Title: The End
Author: Mia aka Miasen
Rating: T for dark themes and angst
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men… If I did my room would be filled with mutant hunks.
A/N: A dark one-shot set years in the future, seen in Pyro's POV. Thanks to Liave Ekeli for reading through and correcting some of my faults!
The End
Pyro walked through the deserted hallways of what had once been his home. A thin layer of dust covered all surfaces, and as he walked past it whirled up behind him only to fall back to rest when he was gone. This place seemed so utterly dead now. Before there were always people running about and voices to be heard. Now there was only silence and the smell of stale air.
The silence was what got to him the most. It was in times like this he missed his old Zippo, the clicks it made every time he opened and closed it. The igniters he had strapped to his wrists, the ones Magneto had given him when joining the Brotherhood, might be more powerful, but it wasn't the same. But the Zippo was gone, like everything else he had ever cared about.
He sighed and walked on through the hallway. It was years since he had been here the last time, but he remembered it like it was yesterday, and his feet soon brought him to what had been his room back then. The door was slightly ajar, and as he pushed it open a creek sounded, violently noisy in the otherwise silent mansion. He winced.
As he looked inside the room he felt a sting to his heart. It was exactly as it had been when he and Bobby shared it. At the thought of Bobby he had to close his eyes. A small tear threatened to fall, but got caught in his lashes, and he wiped it away in an angry motion. He was not going to cry.
Bobby had been his best friend until Pyro left the X-Men, and then they had appeared to be enemies, but deep down Pyro had never wanted to be his enemy. He had just wanted to do what felt right for him, and at that time that meant to come with Magneto. He had believed everything Magneto had said, and wanted to support the cause. Not that it had helped much though. His small contribution hadn't done much these last years as the war between humans and mutants raged. He had fought fiercely, but it was just never enough. No matter how much they fought, the humans stood their ground, and now mutants wavered on the brink of extinction. Humans were ruled by powerful men, and they stood united where mutants had been divided. This dividing had been one of the reasons mutants hadn't been able to fight back properly. By they time they realized they were all on the same side it was too late, and humans had the upper hand.
Pyro has been there when Bobby had died, he had been there when Rogue died, had seen member of both the X-Men and the Brotherhood fall before the humans and their sentinels. Humans died by the hundred thousands as well, but they were so many, and their weapons just got stronger and stronger as the years ticked by.
There weren't many mutants left now, and they all lived in hiding. In the ruins of destroyed cities or deep in forests, places humans didn't roam. There was rumours going about secret hideouts up in the sky or deep in the ocean, but those were only rumours, created by desperate mutants holding on to their last straw of hope.
Pyro had lost all hope long ago, and accepted that mutants were a soon extinct group. He held on to life as long as possible, moving from location to location, keeping out of populated areas, but he knew that one day would come when he would face a sentinel, look up into the face of one of those killer robots, and that day he would not be able to fight anymore. There were no getting away from the sentinels, if you destroyed one there were always just one more to take its place, and sooner or later you would get too tired and they would get you, and then it was all over.
Pyro stepped over to what had been his bed and dropped down on it. He was immediately engulfed in a cloud of dust. It made its way into his lunges, and he started to cough. No one could've lived in this place for years. Pyro thought back to when last had seen one of the X-Men. Days, weeks, months, years, it all got a bit scrambled up nowadays, but it had to be more than three years ago.
The X-Men and the Brotherhood had joined forced in what was supposed to be the last resistance. Man versus mutant. It would go down in history as a massacre. Mutants fell, humans fell, and sentinels were destroyed. The fight had gone back and forth, humans taking the lead soon to be replaced by the mutants and back again. Then, in one minute, it had all changed. The humans had pulled forth a weapon that was the doom of the mutant race: The Ultimate Sentinels. Where the old sentinels had been machines, controlled by electricity and machinery, these sentinels were closer to live beings. They could reason, they could fight, and they were nearly indestructible.
It was here most fell. Storm nearly ripped in half, Rogue crushed under their feet like a bug, Toad shot, Sabretooth beheaded. Even Magneto was overpowered by their might.
Pyro had fled. He knew that he didn't have a chance and he fled like the coward he was. He regretted that now. It would have been better to die then, together with his own kind, protecting all he cared about. But he had fled, and he had lived where they had not. A life on the run, always looking over your shoulder, seeing the emotionless faces of the sentinels in his dreams, knowing it was only a matter of time. There were no captives in this war, only winners and soon-to-be corpses.
