Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Xmen Revolution. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Burning Plain Behind Me; Closed
Topic Started: May 21 2011, 03:27 AM (291 Views)
Nightcrawler
Unregistered

May 2nd, 10 am.

JP.


The demon sat crouched on the back of a chair. From his room in Magneto's citadel, as he liked to call it, he was well under watch by Magneto's hounds. He never went anywhere without having escorts, never got a moment of true privacy. It was an acceptable sorrow to undergo for his own mission, however, and he gandered that if there were women behind those cameras in the bathroom they would rather be in there with him than behind a screen. But, beyond his true modesty about privacy, Kurt knew that he was essentially in a prison cell. As freely as he could roam, he was always under watch. There was no doubt about that. An X-Men in Sanctuary was one of the greatest security dangers this place could ever face, he was luck enough not to have been killed upon arriving.

Genuinely, though, Kurt was enjoying his time. At the moment, he simply waited until he was called upon. Absolom was his expected company today, whom was going to allow him to sit in on a conference regarded the energy operations within Sanctuary. Kurt had been curious how such a massive place could constantly be fed enough energy to be maintained as it was. He suspected mutants were behind much of the operations. Those 'futuristic' taxi hubs that worked on electromagnetic rails had to be kept going somehow.

Tail twitching pensively over a cup of tea as he watched a winged mutant fly by his window. Constantly in admiration for this place, Kurt often felt the need to go climbing up buildings and teleport around. Showing off was not what he wanted -- but to be free, that's what he wanted. It was one thing to be allowed to walk around. It was another thing to be allowed to be a mutant here. But, alas, the restrictions of being the enemy of the Brotherhood.

The shifting of the door to his quarters reached his pointed ears. He turned to greet his visitor. "Aah, guten morgen, Absol--"

"Nightcrawler." The voice, cold, grating, and bitter cut the demonic mutant off. St. John stood in the doorway, hovering in the entrance for a moment before taking a step in. Dressed as though he would for the field, the Australian glanced about quickly, making sure that no one else was within the room before he trained his eyes back on the blue man crouching in a chair before him.

Kurt's eyebrows raised. He knew more of the boy better than he knew many of the other members of the Brotherhood. Brought to the Mansion several years ago, the pyrokinetic had suffered brain damage and disappeared, resurfacing in the midst of a terrible fire that afflicted New York. Kurt was not sure if the boy was to blame but an arsonist was an arsonist. The boy had many issues, 'damaged' as psychological examinations had found out when he first arrived at Xavier's. He had changed after the events of ShadowX... Become a different person.

"St. John," Kurt said pleasantly, though wary of the Brotherhood member. Rising from the chair, Kurt faced the blond. "Care for some tea?"

"I'm ain't here for tea, Wagner," St. John scowled, moving further into the room. He was never really personally familiar with this X-Men.

"What are you here for, then?"

"To talk."

"Just to talk? How... unusual," Kurt blinked.

"What d'ya mean?"

"You were never the talking type, St. John. The only person you ever really spoke to was Alix an--"

A mechanical click geared up to the opening of a gaseous valve, a flame sparking out of a sleeve from the back of the Australian's wrist. St. John's visage hardened, the intensity of his eyes chilling even Kurt. What had time done to this boy?

"I see..." the demon said quietly, moving to set down his cup on the table. He did not turn completely away, keeping the younger mutant within his peripherals. "That kind of talk."

"Sit down."

"Are you sure you do not want tea? It is quite lovely," Kurt hummed pleasantly, settling onto his chair once again. "Does Magneto know you're here?"

"This doesn't involve him or anyone, X-Man. No one but the blokes on those cameras know. They got to take an early lunch, same with the guys outside..."

Kurt dwelled on the absence of those security guards. "But it involves me, nein?"

St. John walked past the seated mutant, brows low and face curled in seriousness. "Blinds closed," he muttered. Immediately the windows shifted, light-bending plastics moving like shutters, pushing away photons produced by Sanctuary's ephemeral sun and rendering the room dark as any in the middle of the day. The flame dancing over his wrist remained, a sharp contrast hovering around on objects near it, its orange glow barely touching his face.

"Gott im Himmel, that's how you close them?" Kurt buzzed. He had spent his entire time in this room and had never figured out how to close the blinds.

Ignoring the demon's astonishment over his revelations over something so simple as closing blinds, the Australian moved to the coffee table and sat right across from the other man.

"You're a preacher, right?" St. John asked, looking towards another section of the room. His voice carrying a tone of struggle just to get the words out.

