The Juggernaut, Multiple Man and Arclight were sat in their cells, bored out of their minds, when the bars started creaking. Arclight looked up, frowning slightly.
They had all been given a shot of the cure then left under close observation, just in case. None of them had heard anything from any other member of the Brotherhood (which given that most of them were in jail, and Mystique was indisposed, that left Pyro, Callisto and Magneto) in the six months that they had been trapped here, and had begun to consider themselves forgotten. After all, what use would Magneto have for a load of humans? Still, there was no mistaking that creaking sound.
Arclight stood up and walked over to the bars of her cell. She touched her hand to the metal bars and they bent like elastic under her fingers.
"Magneto?" she said, backing away from them.
Behind her Juggernaut and Multiple Man both stood up. Arclight shielded her eyes as the bars suddenly buckled, then pulled clear of the wall. They clattered to the floor and as the dust cleared, Magneto, flanked by Callisto and Pyro, emerged.
"My dear comrades," Magneto said, smiling benignly.
"What are you doing here?" Arclight asked.
"What sort of a welcome is that?" Magneto chuckled.
"Well, we saw what you did to Mystique," Multiple Man said, "What do you want with us now we're human?"
"You mean to say you don't know yet?" Magneto said, "the 'cure', it's only temporary."
"You mean we could have got out of here ages ago?" Juggernaut said angrily.
"When were you injected with the cure?" Magneto asked.
"A couple of days after Alcatraz," Arclight said, "We would have felt it come back, the power."
"It requires work, my dear," Magneto said, "You have to exercise it. In the six months the cure has been suppressing it, it has become weak. You will have to work hard, but I assure you, a few days hard work and you will be back to form."
"How do you know?" Multiple Man asked.
"Because, my friend, I also took a shot of their 'cure'," Magneto paused to let this statement fully sink in, "Their science hasn't kept me down, I know it won't keep you down either."
Arclight clapped her hands together experimentally. A small, feeble wave of energy emitted from her hands. She clapped again and the shockwave came a bit stronger.
"You see?" Magneto smiled again, "You'll be at full strength in no time, and what better way to exercise your newly reawakened powers than to get a little well deserved justice from the X-men?"
Storm smiled happily as a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday was rounded off by a load clapping. The birthday boy, a younger student called Sam, sat before a cake covered in candles smiling as he took a deep breath and blew them out.
The cheering and clapping dwindled as the younger students rushed off to test out some of Sam's presents, leaving the older students to enjoy a large buffet, and the teachers to indulge in a little champagne.
It was three in the afternoon, and a brilliantly sunny day. The morning lessons were over and done with, and any evening ones cancelled to allow for the party. Storm was glad for a break from everything – teaching took it out of you, especially with the added responsibilities and loads she was carrying at the moment.
She was no closer to deciding what she wanted to do about the President's proposition, but she had at least presented it to her staff, and they were helping to mull over it.
"Forget about all that for a while," Hank said from somewhere beside her. Storm looked round at him.
"How do you know what I'm thinking about?" she asked.
"I don't need to be psychic to read your expression," Hank said with a smile, "A solution will present itself in time, til then, you are under no pressure to make a decision."
"I know," Storm said, "it's just at the moment every option available seems to put someone out, or at risk."
"The only thing you should be worrying about right now is if your champagne needs refilling," Hank said, removing the empty glass from her hand, and replacing it with a fresh one.
Storm smiled.
"You're not trying to get me tipsy are you?" she asked.
"I certainly am," Hank said.
Storm grinned, and looked round at everyone. The younger kids all seemed to be having fun, Mystique and Logan appeared to be engaged in a debate (which was odd, as they tended to avoid each other) and the older students were huddled together, probably plotting how to get their hands on some alcohol. They had got bolder with the lack of psychics about the place. Hank followed her gaze.
"I've made an interesting discovery about Jack," he said, nodding over to her.
"What's that?" Storm asked.
