Much like a spoiled kid at Christmas, I was very much let down by my own expectations.
"You're kidding," I deadpanned at Magneto.
We had returned to his hideaway that Professor Xavier had led us to, and with the eagerness of the aforementioned hypothetical spoiled child, I told him that Quire wanted a piece of him. The feeling was not mutual, to say the least.
"I am not going to indulge a child," Magneto said, "Especially not in a meaningless battle."
No. Come on. I wanted to see him chuck a thousand metal rods at Quire and make an outline of a dick with them around his body. I needed this.
"I mean, it probably won't be much of a fight if that helps," I weakly added in an effort to sway his opinion, "You've still got that anti-telepathy helmet, right?"
Magneto frowned and floated the helmet over between the two of us. It was the exact same shape and design I saw on all of those 'Magneto Was Right' t-shirts you'd see in places like Mutant Town and around school sometimes. He gazed at it, as though the sight of it filled him with memories and more than his share of regrets.
"I've engaged in more than my share of battles for suspect reasons, boy," Magneto said, "Here, in a place like this? Now, of all times? No. I won't be doing so today."
My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined, "That's great. Meanwhile, Quire's standing at the bottom of the hill like a 3 o'clock bully waiting at the bus stop after school."
"Sol," Hisako snapped, "Still Magneto," She warned me.
I rolled my eyes at her, but heeded the suggestion. Probably best not to antagonize one of the strongest mutants to ever walk the Earth, "Fine. I'm borrowing this for a minute," I said, snatching the helmet out of the air as I went to leave the villa, "Goddamn it, I wanted one thing today! One thing!"
If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself.
Hisako was quick to excuse herself and follow me out, "What are you doing now?"
The answer to that question was very simple, "I'm gonna put this helmet on, walk down this hill, and mellow his ass out myself so we can go home," I said as I pulled my hood up to conceal my newly acquired headgear.
We weren't on a plane surrounded by others. We weren't on a mission where I was responsible for the lives of teammates. We weren't at school where a bunch of other kids were in danger and where I'd get in trouble for bowing up. We were in what was ostensibly a wasteland, where no one other than us would know what happened, and I was tired of indulging Quire, and being the bigger man.
Hisako tried one more time to persuade me, "Quire is our way home. We don't get to leave until he decides to."
I responded smoothly as I concealed the helmet underneath my hood, "That's why I'm heading down there – to make that decision for him," And I found myself decidedly less concerned about the issue of transport than her. I'd been brainstorming a way off of Genosha without Quire since we'd arrived.
It was clear that Hisako wasn't onboard, and that was fine. I was about to be petty, and she was smarter than me, so it stood to reason that she wouldn't want me to indulge in the meathead activity I was about to. I simply left her halfway down the hill, deciding that I would apologize later, if I remembered to or was alive to do so.
As I approached, Quire seemed surprised to see me, which was good because the know-it-all usually could tell whenever anything involving people was going to happen in advance. I stopped fifty yards away, "Where's Magneto?" He shouted.
"Change of plans," I yelled back, "I'm tired of being a passenger in your side quest, so we're all going to be leaving now."
Quire laughed, "I love how you said that like you're going to make me do anything."
I was prepared to be as belligerent as possible, when I caught a glance at Hisako from the corner of my eye in the distance. She still hadn't left just yet, and she didn't say anything, but the beseeching look she gave me said everything she needed to. Fine – one more try to do things peacefully.
"I can't let you stay just so you can scare up some revolutionaries," I said. There were plenty of hurt, angry, vulnerable people that he could suck into violent retaliation that would just result in more of them getting killed, "You're gonna get people hurt."
Quire sneered at me, "That's hilarious. Just look around you, Marcher! People already got hurt!" He shouted before deciding to give up on talking, "There's no point. Of course, you would just roll over and show your belly to the humans."
I didn't sweat that jab too much. If he had been in my head and had been keeping track of all of the things I had done, he would know better. I just kept calm, "Time to go home, Quentin."
I knew that keeping my cool, plus the fact that he couldn't read my mind with the helmet on, would piss him off.
