[FRAG] House of Liars

Magnotris tried to keep his breathing steady.

The Fragment who'd teleported him was walking a pace ahead. By the time they'd made it through the first layer of gates, two more guards followed behind, making up the rear of their little group. He was so being kidnapped. If he'd had any doubts about it, they could go piss off and die in a lake now. He was so going to be held for ransom.

For fuck's sake. This was what he'd always wanted to avoid - becoming some sort of useless dead weight on Morning Star. He was probably going to be held against his will and used to force the other to bend. Stars, what did they even want with Morning Star? Who were these fuckfaces? The Timeline they were in was completely unfamiliar to him, and that was saying something - he considered himself worldly enough to recognize the key features of most of the 'lines.

And, and, his teleportation wasn't working. The crap cherry on top of this shit cake. 

"Keep up," the moron at the front of the line said, over their shoulder. "We're heading for the throne."

Magnotris merely bared his teeth at them. They turned back to face forwards once more, leaving him lost in his thoughts for a brief moment.

Throne. So he was definitely getting taken to some stuckup royalty that thought they could rule the world and was so, so going to use him to strongarm Morning Star into doing something heinous, for sure.

Fuck, he was panicking. He didn't mean to. He wasn't the type to normally panic. But here he was, fallen in line behind these bastards, counting every breath in an attempt to keep himself from completely freaking out. Frustration was the other thing crawling down his spine - frustration at himself, at the situation he'd let himself get into, at the disaster that was festering right before him.

Magnotris snapped his fingers, but nothing happened.

"You shouldn't keep trying to do that," someone behind him said. "In the city, They are the only ones who can allow people to teleport in and out. They can tell what you're trying to do, and They'll be angry."

"Great," he said, voice cracking slightly as he threw his arms up, "so what, you're all a bunch of fucking insane cult fanatics?" 

"Don't cling to your disrespect," they said, sharply, poking him in the back with a spear. 

Magnotris grit his teeth, letting his hands ball back into fists as he stomped forwards.

"Compose yourself," said the one in front again, "Divinity's center is just past this gate."

Magnotris said nothing.

There was, however, light streaming in from the doorway ahead. As they walked through, sudden warmth alighted on Magnotris' face and he leaned up into it slightly, the sun hanging above their heads. It was just past its peak, eeking towards the far side of the horizon. He blinked after it before glancing down, at the city below, at a spiral of streets and citizens and buildings. They were all so tiny, so small against the ground, from their high-up perch - some sort of massive bridge, over the town. 

Town. Divinity. That felt familiar. It was a city... a Frag city? These were certainly Frags, right?

He paused, the guards behind him stopping as well. Magnotris leaned down, staring down into one of the alleyways, at a cage resting on a large pallet. 

"Lackey! Get up at once!" one of the rear guards barked.

Two people near the cage seemed to be discussing, gesturing widely as their mouths moved, but Magnotris couldn't catch a word they were saying. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the iron bars of the cage below. There were splashes of colors, but nothing he could discern.

A swift kick to his ribs made him yelp. He shot a dirty look up at the guard, who was pointing a spear down his muzzle.

"Up at once," they repeated, voice firm.

He pointed at the cage, "What's going on down there?" 

"A sale, lackey. Are you an idiot?"

"Sale of what?"

"What do you think? A Gladar. What else is worth buying?"

Magnotris' eyes widened. A Gladar. They were trafficking people here. No fucking way. No fucking way. 

"Get up."

"This is fucking illegal," he said, pointing again.

The guard raised an eyebrow. "Your point? Stand, before I force you. They will not be pleased to have to wait." 

Their foot pulled back to kick again, but Magnotris scrambled backwards, hands crackling with magic. He couldn't teleport, but he sure could use-

The spear unceremoniously jammed into his stomach. The rough, copper tip choked any sort of magic in his body, and the power died in his hands. Magnotris winced, curling in slightly as it was yanked out.

"Get a move on," they snapped, waving a hand. Magic healed the wound. 

Magnotris shot them a dirty look, but stumbled after the front guard, who had paused to wait. Once he had limped close enough, they resumed walking, pacing towards a massive, circular building, where all four bridges of the city met.

It rose above the others, towering, made of some sort of mirrors that melded into stone near the peak. It stood up, up, taller than all the others, reaching up into the clouds so high Magnotris had to crane his neck. Great. The chucklefuck who thought it'd be a good idea to kidnap him was super extra. 

