Chapter 10
Several minutes later, and several assurances that Logan wasn't an axe murderer later, the group of them all ventured into the living room. Bobby sat on the couch, the stiff set of his jaw and rigid spine completely giving away his worry. Rogue sat next to him, probably in an effort to be supportive. Mrs. Drake sat on the smaller couch with Ronnie, and Mr. Drake sat on the hearth of the fireplace, probably in an effort to look diplomatic. It didn't really work. John's nerves skyrocketed when the family all sat down, bringing back more sickening images, so he perched his butt on a side table, and resorted to flicking his lighter cap again while Logan paced in the doorway.
Mrs. Drake took a deep breath, trying to stomach the news, and turned to face Bobby. "So, when did you first know you were a… a…" she stumbled over the word, and John felt sickened by the fact. She was acting like they were some kind of venereal disease. So, he decided to help her along.
"A mutant?" he said blatantly, forcefully tossing open the lighter cap and igniting a flame.
She looked at him like he was gum on the bottom of her shoe, and eyed the lighter. "Could you cut that out?" she said, completely condescendingly.
He narrowed his eyes, and theatrically slammed the cap closed.
"You have to understand, we thought Bobby was going to a school for the gifted," Mr. Drake said, sounding slightly disappointed.
"Bobby is gifted," Rogue said, and it was obvious Bobby appreciated the moral support. Ronnie, on the other hand, looked like he hated everything; mutants, this conversation… life.
"We know that," Mr. Drake continued. "We just didn't realize that he was…"
"We still love you Bobby," Mrs. Drake interjected, looking Bobby in the eyes.
John scoffed to himself, as if to say "no one said that, but thanks for clarifying that you were thinking it."
"It's just this mutant problem is a little…" Mrs. Drake began, but was cut off.
"What mutant problem?" Logan interrupted, echoing John's exact thought.
Mrs. Drake sighed. "Complicated," she finished, looking at Logan.
There was a pause, then Mr. Drake asked, "What exactly are you professor of, Mr. Logan?"
Logan half smirked, then said, "Art."
Ah, that ever familiar sarcastic quality. John liked this guy more and more by the second.
"Well, you should see what Bobby can do," Rogue said, in an effort to salvage the better part of this conversation.
As Mrs. Drake sipped at her tea, Bobby reached for it. His fingertip barely had time to touch the china before it began to crystallize. First, the surface solidified, then the entire thing, the sound of muted chills playing as the sight unfolded. Mrs. Drake's hand shook slightly as she overturned the teacup to let her now solid cup of tea slide into the tea tray. It slid dangerously.
"I can do a lot more than that," Bobby said, a little bit of pride returning to his voice.
Mrs. Drake's hands shook more violently and she set the cup and tray on the coffee table as if it had just contracted AIDS. John couldn't help but laugh at the fact that this woman was terrified of a cup of tea. The Drake's cat, however, was very happy to clean up the tea-cube for them.
No one had noticed that Ronnie was losing his cool until it was too late. The boy panted loudly, then launched himself off of the sofa and up the stairs.
"Ronnie!" Mrs. Drake called, but the word fell on deaf ears. She closed her eyes in disappointment, then looked at her husband. "This is all my fault," she concluded.
John couldn't help but dislike this woman by the second. Putting blame on yourself was just a way to tact some pity, maybe glean some reassurance out of her family. John, for one thing, was not about to indulge her.
"Actually, they discovered that males are the ones who carry the mutant gene and pass it on, so," he paused, looking at Mr. Drake, "It's his fault."
Mr. Drake looked utterly mortified.
Another one of those oh-so-despised silences followed, but it didn't last long. Some kind of obnoxious twittering met their ears, and everyone looked around for where it might be coming from.
"Oh," Logan said, and retrieved the cell-phone thing from his pocket and walked out onto the deck.
Bobby wrung his hands together in a clearly uncomfortable gesture.
"Bobby," Mrs. Drake began, and she seemed to have a whole new air about her. She seemed… confident? "Have you tried… not being a mutant?" she said, her eyebrows raised as if it were a completely rational question.
John was silent for a second, computing if this brick with a brain had really just said that. Then, he burst into laughter. The entire group looked at him skeptically, but he ignored the lot of them.
He had just gotten control of himself when Logan walked back to the door from his location at the end of the deck. But he paused in the doorway for a split second. Then his entire demeanor changed. He flung himself inside, slammed the sliding glass door, and locked it.
When he turned back to them his face looked somewhat desperate. "We have to go. Now," he growled.
