A/N Well, it's been what, three months? Yeah, I'm lazy, but this story has been bugging me for a while now. I was going to make it about Scott, but I thought Bobby would be a little easier to write.

Anyways, CHARACTER DEATH ALERT! If you don't like it, don't read it. It's seriously not that bad though. Oh yeah, Tabby, Jubilee, and Rahne are not at the mansion, and Bobby is still the leader.

R&R please!

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Yeah, I was the leader, but that meant telling people what pranks to pull when, or telling them what we were going to be doing this weekend. I knew that someday, I would be leading them into battle, but I didn't really think that anything bad could happen from it.

The war had gotten worse. Not just between Magneto and the X-men, but between humans and the entire mutant race. It was typical to see Sentinels stomping through cities or flying through the air, and there were now entire facilities made to hold captured mutants.

The mutants at the Xavier institute were more or less, safe. Even though we had been uncovered as mutants, most humans were more determined to fight the ones in their neighborhoods rather than the home-schooled, house-bound, peace-loving pushovers. So we try and pick up as many mutants as possible, and they even come to us.

We've expanded the mansion a lot, even though it was huge when I got there. I still haven't figured out where the Professor gets all his money, but there always seemed to be enough to help out a mutant in need.

Magneto is also expanding his team. Even without Cerebro, he's able to recruit mutants before the X-men get there. There have also been a few good fights over who gets the new mutant. One time, Scott and the others had been so busy fighting Pyro and Sabertooth, the mutant they were fighting over had run off. I taped Scott trying to explain what had happened to the professor.

Anyways, my team hasn't changed. We're not really called the New Recruits anymore though; there are too many new mutants for that. We're mainly just called, "Bobby's team" or "The old new recruits," or, if Logan calls us, it's, "Hey, kid, get your groups butts down to the Danger room, you had a session fifteen minutes ago."

We weren't really allowed out on many missions. Ray was the only one 18, and Jamie was only 15, so Scott's team was usually more suitable for any real mission. So the day when the Professor called me to his office to lead a mission, I was thrilled. The main X-team was out recruiting a potentially dangerous mutant in California, and there was a 14 year old girl in Texas who was spitting acid.

"This won't be easy, Bobby," the Professor had told me. "This girl is scared, and she probably won't be that eager to hear that she is a mutant."

"Professor, isn't it kind of obvious, she's spitting acid," I pointed out.

Xavier gave me that, "this is not the time to be joking," look he always gets when I'm in the room, and sent me off to find Beast.

Half an hour later, we were in the X-jet on our way to Texas. Scott's team had taken a regular airplane to California, so we got to travel in style. I tried to make Beast let me fly it, but he said I needed to concentrate on the mission. I told him this mission would be cake.

I wish.

We landed in an empty field, and Beast dropped us off, big jets weren't easy to hide in the middle of California. Then we were off on our first big mission in who knows how long.

The girl, Alex, I think the professor said, was hiding out in a park. It was a cute little park, with an airplane that kids could play on, and a big playset. Since it was a Wednesday, there weren't a whole lot of kids around, so Alex was easy to find. She was sitting on the plane, on one of the wings, holding her knees up to her chest.

"Alex?" I asked her, when we got close enough for her to hear us. It was just me right now, the others would come if I needed help, which I hoped I wouldn't.

"Who are you?" she asked, a bit of fear in her eyes. Not really surprising, I remember how scared I was when Scott approached me when I got my powers. It's a bit weird.

"Um, well, I've never actually done this before," I admitted, "but I'm Bobby Drake, also known as Iceman." I gave a somewhat impressive pose.

She gave me a look, and then said, "I'm going through way to much to be dealing with a psycho right now. Just go away."

I sighed, and sat next to her. Had I been this difficult when Scott tried to recruit me?

"I'm not a psycho," I said, and sighed. "Okay, I don't really know how to break this to you gently, but, I'm a mutant, and you are too. I know what happened today, and I'm offering you safety, or at least, as much safety a mutant can get right now."

