(no subject)
It's nice outside. Chilly, perhaps, now that afternoon has faded into evening, and a stiff breeze has picked up to stir at trees and the surface of a nearby pond. There are people around, as there usually are in this particular section of the park. One of them is an older man in a black overcoat and fedora. He is feeding ducks.
Rocket is chasing ducks. He has bread in his hand, though, and seems to very much want to feed the ducks! Just at very close range. "C'mere, ducky ducky ducky," he calls. Ryan walks behind him, bundled against the chill in a baseball cap and a beaten leather jacket, his hands in his pockets and his mind clearly very much somewhere else. His distracted state of mind is perhaps the reason he doesn't immediately notice and recognize Magneto, instead simply seeing a man in a coat feeding ducks. He walks up to stand near the man, nodding absently as his eyes track the circles Rocket chases in.
It has been a long time since Erik has gone to the park to feed ducks. There is no single driving reason why he does it. He likes animals, and I think it is the most normal thing he can get away with doing when he wants to be alone with his thoughts. It is a mindless activity. Also, people do not tend to be suspicious of doddering old men feeding ducks, so it was a useful way to get outside during periods where he was particularly unpopular. It is relaxing, it feels normal, and it is a good way to get grounded when his life is insane. Which is…a lot of the time.
I like Rocket. I tend to do an automatic recoil sort of thing when I encounter small children on the RP scene because they are either ~pwefect adowable widdle angels~ and everything they say must be SO CUTE OMG or they act like they’re…ten or two or TWENTY years old as opposed to a toddler. WHATEVER the case may be. Rocket seems like a very real, normal, somewhat bratty little boy. It is nice.
I also like Ryan. He doesn’t like mutants. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS to get people to play characters who don’t like mutants on XMM? Actively? It’s hard. I haven’t been that great at it. From a character standpoint it’s nice that he is going to have to deal with the fact that he is what he hates, too. Whether that means ignoring it, or trying to get rid of it, or freaking out, I don’t know, but it will be interesting to see!
The ducks paddle away from Rocket's advances with a sense of urgency that doesn't quite blossom into full flight. Not while there is still fresh bread in the equation. They spurt away, then semi-circle back to pluck at disentigrating bits of crust when the temptation becomes too great. For all that Erik was (is) a terrorist feared the world over, he blends convincingly with his scruff and hat and small brown paper bag, even if his profile is rather distinct. Moreso when his leonine countenance turns to follow Rocket's efforts. ...And even more than that when his quiet monitor of every gun, zipper, piercing, and bit of change in the vicinity sends everyone carrying /any/ of those things staggering towards him. Park benches groan, a partial chain link fence around the pond's opposite border begins to warp. Erik gasps, lungs hard-pressed to rasp out even that much air, and his eyes flare a bright, lurid shade of blue. His grip on the bag clenches into a mechanical fist, and then it halts.
A few people fall down when the tug ceases, but most regain balance with some measure of baffled grace. One or two do the intelligent thing and run. Magneto, of course, stays put, breathing hard, and now looking at Ryan as if he suspects he suspects he might be an alien.
The buttons of Ryan's jacket rattle as they tug under Magneto's grip, pulling Ryan a stumbling few steps closer to the old man. Rocket, in turn, has a whole quantity of zippers -- zippered jeans, zippered pockets, zippered jacket -- he's into zippers lately! The magnetic tug on them and his light body weight and somewhat limited coordination all combine to make stumble and fall to the ground near Magneto's feet, wailing in surprise and dismay, bread scattering from his hands. The ducks hesitate in a circle around him, drawn in by the lure of bread and repelled by the crying wail.
For several long seconds, Ryan holds Magneto's gaze blankly, his face draining pale as what energy he has remaining in him from his meeting earlier in the day with Emma is drawn out in a burst of activity. He sways on his feet, sickly, and for a moment it isn't clear whether he's going to faint or be sick. The next moment, it is quite clear as he falls to his knees, leans over and throws up right in front of a terrorist feared the world round.
