"It's kind of cute, you know? John going on a date, it's the first I've
ever seen him go on, what about you Eric?" Mystique asked from their bed.
She had lain down on her stomach and was idly flipping through the TV
channels.
Eric came back into their room, shrugging on a robe. "I've only see him look, he may have had some attachment at the school, but I doubt it was anything seri-"
Eric stopped once he saw the news channel Mystique had stopped on. A news anchor was out on the street, in front of a coffee shop. Behind her, firefighters scrambled to save what was left of the building.
"...are shocked after seeing what could only be described as 'flame with a mind of its own'. Nearby resident Susanne Harker caught footage of the phenomenon..."
The couple watched as the tape footage began to roll: a man lit a cigarette, and from the tiny cylinder, a swirling tornado of fire leapt into the air, catching several people in its path.
Eric frowned deeply as Mystique quickly dialed the number to John's cell phone. There was no plausible explanation she could come up with as to why John would do such a thing.
Eric knew him well enough, and this wasn't like him. John had said himself that he doesn't use his power to attack unless someone else had struck first...
"I'm not getting any answer, Eric." Mystique told him.
Eric's frown deepened. "No, I expect you wouldn't. Let's go."
Mystique didn't have to ask where.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Eric had changed back into his day clothes, while Mystique had changed her form to look like a middle aged woman in a black pantsuit. They left the building in search of the fire sighting.
The location was crawling with people. Firefighters, police officers and of course, the press. Mystique was able to extract some delicate information by disguising herself as an officer.
"Eric," she said, as she returned to her natural form beside him in the passenger seat of his Mercedes, "Some officer said that they had been tipped off to be extra careful tonight, orders from way up the ladder. They were bringing down a dangerous mutant. It was a trap, the date, the ambush, all of it."
Eric sat silent beside her for a moment, considering this. "Is that all?"
"No, before he was overpowered, John hurt one of them, nearly burned the meat off his burns, Eric. He might know where John's been taken."
Eric's brows knitted together. "Well, perhaps we should pay a visit."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*
The drills, the classes and the millions of lectures couldn't have prepared him for his fate. He lay there, on a hospital bed plugged into five different life supporting, medicine dripping machines, thinking things over.
He could've gotten out of the way. He could've jumped. He could've ducked.
He could've stopped, dropped and rolled, for God's sake!
But did he?!
No, no he hadn't. He'd been too entranced by the fiery tornado to think straight. Because of his idiocy, he couldn't even close his eyes—his eyelids had melted into the rest of the skin on his face.
He looked like an overcooked sausage. All the hair on his body had been singed off, his skin scorched black and red. He was thankful that his body was in shock, he wouldn't feel any pain until a few days later.
That is, if he lived long enough, which he probably won't. He'd probably not last until the morning.
He knew all that, and wished that they hadn't injected the kid so soon; the chloroform put him to sleep, making the mutant lose his concentration on the flame, putting it out instantly. If they had just held off a little longer, the fire would have killed him right there on the streets.
So, there he lay. A man, a soldier, a husband, a son and a father. His life cut short because he followed that psycho into a battle against something bigger than any of them, and here was his reward: burned to death by some punk teenage mutant.
He looked over to the door. Two doctors had just come into his room. One closed the door and stayed close to the entrance of the room, the other approached his bed. He couldn't see very clearly, one of his eyes had been seared shut; the one remaining was blurry at best.
"Martin Ramirez?" the doctor asked.
Marin could barely move, but he could talk a little. "Yes."
His voice was raspy, even his tongue had been burned.
"Of Phoenix, Arizona?"
"Yes."
The doctor settled into a chair beside the bed.
"Well, Marin, of Phoenix, Arizona. Let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Eric Lehnsherr, and I'm sure that that name is quite familiar, am I right?"
Martin was silent, but Eric saw his good eye widen slightly in surprise.
"I'll take that as another 'yes'. Now, if you would like to see tomorrow, tell me where they took the mutant."
Martin gave a heavy inward scream of anger at the man before him. If he hadn't be in the position he was, he would have jumped up and punched Magneto. He couldn't move, he was beyond helpless.
No, not helpless. Magneto wouldn't have come here if he didn't need to. Martin still had some power.
"I don't care if you kill me. After what the fire mutant did to me, I'll be dead soon anyway."
"That's true, you will be, but the 'fire mutant'-as you call him- never reached your family. Your wife, Laura and little daughter Alison are still safe. But I can change that; you've read the reports and files on me, haven't you? You know I can do this damage to them--and more, if you don't start talking. Tell me where they took the mutant, tell me where they've taken John."