Maybe he could negotiate his way out of this disaster. Maybe he could contact Jubilee or something, call for help. It would be embarrassing as fuck - to fall right into the den of debauchery itself, the host of most of the underground dealings and trade, the literal city of sin, his job, and need rescuing... but tension had taken over his body.

Ugh, why was he falling apart, here? Why was he so fucking pliant to these feelings? Maybe he was still just shaken up after the emotional conversation with Morning Star. Yes, that had to be it. He wasn't getting weak or anything. Huuuurgh, he hated this, though. Everything swirled around in his chest.

Two more individuals stood at its doors, both armed with the same spears. Magnotris cast them a wary glance, but they waved the other guards in, and the entourage followed. 

He braced himself, slowly, staring up at the sight before him. The room's ceilings were high, too high for him to see the roof. Pillars rose up, lit by fairy lights that eroded the higher they climbed, until its heights were doused in darkness. Great, torn banners flitted from unseen tethers, billowing in a wind that he couldn't feel. Before him, on the other side of the great circular floor, was a throne - a massive, imposing chair, with a Frag perched on its chair. It was tall enough to dwarf them, but they were yet taller than Magnotris himself and the handful of attendants at their side.

He steeled his shoulders and stepped forwards, peeling away from the escort that had led him through the city. The Frag leaned forwards in turn, placing both hands on the chair's armrests, wings fluttering slightly. 

"Magnotris!" they cried, "Oh, I'm real fucking glad you came!"

Magnotris set his jaw, curling both hands into fists. He wasn't going to let some pissant upstart of some godsforsaken Frag city push him around. If he had to put on a farce of being brave, to keep up the facade, he would. "You sent someone to kidnap me. I didn't come." 

"Kidnap you?" they asked, incredulously, putting both hands over their mouth. "Why, whatever would make you angry about that?" 

"Are you shitting me right now?" Magnotris hissed.

One of the attendants stood up straighter, beginning to draw a sword from a sheath strapped to their hip. "You should do well to temper your indignance, lackey!" 

Magnotris tensed, staring them down, eyes sweeping over their form. Well-kept, dressed in the same manner as most of the citizens, but he hadn't noticed they were armed before. It was possible they'd magicked it in. Great, just what he needed - more guards of some sort. Times like these made him really wish someone could invent some sort of anti-ward teleportation charm.

"Oh, there's no need for that, Humble," the throned spoke again, leaning back to smile smugly down, tapping fingers against the armrest. "And I think the title is 'Overseer', right?"

"I'm not here to play games," Magnotris' eyes flicked back to the seat, "what do you want?"

"Play games? You've done quite a lot of that!" their smile grew several toothy inches, "in fact, you've been causing a fuckton of problems down here. Down here? Up here? Ah, fuck it. I heard from a very good informant of mine that you sullied the name and the match in the Magic Riot League. Which, if I'm being honest, is really fuckin' funny. But there's problems with that."

Magnotris paused, breathing in slowly. So that was what this was about? Him saving Quantum from that fighting ring? "Why do you care?"

"Well, it's my business!" they exclaimed, both hands coming up to cup their cheeks. "You are hurting my business." 

"Your business? So what, you run the fighting rings?" he pressed, looking them up and down with the most critical eye he could muster. His heart hadn't yet started beating in his chest, but the tension that had been in his spine since he'd been taken here was resonating. Stars, he wanted to fucking leave.

They smiled, still, the same smile. It had far too many teeth, and although they were sharp, they didn't quite fit into each other. "I run every aspect of this world, Magnotris! Divinity is my city, my realm. I forged it from nothingness and I took things as I pleased from you motley folk. It was easy damn pickings! Nothing was organized, everyone had their own little gangs and secret dealings. I made it my own."

"...Made what your own?"

"You sure to like to fucking pry, don't you?" they swept out a hand, gesturing to the room. "This. This part of the world that I know the Coalition tries to scrub from existence. This is my kingdom, my domain. I took what existed and I made it better. And the likes of you, rummaging about in the shit that I'm doing? Fucking it up, stealing fighters from the ring? I just won't have it! So I have brought you here, to atone for your crime against me."

Magnotris took a cautious step back. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

His ears swivelled back in time to catch the soft sounds of movement. The door was likely blocked now, by a handful of attendants or by his escort. There were no visible windows, and he couldn't confirm any of the walls led outside. If he fled, he'd have to blast through the guard and the doors, then run. Not great chances, nor a great plan, but he'd gotten out of worse. 

"I have many names, Magnotris," they spoke. 

