Autor´s note:
Ooookay... rubs her hands with glee. I know, I know... teasers.. I simply love them... but: I proudly present the ominous chapter nine...drumroll please lol
Blue Flyhight: Nice to meet a new reader. Hope you enjoy and thanks for your nice words (beams) Charles...hm... I am pondering that to be true...wait and see
Meow: Looking forward? I hope you feel rewarded. ;-)
PsychoSpiff: I know, I´ve been cruel. Hope you forgive me after this chappy.
Disclaimer
Oh, did I even make a disclaimer? If not then I´ll do it now. Nothing of this (except the plot, see) is owned by me, all belongs to the guys and gals who were involved in making the comics and movies... although I wouldn´t mind owning my very own movie Magneto. (sighs)
Okay, enough said. Read and enjoy.
Chapter 9
Combat
Two days had passed. Two days that had made Erik rise early and go to sleep late – exhausted, tired, but satisfied. Too weary to bother for nightmares to come and his senses and mind too sapped to create them. No dreams of rain and screams at night, while re-occuring dreams of power... of revenge started to form during the days. Images in his mind that grew and flourished with the same intensity and speed that his powers had now indeed begun to re-develop. He did not think about how this was even possibly as quite contrary to his usual nature and view on things he was intent with the pure fact that the ´cure´ had not been able to pull him down and make him an ordinary man. He had indeed proved a homo superior, he mused.
Erik had been intent on trying all the things he had been able to do, like moving big objects, even ripping walls apart. He felt like an incaged beast and now realized he had felt like this ever since he had thought his powers lost only had he not known it had been this way. But his rational part had kept him back. He had begun with small things. Moving small objects, letting them float around. Bending smaller metal things like hilts, clips, biros.
On the second day he had become more self confident, almost coltish. With childlike joy he had found his boots still suited him well... how should they not have as he had not worn them for only a shorter time... and he had tried to levitate his whole body by turning his hands in a manner his palms were facing the ceiling, making the metal on his boots rise slowly but steadily. Feeling his heels leave the ground, his hands aloft had filled him with an ungovernable joy. A joy that had almost made him forget he was growing tired and weak again...again, weariness had come over him suddenly and he stumbled, almost fallen. But that didn´t matter. What were a few bruises, he thought. Just another bruise among scars.
When the afternoon came, he decided to call it a day. He was exhausted, but not too tired to stand. He hated it to be powerless, he always had, and so he had instinctively saved some of his strenghts for the rest of the day, although he knew they would not do for another training. He had spent several hours in a large, square room on the lower store of the building. Indeed this floor was already below ground level. The room was big and spartanic, no furniture, a training room rather, a room for sparring he ... and others... had often used in earlier years. He wiped away the thought. He had come here because he felt not yet in total control over metal again and did not want to cause a mess in his study or anywhere else in the lair. He extended his hand and made the shield that was shiningly hovering a few feet away from him crumble into a small iron ball again. He loved this little trick, making small iron balls form into shields and platforms. A very useful thing indeed, especially when it came to breaking out of prison. He caught the ball with his hand, put it into the pocket of his dark trousers and walked over to a small iron bench at the wall of the room, grabbed for a towel he had placed there and wiped the sweat from his forehead. When he approached the door (not intending to open it with his powers) he did not even come to opening it manually. When he came closer, the door swung open and he saw someone stepping in. Someone who, quite to his surprise, had come alone... if he had not left his sneaky little friends lurking somewhere on the corridor.
"Ah." He mocked a surprise. "St. John has returned."
Instead of replying anything, Pyro just stepped in and walked a few paces, ever keeping an eye on Erik, never turning his gaze from the older man. There was something in his eyes Erik could not place, some mixture of cold calculation, surpressed anger and dismay.
"Where are your friends?" Erik asked him, intently trying to act as if he was overlooking the young mutant´s stare. Pyro had something aggressive about him today. Something he would soon expell...soon, but not today... something he did not want to meddle with tonight. Not because he was scared, but simply because he thought the boy was not worth the honour.
A slight scowl appeared on the youngster´s face, but he replied nothing. He just continued crossing the room with an easy pace, ever keeping an eye on him, a behaviour that reminded Eric somewhat of a beast of prey eying its victim. Although he did not feel nervous his hand closed around the small iron bullet in his pocket.
"You didn´t expect me to return?" These were the first words, Pyro uttered since he had entered the room and the aggressiveness and determination, Erik had sensed in the young mutant´s body language was even less conceived here. "Why shouldn´t I have?"
"I will not get into any of your childish debates again, St. John." Erik said slowly, grabbing for the towel, turning to leave. "Stay if you want to...leave if you must."
