"Eric, are you ready?" Mystique asked.
They were outside, huddled in the dark forest that surrounded the compound. They had contacted each other for the first time in weeks only hours before meeting up again. After seeing first hand what was happening to mutants-to John- Mystique demanded they act now.
Eric would never have argued. He was worried for John, they both were. In his time with them, John had become almost a son, and as such, parental instincts commanded them to protect him.
"Do you even have to ask?" he asked her. She could see him in the dark, smirking but also deadly in his intent to save Pyro.
She smiled, for the first time in weeks. "Never." Mystique leaned forward and kissed him.
"Hey, break it up! If I remember correctly, time is of the essence, right?"
"You're right of course," Eric said as he broke away from Mystique to answer the third party, who was casually leaning against a nearby tree. "You remember the plan?"
"Yeah, kinda hard to forget."
"What about you?" Eric asked, addressing the ever silent fourth.
A small nod was enough for Eric and Mystique. "All right then, let's go."
'Dink, dink, dink.'
"Ughn," John moaned into the pillow. He could hear a tapping on the glass wall of his cell. He figured it was just Jess trying to bother him again. "Quit it."
He looked up and saw two figures standing on the other side of the wall, a man and a young woman. The hall lights were off, so the pair was softly silhouetted, he could not make out any faces.
They were both staring at him, making him feel like a specimen in a glass jar. The man turned to the young woman and nodded once.
All at once, all John felt was searing, burning, ripping pain. "AAGGGGHHH!!!"
The young woman and the man beside her watched expressionlessly as he writhed on the floor, screaming. It was too much, too suddenly, so overwhelming that this time John did pass out, although only momentarily.
The man punched in the code to unlock John's cell door and carefully stepped in, no emotion showing on his face, giving him a very calm, almost inhuman presence.
The young woman was the exact opposite; she came forward and rolled John onto his back. "John? John, John can you hear me?"
He opened his eyes, forcing the blurriness to fade, trying to focus on the girl. "Who are you?" he asked, his mind drifting in and out of coherency.
She held up a hand, forcing it to subtly glow a crimson red so that John could see her face more easily. "It's me, Wanda."
"Wanda?"
She made the light shine brighter, and John saw Eric standing at the doorway to his cell. "Eric?! I thought you were dead!"
Eric made a small smile, "Sorry to disappoint you, but we have to get moving." He said as he pulled John to his feet.
Eric then walked out of the cell, and John looked down to see his implant on the floor, in the center of a small puddle of his own blood. He stomped on it angrily before following Wanda out.
The three were walking down the long corridor of cells, until an alarm rang out through the entire complex. "Oh no, the alarm!" Wanda shouted over the blaring shriek.
"Let's run for it!" John said. He had just reunited with his adopted family; he would die before being forced into the cell again.
They ran past the other cells and into a hallway of offices. "Wanda, in here!"
They all stopped and turned to find the one who had spoken.
"Pietro? What are you doing here? This wasn't part of the plan, you were supposed to be outside with father." Wanda said. Her expression shifted then, from surprise to anger. "If you triggered that alarm because you got tired of waiting, so help me, you'll never run again!" she growled, her eyes sparkling with power.
Pietro rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Give me a little more credit than that, will you? Father sent me in once the soldiers started firing at us."
John broke into the conversation. "You mean Eric's outside? Then who- Mystique!"
Eric blinked his eyes, blue and white instantly gave way to black and yellow. "At your service, Pyro. I'm so glad you're alright." She said as she hugged him and simultaneously shifted back to her natural shape.
Mystique had never hugged him before, but at a time like this, he couldn't complain.
Pietro frowned, "Have the reunion party later, ok? We've got a group of soldiers heading our way." He said as he pointed to a surveillance screen.
"He's right. Pietro, show us the way you came in," Wanda said.
"Ok, follow me." Pietro darted out of the room, a small gray device in his hands.
