I cannot spell, so I apologise for any mistakes in this. Spell checker should help with most of them, but it doesnt help with grammer.
Disclaimer: I do not own X-men, Pyro, or Iceman. I only own my OC, Garnet.
Fire Blooms Red
Pyro didn't bother to stop after Magneto was hit. He saw Beast jump up behind him and raise the needles. He saw as he stabbed them deep into Magnetos chest, sucking away his power like a flame without oxygen. Perhaps he could have saved him, torched the attacker, had his hands not been bound by the traitors ice.
How humiliating, to have been beaten by such a pathetic, worthless sop. The sting on his hands and the ache in his head was nothing compared to the indignity of loss. Knowing that he had failed. Him! Pyro. He wasn't supposed to fail. He'd played it over in his head so many times. He was supposed to crush him, dominate his strategy and creation with raw power and destruction. He was supposed to watch as the Iceman gave in to him, watch his arms go limp as his body slowly burnt and turned to ash.
And yet now here he stood, his hands frozen, powerless. He couldn't move his fingers to trigger the fire starting device, and he doubted it would've worked when soaked anyway. He was trapped, a mortal, at least till the ice melted.
He knew that Magneto could not have survived the blow with his powers intact, so would be of no further use. It was disappointing, yes. Magneto had been a mentor, someone who had shown him a new way to live. Made him realize his true potential, what he could be. His loss was regrettable, but not avoidable. He was a human now, and humans had no place with mutants. After all, Pyro was a god now, and gods had to make sacrifices. Magneto had taught him that.
So Pyro did not run to help him. His powers were gone, and therefore so was all his worth. Mutants around him were falling, the few who had avoided the cure fleeing, knowing that they had no hope of winning.
So Pyro did the same, destroying what was left of his dignity and running, tail between his legs. He felt like a failure. To run was the worse possible thing he could have done. To lose was bad, but to run away before the battle was over was so much worse. The damage he had done, the destruction he cause hardly made up for the humiliation of fleeing. At least by running it meant he would still have a chance to redeem himself. But still, John had always said he would die before admitting defeat. And yet now he was doing the exact opposite.
Pyro did not know where to go. What to do next. He could go back to Magneto's base, where he suspected the rest of the fleeing mutants were turning, no doubt wanting to ransack what they could. He always try and rally them up again, salvage the troupes and plan a new attack.
But what was the point really? He could easily take charge, having been second in command and the strongest mutant there. But they would argue at first, taking up time and effort Pyro really didn't want to waste. No, he had always survived better on his own, and so would now till came a time when he was in need of an army.
So what would he do instead? He could hardly go back home to Australia, where his family would be earnestly awaiting his arrival.
"Why?" He remembered his mother asking one day in a drunken rage. "What could we have possible done to deserve a son like you?"
His mother had always thought of and treated him like a failure. As if it was his fault he was born a mutant. He was an embarrassment to them. A burden. A freak. They were hardly perfect themselves. A 'self employed' father, who did nothing but sit home and complain about life in general. A alcoholic mother, who acted as if the whole world was against her. And a criminal brother, who spent his time locked up in juvenile prison. And yet HE was the embarrassment. The blunt on the family. They could hardly wait to be shot of him, nor him of them. How happy he'd been when he finally saved up enough money to leave home. He'd left in the middle of the night, smashing all the windows in the house to wake them up. He wanted to see their reactions as he left. His father had attacked him, not to try and stop him leaving but out of anger of the damage he'd done to the house. He'd grabbed John's shoulders and shoved him against the wall, yelling abuse all the way. John simply smiled as he flicked his lighter open and caught alight, scolding his father in the process. He delivered a sharp kick to the gut before transferring the fire onto the wall. Pyro grinned at the memory, remembering his mothers horrified screams as he burnt the retched house to the ground.
No, there was no way he would go back.
The real question was not where he would go but what he would do there. His life as a mutant had been filled with fighting for someone else's ideals. So it made sense that he would spend the rest fighting for his own.
But what were his ideals, Pyro wondered. He'd never really had any before. He just wanted to live his life in what ever way would create the most mayhem. It had been a sort of 'live for now' philosophy as opposed to actually planning for the future. He knew he didn't like Xavier's philosophy of living in peace and harmony with the humans. He couldn't think of anything more boring. He supposed that was the main reason he'd joined Magneto really, out of shear boredom. That, and he wanted power. Everyone wanted power really. That's why the humans were so afraid of mutants, because they feared losing power. Ironic really, that by fearing mutants they were inspiring them to take power by force. In a way, they created 'the monster' themselves. Perhaps Pyro would continue with Magnetos work. After all, that was what would create the most mayhem and destruction, not to mention give him the most power.
Yes, overtaking the humans was most defiantly the way to go.
But how? What was the next step to world domination? He supposed the best way to go would continue trying to destroy the cure. Which meant killing that wretched kid. But he was in the X-Men's hands now. How could he possibly get to him?
Suddenly Pyro had a strike of inspiration. Bobby. If he could endanger something important to him, that weakling would give anything to save it. And conveniently enough, Pyro had knew just the thing.