Flashpoint

By Cailleach Bheur

Summary: Pre-X1, somewhat AU. In a world where the existence of mutants is still a secret, even to many mutants themselves, what happens if there is no Charles Xavier, no Institute for the Gifted, no X-Men? Mainly features the students from the movies, such as Rogue, Iceman and Pyro, along with Colossus, Shadowcat, Jubilee and others.

Dedicated to oldprydefan and Beaubier for their help betaing this and providing extremely useful suggestions. You both rock!

Prologue

The cold November air was crisp and sharp, with a brisk chill that bit at the unprotected skin. The wind whispered through the canopies of the maples and oaks lining the sidewalk and scattered leaves skipped along the pavement, scratching at the gray-white concrete in a curious counterpart to the whistling currents that lent them wings.

To Bobby Drake, striding swiftly down the sixteen hundred block of Emerson Lane, his surroundings seemed haphazardly cut out of any of the numerous guidebooks preaching the virtues of Boston, Massachusetts to the unenlightened. In other words, anyone not currently living there. The mundanity of the suburban neighborhood grated at his nerves, tested the limits of his already strained patience.

The everpresent pattern of two story brick houses bored him. The blue shades of robin eggshells, where they graced the window panes of house after house,irritated him. He found himself studying the natural vistas around him rather than face the humdrum evidence of banality, but remained disappointed even there.

There was nothing exemplary about the greenery lining the sidewalks. Well, not greenery so much as plant life the passing of season had washed clean of verdant vitality, leaving half finished hues of red and orange and yellow in their wake. Greenery in November actually would have been a welcome change. Anything to break up the repetitive monotony of scenes viewed a thousand times before, landscapes bored into his memory by his forced subjection to them year after year.

Overall, Bobby Drake's opinions of his current environs could hardly be called favorable. In fact, said opinions could more accurately be described by words such as cynical, jaded, even morbid.

Then again, walking five miles home from school wasn't the kind of thing that left anyone feeling especially perky.

So he could be understood, if not excused, for the glacial sheen of his ice blue eyes, where vibrant humor normally sparkled within their depths. The uncharacteristic scowl gracing the planes of his face wasn't totally without reason, and his curt strides were the result of more than just your average teenage moodiness.

The wind picked up then, spitting unanchored bits of dirt and gravel into his eyes. Even before he reached up a hand to wipe them clean, the mischievous sprites of the ether added insult to injury, snatching up a stray page of newspaper and plastering it across his face.

Bobby stopped and sputtered indignantly, his eyelids blinking rapidly beneath the dusty newsprint. His arms flailed wildy as he searched for a grip, but the wind foiled his attempts and kept it anchored to his face. At last his fingers latched around the folds of the paper and he yanked it off his face with an irritated grunt. His hand curled around the page, automatically crumbling it into a more easily handled ball when the inked headline caught his attention.

Local Cheerleader Taken From Home

He shook his head in disbelief. That made what, five teens missing in as many weeks?

Wonderful.

He could already see the turn tonight's dinner conversation would be taking. No doubt his parents would spend the entire hour commiserating back and forth about the current state of the world. 'What were the police doing about all this? What kind of sick person does this sort of thing? It's a sad day when you couldn't even trust Boston to be a safe place to raise your children.'

Bobby snorted, but the exhalation froze in his throat as his eyes traveled further down the page. It wasn't that he was unsympathetic. His eyes devoured the grainy photo of the girl in question, and he did feel for her... It was just hard to get worked up about something like this, at least not to the extent other people were. It was more an abstract concept than anything else, not like it was something he would ever encounter first hand.

Hell, let whoever was doing this try it with him. He'd like to see how far they got. He grinned, his earlier melancholy all but forgotten as he contemplated the scenario. Like all boys his age, he couldn't help but entertain thoughts of adventure and heroism. And unlike the rest of his peers, he had certain advantages that made his glory dreams more than just blustering bravado.

You see, Bobby Drake wasn't quite like anyone else his age, anyone else any age for that matter.

Bobby Drake was different.

Bobby Drake was special.

He spun all the way around in a quick, precautionary survey of his surroundings before returning his attention to the paper in his hand. His vision blurred and swam, so intently did he focus on the newsprint, breath coming in swift, excited gasps, exhilarated by the prospect of duplicating the feat he had performed by accident earlier that day.

Bobby's concentration was rewarded by the whisper of frost across the surface of his skin. Streaks of blue lanced down the length of his hand, originating nowhere and extending everywhere as his skin paled with uncanny speed. The muscles of his fingers spasmed at the sudden arctic chill, but it wasn't an uncomfortable sensation by any means.

