2012-10-24 Underground Rally- Great Speaker (YouTube)

There's rumors of a leader arising in the mutant underground. They say he accepts all mutants, great and small- that he's accompanied by a non-human looking mutant, and doesn't require her to conceal her appearance when in public. He speaks with fervor and eloquence, advocating for the cause of justice and equality for mutants- and strongly disavowing the legitimacy of the registration camp. 
 "...and as we /band together/, in groups great or small, we can send the message that /we are not lone voices in the night/!" Clad in almost military looking clothing, Erik stands at a pulpit at the head of the rows of seats in the warehouse, filled with several dozen mutants and even a few humans. At his words, they rise in cheering applause, and the silver-haired man holds up a hand in acknowledgement. 
 After the fervor dies down, he descends to mingle with the crowd, shaking hands and answering questions with a personal ease and manner that seems utterly approachable and even paternal, smiling and laughing with a casual sort of magnamicity.
 
 An athletically built woman clad in a cloak approaches Erik. She shrugs a shoulder and lets the hood drift back just enough to show him her face, her features strongly Asian in descent.
 Her mouth is set in a grim line as she offers forth hard, cold words, "Quite a speech."
 
 The old warehouse, long since emptied of goods, is the sort of place small communities utilize for informal gatherings or meetings that aren't in line with use of the local YMCA. From raves to solidarity movements, the warehouse is full of chairs, with a small stand and pulpit setup at the head of the seating. 
 Erik finishes his brief exchange with a young mutant, smiling paternally and patting the young man's shoulder encouragingly. He appears to have just completed a speech, and has descended to the crowd to converse with them. As Betsy approaches, he turns wintry blue eyes on her features and smiles almost warmly. "I am glad you thought so," he tells her in a rolling, confident timbre. "I know my words often fall on the ears of the deaf or the uncertain. Certainty, in this day and age, is a rare and wonderful thing to encounter. Do you have any more questions for me, young lady? You sound as if perhaps you disagree with the sentiment I've expressed here." 
 There's no incitation of violence or dissent, but his broad, rolling tones resonate with the crowds nearby. They don't out and out turn hostile, of course, but there's a definite sense of 
 As those eyes alight upon her, Betsy meets them with a searching stare, her own piercing enough they'd prove discomforting to most as she scouts with her mundane senses for the truth behind this mysterious leader's words. 
 "I wouldn't say I disagree," she replies in her clear British tone, jarring against the distinct and genuine Asian aesthetic of her features. Confidently delivered, she pitches her tone very deliberately at a level with the man she addresses. "But sentiment alone is meaningless. A pretty bauble to make us feel better about ourselves. I suppose my first question..."
 She pauses, and draws a cool breath, not quite breaking eye contact as she checks her peripherals. Namely the nearest people to her, her posture alert beneath the cloak. A slow smile turns her lips upward as she offers forth a challenge to this underdog leader.
 "Is what do you intend to do, beyond building an outcry? Differences are not made through words alone."
 At the words Betsy offers, there's a small murmur of assent from the crowds, waved to silence by a casual gesture of authority from the silver-haired man. He smiles patiently at Betsy. "Of course not," he soothes her, assuaging the concerns of the crowd. He has that masterful way of speakign that great teachers attain- the ability to speak to a class by addressing an individual, using them to voice unspoken questions. He starts walking a slow circle, hands clasped loose behind his back. 
 "Outcries, as we all know, are never enough." He nods approval this time as the crowd murmurs agreement. "But they are a start. This is how change begins," he says, the crowd parting around him and Betsy as his voice carries. "It starts as a single voice in the night, crying desperately for relief. 'Almighty God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" he cries theatrically. For any other man, the expression would be comical- from him, it's delivered with the impact of a master thespian. "And at that one cry- that one cry, begging deliverance-" he stops in front of Rain, smiling warmly at her. "Voices rise up in unison." He gently squeezes her shoulder, his expression paternal and kindly. He continues the slow circle of the group. 
 "But voices, as you say," he inclines his head to Betsy, "are not enough. We must unite. We must sing a song of harmony. Become... a family." He stops in front of a pair of young mutants, a male and female, one obviously pregnant. He gently pats the girl on the cheek, offers her partnern a firm handshake and nod of equality. "And then, we move to action. To level our words at our accusers- to beat our fists against our chests and demand, 'Why do you forsake me?'" He steps around Zatanna, moving with a broad-shouldered ease that belies the lines on his face and the length of his silver hair. The crowd is silent, captivated by his words. 
 He mounts the steps of the dais again, the anachronistic cloak gathered behind him by his hands. He moves to the pulpit, the cloak catching the light and almost taking on the view of a minister's vestments. "What do we do when we cry out for deliverance? What shall we do when the world rises up against us? Do we fall back, and surrender to the authority of the ignorant masses?" 
 The crowd hurls a chorus of 'No'! and 'Never!' at him as he pauses for breath, enraptured by his speech.
 