"General Wraith. A small unit has intruded and seems to be aiding one of our new task pawns." A soldier said urgently as he entered the control room of the base.
"Yes, I've been watching the little ruse. Quite an interesting plan, I would say; except it lacks something we have that gives us an edge." Wraith didn't seem worried, only mildly amused at the situation.
"What would that be, sir?"
"Oh, nothing much, just friends."
"Here, this way, come on, hurry up!" Pietro called down the hall.
"Not all of us move as fast as you, Quicksilver." Mystique hissed at him. "John's hurt and you're rushing."
Pietro stopped and waited for them to catch up.
"Well, in case you forgot, we do have a crisis on our hands right now. Those soldiers must've seen us with some night vision goggles or body heat sensors or something because out of nowhere, they just opened fire. Father said something was wrong, so he sent me inside to help out." He explained as he fell into a slower step with the group.
"How could I have forgotten? Maybe you should try to remember that I-"
The group turned a corner-only to discover that Pietro's escape route was blocked by armed soldiers and two dozen of the other mutant prisoners, including Jess and Rush in the front.
Mystique stood rigidly, not batting an eyelash or moving a muscle; John was exhausted and in pain, but determined to be free again, no matter how many people-human or mutant- he'd be forced to take out.
"Wanda, think you could get rid of all their control chips too?" Pietro asked quietly.
"Not without killing them all, no." she whispered back, her voice shaking just the slightest bit.
"Sorry, John, you know it's not us hurting you." Rush said sadly.
John nodded, "I know. That's why I'm sorry too."
Without warning, John thrust out his hands, releasing a blow torch of flame- cutting a fiery part in the small sea of mutants blocking their way to freedom. "Come on, come on! Run!" Mystique yelled.
"Don't have to tell me twice," Pietro quipped as he rushed forward.
Wanda, John and Mystique followed him outside as the mutants and soldiers beat at the flames that had caught them.
Eric had had an easy time holding off the soldiers who had spotted him and Pietro. They were using metal weapons, for God's sake. The idiocy made him smile as he held them captive with their own guns.
He heard a pained chorus of screams from inside, and desperately hoped that Mystique's, John's and the twins' voices weren't included. Rather, he hoped that they were the cause.
He saw a bright flash of orange light inside, and not a second later, the door flew open. Pietro was the first out, naturally.
John and Mystique were next, while Wanda took to the air.
"Hey, since when can you fly?" John called up to her as he and Mystique ran back to Eric below.
She looked down and smiled. "A lot can happen in a few months, Pyro, as you already know."
John rolled his eyes and ran to join Mystique, Eric and Pietro. They were all bent down inspecting something.
"Hey, what's that?" he asked once he caught up.
"It's the implant control. I might be able to free them." Eric said hurriedly as he turned the tiny machine over and touched it.
"Well you might want to get on that, because they're all heading this way." Pietro warned, gesturing to the compound. Several groups of mutants and soldiers were slowly heading toward them.
"Of course son. Wanda, if you would be so kind?" he called up to her.
"Everybody, stand back." She warned once she landed.
Pietro, John and Mystique backed away several steps and watched as Eric and Wanda gripped each other's hand and also gripped the implant control, forming a sort of triangle. John looked over his shoulder and felt fear grip him as the soldiers and mutants charged forward.
Pietro and Mystique's hair was standing on end, and he assumed that his was as well. Eric and Wanda were creating a massive electrical charge; John understood what they were preparing to do.
All at once, every mutant dropped and screamed-clawing at their heads. John watched, both sympathetic and happy. He knew firsthand how much it hurt, but the reward was freedom-something he'd never take for granted again.
Eric and Wanda broke their circle and Eric destroyed the implant control, crushing it with his power.
"You did it, they're free!" Pietro cried happily.
"Yes, we-"Eric began, but stopped himself once he heard a gunshot.
"The soldiers know what we've done! They're opening fire on our mutant brothers!" Pietro shouted, jumping to the conclusion five times faster than anyone else in the tiny group.