In a matter of seconds the bitter cold had transferred to the paper, using the flesh of his hand as a medium. Pools of translucent light rippled outwards from where each of his fingertips met the newsprint. They traveled swiftly over the surface of ink and charcoal dust until at last the sun shone through a sheet of transparent ice, its blue white depths tinting the ground beneath with azure shadows.

Bobby grinned again, and added just the barest extra pressure to his fingers. His grip tightened almost imperceptibly, but it was still more than enough to shatter the now fragile framework of the sheet. Shards of broken ice cascaded over the sides of his hand, dashing upon the ground below in tinkling disarray.

Oh yeah, let them try.

"Anybody home?" Bobby yelled, not really expecting an answer as he slipped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. Still he paused for a moment in anticipation, shrugging indifferently when no reproof for his violent treatment of the door seemed forthcoming.

He flicked the lights on as he traversed the length of the foyer into the kitchen, the soles of his shoes squeaking noisily along the tiled floors. Tossing his backpack carelessly onto the kitchen table, he made his way to the fridge, absentmindedly sifting through the mail as he did so.

Bills, bills, more bills. He dumped them unceremoniously on the counter, nothing of interest there. No wait, here was something for him.

He snorted as he surveyed the envelope from some Podunk college university he had never heard of. Start planning your future now, the exterior of the envelope read. He laughed quietly before throwing that one directly in the trash.

Right.

Latchkey kid and human snow cone machine. Ladies and gentlemen, let the job offers start rolling in.

Bobby swung the refrigerator door open, still chuckling over the letter. He would have laughed harder if the truth weren't so sad. Seventeen years old, a junior in high school, and he didn't have a clue what he wanted to do with his life. A fact that his parents took great care to remind him of, just about every day.

He bent over to more easily ransack the contents of the fridge. A heavy mist of frost escaped the refrigerator, but he just breathed it in deeply, invigorated by the cold. He grabbed a bottle of Coke and was rummaging around for one of the ice cream bars he knew his mom had hidden in the back when the shrill ring of the phone startled him.

"Shit," Bobby swore aloud, rubbing the back of his head where he had struck it against the edge of the fridge. Mumbling incoherent curses beneath his breath, he sat the Coke bottle down on the counter and used his foot to swing the refrigerator door shut as he reached for the portable phone.

"Dammit Ronnie," he cursed again as the phone was nowhere to be seen. Why was it so hard to put the damn thing back where it belonged? He turned slowly, trying to pinpoint the origin of the annoying ring. At last he found the white hand unit hidden beneath a dishrag. He pounced on it, jabbing at the Speak button and cutting it off in the middle of its sixth ring.

"Hello?" he asked as he tossed the dishrag off to one side and began hunting around for a glass for his drink. He winced as his mother's sharp tones came over the phone line.

"Bobby?" she asked, before she continued without giving him a chance to confirm or deny. "Why did it take you so long to pick up? The phone rang at least six times."

Five and a half, he corrected her silently, secure enough in his anonymity to risk rolling his eyes. "Sorry. Ronnie forgot to put the phone back again, and I couldn't find it."

"Bobby, why do you automatically assume it was your brother?" She managed to sound both exasperated and disapproving even over the phone, but he just rolled his eyes and mimicked her next words along with her. "It could have just as easily been you and you just forgot."

"Sorry Mom, you're probably right," he apologized again, barely holding back a sigh. It was useless trying to argue with his mother. Stubborn insistence would win every time.

"That's alright," Madeline Drake said at last, apparently mollified. For now. "Did you get my note?"

Bobby frowned. "What note?"

"I left a note for you on the kitchen counter. It's not there?"

He checked around the room again, but the counter was spotless save for the dishrag and his Coke bottle and glass. "Nope, nothing there."

"Don't say nope. Your father pays good money for you to get a decent education, the least you can do is speak properly." His mother paused for a minute, and he could practically hear the frown in her voice. "There's no note there? You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," he replied exasperatedly.

"Don't take that tone with me young man. Anyways, it's a good thing I called then. Your father and brother won't be home until very late, Ronnie has a baseball game. And I'm all tied up here at the office, I won't be home til nine at least, so you'll have to make your own dinner."

"No problem," he said casually. What was this? The house to himself? No family dinner? Surely she jested.

Who knew that whole praying before bed thing actually worked? He'd have to do that a lot more often now.

There was an uncomfortable silence then, as each of them waited for the other to speak. At last his mother broke the silence, leaving him wishing he had said goodbye before she had a chance to.

"How was school?" Bobby groaned. She must have been reading that damn child psychologist again. Now was the part of the conversation where she felt guilty for "neglecting" him, and not being around more. According to Doctor Quack, the only way to make up for this was to show some sign of being active in her child's life, really show she cared.

"Fine," he said evenly as he leaned over the spotless Formica countertop, settling himself comfortably on his elbows. This would take awhile.

