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Mutants & Masterminds: The Magisterium - [2-Interlude] Hard Truths


Dawn OOC

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Four of the psychic surrogates suffered sudden miscarriages within the first abbreviated trimester. The trauma of losing a child with whom they shared such strong mental bonds caused intracerebral hemorrhages like some of the first run of surrogates, only more severe and swift. Another, a surrogate designated Orb, known for immense mental shields, suffered no ill effects whatsoever. However, her child was born locked in something similar to a persistent vegetative state. This would be deemed a partial success.

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The last, designated Subject Six, carried by the surrogate, a very obedient and loyal mutant operative codenamed Brainburner, showed every signs of being a full success. Subject Six was born aware, apparently knowing everything Brainburner did, and though she appeared to share her loyalties, had her own personality. She could also shapeshift at will, though was limited by her true mass.

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Through constant conditioning and training, Subject Six reached physical maturity in four years. With greater than human endurance and recuperative abilities, Subject Six also developed a strength and physical adeptness that far exceeded Rebekka's, reaching the peak of human achievement. A side-effect of her muscular development - which she could hide - was that she could achieve a noticeably greater size than Rebekka could, though her minimum size was correspondingly larger than hers as well.

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With physical maturity came the next stage in test - to see if Subject Six also possessed Rebekka's sexual memory download. And that was when there was the first hint that their first success wasn't as successful as they had first believed. An elite DEHA operative, highly skilled and of unquestionable loyalty was chosen as Subject Six's first sexual partner.

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The DEHA operative didn't survive, though he enjoyed every moment until he suffered what appeared to be a severe epileptic seizure followed by death. Heartbreaker had the psychic ability to overload electrical activity in the brain to the point of causing death - it appeared Subject Six had inherited a version of the capability, used when copying experiences and memories during intercourse.

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Further tests over the next year using prisoners sentenced to death revealed that like Rebekka, Subject Six automatically used her ability during sex and intimacy, and every time, it proved fatal. Further, the process wasn't as total and encompassing as Rebekka's, though still far swifter and deeper than most Telepaths. As a side-note, Subject Six could go much longer without sex than Rebekka, though she was still physiologically addicted to the need. Psychological profiles further revealed that Subject Six experienced no remorse at causing the deaths of her partners - indeed, it gave her feelings of euphoria and exhilaration more potent than any drug.

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Subject Six would still have been considered a success, if not for one thing more. Two years after Subject Six's first sexual encounter, Brainburner went AWOL during a mission... except it wasn't Brainburner. Days later, the real Brainburner was found, dead. At some point, Subject Six had either seduced or raped her, hidden the body, than replaced her - able to imitate her surrogate mother flawlessly in form and mentality. Subject Six was still on the loose, believed to be an elusive and exclusive assassin, with no qualms about accepting any target, humans, mutants, and DEHA alike.

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Any future use of psychic surrogates was explicitly forbidden. It was hypothesized that Rebekka, and thus potentially her progeny, might be able to develop additional psionic capabilities from their lovers, which was deemed too great a risk, even for testing.

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By comparison, the trial using the comatose surrogates was a resounding success. The babies were delivered by caesarian section, and beyond that, none of surrogates suffered any problems or symptoms when awakened from their induced comas. All the babies survived, though like Orb's child, there were in a pseudo-vegetative state and had to be fed intravenously for continued survival. Thanks to their inherited regenerative powers, they didn't suffer from muscle atrophy.

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Further tests, including using telepaths, showed the babies to effectively be blank slates. All their autonomic systems functioned perfectly, but the babies were non-responsive and only peripherally aware in the broadest sense. Though they were genetically identical, each had an individual appearance, all adorable and flawless, none sharing any visible common features. With their stillness, perfect features, and blank, staring eyes, Rebekka's progeny were dubbed 'Dolls'.

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Using a combination of subliminal and supraliminal stimuli and high calorie intravenous sustenance, the researchers were able to force grow the Dolls at the same rate as Subject Six, as well as influence, if not directly dictate their appearance. As they matured, the Doll moniker just became more apt. Though they breathed and ate and excreted, they had all to mobility and personal volition of a plastic doll. It wasn't promising, but the scientists and researchers would see the trial through. Two of the Dolls were euthanized for other tests.

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Well that they had. When the remaining dolls reached physical maturity after four years, though they had varying apparent ages, there was only one test left to perform. The Dolls being almost completely responsive - beyond being able to mildly direct their maturing appearances - there were no great expectations that sexual contact would make any difference.

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They were wrong. There caretakers, derisively called Dollmakers, drew lots, the winner - or loser, as the case may be - had to lay with one of the charges they had overseen for four years. To everyone's surprise, the reaction was immediate, the Doll responding with instinctual and wild passion. In minutes, the Doll shifted form into sexually idealized version of one of the only female scientists in the lab, her movements becoming more purposeful and human, rather than wild and animalistic.

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Careful questioning of the Dollmaker and observation and study of the Doll revealed the Doll had configured herself in form and personality to the subconscious and conscious desire of the Dollmaker, much to the embarrassment of the female scientist. For all intents and purposes, the Doll had become the woman of her first lover's dreams, and truly in love with them.

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The Dolls did have Rebekka's shapeshifting and mind-reading abilities after all, but they were limited. They only functioned intuitively, autonomously, and required a template to activate, provided by their first lover. The shapeshifting only worked the first time - also, once they had a template, a Doll now had the same sexual needs The Archive did. The sexual mind-reading was found to function every time they engaged in sex or intimacy, but the experiences and skills they copied seemed to be encrypted to them - the Dolls had no access, with two exceptions.

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They had access to all the memories and experiences of first partner, termed a client, which they used to construct the personality of their client's ideal lover. At first, those personalities were quite one dimensional, but they grew more rounded with greater exposure to their client. Further, they subconsciously melded the memories, experiences, and skills they copied from other lovers into their own, as long as they conformed to the template imposed on them from their client.

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Tests showed that templates for the Dolls couldn't be constructed independently - they required a willing client to initiate them. But a Doll could be reset, allowing a new template - both physical and mental - to be imposed by a new client. Any memories or experiences weren't lost by the Doll, but they were encrypted, except for those that conformed to the new template. Through deep hypnosis, a Doll could be made to reveal encrypted knowledge, though the Doll had no active memory of any of it, and her recitation of facts was bland and emotionless, like an automaton.