She got up, and I thought she would run, but she just pointed to the sky. "Please tell me that's part of your powers," she said.

I looked up, and three metal orbs were coming toward us. "Aw, crap," I muttered.

The others were heading over; they must have seen the orbs too.

"Who do you think this time?" Sam asked.

"Scott said it's always been Sabertooth and Pyro," Jamie said.

"Okay team, Ray, Amara, you guys take Sabertooth, if one of you can get a hold of Beast on a cell phone, do it fast. Sam, Jamie, you guys take care of Pyro. Roberto, you're with me," his dark face paled a bit, "yeah," I said. "We're going against Magneto."

"What about me?" Alex asked.

"You might want to hide," I told her. She didn't argue, and ran behind the closest tree. When she got to the mansion, we'd have to work on her hiding skills. "Anybody gotten a hold of Beast yet?"

"It's ringing, give me a few seconds," Amara snapped.

"Just hurry," Sam said, as the orbs loomed closer. Suddenly, before we could do anything, they were on the ground, and opening up. I forgot how fast those things moved.

"Good luck you guys," I said, and they nodded back.

Magneto stepped out, followed by Sabertooth and Pyro. Magneto glanced at us and laughed.

"Children," he laughed, "and I thought all of Xavier's X-men had grown up."

My face burned with embarrassment, so what if we were kids, he had lost to Scott when he was younger than me.

Ray shot a blast at Sabertooth, which he easily avoided.

Magneto laughed again. "Please, we should just make this easier on everyone, where is the girl?" He glanced around, and at that moment, Alex looked around the tree. "Ah, there she is."

Yeah, we were definitely going to have to work on her hiding skills.

Magneto was able to use the metal from a slide to grab Alex, and they twisted around her, and he brought her over.

"Okay guys, let's go!" I shouted, and the fighting began.

Magneto looked at me, as if I was boring him, and shot another one of the metal bars at Roberto as he ran at him.

"You're going to have to do a lot better than this, boy," he said.

I iced up, and could see that everyone else was charging up too. I ran at Magneto, icing away whatever he threw at me. One came at me too fast, and hit me in the stomach.

It knocked me down, but I got back up, and started running towards Alex instead. She needed to get out if she was going to help at all. I got a chance to look over at the others, they were doing about as bad as I was, but it looked like Amara and Ray might be able to stop Sabertooth.

"Ugh," Ray yelled as Sabertooth swiped him across the face, and he fell. All right, so we were screwed.

Alex was hanging about 8 feet in the air, courtesy of Magneto, and I iced myself up to get her.

"You always this good at rescues?" she asked sarcastically as I undid the metal bonds.

"Give us a break, it's our first real mission," I muttered.

I brought her down, and in the thirty seconds it had taken to ice up the metal and break it, things had taken an even bigger turn for the worse. Pyro had trapped Jamie and Sam in a huge ring of fire, which was slowly closing in, Ray was on the ground, his arm at an awkward angle, and Amara was starting to slow down.

"Can you control your powers yet?" I asked Alex. She gave me a deer caught in the headlight look, and slowly nodded yes. "Good, use them."

She glared at Magneto, who was busy wrapping a metal pole completely around Sunspot's body while watching the others, and she gurgled something out of her mouth. She aimed at Magneto, and she spit green acid at him, just like she was spitting a spit wad.

I thought it would hit Magneto, but he was able to block it. Man, I swear that guy has ESP or something.

"Agh!" I whipped around to see Pyro shoot a huge fire ball at Jamie and Sam, which knocked Sam out, and threw Jamie to the ground, making at least four multiples. The fire wall around them was closing in, and they had no way to get out. I ran over, and tried to stop the fire with my ice, but then Pyro shot a blast at me. I almost powered down, but I was kept safe in my ice-covering.

Magma was blasting her lava at Sabertooth, while he tried to grab Ray, who was now unconscious on the ground. And just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, Magneto had Alex trapped within one of his metal orbs, and was taking her off.