John's defense mechanisms immediately went back into hyper drive, and he straightened, clutching his lighter possessively.
"Why?" Rogue asked, but Logan cut her off with another, "Now!"
Everyone followed him to the front door, and when he reached it, his claws extended with that familiar snikt.
As they all stepped out onto the front porch, an anxiety attack-inducing sight met their eyes. Two police cruisers were parked on the front lawn, and one more was in the street beyond the driveway. Standing in the door of each car was an officer, gun drawn, battle scowl set firmly in place.
John was startled when a voice rang out to their right.
"Drop the knives, and put your hands in the air," the officer standing on that side of the porch ordered, his gun trained on what he figured was the biggest threat; Logan. John was thinking he might be able to give the guy a run for his money in that regard.
"What's goin' on here?" Logan asked, peering to his left to see a female officer, her gun also trained on him. John's stomach acid was definitely finding new ways to make him sick today.
"Ronnie," Bobby said, looking horrified.
"I said drop the knives," the male cop ordered again.
No one moved a muscle. A slight knocking could be heard inside, but they ignored it. That proved to be a mistake. Everyone yelped as the sound of the shattering back doors filled the house and left through the front door. John saw cops filter in, saying something he didn't really catch to Bobby's parents and ushering them against a wall.
"This is just a misunderstanding," Logan said, looking back at the cops in front of him.
John could have said "no shit," but decided now wasn't the time. Because by the looks on the cops' faces, they were far past reasoning.
"Put the knives down!" the male cop ordered again, this time raising his voice. Logan looked ticked off as he looked at the guy and said, "I can't. Look."
Logan began to slowly raise his arms to show the cops that the "knives" weren't knives at all. He retracted them, the same snikt sound ringing through the air, and the sound of a gunshot made John's heart jump into his throat, as well as every other muscle. Logan's head snapped back, and his lifeless body fell to the porch. Rogue screamed, dropping to the deck behind Logan. John merely stared daggers into the cop that had fired. He was on his last nerve right now, and that guy had just shattered right through it.
"Alright, the rest of you," the man said, raising his gun to the three of them. "On the ground now."
Bobby, the good little lap dog, slid slowly to the ground, his worry obvious in his stance. John should have been worried that the gun was now trained solely on him. But somehow, he just knew that that bullet would be molten metal before it reached him.
"Look, kid. I said on the ground!" the cop repeated, and it was obvious in his voice that he was loosing his cool.
John panted heavily as Rogue slowly descended next to Logan, which drew his eyes to the bullet wound right in the center of Logan's forehead. He swallowed down his fear and bit his lip as his inner self-preservation kicked on.
"We don't wanna hurt you, kid," the female cop said, and he could have killed her for that. He knew, deep down, that she couldn't have given a shit. Bobby looked up at him, as if to say "John! Are you freakin' blind. There's gotta be at least five guns trained on you right now, and you're still standing?"
John just panted, working up the courage to do what he knew he was about to do. He licked his lips, and slowly looked back up at the male cop.
"You know all those dangerous mutants you hear about on the news?" he said, tossing open the lid to his lighter and igniting a flame.
The cop stared back, just twitching to fire his weapon again.
"I'm the worst one," John finished.
He dragged his left hand over the tiny flame, and it immediately reared up like an angered stallion. He followed through, dragging his hand backward in a circle, giving himself some momentum. The flame obediently followed, like it was the matching magnet to his palm. Once he had finished the circle, he threw it forward at the male cop.
The flame left his hand as if he'd thrown a baseball, and he told it where to go every second that it wasn't with him. It billowed out like a comet, the base staying rather small, but the tip growing in size by centimeter. The cop couldn't have been more surprised. He seemed like he was going to jump backwards and out of the way, but it was already too late.
The fireball swallowed him completely, and the sheer force of it drove him backwards, through the handrail of the porch, and onto the ground a few feet below. He didn't wait to find out if the female cop would shoot him for that. He drew his hand backward, and the flame came right back to him, as if it wanted nothing less than to become his little lap dog. But he didn't stop it at his body. He threw it at the woman, and her eyes barely had time to get big when the inferno gobbled her up too, throwing her backwards just as it had to her partner.
John's power was kicking into overdrive, and suddenly he was aware of every heat-generating object around him. The ones that burned bright red in his vision were the engines of the police cruisers, still running. The next was the orange bodies; the forms of all humans surrounding him. And his sense of heat wasn't limited to just the things he could see. His inner-flame told him that there were two cops just behind him inside the Drake home, trailed closely by the Drake parents. He sensed Ronnie above him, standing at his bedroom window. Then, he felt the flashing of a rapid heartbeat from one of the cops inside. He was getting ready to fire.