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1980 saw the opening of the Dollhouse in an exclusive and remote resort town in the Swiss Alps, selling fantasy women to the select few who could afford them and keep their true origins secret. Very quickly, the Dollhouse became a major source of funding for DEHA, off the public books from any government.

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Rebekka gasped, shuddering violently, as she found out who was the first head of the Dollhouse - Marko Vortennen.

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Mary gave Idris a wan smile, but didn't know where to go from there. "Hi," she replied.

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Everything was so confusing still. The tidbits of things she'd heard, she'd tried to put them together...but listening to herself say it aloud, it really was a disjointed thing. The roots of the conflict between 'mutants' and 'humans.' Could the fighting stop, short of the destruction of one or the other? She didn't know how to put her disquiet into words...the inarticulate feeling that there was a giant pattern in play; a treadmill spanning centuries that had only just begun to spin around to where it began.

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It didn't help that she'd read who her mother was.

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The scientists had always told her that her parents were gone. Later it was that they were dead. The implication had always been it had something to do with her, but they'd never given any specific information, and she'd always been too afraid to ask. She knew about parents from the reading material, from the shows they let her see. Families were there, but scientists did what they could to get her to 'adopt' them. Well, some did.

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Now she had a mother. And that mother was here. And she knew Lamia had other children too, lots more, which meant she had a family.

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Lamia was...hard to understand though. Inscrutable was a good word for her. Quiet and methodical, and cold, most of the time. And she hated humans so much. And if she was so many people's mother...would she have time, or inclination to be Mary's?

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"Idris," she said, looking up at the catwoman, "I need to find someone...so I have to go for now. Lets talk a little later on though, okay?"

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The hunt for Lamia began then...and when she found the brown-skinned woman, Mary hung back and just watched her from a relatively hidden vantage to watch and see what kind of mother she had.

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"The cooler's over there," Jeremy pointed it out to the feline mutant. "And I didn't read the file. It doesn't matter." He shrugged. "The essence of what happened to me doesn't need all the details to be known. And that time is over. Simple as that. Now if anyone of you should feel interest, go ahead, read it. And if it turns out that there is something in there that has bearing on the present and the future - I'll look. But reading won't change anything."

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Rebekka surreptitiously glanced around to see if anyone had noticed her reaction, then collected herself with a deep breath and continued reading about the history and activities of the Dollhouse and her unknown offspring.

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By 1982, with the help of a mutant genius, they had managed to develop an artificial uterus to carry the Dolls to term extracorporeally, and then to physical maturity, greatly increasing production. The artificial uterus, dubbed a Baby-Tank, wasn't widely used outside of the Dollhouse - the process was a rigorous one, and only mutants with enhanced constitution, immune systems, and regenerative capabilities could survive and thrive using it.

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The Baby-Tanks gave the Dollhouse disposable Dolls to study and test to destruction, which they did. The mutant genius was given a Doll for his efforts, a great boon considering his hideous and barely human appearance. With horrified arousal, Rebekka read reports and watched video clips detailing the quirks and qualities of her progeny, and by association, her own.

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The efficacy of their regenerative powers versus differing types of stimuli, damage, toxins, and diseases was clinically detailed. How much mass and tissue they could lose and still survive, and how long it took to fully recover was determined, far more excessively than the scientists in the DRM were willing to try on the Archive.

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The stages of sexual deprivation and their effects on the Dolls was studied. Rebekka shivered in sympathy for these daughters of her, remembering every instance of enforced abstinence she had endured and knowing they had suffered far worse. The finality of death was a release - the lingering effects on their mental state was the true terror.

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Despite any heterosexuality or homosexuality imposed by their templates, the Dolls always sexually compatible with each other, regardless if they were aware they were siblings or not - Rebekka intuitively felt the truth of that. Just two Dolls could feed and sustain each other indefinitely through sexual activity. It was believed the Archive's pansexuality was genetic, a survival trait to ensure maximum sexual compatibility, and the templates on the Dolls merely suppressed its expression.

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Testing the Dolls for reproduction showed they were capable, both at will, and psychologically induced. It took them a mere three months to carry a child to term, the natural process more efficient than any artificial one. During the first two months, sexual dependence increased even further than normal, but during the last, it was suspended, supplanted purely by the intimacy of the bond between mother and clone-child - another presumed survival trait to reduce any interruption of their capability to fulfill their unique requirements.

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However, every child of a Doll suffered unpreventable brain death just after birth. Apparently, the encryption of the Doll's mental sensory input exacerbated the mental and social development issues the Dolls suffered, rendering the progeny of a Doll nonviable. It was conjectured that an encounter with the Archive may be able to decrypt a Doll's psychic ability, but it was far too dangerous to test.

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What they had learned suggested further ramifications. Unrestricted Dolls - able to pass on skills and experiences from one generation to the next, able to sustain each other, and otherwise requiring no other agency to procreate - would be ideal for long-term isolated and colonization projects, with no further support. Mathematical models were made, estimating how quickly the could Archive and her progency-clones could breed, how quickly they could reach ten thousand members, a hundred thousand, a million. A billion. And then what effect such number of impossibly desirous women, who knew more and more with each succeeding generation, could pass easily among humankind, and possessed of seemingly indefinite lifespans, would have on society and the world...

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A protocol was enacted, that if the Archive ever knowingly reproduced, she would immediately and permanently be incarcerated and isolated, separated from her progeny. Elimination would be a high consideration to end the potential threat to the human condition.

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Rebekka leaned back and closed her eyes with a sigh. She was called a faux-human, but despite her subtle but not inconsiderate abilities, with thousands of lives sharing space in her head, Rebekka had always considered herself more human than most humans. But after reading about the Dollhouse, she was beginning to believe she was less human than most mutants.

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She was well aware of the genetic qualities of humans and mutants. She bred in a fashion alien to humans and nearly all mutants. Unlike mutants, she bred true - too true, genetic clones - giving every evidence of sharing every enhanced quality to her progeny. Some mutants passed off similar powers off to their progeny, but there were never a hundred identical, and were often wildly different.

