Disclaimer: I do not own the X-men
Unfortunately for the younger X-men, Pyro wasn't alone. It seemed that Magneto had expected some resistance to that attack and sent other mutants they hadn't seen before to help. Soon, the X-men found out which each of their powers was and in a very painful way. A huge fat man called Blob by his colleagues was incredibly strong, even for Piotr, and extremely resistant to physical attacks. A girl who called herself the Scarlet Witch and seemed to be around 21 or 22 years old shot some powerful energy blasts through her hands and was also able to stop Shadowcat from phasing through things. With that, she became a very easy target and soon got knocked out, leaving only Bobby, Piotr, and Jubilee trying to prevent the confusion from getting bigger. But they were having lots of trouble since they were outnumbered after two more Magneto recruits arrived: Avalanche and the Scarlet Witch's twin brother, Quicksilver.
Piotr desperately tried to prevent huge amounts of ceiling pieces from falling onto Kitty's unconscious body, while at the same time trying to hit Quicksilver, who kept running at an extreme speed around him and making it hard for him to concentrate. Avalanche hit his foot on the floor and caused a seismic wave to go into Bobby's direction.
"Bobby, look out!" Jubilee screamed and he was able to jump out of the way in time.
She threw her bright firecrackers in Avalanche's direction and he screamed, not being able to see anything, and so not risking using his powers in case he would hit one of his colleagues. That was just when Rogue arrived and she took that opportunity to drain Avalanche. He tried to fight back for a while, but Rogue kept holding his arm tightly. As he fell to the ground, Rogue ran to her friend's side, trying to dodge the Scarlet Witch's blasts of energy. Piotr was finally able to leave Kitty's side and run into Blob's direction at full speed (which wasn't too much because he was heavy, but was enough to cause quite the impact). If it had been only about strength, Blob would have still stood but Piotr was smart enough to hit his metal head on Blob's forehead. That easily knocked him out.
Suddenly Quicksilver, whose name was Pietro, started running around Colossus even faster than before. The fast movements made something like a hurricane appear over Colossus, but that didn't work out as expected for Quicksilver. Colossus was too heavy and the wind didn't get him to move an inch. The Russian saw in those movements the opportunity to take him down. He extended his arm and in less than zero point one seconds, Pietro collided with it and fell to the ground, trying to catch his breath. Colossus pulled him up by his uniform and stared at him angrily.
"Can't-we-talk-about-this?" Pietro asked in a rush. Colossus then threw him right in his sister's direction, causing her to accidentally hit him with one of her blasts, which was meant to hit Rogue.
Pyro had been fighting Icemen, fire against ice. Bobby had been having some trouble because he always had to keep an eye on Avalanche's seismic waves. When he was about to have even more trouble with a fire eagle flying down in his direction, Rogue did to Pyro exactly what Avalanche had tried on Bobby before. A huge opening on the floor made Pyro fall and the eagle disappeared right before it hit Bobby. He opened his eyes and looked around.
"Thanks!" He sighed in relief, turning to Rogue.
"No worries, sugah." She winked at him.
Pyro took this opportunity and ran to the Scarlet Witch's side. He looked at her, worried that only 3 of them were left. She nodded before he could say anything and suddenly the whole mall structure started to shake as if it was about to melt. The X-men knew there was no way to escape if it fell over them, except for Piotr who wouldn't get hurt. Right when she made a move to close her hands and make the fight end, Pyro's mobile received a message. He whispered to the girl by his side. "Let's go! It's done. Forget about these losers."
"Seems you got luck, after all." She said to the X-men and only made a column fall between them so they could escape. The X-men could barely see a thing with all the dust and they started coughing. The Scarlet Witch, whose real name was Wanda, woke up Blob with a small blast on his chest, causing him to gasp for air.
"Why the hell did you do that?" He frowned and scratched his head, looking kind of dumb.
"I had to wake you up, fat pudding. There's no way we would carry you out. Now get up, and get my brother and Lance. Seems that girl with white stripes in her hair did something to him."
