The van drove for a long time, John didn't know how long exactly, he didn't
have a watch and there were no windows in the back. Rush sat beside him,
his eyes closed but he wasn't asleep. Jess sat across from him, her hands
were free, unlike John and Rush, whose wrists had been cuffed like two
criminals.
John didn't bother to ask her about what she knew the soldiers had in store for him today. He didn't want to know the details, but from what she had said, he could surmise that they would force him to hurt some people with his new ability to create fire.
He didn't want that. John had never just attacked people for no reason, at least not with any sort of deadly force. The kid in the museum was just funny, it wasn't like he was going to let him burn up in the middle of the food court! He would've put out the flames himself, but Bobby had to get into the fight and interrupt everything. Now, the cops were a different story, they had shot Logan, John actually thought he was dead, he hadn't known about his healing factor.
Eye for an eye, so he attacked the cops, but only because they attacked first. It was self defense, he was protecting himself and his friends.
He had brought it up to Magneto once.
Eric was demonstrating--showing off, really-- how he could warp the magnetic field of the earth itself. Bend the force of the entire planet, create worldwide destruction and chaos. Compared to what Eric could do with the twitch of an eyebrow, John's show back in Boston was nothing.
"If you're so powerful, why not just take the world by force? Separate the humans from the mutants and attack." He had asked out of genuine curiosity.
"Because, there are several thousand humans who possess latent mutant genes. Any human could be a potential mutant."
John didn't want to hurt anyone innocent, human or mutant; he just wanted to get away from the prison as soon as he could. He had never killed before, but if forced to fight for his life, he'd torch everything in his way.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Since the organization began, the assemblies were always large, at least 300 people, and there were always at least a dozen new faces in each meeting. Today, however, two of the new faces wanted nothing to do with the organization's primary focus.
An older, distinguished man in a black business suit stood beside a younger man dressed in similar navy-colored attire.
"I'm not sure which one of them would know where he is," said the younger man.
"Then you may have to take several shapes tonight, but don't stop until you know where they've taken him," Replied the other man. "If one of them heard even a vague mention of his whereabouts at the office water cooler, I want to know about it." His voice was hard, barely containing rage, phantom electricity crackled in the large room, a result of his stress.
The young man sighed quietly, "I'm worried about him too."
"...The very building we are in right now houses several pro-mutant offices, most specifically the enrollment offices for special mutant educational facilities..." began the speaker.
The crowd booed and hissed, Mystique gave an inward groan. The Friends of Humanity had rented out the assembly hall as a direct slap in the face towards the pro-mutant offices in the rest of the building. She felt nauseous being in the same room with so much hate, but she'd stay there for a year if it would bring John back.
Eric had taken them from New York City all the way here to Washington D.C. to find information about the Friends of Humanity. They had taken John, they were determined to get him back-no matter what the cost.
Ramirez had not lied to them, thankfully, but he had done them no favors by omitting names and locations. If Mystique hadn't killed him already, she would go back to that hospital room and beat it out of him.
But there was no time for that now.
She and Eric were towards the front of the assembly hall, closer to the exit that faced the street . The speaker was towards the back of the room, deeper inside the building.
Mystique listened to the speaker go on and go for what seemed like hours as he ran through the list of reason mutants were dangerous and couldn't be trusted, blah-blah-blah.
She rolled her eyes in the disguise of the young man, trying to tune out how enthusiastic the audience was at the idea of 'never having to live in fear of mutants again'.
If only that fool knew what he was dealing with.
Mystique looked outside, out into the street. "What the Hell...Eric, look out there, is that...?"
Eric turned beside her to see what she was pointing to. Out across the street, a utility van (flanked by military trucks) had parked, and soldiers were now ushering people out of the back.
A pale young woman.
A young black man.
Another young man that was startlingly familiar.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
The van slowed to a halt, John could feel the gear shift into 'park'. He could hear city noises of talking people, car horns, and music. He heard several sets of footsteps come up to the back of the van.
The double doors were opened; the first rays of sunlight John had seen in weeks poured in and stung his eyes. "Come on, get out." A soldier commanded.
Jess jumped out of the van, and stood beside two of the soldiers. Rush climbed out slower because of his chained hands. John emerged last.
