Thirteen Days: The Man Who Fell To Earth

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

In Sri Lanka, a trio of Snow Valley employees journey to pick up the last X-Man to be found.



When the jeep came to a shuddering jolt, Wanda cracked open an eye. She'd been dozing in between bumps and near death experiences thanks to the road conditions but with the promise of a stop, she deemed it safe enough not to be asleep anymore. It looked like they had arrived -- right on the outskirts of a tiny poor village. The noise of the jeep had caused a few curious people to start looking their way.

"Everyone still in one piece?" she asked, finally opening both eyes fully.

Amanda carefully unpeeled her hands from the dash and the handle on the door. "Depends on what condition the one piece is," she said, wryly. "I think my insides are pureed from the vibrating."

Doug set the parking brake and opened his door, stepping out and stretching himself with a few audible pops. "At least your reproductive equipment is internal," he said wryly. "The boys are...unhappy," he added as he shifted his hips gingerly. He'd done his best to avoid the big potholes, but the quality of the road, like the quality of the jeep, had been somewhat underwhelming.

"Could have been worse - I could have been driving." Amanda gave him a smirk, and set about hauling the backpack with the first aid supplies out of the footwell. "So, here we are. Anyone know where here would be?"

Wanda eyed the area and shrugged helpfully. "Somewhere between hell and gone, looks like. Easy enough to figure out if we are in the right area." She pointed to a group of locals who were headed their way, several of them looked like they could be in charge. "Doug, would you mind asking them if they have seen our wayward friend?"

Doug nodded and stepped forward to meet what looked to be the village elders. After a brief but animated exchange, he nodded and turned back to Amanda and Wanda. "Okay, from what I'm getting, there was a bright light in the sky that fell to earth. They thought it was a meteor until they went out to the crater and found a man in it. They left him alone because they worry that he's some kind of god and don't wish to anger him. They don't know the half of it," he muttered in a lower voice, just loud enough for his companions to hear.

"Right then, if they think he's a god ten to one they won't dare come with us to show us the way," Wanda mused, moving around to the back of the jeep. A few good tugs and she pulled out three backpacks. "Firey god wraith and all, I suppose. Better to go it alone anyway since we've got no idea what kind of condition Cain'll be in -- or considering this is Cain and that the ground probably faired worse, what type of temperment he'll be in."

She slipped out a pair of sunglasses and then hoisted her pack onto her back. Not knowing exactly what they were going to be facing, they had packed accordingly. The luck they had, they didn't want to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere over night with nothing at hand to help.

"That's assuming it is Marko, tho' I don't think any of Buckethead's lot would have survived a fall from orbit," Amanda said dryly, hoisting her own pack onto her back more securely and adjusting the bandanna she was using to keep her hair out of her face. "Right then, did we get basic directions at least?"

"I am not sure." Tilting her head, she caught Doug's attention. "The lack of an actual guide aside, were they kind enough to give us enough directions so that we will not get horribly lost? Not that we're doubting my survival skills, of course." Outdoor experience or not, this was unfamiliar ground and not an environment she was used to being in.

Doug nodded. "That way," he pointed, "is a two-hundred meter diameter crater. Should be hard to miss, I'm thinking." He shouldered one of the packs and started picking his way through the underbrush in the direction he'd pointed.

"Do they have bugs in Sri Lanka?" Amanda she followed, Docs squishing in the soft mud. "Like, bigs ones? Like they had in Brazil? Just asking, is all." The nonchalant question was belied by the fact she was glancing around the underbrush nervously.

In the back of her mind, Wanda was praying that it was indeed Cain they were going to find. If it was anyone else, with that impact size, the results were not likely to be pretty ones. Cain was a little harder to crack open like an egg than anyone else. "I doubt anything will rival bugs that size," she reassured Amanda before tapping her on the shoulder. "I think we are close, not an animal in sight or hearing distance. He must have scared them but good."

The verdant underbrush slowly gave way to broken and scorched vegetation, streaks of melted rock still evident on the surface. A thin film of dust coated everything and the air was still hot and dry around the edge of the wide, uneven crater. At the bottom, down a ragged incline, the three rescuers could make out what could have been the outline of a large humanoid figure.

What they couldn't make out visually became clearer audibly as they drew closer. Whatever was down in the crater was definitely alive. Because, even in their experiences with the unusual, neither Doug nor Wanda nor Amanda had come across dead men who could snore at that volume.

"If that's not Cain, I'll eat my own shoe," Wanda said, a brief laugh slipping through. She was already cautiously moving down the slope, trying not to fall and slip. The ground looked like it had cooled since the impact but she wasn't risking flesh over it. She called back over her shoulder to the others, "Be greatful, you two, he isn't naked."

