2013.10.28 - Was it painful?

Westchester County - Harry's Hideaway
This is the kind of place where, after a few visits, everyone could very well know your name. The kind of place where regulars walk in and their drink is poured by the time they get to the bar. The air is supremely old-fashioned, as the bar seems to have hardly changed in the last thirty years. The floors are polished hardwood, while slightly darker wainscoting lines the walls. Above it, pleasant off-white wallpaper serves as a backdrop for framed photographs of Westchester County from throughout the previous century.
Locally famous for its chili and, of course, a variety of imported beers, Harry's is the local place to be on a Saturday night. Most of those looking for an exciting time head for bigger venues or at least a bar with a proper dance floor, but the place still do a respectable business. The booths are comfortable; the food is good, and the conversation plentiful.
----
"Care for another beer, Odame?"
It's late. The sun has long since set, and Harry's Hideaway is relatively empty, save for those few patrons who simply can't find something better to do on a Sunday evening. Kwabena Odame, however, came for different reasons. A nice motorcycle ride from the Institute, for one, and some time away from all of the distractions waiting him at the X-Men base. Good distractions, but distractions nonetheless. Seated before him at a small booth are a tablet computer, a trio of papers with three distinct maps etched upon them, and an empty plate that once held something most likely greasy.
Looking up, Kwabena smiles at the bartender and shakes his head. "No," he says in a quiet voice. "Dat would be one too many for tonight," he answers. "A cup of coffee, howevah...?"
"Black?"
"Black."
Turning back to the drawings, Kwabena edges just a bit closer to a briefcase that is seated beside him. With one hand tapping away at the tablet, the other drapes over the briefcase in an almost protective way.
 
The door to Harry's swings open, admitting a new face to the bar. It's a face that no one outside of Genosha would recognize- dark hair, stern features, bright blue eyes. He's a tad overdressed for Harry's- a dark navy blazer, button down shirt, slacks. Those eyes zero in on Shift almost immediately, and with purposeful strides, the man walks towards Shift's table. Without being invited, he pulls a seat out and settles into it, interlacing his fingers on the table and staring at Shift with intent and familiar blue eyes. He says nothing, waiting for Shift to speak first and eying him with a gaze that promises a considerable force of personality, despite words being yet unsaid.
Contradictory, Kwabena is wearing his typical casual clothing. Jeans, boots, a black t-shirt and a leather riding jacket. He notices the new arrival in passing at first, but when the gentleman takes an uninvited seat, he looks up curiously. There is a moment where a flash of annoyance crosses the African's eyes, and he casually reaches to sweep the papers aside and into his lap.
"Dere something I can help you with?" The question comes with a tone that is only slightly bothered, but soon enough, the annoyance begins to fade. He's halfway through turning the papers over and reaching for that briefcase, when something about the visitor gathers his attention. A sense of familiarity, and a tickle at the base of his spine, both causing his eyelids to narrow in a curious way.
"Here's your coffee, Kwa." The bartender sets a mug down, then turns a pleasant eye upon the new arrival. "Care for something, fella'?"
 
"Hefeweizen," the man says, his tone short and abrupt, eyes never leaving Kwabena. He waits for the bartender to take the hint and wander off, looking at Shift steadily. 
"No, not particularly," the man says, a regal and accented Polish tone filling the space between them. "Call it an idle diversion. I have been doing some thinking, and I just wish to ask you one question-" He leans forward minutely, commanding Shift's attention with the full measure of a personality that has cowed kings and presidents. 
"Was it painful, what Jean did to you? Or was it painful betraying me?" he says, his rich baritone not audible more than a yard away from their table.
"Hefeweizen it is." The bartender moves off, minding his own business.
Familiarity grows further and further still until those words drill home a very cold truth. When the realization strikes him, Kwabena's eyes blink in a rapid flutter, and his back straightens. The coffee is all but forgotten, and a silence lingers as the full realization settles in. Lips part in an expression of utter shock--not that Magneto is alive, for he knows of this fact--but that the man seated across from him is Erik Lehnsherr. Younger. Different. But still him.
He doesn't cower away from Erik's strong stare. Nor does he make any move to call for help. He does, however, fix Erik with an expression that begins to harden, as if he suspected that this could all go poorly in a snap.
"What Jean did to me was... painless." His voice is quiet, a near whisper that carries a tone of ironic wonder at just how good Jean's handiwork had been. "She is quite good, as I'm sure you know." There is a pause, as he considers just what the answer is to Magneto's next question. Ironically, a touch of respect forms in his eyes, for Magneto was, in fact, one of the most brilliant men he'd ever met.
"Many things have changed, Erik." His voice maintains the near-whisper. It's odd, how similar their voices are in tone, though Kwabena's baritone carries with it a slight hoarseness that makes it uniquely his. It's also peppered with a different kind of strength, one that comes from walking a life of gritty determination to set right far too many wrongs. "I cannot tell you it was painful. I would be lying. And I can't tell you dat it was a mistake. Do you know why?" That question he lets hang, as if to say he won't be the only one directing this unexpected conversation. As if to say there may be some secrets to the puzzle that even Magneto has not yet been made aware.
 
