tushanshu_logs | Good Old-fashioned Mutant Manpain

Entry tags:

Good Old-fashioned Mutant Manpain

Characters: Santo and YOU!
Date: Backdated a little from Thursday to Sunday
Location: Outside the city, turtle's head, wherever!
Situation: Santo is in a pretty low place after a certain scarlet woman showed up here
Warnings/Rating: Eeeeeehhh... No warnings other than teenage boy angst.

Of all the enemies to mutants that had to show up here, it had to be her. It just had to be the Scarlet Witch, the woman who wasn't even really the enemy, and still she nearly wiped out their entire species, and made them so weak that other people nearly succeeded in finishing that job. He could have handled Magneto, Mystique, or any other Brotherhood of Evil Mutant that showed up here. He could just punch those problems away.

But not her. All he could do with Wanda was be angry and nothing else, because she was still a "hero", she'd just been manipulated. And this wasn't even the same Wanda, so apparently that meant that he'd lost the right to even be mad at her.

But he could just stop being angry tight now. It wasn't a switch he could turn off and just forget about this whole thing. It wasn't that easy.

How was he supposed to ever be okay with her being here, same Witch or not. Because of the one he knew, it wasn't just all his friends who lost their powers. Because of her an entire bus of depowered students, his friends, was blown up, Kevin went crazy, Laurie was shot, and Cessily was tortured. Because of her, though more of a stretch, Nicky died, Kurt died, Julian lost his arms...

Too much pain that he couldn't even remember all the terrible things that happened anymore.

He couldn't deal with it, and he didn't want to blow up at her or anybody else again because of it. He didn't like having all these feelings, and he didn't want people to know how weak, and sad, and freaking scared he felt just be her existing. So he's staying out of the city for a few days, away from the network, and punching whatever he can find that isn't alive to feel it, before exploding into a million pieces and putting himself together again in a way that will make his body stronger, larger... Anything that would make him more capable of handling this.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"Please don't," Victor sighs. "Unless he does something to deserve it," he adds. "We don't need to provoke anything that doesn't need to happen."

Dinah has many times both cried and made people cry in the middle of a training exercise, for many reasons.

She glances at him sideways as he comes up beside her and lets him find a place to stand before she asks:

"Did something happen?"

Sorry Santo Raphael's distracted because you are rebuilding your body.

"I'm not gonna see your guts or anything during this, am I?"

That's okay Raph, Santo understands how distracting it can be. It's not often you get treated to such an awesome spectacle... Except for the part where he does this more often that he probably should.

"I don't know. Probably," And once he has a hand reforms, he tosses something over to Raph. "Here, hang on to kidney for me..." It's just a random stone from the pile that is him. He's just messing with you, bro.

She honestly can't tell his expressions well enough just yet, not with just a meeting under his wing when it came to him so she can't tell if there's anything off with that smile even if he fakes it. She just lets out a low laugh at that, turning to look at him finally.

"Nothing so grand like that, but the air is a lot fresher than city air, that's for sure. What brings you here?"

"Yeah, that was just me. No big deal or anything," He shrugs as if exploding is the most natural thing in the world, and then, because he's the master of tact. "I was trying not to ask, but what's up with your skin, dude?"

"No promises," Santo grunts, looking over at Victor and nudging him gently. He's trying to get back to normal, but it's harder than he wants it to be. "It's been a long time coming, dude, and I couldn't back on Utopia because Cyclops wouldn't let me..." Yeah, that's the only reason.

It wasn't like he got his ass handed to him or anything, she just had pheromone powers that made people feel whatever she want him too... Those other times he cried didn't count.

He looks off to the side for a moment, not sure if he wants to get into this or not, but... He needs to talk about it with somebody who isn't so connected to the Witch.

"Not really... Or... What would you do if the person who nearly wiped out your entire species showed up here, and you couldn't do anything about it? And you couldn't even be angry because she's from a different universe?"

That's probably for the best... And it's one of the pros of being a big guy made out of rocks. He doesn't have to worry about little twitches or wavering in his muscles that would give away that he was anything other than totally okay right now.

"Yeah, it's not bad, but I kind of miss big cities like New York or San Francisco. The air might not be as fresh, but it's way more alive..." Which kind of makes sense since they might all be dead here or something. "This is where you're supposed to go when you wan to feel relaxed and peaceful."

Victor nudges back. "Cyclops wouldn't let you and Magneto back home could have ended you before you got out the first 'You're gonna get rocked!'," he teases gently, doing an impression of Santo's voice.

Dinah continues to look at him for a second before looking back ahead, giving the question the consideration it deserves.

"Well," she says slowly, "for a start, even if I'd be thinking 'I can't be angry because...' I'd still be really damn angry."

"Oh, I can understand that. The city's the best place for me too." Mostly because her magic relies heavily on being exposed to the urban setting, but she doesn't say that part. She's never shown her magic to him, as far as she remembers.