It took her a few more minutes to actually reach him but she was more amused at this point than worried. How he could be snoring in a situation like this was beyond her. She could hear Doug and Amanda carefully climbing down as well as she leaned over Cain, reaching forward to pat at his cheek. "Cain? Can you hear me?"

Closed eyes snapped open, panicked blue looking about before flicking over to Wanda. One massive hand lunged out, enclosing her neck as Cain's vision swam. "Brought one of you bastards down with me, huh?" he snarled, voice slurred and judgment obviously befuddled. "Take every single one of you on if I have to-"

Instinct told her to lash out, the lines dancing sharply in her eye just as her vision started to fade a little. But Wanda only had a second to think and she went against instinct, the hand that had been patting his cheek staying still against his face while the other went to the one around her neck. And she went limp, barely able to choke out another "Cain", in a decision to trust.

Cain's grip twitched for a moment, then loosened as he blinked into the bright sun. "Wanda?" He released his hand, pushing himself up to a sitting position, then groaning and pressing his palms to his head. "Shit, I've got the mother of all headaches." He glanced around the crater, confused, then looked at Wanda apologetically. "Aw shit, tell me I didn't flatten half of Manhattan. Chuck's never going to let me live that down. Did we win?"

"Hitting yourself over the head with an entire planet sounds like they'll have to come up with a new Excedrin headache number just for you," Doug quipped as he clambered more slowly down the side of the crater. "And no, you didn't flatten Manhattan. Just made a big-ass crater in the middle of nowhere in Sri Lanka."

Cain blinked again as Doug entered his field of vision. "Hey, Ramsey. Sri Lanka? Where the hell's that? Jersey? How the hell did you guys get here so fast, anyway?"

"'How fast?' Um, hate to break it to you, Cain, but you've been out of it for a bit. 'S Wednesday." Amanda slid the last few feet in crumbling half-melted rock, almost landing on her butt. When Cain had lunged for Wanda, she'd tried to 'throw' her shielding spell around the older woman, and managed to only surround herself with a translucent bubble that had only lasted a moment or two. "And Sri Lanka's a bit further than Jersey. Try next door to India. Can you move? Break anything?" Arriving at the big man's side, she was pulling the first aid backpack off her shoulders as she spoke.

Cain patted himself down, frowning as parts of his uniform crumbled to ash under his hands. "Space station? Wasn't my fault," he mumbled. Suddenly he stopped, looking around from Wanda to Amanda to Doug. "Three days? The hell? I don't..." He brushed a hand against his forehead again and let out a sigh. "Everyone else... they make it?"

"Everyone's back in the mansion, in various states of 'banged up'," Doug reassured Cain, glossing over some of the more serious injuries for the moment. "Scraped the barrel a bit sending recovery teams after all the various groups, which is why you get us." He hauled several yards' worth of lurid orange fabric out of his pack and handed it over. "We got you something to wear from the nearest village," he said. "Biggest robe they had." By his estimation it was going to be lucky to come to mid-thigh on the over-seven-foot X-Man, but at least then they wouldn't run the risk of having to see anything embarrassing potentially falling out from the burned and tattered remnants of Cain's uniform.

"Three days?" Cain repeated, standing up and wavering slightly. He placed one hand against the rock wall and took the fabric from Doug with the other. "Damn. I mean, I..." he looked around at the devastation caused where he'd landed. "...I didn't hit nothing important, did I?"

"Nothing but jungle and dirt," Wanda said, reassuring him as she got to her feet as well. Her throat ached and she rubbed it a bit but considering what could have happened, it was barely nothing. Lessons to remember when waking sleeping giants, she mused, do it from a distance. "No one from the village close by were in the area when you hit the ground." She frowned suddenly in thought. "Considering the reluctance of the villagers to come near here -- congratulations, Cain, you've reached godhood on your own -- we might want to go the long way when we get out of here. One of you two can bring the jeep to us a little further down the road since the last thing we need is to stir up some excitement." Wanda kept a sharp eye on Cain as he looked less than stable. "You all right, there?"

"'m fine," Cain grunted, going down to one knee for a moment, then standing up. "Feel like I've been hit with... well, something really big. Like, y'know, a planet. Nex' time we do this? Parachutes. I'm just sayin'."

"I'll go get the jeep while you two get him out of the hole. Where's Nate and his big brain when you need him? Oh, wait, he broke his brain trying not to get hit with a planet himself." Amanda gave Cain's arm a brief pat. "Hold on, we'll get you home soon as we can, and then you can have your own army of small girls fussing over you." She gave Wanda and Doug a quick grin before turning to scramble out of the cater. "Careful he doesn't fall on you and squish you flat."