<<< Household Words, Shroud, Sage

[Betsy Braddock]

Date: March 8th
Time: After Flames

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Things were not looking good. No doubt many of the other members of the Inner Circle had some idea of what had gone on in the Worthington Complex earlier that day, but as for the whole sordid details of the case? That might be less certain but even if they did, such matters needed discussion. It was not a case of slight against one Court or something trivial – the treaty between Brotherhood and Hellfire had been shattered and that was not even the most concerning thing.

Hurrying along the grand corridors of the Club’s mansion, the White Queen had not paused to change out of the clothes that she had visited Warren in although she had discarded her jacket in the car and the smell of smoke still clung heavily to her blouse and hair. Still, she felt that under the circumstances she would be forgiven. Her destination was clear in her mind, the only place it made sense to make for – the Black King’s office.

Within was an impressive nexus of equipment, with the sprawling map that watched everything that went on within the city where it was possible to have eyes. Forge had built it and Max made masterful use of it, missing little that went on. In the outer area as always, there was a knot of Pawns. They inclined their heads or bowed to show respect, stepping back aside from the one woman who went forwards to announce her presence to the Black King and hopefully, the Black Queen as well. This was a matter for them all to deal with and Betsy wished that Forge was able to reach them in time from his work away.

“Forgive the intrusion my King,” Betsy commenced as soon as she was allowed to enter, gracefully inclining her head. “But as I am sure you are aware, there has been an incident today at the X-men’s city base. I just came from there,” internally she wondered just why she had gone there. As invaluable as the information was that she had discovered, it really was none of her business.

“It was the Brotherhood that attacked, but that isn’t the real problem that we may have on our hands,” the telepath’s expression was grim. “It seems that the Magneto we have worked with and known is a clone. Apparently it is how he regained his youth.”

[Tessa Ayasli]

Sage sat with one leg crossed over the other, watching the pawn move across the room to fetch her requested glass of Ice Wine. It was sweeter than most, balanced by it's acidity, and since it was only made by a particular grape that had to be frozen at a particular time, it was generally quite a expensive. But of all the wines, it was the one that Tessa had began to appreciate the most. The pawn walked back to where she sat across from Max and she took the glass in hand. She did not thank the young man, but she only gave him a dismissive wave to indicate that nothing further was needed.

"I am glad that it went well today," Tessa said once the door closed behind the pawn. She moved her hand just enough to cause the wine to swirl within the glass and then took a breath of it, enjoying it's sweet scent. She still wore the more casual attire that she had dressed in earlier, but she had let her hair down since her plans to go enjoy the day had been canceled. "Regan is an asset to us that we can't afford to lose and Moses... well, that has yet to be discovered. I think that..."

Tessa paused and turned her head to the side, looking off into space for only a moment before she focused on Max once again.

"The White Queen is here," she said, holding her tongue about the inner workings of the Black Court for the time being. As the pawn entered to notify them of Betsy's arrival, Tessa turned her head as if the pawn was expected. Being able to monitor the security feeds that were littered throughout the Hellfire Club was one perk of her mutation. Even as the Black King and Queen spoke, she was able to watch the pawns just outside their door, along with the countless other video streams that were set up around the place. Sage glanced once towards Max to make sure he approved and then looked back towards the pawn and nodded. "Yes, see her in."

As Betsy entered, Tessa did not stand as she would have done so many times previous to this point. Instead, she remained seated and took a small sip of the ice wine, shifting in her seat enough to be able to look towards Betsy. Betsy began speaking of things that they were already aware of, the Brotherhood's attack on the Worthington place, but she had more to add than that.

"A clone?" Sage questioned immediately, but it wasn't really a question that required an answer. It was more of a statement to make sure she heard that right. She motioned to Betsy to take the seat next to her and then turned towards Max. It was obvious that her mind was racing in the attempt to achieve anything further on the subject. After only a moment, she said, "That answers many questions about Magneto. Cloning is not outside the realm of probability, especially with the technology that Sanctuary possesses. But consciousness is another thing... is this clone a completely different man, or do you believe that a talented telepath could transfer someone's conscious into a new body? I have no record of a mutant that is capable of such a thing, but I have not yet gained access to the X-men's files."