The three of them lined up and one soldier, Vega, walked back and forth in front of them. "Two of you have done this before, several times. You," he put a hand on Rush's shoulder, "clear any civilians and traffic. You," he said, meaning Jess, "take down anyone who tries to be a hero, and keep an eye out for the new one. You," finally, he turned to John, "Torch this building; I don't care what it takes."
John said nothing, which Vega took to mean obedience.
The soldiers parted, letting the trio go to work. They walked across the street, and John felt a tingle in the air. Rush had a hand to his temple, his eyes were closed again.
"What's he doing?" John asked Jess.
"He's a telekinetic. He just made a few roadblocks for this afternoon's traffic, couldn't do our jobs very well if we're road-kill, right?" Jess winked at him.
John didn't answer. He ran.
"John, don't-"Rush tried to warn him, but after four steps, John was taken down.
"AAAGGGGHHHH!!!"
The bulge in the back of his neck sent him into the pavement, shaking from the pain. Stinging electric pulses coursed through his whole body, ripping him apart. He crawled forward, still trying to escape, the pulse only came harder.
He staggered there in the middle of the street, on hands and knees, growling and hissing at the invisible attacker. "Oh God, stop..." he moaned out loud.
"John, get up. They'll stop if you just get up and do this thing." Rush said as he pulled John to his feet.
"I can't...aaagghh!"
The implant pulsed again, sharply. "You have to," Rush insisted.
John moved a few steps forward on his own, Rush backed away, out of the reach of John's flames. He looked at his hands, willing the flames into being. It was slow, he was still unsure exactly how to control this new power.
The implant pulsed again, hard, urging him to hurry.
Sweat broke out on his skin, John's knees buckled, leaving him kneeling in the street, a five story building of innocents before him.
"John?" He looked up.
It was Eric! Eric, come to rescue him! Eric, here to take him home!
"Eric, you've gotta help-aaaggghhh!" the implant pulsed again.
John kneeled before Eric, tears of pain and anger coursing down his face, he clutched his head in his hands.
"John, what's happening to you? Why are you doing this?" Eric kneeled down to him and put his hands over John's shoulders, trying to steady him.
John saw Jess walked behind Eric, she was only about 20 feet away from them. Eric couldn't see her. John didn't know what her power was, she could kill Eric and John would be stuck in the military prison for the rest of his life.
He had to get Eric away, to save him, so he could in turn save John.
"Eric, get away."
"What?"
"I said, get back, now!" he yelled at him.
Flames erupted from John, sending Eric stumbling backward to avoid the flash furnace of heat that John had become. Fire covered him, but John felt no pain from the heat, only a powerful element pulling to get free. He struggled to control it, it was so powerful.
"John, what are you-"
Jess had just unleashed her power. From the aperture on the underside of her wrist, a thin tentacle-like extension burst forth and wrapped around Eric's forearm. John had a split second to see the confused look on Eric's face before Jess twisted, lifting him into the air and threw him through a window of the building that lead back into the assembly hall.
John saw him disappear into the crowd inside and could only stare in shock at Jess. The tentacles were thin, perhaps the same thickness as a roll of quarters. The metal extensions were long, and John was willing to bet made of adamantium. She flexed her arms and they whipped forward, cutting through the metal of a nearby car, slicing it clean in half.
The implant pulsed again, reminding John to get back to work.
He could see the faces look down at him from windows above. John stood there in the street, flames somehow erupting from his body. He stressed his natural gift to its limit, trying to restrain the hungry fire, but he could barely fight it on his own, and the stinging pulses interrupted his concentration.
The fire leapt from him, flooded the lobby of the building. Naturally, the anti-mutant assembly ran out the fire exits. He couldn't see Eric, but he assumed that Mystique was nearby in disguise; hopefully they could get out in time.
As powerful as they were, both Eric and Mystique were just as susceptible to flame as the next human.
The fire ate the assembly hall within a minute, and then moved up, to the other parts of the building. A fire alarm had gone off; sprinklers did little to stop the fire. So scorching were his flames that most of the water became steam before even touching a single ember of the inferno.
John watched his flames consume three floors of the building before he heard sirens approaching. Struggling, he pulled the flames back, stopping the source of the fire. He returned to himself, once again he appeared to be a normal teenage guy, not the walking torch of only moments before.