Pink telekinetic energy swelled around Quire as he lifted off of the ground, "Oh... I've been waiting a long time for this," He said threateningly.
I didn't say anything. I just gestured with my hand for him to bring it on.
At first, it was a standoff, much like it had been when we'd almost fought outside of Citi Field. But several things were different now. I wasn't tired from days of chasing after and getting smacked around by an alien in war armor and his superpowered cronies. And unlike then, my mind was completely clear, not bombarded with second-guessing thoughts that weren't my own.
He still seemed to be waiting on me. Probably he was repeating his old idea of trying to coax me into drawing down on him, only I couldn't hear him this time. Magneto's helmet really did work, it seemed. He was making direct eye contact with me though, and that made my opening move obvious.
"Gah!" Quire flinched away, holding his eyes after being blinded by yours truly, "Marcher, you-!"
I interrupted him with a concussive shot that hit him directly in the stomach, knocking him to the ground in a heap. He sat up, heaving and holding his stomach, but again made eye contact with me.
Wow. That had been the first time that ever worked twice in the same fight.
"Grr..." Quire pushed himself back up with his telekinesis and lashed out in an area-wide attack. The exact same trick wouldn't work twice, he had his force field up this time. By the time he had recovered from being blinded a second time, I had long since gotten out of range, choosing to take cover out of sight behind some rubble, "Where are you!? Why can't I hear your stupid thoughts!?"
It took a lot for me to not crack wise in that moment, even to myself. The chance that he would hear me was more than I was willing to risk. I had the tactical advantage, and I wasn't willing to relinquish it so easily. After all, there were a lot of decent hidey-holes to choose from in the ruins of Hammer Bay.
Stealth wasn't really my forte, but Quire was such a bull in a china shop with how he tore up everything around him to try and find me that it wasn't very hard. He had telekinesis, like Julian, but Julian was way better with it. Clearly, Quire relied a lot more heavily on telepathy.
"Come out, you fucking coward!" Quire bellowed as he floated above the ground, raising entire felled structures with a wave of his hand. He really liked throwing his power around, "Goddamn it, why can't I hear you!?"
I had a real dickhead idea at that point. Preparing my powers, I took aim at a specific area not too far away that Quire was busy pulling apart trying to find me. Once he'd dug through enough rubble, I put my plan into action.
He pulled up a concrete slab to find me underneath it. Only, it wasn't me. It was a projection. He took the bait and bit hard.
"Hah!" Quire immediately tried to snatch me up and crush me with debris and his telekinesis, "You're dead!" Of course, given that it was a light projection, he couldn't grab it, and he couldn't understand how he hadn't when it took off running and made it to new cover.
Making a projection was like making finger puppets, only not. It involved using one hand to make the base image, and using my other hand in front of it to make it move. It was more complicated than that in practice, but the important thing to know is that it was a goddamn party trick I'd come up with to amuse my friends, and I was using it to get into the head of one of the most powerful telepaths in the world.
I just kept having my projection pop up in random places and letting Quire get a glimpse of it going for a new hiding place, shutting it off just when it would 'take cover' again. It was the world's dumbest game of whack-a-mole, and the only regret I had in the moment was that no one would ever see this except for me.
"Keep scrambling around like a little rat, Marcher!" Quire taunted, "There's no place to run, and you can't hide!"
I had literally been directly underneath him for five minutes by that point.
Our boy was all 'show' and no 'go'. He talked a big game, and on paper should have had what it took to walk the walk, but he just... didn't. I'd heard it said that Quire thought ten million brilliant thoughts a second, whatever the fuck that meant. Well, if that were the case, it seemed like he could never decide on which one of those 'brilliant' thoughts to go with.
Quire started to get tired, throwing so much power around and running his mouth so much. Eventually, I got a clear shot at the back of his head, and picked him off clean. He never heard the shot that took him down. Probably didn't feel it either. Mid-tirade, he just dropped out of the air like a rock and hit the ground with a solid thump. Poor little fella. He was all tuckered out.
The most effort I wound up putting into the fight was tossing his limp body over my shoulder and carrying him back up the hill.