Welcome to Gaia! ::

Waiting at the gate, barred from the property, Pyro waited anxiously for his appointment with Scorpio. It had been a little more than half a year since the fire and since the Chee had died. Despite having looked for a week straight, he couldn't track the rest of the Zodiac. He was surprised enough to find the youngest had come back to the US and joined the X-Men. Flicking his lighter open and closed [he was dressed only in jeans and a sweater, leaving his uniform in a gesture of truce], he watched the two figures coming down the drive. 'Hell,' he swore. She brought Cyclops?!

"I did explain my relationship to him," Cal said placidly. "Just not who he was. This won't take but a moment." She walked over to the wrought-iron gate and crossed her hands in front of her, balancing that ridiculous pink bunny. She recognized the look on Pyro's face immediately and started off. "Don't gimme that," she snapped. "I wasn't going to come out here coming on twilight without some sort of back-up. Remember what happened last time we were alone."

Pyro snorted. "Las' toime we were alone, sheila, it was in th' Outback an' yer team 'ad left ya behoind." He put away his lighter and gripped the rungs of the gate.

"Didn't stop you from trying to turn me into barbacued scorpion!" Cal shot back, but something about the hopeless look on his face was pulling at her. "What did you call me for?"

He looked sheepish. "'ave ya 'eard from Natalie since ya left?" he mumbled. "I mean, ya know where she is an' wot she's doin'?"

She blinked and looked back at Scott, wondering if she'd heard the fire manipulator right.

Cal shook her head. "No, I haven't heard from Natalie. Only a hurried line or two saying she's okay and that Carly, Jess, and Sam are scattered through Europe--" Her sentence ended in a squeak as Pyro grabbed her hands through the gate. She whined as the heat of his skin burned at her nerves.

"She's all roight?" he asked, squeezing her hands a little tighter and making her hiss in pain. "'asn' followed th' Chee?"

"No, Natalie's alive and well. I just don't know where." Cal's voice was tight against the pain. Then, to her shock, he pulled, placing a peck on her hands before he released her.

"I'll keep in touch, sheila," he said, tipping an imaginary hat. "Dun bring th' bodygua'd next toime." He shot a glance at Cyclops. "I'm goin', I'm goin'. Dun 'afta set th' watchdog on me." And easy as that, he turned away and walked back up the road.

Cal looked down the burns on her hands and gingerly bent to pick up her toy, which had been knocked to the ground with his sudden movement. "Do you want me to explain on the way back?" she asked Scott.

Whimpering with a combination of pain and depression from the memories Pyro had stirred up, Cal nodded. She cradled her hands carefully as they turned back. "I should probably tell someone," she said. "It's better if you know anyway. It'll explain more about how I know Pyro." She cast a glance over her shoulder as a motorcycle engine gunned and then looked back down at her burned hands again.

She nodded. "I joined a small mutant team called the Zodiac when I was 13. Our base of operations was a mansion the leader Natalie - you'll hear me call her Ivy too - house-sat for the Plernicans. They were a rich couple with no kids and never spent time at home. There were six of us in total -- me, Ivy, Lt. Surge, Maelstrom, Windwaker, and Nadia the Chee." She paused to decide how to explain Nadia. "Have you ever seen Charlie's Angels?"

Cal put down her stuffed animal and turned on the cool water in the sink, letting it run over her hands. She locked her legs and lowered her torso so her elbows rested on the lip of the sink. "Well, Nadia was like our Charlie. She kept our records, sent us on missions, basically like a human Cerebro. She lived in the mansion too, but her time was spend in a computer hub. Expert hacker, records keeper, and mission control wrapped up in one very small package." She turned her hands over. "At different times, we came up against the Brotherhood, and somehow Pyro ended up with a crush on Natalie. It went on for a while until--" She swallowed, turned off the tap and lightly patted her hands dry. "Until about six months ago."

Cal sipped her cocoa and held out her hands for him to see. "Six months ago, the Estate caught fire. I haven't heard back from the fire investigators in Ireland, but I think it was an electrical fire. We'd had problems with Nadia's computers and overheating and the like. Maelstrom worked on the fire, but by the time I got to Nadia--" she broke off and shivered. "....Windwaker did all she could, but Nadia was dead before she was even outside."

She sighed, a sound that sounded soul-deep. "There's not much left after that. We disbanded and scattered. I think Maelstrom and Surge are in the UK, Windwaker I know went to Australia, and I came here. Ivy's another story; she just up and disappeared. I get emails from her from time to time, but she just reports in that she's okay and that she's perfecting her abilities. Besides that, nothing." She leaned gingerly on her right wrist. "I think Pyro really loved her once."