Chapter 4/13 Cracked Diamonds
Title: Cracked Diamonds
Rating: M
Warnings: Graphic Sexual abuse of a minor, rape, domestic violence, implied violence, implied m/m sexual relations, and death.
Summary:
Emma Frost learned at her mother’s knee that if a woman wanted to get anywhere, she was the only person with the power to make that happen. Telepathy was quite helpful to those aims, including the manipulation of men. Cleavage or cortex, both helped her make her own way, often by changing the thoughts of others. She wanted to rule the world, but it is a man’s world. By playing with the minds of everyone, she thought she would take over the world.
Charles Xavier disagreed.
An AU-verse in which Xavier and Magneto are tempered by a diamond’s views of supremacy, and not a Mengele’s, even if they didn’t quite figure it out.
IV.
Erik, no, no, he had to call himself Magneto now, even if it wasn’t the name he was born to, or the name that he chose to use himself. It was a name, a label given to him by the children, one that he could use on others to create fear. It was a name that he left on the letters that were mailed to every Federal Office building in the wake of Cecelie D’Amidou’s death. Magneto was a signature, a written promise.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
--Pastor Martin Niemoller
If he didn’t protest, he knew, then who would? Charles hadn’t been heard from in weeks, maybe months, and Mystique’s world was wrapped up around Cecelie D’Amidou, the Cause, almost enough that she forgot her brother.
Cecelie was only a girl, barely old enough to buckle on a brassiere, and no one protested. Mutants were running scared, the deaths of three young men in an armed robbery: armed with the spikes that one shot out of his hands, the explosions that trailed out of another’s foot when he stomped, and a third all wicked eyes and a grin that promised worse. Diamante shining teeth, sharpened enough to tear at flesh. He had died riddled with bullets, a police officer’s gun gleaming in the bank window, a teller’s wrist in his hands.
Arturo Ramirez, Estallido. Carlos Alvares, Lanza. Silvio Santos, Leon. Leon’s body displayed to the crowds, Estallido and Lanza not even given the right to trial, instead strung up on a tree by the court house, feet dangling in the wind, carcasses degrading in the wind.
Emma called it a sad fate, and smirked with her eyes. He worried less about Charles speaking into his mind, then Emma sneaking. Emma’s worth to him was as much as his gut allowed him, and not his sense of logic. Any sense of fairness that he had was being used to hide his distrust from her as she danced along the edge of his senses and kept on almost triggering memories.
White was whitewash, bleaching over and over until something was hidden from view and cloaked in a veil of falsehoods. “We should find ourselves more muscle.” Those were her words to him, across the table now.
“Who would you find most appropriate?” He had several of the lists of mutants memorized, lists that he and Charles had put together from Charles’ use of Cerebro, from careful surveillance, from his own skills honed with Mossad and hunting on his own. “I’m sure that we each have our own lists.”
“The Hellfire Club was not just Shaw’s pursuit of a mutant domination of the world.” Emma spoke softly. “The first woman to hold a seat at a Hellfire Table was Elaine Snow, at the table in New York. She took the seat once held by Francis Xavier, Senator, businessman, Civil War veteran, and equal rights proponent.”
“You bring this up for a reason?” It was an interesting name, he thought, reminding him of her at the same time that the rest of her sentence hammered him in the heart. Francis Xavier was Charles’ grandfather, the man that Charles had said had ‘painted me into the man I have become, trying to teach me about balance between the ability to do something and the need to do it to affect your own ends.’ It had been a startling conversation with pacifism as understood by a man with the power to enforce it.
“Francis Xavier’s grandson Charles will be approached to sit at a Hellfire Table.” Emma’s eyes were boring into his. “With Sebastian’s death, his seat at a Hellfire Table in Las Vegas remains empty. You would receive the support of the Hellfire Club, should you take that seat.”
“The Hellfire Club is not just mutants,” It is Riptide, interrupting Emma with the face of a man who expects to be scolded. “it is for those who have power, and know how to use it. Doctor Shaw held Las Vegas after failing to find a seat in Miami or in San Francisco, or even in Detroit.”
“Why Las Vegas?” He wondered. “If he wished for a society with superior mutants, inferior humans, both in reality, and society, as well as in our ideal, then why take the Hellfire Club seat?” He breathed, wondering why those words seemed so familiar for a moment.
“Las Vegas is the home of more criminals than businessmen, and we hold power there more easily, with violence as our tool.” Emma smiled, that white smile in such a body. Curves like the cabaret dancers in a body that the Nazis would have loved. She always is garbed in white, false purity today in a tailored pantsuit that he realized she must have spent money on, both for design and the fabric, embroidered brocade. “They will come to us if we hold a seat.”
“Did Herr Schmidt not use the club to attract mutants?” He asked. “It would appear to me that he was not successful in his use of the club.” Across the table, Mystique’s eyes are wide, staring with venom at Emma, her voice whipping into the conversation.