Not waiting for Eric's command, Pietro rushed forward and attacked the first soldier he saw- a private who hadn't even had the time to draw his weapon.
Wanda was never far behind her brother, and she once again rose off the ground; rather than dirty her hands with fist fighting like Quicksilver, she blasted a group of soldiers with her power.
Mystique, Eric and John entered the fray not two seconds after the twins. However, while Eric and Mystique were in it to protect the other mutants and each other, John had a better idea.
"What the hell just happened?!" Wraith demanded.
"I'm not sure, sir. Some kind of electric current has just broken our hold on the mutants!"
Wraith turned around, "You mean to tell me those things are roaming around free on my compound?!"
"Yes sir."
"What the hell are you going to do about it?! You're our leading technologist, fix it!"
"I can't! The damage has been done to the chips themselves, I can't do anything about it, all any of us can do now is pray."
"Oh?" Wraith pulled out his pistol and shot his fellow soldier three times in the chest. "I'll trust this instead."
John stumbled into the base-the last place he wanted to be, but he had his reasons. He knew that just like any other rat that abandoned the ship, Wraith would be looking for a way to escape right about now, and John was going to stop him.
No, not just stop.
He planned on nothing short of roasting him alive. Wraith had stolen him from home, made him a murderer. Well, now Wraith would get a small sampling of the fruit he'd sown.
John headed straight for the control office, he knew that's where the big bosses of this place stayed the most, and Wraith was the biggest. The office was locked, of course, so John completely melted the knob without a second thought. Kicking the door open, he strutted inside, ready to do some damage.
A soldier was bleeding on the floor-not dead yet-but he wasn't who John wanted. The side door was open, so he headed toward it, closing in on his kill like a hawk.
"Damn freaks, this isn't the end of it, I'll get a new base soon, have Magneto in the first cell..." Wraith muttered to himself as he quickly walked to the small launch pad where he kept his private helicopter.
"See how proud they are when I have him-agh!" Wraith jumped back just in time to evade the flames that suddenly erupted from the ground before him.
The flames rose high into the air and began to swirl around him-a fiery tornado, he realized, and remembered where he'd seen the trick before.
Wraith turned around, not at all surprised to find John standing behind him. He actually smiled at him.
"A little overdramatic, isn't it?" He asked, gesturing to the swirling flames that surrounded them both.
"It fits the occasion," John snapped.
"Oh, yes, kill me with what I created, how very ironic."
"You made me kill people-"
"No I didn't. You already killed one of my soldiers, using this same little eye trick. Ramirez was a good soldier, and you killed him. I didn't make you a killer, you were born one. I only put you to use."
John felt his blood boil, searing his body as it coursed through his veins. Wraith thought mutants were born killers? He thought John could be useful?
Flames plumed around John, and he concentrated all of his energy on forcing the fire to attack Wraith-boil him, burn him, sear him until there was nothing left.
"I may not have been the first one you've done this to, but I will be the last-oof!" John grunted as he fell to the ground.
John rolled over, shocked to find metal cords wrapped around his ankles. His eyes followed the cords until he found the wrists they had been implanted in.
Jess stood over him, "Sorry John, but no kid is going to steal this from me. Go on back to your family now."
"No, I'm gonna roast that son of a-"
"Just go, alright? I'll make sure he dies, but I'm doing it alone." Jess hissed at him as her metal tentacles released his legs.
John quickly stood up and they faced Wraith, who was still smirking at their shared fury.
"You mutants may have some interesting talents, but you're still as dumb as the next guy." He said as he whipped out his gun.
Flames sprouted from John's body, and began to stretch toward Wraith, but he was too slow.
Jess whipped Wraith's gun to the side just as the laser sight rested over John's heart. The gun went off, and Jess used her right tentacle to punch a hole through Wraith's chest.
