2014.03.05 - Ohms and Oms

Magneto had been meditating more, of late. Sitting in his quarters in the Embassy of Genosha, legs crossed, he is hovering a few inches off the ground, cape pooled on the ground under him.

His hands rest on his knees and his back is straight, and the Imperator is breathing deeply, focusing on keeping three ceramic spheres floating in front of him with currents of magic power flickering lazily around the tiny focii. It's clear he's enacting some kind of magical practice, and with the aid of the ruby gem they'd taken from the demiplane some few days prior.

Though completely silent, there's an image flicking around the corners of Magneto's chambers: it looks almost holographic, yet ethereal. It was Mantis, who'd spent the last several minutes whisking the embassy through a series of uncontrolled, completely random jumps in space via astral projection. It had been two days since she'd met Magneto, in the strangest of places, and had made some effort to gather his 'psychic signature' (as she thought of it).

She finally found the Imperator and stood still, in the room. She smiled, seeing the meditation. While she only knew *about* magical practices, not having any skill herself, she was an expert of clearing her mind. It was the only thing that kept her relatively sane in a mind so riddled with a constant stream of excessive information: frequently future peak experiences of those she spoke with, flashing before her eyes. The struggle of not sharing her visions with those around her was a constant battle, as the information was either ignored, fear-wrought, or horribly misinterpreted based on her strained communication.

"I was rather hoping you would visit," Magneto says, eyes still closed. The Imperator brings the ceramic spheres to his hand, then uncoils his legs and rises. He turns and opens his eyes, looking directly at Mantis. "I am glad you were not injured on the wards," he comments. "There were a few... incidents where astral travellers attempted a true translocation into the Embassy. Their remains were much more disordered than when they had first manifested."

The Imperator moves to a small box, where he keeps a collection of talismen that radiate magicla energies, and tucks the spheres away, closing the lid and setting the internal latch with a twist of his hand. It turns into a seamless steel box. "I am impressed you accessed my chambers here at all, my young friend. I would advise against apparating, though," he adds.

"The wards, I understand, work /very/ well against that." He smiles politely. "Are you here to reclaim your debt?" he inquires of the woman.

"Mutant master," Mantis responded quickly, while still holding a friendly, almost playful tone. "I've no means of re-anchor," she said informatively, and proceeded to take a few gentle steps towards the man, the translucence of her body becoming even more obvious. She sat down on her legs, her knees facing forward, about seven feet in front of Magneto, and took a breath: 'a meditation within a meditation', she thought to herself, this was nice.

"Debts are for thieves--" Mantis then said, her voice was calm but serious. "--The mansion was music; the chirps of crickets and birds washed away; a true future emerged." Mantis was, in her own cryptic way, hinting at her experiences with precognition. After a momentary pause, she continued. "A query, still--your extra eye, mutant master, please."

Magneto runs his finger along another steel box and unseals it with a gesture, electricity crackling harmlessly up his hand and arm. "Debts are the currency of social exchange," Magneto remarks, his back to the girl. "Favors for favors, kindness for kindness, an eye for an eye." He reaches his hand into the box and produces the red ruby, nestled precisely in his palm.

"And for those who tread fearlessly, the spoils of war." He holds the ruby in his hand, which glows with a sullen, angry red inner light. The power of the thing is immense- there's an immediate tugging sensation on Mantis, apparating as she is, and Magneto murmurs a word of power and focus to the ruby. It quells the tugging, but there's still a radiating sense of hunger about the gemstone, as if wishing to consume the matter of the Astral around it.

Mantis stared at the gem with an unease, her projection scrambling and slanting for one second, almost like a video glitch. Once the image returned, it seemed a bit more faded. "That, holds bread crumbs. Your wanton captor's name etched, somewhere." She gazed back to Magneto, "The shadows have their own shadows."

"An accident gone wrong, a trap left set and the spider in his own web," Magneto says. He takes the gem and puts it back in the steel box, sealing it with a trace of his fingers so it is inaccessible to anyone without a thermal lance and plenty of time to spare. "He was incompetent, but brilliantly so. A trap that could lay idle, outside the flow of time, plucking one or two captors a year from reality and draining them slowly as they struggled. Unfortunately, he fell prey to his own fears, and one day, simply forgot how to depart. Were it not for your insight, I might have made the same mistake. Now, I own the gem, and his demesne on that plane. It is quite a lovely little place to visit, when one needs seclusion."

After a two second silence, Mantis perks up again, "And you're...the new jailer," she grins slightly, "Wise are the minds who use their means with precision." Her pithy sentence hangs there, and she says warningly, "Take measures--avoid your own lost-ward preoccupations. A lion's mouth is still a mouth, no matter how much we hug it." With a little shuffle, Mantis breaks her graceful pose, and looks a little more playful in her expression.

"The octopus's legs must get tired when ever-flexing," she off-handedly begins, and she shifts her body a few feet, moving towards a window; she's drawn to the light. "You've need of an oasis within an oasis," she says musingly, turning towards the window, she presses her eyes up to it, gazing at area outside.

