United? (Magneto, Muffin and Tigers)

Erik, or Magneto as everyone seemed to be calling him around this blasted manor, was getting more and more annoyed with their lack of progress of the front of mutant rights. But at the same time he wasn't about to just give up. He still believed that he could bring Charles completely to his way of thinking and in the mean time it would do them both good to not only look for some new students but also to teach them how to use their powers effectively as well. To that end he had just successfully recruited a rather strange mutant male while Charles had also gone out on his own and spoken to two female mutants and convinced them that the school was the place for them to hone their powers.

The mutant he had found called himself Mr Smith... but Erik had taken to calling him Cobalt. It sounded enough like one of their 'codenames' to fit in but he had been told that it was actually the man's first name.

He didn't have to be a mind-reader like Charles to know that that wasn't anywhere near the whole truth.

He hummed a little bit as he entered the gym area where the other two new mutants had been told to wait for his arrival. Honestly he had been tempted to put on some theatrics and walk in with some form of red cape and helmet combo but he thought better of it in the end and instead just continued to playing the metal stress balls... which were idly floating around his body with barely a thought.

He smiled widely,

"My name is Erik... but around here people have taken to calling me Magneto." he explained, gesturing to Cobalt, "This is Cobalt and he too is a mutant, just like everyone else in this building."

He waved his hand and everything metal in the room began to shake ever so slightly,

"I control magnetic fields which allow me to manipulate any type of metal... even those not normally magnetic. Cobalt?"

Cobalt had been happy with what he had been doing to be honest. He killed people for money, he was good at it and he got paid a rather large sum of money for each kill. And with the nations of the world against each other in such clear lines it was a buyers market. Each side wanted nothing more than the important members of the other side dead. And that was easily achieved when you bought the services of Cobalt Smith.

It was kind of easy to get away with a crime when your 'mutant' abilities included a lack of aging, invisibility and intangibility.

Of course this Magneto character had managed to track him down easily enough. Turned all of Cobalt's guns and knives against him when he'd been caught by surprise and tried to attack. He grimaced a little bit when he was reminded how Magneto found him... they had a telepath. Not one of the weak ones or circus acts... one that could read your mind the entire world away.

That was the kind of guy you wanted on your side.

Waving as he was introduced to the two young women he raised an eyebrow,

"I'm beginning to feel really old..." he muttered to himself before nodding a little bit, "Um... where to start really?"

He shrugged,

"Eh straight forward. I haven't aged a day in almost three hundred years... I can turn completely invisible..." he listed, demonstrating by disappearing before reappearing halfway through the floor, "And intangible... but the last one is hard to do..."

Senium had been told to wait in this room by Charles, and she was doing exactly that - despite it being rather boring and the other girl she was with seemed to be slightly unhappy at just being dumped here without their mentor. She could relate to that if she was honest, she didn't want to be left here to meet whoever and do whatever with them but, Senium didn't really have much of a choice now she had decided to join up with Charles.

Until this time, she had been living on her own in a small flat. After the death of her grandfather, Senium had no other family left and so tried to do her best - working in a small cafe to pay the rent and afford a few comforts. Now she was living in a huge mansion house and someone was helping her to learn how to control her abilities.

They had scared her a few times now, and she knew that she needed to get them under control.

He didn't seem nearly as interested in her as he was in Seffi, the other girl however.

As the two men entered the room, Senium looked up from her lap and smiled gently, they both seemed a fair bit older than they were but that was okay, Senium had already spoken to Seffi quite a lot and they both had an interest in older guys. So she would probably enjoy being under their tutelage very much.

When they introduced themselves, Senium nodded her head and smiled again;

"It's nice to meet you. Your powers are very impressive." she complimented, her blue eyes emotionless as they so often were "My name is Senium Nex, and I am something of a puppeteer. I can control dummies, objects, people as if they were marionettes."

Seffi was completely irritated at having to meet these other people.

