1.
I ran my fingers through the wet sand, smiling. It was hot on the beach, there was a little sweat on my neck, but I didn't bother to wipe it away. I had found something more important, something interesting. My small hands kept crawling through the tiny stones, then I concentrated, as much as a seven-year-old could, and pressed my right palm onto the surface of the ground. After a few seconds I lifted it and grinned widely. Like the last few times, the sand had gotten all shiny and hard. I could even lift my print from the earth if I wanted to. "Again, again." Fanatically, I did it over and over, but after a while it got slightly boring. Maybe Bobby would know what to do next. "Bobby! Come on, I wanna show you my power. I can make diamond-hands!"
But my best friend, stupid as he was, didn't leave the water and just kept building sandcastles in the mud. Fine, I though, I'm gonna show Mum. "Mummy!", I tapped onto her shoulder and she screamed. "What?", I asked, thinking I just scared her again. Then I noticed the red spot on her skin where my fingers had touched her. "Uh... sorry?"
"Honey, what did you throw at me? This is dangerous, please stop", said my Mum, sitting up and eying me with that annoyed glance of hers. "But... but, I can make diamonds!", I protested. That finally got her attention. She followed me to the shiny hand-prints all over our place at the beach, getting angrier every time I showed her another one. "Where did you get these?", she demanded, a little pale.
"No, I created them. Look!" When I made a step in her direction, she took one backwards, her face horrified. "Mummy..."
Faster than she could stumble back, followed her. In my left hand was my best glass-figurine, which I dropped carelessly. It crashed on the sand and broke into two pieces. Carefully not to touch the rest of my creation, I stepped over it. My mind couldn't process why my mother didn't like what I did, so I would just stop, as always.
"Okay, never doing this again", I promised and hugged her legs. She screamed again and did the unforgivable: her feet kicked me right in the stomach. "Ouch!", trembling, I fell on my butt and started to cry. It hurt and even worse was the look of pure terror in Mum's face. Red lines showed exactly where my grip had burned her. "Mummy. Mummy?"
She ran into the surf, grabbed Bobby and went for our car. "Are we leaving?", I asked, tears still on my cheeks and rather curious than in pain. When I got up, she pointed her finger at me and said: "You! Stay away from my family! Don't..." With flying hands she opened the car and stuffed the stunned child into the backseat. "Don't you follow us! I will call the police! Get away, freak!"
Freak. The word kept spinning in Pyro's head. His vision cleared and he could see a girl standing in front of him, her evil snoot just inches from his body, but still unreachable. "You got enough?", she asked, smiling and cupping his face. Forcefully, he pulled himself from her grip. "No." Her smile just deepened.
"He can't stay", a male voice said. "I know, I know", answered a female one, just outside the door of his small room. "On the other hand: we can't throw him out in the middle of the night. He's just a kid..."
"Really? That guy is a menace! He's a danger to everyone; the other kids, even to us. When he is on edge, his surroundings tend to erupt in flames! Dear Heaven, we can't keep that boy a minute longer."
"You are right, I understand. It's just... he looks so innocent, don't you think?"
"Yeah, the devil looked innocent once as well", muttered the other, male voice. I didn't have to see their faces to know who they were. Meg and James, the leaders of the children's home I'd been sent to. They were afraid, just like his mom had been. Humans. Inside me, the anger I had felt during these last weeks began to grow again. Which right did they have to judge me? It wasn't my fault. Not entirely, at least. People had mocked me and there was this open fireplace... I didn't even notice the heat increasing at first. And seriously, who didn't want to set their teacher on fire once a lesson?
I watched them entering the room. "You need to go, John." Still, that caught me off guard. I had thought they would at least try to explain or find an excuse. James hadn't even stopped smoking his disgusting cigarettes.
