It just wasn't fair!
Another sleepless night underground. John Allerdyce paced the length of the corridor restlessly, one hand shoved deep into his pants' pocket, his other clicking his lighter open and closed with compulsive unreleased energy. His steps were long and hard, making thundering pounds of the metal floor that rang off the arched ceiling. The noise was necessary. It was too quiet in this place. Too quiet, too dark, too confining. If he didn't do something he was going to go crazy.
Finally making up his mind on the optional course of action that he had been stewing over for almost an hour, John clicked his lighter closed one final time and held it tightly in one first. He stormed forward, bringing both hands up against the heavy metal door – everything in this place was metal – to push as hard as he could. With the pent-up energy the moody teen had working into the heave, the door flung itself open with a surprising force, clanging against the wall. All of two faces looked up at him from the interior of the larger, better-lit room he'd entered. Magneto and Mystique, working away at whatever it was they did all day and night at their computers.
"I can't take it anymore!" John snapped, barging on in, heading straight for Magneto who was seated at his desk. He slammed both hands down hard on the smooth metal surface, eyes ablaze. "You call this mutant prosperity? This is your fight against humans? We've been sitting in this tin can for over a week doing nothing!" He met Magneto's eyes fiercely, but the older man's returning look was calm, collected, that constant hazed gray color. That flared John's temper even more. "Say something!" he screamed, with one hand knocking aside those five metal spheres on strings – whatever they were called – whose constant motion irritated him to no end. They clattered against the floor, breaking loose from their frame and constraints, rolling across the metal floor. Still Magneto didn't move. Only his eyes flickered to one side, meeting with Mystique's who sat at a computer to John's left. "What are we doing here? You were the one that said this was a war. We should be out there! Fighting! Showing those humans their place—!"
John's fiery speech was abruptly cut off when one of the metal balls lying prone on the floor suddenly jumped into the air, animated as though with its own life, and shot forward with speed only slightly less than a bullet, striking him across the jaw. The impact drew a grunt from John's chest, and he was flung to the floor, landing hard on his stomach. In the same moment his lighter was ripped away from him, finding its way to Magneto's open palm. Holding his aching jaw, John twisted and looked up, unwilled tears brimming in his eyes that in no way could express his furious frustration.
Magneto's pulse still hadn't jumped a beat. "If you had your way," he said, ever that calm and cool collection. "You would be walking the streets of New York City burning everything in sight to the ground. What would that accomplish, I wonder? A scorched, useless city, and dead civilians. Nothing left for us, and plenty of reasons for authority figures to call out the army." John slowly pushed himself back up, wary of the small but effective metal weapons still within Magneto's range. "Wars aren't won on the battlefield in a day, Pyro. It takes strategy. Patience. Things you obviously lack."
Still rubbing his jaw, John just wished the old man would open that lighter so he could work up a decent-sized inferno right then an there. "So we sit here and wait?" he ground out between clenched teeth.
"For now, yes."
"Then why the hell did you bring me with you?"
A moment's silence. Magneto grinned, that look of condescending holier-than-thou knowledge. "You have potential." He extended his arm, offering the lighter back to his adopted protégée. He always did that, John noticed. Whenever his temper was worked up, Magneto would snatch his lighter. Maybe it was some symbolic thing about who was in charge. John didn't care. He snatched it back as soon as he could. "You'll have your chance, Pyro. But not now." A long, quiet moment in which John dared to meet Magneto's eyes again. Stone cold and blazing hot, whatever common ground they could find was small. John bolted from the room before another second could pass.
Mystique and Magneto watched him go. "You should never have let him come," the former's metallic voice hissed. Magneto paid the thought little regard.
"Ready the helicopter," he ordered instead, glancing down to his disconnected metal spheres. "I think a visit to the mainland is in order."
"Why?"
"More lighter fluid."
John ran until he felt he couldn't run anymore...and that was when he reached the coastline. Magneto's base was located on a worthless pile of rock a good distance off the east coast of America...hardly an appropriate place for a mutant who planned to take over the world. Not even a mile's length in each direction, he could walk around its entire length several times in a day. He'd done it. But that meant there was nowhere to go...nothing to do but wait and go stir crazy. John was trapped with two mutants he barely knew or understood with only his thoughts and memories as company. That was the worst part.