"Anything interesting happen?"

Not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like if she really wanted him to answer that question. Well Mom, since you asked, I had another growth spurt in those freaky powers of mine. I can actually freeze stuff solid now. Pretty nifty huh?

The words hovered precariously near the tip of his tongue, but the picture frame next to his elbow helped hold them back. He studied the family portrait, the painstakingly arranged positions, the immaculately groomed garments.

No, she didn't really want him to answer that question. She didn't really want to know. Because that would clash with the picture of perfect suburbia. That just wouldn't do at all.

William and Madeline Drake's children were perfect, paragons of normalcy.

They were blue eyed and blond haired, intelligent but not freakishly so.

They played baseball and football instead of soccer, because those were the national past times, those were what good, wholesome all American boys played.

They weren't allowed to see rated R movies because that wasn't socially approved of, yet they went anyways, because that was what boys did.

They didn't turn their shower water to ice. They didn't make all their beverages into slushies just because they could. They didn't freeze things solid all with the touch of a single hand.

Their family portraits were cramped enough with just the parents, cat, and 2.5 children standing beside the white picket fence. No room for freaks there..

"No, nothing interesting," Bobby answered at last. He tuned out her response, his concentration held by the glass resting just beneath the tip of one finger. With the ease that familiarity brought, he changed the glass to ice with the brush of a hand, flashfreezing it until the violent molecular motion hidden within its crystal lattice dulled to a hum and ultimately screeched to a halt.

He poked it tentatively, testing its solidity, and it shattered with a vindictively loud noise, sending cascades of ice showering off the counter.

"Bobby? What was that?" His mother's anxious tones drew his attention back to the phone. The brief euphoria that using his powers brought faded all too swiftly, and the crashing weight of numb indifference fell heavily upon his shoulders.

"I broke a glass," he said vaguely. Her exasperated sigh carried clearly over the phone.

"I hope it wasn't one of the expensive ones. Honestly Bobby, how hard is it to behave with decorum in the house?"

"It was an accident," he returned defensively.

"I swear, you'd think you were raised in a barn, the way you act sometimes," his mother's voice trailed off. "I have to go, a client just walked in. Just make sure that's all cleaned up by the time I get home, and don't eat too late. I love you sweetheart. Talk to you later."

The phone clicked as she hung up, the dial tone humming steadily over the connection. Bobby stared at it for a minute, and finally just shook his head as he replaced it in its cradle. The ice was already evaporating so he just used the dishrag to mop up with the spillage remaining on the counter. Then he dropped it to the floor and let it soak up the liquid there.

He grabbed the Coke off the counter and made his way over to the kitchen table, slumping down in one of the chairs. After growing tired of just staring at the checkered tablecloth, he pulled his backpack over in front of him and unzipping it, started to pull out his books.

He laughed humorlessly as his Genetics book slid out in front of him. Irony was the spice of life, after all. He spun it around on the table to better view the double helix strand that graced the book's cover. Not for the first time, he wondered if he were in those pages somewhere. If he looked hard enough, would he see himself in there? A reason for his powers, some arcane DNA encoding that said the ability to turn things to ice was linked to the dominant gene for blue eyes?

But then again, there was no way they could have an explanation for every genetic fluke that had ever occurred over the course of human evolution. And that's what he was of course. A fluke, one step away from a freak. One of a kind, and not in the good kind of way. Bobby stared at the book's cover morosely. The red and blue depictions of amino acids seemed less like the twisted ladder of human evolution now, rather holding the appearance of the Cheshire Cat's demented smile instead, leering back at him as if sharing some secret jest that no one else could ever get.

A whisper of movement drew his eye to the doorway and he jumped, his heart pounding frantically in his chest. He frowned and pushed the book away from him, shoving himself to his feet as he did so. He was supposed to be alone in the house.

"Ronnie, is that you?" Bobby called out, certain that that was it. Knowing him, he had probably just forgotten his glove or something.

No answer.

"Ronnie?"

He stepped back out into the foyer and looked around, but it was empty save for the motes of dust that drifted lazily in scattered patches of sunlight. Crossing over to the living area, he flipped on that light as well.

"Ronnie, are you here?"

He thought he heard the squeak of shoes against the tiles behind him, and he whirled, the first syllables of his brother's name spilling from his lips, halting when he found nothing behind him.

"Ronnie?"

Bobby noticed with irritation that his voice wasn't quite as steady any more. He stepped further into the living room, looking carefully around for some evidence of movement. A flicker in the far window caught his eye then, and he looked up in relief.

"Jesus Ronnie," he began, the words failed him as he caught a good look at the reflected silhouette. He spun around and gaped in astonishment at the masked figure behind him, clad from head to toe in some kind of black material, maybe Kevlar.

"Who the fuck are you?"

