entrancelogs | i'm hardly capable of half the damage that i would like to do [open]

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i'm hardly capable of half the damage that i would like to do [open]

Who: Alex Kralie, some closed starters, and YOU
Where: All around the island of Genosha
When: August 5th - August 9th
Rating: Let's say PG-13 for general violence, colorful language, and trauma
Summary: Alex Kralie is one human attempting to tear down a society built for mutants. This is sure to go well. I'll match any format, brackets or prose!
The Story:

open to mutants; but you know i'm too full of shit to think this through

A man's been following you for a the past thirty minutes to an hour. He's been crossing every street you have, passing every establishment, stayed within a good thirty-yard radius of you this whole while. He keeps his hands in his pockets, his hood up over his features, his head low. Unobtrusive, except for the whole part where he's following you.

Maybe it's nothing. He looks normal. If he's a mutant, he's not an obvious one. He hasn't said anything to draw attention to himself or to you. All in all, he's been pretty harmless. So there's no cause to worry. Right?

Only the next time you look over your shoulder, the next time you wonder where he might be, you'll find he isn't behind you anymore.

Instead, he's walking toward you at a brisk pace, his stride hard and purposeful. There's a glint of something in his hand. A gun, or a knife, or some other weapon. He brings it up rapidly, his intent clear and telegraphed.

You can run, or fight, or let it be. But this man is here to kill you, and he's not leaving until either you're dead or his advantage is lost.

[ooc: Alex is intent on killing any mutants he comes across. He shouldn't die since he's scheduled to kill someone at the end of the event, but feel free to kick his ass if you like! Or he can kill you, either way.]

open to humans; i'm but a boy just like the rest of these thieves

A grimy office set up in some basement isn't the ideal living situation for anyone, but that's inconsequential. There's stacks of files, photographs pinned to his walls, papers with lines upon lines of names. Some of them are crossed out. Most aren't.

The Resistance isn't overly inclined to work with him. Alex clicks his tongue between his teeth, annoyed. That's a laugh. No, actually, it's not. It's bullshit is what it is.

He slips outside, stumping across streets and navigating back alleyways. He's had to lay low lately. Turns out committing acts of terrorism against mutants lands you on some higher-ups' watch lists, who knew? But he's got to stay on his feet somehow, and any humans sympathetic to the Resistance and any like-minded individuals are his best bet. He's not calling for charity here; he's got money, if only a little, and he can pay them back in favors - nothing's too unsavory for him. Whatever someone might require from him as payment, he's probably done worse for far less.

You might've heard of the elusive Alex Kralie, an anti-mutant extremist who can boast such achievements as attempted assassinations and bombings of mutants and mutant establishments. Maybe he comes to you in need of food or weaponry, offering his services in exchange. He's got no moral quandaries; he'll do whatever it is you need him to do, no matter how morally corrupt or inelegant. But if you turn him aside, think his methods too brutal - well, he won't blame you. He's on your side, after all. He's a human, just like you. Maybe you don't see it yet, but he's doing this for your own good. For the good of everyone.

Just help him out this once, and he'll never come to you for a favor again.

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[He doesn't dignify that former statement with a response. It's the ideology of the thing, not that he expects her understand. Nor will he deign to explain it. He does, however, elect to answer the latter of her queries, mostly because he knows that if he doesn't say something she'll just press him for information with all the more fervor, and it's best to prevent that.]

Keeping an eye out for potential targets until Sanchez lets me know the fence has secured the goods.

["Goods" being "high-quality, high-brisance explosive materials. Likely chemical in nature.

One corner of his mouth twitches, quietly self-satisfied.]

We're gonna hit 'em where it hurts.

This isn't what Bruce wants, far from it. He would much rather never use his abilities, actually, and more often than not he ends up keeping to himself. But sometimes, like now, he doesn't have much of a choice, when all he has to his advantage is his ability to subdue someone through a mental link.

"I haven't oppressed you," he states simply, not the least bit surprised that that's the reason why this man came at him. "You don't even know me. And you were the one who just tried to kill me for no reason."

"Mutants benefit, whereas humans suffer." His tone is measured, his conviction absolute. Some part of him rebels against that admission, though it does not protest at his next words: "The only solution is to bring an end. It will be them or it will be us."