Martin sighed. How could this man know such things about him? How did he know about Laura and Alison? Martin knew he would die soon, and since the moment he felt the flames touch him, he'd been praying that his family be kept safe.
He could no longer protect them, if he held out on Magneto, they'd die an unspeakable death.
Martin had seen what Magneto had done to his prison guard.
Was he willing to keep the mission secret at the risk of his wife and daughter?
"I'm not sure exactly what they want him for, but the operation headquarters is in Washington."
Eric glanced back at Mystique, who had chosen to remain by the door to the room. She smiled at him in the doctor's face.
"What's the organization's name?" Eric asked.
Martin coughed, then told him, "The Friends of Humanity."
Eric's body stiffened at the name. He carefully looked back at Mystique;. her face stayed blank but her eyes glared at Ramirez.
"It's a cover for something bigger, but I wasn't high enough up in the ranks to be told much more." Martin said, slurring his words a little as his medication began to kick in.
Eric sighed a little and stood. "The medicine is taking hold, he won't be of much more use to us now. I'll meet you outside, we need a plan." He said as he removed the stolen lab coat.
Eric carelessly tossed the lab coat over Martin Ramirez's blistered face and went to the window. He opened the latch and looked outside. He hated hospitals and felt he had to get out of the room as soon as possible.
Eric took to the air, graceful and silent as an owl.
Mystique stood by the door, watching as he flew away. She turned to leave herself, but paused with her hand on the doorknob.
She looked back to the bed that held the terribly injured, but very much alive, Martin Ramirez.
She locked the door then, and approached the bed, a wicked smile on her face.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
John woke up slowly, painfully. He had taken plenty of punishment during the ambush in front of the coffee shop. He had a splitting headache, but he realized what had happened.
It had started off so well, they were laughing and getting along great.
"Hey, John, you want to get some coffee?" Brianna had asked.
"Sure," he had said, so enthusiastic just to be around this pretty new girl.
They had gone to the coffee shop he passed nearly everyday, and right after they finished their drinks and were getting ready to leave for a movie, a bunch of guys jumped out of nowhere!
There must have been seven on him, with several armed around the perimeter. He couldn't see what had happened to Brianna, he didn't understand what was happening until it was too late.
He saw someone with a cigarette and called on his power to force the tiny spark to become a horrifying tornado of flame. He'd only hoped to use it to scare off their assailants, but they wouldn't run, so he focused the fire on one of them.
"That's enough, use this!" he heard someone close yell.
He felt a cloth cover his mouth and nostrils. His last thought, before he slipped under the chloroform's chemical spell, was how much the voice sounded like Brianna's.
He realized now, of course, that the date had been a set up.
The light hurt his eyes, but he ignored the pain to take a look around. He was on a floor, a concrete floor. He was in a room, three of the walls were made of cinderblocks, the front wall made of thick glass.
There was a metal framed bed at his right, a sink and toilet with a privacy curtain to his left.
John leaned on the bed for balance as he stood up. His head was splitting, and his neck didn't feel much better, in fact...
He put a hand to the back of his neck and felt a large lump, the skin very tender.
"What the Hell...?"
"I wouldn't touch that too much if I were you."
John turned and went up to the glass wall. He looked across the hall and saw that there were more rooms lined up and down this very long hallway. Almost like prison cells, never a good sign, he thought to himself.
"Hello?"
"You must've put up quite a fight, kid. They don't usually rough up the new ones until they're actually under control."
John followed the sound to the cell directly across from his, but couldn't see much. "What?"
"I said that you must have given them Hell. Good for you for trying, but it didn't do you much good now, did it?" The one who had been speaking stepped up to the glass of his own cell.
It was a young man, maybe a year or two shy of 25, by John's guess. He was black and wore a dark green wife beater tank top, dark brown pants. "Who are you?" John asked.
The man shrugged and smiled kind of sadly. "I had a name, a real name, not the kind of name they'll give you here. But that doesn't matter, because they made me forget it. They call me Rush now. Where'd they grab you?" he asked.
"I don't...where are we?" John demanded.
"Don't know, doesn't matter. We can't get out—don't bother trying unless you want a bullet through your head. And that's if you're lucky." Rush said, raising his eyebrows almost amusedly.
Almost.
"Why are we here?"
