xp_logs | This Savage Land - Part Nine: Homecoming

During the march out of the Conservatory, Kyle and Laurie 'share a moment' out in the jungle. With the DEMON DUCK OF DOOM! (no, really)

Laurie scratched absently at a patch of dry mud on her hand as she walked back from the 'girl's bathroom'. She would be so very, very happy when they made it back to civilization. It wasn't that she had anything against camping but walking around covered in mud, and now allosaurus guts wasn't exactly what she'd thought of when she signed up for this outing.

If Laurie hadn't been musing on current affairs, otherwise known as grousing quietly to herself about having to spend days covered in mud, she might have noticed Kyle coming from the other direction and thus avoided the inevitable collision. Unfortunately, she was grousing, and thus didn't avoid said collision and thus found herself on her butt looking rather surprised as said Kyle.

"Um...hi?" Laurie said, rather embarrassed.

Kyle looked, quite frankly, like hell. He had long since given up on clean clothes, and the remains of his shirt had been torn off into a vest, and even that was muddy and stained. His jeans were better, but not by much. Healing factor pushed to the maximum and then some, and he was bruised, yellow and green splotches everywhere that he had visible skin and even under the scruffy facial hair that had come in.

And despite that, what stood out most was the arm bandaged to the wrist that Kyle cradled against his side. "Sorry 'bout that." He said. "'m kinda off my game. You okay?" he asked, after shaking himself to alertness.

"Yeah. This isn't any of mine." Laurie replied, making a gesture at the dried blood on her clothes. "Well, the clothes are mine and you know, limbs and internal organs and such but the, yeah, um. How's the arm?"

"Missing fingers, sore as hell and crispy-fried by one of my best friends." Kyle said gruffly. "I'd be more pissed, but my head still hurts more from Garrison zapping me so I wouldn't, you know, chew on Angel or something." He shook himself and ran his good hand through his hair. "I take back -everything- good I ever said about dinosaurs."

"Well, we've only seen the meatasaurus kind so far. Something tells me weird crazy Scientist land probably doesn't have any of the 'nice' Dinos. Although...big as they are I guess even the nice ones could make us into squishy pancake people. I got a few bruises and some cuts but mostly just covered in icky Dino guts. Forge's explosive arrows are not delicate but they did the job." Laurie replied, looking around for her bow.

"Even the plant eating ones weren't real nice." Kyle said. "If I'd been any slower, I'd have been squished." As it was, some of those bruises were from the duck-billed dinnerasaurses. "I'm just Forge is okay. Well, okayish." Forge smelled like sour frog ass, and looked worse, but they all stunk, and looked awful.

"Yeah, I think he may have used some of his leg or something in this thing." Laurie replied, brandishing the bow as she picked it up from the ground where it'd dropped. She hadn't let go of it since Forge had given it to her and she figured sleeping with clenched in her hand wasn't too weird...well, not entirely weird, anyhow. It just made her feel better, that was all.

Having retrieved the bow and the quiver of arrows, she held out a hand to help Kyle up.

Getting up took way more time than Kyle liked, even with he help. He hurt in places he didn't know the names of, and everywhere else too. "Thanks.." He said, and shook the loose leaves and dirt from his hair. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he took himself apart to make that thing. Which is totally creepy, but I have no room to talk." He waved the bandaged hand a bit to punctuate his words.

"Yeah, I think we've all got creepy down pat most of the time. Although, I still think that kid that spends all night in the dark watching TV is the creepiest. You go down for a midnight snack and he's just there, blinking at it. So weird." Laurie replied with an easy grin, not bothering to brush the leaves and dirt off herself. She was already covered in dried mud, a few bits of added foliage wasn't going to make much difference.

"He doesn't grow his parts back." Kyle said, shrugging. "So he's got that going for..." Mid-sentence, he paused, nostrils flaring. The hair on the back of his neck was raised, and he took a moment to look around warily before focusing again on Laurie. "Do you smell that? No, you wouldn't, never mind." He said, shaking his head. "Something's here. Fuck, if this turns into a bad horror movie, I am so going to be pissed."

"It can't, I've got too many clothes on for that." Laurie replied, but moved slightly closer to Kyle anyway, and placed her hand on his shoulder. He'd get a shot of the fear she was feeling but he'd also get the adrenalin and if they needed to run from something that was a good thing.