She came here to learn how to use her power, she could do that from Charles not from these guys and therefore she didn't have time to meet them. Yet she had been left here, with Senium, in order to meet and do god knows what with two guys she didn't know.

As soon as they entered however she found herself getting a little less annoyed, at least they were somewhat attractive - and she swore that Erik had one of the best German accents that she had heard in a long while. Seffi found herself being placated a little bit and her anger ebbed away a small amount, as long as they weren't doing something stupid, she would probably enjoy it.

Metal controlling, and being an invisible ageless man? Well...they were pretty cool powers.

"If you don't age, can you die?" she asked tilting her head to one side "Or do you just heal yourself up? I'm just curious."

Seffi grinned when it was her turn to introduce herself and her green eyes glinted with a wickedness that shouldn't be in the eyes of someone so young;

"My name is Seffi Dresner, my power is to manipulate someone's mind to see their own worst fears until they well...kill themselves." she smirked "As you can tell, Charles doesn't want me running around unchecked so I'm guessing that's why I was brought here."

Fluffing up her long brown hair, Seffi asked; "So now circle time is done, what are we doing?"

Pulling himself out of the ground was an annoying process to say the least but he managed it after only a few seconds. Taking a deep breath, he let it out again as he stood back on solid ground. By God was it good to get out of there! He chuckled a little bit to himself and shook off his coat as he threw it onto some of the gym equipment that was just lying around the place.

He raised an eyebrow before bowing to Senium when she introduced herself and her powers,

"I'm going to hope that it's something in the region of Punch and Judie because otherwise that might just be very scary." he teased her with a wink before pausing as he listened to Seffi's power.

There was a moment of silence before he pointed to Seffi,

"You're scary." he told her with a straight face before grinning, "I LIKE scary people! Much more interesting! You two will be a lot of fun I can tell."

He paused before adding,

"And I don't die... I'm not sure if I can be killed." he smirked faintly, "Been avoiding that particular experiment."

He looked around the place with a small frown before adding,

"Alright I'll be the one to ask it... why the fuck do you need us huh?" he asked Erik bluntly, "With your powers you can fight down an army and win. With Charles' powers could probably THINK a person to death by imploding their minds. And just on the way in I saw a young woman change her entire body to match someone else and saw a young man hula-hooping red energy out of his body at a statue... it destroyed the statue. So why... do you need yet more firepower?"

Cobalt raised an eyebrow,

"We're not overthrowing a government or something are we?"

Erik had to admit that it was amusing to see them all just talking about their powers in a free and liberal manner like this. When he first discovered his powers he thought he was alone because to be honest he was. There were either no mutants back then or they just didn't ever reveal themselves. Why would they? At a time when just being born to an ethnic group was reason enough for you and everyone you had ever known to be killed... why would you ever go around talking about the fact that you could manipulate magnetic fields?

Or turn invisible?

He had been curious about what Cobalt had done during the war since he had obviously lived through it and he had a complete lack of an accent. Cobalt had simply remarked that he had been involved on the otherside of the world so that might well have put Cobalt out of his "hitlist" zone but who really knew? He hummed a little bit,

"Isn't it nice to be able to talk about your powers like this?" he asked them idly, "Without having to fear what some of the humans would think if they were able to see you now, to hear you now?"

He began to circle the group as they actually turned to him for reasons as to why they were here. Charles was off somewhere else and the others were all busy. So here he was... with the new recruits. He nodded once,

"We are here because you need to get caught up on the facts." he explained, "There is a secret society of mutants... a club of sorts. And they seem to be aiming for something so very evil that we can't help but stop them. They aim to goad the United States and the Soviet Union... into firing every single nuclear weapon they have at each other. They believe that mutants will be unharmed and more will rise from the ashes... what do you think killing billions will accomplish?"

Seffi grinned when she heard that Cobalt liked her because she was scary, hey she wasn't trying to be scary but if it meant that he liked her then great. She had been trying to play it down for Charles but she did quite like seeing people's worst fears - if she wanted she could kill these guys right now and it would be purely out of interest alone but...Charles didn't need to know just how far down the road of sociopath she had gotten.