"I practice, but I am not ordained," Kurt shifted. "I have visited one of the churches here, they are quite--"

"Quit dodging about," St. John snapped, the fire around his wrist growing. "You ain't going to talk your way out of this. You could run away, though."

"I suppose I could jaunt my way out of this quite easily if it came down to it... But, I am not the type of man who would abandon someone in any sort of need. What I can help you with, St. John? If you need to confess something, I suppose I am as good as any other soul, though I cannot absolve you of your sins, as many as there probably are."

The fire lowered again and the Australian closed his eyes for a moment, thinking before opening them up into a frigid glare. "I wanna know somethin' ... Why did the X-Men give up on me?"
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Pyro
Member Avatar
Pyrokinesis/Fiery Puns
JP between Pyro and Nightcrawler.

St. John was by no means the sort of person to go searching for answers. Over a long series of months he had suffered flashbacks, likely induced by brain injuries or multiple concussions from various sources. Telepathic assaults triggered fleeting memories and, culminating in his fluxuation into the other dimension aligned with theirs and switching with Arson, those memories had sat entirely unlocked. He remembered everything. His relationship with Alix, that damn compendium, everything he had been as the person before ShadowX. A clean slate had been written for him by higher forces, whatever they might be, and it sent him on the path he now stood on. A deep distaste for people like this Nightcrawler had not come around for nothing. He had been abandoned by his parents and then again by the X-Men.

Or so he saw it. Fires were uncontrolled when ignored.

Dark eyes steeled as they glared at the blue mutant, sitting across from him like a hostage. This man was not just the enemy of the Brotherhood, but his own. The fires around his wrists were the engines of war and he the engineer of destruction. Part of him, as the boy before he suffered whatever mental cataclysm it was feared the power dancing there, but these days the orange tongues were as much a part of him as his own flesh. From the X-Men, he learned how to fight, a talent he rarely exhibited in hand-to-hand, but basics were definitely covered. Reliant on his own powers, he saw no reason to yield to former teachings. Those of the Brotherhood were much more fitting, at least to him.

"Why did the X-Men give up on me?" the Australian asked again, glaring daggers as his words dripped with venom. "No one came looking for me. No one bothered to catch me back at that flood. I was alone then... I had no one. Why is that?"

The question invoked silence on the demon's part, those yellow eyes staring and searching for some desperate reason. Kurt answered simply: "We did not know of your situation, St. John. Several other students left the mansion in the wake of the incident, most whom have yet to return. We did not know of the extent of the damage... St. John... did you really forget everything?"

"Bullshit!" he snapped, fires exploding towards the ceiling. "You fuckin' X-Men knew exactly what happened! Cyclops, Phoenix! They both knew! Don't feed me that bullshit, Nightcrawler! None of you bothered looking for me, why?! Was I not good enough for the X-Men? Didn't I need help?"

"You did... And you found it with the Brotherhood, St. John, nein?"

"Yeah. Mutants who would help me. Mutants who didn't live for some pathetic dream from an old cripple in a wheelchair. But you all... None of you did anything..." his head sank into his hands, fires licking up past his head. "Nothing."

Kurt resisted the urge to frown. "All of us know that we follow our own paths. Some of us follow a higher calling, some a dream. Some of us walk between shadow and light while others walk in destruction. We accept one another for our paths, St. John. The Brotherhood was your path... As was destruction and chaos."

"Only because there was nothing else for me... You all still didn't bother offering a way out for me? Whenever we fought, no one stopped to extend me their hand... I wasn't good enough for the X-Men! That's it, isn't it?"

The demon shook his head. "No, it is not that, mein freund. You are, as they say, a god among insects. Fire is the most destructive element, naturally, but when in hands of the right person it could be the most beautiful, too."

"The world ain't going to change from beautiful," Pyro replied bitterly, raising his head enough to just glare at the X-Man.

"We could have taught you to use it... Everything you are capable of... Everything, St. John, you could use it to make this world better. In some trees, the only time they ever spread their seed is after a fire. It cleanses and purifies."

"I'm doing my part, Nightcrawler, for this world the only way I know how. I'm making this world better in the only way possible. You never gave me the chance to do it your way. You n' I both know that you'd rather have that snowballing Drake in my place."

"Bobby is indeed on the path to becoming a true X-Men. You, on the other hand... Have chosen a darker one." Kurt said, raising a brow. "St. John... Why have you come here? I doubt this is just to pick at what the X-Men stand for and whether or not you could have been one... I thought you were seeking a session of confidence. Hostage situation aside, I truly am willing to help."