The tension had melted into full-fledged adrenaline now, shaking down his arms to make his fingers twitch in anticipation. The circumstances were less than ideal, but being accidentally led to the epicenter of the underground Fragment business was actually a net positive, if he could escape. No, when he'd escape. Think in absolutes, in positives. It would push him towards success.

"Do I deign to share even one with the likes of you? Troublemakers... they fuckin' frustrate me."

And when he was free of this filth-soaked city, he could spill it all to Jubilee. Imagine that, finishing his primary objective in only a handful of weeks. Haha. Maybe he'd get to work with the cure researchers afterwards. That whole life felt eons away, like it was some other him, some faraway him that didn't quite exist anymore. He'd been so worried he'd been covering up his true nature - running from it, slapping layers onto it, avoiding it; but here, in this city, it only felt firmer that he belonged away from all this mess.

Morning Star's words echoed in his head. He was a good person. He changed. 

... Oh, fuck, he still had a corrupted Frag in his lab.

"I'll humor you!" they barked, voice a short shout. "Yea, you may call me 

O̟̲P͔̗̯͉͎̳͚ͥ͐̈̎̇͡V̰͔̮̻ͦͫͪͬL̡̹X̜̦̝̬̦̀̓ ̠̠̗S̡̠͂̒̆̿͐̔V̡̅̓͑ͮ̊̏̏W̞̠̳͓̆̌̕L̬͎̻̼͎͈̈ͭ̇ͅC͐ͯ̇́ͭͭ ͇̺̟̝͈̩͕ͨ̔͒ͪͯ̄̀Y̬̐ͮͫͬͭ̚ZͩK͇͍̗̻̯̿W̭͔̼͔̰ͫN̪̥̞̭̞̆ͮ ̘̜ͨ̈́̍Q̂ͬ̀ͦ҉̦̺̻͉P̾͊͊͋ͤͫ͛҉̬̤L͉͕̬̯͈͖̋ͩ͢H̖͈̗̞͇!"

There was a chorus of screams in the room as everyone but the throned Frag doubled over, clutching their heads as blood dripped out of their skulls. Magnotris' eyelid twitched hard as something close to liquid clawed out of the back of his throat, pooling in the ground near his feet. His head throbbed, a divine agony. 

As the white noise roaring in his ears ceased, he could hear laughter. Laughter. That fucking bitch was laughing at him, laughing because they'd seared something into his brain and into the brain of everyone else here. 

He had no fucking tolerance for tyrants.

Magnotris forced his head up, although his vision was still blurred. The Frag was descending from their throne, laughing, a hand over their chest as the emotion swelled out of them. Their attendants lay dazed on the ground, still clinging to their hair and fur, soaked in a layer of blood, eyes blank. Nobody had recovered as fast as he had.

"Do you understand the true meaning of a name, of power? I don't think you do! You don't even know the strength of what I just gave you!" they near-giggled. "Aw, but you seem to feel it. Like you've heard it before? Hmm, but I don't recognize you!" 

Magnotris stood, shakily, lowering his hands. They were slick, but he wiped them on his pants. "Fuck. Off." 

They now stared at him with narrowed eyes and a pout, gaze darting from the tips of his hair down to his toes. "No... you don't look familiar. How is it you resist? You should basically be dead right now. Braindead. Then I was going to fix you up and make you better? How are you alive?" 

Magnotris breathed in.

The attendants were still on the ground. He had one shot. He had one shot. 

Slowly, he lifted his hand to point behind himself. The Frag stood on their tiptoes to peer over his shoulder at the motion. "I don't even know what the fuck you did, alright?" he spat, blood still coating his teeth and tongue. "But i'm not going to stick around to find out." 

"Where are you-"

He let the magic course through his arm, a brimming maelstrom, and let it fire at the entrance.

There was a great crash as the beam collided with the stone, the metal, and tore it from its hinges, ripping apart great chunks of the doors and sending them flying. Magnotris pushed off from his heel in the same second, wings twitching as he threw his weight forwards. Through the new hole in the building, he could see low sunlight. Dusk.

Behind, there was a scream of rage, of pure fury and frustration. Magnotris vaulted off the platform the throne room sat on, hurtling towards the city below. His wings beat, slowing his descent. He could land on one of the higher buildings from here, and then jump from rooftop to rooftop to make it back to Divinity's gates. And once there, he'd be free from the teleportation wards and could escape back to the COR. They wouldn't follow him there.

YOU IGNORANT LITTLE BASTARD! YOU THINK YOU WORTHY TO DEFY MY WILL?

All at once, everything stopped.

