2013.07.15 - Hole in the Ground

True to Mystique's word, she finds time once more to indulge her son. Much like Magneto may think he indulges her whims too much, the same could be said for her and her one child. Then again, there is no one else upon this planet whom she would trust to look after her own flesh and blood. New York, Genosha..anywhere.

Between Kurt's obvious mutations and the public declaration that Magneto had made to the world at large she leads the way without the benefit of a mask to hide behind. She is as she is, dressed in white leather pants and jacket with a plain white shirt hiding beneath. The complete absence of color is played with much like the pitch shades of black that she employs while out in the field, both ends of the monochromatic spectrum only serving to draw out her natural coloration that much further.

The .40 caliber HK pistol that she has expertly hidden upon her person is also stictly for business. They would both remain safe during this outing, of that she is certain.

Their destination isn't a beautiful church or a welcoming beach. It's a crater, where a mountain had once stood. The area's simply too vast for them to cover on foot, though finding the edge of the new caldera-shaped depression is no trouble at all. She's not sure what Kurt hopes or expects to find out here, but... Here he is. As she had said.

It may very well be quite disturbing to any that may know both of them, and -who- they are, to find that Kurt finds something of a comfort in his mother's presence. He is coming to understand her, and the more he sees, the more he hears, the more he understands. Approves, no. Accepts, well.. there's acceptance in that which he can't change, thanks to St. Augustine, and there's acceptance of her choices. Which he most certainly does not. But that comes right back to that which he probably can't change.

But he can try.

Kurt hasn't worn his image inducer for some time. Not since he was mocked for the loafers, but that's not the reason. More and more, the blue furry mutant has wanted to wear his own form, his true form, and launch a grand experiment. Would people accept him? As a result, more often than not, he simply doesn't carry it. He is as God made him. Blue fur, glowing yellow eyes, pointed ears and fangs, spade tail.. and forever optimistic. Even in the face of despair.

Their destination isn't one of grand beauty, no. It's not for that reason he asked to go. Instead, it's to see with his own eyes the devastation wrought, and to look in the rubble for the proof. There has to be more, and ash they reach the edge of the caldera, Kurt stops and crosses himself. The sheer magnatude of it all is almost overwhelming. There's.. a hole where a mountain used to be.

A hole.

"Mein Gott," Kurt whispers. "Unglaublich."

A gaping crater in the surface of the planet is one thing, but that mountain had to wind up somewhere. Not all of it got stamped back down into the sea. It's entirely possible that the earthen fallout might have completely swallowed a couple of towns in the area.

Mystique chooses not to point that out. She made her argument the other day. She would stick to it. As if she didn't have enough on her mind already, what with taking over a secret facility in the Arctic circle. And another task, which she has yet to gather proper momentum on.

Her time with Kurt draws near its end. Soon he would have to leave Genosha, as would she. Humanity is taking way too long to make itself become extinct. Besides, she can't trust the humans to accomplish that much. Here is a race so inferior that it cannot even properly kill itself off.

No rest for the wicked.

The problem of the hour deals not with secret raids, technology theft, or high-end infiltrations. It all comes down to figuring out what to tell Kurt. What could she tell him? It's a giant bloody pothole. Not the best of Kodak moments. No 'wish you were here!' postcards.

Magneto truly means it when he says that he will stand up for our cause," she gently remarks. The part which is left unspoken is that he's actively doing something for them, as well. When was the last time that Xavier and his musty old school ever did something for them all on a global scale?

That gaping crater? Well, Kurt doesn't know or understand half of Magneto's ability. For all he knows, he could have changed the form of matter. Or does the Laws of Conservation of Matter not apply to mutants anymore? Did it ever?

The fuzzy blue elf knows that his time here on Genosha is growing short. He'd told Jean that he'd know when it was time to depart. She may not have understood him at the time, however. "Is there no end?"

Kurt turns away from the hole to crouch at the edge, and he turns glowing yellow eyes up to his mother even as his three fingers sift through the dirt, pushing pebbles, stones. "I stand up for our cause too, Mother. But I don't seek to destroy an entire race, or offer it servitude in exchange for life." He shakes his head, knowing the arguments are simply being rehashed. His side, anyway.