 What follows for the Asian woman is her mouth opens, as though to speak, but there's no interrupting the moment. Frustrated by her inaction, she clenches a fist unseen at her side, curling carefully-hewn fingernails hard into her palm.
 Closing her eyes as the crowd deliver their hallelujah chorus, the woman steels herself.
 And steps forward, pushing to the very front of the gathering, looking up at the pulpit.
 "But we are /part/ of those masses," she speaks insistently, firmly, "Would you begin a war with the stock from which we are born? The very crux of this issue is that mutants are HUMAN. We cannot ostracize ourselves-- isn't that what they want, these 'ignorant' few?"
 
 Rain pauses. Was that- she hesistates. She'd better not brush up against anyone too closely, lest they discover her or - who knows. For now, she is a duly attentive expression. Still, she can't shake the feeling she's familiar with someone. But Erik's speech gets going and well. Then a blink as the man stops in front of her. She freezes instinctively. She'd be a fantastic deer, even. There's a polite smile in turn as she's smiled at. She doesn't even bolt away at the little shoulder squeeze. Well. She can appreciate the gesture, but she seems surprised.
 
 The camera jerkily pans around to catch Richard as he finally speaks, his voice quiet yet still pitched to carry, "Acceptance is never easy. The masses need to be taught that they aren't going to be attacked or held apart merely because another is more powerful. It's taken them decades to accept human minorities...and some still don't. It's taken over a century for gender equality and in some places, it still isn't present. Unless you actually intend on making others afraid, it needs to be that kind of a same, slow fight."
 "Quiet!" "Let him talk!" 
 
 Erik holds one hand, then another out to the masses, shaking his head. Silence falls, more quickly than one might expect. He lets it linger- lets the silence work, to build up the hungry tension in the crowd before he shatters the silence with his words. 
 Fingers grip the podium, shoulders rolling as he hunkers forward. His voice drops to a low murmur, still resonant, still powerful, but demanding utter silence and attention to be heard. The younger crowd members strain forward to catch his words as he directs them at Betsy. 
 "Are we part of them?" he asks her, the question penetrating, full of hidden meanings. He lets the question linger. "Yes." 
 A murmur breaks over the crowd. "Yes. We /are/ part of them," he continues, rising, his voice gaining authority and tone. "We are the children of a society that doesn't desire us. The children of a land who would cast us out- who would brand us and send us to camps." He takes a steadying breath, leaning on the podium. 
 At Richard's words, he spreads his hands, lines of concern crossing his face. "My friend, you are young. Perhaps, if we start this 'slow fight', by the time you are my age, you will see its end. I think to the words of Frederick Douglass, who never lived to see the final days of the civil rights movement- 'without a struggle, there can be no protest'. How long shall we take this slow fight? A decade? Two? Ten? Will you wait a century, young man, until you have the rights that you are /guaranteed/ as an America- and as a /human being/?" The crowd screams approval of his words, the energy of the gathering electric and infections. He holds a hand skywards, for silence. 
 "Many of you might be too young to remember. To remember a time when it was accepted practice to scatter minorities, disenfranchised, into the wilds- and round them up in pens, like animals." A savage gleam glimmers across his face, the younger mutants nodding their agreement. 
 "Is that who we will become? Is that what you'd /like us to become/?" he demands of Betsy. "Little better than caged beasts?!" 
 A roar of protest escapes the crowd, and Erik fuels the fire. "Never!" he roars, steppign away from the podim. "Never! We will unite- as a people, as mutants- as a VOICE!" He holds an open hand skywards, and the mutants throw their hands into the sky as well. "We will be a voice of protest! A voice in the darkness, saying 'I will not go quiet into that good night! I will be heard!' "
 
 His savagery. It's awesome to behold, but only sees her draw her shoulders up higher in the camera's jerky lens.
 "I..." When the roar dims she begins to speak not with hesitance in truth, the point laboured only by the import of what she intends to say. Her voice does not raise overly, but it comes rung with a gleaming edge of sharpened steel, cutting like a blade through the charged atmosphere. There is darkness in't, and it's dangerously heartfelt. "I have /been/ a caged beast. I have suffered at the hands of delusional, desperate men eager to retain their rotten pieces of a pie past it's expiry date. And you ask me if I want that for you? All of you?"
 She turns about, looking at the forest of hands and ecstatic faces. Even with her iron will, she cannot stop what is happening here... and it takes but a moment to admit within herself that she doesn't want to. Unable to stand against the grain, she lowers her head, cloak covering her stunning features and a warm breath parting her lips as her chest heaves. Submission.
 "Of course I don't. Let us speak, and be heard."
 