One or the other. Two sides engaged in conflict will require one side to be victorious. And Kralie remembers - he must be that controlled force. The Resistance is one thing, but it's not enough, and he is facing a mutant now, there is one talking to him, and he -

That train of thought shatters itself for no discernible reason.

"For you? Iunno, short of time travel to stop from pissing off the Resistance. Maybe try jumping less people on the street to build up trust?" She's getting a little snappier than she'd normally be, but damn, did he catch her on a shitty day, and also, well, attack her with a knife.

"I'm just saying. We're not all, hah, monsters, you know. We'd work with you if you weren't so damn trigger happy." Not like they have enough bright-eyed recruits willing to throw themselves in the line of fire for a greater good or anything.

"I'd work with you if you didn't consistently undermine your own progress by trying to play nice," he hisses, which is admittedly not his finest work comeback-wise, but he doesn't have it in him to care. The important thing is that he's not the one with issues working with the Resistance. He'd be happy and fine with working with the Resistance. But they don't "agree" with his "methods." So, you know. Sucks for everyone.

He retrieves his knife, dropped in the scuffle, and checks the blade for chips and scuffs and dulled edges. It looks fine.

"I didn't realize trust was mandatory to make mutants stay out of our shit, but fine."

"So you're targeting all mutants and deciding we should die because of what was written into our genes when we were born? You're killing children too, by the way? Better just end it before they get the chance to grow up, right?" Kralie's hatred bleeds into Bruce like a poison, it almost makes him want to let go with how deep it runs, how much it stings. He grits his teeth, though, swallows it down like some bitter drink, and moves on.

A breath, another, he calms himself down and makes Kralie calm down along with him.

"You're not so much better than the mutants you're trying to stop. Just another monster like they are."

"I'm not a monster." The strength of his conviction is like a cup filled to the brim, running over, his shoulders squaring and his jaw tightening. "I'm doing what no one else is willing to do."

He has no illusions about the nature of the work. It is not beautiful. It is not glorious. It is not glamorous. It is despicable, dark work, and he will have no place in the utopia he endeavors to create. He will have colored his soul gray and gray and grayer until eaten away at it until there is nothing left, and that will be the way of things.

"What no one else should do."

"Neither should you," Bruce offers promptly, still struggling between his emotions and the mess of Kralie's own. All that anger, that desperation, a resignation and willingness to give himself up for something he truly believes in— and that's the truly horrifying part. It's that he believes that this is the way, this is the solution.

Kill all the mutants. End the whole subset of a species, like they're some kind of abnormality, some sort of disease. Bruce can't argue that a lot of them are genuinely dangerous and need to be stopped, but that's not true for all of them.

Luckily not all humans are like Kralie, either. But it still saddens Bruce to know he can't reach him, can't make him see, no matter how hard he tries.

"The guilt will eat you alive," he tries to plant that trigger, unsure as to whether it'll work, at least long-term. But it's more plausible than him trying to order Kralie not to hurt anyone, because he knows from previous experience that that's an order that won't stick. "Whenever you attack someone, no matter who. Every time you aim a weapon at someone, you'll suffer more than they will. I hope it consumes you."

"It already does." He edges the word out from between clenched teeth, for a moment his expression locked into something distantly melancholy. As if there's a deeper meaning in the words he's struggling to coax out of hiding without success, without means for resolution. "I won't be the one to enjoy that world. It has no place for me."

He does not deserve it. He has not and never will deserve it, not with the blood on his hands, not with the people he's killed, the humans who have had to suffer for his actions and his mistakes and his brutality that catches them in the crossfire, no matter how he plans to set things otherwise.

He opens a hand, forms the shape of a gun with the fingers, and places the tip under his chin.

"You could do it now," he says with a strange, fierce intensity. "You could stop this now."

"M-Mettaton, we're not gonna k-kill him!" She seems plenty distressed about this, head turning between Alex and Mettaton quickly. She bites her lip, nervous- she's already come too close to dying tonight to watch Mettaton off someone with his own hands. Alphys looks down at Alex, almost sympathetic, but looks away again.

"He just, uhm, n-needs to go to the police, and have this dealt with by... n-not us. It's not, uhm, o-our job, or right." She doesn't want to kill anybody. She doesn't want to watch Mettaton kill anybody.