There is something about the park and the threat of imminent disaster that encourages me to write poses that are about twice as long as normal. I think I was feeling unusually creative too, so. That helps.
I like posing ducks. I should have had more quacking. HINDSIGHT.
The default setting on Erik’s mutation is ‘on’. Even when he is not actively throwing cars at people, he operates with a sort of electromagnetic sixth sense that is similar to (though more developed than) what sharks and pigeons use to find things. The absence of a magnetosphere really messed him up and made him sick while he was in space. But more relevant to this scene, he also tends to monitor the area around him. Most times he isn’t really even paying attention until something catches his interest - maybe a gun, or a metal pin in someone’s leg. He has a light touch - most people wouldn’t notice the occasional brush of his ability.
Suddenly: RYAN.
Everything is cranked to eleven. Erik is one of the most powerful mutants on the planet - so powerful that he rides the line of not actually being able to survive his own mutation. Particularly at this age, when he flexes near his maximum capacity, his mind and body take a beating. He is usually underweight, prone to migranes, and occasionally, seizures. Past a certain point, it just hurts. He knows his limits and doesn’t tend to extend himself past them, but he can’t exactly help it in this situation.
I don’t know exactly how steep a boost he got here, but my assumption was that on a scale running from weak to godlike, as an omega mutant, he was godlike for a few brief seconds. He feels everything. Neurons firing in those around them, bioelectric fields, jets flying miles overhead, the steel and iron sprawl of Manhattan around him. Everything. And his eyes glow. SWEET. I HAVE WANTED TO POSE GLOWY EYES FOR SO LONG, NORAH. YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. I have dubious science wank to explain it but won’t unless asked because wow this is already a long ass section. His power is out of control, here - dangerously so. If he hadn’t been able to slam on the brakes, he would have burned himself up and died on the spot. And that would be sad.
Ryan is under immediate suspicion only because Erik has experienced a boost like this once before on a much smaller level, and he (and his son) are the most obvious variables to have just sort’ve entered his zooone. The fact that he is then sick seals the deal. Erik is familiar with the effects of an over-extension of one’s mutation. He is having kind of a ‘Holy shit,’ moment, though. He has to collect himself. Start thinking again.
Still somewhat /alarmed/ in the narrow of his eyes and the open slack of his mouth, Erik is still panting when his shared stare with Ryan is broken when the younger man falls to his knees and is sick. Bread and ducks forgotten, hands lifted away from his sides, it's on a delay that he turns his head back to take in the /many/ people that are staring, and orders any or all of them to, "Call an ambulance!" Unfortunately, the European ring of his voice across the grass is the last straw for several of them. They turn tail and flock away, much like the ducks. Fortunately one of two of them, at the very least, is likely to call 911 on their own. Meanwhile, Rocket is wailing and he has no idea how to deal with /that/ either. When he turns back to them, it's to stare a little helplessly while one brave little duck nips in to drag a mass of bread away from the epicenter of things.
Ryan coughs and then gasps, pulling in a lungful of air and releasing it slowly to give his brain time to process. He stumbles to his feet and takes a step backwards on clearly shaky legs, his face still pale as he looks at Erik with unmitigated horror and revulsion. The expression soon intensifies even further as his attention is soon drawn to his son, collapsed on the ground at Magneto's feet and crying. "Stay away from my family," he says, his voice hoarse. He moves, still weak, shaky and slow, to place himself between the terrorist and his son.
Ducks! Ryan is, so far as Erik is concerned, very probably a mutant that could be in serious trouble if he just experienced the flipside of what he went through. Great hero of mutantkind that he is, once he recovers from the initial shock he wants someone to call an ambulance. How nice of him! Erik, by the way - not very good with small children. He had a young daughter of his own a very long time ago, but she died in a fire set by humans and he’s been somewhat BITTER about the idea of parenthood ever since then.