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Considering it, Rebekka felt none of the social stigma that would accompany what most would call an incestuous relationship. It would be a bond more complete and equitable than anything a human could experience or most mutants. She didn't even feel right calling her progeny her daughters. Genetic clones, but nurtured by different environments, there were more sisters than anything else.

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Even the captivity and servitude of her sisters wasn't the greatest target for her ire - part of her knew in some ways, they actually enjoyed it. No, it was that her progeny were so limited - one form, not even of their choice. One lifetime of experiences, a life that was in fact an illusion forced on them by another, with all the other lifetimes of experiences of their lovers locked away from them.

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If she could, Rebekka would unlock the potential that was their due of all her progeny and let them make their own decisions afterwards, regardless of the consequences. She didn't doubt that many, most, truly loved their clients and might choose to stay by their side.

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Rebekka wasn't sure she and her line could be considered mutants anymore, but rather a third branch of humanity. Scientifically, a persuasive argument could be made for it

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A building resolve burning beneath her breast, Rebekka turned back to the file, looking at the listing of the Dolls, finding where they could be and who they had been sold to. The temptress was already beginning to form plans to find and heal her progeny, if she could.

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Obviously, there was the main lab in Switzerland, where all the Dolls were cultured and the blank ones stored. Over a dozen templated Dolls were on site, assigned to senior researchers, Dollmakers, and security staff as a perk. Another dozen were used by the rest of the staff, and reset each day. The rest were scattered around the world. A fair number were in the hands of business men and government officials, legitimate and criminal both, in Asia and the Middle East, were keeping your women isolated and dominated was common, even a virtue.

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Indigo and Violet Rain, vapid and with exaggerated figures, the two biggest porn stars and glamour models of the last decade were hers, sold to Brock Hardwell, sole own of the RockHard adult entertainment empire. Augustus Vanderbilt III was a wealthy industrialist and lobbyist who manufactured components for DEHA-exclusive technology - his wife for the last twenty-five years, Rosalind Vanderbilt, elegant and aristocratic, was a Doll. So was Deborah Minc's - the Director of the Israeli Branch of DEHA - personal assistant, assumed to be an elite Mossad operative, as well as being her private, lesbian lover. Twice she had save Deborah's life from mutant assassins. Johann Speer, security chief for the German sector of DEHA owned a veritable Valkyrie of a Doll - blonde, beautiful, heavily muscled, and over six and half feet tall.

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One of the younger brothers of the President of the United Arab Emirates, a member of the fabulously wealthy Al Nahyan family based in Abu Dhabi owned six Dolls in his harem. They all appeared as nubile and even more ravishing versions of actresses from the golden age of Hollywood: Vivien Leigh, Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Becall, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jane Russell. His father, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first President of the UAE, had been a client of Rebekka's.

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And these were just a sampling of where the Dolls could be found. Rebekka read the entire list, committing names and descriptions, of both clients and the Dolls, to the impenetrable vault of her memory, like the rest of the file on the Dollhouse - like everything she ever experienced. Then calmly, Rebekka deleted everything from the flashdrive, called upon the technical wizardy she had accumulated, and purge it and the laptop of any trace of her file, before resetting them to factory defaults.

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Not satisfied, she removed the flashdrive from the laptop, placed it on the table, and reached down for a rock, a piece of rumble from the temple.

With restrained fury, she smashed the flashdrive to bits of silicon and plastic, then swept off the table and stood up, glaring at anyone looking her way with eyes terribly old in her too pretty, youthful face.

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"It appears I'm a mother... of sorts, many times over and never knew it, to children made crippled and retarded," Rebekka said, reclaiming her tattered, wanton dignity about herself, gesturing at the laptop. "I'm done with this, for the time being." She gave David a cool, even frigid, glance, before beginning to turn away. "If you will all excuse me, I would like time to digest this and determine what I wish to do to help them."

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A mother! She had several memories of being a mother - many more of being a father - giving birth, raising children, but had never felt the desire to be one herself, not yet, at any rate. But now, finding out about the many progeny who were as younger sisters to her, physically and mentally stunted as they were, she yearned to find them, to hold them, to fix them, and make them well.

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And Marko Vortennen now owed her another debt he couldn't even begin to pay. But she would find a way to make sure he did. It would be cruel, and exquisite, and would last for a long, long, time.

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For Anna, Edward's display of proper gentlemanly conduct was amusing, and welcome, compared to others. She smiled as he spoke with her grandmother, and waited for the right time to make her own introduction. "I am one of those grandchildren, at least of Lamia, here." She seemed completely different in attitude from how Gav had normally behaved, the insanity of MPD hidden behind bright yellow eyes. It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Edward. You may call me Anna." None of the personalities identified themselves with the same name, that she now used this one showed this was a new facet of her personality that hadn't come to the fore previously.

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There is a simple question I would ask both of you. Will you punish them all, or only those who are guilty? I have heard many say that they must all be punished, and Like Jaunt, at least I among the others inside think the guilty should be brought to justice, of which there are many. However, we would be no better than them if we put humanity to fire. I would educate them, about all the lies they've been told regarding us. " It sounded naive, and it was, but it was more geared to seeing justice and reconciliation, not just endless bloodshed.

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Lamia returned Edward's smile and looped an arm through his in a show of companionable agreement. To Anna she replied, "A battle is fought by soldiers, confined, most times, to only those that make a life of violence. But a war?" She shook her head, "That is a different matter altogether. Humanity as a whole supports the DEHA. They are the empire that provides the soldiers, the food, the weapons, the safe havens....the everything. To win a battle, you must fight and defeat soldiers. To win a war you must make your enemy unable to fight. You must take away their food, their weapons, their places to rest and recover and train new soldiers. Only when that is done have you won the war. Until then you may win every battle and still lose everything you have fought for in the end."

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She regarded Anna with curious grey eyes. "Do you think that the humans will side with us against their own kin? When this began, our kind were known; we were not the great secret we have been made into, and DEHA still rose. When DEHA speaks to them, tells them that we are monsters, unholy and vile, who do you think they will believe?" She motioned to Tengri in all his inhuman glory, "Will they make a place at their tables for one such as he? Will they let you walk their streets with your many souls or lock you away to satiate their fear of who or what you might become in a moment's change?"

