A/N: Yes, it is supposed to be LeBeau. Whoops. :)

NEXT CHAPTER- Wanda shows up! Yeah, yeah, finally.

-3: TEST-

That night, back at the Belle Hotel, John slept in boxers and socks and nothing else. He lay awake for a long time first, goosebumps rushing like tiny icicles across the skin of his chest, and watched the graydark smear of ceiling that smoothed itself directly into the air of the room as if there were really no division between them at all.

He woke at dawn, or close to it; as the light changed and the air shifted from black to gray to soft sable gold, his eyes caught the shades beneath their lids and sent silent, invisible messages through his nerves to his brain. Awake, John waited a moment before opening his eyes and allowing it all to be real. He went over what he knew.

The night before, there had been fire. The energy was still inside him, sleeping like a sated dog. And then there had been Remy LeBeau, and five thousand dollars.

Extraction.

John sat up and went to the bathroom, peeling off his socks and stepping out of his boxers and showering just long enough to soak himself through. Then he dressed and sat on the mattress, holding a flame in the palm of one hand and then, absently, bouncing it from finger to finger. A nervous habit, one that he'd thought, optimistically, that he'd beaten down. Apparently not. If he'd had a proper lighter, a Zippo or even a silver metal Bic, he would have flicked the lid to fill the silence. A man's got to work with what he's got, though, after all.

It occurred to him that LeBeau didn't know where he lived, and that he hadn't given a phone number. Then he realized that worrying about something like that was a fairly stupid thing to do, all things considered.

And it wasn't long before he was proved correct, and there came a soft, rapid pattern of knocks at the door.

John stood, swallowing the flame into the skin of his palm, and went to the door. He could hear nothing from the other side, could sense nothing, nothing but the solid wood and the quiet thrum of traffic on the streets and the vibrations in the air that were as natural as the door itself. He put a hand on the cold metal knob and pushed down, pulling the door open. LeBeau stood in the hall, arms folded, chin tilted up. And behind him, there stood a giant.

Or, no, John saw as he took the new man in, just someone very tall and very wide. Brown hair, thick, square face, about three miles of muscle if you laid it all out flat. If he thought the phrase "still a human, though" would have any meaning here, he might have used that. As it was, he just flicked his eyes back to the Cajun.

"Johnny," LeBeau said, jutting the side of his head towards the stranger. "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. A fellow soldier in the good fight," he added, sardonic as all hell. "This is Piotr Rasputin, but you can call him Pete. Or, as his size suggests, Colossus." The big man nodded at John, very slightly, and John nodded back.

"Are you coming in, or am I going out?" he asked then, sliding his hands into his pockets and feeling the lighter cool and comforting against his fingertips.

"We're going," LeBeau answered, and stepped back to allow John to exit. "Petey and I are going to show you a few things." John untied the sweatshirt he'd wrapped around his waist earlier and shrugged it on, aware of his general grunginess and not really caring.

"You going to tell me what exactly's going on?"

"Yes," Rasputin said, the first time he'd moved since the nod. His voice, while deep, was disarmingly gentle. His face, however, was hard as stale bread.

Once John was out the door, LeBeau reached past him and pulled it closed.

"You got anything valuable in there, homme?"

"Not really. Nothing that anyone would take, anyway." The wallet and the passport were in the back pocket of his jeans, and the only things left were the clothes and the photographs. He felt a brief twinge of anxiety for those, but wasn't about to carry them around like some sort of prepubescent girl.

"Well, lock it and hope for the best," LeBeau said, shrugging. He cocked a brow. "There're plenty of thieves in this city."

"When am I going to be back?" LeBeau shrugged again, and Rasputin leaned closer to John. It wasn't so much of a movement as the idea of a movement, and it still put him on edge, but Rasputin only shot his eyes towards LeBeau and murmured,

"You will want to pay for several nights in advance, I think."

"You two shacking me up?"

"You will have a place to stay." John wondered if he should have brought his duffel bag as they made their way down to the first floor, but then remembered the five grand he was packing. If he needed clothes, he could damn well afford some new ones.

Leaving the hotel, John automatically smoothed over the sounds of the city and focused on the current most important things in his line of vision: the two motorcycles propped against the curb.

"You've got to be joking," he said aloud, and LeBeau just chuckled. "Which one of you blokes is playing my chauffeur, then?"

"That'd be me," LeBeau said, taking the bike by the handle and pulling it upright. "Petey there's too big to fit two."

"Right."

"Don't worry, mon ami, just try not to fall off." He swung a leg over and rocked the bike forward, using one booted heel to knock up the kickstand. John eyed the machine warily, and wondered why in the hell he'd never bothered to play around with a motorcycle back home. Awkwardly, he mounted behind LeBeau and gripped the low side handles along the edge of the seat, trying to figure out exactly where his center of gravity was supposed to be. LeBeau did something John couldn't see, and the bike roared to life.

