LOG: Two Possible Futures

[x-empath.livejournal.com]

Who: Manuel de la Rocha
Where: In his room, Thursday afternoon. Pre-Box.
What: There is always a price to be paid.

Much thanks to Amanda's and Nathan's and Alison's players for assistance, reassurance, and tolerance of spammage.

This is what happens when Manuel's and Marie-Ange's powers cross. More to come.



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Manuel was deep asleep when he felt the hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake.

"Manuel, darling? You must wake up or you'll be late for work." the voice said. Female, breathy, and with just a hint of amusement. Only problem is, he was alone when he went to bed in the first place.

"I'm sorry?" he said, opening his eyes to be granted with a vision of absolute loveliness. A perfect set of blue eyes set into a very pleasing round face, with blonde locks spilling down around her head. Full pouty lips quirked in amusement, and glancing downwards, just the proper hint of decolletage.

"Wake up, you. Do you want to be late for work?" the woman asked in perfect Castillian. "Did we have too much wine last night again?" she asked him with a twinking smile.

"I don't understand. How did I get here? Where is the school?" he asked the woman as he sat up in bed. Blinking, he saw the emotional tie between them pulse with the warm red of affection over the deeper heart's red of love.

"Oh, Manuel, you're such a tease! School is where you _work_, not where you _live_! Now go!" she smiled at him as she pushed him out of bed.

Manuel tumbled out of bed, limbs akimbo. "HEY!" he shouted at the woman. "What is the meaning of this? Who are you? And why do I love you? What have you done to me?"

"What have _I_ done to _you_?" she echoed back at him with a grin. "Well, first you met me, seduced me, swept me off of my feet, and then made an honest woman out of me. And then we had our two lovely children, and we celebrated your birthday last night, and you had too much wine. And now it's Monday, and you need to get out of bed, sleepybutt. Even if you are totally adorable just lazing there in your skin."

Manuel blinked several times, feeling the truth and the devotion between the two of them, the rock-solid reassuring stability of it. "Umm, yeah, I guess I did have too much wine." he stammers back lamely. "Shower. Good idea." He then stands up and looks around the room, searching for likely candidates for the location of the aforementioned shower.

The woman made absolutely no effort to conceal her amusement at the whole spectacle as Manuel finally staggered off towards the bath and his date with soap and water. "Too much confusion for this early in the morning." she muttered to herself as she went about the business of preparing herself for her own day. She grinned as inspiration struck her, and she snuck up behind Manuel, holding a orbus niger in sinister and an orbus albus in dexter.

"Drink too much wine and pass out on me, will you?" she snickered as she let the orbus niger fly, smacking Manuel right between the shoulderblades without any apparent effect. The orbus albus she let evaporate in a white flash.

Manuel started the opulent shower with a twist of the knob, sending a punishing spray of hot water from the nozzles in the ceiling splashing down onto the floor. Before entering he paused to empathically scan his surroundings, feeling the amusement and love from the bedroom, and two sleeping bundles of devotion and excitement just down the hall. The sheer happiness, the contentment of it all drove him to his knees before the shower.

"This is not real. But I do not care. This feels too _good_, too _right_. Is this what I am fated to receive?" he said before picking himself up and stepping into the shower.

Unfortunately, his first step onto the slick tile of the shower's floor was poorly-placed, and his feet skidded out from under him, pitching him head-first against the walls of the shower hard enough to blur his vision and cause stars to dance through his mind.

When the stars cleared and his vision returned to normal, Manuel stared at the shower.

"On your feet, Hound! Shower time is over!" barked the male voice just before a wave of liquid agony screamed across his back.

Manuel screamed with the sensation, which just brought another wave of that oddly liquid agony screaming across his back. "I said GET UP, Hound! We've got things to do today, and Ahab's specifically requested _you_!"

Manuel turned to look at his tormenter, and shuddered. The man wore red leather around a truly inhumanly perfect physique. His face was twisted into a sneer, and his bald head seemed to devour what poor light there was. Curled in his right hand was a lash made up of darkness leashed, a darkness so profound that ordinary darkness looked positively scintillating.

Manuel reached out with his power, trying to scan his tormentor and his surroundings, and the feedback induced nearly tore that back of his brain out of his skull.

"Not smart, Hound." said the man with the fugilin lash, flicking it with real enjoyment. "Now either you get out of there _right now_, or I'm going to give you to the Twins. And I know how much you _love_ their tender affections. NOW MOVE IT!"

Manuel moved.

"That's better." purred the man with the lash. "Now, let's take a look at you here. Ahh, just about perfect. Don't you agree, Hound?"

With his words Manuel felt compelled to look down at himself, and what he saw horrified him. He himself was clad in red leather, with spikes running up his centerline and down his arms and legs. No part of him was left uncovered. But despite his revulsion, he found himself pathetically nodding in agreement.

The man merely motioned with one hand, but Manuel was very nearly yanked off his feet in his desire to obey. He found himself scurrying out of the cage he was in, then brought into the next room, where the man with the lash motioned that he should sit and wait. Manuel sat where indicated, and a spare glance at a reflective surface hanging on the wall presented him with his second shock.

He looked as he should, but with two major differences. The first was a shock of snow-white hair on his temple, and the second was an intricate set of tattoos across his face, starting at a line down the center of his face and arcing to the sides of his skull.

A telepathically-delivered command caused Manuel to drop to his belly on the floor and grovel like a worm before a low, raspy English voice said "Rise, Hounds."

The man who gave the order stood head-and-shoulders above the man with the lash, and he radiated a hate so profound, so pure, that it left room for nothing else. He held in his hand a half-dozen leashes, and the bald man with the lash religiously hooked each Hound, including Manuel, to one of those leashes. The _click_ of the leash bonding to the collar around Manuel's neck sounded like the finality of the grave.

The man looked at Manuel like a collector looks at an insect - his natural eye the grey of storm clouds, his artificial one the flat black of a scanning cap. His brown hair had been recently trimmed, Manuel absurdly noted, and the white streak gleamed like deadly ice. His muscles moved with inhuman precision, his skin stretched over them like a canvas.

To Manuel's empathic sense, the man was fury personified. Even standing here in front of Manuel enraged him, and he breathed in anger with each twitch. "Today we _hunt_." said the man holding the leash, and the nearly-sexual feeling of anticipation behind the thought made Manuel want to retch. "Ahab's got some mutants to kill. What do you think about that, Hound? You're going to find them for me. Find all their secret places, the hidden dens where they think they are safe."

"No one is safe from Ahab the Mutant Hunter!" the man ranted, holding a spear of pure energy over his head with his free hand. Looking down at Manuel, he smiled - a cold smile that Manuel was sure would haunt him for the rest of his days.

"Seek."

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