Meaningful To Who?

Participants:

cardinal_icon.gif magnes_icon.gif

Scene Title Meaningful To Who?
Synopsis Magnes contacts an informant to ask some questions to. The shadows are dubious of who he trusts.
Date August 21, 2009

Magnes's Apartment


It's night, and Magnes may or may not have decided that he's done for the day. Cardinal was called, told to come to his room at Panucci's. The room looks a bit different than the last time Cardinal saw it, considering he moved back in and it's filled with his geeky posters, plenty of busty comic girls and other posters on the walls and ceilings. There's Batman and Superman bean bags, a modest entertainment system stuffed with DVDs and games, and plenty of bookcases filled with graphic novels, as well as containers for his other assorted comics.

He has everything pushed off to the side, shirtless, only wearing his comfortably fitting blue jeans as he repeatedly raises and swings a large metallic pole, doing drills. Compared to Japan, he's much better built, and has his share of scars. Some stitches just below his chest, inbetween his ribs, with even longer stitches on his back, suggesting a large exit wound from a gunshot. He has quickly fading scars of nail puncture wounds on his cheeks, and far deeper electrically burned nail punctures on his right arm.

Now he just waits for Cardinal.

"You're looking almost as bad as me, these days…"

The voice of Richard Cardinal stirs through the room as a shadow sweeps up along a space on the wall between Power Girl and Stargirl, 'arms' folded across its chest in a posture that suggests a man leaning against the former of the pictures.

"…or at least as bad as I would, if conspiracy didn't come with a superb health plan. I don't even think I have any scars at all, anymore, even the old ones are gone. I'm not sure I like it. They were like… a road map of the past. What can I do for you, Magnes?"

"I'm looking as bad as I need to be. I still haven't gone to see Abby's healer, but I can move without ripping my stitches, so I don't care anymore." Magnes says with clear exhaustion in his tone, and general state of mind at the moment. There's no Claire tonight to keep his thoughts in a good place.

"I need to know everything you know about Humanis First. Not the stuff on TV, I need information I can pass on to someone who can actually use it." He twirls the pole inbetween his fingers, then swings it around his back and switches hands, going back to his drills again, only this time in a left-handed stance. "I like Claire a lot, but a part of me thinks I don't deserve a girl that good for me, after everything I've done."

"Precious little," admits the shadow, not without some amount of frustration, "I have people working on it, but… they're so scattered and diverse, it's hard to pin them down. I have a— name, a face, but I don't even know what his rank is in whatever Humanis organization he's a part of."

A pause, then Cardinal notes, "Keep in mind— Humanis First isn't like Phoenix, or the Company, or any of the others. It's the group of five friends that sits around the corner bar and bitches about 'mutants'. It's the lone lunatic that decides to start taking sniper shots at 'freak sympathizers'. They aren't one cohesive whole, although… I think some of them are becoming that, so they need to be stopped, and quickly."

"Wait, it's them that did the sniper shooting at Old Lucy's?" Magnes looks down at his stiches, then over at Cardinal, suddenly sitting the pole against a wall so he can give his undivided attention. "What name and what does this person look like?"

"Yes, it was them." Cardinal hesitates, "The name is 'Danko' - no, I don't know if it's first or last. I have a picture. I'll send it to you here." That said, the darkness straightens, washing up the wall with a spread of feathery wings like a raven on the wall, "Might I offer you some advice about all of this, though, Magnes? Some… food for thought?"

"Stay out of it, don't get anyone killed, try not to start martial law in this country?" Magnes asks with just a touch of bitterness, but is otherwise quiet as he watches the shadow, waiting to hear what it has to say.

A hollow chuckle stirs in the shadows, "…well, the latter would be nice, but we're already headed in that direction, aren't we? No, I know you too well to warn you off the situation, Magnes. Regardless, you're going to get yourself involved, it's just who you are. Always striving to be the hero, without really understanding what a hero is."

Cardinal pauses, then says, "Don't go into things alone. Gather information. Contact people who trust you— or even those who don't, but who're willing to act on things. Get all the information before acting. You leap too often before you look, and you assume others won't take you seriously when the matter is."

"I don't intend to ever leap again. I've learned a lot over the past two months, I can barely remember these two months, but I've learned a lot, somehow." Magnes seems to have forgotten something, but he doesn't comment any further, simply moving on. "I have allies. I don't know how trustworthy you are, but I guess deep down I feel it, since I called you, but I'm working on really big things. None of this super hero crap, no terrorism or blowing things up, something meaningful."

"Meaningful to you," asks the shadowmorph, "Or to the world? There's a difference."

"It'll be meaningful to everyone. I'm working with people who really know what they're doing." Alright, so maybe it's just person right now, but Magnes figures Cardinal doesn't need to know that. "I honestly wanna trust you, you'd be great for what I'm doing, but you told Claire… wait, what did you tell Claire?" He rubs his forehead, suddenly lapsing in memory. "You told Claire something bad, and I was angry. Damnit, I guess it was one of those memories that got taken."

"I told her that you were working with people who really know what they're doing," replies Cardinal with a faint, hollow echo of a snort, "You trust too easily, kid, and in the wrong places. Not everyone has their heart where you think it is, and most lie. I hope you know where your new friends' loyalties lie, and what their real motives are."

"Unfortunately, I do." Magnes says in a tone that says he really doesn't enjoy knowing who or what his new 'friends' are loyal to. "But it'll improve over time. Fortunately for me, I'm really not doing anything too dangerous, I don't want Claire to worry. I'm not fighting super villains."

"There aren't any supervillains in this world, Magnes," Cardinal observes dryly, the shadow spilling to the floor, "Claire knows how it works. If you think you're 'protecting' her by leaving her out of things, or not telling her things, well, I'm pretty sure she'd punch you in the face for it. She's a tough girl. And she's a better operative than you."

"If you ever figure out how the world works, kid, you'll be a great asset to it. If you haven't let it trick you into being one of the monsters first. Watch yourself. Let me know if you find out anything about Humanis, too."

"I trust Claire, and I intend to tell her exactly what I'm doing once it's complete. I'm gonna have a leap of faith and trust you to keep this entire conversation to yourself, trust me to be good and honest to Claire." Magnes requests, giving the shadow a sincerely determined look. "I will tell her, so can you prove to me this one time that I can trust you?"

"You haven't told me anything that I need to tell anyone," replies Cardinal with a hollow, raspy chuckle in the shadows, "Be careful, Magnes. You don't exactly have a track record of siding with the right people…"

And then, the darkness flickers under the door, and he's gone.


Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License