He stopped the fire in himself, but the fire in the building still consumed everything in sight.
He saw Jess use her metal whips to impale the gas tank of a car, causing it to explode. He watched as Rush lifted a dump truck from down the street with his mind and slam it into a support pillar of the building, causing a partial collapse.
John felt sick, but he couldn't stop himself.
*^*^*^*^*^^*^*
Eric looked at the metal that had coiled around his forearm. Where had that come from? His senses informed him that it was an adamantium alloy, very similar to Logan's.
He looked back to John, who was writhing in pain on the ground before him. He had a split second to wonder what was happening to him before he felt himself being lifted, and then thrown. He felt the glass shatter around him as he crashed through a window; he felt the hard impact as he landed on the floor of the assembly hall.
He heard the voices of surprise as the Friends of Humanity members turned to see what happened. He heard the screams, he felt the heat, he felt arms lift him and help him out of the building.
Once they had gotten away far enough away from the building, and into the near isolation of a parking garage, Mystique dropped the disguise and stood before him, her scales bristling in agitation.
"Eric, are you alright? Talk to me, what was that back there?!"
Eric sat on the hood of someone's Lexus and rubbed the back of his head, shook off the bits of glass that clung to his suit. "I'm not sure, but that couldn't have been John talking."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to get away, he was trying to get me out of harm's way."
"Why is he doing this?"
"I don't know, he's obviously being forced to do these things. He was in pain when I approached him."
"We have to help him, I'll kill the people doing this to him, I'll rip them apart!" Mystique cried in frustration.
"Mystique, please, you have to be calm."
"Calm? How can I be calm when John's out there being forced against us?!"
"It's an implant at the back of his head. I can' remove it without killing him, but I know someone who can," Eric said.
"You don't mean..."
"Yes, that's exactly who I mean. But it won't do us any good if we don't know where to find him. You have to stop this madness; I'm going to get some help." Eric then stood up and made a fist.
The Lexus crumpled like a tin can as he squeezed it with his mind.
"We'll have him back, Mystique, but you must stop them first."
There was no time to waste on meaningful goodbyes or promises of love and family; they were going to save Pyro, it was as simple as that.
He would find the help they needed, and she would, as he put it, 'stop them'.
"Oh, I'll do better than that."
John didn't bother to ask her about what she knew the soldiers had in store for him today. He didn't want to know the details, but from what she had said, he could surmise that they would force him to hurt some people with his new ability to create fire.
He didn't want that. John had never just attacked people for no reason, at least not with any sort of deadly force. The kid in the museum was just funny, it wasn't like he was going to let him burn up in the middle of the food court! He would've put out the flames himself, but Bobby had to get into the fight and interrupt everything. Now, the cops were a different story, they had shot Logan, John actually thought he was dead, he hadn't known about his healing factor.
Eye for an eye, so he attacked the cops, but only because they attacked first. It was self defense, he was protecting himself and his friends.
He had brought it up to Magneto once.
Eric was demonstrating--showing off, really-- how he could warp the magnetic field of the earth itself. Bend the force of the entire planet, create worldwide destruction and chaos. Compared to what Eric could do with the twitch of an eyebrow, John's show back in Boston was nothing.
"If you're so powerful, why not just take the world by force? Separate the humans from the mutants and attack." He had asked out of genuine curiosity.
"Because, there are several thousand humans who possess latent mutant genes. Any human could be a potential mutant."
John didn't want to hurt anyone innocent, human or mutant; he just wanted to get away from the prison as soon as he could. He had never killed before, but if forced to fight for his life, he'd torch everything in his way.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
Since the organization began, the assemblies were always large, at least 300 people, and there were always at least a dozen new faces in each meeting. Today, however, two of the new faces wanted nothing to do with the organization's primary focus.
An older, distinguished man in a black business suit stood beside a younger man dressed in similar navy-colored attire.
"I'm not sure which one of them would know where he is," said the younger man.
"Then you may have to take several shapes tonight, but don't stop until you know where they've taken him," Replied the other man. "If one of them heard even a vague mention of his whereabouts at the office water cooler, I want to know about it." His voice was hard, barely containing rage, phantom electricity crackled in the large room, a result of his stress.
The young man sighed quietly, "I'm worried about him too."
