Work Text:
06/10/2018
The wardroom was the only place in Watergate that didn’t give you claustrophobia. At least when all the partition walls had been sunk into the ground and all the training and fun equipment had been pushed back against the plain gray walls. At the first general assembly of the new Brotherhood that Everett ever was part of, it was still far too crowded for his taste. It took him a full ten minutes to push his way through the masses of excitedly chattering mutants to the stairs leading to the slightly elevated area, separated by a thin pane of glass, where the Brotherhood leaders sat down for such occasions. When five thousand powerful warriors gathered in one place, territorial fights, and stallion manners were a given, including body parts being flung around, beverage cans, metal parts being torn out of the floor or walls, or energy discharges. He didn't want Artie in the middle of that.
“I'll be right back.” He briefly nodded at his stepbrother before leaving him at the head of the stairs, from where Artie would be able to see the hall better.
The kid seemed more composed than in their quarters earlier, but it was clear that he didn't feel comfortable in the presence of so many aggressive people.
Everett couldn't blame him. For his taste, many of these mutants thought a little too much like Pyro and Toad. In their bloodthirst, these people had forgotten how to focus on the admittedly few positive aspects of life that being shunned by normal people left mutants with.
Even though Everett did enjoy the satisfaction himself of unleashing his hate at least on those who had offed innocent people like his parents, Artie's foster parents ... You didn't always have to lash out. There were so many other things you could be a part of to make this planet a better place. That was exactly what he wanted Artie to never forget, lest the only person he loved he had left would ever possibly be tempted to get himself right in the line of fire with a rifle in his hand after all. The boy and Everett would be happy to reap the benefits of Mystique's plans as much as any other mutant, and wasn’t completely reluctant about doing what was asked of him in order to achieve that, but his brother and he had never been interested in random massacres.
All the more important to do his part to make sure everything went well tonight, so soon, that there would hopefully be no more need for open battle in the first place.
With a single strong jump, Everett swung up onto the prepared small stage and waited impatiently for the obligatory cheering from the small groups of mutants of all ages to subside. Cheering, mostly stemming from the fact that these people knew exactly about his position on Mystique's leaderboard and suspected that they would finally find out what was going to happen today.
“My comrades.” With a slight bow, Everett came to stand at the small lectern and leaned over the microphone, which promptly let out a protesting whistling sound. Dear God, it was really time for all of them to get away from this dump and back to civilization. ”This evening will start a new era for our species. And all of you will be the protagonists on this page of history. Don't disappoint me; I'm counting on you. But first, join me in welcoming your leaders!”
He nodded his chin towards the glass corridor under the ceiling, the passageway that only people of higher rank in Watergate were allowed to use, which ran through all the rooms and offered Mystique and her people an unobstructed view of what was happening in their base.
Today it was their pedestal. With his head held high and a superior smile on her lips, his boss strode down the hallway until she was directly above the stage, her two most important fighters in tow. With a few elegant somersaults, a single fluid movement, her blue-red figure swung down next to Everett through a hatch in the floor. With an amicable hand on his shoulder, she implied a bow towards her followers.
And they all cheered, all these so very different people from all classes, with all their various deformities, different body types, not a hint of uniform military appearance or strict etiquette on their shapes. None of them could be forced into any constraints that only those narrow-minded, short-sighted primitives out there had come up with anyway. But they all had one thing in common: their loyalty, their enthusiasm for the Brotherhood's goals.
Mystique enjoyed her applause ever until Toad's greenish figure swung down beside her onto its long, powerful legs, with a single leap as well, and Pyro, slower but more pompously, made his way down the short distance on a hover platform, followed by the yearning glances of young mutants of every gender and, of course, his own bed bunny. The three leaders were already wearing their battle gear, with their demonstratively adapted appearance making it clear without saying a word that today would be serious.
The best time for Everett to retreat in relief. He had fulfilled his today very brief public job and provided Mystique with her curtain call and the necessary attention ... Now his other, much more important task that night awaited him. There were patients to be taken care of and a weapon to be guarded.