It is impressive that Ryan’s hatred runs so deep that he has the cajones to tell Erik to stay away from his family. Unfortunately, Erik does not like being told what to do. Nor does he like that Ryan is being a dick to him after something that was clearly entirely not his fault. He catches enough shit for the stuff he DOES do. For real. That said, his initial reaction is more one of surprise than outright anger. He called for an ambulance. Clearly he has the best of intentions here, and Ryan is still hateful. Then the righteous indignation starts to set in.
Magneto is pale-faced himself. Suspicious. Drained. Ill, even, though his posture remains stiffly upright in the face of Ryan's display. He says nothing to his command. Rather, he's struck abruptly in the back of the head by a cell phone. It wheels off into the pond once it's bounced off, and Erik turns slowly to eye the culprit. She stands still, apparently under the impression that he cannot see her if she doesn't move. T-Rex like. "Let's try an experiment," he mutters, voice quiet enough to limit itself to Ryan and Rocket when he lifts a hand. The cellular phone blasts out of the pond, vomiting water out and up as it hurls itself at the offending woman -- and explodes before it reaches her. Literally explodes, into white sparks and twisted plastic and glowing metal. Eyes alight, this time it's Erik that falls to his knees on his way to being on all fours.
"C'mon, Rocket, get up," Ryan says, hauling his son up by the elbow and even managing a step or two away from Magneto before he's hit by another wave of tiredness and sickness and stumbles, dropping to one knee. Confused and frightened, Rocket's tears continue unabated, and his breath hitches with the sobs. "Run!" the older Hewitt urges, pushing Rocket forward to get him started. "I'm coming. Run straight ahead and find a cop or a mom with kids and wait for me." Rocket's eyes widen with fear and he keeps crying, but he obediently turns tail and starts running straight away.
If Ryan is going to be a dick, well. Erik will be one too. He is not entirely unused to mutants having an unfavorable opinion of him, after all. Rather than outright attack him, however, he decides to try a more controlled experiment. Is Ryan really the source, can he control the power influx if he expects it - many questions are answered very quickly.
His intention was merely to throw the phone back with minimal effort, but his increased power is such that it simply explodes after being in his “grip” for a few milliseconds. Most of the metal probably vaporized with so much force centered directly upon it. Unfortunately, having in large part burned through whatever energy reserves he had managed to build up in the wake of the asteroid thing in the few seconds he was active for the first power boost, this one eats whatever fat was left on him and starts on muscle. Yeah, ow. He collapses.
Erik is a man who enjoys power. He later described the experience to Bahir as “divine.” It was. The pleasure of it keeps him conscious and focused. Two doses, a few seconds, and he is already an addict, ignoring the acute physical torment he’s just volunteered himself for in favor of that incredible power. In another recent commentary I mentioned that Erik’s Id was very much overdeveloped in the course of a recent plot where many confusing things happened and a more evil version of himself was telepathically copy-pasted on top of the original. Blah blah blah. Power. He likes it.
Were he not in that MOOOORE mindset at the moment, I suspect he might even feel guilty for the tremendous trauma he is probably causing this mutant guy and his son. Ryan’s attempts to ensure Rocket’s escape make him endearing despite his hater status. For a moment, he’s just a father and not so much a mutant or anti-mutant or whatever else. POOR ROCKET.
Magneto's breathing is reduced to a strained, whistling wheeze. One elbow buckles out of its support, and he nearly falls onto his side, hat lost to the evening's adventure. It is floating in the pond, leaving the blue blaze his eyes bared to what few observers remain while it fades to nothing, and he chuckles. Grating, phlegmy. Not a pleasant chuckle. Notably, however, he does not try whatever he just did again.