"And that would explain the sudden feeling of calm I had. I thought people were kidding about that part."

"Dude-" Raphael gives Santo a flat look and just kind of throws the rock back into the pile. He's noticing they're all collecting together on their own so it's probably okay to do that.

"So how did you even find out you could do this? Like, did you just randomly explode one day, or...?" This seems like a good way to avoid his problems.

"Please! What is Mags even gonna do to me here? Bend spoons all over me?" Santo scoffs, playing tough even though they both know that Magneto freak both of them out. "Unless you're secretly Wolverine, Magneto is a total chump."

He pulls Victor into a headlock for the impression, though it's loose... More of a huggy totally not a hug. "He'd be rocked and rolled before he could even get his dentures in."

Santo actually sighs a little in relief when he hears her answer. It had seemed like just about everyone else he'd spoken to was telling him to just get over it because it wasn't the same person. Like it was so damn easy.

"Thank you! I know right!?" Seriously, at least somebody gets it. "What am I supposed to do with that, thoguh? It's not like I can just turn off how I feel about her. I don't think I can totally ignore her either, since we're sort of teammates now, and since she's not the right one, she's still a part of my species so I gotta protect her."

He sighs. "But every time I even look at her, I just see..." Dead bodies. "All the bad stuff, you know?"

"Or just beat you up with a spoon," he says, rolling his eyes but still smiling. "Tell that to him to his face. But let me make popcorn first."

Vic flails a little when pulled into that headlock. "Dude, you are so dead if Magneto ever hears this."

"Yeah."

It's not like there haven't been several instances of large scale devastation wrought by supervillains on Dinah's world, but her mind goes to Savant, who broke her legs, handcuffed her to a bed and brought on all her worst triggers, then was welcomed on to the team by her best friend.

"You can't turn it off, and you know it's unhelpful to take it out on her, but you've still got to see to your own healing process. If you bury that bad stuff, it'll eat you from the inside."

Santo can't help laughing at Raph's expense. The rock is thankfully just a rock. Somehow, Santo's body still functions more or less as a normal one, so there's something going one when the parts are all together, but apart they're nothing but granite or whatever rocks he has available. He tries not to think about his own anatomy too much.

"Are you sure you really want to know?" He raises a brow... You know, once he has one again. "It's kind of another one of those everything tries to kill me stories. We could probably just get food instead."

"Yeah, I think I can figure out how it happened." Someone tried to kill the shit out of Santo and Santo exploded and didn't die and everybody was happy, the end. That sound about right? "Food sounds good. Weren't you going up thatta way though?" Toward the turtle head. Not that Raphael was.

"One day, I'll tell you a story that doesn't center on what a badass I am. I mean, I've gotta have an off day eventually," He teases a little, nudging Raph playfully. He also just doesn't want to tell Raph how he really found out in a totally lame way. Raph pretty much hit the nail on the head, though.

"Yeah, but..." He doesn't want to think about what's going on and who is on the turtle now. He doesn't want to tell Raph because of what the turtle might do... He at least hopes that Raphael wasn't around to see him freaking out on the network a few days ago. "I was, but food kinda sounds better than feelings anyway. I can't get all zen while you're tempting me with awesomeness anyway."

"I'm not getting beaten up by a spoon," He rolls his eyes too. "Just about everything else at least once, but the day that silverware beats the crap outta me is the day I quit heroing," Except that was never going to happen once they were out of the Jean Grey School.

"So I guess that means you better not narc on me if the asshole ever shows up. Until then, I'm saying whatever I want."

"If it's a Magneto spoon, you would," Victor teases. "Dude! Don't say that. It's like asking for some super nut job calling themselves the Silver Spoon to show up."

He smiles a bit. "Since when have I ever narced on you?"

"I'm a chimera," Zelgadis said. "A third rock golem, a third brau demon, and a third human." It was a bit brusque -- Zelgadis isn't happy about not being human -- but pretty straight forward. He's used to people asking, and, well, it wasn't like he had room to throw stones. No pun intended.

"No, the turtle is kind of zen dude or something," He shrugs. "I don't know why it's like this, but it's still pretty cool. Maybe he just doesn't want people getting into fights and giving him a concussion or something."

Santo just nods for a moment. It was a little harder to think about how bad things were right now because of where they were standing, but it's not something that can just disappear. He watched his friends lose their powers and die, and then only more were pointlessly slaughtered by people who hated them for no good reason because of that weakness.

Sure, none of it was really that women's fault, in this universe or any other, but that didn't make it just go away.

"My way of healing is punching things. And... I'm scared, Canary," He's a little beyond the point of trying to pretend he isn't. "She's here now, and she might be a good person or whatever, but once something triggers her, who knows what the hell might happen..."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 4

Good Old-fashioned Mutant Manpain

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject