The grim silence told Roger all he needed to know, and the assassin pressed harder into the back of Norris' skull, the stab working up from a railroad spike to what could be described as a spiked mace being beaten into his skull.
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Mystique
Unregistered

"HRRGRK!"

Her lips curled over her teeth in a sneer, watching Norris' hands, pulled tight behind his back, seize up and clench, white knuckled immediately as Loomis extracted payment for his insolent quip. Raven gave the man no credit. False bravado in face of insurmountable odds was neither wise nor commendable. In her summoning Manslaughter to aid her in her pursuit of answers, Norris had lost the one card he'd had up his sleeve; the mercy of the system.

Bound to the device, the first step had been to make him physically uncomfortable. His arms stretched back and his legs arranged in such a fashion that he had to put some weight on them or risk pulling his shoulders loose from their sockets. The second element was directly above his head; the cold, white light beading down on him from above barely illuminated the room outside of a small circle, but it poured heat down on him so as to keep him uncomfortably warm. It wasn't painful, perhaps, though his eyes at this point had to have been stinging from the sweat dribbling down his face.

Mystique had cut and bludgeoned and yanked and prodded at him, the evidence sat to her side, a few paces away, a stand housing all manner of bladed and sinister looking paraphernalia, provided her by the medical staffer who she'd only just dismissed.

But Norris had that single ace before now, the knowledge that she wouldn't let him die, and so ultimately whatever damage she inflicted would be undone; whatever pain she granted him would be soothed when she called on the healing powers of her assistant. That hadn't clicked with him yet, his writhing mass buckling under the weight of Manslaughters heavy mental attack.

She didn't need a healer now. She could give him pain unlike anything he'd ever felt, and not a single knife would cut his skin nor a single bone need to be broken. Manslaughter held in his genetic makeup the perfect tool for interrogation; he was an asset to their race and their Brotherhood.

A gentle blue hand rested itself on Roger's shoulder, her sign for him to let up up, Norris' grunts and shouts of paining ringing throughout the room. They subsided, briefly, and Mystique looked on through slitted eyelids, the yellow of her irises shrinking as her pupils expanded in the darkness.

"Come now, Norris. That was just a taste. You insulted the man, think of what he'll do if you insult him further by not giving us the information we need to know."

She took her hand from Loomis' shoulder, walking forwards, her confident swagger ever present as the white dress she wore swayed with her gait. She stepped on a pedal, the nullifying device their perpetrator was attached to arcing him upwards, white light flooding into his vision. His head twisted in an effort to escape the blinding brightness, and Mystique walked around, to his side, leaning her face in over his, blocking out the lamp overhead.

"Honestly, Norris, I take no pleasure in this." she lied, a white-gloved (or so it appeared) hand running the length of his jaw, her finger tapping at his chin. "I'm a busy girl, places to go, people to be. I know about your leader, and his second and third, but thats just one group, am I right?"

The man shook his head. "Nnn-no. It's just us, we don't spread that far." He was shaking, whether from fear or pain she didn't know. She'd given Roger the order to release his mind, but for all Raven knew he could be inside Norris still, grating on his nervous system like a bit of sandpaper, wearing away at the man's will.

"Oh, Norris." She smiled, her voice sympathetic even when laced with venom. "You cut my heart when you lie. Assume that I already know how many cells you people have, and that all I want are names and locations." She arched her eyebrows, her grim smirk never leaving.

Norris fumbled some words before spitting once more in her face, her eyes closing themselves via reflex. She exhaled a long breath, standing up again and wiping the offending material from her cheek before wiping her hand off on the man's jumpsuit. "That was rude and disgusting, Norris. Not appreciated or warranted."

She turned towards Roger as she came back from the prisoner, shaking her head. "Some people just need to be broken before they're of any use at all, Manslaughter." She picked something up off of her tray, going back over to Norris and roughly pushing his head to the side, holding it there while she stuck a hypodermic in his neck.

"This will keep you from passing out." she said, sinking the plunger in and withdrawing the needle, holding it deftly in her hand while revealing another syringe, her face knitting into a frown as his head bucked at her grip. She pushed the second plunger in, pulling the needle out and letting go of his face. "And that one will hold off any shock that may occur."

She moved back over to Roger, placing the empty syringes on the tray and looking to her comrade. "It's time, Roger. Have your fun but do not break his mind until our friend here cooperates."

"I ask again Norris. Who are the others, and where are their hideouts?"

She crossed her arms. Silence.