 Richard Grayson steps just a little closer to the exit. Just in case, as the camera focuses clumsily on his face.
 "I can't imagine that anyone would allow people to be penned into internment camps again. Seventy years have passed since then...and while people aren't perfect, they've grown. Sure, some idiots will be clamoring to the extreme, but I don't think that the majority would allow that to happen. Then you head towards that quote, only it changes:
 First they came for the mutants, but I did not speak because I was not a mutant.
 Then they came for the homosexuals, but I did not speak because I was not a homosexual.
 Then they came for the immigrants, but I did not speak because I was not an immigrant...and so forth until there is no one left to speak.
 He changes the words for more contemporary issues. Looking over to Betsy, "Speak and be heard, but...education and patience and teaching tolerance is the best way. Otherwise, it's 'Them against Us' and that never ends well."
 
 
 Erik lets the fervor linger and roar, then holds his hands up again, for silence. The contrast is electrifying- terrifying, even- the power latent in the silence, the anticipation of violence. A circle opens around Betsy- and, in turn, Richard- as Erik moves away from the podim. 
 "Dear child," he murmurs, as Betsy casts her gaze down in frustration. As if he can sense her seething frustration against being silenced in any fashion, he moves towards her with palms open, his face a mask of sorrowful sympathy that tears at the heartstrings. 
 "My dear, you are one of us," he says. He gently lifts his hands- one, then the other- towards her face, and then with featherlight gentleness, presses his palms against her cheek, holding her face up and to the light, his deep, sky-blue gaze seeking her exotic eyes. "Never be ashamed of your words," he murmurs, his voice barely carrying. To the mutants in arm's reach, it is a powerful gesture of forgiveness. "You speak with an honest heart and a desire for greatness- and for a desire for change." He smiles warmly at her, stroking a stray hair back from her brow with a forehead. 
 
 As Richard's voice of dissent echos from the rear of the room, he looks back to Betsy, then gives her cheek one more gentle pat and disengages. 
 "You speak with words not your own, my young friend," Erik smiles tolerantely at Richard. "And wise words. Well educated words." He nods approval, the crowd parting to open a path between the charismatic speaker and Richard. "But I wonder, my young friend, what you really know of suffering. Of pain, of the abuses of being a voice stifled by the cage of authority." He looks around the room. "Some of you have seen the inside of prisons already. For no crime more than being who- what- you are." He rests his palm atop a young child's head, the boy's skin touched with a deep blue tinge too distinct to be human. He can only have recently come into his powers. "Do we beg forgiveness, my friend?" he asks Richard, his deep voice carrying with an authority of age and wisdom. Eyebrows hike, asking a question with an expressivity that few can match without words. "For being who we are? What we are?" He shakes his head. "You speak of protests- but who protests for us, now? Who speaks for mutants, and meta-humans, and those beings who simply seek refuge here among us- for a life of quiet decency?" He spreads his hands, imploringly. "You would have us work from within the system? To subvert it?" 
 "To that, I say, we are /already being subverted!/" His voice booms like the report from a cannon. "We repeat history! In other cities, in other countries, they round us up like animals- and put us in cages! They will stamp us, tag us, and permit us to live the life of a caged beast!" He lets his words echo around the room for a long moment, roaring through the pensive silence. 
 "And I swore, long ago, that I would never let another mark my skin." He rolls his sleeve up, revealing seven numbers in pale, crooked blue lines. "I will never let anyone- human or mutant, or God himself-" he says, eyes rolling skywards, hand gesturing- "deny me a life of freedom, promising me the safety of the cage. For those who sacrifice liberty to guarantee security deserve neither." His eyes fall to Richard, his broad-shouldered posture swept back with hands at his back, and nearly channeling the weight of the attention of the room to the young man's protests.
 
