16049/Reavers: Interrogation

Reavers: Interrogation
Date of Scene:	09 October 2023
Location:	Police Precinct 78
Synopsis:	In the aftermath of the ambush on Joshua, Nettie comes to collect information and vengeance for her adopted son. Unfortunately for Skullbuster, he's the only one available for information.
Cast of Characters:	Joshua Foley, Nettie Crowe
Tinyplot:	Reavers

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Joshua Foley has posed:
After Prisma, Spider-Man and Mania had taken down the Reavers that had ambushed Joshua the night before, the Reavers were transported to the 78th Precinct, which is one of the best suited to handle mutants -- or mutant killers.

Bonebreaker and Pretty Boy are set up in a corner, the pair of them shut down and silent. That may be on just basic life support, noone knows eactly for sure.

Skullbuster is in another cell, isolated from the others. He's been disarmed, but because ninety percent of his frame is cybernetics, they have in a shielded and hardened cell, to make sure he cannot breakout. They could not find a safe way to remove his helmet, so it's still in place, with it's stylized broken skull design and his framework body has not a stitch of clothing upon it.

The officer on duty down in the holding cells is a man that's had over twenty years of service on the force. He's near his retirement age, and this is considered light and easy duty to get him over the finish line as he stands up to go refill his coffee.

There are other cells, with the usual assortment of ladies of the night, carjackers and drunkards sleeping off a night too hard. Another day in New York, all things considered.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Another day in New York.

    Nettie hated getting dressed up. She was wearing a nice pants suit, well-fitted blouse, jacket, heels. Her gray hair was pulled up in a professional looking bun, and she had removed most of her visible piercings, favoring just a small pair of earrings that on close investigation would be skulls. She had a very professional looking black leather messenger bag with her. She walked like she was supposed to be here, matte black heels tapping as she makes her way to the officer on duty.

    "Good evening." she gives her best smile, and shows a flip-badge that identifies her as part of the New York City Defamation League for Purity of Human Kind, and a lawyer with an awful lot of letters after her name.

    "I'm here on behalf of three gentlemen who were taken into custody this evening to verify their wellbeing and advise them of their rights. Would you be able to direct me to..." she appears to check a file "the individuals known as 'Bonebreaker', 'Pretty Boy' and 'Skullbuster'?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
Glancing up from his coffee mug, the officer of duty looks Nettie up and down. "You on twenty-four hour retainer or something?" He glances at the clock, it's a quarter til midnight. Glancing over her credentials. "Figured, they're built like they are they have some high-priced attorney at their beck and call."

"Bonebreaker and Pretty Boy ain't looking so pretty over there." A thumb towards the cell the pair of them are in. "Heard something about SHIELD coming to pick 'em up and takin' them to the Raft. Or sticking them in a cargo container for cold storage." He snorts at that in amusement. "Think ol' Spider-Man shut them both down for good. Can already see the Bugle headline tomorrow. Spider-Man kills Cyborgs, sets back AI twenty years or something."

Then he gestures to the secured cell. "Skullbuster's in there. Ain't said anything since he was brought in. Didn't even ask for a lawyer, which is why I'm surprised you're here." the cop admits and then shrugs his shoulders. Again, probably just suggests big money behind them.

He takes a draw from his coffee. "You want to sign him out for an interview room, need to warn you, we'll probably need to get some extra officers in case he tries something foolish."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "No, I should be fine down here, thank you officer." Nettie gives a smile, "Just a check on their wellbeing before it can go into Jameson's pocket tomorrow."

     She pauses to look over Pretty Boy and Bonebreaker with something akin to pity. Hatred stirs the worst in people.

    But as she walks, Nettie casts a wreath of silence about her, removing her gloves and tucking them in her pocket. Corvax wriggles his way out of her messenger bag, and gives a harsh caw within the wreath of silence, the sound of the bird likely would never reach the officer's ears.

    And she comes to the door of the cell. She wraps her fingers around bars, and leans against the cold steel, feeling it press against her aged cheeks as her too-pale eyes look over the beskulled Skullbuster.

    And quietly she whispers:

    "Hallo, my little skalpie."

    Nettie's voice is low, and dark, and motes of light from behind her, in the hallway seem to flee her presence now.