“My brother is a telepath of far greater skill than you, Miss Frost.” For a moment, Charles Xavier is sitting in the seat, Azazel on one side of him, Riptide across. The body seems only vaguely familiar to him, and she ripples so that it becomes more of what he remembers of it. “I would remind you to keep your mind out of my head. I have always known that I am never alone, but Charles built my walls, and I can feel you slithering on them.”
“As you wish.” Emma is watching him again, and he is thankful for the protection of the helmet. Her eyes are boring into him, and it worries him in two ways and weights him in a third. “But we need more man-power.” Was his head not protected by the helmet, or had Shaw an imperfect understanding of the reality of telepathy? Could she slide through his nervous system and into his brain? Charles had never mentioned anything about how his mutation worked, only what it worked on, that he could hear the thoughts of others, manipulate the thoughts of another. Emma’s skills, he thought, were similar, but he did not know.
“I was once told,” in Israel, by his trainer in Mossad. “that one who suggests that something be changed should have a suggestion as to what he or she wishes that thing be changed to. Do you have any ideas, Miss Frost?”
“I know of three mutants who turned Sebastian Shaw down.” One that she had encouraged to do so, not that Sebastian had ever realized that she had done so. “I also know of several groups of individuals who might be interested.”
“Oh, be frank!” Riptide snarls at her, wind whipping through the dinner table with distaste and irritation. “What Emma means is she knows the leaders of several mutant gangs! Shaw didn’t think that they had the discipline to truly follow ideals, only money.”
“Then we give them money!” Emma snarls back, and Erik, Magneto feels an alien echo of agreement with her.
“Where do we go for the first three, Miss Frost?” Azazel is shaking his head at this.
“There is a mutant called Juggernaut in Manhattan. Once he starts to move, he is unstoppable.”
“Save for the bitch sending a hammer through his skull.” Azazel speaks, his tail whipping in the air. “That’s why he refused. Shaw tried to have her convince him, and it didn’t work.
“His name is Cain Marko.” Emma continued speaking. “He will follow us.”
“Magneto.” Raven spoke, blue skin shimmering and sliding. “ I was thirteen the first time that my brother told me to be wary of things that came too easily.”
“Why would Charles say that?” His eyes were holding hers, amber and blue locked together.
“All communists are bad, are they not?” They were her brother’s words, his tone in her voice. “But the Russians helped liberate the death camps.” Her words were calm, and he strained towards her meaning. “If an enemy is so easy to find, to see, are we perhaps missing another enemy in the shadows?”
Rating: M
Warnings: Graphic Sexual abuse of a minor, rape, domestic violence, implied violence, implied m/m sexual relations, and death.
Summary:
Emma Frost learned at her mother’s knee that if a woman wanted to get anywhere, she was the only person with the power to make that happen. Telepathy was quite helpful to those aims, including the manipulation of men. Cleavage or cortex, both helped her make her own way, often by changing the thoughts of others. She wanted to rule the world, but it is a man’s world. By playing with the minds of everyone, she thought she would take over the world.
Charles Xavier disagreed.
An AU-verse in which Xavier and Magneto are tempered by a diamond’s views of supremacy, and not a Mengele’s, even if they didn’t quite figure it out.
IV.
Erik, no, no, he had to call himself Magneto now, even if it wasn’t the name he was born to, or the name that he chose to use himself. It was a name, a label given to him by the children, one that he could use on others to create fear. It was a name that he left on the letters that were mailed to every Federal Office building in the wake of Cecelie D’Amidou’s death. Magneto was a signature, a written promise.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
--Pastor Martin Niemoller
If he didn’t protest, he knew, then who would? Charles hadn’t been heard from in weeks, maybe months, and Mystique’s world was wrapped up around Cecelie D’Amidou, the Cause, almost enough that she forgot her brother.
Cecelie was only a girl, barely old enough to buckle on a brassiere, and no one protested. Mutants were running scared, the deaths of three young men in an armed robbery: armed with the spikes that one shot out of his hands, the explosions that trailed out of another’s foot when he stomped, and a third all wicked eyes and a grin that promised worse. Diamante shining teeth, sharpened enough to tear at flesh. He had died riddled with bullets, a police officer’s gun gleaming in the bank window, a teller’s wrist in his hands.
Arturo Ramirez, Estallido. Carlos Alvares, Lanza. Silvio Santos, Leon. Leon’s body displayed to the crowds, Estallido and Lanza not even given the right to trial, instead strung up on a tree by the court house, feet dangling in the wind, carcasses degrading in the wind.
Emma called it a sad fate, and smirked with her eyes. He worried less about Charles speaking into his mind, then Emma sneaking. Emma’s worth to him was as much as his gut allowed him, and not his sense of logic. Any sense of fairness that he had was being used to hide his distrust from her as she danced along the edge of his senses and kept on almost triggering memories.
