Scott, Piotr, or Bobby?... Oh, My!
By JobbyShipper
Rating: This will go for a long time not even really needing a mature rating, but it will eventually get to that point, so might as well say MA.
Summery: John Allerdyce begins to see the error of his ways and realizes he never should've left the Xavier Institute. His feelings, emotions, and life have changed on him from all around after becoming one with the art of meditation, thanks to Magneto, and he starts to believe he's going insane because of a voice that starts talking to him in his head. However, those are the least of his problems as he finally decides that it's time to come out of the closet, but who will he end up with? Only time will tell.
Warnings: This will start out as a basic X4 story that centers around Pyro and coming to terms with his feelings, emotions, and new way of life as it's finally time to ditch the cocky attitude and except who he's always been. There will be sexual content in future chapters, just not yet. hehe.
Prologue: Abandoning the Brotherhood Dream
Pyro, otherwise known as John Allerdyce sat in his room at the main headquarters stronghold that had been Magneto's fortress home for many long years, much longer then Pyro had been working for him. The mutant was flipping a lighter open and shut. He had gained more control over his powers and had a new device to create the flames from, but he simply couldn't get over the habit of playing around with a lighter and it had always helped him to think more clearly when he was trying to be at peace, but failing miserably.
Pyro sat down on the floor and started trying to meditate like Magneto had originally suggested to him when he had started learning from his teachings... back when he had turned his back on the X-Men... his friends... The Professor... The pyromaniac tried not to think about any of that, but it was hard not to. There were times that he felt alone where I was now, whereas he was never alone when he was still a student of Xavier. None of the mutants that he was around these days seemed to have anything in common with him as he was one of the youngest in the Brotherhood. Pyro honestly felt that he didn't fit in at all, despite all of the encouraging words that Magneto had always given him. He still just couldn't help but feel like an outcast. He sighed as he continued to silently meditate.
As Pyro continued to meditate, he started to remember things in his head. They were things from his not too distant past. He was remembering when he used to take Cyclops's mechanics class. He smiled not even realizing it from his meditative state. Pyro remembered hearing about the death of Scott Summers. It was a sad memory for him that he'd tried his best to block out, but it suddenly came flooding back into his mind.
Pyro was standing near Magneto as he gave his speech to the Brotherhood below.
"They wish to cure us," Magneto announced in his magnificently powerful tone. "Well I say to you, we are the cure for all homosapiens... They have their weapons..." He looks over to Phoenix. "And we have ours..." After Magneto's speech had ended and the crowd was cheering, Pyro couldn't help but want to move away from the group so he could think more clearly. He went over to a part of the woods where no one else was and sat down, starting to meditate. He breathed deeply and slowly as he cleared his mind, trying not to let the anger he had from his encounter earlier with Bobby Drake get the better of him, as he had just seen him not too long ago at that riot about the cure. It wasn't that he hated Bobby. It was that he hated the whole situation, and it wasn't like he could confess to Bobby that he missed his friendship and wanted him to come with him, because he had to keep up appearances. He believed that Callisto had followed him to the riot just to make sure that he'd got the job done, so that was why he had made sure to act like the arrogant Pyro that everyone knew of. Pyro found himself constantly wishing that Bobby was there with him then more then ever. He could've used some of his advice, or just a chance to talk with him about little things, try and calm him down... definitely without Marie around to get between their friendship like she always did.
Through everything, Pyro distinctly heard Magneto saying things from the distance. "I can smell that adamantium from a mile away..." Magneto's voice echoed. "You think we're keeping her here against her will? She's here because she wants to be..."
