This Savage Land - Part Nine: Class Reunion

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

On his run through Manhattan, Pietro has another reunion with Eddie Wyndham, complete with Exposition and Rhetoric.



If Eddie weren't so viscerally opposed to flying, Pietro thought, there was no way he'd be able to track the man down before he got away. There were simply too many helicopter pads in the city, for one thing. But since his former roommate had always needed to be forced into air travel at gunpoint, and with most of the roads and railways blocked by panicking people and/or prehistoric animals, that left the water as the most logical exit. This still left quite a lot of ground to cover, but the job had at least been cut down to size.

Pietro finally spotted his man at Jones Inlet Marine on Long Island, making for a large seagoing yacht. He slipped ahead of Eddie, the gusts whipping the other man's coat, to lean against the side of the boat. "I have to admit," he said lightly, "dinosaur terrorism likely is more important than hamster tricks, but I'm not sure I'd call it growing up. Just what exactly was all this supposed to accomplish?"

"For people to learn that they don't respect Mother Nature as they should," Eddie replied with a sigh at the sight of his former roommate. "That their diseased growth across the planet has taken what should be a beautiful place and turned it into," he waved his hand at the city behind him, "that."

"Yes, yes, damn us for moving out of the caves. You tried that line of rhetoric on me the day I moved in, Ed. Please tell me you don't actually believe you've done something momentous here." Pietro mimicked Eddie's hand gesture "In this city? You've caused a momentary panic and no doubt a short-lived restaurant fad for extinct-animal filet--oh, and a few new zoo exhibits." His smile at that last gibe was downright vindictive; Eddie's opinion of zoos had also been well established that first day in the flat. "That's one of the problems with terrorism today--the news cycle's too short."

Bristling at Pietro's tone, as well as the shortening of his name, Eddie drew himself up to his full height. He was tired after a morning spent transforming hundreds of animals and frankly didn't feel like putting up with anyone else's judgment - he had enough of his own. The poor dinosaurs being slaughtered out there weren't part of the grand plan he'd foreseen when he'd been approached by the somewhat radical sounding group to become one of their members. The idea of them ending up in zoos was almost worse than knowing they were dying. "Maybe it didn't go exactly the way the Evolutionaries had planned," he said, eyes flashing. "But at least I'm doing something to try and change the world to be a better place!"

"By what, turning a few dozen large predators loose in an ecosystem totally unsuitable for them?" Pietro laughed. "You and your friends haven't made a statement, you've made a monster movie. Worse, you've made Jurassic Park 2. Honestly, old man, I thought you were smarter than this."

That's it, keep talking. Just a little longer now. Eddie knew his old roommate well enough that minimal prompting would be all it took - Pietro could never resist the chance to be caustic when he felt the situation called for it. "It shouldn't have happened the way it did," he admitted. "The death of all those majestic creatures..." Eddie shook his head, seemingly shaking off the somber mood as well as his eyes flashed defiantly at Pietro. "It wasn't all for not," Eddie added. "I know something about my powers now that I didn't before. Your students are still in the same condition as when they arrived." His lips quirked slightly. "Well, they may have been a little changed as the welcoming party for that first group of dinos, but unfortunately my powers were not able to change their evolutionary status."

"You'll have plenty of time to figure out why in prison. Time to go." Pietro took a step forward--but his foot never reached the ground, and in a moment he was floating a full foot off the dock, his ribs creaking in the grip of a giant invisible fist. His eyes widened, but his shocked exclamation was cut off short by a heavy blow to the back of his head.

The invisible grip slackened, and Pietro dropped to the ground as two figures stepped into his blurring field of vision: one was small and ungainly, the other a broad-shouldered giant, and both seemed somehow misshapen. The last thing he heard before unconsciousness claimed him was the big one's voice, deep and rough and hopeful. "Did we do it good?"

"You did it perfectly," Eddie said, pride in his voice as he surveyed the now prone Pietro. He was glad that he had thought to plan for this possibility. "Come," he said briskly, turning to face the yacht he'd originally been headed towards. "We're done here."

---

A while later, Pietro picked himself up off the dock, wincing as he explored the back of his head with his fingers. They came away crusty with drying blood, and he swore under his breath. He winced again as he got to his feet--it didn't feel like he had any broken ribs, but they were definitely bruised. Damned telekinetics . . .

The yacht was, of course, gone. Over the horizon or down the coast, it didn't much matter. Eddie had neatly outflanked him, and admitting it hurt nearly as much as his head did. The debriefing for this little foulup was going to be six different kinds of pain in the ass.

On the other hand--Pietro brightened slightly--Eddie had been in an awful hurry to leave. Possibly he'd left something incriminating behind about these . . . what had he called them, Evolutionaries? Mopping up the also-rans wouldn't take the sting of failure away, but it would definitely help. And Eddie's apartment was practically right next door as the speedster ran.