White was whitewash, bleaching over and over until something was hidden from view and cloaked in a veil of falsehoods. “We should find ourselves more muscle.” Those were her words to him, across the table now.
“Who would you find most appropriate?” He had several of the lists of mutants memorized, lists that he and Charles had put together from Charles’ use of Cerebro, from careful surveillance, from his own skills honed with Mossad and hunting on his own. “I’m sure that we each have our own lists.”
“The Hellfire Club was not just Shaw’s pursuit of a mutant domination of the world.” Emma spoke softly. “The first woman to hold a seat at a Hellfire Table was Elaine Snow, at the table in New York. She took the seat once held by Francis Xavier, Senator, businessman, Civil War veteran, and equal rights proponent.”
“You bring this up for a reason?” It was an interesting name, he thought, reminding him of her at the same time that the rest of her sentence hammered him in the heart. Francis Xavier was Charles’ grandfather, the man that Charles had said had ‘painted me into the man I have become, trying to teach me about balance between the ability to do something and the need to do it to affect your own ends.’ It had been a startling conversation with pacifism as understood by a man with the power to enforce it.
“Francis Xavier’s grandson Charles will be approached to sit at a Hellfire Table.” Emma’s eyes were boring into his. “With Sebastian’s death, his seat at a Hellfire Table in Las Vegas remains empty. You would receive the support of the Hellfire Club, should you take that seat.”
“The Hellfire Club is not just mutants,” It is Riptide, interrupting Emma with the face of a man who expects to be scolded. “it is for those who have power, and know how to use it. Doctor Shaw held Las Vegas after failing to find a seat in Miami or in San Francisco, or even in Detroit.”
“Why Las Vegas?” He wondered. “If he wished for a society with superior mutants, inferior humans, both in reality, and society, as well as in our ideal, then why take the Hellfire Club seat?” He breathed, wondering why those words seemed so familiar for a moment.
“Las Vegas is the home of more criminals than businessmen, and we hold power there more easily, with violence as our tool.” Emma smiled, that white smile in such a body. Curves like the cabaret dancers in a body that the Nazis would have loved. She always is garbed in white, false purity today in a tailored pantsuit that he realized she must have spent money on, both for design and the fabric, embroidered brocade. “They will come to us if we hold a seat.”
“Did Herr Schmidt not use the club to attract mutants?” He asked. “It would appear to me that he was not successful in his use of the club.” Across the table, Mystique’s eyes are wide, staring with venom at Emma, her voice whipping into the conversation.
“My brother is a telepath of far greater skill than you, Miss Frost.” For a moment, Charles Xavier is sitting in the seat, Azazel on one side of him, Riptide across. The body seems only vaguely familiar to him, and she ripples so that it becomes more of what he remembers of it. “I would remind you to keep your mind out of my head. I have always known that I am never alone, but Charles built my walls, and I can feel you slithering on them.”
“As you wish.” Emma is watching him again, and he is thankful for the protection of the helmet. Her eyes are boring into him, and it worries him in two ways and weights him in a third. “But we need more man-power.” Was his head not protected by the helmet, or had Shaw an imperfect understanding of the reality of telepathy? Could she slide through his nervous system and into his brain? Charles had never mentioned anything about how his mutation worked, only what it worked on, that he could hear the thoughts of others, manipulate the thoughts of another. Emma’s skills, he thought, were similar, but he did not know.
“I was once told,” in Israel, by his trainer in Mossad. “that one who suggests that something be changed should have a suggestion as to what he or she wishes that thing be changed to. Do you have any ideas, Miss Frost?”
“I know of three mutants who turned Sebastian Shaw down.” One that she had encouraged to do so, not that Sebastian had ever realized that she had done so. “I also know of several groups of individuals who might be interested.”
“Oh, be frank!” Riptide snarls at her, wind whipping through the dinner table with distaste and irritation. “What Emma means is she knows the leaders of several mutant gangs! Shaw didn’t think that they had the discipline to truly follow ideals, only money.”
“Then we give them money!” Emma snarls back, and Erik, Magneto feels an alien echo of agreement with her.
“Where do we go for the first three, Miss Frost?” Azazel is shaking his head at this.
“There is a mutant called Juggernaut in Manhattan. Once he starts to move, he is unstoppable.”
“Save for the bitch sending a hammer through his skull.” Azazel speaks, his tail whipping in the air. “That’s why he refused. Shaw tried to have her convince him, and it didn’t work.
“His name is Cain Marko.” Emma continued speaking. “He will follow us.”
“Magneto.” Raven spoke, blue skin shimmering and sliding. “ I was thirteen the first time that my brother told me to be wary of things that came too easily.”
“Why would Charles say that?” His eyes were holding hers, amber and blue locked together.
“All communists are bad, are they not?” They were her brother’s words, his tone in her voice. “But the Russians helped liberate the death camps.” Her words were calm, and he strained towards her meaning. “If an enemy is so easy to find, to see, are we perhaps missing another enemy in the shadows?”