[Sama in the MU] Part 11
Added 2025-03-30 04:05:37 +0000 UTC“Every metallic object nearby is resonating under the same force and direction. If you are trying to conceal yourself, it is not working very well.”
There was a moment of hesitation, and then the air above me faltered as it was unbent and revealed the man standing up there.
“Your senses are keener than I gave you credit for,” he said in an urbane Germanic accent.
“They most definitely are,” I agreed, not bothering to look up at him as I sat on Aon Center’s roof, looking over the sprawl of Los Angeles. “What brings you to this city? Last I knew, you had no business interests here.”
“You are my business here.” He sounded rather angry. “You are depriving mutants of their powers!”
“Oh my fucking God. Did you investigate those claims at ALL?” I replied to him, which stopped him from pre-emptively starting a fight. “You are burning my impression of you as an intelligent person in flames. Please don’t keep demonstrating a level of stupidity I associate with redneck hicks.”
My scoffing at him seemed to get him to think. “You are denying what you have been doing?”
“Uncategorically and completely, using the terms you are spitting out like some hatemonger! What kind of leader are you? You are more than capable of discovering the truth about what is going on with no effort, and instead you just came wafting around like a peeping tom waiting to confront me alone?” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been waiting for six hours for you to come down and introduce yourself civilly and talk about the work I am doing with Enclave, and had to fly all the way out here to get you to finally reveal yourself!”
I still wasn’t looking at him, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t see him. Trepidation was in his eyes, as I had the time down precisely. I really had been aware of him. Rantha True Sight isn’t gotten around with light-bending tricks, nor was Pierce Magical Concealment, which operated perfectly well against psi-based electromagnetic manipulation.
“I may have underestimated you...” he admitted, and the metal of the building below me began to thrum. “But I cannot allow you to-”
I slapped down my hand, and a Full Interdiction went out, locking down reality, and very importantly, natural Laws. His manipulation of magnetism went from playing with threads dancing to his whim to trying to bend adamant bars.
The building stopped trembling, and Magneto, Master of Magnetism, fell uncontrolled down from twenty feet in the air, shouting in alarm, flailing and slamming to the ground.
He wasn’t a young man, and bone snapped when he hit the roof as his knees and ankles blew out. He grunted and sprawled, his legs and feet at unworkable angles, the wind out of him and pain flooding through him. He gestured and willed it... and nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
His blue eyes were wide as I got to my feet, and he watched my feet not touching the pebbled roof as I skated smoothly across the roof with one casual step. He made a truncated effort to move backwards, realized it was useless as he stared up at me, and I stopped next to him
I bent down, stuck my hand to his metallic shirt and the flesh beneath, and lifted him off the ground completely effortlessly. Seriously, it took less effort than a normal person lifting a baseball.
He hung there, ruined feet and legs dangling beneath him, hands on my arm, unable to make the slightest shift in my balance or arm.
“You know what you are right now, Mr. Lensherr?” I asked calmly.
“Pray tell,” he replied, with a wince.
“Just a man. Guess what I am?”
He looked me up and down, especially when the voltage crackled up and down me. “A hero?” he asked, mockingly.
“A superior being,” I rebutted, and his face fell. He could hardly deny it. I had shut him down. “And yes, that is me who did that to you, not some science or magic trick. It is me who is holding you off the ground, and can literally do so for the next week effortlessly... and who can pop your head off your shoulders like pinching a zit.”
His arrogance wasn’t quite gone, as he merely replied, “And why haven’t you?”
“Because I don’t like picking on inferior beings.” His face worked again. “I see that isn’t a problem for you, just like it wasn’t for the Nazis. Bullies and racist warmongers tend to get what is coming to them. How’s it feel, going from being the all-powerful master of magnetism, to just an old man unable to defend himself? Like that feeling? You certainly seem to enjoy dishing it out!”
“What do you intend to do with me?” he demanded after a rough moment of digesting my scorn.
“What do you think I should do with a helpless old man with a track record like yours?” I replied.
He frowned. “Given the circumstances, and how dangerous I will be if you let me go, I think you will probably kill me.”
“Oh, really? Is that what you would do to a defenseless old man in my place?” I challenged him. “Do tell me. I really want to find your moral center here. What if you were a child? Should I kill you then, too?”
His jaw worked, wincing. “Perhaps you will take my powers, then?” he sneered at me.
I backhanded him, his iconic helmet went flying as his lip split. “That’s for utter stupidity unbecoming you,” I said in a neutral voice. “I repeat, you didn’t investigate at goddamn all, did you?”
He blinked, trying to overcome his wooziness. “You seem to be taking offense at your deeds.”
I slapped him again. “You didn’t investigate at all, did you?” I remained in the same calm, bored tone.
It took him a few moments to gather himself and glare at me. He hadn’t moved a millimeter from where I was holding him. “No,” he finally admitted stiffly, restraining himself from spitting at me.
He grunted as suddenly his knee jerked back into place, and there was a crack as my knee bent sharply, but I didn’t shift. He watched a glowing stone in the grasp of my hair move down his leg, and where it passed, his bones straightened up, tugged straight by my hair, aligned perfectly, flesh writhed, pierced skin sealed, blood vanished, while the opposite happened to my leg, all the way down to the way my ankle kicked sideways at ninety degrees... and lightning crackled around my injuries, and they slowly receded.
He watched my face, and I gave no indication of the pain as the stone passed to his other leg, my one leg still healing as I started on the other one.
In less than thirty seconds his legs were completely fine, and mine were mending up easily enough.
“I’m leaving you with the split lip because you were stupid. Be smarter.” I kept looking into his eyes. “Feel that irritation? It’s the pain of looking up to someone who is bigger than you, stronger than you, and you can’t do anything about it. In front of me, you will never be anything be an ordinary man, Erik Lensherr. The world may hate you and fear you, but to me you are, right now, just a pitiful hatemonger who is not worth my time to kill, no different from a random Nazi or the Ku Klux Klan. I can see that you are trying to devise a way to take care of me, but that’s exactly what EVERY SINGLE MAN ALIVE would do in your situation, so I forgive you for being so bloody obvious about it.” Despite himself, he flushed again.
“So, I am going to give you an assignment, mister champion of mutants, and that is to USE YOUR DAMN BRAIN.” I shook him once. “You will put your gray matter to work, and you will investigate the utter truth of what I have done to all those mutants, mutates, gene-dolls, and... oh, you only care about the mutants, forget I said anything about the others.” If his eyes could fall any further, they did.
“When you are done and know what is actually going on, come see me at the Champion Compound. Wear civilian garb, because you are way too obvious in that outfit, and bring a nice bottle of wine by way of apology.”
I pushed backward, skating back towards where I’d originally been sitting, hauling him with me, and spun around on the edge of the roof, holding him out over the drop. “Grab your cape. Your magnetic power will return before you hit the ground. If it takes you more than three days to come see me, I will be very disappointed in your level of technical aptitude. Oh, and,” I pulled him closer, “yes, the showers in the women’s bathroom work well, and I am going to tell Natasha that you were trying to get a much closer look at her in there.”
Okay, he went bright red, and I flung and pushed him away and down. I kept his eyes as he fell away, until he turned over and clutched his metallic cloak, turning over and using it to keep his distance from the building as he fell.
Something over three hundred feet down, his flight jerked sideways, and he was drawn rapidly away into the night, quickly cloaking himself ineffectively as I followed him with my eyes.
The blood from his legs that was on my hair drifted up and into my mouth. Waste not, want not. Four inches of magnetic mastery, that was me...
And if he wanted his helmet back, he was going to have to come fetch it.