The metal extensions returned back to her arms, and Jess stared at Wraith's lifeless body for a moment. She watched as blood pooled from his massive wound, the spark of her tormentor finally snuffed out.
She was happy and disappointed at the same time. In her mind she had always envisioned a massive showdown between Wraith and herself, a cataclysmic battle between good and evil. Sometimes she was the victor, sometimes not.
Either way, she was a bit disappointed to know that the 'epic battle' of her daydreams was summed up in less than a second with nearly no effort put forth on her part.
All in all, she had to say it was somewhat anticlimactic.
Jess shrugged and turned to find John on the ground. "John, what are you doing?"
He didn't move. "John? John, come on, get up."
She moved closer, and rolled him onto his back. His shirt was stained with blood.
The small battle between the mutants and the soldiers was in truth no contest. For every armed soldier, there were about five mutants whose powers had been upgraded.
Within minutes, the soldiers were either dead or had wisely chosen to run off.
"Well, that was quick," said Pietro.
Mystique smiled. "Yes, thankfully."
"Where's Pyro?" Eric asked. "I haven't seen him since this ordeal began."
"Help! Help!"
Eric, Mystique and the twins turned to find a young woman screaming and running towards them.
"It's John's hurt, you have to help him!" she cried.
"Where is he?" Wanda demanded.
"He's behind the base, beside the helicopter holding area..."
Wanda rose into the air again and headed towards the back of the compound, while Pietro ran his fastest to find John.
John lay bleeding on the ground, a few feet away from the lifeless body of a man he knew only as Wraith-the man behind the conspiracy to make mutants appear as dangerous and uncontrollable as possible to the media in the hopes that it will inspire fear and loathing for them on a national level.
Wraith may have succeeded on several counts, John included.
He felt his shirt-warm and wet with his own blood-being lifted. He heard voices and he felt himself being moved, but he couldn't wake up.
Had John been awake, he would've known that he was on the Blackbird, a jet owned by the X-men-and that his formers friends Bobby and Rogue were keeping a close watch over him, as were Eric, Mystique and the twins.
"What's up with his hair?" asked Bobby as he touched John's bright gold streaks.
Rogue frowned at Eric. "Is changing your hostage's hair your trademark or something?" she asked coolly, meaning the stark white stripe she had received when Eric had, in fact, taken her.
Eric rolled his eyes, "Don't look at me, I didn't do that. And he's not my hostage; he came to us by choice if memory serves."
Storm-who was piloting the jet-sped up, hoping to get home faster before there was some kind of incident between the opposing groups.
Slowly, John felt the strength come back to him. He opened his eyes and he found himself back in his old room at the Xavier school.
Frowning, John looked around and tried to sit up.
"Oh, dammit!" he growled as the stitches in his shoulders stretched.
He put a hand over the wound and tried to sit up more slowly. John didn't remember much about the night before, but assumed that Wraith was dead- otherwise he would've killed John. Which only left the question of how he came to be back in his old room.
Someone knocked on the door. "Come in," John answered.
Eric came in and shut the door behind him. "How're you feeling?"
"Kinda like I just got shot through the shoulder after having my neck ripped open." He answered flatly.
Eric raised his eyebrows, "Glad to see your sarcasm wasn't as drastically changed as your hair." He said with a smirk.
John glanced at himself in the mirror, where his gold streaks stood out from the rest of his dark brown hair. "What happened?"
"Well, plenty. The mutants who were being held captive are now free; the soldiers who had held them are now dead. Quite simple, really."
"No it isn't." John said quietly.
Eric looked at John for a moment, and understood the feelings that must be welling up inside him.
"I understand what it was like, John, being manipulated like that. I can understand it better than most."
"I know."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not now, no."
"Alright. But whenever you're ready, my door is always open."
Eric smiled reassuringly and then made to leave. "Freedom is a precious thing John, make the most of yours."
John nodded as Eric left, and he laid back down on his old bed, savoring the feeling of freedom-something he vowed never to lose again.