John slowed to a stop as he neared the enormous cliff that faced the west. The sun was close to setting: a bright orange fireball just barely touching the sparkling water, setting it alight with the same blazing colors. New York was in that direction, he knew. Somewhere, Bobby and Rogue and the other personalities at Professor Xavier's mansion could be watching the same sunset. Oh damn... John slowly lowered himself down to sit, letting his legs hang over the cliff's edge, as the memories came on like a downpour. The teenager stared into the sunset, not seeing it.
His entire life flitted before his mind's eye in a matter of seconds. Growing up in a Brooklyn slum, poor, living in the basement of some half- rotten building with only his mother who couldn't have cared less about him. Whatever lame excuse he'd had for a father had been killed long before John's birth, shot down while robbing a convenience store. His mother, Joan Allerdyce, seemed to already have the idea that John was headed for the same fate, so never bothered to try and change anything. She had her drugs, her boyfriends, her alcohol... John didn't have anything. He hung out with so- called friends in a gang and for the longest time was the group's pet. He'd been arrested twice before he was seventeen. But that was all before...before...his gift. John remembered distinctly the first time he'd ever felt the overwhelming euphoria that came with such power. He was sitting in the interrogation room that second time, staring at the table while an overweight cop circled around him. Trying to be intimidating, not like his skinny partner, who sat across the table with a pen and pad of paper. Trying to get him to confess. The fat one was smoking. John was hyped up on soda, hungry, tired, and getting more and more irritated with every question. Finally, he lost it. "Confess, you worthless piece of trash!" the fat cop yelled in his face. "What have you got to lose? A gang who would rat you out for a buck, a mom who's out selling herself for drugs, or maybe the thought that one day you'll amount to something more than another dumb kid locked up in solitary confinement, crying your eyes out every time the door opens and shines some light on the loser you are." It was that last part that got to him. John was tired...sick and tired of being a nobody. He was more than that! He was NOT going to end up like his parents! Shoving himself up to his feet, John rammed both his fists into the policeman's oversized gut, sending him back against the wall. The cigarette fell to the floor. His temper seething, the teen just stood, fists clenched, as more cops burst into the room to restrain him. It was almost magical, the slowness with which everything happened. John felt a power surge within him: strong, undeniable. Something that would finally show the world he wasn't some nobody they could push around. The fire part was just luck. It rose up around him, searing the air, burning everything in sight, leaving him alone untouched. John stretched out his hands and directed the flames, not questioning, not wondering, just accepting the amazing feeling with a boy's wonder. The fire filled the room, scorching those who managed to stumble out into the rest of the station, killing those that couldn't. Experimentally he took a step, and the fire followed. The feeling...it was the feeling he loved the most: the feeling of power, immortality. Once the entire precinct station was burning he ran. He didn't stop running. He didn't go home, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the city, either. It was his only familiarity. Instead, he found the gang he belonged to. He showed them his power, and they were amazed. Finally, he was accepted as one of them. No longer a tag-along, he now walked at the front of them. It was difficult to control at first, the fire, but control wasn't an issue. They robbed stores, evaded the cops, took over other gang territory...they didn't care who or what got destroyed in the process. But it was after that, when everything had been done, that things backfired. Why shouldn't he lead the gang, he posed one night when nothing else could be found for them to do. He was the reason for their success. But the current head wasn't about to relinquish his control without a fight. There was a fight, alright, and John won, but what resulted was one dead gang member. He was no longer one of them after that. He was a freak, and with no source of fire around, he was as weak as any of them. They beat him up and left him in an alley for dead. That was where the X-Men found him: Storm, Jean, and Scott. They took him to Westchester, fed him, clothed him, gave him a place to sleep. They taught him to control his powers better and said that here he would find acceptance. John tried. He really did. But he couldn't fit in. His temper, as hot and raging as fire itself, only caused fights. Not as educated as he could have been, he was a horrible student. The option to run away again was not far from his mind when he met Bobby. Bobby Drake...Iceman. The only one whose power could counter his own. It was his cooling ability that kept John's fiery temper in check, cleaned up the ashes of his mistakes, and was patient enough to listen to what he said. Bobby was his best friend. For awhile it seemed like there was hope, that John could find a place in the world where he could be content, but then Rogue had to enter the picture. Pretty, affectionate, fun-loving Rogue. She was attracted to Bobby right away, and the feeling was mutual. John never even had a chance. But Bobby already had it all: a rich and loving family, perfect