Before Erik could reach the door, Pyro had reached it, blocking the way casually, making Erik scowl. The young mutant´s lips curved into a sarcastic smile, his right hand on which he was – of course – wearing his glove, was moving nervously. Erik sighed and raised an eyebrow. Enough strength for that left, he thought quickly, time to tell this cheeky little, ignorant brat another lesson. He extended his hand, trying to make the gesture look more casually than it felt, as he was now indeed powered out in the true sense of meaning, waved it and with a rippling sound the cloth that was wrapped around the lighter piece inside the glove ripped open. Before Pyro could grab for it, Erik had grasped for the lighter and caught it lightly. "I´ll take that, my lad. Before you do anything unsuspected... or anything foolish you might regret later."
Pyro stared at him when he lost his lighter, a flicker in his eyes which was both anger, surprise and a hint of that something he had expected had just come true. But instead of turning and leaving, as Erik would have thought he would, he just gave this smile again, this slightly catlike, agile smile Erik had never seen with him before, did some steps backwards and extended his arms, opening them wide.
"Regret?" he asked, his voice, too, bearing a tone that was almost strange for John; too...patient, too...deep. Erik scowled.
"Regret?" the young mutant returned. "No." He shook his head, covering slightly, an agile movement. "But I think you will regret some things, soon... Erik."
The movement was too swift for him to react to. Pyro whirled forwards, hands still spread wide, spinning around with breathtaking speed, kicking his leg high, throwing himself up into the air. A foot hit Erik painfully across the chest, he was taken by surprise and pushed backwards where he hit the ground hard. A ragged gasp escaped his lungs, a stinging pain shot through his ankles, before he, still trying to recover from the fall, whipped the metal bullet from his pocket. With some effort, more effort than it had taken him all day, he flattened the bullet and before Pyro was close enough to strike again, it had become a shield, blocking another kick just in time, crashing against the young mutant´s lower legs, sending him to the ground. But Pyro did not fall. He swiftly rolled off and was on his feet again, before Erik got the strength to get up.
"I knew it." John said, Erik not meaning what he was referring to. "I knew it."
Without any warning, the young mutant did another leap forward. A leap which was full of bundled aggression, a dangerous leap, the attack of someone who had been waiting long to release his anger. Blocking the second attack was much harder and Eric gasped with excitement, forcing himself not to close his eyes from the exhaustion it cost him to control the small piece of metal. Pyro was not as stupid as he had thought, it came to him. The boy had had some wits to wait until he, Erik, was weak. Another blow hit him, this time he managed to use his arms to protect a hand blow against his shoulders. He had managed to get on his feet again halfway, but the effort of defence nearly made him fall again. For a short moment Pyro was distracted, having to fight with Erik´s desperate attempt of defence, being distracted by the older man´s try to block his ferocious punches with his bare hands. This short moment, Erik used. In a second or two, the metal shield became a thin, elastic band of glowing silvery material and in another second, it was wrapping itself around Pyro´s ankles. The boy cursed under his breath, fighting the bond savagely, but with the last strength that was left to him, Erik swiftly completed the chain and locked the metal of the foot chain with the metal of the ground. Pyro was bound.
Getting up was too labourous. Erik got into a sitting position and slowly, breathing hard, moved away from the young mutant who was still fighting like a wildcat to get loose, till he realized his doing was senseless. Both panting heavily, both beaten, the two mutants stared at each other.
"Your skills have lessened." John´s words sounded cold and dangerous, yet it astounded Erik how quickly the youngster was recovering.
"Oh, I do not think so." he gave back with a sarcastic smile. "I find this new development quite satisfying to be honest." He sighed. "So, I think, before I kick you out, St. John, I thought thank you. Without your outburst the other day I would never have been provoked to slam that door. I still would be an old doddler. Having thought my powers had abandoned me, what happened during the last days was the best thing that could have happened."
Suddenly, there was a change in Pyro´s eyes. The coldness he had read in them up to now became something deeper...all he could now read in them was...the gaze of someone being deeply hurt. Not physically hurt, but more... "So you may now have a sense for what it feels like. What it feels like being abandoned by your powers... but you don´t know how it feels to be abandoned by the one you trusted most."
The seconds following these words seemed endless. Erik had the realistic feeling his heartbeat had stopped and that it would be a matter of luck to hope it would go on beating sometime again.
"I..." He did not find any words.
"Look at yourself." Pyro said. And then...slower than Erik knew it... Pyro´s shape vanished, things looking like a snake changing her skin, bit of bit changing, until Erik looked at himself. "What has become of you, Erik?"
It took him all his efforts to take the last breath which sounded even more ragged than before. "Raven, I..."
The Erik sitting across him, shook his head and slowly changed his outer appearance again until the mutant sitting before him looked as he knew her. Blue skin, red hair, yellow, reptile-like eyes. "I do not answer to my slave name." Mystique said.