These harsh words were like knifes, damaging my unstable constitution even more. "Fuck ya all!", I shouted, full of hate and frustration and fear. The spark I felt on the cigarette expanded and a tiny flame occurred. "John, pack your things and then... we will drive you wherever you want", Meg said. How I resented her worried voice. With all my focus on the flame, I willed it to race along the cigarettes, meet the sleeve of James ugly sweatshirt and send flames across his body. Nothing happened, except for my eyes getting all watery. "I don't give a shit about you guys", I mumbled. It didn't sound very convincing. James laughed softly: "Sure, boy. Keep going, we don't care either." That sound, that laughter finally triggered the feeling in me. I could get a hold on the fire. Now, I thought and the room exploded into screams. Although the flame hadn't even gotten to James elbow. "John!" Meg panicked and opened the door. "Scaredycat", I whispered, rage clouding my vision. "And you want to leave me on the streets?" Sparks from James pullover got into her hair and suddenly she was on fire.
"Uh..." In disbelief, I stared at the two adults on the floor. The smell of steak hit me. Burned flesh. James wasn't moving anymore and Meg's eyes were on me. "Help. Help me, John!" "Okay", I said generously, because I didn't want to cause any permanent damage, but the flames wouldn't obey my command as usually. "I... I can't", I told her, my eyes getting wider and wider. Why wasn't James getting up?
The whole chamber was surrounded by flames, heat, which I couldn't bear. "Stop!" On the ground, the small carpet beneath my bare feet began to smoke and fear made my body tingle. "Please stop", I told the fire. It didn't. Instead, it licked at my pajamas. Hot, way to hot for me. My own high-pitched voice joined Meg's cries.
"You know, I'm starting to loose my patience", clarified the girl in front of Pyro and sat down on a chair nearby. "Next one's gonna be worse. That's the good thing about you, : you have a full load of crappy memories to choose from. And when they are all used, we can start to repeat my favorites over and over. Or change a few details, increase certain emotions... "
The boy couldn't keep himself from shivering. First, it was freezing in his little prison and second, he really didn't want to try her anymore. Still, the other possibility would be worse, thinking long term. "Giving up, Sparky?"
"Hell, no", he said, readying himself for another round – which didn't come. She laughed, obviously happy for a second, then a bored expression filled her features again. "I can give you hell."
Bobby's blue eyes met my dark brown ones. For a moment we just stared at each other, then Bobby let out a sigh. "Johnny, what are we gonna do about ya?" He knew what was coming. One of Mr. Perfect's sermons about his problems. Oh come on, I thought, don't do that again. "You can't get into fights every time something isn't your way, John", began Bobby.
"Look", I said, trying not to sound annoyed.
"No, YOU look, Pyro!", he shouted, standing up from the picnic table and showing me into a chair. I let it happen and plummeted onto the wood. Normally, he wasn't as agitated as he was now. Maybe after this conversation, but not at the start. "One of these times I'm not gonna be around to stop you. And then we'll have a huge disaster, you'll get a session with the professor - damn, John. Are you even listening? I think they're going to throw you out if you don't change your behavior soon."
Ouch. That hurt. "You're not the white knight you think you are, Bobby. Everybody has flaws, buddy, so don't give me that shit like you are my safe-keeper."
"At least I can handle my own power." Again, I saw the difference between us. He was calm, his hands crossed in his lap. I was on fire, as you speak. It was hard not to get up and punch something, but I didn't want to give him that satisfaction. "Fine. But what about you and that whore?" Even before I said it, I knew it was a mistake for so many reasons. Our arguments had never been personal like that and I didn't even have a point. Marie, aka Rogue, was a nice girl, rather prude than slutty. I liked her, more than I'd admit. But she fell for Bobby, of course. He was faultless. Admirable. Controlled. He should start to give autographs.
"What. Did. You. Say."
"I'm talking about Rogue and your secret dates during the nights", I said. Sure, I could've just apologized, but I was far too proud. "Never use that word again in the same sentence with Rogue. Ever." Now there was anger in my friend's voice. His fists were pressed to his side.