"Her name is Rogue. She absorbs people's vital energy and powers." Pyro said, remembering his ex-friend's powers.
"Yeah, whatever. Let's go, now! We've wasted too much time in here."
The group, which called itself the Brotherhood of Mutants, walked away, leaving a huge pile of debris behind them.
"Is everyone ok?" Piotr asked, checking on Kitty who was still knocked out.
"Yeah, I guess." Bobby answered, putting an arm around Rogue.
"No, we are NOT! My shoes!" Jubilee cried out as if she had just lost her arms or something. Rogue chuckled a bit but then became serious.
"What was this all about? Why did they leave when they got the chance to finish us?" She looked concerned at the destroyed mall and wondered why they had suddenly left after such a mess.
"I don't know, but we have to get out of here before the cops arrive. I don't want to get blamed for something I did not do, and since we are mutants, I bet they won't even bother listening to what happened. Let's go." Bobby said in a hurry.
They ran to the closest exit, Piotr carrying a tiny Kitty Pryde in his arms. As soon as they got into the car, they heard the cops arrive at the mall. Bobby took the driver's seat, with Rogue by his side and the others sat on the backseats.
"Rogue, call the mansion and tell the Professor what happened." Bobby said in an annoying tone that reminded her of Scott.
"Please…" She whispered sarcastically while taking her mobile from her purse. Logan answered the phone and, sensing the tension in her voice, demanded to know what happened. She explained to him and asked him to tell the Professor about it.
"I told you to talk to Xavier, not to Logan." Bobby said.
"Bobby, will ya shut up? Ya are not the team leader or somethin'. Logan is capable of talking to the professor about it and it's not lahke it will make much difference. We will have ta' explain everything again when we get to the mansion anyways. So cut the crap, will ya?" She said angrily.
Lately, due to the absence of Scott as the team leader, Bobby was behaving in a quite annoying way towards the other new joint X-men just because he was the one who had spent more time at the mansion among them. That usually didn't happen when Storm or Wolverine were around on the team. But when only the youngest were alone in Danger Room sessions he took the title of leader to himself without even bothering to ask what the others thought about it. Piotr didn't get angry about it because he thought it wasn't a big deal being a leader or not, as long as that kept the team working together. Jubilee just didn't give a damn about it; she always did everything according to her own rules and Bobby wouldn't make her change that. Kitty thought it was kind of cute when he behaved like Mr. Summers, but Rogue just couldn't take it. Maybe because he was her boyfriend and acted like she, more than the others, should follow what he said. Or maybe because she just hated taking orders like she was a little kid. She respected when older people such as Xavier, Hank, Ororo, or Logan gave her orders or advices. 'But c'mon, Bobby isn't even 2 years older than me. Who does he think he is?' She thought.
When they got to the mansion, Hank was waiting outside to take Kitty to the Med Lab.
"The Professor wants to talk to you." He said while taking Kitty in his arms.
"Told ya." Rogue glared at Bobby.
They went into Xavier's office and the older X-men were already standing there. Xavier sat behind his desk with a concerned look in his face.
"Are you ok?"
"Yes, we are, Professor." Piotr said politely.
"Great. I hope Katherine will wake up soon. Hank will take care of her. Now, can you tell me what happened?"
They all started talking at the same time.
"Wait, wait. Piotr, could you start please?"
"Sure." He then told everything that happened from the moment they saw Pyro start the confusion. When he finished, Xavier only stared at his own hands in deep thought.
"Why did they leave? From what you said, the chick could have destroyed that whole part of the mall." Logan asked and they just shrugged.
"That's what I was thinking, Logan. That made no sense at all, unless…" Xavier stopped for a while and thought a bit more.
"Unless…?" Scott looked at him.
"Unless…they did that to divert our attention from something else. But what? From what Piotr told us, the way they fought, it was like they were trying to keep you busy for a while."
"Hm, but what you think they were trying to hide?" Ororo asked, trying to think of possibilities.
"I don't know, but Magneto sent them there for a reason, not just to cause a fuss. I need to take a close look at the facts. A friend of mine works for the Justice and maybe he will be able to give me some information about what the police found out. They must have the security cameras videos and that will help a lot."
