The Prodigal Son Returns [Attn: Pyro]

[pietro]

Klaxons wailed... Well, a klaxon wailed, a second just starting when the noise was shut off by the very person who had tripped the proximity alarm. Pietro Maximoff took his finger off the 'disengage' button to smile down at Gill with what was clearly smug amusement.

"I should have called ahead."

"Pietro, mon!" Gill hit another button and his quasi-Caribbean accent broadcast over the intercom to echo throughout the base. "False alarm, no need to get up, Cain." Notably web-free fingers flicked the button back to 'off' before the man explained, "He don't much like being interrupted, our Juggernaut."

Nodding, the light catching his dark hair so that it shone silver, Pietro dug into his pocket for a cigarette, lighting it and watching a tendril of smoke curl up to join the ever-present haze.

"I'll keep that in mind. It is good see you again." The fish-headed mutant opened his wide mouth, but Pietro answered the question before it arrived. "Wanda's not here." She was still back in the United States, doing her own thing. She had her own games to play, just as he did, so the twins were once again separated. It wouldn't last forever; it never did.

"I'd best go get settled and check in on our wayward leader." Oh, he was looking forward to this. Gill started to say something, but Magneto's son was already gone, the cigarette smoke rolling back in to fill the void left by his departure. If it wasn't for the half-smoked cigarette resting on the edge of Gill's ashtray, it might have seemed that he was never there.

[Pyro]

Pyro was alone in his room, still asleep; Mystique having let him be at some point during the night. He was terribly hung over despite having only had the one drink and had downed an extraordinary amount of water to stave off the dehydration. He had fallen back into a faintly disturbed slumber.

The klaxxons, however, had woken him with a start.

Well, more with a jump really inasmuch as he leapt out of bed in nothing but his shorts, his hair sticking up every which way, his eyes wild and despite his outrageous hangover, ready for a fight. His hand closed around the lighter by the bedside. He was ready to rumble.

He ripped open the door of his room - still clad only in his shorts - and stared up and down the corridor. The klaxxons had stopped, there was no sound of Painful Death As Delivered by Juggernaut and everything seemed to have gone quiet.

Pyro relaxed. A little.

[pietro]

Oh. Well. Wasn't this just priceless?

After stopping to deposit his bag in the room that had always been his own (and Pietro was pleased to note that it hadn't been taken over by some random person in his absence), Quicksilver had continued throughout the base in his search for their young 'leader'.

It appeared that he'd found Pyro. At least, Pietro presumed that anyone holding a lighter, apparently ready to fight in nothing but shorts, had to have fire powers. Or perhaps a particularly good throwing arm. A closer look revealed that beyond the disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes, not to mention the scraggly facial hair, this was indeed the FBI's Most Wanted.

Quite a sight, really.

As quickly as he'd been moving, he stopped, the dark blur that he had been changing to reveal a tall and powerfully built man clad in an obviously expensive suit in stark contrast to the child before him.

"Pyro, I presume. My father speaks well of you." There was something about the voice, the accent and his manner of speaking. Something that evoked at least a familiarity to his infamous father. Whose words Pietro did not plan on taking without experiences of his own to verify them. For the moment, though, he just gazed down at the young man, taking in the sight of him with just a hint of amusement touching his features.

[Pyro]

Pyro's response to this tall, handsome stranger who had just entered his existence was profound in the extreme. He blinked a few times, not entirely sure his eyes were functioning correctly. There had been this sort of....blur....and then there had been...

...this...

...whoever he was.

"Pyro, I presume. My father speaks well of you."

What was the matter with him? The man was speaking English, but Pyro was having extraordinary trouble connecting them together in a coherent sentence.

He stared a bit more, aware as he did so that he probably looked a bit like a goldfish. His mouth, he discovered as he performed an unconscious mental check of himself, was indeed gaping.

Slowly, the words rearranged themselves inside his half-asleep, hungover head into some semblance of order. His brain gently nudged his voice back into existence and allowed him to speak an eloquent reply.

"Uh," he said, blinking a few more times. "Yeah, I'm Pyro. Your father speaks highly of me? Um..."

His brain, which had slowly been rebooting his other systems inserted a fairly urgent message into his mind.

"I have to go throw up," he said to the newcomer. "Real sorry. I'll be fine in a few moments - meet me down the end of the corridor in the office and .... no, I really have to go throw up. Just hang on. I'll be back."

He turned and charged back into his room, through to the bathroom and threw up the contents of his stomach.

As was often the way, once he'd vomited, he felt a lot better and sat back on the floor wiping a shaking hand across his mouth. He wasn't sure what had left him suddenly feeling quite this nauseous. The hangover, or the sneaking suspicion that he knew exactly who this newcomer was.

He sincerely hoped that it was the former.

Five minutes saw him dressed (although he buttoned his shirt up wrong without noticing) and face washed. There was no time to shave, so he had to make do with the stubble. He walked out of his room again.

"Sorry about that," he said, sounding as though his brain and mouth had made friends once again and were reconnected. "I'm John Allerdyce. Pyro." He put out a hand to the newcomer. "And you are...?"

[pietro]

"Uh," he said, blinking a few more times. "Yeah, I'm Pyro. Your father speaks highly of me? Um..."

Oh dear. His father had actually made a point of saying that the boy was bright. Apparently things had changed since that unfortunate business with the cure - of course, leading the Brotherhood to petty bank robbery had left Pietro suspecting that Pyro wasn't quite up to the standards that Magneto had implied. Still...

