February 5th. 3:00pm.
Circus Near Bayville.
No-Name spent the entire day entertaining the crowds of people that passed by. He did such things as recite passages from Gulliver’s Travels, the story of Tom Thumb, and a number of other things that were crowd pleasers. Just like she promised, Catherine had snuck him some lunch at around 3:00ish.
He was eating when suddenly a shadow emerged over his terrarium. “So, Xavier was right,” a powerful masculine voice said from above.
“I’m on my lunch break right now. Next show’s in thirty minutes,” No-Name said without looking up.
“I’m not here for entertainment,” said the voice. “I believe I can help you.”
No-Name looked up and saw two strange looking people. One was a man with white hair and what looked to be a fake mustache. Most people probably wouldn’t be able to tell it was fake, but it was the size of a large van to No-Name and you tend to pick up on some details at that height. He was wearing a tan suit and a striped red and purple tie. The other was a curvy white woman with her long blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her face was pretty enough, but something about it... it was as if every feature of it from the nose to the ears was so common or ordinary it was forgettable.
“You with the ACLU? If so, I’ve been treated horribly and nowhere near the par line set by the Red Cross or the--”
“No, I’m not with the ACLU,” the man said. “My name is Eric Lensherr--you may call me Magneto, Master of Magnetism and Leader of Mutant Kind.”
“Magneto… so I take it you’re a mutant too,” No-Name asked.
As if on cue, No-Name’s terrarium suddenly burst apart and the metal formed into a small disk-like platform. “I’ll let you make that decision,” Magneto said, moving the platform in front of No-Name. “I’d like to welcome you to your new home.”
“New home? Sorry, but I’m not too fond of people telling me where I’m gonna be living. I get enough of that from these guys--and now that my cage is gone, I think I’ll be leaving. Thanks for the help, but I think I’ll be going solo.” And with that, No-Name turned and began to walk to the edge of the crate to leave.
“You don’t know what you’re up against! A war is brewing--it won’t be long until the entire homosapien race wishes to enslave us like they have you,” Magneto said. “Young man, you know the tyranny and oppression of human kind, and you know how irrational and hateful they can be… they don’t even see you as a person!
“War is coming, a war between Mutants and Humans. When the time comes, whom shall you fight with? Join me, and I can unlock your powers.”
“I have no powers,” No-Name said solemnly. “Just a curse.”
“Fool--this is not your power. You have yet to understand your own abilities. I have done for my acolytes that which I shall do for you--teach you to harness your true power! And with it, you shall get the revenge you crave on your oppressors. Join me and together we shall be invincible!”
This Magneto fellow certainly makes a good argument. No-Name turned around.
“Say I do go with you--join you in your little revolution. Who’s to say I won’t just end up being YOUR dancing organ monkey,” he asked, imitating the motions of a dancing monkey. “What makes you different than those who are holding me captive now?”
“They do not fight for you--they fight for themselves. They stand for whatever shall make them the most money--I stand for the liberation of our race, the rise and supremacy of our--”
“Sounds a lot like Nazism to me.”
There was a dark flash in the man’s eyes, followed by a large pain surging through No-Name’s body. He let out a whinge of pain before the woman stepped forward.
“Eric, that’s enough.”
The man’s expression softened, only a hair, before No-Name felt the pain no more.
“The Germans were never downtrodden as we--they were dirt poor, starving in many cases, but not without merit. They ushered the world into a new age of war and megalomania--as penance for their acts, they had to pay large sums of money for their wrongdoings. People suffered for the mistakes of their leaders. What about us? Our leaders made no mistake; we followed no-one to war. We were simply born different.”
“Huey Newton too wanted equal rights for his people. He founded a group known as The Black Panther Party for Self Defense. It was a righteous organization, albeit a militaristic and somewhat disorganized one. He didn’t want supremacy of the black man--he wanted equality. He didn’t want a war, he merely wanted the right to defend himself when struck at. Dr. King didn’t even want to do that--he merely wanted equality,” No-Name argued.
“The black man, like all man, is still just that--man,” the woman said coldly, clenching her fists. “We are the next step in human evolution; it is our place to rise above them.”
“Next step or not, is it not immoral to enslave anyone?”
“Is that not what they did to you,” Magneto asked.
“Point.”
No-Name thought for a long time, pacing back and forth. This Magneto fellow was very bright--much more well read than most of the people he talked with. An intellectual, based on his dress, he was probably a lover of the arts as well. Little things about him gave away so much about his personality. The perfection of his suit--not a single wrinkle--hinted at attention to detail. The way he combed his hair--keeping it out of his eyes, but nothing fancy--showed efficiency. His stance, not too rigid and not too loose, commanded respect and radiated authority. The look on his face, unreadable. This man knows what he wants and knows how to get it without informing anyone else of his intentions. When you’re 5 inches tall, you tend to notice things about people. After thinking over their discussion, No-Name smiled.
“Very well, you have attained my services,” No-Name said with a bow. “But know this--I am nobody’s lapdog. I may be detained at times, and I may be caught between predicaments, but I am always my own man. You can do a lot to me--chuck me around, knock me out, beat the shit out of me--but you’ll never break my spirit.”
“Fair enough,” Magneto said, not really seeming to have paid attention to any of what No-Name said. His eyes were focused off in the distance. No-Name turned around and saw the ring-leader heading towards them.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing--get away from him,” he growled.
Magneto scowled. “As a token of my friendship, brother, allow me to depose your oppressor.” Magneto lifted a hand into the air. The ring-leader rose up into the air. He had on a large number of metal objects--from a belt buckle, to the girdle he wore under his suit to make him look thinner. “You shall touch him, no more.”
The ring-leader let out a scream as he was flung across the sky for what looked like miles. If the fall didn’t kill him, the landing sure as hell would. No-Name was not sad, nor was he appauled. Quite the opposite, in fact. He was filled with an overwhelming sense of joy knowing that this man who had plagued him for as long as he could remember was finally going to die.
“… Just like that… he’s finally gone…,” No-Name said, smiling. He began crying, first out of joy. Then out of pure hatred for that man and the wasted years he spent in this hellhole of a circus.
“We do not have time for this, brother,” Magneto said. “Mystique, quickly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before No-Name knew what was going on, Mystique’s hand was wrapped around him, and he was in the pocket of her jacket. No-Name hadn’t paid much attention to her until the ten seconds or so in which she grabbed him and shoved him unceremoniously into the inside pocket of her suit jacket, but in that time he was able to see her go from a Caucasian woman with long blonde hair, to some blue woman with yellow eyes and shoulder length red hair. Another mutant.
It was hard to tell what was happening next, but No-Name knew they were now flying.
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
Enter Magneto.