"Come home to New York with me, Mother." Rising from his crouch, he shakes his head, a ghost of a smile flickering on his face. "Or perhaps you shouldn't. Not if you try to kill Amanda again."

Mystique has a better idea of how it is that Magneto pulled off this destructive feat. Something to the effect of a massive tungsten rod suspended from orbit, too narrow for satellites to pick up. Build up enough speed and whatever it strikes seems to simply explode. It's all in the velocity, though the mass certainly helps.

"I'm not sure," she admits with full honesty. "You could ask him if you'd like, though I'm not sure that he would know any better."

The metamorph quietly takes a seat beside her son, reaching out to rest a hand upon his person. "He has not declared war on humanity. He has not attempted to control the world. He has given us a home, somewhere that we all might be safe. Somewhere far enough isolated where we could be left alone. When they attacked us here, our one true sanctuary, he had nowhere left to turn. There are many of us whom look to him for our own safety. If he cannot deliver on his promise then there is no unity left for any of us. If only you knew how difficult this was for him, perhaps you would understand our dilemma."

Then Amanda's name is brought up, to which she releases a gentle sigh. "We have already discussed that matter at length, as well. Let's not dig up two graves this evening."

The matter about her coming back to New York isn't answered, one way or another.

Kurt snorts softly, and tosses the dust on his hands away, murmuring, "Asche zu Asche, Staub zu Staub..." Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.. "You're right, Mother. Things are left buried und gone." And he tries, he does. Things forgiven but not forgotten. Compassion with memory.

Though, as she speaks of safety? His head quirks, and it'd seem an almost comedic expression, if it weren't for the glowing eyes, pointed ears.. and the blue fuzzy face that seems always in some shadow. "I can't imagine you ever needing another's aid to be safe. Just as I don't live in fear for my own safety these days." Even if bad things still occasionally happen to him. "Does this not make us sheep, needing watching over? Should we not be building them up.. but not breaking down the others?" He shakes his head and looks away again, and murmurs, "Fünfhundert Menschen.."

Taking a deep breath, he reaches out to touch his mother's hand, finally, his three fingers resting lightly. Glowing yellow eyes search out her own featureless orbs. "I see no remorse, Mother. Only anger."

Here Mystique smiles, a touch of amusement passing through her expression. "You're right. I don't. It's the others here that do, those of us much less fortunate. I am here to support us, to help the others find themselves and discover their powers. Compare it to when you once held class. Out here, I am one of the teachers. We do this for them. As the others gain their confidence and learn to properly harness their abilities, they too will help watch over those too young or too hurt to keep themselves safe. These are ideals you used to uphold, yourself. Why do you view us so negatively, because we are not a recognized school?"

Now, with Kurt's hand there, she gently catches it between both of her own. That thin smile remains intact. "What father wishes to show remorse around his children? Our anger is triggered by instinct, the instinct to survive. We are strong, and strength does not flee."

"It's not that, Mother," and Kurt shakes his head, yellow eyes still fixed upon his mother's. "I understand wishing to teach mutants how to use their gifts, und I agree. To used them to their proper end, und to know when it is best not to use them. Just because you have them doesn't mean you -should-."

Kurt is crouching at the edge of the caldera, one hand settled in the dust where the mountain once stood, his other hand, now lying between his mother's two. "I think if there was less in punishing non-mutants und more in trying to get them to understand und accept us, it might go a little easier with me. Or, not pointing out the fact that we are the next in human evolution as if we were replacing Neanderthal, und they are best to go extinct?" He chuffs a soft breath, and shakes his head again.

"We are strong, Mother. Und we should not flee. We are here to stay, I believe that. But, even parents make mistakes?"

Even parents make mistakes. Now there's the understatement of the century. Mystique had been an absolutely horrible mother. Now she's trying to draw her kids into a life of murder and terrorism! That smile of hers turns ever so slightly sad, giving Kurt's hand a light squeeze. "Every parent makes mistakes," she confirms. "Erik is not without his own faults. He is merely trying to do the best that he can with what he has. In the end, that's all that any of us can do."

