Team building exercises were common place within the X-men so a two teamed game of upperclassmen and teacher baseball wasn't an extraordinary occurrence. As it transpired Pete and John ended up on Storm's team, as did Bobby, Dazzler, Magma, Psylocke and Jean. Opposing them was Logan, Jubilee, Cyclops, Firestar, Kitty, Rogue and Hank. John had no idea why he was being forced to play, he was afterall 'retired' as an X-man; he just taught English. Fair enough, he had volunteered his services if the team was ever in dire need of them but as of yet that had never happened which left John to wonder what exactly he was doing playing baseball dressed in black skinny jeans and a tight fitting t-shirt (the only clothes he had left in Pete's room that were not completely soiled by the excess amount of sexual activity that had transpired within the last few days.) John cheered as his big Russian teddy bear hit a home run and returned to give John a conspiratorial wink. As a general rule John sucked at sports, literally. He was awful. The most he's ever managed to do before was stop mystique from putting in mini-golf by knocking her club with his foot, but today he was on fire! The previously sport-phobic fire bender had managed to score two home runs and not been balled out… he was impressed. Following Pete up to the batting diamond, he stood feet slightly apart as Scott threw the ball towards him at it connected to the bat with an almighty crack, John ran with vibrations still veering through his arms and managed to score yet another home run. Pete celebrated by giving him a cheeky smile and grabbing his bottom hard enough to make him yelp. John simply laughed and tried once again to quash the uneasy feeling that was rising within his stomach; no sooner had the thoughts run through his head did Jean stop the game. Logan was sniffing the air and snarling,

"Something's coming, smells like trouble..." John sighed and buried his head in his hands,

"Oh course it is, for fucks sake is the entire world against me?" Pete smiled lopsidedly and placed a protective hand on John's shoulder.

"Stay close to me." The fire bender simply sighed and sat on the bench behind them, whatever was coming their way John only intended to sit there and watch the professional's take care of it. They were the crime fighters, he was just a teacher. Taking a swig of the water he'd taken to the match he almost choked when Logan's body rose into the air before their eyes and was flung somewhere in the opposite direction,

"Fuck." John knew that there was only one possible explanation for that, Erik was here. Sweating profusely, John cast about for an escape route only to find that there was only one and it was blocked by an extraordinarily large group of Brotherhood mutants; he was screwed. The man paused, what was Magneto doing here? What was the brotherhood doing here? Admittedly, they were violent and more than a little deranged but the group as a whole had never been the type to pick a fight for no reason… They wanted something. John gulped as Mystique walked forwards with Magneto by her side; ever since she had been abandoned by the man years earlier something had changed in their group dynamic, she was now an equal instead of a subordinate. The brotherhood belonged to these two mutants and due to the fact that Mystique was aging at a severely reduced rate he suspected that one day it would be only hers. The X-men formed a straight lined fighting stance whilst John was still perched precariously on the bench,

"I've come to take you home, dearest!" John's eyes widened as he realised that the metal manipulator was talking to him, the eyes of each X-man snapped to him in a similar state of confusion.

"Erik, I…"

"You've wasted enough time with these traitor's, Pyro. It's time to return to your family… We will take you by force if necessary." This time it was Mystique who spoke and John would be damned if he missed the way her gaze wondered to Pete who was stood in full metal form with his fellow X-men. John stood and walked towards the terrorists,

"I told you last time you contacted me that I wasn't interested anymore, Erik. We're over, I left you remember?" The older man snorted.

"You must be delusional if you think that you could ever leave me, John. You belong to me." Now it was john's turn to laugh, he knew that Erik would never hurt him and he would be dammed if he was going to slip willingly back into his old ways.

"No Erik, I don't belong to you. This was always the problem, you treated me like a possession instead of a lover and I got sick of it. Anyway none of that matters now because I'm happy here and I really don't need to get sucked back into any of your mutant supremacy shit. I've got someone else and I'm happy so I think you should just leave." The cult leaders' eyes turned murderous,

"I think you underestimate the depth of my wanting, John. I will leave here with you even if I have to kill each one of your little friends and make you watch, you've sewn your wild oats and now it is time to return to me. This is your last chance to come willingly or else we will be forced to take action, when we got the report that you were active again I knew we had to find you; you don't belong here cooped up with them doing good, I know you Pyro. You need to run free, you need to be fuelled and allowed to burn; not subdued by morality, justice and a six foot seven Russian play thing." Pete snarled from behind his lover, "One last chance to come peacefully, Pyro. If you refuse we will take action against you."

"No."