grades, unspoiled reputation, and now the girl. Not a girl, but the girl. The only one John had ever been attracted to. He didn't want to get jealous of his best friend, but John felt as though he couldn't help it. It would be alright, he told himself. Give it awhile, and you'll get over it. There are plenty of other girls around, and other areas where Bobby wasn't the best. Like the troublemaking category. If that was what John was good at, then why not indulge? Like the field trip to the natural history museum. Those jerks had it coming. The Professor called it showing off...but what was wrong with standing up for yourself? Being passive would just get a person stomped on. John knew that from experience. The attack on the school proved it. Then at Bobby's house, looking at those pictures of Bobby and his family. Smiling. Perfect. Loved. Things he never knew. As though being passive hadn't brought them enough trouble, seeing Logan shot down like a dog right in front of him, those cops giving him about as much regard, he had made up his mind. The existence of mutants was out now. There would be no acceptance, so there would be no passiveness, either. "Remember all those dangerous mutants you hear about on the news?" he said, opening his lighter, remembering the last time he'd faced a bunch of cops. "I'm the worst one." He meant it. He let it go, abandoning everything to the euphoria of being powerful. He threw fire out at those cops, those humans, their cars. They thought they were better than him? John literally shivered with the memory. He'd liked it. He really had liked the reality of destroying what was in his way: scorching it to useless ash. Nothing could stop him. Nothing! Except Rogue...only then was he sorry he'd ever liked her. Nothing verbal was ever mentioned about the others' disapproval of his actions, but looks were plenty. They blamed him?! They wished he hadn't done it?! Well what would they have done, Bobby and Rogue? Let themselves be arrested like common criminals? They were the victims here! Magneto could see that...why couldn't they? John thought he finally found what he'd been looking for in Magneto. Acceptance. Approval. Finally, someone who understood that people with powers like mutants had shouldn't be passive and submissive. Magneto had been right. They were gods among insects.
The sun was gone. John blinked and drew in a breath, his body shuddering, as though he'd forgotten to breathe the whole while. It was dark, his legs were asleep, but he wasn't about to move. Magneto and Mystique didn't care where he was. He had nowhere to go. Heaving a sigh, John looked down at the lighter in his hand, lifted it, flicked it open, lit it. He stared into the flame. It was strange...he'd never had any particular fascination with fire like a real pyromaniac. Now it was his greatest ally. Lifting his other hand, he passed his fingers into the blue bottom of the flame, and didn't feel a thing. A flick of his wrist and he closed the lighter, but a brighter, bigger flame still burned on in the palm of his hand. He stared into it. Maybe he was fascinated, after all...
"What's your real name, John?" came a voice from the depths of his memory.
"Pyro," was his answer, low, soft, the word rolling from his throat like a delicious taste to be savored. His eyes stared at the flame, everything else beyond it blurred out into blackness. He could feel the light reflected in his eyes. He had a kinship with fire. He could control it when no one else dared try. It was a living thing, dangerous, wild.
"That's what I like about you," came that same voice from his memory, only it wasn't in his memory: it was behind him. Clenching his fist, thus smothering the flame, John whipped his gaze behind him and saw Magneto standing there, cloaked and rigid in all his glory. How long he had been standing there, who knew?
"What?" the teenager asked, voice dry and cracked. He swallowed against it.
"Your passion."
John made it clear with an expression that he didn't understand, and turned his gaze back out to sea, where the moon was just rising at an odd angle. Magneto moved to stand behind him. "I heard a theory once," his sage old voice went on, "that said the powers mutants chance to have are no chance at all. They are a direct reflection of the mutants themselves. Take me, for example. I first realized my powers when I was shot at by Nazis. It was a split-second decision: die, or push the bullets to the side. You can guess which choice I made."
"And Mystique?" John asked, not looking up. "She chose to look like that and become other people?"
"As I said: it's only a theory." A pause, during which quiet reigned. "And you. What does fire say about you?"
John only shrugged. A typical teenage answer.
"You are essential."
That made John look up. In the dark he could only see the outline of Magneto's face, who remained facing out toward the ocean, but he could feel the strong, capable hand come down upon his shoulder.
"Think of it. Mankind would never have survived at all without fire."
John had never thought about it that way, and he wouldn't have the chance now. No sooner had Magneto planted the thought, then he removed his hand from John's shoulder and turned to start back for the lair. Without hesitance, John got up to follow him.
"Get some sleep tonight," Magneto advised just as they reached the entrance built into the island's rock foundation. "Tomorrow we're going to the mainland."
"Okay," John muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets, feeling the warm metal of his lighter. "Guess I get to stay and watch the place...again."
"No. This time you're coming with us."