Rush shrugged and stepped back into the shadows of his cell, slowly fading out of sight. "The same reason we have nowhere else to go. We're mutants."
Eric came back into their room, shrugging on a robe. "I've only see him look, he may have had some attachment at the school, but I doubt it was anything seri-"
Eric stopped once he saw the news channel Mystique had stopped on. A news anchor was out on the street, in front of a coffee shop. Behind her, firefighters scrambled to save what was left of the building.
"...are shocked after seeing what could only be described as 'flame with a mind of its own'. Nearby resident Susanne Harker caught footage of the phenomenon..."
The couple watched as the tape footage began to roll: a man lit a cigarette, and from the tiny cylinder, a swirling tornado of fire leapt into the air, catching several people in its path.
Eric frowned deeply as Mystique quickly dialed the number to John's cell phone. There was no plausible explanation she could come up with as to why John would do such a thing.
Eric knew him well enough, and this wasn't like him. John had said himself that he doesn't use his power to attack unless someone else had struck first...
"I'm not getting any answer, Eric." Mystique told him.
Eric's frown deepened. "No, I expect you wouldn't. Let's go."
Mystique didn't have to ask where.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Eric had changed back into his day clothes, while Mystique had changed her form to look like a middle aged woman in a black pantsuit. They left the building in search of the fire sighting.
The location was crawling with people. Firefighters, police officers and of course, the press. Mystique was able to extract some delicate information by disguising herself as an officer.
"Eric," she said, as she returned to her natural form beside him in the passenger seat of his Mercedes, "Some officer said that they had been tipped off to be extra careful tonight, orders from way up the ladder. They were bringing down a dangerous mutant. It was a trap, the date, the ambush, all of it."
Eric sat silent beside her for a moment, considering this. "Is that all?"
"No, before he was overpowered, John hurt one of them, nearly burned the meat off his burns, Eric. He might know where John's been taken."
Eric's brows knitted together. "Well, perhaps we should pay a visit."
*^*^*^*^*^*^*
The drills, the classes and the millions of lectures couldn't have prepared him for his fate. He lay there, on a hospital bed plugged into five different life supporting, medicine dripping machines, thinking things over.
He could've gotten out of the way. He could've jumped. He could've ducked.
He could've stopped, dropped and rolled, for God's sake!
But did he?!
No, no he hadn't. He'd been too entranced by the fiery tornado to think straight. Because of his idiocy, he couldn't even close his eyes—his eyelids had melted into the rest of the skin on his face.
He looked like an overcooked sausage. All the hair on his body had been singed off, his skin scorched black and red. He was thankful that his body was in shock, he wouldn't feel any pain until a few days later.
That is, if he lived long enough, which he probably won't. He'd probably not last until the morning.
He knew all that, and wished that they hadn't injected the kid so soon; the chloroform put him to sleep, making the mutant lose his concentration on the flame, putting it out instantly. If they had just held off a little longer, the fire would have killed him right there on the streets.
So, there he lay. A man, a soldier, a husband, a son and a father. His life cut short because he followed that psycho into a battle against something bigger than any of them, and here was his reward: burned to death by some punk teenage mutant.
He looked over to the door. Two doctors had just come into his room. One closed the door and stayed close to the entrance of the room, the other approached his bed. He couldn't see very clearly, one of his eyes had been seared shut; the one remaining was blurry at best.
"Martin Ramirez?" the doctor asked.
Marin could barely move, but he could talk a little. "Yes."
His voice was raspy, even his tongue had been burned.
"Of Phoenix, Arizona?"
"Yes."
The doctor settled into a chair beside the bed.
"Well, Marin, of Phoenix, Arizona. Let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Eric Lehnsherr, and I'm sure that that name is quite familiar, am I right?"
Martin was silent, but Eric saw his good eye widen slightly in surprise.
"I'll take that as another 'yes'. Now, if you would like to see tomorrow, tell me where they took the mutant."
Martin gave a heavy inward scream of anger at the man before him. If he hadn't be in the position he was, he would have jumped up and punched Magneto. He couldn't move, he was beyond helpless.
No, not helpless. Magneto wouldn't have come here if he didn't need to. Martin still had some power.
"I don't care if you kill me. After what the fire mutant did to me, I'll be dead soon anyway."
"That's true, you will be, but the 'fire mutant'-as you call him- never reached your family. Your wife, Laura and little daughter Alison are still safe. But I can change that; you've read the reports and files on me, haven't you? You know I can do this damage to them--and more, if you don't start talking. Tell me where they took the mutant, tell me where they've taken John."