"No? Manslaughter, show him why this could be so much easier."
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Manslaughter
Unregistered

When Roger had been a boy, stopping his abilities before his victim succumbed to death was near impossible; he was so obsessed with wrenching the life from a breathing body that his focus could not be broken. Those years were long gone, and his respect for Mystique and her order gave him cause to retract most of the sensation, although it was not without a certain moment of reluctance. He loathed these treacherous leeches that conspired against his Lord, and Roger could hardly stop himself from unleashing a sting of force on Norris's unprotected mind when the captive spat at his blue-skinned sister who reacted with only annoyance. It seemed that this egg would be harder to crack than either of them had originally surmised.

Unfortunately for their prisoner, patience was not a virtue Roger possessed. He could break the man with time, subject him to agony at all hours until his mind psychologically shattered, but Roger could not wait, he wanted the information, and he wanted it now.

With no discernible results, his elder sister of war sated the prisoner with two injections to keep him alert for what he would experience. She then gave Roger affirmation to continue as he pleased, as always the condition that Norris remained alive. Begrudgingly reminding himself to adhere to the only term, Manslaughter stared openly at Norris, his face making one tight twitch of thought.

In a few, firm strides Roger crossed the room to Norris, circling him with the practice of a hungry lion, eyeing the various contraptions that held him in place. The slim man leaned in quietly, his fingers tracing the cool metal that held the prisoner's head in place.

"You are a filthy crow, little bird." Roger snapped a brace across Noriss's neck, binding his head in place. "You had a chance to give back your shiny particulars." He pulled the head plate back, forcing their captive to gaze only into the searing overhead light and nothing else.

From his puffy sleeve Manslaughter withdrew a hefty switchblade, deftly unhinging the fastener with a click. The blade in hand, the assassin traced the point down Norris's jaw, pressing hard enough only for the metal to whisper across skin. "For every glimmering truth my Lady does not have..."

His eyebrows arched, moistening his lips in nervous anticipation. "...the little bird loses a finger."

Silence again his only answer, Roger's body coiled as he snapped the blade away, his eyes growing only colder. "Foolish bird," the redhead muttered, although his face portrayed the vision of calm. He looked quietly to Mystique, his gaze for once looking clearly into her own, his eyes pale and transparent but serious. And then he looked away, bowing quietly over Norris's nearest hand. A prick of pain seared into the knuckle of the prisoner's index finger, peaking suddenly as the blade began to saw. Norris was resilient at the first prick, but his fortitude began to crack, attempting to strangle the noises in his throat to no avail.

Norris was shrieking before the pain peaked at a plateau, and all went still. The only sound was the captive's labored breathing, his brow rimmed in sweat. Slowly, Roger craned his head into Norris's line of sight. There was an eerie curve to the line of his mouth, looking almost pleased with himself as he triumphantly raised the knife, its steel blade etched in blood.

"One."
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Mystique
Unregistered

"Thats one of ten, to be specific, Norris." She mused, her tone playful. "Manslaughter here is adept with a blade, he makes it his art to be as such. I suggest you give me what I want before he gets any more practice, yes?"

Raven was unsure as to whether or not the man heard her, but she was sure he was listening. "You say pain won't break you, that agony and all it's companions won't get a single word pried loose. But you don't really know pain. I've not yet begun to open that box. You don't want me to, either, trust in that." She stood to the opposite side from Roger, blue hand carresing sweat-filmed skin briefly before it brushed the hair from his eyes, robbing him of what little shelter they had from the blinding, hot lamp that shone down on him.

Norris was crying again. She smiled.

"Names. I want names and dates and locations. You may still live, Norris, if only you spill your guts before I let my friend here do it for you."

"You won't...you wouldn't!" He screeched, still reeling from the pain in his hand. "If you kill me you lose what I know, and then you're fucked."

She curled her lip into a sneer and starting laughing, her head falling backwards as her arms dropped to her hips. It was funny these cocky young children with their pet causes and pretty passions and undying love for anything they assumed to be the greater good. She belted in laughter, trying to calm herself from Norris' petty display of defiance. Settling herself, she slowed down, draping a white-gloved hand over her mouth as the chuckling slowly died away. She took a few steps behind him, dialing the mechanism at the rear of the restraint, his arms stretching far enough to begin popping out of the sockets.

"For every finger, another half inch. Do you know how much tension the shoulder joint can take before separation? I don't. Our healers can't reattach limbs, you know." She circled around in front of him, eying his position though with his head raked upwards he certainly couldn't see hers.

"Don't be stupid, child. What is to stop me from taking another from your little clique and doing the exact same thing? I nabbed you easily enough. Perhaps that little girlfriend of yours. The one I sit with at every little meeting. The one I go home to every night? The one I fucked this morning." she let her lexicon slip to a low bar, words punctuated by ire and sadistic glee. "The one I slip it to every night since you're here rotting away?"