Some just happen to be much better equipped for it.

"Everything is in a grand state of flux. Stability should find its way to us soon enough. Bear in mind how long Christianity has been at it and there are still plenty of things which it is doing wrong," she reminds him with just the hint of a tease in her eyes. "Why is it that you follow the Book as closely as you do, because they try to say the importance of loving all equally?"

Because they've been such a shining example of that.

His statement wasn't meant to twist a knife in his mother, not at all! Kurt knows that somewhere along the line, in different timelines, he's been both successful and not so much. He's seen the outcomes, and more and more, he's coming to realize that it really isn't easy. Her hand receives a squeeze when he sees that smile turns sad, and he dips his head. "It's not easy, nein. We do what we can, und lead as best we can. Und make the best example we can."

Kurt takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, his dark brows rising as Christianity is mentioned. "They have been trying hard for a couple thousand of years, ja.. und will be continuing to try und do good in His name for the next thousand." It's something he believes.

His head quirks again, and his tail twitches. There's no hesitation in his words- it's something he's fallen to many, many times in the recent past. "For all have sinned und come short of the glory of God," is the easy response. "Romans 3:23." It's not mocking, his response. Kurt fully believes the words, and lives by them. "That means, mother, that we can but try. We may not succeed, but we are loved unconditionally anyway. We are not perfect."

There it is. Perhaps the sole reason why he has forgiven Mystique, time and again, for some of the worst things imaginable. It would be so easy for her to delve into the subject of his faith, to twist and manipulate things in order to flip his world upside down. But, if it's one line out of one book which she does not believe in which allows him to continue speaking to her, and not outright hating her?

She will allow him this delusion.

One should not burn bridges when something they yearn for resides on the other side of the ravine.

Kurt's smart. She only wishes that he was smart on his own terms rather than knowing what to quote from a long dead author.

Here, at the highest rim around the island's newest crater, Mystique picks up a broken piece of rock and gives it a lazy toss into the massive dirt bowl. "Those that had lived here, that were stockpiling men and weapons to come after us. They were doing the best they could with what they had, too. We are fortunate to have had more to work with."

The stones, the dust. Kurt fully believes that if they looked closely, they'd find bones. Teeth. Perhaps jewelry. A ring. A cross. A picture frame's broken glass. Everything around him, and further into that crater was used. Cherished, perhaps.

But they were also considered to have guns, too. Weapons to use against mutants.

"They were doing what they thought was right. With no sane word to guide them, to lead them from such a poorly considered plot. Life." He shakes his head again and squeezes his mother's hand. "We have more to work with, und more to make mistakes with. We are simply forced to learn about ourselves so we're not a danger to ourselves or anyone else."

Finding anything left in this crater is not very likely to happen. Vaporized, pulverized, disintegrated straight out of reality. The only 'proof' anyone has may well come down to those series of pictures which Mystique had already revealed to her son. Something had once been here. Now and forever, it is no more. Some day soon this crater will likely fill to the brim with water, a lake for a mass grave.

"Who determines what a sane word is?" she asks Kurt, seeking to challenge his brain with such a question. "The moment words are exchanged they begin to lose their meaning. People will see and hear what they want to. They will miss key parts within any teaching."

Quietly standing now, she uses her one hand to help guide Kurt up as well. Only so much can be gathered by staring at a hole in the ground.

"In the end it is the word which means little, and the intent which rules the day."

Vaporized, pulverized, disintegrated; to the naked eye, there is nothing. Debris, but not enough-- fingers would hold little, ash shifts like extraordinarily illusive sand. The scent lingers, though. Mingles. Drifts. Coordinates with shifting breezes and all the stories cut short in the snuffing of lives to tell a story unspoken, unseen; unheard. To many there's that tingle of instinct, at places like this, where violence is severe, sudden.

To others? Every ashen bone, every family keepsake stirred in with gunpowder and disintegrated propoganda-- it creates a conglomerate of unnatural death that assails the senses, speaks in tongues too myriad to even make sense of. If these things /ever/ make sense. Nightcrawler is given a moment to move off, but Mystique is not left alone with her thoughts.

