{1} The Element Storm {X2}

Replacement

She looked down through eyes all blurry from tears and found herself looking at the necklace that John had given her.

"It's not my fault that our girlfriends are getting excited about this." Teeth shining as he laughs at the look on the face of Bobby Drake.

"You belong here, with us. You can't let anyone tell you or for that matter at all anyone else here, anything else."

Endless nights of lying next to him, afraid of sleeping alone. Afraid of being woken up to her abusive parents or her blood family finally showing up. Or her nightmares becoming real, losing her best friend.

He had always been there, no matter how tough things, had always without a doubt, had gotten for anyone.

He never let her down, until now.

Arguably, when she was the one who needed him the most this time, he was the one who walked away.

"I'll never leave you." John mumbled as they lay in the tent her head against his chest.

"You promise?" Sierra murmured to him, her eyes looking up to him, as if she saw a fire there, not just a guy.

"I promise you this, Si. I will never leave you for anything. Not even if it was an opportunity of a lifetime. You get me?" He asked and she nodded at him.

"I won't ever leave you, Pyro." She murmured and he smiles, moving her hair out of her eyes, before he sighed.

She kissed him quietly, before the adults came around to check, and she leaned into his arms, and they had fallen asleep that night.

Tighty locked together in each others' embrace, still utterly determined they were to stay together as one.

Sierra squeezed her eyes shut with a loud sob, and she pulled the necklace off of her neck and bowed her head as she put the necklace to the side.

She shakes her head, thinking how ridiculous that it was, that she, who was the replacement for Cyclops, was doing the exact same thing now, that he had been doing since Alkali Lake.

She stood up and walked over to her window, looking out of it and seeing a truly beautiful place.

Mutant children, running around with their marks and appearances shown, without have to worry about anyone judging for their appearance.

Practicing their abilities, there was even a fire wielder in the mix who did have a Zippo Lighter in hand.

Sierra gulped back all the more pain that she could as she looks at her own Zippo lighter, and she had turned that endless pain, some of it was rage now.

Her hand holding it began to heat up a lot, slowly at first, but getting hotter and hotter until the Zippo Lighter was a melted mess of silver in her hands.

She let the rest of the misshapened and melted lighter fall from her hand as she looked out the window again.

"I can't be as weak as he was. I'm a student of Professor Charles Xavier and the substitute for Scott Summers, I can't afford to look weak."

She mutters sharply under her breath, as she looked into the mirror in front of her now.

"People need me now, like they needed Scott when I was a student here. I don't have time to lie around leaving everyone to be alone as they are."

"They need a family like I did when I first arrived. I found my family here with help from the Professor and others. Now I need to do the same."

She thought as she pulled a old wooden necklace out of a wooden box that she had also made herself.

With a charm that she had also made herself, and it was engraved with all four main elements, and hung it on a broken shoelace around her neck.

"No metal. There's no need to give Magneto any more power over you then he already has."

She thought as she walks out of her room, shrugging herself into a brown leather jacket, as she went downstairs to begin her crash course in teaching.

To hopefully help herself from slipping into the pit of pain that she had been avoiding, as well keeping a steady hold on herself as a person.

"Everyone listen up!" Bobby calls out loudly to the class, as Sierra walked in and the students kept quiet as Sierra's face was a serious look, but there was still a rare glint of mischief in her eyes on her battle-scarred face.

"Most of you have heard of the Element, the storm that comes when someone here is hurt by anyone or on that particular note anything of which does not originate here at this school."

Professor X was saying to all of the students, as they watched the two in awe, as Xavier was treating Sierra as if she was an equal to him now.

"She is your new teacher, a professor of the elements. She will be your fight instructor. Your first, as well, your last defender. This is her only home, as it's now yours. You will treat her with the same respect, that you do anyone else, and she will do the same to you. Your new teacher, Element." Professor X says to the students, as he motions to Sierra, who steps forward with a nod.

"So, who wants to learn to harness their mutations for offensive and the defensive capabilities, in regards to the safety of yourselves and others?"

All of the hands shot up into the air at once as she smiled legitimately for the first time in weeks and began to move among the students, she was all about talking and laughing alongside as well as with the students.

The very students that she had never been expecting to teach, until she was very much older then she was right at this moment.

Charles was smiling as the students' thoughts were all positive, as he was rolling away from the class, as Bobby was picking up his pace to keep up.

"I'm glad you chose her Scott."

Charles said, from the corner of the room, and a quiet sniffle came from the broken man on the bed, right in front of him.

"Well it had to be someone. If it wasn't her, then who would it have been? Ice Man? Pyro? Wolverine?" Scott spits out.

"You made the right choice in her Cyclops. I just wanted to let you know that, because the students, they all love her already."

Charles turns his chair around quickly to face the door, and then wheels himself out of the room.

Scott looks out of the one and only window that he had in his room and it was facing outside, right out to where Sierra was now teaching his class.

He watched as she made the water spray up into the air as if a whale had blown it through the air hole, as their students cheered loudly, and were all screaming her name loudly.

"Maybe I did pick the right student for this. She will be much greater then I as a person, could ever hope to be."

He thought, as he drew his blinds shut, not just on the scene, but on his time teaching these students, and the way for Sierra, to become the teacher in his wake.