"Okay," John breathed to himself as LeBeau ducked forwards. "She'll be apples, yeah?" And then they peeled away from the curb and shot ahead, and John barely had time to lean in and hurl one arm around LeBeau's waist to keep himself from flying backwards.

"Y'alright, Johnny?" LeBeau called, and there was a fierce, feral delight in the question. John managed a hoarse affirmative, and then, upon hearing it, realized that he was all right. The wind beat at him like a living thing, wrapping around his face and slapping at the skin until he wasn't sure if he even had skin anymore. It howled across his ears, the humming roar of the engine muting out everything else. He felt less a man than an image, a reflection, a piece of air whipping across the blurred tarmac and metal-spotted asphalt, and it felt good. It felt elemental, and hungry.

He was disappointed when they arrived, after maybe two hours of weaving through traffic and ducking around corners so sharp that the sides of his legs nearly grazed the ground, at what appeared to be a small, neat house well out of the city. Well out of anything, actually; before reaching the place they'd gone down at least three miles of unpaved gravelly road that spat chunks of rock up into his face and chest, passing through a narrow corridor of forest the likes of which he'd never seen, being from where he was from.

Rasputin pulled up directly behind them, shooting out a leg to stop the bike as it skidded into a half-circle. He dismounted easily, as did LeBeau, while John was just happy to be able to get off without catching his foot on something and toppling. Once on the ground, he took a moment to regain his sense of balance and to take in the house, scanning from the low porch to the small windows to the brick chimney jutting from the tipped roof.

"This is the big man's lair?" he asked, skeptically. Neither of the Acolytes spoke, but Rasputin took John's elbow and propelled him towards the front door. John stumbled a few steps, then jerked his arm away and strode forwards on his own. The other two followed, LeBeau darting up ahead when they reached the three steps leading up to the porch. He found a small metal box attached to the wall and low to the floor, flipping it open to key in a fairly complicated string of numbers. There was a soft beep, and the front door made a thick clicking noise.

"Apres-vous," LeBeau said to John, straightening into a stand and sweeping out a gracious hand. Slowly, John reached for the doorknob. It turned without a hitch, and the door swung smoothly open.

Inside was a hallway, leading to a set of stairs going up. There was a room on either side of the staircase, both with no doors to close. John walked in, moving in small sets of steps, not quite trusting this. Behind him, Rasputin said something to LeBeau too low for John to make out. He reached the staircase, hearing them enter the foyer. John turned to ask where he was going, and that was when the floor fell out from under him.

The fall was over in seconds, in milliseconds, and it left John with only a sense of sick disorientation before his brain went white with the shock of his landing. He fell hard against a cold, unforgiving floor, quick enough with his reflexes to go to his knees and roll, trying to absorb the wave. Pain still shot through his legs, burning up his ankles to his thighs. On hands and knees, John caught his breath and shook his head, blinking away the unconscious sting of surprised, hurt tears.

It was dark, wherever he'd fallen to. A basement? A cellar, some kind of underground place. No lights, anyway, but for the small square above him where, he assumed now, a panel had opened in the floor to drop him through. He had an instant to be furious, to think something like Those fucking- and then something hit him in the stomach with enough force to lift him off the floor. Coming down impossibly hard on his back, the breath knocked completely out of him, John could only gasp and try to inhale before he was hit again, this time in the upper ribs.

"That the best you got, punk?" came a voice from above him, deep and snarling and very, very unpleasant. Another kick, again to the ribs. Something snapped, he thought, an awful muffled sound. John managed a dry cough and then rolled away onto his stomach, not taking the time to wonder what the hell was going on. All instinct now, he shoved himself to his knees, refusing to spare any thought for the screaming pain in his chest. He heard the whistle of air past his face and knew he'd just barely avoided another hit, and lunged backwards with all the strength in his lower legs. He slammed against a wall, used it to force himself to his feet, and finally managed to fumble out his lighter just as a fist, solid as steel, caught him in the side of the face and snapped his head to one side. John flicked the lighter as he stumbled sideways, leaning against the wall for support, tasting blood in his mouth, and felt the familiar burn of the flame licking against his thumb as his hand trembled in the dark. In the instant of silent glow, he saw the outline of a man, not as big as Rasputin but pretty damn hefty, with a mane of coarse, dirty hair. The man, seeing the lighter, curled his upper lip and bared one glinting fang before John, twisting his swelling lips into a painful, grimacing mock-smile of his own, lifted the lighter and thought about agony.