The Australian pushed himself up from the chair, pointing a flame-charged finger at the demon across from him. "I took the only path given to me because you all couldn't be bothered to take the time out of your day for someone who needed it! If you were trying to help, then the X-Men would have done something years ago! All you blokes have been sitting up in your mansion fighting holograms and taking classes! You're hiding from the rest of the world!"

"Much like you are doing down here in Sanctuary," Kurt retorted, his voice stern and calm. "Tucked away underneath the ocean, hiding from the world where they cannot find you. I have done by best not to pry in to the Brotherhood's endeavors while down here. I did not come waving the flag of the X-Men nor do I ever intend to. What you seem to forget, mein freund, is that this is a war. My perspective may search desperately for another path, but I am not so ignorant as to dismiss the state of the world. Perhaps that is why we did not search for you... because you were not ready to see this truth. St. John, Xavier's dream is not so different from Magneto's. Both seek a world where mutants can live in peace, the only different factors are that one does not have humans involved and the means to an end. The mansion is not some place to hide from the world. It is a place to prepare for it. Here..." Kurt looked off to the side, towards the blinds, almost seeking to look through them. "Here you are really hiding. It is a wondrous place... mein Gott it is wondrous... But it is not a world. It is an island."

In the seconds the X-Man looked towards the window, a decision was made. Nightcrawler was right. This was a war. In war, sacrifices had to be made. In war, disobedience often bore fruit. Magneto had ordered no one to touch the X-Man, to do no harm to him. But as a soldier of war and a soldier under Magneto, St. John saw a brilliant opportunity. A moment of weakness -- that simple glance to the window, hopeful and searching, wishing it weren't true -- was enough for a soldier to take what he came for. Fires burst only to spread and grow in intensity and in the flash of a moment, the draconic roar of orange fire flowed into a hellish torrent with such force that the glass it crashed in shattered. Demented monsters reached out into the space beyond the citadel's wall with a blazing intensity that its roar reached out into Sanctuary itself like a jet taking off.

Behind the fires, a vicious, cruel smile embraced all the chaos and destruction the X-Man spoke of. Psychotic, some called it burning bridges, he called it burning the world. That's all he ever wanted.

"Hope you don't mind this island being your grave then, mate! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Everything a lie. All the sad, tragic, pity-seeking words, the pathetic abandonment issues, the forlorn wish to be an X-Man, to have been able to change the world with them. All of it was a lie. War. War was full of lies. And Pyro had become very good at it. He had learned the ways of destruction and chaos and loved it. It was the only time the world ever changed for him. When he killed his father he was orphaned, found by the X-Men, fell in 'love' with that telepath; when he spread the fires of New York; when he burned that shop with Saint and joined the Brotherhood; when he ignited Pestilence's horde aflame and spared Japan; when he torched Spitfire; when he himself began to burn as Arson; when all those humans died on Coney Island

Perhaps the X-Man was right... Things were made beautiful through fire.

Everything was so much more beautiful when it was on fire!
[align=center]Posted Image
Olga gets credit for the cinders and gifness.[/align]
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Nightcrawler
Unregistered

A river of fire was a welcoming embrace, was it not? How kind of the pyrokinetic to set the apartment on fire.

The arsonist smirked victoriously, pleased with the gruesome demise. An X-Men was nothing to him, not now, not ever. They were a group of race traitors unworthy to share the bread of those fighting for the freedom of mutants. St. John did not suppress the fires of the apartment. He let them burn. Standing in the freshly burned room, he moved towards the edge. The wind pushed in, surging up the face of the citadel. Billowing black smoke had already begun to rise out of it and he could hear the alarms behind him. But all he really heard were the cries of success.

"X-Man! Haha!" St. John cackled. "Burned as fast as that Parker girl will."

"That was not very kind of you, Pyro," the muffled, accented voice of the very X-Man the arsonist thought dead said.

St. John's face twisted as he looked up, leaning over the edge of the opening in the building. Unadulterated fury caught the fires around him, sending them up and out of the building, biting up the surface to devour the mutant.

Bamf.

"I suppose you never got to the lesson of follow-through," Kurt hummed, back in the building. "This is not the Danger Room, but I highly doubt I will be the one repairing the damages. So!" The Australian turned towards him, anger seething. Kurt offered the young man a fanged smile, tail swishing in the air behind him. "Shall I teach you a proper lesson?"

"Fucking bastard!" Fires billowed and roared, ghoulish constructs leaping forward, only to dive into a burst of black and violet smoke.

Bamf.

Off to the side, Kurt appeared sitting casually on a chair. "Mein freund, when dealing with a teleporter, you must remember several things: one, they will not simply wait to be hit."

