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| This isn't Cats in the Cradle; Corsair | |
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| Topic Started: May 29 2014, 07:06 AM (241 Views) | |
| Vulcan | May 29 2014, 07:06 AM Post #1 |
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Channeling of Geothermal Energy/Widdle Bwutha
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May 2nd, 2014 It had been a month since he woke, and not much had happened. He did not talk much. What was there really to talk about, or who to talk to? Any conversation he had was short. Unwilling to really open up to anyone. Instead he focused his attention elsewhere. Primarily on getting himself back into shape after the lethargy had overtaken his body. Scott and Jean had made it clear that he was not going to get the ending he had planned for years. The monster he created within himself was not going to be slain. Instead he was now forced to live with it. Whatever that meant. Did they expect it to eat at him inside? Internalize the pain, or something else? That had been the greater puzzle that he spent the other part of his time in self induced solitary that he thought about between workouts. What did they want from him? They said it out loud but it just...didn't compute. He still believed that his previous path had merit, maybe not as much as he used to put into it the more he thought about it. Or how much maybe his desires were multiplied into something far more perverted by the Phoenix, amplifying everything about him. Including his flaws. Maybe that was what happened... or maybe he was genuinely wrong. He always shook the thought out of his head once he got to that end of the train. He did what he knew was right. That's what he kept telling himself. What he always told himself. A silent count went up in his head as his arms made a perfect 90 degree angle, hovering for several seconds before going down, repeating the held push up until his arms just shook too much and the pain in his muscles became intense. Dropping a knee before standing. For a regular person, his progress was beyond expected, but for him it was not good enough. His breath was labored from the exercise, but he took controlled breaths. It was hard to lose those lessons that had been drilled into him since he was a child. Even when he was Majestor, he couldn't stop staying training. He sat on his bed, hearing the sound of feet hitting the floor, coming towards the holding cell that had become his room. Away from everyone else, almost no one on the ship wanted him here, and he was happy to stay as far away from them as he could. He looked towards the doorway, his blue eyes greeting the Captain. "Corsair." He said in a greeting. Still having mixed feelings about his father. Gabriel had not yet once addressed him outwardly as 'father', 'dad', or anything of that nature. Old feelings and teachings were hard to let go. "Come to check that I have not escaped or worse?" |
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| Corsair | May 30 2014, 11:09 PM Post #2 |
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NPC: Baseline Human
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"Nope," Corsair said with a shrug of his shoulders, "I know you didn't escape. The 'Jammer would have told me if she had a pissed off kid stomping around in her gullet trying desperately to set her on fire. It sort of gives her the rumbly tummy." Corsair tapped on the keypad outside the door, and stepped in. The cell was nothing more than a room with an alarm on it. There were various monitors to make sure that Gabriel was alive, contained and healthy, but other than that, it could be just a room, like the ones the others had, a bed, a washroom, nothing else of interest. Pirates traveled as light as criminals. "Stand up, boy," Corsair urged, looking at this angry creature with his own youthful face. "I want to take a look at you. I want to see just what you are without any of the trappings of megalomania and entitlement that bastard D'Ken put on you." There was a long moment of silence as Chris studied the boy, and though there was no expression on his face, there was a subtle tightening at the jaw that spoke volumes if Gabriel was able to see. "Sit down, Gabriel," Chris finally said, "We're going to have a little chat." Taking a seat in the only chair in the room, leaving Gabriel to perch on the bed if he chose, Corsair said, "You have your mother's eyes, right down to the hatred in them. She... didn't hate me as much by the end... I think she'd started to love me again, but I saw those eyes more than I ever should have." Folding his arms over his chest, Corsair paused and then he said, "You're right to hate me, Gabriel. I'm the reason you are what you are. You were conceived in violence and misery, your mother and I slaves to D'Ken. I look back at what I was then... a traitor to my country, to myself, drug addicted, violent... I don't blame you for your ways, they're Shi'Ar ways, and that's all you know. I knew better, I knew another life, but, I was an addict, and I had so little control over my life, that I allowed myself to believe that I could find that as a Shi'Ar, hurting others as I had been hurt. I began to understand the value in force, in cruelty. It's an eat or be eaten world, isn't it? Your mother hated what I'd become, when I was thrown back into our cell glassy eyed from the drugs, stinking of sweat and blood, raging, arrogant, entitled. I forced myself on her, and I took what I wanted because that's all I knew at that point. I like to tell myself she didn't fight as hard as I know she did, but it didn't matter. The damage was done, and until the day she died, I doubt she ever fully forgave me." Chris never looked away from the young man as he spoke, as