So then I had to make a choice, Alex, Sam and Jamie, or Ray and Amara.

I left Alex alone; Magneto probably wouldn't hurt her if all he wanted was her powers. I felt bad for her, but my team comes first. I tried once again to douse the fire around Sam and Jamie, but the fire kept melting my ice.

Jamie was screaming, but I couldn't do anything to help him. I tried to freeze Pyro, but his fire was a lot more powerful than my ice, and he hit me with another blast while he slowly brought the ring of fire in towards Jamie and Sam.

I turned, and froze Saber tooth's feet so Amara would have a clearer shot to attack him, but it didn't work.

"Bobby!" I heard Jamie scream. I ran for them one last time, trying to gather all my strength for one last blast. I thought I blew Pyro out of the way, but then I realized he was leaving, Magneto was calling him. The fire still wasn't stopping, if anything it was moving in faster, like Pyro was getting bored with it all. I gave out as much ice as I could, but it wasn't enough to stop the fiery inferno closing in around the two.

"Help me Bobby!" Jamie screamed again.

"I'm trying," I yelled back, trying to keep focused on knocking the fire out, blocking out his and Magma's screams. I tried, God I tried, but I couldn't stop it. It was too damn powerful. Jamie started coughing, and his screaming stopped. Suddenly, his coughing stopped too. The fire started dying down, and I could see Pyro in the background laughing as he flew off with Magneto.

I didn't look, I couldn't, I just ran over to Amara. Sabertooth had run off, leaving an unconscious Ray and a screaming Amara behind. She was sobbing now; she had seen what had happened to Sam and Jamie.

I couldn't cry, I couldn't believe what had happened. Then, too late, I saw the X-jet come down, and Beast came for us.

A couple days later, we had gathered for Jamie's funeral. The day before, we had flown out to Sam's home for his funeral.

It was horrible; Rahne and Jubilee had come out to Sam's. I've never seen Rahne cry so much. She wasn't able to talk to any of us, and she stayed by his casket for a long time. I'm guessing she was finally telling him what I had told him from the start- she did like him.

I had been asked to say something at his funeral, but I said no. What was I supposed to say, "Hey man, it was fun, sorry I killed you?" I still wasn't able to look any of my team in the eye. I couldn't comfort Amara, or make Rahne feel any better, because I was so miserable myself.

I couldn't believe it, Sam, my best friend was dead. Sam, the guy who had broken every rule we could with me, who would cover for me whenever I snuck out, the one who told Jubilee I liked her. In all the years we'd been at Xavier's, we never had a major fight, or even a small one. We were best friends. It was supposed to stay like that forever.

We flew back for Jamie's funeral. Since his parent's lived close to the mansion, they allowed Jamie to be buried on the grounds, as long as they got to see his grave.

Xavier had him placed in an empty part of his land, a large empty field. By putting him there, he seemed to be saying, 'this is the first of many.'

Jamie was gone. My little brother, the kid I used to make fun of, the kid who pulled more pranks on me than anyone else in the mansion put together, was dead.

His parent's cried a lot. Understandable, really, considering how there son had died. They told me they didn't blame me, but I still wasn't able to get over the fact that if I had been stronger, or faster, or a better leader, we wouldn't be at these funeral's.

Ray's arm was in a cast, Sabertooth had broken it pretty bad. I hadn't seen him cry this whole time. Probably because he was unconscious, and he wasn't able to hear Jamie's screams.

I haven't been able to sleep this whole week. Maybe I never will. Jamie's screams might always be there. God, it's horrible. Amara's been waking up screaming too. She shouldn't have to go through with this, but then, Jamie and Sam shouldn't be dead.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Leading was supposed to be fun, an honor. This wasn't supposed to happen.

And it's all my fault.

I'm the leader.

Aw, (takes out tissue). I meant to kill Ray, but Jamie was just easier. Anyways, read and review, no flames though, I don't think I could read them without thinking of Jamie. (Starts crying again.)