Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, the characters, or the plots brought in by X3.
A/N: This was the first thread on my RPG. Between me and on of my good RP buddies. The RPG is still sort of new and we're lacking quite a few members! If you want to join go ahead and check out the link under my profile.
John's eyelids flickered open and a moan escaped his lips. "My head... what the hell..." The teen mumbled on and shut his eyes as he gently rested his right hand on his forehead. "Ow..." He grumbled and tried to open his eyes again, but wherever he was it was too white and too bright for his head. "What happened?" He questioned no one imparticular, but the memories from Alcatraz were coming back. "Magneto?" He questioned quietly and decided, as a massive jolt of pain entered his head, that he was done talking.
John had no idea where he was, how he had got there, where Magneto was or anything that had happened after the fight with Bobby. He was also beginning to wonder how long he'd been out, and if he was dead... He'd lost a fight to Iceman and death sounded really nice at that very moment.
A faint swish of the sliding doors indicated the entrance of the Institute's new Headmistress. Her shoes clicked ever so lightly against the tilted floor as the elegant woman approached the hospital bed the young pyro was currently occupying.
She had spent a better part of her early years here. When ever she got into a fight during her outings, Xavier had always dragged her down here so that Jean could check on her for any serious injuries. She usually had none, but an occasional broken wrist. During her time down here, she managed to pick up a few things from Jean. Therefore, she was able to move around the medical room with ease.
"How do you feel?" Came the soothing voice of Ororo Monroe, when she reached the occupied hospital Gurney.
John was instantly sitting straight up with a defensive look on his face, and a wince that came with the sudden movement of his head. "Where the hell am I?" He snapped and glowered at his former teacher, but of course there was no point in asking. It was fairly obvious. He didn't even want to know why Magneto hadn't taken him rather than his former school.
"Relax John," Ororo told him calmly, and noticed his wince. She moved from his side to retrieve a bottle of painkillers, and a glass of water. "You were unconscious and I have Piotr bring you on the jet so that you received the proper care."
She wanted him to relax. John merely stared her in the eye until she left his side for the medicine. The teen pulled his knees up to rest his elbows on them and let his face fall into his hands. "Why didn't you just leave me there?" He moaned into his hands. He could hear running water, and wondered if he was thirsty...
She collected the painkillers from a cupboard above a sink on the far side of the room, and filled a white paper cup with lukewarm water. She took three small tanned pills from the bottle, made her way back to John's side with the pills and cup of water. She handed them to John. "Here."
Suddenly Ororo's voice broke into his thoughts, before he'd managed to determine if he was hungry or thirsty, and he glanced over at her. John arched an eyebrow at the gesture and stared at her in a defiant yet exhausted manner. He wasn't a student here... and he wasn't going to take orders from her, and he didn't even really want to be polite about any of it. Not that Ororo had implied she thought that way about any of this, but he vaguely wondered if she thought of him as a mutant or a student. Perhaps to her he could be both... but not to him.
He took the water and the painkillers without a word to her, and he downed both of them before tossing the crumpled cup to the floor. After a moment he rolled his neck and glanced over at her. "What happened. Where's Magneto?" The aggitated pyromaniac questioned and stared her straight in the eye. No way in hell was he going to accept a 'John you need rest we'll tak about this later' or 'why don't you have something to eat and then we can discuss everything.'
"Why didn't you just leave me there?"
He had asked her while she was busy getting the painkillers and water, but she didn't answer his question. She was about too, but then chose against. Because we don't leave others behind. Wouldn't have been a proper answer, but they have left someone behind, because they had thought that she was dead, and she came back, angry and vengeful.
She knew that he wouldn't listen to if she told him that they'd speak later, that his health was most important at the moment. She had been his teacher at one point after all. Brown eyes stared back at him, as she answered his question.
"Magneto lost his mutation during the fight, and lost the battle." She told him and then paused, her eyes swirled white fort only a moment before turning brown again. She had to keep it together; she had to keep her emotions to herself. "Jean appeared to be the only one left standing on Magneto's side. She was a threat to mutant and man kind. Logan killed her."
John's eyes held complete and utter confusion and behind that confusion, dancing around the edges of his eyes, was a cold desperate fear. Jean was dead, and Logan had killed her, that was horrible, but... He looked away from Storm, hoping she hadn't seen his fear.
After staring at his hands for a while John started frantically looking around the room. His wrist jets weren't on... "My... Am I... I mean... my power..." He kept trailing off, half of him not even wanting an answer. He took in a shaky breath and grit his teeth, staring hard at the metal table he was on. This couldn't be happening...
Ororo watched him panic when he noticed that his wrist jets weren't on. "I am afraid that Robert broke them during your fight, but you still have your powers." She told him, calmly.
She moved to pick up the crumbled paper cup he had thrown to the floor and tossed it into a waste basket nearby.
Any other day John would have had a near tantrum over the loss of his jets. Instead he let out a quick sigh, not wanting to look too overly relieved in front of Ororo, and looked over at her. His zippo was somewhere in a pair of jeans... most likely at the camp site. He messed around with it every so often, but it wasn't usually on him anymore. He could just go to the old camp site and find it.