he confessed his sins to the one person left who suffered because of them, "But as disgusting and unworthy a creature as I had become, Gabriel, it was you who helped me back to myself. Because I knew you were on the way, because I knew what your life would be if that thing I was was all that was left to raise you, I fought my way back to be a man again, not a monster, not a creeping, crawling thing... not a Shi'Ar. I tried to fix things. I did. I weaned myself off the drugs, painfully, torturously. I remember vomiting blood, and shaking in withdrawals so violently I cracked ribs, but I kept thinking of what would happen if you were born in those cells..." He passed his hand over his face and he said, "I tried to free us. I gave D'Ken everything he wanted and more, and then, in those last moments as I desperately tried to take your mother and escape, I failed, and she paid for it." Chris dropped his hand and turned his red eyed gaze back on the boy, "And, you paid for it. D'Ken turned you into everything I denied him, everything I feared you'd be if I became Shi'Ar." They sat in silence for another moment, this one longer than the others, this one heavier somehow. Then: "The rest of my crew say you're a lost cause. You're more his son than mine. I refuse to believe that. You're not just either of those things..." He leaned forward and he said, "You're Kathy's son, too, and I can't believe anything she would bring into this world is hopeless." |
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| Vulcan | May 31 2014, 06:13 PM Post #3 |
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Channeling of Geothermal Energy/Widdle Bwutha
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He rose to his feet as Corsair asked, too tired from the physical therapy he was so keen on doing alone to argue. Almost too tired to stand as he could feel his legs quiver as he did, doing what he could to hide that fact from Corsair. He didn't really care for what reason the older man wanted to give on why he wanted to inspect him. Personally Gabriel thought he was a poor specimen of any sort at the moment. Despite his improvement from when he woke up, he was still very frail, and likely no stronger than a child, and maybe the endurance of a toddler. He sat without question when Corsair was done, though was not really looking forward to whatever was going to come, at least what he thought was going to come. Corsair surprised him though. Starting off with something he did not think about too often. His mother. He heard D'Ken say he had her eyes on more than one occasion. However it wasn't until Corsair spoke did Gabriel realize what that meant. Blue eyes filled with hate. He had been feeling cold both physically and emotionally since he woke up with his powers nulled, but something just then made him feel some warming comfort. A piece of the puzzle in his mind of what his mother looked like or who she was was filled in. Corsair, yes he still referred to the man as Corsair rather than father or any other sort of name, began to speak having thoroughly grabbed Gabriel's attention. The young man listened without a word as the Captain of the Starjmmer talked about his past that lead into Gabriel's life. He had heard some variations of the tale, always with some spin or another on them to pain Corsair as more of a monster than he was. Some of it, Gabriel wished he had not heard, other portions were enlightening about the man who was before him. He knew D'ken's techniques of breaking men and making them loyal. Addiction, blackmail, preying upon their vices, just to name a few. None of it really made him hate Corsair less, but he understood better. Almost could relate to the man now, rather than just remembering the childhood boogeyman stories of Corsair and his crew that were told. Vicious pirates that wanted to destroy Madripoor. He knew when he was older that wasn't entirely true, but it wasn't until now that the image was truly faded from his mind. The silence hung, as Gabriel thought of everything he was just told. Before Corsair spoke again that his crew thought Gabriel was a lost cause, just like Jean had said. But it was what came after that finally got him to speak. D'ken's son... "I should kill your crew for saying such things." He said darkly. The eyes that had lightened up on their hate for a moment during Corsair's telling past, nearly glowed with it now. "I am not the cause you think I am. But if you or anyone ever call me his son, I will find the nearest object I can get my hands on and I will..." He started with a great fire in his voice, before he let it die. "I hate you." He said softly, looking absently at the floor. "For so many things... but you robbed from me more than an eye, more than a mother or anything else because of your actions." Gabriel spoke, not taking his eyes off one spot on the floor that wasn't very different from any of the others. "You stole my chance at revenge, you took him from me. He was mine to kill." He snapped, his eyes turned to Corsair, the corners turning red with mixed emotions, the hatred and rage within them was not for Corsair, but D'Ken. "Nothing, nothing, you could have ever done to me, taken from me would ever compare to what he did." His voice was harsh. "I chose to become what I did not because that's what he wanted... its because it was the only thing I swore would destroy him, destroy everything he wanted of the world, and everyone like him." He snapped, so convinced of his own words and belief. "I was a monster, I very well still am." He said finally looking away from Corsair. "Monsters are the only thing that survive long enough in Madripoor. Maybe that's what he wanted, the twisted bastard, but he always thought I was his loyal sword...I couldn't wait for the day that I took