Raven audibly cleared her throat into her microphone, growing more impatient with each passing minute to finally get the plans for this evening underway. “As most of you probably already suspect, we recently completed the last tests with the Field. Thanks to some lucky coincidence, we can consider ourselves safe from unwanted interference tonight. For this reason, the leadership of the Brotherhood of Mutants has unanimously decided to put the conquest of our new home in motion. We leave in an hour, ladies and gentlemen.”
She gave her subjects a moment to stomach this crucial announcement, already steeling herself mentally against possible objections.
While especially the mutants who'd been here for a while already, who had been through the most shit in their lives, seemed immediately enthusiastic and visibly would have loved to be on their way to the mainland already, already pushing towards the door, unease spread among the groups of the newcomers.
“Are we really enough people for such a quest?” Young Theresa was the first to dare to voice her doubts. ”I mean ... we are talking about a city of millions of people.”
“Size doesn't matter ... well, not in this regard it doesn’t.” Pyro stepped forward with a suggestive grin, and this time Mystique let him. Once he had been told clearly enough what to do, the boy was usually damn good at it. And it was the younger, less mature ones among their people who liked him best, who could identify with him better than they could with Toad and her, who admittedly had seen a few more decades.
Pyro had the laughs on his side with his remark, and most of the doubters as well, when he demonstratively brought the fire around his wrists to life. “We have the voice to reach them all, the control over their weapons to protect us, the destructive power to make it clear to them that a fight would be futile. Arm yourselves, don't hesitate, don't stop for even a moment. Don't talk to them, keep an eye on them, don't attack before they do. If they don't want to leave voluntarily, force them to. And if they strike out ... Eliminate them.” The smile had disappeared; now the orders were being given that all these fighters had been prepared for in their training and that should no longer surprise anyone, and yet a hesitant murmur went through the room when Pyro revealed his own readiness to kill, his anger at the humans, with bared teeth and rings of fire flickering ever more intensely around his hands.
“Many innocents will die tonight,” the voice of this girl of all people, from the former strike forces of their enemies, who would have one of the most important jobs tonight, rose again. ”Does our desire for freedom really justify that, Mystique?”
“Yes, people will die today,” Raven replied harshly, not backing down a single step. ”Including innocent people. Like your father, Theresa. Don't forget why you came to me.”
The short but very powerful reminder of the young woman's loss quickly silenced her, along with a few others who had apparently wanted to make similar arguments. Hatred showed on many faces; far too present in the minds of these people, the humiliation, the injuries, and also the grief still was that many of them had to accept simply because of their genes, to really feel compassion or remorse.
“Don't get me wrong, boss ...” Only Jedda, who rarely accepted Mystique's motives without question, was not yet convinced. Of all people, this uncouth jungle girl, who was one of the most brutal people here in training and who beat up prisoners for her own amusement, suddenly had doubts about something she had been looking forward to just as much as the others. She even stood up for her little rebellion, raising her round chin up high, with her hips on her hips. “But you always said that if we provoke random attacks with many victims, we're no better than them.”
“That's right,” Pyro spoke up again. ”That's why we don't use weapons of mass destruction, like normal people would, although to be honest, some days I do feel like it a lot.”
He paused when new approving applause from the eager warriors confirmed this desire for primitive revenge. “But that's not the path we've chosen, none of us here did. We just want to live like everyone else, and as long as they don't get in our way, we don't deny that right to the primitives either. Theresa will make it clear to the people in the city that they must surrender without a fight if they don't want to be harmed. Those who disobey this order will be responsible for their own fate.”