This is not how she wanted this night to go.

Oh no. Oh no. He is not getting sent to the goddamn police - mutant law enforcement will string him up by his entrails for this. At least it's readily apparent that the lizard, at least, seems philosophically opposed to killing anyone, even if the situation requires or demands it.

The target has moved away. There is no better chance for him than this.

Kralie bucks, arching his back, knees scraping agonizingly over the pavement as he works them underneath his body with the aching press of muscle and bone, employing every ounce of momentum and additional leverage in a protracted effort to throw the lizard off him entirely.

"Good," Bruce breathes out from behind his gritted teeth, and it carries every bit of the bitterness and anger that's bled into him. He tries to understand people, in fact he ends up connecting to them on a level that's much deeper than most people are capable of, which is a constant when it comes to all empaths. But sometimes, it's hard to understand, it's hard to accept. Sometimes he just needs to feel some of the anger and frustration at how this whole system has corrupted so many people— on both sides.

"No, I couldn't," he evens out his voice and tries to swallow down the unpleasant taste at the back of his throat at the gesture Kralie makes. "I'm not like you. I won't kill people, I won't hurt them, no matter the consequence. That's for monsters like you, apparently. I have a conscience that I can't part ways with."

His hand eases up a little now, but he doesn't let go yet, planting only one last suggestion on Kralie's head before he lets him go. "And you're better off forgetting about this. You were following me, but I lost you, and we never even talked. So don't come looking for me again."

It's a familiar loathing. Kralie smirks rigidly at that, the hard bite of the word Good, the incremental lift of one corner of his mouth. Yes. Come marvel at him. Come marvel at the monster. Come see the sick and twisted thing he is, see how he broke himself on every level so others would not have to, simply because he believed in his mission that much.

He dismissed his own conscience a long time ago. He had to.

He repeats the other man's words dully, nodding evenly, perfectly amenable to them.

"I was following you," he repeats flatly. "You lost me. We never talked. I won't remember this."

Memory is unreliable. It will turn and shift quite easily beneath the pressure of something greater, a leucotome leveled at the appropriate spot.

"We? There's no we. If he dies tonight, it'll be by his hand, and no one will be the wiser. You and I will just have to be good at keeping secrets."

He gives Alphys a wink as he twirls the radio in his hands. Just one switch on, and he could tell someone. Keep it off, and he could watch Kralie break his own skull against the pavement.

"Regardless of what we do with you, Kralie, you made a big mistake messing with me."

He opens his mouth to say something else, but that's when their semi-prisoner begins to try and buck Alphys off his body. "What-?"

Bruce watches the man quietly for a while, unsure as to whether that's enough for now. He knows he can always defend himself again if he has to, but ideally he'd want him to never come after him again. What if he did that while Bruce was with someone else, what if he hurt them— or worse?

For now, though, he can't do much more. He takes the parroting of his own words as a sign that they worked, and hopes they've sunk in deep enough to linger for a long while.

"Good," he lets go slowly, knowing by now that the effects of his touch will stick for a little longer too. "Now get the hell out of my sight."

Kralie's resistance to that sort of coercive persuasion ended the moment the mutant began exerting his powers on his consciousness. Kralie nods placidly, and takes his leave without any particular destination in mind, simply turning as many corners as he can to get out of the other man's sight as desired.

He doesn't even attempt to retrieve his weapon. At least there's no sentimental value attached to the thing.

But then, nothing Kralie carries is sentimental.

The influence doesn't seem to be perfect, but the effect is there in spite of Alex's uncertainty and resistance. For her part, Cami acts as if nothing has changed, if there is nothing strange or abnormal

about the conflicting emotions suddenly flowing through Alex. The longer he stands here, the more certain that sense of serenity would grow, and in turn the longer it would linger even after they part.

For the moment, however, her concern is on the present. His knife is lowered, but still gripped in his hand. She takes a careful step closer—her fingers carefully wrapped around the canister of pepper spray in her bag—favoring her would-be attacker with a smile.

"Kraile's an unusual name." An alias, maybe? It probably doesn't matter. "I'm Cami. It's nice to meet you."