 Now facing the crowd, Betsy is able to pinpoint the former Boy Wonder when he speaks her way, lifting her head just enough to peer out beyond the shroud of her cloak. Her mouth still a drawn line, there is also a certain added pallour to her complexion that speaks true of the turmoil she's facing here. Her gaze betrays nothing more, controlled and steady as it meets Dick's.
 Thoughts race in that moment of eye contact, but come to a jarring halt as Erik approaches, placing himself within her personal space-- invading with kindness, and sympathy, and understanding. 'Child', he says, and she blanches, until she finds herself fully enraptured by that compelling mien. By hands upon her cheeks. Seen as a cold and distant creature by so many, feared as well, it's rare for Betsy to be so immediately and unhesitantly engaged.
 Violet eyes flicker as they're found and enthralled, the faint furrowing of her brow marking the moment in which he strikes her heart. "I..." This time she hesitates in truth, words dying, lips parting as she suddenly struggles for coolling breath. A faint widening of those eyes, a dilation of the pupils, rewards Erik before he turns away, and she is left to come to terms with what's just occurred. A powerful telepath, she knows she's not been controlled by such heavy means; this was real, a power shared with some measure of integrity to draw her in.
 If she was questioning herself before, now she has nothing but questions.
 "He's right."
 Her words come at last when all else is said, when she stands with eyes rewidened upon the form of Erik and his bared arm. Very specifically, in fact, upon the latter. In mirrored sympathy, her hand finds that part of her own limb, clutching with subconsciously roving fingers. Here then, was the inner depth that so enthralled her. The reason for any apparent loss of rationality, for a surrender to her coolest tendencies, found in a kindred past. The resonance of her voice surprises her because it comes with equal, unreasoned passion.
 Stepping up beside this leader of men - of mutants - Betsy singles out Dick and then looks to the crowd.
 "Not one of us - not one of those who stands to be hurt - can stand by and allow this decision to be made without our input. No..." She pauses, drawing herself up with a toss of the head that finally casts aside her hood, revealing herself entirely to the light. "We can't allow it to be made at all. There's no question here; only an answer that needs to be given. No. We who live as man, who even /guide and protect/ man in his endeavours, will not accept a caged fate."
 Her violet eyes find Dick once more, their piercing glint regained.
 "Who will teach tolerance to whom? Who will find the patience, and communicate it to others? We can't wait for that. To wait in silence is to guarantee suffering. I've seen this decision made before, I've seen a nation sit silent and accept what comes. What comes is cruel, and wrong."
 
 
 The camera swings back to Richard clumsily, the operator having difficulty with the back and forth. "I protest for you. I speak for you. And I will keep speaking for you because it's not right that you should be treated any differently than anyone else," Richard quietly answers. He may not have the same kind of charisma, but his willpower and sense of purpose is strong. He also looks to the younger boy with the blue skin and asks, "Wouldn't you rather have him and his children grow up in a world where they're quietly accepted than in a world where he will always have to fight? If you show people that they have nothing to fear, they won't fear you..."
 He looks over as Betsy speaks and he shakes his head. "Think of Ghandi. Of Martin Luther King, Jr. Hell, think of Jesus, if you'd like. All of them preached education and peaceful protest. And yes, I am aware that they all died violently, but why repeat those histories? Why not create a new one where those who teach and protest peacefully actually -win-?" He knows he's in the minority here, but he wanted to better understand both sides. "I'm not saying accept and just go along if people feel that the internment camps are the way to go. Hell no. No one should be treated like that unless they're hardened criminals and...that's entirely another argument." Not for this crowd.
 Grayson pauses for a moment before he asks, "How do you plan on fighting this?"
 
 
 Erik turns and give Betsy a look of profound and utter gratitude. It's a humbling expression from the older man- humbling, and awesome at the same time. He gestures for her, then, to join him- the gesture, even, a complex and meaningful one. Imperious invitation, humble plea- the gesture of a leader inviting a subordinate to stand at his side, respecting her for her strength without dismissing her as inequal. 
 Erik turns back to Richard, taking a few steps towards Richard, closing the gap until he faces the young man. The light in the room illuminates him, plying across his features. It casts his eyes into brilliant life, makes deep and profound the shadows and line of age on his face. 
 "My young friend, I am but a simple man," Erik says, his voice weary with the burden of truth. "You say you speak for us- but to whom do you speak? Governor Sometimes?" He looks around the room, nodding at the murmurs of discord. "He fought hardest for us to be tagged and numbered. And he was /one of us/," he expresses with a hiss of anger. "We saw what he did- a member of the government, a member of our family, who betrayed us as he 'infiltrated' the system. He was the very thing he claimed to fear. He wanted to remove us from being his equals." Erik takes a few paces to the right. "Senator Castroneves would see us all cast out. Forced to register. Branded in society's eyes as different- unequal. Shall we return to 'separate but equal'?" His eyes bore into Richard's face, his expression becoming a mask. "And I will remind you, young man, that the last time I saw the interior of a camp, I was a 'criminal'. Along with many others who represented nothing but a difference of ethics. Of ethnicity." He leans forward an inch, his presence looming over the young man. "So I would take it kindly, my young friend, if you did not lecture me on the 'virtues' of internment camps." 
 He leans away from Richard, tongue in cheek, a faint scowl on his features. He steps back a pace, then half turns and begins walking towards Betsy again. 
 "Here is a young man who would fight the system. Who would join with our detractors- our destroyers. He is bright, well-educated, and has only the best of intentions." He turns and extends his hand towards Richard, palm-up, gesturing across the distance between them. "I submit this young man- who desires, only safety and security-!" he adds, shaking his head, as if in disbelief- "has enjoined the system to protect us. And the system, instead, has suborned him!" 
 The reaction from the crowd is overwhelming, hisses and boos of dislike hurled at Richard. The crowd turns angry scowls at him. "He is as much a part of their system as they are! He would see us join him in peaceful protest- to turn ourselves into flaming torches, a pyrrhic victory, but a victory, of certainty- and die before we see our rights restored." His hand hangs for a moment, then drops, heavily. "To hope for a day when our children's children see the freedoms that we /deserve/ today."
 
