Warren strode into the offices of Worthington Enterprises, ignoring the piqued interest of his employees. True, he hadn't been seen in the office often, but he easily adopted the commanding presence needed to maintain his position as not only the company's chief shareholder, but also as the company's soon-to-be president. He didn't mind the looks of interest, no one would dareutter an insultabout his mutation, but all the same it would have been nice to be ignored for once.

He breezed past his father's secretary without a word. No words were needed. After all, she knew the golden rule of the company was to allow a Worthington free reign, especially the "heir to the throne", as it were. Warren stepped into his father's office and shut the door behind him. "Hey dad, what's up?"

Worthington senior had called him early that morning, asking him to come into the office to select new employees to head the company's interior departments. Warren had recognized the importance of his father's request: the employees selected today would reflect on his ability to find the best people to lead the family's company. Warren knew he had enough against him as it was with his visible mutation- few of their overseas partners thought much of mutants in places of power, but Warren knew he could overcome. For the sake of his family and the company's thousands of loyal employees, he would have to.

"All right son, I know you're on the up and up about our prospects. You have your favorites?" his father asked from behind a large oak desk. Warren handed his father the portfolio he'd put together, which included the employee resumes, photos and drug test results.

"Of course. I want Carter as the lab head, Mendez as the secondary…"

Warren went on to discuss business with his father for several more hours, till nearly noon. He didn't mind, and couldn't afford to appear ungrateful to his father, but he didn't want to be away from his apartment for much longer, his guests might begin to worry about where he was. He hadn't seen Raven about the place early that morning as he'd been dressing for the office and as for Pyro…well, Warren had nothing against him, but didn't look forward to walking in on him with the girl again.

He stepped out onto the roof and allowed his eyes to adjust to the bright sun. The air smelled hot and his flight senses came alive- he could "taste" the thermals and shifting winds. He glanced over and saw that he was not alone. A woman was standing near the edge railing of the building, looking out over the city. It was a wonderful view, even in the worst of weather.

Warren called out to her, "How's it look today?"

She turned to smile at him, "Beautiful as always!"

Warren, being of a naturally friendly nature, smiled back and walked over. The woman had a nice look to her, with lightly tanned skin and long ebony hair. Light brown eyes with a slight almond shape betrayed her to be of partial Asian descent. He came and stood beside her at the railing. "Hi, I'm Warren,"

She shook his hand, "Lana, nice to meet you. Did you have an interview earlier?" she asked, indicating his sharp business suit.

Warren hesitated- Lana didn't seem to know who he was, and it felt refreshing. Too often had he crossed paths with true gold-diggers, women (human and mutant) who were happy to offer him plenty of sex in exchange for plenty of money. It had been an easy way to ease his insecurities when he was younger and under so much stress because of his responsibilities and mutation, but nowadays he looked for a woman of genuine intent- not easy to come by when one was a millionaire.

In the back of his mind, he wondered briefly if part of his attraction to Raven had been rooted in the fact that she had never seemed impressed with his wealth.

"An interview? Ah, no, I work here, I just came up for some air,"

"Well, this is the place for it, huh? God, look at this view! I can see everything and everyone…it's great,"

Warren raised an eyebrow and was about to ask, when suddenly he felt as if the floor had slipped out from under his feet! He lurched hard to the left, while Lana lurched hard to the right- too hard! Warren watched in horror as Lana threw her arms out, but overbalanced and went over the railing!

There was no time to think about anything else- Warren tore off his restrictive suit jacket and jumped over the railing after her. He felt the wind whip over his face and body as he fell into space; his wings ached to spread and catch the air, but Warren knew that if he so much as moved a feather it would slow his descent and he couldn't begin to fly until he'd caught Lana... his sharp eyes saw her as she fell, already with nearly 100 ft. between them, plummeting down towards the earth.

Lana was twisting in the air, struggling out of her own smart business jacket. Warren continued his fall, though his focus split between the need to catch her, and watching what Lana was trying to do while she was falling.

Suddenly, the jacket was off, and Lana let it go- the garment caught on a thermal wind and flew past Warren's head. He glanced back only a moment to watch as it blew back and brushed against the building's office window. Warren turned back to Lana and his eyes widened against the wind.

For a moment he thought that his mind was playing a trick on him, but it wasn't! Two large, billowy bursts of color sprang from her back- wings! At first he had thought that he was seeing twin parachutes, so thin and wispy they seemed- he was vaguely reminded of a silk sheet- but as he watched her wings unfurl and catch the air, Warren realized- Lana was a mutant, gifted with the colorful wings of a butterfly!