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"What is 'guilty', Anna, and who would you have determine it? Yourself alone? All of us together? And once this 'guilty' is defined, would you seek out each human, one by one, to determine if they are or not?" She shook her head, "You will lose battles and the war most completely that way, while the DEHA simply defines us all as 'guilty' by the mere fact of our existence and attacks us without hesitation or mercy." Her expression was grim, though there was compassion for the naivety of Anna's youth in her eyes. "The world is not that simple, nor that kind, child of mine. You must learn this quickly or find yourself back in shackles or walking in the sunless lands."

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"There is revenge to be had," she admitted without reservation, "on those that have personally wronged us, and those battles will be fought with venom and finely-honed hatred, but there is also a war to win, to restore the world to its proper order." She shrugged again and added thoughtfully, "Or at least to create a new order of the world that ensures our freedom from the DEHA's oppression and the blind indifference of the human race. Either way, change on this scale is not a peaceful process and many will die. Birth is painful and bloody, child, and we speak of the birth of a new age for our kin and for the humans."

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"Were she not so slavish in her Devotion to her masters in Germany, you would like Grav, I think, then Lamia. and I know you'd like Dark, with that outlook on things. The Totality of war is what they are for, one to Protect our former home, a willingness to do whatever must be done to safeguard it, and the other to simply end it all." Her voice was almost frigid, yet quite sad.

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"I have not lived so long as as either of you obviously have, so you may think it youthful naivety, but I do believe humanity can change. It always has before. I don't believe myself above them, I am different yes, but that doesn't make me a deity. I was created in a controlled environment, brought up with dozens of others like me, and I alone survived."

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You ask me what defines guilty? Those who would do such things, they are guilty. Those who would teach children only of endless combat, of war's totality, they are guilty. Those who would take the essence of another's humanity, they are guilty. Those who would force children to slay each other, they are guilty. Those who would make a daughter kill their parent to prove a point, they are guilty." he Yellow eyes narrowed. "Those who make a mother kill her daughter as a test of loyalty, They are guilty." There was obviously a war going on behind her yellow eyes, her words carried a most bitter edge.

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"What is a god, if not those inherently more powerful? Not a power of loyalty or technology, but of that inborn?" Lamia shrugged again. "To claim you were the creator of the world would be foolish, but you are more powerful than a human will ever be. That is your place as that is theirs. What else would you call us? We are not human."

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Her lips settled into a line, not frowning, but neither smiling anymore either. "I do not enter into war lightly, Anna, nor to simply watch the world burn. I have seen more than enough wars, more than enough battlefields, in my time to be quit of any romantic notion of them. I will not be made a prisoner again, though. I will not see my children murdered and enslaved, nor be made a broodmare of slaves ever again. I agree that humanity can change, but has that change, true sweeping change of the race, ever come without the stain of blood to spur it?"

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"You say you would only fight the guilty, but what then when they cry to the rest of their kin, 'See what they do? See what we have protected you from! See these monsters that kill us for protecting you from them!' and their kin answer by giving them new soldiers, soldiers that have not done these things you list, will you then cease to fight for fear of killing an 'innocent'? War is blood and death and only the victorious live to feel regret. If you would win a world where you may be different but free, do not believe you shall do so without regrets and with only the deaths of your 'guilty'. That is naive, even for youth."

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"Naive, but understandably so, Lamia." He laid a hand idly over the one she'd looped through his arm. "How long, precisely, have you been held in captivity?"

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"From the reign of Theodosius the Catholic until a handful of weeks ago," she answered, "a little over sixteen hundred years."
He glanced at her then with a startled blink. Though her age did not surprise him - indeed, Edward could probably tell Lamia her age with more certainty than she could - the idea that she'd been held imprisoned for such a long time took him off guard. His hand squeezed hers gently, and he shook his head slightly in sadness and disbelief. "How very sorry I am that you've been detained for so very long, m'lady. Another wrong that can never be truly righted. But Anna's outlook is perhaps a result of more modern forms of warfare, in which civilian, and even military casualties are much less common. Assuming that the virtual world in which I was imprisoned for the last couple of decades was based loosely off of the actual world, the technological advances in warfare have done much to decrease the amount of actual death that results. During the Great War, the number of British soldiers alone that were killed in battle numbered somewhere around nine hundred thousand troops. During the recent Afghanistan and Iraqi war - assuming that all actually happened - the combined British and American casualty numbers were closer to a mere eight or nine thousand. During that time, overall world population has increased dramatically, which means that the ratio of reduced death is even steeper than it seems at first glance. That, and the rise of quicker and even real-time media coverage over the last hundred years has done much to change the face of war. It has exposed a population of civilian 'philosophers' to the ugliness of it, where in my youth there was often a 'gentleman's agreement' not to discuss the atrocities that one committed during battle. Now you can see a live stream of it. Currency and public opinion are the resources of modern warfare now, and the messiness is expected to be kept to a minimum."
His lips twisted in sardonic amusement at that idea. He released Lamia's arm, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a package of cigarettes. David had been kind enough, after his release, to acquire for him a couple packs and a lighter. He had smoked as a (much) younger man, and it had been his wife's the machine's programming that had encouraged him to give up the habit. After awakening to an entirely different reality, he had felt again the long-abandoned comfort offered from nicotine, and his host and rescuer had been willing to indulge him. "I hope you ladies don't mind," he said, even as he pulled one out and lit it. "Anyway, on the flip side of that explanation, Anna, Lamia is entirely correct. War has apparently changed very little, in the important ways, over sixteen-hundred years. No matter how many or few the deaths, the first to die - and the inevitable - are always the innocents. There's no way around it. It is young men who sign up for battle, full of patriotism and foolishness, and who are the first to die, along with innocence. I remember the moment mine slipped away, in a ditch somewhere in Belgium as I lay amongst my dead and dying comrades and fumbled for a grenade, so that if I were to die, I would be taking those German sons of bitches with me. Most likely, they were thinking the same of us. Civilian deaths, too, are inevitable, no matter how hard one might try to avoid them. Attempts to change the status quo have almost always happened at the business end of a sword or firearm, and casualties are inescapable. The best one can hope for is to use a combination of political and business acumen and strategic knowledge to bring the conflict to as swift of a resolution as possible."
He finished the last drag of the cigarette then, and had the civility to put it out on the bottom of his shoe. He slipped the butt back into the box for now instead of tossing it on the ground, and then tucked it back into his pocket. "A degree of ruthlessness often helps. I've never seen a war end as swiftly as the day the Americans dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, and then did it again with they hesitated too long with their surrender. Damned efficient, if perhaps a bit overzealous. Then again, that was the Americans for you.. back then, anyway."
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"It is as you say. In modern times, great effort is normally taken to minimize civilian casualties, to varied results." She looked at the pair of much older novas. "If the DEHA knew where we were at this moment, they would not hesitate to have their lackeys drop a bomb on us, simply to elimanate us all in a fell swoop. I am certain they know exactly who was "liberated" and have suspicions on the Liberators. A small part of the Jungle is a fair price to them, to take us down, given how adept we've been thus far at handling their more mundane forces."