He'd been running on half adrenaline and fear already. The jolt from both send a shudder down Kyle's back and he bared his teeth in the direction of the smell for a moment before remembering that he wasn't supposed to act like that. He took a step back, and then pointed towards the tree line. "Look. Behind the trees." Almost hidden was a Something. Taller than Kyle, covered in feathers that hid it against the plants and possessing a beak that looked, in a word, nasty.

"That's a really, really big bird-thing." Laurie replied, taking a very slow and careful step back, trying not to make any noise. "Do you think it's seen us?"

"Either it hasn't, because we're not being chased, or it's already ate something and isn't interested." Kyle backed away, stepping in front of Laurie as he did. Despite the retreat, he curled the fingers of his good hand, claws ready. If the thing did see them, he was going to be ready for it. "Stay behind me until we can't see it."

"You know, I think that once we find those guides, we all take turns kicking them really, really hard." Laurie replied, keeping up her slow backwards walk. She really, really hoped the thing didn't start after them. It looked like it could outrun them fairly easily.

Kyle snarled, and curled his lips up in a disgusted sneer. "I'm voting for biting off their fingers, myself." He kept his attention on the thing, until he couldn't see it anymore and only then glanced over his shoulder at Laurie. "Kicking works though. If we let Yvette do it." Not that he thought that she would, but thinking about it made him feel much better.

Now that the thing was out of sight and they weren't running away or being eaten, Laurie relaxed slightly. She noticed the snarl on Kyle's face and the way his voice sounded. "You okay?" she asked, noting the clenched fists.

It wasn't that the tenseness wasn't reasonable, considering giant dinosaur bird but he was...different then normal tense Kyle, more Logan like in a way. She wasn't sure why, but she'd just felt a need to make sure he was okay.

"No." Kyle answered tersely. "I thought Forge was dead, I had to hunt dinosaurs, I had to kill an allosaurus and it ate my fingers and..." He sat down abruptly, leaning against a tree trunk. "Garrison knocked me out so Angel could make them stop bleeding. Because they were worried I'd hurt someone."

Laurie kept standing, not yet ready to relax completely but she figured Kyle would know before she did if anything else came by. She looked down at him with concern, not entirely sure what she could say. "Do you think they were right?" she asked after a moment.

"I killed a dinosaur." Kyle repeated dully. "It was twice my height. Maybe more, I dunno. It was a really fucking big dinosaur. I'd be worried if I was them." He wasn't relaxed by any means; he just had no more energy to pace. "I want to go home."

Laurie stared at him silently for a time, not entirely sure what she could say that would help. What he said wasn't wrong, but on the other hand no one should feel like they were a danger to their friends. She crouched down and placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly and picturing calming things in her mind. A forest glade, dappled in sunlight, a beach with the sun just dipping below the waves, the sound of rain.

"Kyle, I don't know anything I can say that'd make it better but I do know you'd never willingly hurt your friends. Sometimes because of what we are, things happen. As long as we keep trying to learn and control that, then that's all we can do."

The sense of peace spread through Kyle like melting margarine. Smooth and rich and just ever so slightly unreal. But welcome. "I'm not worried about the willing part. It's when, you know, I'm not really in the here and now that's giving me the wiggins." But he stood up, slowly, and cracked his neck. "We should get back before they send a search party and find me being all emo and ship me off to visit Jay or something."

"We should, my roommates are probably wondering if I fell in or something. Kyle, I'm not sure I'll always be there if you have one of your feral episodes but if I am, I think I could probably do better at calming you down then knocking you out physically. We can at least let people know to come find me anyhow, okay?" Laurie replied, smiling as she saw Kyle's shoulders relaxed. It didn't help with the emotional issues but since his powers were in some ways physical, that she could help with.

"We should tell them we had sex." Kyle said, the grin on his face mostly real. "See, they'll never believe that, but it'll totally derail any conversations about why we took so long."

"Okay, you are evil. It'd totally be worth it to see people snort their drinks." Laurie replied, offering a hand to help Kyle up. "If anyone asks though, you totally seduced me."

During the march, Forge and Mondo unwittingly re-enact a scene from Return of the Jedi, much to the smaller children's amusement.

