"Ilehana Xavier's back in Bayville for her own reasons, nothin' to do with the X-Men. But she don't hate her father or nothin', she been up at the institute more often than not. An' her friend Blaze says Vixen has a t'ing for the Wolverine, so I t'ink she'll be about as willin' to join us as he was."
"Very well," Magneto snarled as his man reported. This was not good news. There must be a way to turn this to his advantage. Gambit wasn't finished.
"I t'ink you should take a look at Blaze though. She powerful, I know it, an' she has no interest in Xavier's cause. She could be useful."
"And yet she has still to demonstrate that she has any powers other than to wrap you round her little finger," Magneto snapped, turning his back on his man as Pyro sniggered by the door. If Magneto really lost his patience with Gambit, this could be seriously fun to watch.
"I ain't wrapped round nobodies' finger," Gambit bit back. "I been followin' orders, dat's all!"
There was a creak and a groan as a hunk of unformed metal separated itself from the wall of Magneto's metallic lair and flew through the air. It hit Gambit hard across the jaw, knocking him backwards and drawing blood. Pyro laughed aloud, and then held up his hands in an appeasing gesture as his boss glanced his way. Magneto turned back to the fallen Gambit as the Cajun put fingers to the blood on his chin.
"Don't ever speak like that to me again Gambit. You have two hours. If you haven't proved Blaze's usefulness to me by then, you will do as first ordered and kill her, understand?"
Gambit nodded, eyes falling on Pyro as he quickly formulated a plan. He'd known from the beginning that it would come to this. Blaze must join Magneto or die.
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Blaze shut the fridge with a thud, opened the can of soda with a hiss and kicked a stool out of her way. The apartment was a dump with no Ilehana about to clear up after the spontaneous redhead. Also they were running out of food. Ilehana might think that Blaze ate men for breakfast, but in reality she preferred muesli and they'd completely run out. Oh well, chores could always wait. Blaze hit the stereo's remote to turn up the volume on her music as the occupant of the room next door banged on the wall again to protest.
She was so busy singing along out-of-tune to her music that she almost mistook the knock on the door for the neighbour complaining. She hit the volume down button and waited for the knock to be repeated, just in case she was hearing things. No, there it was again, so she ditched the soda and went to answer the summons.
Gambit stood there with blood dripping down his chin, a black eye quickly forming and hand clutching the doorframe in pain. Blaze gasped to see him like this, before hastily pulling him inside by the front of his coat. If someone was after him…
"What happened," she asked, fetching a cold damp cloth to press to his injured jaw. "Who did this?"
"Some mutants runnin' wild downtown," he answered, wincing as the wound on his jaw stung. "Jus' trashin' the place for no reason."
"And you had to go play the hero and try and stop them," Blaze's voice was sarcastic, but there was real worry in her eyes. Did she really care about him then? He refused to think about it.
"I know we can, they're jus' some idiots without a cause."
"We? You want me to get involved? In Vixen's words, get stuffed!"
"Blaze," he took her hand in his, throwing the wet rag away across the room. "I saw you that day at the mall, yah taught dem high school girls to mind their manners, an' when Xavier's li'l ladies wouldn't do nothin'."
"Those girls live at the Institute? I should've guessed. They had the same know-it-all look Ilehana has," Blaze kept her own council on why Gambit would know Rogue and Kitty, knowing she wouldn't get a straight answer out of him if she asked.
"Yeah. So I know you are capable of teachin' these losers a lesson they won't forget. If you'll help me?" Blaze shivered involuntarily as he met her eyes. There was something here he just wasn't telling her. Still, what else could she do?
"Alright, you're on."