Reefer Madness - The Fire

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Backdated to yesteday afternoon. Atop their observation point, the New Mutants dutifully watch the fire - until a sudden wind change requires action.



Yvette sighed and reached for her water bottle again. They'd been here for a few hours now, watching the smoke rising from various parts of the forest, the flicker of flame sometimes visible between the trees, along with the park workers in their fire fighting gear. It was all very safe and extremely boring.

"How much longer do you think the park people will be?" she asked rhetorically.

Sitting in a tree, mesmerized by the smoke, Catseye was snapped out of her trance-like state by Yvette's voice and shifted into girlform. "There is still a lot of fire," she pointed out. "They will probably be much much longer?" She didn't sound too put-out by this; she thought the flames- when she could see them- and the smoke were beautiful. "But it is veryverypretty!" She let out a cough. "Except for when the wind moves."

A large wolf continued to stalk by the bottom of the tree. He was pretty sure that the whole situation was completley in control, but he wasn't taking any chances. His nose twitched every few seconds, stinging by the smell of leaves, but overall, everything seemed ok. "Seems safe..." The words escaped in a growl, but his muscles didn't loosen up at all as he paced back and forth at the foot of the tree.

Julian was floating a pair of rocks around after one another, as if they were playing a game of tag; the faint green glow of his powers barely seen in the bright sunlight. "Dude, you need to relax," he said with a smirk to Nick. "You've got this whole Bigby Wolf thing going on, a little controlled burn shouldn't worry you in the least." He tossed the rocks far off into the mixing zone, toward the flames. With a slight sigh he stood up from his spot under the tree. "And for the two of you who got that reference, you're welcome."

“I got it!” Doreen said, raising her hand. She was in another tree, Monkey Joe clinging almost painfully to her shirt. She also had a bunch of local squirrels around her and she turned her attention to them, [Look], she clicked, [It’s okay. Really. You guys don’t have to be panicking at all. It’s totally okay.]

There was a pause as Doreen listened to about fourteen squirrels talk at once. She looked down at everyone on the ground, “When are they supposed to be done again? I forgot.”

Meggan shook her head from where she was sitting, and half-heartedly attempted to wave away the scent of burning as it wafted by again. "I don't remember either." She was seated on a piece of stone beneath one of the trees--to her, the only bad part of this trip would be smelling for a few days, which she could live with. Catseye was right, though--it was a bit pretty, except for whenever the wind blew their way.

The catgirl pondered an answer to Doreen's question, but was distracted by another shift in the wind, and a shift in the location of the flames she was watching so intently. Suddenly she could see the flames much more easily. The fire was getting closer. "Uh oh. Catseye does not think it was supposed to go over that pond..." she mused aloud.

Angel craned her neck around a tree trunk and looked in the direction Catseye was looking towards. "Uh, no," she said slowly, jumping out of the lower branches. "That's not the pattern of the control at all." And the wind was picking up, too, even as they watched. She wasn't used to fire in the woods but she knew how fast they could get out of control. "Guys, I think we might want to head back," Angel continued, reaching for her walkie talkie. "It's probably okay but I don't want to take any chances, you know?"

Nori was definitely glad she'd decided not to dump her excess charge before they'd left the school - it had made the trip up here extra uncomfortable but she was starting to get the feeling she was going to need that power here and there wasn't much around she could pull from without killing all their communications equipment. "We are needing go very quick..." she mused, standing up and cocking her head as she considered the fire. "Is heading toward valley back to camp." She could make it back easily, she knew, but Nori wasn't about to leave the rest of the team.

Inez glanced over her shoulder and then turned to the others. "Is there anything in the way? I mean, should we be doing anything? Making a... whaddyacallit, firebreak?"

The radio crackled to life. "You kids there?" Archie's voice was slightly strained, and the connection wasn't great, but they could hear him clearly enough. "Look, our spotters say the fire has jumped the lake. Winds have been pushing it further south than we were expecting. There's a few firewalls in place, but I don't want you guys close to that line. If you follow the old logging road along the river, it will take you down through a valley, and then to another lake where we have a camp set up. Get down there and let me know when you've made it. If you see Danny Kirkhope, tell him what's happened and to call me." Archie's voice took on the same kind of command tone that Scott Summers used. "Seriously, I want you down to that camp as soon as possible. No heroics."