"...The very building we are in right now houses several pro-mutant offices, most specifically the enrollment offices for special mutant educational facilities..." began the speaker.
The crowd booed and hissed, Mystique gave an inward groan. The Friends of Humanity had rented out the assembly hall as a direct slap in the face towards the pro-mutant offices in the rest of the building. She felt nauseous being in the same room with so much hate, but she'd stay there for a year if it would bring John back.
Eric had taken them from New York City all the way here to Washington D.C. to find information about the Friends of Humanity. They had taken John, they were determined to get him back-no matter what the cost.
Ramirez had not lied to them, thankfully, but he had done them no favors by omitting names and locations. If Mystique hadn't killed him already, she would go back to that hospital room and beat it out of him.
But there was no time for that now.
She and Eric were towards the front of the assembly hall, closer to the exit that faced the street . The speaker was towards the back of the room, deeper inside the building.
Mystique listened to the speaker go on and go for what seemed like hours as he ran through the list of reason mutants were dangerous and couldn't be trusted, blah-blah-blah.
She rolled her eyes in the disguise of the young man, trying to tune out how enthusiastic the audience was at the idea of 'never having to live in fear of mutants again'.
If only that fool knew what he was dealing with.
Mystique looked outside, out into the street. "What the Hell...Eric, look out there, is that...?"
Eric turned beside her to see what she was pointing to. Out across the street, a utility van (flanked by military trucks) had parked, and soldiers were now ushering people out of the back.
A pale young woman.
A young black man.
Another young man that was startlingly familiar.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
The van slowed to a halt, John could feel the gear shift into 'park'. He could hear city noises of talking people, car horns, and music. He heard several sets of footsteps come up to the back of the van.
The double doors were opened; the first rays of sunlight John had seen in weeks poured in and stung his eyes. "Come on, get out." A soldier commanded.
Jess jumped out of the van, and stood beside two of the soldiers. Rush climbed out slower because of his chained hands. John emerged last.
The three of them lined up and one soldier, Vega, walked back and forth in front of them. "Two of you have done this before, several times. You," he put a hand on Rush's shoulder, "clear any civilians and traffic. You," he said, meaning Jess, "take down anyone who tries to be a hero, and keep an eye out for the new one. You," finally, he turned to John, "Torch this building; I don't care what it takes."
John said nothing, which Vega took to mean obedience.
The soldiers parted, letting the trio go to work. They walked across the street, and John felt a tingle in the air. Rush had a hand to his temple, his eyes were closed again.
"What's he doing?" John asked Jess.
"He's a telekinetic. He just made a few roadblocks for this afternoon's traffic, couldn't do our jobs very well if we're road-kill, right?" Jess winked at him.
John didn't answer. He ran.
"John, don't-"Rush tried to warn him, but after four steps, John was taken down.
"AAAGGGGHHHH!!!"
The bulge in the back of his neck sent him into the pavement, shaking from the pain. Stinging electric pulses coursed through his whole body, ripping him apart. He crawled forward, still trying to escape, the pulse only came harder.
He staggered there in the middle of the street, on hands and knees, growling and hissing at the invisible attacker. "Oh God, stop..." he moaned out loud.
"John, get up. They'll stop if you just get up and do this thing." Rush said as he pulled John to his feet.
"I can't...aaagghh!"
The implant pulsed again, sharply. "You have to," Rush insisted.
John moved a few steps forward on his own, Rush backed away, out of the reach of John's flames. He looked at his hands, willing the flames into being. It was slow, he was still unsure exactly how to control this new power.
The implant pulsed again, hard, urging him to hurry.
Sweat broke out on his skin, John's knees buckled, leaving him kneeling in the street, a five story building of innocents before him.
"John?" He looked up.
It was Eric! Eric, come to rescue him! Eric, here to take him home!
"Eric, you've gotta help-aaaggghhh!" the implant pulsed again.
John kneeled before Eric, tears of pain and anger coursing down his face, he clutched his head in his hands.
"John, what's happening to you? Why are you doing this?" Eric kneeled down to him and put his hands over John's shoulders, trying to steady him.
John saw Jess walked behind Eric, she was only about 20 feet away from them. Eric couldn't see her. John didn't know what her power was, she could kill Eric and John would be stuck in the military prison for the rest of his life.