Joshua Foley has posed:
The officer looks up from his coffee. He looks at his coffee. Looks at Nettie. Is that... a crow? Can't be. And that black smoke that seems to be rising from around her? He looks back from Nettie to his coffee and sips it. He's a week from retirement. Not gonna interfere.

Skullbuster looks up from where he is sitting in the agura cross-legged style. His eyes narrow behind his visored eyes.

"Who are you? Already told the cops, not talking til my lawyers here." he growls, "So unless you're gonna open that door and just let me waltz on out of here, I'm not really interested in you."

Her aura is powerful and it shows when he shifts uncomfortably in his sitting position, but he's not trying to flee -- as if he would have anywhere to flee too. He's got that stupid robotic cyborg overconfident bravery going for him.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "You don't have a lawyer coming for you." Nettie states comfortably. "Do you think the leader of the Reavers is going to extend a helping hand to a couple of failures? However, I *can* get you and your compatriots out of your cells... for information." she states. "Or you can wait in Mutant Town for the newspaper to say you're here... and see what happens when the local population of super-powered vigilantes with less morals than our Manhattan arachnid show up." she slides her arms through the bars.

    "Who were you before you had such a moniker of Skullbuster?"

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Please, Pierce will have me out of here before the coffee's brewed at Starbucks." Skullbuster offers smugly as he shakes his head. "You think the muties and freaks around here are going to come what... lynch us? They're cowards. Weak gene-trash ripe for the taking and flushing into the annals of humanity. But the ones that can help us?" He chuckles. "Like that little pissant we targetted last night. When we get our hands on him, on man."

He laughs, a short, sardonic, evil laugh. "Pierce is gonna dissect him, see how he heals." He makes a slicing motion across his arms and legs, "Then he's going to take off all his limbs, watch them regrow. He's going to strip off all of his skin, see if it grows back... and then we're going to start having some real fun."

He chuckles in amused anger,"Probably gonna wanted to have died in that lab when it blew up. Going to find out how he survived that, even if we have to kill the brat a few times. He's gonna be a great test-bed for finding out how to make his abilities ours."

"Someone's getting handsy." Skullbuster coos as he looks at Nettie as she reaches through the bars. "You're hot, but in that creepy emo girl way. Want to know my name sweetheart?" he asks, a seething tease in his voice, because he no longer has a mouth to talk in. "Why don't you come in here and get cozy and I might tell you when we're done."

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "You've got a lot of bravado for someone with a pecker the size of a gnat." Nettie comments with a small smile. She's getting the information she wants, "And I'm far too much lady for you to handle, even with your considerable..." she waves one of her hands, bending the wrist as it circles "... alterations. Do you even have anything left of yourself?" she questions out loud, her eyes set on him, watching his reactions.

    "And you don't have to be lynched. I know someone who with a touch can turn your skin inside-out. Another who feels no pain and wouldn't mind putting her hand-spikes through what remains of your ocular orbitals. I opted to keep this visit --" she motions with a gray painted fingernail waggling between them "Just our little secret."

Joshua Foley has posed:
"Lady, have you taken a good hard look?" Skullbuster laughs and gestures to his mechanical crotch. "I ain't got a pecker! Part of the price for this good looking physique!" When she asks about what he has left, he laughs some more - but she can see the shift in his eyes. What he may left of his humanity may be underneath the helmet.

"The Reavers are the true next step in the evolution of humanity! Don't believe what those freaks say about those genejoke muties being the next step. The true evolution will be robotics that never age and only need to be changed out."

"Skin to turn inside out?" Pffft. Skullbuster slaps one mechanical hand with the other. "No skin here, babe. Take out my eyes? I'll get brand new optics when I get recovered. Tear me up, babe. Do your worst."

And with her arm through the bar, he lunges at it, intent on grabbing her by the wrist and twisting it aside. "But you can be my ticket out of here!" he cackles.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    There's no wrist to grab. Nettie pulls back on the quick, and Skullbuster hits the bars. Nettie seems unpeturbed.

    "So far more machine than man. That's the evolution they have in mind for their Reavers. Poor excuse for a James Cameron rip-off don't you think? Little on the nose." the witch states, but she grasps her hands in the air, and she turns her hands.

