Raise A Little Hell

[John Allerdyce]

Usually, Pyro enjoyed being out on a field trip... even the boring educational ones. Why? Because it gave him the chance to expand his amusement beyond the walls of the school. He could have some fun with his powers, harass and bother other people, not just mutants, but humans as well. And damn, was it fun to bother them. They always looked so scared and shocked by his powers and it was pretty hilarious to see the ridiculous expressions on their faces. But right now... that wasn't likely to happen. While they were out on a field trip in the general public, he was being babysat. Apparently, the last stunt he had pulled at the mall had not only cost him a few weeks detention, but also the penalty of having a teacher to personally chaperon him at the next trip. Which was now. And who was none other than Scott Summers. Or well, Cyclops. Just his luck. At least if he got Storm he could work toward annoying her, but Scott was the more 'take no crap' kind of guy.

So now Pyro was stuck in the serious man's company. Great. They were all free to explore the convention until the second part of the tour began. Pyro had no interest. Ok, well that was a lie. He actually was interested but pretended not to be. That would make it seem like he actually cared about these things and it would ruin his reputation as a slacker. Instead, he stood alongside Cyclops, clearly bored and making this very evident. He didn't even have his lighter as it had been confiscated! "So... looks like you got the short end of the stick. Pull the shortest straw? What made you get stuck babysitting? Figure this is the ultimate low for a teacher." John was doing what he always did: talked for the sake of talking and annoying others. Though he knew better than to pick a fight with a teacher. But that didn't mean he couldn't be, or strive to be, a pain in the ass.

[[ Tag: Scott aka Cyclops ]]

[summers]

It was the summer, and every year the city of New York played host to several high-profile events that attracted huge crowds from across the country, and world. One of these was the annual New York Scientific & Technological Engineering Convention, or NYSTEC. The NYSTEC was one of the world's largest festivals celebrating and showcasing the advance of human endeavour, in the fields of science, technology, computing, robotics, engineering, and everything in between. It brought together the best minds in their respective chosen fields, and all of the major related corporations and companies were both in attendance and showing off their own advances.

The US military were this year demonstrating a brand new weapon. Ten years in development, the much-talked about Weaponiser Project was to finally introduce to the people of America it's newest weapon in the fight against the new modern terrorist; the Wardens. Remote-controlled robotic drones which utilised the best modern technology had to offer, the Wardens used AI, something which the world had seen before with the creation of the Sentinels, and something that some influential pacifistic commentators had been actively speaking out in opposition of. This year, the NYSTEC had a lot more attention on it.

The X-Men, having their very own array of state of the art technology, including the Danger Room and of course, the Blackbird, were usually present at the NYSTEC, and Scott was looking forward to seeing some of the best that the likes of Stark Industries et al had to offer the scientific world.

Security was always a tight-knit affair, the event was broadcast on TV, news channel's had been speculating about what modern marvels would be shown to the world for weeks, and this year was no different. Scott had been selected to chaperon one of the school's more renegade students, John aka Pyro. The lad had a lot of potential, and his powers had been gaining recently, both in strength and intensity. The problem was, Pyro seemed to have a problem with authority, something that Scott, the field leader of the X-Men, believed in very strongly. As much as Scott had been looking forward to the day, he knew that his young student had been too, but not for the same reasons.

"So... looks like you got the short end of the stick. Pull the shortest straw? What made you get stuck babysitting? Figure this is the ultimate low for a teacher."

He had a sharp tongue too, and Scott grimaced a little as he heard John speak from just beside him, in the queue to enter the convention.

"The ultimate low? Don't be so hard on yourself there John," Scott turned his head, smiling to his young accomplice. "There could be worse people to babysit than you, mister. We'll have a good time here today."

The pair stepped forwards and passed through the barrier and up the steps into the huge hall where the NYSTEC was being held. It was loud, really loud, the excited voices of thousands all chit-chattering to combine with the sounds of engines and other machines being tested and switched on and off.

"Okay, so where d'ya wanna go first, John? Anything in the brochure you liked the look of?" Scott knew that Pyro was probably more interested in causing mischief, but he also believed that the young mutant had something good in him. Some kind of spark, anyway.