Martin sighed. How could this man know such things about him? How did he know about Laura and Alison? Martin knew he would die soon, and since the moment he felt the flames touch him, he'd been praying that his family be kept safe.
He could no longer protect them, if he held out on Magneto, they'd die an unspeakable death.
Martin had seen what Magneto had done to his prison guard.
Was he willing to keep the mission secret at the risk of his wife and daughter?
"I'm not sure exactly what they want him for, but the operation headquarters is in Washington."
Eric glanced back at Mystique, who had chosen to remain by the door to the room. She smiled at him in the doctor's face.
"What's the organization's name?" Eric asked.
Martin coughed, then told him, "The Friends of Humanity."
Eric's body stiffened at the name. He carefully looked back at Mystique;. her face stayed blank but her eyes glared at Ramirez.
"It's a cover for something bigger, but I wasn't high enough up in the ranks to be told much more." Martin said, slurring his words a little as his medication began to kick in.
Eric sighed a little and stood. "The medicine is taking hold, he won't be of much more use to us now. I'll meet you outside, we need a plan." He said as he removed the stolen lab coat.
Eric carelessly tossed the lab coat over Martin Ramirez's blistered face and went to the window. He opened the latch and looked outside. He hated hospitals and felt he had to get out of the room as soon as possible.
Eric took to the air, graceful and silent as an owl.
Mystique stood by the door, watching as he flew away. She turned to leave herself, but paused with her hand on the doorknob.
She looked back to the bed that held the terribly injured, but very much alive, Martin Ramirez.
She locked the door then, and approached the bed, a wicked smile on her face.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
John woke up slowly, painfully. He had taken plenty of punishment during the ambush in front of the coffee shop. He had a splitting headache, but he realized what had happened.
It had started off so well, they were laughing and getting along great.
"Hey, John, you want to get some coffee?" Brianna had asked.
"Sure," he had said, so enthusiastic just to be around this pretty new girl.
They had gone to the coffee shop he passed nearly everyday, and right after they finished their drinks and were getting ready to leave for a movie, a bunch of guys jumped out of nowhere!
There must have been seven on him, with several armed around the perimeter. He couldn't see what had happened to Brianna, he didn't understand what was happening until it was too late.
He saw someone with a cigarette and called on his power to force the tiny spark to become a horrifying tornado of flame. He'd only hoped to use it to scare off their assailants, but they wouldn't run, so he focused the fire on one of them.
"That's enough, use this!" he heard someone close yell.
He felt a cloth cover his mouth and nostrils. His last thought, before he slipped under the chloroform's chemical spell, was how much the voice sounded like Brianna's.
He realized now, of course, that the date had been a set up.
The light hurt his eyes, but he ignored the pain to take a look around. He was on a floor, a concrete floor. He was in a room, three of the walls were made of cinderblocks, the front wall made of thick glass.
There was a metal framed bed at his right, a sink and toilet with a privacy curtain to his left.
John leaned on the bed for balance as he stood up. His head was splitting, and his neck didn't feel much better, in fact...
He put a hand to the back of his neck and felt a large lump, the skin very tender.
"What the Hell...?"
"I wouldn't touch that too much if I were you."
John turned and went up to the glass wall. He looked across the hall and saw that there were more rooms lined up and down this very long hallway. Almost like prison cells, never a good sign, he thought to himself.
"Hello?"
"You must've put up quite a fight, kid. They don't usually rough up the new ones until they're actually under control."
John followed the sound to the cell directly across from his, but couldn't see much. "What?"
"I said that you must have given them Hell. Good for you for trying, but it didn't do you much good now, did it?" The one who had been speaking stepped up to the glass of his own cell.
It was a young man, maybe a year or two shy of 25, by John's guess. He was black and wore a dark green wife beater tank top, dark brown pants. "Who are you?" John asked.
The man shrugged and smiled kind of sadly. "I had a name, a real name, not the kind of name they'll give you here. But that doesn't matter, because they made me forget it. They call me Rush now. Where'd they grab you?" he asked.
"I don't...where are we?" John demanded.
"Don't know, doesn't matter. We can't get out—don't bother trying unless you want a bullet through your head. And that's if you're lucky." Rush said, raising his eyebrows almost amusedly.
Almost.
"Why are we here?"
Rush shrugged and stepped back into the shadows of his cell, slowly fading out of sight. "The same reason we have nowhere else to go. We're mutants."