Staring at the radio, Catseye climbed down from the tree. She was thinking about joining the X-Men, and it seemed like a big part of being on the team was about being responsible in situations like these. "The logging road is over here; Catseye saw it from the tree," she informed everyone, moving off through the clearing where they'd been watching the fire. "Let's go to the camp. Dori, bring the radio yes? Catseye is going to go up in the trees to see the road from high up and make sure we don't get lost." She shifted and bounded on ahead in catform.

“Okay, I got it. I can go up there too, but I’ll stay farther down, because I have the radio,” Doreen said, taking the radio and jumping down to the ground. The squirrels followed her and she had to take a moment to both calm them down and calm down Monkey Joe. Who if he had just skin would be white as a sheet.

“It won’t take us long to get there! Or at least it shouldn’t. Can I bring my new friends?” she asked, she was surrounded by a good sized group of squirrels.

Angel couldn't help it, she stared a little bit. "Suuure," she said slowly, craning her neck around to get her bearings. "But only if they can keep up - I don't want anyone hurt, animal or human, but if we need to make a break for it, Dori, we break, okay?"

“Okay,” Doreen said, “They’ll be able to find their own way if they have to. I just thought it’d be cool if they came with us,” she said simply. “They might be able to help us too! They all know their ways around here.”

Inez started to say something, but then stopped when she thought she could feel a break in the wind. "Do you guys feel that?" she said, pausing to ponder what the sudden breeze of cool air meant. Then before anyone could answer, the wind rushed past them, down the incline to a small barrier pond. The wind whipped up waves on the pond, but the more frightening part was watching a cloud of burning embers carried by the wind, starting another fire across the barrier pond that the wind suddenly whipped into a frenzy.

"SHIT!" Inez swore, looking back at everyone. "We can't head that way. Someone call Archie and give me a map!" Suddenly she realized that the map-reading skills her father had taught her in the days of dodging border patrol agents were suddenly going to come in handy. She accepted the folded paper and quickly figured out their location, then oriented the map and pointed over a hill. "The fire doesn't seem to be going that way, and there's a clearing we can cut across!"

Catseye scampered back to the group, eyes wide from the sight of the flames that had shifted direction so quickly.

"Fred, Angel and I can be taking the lead," Yvette responded, eyes glowing brightly. "We cannot be hurt if the fire is changing paths." She looked over to confirm with the other two.

Fred looked disapprovingly at the two, especially Yvette; like a disapproving brother, "Alright, but I'm right behind ya." Fred turned to the others, "Everyone, just...everyone stay close. I'm..." he smiled, trying to keep the situation light, "I'm pretty hard to miss, even with the smoke."

Meggan nodded from where she was--she wasn't about to argue with common sense. "Got it." She glanced down the incline, to reassure herself that nothing else was going wrong when they weren't looking, before falling into line behind the others.

The group made their way down the hill, heading for the clearing Inez had pointed out. The smoke was getting thicker, making their eyes water and choking the air, but they kept together. They'd just reached the clearing when muffled shouts caught their attention.

The plants were in pain from the burn. She could only really communicate with roses, but Klara was vaguely aware of a general sense of pain. Or perhaps it was her own, and that of people around her. The smoke was bothering her eyes and making her cough. Raising her hands to shield her eyes, she wondered what the shouting was for.

Klara wasn't the only one hearing shouting. Angel came to a brief stop and tried to peer through the trees and smoke that was starting to get thicker with each passing second. "Hey, there's someone out there!" she said, pointing to a location off to the side. She yelped. "Three someone's, actually, and - crap!"

As they got closer, it was obvious that the fire had spread even faster and three men were seen to be struggling away from a rising half-circle of fire. "We can't leave them in there," Angel continued, mentally falling back on all the training with Paul and the others. She couldn't tell from the distance if they were injured but they were certainly lost and confused. She ducked under a branch and headed their way, gesturing for at least one or two of the less vulnerable to fire to come with her.

Fred had been literally shoving large underbrush and small trees over to make a clear path for the others and, when he heard Angel up front, he moved at a quick trot forward, ignoring the fire licking at him. He acknowledged Angel and turned to Yvette, "Vette, stay with the others and keep the together as a group, kay?" and turned back and inhaled deeply as he moved towards the trapped trio, "HEY! YOU THREE! STICK CLOSE! WE COMIN IN FOR YA!" he bellowed across the distance.