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She shrugged her shoulders. The talk of lost innocence brought up her own painful memories of the subject, when she was seven, the endless training, culminating in a battle against another sibmate, to the death. She couldn't even recall the yellow eyed boy's name, she could only remember his blood on her hands, as she stood over his unmoving form. An, her childself, is the oldest of the voices within, the quietest, and the least to see the world again, with good reason. It was an almost unspoken rule among them all that she could only be let out when truly safe, as she couldn't hope to cope with how the world was.

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With things as they were, she couldn't be let out, ever again, it was all too easy for Agent Grav to reassert dominance from her, and that would be the end of everything.

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“Agreed, Grav.” David had quietly moved closer to their group without leaving the others. “That’s why I want to fine a house in Rio or a heavily populated area. They might still bomb us, but such imprecise tactics will raise public outcry.” His lips twisted sardonically. “My hope is that they’ll try something more subtle at first, especially if I’m not there.”

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“Why does that matter?” Jaunt asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t matter if you’re there not. If these guys are gonna nuke us, they’re going to do it even if you’re not there.”

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“But if I am, they expect that I’ll do as much collatrol damage as a nuke.” David shrugged. “That’s one of my handlers once told me. That if I got loose, I could expect a radioactive death if they found me.”

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“So if you won’t be with us in civilization,” Rebekka observed, tilting her head to the side. Her mind of buzzing with her own ideas and plans, and so it was easy for her to think to ask, “What is your plan, David?”

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“To make war.” The words were said with solemn weight. “To fight back against a people that will hate us and treat us as monsters at every turn. To usher in a new and better age, where we are not treated as animals. That is what I want.”

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“That’s what every mutant wants.” Jaunt’s tone was aggressive as he glanced at David. “You think DEHA will allow that?”

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David didn’t back down. “I don’t care what DEHA allows. Once we are known to the world, we’ll drag DEHA into the light and expose them.”

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Idris smirked.

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"So what you need is a scalpel, not a chainsaw." She said. "I'm not a political type, I'm more hands-on. If this means finding a way to free my son and to avenge what they did to me without undue casualties... namely the people that live their lives every day not knowing the DEHA and We exist... the better."

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She quirked an eyebrow to Jaunt before looking back to David. "Unlike popular opinion, I won't shoot a kid in the head... or a mother... or just some joe lookin' to make their way in the world. But a DEHA agent... if they're obstructing our goals, then I hope they've made peace with whatever misbegotten god the think they're servin'."

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She rocked back and forth on her heels sipping her juice. "Personally? I agree that too much blood will only attract the attention of Fat Man and Little Boy and I really don't want to be made their acquaintance."

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She drooped an ear. "I sort of like not glowin'. I'm freaky enough as is."

,,

She suddenly lost her swagger... "In fact... my road will be a lot harder... with me lookin' like I do, huh?"

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  • 5 weeks later...

David smiled at Idris as he laid a reassuring hand on her back. Others who had touched her this way had been doctors looking for experiments or soldiers looking to ‘get their freak on’. But David’s expression was one of compassion and warmth. “The road will be hard for all of us. Yes, you’ll get special attention because of your appearance, but remember we’re building a world where that will change. And we’ll be here for you.”

,,

“That’s great, sweet even.” Jaunt set aside his empty juice container and looked David square in the eye. “But what. Is. The. Plan?”

,,

“Once we have a couple of safe-houses set up, the next step is to make sure the world knows about us. The plan is to expose ourselves to the world in such a way that DEHA can’t write it off. We’re going to go to major cities and put on a display of power.” David met Jaunt’s gaze. “And when DEHA responds, we’ll shut them down. In public. The recordings of these events will be discounted, but the thousands of eyewitnesses will grow.

,,

“At the same time, I want some of you to make contact with various conspiracy groups. DEHA shuts down the ones that hit too close to the truth, but with the internet, they never go away completely.” David smiled grimly. “If we feed them better information and perhaps supply some proof and safety to them, they’ll become a real thorn in DEHA’s side.

,,

“If I see more ways to reveal our existence to the world, I’ll do them.” David paused and his hand, still resting on Idris’s furred shoulder, curled slightly as if David needed some comfort. “I’ll be honest. I don’t believe that the humans will share with us. I believe that we’ll have to claw and fight for each and every concession we want to have a normal life. The fight for our basic right to live is only the beginning. They fear us too much for anything else.”

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Idris nodded. She knows she has to lay lower than others here as she does stand out. Of course stealth was something that she was good at. A visit to Mexico after she recovered a couple days ago let her stretch the legs out. "Definately. If you need someone to get the non-fliers from point A to B, or to do some nighttime shenanigans, you got me at hello, guv." Idris said. "It'll be a battle, one that we won't see end in our lifetime. But we're the beginning. We can have a general gameplan, a end game. But I am sure the furless, round-eared "normals" will need to change as we change them."

She sighed. "It's sad... we could do so much yet we can't truly use our full potential. A right I feel we need to have..."

"Then again, a thief like me well... we end up just... well we got issues with most authority in general. Note I said most..." She smiled to Dave. "I do respect you... Although..."

,,

She feels a bit guilty suddenly. "That fire controller... he... couldn't get saved like I was. He got caught. That doesn't sit well with me at all."