Another sleepless night underground. John Allerdyce paced the length of the corridor restlessly, one hand shoved deep into his pants' pocket, his other clicking his lighter open and closed with compulsive unreleased energy. His steps were long and hard, making thundering pounds of the metal floor that rang off the arched ceiling. The noise was necessary. It was too quiet in this place. Too quiet, too dark, too confining. If he didn't do something he was going to go crazy.
Finally making up his mind on the optional course of action that he had been stewing over for almost an hour, John clicked his lighter closed one final time and held it tightly in one first. He stormed forward, bringing both hands up against the heavy metal door – everything in this place was metal – to push as hard as he could. With the pent-up energy the moody teen had working into the heave, the door flung itself open with a surprising force, clanging against the wall. All of two faces looked up at him from the interior of the larger, better-lit room he'd entered. Magneto and Mystique, working away at whatever it was they did all day and night at their computers.
"I can't take it anymore!" John snapped, barging on in, heading straight for Magneto who was seated at his desk. He slammed both hands down hard on the smooth metal surface, eyes ablaze. "You call this mutant prosperity? This is your fight against humans? We've been sitting in this tin can for over a week doing nothing!" He met Magneto's eyes fiercely, but the older man's returning look was calm, collected, that constant hazed gray color. That flared John's temper even more. "Say something!" he screamed, with one hand knocking aside those five metal spheres on strings – whatever they were called – whose constant motion irritated him to no end. They clattered against the floor, breaking loose from their frame and constraints, rolling across the metal floor. Still Magneto didn't move. Only his eyes flickered to one side, meeting with Mystique's who sat at a computer to John's left. "What are we doing here? You were the one that said this was a war. We should be out there! Fighting! Showing those humans their place—!"
John's fiery speech was abruptly cut off when one of the metal balls lying prone on the floor suddenly jumped into the air, animated as though with its own life, and shot forward with speed only slightly less than a bullet, striking him across the jaw. The impact drew a grunt from John's chest, and he was flung to the floor, landing hard on his stomach. In the same moment his lighter was ripped away from him, finding its way to Magneto's open palm. Holding his aching jaw, John twisted and looked up, unwilled tears brimming in his eyes that in no way could express his furious frustration.
Magneto's pulse still hadn't jumped a beat. "If you had your way," he said, ever that calm and cool collection. "You would be walking the streets of New York City burning everything in sight to the ground. What would that accomplish, I wonder? A scorched, useless city, and dead civilians. Nothing left for us, and plenty of reasons for authority figures to call out the army." John slowly pushed himself back up, wary of the small but effective metal weapons still within Magneto's range. "Wars aren't won on the battlefield in a day, Pyro. It takes strategy. Patience. Things you obviously lack."
Still rubbing his jaw, John just wished the old man would open that lighter so he could work up a decent-sized inferno right then an there. "So we sit here and wait?" he ground out between clenched teeth.
"For now, yes."
"Then why the hell did you bring me with you?"
A moment's silence. Magneto grinned, that look of condescending holier-than-thou knowledge. "You have potential." He extended his arm, offering the lighter back to his adopted protégée. He always did that, John noticed. Whenever his temper was worked up, Magneto would snatch his lighter. Maybe it was some symbolic thing about who was in charge. John didn't care. He snatched it back as soon as he could. "You'll have your chance, Pyro. But not now." A long, quiet moment in which John dared to meet Magneto's eyes again. Stone cold and blazing hot, whatever common ground they could find was small. John bolted from the room before another second could pass.
Mystique and Magneto watched him go. "You should never have let him come," the former's metallic voice hissed. Magneto paid the thought little regard.
"Ready the helicopter," he ordered instead, glancing down to his disconnected metal spheres. "I think a visit to the mainland is in order."
"Why?"
"More lighter fluid."
John ran until he felt he couldn't run anymore...and that was when he reached the coastline. Magneto's base was located on a worthless pile of rock a good distance off the east coast of America...hardly an appropriate place for a mutant who planned to take over the world. Not even a mile's length in each direction, he could walk around its entire length several times in a day. He'd done it. But that meant there was nowhere to go...nothing to do but wait and go stir crazy. John was trapped with two mutants he barely knew or understood with only his thoughts and memories as company. That was the worst part.