Forge blinked as another jostle roused him from his latest attempt at sleep. Checking his chronometer, it had been... wow, an entire three minutes. The jungle was moving by him pretty regularly, at least what he could see of it. At least another hour until dawn, and... wait, dark? Why could he see - oh, right. There was Angel floating above them, casting a dim light around but enough to see by. But wait - why was he moving? He distinctly remembered coming on this field trip with twice the legs he now found himself with and--

Oh, right.

He leaned forward, looking over Mondo's shoulder. They'd rigged up a harness of vines so that the large Samoan could carry the much-smaller genius. Forge had even cannibalized what remained of his prosthetic leg as a reinforced brace for Mondo's bad knee. He patted the younger mutant on the shoulder.

"How's it going so far, Mondo?"

"I'm fine, thanks!" he said cheerfully. Sure, he was just as tired, hot, and sore as anyone else out there, but there was nothing wrong with the idea of keeping up a pleasant front. Be an inspiration, that kind of thing. "You OK up there? Everything still holding tight?" he asked.

Forge wiggled as much as he was able - they'd lashed him in pretty tightly, since he'd been fading in and out of consciousness. He'd finished the last of the painkillers that he'd salvaged from the medical depot before they started, and passed off the 'compass' that pointed to the exit to Marie, who was alternating scouting ahead with the other flyers.

Glancing backwards, Forge could see the 'wagon train' of students marching in single file, each staying within an arm's reach of each other, Garrison bringing up the rear. Behind them, Leong and Nga looked up at Forge and waved shyly.

He cocked his head, hearing Mondo's breath hiss a bit with every other step. Getting an idea, Forge laid his left arm across Mondo's shoulder.

"Synch up," he said, nodding to the Samoan. "Myomer steel, flexes just like muscle but stronger than tempered steel. You'll be the strongest thing in this place, and I'm counting the dinos."

Mondo did something in his fatigue that he had never done before. He forgot to let go of the titanium that had been sustaining him and grabbed a hold of the myomer fiber for synching up. The two states blended poorly within him with the result of Mondo swaying like a drunken sailor after a four-day bender.

Forge arched an eyebrow, holding onto Mondo's shoulder as the bigger youth staggered for a while before regaining his footing. "Easy there, big guy. You sure you're..." That was weird. Forge's arm didn't feel any difference, but suddenly Mondo's back had gone from stiff and unyielding like titanium to flexible like the myomer. Experimentally, Forge rapped a knuckle on Mondo's curly hair, listening to the metallic *pang*. "I will be... darned," he censored himself, looking down at the kids. "How do you feel?

"Oooh." Mondo said, holding one hand over his belly. "That didn't feel good. I think I messed that up." he said. "It's passing, though. I'm OK now. You all right? I didn't shake you too badly, did I?" he asked worriedly. He raised up his other hand to scratch, only to exclaim loudly in dismay.

His synch-tracking unit that Forge had built and given him - the one that was tracking his shifts and how they changed his internal structures - had gone stone-cold dead.

"Oops?" Mondo said contritely. It wasn't nice at all to break expensive pieces of equipment that other people had built. "I'm sorry!"

"No worries," Forge drawled, laughing quietly. "Oh boy, apparently too much hydrocodone makes me sound like Marius. Hey, you know what this reminds me of? That movie, the Star Wars one? With the little fuzzy... things."

"Return of the Jedi," Leong chimed in, holding his sister's hand as they navigated a turn in the path. "They were Ewoks."

"Ewoks, yes!" Forge laughed. "And the robot, C3PO. Being carried by the big furry guy...?"

"Chewbacca!" Nga chirped, "And you're Threepio!"

Mondo still felt horribly guilty about breaking Forge's expensive piece of Scientific Equipment - with the capital letters - but he knew a sure way to make himself and everyone else feel a little better.

"Mrowrwrwrwrorwr!" he said in his best Chewbacca impression, trying to look all menacing and Chewbacca-y.

The kids giggled, and Forge patted Mondo on the head. "Well done, man. I totally owe you lunch after this. Spam and Wonder Bread. My treat."

Mondo practically cooed in pleasure. "Yum!" he said, patting his tummy. "But just for the record, the Samoan does _not_ need to choke a .... person." he finished lamely, totally neutering his joke. But hey, at least he'd seen The Empire Strikes Back.