 
 "Hold!" At Betsy's outburst, the camera snaps back to her. "That man is not our enemy. Perhaps he fails in understanding the reality of what may come to pass - what /will/ if we fail to act - but he also carries a lesson for us all." A sweep of the crowd brings her to light, once more, on the young man of whom she speaks. At any other time they would be allies, of course, though she knows it not; how close their feelings might be, away from the inner turmoil that drives her now. She bows her head to him, just slightly, in acknowledgement of the respect he's earned, at least to her violet eyes.
 "When we have saved ourselves, we cannot become like those we sought to stop." A gesture of one hand takes in Magneto, her glance to him equally respectful - if not more. "Not everyone is a leader, as you," 'And I?', she has now to question inwardly. "But you decry one who would support us, and does support peace. Surely this is what we want? We need breed no further conflict from this. We stop this wrongdoing, and then we accept ourselves as equals. No more."
 
 
 Richard Grayson doesn't quail beneath Lenscherr's gaze. "You're twisting my words around to suit your purpose," he points out. "I want you to get rights now. I want you to be equal to everyone else now, but violence is only going to make those already against you clamor even louder for you to be stopped...and it will force those who are of more moderate thought against you."
 Seeing how this could turn ugly if he stayed, he continues towards the exit, "I wish you luck in your endeavor, but I hope that you find a way to keep violence and fear tactics to a minimum. They won't help you. They'll only hurt you. People do desperate things out of fear."
 He notes Betsy as she speaks about...and to him. "Don't discount the people who support you. It's not really you against the world. It's you against a few ignorant bigots. Just remember that. Not everyone is the enemy." And with that, he'll slip through the doorway.
 
 
 
 "Words of wisdom," Erik murmurs, nodding at both Richard and Betsy. He sighs as the young man leaves, then turns to the crowd. "I will never claim to be a wise man," he begins, pursing his lips. A few cries of protest from the crowd float up, dismissed by a thoughtful wave of the hand. "They say the root of wisdom is in knowing that one is not wise. In that, perhaps, I hope to find the beginnings of wisdom." He looks to Betsy, nodding slowly, considering her words. 
 "Our young friend was correct- and wrong. Our detractors are /already/ aligned against us." He gestures 'out there', at the world. "They have already begun. History goes in cycles- patterns that I, and others," he glances to Betsy for support, "have seen before. It begins with words like 'great need' and 'civic obligation' and 'for your own protection'. It ends with a race in chains, bound into slavery in all ways but the word." 
 "I do not decry him. I decry his ignorance- an ignorance born of a lifetime of conditioning and fear. He /believes/ in the peaceful resolution of our contention with humanity. I admire- and respect- his beliefs." 
 Erik stands near Betty, nodding at her in understanding of her message. He turns back to the crowd. "But I will tell you I don't agree with him. And that while I would hope and yearn for a day that peace is the only answer- I owe it to you- all of you-" he says, eyes sweeping the crowd- "to prepare for the worst." 
 "Go, now, my friends. My brothers and sisters. Go and spread word of what you have seen here. Think on what you've heard- from him, from her, and if you care to, from myself. Think of if you are willing to gentle into that good night. If you are willing to let your ideals kill you. Or if you will stand up for yourself- for your brothers, and sisters- for the future of your /entire race/- and defend your right to /live free/." 
 As if cued by some quiet signal, the crowd breaks into applause. Magneto- with a humble wave and expression of contrition- lets the applause wash over him. 
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