John slowed to a stop as he neared the enormous cliff that faced the west. The sun was close to setting: a bright orange fireball just barely touching the sparkling water, setting it alight with the same blazing colors. New York was in that direction, he knew. Somewhere, Bobby and Rogue and the other personalities at Professor Xavier's mansion could be watching the same sunset. Oh damn... John slowly lowered himself down to sit, letting his legs hang over the cliff's edge, as the memories came on like a downpour. The teenager stared into the sunset, not seeing it.
His entire life flitted before his mind's eye in a matter of seconds. Growing up in a Brooklyn slum, poor, living in the basement of some half- rotten building with only his mother who couldn't have cared less about him. Whatever lame excuse he'd had for a father had been killed long before John's birth, shot down while robbing a convenience store. His mother, Joan Allerdyce, seemed to already have the idea that John was headed for the same fate, so never bothered to try and change anything. She had her drugs, her boyfriends, her alcohol... John didn't have anything. He hung out with so- called friends in a gang and for the longest time was the group's pet. He'd been arrested twice before he was seventeen. But that was all before...before...his gift. John remembered distinctly the first time he'd ever felt the overwhelming euphoria that came with such power. He was sitting in the interrogation room that second time, staring at the table while an overweight cop circled around him. Trying to be intimidating, not like his skinny partner, who sat across the table with a pen and pad of paper. Trying to get him to confess. The fat one was smoking. John was hyped up on soda, hungry, tired, and getting more and more irritated with every question. Finally, he lost it. "Confess, you worthless piece of trash!" the fat cop yelled in his face. "What have you got to lose? A gang who would rat you out for a buck, a mom who's out selling herself for drugs, or maybe the thought that one day you'll amount to something more than another dumb kid locked up in solitary confinement, crying your eyes out every time the door opens and shines some light on the loser you are." It was that last part that got to him. John was tired...sick and tired of being a nobody. He was more than that! He was NOT going to end up like his parents! Shoving himself up to his feet, John rammed both his fists into the policeman's oversized gut, sending him back against the wall. The cigarette fell to the floor. His temper seething, the teen just stood, fists clenched, as more cops burst into the room to restrain him. It was almost magical, the slowness with which everything happened. John felt a power surge within him: strong, undeniable. Something that would finally show the world he wasn't some nobody they could push around. The fire part was just luck. It rose up around him, searing the air, burning everything in sight, leaving him alone untouched. John stretched out his hands and directed the flames, not questioning, not wondering, just accepting the amazing feeling with a boy's wonder. The fire filled the room, scorching those who managed to stumble out into the rest of the station, killing those that couldn't. Experimentally he took a step, and the fire followed. The feeling...it was the feeling he loved the most: the feeling of power, immortality. Once the entire precinct station was burning he ran. He didn't stop running. He didn't go home, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the city, either. It was his only familiarity. Instead, he found the gang he belonged to. He showed them his power, and they were amazed. Finally, he was accepted as one of them. No longer a tag-along, he now walked at the front of them. It was difficult to control at first, the fire, but control wasn't an issue. They robbed stores, evaded the cops, took over other gang territory...they didn't care who or what got destroyed in the process. But it was after that, when everything had been done, that things backfired. Why shouldn't he lead the gang, he posed one night when nothing else could be found for them to do. He was the reason for their success. But the current head wasn't about to relinquish his control without a fight. There was a fight, alright, and John won, but what resulted was one dead gang member. He was no longer one of them after that. He was a freak, and with no source of fire around, he was as weak as any of them. They beat him up and left him in an alley for dead. That was where the X-Men found him: Storm, Jean, and Scott. They took him to Westchester, fed him, clothed him, gave him a place to sleep. They taught him to control his powers better and said that here he would find acceptance. John tried. He really did. But he couldn't fit in. His temper, as hot and raging as fire itself, only caused fights. Not as educated as he could have been, he was a horrible student. The option to run away again was not far from his mind when he met Bobby. Bobby Drake...Iceman. The only one whose power could counter his own. It was his cooling ability that kept John's fiery temper in check, cleaned up the ashes of his mistakes, and was patient enough to listen to what he said. Bobby was his best friend. For awhile it seemed like there was hope, that John could find a place in the world where he could be content, but then Rogue had to enter the picture. Pretty, affectionate, fun-loving Rogue. She was attracted to Bobby right away, and the feeling was mutual. John never even had a chance. But Bobby already had it all: a rich and loving family, perfect