"She doesn't know anything!" He screamed. "She just goes with me! She doesn't have any information! Please...." She could hear his sobbing.

"I'm sure you're lying to me. After all, you've already lied to me How can I believe you, Norris? It hurts not being able to trust you. Now. Names. Information." She quirked a brow at him.

"No. Nonononono. You'll have to kill me. Fuck you facist scumbags."

"Big words are oftmost spoken by the biggest martyrs, Norris, but you'll find one thing that all martyrs have in common; they're all dead."

She nodded to Roger; her signal to go ahead with his little game.
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Manslaughter
Unregistered

One might have expected Roger to frown at their captive's stoic but cracking wall of resistance, but the truth was quite the opposite as the boy-faced assassin blithely wiped his blade clean at Norris's expense on the shoulder of his shirt. Roger appeared almost content to destroy their prisoner piece by piece, even humming a few bars of something off-key as he took the knife up again. Norris's demand for death broke his reverie, and from the corner of his eye, Mystique nodded.

"Tut, tut, little bird. You get no say," the redhead purred, tapping the flat end of his knife against his prisoner's cheek, reinforcing the idea of what was to come next. "Ready to tweet now?" he asked in a childlike tone, his face momentarily smoothing to youthful, unblemished planes.

Norris scrunched up his face, mustering the dregs of his dignity and foolish courage. "Fuck you," the captive muttered, the salt of his tears stinging his face.

As always unperturbed by rough language, Roger merely blinked, lowering his face once again to Norris's ear. "If the birdie does not sing, it does not have to stop with fingers. We have ten toes, two ears," Roger paused and tilted his head, his face cracking into something like a smile,"..and a free schedule." Yet despite Roger's dangerous nonchalance and Mystique's revelation, Norris wished to challenge them; an unwise choice.

Roger lifted the blade again, although he didn't look sorry to torture Norris further. It was almost eerie, for with each moment of torture and blood and pain the assassin became more and more like a child with a magnifying glass refracting light into fire. But Roger did not believe in waiting for the rays of the sun to set tiny beasts aflame.

He would rather watch them bleed.

"This little birdy went to the market," Roger murmured, a prick searing into Norris's middle finger like a needle. "And he got his head cut off." The prisoner's shriek of agony an surprise only egged him on, his eyes becoming hooded beneath his brows. "And his little lady friend too."
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Mystique
Unregistered

The drugs kicking into full force, she sat there and watched as Roger enjoyed his craft, her yellow eyes glinting bright and burning just off from the fringe of the light beading down on the sweating, bleeding, bruised and battered Norris. She let it go on a bit, let Roger have his fun while the man strained and bucked against containment, tried as much as he could to get away. She relished in his anger and his hatred and his damn fool bravado at taking ever last bit of this.

But it was getting to be late, and Mystique, who had been at him for more than two hours now, as becoming increasingly bored with it all.

When Roger finished for a brief second, she brought her hands forward and clapped once, leaning her cheek on them in a cutesy expression of understanding. "A moment, Manslaughter." She said, calm and cool and collected, eyeing the red-head young man with a certain piqued interest as he stepped away. She smiled again, lips curled almost but not quite into a snarling grin as she neared him, bending down in front of him and whispering quietly into his ear.

"Very last chance. The names of your accomplaces, the locations of their hideouts, and anything else pertaining to this little organization of yours. Tell me all of it and the pain stops, you get to go sleep it off...Hell, maybe I'll even give up on my little bit of schadenfreude here and let the medics try to put some of those fingers back on." Her voice was quiet, alluring, inappropriate, eyes drifting to his bleeding, but still intact hand; Roger's convincing methods removing the need for a messy display, removing the need to remove the appendage to get the pain. "You may even go free.", she lied.

"Fuck...you." he grunted, "Fuck you...and fuck your brotherhood, and fuck everything you hippocrates stand for!"

Mystique gave a sidelong glance, as if to say. "You sly dog." Standing, she looked at Roger, and huffed. "Well, Roger, I suppose he's not going to give it up. We'll probably burn through the meds at this rate. Amazing really, I've not had this much trouble interrogating somebody in a long, long time...a moment, if you would." She moved to the door, keying in a number, which sent a signal to the guardpost down the hall.

"Yes?" the static-riddle voice came through.