YOU DEFILE MY WORK. YOU INVADE MY BUSINESS. YOU THREATEN MY PEOPLE, MY EMPIRE, MY KINGDOM! EVERYTHING I HAVE BUILT, YOU SPIT UPON! WHAT FUCKING INDIGNANT BLOOD RUNS IN YOUR VEINS?

Magnotris blinked. The city had frozen underneath him, citizens mid-stride, objects tossed mid-air, chatter gone. He, too, had stopped, suspended in air in the position he'd fallen in. The only thing that seemed to work was his eyes, as they darted around, aimlessly. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This was absolutely not going to plan. It was the exact opposite of going to plan. How the fuck was he supposed to escape from a fuckface who could freeze time? He didn't even know people could do that! 

With a thud, the throned Frag landed on the roof in front of him, on the shingles he'd planned to alight on. Slowly, they looked up, pure rage on their expression, mouth drawn in a snarl. They threw both of their arms to their full length, hands open, lit with magic.

WELL? ANSWER ME, AND TRUTHFULLY - WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH HERE?

"I want to go home," Magnotris shouted, abruptly, despite himself. 

YOU THINK YOU GET TO JUST RETURN TO YOUR HOME? AFTER WHAT YOU DID? MY WORK IS IN DISARRAY! I HAVE TO CLEAN UP THE MESS YOU'VE MADE OF MY BUSINESS! I HAVE TO COMPENSATE FOR THE GOODS YOU STOLE!

"The 'goods' are a person, thank you very fucking much! It's absolutely fucking disgusting that you think it's even remotely fucking okay to be enslaving people and making them fight against their wills just for the amusement of some jackasses who think it's funny! I don't care what justifications you have-"

BE SILENT!

Magnotris' mouth snapped shut.

The Frag paced on the roof, hands lowering to link behind their back. They stared, intently at the floor, at the red tiles under their feet. Magnotris could only watch as the expression on their face flickered through thoughtfulness, anger, resentment, confusion, understanding, and then finally settling on curiosity.

They turned on their heel to face him. With a gesture of their hand, Magnotris fell onto the roof with a whump. He rubbed his leg, staring up at them with guarded tension. Every bit of this incident was giving him an awful taste of deja vu. Wasn't he done dealing with fucked-up god figures yet?

"I want you to tell me how you resisted," they said, slowly, matter-of-factly, as if he was a child who needed to be explained to.

Magnotris grit his teeth, but words spilled out of him anyways: "This isn't my first time being exposed to the fucking likes of something like you." 

Their brow furrowed. "I've never interacted with you, nor has Proximity. What are you talking about?"

"I don't know who the fuck either of you are, but I was there when Bereave died," oh god fuck he hated truth spells "and his voice, along with Kolo, DIjamant, and Rendgen's had the same power as yours."

They cupped their chin in a hand. "How mysterious." 

Magnotris bared his teeth, but they didn't even bother casting a glance his way, instead staring off into the sky. The sun, too, had long since stopped moving, hanging near the horizon aimlessly, waiting for this stupid fucking asshole to let go of it. 

Stars damnit. Stars damnit. He really had to go tell Jubilee everything he'd seen here. Everything still felt above his head, a little bit - everything he'd seen - like he just couldn't grasp or process it, but he knew this was getting into Mag bullshit now. Mag bullshit was firmly in Morning Star's line of work. This was way out of his pay grade.

He just had to get out of this fucking city. 

"I guess you actually have some useful information after all," they said, disdainfully. "If there's more out there like me, I'm going to break them. Nobody gets to think they can use a fraction of my power and get away with it... and if you know anything about those others, you're going to be a pretty good damn vassal."

"I'm not going to be your vassal," Magnotris spat. 

"Are you really in a position to be making threats, fool boy?"

He leaned back. "It's not a threat."

"Oh, what is it?"

"A promise." 

They merely smiled. "Oh, how fucking intimidating you are. I could turn your magic inside out with a snap of fin-"

"Yeah, yeah, look, I know," Magnotris muttered, wiping off his mouth. "You're stronger than I am, faster, whatever. But you want information?"

"You think you can negotiate? This is a starsdamned contrivance. I'm only letting you keep your brain out of grace. If you were to become belligerent, I could just rip whatever I wanted to know from your brain myself."

Magnotris pointed at them, "But you haven't, yet. You clearly don't want to, or you'd have taken the first fucking chance you had to do that. You want me alive for some other reason. Spill. What do you mean by vassal?"