She looked back to Betsy as she asked that, followed by an indication that she was indeed actively attempting to locate the X-men and infiltrate their systems. So far, they were off of the map. If they were still at the mansion outside of New York, acquiring their data would have been child's play for her. But as it stands, she had came up empty thus far. The same stands with the Sanctuary's data. She knew that it had to be linked to the rest of the world in some way, as did the X-men's, but finding that one strand of information that would lead her to them was even harder than finding a needle within a haystack.

[Max_Coleridge]

Still in the armored suit he'd donned just before retrieving Regan from Sanctuary, Max was seated at a table with Sage. Leaning back in his chair, his hands were steepled contemplatively against his lips. He nodded in agreement with Tessa's assessment, though Regan's ambitions and her schemes for power, not to mention her father's as well, were potential sources of contension, she was a powerful asset as well and well worth protecting, if that price wasn't too high. Luckily, this time it was easily managed.

"Moses can be kept on ice. Any potential danger to us he might've been has been neutralized. If he won't be an ally, he can always serve as a bargaining chip, if need be." Behind his dark glasses, the Black King's eyes narrowed. "Though I don't see that there will be any further bargaining with Magneto," he finished the thought as Betsy joined them.

A clone, she had told them without preamble and the news splashed into the pool of knowledge that Max knew about the man. Or what he thought he knew about the man.

"It certainly does shed new light on some of his more puzzling behaviors," Max added thoughtfully. He turned his face toward Betsy. "That means he's been a fraud for the last four years. Apocalypse... Onslaught... The sentinels...." Max frown in thought as he considered them all, thinking back on every encounter he'd had with the man. Was it possible he had been a copy all this time?

"How do you know this? Where did you get your information? What else did you find out?" He fired the questions at Betsy unintentionally sounding too much like an interrogation, but he was a brusque man by nature and his eagerness for more information sometimes trumped everything else.

"People eager and willing to follow the mutant savior, the great Magneto, would think twice before following his copy," Max mused. "Why is this information surfacing now?"

[Betsy Braddock]

Taking the proffered seat, Betsy waited for the inevitable questions. Sage began, questioning the validity of transferring minds between bodies. “I can pluck out memories and give them to others, create them from scratch even, but to swap minds between bodies is not something I am capable of. But that is just me,” she hesitated for a mere moment before continuing. “I do think it could be possible. With the right telepath…or maybe not even a telepath, perhaps Magneto has discovered another way to transfer consciousness and memories and that is why, in part at least, that his return to youth is such a closely guarded thing.”

The Black King’s questions, almost unsurprisingly, came thick and fast. It was quite a revelation and they already had a potentially serious situation on their hands. This changed the dynamics of play even more than the actions of Magneto no more than two hours ago.

“I have a person in the Worthington Complex, they called me and I went to see for myself what had happed. According to Archangel, the X-men managed to acquire a boy who is an exact genetic match for Magneto. He’s under their protection so of course, I was not told where, but the X-men firmly believe that the boy is a clone, a new body, ready for Magneto to make use of once more. I doubt I am being told the whole truth, but I don’t see the point in them lying about any of this and besides, I don’t think Warren Worthington is the type to lie about something like this. He wouldn’t benefit from setting us up,” Betsy shrugged. “As for now, I believe that Magneto had been searching for the boy and the Acolyte who took him for some time and reached such a stage of desperation as to make a very bold move against the X-men in the middle of New York City.”

“I can’t guess if he has been a clone this entire time – but I would not want to discount it either. His seeming resistance to telepathy doesn’t help either,” the White Queen sighed, a little frustrated by not knowing everything that she wanted to. It would needle at her incessantly until she did.

“What are we going to do with the Black Bishop? And Regan, is everything well there?” she now asked her own questions, wishing to be up to date on anything that may have occurred while she was fact-finding. If something had not already been done, then it was in the process. The manner of Max’s attire was not lost on her.