"Ah, I see. So betraying me and the mutants allied with me was not painful to you at all," Magneto says coldly, tilting his head minutely in one direction. "Swearing allegience to me meant nothing. Swearing allegience to Genosha meant nothing. Devoting yourself to an /ideal/ meant nothing." 
"Nothing has changed, Kwabena," Magneto points out. "We're still at war with humanity. There's still a conflict that will inevitably lead to outright battle between our species. I trusted you, Kwabena," he says with the stern disappointment of a parent dressing down a child. "I wanted you to be a part of the future we were building on Genosha. And you decided that you would infiltrate my country- my inner circle- and find a way to destroy my dream. I am having a difficult time understanding how you could find that justifiable."
"I don't."
Kwabena reaches for the coffee, no longer concerned with hiding his papers. He sets them back upon the table in a neat stack, though a cursory glance might reveal that one of them appears to be a map of time, so to speak. A map of timelines, complete with a number of names, dates, and quite a few empty spaces that need to be filled in. Magneto is even written upon it, with a question mark on either side.
"What we did, Jean and I, it was wrong. Unjustified." There is apology in his tone, to boot, and it's not a front. "It was reckless and unnecessary, and everything I did, every decision I made before she undid her trickery? It was not me. It was a facsimile, structured, modified, false. But when we made dat decision? We felt it was best. We felt it was worth de risk." He shakes his head slowly, regret audible in his voice. "You may be right; nothing has changed, for you. You have strong beliefs, and de grit and determination to see dem through. But that is not de case for everyone."
He lifts the coffee to blow upon it, cooling it before taking a drink. All the while, however, his eyes never once leave Erik's.
"Well, I am glad to see you have seen the error of your ways. I do not often indulge in personal revenge, but if there was ever a person I had considered obliterating out of hand, it is you." He makes it a simple declaration- as if he had just announced a change in the weather. The bartender arrives with the hefeweizen and Magneto takes a pull from the bottle, savouring the beer for a moment before setting the glass down with a dull thump. 
"As it stands, you and your friends have crossed the line from 'obstacle' into 'asset'. I do not have the time to hunt down each of Sinister's monstrosities individually, and the X-men are more than equipped to handle them. Consolidating Genosha and managing the plague outbreak has become something of a pressing concern."
There's a slight quirk of Kwabena's lips into a partial smirk. "Oh, you made dat clear," he acknowledges. He truly never will forget the sheer power of the word that was declared of him, and the infusion of magnetic force that nearly obliterated him.
Setting the coffee down, Kwabena considers the man seated across from him for a moment. A slow nod of his head is given, and it would seem that for the moment, he's more than willing to set things aside.
"Membahs of my team were infected as well," he admits. "We were able to contain de outbreak and find a swift cure, but it doesn't end dere. Some of my associates in de scientific community are currently analyzing blood samples from my comrades, along with a sampah directly from de source; from Kurt; which I believe was captured by Mystique." His eyebrows lift up conspiratorially. "It's my goal to find not only a cure, but a serum. An immunity. We don't know to what end Sinistah will go. We don't know dat it will end with dese Harbingers of his. We must be prepared in every way." Reaching for the coffee again, a flash of concern crosses his face. "And Genosha? I trust you have de outbreak undah control, if you've come all de way here."
 
