xp_logs | Nathan, Jean, and T'Challa, Monday night (Reply)

Nathan and Jean are endeavoring to plan, when T'Challa shows up with some potentially ominous news. (Yes, more.)

"She has something more in mind, obviously," Nathan said grimly, staring out the window of the guest house at the darkening sky. "She wouldn't be here with Saidullayev and Amber, otherwise. And she doesn't bring them along if she's looking to do something discreet."

"No, Saidullayev and 'discreet' are really not words that belong in the same sentence. Or paragraph. Or, hell, the same dictionary." Jean was sitting at the table, leaning back in her chair with her legs crossed. "T'Challa seems the obvious target; I just worry that she could be playing a deeper game. He's so obvious a target, and Saidullayev and Amber are so high profile, it distracts us while she does something sneaky."

"It reminds me of what they did when they assassinated Garnoff," Nathan said. He hadn't been on the mission, but he'd certainly read the report thoroughly. "Watch the people blowing things up. Be distracted from the possibility of the bomb in the car. Speaking figuratively, of course." Nathan sighed, rubbing at his temples. "God damn the woman, how I wish she'd get hit by a bus..."

"A bus would be too easy. And too small. Next time someone is feeling like hitting someone with a plane, I say we suggest they hit her."

Nathan stared down at the polished wood of the table. "Under other circumstances," he said, sounding tired, "I'd suggest calling in reinforcements. But they could have their hands full at any time, back home. And I suppose we do have a full team, here... one we picked for versatility, no less." It was just very hard to figure out how to split their focus. Bad things happened when you did that, if you weren't careful.

"I think that will depend a lot on how Trask splits hers," Jean answered Nathan's thought. It wasn't really that he was projecting; his thoughts were just there to be picked up on, a little more than usual, even, which Jean was putting down to the weirdness she'd been feeling ever since they got to Wakanda. "Assuming we get enough warning to know. If it turns out she really is being as obvious as all that we'll need pretty much everyone at the front line, with a back up to make sure that it really is the obvious attack..."

"And if she gets creative on us, comes at us from an unexpected direction, we're screwed. She's not a bad strategist for a madwoman," Nathan said, sounding almost grudging. His fist came down suddenly on the table, jarring it. "Damn it, now I'm thinking we shouldn't have brought Alex. Let's make sure we keep him well away from Amber, yes?"

"Oh, God, yes, please. My husband will be quite mad if I break my brother-in-law. But he's been doing well, and he's got the strength to handle almost anything. Well, anything that can be beaten with a straightforward beating. He's an excellent back-up if she's got anything up her sleeve we don't know about."

The appearance of the new psi-pattern in the house was obvious to both of them, and Nathan, out of the corner of his eye, saw Jean's head turning towards the kitchen doorway at the same moment that his did. T'Challa appeared a moment later, looking troubled - more troubled than he had been a few hours ago, and that was saying a lot.

"Something's happening," he said without further ado, coming in and sitting down in one of the empty chairs at the table. "We're not certain what, but some of our border posts have fallen out of contact."

Jean leaned forward across the table. "Not certain, but you must have some idea. I mean, are we talking 'oh no, the phone lines are down' or 'oh no, somebody blew up my border posts'?" For all the flip phrasing, Jean's voice was deadly serious.

T'Challa sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. He clearly hadn't had much sleep since the X-Men had arrived, and the worry twisting his thoughts was almost a palpable thing. Quite literally, Nathan thought a bit helplessly, wondering yet again why telepathy was this... odd, in Wakanda. "We should know for sure in a few hours," he said. "I tend to doubt that the phones have inexplicably failed. I wonder about a repeat of what happened this summer, though... but surely you or Ms. Frost would be able to tell if that was happening."

"I don't sense anything like that," Nathan said after a moment, looking across the table at Jean. "You?"

"Er, no," Jean said, shaking her head. "Minor weirdness aside, we're definitely still in the physical realm, cause follows effect and all that. Plus, I haven't started melting into the table, and that's always a good sign." Which was probably not the form of the answer T'Challa wanted...

"Then I suspect we have an entirely new problem," T'Challa said grimly.

Nathan was shaking the head. "It's all part of it," he muttered. "Has to be. I just can't figure out how."

"~Everything is connected, brother, and we are all together,~" Jean said, slipping into Askani partly because it seemed apropos, given Trask was involved, but partly because saying things like that in English almost demanded you add "goo-goo-ga-choo", and T'Challa already thought she was crazy. Which was true, but not the point.