It was meant as a challenge, but came out more as a fearful squeak than anything else. He backed up a step, cleared his throat when the spectre made no move to answer, tried again.

"What the hell are you doing in my house?"

His demands trailed off as the figure raised one arm where it had rested at his side. He was holding some kind of weapon, one pointed directly at his chest, and Bobby involuntarily stumbled back a step. His foot caught on the edge of the Persian carpet, sending him sprawling on his back, but it proved to be a fortuitous occurrence as something whizzed violently through the air just overhead.

Bobby twisted his head around to look at the dart where it stuck quivering in the plaster board of the wall just behind him. He tried to speak, tried to scream, but his mouth was too dry to form the words, the sounds. He swung back towards his attacker in time to see him redirecting the weapon back at him, and that finally prompted his stunned limbs into motion.

He scuttled backwards on all fours like a crab, rolling over on to his stomach when he got behind the barrier of the couch. His pulse racing at a thousand beats per second, he shoved himself to his feet and into a stumbling run as he fled down a hallway.

Another dart whizzed by just overhead, notching the surface of the wall nearby. The tramp of heavy footsteps sounded out behind him, telling him he was being pursued, but he didn't dare risk a glance behind him to be sure. Instead he raced as fast as he could down the darkened corridor, letting the ebony shadows swallow him whole.

He skidded to a stop just a few feet later, as another black clad figure stepped out of a doorway just ahead and targeted him with a red laser sight. He hesitated for a few crucial seconds and then dove into the bathroom just off to one side. Hurriedly kicking it shut and slamming the lock into place, he slid along the tiled floor until his back ran into the far wall. Just in time too, as three darts thrummed into the other side of the door just moments later. Their metallic tips stuck all the way through the door, quivering from the impact.

His mom was going to be so pissed.

Thumps on the door drew his thoughts back from the inane to the crisis at hand. Bobby ran his hands through his hair, fingers latching tightly around separate strands as if this was some nightmare pain could wake him from. He was still in the bathroom though, and the door continued to quake in its frame.

This was crazy, there was no way this was happening. The red laser sites borne by the man outside terrified him in a way that no action movie explosion could. It spoke of precision, careful deliberation. This was no haphazard home invasion. These guys were like the fucking SWAT teams he saw on TV, with their Kevlar, and their laser sights, and moving with that spooky, inhuman grace.

But that was just crazy. Where was the noise, the shouted commands, the bullhorn calling for surrender? Where were the fucking bad guys?

The door had stopped shaking, and Bobby looked at it in confusion. Why had they stopped? Then a low hissing sound came from just below the door, and he looked down to see wisps of white curling into the room from the crack between the door and floor. A pungent odor stung at his nostrils as the mist rose steadily in the air, coiling with deliberate slowness, like a cobra in search of his scent.

He cast his eyes around frantically, and they fell on the small bathroom window just above the toilet. Scrambling on to the toilet seat he shoved at the window with both hands. He nearly put his fist through it in frustration when it remained stuck in place, but then inspiration struck. Placing both palms flat on the glass, he waited until it shimmered in the light, before shattering the icy barrier.

He must have given the intruders some indication of his intentions though, because they renewed their attempts to break down the door despite the gas still seeping into the room. With a last fearful glace over one shoulder, Bobby hoisted himself to the windowsill, and squeezed himself through the tiny opening.

His shirt caught on the edges of the window frame, and one, two, three buttons popped off as he wriggled himself free. He fell several feet to the ground and the impact knocked the breath free of his lungs, but somehow he managed to make it back to his feet and he took off running down the hill behind his house.

Shadows shifted beneath the trees just ahead, and yet another Kevlar swathed figure emerged from the shrouding darkness. He raised his own bulky weapon in his direction, and Bobby hurriedly came to a stop, stumbling and nearly falling as his momentum threatened to carry him even further forward.

"Stay back," Bobby yelled in warning, one trembling hand raised in threat. He wasn't sure what he intended to do with it, but maybe it would make the other man pause.

"I'm warning you, stay back!" He screamed when the man continued to raise his firearm. Still his words produced no reaction, and he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. He reached down inside of himself where that half understood magic dwelled, praying that it would work, and he brought the furious arctic tempest raging to the fore.

Frosty winds swept off him, raising goosebumps in their wake. They washed over his attacker, coating him with ice from head to toe, freezing him in mid motion until his entire lower torso and gun hand were encased in a miniature tundra. Bobby grinned, momentarily exhilarated despite his precarious situation.

Then his vision went black as a hood was thrown over his head from behind, wet linen sealing itself to his face. He struggled for a moment, but he couldn't see, couldn't breathe, couldn't think, there was no sensation, just the sickly sweet smell overpowering his nostrils.

And then the blackness of oblivion.

To be continued...