"Bring her in." she smirked, turning to Norris and moving back to her rolling cart of torturous instruments, clicking a button to readjust his positioning so that once more he was facing the door. She reached low, to the item she'd stowed there when she'd first come into the room, pulling it out. Chromed like the various blades and psuedo-medical equipment, the .50 Caliber pistol was designed with a very different sort of idea in mind.

A girl was shoved into the room, two members of security staff just behind her, a black bag tight over her face, hands cuffed behind her back. She pulled the mask off, dirty face blazing in the edge of the white glow sifting down on her 'patient.'

"Val?!" He grunted, voice hoarse and scratching like gravel.

"Norris?! Whats happening? They took me this morning and I don'-OUF!'

The grip of the pistol clocked itself across the womans cheek, and she spun to the ground. "Put her up, put her up onto her knees, gentlemen." They did so, and she pressed hung the pistol to her side. "Time stops now Norris, I will count to five. Give me a satisfying answer and she dies...One."

"What is she talking about, Norris? Oh my god, they know about us don't they?" Valery looked into his eyes, panicking.

"...Two."

"Honey, baby girl I'm so sorry! I'm so so sorry!" Norris looked to Roger and then to Mystique. "JESUS! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"

"..What?! Don't lie to them, Norris! Don't lie! Oh my god, help me! Norris tell them! Tell them god damnit!" Her boyfriend started crying.

"...Three." Mystique put the gun against her head."

"Ohmygod! Norris! Tell them! TELL THEM WHAT THEY WANT!"

"I..I."

"...Four." She pulled back the hammer, the minute click sounded like the crack of thunder.

Norris broke, his guts spilling long and wide about everything. Slowly at first, like a leak in a damn, but soon, the details began flowing, names, places. Mystique knew that somewhere, beyond the observing cameras, a scribe was taking it all down, though she made good to keep as much of it in her head as she could.

Things went silent for a moment, the only noise the hum of the lights and the quiet sobs of both of the imprisoned parties. She was satisfied, the climactic end to things once again proving her a master in her trade.

"Now, now, Norris. Was that so hard?"

BAM!

He screamed as Val's body slumped over, red and gray painted on the floor as she tumbled into lifelessness.

She looked to Roger. "Have your fun with him and then call retrieval to come take them to the incinerators."

She turned on her heel and headed to the door, Norris screaming in anger and rage as she moved away, eyes locked on his dead love.

"You said she wouldn't be hurt! YOU SAID YOU'D LET HER GO! You lied to me you bitch! You BITCH! YOU FUCKING LIED TO ME."

Mystique stopped at the door, turning back to meet his bloody bruised gaze.

"You lied to me first."

Raven turned to Roger, nodding before she left, the door closing behind her. She passed the returning medical staffsman on her way, catching him by the shoulder and gave him a nod. "Your dismissed for the day."
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Manslaughter
Unregistered

And then they were alone, leaving only the assassin and his prisoners, one sobbing, and the other emptying her life essence on the floor in a liquid mixture of blood and brain matter. Roger had not said a word since his blue-skinned sister at arms had stepped in to speed up the process, busying himself with making sure his knife was clean, implying boredom and disinterest.

"Val," Norris's voice broke, perhaps hoping that she somehow still lived or despite her motionless body she could still hear him from whatever place her soul had gone to.

"Her lights have gone out, little crow," Roger sighed, his eyes still fixated on the blade in his hand,"She can hear you no longer." His voice had become hard and cold again, the childish joy having run its course with the length of the captive's torture. There was still time yet to erode Norris further, but Mystique had shattered much of him by destroying his heart's desire at the end of a barrel of a gun.

And Roger loathed the sound of weeping.

Yet, the redheaded terrorist had not yet grown completely bored of his playtime. As always, his mind worked in some silent, untold way. Quietly, he approached the bound captive, stepping around him in an inward spiraling circle--a vulture to his prey. "Pity the bird is defective, for my Lord always has a place for new disciples. His way is always right." He paused, smoothing his hand over one of the many metal bars composing Norris's iron chair. "Lord Magneto rescued a little boy from an existence of thievery, even when his lifegiver had imprisoned and abandoned him for sawbones with instruments of death."

He stood on his toes, turning off the light that had blazed in his captive's eyes for hours. Halos of light were still dancing across the Norris's vision, and he could still see nothing. Roger spoke again, his voice quiet and low, almost soothing. "The boy is safe now, by His hand alone, a hand the bird has bitten."

"Why.. why are you telling me this?" Norris murmured, dazed from the day's events and the killer's revelations.

"Because," Roger murmured softly, his eyes glinting like cold steel as he pressed the blade of his knife to Norris's throat. "Dead birds do not sing."
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