The End
They were outside, huddled in the dark forest that surrounded the compound. They had contacted each other for the first time in weeks only hours before meeting up again. After seeing first hand what was happening to mutants-to John- Mystique demanded they act now.
Eric would never have argued. He was worried for John, they both were. In his time with them, John had become almost a son, and as such, parental instincts commanded them to protect him.
"Do you even have to ask?" he asked her. She could see him in the dark, smirking but also deadly in his intent to save Pyro.
She smiled, for the first time in weeks. "Never." Mystique leaned forward and kissed him.
"Hey, break it up! If I remember correctly, time is of the essence, right?"
"You're right of course," Eric said as he broke away from Mystique to answer the third party, who was casually leaning against a nearby tree. "You remember the plan?"
"Yeah, kinda hard to forget."
"What about you?" Eric asked, addressing the ever silent fourth.
A small nod was enough for Eric and Mystique. "All right then, let's go."
'Dink, dink, dink.'
"Ughn," John moaned into the pillow. He could hear a tapping on the glass wall of his cell. He figured it was just Jess trying to bother him again. "Quit it."
He looked up and saw two figures standing on the other side of the wall, a man and a young woman. The hall lights were off, so the pair was softly silhouetted, he could not make out any faces.
They were both staring at him, making him feel like a specimen in a glass jar. The man turned to the young woman and nodded once.
All at once, all John felt was searing, burning, ripping pain. "AAGGGGHHH!!!"
The young woman and the man beside her watched expressionlessly as he writhed on the floor, screaming. It was too much, too suddenly, so overwhelming that this time John did pass out, although only momentarily.
The man punched in the code to unlock John's cell door and carefully stepped in, no emotion showing on his face, giving him a very calm, almost inhuman presence.
The young woman was the exact opposite; she came forward and rolled John onto his back. "John? John, John can you hear me?"
He opened his eyes, forcing the blurriness to fade, trying to focus on the girl. "Who are you?" he asked, his mind drifting in and out of coherency.
She held up a hand, forcing it to subtly glow a crimson red so that John could see her face more easily. "It's me, Wanda."
"Wanda?"
She made the light shine brighter, and John saw Eric standing at the doorway to his cell. "Eric?! I thought you were dead!"
Eric made a small smile, "Sorry to disappoint you, but we have to get moving." He said as he pulled John to his feet.
Eric then walked out of the cell, and John looked down to see his implant on the floor, in the center of a small puddle of his own blood. He stomped on it angrily before following Wanda out.
The three were walking down the long corridor of cells, until an alarm rang out through the entire complex. "Oh no, the alarm!" Wanda shouted over the blaring shriek.
"Let's run for it!" John said. He had just reunited with his adopted family; he would die before being forced into the cell again.
They ran past the other cells and into a hallway of offices. "Wanda, in here!"
They all stopped and turned to find the one who had spoken.
"Pietro? What are you doing here? This wasn't part of the plan, you were supposed to be outside with father." Wanda said. Her expression shifted then, from surprise to anger. "If you triggered that alarm because you got tired of waiting, so help me, you'll never run again!" she growled, her eyes sparkling with power.
Pietro rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Give me a little more credit than that, will you? Father sent me in once the soldiers started firing at us."
John broke into the conversation. "You mean Eric's outside? Then who- Mystique!"
Eric blinked his eyes, blue and white instantly gave way to black and yellow. "At your service, Pyro. I'm so glad you're alright." She said as she hugged him and simultaneously shifted back to her natural shape.
Mystique had never hugged him before, but at a time like this, he couldn't complain.
Pietro frowned, "Have the reunion party later, ok? We've got a group of soldiers heading our way." He said as he pointed to a surveillance screen.
"He's right. Pietro, show us the way you came in," Wanda said.
"Ok, follow me." Pietro darted out of the room, a small gray device in his hands.