"This is no oasis. I work here," Magneto clarifies to Mantis, gesturing at his office. "I live and work and exert myself daily. Sometimes without sleep for days. The demesne exists outside of time. I can think, and sit, and relax, and return when I have had adequate time to contemplate. It is giving my life extra days of practice and preponderance. Soon, I should hope to achieve the astral projection you can produce," he notes, nodding at Mantis. "All thanks to your advice. You have given me insight into powers I had never even dreamed of."

Mantis sniffs slightly, and stays silent for about ten seconds. When she speaks again, she has a slightly sad tone in her voice.. though she's making an effort to hide it. "So soon," she says, and turns back to face him. Her eyes look a little spaced-out, slightly vacant, and her nose has become just slightly reddish. "No matter how wide the spool, the thread still winds. Neither point a, nor point b. Not the middle, but middle of middles. This is the place you return to--the cycle of corruption and transcendence." Mantis, who may have just cried slightly, perks up her mouth into a wide smile, as her eyes seem to return to a more alert, normal appearance. "You rise and fall, like a hawk forced to fly day and night. You will be consumed, yes," Mantis says as she points towards the gem's container, "But you will fight back, emerging stronger."

"That is what I have been assured of, time and again," Magneto says, sounding distant. "My life is one of failure and triumph. I will rise and fall, endlessly. I know someday I will fall, and never rise again- I can only hope that when I do, the legacy I leave behind me is worthy of my sacrifice."

Magneto turns to Mantis rather pointedly. "You are more than a ghost. You are like me- a mutant, a child of evolution. Why have you not come to Genosha, to be part of our grand design?"

"The warbles, the panicked mist... the dim whispers, they've not pointed me here. Only yesterday did I hear this: Mutant. This word. I am different, yes. The stars stepped into my crib; plucked inward; the hidden people, a baby in their arms. The man of bark; he was bit." As Mantis spoke, her voice progressively returned to a normal, slightly more cheery tone, and she responded back. "This Genosha here, it is a wall. I am your ally," she confirms, without having being asked, "But I follow the whispers: it is how I stop... the brewing. The unravelling. My purpose is awash in the oblique, the tea leaves."

"Follow your instincts as you like, but your blood beats as mine does. There is a part of you that is part of me, and the rest of the world walks in a different step." He makes an effort to match her style of speech, all synecdoche and metaphor. "Their hearts do not beat as ours. The plants speak, the world hums, and you stride across oceans with a thought." Magneto archs an eyebrow at the near-invisible woman.

"No longer a baby, not a prize to be won or a burden to be lost. But an ally to be had, and a friend to be made?" he suggests, his tones archaic and a bit stilted.

Mantis nods, internally recalling her recent experience on the Gotham-Metropolis ferry; the horrible things people thought, or said, when she rode it undisguised. She loathed the non-acceptance of the average person: and it was this moment that the true purpose of Genosha clicked for her. Though she saw visions an inevitable tragedy here, some day far from now, she knew that part of its purpose was to keep mutants safe from a callous, ignorant world. She suddenly imagined Magneto like a mother hen, and smiled at her own thought.

"I can assist you," Mantis said calmly, "But its more than faith that stops the frenzy of fortunes and fate. Dominoes spin, twist. They carve attention roadways; the language of the cosmos."

"Then you are welcome to bring your person here, or to Genosha," Magneto says calmly, matching the girl's tones. "If you wish to be the rains that feed the forest, I will gladly accept your aid. You may find a home you have been looking for without knowing it was ever there," he offers, with a condoling, paternal smile.

Mantis shuffled closer to Magneto, now only about three feet away from him. "You are a great man; so many feathers in your wings..." she said, ebbing herself away from a mumbled volume. "I shall find my way here," she said with a nod, "When the clouds point it so. Perhaps soon." She shifts her gaze back to the box, for just a moment, and then speaks to Magneto again. While she'd come to understand his intelligence, she feared for him in a strange, emotional way. There was so much more he was going to experience; great loss, redemption. She saw blood.

"To jump ahead... to skip the next spin," she said, "You must ruffle every feathers. Betrayers hiding within." Mantis extended her arms to the walls beyond, suggesting that someone here on Genosha was going to be a problem for him.

Magneto bares teeth in a grin. "There will be blood, I assure you. Mark me- a moment great and terrible is on the horizon. I am the oncoming storm, and my thunder will echo across eternity." He takes a few steps back towards his box of trinkets, then settles into a meditative position.

"Leave me, now. Visit me in blood and bone when you come here again," he orders the girl, before closing his eyes and slowing his breathing.

The moment his eyes close, Mantis blinks out. When her own eyes re-open, she's near a cluster of trees, a half-block a central bus station in Gotham. She picked herself up and looked around, and thought about the encounter as she began walking stridefully towards the Bludhaven roadway sign.

She looked down at a scrap of paper: it had a long list of her recollections of the magic mansion experience. The last word on the page was 'Genosha'. She knew she'd have to visit someday. She hoped it was while it was still lovely and green.