Occasionally he would meet fellow mutants, but he never stayed with them. Their haunted looks were too horrible to be around. Their eyes always wide open in fear, cheeks hollow from hunger and backs hunched from exhaustion. It wasn't really them that frightened Pyro; it was the knowledge that he looked the exact same way. Food was hard to get by on the run, he was always hungry, and he was always afraid.
Pyro rose from bed and with a last cough stepped over to the window. Dust and grime had created a film over the glass that he wiped off with his sleeve, making a small patch he could look out onto the grounds from.
The fountain no longer had any water in it, and the before well-trimmed garden was overgrown with weeds. He remembered happier times, living at the mansion, joking around with Bobby, flirting with the girls, laughing.
He couldn't even remember the last time he laughed now; it was so long ago he didn't think he even knew how to anymore. He never laughed, never smiled. All he did was run and think. Think about what had been, what could have been had it not been for the war, how his life could have been. Maybe he would live in a house with a wife and kids. Have a job, have a life.
He sighed and turned away from the window.
He wasn't sure how he had ended up back here at the mansion. Coincidence or not, it didn't really matter. He had probably travelled all over America these years; he didn't even know where he had been. Coming back here had probably been inevitable. He was almost surprised he hadn't come here earlier. Not that there were any reason to come here. The X-Men were all long gone. The only one Pyro hadn't heard about the death of was Wolverine, but no one knew what had become of him, and Pyro didn't think he would've stayed here at the mansion anyways.
He was dragging his feet after himself as he walked back to the hallway and set off downstairs. No need to hang around here anymore, there were nothing to get her.
The sun was hidden by dark clouds as he stepped outside, and a cold wind blew across the grounds. Pyro pulled his tattered old jacket around himself to shield from the wind. He never were good around cold, fire was his element, flames and heat. Flames were purifying, coldness destructive. Flames could burn down a forest, but from the ashes new life would come. Cold swept over the land, and in its wake were dead flowers, leafless trees, death. The winters had killed hundreds, thousands, of mutants on the run. Pyro survived through his powers; there were never any lack of fire to warm him up.
But he didn't have the energy now. He could've just stayed inside the mansion, but he needed to move on, find somewhere else, never rest.
With his hands planted deep in his pockets and shoulders hunched against the cold he started walking down the road. The gravel crunched underneath his boots, and it was the only sound he could hear until he got halfway down to the gates. A faint sound made its way to his ears.
He looked up from the ground, eyes searching the area. At first he didn't see anything, only trees and the dark mansion. Then he saw the trees of the forest move, as if something large was moving through there.
Pyro's eyes widened and he watched in terror as the familiar shape of a sentinel rose above the line of trees. He started to back up, eyes locked on the massive form slowly coming closer.
"Mutant life form detected." Its voice was metallic, and as cold as the winds that tousled Pyro's hair.
His heart sank into his stomach as the sentinel closed in on him. It had been years since he last saw one, and he had hoped he never would see one again, although he had known he would on some point. There was no getting away from the sentinels. Sooner or later they found you.
He tossed his head around, searching for a way out, but deep down he knew there weren't any. The grounds around him were open, and there were no way he could outrun it.
With a well rehearsed movement he lighted a ball of fire in his palm. The small flame grew, and Pyro lifted his face towards the sentinel again, defiance clear on his face.
He was Pyro, he was a god among insects, he was—
The hand with the fireball dropped down and the fire extinguished. Images of all of those that he had seen die flashed before his eyes. He just couldn't fight anymore. There weren't anything to fight for anymore. His soul felt just as the mansion. Empty, dead.
His shoulders hunched, and his face dropped to the ground. There was no point in fighting, not anymore. He couldn't stand running anymore, there was nothing to run to, no hope, nothing.
He didn't even flinch as metal hands closed around his waist and lifted him into the air. He barely noticed the artificial voice now.
"Mutant identified, proceed with elimination."
Death came swiftly as an energy beam shot from the sentinel and hit the man. In an instant Pyro was no more, gone in a flash. All that was left were a limp body that dropped from the sentinel's hands and to the ground. One more corpse, one more death at the hands of the human race. It was just a drop in the ocean, but it was also one step closer to mutant extinction. The sentinel turned around and left, its job was done.