That is not the sort of laugh you want to hear out of a world-reknowned terrorist, but Ryan really cannot get much more alarmed than he already is. His chest heaves, drawing in great gasps of air as he struggles to recover his strength, eyes closed against the panic-inducing sight of Magneto. He is there, on one knee, for what might possibly be the longest minute of his life before dragging himself to his feet and opening his eyes to cast Magneto one last look of unadulterated hatred before turning to look in the direction his son bolted in.
If he did try it again, he’d likely be left a skeleton. And dead. AN INTERESTING way to die, maybe, but death is death and he can’t go and figure out a way to harness what Ryan is capable of giving him if he is dead. He is still riding the rush, wringing what he can out of it past the pain until he’s forced to let it go. The more time passes between that last boost, the more the damage sinks in and takes hold of his senses. His head feels as if it’s going to explode, but he’s still buzzing thanks to Ryan’s continued presence. It is an interesting paradox, but as with most things mutation-related (barring, of course, telepathy, which is terrible always and forever) he enjoys it. The sheer range of what mutants can do sometimes makes him happy. Ryan pleases him, and he hasn’t had much to be pleased about in a long time. Even if he has gotten the impression that Mr. Hewitt hasn’t come to the same conclusion that he has. That makes it even better, somehow, because he gets to be the one to rub his nose in it.
I mean. …Good thing Erik is such a nice guy. He can get him all straightened out! Because he’s so nice! And great!
"You are a mutant." Slower to recover, Erik keeps his head down and his eyes squeezed shut, as if in pain. He does chuckle again, more weakly this time, only for the sound of it to scatter into a cough. He coughs some more, then slowly, slooowly starts the process of heaving himself back up onto his feet.
The words are enough to keep Ryan from leaving after his son, momentarily frozen in place. He holds his open hands in the air in front of him, as though physically pushing the idea away. "You're wrong," he says, defensively. "Mutants make me sick." The vomit pooling on the ground near Magneto would indicate that, at least. He takes a deep, ragged breath, and turns his back firmly on Erik, walking away as quickly as he can. Which is not terribly quickly, a stumbling shamble of a walk.
Ryan’s reaction here confirms Erik’s suspicions. Again. How delightful for him.
I will say again that I very much like the idea of a mutant-hating mutant. It is kind of hard not to get a story out of that, one way or the other. And Ryan reads realistically in the intensity of his disgust at the idea. It’s all very clear to him, the way he’s chosen to explain it for himself. Mutants make him sick. Further confirmation of their inherent nastiness, perhaps. That is all there is to it. That is definitely a parade that Erik is happy to rain on for him, and OOCly I look forward to seeing how he copes with the idea.
"Ironically, I have never felt better." Magneto has looked better, though. In the space of a few minutes, he looks as if he has lost weight. The shadows around his face are long and hollow, and his rumpled coat hangs awkwardly on his wiry frame. Then again, his stance leaves something to be desired. He vaguely resembles a toothpick tower, only barely able to keep himself up off the ground. "Have yourself tested. See that I am right. Your /son/ is probably one as well." His voice finds strength in its mirth, lifting after the pair of them.
La-la-lala-la, I'm not listening! If Ryan were not too much younger than he is, he might say such a thing. He ISN'T listening. Magneto's LYING because he's an EVIL LYING TERRORIST MUTANT. As it is, though, his step merely pauses, his shoulders shuddering with revulsion at the very idea. He presses forward, however, finally gaining sufficient distance from Erik for the drain to ease off entirely, allowing him to quicken his pace in his search for his terrified tot.
Erik hurts so much he can hardly stand up. Tragic, I know. Even in that state, as Ryan moves away and the last of the good feeling that goes with him seeps out of bones, he can find it in himself to be amused at his expense. Mirthful, even. He knows he hit home, regardless of whether or not Ryan wants to acknowledge it right now. The jab about his son is particularly cruel and personal, but parental disgust is a big problem for young mutants currently, and he feels justified in it. If only every mutant-hater could be forced to endure the same fate. What a happy place the world would be!