He had to get Eric away, to save him, so he could in turn save John.
"Eric, get away."
"What?"
"I said, get back, now!" he yelled at him.
Flames erupted from John, sending Eric stumbling backward to avoid the flash furnace of heat that John had become. Fire covered him, but John felt no pain from the heat, only a powerful element pulling to get free. He struggled to control it, it was so powerful.
"John, what are you-"
Jess had just unleashed her power. From the aperture on the underside of her wrist, a thin tentacle-like extension burst forth and wrapped around Eric's forearm. John had a split second to see the confused look on Eric's face before Jess twisted, lifting him into the air and threw him through a window of the building that lead back into the assembly hall.
John saw him disappear into the crowd inside and could only stare in shock at Jess. The tentacles were thin, perhaps the same thickness as a roll of quarters. The metal extensions were long, and John was willing to bet made of adamantium. She flexed her arms and they whipped forward, cutting through the metal of a nearby car, slicing it clean in half.
The implant pulsed again, reminding John to get back to work.
He could see the faces look down at him from windows above. John stood there in the street, flames somehow erupting from his body. He stressed his natural gift to its limit, trying to restrain the hungry fire, but he could barely fight it on his own, and the stinging pulses interrupted his concentration.
The fire leapt from him, flooded the lobby of the building. Naturally, the anti-mutant assembly ran out the fire exits. He couldn't see Eric, but he assumed that Mystique was nearby in disguise; hopefully they could get out in time.
As powerful as they were, both Eric and Mystique were just as susceptible to flame as the next human.
The fire ate the assembly hall within a minute, and then moved up, to the other parts of the building. A fire alarm had gone off; sprinklers did little to stop the fire. So scorching were his flames that most of the water became steam before even touching a single ember of the inferno.
John watched his flames consume three floors of the building before he heard sirens approaching. Struggling, he pulled the flames back, stopping the source of the fire. He returned to himself, once again he appeared to be a normal teenage guy, not the walking torch of only moments before.
He stopped the fire in himself, but the fire in the building still consumed everything in sight.
He saw Jess use her metal whips to impale the gas tank of a car, causing it to explode. He watched as Rush lifted a dump truck from down the street with his mind and slam it into a support pillar of the building, causing a partial collapse.
John felt sick, but he couldn't stop himself.
*^*^*^*^*^^*^*
Eric looked at the metal that had coiled around his forearm. Where had that come from? His senses informed him that it was an adamantium alloy, very similar to Logan's.
He looked back to John, who was writhing in pain on the ground before him. He had a split second to wonder what was happening to him before he felt himself being lifted, and then thrown. He felt the glass shatter around him as he crashed through a window; he felt the hard impact as he landed on the floor of the assembly hall.
He heard the voices of surprise as the Friends of Humanity members turned to see what happened. He heard the screams, he felt the heat, he felt arms lift him and help him out of the building.
Once they had gotten away far enough away from the building, and into the near isolation of a parking garage, Mystique dropped the disguise and stood before him, her scales bristling in agitation.
"Eric, are you alright? Talk to me, what was that back there?!"
Eric sat on the hood of someone's Lexus and rubbed the back of his head, shook off the bits of glass that clung to his suit. "I'm not sure, but that couldn't have been John talking."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to get away, he was trying to get me out of harm's way."
"Why is he doing this?"
"I don't know, he's obviously being forced to do these things. He was in pain when I approached him."
"We have to help him, I'll kill the people doing this to him, I'll rip them apart!" Mystique cried in frustration.
"Mystique, please, you have to be calm."
"Calm? How can I be calm when John's out there being forced against us?!"
"It's an implant at the back of his head. I can' remove it without killing him, but I know someone who can," Eric said.
"You don't mean..."
"Yes, that's exactly who I mean. But it won't do us any good if we don't know where to find him. You have to stop this madness; I'm going to get some help." Eric then stood up and made a fist.
The Lexus crumpled like a tin can as he squeezed it with his mind.
"We'll have him back, Mystique, but you must stop them first."
There was no time to waste on meaningful goodbyes or promises of love and family; they were going to save Pyro, it was as simple as that.
He would find the help they needed, and she would, as he put it, 'stop them'.
"Oh, I'll do better than that."