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

Entry tags:

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bruce is far from a fighter, but when he has to, he can put to use years of practice in a number of martial arts, which he always took more for learning control over his powers than anything. So when the man struggles in his grip and tries to reach his face, it changes nothing, and his hold is all the stronger to keep him in place.

"Stop— stop that," he tries with plain words at first, his other hand reaching to catch the other arm before it actually manages to hurt Bruce even more. He's hesitating, he knows; there's one easy way to deal with it —it may just be the only way— but he still dislikes using his powers, even when it comes to taking care of a threat.

He sighs quietly, more resigned than anything, and when he speaks up again, his voice reaches much deeper than before, more like a command that echoes inside the man's mind. "Stop."

He stretches and strains. C'mon, come on. Eyes are supposed to be the weak point! But the target weathers it, leaving Kralie bucking and jerking ineffectually in his grip with increasing frustration.

He's supposed to strike fast enough to prevent stuff like this from happening. Maybe he doesn't have the resources of the Resistance, or the strength in numbers, but his methods are usually bluntly effective. Usually. This isn't going well.

Kralie can tell what the man is doing a split second before he does it, prefaced by that tired sigh and that weary acceptance, and he doesn't want to know what his powers are, he doesn't care, he doesn't want it - but then something shivers in his skull with a deep, impossible intent. His struggles grow cursory at best, then feeble, until finally they stop completely, and he stands still.

Eyes are the weak point if one can get to them, but in the position Bruce has the man in, he possibly couldn't, unless he was far stronger than he is. Bruce himself isn't particularly strong, but he knows all too well how the human body works, he knows the weak points and how to best use them to his advantage. He just wishes he didn't have to use that knowledge for this.

As his power envelops the man's mind and he calms down, Bruce relaxes slightly, easing his grip just so. Something sits uncomfortably at the pit of his stomach, like it always does when he uses the darker and more powerful side of his telepathy, the one that allows him to control minds, change them if he needs to. On the other end, he picks up on the man's feelings, a deep and dark hatred that makes Bruce's heart weigh even heavier in his chest, but he manages to turn that around and instead share with the man a sense of calm and peace. Though he knows that won't last forever, it should linger for long enough, even after he lets go.

Still, he doesn't do that yet, just as a precaution. His hand keep holding onto the man's wrist even as he eases his hold and mentally urges him to turn around until he's facing Bruce. When their eyes meet properly for the first time, he asks. "Who are you? Why are you attacking me?"

He registers distantly that he's been partially released, but he stands rooted on the spot. Some removed part of him rails at this for reasons beyond him. He says nothing, does nothing. That's what's asked of him. The desire to be still and compliant is overwhelming, and he turns to face the target - the - not the target. What is he now?

He turns to face him. His expression is blank and locked, perhaps resonant of a struggle taking place in the posterior of his skull, but it's a losing battle. He's been asked a question, and the need to respond overrides all else.

"Kralie," he says flatly, evenly, ever cooperative. "I'm eradicating this place of the oppression of the mutants."

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.

"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."

"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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw suicide allusions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject