A God Among Insects......(Pyro)

[Magneto]

Magneto strolled through the make shift hideout he and the others had put together. The place was a luxury spa, but it worked and contained all the necessities one would need in order to be comfortable, although some of the other young members had been complaining about the lack of "fun" things to do. Of course, Magneto had already moved to remedy that problem and with Sherridan's wealth and ingenuity, hopefully they would have something to occupy their free time with.

The first floor was currently being used as the sleeping quarters, but this was the first time Magneto had really explored the entire level. Usually he just went to his private room and that was that, but today, today was different. He was seeking out Pyro once again, time for another little talk, but this talk, was to be one of a more serious and needed kind. There would be no fussing or discipline passed out, that is unless something unforeseen came up and merited such actions. No, this was to be a talk between and old man and the boy he had took in when no none else wanted him, like some stray cast out into the wet and cold. When Magneto and Pyro had first met, he had taken a like to the boy and even Mystique saw something in the little fire starter but over the past year or so, the feelings between the three of them had deteriorated immensely and now it was time to heal those old wounds and get things back on track.

Stopping outside the door which could only be Pyro's, given it was charred here and there and also, the air around it smelled of butane, Magneto took a deep breath and then knocked loudly. The boy should be in, he usually was, but if not, then he couldn't be too hard to find, it wasn't like Magnus had some secret underground basement for Pyro to go hiding in.

[Pyro]

OOC: Timeline
After 10 Questions, Mimis and the subsequent emails, / Before the park incident and the attack on the naval base

Fuck

Pyro’s not sure what Wanda did to him last night, aside from that there were questions involved, or if it’s that rather than testing out his new toy (which he’s been doing every waking moment, because that bike rocks) which is punishing him now, but shit, every inch of him that can hurt, and a few he wasn’t sure could, ache like he’s been ridden hard and put away wet, and he just wants to curl up somewhere dark and quiet and die for a while. It doesn’t help that his head feels a few sizes too big and at the same time far, far too small. He’s never liked mornings, and this one seems to be shaping up to be especially evil.

The knock at the door is the last thing he wants to hear right now. If he were more awake, or less hungover, he’d probably notice the authoritative tone of the knock and snap to something nearer attention... maybe. As it is, he’s hardly prepared to receive visitors, curled in a half-sprawl on top of the covers, wearing last night’s jeans and an air of casual debauchery, and isn’t going to leave his bed for as long as he can possibly avoid it, so he turns over, away from the light and sound and back to the reassuring darkness of burying his head under the pillows and whining (yes, whining. Pathetic. But it’s an aggressive *fuck off or I’ll torch your room* whine, so he can get away with it) ”Go away”

[Magneto]

Not one to be given any sort of order, and certainly not from some confused young upstart little fire starter, Magneto stood silent for a moment, thinking of just how to handle this. He quirked an eyebrow as Pyro's voice echoed through his head and cleared his throat as he quickly recalled the boy's tone. He casually and reflexively put his hands behind his back and looked the door up and down, smiling when he laid eyes on the metal hinges, "At least be somewhat dressed," the old man muttered to himself as the hinges gave a pop and the screws holding them in shot free from the wooden frame, tearing through Pyro's room into unseen decorations and whatnot. The handle was next and each side was ripped clean free, buried into its respected wall. The door then fell inward and to the floor of Pyro's room with a dull thud, dust kicking up and filling the air just a bit.

Magneto slowly and methodically walked into Pyro's room, carefully stepping to the side of the fallen door and giving the room a quick once over, raising an eyebrow and giving a slight huff at the disappointment he found there. "Yes," he muttered to himself again as he tapped his hands together behind his back. Letting his gaze drop down to the curled up Pyro, Magneto didn't even motion, but sent the bed the boy was on flipping up on its side, "Rise and shine my boy," he said slowly, you know the way he does when he's not too happy with his current situation.

[Pyro]

Oh shit.

Were those bullets?

... almost too tired to care (just turn over and go back to sleep…) … but...

Fuck.

Bits of metal flying around his room could only mean one thing. One very, very bad thing, given the tone he’s just used, and how their last little tête-à-tête had ended.

The curl now isn’t one of exhaustion. It’s a simple reflexive reaction, shielding himself from the projectiles and shielding his lighter (now clasped in one hand curled up under him (the other hand shielding his head), because damned if he’s going to be separated from it), and makes him feel better…

… for the three or so seconds up stays the way it should anyway. After that, as the floor comes rushing up to meet him, most of what he’s thinking isn’t all that comfortable, divided between curses and visions of the many ways someone who can control metal could torture him.

As the command to rise and shine he uncurls, somewhat uncertainly as if convinced there’s something lurking and waiting to bite off his head (which, thinking about it, there sorta is), and picks himself up, quickly enough to (he hopes) satisfy the boss (heh, Elliot’s rubbing off. He hopes he’ll live long enough to keep getting acquainted) while still easing out the old aches and the fresh bruises, blinking blearily at the unwelcome light as he turns to face Magneto. ”Original” he says, eventually, deadpan through a barely suppressed yawn as his *self* refuses to back down and play the meek little acolyte for all that it’s the only safe, let alone sane, option, because he’s hungover and tired and pissed off at having his room wrecked and above all still Pyro regardless. ”Ever heard of an alarm clock? Just as effective and that way I might survive the next few weeks.”

[Magneto]

"Ever hear of respect for your elders?," he throws back at Pyro just as quickly as the boy had smarted off to him. This game was becoming quite old and Pyro's newly found back bone was beginning to be a major thorn in Magneto's side. Sure he wanted the boy to stand up to those who opposed him and those underneath him, but Mags was neither one of those and would not have any of it. "Considering its almost noon my boy, I seriously doubt an alarm clock would be rousting you from any sort of stupor you seem to be in this morning," he said with a sneer as he looked Pyro's disassembled look over. The boy looked as if he had been run over.....repeatedly and then thrown in a meat grinder....lovely.

Magneto caught scent of something familiar, perhaps the perfume or whatever that Wanda had been wearing, but shook his head as he couldn't really replace where he had smelled it before, besides, Wanda was old enough to be Pyro's mother and doing anything with him was just ridiculous......Wasn't it? Anywho....."I think we need to re-evaluate where we stand my boy. Just where you...Mystique....and I all fit in together. It seems the tension has grown a bit as of late and I'm afraid that never sits well, a recipe for disaster so to speak," he said as he turned from Pyro and looked about at the sparse furniture and decorations the boy had brought to the room with him. Magneto gave his little protege a quick glance and smiled somewhat, "Not much for decorating are we?," he asked seeing good and well the boy clearly was lost on the finer art of sophisticated lifestyles.

[Pyro]

< Ever hear of respect for your elders?[/color]
”Tried it once” he replies, this time not bothering to suppress the yawn which accompanies the words, running a hand through... oh shit, is that chaos his hair? Wow, he must look really rough (and it’s a mark of how out of it he still is that it’s amusing rather than mortifying to look like that in front of Magneto...) ”Never could get it to stick.” Some bitter part of his mind (which somehow always seems to the first to fight off a hangover… maybe because he was a mean drunk? Whatever) wants to add that he’d had some trouble with the whole respect thing after the so-called elders fucked him over post-Alcatraz, but, thank whatever, he manages to check that instinct at least, even if everything else is going out almost on autopilot. Sure, he should have thought better of it, because no doubt the game is getting old fast… but hell, there aren’t many better ways to sort out where exactly they…

< I think we need to re-evaluate where we stand[/color]
… oh, so Magneto’s thinking the same thing. That’s… sort of reassuring, kinda, since it means that despite everything they’re still on the same wavelength. But at the same time, Magneto’s particular style of re-evaluation means he probably won’t be standing for very long, and right now he doesn’t exactly need any more bruises. Wanda non-withstanding, the last few weeks have been tough, what with everything (yes, everything, though he’s not going to think about that) at Mimi’s and the general madness of settling back into life at the Brotherhood, and fighting with Magneto isn’t going to help matters.

Stretching out the last few lingering traces of sleep, he takes a seat (careful to make sure that yes, it’s wood, and not something Magneto can throw around with his mind… though it’s a small comfort to cling to, what with all the metal he seems to be finding around the room) and sits back on it, watching sidelong with what he hopes is just the right balance between rapt and indifferent.

< Not much for decorating, are we?[/color]
”Yeah well… No point, really. Never collect anything I’m not willing to destroy” he shrugs.

[Magneto]

"Yes, I can see," Magneto said with a low drone of his voice showing he was doing nothing more than really making small talk at the moment. The old man was used to holding conversations on a more intellectual level and Pyro....well....the boy was still a good ways off from forming a good coherent argument so any discussion besides one of a destructive nature was a waste of time. Magneto didn't see the boy as a simpleton though, no, Pyro had potential, it just seemed he was hell bent on running away from it or anything which resembled it, that is unless someone else threatened to still his spotlight and thunder. The arrival of Avalanche and Sherridan was a clear sign of that and the way the boy acted around Mystique was the way one sibling may act with another when the other was getting more attention from mommy and daddy.

"I get this feeling every time you find yourself around Ferrus and Avalanche. It seems like you might be jealous....or worried that they might be taking your place," he said as he gave a slight huff or sigh, whichever, "So, let me see if I can alleviate those worries, shall we?," he said as he flung his black cape back from his body, revealing two odd yet familiar looking devices hanging from his belt (no, not anything sexual you perverts >.<). With a wave of his hand, the devices left his side and moved to the vacant space in between he and Pyro. "Perhaps you won't break them this time?," he said as he smiled and presented Pyro with another set of metallic arm mounted flame devices, these a bit more sturdier and lightweight than the last pair, "I may be a genius, but that doesn't mean I enjoy remaking the same things over and over again," he said as he waited for his protege to take his little gift.

[Pyro]

< I get this feeling every time you find yourself around Ferrus or Avalanche[/color]
Pyro’s promised himself he’s not going to get *weird* about the ongoing power-struggles at the Brotherhood HQ, and keeps telling himself over and over, in the hopes that he might someday believe it, that Magneto is not, and never will be, anything like a father, thanks very much, shut up now. All the same, he flushes like a naughty kid getting a dressing down, which in a way is exactly what’s happening, and finds himself babbling against all his better instincts. ”It’s not what you think. I’m just… It’s odd. Ferrus has got money, and La.. Avalanche has, um, something – I’m not sure what – and I’m just a kid with a li…”

< Let’s see what I can do[/color]
He’s cut dead, thank God, before he can make a total ass of himself. And… holy shit. It doesn’t exactly help whatever weird sentimental crap he has going on, and he’s never been much of a fan of the wrist things (because once he got over the first holy fucking crap! rush of being able to shoot flames like that, and started to miss his familiar zippo, it was all a bit blah) but it’s the gesture that counts. Because Magneto has taken the time to make them for him. Make them better than last time, he notes, fastening them on in speechless silence and giving a few experimental flares before settling on hovering a ball of flame above his left palm and grinning over it at his… his what? Benefactor? Master? He settles on Boss for the moment, making a mental note to avoid addressing that one latter.

”They’re lighter than the last ones… and, hey, did you change the ignition? It’s a lot smoother” He doesn’t say thanks, of course, because that’s not how they work, but the serious analytical comments he’s making, and the relative absence of snark, is pretty much the same thing.

[Magneto]

Magneto smiled as he watched Pyro take the gift he had outfitted for him and felt a bit of pride as he watched the boy click them on and then off. He knew Pyro would more than likely keep the Zippo, good too because if for some odd reason he seemed to get these broken, he would have something to fall back on. The way the boy examined his new toys showed that spark of potential, that faint moment which Magneto kept seeing every now and again, that seriousness. It only took his young protege a mere moment or two to pick up on the subtle improvement to his gifts and this as well pleased Magneto. "Your welcome," Magneto says in reply to the hidden "thanks" which Pyro had given him. The old man had learned to see when the boy was genuinely being himself and showing appreciation and seeing as how there wasn't any smart comments, well, this seemed to be one of those times.

"Money is a fickle and wasted thing my boy and Avalanche, well....lets just say he's not really something you should be worried about. You came to me, without a word or plea. No questions asked and no hesitation, that my boy, speaks volumes. You've a style all your own and even though Charles refused to let you use it, I have encouraged it from day one.....you'd do well to remember that the next time you start to doubt my good will toward you," he said, rebuking yet reassuring the boy a bit, letting him now he still thought much of him, even with all those hastily said words in those ill conceived arguments and actions. Magneto, held his gaze on Pyro, watching as the boy toyed with the fire in the palm of his hand, hoping at least some of what he said was sinking in to that thick skull.

[Pyro]

He’s not going to let himself get emotional over that little speech, the same way he’s been carefully lukewarm over the wrist-lighters. All the same, it’s... immense. Really immense. The fact that Magneto has allowed himself to say something like that – something like that to someone like him! – is a big strategic sacrifice, he knows, because admitting any sort of twisted admiration for your underlings isn’t in the Big Boss Handbook of how to stay in charge, and because Magneto doesn’t do things like that.

He recognises that some similar gesture on his part might be a good idea, seeing the risk Magneto’s taking with him, and acknowledging that wierd bond they seem to have established but not figured out. Besides, it can’t hurt to get some of this out in the open, because much as he’s the absolute master of repression, he remembers well enough what happened last time he let it build up around Magneto, and it’s not pretty or particularly beneficial as far as his life expectancy goes. ”Yeah, about that...”

He pauses, clears his throat. Fuck, man, two little words aren’t that big a sacrifice ”I’m sorry” – there, see? – ”I’ve just...” – he stalls again, and it really bloody hurts in some way he can’t understand, as if coughing up anything like coherant words is like swallowing razor blades – ”Some deep shit’s been messing with my head.”

[Magneto]

While Magneto was letting himself become a bit closer to Pyro than he wanted, he found this little bit of confession on Pyro's part....well.....not quite right. Magneto was the boss, the mentor, not some shrink...he was far from Charles Xavier. The old man had enough personal inner demons to contend with and to be honest he didn't need someone else's dragging him down as well. Add in the new arrival of a daughter he had no idea even existed, a cruel twist of fate to be sure, and well, you had a very complicated and twisted life.

With a raised hand, Magneto stopped Pyro in his sentence, not really wishing to get that emotionally involved with the boy and thus maintaining his dominating role within the group. Heck, even Magneto wasn't that involved with the demons which Mystique harbored, those feelings toward her homo sapien parents and what they had done to her. "That'll suffice my boy," he said simply, letting Pyro know enough was enough for now. "You needn't try to explain to me the problems of life.....I've believe I've been dealing with them a lot longer than you have," he said with a weird smile, trying to not seem so....well....bossy I guess you could say. "I just hope you remember where your loyalties lie my boy, of who cast you to the side and then who took you in," reminded Pyro of how the Brotherhood had been the ones to take him in when the X-Men had pushed him to the sideline and tried to hold him back from reaching his full potential.

[Pyro]

He’s glad Magneto stops him (because what the fuck was that about?) – it means the terms of their relationship are still sort of comprehendible, and stops him digging a hole even his skills can’t dig him out of. The comment about loyalty spooks him a little because fuck, how the hell does he know about..., but something clicks in and reminds him that not only is he far better at covering his tracks than that, but it’s not as if he’s done anything other than exactly what Magneto would have wanted him to (assuming some situation arose where dry-humping his ex-best-friend-and-now-mortal-enemy was somehow part of the plan... yeah, that’s stretching even his imagination... and even then it still tastes like a lie).

Pyro nods his assent that yeah, that’s enough and goes back to playing with his new toys. ”So… was there anything else we needed to talk about?”

[Magneto]

Magneto was glad to see Pyro fall right back into line once again, finding the old path of the good little protege. By himself, Pyro was dangerous, but when placed with the right mutants, he was more of a god.....a god among insects as Mags had once called him. Magnus himself was near unstoppable alone and in full health and in full control of his powers, but when you stood an angry teenager capable of eating someone alive with the slightest spark of a flame and then backed that with someone of Mystique's deadly and attractive abilities, well, you had a force with which not even the armies of the world could stop. The Brotherhood was on its way to being reborn and the new members seemed to be falling in line very quickly. Sherridan and his money, Avalanche and his ability to alter the very ground his enemies stood on, and Nitrous, the newcomer, a walking tower of pure inextinguishable heat and flame, a group of destruction as Wanda had called them.

"The U.S. Naval base.....just north of here.....tonight," he said letting the words sink in slowly. "I want you and the Brotherhood to render it useless while Mystique and I tend to what business we have there.....understand?," he asked the boy, letting him now he was off the leash in other words. Magnus was letting Pyro have free reign on this mission, a somewhat first to see how the boy thought and acted on his own.

[Pyro]

Shit ”You mean...”

If that does indeed mean what he thinks it means, then it’s a big step. Huge. Gigantic, even. Because it sounds (and he has to pinch himself) like Magneto’s asking him to take the lead, and not in something small and insignificant but an actual honest-to-god mission. Alcatraz had been huge, sure, being asked to stand alongside as Magneto’s right hand and teaming up with the flaming cars and all, but it pales into insignificance next to this. And that should scare him, because last time didn’t end well, and because he can’t claim to be anywhere near as eager now Bobby’s inside his head and messing with at least some of his faith... but shit. Right now all he can think about is getting out there, and it’s almost more terrifying that he’s this pumped up.

Still, he has to ask... ”You’re sure? Me? On a *real* mission?”

[Magneto]

Magneto quirked an old eyebrow at Pyro's confusion and his statement. He was sure the boy would be itching to jump back out there and prove just how useful he was to the rest of the crew. The defeat the Brotherhood had suffered at Alcatraz was a giant set back and Magneto more than anyone wanted to reestablish what hold they had at one time. Pyro's defeat to his mutant opposite should have drove him more, a question which loomed inside Magnus' mind for the moment. At any other given time, Pyro was always popping off at the mouth about how he wanted a chance to prove himself and just how important to the Brotherhood he really was, so why seem so skiddish now?

"Is there a problem my boy? Scared perhaps? Would you rather Ferrus lead the way?," he asked, knowing it would rile his protege and push him in the right direction he needed to be heading. This mission was a good a time as any for Pyro to step up and show everyone what he was made of, besides, Magneto himself would be there so how much trouble could really come from all of this? All Pyro had to do was keep the others in line and make sure the homo sapiens stayed entertained long enough so that both Magnus and Mystique could accomplish what they needed done.