"General Wraith. A small unit has intruded and seems to be aiding one of our new task pawns." A soldier said urgently as he entered the control room of the base.
"Yes, I've been watching the little ruse. Quite an interesting plan, I would say; except it lacks something we have that gives us an edge." Wraith didn't seem worried, only mildly amused at the situation.
"What would that be, sir?"
"Oh, nothing much, just friends."
"Here, this way, come on, hurry up!" Pietro called down the hall.
"Not all of us move as fast as you, Quicksilver." Mystique hissed at him. "John's hurt and you're rushing."
Pietro stopped and waited for them to catch up.
"Well, in case you forgot, we do have a crisis on our hands right now. Those soldiers must've seen us with some night vision goggles or body heat sensors or something because out of nowhere, they just opened fire. Father said something was wrong, so he sent me inside to help out." He explained as he fell into a slower step with the group.
"How could I have forgotten? Maybe you should try to remember that I-"
The group turned a corner-only to discover that Pietro's escape route was blocked by armed soldiers and two dozen of the other mutant prisoners, including Jess and Rush in the front.
Mystique stood rigidly, not batting an eyelash or moving a muscle; John was exhausted and in pain, but determined to be free again, no matter how many people-human or mutant- he'd be forced to take out.
"Wanda, think you could get rid of all their control chips too?" Pietro asked quietly.
"Not without killing them all, no." she whispered back, her voice shaking just the slightest bit.
"Sorry, John, you know it's not us hurting you." Rush said sadly.
John nodded, "I know. That's why I'm sorry too."
Without warning, John thrust out his hands, releasing a blow torch of flame- cutting a fiery part in the small sea of mutants blocking their way to freedom. "Come on, come on! Run!" Mystique yelled.
"Don't have to tell me twice," Pietro quipped as he rushed forward.
Wanda, John and Mystique followed him outside as the mutants and soldiers beat at the flames that had caught them.
Eric had had an easy time holding off the soldiers who had spotted him and Pietro. They were using metal weapons, for God's sake. The idiocy made him smile as he held them captive with their own guns.
He heard a pained chorus of screams from inside, and desperately hoped that Mystique's, John's and the twins' voices weren't included. Rather, he hoped that they were the cause.
He saw a bright flash of orange light inside, and not a second later, the door flew open. Pietro was the first out, naturally.
John and Mystique were next, while Wanda took to the air.
"Hey, since when can you fly?" John called up to her as he and Mystique ran back to Eric below.
She looked down and smiled. "A lot can happen in a few months, Pyro, as you already know."
John rolled his eyes and ran to join Mystique, Eric and Pietro. They were all bent down inspecting something.
"Hey, what's that?" he asked once he caught up.
"It's the implant control. I might be able to free them." Eric said hurriedly as he turned the tiny machine over and touched it.
"Well you might want to get on that, because they're all heading this way." Pietro warned, gesturing to the compound. Several groups of mutants and soldiers were slowly heading toward them.
"Of course son. Wanda, if you would be so kind?" he called up to her.
"Everybody, stand back." She warned once she landed.
Pietro, John and Mystique backed away several steps and watched as Eric and Wanda gripped each other's hand and also gripped the implant control, forming a sort of triangle. John looked over his shoulder and felt fear grip him as the soldiers and mutants charged forward.
Pietro and Mystique's hair was standing on end, and he assumed that his was as well. Eric and Wanda were creating a massive electrical charge; John understood what they were preparing to do.
All at once, every mutant dropped and screamed-clawing at their heads. John watched, both sympathetic and happy. He knew firsthand how much it hurt, but the reward was freedom-something he'd never take for granted again.
Eric and Wanda broke their circle and Eric destroyed the implant control, crushing it with his power.
"You did it, they're free!" Pietro cried happily.
"Yes, we-"Eric began, but stopped himself once he heard a gunshot.
"The soldiers know what we've done! They're opening fire on our mutant brothers!" Pietro shouted, jumping to the conclusion five times faster than anyone else in the tiny group.