"Genosha is under control. All of it," Magneto says, letting the implication stand for itself. "I will not let my people perish under the lash of the plague. I will not let /Genosha/ perish." 
Magneto finishes his beer and sets the bottle aside. "Doctor Grey is lagging somewhat behind. I have found an effective counter to Sinister's influence," Magneto says calmly. "And contrary to popular belief, I am neither ignorant, nor a fool. I have a functional cure for Pestilence's influence, and I believe, a way to undo the havoc he has wreaked with their genetic code." 
Magneto removes a small plastic phial from his inside jacket pocket and slides it towards Shift. "You and yours are likely to run into Sinister's abominations soon. An injection with this serum should work as a functional catalyst to reverse Sinister's process. Good luck with injection. I understand that his Horsemen are... mobile." Magneto gets to his feet and throws a twenty-dollar bill onto the table. "When you and your team are ready to pursue Sinister, send me a message. Until then, try not to get yourself killed. Good bye, Kwabena," Magneto offers diffidently, before going to take his leave from the bar.
The phial is taken, accepted, and placed safely into an inner pocket of his own jacket. The information about Genosha is filed away as well, but Genosha is no longer among Kwabena's concerns. When Magneto stands to leave?
"Wait."
Kwabena rises to his feet, the coffee and empty bottle left behind, along with his papers and the briefcase. "Listen to me," he requests, a touch of urgency in his tone. A brief glance is given to the rest of the cafe, but the bartender is still minding his own, and the others gathered? Well, the drunks at the bar are drunks, and the couple off in the corner appear as if they're about ten seconds away from sucking face. Oblivious.
Looking back to Magneto, Kwabena's eyes narrow. "Dis is what I meant. Things have changed. Dere is a threat now to us, to mutants, and it's biggah dan any threat de humans could throw at us." He may not hold the same calibre of presence, but it seems Shift isn't about to just let the man leave without hearing him out. "Quantum theory. Infinite possibilities, infinite futures. Do you know who you ah to become, Erik? Have you seen de future?"
Maybe that will get the Imperator's attention.
Magneto's hand surges forward and grabs Kwabena's throat with an iron-like grip. The speed of it is shocking, and worse- Kwabena's natural ability to phase-shift is somehow suppressed, likely by the tingling sensation that indicates Magneto is exercising some aspect of his absolute power over the very building blocks of the universe. He stops just this side of crushing Kwabena's windpipe with his bare phalanges. 
He jerks the Ghanian mutant close until they are nearly nose to nose, his eyes blazing with fury, ignoring the tense silence that fills the bar. "I do not /care/ what vaunted time-travellers say," Magneto snarls, real anger filling his tone. "Infinite possibilities, infinite variations, infinite /variables/. You can find a dozen mutants from alternate futures who call me sinner, saint, spy, saboteur, murderer, savior. All I know is that I /must/ do all that I can to protect both the people here, now, and the people who may yet arrive. And in /every/ future, in /every/ possibility where a refugee arrived from, either I tried and died, or tried and was defeated. This means that thousands of possibilities exist where I tried and succeeded and created a /future/ for Homo Novus." 
"Either way, universally, they agree that /I must have tried/. So I /will/ continue to do not what 'they' say I should, but what I /believe/ I must- and I will do anything that is required to assure Genosha's survival. At /any/ cost. Do not /ever/ doubt that," he snarls. With a last squeeze, he shoves Kwabena back, his face reassuming an implacable, unreadable expression, and adjusts his blazer. A glance is given to the bar, and Magneto sweeps out of the room with a royal arrogance, the bar door slamming shut behind him.
With a croak, Kwabena finds fear nestling in his bosom when Magneto's hand doesn't simply pass through his neck. His eyes widen for a moment, before they rotate to focus upon the man who strangles him and pulls him close. That fear becomes malice, but the malice melts away into acceptance. You see, he knew exactly what he was doing when he stood to retain the Imperator, and he knew that this might have happened. And so, with the air stricken from his lungs, he finds that small place of focus deep within and listens.
He tries to form words, something to speak, but it's impossible. Not until Magneto has released him, and at first, he simply finds himself gasping for air. Angered by this, his entire body suddenly crackles, flesh and bone hardening to a state of matter so solidified that he simply doesn't need to breathe. This causes a change to come over his voice, one that sounds hollow, as if resonated by so much stone.
"And I nevah will!" he calls back. "Genosha must--"
And then, the door is slammed.
Kwabena knows better than to pursue. He glowers at the door, and with a grunt of focus, his body begins to revert. Deep breaths are taken, and soon enough, he mutters something that he only wished Magneto would have stayed to hear.
"Holy... shit!" The bartender rushes over toward Kwabena. "Odame, you alright, man?"
Shift turns upon the bartender, staying his hand from shoving him away. Instead, he fixes the bartender with a hot stare and growls, "Say nothing of dis!" His eyes dart around to the drunks, the couple, all of whom are staring at him. "All of you! Dis nevah happened." He fixes each with a threatening glare while returning to his table, gathering his things in stony silence.
Category:Log