"An in, obviously," they shot right back, rolling their eyes. "You have connections to the other ones. I could wear your face like a mask and sneak in myself, but I'd do a poor job of posing at you. It'd be easier to warp your mind, break you into obedience, make sure you can't lie or disobey me, and then send you in with a wire. Then I can listen in, learn all about these others, and then subsume them as part of my kingdom."

"You think that'll work?" Magnotris countered, half-incredulously. "You think you can usurp them? They fuckin' killed god, you dumbass. They're older than reality. I don't know what the fuck's up with you, but-"

"-Older than reality? In what way?"

"The - you don't know about the Magnitude Fragments?" 

They narrowed their eyes. "Explain."

"The - the - they're - how do you not know?" Magnotris winced slightly, "everyone's heard at least a story, right? I mean I didn't fucking believe in them for a longass time but they're clearly around. How do you not know? You sound just like one, but they're all older than the rest of the world, so-"

"Juice, are you threatening this nice young man?" cut in a third voice.

Both Magnotris and the Frag looked over at the newcomer, who stood at the far side of the roof. Together, they formed a sort of triangle, all three's eyes flicking from one to another as they sized up the field. 

Magnotris breathed in, slowly. He had to be careful here. He'd kept the other guy distracted with talking long enough to avoid getting mind-controlled or killed, but with another player in the game, his chances of pulling off more 'convincing' would likely slim. Augh, if only Morning Star was here - he'd know what to say. Fuck, he probably could've befriended these bastards by now.

He was so not going to die here. He couldn't. He wouldn't let it happen. He had to come home to Morning Star! They promised!

"No, Prox," the Frag said, dully, gesturing to Magnotris, "I was gathering information. There are others like us. The Magnitude Fragments."

Proximity trotted over to Juice, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, so I was right? You owe me; you should've listened more to the little ones when they spoke! They brought up those before-"

"See?" Magnotris cut in, "see? Everyone knows who the Magnitude Fragments are!" 

"I don't pay attention to the prattling of lesser beings," Juice retorted, arms crossed. "If it's important it would've come up sooner. Anyways, he resists the voice and he knows of the others. We could use him to gain our in."

"Don'tcha think that's a little far-fetched?" Prox asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, we don't even know much about the other guys yet. Maybe they could take us out."

Juice held out a hand, burning with bright orange magic. Magnotris stared at it. "I doubt they fuckin' could." 

Magnotris felt his breath die in his throat.

How the fuck was he supposed to get out of here? Apparently he'd convened in a court of gods, unintentionally. Apparently more Magnitude Fragments ruled the underground, somehow. Jubilee was going to freak the fuck out when he finally spilled. If he'd get out of here. Fuck. Oh, stars, he'd been so stupid. 

No, calm down. Anxiety wasn't going to help. Fretting would only get him more stuck. He had to breathe, had to handle himself. He'd get out of here. He'd gotten out of plenty of sticky situations.

"An audience with beings older than us, Juice, hon. Think about it. There's shit we could learn from them, in that nest of maggots. I bet they know the secrets of reality."

"Hm, I guess. What good is reality when it bends so easily?"

Magnotris squeezed his eyes shut. Think. Think. There had to be some way for him to escape, something he could say or do. He snapped his fingers, once, twice, but no teleportation overtook him. Fuck. He hadn't had his hopes up, but he had to try everything, right?

"Are you trying to cast magic, Magnotris?" Juice's voice came.

He opened his eyes, staring up at the other in apprehension. Fear was not normally something he could taste, but it was shaking his spine now, a fresh torrent of honest-to-stars terror that consumed his body and mind. There was nothing he could do here. He was helpless, in the palms of these utter assholes. 

"I am not an asshole, for one," Juice snorted, stepping forwards. "And for two-"

Abruptly, a beam of magic sliced through Juice's torso.

A scream sounded in Magnotris' ears before he realized it was his own voice. Juice stumbled backwards, blood splattered all over his arms and legs, all over the floor. There were no organs, no viscera, but the sudden violence was still startling. Proximity rushed forwards, hands lighting with magic as they ever-so-softly came down on Juice's shoulders.

There was no time for healing magic, however, as a swung fist, magically-enhanced, met Juice's face. The two Mags sailed off the roof by sheer force, scrambling as they collapsed.

Magnotris breathed in, eyes wide, letting his stare flick up to Rendgen. The older Mag watched the others fall down into the street below, tearing off the blinds of a window and a small canopy as they collided with the cobblestone. He flicked his wrist, the blood splattering off his hand, before beaming at Magnotris.