Not waiting for Eric's command, Pietro rushed forward and attacked the first soldier he saw- a private who hadn't even had the time to draw his weapon.
Wanda was never far behind her brother, and she once again rose off the ground; rather than dirty her hands with fist fighting like Quicksilver, she blasted a group of soldiers with her power.
Mystique, Eric and John entered the fray not two seconds after the twins. However, while Eric and Mystique were in it to protect the other mutants and each other, John had a better idea.
"What the hell just happened?!" Wraith demanded.
"I'm not sure, sir. Some kind of electric current has just broken our hold on the mutants!"
Wraith turned around, "You mean to tell me those things are roaming around free on my compound?!"
"Yes sir."
"What the hell are you going to do about it?! You're our leading technologist, fix it!"
"I can't! The damage has been done to the chips themselves, I can't do anything about it, all any of us can do now is pray."
"Oh?" Wraith pulled out his pistol and shot his fellow soldier three times in the chest. "I'll trust this instead."
John stumbled into the base-the last place he wanted to be, but he had his reasons. He knew that just like any other rat that abandoned the ship, Wraith would be looking for a way to escape right about now, and John was going to stop him.
No, not just stop.
He planned on nothing short of roasting him alive. Wraith had stolen him from home, made him a murderer. Well, now Wraith would get a small sampling of the fruit he'd sown.
John headed straight for the control office, he knew that's where the big bosses of this place stayed the most, and Wraith was the biggest. The office was locked, of course, so John completely melted the knob without a second thought. Kicking the door open, he strutted inside, ready to do some damage.
A soldier was bleeding on the floor-not dead yet-but he wasn't who John wanted. The side door was open, so he headed toward it, closing in on his kill like a hawk.
"Damn freaks, this isn't the end of it, I'll get a new base soon, have Magneto in the first cell..." Wraith muttered to himself as he quickly walked to the small launch pad where he kept his private helicopter.
"See how proud they are when I have him-agh!" Wraith jumped back just in time to evade the flames that suddenly erupted from the ground before him.
The flames rose high into the air and began to swirl around him-a fiery tornado, he realized, and remembered where he'd seen the trick before.
Wraith turned around, not at all surprised to find John standing behind him. He actually smiled at him.
"A little overdramatic, isn't it?" He asked, gesturing to the swirling flames that surrounded them both.
"It fits the occasion," John snapped.
"Oh, yes, kill me with what I created, how very ironic."
"You made me kill people-"
"No I didn't. You already killed one of my soldiers, using this same little eye trick. Ramirez was a good soldier, and you killed him. I didn't make you a killer, you were born one. I only put you to use."
John felt his blood boil, searing his body as it coursed through his veins. Wraith thought mutants were born killers? He thought John could be useful?
Flames plumed around John, and he concentrated all of his energy on forcing the fire to attack Wraith-boil him, burn him, sear him until there was nothing left.
"I may not have been the first one you've done this to, but I will be the last-oof!" John grunted as he fell to the ground.
John rolled over, shocked to find metal cords wrapped around his ankles. His eyes followed the cords until he found the wrists they had been implanted in.
Jess stood over him, "Sorry John, but no kid is going to steal this from me. Go on back to your family now."
"No, I'm gonna roast that son of a-"
"Just go, alright? I'll make sure he dies, but I'm doing it alone." Jess hissed at him as her metal tentacles released his legs.
John quickly stood up and they faced Wraith, who was still smirking at their shared fury.
"You mutants may have some interesting talents, but you're still as dumb as the next guy." He said as he whipped out his gun.
Flames sprouted from John's body, and began to stretch toward Wraith, but he was too slow.
Jess whipped Wraith's gun to the side just as the laser sight rested over John's heart. The gun went off, and Jess used her right tentacle to punch a hole through Wraith's chest.