At the Conservatory entrance, the rescue team regroups after a night of fruitless searching. Unfortunately, one of the park's inhabitants seems to have a bit of a fondness for the Blackbird. Thankfully, it is followed by several non-native park dwellers, and everyone manages to head home safely.

Sadly, Sam's pessimistic predictions had all come true in spades, and there had been no sign of the field trip group, and no word from Medusa on the communicator Terry had lent her. They'd flown search patterns until well after dark, hoping that the visible corona of Sam and Shiro's powers might be spotted, or that Terry might hear something, but eventually they'd circled back to where the Blackbird had landed to eat and drink to replenish the energy they'd expended.

Shiro barely touched the Blackbird's MRE, only downed a bottle of water. Not because it was an MRE necessarily, but the more time that passed, the antsier he was getting. If Leyu could possibly get hurt . . . The thought was stricken from his mind when he felt a large thump. He saw the water in his bottle, which was resting on the ground, ripple. "I'm going to find Spielberg and rip his heart out if this is what I think it is," he muttered darkly, taking to the air slowly to look over the wall. "Son of a bitch."

Terry had heard the incoming steps, heavy and ominous. But sitting as she was in the shadow of the gate, half-asleep after a night of keyed up tense listening...she couldn't bring herself to care. "Oh fuck me," she said wearily as bush and tree bent away before the massive bulk, sharp horns first the the broad hooked snout and the wide bone frill that protected the next. "Do you suppose if we just stay still it'll move on? It's a plant eater. Tink, try not to look like an eggplant."

There was an enormous huff, like the triceratops didn't appreciate her humor. Everyone was a critic.

Sam thanked his lucky stars that it was a plant-eater and not a meat-eater. Of course, a dinosaur that size could still do sizable damage to the Blackbird if it got some fool notion in its head that the plane looked like a lady triceratops. "Sunfire, let's see if we can't encourage our visitor ta head off elsewhere?" he suggested.

Not looking like an eggplant was not one of Clarice's specialities. "This was so not in the 'so you want to be an X-Man' brochure," she commented, although really, when was anything typical? She very carefully didn't move, "If we don't move, maybe it won't see us?" she suggested. Hadn't that worked in the movie? Modern people were not really equipt, powers or not, to handle dinosaurs.

"How fast do triceratops run?" asked Shiro. He activated his fire form and took to the air. Maybe the dinosaur was like Clarice and would be distracted by something bright and shiny. Or, also like Clarice, get pissed that Shiro was anywhere near it and charge. At least he could get it angry away from the jet.

The bright energy surrounding Shiro drew the reptile's attention, joined shortly thereafter by Sam's blast field. It looked back and forth between the two men with another annoyed snort, then lumbered forward into a run straight towards the Blackbird. "Dammit," Sam cursed. "Try and head it off!" he shouted over his blast field.

"Head it off?" Terry shouted back, incredulously, "It's fifteen times bigger than me!" Instead, she did what she'd done in Mexico and screamed, sending a broad wall of sound at the triceratops. The creature skidded backwards a few feet as the trees bent under the assault, at least one trunk snapping. The cera just looked perturbed, continuing to struggle against the waves of sonic force. "Tink, turn it around!" Terry gasped as she ran out of breath.

"Fuckity fuckity fuck!" Clarice muttered, teleporting herself on top of the dinosaur and then teleporting them both as far away as she could reasonably manage - that is, to the other side of the jet. She'd never teleported something so large and she could barely send them both a few hundred meters. Turning around mid-teleport wasn't really possible, but at least the beast was facing the other direction and the blackbird wasn't in the way.

"Okay, I want deep fried dino sushi for dinner tonight Sunfire!"

"It's not fish," was Shiro's first sharp remark, followed by "And there's no need to kill it. Yet." He flew over to it again, releasing some of the tight control he held over his power so he could leave a trail of flame in his wake. When in doubt, be flashy.

Sam preferred to drive the triceratops off rather than killing it as well. It seemed a shame to kill such an animal simply because it was in the way. And whatever had brought the dinosaurs back to existence after such a long period of extinction...what a waste. "Try and lead it away from the 'Bird!" he called.

Terry caught up with the others--it wasn't fair that she had to run when everyone else could fly or teleport--and administered another hard, disorienting blast of sound. She had no idea if dinosaurs could get vertigo but she figured it was better than just hiding by the jet, hoping that the others could finish it off. As she drew in another breath, she flashed back to the fight with Orphan Maker. Her next scream was directed at the ground, just beneath the animal, cracking dirt and rock and shaking apart the soil.