"Bh- what?" he managed, barely, voice cracking.

"My apologies, Magnotris," Jubilee said. Magnotris swung around to find the other Overseer at his side. "I wish I had noticed sooner." 

Jubilee held out a hand. Magnotris stared numbly at it, before furrowing his brow and glaring up. "What? How did you-" 

You're WELCOME! Sheesh, come on.

"I asked Ren, back after the... Bereave incident... to keep an eye on you. We were worried you'd be targeted or attacked due to your closeness to Morning Star," Jubilee admitted, "and it's easy enough for him to watch Fragments. I know Pyatiugolnik does it all the time-"

"You had him stalk me?!"

"Now is not the time for arguing," Jubilee cut in, firmly. "We need to get you out of here, right away. Ren, if you would-?"

Before Magnotris could open his mouth, Rendgen snapped his fingers, and in a blink, they sat in Jubilee's office. Magnotris paused, let his eyes flick around the familiar trappings, and then leaned back slightly. Jubilee magicked up a chair, gesturing for Magnotris to sit. He did so, awkwardly.

"...So you knew about those two Mags?" Magnotris started.

"No," Jubilee clarified, as Rendgen trotted over to sit on his desk. "I didn't. Nor did the others."

"What are we going to do about them? Did you see all of that?"

Jubilee nodded. "Ren shared the memory of what he'd seen with me, and then we appeared to rescue you."

Silence. A clock, somewhere, aimlessly ticked, although there was nothing on its face. 

Magnotris mashed his hands into his face, leaning forwards and letting out a low groan. "Stars. Fuck. You're so calm about this."

"It is a skill I had to forge for many years. I assure you, it's merely a farce." the corners of Jubilee's mouth tightened into a strained smile. 

"Great. What are we gonna do? What the fuck does this even mean? Who were those guys? I didn't even know there were more Mags. Why did they act like that? I don't understand." 

Honestly the others don't, like, get it either. I haven't talked to them about it yet but with the whole Quantum thing we have our suspicions.

"...What about Quantum?" Magnotris asked, lifting his head. 

Ren smiled, but Jubilee held up a hand and he wilted slightly. "It's being handled."

"Fuck off, Jubilee, give me answers."

"I don't have any, currently," he admitted. "This is unprecedented. I... I'm in contact with the others. I have to discuss with them the best ways to move forwards. There's a lot of turmoil going on in the upper echelons right now that can't truly be put into words."

"That really fills me with confidence that you guys are actually going to be able to fix this."

Jubilee held up another hand, half-sighing. "I don't have anything planned yet; I only found out about this just now. If you wouldn't mind, though, Magnotris... please stay at headquarters for a few days."

"Why?"

"Suza and Ren are both staying here for the time being. They will provide protection, should the younger two attempt to attack you again. I will temporarily be moving you off the illegal underground case and back onto cure research. The team has made some strides in-"

"-So, what, I'm supposed to just... forget everything I just saw and pretend like it's all okay and be all buddy-buddy with some random researchers? After being in that fucking city? After seeing a couple of Mag Frags nearly fucking kill me?" 

"Magnotris, please," Jubilee said, letting the exhaustion show on his expression for once. "I'm speaking to you not just as your superior, but as your friend. We've just dipped our toes into a mess we don't really know how to handle. We have to move carefully, and that includes keeping you safe. You are their target now. Would you rather remain at the COR and do research and communicate with your boyfriend and Crvendach, or let Ren put you in cryogenic suspension until I've resolved what's going on with Divinity? Those are our two options here. Do you really prefer the latter?"

Magnotris stared, blankly.

Jubilee laid his head on his desk. "You underestimate the toll these decisions, this knowledge puts on me. I want to help and I plan to, but I need time - time in which I can't afford to lose you. Not only because you are useful and highly adaptable, but because I am attached to you on an emotional level. I enjoyed you inviting me out to drink and whatnot. Please, please, for our sakes, just hold back for a moment. We need you waiting in the wings."

"...Fine."

"Thank you, Magnotris. You are dismissed - Ren will escort you to the Sanctum." at that, the Mag hopped off the desk, grinning.

Magnotris steeled his stare at Jubilee. "And where are you going?"

"I must convene with the other Magnitude Fragments," Jubilee muttered. He had yet to lift his head. "I will be back shortly."

Ren placed a hand on Magnotris' shoulder as Jubilee lifted his own. With a snap of his fingers, he teleported from the room. Rendgen's fingers tightened in Magnotris' shirt.

Come on, buddy. Let's get a move on!