    Provided the spellwork she put on the iron works, it just about magnetizes, and she tries to hold Skullbuster and his metallic self to the cell door as her fingertips darken.

    "Are you familiar with the ship of Theseus thought experiment?" she asks, "I don't expect that you are."

Joshua Foley has posed:
As he whiffs at air, Skullbuster growls at the miss. "Playing hard to get, are you?" he asks with a snarl, before snorting. "Is that the best you can do, bad insults?" comes his counter-point.

Just before he suddenly realizes he feels very heavy, and unable to resist, his frame slams into the door, his helmet against the bars, his eyes, still human, glaring at Nellie as she works her magic. "You're one of those freaks too, huh!" he grunts as he pulls back. "Good, won't feel bad when I pull out of this and rip you apart!"

Then he has a momentary look of confusion. "The what of what?" he growls. "I don't know any ship calls The Seuss!"

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    "Oh no poppet. I'm something much older and weirder than most mutants I know." Nettie states, and her voice drops, dripping with ice and malice: "And so much more dangerous."

    "The Ship of Theseus -- keep up dear -- is a thought experiment. If you have the Ship in a museum, and as the boards rot away, each composite part of the ship slowly replaced -- by the time every board has been replaced, every bite of wood, is it still the ship of Theseus? Or, in your case --" Nettie leans forward, and she looks into Skullbuster's eyes.

    "Once every part of you has been replaced, right down to your pretty little eyeballs, are you still human? Or just another machine to be puppetted by another master?" she asks.

    And then Nettie goes for his eyes, with him pinned to the cell, to touch what she's almost sure is the last biological part of him and to use her rejection by Death to impress upon him the dire need to give her the information she wants.

    Or she will blind him, and leave him alone, in the dark. Tear his audio sensors out so that he cannot hear. And with the whispers of all his sins coming back to visit. Every disappointment he's comitted, every sin and way that he has harmed others revisited -- she's borrowing a couple ideas from Misters Blaze, Ketch, and Reyes in this case... certainly not as potent, but she's trying to draw thoughts and information out of his mind with her magic!

Joshua Foley has posed:
Skullbuster has a few components left. The eyes, some skull work -- and most importantly, his brain. He doesn't really get a chance to answer or be a smart-ass to Nettie when she sticks her fingers in his eyes and his head lurches back ast the magic burns into him and he screams as he the searing light plunges him into darkness.

His audial unit flares and smokes, burning out, that ringing of feedback the only noise that he can hear now as it feeds back into his brain.

There are so many sins, so much harm he has inflicted. He continues to scream, his body magnetized into place and unable to react as his gears grind and hydraulics break. Images. A soldier. A project. On a table. He's wounded. A man with blonde hair and glasses over him.

A contract, a second chance.

Cybernetics. Missions anew. Mutants killed, the thrill of the hunt. Gunning down those mutants that were deemed unfit for research. Researching others, watching the doctors tear into him. An image of a town, abandoned, a sign that reads 'Cooterman's Bar'. A base, large, sprawling. A teleport circle.

A scream and Skullbuster's body bucks one more time. The image of Joshua in his sights, preparing to take the shot that took him down. His battle with Mania. And now. His eyes on her, burning, flaming, screaming as his armor breaks down and he slumps.

Nettie Crowe has posed:
    Nettie takes it all in. The screaming. The pain. All the pain this unfortunate soul has inflicted on others through thrill of causing it.

    There were some people who simply weren't worth forgiving. And she would happily shoulder this sin for her son.

    "I would say rest in peace," she whispers, lifting her tight thumb. She brushes it almost tenderly over his cheek, leaving a smear of blood, and then traces her own sigil over his skull mask's forehead.

    "But I question if you deserve it, after seeing the pain you have inflicted. I /do/ hope the Spirits of Vengeance won't mind me borrowing an idea from them."

    And with a click of her fingers, the sigil may disappear in a puff of dark purple flame and smoke, and her binding and silence spells end.

    ANd without even waiting for him to fall to the floor, Nettie turns to make her way out again.

    Cooterman's Bar. A teleport circle. Likely not magical, she considers, and licks the blood from her thumb in thought.

    "THank you for your cooperation." she remarks as she makes her way past the cells, and Corvax gives a caw of harsh laughter.