"Whore. She's nothing but a dirty..." The first blow hit me in the face and my chair was knocked to the ground. We fought wordlessly, both using our mutant abilities, trying to hurt the other one for the first time in our life. And, seeing his force unleashed for real, I suddenly doubted I could overpower him. He was more controlled, everybody loved him and he was stronger. Where did that leave me?
My fire dimmed, then I shut it down. The cold made me crawl up on the ground like a baby. Lying there, I welcomed the physical pain. "Never", Bobby reminded me and kicked my body, wandered off and disappeared into the building. For a while I couldn't move, because the pain was to great, but it was nothing compared to the hurt and shame inside me.
If Pyro hadn't already been sitting, he would have collapsed. His determination was beginning to fade under her mischievous smile. He was faltering and she knew it. "You don't have to make this any harder. Just sign the thing and you'll be free." Pyro laughed weakly at that. "Yeah, I'd be bound forever, but totally free, right?"
"You can't have everything, darling", replied the girl. "Piss off", he said and was delighted to see hidden disgruntlement in her face.
I should have seen it coming. As soon as Bobby, Rogue, Logan, Scott and all my other old friends – now enemies – stepped onto the battlefield, I should have known we had already lost. Logan was taking up Phoenix, Storm was raging on our, my troops and Bobby came at me. Great, I thought, I'm ready for him. No way he's gonna be better than me.
How much I'd been wrong. I gave it my best shot, a never ending stream of fire and he tried to hold it with his ice. Bobby crumbled, my flames nearly touching his body and I stepped closer, smiling triumphantly. But when I could see his face, there was not despair. That son of a bitch was actually grinning widely. "Really?", I said and gave everything. He just got up and reached for my hands. His skin had changed into pure cold, blue and steaming. Before I even knew what was happening, the ice circled around my own arms. "What?" I couldn't believe he had mastered the transformation, allowing his body to become ice. Now he was untouchable, in contrast to me. His white-blue head crashed against mine when he pulled my arms closer. The cold, it was just to much for me. Lightning shot through my head, everything went black.
The air was filled with fog when I awoke again. My body was sprawled on the earth, arms and legs to both sides. Looking around me, I noticed the bodies everywhere. Mutants, human soldiers, friends.
Nobody seemed to be alive. "But who won?", I asked myself, loudly. Maybe someone would hear me. The fog, which was by closer examination rather smoke, cleared when I strong wind appeared out of nowhere. Storm, I thought, happy to see almost any person. They are gonna take me with them, right? But the breeze turned out to be just a breeze, so I made my way through the dead, until I heard a known voice. "Pyro!"
"Mystique." Turning around, I wanted to welcome her and ask for news. The shape-changing woman had been one of my closest comrades, so her feet against me chest was quite a surprise. She pushed me to the ground and placed her bare foot on my throat. Grunting from the pain, I had to resist the urge to raise my hands and put the foot away. When I moved, she would knock me out, maybe even kill me – that I knew from experience. "What happened?" My voice was thinner than I had hoped.
"What do you think happened? Xavier's people won, the humans showed up and declared this a military forbidden zone. They're cleaning up the area by now, looking for any survivors to experiment on. You're screwed, scum." I had almost asked her why she called me that, but I guess I knew. In her eyes, I was nothing but a weakling, something she hated as much as the humans.
"Where is the brotherhood?"
"Dead, mostly. Those who aren't have been taken by the government or fled. There won't be a reassembling, dick." Okay, this was really bad news, although I had suspected it. "And why am I screwed? I'll just burn my way out of here, Raven." Not a good idea, using her normal name even by accident. The pressure on my neck increased, making it hard to breath. "Your abilities are useless. They found a way to max out the kiddo's talent. Most of the island is mutant-free at the moment", replied Mystique, her mouth grim. With that, she bend down and kissed me on the forehead. "Bye, Johnny."
"Wait!", I started, but her hand connected with my temple and I was out again, left with the overwhelming feeling of loneliness.