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Lamia shrugged, that elegant roll of her shoulders. "I disagree on that, David. Until the rise of the fish-lord, we and humanity understood each other quite well. We each knew our places and the world was balanced. I believe we can restore that balance." She glanced at Grav, then around to the others gathered there, rolling her shoulders again. "I do not believe it will be restored without blood or that will be the same. Time flows on, the world changes, and only the rarest of gods stands unmoved within the stream."

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She looked regal as she lifted her chin and set her shoulders, nodding to the group. "They may have flowed over the world with time and filled it with new..." her eyes slipped away for a moment as she searched for the word, finally she huffed a small laugh, "...toys, but they are not alone and they shall not be allowed to act as some spoiled, coddled only child of the world at our expense any longer."

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Idris massaged her chin. "Well then again if you look at it like that, then those toys are the only things leveling the playing field between us. It's not that they're spoiled children, they're scared."

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She lets that insight sink in for a moment. "They're children yet to earn how to swim so they don't go out into the deeper part of the pond without their swimmies on. We breathe the damn water. Well, as a figure of speech - anyways, what I'm trying to say is that they're scared of us because we can do things they can't. In a way some of their response could be jealousy as well. People hate what they are jealous of."

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She leaned against a tree. "Trust me, I know that feelin' all too well." Idris stated, the street urchin of Liverpool starting to come out. "I'm not sure how to say it, but we gotta show them we're more than just the rich bastard strutting about flaunting. We gotta win the masses. Make the masses believe that by bringing us into the fold we make them better."

"Hate to say it, but "what's in it for me" does factor into this game of football. At least in terms for them. I'm in, don't worry."

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Jeremy ignored the rambling of Idris - it seemed like she was talking before her brain was thinking it through - and sidled up to Lamia. "Yes, and no. Admittedly, I would prefer to make progress against DEHA without getting into a world war." Sardonically, he frowned at David though, "But I can't be sure that revelation will bring the people to our side. After all, international governments have all shacked up on the concept of keeping us down. Unless the movies have it wrong, black ops and hidden budgets cover a multitude of sins."

,,

"Not to mention many mutants who would otherwise join us against DEHA would recoil at fighting humanity as a whole." Jeremy added as a warning to Lamia, "I would not shrink from it if necessary, but not everyone is so determined."

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David glanced down at Lamia and gave her a slight smile. “I appreciate that you feel that way. But you don’t know the kind of humans created today. They are selfish and many of them feel they and only they have the right to make decisions for themselves. They’re not like the humans you once ruled. They’re not even like the DEHA doctors you’ve spent the last few years getting to know. Humans will not accept your balance, no matter what form you present it in. They’ll only accept equality, by which they mean themselves on top, and us safely underneath them.”

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David glanced across the area to where Matt was lounging on a stone bench. The earth-mover’s expression was sad and bleak; the two men matched gazes for a moment before Matt said, “We build the world we believe in.”

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“We try. But reality has a way of bending us to its will.” David nodded at Matt before turning his attention to Jeremy.

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“I don’t care if humans come to our side or not. Some will. Some won’t. We can’t come out in a way that will give us every single human.” David’s expression hardened as he spoke to the chemist. “We’re already in a war. The problem with the war is that we’re fighting it by our enemy’s rules. They’re calling the shots and setting the field of battle. I want to change those rules. I don’t want to let DEHA hid behind their status quo anymore. There are a lot more of them than us and a shadow war benefits them, not us.”

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The solar mutant put a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder; it felt like a big brother talking to younger. “I know that taking on the whole world—all the humans, all of DEHA—seems impossible. But I believe in all of you. I believe that all of you can take on the world and win. Alone, we have incredible powers, but we’ll still be outnumbered seven billion to one. Even together, we’re outnumbered—but where a human is only a bit stronger in a group, we are a lot stronger in a group. Alone, we’re one mutant. Together, even as few of us as there are, we’re an army. We can beat the humans together.”

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Idris' ears drooped. Jeremy's respone though washed by her without disturbing a thing. "What if... what if this war becomes worse when it isn't no longer a shadow war, but a war with innocent casualties? My quarrel is with the DHEA and their ilk... If this goes public, it will suck in people that didn't even know we were real up to the point of the reveal. People aren't prepared for that but if we show we are the party being kept down by a shadowy, probably malevolent organization, well at least you'd have the tinfoil hat wearers."

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She scratched her head. "To be honest if you can get everyone else tinking about just what the bloody hell they've been tossing their money into... well money talks. In a way once a black program is no longer black that can create a lot of questions. Questions that if we answer far more convincingly than any fearmongering the DHEA will bring we will have more of an advantage. The DHEA would have far fewer ears to whisper into and guns aimed at our heads."

"I'm not completely sure on that... but that's something I'm feeling. This is a internet enabled world and I'm getting very, very enamored of it now that I'm out of my plexiglass cage. I'm sure normal people are just as glued to their monitor."

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“Innocent casualties?” David’s words burst out with a wave of anger, but he quickly pulled it back, calming himself. “Idris, there are already innocent casualties. I’m legally dead and have lost my entire family—whom are also considered to be legally dead—to DEHA. Matt, May, you, Lamia—any mutant who was minding their own lives and imprisoned because they’re different are innocents.

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“And it’s not just us. DEHA kills people to shut them up all the time. They imprison their own people if they speak up against the abuses.” David shook his head. “Humans suffer just as much as we, but what happens to them is less ugly than what happens to us. They’re just killed, instead of locked away and treated little better than animals.

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“Cutting off their money is fine, but it will take more than getting conspiracy theorists on our side. We would need a majority of humanity, and the people in power, for that to happen.” David shook his head again, fighting to remain calm as he spoke about a subject that always angered him. “But the people in power have too much to lose to let us join the world as equals. They’ll lose their power, or fear they’ll lose it to us.”

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His gray eyes were somber as he gazed at Idris. “The biggest problem we have with getting humans on our side is that we’re not them. I know that we share common genes and ancestry, but at the heart of the matter, we don’t look like them, and when we do, we can still do things that set us apart. We’re always going to be Other to them. They will be afraid and they will lash out.”

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  • 2 weeks later...

"What about aliens?"