Little by little she was creating a picture of Jack from all the various people in the building. Teachers and sometimes students told her things she had said or done, and like a jigsaw it was slowly starting to piece together. Unfortunately some of the things she heard seemed to blatantly contradict themselves, leading Storm to believe the girl was not only an accomplished liar, but hiding something. She didn't like to intrude on other people's business, but she didn't feel she could help the girl to the best of her ability without a little knowledge about her past and her background.
"She has an extraordinary talent for learning languages," Hank said, "From what I've seen and heard, I believe she could probably master a whole language in less than a week, given some intensive training."
"Is that a mutation?" Storm asked.
"I don't think so," Hank said.
"How come they get alcohol and we don't?" Kitty muttered, eyeing the champagne bottle.
"Underage," Jack said, "This is a school after all, can't set a bad example."
"You're not underage," Bobby commented, "My folks went to England once, they said the drinking age there was eighteen."
"I don't think they are going to let me drink and turn you lot away," Jack said.
"Champagne is gross anyway," Rogue said, "why would you want that?"
"Maybe we should employ a little stealth and see if they had anything else available," Kitty said with a mischievous grin.
"I'm not getting involved," Jack said, "Why hide away somewhere and drink when the party is out here in the sun?"
"You hippy!" Kitty said teasingly, "You won't tell on us will you?"
"How old do you think I am, five?" Jack replied with a grin.
"See you later then!" Bobby said, putting his arm round Rogue and leading her off after Kitty and Peter.
Jack rolled her eyes and wandered over to the buffet table, grabbing herself a sandwich and going to join Jubilee.
"Not going with Rogue and the others?" Jubilee asked with surprise.
"Nah," Jack said, "In a choice between food and alcohol I'd pick food any day."
Jubilee laughed.
"Not to mention they will be all gross and couple-y," the younger girl said with a shudder.
"I was more worried about drunk Kitty," Jack said.
Jubilee started talking about another birthday party a while ago, when the champagne hadn't been so heavily guarded, but Jack stopped listening, looking over at a young boy who was sat on his own.
"Who's that?" she asked, interrupting the girl's story.
"Oh, um, that's Jimmy," Jubilee said.
Jack remembered the name Jimmy being mentioned when she first arrived, but with so many names and so many people she had never associated it with a face.
"Why is he all on his own?" she asked.
"He has this sort of field around him which suppresses the X-gene," Jubilee explained, "not many of the kids his age like to hang around with him because of it."
Jack nodded, then wandered over to where Jimmy was sat.
Jimmy sat a little way away from the others, smiling as they larked about, playing party games and having fun. He wasn't going to join them, instead he had a book he intended to read.
"Aren't you going to join in?" someone asked him.
There was a gentle thud as that someone sat down beside him. Jimmy looked up to see Jack, wearing her dungarees as always, smiling down at him. Jimmy shut his book and sat up a bit. He had seen her around but had never spoken to her.
"They don't like it when I join in too much," he said, "I take their powers away, and they don't like it."
"Do you like reading?" Jack asked, nodding towards his book.
"Yeah," Jimmy said. He picked up his book again. It was a very well read copy of Harry Potter.
"What's it about?"
"Wizards and magic," he said.
"Will you read a bit to me?"
"You don't mind being around me? Even though I take away your powers?" Jimmy asked.
"I can live without them for a while," Jack said with a shrug, "So will you read to me?"
"Sure!" Jimmy opened his book and began to read. Jack lay back on the grass and closed her eyes, listening to him. Jimmy smiled, glad for the company.
On the other side of the garden Warren stood watching them. It was kind of Jack to treat Jimmy to a bit of attention. It wasn't that the other kids didn't like him, they just didn't like what he did to them, and as a consequence they rarely spent more than ten minutes in his company.
"You ought to be careful, people will start to think you're taking more than a professional interest in her," Logan said.
"What?" Warren asked, turning to him.