"Then so be it." Magneto raised a hand and mutants came pouring from either side of him, "TAKE THE BOY ALIVE!" he yelled as the team kicked into action. Hideously outnumbered the X-men put up one hell of a fight, John created circles of fire to entrap several mutants, manipulating the flames in an attempt to increase the amount of smoke given off to put his enemy's into a comatose state; succeeding with several high class mutants John was forced to switch tactics as he came face to face with Sabertooth.

"Come on Johnny; remember the fun we had together? Don't pretend that you've not been missing me." John swore,

"Back off Toothy, you've been like a brother to me and I really don't want to hurt you. Please just leave."

"You know I can't do that, not until you're back with us."

"Then so be it." Flicking the Zippo he carried upon his person at all times, John sent several jets of fire zooming at his former friend, and each one was expertly dodged by the other man's killer instincts. John felt razor sharp claws dig into his neck and throw him backwards into the wire mesh enclosing the diamond; he heard Pete yell his name but had no chance to respond as a fist connected to his jaw and he was forced upwards by his hair.

"Don't make me hurt you any more, Jonny. You belong with us." A pair of hands enclosed around his throat and pulled him into the air, John felt his vision begin to fade as his air supply was being cut off by the mammoth of a man,

"FUCK YOU!" John knew that it was now or never, he couldn't reach his zippo and had only had limited success with creating fire organically; drawing on everything he had learned in his private lessons with the professor he drew in as much air as possible and created a small ball of fire directly above them, willing it to grow before he blacked out he turned the fire on the animal holding his throat and let it ravage his body; the man let go with a yelp but John kept it burning until he was little more than a heap of molten flesh on the floor. His healing factor would eventually piece him back together but it would be painful. Satisfied, John whirled around to see the other X-men in various stages of combat, Bobby was struggling with several mutants trying to overpower his ice skills but Storm was already assisting him, Scott and Jean made an excellent team and along with Dazzler had effectively levelled half of the brotherhood forces; but where was Pete? John looked around to see Pitor engaged in a vicious brawl with Mystique.

"Shit!" As powerful as Pete was physically, he was no match for the woman's years of experience and she was beating him to a pulp delivering blow after blow, she had already shattered one of the man's knee caps with one of her well placed metallic bullets and after a series of ferocious blows Pete was reduced to his human form and lay unconscious on the floor. The shape shifter stood over the Russian and withdrew her gun, cocking it she placed it over the man's forehead and shifted her eyes back to John in a silent question; do you surrender?

"NO!" He screamed as all of the action stopped to regard the sceptical before them, "Don't kill him." Mystique raised an eyebrow and tilted her chin upwards, "I'll come with you just please, don't hurt him." Walking towards her John raised his hands in surrender, "Please Ray, don't do it." She nodded her agreement,

"Let's go." Feeling a firm hand on his shoulder he turned around,

"Please, don't go. It's not supposed to end this way," It was Bobby, "Seriously John, don't give in we can still win this!"

"Yeah, but at the cost of Pete's life…" looking at the faces of the other X-men he knew that he was making the right decision, "Look at them Bobby; what do their faces tell you? It's obvious that they'd rather see me leave than let Pete die and I agree with them. I'm a former traitor and an English teacher, what's that compared to Pete? He's dedicated his life to the X-men and I'm not going to let him die; I'd rather go back to being a terrorist that watch him get shot in the head."

"We don't want you to go back to them," this time it was Storm who spoke.

"Then what would you have me do? I stay and he gets shot, would you rather I stay and we can all watch him die?" She looked away,

"We'll save you." At this John actually had the mirth to laugh,

"No you won't. You'll try at first but eventually give up when it's too hard to find me, or Pete will give up because it's too much pain or Bobby will give up because he's moved on to someone else. I should have learned my lesson after the last time; I have no place with the X-men. You didn't try to save me then and you won't try to save me this time, you act like you will but I can see it in your eyes; pushing me to leave. You're all the same, making promises that you can't keep in an attempt to push hope on the world but it is hope that will kill me and after this I think it's safe to say that there is no hope left. Not for me anyway." Turning away from the woman he walked over to his former allies', by this point Mystique had lowered her gun and was signalling the retreat; "Tell him to look in my overnight bag," he said to no one in particular. A strong wind picked up around the feel as a helicopter hovered above them, the majority of the lower mutants had already fled at Mystique's signal so the only ones who remained were the blue lady herself, Magneto and a very burnt Sabertooth. Leaning over the body of his unconscious lover, John closed his eyes and sought something inside himself. He sought the place his mind used to go whenever he picked up a new client on the streets, the place he went to whenever he was forced by the brotherhood to commit crimes, the place he went to during sex. A place where everything was about survival, desire and rage. Opening his eyes he ceased to be John and became Pyro once more; throwing one last placid look at the mutants behind him he boarded the helicopter and left the diamond.