The Naked Tree Guy, one of the three trapped men, was uncharacteristically fully clothed and was carrying a bundle of woolen blankets. The three hippies had, after abandoning their attempts to save the weed when the forest's canopy had caught fire as well as the understory, been attempting to make a break for the creek (they'd been turned around in the smoke but it was probably ...that way) where they could wait out the quickly moving fire front under water and covered with the blankets. Hearing the yell, he turned and looked up through the smoke. Kids. Oh man, that was going to be some major bad vibes if anyone got hurt. Maybe they could all make a break for the creek together. "Over here!" he screamed.

"Fire proof people first," Angel yelled over her shoulder, just in case something went fwoosh. She, Yvette and Fred had the best chances of getting out of a situation like that. Getting through the brush was hard and the sudden rolling smoke wasn't helping. Smoke she was used to but this stuff was making her cough and it tasted weird, not like anything she'd come across yet.

Yvette moved forward, hacking away at the brush with her sharp hands and shredding a path that would let Fred and Angel get to the three men. Her head was swimming with all the smoke and she tried not to breathe in too much. She stood aside to let Fred and Angel through - they'd be able to carry the men if necessary.

Fred had forgotten to hold his breath. All he could think of was Yvette or someone else getting hurt, or the fire eating these poor schmoes alive. He took in a deep plume of smoke into his lungs and felt...weird. Familiar weird.

No time, though. People. Fred moved closer to the three, motioning for them to try and get closer.

The Naked Tree Guy, trailed by Roger the Hippy and the Decoy, ran toward the kids, arms flailing and trailing his blankets. He stumbled over some blackberries and narrowly missed the poison ivy when he fell. Scrambling back to his feet he forced his way through the scrub toward them. "Man, it's freaky seeing y'all here. Didn't you know there's some major bad vibes that could go down if you get hurt?" he called as he ran before pausing and sniffing the smoke and inhaling deeply several times. That was the good stuff. "Majorly good luck for us, though, that you cleared a path out for us." It was a nice path, too - they just had to reach it.

Angel reached the three, coughing from the strange smoke. "Some of us are okay in this stuff!" she shouted over the crackling and roar of the fire. "But not all. Come on, follow me, Yvette and Fred -" She pointed to them in turn. "The rest of us will follow behind, okay?" She turned, sucking in a large amount of air and whistled sharply, a trick the guys had shown her to get people's attention when it mattered most. "Everyone stick together!"

Julian was suddenly very fascinated by the flames that seemed to consume everything. There was an overly familiar smell on the air...something he hadn't smelled since he'd arrived in New York. "Wait...something..." was all he could get out before he began to cough again. Hurrying along, since that's what everyone else seemed to be doing. What was that smell?

Doreen just started giggling. Monkey Joe gave her a really funny look, "What?" she asked her friend, she then went over and pulled on Julian's sleeve, [It's weeeeeed.] she clicked and squeaked, giggling, [They're smoking weeeeeeed.]

Unsure what his fine furry friend was saying, Julian gave her a look and another deep breath of the pungent air. Why did this smell so familiar? "Doreee, I mean Dori, you're not making any sense. You're all clicks and whistles and stuff."

She waved her arms widely in front of Julian, [But I'm speaking ENGLISH! ENNNNGGGGLLLLISSSSHHHHH!!!] she squeaked, clicking at the end of it, [You're speaking squirrel! When did you learn?! WHEN?!]

The Naked Tree Guy blinked at her. "Man, that is some great language you got going there. Really breaks down the barriers, like you're you're speaking directly to nature. But right now, y'all are running away from the fire, remember?" He took another couple of deep, calming breaths of dope smoke, and shooed the kids on.

The strange smelling smoke had begun to get to Meggan, once she had stopped coughing because of it. She giggled at Doreen's clicks and whistles, in spite of herself. She had also become strangely fascinated at the sight of both the licking flames, and a patch of poison ivy about three feet to her left that was due to get incinerated very soon. She still had enough sense to listen when told to run from the fire, though, but she knew she had never felt this strange before--a very distracted frame of mind. "Right, right. I'm following! Closely, too!"