everything from him, let him watch it all burn to the ground knowing he was next. I wanted him to suffer, so so much I wanted him to suffer worse than anyone else had because of him. Which if you knew...if you knew everything he had done to others... nothing would have been enough suffering. And you gave him a quick and easy death... a moment of pain and then nothing." He leaned against a wall, having trouble still supporting himself as the muscles grew tired of sitting up. "And I was left to fill the void... he knew I would, knew I cared just enough for some people there that I couldn't leave them to the chaos that would have come, knew I cared but not enough to really want to change things. Just let it run stagnant until it all destroyed itself, me along with it." His voice was quiet, it was more revealing than he had ever been with anyone, but for the moment the control was gone and all that was left was years and years of raw emotion and thoughts now left exposed. "The Illuminati gave me a chance to escape that...the Phoenix..." He muttered the word with a longing tone for the divine energy that he hosted so briefly. "I could see every person in the world that was like D'Ken, or had the potential to be like that... How much of the world is filled with people like that, with monsters... I was convinced I had to destroy it all, no one could suffer what I had then, no more pain..." Right there was probably the most telling thing in his words, his motivation at its core, twisted as it was, he wanted the torment and pain that he had suffered to not happen to anyone else. He just had no idea other than what he was taught on how to accomplish that, and all he knew was destruction. "I hate you... but I never blamed you for what has happened. I could have destroyed you and your blasted crew so many times... I wanted you to just leave the Madripuri waters after I came into power... I didn't want to be forced to destroy you. I wanted you to just keep living for years and years because that would have pissed him off more than anything else I can think of." A smile partially formed in his head, thinking of how much D'Ken would be spinning in his grave if he knew about the two former Shi'ar Summers sitting in a room, not trying to kill each other. Just like Corsair had before, Gabriel let the silence hang in the air for a moment after he stopped talking for sometime. Then he looked at the man. "Tell me about her." He responded softly. "My mother." He couldn't help but make it sound like an order, too many years of being in command, certain tones were hard to break. However the topic of his mother was one thing he always wanted to know and knowledge he was always denied, he couldn't even get some twisted version of it from D'Ken. Kathy Anne Summers just was taboo to talk about for some reason and it always made him want to know more. After all, what son didn't want to know about their mother? |
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| Corsair | Jun 6 2014, 06:16 AM Post #4 |
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NPC: Baseline Human
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Listening to his son, this boy that he did not know, Corsair listened to the anger and the hatred there, and he accepted it, it was what he deserved, what he felt he deserved. What he struck him though was the absolute delusion the boy was under. To suggest that Corsair did not know what D'Ken had done, to suggest that what he had suffered was so much worse? Gabriel was twenty. He was a boy. His life had been a nightmare, but what he had seen, what he had done, what he had suffered? It was going to be a hard road ahead of them, because Gabriel, despite his protestations of not being D'Ken's son, was indeed far more like the former Majestor than he was not. "You're not a monster, Gabriel," Chris said, after the boy had vomited his litany of woe and self pity, his twisted justifications and nonsensical judgments. "I think you want to be a monster, warped and twisted against your will, misunderstood and helpless to be anything other than what you have been made. You tell me you wanted to use the Phoenix to fix the world by destroying it, and you don't understand the very wrongness of it. Maybe you think you do, maybe you tell yourself this makes sense, but it doesn't. It's nonsense, and it's wrong. But that doesn't make you a monster. It makes you a deluded little boy lashing out at daddy... and I'm not the daddy you're lashing out at. Not me, my boy, so my crew? They're right about you... about this, at least." He smiled and said, "And, you really think you could kill any member of my crew? Hepzibah alone would have your throat slit before your could finish your supervillain monologing." Chris nodded his head and said, with an undeniable note of fondness, "And, though I hardly know you, Gabriel, I have a pretty good idea that you'd be giving a speech. You're a Summers, after all. It's in our nature." But then the humor faded and Chris said, "I didn't give D'Ken a quick death out of petulance or out of a desire to deny you your due. I stood above him and he had stolen over two decades of my life, my country, my honor, he had taken my wife, my child. He had shown me something about myself that I had never believed was there. I was a major in the United States Air Force, I was a pilot, a test pilot, I fought for my country, I fought men like D'Ken, and to become something like him... I had never known something like that was in me. I couldn't have believed it, and I wanted him to die because of it. I wanted my revenge on him..." Chris's voice had gone as hard and cold as stone. Passing his hand over his face, he said, "But then, I met your brother and his wife, his team, his people, and I realized that all those years that