"Thank you, it's pleasant to have someone like me for who I am, not who they paint me to be." she stated with a small smirk "I think that we'll get along just fine."

To be honest, Seffi had been wondering the same thing, Charles had mentioned nothing specific, just that he could help her control her power and enhance it slightly. There had to be a catch though, you didn't get anything for free.

"Yeah Cobalt's right. You must need us to do something, you wouldn't train us up for nothing." she agreed with a firm nod of her head, her brow set into a resolved line "So spill the beans and don't add the garnish, just give it to us straight."

When Erik did tell her what was what, Seffi's eyebrow rose and she couldn't help but let out a snark of laugher;

"Proving their fucking brain dead is what it'll accomplish." she laughed a little bit more and shook her head "The only people who will survive that are mutants with the power of a cockroach or super healing factor - if there are even any with such a power."

Senium was a little bit confused as to why they were here as well, so she was very glad that Cobalt had asked the question that was also on the tip of her tongue. Her impassive face took in every feature of her new acquaintances and committed them to memory, not only so that she would be able to pick them out of a crowd, but so that she could perhaps get little glimpses of their personality from the way they were standing etc.

The fact that there was already a mutant group formed and they were considering blowing up the whole world just to see if mutants would survive was concerning. Running her hand through her short blonde hair she sighed and felt more tired than perhaps she should have done.

Why did people always have to make war, and now she had to be one of the people to help fix them up again?

"So you want us to join together, and fight this other group of mutants to stop the world from blowing up? Well, I suppose I can't say no in good conscience so, I will give my help to stop this group from achieving their ends." she stated with a firm nod.

Frowning a little bit Senium tilted her head to one side, before she asked;

"Do you know what powers the other mutants have? Are we going to be especially useful as polar opposites to some of them or is it just for greater numbers?" Senium asked, wanting to get a better hold of the situation, her voice was purring with her thick accent.

Erik had to admit that he was liking these new recruits quite a lot. They seemed to be a lot more pragmatic than the others. But then again that might have something to do with the fact that he was dealing with people who at least had some control of their powers. Seffi seemed content with her level of power at the moment but he was a little concerned about it. He would be reasonably sure that it wasn't supposed to kill every time, that she could tone it down, and that either meant she had to learn that.

Or, more alarmingly perhaps, she just decided not to dilute it at all.

Senium was a quiet one but she seemed to be the more balanced of the three of them but then again he was basing this against assessment on the behaviour of a suspected sociopath and a known psychopath in the form of Seffi and Cobalt. But all three of them had a good level of intelligence and they knew what they had to do in order to prevent themselves, and others, becoming nuclear ashes on the pavement,

"They have, at least, a teleporter, a psychic, a woman who can turn herself into diamonds, the ability to absorb and redirect any kind of energy and I think others but we're not clear on that." he paused, "We brought you in because we may well have to kill these people since they had already killed one of ours. They already have a headstart in controlling their powers... and we need to be prepared."

He paused before adding,

"How likely do you think it is that the humans will just let us go when they see what we can do?"

Cobalt grinned a little bit at Seffi - she was a treat. Chuckling a little bit to himself, he licked his lips slightly as he looked around the gym a little bit. It seemed rather high tech for some stately manor house but that was just one of the many, many, odd things that he had been noticing as of late. He grinned a little bit and winked at Seffi,

"When you kill people for money you tend to think of things in a very different light." he told her with a smirk before adding, "Of course it helps that most of the time people tend to think I'm some kind of monster for doing what I do. Means I get to enjoy myself more often to be honest with you."

Well great.

He swore a little bit,

"So they want to fucking nuke the world? Damn!" he shook his head slightly, "I knew a guy who said he survived a nuclear bomb going off near him but that guy had the mutant ability to heal from anything. And he said the nuke nearly peeled his skin clean from his bones... it took him hours to heal from it and anything else takes seconds. They're going to wipe us all out..."