"I have to go throw up," he said to the newcomer. "Real sorry. I'll be fine in a few moments - meet me down the end of the corridor in the office and .... no, I really have to go throw up. Just hang on. I'll be back."

Charming. The metallic-haired mutant watched with raised eyebrows as the younger man disappeared, standing almost alarmingly still for the next five minutes as he waited, his mind wandering from subject to subject - settling on his sister for some time before it returned to his father and the Brotherhood and then Pyro was returning, which seemed well-timed. The young leader looked slightly more presentable than before, though Pietro was still certainly the better dressed of the two.

"Sorry about that," he said, sounding as though his brain and mouth had made friends once again and were reconnected. "I'm John Allerdyce. Pyro." He put out a hand to the newcomer. "And you are...?"

"Pietro Maximoff," came the reply, accompanied by a firm handshake. No need to name-drop and add Lensherr - that, and Pietro still stubbornly refused to take his father's name in the way that his sister had. It felt like a betrayal of their mother, somehow, or perhaps it was simply the same jealousy he'd felt for so many years at being abandoned so quickly for a man who Wanda had not known from a bar of soap. "Quicksilver."

"It has been some time since I've been on the island. I must say, things have changed." And there was that gaze again, as though the quick mind behind those blue-grey eyes was appraising Pyro like a tool that had not yet revealed its purpose.

[Pyro]

"Pietro Maximoff. Quicksilver."

"Pietro."

Of course you are.

"Good to meet you." John shook his hand without any pretence, without any need for a testosterone driven attempt to see who had the toughest grip and with a genuine warmth in his voice that was only slightly forced.

Together, the two men began walking.

"It has been some time since I've been on the island. I must say, things have changed."

"Of course things have changed," said John, mildly, well aware of Pietro's piercing scrutiny. "For a start, there's a fraction of the population for one thing, although as far as I'm aware, the jungle thrives. It's been a seriously uphill climb since Alcatraz. We lost a good eighty percent - if not more - of our number."

They turned a corner and continued walking. John was faintly aware that his pace had increased to keep up with the taller, faster Pietro.

[pietro]

"Of course things have changed," said John, mildly, well aware of Pietro's piercing scrutiny. "For a start, there's a fraction of the population for one thing, although as far as I'm aware, the jungle thrives. It's been a seriously uphill climb since Alcatraz. We lost a good eighty percent - if not more - of our number."

John may have increased his pace, but to Pietro they were still travelling almost glacially slowly. He did his best, though, not to let his impatience get the better of him, instead wandering through the base and feeling almost like a wealthy investor come to conduct an inspector.

"Yes, I am aware of the losses at Alcatraz." His father's arrogance had cost the Brotherhood dearly, and Pietro wanted to be sure that this half trained pup didn't make things worse by assuming himself above his station. If even Magneto could fall... well, this young Pyromaniac could be the end of it all.

Yet he was the one who had rebuilt the Brotherhood. Erik had gone running to his South American hideaway to start his legacy anew.

"Different doesn't necessarily imply worse, John." There was a small smile on Pietro's lips - he and his sister had often been called different, and so far as he was concerned they were a league above the majority of the population.

He didn't need to have spent much time with his father to have inherited his arrogance, clearly.

"You've been recruiting, then? I'd be interested to know more from your point of view about what the Brotherhood has been doing these past few months - I don't expect an unbiased picture from the mainstream media." Sadly, there weren't exactly a huge number of alternative information sources that were both sympathetic to the Brotherhood and reliable. "Baltimore was... well, why don't you tell me?"

[Pyro]

"Baltimore was... well, why don't you tell me?"

John winced inwardly. He was already disliking Pietro's attitude and this sure as hell didn't help. Coupled with the increasing suspicion that he knew precisely who the man was, it didn't warm him any to the newcomer.

"Baltimore was a perfect example of many things. It was a display of solidarity. It was a demonstration that the Brotherhood are still alive and kicking. And it was a...shambles, quite frankly. There are reasons for it, but I'm not gonna start making excuses. Suffice it to say that I couldn't prevent what happened. It demonstrated that we were lacking in proper sources of intelligence - although that's improved radically. It demonstrated that some of the people I've recruited are tough cookies - and it drew attention to our plight. We've had more people contact us since then than before."

He spoke softly, without guile, his voice filling with pride and regret in the appropriate places.

[pietro]

"Baltimore was a perfect example of many things. It was a display of solidarity. It was a demonstration that the Brotherhood are still alive and kicking. And it was a...shambles, quite frankly. There are reasons for it, but I'm not gonna start making excuses. Suffice it to say that I couldn't prevent what happened. It demonstrated that we were lacking in proper sources of intelligence - although that's improved radically. It demonstrated that some of the people I've recruited are tough cookies - and it drew attention to our plight. We've had more people contact us since then than before."

A shambles. Yes, that was one way of putting it. Interesting that the number of people making contact had gone up since then; Pietro found himself wondering how much of it had to do with Pyro's status as the FBI's most wanted man - both good and bad. It wouldn't have surprised him if many of the people making contact were either criminals eager for some action - murdering, robbing banks, it all seemed to be what the Brotherhood was most known for these days - or agents of some government trying to infiltrate.

"Well, that's certainly interesting to - " The older man was cut off by the sound of an anguished cry ringing throughout the base, and he raised one eyebrow at Pyro enquiringly, wondering just what the young man was going to do.

His first instinct was to dash toward the sound to see what was happening. But he decided to wait and observe John for a moment first - it wasn't as though he'd have trouble keeping up if the young leader did rush toward the commotion.

[Pyro]

Picked up in the 'So it ends' thread