Shiro flew around the beast's head, drawing an elaborate spiral of fire behind him. It roared and he narrowly dodged being impaled by a horn. "Yes, you want to make a Sunfire-kabob," he said, launching a small fireball at its frill to keep its attention on him. "Get the hell away from the Blackbird and follow me."

Clarice was really ill-equipt to deal with dinosaurs unless she teleported it to pieces. She couldn't hit it and offensively, her powers were lethal. "No Sunfire kabobs unless I'm making them!" she chastised the triceratops, teleporting herself on top of it again and trying to hang on for dear life. She could really use some help steering, although it did not seem to notice that she was there. Flying flamers, er, flying flaming guys were much more annoying than little pixies.

The weight of the dinosaur on the ground, plus its stampeding to shake off Clarice compacted the loosened dirt, creating a depression, sinking the creature around its stubby legs which then got caught in the vibrational backwash. There was a loud -snap!-. Terry stopped screaming and blinked. She hadn't actually been trying to do that. "I think I broke a leg?"

Sam shook his head sadly. It'd be a cruel thing to let the triceratops go now that it had broken its leg. That was even assuming it could move with a broken limb. It squalled loudly in pain from where it was stuck in the ground.

Landing in front of the animal, Sam gazed for a sad moment into its pain-filled eyes. It wasn't the triceratops' fault it had come to the wrong place at the wrong time. Now there was nothing left but to put it down quickly and mercifully so it wouldn't linger in pain. Clasping his hands together, he drew them back and then snapped them sharply across the dinosaur's frill, snapping its head to one side and breaking its neck with the force of his blast field.

Bringing his blast field down, he laid a gentle hand on the animal's leathery skin. "Sorry, old-timer," he murmured gently.

Sam rolled his shoulders with several loud pops. He'd never imagined many of the things he'd seen and done when he first arrived at the mansion, but dealing with a cranky triceratops definitely topped the list for weirdest. The sky was just starting to lighten with dawn, and he looked around, assessing. If nothing else, he thought they should probably run another search pattern in the hope of getting lucky... As he turned to rouse his team, he caught a glimpse of a group of figures coming out of the jungle. His breath caught in his throat as he dared to hope.

Angel hovered above the group of weary students and teachers, repressing a yawn. The pace had been slow to accommodate the injured and the littles and she'd taken to short flights just to keep herself awake. Despite the bruised ribs and exhaustion, she was going to come out of this pretty pleased with her flying stamina. Still shaky, especially on landing, but things were coming along. She paused and squinted, flying forward a bit. And then she let out an ear piercing whoop of joy. "Guys, guys, the cavalry is here!" she announced, nearly flipping upside down in her excitment.

"They're a little late," Marie muttered before floating over to where Angel was to see the group. "Over here!" she called out, hoping probably for the first time in her life that Terry was nearby. She'd heard screaming earlier and hoped that it had been the Irish girl's special brand of yelling so that now Terry would hear her.

It had been a long night capped with a dino fight but that didn't stop Terry from grinning wildly at the sound of Marie's shout. Scrambling to her feet, she called back a greeting as she dashed to the treeline to meet the group. "Is everyone okay?" The question was somewhat rhetorical given the evidence but it displayed the kind of optimism that was Terry's stubborn trademark.

"Uh," Jennie looked over the shoulder at their group. Kyle sans fingers, Forge sans parts of his leg and high as a kite, everyone was bruised, dirty and running on the heels of exhaustion, but they were all still there in one piece, more or less. "We'll live?" she called back to Terry, and then gave the Vietnamese girl's hand in hers a squeeze. "Toldja we'd make it before dawn, didn't I? Your brother owes me five bucks." At some point during the night the twins had decided to surgically attach themselves to Jennie's side.

Forge waved from where he was strapped to Mondo, riding piggyback on the large Samoan. "Yeah! Who runs Bartertown?" He patted Mondo on the shoulder and motioned for the smaller kids to come forward. "All present and accounted for, although some of us are somewhat less intact than when we arrived. Now can someone untie me from my faithful steed?"