Cobalt gestured to Senium,

"Good point..." he agreed before listening to Erik's reasoning, "That still sounds like there's a catch. Yeah we can probably kill or capture them easily enough with just one of us, you and Charles. So why have you got three of us?"

And there it was! The real reasoning.

Cobalt stiffened,

"Well I'd hope we wouldn't be fucking stupid enough to get caught on camera." he said with narrowed eyes, "Anybody else get the feeling we're getting forced out of the closet here?"

Senium blinked softly when she heard that they had some pretty powerful people but the most troublesome one was going to be the mind reader because they would be able to know what they were going to do before they could do it - if they were that powerful. Running her hand through her hair she found herself rather stressed with the situation at hand.

Sure she wanted to help as much as possible, but she didn't know how her puppetry was going to help here. Maybe she could control the diamond woman? Or the man who could redirect energy? But it would depend entirely on how powerful they were, and how powerful she was. It seemed she would need to train up an awful lot.

"I can kill someone, however, I am not sure how useful my ability is going to be in controlling people more powerful than I am. I would think it useful for me to start to practice on different opponents - when is it that we will be striking on this group?" she asked with a small frown on her features "Do we have time to develop our skills?"

There it was.

The catch.

Did they really want to expose mutants to the world? Did Erik really want to take over power from humans because they were more advanced? Biting her lip softly she couldn't help but think Cobalt was right.

"Humans are not ready to know about the existence of mutants, there will be a time where we will be accepted but it is not this time." she stated with a small hum "Our powers are best kept secret, I agree with Cobalt's sentiment, let us not be stupid enough to get ourselves captured on video, or camera."

Seffi tilted her head to one side and she thought about the fact that they were going up against someone so powerful and she wondered if she would be able to take down the main guy with her power or would she have the shit kicked out of her for even trying? She didn't have rapid healing power and she wasn't about to toss in her only life on a hunch.

"So you're not really giving us specifics here, or is it on a need to know basis?" she asked, looking at her nails with a disinterested look "It wont matter in the end, everyone has a fear, and that can be...exploited." Seffi grinned, her green eyes glittering.

Giving a little look to Cobalt, when he said that he thought of things differently because of what he did for a living. Seffi knew that they would get along well, they were only doing this because it correlated with what they needed to do at this moment in time - to save their ass so they could do what they wanted later.

The fact that Erik wanted to out mutants...made Seffi's jaw drop open.

Who in their right mind would do that?! They would be hunted and persecuted!

"The idea big shot is to keep ourselves on the down low!" she stated with wide eyes, teeth clenched together "You're right that governments are going to be too happy with some of us, like, oh I don't know, people who can see your worst nightmare and KILL YOU WITH IT."

Shaking her head Seffi had the urge to smack every piece of gym equipment in her sight; "Does Charles know you're plugging this shit?" she asked.

Magneto could tell that this was a room of pragmatists... and that was probably why right now they all seemed to want nothing more than to go about their training, save the world and then go right back to where they were before he and Charles found them. But they didn't understand yet and to be honest he didn't think they would be able to understand for a good long while yet.

They hadn't seen what the human race was capable of.

Shaking his head a little bit, he sighed slightly,

"We are going in blind to be honest." he admitted, "That's all we know because the ones with all the information in their 'partnership' between our group and the CIA are the humans. They have all the information and who knows just how much they've really told us? No one. They could know everything about them and wouldn't tell us a thing."

He narrowed his eyes at Cobalt. The man was quickly becoming something of an annoyance. He shook his head slightly,

"Whether we are ready to reveal ourselves or not, the humans will force our hand one way or another mark my words." he told them quietly, "The governments already know we exist, already know how powerful and dangerous we are. We can enter their minds and pull out their secrets... take on their appearance in every manner... control the metals of their weapons... it doesn't matter if the public knows about us."

He shook his head,

"The human governments will try and erase us."