"I see where you were looking," Logan said.
"I was looking at Jimmy, I hope you don't think I'm taking more than a professional interest in him," Warren said dryly.
Logan smirked.
"Sure, whatever," he said, then wandered off over to where Storm was stood drinking champagne.
Warren turned back to Jimmy and Jack. Jack was now teasing him about something, poking him in the side as the young boy laughed, blushing slightly. It was sweet and made Warren smile. He didn't want to look for too long though, he didn't want to give Logan any ideas.
The Brotherhood gathered in their old forest hideout, almost as many as they had been before Alcatraz. They had lost a few to the Phoenix but the rest were in the process of recovering from the cure. The lair was a hive of activity as powers were tested and stretched in preparation for the attack they had planned.
"Are we looking to take prisoners?" Callisto asked Magneto.
"Not necessarily, my dear," Magneto said, "We just want to scare them, remind them we are back in business."
"Won't they tell everyone?" Arclight asked, "We'll have everyone on our backs!"
"I don't think so," Magneto said, "They need to keep people level minded about the mutant, ah, problem so as to ensure a fair judgement at the world summit. It would be in their best interests to keep it quiet."
"So, we walk in, trash the place, leave before they start fighting back?" Pyro said.
"Yes, Pyro, scare them, scare the kids – and don't hold back," Magneto said, "There is only one student I want dead, but if there are any teacher casualties in the process, then I'm not going to be too upset."
"What student?" Callisto asked.
"The one they call 'Jimmy', the source of the cure," Magneto said darkly, "We can't have him inadvertently creating a permanent cure now, can we?"
"No problem," Pyro said, forming a ball of flame in his hand.
Some time later Warren decided to go for a walk through the nearest park, to get away from the mansion for a while. All the kids were busy playing games, the older students were hiding away somewhere, probably with a few bottles of alcohol and the adults were all talking over champagne.
It was late afternoon, and the sun was starting to dip in the sky. The light was still as bright as midday, but the edge had come off the heat and a slight breeze had picked up – perfect weather for a stroll. Warren made his way to the park, ignoring the people who stared at him as he walked past. Some mutants had it easy really – people like Storm, Logan and most of the kids wouldn't stand out in a crowd. He and Hank stood out like sore thumbs. There was really no fitting in when you had an enormous pair of wings or bright blue fur…
"Can you actually fly?"
Warren turned round to see Jack stood a little way behind him, her arms folded across her chest, her hair blowing slightly in the breeze. She must have followed him all the way from the mansion without him realising it.
"Yes," he told her, turning to face her properly.
"Will you take me somewhere?"
"Where do you want to go?"
"As high as you can go," she replied, looking up at the sky. She brushed her hair out of her eyes with her hand, gazing upwards with a hint of longing. Today she was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt with sleeves that covered her hands, but she still had her bracelets on underneath Warren noted with a smile. She seemed to have tried to dress up a bit for the party, though her hair looked as unbrushed as ever.
Warren was never sure how to take Jack. She didn't treat him like a teacher like the rest of the students tended to, so he found it hard to treat her like a student, but then she was his student so he found it hard to treat her like one of the adults too. Despite this enigma, he did quite enjoy her company, and so decided to oblige.
"As high as I can go?" He said, wrapping his arms round her waist and leaping into the air with her, "May I ask why?"
"I like the sky," she said, "I want to be close to it, just for a moment."
"You're a very strange girl, Jack," Warren said, beating his powerful wings, carrying them upwards.
He flew as high as he dared go then hovered for a moment, looking down at Jack to make sure she was ok. She didn't seem at all perturbed by their height, and they were hovering parallel with the tops of some skyscrapers. She had her eyes closed and was breathing with deep contentment, her head resting against his chest.
One half of Warren was glad that she looked so happy, the other was nagging at him in Logan's voice, saying if this wasn't taking more than a professional interest, then what was?
Please review! and wish me luck (gonna need it...)