There's a tangible crunch as a booted footfall finally crests that crater, bringing all 5'3" of ornery canuck to take in the husk that was once a mountain. That was once a citadel where people felt safe. Logan needs no reminder that such things are, at best, transitory. There's little question that footfall is intentional; the next makes no sound.

The flick of an old silver zippo does, and there's a breath of cigar that follows the simple, if caustic, "Think I heard something else about pavin' yer roads with high-minded intentions." It's noted with neutral features, but eyes that all but burn as they center on Mystique. "The ol' Canucklehead cranium ain't what it used to be, but I'm pretty sure it's not as optimistic as your take." Is he angry? Sad? Here to try to kill her? It's always a little hard to tell with Wolverine.

Or at least, when it's obvious... it's usually time to be very, very proactively worried. He surveys the carnage, or decided implication thereof, with too-keen eyes now. Maybe it's not wise to take any attention off Magneto's right hand, maybe Logan trusts those 'high ideals' to buy him parlay.

It's easy for Kurt to disappear, just a hop, skip, and bamf away from some other corner of the globe. Mystique is content to walk home tonight, allowing the younger mutant a chance to think about what they had discussed out here.%rShe has other business to tend to.

With that one audible footstep coming from behind her expression shifts from neutral to dark amusement, not bothering to turn around when she announces "It's about time you showed up." Only then does she seek out eye contact, pinning the shorter, more grizzly figure with her piercing yellow gaze. "Dear Logan... I was beginning to wonder if you had forgotten about us. You've come here alone, which means that you are also searching Genosha for something."

Kurt had arrived with Shift, perhaps the only 'official' response from the X-Men as a whole. This creature she knew better. He operates on his own terms, for his own reasons.

Maybe that's why these two happen to share some history.

"That's alright, dear," she says with a touch of amusement while moving to stand closer, blue skin neatly tucked away beneath white leather. Reaching out toward the man's jaw with one hand, she says "I have all sorts of intentions. Perhaps such intentions might help you discover what it is you feel that you have lost."

Logan doesn't flinch away from the approach, or the hand. In fact, he scarcely reacts to the touch at all, or the promise in the words; he just takes another deep drag from his stogie, and turns the periphery of his vision back towards Raven. There's also a vastly informative, monosyllabic grunt-- acknowledgement that's miles from affirmation or assent. It's probably small comfort that the sudden vision of Jubilee rolling her damn eyes remains purely in the confines of Wolverine's inner monologue.

"Forgotten about you." Wolverine echoes, the slightest trace of a smirk on the side of his stubble-framed mouth. Beat. "Funny." He blows a plume of smoke off to Mystique's side, rather than right into her face. Polite. "Maybe I'm the canary in the coal mine, darlin'." He suggests, as to his purpose here.

"Maybe I just wanted to see it firsthand... So that's the answer, hm?" A hand brushes a bit of stray ash from the front of his red and black flannel shirt, and the feral mutant's heel grinds in the earth as he turns his left shoulder towards Mystique. "Kill all the fuckers who'd kill you before they get the chance? Pretty sure folks've tried that before. Pretty sure I've been on that ride a time or two, myself."

Which leaves her offer of purpose, of self-realization... a little hollow, at Logan's first glance. He doesn't bother to hide it.

Don't you think that would miss the mark, ever so slightly..." Mystique continues to tease while slowly stepping around where Logan stands. Fingertips continue to drift across skin and stubble, alike. It gives her a chance to send her next few words directly toward his ear, soft, amused, and more than a little suggestive.

"..If the canary were incapable of death?"

By the time she comes back around, having had her chance to admire (or remember?) the view, she holds her arms out to the sides in a mock-grand display. "Well, you've just seen it. The future lake of Genosha. Admittedly I'll miss the old horizon, this place used to break up the sight of the ocean quite nicely."

Of course, it always comes down to business and politics. She holds herself still, aside from releasing a gentle sigh and letting her shoulders relax in tune with the passing of breath from her system.

