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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 21:12:45 GMT -5
"Yes, yes, you are the very first person ever to remind the fearsome autocrat Victor von Doom that he is visibly maimed. As I said, fire is nothing if not a memorable choice of weapon."
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 21:23:11 GMT -5
"Well, I wasn't trying to-"
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 21:24:47 GMT -5
"Of course not. And in any case, it was not a burn, not after the fashion you deploy against American petty criminals."
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 21:25:58 GMT -5
Megan stared.
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 21:37:47 GMT -5
"You're familiar with how men heat steel for forging."
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 21:51:24 GMT -5
"Yes," said Megan, feeling rooted to the spot.
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 22:11:00 GMT -5
"At the monastery that harbored me after the sabotage at Empire State, there were monks whose life's work was smelting carbon steel. These men became of particular assistance to me. I was not entirely unmarked before -- come here, Ms. Elness."
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 22:13:03 GMT -5
Megan hesitated. Even when she did approach, finally, there was a cringe in her walk.
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 22:22:24 GMT -5
"The accident alone left me scarred as well as crippled. A quaking shell of a man. Fortunately the bulk of the disfigurement occurred beneath the skin."
He cupped her chin with one broad hand, the tip of a metal thumb pressing into her cheek just beneath her own scar.
"And as a young man I was quite eager to be rid of it, by any means, to cloak it in something more suitable. I found my own existence intolerably ugly, just as the world did -- a blight. Perhaps in my youth, I too acted in haste."
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 22:24:21 GMT -5
Megan instinctively tried to twist her chin away.
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 22:35:42 GMT -5
"Ms. Elness, if I intended to melt the fat from your bones in a fit of rage, I could have done so from a distance.
I had the armor made as suitable adornment for a new era, and the mask itself was worked last of all, right before my eyes. It was certainly rash of me, but it served its purpose."
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 22:40:04 GMT -5
His phrasing, however, made her shove at him and pull away angrily.
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 22:42:56 GMT -5
He calmly took a step back and began unfastening numerous metal rings just beneath the heavily-shadowed edge of his hood.
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Post by Megan on Mar 15, 2012 23:14:06 GMT -5
Megan lifted her eyes, mouth opened to say something sharp and challenging, but her gaze met his face instead of the impassive mask she had expected, dimly lit by the glow of dawn from the distance.
She'd known all along that he didn't have much of what could still be called a face under the mask- she'd had a truly unfortunate and long-lived phase, starting at age nine and lasting until seventeen or so, wherein she'd actively sought out any and all media involving people with damaged faces wearing masks to hide them. The conclusion of this phase arrived along with the beginning of an interest in becoming a surgical nurse specializing in reconstruction. Absurd milkmaid dress or no, Megan didn't cry out, or wail and look away.
She certainly didn't faint, either.
Instead, Megan briefly examined what she could see, mind racing over what he implied, what that had lead to, and though she did gasp and wince, it was from an unpleasant, sharp, intrusive thought of how much it had to have hurt.
Megan was thirteen, and her mother had made Mexican chicken casserole for dinner. Megan took two potholders in her hands and opened the oven to pick up the casserole dish, and as she pulled it out the base of her thumb touched the heating element ringing the rim of the oven.
There was a sizzle and a loud crack, and for one horrible instant it felt like her hand was stuck to the heating element. When she jerked her hand away- less than half a second after contact, but it felt like an eternity of pain- something tore.
Megan began to cry.
The actual burn was tiny, the size of Megan's pinky nail, but it was white, bright white, and the center was red and bloody. By the next day, it was scabbed over ugly and black, and Megan couldn't move her thumb.
The doctor says it was a second-degree burn, with a tiny, tiny third degree in the center. All that could be done was cover it and keep it clean. Megan was lucky; her thumb moved again within three days, and the burn healed within two months, leaving only a shiny scar and a dip where her fat layer had been destroyed.
Megan had nightmares about what hot metal could do to someone's body for years.
After all, this was just a little spot on her thumb.
"...it seems like a miracle you survived, sir," she said quietly.
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Post by Victor von Doom on Mar 15, 2012 23:16:18 GMT -5
"It was... a discomfort, but preferable to the sensation of being bathed in hellfire."
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