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Post by mutantx on Oct 7, 2004 18:41:09 GMT -4
It was a long and lonely climb from oblivion to consciousness. But he was used to being lonely. Kevin MacTaggart had spent his life that way. His life and his death.
And now he found himself aware in a universe he didn’t recognize.
A universe that had written him out of his existence.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 7, 2004 19:31:03 GMT -4
He drifted helplessly, remembering his world as it was.
The father who he hated before he ever knew him.
The mother who ignored him and locked him away.
The sister who was the only one who loved him. The only one he would have died for.
Kevin MacTaggart killed his father. He killed many to stay alive.
And with no one who would look out for him, he would do it again.
The world ….the universe….hated Kevin.
He hated it back.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 10:04:20 GMT -4
Kevin MacTaggart’s early life was filled with utter loneliness. Besides the ever-present, gnawing hunger and the droning monotony of a tiny TV, hate had been Kevin’s most constant companion. He lived locked within the confining walls of his sterilized prison always searching for a glimpse or a word from someone….anyone…else.
Moira - his mother - was there from time-to-time but she had precious little time to spend with him as she endlessly searched for a cure.
A cure for Kevin’s “illness”.
Kevin knew his mother not by her smile or the warmth of her touch. He knew her not by the sight of her face, which he had never seen except from a creased and faded black-and-white photo.
He knew her from her voice, always filtered through electronic speakers. He knew her from the harsh protective space suit she wore whenever she entered Kevin’s room. A suit that hid her face behind impenetrable black glass.
And he knew her from her thoughts.
And although it was true that she immersed herself in her work to try to find a way to help her son, the whole truth was something she would never admit to either of them.
In spite of herself, she blamed him.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 12:24:27 GMT -4
Moira Kinross led a charmed life. Raised as the only child of a loving father with one of the oldest and most revered names in Scotland, she was a member of the prestigious elite. She held the admiration and envy of a nation.
She was beautiful. She was well-schooled and she was articulate. She was raised in wealth and splendor and despite the loss of her mother when she was very young her father made certain she never wanted for anything.
More than all of that, Moira was intelligent.
By the time she made her choice of universities, the very best in all the world fought to have her and the publicity and validation that her attendance would bring to them.
Her field of study was biogenetics, and her published research was loudly praised for its brilliant innovation.
Moira’s life began to change, however, on the day her father died.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 13:38:01 GMT -4
Lord Kinross had left the entirety of his estate to his only daughter. He carefully made certain that Moira would never have a need that wasn’t prepared for in advance.
She mourned him, and the stunning loss of the only family she had ever known.
And it was in those days and in the midst of her vulnerability that she first met Joe MacTaggart.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 14:15:19 GMT -4
MacTaggart was a young lawyer and a politician, a darling of the media. A man of charm and ambition with a winning smile and a way with words.
They met quite by accident when he lost control of his convertible sports car and collided with the Mercedes Benz her father had given her.
She was leaving a rather extraordinary meeting, having been asked all in secret by the British government to give testimony on the Emergence and Imminent Threat posed by mutants. Joe’s car had tried to pass her on a lonely rural highway when he lost control and forced her off the road.
He apologized profusely. He explained that he had fallen asleep on a trip to visit his elderly mother.
He asked her out.
It would be two years before Moira ever wondered why Joe was really there that night. Though she didn’t know it at the time, Joe MacTaggart’s mother had been dead for 14 years.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 15:46:32 GMT -4
Moira was lost without her father. Her self-assurance suffered greatly from the loss of his love and support.
She fell into a deep depression.
And Joe was there for her. Comforting her. Teaching her to laugh once more.
He took care of everything for her.
They fell in love.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 16:33:07 GMT -4
With Moira at his side, Joe MacTaggart’s already significant public appeal skyrocketed. Buoyed by her love and financial support his political career brought him everything his ambitions could want.
Together, they had it all. Prestige, popularity, wealth.... power.
This, Moira learned, was Joe MacTaggart’s one, true love.
It didn’t stop at his political conquests. Shortly after they were married, the abuses began.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 17:28:24 GMT -4
For a while, Moira believed her husband’s promises and his lies. He’d get help. He’d never hit her again. She kept the bruises on her body and her ego out of sight.
When he broke her jaw, though, she decided that she’d had enough.
She threatened to leave him. She threatened to go public.
That’s when the stories that destroyed Moira’s credibility hit the papers.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 18:29:48 GMT -4
Plagiarism. Substance abuse.
Whispers of scandals and indiscretions that were infinitely worse. She was personally and professionally ruined.
In the circles of the society she once epitomized, her name was the subject of gossip and rumor.
She tried to fight him, of course, for Joe MacTaggart was the obvious architect of all of it. She quickly learned that he had made sure the law was on his side.
Desperate not to return to Joe and left with almost nothing to her name, she tried to find her way alone.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 18:47:21 GMT -4
In the months leading up to their marriage, Moira had Joe MacTaggart’s name added to everything. All her properties and all of her money.
In the days following scandal after scandal, Joe MacTaggart had her name removed from them.
As a cruel joke, he did leave her one thing to call her own:
A barren and desolate piece of rock called Muir Island. A remote and unforgiving fragment of the Kinross ancestral lands.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 18:50:10 GMT -4
OOC: The post following this one contains material of an adult and very disturbing nature. If you do not wish to be offended, please skip it and move on to the next one.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 18:58:14 GMT -4
Moira survived by selling off bits of jewelry that had once belonged to her mother. Finally out of money and out of options she turned to the only alternative that she had.
She returned home and begged Joe MacTaggart for a divorce. She asked him for a small portion of her money.
He beat her within an inch of her life.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. As she lay helpless and broken before him, he brutally and repeatedly raped her.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 18:58:58 GMT -4
Joe MacTaggart made it clear to Moira that she would have to kill him to ever be free of him.
Broken and broke, she had nowhere to go. She had no one to turn to.
That’s when she heard a knock on her seedy hotel room door.
It was Charles Xavier.
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Post by mutantx on Oct 8, 2004 19:48:48 GMT -4
She knew Charles from her days of genetic research at the university. He knew that none of the stories about her were true.
Together they discussed founding a Mutant Research Center on Muir Island. Joe MacTaggart’s cruel humor worked to their advantage and Xavier was willing to fund a most advanced laboratory. It would help to have someplace very out of the way.
As hope and purpose began to light Moira’s life once again she learned that she had yet one more obstacle she had to face.
She was pregnant.
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