White Raven
Pyro
Pyro sat on the large window edge, mechanicly flipped open his lighter and closed it with a chink. He thought hard as he stared down at the water, far below the sheer cliff face. He shivered involintarily, his body wasn't used to the hard and cold of Magneto's lair. Almost everything was either rock or metal, or metal rock.
The grating of the huge metal entrance door brought him back to the moment. Magneto entered, trailing a floating metal plate with an unconcious girl on it. Mistique followed, silent as shadow.
"Yes! You found her!" he exclaimed, jumping to the floor. The window ledge was high.
"Yes. I'm going to take her to her cell until she recovers from the tranquilizer." he replied.
"Are you sure she's powerful?" he asked, studying her innoccent teenage face.
"Powerful enough to have Xaiver searching every nook and cranny on the planet." replied Mistique.
Boy, she was beautiful, thought Pyro. He brushed a copper ringlet off of her pale forehead. She stirred a little.
Pyro slowly returned to his position on the window sill after Magneto had taken Summer away. He was tired, but he didn't want to return to his chamber.
An explosion of rock knocked him out of his seat. When the dust cleared he say a small hole in the wall of Summer's cell. There was another one across the room.
What could this girl do? he wondered.
He decided that he might as well go to bed, he would talk to Summer in the the morning.
Summer woke feeling groggy, and confused. More or less how she had been feeling for the past twenty-four hours. But her head began to clear a little. Bits and peices slowly began to come back. She was distracted from her disleveled memories but a loud rumbling in her stomach.
The door to the cell wasn't locked, as she half-expected. She didn't trust Magneto, despite his reasurance that she was rescued. There was something about him, a feeling, that she couldn't quite place. It was unsettling.
She walked down a long hallway, until she reached a large room, with a huge metal door that looked like a bank vault.
"Oh, hey." said Pyro, coming out a door. "You must be Summer."
"Hey." replied Summer. "Who are you?"
"Pyro." he answered, sticking his hands in his pockets. He was tall, with reddish-brown hair, and smiling a little.
A silence stepped in, and made her uncomfortable. Finally she asked, "Where do we get some food around here? I'm starved."
"I'll show you." Pyro said. He led her to a small kitchen, which seemed out of place in this metal fortress.
He rumaged through the fridge and found two apples and some soda's.
"This will hold you until wego back this afternoon. We hardly ever eat here, cause most of the food is storage stuff, in case we get trapped here or something. Mistique and I will get you some new clothes and stuff, since we can't get your old ones." he sat down at the metal table.
"Thanks." Summer said, sitting across from him. "So... what's your power?" It felt weird saying that, like it was normal. Like saying, 'So... what's your deformity?' She didn't think she would ever get used to being a mutant.
He took out a metal lighter, and clicked it. He took the small flame, and it grew until it was about the size of a baseball. "Pretty cool, huh? I can't make fire though, I can only play with it. That's the frustrating part. Mystique is making me a suit that will produce the fire quickly and directly to my hands, it's gonna be awsome."
"Cool. I've never really met another mutant before. I mean, I've seen them on the news and stuff, just never really talked to one." Summer replied, playing with the tab on her soda can.
"I bet you have, you just didn't realize it. There are tons of mutants out there, they just don't know it." Pyro answered.
"Like me."
"Yeah. So... what's your power?" Pyro asked, grinning. "Magneto says your very... promising."
Summer held out her flat palm, and concentrated. A small white bubble formed and grew, until it looked like a white swirling crystal ball. She moved it over to Pyro's fire, and caught it. To her surprise it continued burning, and didn't go out with the lack of oxegen. She extinguished her small force fiield, and the fire with it.
"Cool."said Pyro. He grinned.
"Tell me about this Xavier guy. Magneto made him sound like he was evil or something. At least I think he did. Last night is a little blurry. Won't going back to... wherever we're going, won't that be dangerous?" Summer asked.
"Naw, you'll have Mystique and me to protect you. By the way, Mystique is a shape-shifter, so she'll look different when we go, and might even change around a little." Pyro replied.