wasted seeking my revenge weren't healing years. They weren't days of recovery where I learned to be myself again. I was still D'Ken's man, still what he had made me. Just like you are now. He had to die, yes. But torture, lingering pain, suffering... He was a rabid dog to be put down and you don't draw out the agony of a rabid dog. You make it quick. You make it merciful. I killed him quickly because I am better than he was, because I had to be. I thought that was the way to be better, but it was still murder, and it was still wrong. I was still wrong to do it. I know that now, and that's why you're alive. I'm finding my way back to who I was before. I don't know that I'll get there. But, I have hope. I believe that I can someday be Chris Summers again, and not just Corsair. Not just a pirate." He leaned heavily on his hand for a moment and then he said, "Your mother. I don't know that she'd recognize me now. I'd know her anywhere, anytime though. She was twenty two when I met her. I was twenty three, just transferring to the test pilot program. I was arrogant, and haughty, maybe, a hotshot, and she was thoroughly unimpressed by me. Made me all the more intrigued by her. Every line I threw out, she shot down. Every gesture I made, she ignored. Oh, she thought I was a waste of time. But, then, and it was the simplest thing, one day when I was dogging her home from the diner she waitressed at, it was raining, and she would rather walk in the rain than share my umbrella. Alaskan rain, Gabriel is cold and its hard, but she refused to walk with me because I hadn't earned it. So, I took the umbrella, folded it up, and walked in the rain with her." Those memories were so clear, as if they were yesterday. Kathy Anne looking at him incredulously, not understanding why he was so incessant. He had looked so miserable as he trudged next to her that it made her smile, just a little, that this cocky S.O.B. was willing to risk pneumonia just to be with her. By the time they got to her house, he looked like a drowned rat, and she had taken pity on him. "She was blond, blue eyed, and just tall enough that I could rest my chin on the stop of her head when we danced," Chris said, "Very different from Hepzibah, which is a big reason why I allowed myself to fall in love with Hepzi... Kathy Anne had a different strength, a compassion and a gentleness unlike anyone I have ever known... until I met Alex as an adult. He has a lot of his mother in him. A hopeful optimism that I don't understand, given how much he's lost... But, it's because of him, that I believe you can be helped. He told me, 'Dad, just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn't mean that they can't find their way.' That's your mother's voice, her words, her beliefs. She had hope, even in her last moments, that we would find our way back to the light. We haven't made it yet, son, but maybe we can find it together, you and me." Looking closely at the boy, leaning forward so that Gabriel truly paid attention, Corsair said, "So, we need to find out if I'm right about you. Are you Kathy's son? Are you worthy of seeing the world through her eyes?" |
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| Vulcan | Jun 13 2014, 04:42 AM Post #5 |
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Channeling of Geothermal Energy/Widdle Bwutha
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Gabriel listened, partially because he didn't really have a choice in the matter, being stuck on Corsair's ship , not to mention the man was right. So was Scott, and even Coleridge. They couldn't stop talking once they started. It was a flaw, one he would have to look out for in the future if he were to improve. However if all 3 of the elder Summers knew of this flaw that they shared in common, then why hadn't they corrected it? He got focused on the wrong thing for a little too long before analyzing the rest of what Corsair had said. Like Scott, Corsair accused him of being some brat wanting to lash out. True or not, there was never going to be a time when Gabriel would admit to such a thing, not in his confusing teenage years, nor would he in his arrogant young adult life which had continued further along than he had ever expected. Gabriel rolled his eyes slightly at the mention of his inability to kill the crew of the Starjammer. Perhaps in his current state it was unlikely without a massive amount of subterfuge. He was still weak, but he wouldn't let that stop him if it was something he really wanted to do. It wasn't though. He didn't have the heart or mindset to kill anyone. Even with his powers which he sorely lacked and desired for reasons beyond what he thought the others could understand. He just... couldn't do it. He lost and so much of him went with that lost. He didn't want or desired pity from anyone, including himself. He just knew how he felt, like a burnt out wick. Maybe with a chance to light again, but just as good of a chance to never burn again. They were a melodramatic bunch. He was realizing that much. Ticks and traits that was apparent in Corsair and his three sons. It was painful how much in common that there was beyond appearance. None of them were even raised together and they had these traits. It was definitely a point towards nature against nurture. The rest of the conversation blended together almost seemlessly for Gabriel, one thought quickly connecting to another as Corsair talked, creating a spider web that kept correlating things together. Coming to several conclusions based off everything he knew, or believed he knew from what has either been directly said to him or had been gathered during his great information search on the Summers family. However there was something more in Corsair's story about his life, his enslavement to D'Ken. Gabriel