Pyro didn't know who he was talking to, and right then, he didn't care as he tried to block out the conversation and concentrate. He suddenly heard footsteps coming toward him. The footfalls on the leaves, and the crunching had caused him to loose his concentration. He opened his eyes and turned to see The Phoenix had stopped and was looking down at him. Her eyes were piercing with the evil that was within her. Pyro gulped as he looked at her, praying that she wouldn't attack him, as from the way she had been acting recently, he wouldn't have been surprised if she did. "You are John Allerdyce... Jean remembers you..." Pyro slowly stood up and looked upon her. He nodded his head. "I used to be at Xavier's school, yes..." He could suddenly tell that she was feeling a little faint. It was like she was going to fall, and then the unthinkable happened, and she actually did. He quickly knelt down beside her. "Dr. Grey, are you alright?" Pyro knew he shouldn't have called her by that name, but it was really the only one that he knew for her. He didn't even know truly that she was called the Phoenix at that point. She looked up at the blonde highlighted teen and then looked around everywhere in confusion. A tear came to her eyes. "Where's Logan? Where am I? John, what's going on?" At this point Pyro could tell that something was different about her. Apparently the Jean Grey that he had once known had come out. "I don't know where Logan is... You're in the forest. We're near San Francisco. Do you not..." "John... Please..." She closed her eyes tightly as if she was in some great amount of pain. "John, you have to kill me... I killed Scott... I killed the Professor." Pyro's eyes widened at this. He knew about the Professor being killed, but he had no idea about Cyclops. "Cyclops is dead? Dr. Grey, why did you kill him?" He backed away from her. "You loved him. He was everything to you. How could you do that?" Pyro knew exactly why he was so upset at this point. It was all very clear to him, but he tried not to let that get out. "I'm sorry, John... I know you cared about him too, but now isn't the time for me to reveal what I know about your feelings. No one should ever know unless you feel they deserve to... But you have to kill me... You can't let me kill anyone else, John... If Scott meant anything to you like he did to me, then stop Phoenix before she kills again." Pyro pulled up his arm, lighting his igniter. A tear came to his eye at the thought of what he'd just been told, and the thought that he was near about to kill Dr. Grey. He couldn't even bring himself to throw the flames toward her. The pain was too much for him. He turned off the flame and simply started walking away. "I can't Dr. Grey..."
John Allerdyce took his shame with him as he moved away from Jean, looking back only long enough to see her stand up once more, becoming the dominant Phoenix personality again. He could almost hear her laughing in his head at how pathetic he was, but it didn't matter to him. He simply kept going back to where the rest of the Brotherhood were.
He suddenly shot out of his meditation when he heard the laughing continuing. It wouldn't stop. It was entirely unbearable to him. He put his hands over his ears trying to get the laughter to stop, but it was like it was inside him, and wouldn't stop... And then, all of a sudden, the laughter stopped. John looked around in shock.
"John? Can you hear me, John? I know you can hear me. You should've listened to me when you had the chance. Think of all the lives you could've spared if you had just killed me... But that is of no consequence now. Jean Grey is dead, and only a small echo of what she once was remains. Can you guess where that echo lies, John? I know you can. The echo knows the truth about what happened with your precious Scott.
Pyro stood up, lighting his igniting from his right hand and his Zippo lighter in the other hand so he'd be ready if something did happen. "Who are you? I didn't know Magneto had other telepaths in the Brotherhood besides Dr. Grey."
"Foolish boy. No wonder you dyed your hair blonde. I just told you who I was. I am an echo of Jean Grey, a last remnant of what she once was. I've been following your journey since you made your trip back from Alcatraz Island. Need I remind you of what Magneto did while there?"
"No... I don't wanna remember. It wasn't what I thought it was... That's why I came back here..."
"Oh, no, John. Apparently you've forgotten what happened. Allow me to remind you."
Pyro felt a siring pain rush through his head as he dropped down on his bed, his igniter and Zippo lighter shutting off.
Pyro had just stood back up on Alcatraz Island after suffering a massive head butt by Iceman. He watched on in horror as Dr. Grey's new entity destroyed everything around her. He turned to see Arclight, Kid Omega, and Psylocke rushing out of the building. Arclight was disintegrated instantly, but he saw Psylocke place her hand on Kid Omega and teleport away with him. He turned his head toward the bridge and saw Magneto looking toward Jean and Wolverine as he was moving over toward her to obviously stop her. Pyro looked back over to Magneto and then the manipulator of metal turned to him. Pyro could tell that he was going to just leave him there to die. He realized in this instant that he truly meant nothing to Magneto. Pyro turned and jumped into the nearby ocean just before he could be hit by Dark Phoenix's destructive wave and swam away toward shore.