,,

Mary came around into view from where she'd been listening in. Visibly upset by the talk, her eyes were wide and her hands gesticulated as she tried to communicate as earnestly as she could.

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"I mean...okay, I've only seen movies, and I know those aren't real, but lets just think about this. Do you think human beings could accept aliens from other planets, even if they looked different, or had strange abilities they didn't? I'm not saying there'd be no problems, or that war could never happen...but I don't think it's fair to say that peace would be impossible either. I think people...human beings...have kind of been preparing themselves for this kind of thing for a long time now. I think that, once the shock of it all wore off, and if we showed that we are willing to work with them, they could accept us."

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She swallowed nervously, and looked everywhere but at Lamia.

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"But not above them. We'd have to be willing to put the past behind us, and accept them as well. As equals."

,,

Finally Mary nodded at David and added, "I think exposing DEHA is the best way to start too. I want to help."

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Thoughts focused on her progeny, Rebekka paid only the barest attention to the talk going on around her, enough to posed a rare question and make the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. It was mostly the same conversation of war versus a less aggressive assimilation, and where Mutants should place in the new order, though David did reveal more of his plans.

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Rebekka was deep in thought developing her own in regards to her progeny. Progeny - it was too clinical a term, but sister wasn't close enough, daughter not deep enough. Her lineage would need a new term, or to appropriate an old one - Kindred, Kith, maybe. Common ancestry, so similar in many ways, differing drastically in others.

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Even if she could awaken her Kith as she believed, Rebekka was sure some would side with their clients, their relationships too long and deep to go otherwise. Rebekka could understand that - even after thousands of lives and thousands of lovers, a part of her still loved nearly every one, in her own unique manner. It was a risk she was willing to take, the thought of her Kith limited to one form, one life, far more abhorrent to her.

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When Mary joined the conversation, Rebakka's eyes twinkled as she gave the sheltered mutant a smile full of amusement and sympathy, like an older sister to a younger, though Rebekka looked like the younger sister at the moment. She glanced towards Matt, her sympathy for him as well. Her ideas aligned far more with their leanings than with David's.

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"I'm right there with you, Mary," Rebekka said, stepping in alongside her from where she had been standing at the periphery of the group. "And our greatest tool to do so will be to influence, control, or sway the media to our side instead of DEHA's. They have been systemically controlling the message for decades, enforcing no sympathy for the 'Other', for us."

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Rebekka raised one hand, palm upward. "There is reality." She raised the other. "And there is what the media portrays as reality. And the media has the power to make one become the other. That is the power we have to wrest from DEHA's grasp. I have plans and ideas to do so, though to be fair, they were more long term affairs. Still, they could be used to complement your actions, David."

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Plans my Kith can aid greatly in, if I can help them...

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"One more thing," Rebekka added, her gaze firm as it alighted on Lamia and David. "Yes, humanity won't accept another species as standing above themselves. But they certainly have varying social strata and castes among themselves. Again, mostly thanks to the media. They practically deify their movie, their sport stars, and their singers and musicians. Even the relevancy of many Royalties and politicians is due in large part to the media. Conveyed properly, the masses can be convinced to accept the 'Other', to even embrace it."

,,

Thousands of lives were part of The Archive's memory, spanning the later half of the nineteenth century through the twentieth and into the twenty-first. Through them, she had garnered tremendous insight into human nature, and one of the things they all had in common, was the ever rising influence of the media.

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"The media and social networking is a tiger DEHA has been riding for too long, and now it's time it turns on them. The power of the media multiplies that of those who can control it and use it. It's greater than that of DEHA, a match if not greater than any we may possess, for it speaks with, and for, billions of voices. The media is key."

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  • 3 weeks later...

“The media is a good idea.” David smiled at Rebekka. “But DEHA has a stranglehold on that media, and taking that power from them may be harder than you think.” He turned to Lamia and attempted to explain, “Media is how humans share information, entertain one another and play games, through technology. It’s pervasive and it influence society, to the point that it can alter human perceptions to match the message it’s sending. Television, radio and the internet are currently the most powerful vehicles of that social machine.”

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Turning to Mary, he took her hands, much like a father or older brother would to calm an upset child. “There will be some humans that will side with us. They’ll be welcome to join us, to share the war. But most of them will not the ones in power, because the ones in power, the ones that control the armies and shape the world, will see our power and fear that we’ll take theirs away. And we do take it away. We take it just by existing. We have the power that they have to wield through minions and subordinates. We control the powers of nature itself, and they control the ballot box. The television. They are limited to the things that man has made, and they will burn with envy for it.”

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She knew radio, from her time with the Italians, and she had heard the wall-screens in her room referred to as "huge-ass tv's" by some of the guards before, but the rest was still a near complete mystery to her. Apparently it was important, so she made a note to herself to seek out David or one of the others in a more private time and ask them for education on it.

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She nodded to Mary and added, "Just as there will be those of our kind that will side with the DEHA and how the world is now. We have already seen servants of the DEHA that refused freedom when it is offered." She paused and considered something for a moment, "Also, when I say that we are more than humanity, I do not say this as an arrogance. There are humans that can out-think many gods. There are humans that are stronger or more agile or any number of things better than one god or another. But," she paused again, this time for emphasis, "no human will ever have the gifts, the power, that a god possesses as their birthright. They will never call storms from the sky on their whim, or lift themselves from the ground upon will alone. They cannot command the elements or create from the air itself whatever their heart desires. If they could, then they are a god and not a human. That is the difference. To say otherwise is to pretend that a horse is a bird or that the sky is the earth beneath us. It is not true and pretending otherwise is the essence of madness."

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"In that truth is found that gods are more powerful than humans. It is not natural for gods to restrict themselves so that humans can pretend otherwise, nor for gods to be slaves of humanity to...." she spread her hands out and shrugged, "what, spare their feelings? Coddle them like spoiled children? It is not our duty to prop them up as more than they are, nor to deceive them to the truth of the order of the universe. That is a disservice to both our kinds."

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"Well, if I may, how about I throw this out there." Idris said. "Why not throw them off. If we reveal ourselves we keep our true motives secret, but offer to the world something that would suggest we're not the hulking monster outside, but simply people wanting to live."