"We can't all shrug off bullets, darling, though to be fair some of us are slightly more gifted at surviving such an experience. They struck first, if you care to see what remains of the bodies of our fallen. Somehow I doubt that even you would have believed that mutant vendor deserved losing his head to sniper fire, what with all of the fruit of mass destruction he was selling at the time. They even shot me before they were removed from the game. So, no, this was not strictly a pre-emptive strike. This was sound retaliation, good and proper."

"Nope." Logan's initial answer is simple, frank, and not particularly informative; but no, he doesn't think it misses the mark at all. "In this case, it's damn convenient." Shouldn't be hard for her to figure why, at that. "Last I checked, not all of us have a special place in anyone's heart on this island." Mostly, Mystique's circuit is followed by Wolverine's eyes, intent blue orbs shifting left, then right as she comes about, a subtle realignment of vision and attention, even as a more prominent smirk rises.

"Come on lady." There's just a wee bit of affront in the tone. "Have a little more respect than to figure you can herd me this way or that by strokin' and purring." Even if he does exaggerate a little. There's a softer grunt as he pauses to survey the lake, or perhaps dismisses the need for proof of this group's violence-- he may not look the part, but one of the world's foremost superspies seldom drops into hostile territory totally unaware of what's going on. But she's right, after a fashion: he does need answers.

"This place. Paramilitary base, full o' soldiers? Or compound, where bigots hide their families?" It's always been an important distinction to Wolverine; even when it wasn't. "You figure the scales are equal, now?" Clear doubt in that query. "You figure any of them are goin' to feel that way?" He's even more sure it's not over, there. "But -even- me, darlin'? You should know better'n that." Not many people understand that, if a head comes off, it better be for a damn solid reason, better than Logan.

Have a little more respect? To that Mystique's grin grows further, now inquiring "What makes you think it has anything to do with you? Sometimes I enjoy these little moments for myself, you know. Really now, Logan. I know better than to try such bland approaches with you if I intend to get anywhere useful. You aren't here for me, ergo I shall appreciate what I have..while I have it."

It's followed with another pause on her part, yellow eyes looking to blue. "You always did know how to prevent a woman from enjoying herself. Politics it is, then."

This time she walks past the Canucklehead to gaze out upon the massive crater once more, one hand catching the other wrist behind herself. It isn't a lake yet, but a valley below sea level on an island isn't likely to stay dry for long.

"I both hear and acknowledge your concern. As usual, Magneto has a slight conflict of interest with his temper and I am the one left to mend whatever it is he happened to break on the occasion." Nothing new here.

"I have been here for weeks prior to the event. In that time I have learned a great deal about which groups are ambivalent toward us and which groups are worthy of keeping an eye upon. I had infiltrated this anthill myself before any strike was made. Men, weapons, a network of tunnels. No families."

That's not to say that the shockwave and debris might not have wiped out everyone else in a several mile wide radius, but that's outside of the scope she chooses to focus upon.

"I figured the scales were equal when those responsible for the assassinations were dealt with. It was not my decision to modify the landscape. You speak to the wrong individual if you wish to know more of the why's to that mystery."

"Right." Not that it's clear if he's entirely convinced, though. Logan's eyes do shift more fully back to Mystique, though, particularly once her attention shifts off of him, teeth gnawing absently at the end of his cigar a moment before smoke roils outwards from his mouth, released slowly. "Right." The second iteration punctuates her acknowledgement, the 'shared' concern. This time, he does sound downright doubtful, to put it mildly. "So you're an idealist, now. Crusading for the greater good with folks that sometimes go too far." He still hasn't really boarded that train, but for argument's sake.

"An' thousands of years of bloodshed, however long it takes, this time it's gonna work, this time the ideals are true and righteous from any angle." There's the decided implication of echoing an earlier point of Mystique's, but then Logan never was without a few odd and unexpected cards in his hand, somehow.

"Maybe killin' in someone's name isn't ever the answer it's always packaged and sold as, maybe every time it's got to stay personal, precise. Reason gets muddy next to zeal, we've both seen it too many times. You win the war, there even gonna be anything left worth a shit?" A meaningful nod indicates the vacant crater.

"You convince your son to fight, what happens to him?" He doesn't elaborate; both of them know the price they pay to be what they are.