A crashing sound could be heard to the left of the group and a trachodon peaked its head out from the foliage. The rest of the dinosaur emerged slowly, the redheaded Amaquelin surveying the ragtag group. "I see I am slightly behind schedule." Red hair extended to the ground to help her dismount and she turned to nod at the dino that had served as her mount. It looked slightly confused before a strand of hair flicked out to lightly tap it and the duck-billed creature ran off. "Crystal!" she called out, the relief she felt only evident in the way her hair relaxed as she watched her sister float above the group.

“~Greetings, Medusa,~” Crystal replied calmly and with a proper smile. “~It is good to see you. I apologize for being unable to contact you and explain the situation.~” Her smile widened slightly. “~Are you sure that you do not want to bring your new pet home with you? It would make an impressive addition at the palace, not to mention how well it would fit in at the school.~” Crystal smiled even more when she saw Medusa's own smile.

A strand of red hair rested on the youngest Attilani royal's shoulder, her sister not wanting to break the connection since they'd found the other group. "~Perhaps you should chose not to attend future field trips~," Medusa suggested. "~They seem to be a lot more trouble than they are worth.~" Medusa's phone buzzed, a tendril of hair flicking out to open the phone to read the text message. "~Jackson will be here in five minutes. He has booked us full treatments at the spa.~"

"~Do not be silly, my sister,~" Crystal replied. "~I am not afraid of the alleged field trip curse. I do not believe that it is the field trips themselves that are the problem. It is my opinion that it is the chaperones who attract the trouble. I am fairly certain that at least one X-Man was involved in each of the supposedly cursed field trips, as the majority of staff members at Xavier's also serve as the leather-clad savers-of-the-world.~"

"~That is an excellent point. After riding over here with them, I truly wonder how they actually ever save the world between the childish bickering. To be fair, there were only a small amount of X-Men on the plane, but it did not do much to establish my faith in their abilities.~" The redhead smiled down at her sister. "~Luckily, neither of us is ever in much need of saving.~"

"~Perhaps they schedule it in,~" Crystal suggested with a small grin. "~Petty arguments between nine to eleven in the morning, take a break for lunch, go off and save the world, take a break at five and eat dinner, then resume the petty bickering from six to ten, go to sleep, and repeat the schedule in the morning.~"

Medusa laughed out loud, ignoring the strange look sent her way by one of the nearby students. "~Indeed little Crystal, I think they must.~"

"Now that's an impressive commitment to theatrics," Marius observed as Medusa's transportation loped away. With cheerful disregard to the fact that each plant in the Conservatory represented millions of dollars of investments and who only knew how many years of research, he casually brought a sharpened hand down to lop a branch out of Yvette's path before stepping out of the treeline. He cocked an eyebrow at Kyle, sunlight dappling on his grey skin. "Here, you think our incredible rescue will include somethin' suitable to bring down Makerboy?"

"I have no idea what you just said." Kyle muttered, and resisted the urge to scratch at his hand, or hair, or scruffy near-beard. Everything itched. "What would be totally awesome, is if our incredible rescue had some industrial strength aspirin. I hurt in places I didn't know I could hurt."

Holding tightly onto Marius' hand whilst he used the other as a machete, still slightly smelling of dinosaur innards, Yvette merely nodded wearily. All she wanted to do now was go home. And get the cut on her arm tended to, before it got infected.

Following Marius and Yvette, Tommy came up behind them, a sleeping Artie riding on his back. He didn't bother to say much of anything, besides carefully setting the boy down and waking him up. And he kept an eye on Yvette the entire time, not letting her out of his sight.

Forge hopped awkwardly on his sole remaining leg, using Mondo for balance as the younger kids untied him from the harness that Mondo had been hauling him in. "Yeah, everyone seems to be okay, I think. Kyle and I got chewed up a bit and Laurie's all muddy, but other than that, nobody got eaten. Except Yvette. But she's - hi, Yvette - just fine now. By the way, I think I'm going to need a doctor. How're you guys?"

"Oh, we're peachy keen," Clarice replied, actually not being sarcastic for once. Comparatively speaking, they were just fine, albeit dirty and exhausted. "When we get home and after we get showers, I vote we call somewhere and get food. A lot of food. Delivered. And revel about why we're the top of the food chain and dinosaurs are extinct."