"It's too strange that all these people went there, started trouble, and left for no reason. It must have been something really important and that took a long time. Apparently, they only left when they made sure whatever they had to hide was done." Scott said thoughtfully.
Xavier gave him a significant look, and then dismissed the young X-Men. They left and Xavier stayed in his office with Scott, Ororo and Logan. Jubilee was too pissed off to talk to any one and no one dared to tell her to cheer up. When it came to her moods, it was known that it was better to leave her alone and soon she would forget what she was angry about. On the contrary, she would keep thinking about it and would be grumpy all day long. Piotr told them he was going to check on Kitty and went straight ahead, leaving Bobby and Rogue behind.
"What a day! It didn't cheer meh up but it surely was a day out of the routine." Rogue said and took Bobby's arm.
"Definitely. By the way, you fought very well today." He smiled at her.
"Thanks! Ah think Ah deserve a reward." She stood in front of him, took his hands and gave him an insinuating smile.
"What do you mean?" He asked uncertainly. Rogue kind of expected him to have an idea and suggest something, but clearly that wasn't going to happen. She wondered if giving him a quick peck on the lips would be too much and decided that maybe he would feel uncomfortable with it, so she suggested something less invasive.
"We could have a walk in the woods, just you and meh. Or go for a ride." Rogue thought it was a good idea until she saw the expression forming on his face. He untangled his fingers from hers and scratched the back of his head.
"I would like to, but I'm feeling exhausted, Rogue. I was thinking of taking the rest of the day off." He tilted his head to the side, apologizing with his eyes.
"We could watch a movie, then. Ya always end up falling asleep by the middle of it, anyways." She chuckled lightly. "Ah promise Ah won't complain about it this time."
"Rogue…" Bobby sighed and looked around. "I just want to sleep for a while, in my room. We can go for a walk tomorrow, ok?" He waited until she nodded, then blew her a kiss and went upstairs. Rogue stood alone with a blank expression on her face then decided that maybe she should take a rest as well.
Later on that day, many of the students in the institute were watching TV until something interesting appeared on the news. They were talking about what happened at the mall and how, mysteriously, during a mutant terrorist attack, one of the most precious diamonds at the exposition disappeared. That caught Xavier's attention and he called the older X-men to his office again that night.
"I hope all of you here connected things. That's what Magneto was looking for: the African Blue Giant, a very special type of diamond. It is said that it can maximize energy at a great level. I just don't know why or how he would use that to his purposes. I contacted my friend and he said they couldn't get the security videos because for some reason the cameras on the diamond's exposition room were turned off. They couldn't catch on tape whoever stole the diamond and how this person did it. Also, no one saw who did it because the alarms didn't go off. That's what the mess was for, so everyone would be too busy running or trying to stop the attack."
"That was smart of Magneto, but not subtle at all." Hank said shaking his head. "Someone could've been hurt or even killed!"
"Well, he never really gave a crap about that, did he?" Logan said to Hank. "It's not like he would evacuate the whole mall before attacking it. That'd be nonsense."
"Now I think the most important thing is to find out why he wanted that diamond." Xavier interrupted. All of them looked at each other and started thinking, but none of them had a clue. The only thing that they knew was that the diamond could produce lots of energy, but that could be used for many things.
"I've got an idea." Charles said. "Hank could try to study what kind of energy that diamond produces so that we can get an idea of how powerful it is, and how that could be useful for Erik."
"How will I do that if I've never seen that stone before?"
"Simple. We'll get a stone with similar properties. Coincidence or not, I once bought one of those diamonds in an auction because its properties always intrigued me, though it happened to be much smaller than the African Blue Giant. The problem is I never got the chance to study it, first because I didn't have the technology required, and second because I got so busy with mutant problems I ended up forgetting about it, to be honest. But now I think it's time we find out what's the mystery behind this diamond."
"That'd be an honor, Charles. Studying such a special and rare diamond!" Hank's eyes were sparkling with delight. "Can we start right now?"
"Sure." Xavier smiled.