Pyro's eyes shot wide as he sat back up. He was breathing heavily and there were tears in his eyes. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"To simply prove a point, John," the echo of Jean replied. "Magneto is a heartless man that only cares about himself and his own goals for world conquest. Surely you can see that now. He abandoned you in your time of need."
"He had been cured himself!" I blurted back. "What was he supposed to do for me, huh? Was he supposed to come down there and get obliterated like all the other people that you killed?"
"Well, at least you're accepting that I'm part of what Jean Grey once was now, John. However you still haven't registered what I said to you earlier about Scott. I know that you want to ask me, but you just can't seem to do it. The real me didn't know what had actually happened. Let me show you, John. It's simply beautiful."
"Not more images," I groaned as my head was throbbing.
It is a necessary evil," she said. "Brace yourself."
Pyro sat on the mattress as still as he could and grabbed the blankets firmly in his hands as more images were brought into his mind by this seemingly powerful echo.
Scott Summers stood looking at Jean Grey for the longest time. Scott was on the verge of tears. She asked him to take his glasses off, because she wanted to see his eyes. He resisted. She said that he couldn't hurt her, and that she could control it. She took his glasses off, his eyes closed tightly. After persuasion, he finally opened his eyes, and indeed she was controlling the blasts to the point where his blue eyes appeared before her. With that they started kissing passionately. During this moment, Scott's face began to turn a light shade of red, and that's when it happened! Scott's powers suddenly returned full force as his eyes opened wide, spreading a beam of optic brightness as far as the eye could see, but it did not hurt Jean as her powers were too strong for it to affect her... or so she thought, but as their lips parted because of the sudden blast, a bright pink mist escaped from Jean's lips and burst into Scott's causing a reaction that sent them both flying, Jean going to the river bank, and Scott sailing through the trees for about a half a mile before crashing his back into the side of a tree and falling to the ground, out cold.
The vision vanished as a look of shock came over Pyro. Scott was obviously still alive, but was he still at Alkali Lake? How long had he been there? It had only been a couple days since the incident at Alcatraz Island, but how long had it been between the incident there and what had transpired at the lake.
Pyro stood up again and felt the emotions run wild inside him as he tried to get his bearings. "Where is he? Is he still at Alkali Lake?"
"Yes, he's unconscious. The only reason he's still alive now is because I've been sustaining him. If that small amount of transference had never occurred, he would've died for sure when his spine impacted with the tree. You must retrieve him and return him to the Xavier Institute."
"Why? What do you want me to do this for? You could've easily talked to Logan or someone else at the mansion. Why me?"
"You should know the answer to that question without me having to explain it. You loved Scott just as much if not more then I did. You can never deny that either. I only knew because I was a telepath, but I did respect your privacy, now matter how strong the urge was to at least pick on Scott about it, I never did. I trust you to help him, because of those strong feelings. You've been crushing on him since the first time you had one of his auto mechanics classes when you were twelve. Sure it was just a boyhood crush back then, but you never let go of those feelings. I need you to help him, John. He needs to stay alive to keep Professor Xavier's dream alive, and you need to make up for your past mistakes and fix the problems that you've got yourself into. There are still people that love and care about you at the Xavier Institute. Go to them. Show them that you still care by bringing them Scott to heal. Dr. McCoy will know what to do. Time is of the essence."
"Perhaps I do need to fix my mistakes," Pyro said silently. "I'll do it. I'll go to him. I'll have to take my motorcycle though. There's no other transportation. Everything was used for the march to San Francisco."
Pyro quickly took off, not even bothering to take anything with him. He had the clothes on his back, his fire pack, his Zippo lighter, and the keys to his motorcycle that he had managed to teach himself how to ride before everything went crazy with the whole Alcatraz Island incident. He made the quick descent down the winding stairs of the headquarters and left the building. He hopped on his motorcycle, started the engine, and took off into the early morning light, going toward the very distant Alkali Lake in Canada, to save Scott Summers.