The flame exploded outwards, not writhing around his hands and arms but eating them, eating the air and the dark and, leaping out in one horrible glorious vicious ball of fire, the animal-man, too. Or, it would have, if he hadn't sworn and jumped back just fast enough to avoid being incinerated. As it was, the awful stench of burning hair filled the room. John, Pyro, did not notice.

He was laughing now, laughing through his bloody mouth and swollen cheek and blackening eye, laughing through the piercing stabbing pain in his ribs and the clenching bruise that was his abdomen, the sound of it ripping through the sound of fire until they were one, John and the flames, and the fire was everywhere. He fed it himself, his self, fed it until it surrounded him from feet to hair, biting at the empty space in front of him and behind him and around him. The animal-man, standing in a feral half-crouch as if ready to spring from a few yards away, stared at John and seemed, for once, fairly stunned.

"No," John said, and began to stalk forwards. "This is the best I got." And he thrust his arms up and his will thrust up with them, sending shrieking ropes of fire out in every direction as John's throat opened into a low rasping cry of effort. The joy was in him, all of him, the base elemental awe of it, and he didn't even care about the man now crouching in one corner of the oubliette swiping at the flames as if he could slit them in two, didn't really care about anything but the godawful lovely heat.

And then, slowly, dazedly, John recognized the sound of shouting. It took another moment for him to register the words.

"John! John! Pyro! Enough! Pyro, enough!" LeBeau. Eyes flicking up, John saw the Cajun kneeling at the open panel in the ceiling, staring at him, willing him to stop. The flames chuckled eagerly, wanting to dance up and eat LeBeau, eat him right up to ashes, and John only just told them to wait.

"Why should I?" he called back, through the wall of fire.

"It was a test!" LeBeau shouted, completely ignoring the man in the corner. "Not my idea, mon ami, but a test nonetheless!" Slowly, breathing hard, John understood.

Grudgingly, he even decided that it made sense.

He recalled the flames, coiling them into a tight ball to hover in his palm. Leaning in, breathing them in, inhaling the scent of burn and wild, he let them vanish. Looked up. Met LeBeau's demon gaze.

"Sorry if I scorched your friend," he said, spat blood, and collapsed.

……….

When John opened his eyes, he hurt. That was the first and most important thing he noticed. His face felt fake and hot, the skin stretched too tightly across his bones. His lower lip cracked when he grimaced, and his eye ached when he blinked. Still, his vision seemed fine. He looked around. He was on a bed, in a plain white room. There was a window across from him, looking out on a brownish tree trunk. Light. It was still day, or had he been out a full twenty-four hours? He strongly doubted it.

John sat up, or did his best to sit up, using his elbows to push himself off the mattress. His entire chest, he realized then, was made almost entirely of bruises. He was shirtless, and there was a bandage against the lower half of his ribcage. Guess the hairy bastard broke a rib after all. A portion of his stomach, too, was an attractive bluish color. His knees hurt from slamming into the floor, and he decided that he didn't really want to actually see the state of his face.

Still, when he got out of bed (thankfully, John found, he was still wearing his own pants, lighter a familiar weight in his pocket), the first order of business was to find a bathroom. He opened the door to his room, peering into a narrow hallway. The wallpaper seemed to be the same color as in the part of the house he'd seen before, and so John figured he was almost definitely in the same building. There was a door directly across the hall, and when he pushed it carefully open, a small, utilitarian bathroom was revealed.

After he was done, John washed his hands and, steeling himself, faced his own reflection.

One black eye. (The left one.) The bruise went from the left corner of the eye across his cheekbone, fading as it got lower. His mouth didn't look nearly as swollen as it felt, but there was dried blood on his lower lip from where it had split. His jaw wasn't obviously bruised, but it still hurt like hell. All in all, not as bad as he'd feared, but not really great, either. Especially in combination with the bandaged ribs and bruised stomach.

"Should have burned his face off," John muttered, resentfully. "Would have improved his looks."

"Undoubtedly true," came a voice from the doorway. John turned to see LeBeau leaning there, arms folded casually. "But that would have taken longer to heal than one bruised rib."

"I thought broken. Something snapped, anyway."

"Maybe, but whatever it was wasn't your rib. You'll be fine in a day or two."

"Yeah, thanks," John said sarcastically. LeBeau shrugged.

"We all went through it. Magneto don't want weaklings on his team."

"I'm not on his team."

"No," LeBeau agreed, "you're on mine." He eyed John impassively. "And I don't like weaklings, either."

"So who was that ugly bugger, anyway?"

"That was Sabertooth. Real name Creed, but he likes his codename better." LeBeau straightened away from the doorframe. "C'mon, Johnny, I'll give you a shirt and then we can talk business."

C'mon, you bunch of wankers, leave me something shiny! *cough* Please?