“None of you is forced to go.” It was only now, when the doubting voices had been reduced to a minimum and she could be sure that almost no one would accept this offer, that Raven put it out there. Ideally, she would have needed everyone present at the front, but the Field was safest here; she had decided that a long time ago. And that meant that, whether she liked it or not, she would also need a few people in Watergate. Not that she expected anyone to actually be able to locate the base, today of all days, or that any of her prisoners would pose any danger ... But she had learned to play it safe in the last few years. “Everett needs a few capable warriors to secure the base anyway. Those who would rather move to our new home with a clear conscience tomorrow are welcome to do their damn job here.”
Again, a few individual voices were heard among the crowd, but this time they were approving. Jedda also nodded slowly; the prospect of not having gallons of blood on her hands but being allowed to smash the faces of one or two enemies in if necessary brought a smile back to her face. “Now we're talking.”
“And if anyone still doubts that we are doing the right thing ...” Mystique let the increasingly more violent mood sink in for a few seconds before she delivered the final blow. Now no one was arguing any longer, but she had no interest in any of her soldiers getting cold feet either, just because some brat in the Bronx was crying for mercy in their mother's arms. After all, their dear friends among normal people didn't take such subtleties into account either. She connected the data device she'd brought with her to the computer under the lectern and projected the image of the mutilated child's body taken from Alaska, sporting horns and violet skin, onto the screen that almost covered the entire transverse side.
She nodded bitterly when some of her followers cried out in shock and horror, sobbing, and others even had to turn away. “That's what normal people think tolerance and pacifism look like. By the way, this attack on a mutant refuge happened only a few months ago. Do you really want to wait until these primitives find a way to destroy us all with viruses of this kind?”
“Of course not.” After her little outburst, Jedda's fighting spirit emerged again. She visibly put herself together and took a few steps forward, traces of tears on her deeply tanned cheeks that she didn’t hide, and looked into the faces of the last people hesitating. ”We've put up with this crap long enough, all of us. We have to fight back before they destroy us.”
“We need a place where we are safe,” Pyro agreed with a satisfied nod. "A home for all the mutants who can't find one in the world of normal people and who aren't even welcome in the swanky mansions of our own species’ sanctuaries because they don't like your face, your powers, or your political views there. That's why you're all here, so that we can take back what is rightfully ours and no longer be defenseless against the hatred of normal people.”
His voice became louder with each word; he came to stand at the edge of the stage, arms raised high, seemingly looking all of Raven's followers in the eye at once, with a determination in his gaze that almost bordered on desperation.
And the people reacted as they always did to his speeches. One by one, the other mutants raised their weapons or their bare hands, letting energy, water, and electricity play around their fists, or voiced their final approval with a loud battle cry. The fear, misplaced regret, and grief that had been present in far too many places in the hall a moment ago had given way to the unbridled wrath that the treatment by normal humans had left in all these mutants ... Which would now finally turn against their enemies.
“Tonight is our night!” Pyro shouted, anticipation and ecstasy in his deep, gravelly voice, a glow in his dark eyes that far exceeded the radiance of his fire. It was one of those rare moments when Mystique was proud of him. ”When the sun rises, New York will belong to those who have nowhere else to go. We will no longer hide. We will have our own realm, where no one is an outcast, no one is not accepted. From across the world, they will come to us, and normal people will choke on their envy of what we will make of our little world. Fight for that, my brothers, my sisters. For that, bleed tonight! Tonight is ours!”
His last enthusiastic cry echoed through the hall, accompanied by countless other cheers.
With a satisfied nod and his head bowed in respect, Pyro stepped back, his arms still raised high in the air.
“Tonight is ours, Raven,” he repeated, audible only to her, as she nodded in appreciation, already on her way to the hangar, where they would wait for the others to change and arm themselves. This time she let him call her by her real name. There were some things you just couldn't teach this boy. And as long as he continued to perform as well as he just had, that was alright.
“I just hope for all our sakes that it will bring what you hope. Because if it doesn't ... Then this was probably our last big speech to the people.”
Mystique preferred to send him to his helicopter with a silent gesture before another fruitless discussion could arise. They'd thrown the dice, there was nothing more to talk about. Now they would see how much she had really achieved in the years since Erik's disappearance.