"I am attempting to do my part for the greater good of our kind, Logan," Mystique 'corrects' in a firm but unchiding tone. "This is a place where I fit in. Somewhere that will allow me to help. It's not as if I could take the next flight out of here to come join you kids, after all," she states with a partially amused smirk.

Turning to look his way once more, this time with eyebrows raised in an inquiring manner, she asks "Would it be better if we did nothing at all? Perhaps we could all become isolationists and live in the woods somewhere, tackling wolves for our next meal. 'Good' and 'bad' are wholly relative terms. I have not declared any wars of late, so I should still be ahead of that particular game."

Then matters shift back to Kurt. "He's not going to fight," Mystique replies in a low, duo-toned lilt. "His viewpoints and beliefs have been made abundantly clear to us all. If he feels he can change the world through passive action and prayer alone then I wish him only the best of luck."

Here she turns fully away from the crater, one hand faling upon her hip as she returns her attention to the shorter mutant in full. "What would you have me do, Logan? You criticize our decisions yet you offer no alternatives. If someone leveled their crosshairs upon the temple of a student as they played outside of your school then pulled the trigger, how would you respond? You would stop at nothing to wipe that scum off the face of the globe, and then you would enjoy a cigar and have a few too many drinks."

"Our kind." There's a bit of a huff. "Their kind." Logan shakes his head. "Don't you ever get tired of it? Drawin' lines in the sand, pretending our light is oh-so-brighter than everyone else's. You might be surprised, though, Chuck took me after all." No, Wolverine clearly doesn't put himself on any pedastel; not even above someone like Mystique. It's hardly the relevant point, though.

"I'm the last person who'll tell you to do nothing. I fight because I don't believe good an' bad are wholly relative terms. Just that people usually define 'em in the most self-serving, bullshit way possible. That's what makes it murkier than hell, all the conflicting visions of utopia, free of whoever they've identified as the bad guys. Livin' alone in the woods has looked real good a few times, believe me. Problem is there's always some new fuck plowing anyone, if not everyone else under to serve their vision of the greater good." Wolverine remains more satisfied with the little good, it's true.

"Only reason I stay in the game is to make sure those people have a fightin' chance. Way I see it, race don't do shit to convey the relative worth of sentients-- that falls to which side of the room we're standin' on when we come face to face with the newest tyrant. How much we're willing to sacrifice... versus the sacrifice some dreams exact from others."

The cigar is dropped to the ashen, barren cragscape, and stomped out under one bootheel. "Didn't come here to offer you easy options for remakin' the world. Just to see how close you are to the line where your dream becomes the next nightmare for anyone not dreamin' it."

"No," Mystique replies with genuine honesty, "I don't. They have been trying to kill me for my entire life, Logan. Not just every time I've used my abilities, they wished me dead simply because of what I was. Different. Since the very beginning they have drawn the line and taken sides. They wish to remain separate from us. I am perfectly content to allow them such a distinction."

Standing a little straighter, she soon counters with "If it is self-serving to keep other mutants alive then I must be one very selfish woman."

There is truth to the man's words, however. Everyone has their own idea of what they wish the future to become. There is no right or wrong way, merely different ways. It's been a problem since the dawn of humankind and has only gotten worse from there. The version of utopia which next comes to pass is determined solely by the victor of the race to get there first.

Maybe it won't be her vision. Or Magneto's. Or Xavier's. If not one of those three, she fears what else may come.

"We do have common enemies, Logan. By your admission, perhaps we should be joining our forces so that we can eliminate any trace of the Sentinel project forevermore before we return to bickering over personal choices and moral decisions."

With the snuffing of the cigar Mystique smirks once more. "Oh goodness, no. I'm much too subtle for taking stock in the nightmare business. However, you may wish to speak to Magneto while you are here. His perspective on such matters always proves to be most enlightening."

"Yup." Logan doesn't even bother to argue it. "Hate, hunt, hurt. Sometimes it feels like all mankind knows. Problem is, darlin'.... they aren't a hive mind of collective intent any more than we are. Humans may be the problem, but that doesn't mean it can just be laid at the feet of humanity." Paradox is a pain in his ass. "Some hate each other, some hate us, some of us hate them. Lots of violence and bullshit reasoning for it to go around. Only thing different this time is perspective. Who came for /you/."