turned away as he realized that maybe Corsair could imagine what his life had been. The man couldn't have known entirely but... he knew enough of living under D'Ken, living as Shi'ar, what it turned people into after years of being broken down and rebuilt into whatever was desired. Fighting against it, and then broken more until you became a part of it. Then there was something Corsair also said, about that darkness that was deep down that D'Ken brought out in him. Maybe the way Gabriel was attributed it to similar reasons, he just knew no different, he had nothing to ever compare to. Then he thought about Scott and Alex. The Eye of the Hand and the Horsemen of War... The Summers men, they all had monsters, demons, darkness, whatever it was called. It was there in all of them, under the shell of whatever was on top. Corsair had been broken, what was in him released and only just recently started covering it up. Scott and Alex had far more years of keeping it buried. Himself? Whatever held that trait at bay was ripped apart so many years ago he couldn't remember. It was a theory, one that made him almost feel closer to his family. Also one he figured they probably wouldn't agree with, they were too optimistic to think such a way. So much had been spoken, and Gabriel finally had a better image of his mother in his head, even if it looked like Alex with long blonde hair and a gender change. Probably not very accurate but it was more than what he had ever had before and that meant something. It was an image he wouldn't let go despite how unsettling it might sound out loud to describe. He finally shook his head to Corsair's question. "I'm not." Gabriel said softly, more emotion bubbling into his voice than he had expected, what he expected was none. Just saying those words though brought something out that he tried to contain as he was about to speak further. "But I am your son." He finally said it. The parallels, the similarities, the experiences...it was too much for him to deny and the description of his mother just left him with an awakened sense of longing he never felt before. It came with more hatred towards a dead man that robbed him of what should have been his. The mother he should have known. "I can't...I can't exist in that light..." Gabriel said, still not looking at his father. "I can't as long as there will be darkness to consume it, to taint it. I just couldn't live in that world...I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't stand being apart of it anymore. It had to stop, it has to stop." He should have stopped speaking, letting his emotions get the better of him, but he couldn't. Floodgates had been opened and years of control and filing things away before locking them up had broken open. What he saw with that omnipotence granted by the Phoenix bubbling to his mind. He hated that part the most. He hated knowing the pain of the world, hated knowing what was really out there. Years of sheltered views, controlled environments, detachment from the world. Things clicked in so many ways that he wanted to avoid. He wanted the detachment again. The seclusion. "I was killing since I was seven years old... " He finally opened up. "How can I even attempt at finding that light she wanted for us while there are more children waiting to become me within the darkness of the rest of the world?" His eyes slowly moved from the pointless spot he had been staring at, moving around the room before landing on his father. Red rims surrounded the blue, pain and sadness welled up inside shining through, making the anger and hate for a moment less than a twinkle in his eyes. "How could she ever call me son after everything? How can you?" |
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| Corsair | Jul 4 2014, 05:44 AM Post #6 |
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NPC: Baseline Human
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And there it was. Gabriel in a nutshell, all his fears and hopes and everything that he was. "How could she ever call me son after everything? How can you?" "Because," Chris said, softly, not sadly, not condescendingly, not with pity, "because, Gabriel, if I was to deny you, it would be to deny my responsibility to you. You were brought into the world in pain, deceit, hatred and fear. That was my fault, it was all my fault. I know what D'Ken must have told you about me, I know what kind of monster you must have thought me, especially after you took the sword that was meant for him, but I'm not that man, not anymore. You don't have to be that man either. You have a chance, boy, to be better, be more, be the man you choose to be, and I'm going to do the one thing that no one has ever done for you before. I'm going to love you. I don't expect you to love me back. I don't even expect you to like me. But I'm going to love you and maybe some day, Son, you'll learn to love yourself." Corsair stood up, and said, "Gabriel, you're safe here, whether you want to be or not. A time will come when you're going to have to earn your keep, but that'll be after you've earned our trust. It's not going to be today, and it's not going to be tomorrow, but some day." He reached out, unafraid of the young man's reaction, and he ran his hand familiarly over the boy's hair, down to cup his chin in his hand, lifting his face to keep their eyes locked. "You're my son," Chris said, "Mine. You're her son. A Summers by blood. Time to learn how to deserve that, boy. It's a burden to be a Summers, yes, but it is also a goddamned honor." He dropped his hand and said, "I'm not the only one who wants help you, Gabriel. You're not alone anymore." He turned to head for the door, saying, quietly, "Not even if you think you want to be." |
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2:42 PM Jul 11