John had seen flashes of things throughout the battle, but he couldn't follow just one thing when a war was raging on all sides. "Callisto?" He questioned, and mentally decided to somehow get revenge on Bobby; not knowing anything that had happened in a war that you had been a key player in was very annoying. Then he realized Ororo probably didn't know her name. "I mean, the girl you were fighting... sort of super speed?" He added in an indecisive voice, for he had mainly known her powers for sensing out other mutants.
"Did any of the brotherhood make it off Alcatraz, other than me?" He asked and glanced around again. The painkillers were helping, but he was still very stressed out and couldn't even flick the slightest fire to calm himself... dmn Bobby.
"Dead." The Weather Witch answered him solemnly when he asked her about Callisto. The fact that she had killed the other woman with a bolt of lightening didn't seem to bother her. It wasn't like she hasn't killed before. But that had been an accident she'd rather forget.
"I'm not sure. We didn't have a whole lot of time to get everyone of the island." She answered his last question. Jean had to be stopped, and that had been their main priority.
"Then I guess I should feel lucky." John replied dryly and pulled several things off his chest; the machine going out and claiming its patient dead as he did so. He noted her lack of regret on Callisto's death and something about it annoyed him. Callisto hadn't exactly been a lifelong friend, but nor had he put her in the 'team mate' category with all the other mutants he cared nothing about.
"So, Cyclops in charge now?" He questioned with an eyebrow raised. If it was true he'd be out of their in seconds, but he couldn't remember seeing Scott or his trademark red blasts during the battle.
Her brown eyes clouded with sorrow momentarily before she covered her face with an emotional mask once more. Scott had been a good friend, and she missed him as much as she did Jean and Xavier. "No." She answered him, her voice controlled. "I am."
"I'd like to become an X-Men." John said with a cautious look in his eye, and another glance around the room. I don't suppose Logan'll let me borrow a lighter... He thought and sighed.
The teen wondered if he'd even be allowed to stay at the mansion, never mind become an official X-men. John was far more advanced in his powers than he had been when he left, but not quite so much as he could have been. The fight with Bobby had made that very clear.
His words at surprised her. She hadn't expected that coming from him. She had expected him to leave and find what was left of the Brotherhood. She nodded her head at him. "I'll set up a danger room session with the others that you'll be able to join, so that I can see how well you'll work on defense and offense." She paused momentarily before added, "And how well you work on a team."
John gave her a slight smirk. She had seem somewhat surprised, for an instant. Most of her emotions seemed to last for mere seconds, but Storm's well being wasn't any concern of his.
The teen hopped off the table and placed his hands on the back of his neck to stretch, glancing around for a shirt as he did so. "Bobby was always the smart one outta the two of us..." He muttered, and finished his stretching by cracking his neck left and right.
He was referring ot the fact that Bobby had stayed in school, but up until a couples weeks ago he had believed entirely in what Magneto was doing. The beginning of his doubts had started when they left Mystique, continued when the took Phoenix and kept her with them at camp, furthered themselves when he decided to use the cure against other mutants as an offense, and finalized when he'd sent so many mutants willing to follow him to their almost instant defeats as 'pawns'. Magneto was human now, and for that reason he didn't even have the option to stay with the once all-powerful leader. John doubted he would have even if he still possessed his powers.
"I don't even need a team." John pointed out with an arrogant smirk. "But I'll play nice." He added in the same tone. "What happened to all my stuff?" He questioned and wondered if it had been tossed out, packed away, given away, or maybe by some miracle still sat where it had when he'd left. He also wondered if him and Bobby were still gonna be roommates...
Ororo narrowed her eyes at John when he told her that he didn't need a team. "The X-Men work together, John. As a team, remember that." She told him, her voice firm. Wasn't she lucky? She had two members on her team who played individually. Maybe she could work something out with both the Wolverine and Pyro.
"We didn't know what you planned on doing after you woke up, but we have set up an extra bedroom for you, just incase." She told him. "Your stuff is there."
"Thank you." John said curtly and headed for the door. He had walked around the mansion in merely his jeans a few times before, when he'd been too lazy to simply throw his shirts into the laundry, and he had no problem doing so now. If his stuff was up in his spare room then up in his spare room he would go.
The teen reached the door and turned aroud. "Ms. Munroe, where exactly is my room?" He questioned and raised an eyebrow. He mentally cursed himself for the use of her name, but figured old habits died hard. Sure she was still going to be his teacher, but calling her 'Storm' seemed more suitable.
"Second floor, fifth room from the staircase, on the right." The Weather Witch recalled. She moved toward a few of the machinery that John had been on and turned them off. She rolled them back to their proper place in the room.
John nodded and exited the room. Being back at the mansion was probably gonna be a little weird, but he knew now that the people here were better to live with. Magneto had dropped Mystique, his long time second in command, as soon as she was human and right after she'd saved him from the same fate no doubt.
Having someone he could count on had always been weird for John, but at the same time it was oddly comforting.
Ororo brushed her short hair back, and remained standing in the Med. Lab. She glanced around the room and sighed as she remembered the time she had spent down here when she was still a student here. She missed those days. She turned toward the automatic sliding door and left.
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So that's just one thread, like I said earlier the first one of the board, but I thought we both did a fairly nice job with it and I'd be more than happy to have anyone of you join the board. At least I'll know someone from fanfiction can spell, lol.
Reviews are also welcome.
Ally