His heart leapt- he'd not met another winged mutant, and now he'd just attempted to save one who had needed no saving at all! Warren opened his wings and flapped to gain altitude, though he kept Lana well in sight. He didn't know how to approach her, but he felt as if he'd just been struck by a thunderbolt- a winged mutant!

He wanted to know everything about her and her mutation- where she was from, when her wings had appeared, everything! Lana was several hundred feet below him, but he kept an eye on her as she flew. The colorful gossamer wings were not suited for the intense heights and speed that he enjoyed, but Warren appreciated their delicacy and angled his feathers to bring himself lower so that he was able to fly just alongside with her.

"Lana!" Lana jerked her head to look at him and her eyes bulged to see that, not only was he a fellow flying mutant, but also that he'd managed to catch up with her.

"So, I know this might be a little forward, but I was wondering if you'd like to grab a cup of coffee with me sometime?"

Shesmiled at him and Warren smiled back. It was an interesting start to an even more interesting day.

"Still the show-off, I see," John drawled as Alison clapped her hands and sent flashes of color into the air. She smiled at him and didn't deny his name-calling. She was showing off to a group of passing kids on the beach.

"Well of course I'm showing off!" she yelled above her audience's cheering. "Why else were we given these powers but to inflate our egos?"

John strolled along with her. "Good point. Here's a better one: we were given our powers because we're Homo Superior and-"

"Oh, blah, blah, blah, John! I know where've you been these past few years, you know. I know that you've been with Magneto. Don't get me wrong, I'm a mutant and proud- hell, do you know the real reason I left Xavier's?"

John hesitated. "What do you mean? You told me your family was moving,"

Alison shrugged, "Well, that's half of it. There's always more to it…ok, remember how they set up those rules where the school outings couldn't be co-ed until junior year?"

John nodded, "Yeah, I was always dying to hang out with you outside of school, the wait was killing me!"

"It killed me too, I guess we've been making up for lost time, huh? Anyway, I was out with some of my girlfriends- Ms. Grey was leading us. We had gone to a museum and were walking back to the subway when we stopped on a corner and asked her for some Cokes, it was boiling hot that day and we were dying of thirst!"

John slipped an arm around her waist. "Yeah, and?"

"Well, she agreed, so long as we stuck together while she went in to buy drinks for us. I didn't mean for it to happen, I just kind of reacted…"

"What happened?"

"Ok, it wasn't the coolest thing to just be hanging around on a street corner, right? So I started doing this to pass the time," Alison flared three bright balls of color and began to juggle. "I mean, I wasn't hurting anyone, I was just a dumb bored kid trying to show off my juggling skills to my girlfriends, it wasn't even about showing off my powers!"

John nudged her shoulder, "You never thought much of that 'hide your powers' rule, did you?"

"Hell no! I was just tossing the colors around when this crazy guy came out of nowhere and started grabbing at me! I got scared, what girl wouldn't? So, to get him away from me, I shot sparks into his eyes. It was enough of a shock that he let go of me andstarted to stagger back- but he tripped into the street. A driver saw what was happening and he swerved, hitting another car, which hit another…"

John raised his eyebrows, "I guess it's a good thing I wasn't there after all, I promise you that if I'd been there and anyone so much as laid a finger on you, they'd be breathing from a tube for the rest of their lives!" he growled angrily.

Alison kissed his neck, "Wow, you're so sweet! Anyway, everything happened kind of fast, and by the time Ms. Grey came out with our sodas, about five cars were totaled. After that Xavier decided that it might be a good idea to leave,"

"Why? It wasn't your fault!"

"Well, I had been using my powers in public, and I guess flaring my lights at that guy wasn't really a reflex so much as angry self-defense, but his eyes were damaged after what I'd done- I don't think he went blind, but nearly so-"

"Who cares? None of that was your fault!"

"I know that and you know that and I'm sure that Xavier knew it too, but it hardly matters now, does it? My dad got that job and I would have had to move withmy familyanyway. Doesn't matter to me, now that I've found you again," she said, kissing him squarely on the mouth.

John nuzzled her neck, "Careful, Dazzler, we're in public,"

A toss of wild blonde hair, "That never stopped you from using your powers, Pyro,"

"That's not what I meant and you know it,"

Alison's blue eyes locked to his. "John…I don't want this to end when my family's vacation does,"

John narrowed his eyes, "What do you- what the hell!"

They each fell, tumbling in the salty sand as the earth rocked under their feet. John moved up to his hands and knees in time to see the San Francisco skyline rock. Car alarms exploded into the air around them as the ground shook. He glanced at Alison and took her hand into his own. "Earthquake?"