[Tessa Ayasli]

Sage looked away from Betsy as she listened to the answers that were given, considering what she was being told and attempting to find the solutions. Unfortunately, there were no clear cut questions to find the answers for. Instead of relying on her massive wealth of knowledge, she would have to rely on her instinct and human assumptions to come up with possible reasons for Magneto's presence in New York. What Betsy was saying made sense.

"Perhaps, since the clone is so young while Magneto appears to be in his prime, there is a period of initiation, brain washing, or even brain alteration. I am sure that if you were given years," Sage spoke, looking to Betsy, "You would be able to alter a person's mind enough, perhaps transplant enough knowledge from one source to the other, that you would effectively change the way they thought and acted to closely resemble the source's. If this clone is just a boy, as you suggest, this could be a possibility."

Sage looked to Max.

"This possibility could also account for Magneto's actions. If the clone is just a boy, indoctrinating him into Magneto's way of thinking would be most crucial at this point, when the boy's mind is still young and developing. Magneto's desperation to retrieve the clone at this point in the development could be crucial," Sage continued, her mind developing that possibilities into a solution that would make the most sense to her. "If the boy is exposed to the X-men and others that are of an opposite mind set to Magneto, and the boy's conscious is set in that way, I imagine that reversing it would be much more complicated. Even when full grown, this clone may be capable of reverting back to his own way of thinking when making the decisions that make Magneto who he is."

"But... even a clone is his own individual," Sage continued. "You are correct in thinking that there have been subtle changes in the current Magneto's behavior... but if he has been indoctrinated by the previous Magneto, then I believe that he is not far off from the way of thinking of the old. Perhaps he believes that he is part of the old." Sage quieted herself down, because she could literally talk of 'what ifs" and 'perhaps' for the rest of the week on the information she had just learned. She finished, speaking more to herself than to the others, "Maybe the name of Magneto is evolving to become a symbol and a figure head, instead of just a single man."

There were thousands of unanswered questions and probabilities that zipped through her mind at this point. Sage looked down to her lap in thought, silently wishing that she could have an encounter with either Magneto or the clone in order to question them further on the subject. There was one thing that resounded in her mind, however... it made sense. There was no one as powerful or capable as Magneto to lead the Brotherhood, so why pick a successor when you could breed and train another Magneto to take your place?

"What if we reached out to the Brotherhood... to Magneto?" Sage asked after a moment of thought. She immediately knew that Betsy would not like the sound of this, especially with her friendship to Warren. But she continued on anyways, "They are our allies, or at least they were. We have no reason to fear them, if we approach them with an open hand. I imagine that with our combined resources, we could discover the location of the X-men and help them retrieve this boy. Betsy, if you would take me along with you to Warren's, I could possibly access his private servers in order to come up with a more exact location."

It was safe to say that Sage's current way of thinking was... dark.

[Max_Coleridge]

Max listened to Betsy, catching the guarded warmth in her voice as she talked about Worthington. So, that's where she had gone, he filed the information away to consider at another time. "Worthington was uninjured, I assume." She didn't need to answer, the fact that she was with them and not distracted worrying about him was answer enough.

Sage, named for the fact that she knew everything, had a wonderful mind that was a great asset to Hellfire, but if such a mind had a drawback, it was her tendency to become a walking, thinking encyclopedia; just opening the floodgate and letting information and theories flow. But her monologue of possibilities gave Max the time to think, and what he came up with made him angry.

When Tessa suggested that she infiltrate Worthington's network, Max's response came in a flash, "Yes. Do that." The dark glasses that Max always wore made it impossible to tell where his attention was, so he turned his face to regard Betsy. "The X-Men knew they had something Magneto was desperate to reclaim and despite accepting our help when human fanatics destroyed their school, they didn't warn us," he said, coldly counting any hesitation Betsy might voice. "They are safe in their retreat; it was us who were left out in the world to deal with Magneto. His next step might be to start taking down buildings to force the X-Men out of their hole."

"Despite our past with them," he said as though he were taking to Betsy alone, "this proves that their view of us hasn't changed - it's still 'Us' and 'Them'. And if that's the way they want it, it's going to be us. But don't worry, the X-Men aren't our only target this time; during our extraction of Regan from Sanctuary, Sage managed to infiltrate their files and gather information for us already. We have that information and we still have Moses Magnum, if we need to use him."