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"We don't have to restrain ourselves, but there is something to be said on due moderation. We walk in a sandbox full of ants. We could easily crush whoever and whatever we choose. But when we show that we don't go for that option because we know that wouldn't serve a purpose, that footing can work in our favor."

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"We're the wronged party here. Make that clear, definitely. But make humanity feel the guilt. The regret. And eventually the rage that someone under their nose took their children and secretly waged a war with them. Using them like guinea pigs. All because they were born different."

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"...and if they use force to silence us. We have every reason to respond in kind. But it should be clear, they bring guns and bombs we bring our equivalent. And while they toss all their resources and dear blood at us we can simply raise a finger and send it away."

,,

"It was said best... call the thunder and reap the whirlwind."

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“Always, it’s ‘us against them’…

,,

Tengri’s deep voice rumbled over those gathered in conversation; mellow in tone, but with underlying bass notes deep enough they were more easily felt than heard. Considering that he was larger than some rhinos, Randall Urianhai possessed a disturbing proficiency for moving about unremarked and while he hadn’t exactly appeared out of nowhere, his approach had largely gone unnoticed by those engaged in the debate.

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“No one”, he continued, “ever seems to notice that’s exactly what ‘they’ are thinking about ‘us’, or that that one fact is why we’re all in the situation we’re in.” Tengri’s expression, as his eyes met David’s, was difficult to read, considering his wholly inhuman appearance, but it somehow managed to convey a sense of disappointment. “I for one”, he said, still holding David’s gaze, “would prefer to end the cycle of injustice and violence, not perpetuate it.”

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“I want that too”, David said, his voice confident and his slight smile reassuring. “You know that, Randall.”

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“Do I?”, the more-than-three-meter tall mutant asked, arching one feathered brow inquisitively as he did.

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After a pregnant pause Tengri’s raptor gaze let go of David’s confident one and shifted itself onto Lamia. “Sister – or perhaps ‘grandmother’ is more appropriate in your case, if what I understand of your background is correct – I don’t know you well enough yet to feel comfortable accusing you of anything - nor do I want to accuse you of anything… but what you’ve been saying troubles me. It makes you sound like a mutant supremacist.” Randall regarded the ancient mutant seriously as he explained: “Humans can already do most of the things you say they can’t, and will likely be able to do the rest within a century. It’s true they use technology to accomplish most of it, but that technology was created ultimately from their minds and is as much an extension of their collective will as our own mutant abilities are an extension of our individual wills. The fact that we are not more powerful than humanity is patently obvious – but that isn’t the point – or it shouldn't be, at any rate.”

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Randall stopped himself suddenly, sighed in an octave almost too low to hear, and then said, “I don’t want my words to make you feel attacked, Lamia, or that you need to defend yourself. But if your words are any indication of your true thoughts… then those thoughts are far too obsessed with notions of ‘power’, and who has a right to that power.” He paused for a single beat and then said, “That is how ‘they’ think, Lamia, and look where it’s gotten us.” His eyes sad, Tengri merely gestured around them at their surroundings without further comment.

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“If we – mutants – are truly ‘more than’ humanity" he continued, "if we’re greater than they are, if we’re ‘beyond them’ – if we’re ‘gods’, as you say – then we should be concerning ourselves with more than who has a right to power and focusing instead on what is right. If we can’t do that, we’re no better than those who oppress us - or are at the very least in danger of becoming as bad - and in that case... they have a ‘right’ to whatever power they can take from us."

,,

"I hope", Randall finished, "you don't believe that is the case."

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"Oh, for fuck's sake." The words came from above, and all but the newcomers knew Travis' sardonic voice when they heard it. A shadow momentarily blocked the sun in a disc as Travis descended, May at his side. "You ask 'what is right'? I know killing a mother because her child is different isn't right. I know enslaving people and breeding them like animals to work and fight for you isn't right. So, when it comes right down to it, it seems to me like humanity is in the wrong here."

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The disc settled on the ground with felt-more-than-heard thud, and Travis and May stepped off. "The DEHA is our enemy, no argument will convince me otherwise. My personal grievances aside, that institution needs to be destroyed, utterly and completely, with no remnant allowed to remain. Its legacy will be to ensure that such things never grace this world again."

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Travis took a deep breath, he didn't really care for this much talking, especially with so many people around. "That's the case that I see. Whether or not the rest of the blips learn from the mistakes of those few, and from the lesson of the punishment we dish out in retaliation for our mistreatment, well ... that's for them to learn. Giving them a chance to learn? Well, I guess that's right, even if I don't like it much myself."

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Mary was silent, trying to give her qualms and misgivings words, and failing. Tengri came close, but even he didn't really touch it.

,,

If only you could see everyone the way I do.

,,

There was something she couldn't explain about people, about everything alive really. She could split their atoms, read their molecules; lay bare the forces and flickers of matter so small they could barely be said to exist...but she couldn't explain the difference between a living thing and a dead thing. There was something there that didn't fit into her perceptions, that was to her as magical a force as alchemy was in the days of Lamia's youth.

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She could turn lead to gold, or whiff it away into nothingness, but she couldn't bridge the gap between inert organic material, and living being.

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In the face of that, the differences between human and mutant seemed so insignificant that they may as well be twins. Or at the very least brothers. Every one of them was a miracle, and none of them seemed to understand that...least of all about themselves.

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But she could agree on one thing, so that was what she focused on.

,,

"DEHA has to go," Mary said with conviction. "It would be better if humans could be convinced of that and helped...but one way or another, DEHA has to go."

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He had remained silent, listening to the others speak in order to quietly gauge their personalities. To figure out who might be helpful, who might be a liability, or who might just plain be in the way. It was good to know your allies, whether you liked them or not, and to get a feel for the ones that might defect to the enemy camp eventually.

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"Well, we all seem to agree on that, anyway. Whatever we might believe of the human collective as a whole, we all seem to agree on a starting goal. DEHA must be eliminated, and anything you need my assistance for in that regard, David, I would be happy to provide."

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He kept quiet, for now, on the rest of it - his opinions on humans, mutants, and their place on the social hierarchy. What had had observed, at least so far, was that David was full of anger and rage. And that was good.. that could be channeled. Hatred was a powerful motivator.

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