grades, unspoiled reputation, and now the girl. Not a girl, but the girl. The only one John had ever been attracted to. He didn't want to get jealous of his best friend, but John felt as though he couldn't help it. It would be alright, he told himself. Give it awhile, and you'll get over it. There are plenty of other girls around, and other areas where Bobby wasn't the best. Like the troublemaking category. If that was what John was good at, then why not indulge? Like the field trip to the natural history museum. Those jerks had it coming. The Professor called it showing off...but what was wrong with standing up for yourself? Being passive would just get a person stomped on. John knew that from experience. The attack on the school proved it. Then at Bobby's house, looking at those pictures of Bobby and his family. Smiling. Perfect. Loved. Things he never knew. As though being passive hadn't brought them enough trouble, seeing Logan shot down like a dog right in front of him, those cops giving him about as much regard, he had made up his mind. The existence of mutants was out now. There would be no acceptance, so there would be no passiveness, either. "Remember all those dangerous mutants you hear about on the news?" he said, opening his lighter, remembering the last time he'd faced a bunch of cops. "I'm the worst one." He meant it. He let it go, abandoning everything to the euphoria of being powerful. He threw fire out at those cops, those humans, their cars. They thought they were better than him? John literally shivered with the memory. He'd liked it. He really had liked the reality of destroying what was in his way: scorching it to useless ash. Nothing could stop him. Nothing! Except Rogue...only then was he sorry he'd ever liked her. Nothing verbal was ever mentioned about the others' disapproval of his actions, but looks were plenty. They blamed him?! They wished he hadn't done it?! Well what would they have done, Bobby and Rogue? Let themselves be arrested like common criminals? They were the victims here! Magneto could see that...why couldn't they? John thought he finally found what he'd been looking for in Magneto. Acceptance. Approval. Finally, someone who understood that people with powers like mutants had shouldn't be passive and submissive. Magneto had been right. They were gods among insects.
The sun was gone. John blinked and drew in a breath, his body shuddering, as though he'd forgotten to breathe the whole while. It was dark, his legs were asleep, but he wasn't about to move. Magneto and Mystique didn't care where he was. He had nowhere to go. Heaving a sigh, John looked down at the lighter in his hand, lifted it, flicked it open, lit it. He stared into the flame. It was strange...he'd never had any particular fascination with fire like a real pyromaniac. Now it was his greatest ally. Lifting his other hand, he passed his fingers into the blue bottom of the flame, and didn't feel a thing. A flick of his wrist and he closed the lighter, but a brighter, bigger flame still burned on in the palm of his hand. He stared into it. Maybe he was fascinated, after all...
"What's your real name, John?" came a voice from the depths of his memory.
"Pyro," was his answer, low, soft, the word rolling from his throat like a delicious taste to be savored. His eyes stared at the flame, everything else beyond it blurred out into blackness. He could feel the light reflected in his eyes. He had a kinship with fire. He could control it when no one else dared try. It was a living thing, dangerous, wild.
"That's what I like about you," came that same voice from his memory, only it wasn't in his memory: it was behind him. Clenching his fist, thus smothering the flame, John whipped his gaze behind him and saw Magneto standing there, cloaked and rigid in all his glory. How long he had been standing there, who knew?
"What?" the teenager asked, voice dry and cracked. He swallowed against it.
"Your passion."
John made it clear with an expression that he didn't understand, and turned his gaze back out to sea, where the moon was just rising at an odd angle. Magneto moved to stand behind him. "I heard a theory once," his sage old voice went on, "that said the powers mutants chance to have are no chance at all. They are a direct reflection of the mutants themselves. Take me, for example. I first realized my powers when I was shot at by Nazis. It was a split-second decision: die, or push the bullets to the side. You can guess which choice I made."
"And Mystique?" John asked, not looking up. "She chose to look like that and become other people?"
"As I said: it's only a theory." A pause, during which quiet reigned. "And you. What does fire say about you?"
John only shrugged. A typical teenage answer.
"You are essential."
That made John look up. In the dark he could only see the outline of Magneto's face, who remained facing out toward the ocean, but he could feel the strong, capable hand come down upon his shoulder.
"Think of it. Mankind would never have survived at all without fire."
John had never thought about it that way, and he wouldn't have the chance now. No sooner had Magneto planted the thought, then he removed his hand from John's shoulder and turned to start back for the lair. Without hesitance, John got up to follow him.
"Get some sleep tonight," Magneto advised just as they reached the entrance built into the island's rock foundation. "Tomorrow we're going to the mainland."
"Okay," John muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets, feeling the warm metal of his lighter. "Guess I get to stay and watch the place...again."
"No. This time you're coming with us."