A wave of orange surged over the chair. The air exploded with another bamf.

"Two: they can appear anywhere," Kurt said as smoke dissolved around him, sitting on a counter. A moment later, the kitchen was ignited.

Bamf.

The Australian snarled and shifted, just as a narrow appendage wrapped around his chest. Hooked by some force at the base of his leg, he felt his body flip and crash into the floor, his concentration and grasp on the fires broken by the impact. A strange foot set itself on his chest and he looked up, glaring at the dark face of the demonic mutant looking down at him.

"Even next to you," Kurt's tail swished, its point coming to press underneath the Australian's chin, his foot pinning the boy down. Kurt regarded him with a gentle face, a mixture of pity and regret. He could feel the Aussie strain against his strength. "It is truly a pity, you know, that you had alterior motives coming here, St. John. I may not know what happened or why we did not come looking for you, but what I said was true: I am willing to listen to anything you have to say, positive or negative. Hatred is such a poor thing to live with, I know. I have hated much in my life, mostly myself. I had become angry, much like yourself, at symbols of opposition. Humans, God, Satan... Things I wanted to be, things I wanted to be at peace with, things that I look like."

"What's that got to do with me?! I ain't here to come to terms with God, mate, I'm here to kill ya!"

"We are all Children of God, St. John. Humans and mutants both. We want what is best for all of us, but it is the choices we make that differ in the end goal of our philosophies. It is the same for Magneto and Xavier as it is for you or I. Because none of us are willing to see -- or refuse to see -- the other's view and adapt to that, we are stuck finding ourselves in moments like this. If you really wanted to assassinate me today, Herr Allerdyce, then you would not have bothered disguising your ambitions. That, I think, is why you find yourself with your shoulders pressed to the floor." Kurt removed his foot, taking a step back. "You are focused so much on just burning the plain that forks the road that you have yet to fully decide which path to take."

St. John lay there at his feet, making sense of what he had said. But, Kurt felt an immediate rise in heat behind him. He closed his eyes sadly and jaunted before the fires consumed him. Reappearing next to the door of the room, Kurt watched the boy rise up.

"I ain't one of your kids anymore, Nightcrawler," St. John hissed, fires beginning to burn through his clothing as the stench of seared flesh rose through the smell of burnt everything. "You can't talk down to me like someone who doesn't know what he's doing!"

"I speak to everyone as an equal, friend and foe alike... If you attack me again, St. John Allerdyce, I am afraid I will have to defend myself," Kurt warned. And, just as he thought, the boy ignored it.

In a flourishing moment, the door behind him moved aside and a chilling force rushed past the blue demon. Icy air clashed with the fire for a moment, the air both impossibly cold and hot at the same time. It wasn't until the Australian stopped sending the river of flame towards the demon did it reveal a number of people walking into the room.

"Put these fires out immediately!" Absolom snapped, the pale mutant entering into the burning room. His escorts, a cryokinetic and hydrokinetc, set to work, filling the room with a welcomed coolness. "Nightcrawler! Pyro! What is the meaning of this insanity?!"

Kurt looked to him, thankful for his arrival. "A discussion gone sour, I am afraid."

"Get out of here, old man!" Pyro seethed, the flames running along his arms and shoulders flaring up..

"Wake, Glacier, put him out!" Absolom ordered. It wasn't a moment before the pyrokinetic was a steaming, cold figure crumbled onto the floor. "I will not have the citadel burned down for whatever it was that sparked this confrontation. By the laws of Sanctuary, you will both be held in suppressor cells until this mess can be sorted out for lethal measures. Kurt," their eyes met. "I trust I will not be forced to use aggressive methods to detain you?"

The demon shook his head. "Nein, of course not."

"Good. Take Pyro to the infirmary and have him healed. Janice," Absolom looked over his shoulder to a third person, a woman with antennae standing out of her forehead, "escort Nightcrawler to cells. He will not resist."

The two antitheses of the pyrokinetic grabbed him and brought him to his feet and 'kindly' urged him out of the room. Kurt watched and listened as the pyrokinetic raged, unable to create any flame due to the cold and soaked mutants beside him preventing it from happening. He howled and roared, spouting endless threats, all aimed at the X-Man. Kurt frowned and shook his head just slightly, following the insectoid woman out with the imperious Absolom next to him.

"Gott im Himmel..." he whispered. "Schild der Jungen von sich selbst."

<End>
Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create a free forum in seconds.
Learn More · Sign-up Now
« Previous Topic · Sanctuary Archives · Next Topic »
Add Reply