Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men; I do own all OCs especially Samantha and Blaze. Ilehana Xavier belongs exclusively to Corrinth and is used with permission.

A/N: Enjoy.

Scene 02

Damn Destiny, Pyro fumed, making him look like an idiot. Who did she think he was, Bobby Drake? The darkness of the night closed in around him, hiding him as he made his way across a large expanse of lawn behind a stunning redbrick house. He hoped Verity had done her work properly, or this would all be turning ugly quicker than you could fry bacon. Not all the windows at the rear of the house were dark, but most were. Quickly he began to count them, looking for the third floor, fifth window to the right... Ah, there it is.

Up in her room, Sam Hawley was sat amidst boxes and packing straw, bags and bubble-wrap. Her last night at home. Tomorrow she'd be shipped off, kicking and screaming to some goody-goody boarding school. But yet, that wasn't the worst of it.

Ever since mutants appeared, she'd been conditioned against them. They were evil, demons of nature, no better than animals, dangerous, cheats and thieves and murderers. There were no exceptions. Her father believed it so absolutely he would not stop until every mutant in America was locked up safely behind bars. Or worse. And he had a great deal of support from ordinary voters, especially since the Kelly desertion.

Sam looked at her hands, lying palm upwards on her lap. Her fingers were trembling, not the slight shiver of cold or shock, but a full-blown tremble that made the bones vibrate so much they hurt. Around her, the last of the packing cases had met with an unfortunate end. Shards of its material had flown about the room, slamming into the walls, coming dangerously close to flying in Sam's own eyes. There was no avoiding it. She was a mutant.

A pebble hitting the window got her attention. The slight tap seemed inordinately loud in the quiet of the house. Sam sat still for a moment, hoping that nobody else had heard it. Not that she really thought they would. That bitch Verity had taken her father out for dinner hours ago, and none of the few servants they had hired were particularly bright anyway. The second pebble hit with a louder tap, the person below was getting impatient. Who could it be? One of her forbidden friends come to say goodbye? Or perhaps even to take her away from this awful fate? Could she dare to hope?

Pyro was annoyed and on his third pebble by the time the window was lifted open. He threw it anyway out of frustration. This was not his idea of fun.

"Hey, watch what you're doing!" The stage whisper was a girl's voice, sounding as irritated as he was. Good. "Who's down there?"

"You don't know me." Now, that's a lame start, Pyro thought. He continued regardless. "But I'm like you. I'm here to help you."

"You're like me?" The brunette leaned out of her window finally, unsmiling and increasingly annoyed. "What are you talking about? Why do you want to help me?"

"Look, just get out here and I'll show you. But this isn't the place, okay?" John snapped. To his surprise the kid did as she was told, ducking back inside the window again. Maybe she was as desperate as Mystique had said she would be. Then again, its never easy being a mutant when your parents are dead against them... Pyro barely had chance to consider the thought of having an anti-mutant senator for a father before Sam was appearing from round the corner. He didn't greet her, but led her back across the lawn and out the way he had got in, under the fence via a scrape in the earth barely big enough for a cat, let alone a human. There was no car waiting, Sabretooth had dropped Pyro off and left. It didn't fit Mystique's plans to make this look too easy.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?" Sam objected relentlessly. The bag she'd grabbed was heavy, she could only hope it was the right one. Still, at least she'd been all packed up ready for tomorrow anyway. No toothbrush in her overnight bag, but spare clothes, cash... It was almost as if Verity had been organising her for running away, not leaving for school. Still the strange youth didn't answer her questions, didn't even look back to make sure she was following him. Sam finally stopped dead about a hundred metres from the back fence of her Dad's house. It still took Pyro a few moments to realise she wasn't behind him.

"What are you doing?" He asked angrily. "Its not safe, or do you want them to realise you're gone before we've got far enough away? If they find you, you'll be packed off to that school your Dad found and trust me, boarding school isn't all its cracked up to be. Especially not for mutants."

"Who's a mutant?" Sam snapped right back, jutting out her chin and clenching her fists and jaw. Her fingers began to hum. "And who are you? How do you know anything about me?"

"Look, I just do." John replied. "I know you're a mutant, aren't you?" Sam dropped her eyes, long eyelashes betraying her shame. "Its not a bad thing. You're so much better than normal people now. That's why they're so afraid of us, because they know they can't compete."

"Us?" Sam wasn't slow to pick up on his meaning. "What's your power?"

In response Pyro reached into his pocket and pulled out his infamous lighter. He almost forgot the girl was stood there watching him as he flicked it open, enchanted by the dancing firelight that sat at the end of his fingers. Like a snake charmer he beckoned it to him, encouraging the fire to grow. Eventually, delicately, a perfectly formed fire-phoenix flew from his hand to disintegrate in the colder air of the sky above. Pyro directed his attention unwillingly back to the girl.

"Cool." In the darkness, he couldn't tell if she really meant it, or whether that slight tremor to her voice was her regretting that she'd left home.

"Not met many mutants before, have you?" Pyro asked with a smirk.

"It wasn't encouraged." Sam agreed, finally submitting to walking away from her father's house, her old life, and not once looking back. This time she walked besides Pyro, not liking the idea of him having any form of control over her. "But that never stopped me doing anything else I wanted to. It's always been more that mutants didn't want to get too friendly with me."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Pyro muttered, remembering some boring TV broadcast Magneto had made him sit through about one of Senator Hawley's mutant registration act speeches.

"I have met at least one though." Sam offered, trying not to seem ignorant of this youth's people. Her people, she corrected herself, shoving her hands in her coat pockets. "At the Governor's ball in New York about a year ago, the one where there was that shooting?" She glanced at Pyro and saw him nod; he knew the one she was talking about. Mystique had been there too, as Senator Kelly, provoking mutants to stand up for themselves and gather together for the first open battle of Magneto's war. But the mystery shooting had nothing to do with Magneto, and as nobody had been hit, no one was even sure who the real target had been. It came almost as a shock to Pyro that Sam was speaking again. "Can't remember for the life of me what the guy's name was, but he had weird eyes. Perhaps you know him?"

"Weird eyes?" Pyro commented. "That's hardly a mutation. Maybe he was just wearing contacts or something?"

"Yeah, maybe." Sam agreed, if somewhat sarcastically. "If you can get contacts that make the whites of your eyes black, as well as your pupils blood red?"

"Oh." Pyro replied. "Then I should congratulate you, you've met your first X-Man. Next time I see Gambit, I'll give him a few lumps from you, okay?"

"Gambit huh? Weird. Do all mutants have daft names? What's yours? And what's an X-Man?"