John didn't even give him the chance. He twirled in a half-pirouette, dragging the ever-submissive flame along with the motion. He tossed it inside, the comet shaped fire cloud forming again as it barreled through the Drake's living room, right into the two officers standing there. They stumbled backward, their clothes igniting as they desperately tried to pat out the flames. The couch caught too, and he almost smiled at the fact that he had just saved them from having to look at that hideously 60's style fabric. Mrs. Drake screamed, but he paid her absolutely no mind.
He turned back to attend to the next pressing threat. It presented itself in the form of the closest vehicle to him, the one on the right. Both cops standing in it's doors were gearing up to fire as well, so he took immediate action. He threw the comet right under the hood of the car, sending tiny streamers up into the engine where they would do the most damage. And damage they did. The oil and lubricants in the car ignited, crawling through the pipes as easily as liquid down a drain. All of them combusted at once.
The car leaped into the air, the metal screaming as it twisted and broke. Both cops in the doors were thrown backward by the blast, their weapons flailing wildly. It twisted in midair, landing upside down on the lawn, the windows and windshield collapsing under the pressure.
He then snaked another streamer under the hood of the car on the left, which apparently hadn't had the oil changed in a while. It rocketed into the air, taking both of it's residents with it. It spun wildly as more tiny explosions occurred inside the engine and undercarriage piping. John thought he saw it land on one of the cops, but again, a more pressing matter presented itself. There was still one more car in the street, more cops out on the lawn, and another police cruiser, siren blaring, was approaching on the road.
He torched the idling car easily, then threw a streamer right at the approaching cruiser, but this time his aim wasn't to explode the car; he wanted to play with them a little bit. He went for the metal skeleton of it, surrounding the entire vehicle and melting the rubber of the tires to the pavement. He could tell by his infrared vision that the interior of the car had just become a greenhouse by the way it turned deep crimson. He smiled as he held the flames to the exterior of the car so that the officers inside would slowly burn. He flared them up to white hot every time one of the officers would try to escape through the door. He didn't even notice Rogue taking his out-of-control outburst into her own hands… literally.
She ripped off her glove, and reached into the bottom of his track pants, just above the Vans slip-ons Bobby had given him. The effect was instantaneous.
First his control over the flames stopped, leaving them to fend for themselves on Bobby's grassy lawn. He started to be confused, but then the pain kicked in. It was as if his power had been turned back on him, and every muscle was being coated with hot wax. Then a burning attacked his throat; made it incredibly difficult to draw breath. By the time he had figured out that it was Rogue, he was too weak to fight her. His knees gave out, and he collapsed onto them on the porch, still gasping for the oxygen he so desperately needed.
His surroundings disappeared as his sight went to tunnel vision. He didn't notice Rogue using his acquired ability to extinguish his flames. He didn't notice the bullet drop from Logan's forehead with a soft tink. He only concentrated on the pain, praying like hell that it would end soon. And thankfully, it did… sort of.
First, the tunnel vision disappeared, and he was able to notice the now flame-free lawn being thrashed about by gusts of wind. He gripped at his chest, which still felt like it was being crushed by a one-ton anvil. He panted heavily, trying to fuel his weakened and aching lungs, but it did little good.
The downed members of Boston PD looked up, as did the group on the porch, as the giant X-Jet set down gently on the road out front, looking very out of place. The three kids stood first, John on shaky, unstable legs, followed by Logan. John gave Rogue a dirty look just for shits and giggles.
Logan cracked his neck as he looked around at the destruction, and John's confidence disappeared. He was pretty sure he could take on absolutely anybody and win… except Logan. The burly man huffed as he turned on John, giving a purely "what the hell?" look. John did his best to look innocent as he flashed half of a bashful grin. Logan didn't fall for it.
Bobby didn't wait around. He launched himself forward off the porch, followed by Rogue. John followed suit, but his legs and other muscles still shook as he used them to descend the porch steps. He noticed Logan look over at the now charbroiled cop that had shot him. He was heartened by the completely flabbergasted look on the cop's face.
He and Rogue made for the Jet, but he made sure not to look at her; he didn't even want to know what kind of things she'd gained from taking his ability. He didn't notice Bobby look back at his house, a place he was supposed to feel safe in. He didn't notice the incredibly pained look on his face as he stared up at what used to be his loving family. Now… they were just his family.