Whatever plants were burning in the area they certainly smelled... strange. Not a bad strange, Noriko decided. It was definitely good. Just... odd. Noriko didn't even notice at first when her fidgeting and fussing and urge to dash away had just sort of melted peacefully away as she tried to get a better sense of the strange smell, but after a few moments and several deep breaths what the others were saying finally started so seep slowly in to her suddenly much calmer brain. "Ah, yes. Of course. Let's going away from the fire."

Klara frowned as she realized where she had smelled this smoke before. Coop's house. She tried to cover her mouth to avoid breathing it in, but unfortunately, it was all over in the air and there was no real blocking it out. As she inhaled more of it, in between the coughing and trying to keep it out of her lungs, Klara slowly began to relax and began to care less about what she was breathing in. Her head started to feel pleasantly...tingly.



Suffering the effects of the smoke, the older students hold conference with the three hippies, and a Plan is hatched.



"Oh heavy." The Decoy emerged from the brush, reeking of smoke and surrounded by increasingly giggly teens. He was grateful to have had his life saved by them, although it wouldn't matter much in the end. Hitch and Neary would be here tomorrow, and the entire crop that they were expecting to pick up had just gone up in a highly aromatic and expensive forest fire moments before. His two friends seemed fine, and save for slightly crisped parts of his ponytail, the kids had saved him.

Wait, that's who they were! "Xavier's, right? Right. Oh, I'm getting those negative vibes in stereo now." He muttered. With the visiting school now involved, Daniel Kirkhope didn't have a hope in hell of keeping his job once Archie found out about his little side business. Mind you, he wouldn't really need a paycheck since his future likely involved rolls of chicken wire, concrete weights, and the bottom of the lovely nearby lake. "You, uh, you can all just relax here. No one is hurt, right? Paul?" He asked, getting a headshake from Naked Tree Guy, who was mercifully wearing clothes at the moment. "Good. My aura has enough black in it right now."

As Julian watched the exchange between the men they'd saved, he could tell something wasn't right. He felt extremely relaxed, which wasn't normal, and very hungry, despite having had lunch not too long ago. There was a familiar smell in the air, he just couldn't place it and for some reason, that was hilarious. Turning to Fred he suppressed his giggle-fit long enough to stammer out, "What the hell, man?"

Fred was staring off into space, his eyes focused far off as a lit cigarette dangled from his lips. When Julian turned and acknowledged him, he looked behind himself, then spun about a little, obviously confused. He turned to Yvette, eyebrows curled together in confusion, "Did you hear something...?"

The Albanian girl giggled. Her hair hung loosely down her back, her hands and feet as close to 'normal' anyone had seen them since the inhibitor came off. "I can hear music!" she carolled, body already swaying to something no-one else could hear.

"This is bad, man," Roger the Hippie said in a low voice to the Decoy. "This is very, very bad. The pickup dudes are gonna be here, like, any minute. Who's gonna tell 'em their stuff all just went up in smoke? This is bad," he repeated, fingers rolling against the leg of his jeans in a subconscious fidget. "The dudes are gonna show up, and find out that we don't have any--" his eyes flicked to the giggling teenagers "--product, and they're gonna see these kids stoned out of their minds and think we sold it to them, and what the hell are we gonna do, man?" The whine in his voice was getting progressively higher. "It's not like they're gonna understand what's funny about peace, love and understanding."

"No. They think beatings, oppression, and crippling are funny. This is bad." The Decoy's greying ponytail swept back and forth as he talked. It wasn't good in any way that he looked at it. Maybe they could at least keep the kids out of it, since getting more people killed would make it even worse. "Everyone here cool? We sure?"

Inez coughed, swaying back and forth on her feet. "We totally saved the day. We're heeeeeeeroes..." she crooned, spinning in a circle before falling on her back in the grass, giggling wildly. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god! I have a granola bar! Granola bar!" Digging the snack out of a pocket, Inez ripped the wrapper open and began chewing on the granola bar with a loud 'om nom nom nom' noise.

"We are being fine," Yvette sing-songed, twirling so her hair spun out behind her slightly. "More than fine." She tilted her head at the two men. "Are you not also fine? You do not look to be happy." Obviously her English was taking a battering.

The Naked Tree Guy (currently, in deference to the fire wearing not merely pants but also a woolen sweater and heavy boots) had been quietly checking over the kids while everyone talked. "The kids are fine, guys. Stoned out of their freaking trees but they're not burnt and just have..." he paused to give a couple of hacking coughs, himself, "a bit of smoke inhalation and a major case of the munchies. The dope'll probably just relax 'em down enough to make sure they've got proper control over their powers."