She holds out her free hand then; while she wouldn't with a mutant of unknown power, she's guessing this guy is a human. To complete the gesture he'd have to put the knife away, or at least switch hands. If he tries to attack, she's ready to defend herself; ideally, however, it won't come to that.

"It's..." He blinks, his head going muzzy as he tries to focus and refocus on the objective he set out to do. The objective that's grown infuriatingly obscure as time continues. He frowns. There's something he should be able to do and something impeding that end goal, but he's having difficulty discerning what and why.

The hand clutching the knife wavers, raising and lowering again. Conversational dictation wins out; he extends his hand to shake hers.

And then realizes the knife is still clasped in it. He switches it to his left so he can shake the proffered hand.

"...nice to meet you too."

[she makes a noise of confusion as his words sink in and then... oh. yes. she has a rudimentary knowledge of espionage terms to understand what that probably means.]

That'll show them we don't need their fancy-schmancy superpowers to be "better than we are." [chuckle.]

...you really are glaringly new at this.

[He eyes her with equal parts confusion and disdain.]

You realize congregations draw attention, right? You got some kinda plan for if law enforcement catches you with a known criminal?

She keeps a continued smile, not wanting to break Alex from the spell induced by his powers. Although the loss of anger is something of an absolute, it's not perfect; he can still question it, wonder at the absence of the rage that should be there, even decide with cold logic that he should still finish his intended goal.

But now, with the knife in his offhand, he's at a bit more of a disadvantage. Any extra seconds Cami can get are worth it.

The handshake is brief for necessity's sake, and Cami makes sure the blade is never out of sight. Once it's done she takes a step back again, keeping that distance between them, but not going so far that he's out of the influence of her abilities. "I was just on my way to get something to eat." No she wasn't, but she's absolutely not heading home just yet. "Do you want to join me? We could talk a bit, if you'd like. You seem to have a lot on your mind."

Considering he'd just come at her with the intent to do harm, and all.

Knife to meet you, maybe he should've said. His neural architecture has always been grossly susceptible to emotional suggestion, however much he might vehemently protest while in his uninfluenced state. The balance was always easily tipped, the control was always easily seized -

A puppet with cut strings, and Cami's his new puppeteer.

"I...all right. Fine." There was a plan here. The plan was to approach her and ensure a certain outcome persists. And he can't ensure that if he leaves. So he should...stay, shouldn't he?

Yes. He should.

Alphys gives an exasperated look to Mettaton as he speaks, trying to impose on him the importance of not driving someone to suicide, but her mind's not where it should be- restraining Alex- and she's immediately caught off guard. He moves, and she tumbles off him in a heap of limbs and extremities, ending up disheveled and prone on the ground next to him. Worst of all, she's almost entirely upside-down, meaning she's not getting up anytime quickly. All she can do is raise her head enough to yell not directly into the floor.

"Ow! W-Wait, no, d-don't run! Mettaton, d-do something!"

Don't run, she says, and Alex would scoff if that didn't require him to stop instead of focusing the whole of his attention on getting the fuck out. Ha-ha, yeah, right, he's gonna stay here and get his brains blown out by a mutant celebrity with delusions of grandeur or an equally merciless mutant task force, and no thank you.

He doesn't stop to retrieve his weapons. He doesn't have the luxury for anything but running, pelting down the halls and rounding a corner with clenched-jaw efficiency, one hand planting itself on some kind of vertical support beam to slow his trajectory, twist himself around the corner without sacrificing momentum.

Hopefully that gunshot injury he gave that asshole mutant will slow him down enough to give Kralie a solid head start.

Mettaton's eyes narrow as he watches Alex run and he begins to chase after, long legs making long strides towards the human. He calls back to Alphys.

"Stay put, I'll come back for you!!"

He raises the radio to his mouth, flipping it on. "Marcus? It's Mettaton. Eric and I didn't check into the security point because we were attacked. Eric's dead. I'm in pursuit of the murderer. He and my friend Alphys are both outside Exit B, so please retrieve them."

There's the sound of static and a very worried voice speaking back, but Mettaton doesn't listen as he tries to run to the corner- but then there's a burst of pain in his side and he gasps, falling to his knees as he begins to bleed again. Damn. Damn!!!

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i'm hardly capable of half the damage that i would like to do [open]

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cw suicide allusions

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\o/

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