"This isn't over," he promised under his breath. It felt good to say, even through the headache. When I catch up with you, Eddie, you're done. And I can catch up with anything.



At the Conservatory, the Blackbird lands, and our rescue team gets to searching. The terrain is a problem, but Medusa finds an interesting solution



Shiro was out of the Blackbird the second it touched the ground, immediately taking flight to survey the harsh and prehistoric jungle that lay behind the large (and apparently ineffective) walls. He landed on the wall and shifted his vision to the infrared region of the spectrum, but couldn't see any human-sized red blobs. Hardly a surprise. He relayed that information to the rest of the team over the comms and waited for them to catch up.

Teleporting up to the top of the wall, Clarice was impressed with the foliage. There were a lot of trees. Great for hiding, less great for finding. "Well, isn't this special?" she asked, slipping her sunglasses on. "I mean, if we're continuing the Jurassic Park theme, all we need now is for some whiny-ass lawyer to hide in a toilet and get eaten by a T. Rex." Did she get points for speaking civilly to Shiro and not saying that he should be the one to be eaten? Because as pissed as she was at him, she didn't want him eaten unless he was going to BBQ a dino from the inside.

Medusa just shook her head, wondering how the X-Men ever succeeded if the bickering between Clarice and Shiro was any indication of how pre-mission time was spent. "How about less speaking and more searching?" she said briskly, her eyes scanning the area. Exiting the Blackbird, she strode forward, red tendrils extending upwards to grasp on to the top of the wall. As she pulled herself up, she extended one in Terry's direction as well.

Terry took the offered tendril without batting an eyelash and no more commentary than she'd offered this entire mission. Red strands shades darker than her own helped her scramble her way up the vine covered wall and she gave Medusa a short nod once she was standing firm next to Clarice. Like looking for Jan, her powers were more suited to detection than search and rescue. Finding the little fairy girl had been a lucky break. Peering around, she looked for the ranking X-Man on the team for their next instructions. "Cannonball, do you have any ideas?"

The bickering, at least for Clarice, was stress relief. She was always so nervous before a mission, although on it she rarely had time to notice. Not one of them was really suited for the 'search' part of seach and rescue, except Terry, and her range was limited. "Sunfire, can you fly Siryn around? Maybe she can hear something?" she suggested. No one else could fly except Cannonball and he was rather aptly named.

Sam shook his head as he looked at their surroundings. "It's a thought, Tink, but that jungle canopy looks extremely thick, and Ah'm not sure how much anyone's gonna be able ta see or hear through it," he mused. "An' Ah'd prefer not ta split this group up unless it can't be avoided." He didn't have the most faith in the group dynamic, since his team consisted of several younger members, two of whom couldn't stop arguing, and one royal who hadn't had a lick of X-Men training at all.

Medusa may not have had any X-Men training, but she'd been working on her powers training for longer than most of the people around her had even known they were mutants. "As much as I understand your desire to stick together, I believe my ride has arrived." A lasso made of red hair swung outward as a duckbilled dinosaur suddenly appeared out of the vegetation. It paused, quite confused, as it felt the hair tighten about it's neck and Medusa shot an apologetic smile in Terry's direction. "Best of luck. I do hate to leave, but my sister is out there and I am afraid my faith in this little group's abilities were not enhanced by the trip over. Call the cell if you need me."

Terry looked startled for a moment then amused. Taking her communicator off, she flipped it to Medusa. They hadn't been able to reach any of the students on their cells, but the X-Men's communicators worked on a direct site-to-site channel, and hopefully wouldn't be as useless. "Panic button if you need help or if you find them. I can't guarantee I'll hear you through all this. We'll contact you if we run into them first." Turning back to the other X-Men, Terry stuck her hands on her hips. "Well, the first thing we need to do is get down there. Sure there's no point in standing about hoping that we'll spot a rustle in the leaves. Tink, take me down there? Sunfire, Cannonball, we'll see you there. We might be able to do a good sweep pattern with me on the end to give us the broadest range to find them."

Shiro glanced first at Cannonball before nodding reluctantly and following Terry's suggestion. He hopped down from the wall, slowly levitating himself down the to ground. Medusa's comment had unraveled him a bit, and he silently promised himself to take heed of everything Sam said. Last thing he wanted was for Cyclops or Storm discover that he'd acted like the petulant child that Clarice brought out in him.

Sam merely grimaced and took to the air himself with the usual noise like a car backfiring. Just because his team brought out the pessimist in him, and Medusa had already separated herself off, that didn't mean that they might not get lucky with Terry's extra-sensitive hearing.

They could only hope.