Laurie smiled at the thought of food, food that wasn't cooked dinosaur meat. While it hadn't been bad, tasted something like chicken, really, it had still been giant pre-bird, lizard thing meat. Okay, a tired Laurie was a randomly thinking Laurie obviously, she really needed to sleep. "I vote for pizza, with lots and lots of toppings. Only, no anchovies, because ew."

"I'm in the mood for alligator," Shiro said as his sister flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I have only had it once, but it tasted like chicken. And I have the oddest desire to eat a reptile."

"I think I am going to go shower for about a year straight." said Mondo, still smiling and looking chipper despite three days straight with no sleep. "We're all a little ... fragrant right now." he added with a wrinkle of his nose. Absently, he scratched his ribs.

"Beer. And no students. That's my plan." Garrison really didn't care that he reeked like dinosaur. He was going to get home, have a shower, hopefully watch Marie have hers, have several drinks and sleep for a week. Between the disappearing, reappearing Forge, a dinosaur landing on his head, and having to drop a student to burn off half of his hand, he believed he had fulfilled all the requirements of a chaperone the school every had the right to ask of him. "Sam, let's make the big jet go." He said, starting to wave the students towards the ramp. "Everyone who doesn't want to stay fifty million years in the past, let's move!"

Sam nodded. "Everybody find a seat an' strap in," he instructed the line of students and faculty. "'Rice, can ya get Yvette, Kyle, an' Forge ta the Medlab in one jump?" he asked, noting the three that were most in need of medical attention. He'd noticed the way Angel was favoring one side of her ribs, but bruising took a back seat to missing digits and open wounds.

"Um," Clarice looked at the trio somewhat dubiously, teleporting the triceratops had taken a lot out of her. "Sure. Maybe." Shrugging philosophically and squaring her shoulders, she was an X-Man after all damnit! she opened the teleportation disk. "Next stop, Xavier's medlab!" she called.

"Be careful she doesn't slice off your other hand," Shiro muttered to Kyle as he passed by to Clarice's disk, and just loudly enough for Clarice to overhear.

And plenty loud enough for Terry to hear. She gave a short, targeted squawk of disapproval that smacked Shiro upside the head with just about the same force as an irritated cuff of the hand. She sniffed. That was her best friend he was talking about.

"Medusa and I are not ready to return to the school yet," Crystal told Sam, as he appeared to be the one in charge of the other means of transportation. She smiled. "I believe that it has been a rather trying day for my sister, and she requires time to relax." Crystal looked over as the expected car approached, then looked back at Sam.

"Booked appointment, so we must go. You cannot be late for these matters, I am sure you understand," Medusa said with a dazzling smile at Sam. "Thank you for the aid in arriving, it was truly appreciated."

"Ah, no desire to further play the moment of squishy togetherness?" Marius asked, tilting his head at the Amaquelins. He glanced down, surveying the utterly ruined shirt, the caked gore, and the generalized air of unwashedness that came as only two days in a park full of bits Nature had decreed extinct millions of years previous could achieve. He scratched his head. "Right. Perhaps under the circumstances we can restrict our togetherness to the spiritual sort until mass bathing has occurred."

Yvette reluctantly let go of Marius' hand, looking at the teleportation disk doubtfully. "Miss Clarice?" she asked. "Is Laurie being able to be coming too? Her powers, they are to be helping me when I am so..." she gestured at herself, her skin so dark red it was almost black. "I am not to be having the doctor help if I am like this."

That was a very good point, "What's one more?" she asked rhetorically, gesturing for both Laurie and Yvette to go through the disk so she could close it. She totally understood the stargate energy problem from the TV show now.

Mondo still refused to let go of the myomer and the titanium he'd wound up synching to. He'd let go when everyone was back at the Mansion. Not before. He scratched at his bite again, the one he'd been concealing as best he could. The bite had definitely gone through the outermost layers and a goodly bit of funk had collected in the injury site itself. Ignoring it, Mondo smiled cheerfully at everyone around him. "Let's go!" he said with one of his Big Smiles and started heading off for the Jet. Extinct plants, dinosaurs trying to eat him, being a Big Damned Hero, and now a ride in the Jet!

Best! Weekend! Evar!

As the purple flash of Clarice's teleportation faded, Sam ushered the last of the students onto the jet and took a set in the pilot's chair. He shook his head as he powered up the VTOL thrusters, the turbines whining and kicking up dust. If this was what Scott and Ro went through as team leaders, they were welcome to it.