Summer felt like that connected to something, but couldn't say what.
"Are you ready?" asked Mystique, suddenly in the doorway.
"Yeah." replied Summer and Pyro.
"Come down to my lab, first." Mystique said.
She led them deeper into the fortress, to a huge lab. It was mostly computers, lots of them. It was very clean and organized, and most if not all the technology was far out of Summer's experience.
"That's my suit." Pyro said, pointing to a suit hanging up in a glass compartment. It was red and black, with tubes all over the place. There was a backpack that they all connected to.
"Awsome." replied Summer. There were a few other suits, one with a cape and red helmet and one plain black one that was obviously for Mystique.
Mystique took Summer's wrist, and drew some blood. "Just in case." she muttered. Summer winced at the unexpected prick. Then she measured Summer quickly. Summer could practicly see the numbers adding up behind her yellow eyes, she didn't even write anything down.
"Ok, lets go." Pyro said when she was done.
"This suit will be fireproof and bulletproof, but I wouldn't take and chances." Mystique warned her.
At the entrance,Pyro picked up a backpack, with tubes that hooked onto the wrist. He hid the tubes under his jacket, and looked like the average college student. He rolled up a sleeve and pressed a button on the opposite wrist, and a small flame appeared. He took control and made it much bigger. "Cool, huh? This is until I get the suit."
Mystique opened the entrance by typing in a complicated password on the computer consol next to it. It opened slowly and silently. She stepped out onto a cold and windy platform, under a rocky ledge. It dropped off straight into the ocean, as far as Summer could tell. She wasn't going near the edge to see.
Mystique walked over to the far wall. There were some steps descending into murky darkness.
"Summer, please." Mystique asked, motioning for light.
Pyro was about to light a fire, but stopped. "You need the practise, anyway." he said.
Summer let a few baseball sized light orbs form above her hand, and made them float around as they desended.
Mystique led them through a maze of tunnels, and through tons of high-security doors. Summer was lost after the first few turns. Pyro didn't really seem to know where he was going either.
Summer kept herself amused by playing with her orbs. She could make them as big as she liked, and as small. It was when she tried to change their shape that it got difficult. She could make it flat, and kinda a round square.
"We're here." pronounced Pyro. He opened a small, wooden door. Inside was a closet, that looked like it hadn't been opened in years. Mystique shifted into what she might have looked like if she didn't have blue skin, yellow eyes, and shocking red hair.Her clothes changed to, into a business suit. Her hair was black, and her eyes blue.
"Call me Hope, it's less suspicious." she said.
They all walked out of the closet, into what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Summer spent most of the time trying to get the spiderwebs out of her face.
Finally they walked out the door, and through a small break in the fence. Summer walked onto the crowded sidewalk, and noticed for the first time that her hair was tangled, and her clothes a mess. She combed her fingers through her hair, and smoothed her wrinkled shirt.
"You look great. Let's go." Pyro said impatiently, pulling her across the street when the sign turned for walking. He led her to the huge mall, the busiest place yet.
"Don't worry about Xavier, he wouldn't dare do anything is such a crowded place." Pyro said.
They went intothe food court and got some sandwiches. Summer couldn't help but feel uncomfortable, knowing she didn't belong with the humans around her. It was weird to think an hour ago she had been in the bowels of a metal fortress, and here she was getting clothes and food like a normal person.
After Summer went into one of her favorite stores and picked out a few outfits half-heartedly. Now that she didn't go to school, and probably never would again, she didn't care if they were in style anymore. She just picked clothes that were simple and comfortable, and some good running shoes. Mystique mentioned that she didn't need to worry about how much they cost, Eric would take care of it. Summer assumed she meant Magneto.
Mystique left them after that, saying she had to take care of some business. If they needed her, they were to call her, and she tossed them a cell phone.
"Where do you want to go now?" Summer asked Pyro.
He smiled micheviously. "Let's go have some fun."
Summer wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.
Chapter Four: Found Her!