"Betsy, you've already spent time with him, do you think opening up a dialogue with Magneto about this could lead to anything?" Max offered the suggestion but he didn't have much hope that it would improve the situation. "If nothing else, we need to know all we can about this."

[Betsy Braddock]

Betsy nodded in agreement with Sage. “Young minds are the most malleable, after all. In youth, there is a greater capacity for learning and absorbing. If this clone is young, then it’ll be a crucial stage in developing him as successor, if that indeed is the intent,” all of this was very new territory and as such, very odd to process. The White Queen had interacted personally with Magneto on official business, sometimes less official situations such as at times during her visit to Sanctuary, she had also fought with the man when times called against it – and less recently, against members of his Brotherhood as well. The very idea that he was not what he seemed to be was in truth, quite disconcerting.

“Reaching out to the Brotherhood is worth the risk. At the very least we should offer them the chance to explain themselves for not giving us any forewarning of their movements in New York,” the telepath mused. “Although of course, any such appeal would have to be tactfully done…Clone or not, I don’t think Magneto would appreciate having to justify himself to us.” As Max spoke, stating that they were still very separate sides, she nodded thoughtfully. “And as it should be. We have always been strong and we always will be strong, with or without a Brotherhood alliance, although I must say I’m not entirely thrilled with the idea of handing over the X-men’s current location…”

Sitting back in her chair, the telepath idly rubbed at a temple, shifting her eyes to focus upon the Black King. “Dialogue could lead somewhere. I’m willing to take the risk but what I am worried about, and this is not out of concern for my personal safety, is if Magneto is a clone and his thoughts and memories have been transferred into this new body of this, then what if the reason he has a new one in the wings already, is that he is slowly disintegrating? Physically, or mentally even. Before we think of handing over any sort of information to them, I want to see him personally. I doubt that if he found the new school, with or without our help, he’d be content with simply taking the child if he is indeed descending into insanity. If he doesn’t stop there, where will he stop? If it’s a case of exerting his supremacy and control that seems to be spiralling away from him, what’s to say he wouldn’t whirl around and snap our hands off?”
Betsy felt heavy and a little cold. What she was suggesting was potentially very dangerous, but then she would not be deserving to be White Queen if she did not accept the potential risk. “Forgive me for erring to the side of caution, but until ether myself, or another if that is not agreeable, talks to Magneto and gets a sense of his state of being as well as his plans, then I do not feel prepared to tell them anything.”

[Tessa Ayasli]

Sage nodded to the King as he gave her a positive remark about her suggestion. She then looked to her lap as Betsy spoke, listening to the White Queen and attempting to recall what it was like to be under her rule. Her memories of it seemed distant, as if they were not her own, but something that needed to be reflected upon in order to gain the understanding of. From all that she could recall, which was quite a bit, Betsy seemed to lean towards a preferential treatment of some of the X-men, namely Warren Worthington. That fact was something that was more obvious now, listening to her speak, and Sage shot another look towards Max.

"All caution should be taken when dealing with Magneto, of course, Betsy," Sage said, still looking into Max's eyes. She held no expression, except that her brow narrowed slightly. "This is a conflict that we can choose to stay out of all together and allow the X-men and the Brotherhood to fight it out among themselves."

Sage looked to her former Queen.

"You should be the one to go, Betsy. But I believe that you should be very clear to the Brotherhood where we sit... and that is as a neutral party, willing to aid our allies where needed, but not willing to be a part of destroying a hidden place full of mutant children," she said, looking to Max yet again. "Personally, I do not care if Magneto destroys the X-men, or if the X-men destroys the Brotherhood. I do not care if Magneto retrieves his child or not. I only care that we are positioned properly to benefit as the two sides fight one another. However..."

Sage put both hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up to a standing position, then turned to look down upon the White Queen.