"I guess so. We're probably safe, I think. Open air, nothing can fall on us…" John squinted as he saw the damage done to the boardwalk storefronts and the cars lining the parking lots. He then glanced over Alison's bent head and saw the ocean begin to rise.

"Hey, Ali I think it's time we took off, that's a tidal wave about to break,"

Alison glanced back and, several hundred feet into the water, she could see the rising wave. She knew that by the time it reached the shore, it could crush them! She glanced around and watched the other beach patrons stand from the sand and retreat away from the shore.

"I think you're right, let's book!"

John took Alison's hand and they tore from the beach, running over the boardwalk and not stopping until they'd gotten past the shops. Glancing back, they could see great splashes of water as the wave crashed over the beach. He shrugged. It didn't seem such a tsunami now; he doubted that, short of a lot of property damage, the wave hadn't caused too much trouble for anyone.

"Well John, that was my first earthquake, what about you?"

"Same here…" he didn't know why, but suddenly he had a very deep, very uneasy feeling in the pit of his gut. "Hey, Ali, come with me back to the penthouse,"

The blonde's eyes shined at him, "Don't tell me you've just been turned on by the earthquake!"

He raised an eyebrow, "Ha-ha, no! I don't need an earthquake to be turned on by you, Dazzler, I just…I don't know, I want to check in with my roommates really quick, just to make sure they're all right."

Alison nodded, "Ok, no problem. When we get there, I'm going to call my parents and sister to be sure they're all right too."

The uneasy tension in John's stomach didn't ease in the slightest, but he took Alison's hand and led her through the disrupted city, urgent to see Mystique. He couldn't explain why, but he had a strange hunch that she was behind the whole thing.

Eric's body convulsed on the floor as awareness of the world came back to him in a painful, wild rush. He groaned as power returned, and he felt a swelling of joy surge through his chest. He was born again- Magneto!

Mystique stood over his trembling form on the floor, smiling once she saw the realization reach his eyes. She knelt beside him and pulled the now empty syringe from his side. She tossed it away and allowed him to rest his head in her lap. "I'm sorry, Eric. The reversal is even more painful than the cure, but…you're you again…"

He coughed and struggled to stand up. His eyes held a sense of awe as he looked upon her near-forgotten form. She stood up with him, a beautiful dragon- the bright flame of scales upon her head, her sunrise eyes and her intricately patterned skin. Beautiful, the fierce warrior he'd molded over the years. The thought hit him hard.

"Mystique," he hated how raw his voice sounded. "How did you…?"

"As I said, Warren brought John and I here to find you, but his company has also developed this reversal process. I took it yesterday and I was able to sneak a few vials of it out of the lab with me. It feels amazing, doesn't it?" she breathed.

Eric closed his eyes and did indeed feel amazing- his power had returned to him all at once in a rush, he hadn't had to build up his strength as he had during the formative years of his mutation. He could feel the magnetic pulse of the world at his fingertips. "Yes, it most certainly does…"

Mystique smiled. "I think you might have caused a slight quake."

"What?"

"The ground shook while you were on the floor- maybe it was the disruption of the natural magnetic fields?"

Eric flexed his hands. "I believe that you're right. I- Mystique, thank you!"

As he'd felt the rush of his power return to him, so did he feel the rush of gratitude towards her for bringing him back to himself. He moved forward and brought his arms around her, grateful to feel the cool, slick scales beneath his hands. She returned the embrace to him, "I did it for both of us, Eric."

"I'm so sorry for everything, why didn't you kill me? It would have been easy,"

Mystique shook her head. "I haven't forgotten all our years. I couldn't kill you, the world wouldn't be the same."

"Please forgive me, the way I used you was-"

Mystique cut in, "Yes, it was horrible, Eric. I was used and discarded, hurt and above all, I was betrayed. That's why I went to them and told all about the meeting of the greater Brotherhood. We've betrayed each other, let's leave it at that."

He took her hands into his own, "I'm sorry."

Her smile was genuine, "I know you are Eric, that's why you'll be spending plenty of time making it up to me, right?"

He laughed, for the first time in ages, "Of course."

"It's a new day, Eric. For now, the fight between humans and mutants has settled down- peacetime, that's what Pyro's calling it, if there even is such a thing. Mutants are the evolutionary superior to humans, I've always known it, but Eric if you still want us to fight by your side, we must find some kind of middle ground."

"You're starting to sound like Charles,"

"No. I just feel…wiser now. I want a world where mutants no longer live in fear, you know I do. I'd do anything to walk down the street in my real body, but that change in the world will take time. I'll do whatever it takes, I've proved that to you…but for right now, can we just enjoy the peace?"

Eric slipped an arm around her. "Nothing would please me more."