The metal extensions returned back to her arms, and Jess stared at Wraith's lifeless body for a moment. She watched as blood pooled from his massive wound, the spark of her tormentor finally snuffed out.
She was happy and disappointed at the same time. In her mind she had always envisioned a massive showdown between Wraith and herself, a cataclysmic battle between good and evil. Sometimes she was the victor, sometimes not.
Either way, she was a bit disappointed to know that the 'epic battle' of her daydreams was summed up in less than a second with nearly no effort put forth on her part.
All in all, she had to say it was somewhat anticlimactic.
Jess shrugged and turned to find John on the ground. "John, what are you doing?"
He didn't move. "John? John, come on, get up."
She moved closer, and rolled him onto his back. His shirt was stained with blood.
The small battle between the mutants and the soldiers was in truth no contest. For every armed soldier, there were about five mutants whose powers had been upgraded.
Within minutes, the soldiers were either dead or had wisely chosen to run off.
"Well, that was quick," said Pietro.
Mystique smiled. "Yes, thankfully."
"Where's Pyro?" Eric asked. "I haven't seen him since this ordeal began."
"Help! Help!"
Eric, Mystique and the twins turned to find a young woman screaming and running towards them.
"It's John's hurt, you have to help him!" she cried.
"Where is he?" Wanda demanded.
"He's behind the base, beside the helicopter holding area..."
Wanda rose into the air again and headed towards the back of the compound, while Pietro ran his fastest to find John.
John lay bleeding on the ground, a few feet away from the lifeless body of a man he knew only as Wraith-the man behind the conspiracy to make mutants appear as dangerous and uncontrollable as possible to the media in the hopes that it will inspire fear and loathing for them on a national level.
Wraith may have succeeded on several counts, John included.
He felt his shirt-warm and wet with his own blood-being lifted. He heard voices and he felt himself being moved, but he couldn't wake up.
Had John been awake, he would've known that he was on the Blackbird, a jet owned by the X-men-and that his formers friends Bobby and Rogue were keeping a close watch over him, as were Eric, Mystique and the twins.
"What's up with his hair?" asked Bobby as he touched John's bright gold streaks.
Rogue frowned at Eric. "Is changing your hostage's hair your trademark or something?" she asked coolly, meaning the stark white stripe she had received when Eric had, in fact, taken her.
Eric rolled his eyes, "Don't look at me, I didn't do that. And he's not my hostage; he came to us by choice if memory serves."
Storm-who was piloting the jet-sped up, hoping to get home faster before there was some kind of incident between the opposing groups.
Slowly, John felt the strength come back to him. He opened his eyes and he found himself back in his old room at the Xavier school.
Frowning, John looked around and tried to sit up.
"Oh, dammit!" he growled as the stitches in his shoulders stretched.
He put a hand over the wound and tried to sit up more slowly. John didn't remember much about the night before, but assumed that Wraith was dead- otherwise he would've killed John. Which only left the question of how he came to be back in his old room.
Someone knocked on the door. "Come in," John answered.
Eric came in and shut the door behind him. "How're you feeling?"
"Kinda like I just got shot through the shoulder after having my neck ripped open." He answered flatly.
Eric raised his eyebrows, "Glad to see your sarcasm wasn't as drastically changed as your hair." He said with a smirk.
John glanced at himself in the mirror, where his gold streaks stood out from the rest of his dark brown hair. "What happened?"
"Well, plenty. The mutants who were being held captive are now free; the soldiers who had held them are now dead. Quite simple, really."
"No it isn't." John said quietly.
Eric looked at John for a moment, and understood the feelings that must be welling up inside him.
"I understand what it was like, John, being manipulated like that. I can understand it better than most."
"I know."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not now, no."
"Alright. But whenever you're ready, my door is always open."
Eric smiled reassuringly and then made to leave. "Freedom is a precious thing John, make the most of yours."
John nodded as Eric left, and he laid back down on his old bed, savoring the feeling of freedom-something he vowed never to lose again.
The End