"Betsy, you should take care in where you place your personal alliances. There will come a time when the X-men will be our enemies, and I'm sure that seeing Mr. Worthington on the other side of that line will only make things difficult for you," she said, speaking down to Betsy for the first time ever. It was obvious that she was bothered by her fellow Queen's seeming attraction to the X-man, even though she managed to stay rather robotic in the delivery of her concerns. The lack of emotion and tact on her part was a bi-product of her mutation, but it also tended to make her seem cold and uncaring. Sage then turned to Max, keeping the same monotone in her voice. "The same goes for you, Max. I am sick of seeing the X-men in our club. Do you not realize that they will not choose you if there is ever a choice to be made?" Sage asked, glancing between them.

Shaking her head, Tessa walked towards the exit, carrying herself with a perhaps undeserved level of dignity. She had changed quickly since coming into power. Quick to anger, quick to judge, and quick to cast her opinion upon someone, even if that meant making her best friend (yes, she considered Betsy that) mad or upset. Perhaps it was the stress of the position? Or perhaps there were other reasons at work...

[Exit Sage]

[Max_Coleridge]

Max was relieved when Tessa stalked out of the meeting room, the last distraction he wanted to deal with was his queen in a snit. He perched his elbows on the arms of his chair and rested his chin on his steepled hands. "She seems somewhat upset about something. Bordering on irrational and inclined invent facts to support her opinions," he went on, "considering that no X-Man has darkened our door in nearly four months."

Behind his dark glasses, Max's eyes narrowed in thought and the corners of his mouth turned down in distaste. "I'll have to deal with it before it becomes too much of a distraction. We have other concerns at the moment than... than," he struggled for a moment trying to understand something and then gave up and turned to the only expert of the female mind in the room. "Betsy, why did she do that? You running to Warren's side earlier caused an inconvenience in discovering if Mastermind's mind had been tampered with," he furrowed, remembering the fight she'd put up and horror-filled illusions she bombarded his mind with, "but that," he indicated the door Sage had just left by, "was personal and whatever her opinion of you and Warren, there isn't a love triangle, so she isn't personally involved." If he'd been capable of giving Betsy a sidelong look, he would have; sex permeated the very stones of the Hellfire Club, sex in all varieties; he knew that Betsy and Tessa were close when she was a White Pawn and that Betsy and Tessa liked to hang on each other and pretend a sexual intimacy, but he'd though it was them merely pretending, not that the truth of it mattered to him one way or another.

That Tessa had directed her ire at him too for the same perceived offense, didn't make sense to him, so he glossed over it.

[Betsy Braddock]

“Well…” Betsy exhaled, vaguely affronted, not so much by Tessa’s words, but her poor timing for choice of irritable conduct. For the technopath, such behaviour was unusual and really quite childish. They had far more pressing matters to attend to than past affiliations and as much as she had gone to check on the wellbeing of those at the Complex, her trip had been primarily one of intelligence gathering. Shaking her purple head, the White Queen shifted in her seat so that she more directly faced Max.

“I wish I could answer that for you, Max. But I just don’t know what could have gotten into her,” she shrugged, gesturing with one hand. “And I should have at the very least contacted you to tell you where I was going, but I wanted to get to the Complex, not just to make sure everyone was well, but to gather information…And if Sage had stayed, she would have been informed that Archangel asked me to remove the memories of the attack from the gathered civilians as well. Let me tell you, that was an unexpected request...” frowning, Betsy turned her hand downwards and clasped hold of the chair arm.

At the mention of a love triangle, even if to say that could not be the case, Betsy had to laugh a little despite herself before exhaling and sinking into her seat a little more. “Sage has always been a little…strange. Her concept of personal interaction is a little different. I don’t think she lacks social skills, just the ability to put them into good practise. Her mind is too much like a computer’s. Maybe she thinks if we get ‘distracted’ by X-men, we’ll become compromised. But that…That was personal, you’re right.”

Silence fell for a minute as Betsy pondered the scene that had just occurred. “Anyway. I shall contact Sanctuary as soon as possible to arrange a meeting with Magneto, if you think that is prudent. Naturally I’ll need a small security detail, just in case but I would prefer to nominate a meeting place outside of both New York and Sanctuary. I’ve been before, but that does not mean it could all go pearshaped this time, until we know better at any rate. I’ll do my best to salvage the relationship between our parties, but ultimately not if it is to our disadvantage. Our broader interests come first and always will.”