Emma Frost is tired of trying to be good (ice_queen) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-08-22 00:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, emma frost (white queen), logan howlett (wolverine), mewtwo, scott summers (cyclops) |
I’m going to put my hair up and have a small breakdown over the erosion of my morality
Who: Logan Howlett, Mewtwo, Emma and Scott Summers
Where: an undisclosed location
What: interrogation and destruction of an enemy
When: Monday evening, after this log
Warnings/Rating: R for mental torture and the 'death' of a PC
Status complete
Emma was surprised to get a call from Logan, and even more surprised when she realized what it was for. She wasn’t exactly giddy to do what was needed, but she didn’t mind it as much as she might under other circumstances. She held a pretty large grudge against the woman who killed her, after all.
They took her van out to meet Logan in the middle of nowhere. “I should be worried that he has a place out in the boonies, right?” She joked, to lighten the mood.
“Probably,” Scott replied. “But better here than our place, or the ranch. Logan offered to fund making a permanent location for this kind of thing. I can’t believe we need a place to put these people.”
“Do we?” Emma asked as she parked. “Are we just going to hold her for the rest of her life?” Emma’s tone was cold. What good was there in keeping this woman alive?
“We’re not killers, or judge/ jury and executioner. She’s cerberus, right? We’ll turn her over to Shepard, they’re supposed to be her problem anyway. Let her figure out what to do with her.”
“Then we still don’t need our own facility.” Emma pointed out as they made their way toward the building.
“Temporary holding,” Scott clarified. He adjusted his visor as they stepped inside. It smelled old and musty, and Logan was waiting, with Monica trussed up like a present.
“Is she conscious?” Emma asked, eying the woman with clinical disinterest. Or at least the appearance of such. “She’s been stabbed a couple times.” That she said with approval.
"She looks better with claws in her," Logan snarled. "Wake up."
Monica was still out of it. Emma cocked her head and telepathically woke up. Out of spite she amplified her pain receptors as well. The scream was quite remarkable. After a second she let Monica’s brain return to normal. “Honestly I only need one of you in here, so flip a coin over who gets to be the good cop.”
Monica looked up at Emma, her breathing hard and ragged. “I should have harvested your fetus immediately, instead of waiting.”
“Logan, step out,” Scott said, his expression darkening.
Logan took a look at Scott, then at Monica. He knew that look. That was the ‘clear sentinels off my lawn’ look. Besides, he didn’t trust himself not to torture her. “Try not to level the building.” He stepped out.
“Wouldn’t want to lose the security deposit.” Monica noted. They could torture her all she wanted, she wouldn’t say a word. Not to these people.
Emma gave Scott a curious look. “Hmm, no good cop in the room. Ah well.” She strode over to Monica, tilting her chin up to an extreme angle. “This game can go very easily for you. All you have to do is listen to my questions and think of the answers. You don’t even have to say them. Of course, for every answer I don’t get one of us gets a moment of closure and the chance to work out our excessively pent up frustrations, so we’re not really hoping you’ll comply. All we need, after all, is for you to keep breathing for one more hour.”
Monica laughed at that. “You can’t torture me, I do not fear pain or death.”
Scott’s eyes glowed behind the visor, as though a tremendous force was waiting to get out. He knelt in front of Monica. “You don’t have to fear pain or death. We’re not going to torture you. In fact, we’re not even going to touch you. I don’t need my hands, and as much as my wife enjoys whips, she doesn’t need that either.”
Scott tilted his head. “Emma, you know, I think I know something she might be afraid of. Losing herself. Her identity. Her ability to move think, and act.”
Monica shrugged, but Emma laughed. “Oooh, I bet you’re right. That’s all she has to block me with, after all. Let’s see what’s so precious to her that she can bring up the memory of it even now when she’s almost certainly bleeding out.”
Emma stepped back, eying Monica. “Who’s your next target?”
Monica was already thinking of her times tables. Emma laughed again, for effect more than out of any real sense of humor. “She’s reciting math problems. Apparently multiplication is very important to her. It makes a certain kind of sense.” Emma concentrated. Rote memorization was fascinating to her for a lot of reasons. “It’s a pity, I dedicated the first half of my adult life to shoving facts into people’s brains.” She managed to root out most of Monica’s higher math knowledge, then the things she knew by heart.
Monica’s expression went from placid to thoughtful. She remembered what she’d been doing, but not how to do it. She gasped, staring at Emma. “And you wonder why we want to destroy you.”
“You attack our people. You threaten to destroy us for no other reason than we’re different,” Scott replied, expression almost sad. “I’m familiar with genocide, doctor. I won’t have it here. Not with my people, and not with any of the other dreamers. You won’t leave us alone, so we’ll defend ourselves.”
“With extreme prejudice. Where is Logan’s blood going?” She asked the question quickly, but Monica had already found a new thing to latch on to. She imagined her favorite song, and all the emotions it made her feel. Surely that was too big, too much for the telepath to handle.
“A song? Hmm, when was the first time you heard that one?” Emma’s question wasn’t one Monica expected, and she thought of that moment Emma asked. She imagined the theater and her father’s hand around her own, guiding her to her seat. She remembered the pretty pink dress and his look of rapture as he listened to the pianist play.
Emma examined the memory, sighing softly. “He must have cared for you a great deal. Would your father be proud of you? I think not. Let’s not sully his memory.”
Monica’s expression turned to one of panic as she forgot the sound of her father’s voice, the kind expression of his face, his hand around her own. She kept the music, but her passion for it was gone. She loved it because her father did.
Scott watched, his expression unchanging. “You can have it all back. Just tell us where the blood is going.”
“It’s going to Portland.” Monica blurted out, to Emma’s surprise and delight.
“See? We’re making progress.” She didn’t give Monica her memories back just yet. “Who are they going to?”
This time Monica tried to think of nothing. Emma rubbed her temples. “Why are you protecting these people? Didn’t they leave you behind?”
“Emma, feed her my memory of what the world looks like when people like her exterminate people like us,” Scott said. “All those alternate timelines we prevented. Show her all my worst memories. Make her feel them.”
Emma nodded. “Give me one to start with.” She linked her mind to his, trying to hide her fear and nervousness. This was just over the edge of acceptable, but it was necessary and she couldn’t put ethics above the safety of others.
Scott started simple. Xavier’s dream. Peace and coexistence, helping the helpless and defending them against threats mutant, human and extraterrestrial. The running, the hiding, the desperate fights just to survive. The Purifiers and the hellfire club. Schoolbusses of kids exploding, and what happens when the humans always lose control of the things they built to kill them. He wanted her to experience the feeling of despair and loss and pain, and even the feelings of hope when they inevitably came out on top. He wanted her to know he’d seen a thousand things worse than anything she could possibly imagine - and he was still here.
Monica was unmoved by all this. She blocked it, partially, by remembering her devotion to her cause, and the images she’d seen of good, honest people being destroyed by super powered monsters. Emma moved closer, examining her political views, and her personal views. “That’s a dangerous shield to hide behind. You won’t regret it, but only because there won’t be a you left when it’s gone.” She’d broken Monica’s mind so much already that there was little resistance to pulling out this last thing. Every single bit of her hatred, racism, fear, and desire for genetic purity was drained from her head. In its wake it left nothing. Emma gathered the information that was relevant and discarded the rest. There would be no Monica left after this. She couldn’t be allowed to have these thoughts and feelings back.
“Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying. Why I think there’s some shred of goodness in everyone,” Scott said, expression shaded. He felt sick at what they’d done, but he wasn’t sure there was another choice short of outright killing her.
Emma nodded, breaking the telepathic connection to Monica. With no personality she sat there, looking vaguely confused. Emma turned her back to Monica and put her to sleep. “She doesn’t know exactly who her superiors were. She knows there’s a big research base in Portland, and they’re likely to come after more of us. Especially pregnant women, they’re desperate to get their hands on a live fetus from any dreamer.”
“Neena is out of commision,” Scott mused. Shepard would be willing to act. Logan he could count on to do what was necessary at any cost. He knew some others would be willing but he couldn’t ask that of them. Not when they finally had normalcy.
“Logan needs to track down his blood, he can do reconnaissance on the base. Who else do you know? If we send out a small team now and follow it up with our heavy hitters we can possibly destroy this particular base and its research before more people are hurt. This isn’t even just about us anymore, the humans used in her experiments all died horribly. She’s murdered at least ten people, not including the ones she incinerated today.”
“We find the base, we level it from the inside out,” Scott said. “I can call in Shepard, she’d take a particular joy out of this, and that’ll give it some sanction.”
Emma nodded. “Take Nate. I’m not sure I can be a part of this sort of thing anymore today.” She felt terrible for being so weak, but this was all just too much. She didn’t want to think about what she’d done. It was necessary, but it wasn’t right.
Scott shook his head. “I’ll call in Nate if I need to, but he’s one of the ones I want trying to be normal.” He’d bring Belle in, though. Some extra sanction couldn’t hurt.
“You’ll want a telepath if you get one of the higher ups.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “I’ll go if you won’t take him.” She wasn’t going to accept an argument about it.
“I can bring the higher up back here,” Scott countered.
“Wasting possible precious time. Not to mention you won’t know the layout of the building, what the weapons capacity is, who’s even in charge and who’s important, and you won’t have an easy, unhackable means of communicating with your very large, loud, destructive team.” She met his eyes, her expression serious. “I’m going.”
“Stay in diamond form unless absolutely necessary,” Scott said, finally.
“Actually I can do more good staying in the jet linking your team telepathically and feeding you information. Also, it means they can’t destroy the jet.”
And that Emma would be mostly out of danger. He liked that idea. “I’ll call in Belle, she and Logan can scout it out, then we can plan a proper assault.” He really wanted Neena, but she had to be out of danger for the same reasons as Emma. Lorna was a possibility. Shepard for sure. Once he knew what they were dealing with he could form a proper team, and a backup team.
Emma nodded. “I’ll call Shepard to take Monica and brief her on what I know. You pick your team and Logan can go do what he does best with my Dad’s assistant for some reason but I’m not going to ask what it is.”
“It’s not like you couldn’t poke her brain.” Scott was curious, too.
Emma laughed. “I suppose I could, but I’d have to live with whatever I saw every day I went into work. If she’s involved in this somehow, then I probably won’t like what I see.”
Scott sighed again. “Lets hope this all ends quickly.”
“Yes.” Emma said with a nod, her laughter fading. “Call your people in, I’m going to put my hair up and have a small breakdown over the erosion of my morality.”
“Save room for me.”