Wolverine spits to the side, punctuating the harsh words. "Makes us the same as the rest, more than it makes us unique. Unique is boiling oceans with a thought. Being hated for what you are, then fighting for your 'own kind'? Nothing half new about that." Just another verse, all of them the same as the first. "Be a lot easier if it weren't all just... people." Logan shakes his head, and releases a lingering, deep sigh. "So naw, I can't see it, sorry." He's not sorry.

"All that's just givin' back the pain." Big old vicious cycle; he knows a bit about those. "I can get behind tearing down the mutant hunting killbots, though. Anytime."

"Then my sincerest of apologies for treading old ground," Mystique says in a flat, multi-layered tone, complete with a slight scowl. "I shall endeavor to only hunt those whom are actively hunting us in return moving forward." Because she's been massacring people left, right and center before all of this went down. (Okay, maybe she had once in a while.)

"In case you have bumped your head one too many times and forgotten the recent Sentinel attack on Staten Island, Magneto was there and he fought to defend all of us. Human and mutant alike. Now, in Bastion, we do not aimlessly kill anyone we please the instant they set foot within our boundaries. Are your views of us so terrible as to think we fancy the slaughter? No," she declares with a firm shake of her head, motioning toward the crater with one of her hands. "This is not to become the norm. This is not something we wish to repeat."

It makes such a godawful mess. Besides, she rather liked that mountain. She had even admitted to such.

"I offer you a little perspective, dear Wolverine. If you Westchester kids see it so fit to come to our borders and make sure we aren't causing a ruckus, perhaps we should be doing the same with all of you? You people have some truly outlandish tech at your disposal, if I'm not mistaken. Could be some of it might be getting ..misused."

Yea, Wolverine knows Mystique, and of her operations and attitudes, well enough not to do more than crack a wolfish grin at her offense. "Usually get more mileage out of punishing the guilty, and it saves a lot of gas." To put it extraordinarily flippantly, but as established... he's not buying into Raven's affronted idealist mask. "And don't even start with that. We both know if Magneto were some kind of mindless butcher it wouldn't be just me, and we wouldn't be just talkin' about it." There's no malice, not even threatening tone in the threat; to Wolverine, it's just how it is.

"And we both know how quick hate gets out of hand, even if it is earned. Even if it's our own." There's a vague sympathy in those eyes as his head shifts to track Mystique-- it's as close to anything approaching an apology or redaction as she's going to get out of him. Even if it is more a restating of the same stance.

"Same time, -this- happened. You want to play at bein' hurt by the implications, doesn't bother me one lick. Next time Chuck has us nuke a few hundred radicals..." from orbit, just to be sure, "I'll be the first to say outside suspicion and concern is to be flamin' expected. Til then, don't piss on my face and tell me it's raining." Smirk. It's a knowing, confident one, at that. "Magneto'd be glad to agree his methods and Chuck's are poles apart."

"Not sure this conversation bodes well for chattin' with him, but hey. No one ever said I lived a safe life." The runty mutant punctuates with a nod back towards the Brotherhood base... or perhaps simply the trail Mystique and Kurt used to climb the ex-mountain.

A moment's hesitation results in a soft chuckle, still two voices instead of only one. So much of her thoughts are summed up with two simple words, "Of course."

She's quite well aware of when a conversation begins to dance in ever-tightening circles. She's been there a thousand times with her son, alone.

"I could play, but this isn't a game." And that's a bold-faced lie, but she's real good at those. "Nuke a few hundred radicals, or..perhaps, assassinate the leader of a third world country..mmh?"

Yep, she's familiar with that. It's her job to know these things. That base out in the Arctic had some real treasures hiding inside of it. Why, she's barely scratched the surface.

"Though who am I to judge. Life without danger is no life worth living."

Just like that she's wandering closer, slowly looping her arms around Logan's shoulders. "Do come and see me some time if you ever wish to catch up, lovely. That is..if you wish to suggest that there is no line drawn in the sand between us."

Air-kiss!