"As long as none of 'em get paranoid and freak out," Roger muttered. He ran a hand over his thick beard, trying to think. "We totally have to get out of here before they show up, otherwise we're utterly ruined, man. D'you think the kids could do anything with their powers to get us out of here faster?"

Fred stared at his hand, and sporadically chortled. As he chuckled and watched his arm it seemed to shiver somehow, and slowly thin out in size, like sand running through a grip. This only seemed to illicit more chuckles from the slowly thinning Fred...

"Bad scene, Roger. Mixing them up with it. Although," The Decoy turned. "Don't suppose any of you guys have the power to make twenty-five thousand appear out of thin air? No? No. Heavy." He sat down on a fallen log and put his head in his hands.

Normally it would have been hard to miss the small Japanese girl listening in on their conversation, simply because Noriko was normally hard to miss, with her constant motion, little twitches and willingness to but in on anything with her foul mouthed observations. Now, though, she'd simply stood and listened quietly until they actually addressed her. Or, well, all the team, but most of them weren't as... coherent as Nori was. By a long shot. Whatever drug these men had been growing, it was the good stuff and her head was completely clear, possibly for the first time since coming to America and giving up her self-medication. "No," she said, shrugging slightly. "Julian has money, but I doubt he has that much and not here. For money from air you need Paige-san. She can turn in to gold and diamonds. The only thing I can do is scare off your bad men, maybe. Which is not much help for later when they will come back."

“Oh, man. They’re going to come back and beat us up, aren’t they?” the Naked Tree Guy said. He said, going on, “It’s a tale of woe, kids. It really is. Roger here grows the best dope known to man, the best ever – it seriously fixes everything, gets everyone who smokes it back to normal and it’s all natural… And now, it’s caught on fire because the wind changed. It’s heavy, the way they were doing backburning on a day like this. Heavy. Someone could have been hurt.” He sighed and continued. “Maybe y’all can help us? Scare them off maybe? It’s heavy and bad for your soul, upsetting them like that but… man, we’re fucked right now.”

"This is, like, totally an emergency, isn't it?" Inez said through bites of granola bar. "Dude, we can totally help. We're, like, trained for it and stuff. Plus, scary. Raar!" The effect was completely ruined by the fact that Inez's attention seemed to totally be focused on a dandelion in front of her face, feet kicking in the air as she giggled under her breath.

Angel, who had been incredibly, unusually quiet, during the entire exchange, suddenly sat up from where she'd laid sprawled in the grass. She slowly held up a finger, as if to impart some heavy handed wisdom before saying, "Yeah, totally what she said. Extra emphasis on the raar, yeah?" And then she laid down again, happy to stare up at the clouds and the sky and wonder where one met the other and could she reach it?

"Most epic Jamacian sauna in history, and we're going to get killed for it." The Decoy said mournfully. He paused as his radio went off, and he shushed the others. "Archie? It's Danny. Yeah, seriously, I noticed that the fire changed direction. The valley is in pretty bad shape, but the breaks are holding. Oh yeah, the camps are fine. It's just going to be a bit of a drag cleaning up after. The kids from Xavier's? Yeah, we ran into them while, uh, checking the breaks after the fire jumped the lake. They're all fine, but the fire is along the road. I can take them around the long way, but it might be easier just to let them groove at the camp until the teams catch up on the breaks."

The Decoy paused, his eyes going wide as the idea struck him. They had said that they wanted to help, and they were mutants. Some could fly, some might be able to read minds or something. At the very least, they might-- "Archie, man, look, why don't you focus on the fire. These guys are safe, and Roger just finished restocking the camp anyhow. Why don't I take them for the whole, you knowing, learning journey today instead, and you can send someone to pick them up tomorrow?" He listened at the radio and nodded. "Cool. If their school has any questions, just have them call. Otherwise, just focus on that fire, man."

The hippie switched off the radio and regarded the mutants. "You guys serious about wanting to help?"

"Yes," Noriko said, nodding seriously. "Am sure we will be all want to help. Inez is right," she added, although her nose wrinkled slightly to have to admit it. "Have training for to help."

"After all," Yvette said with a beaming smile. "We are the superheroes, yes?"

Fred laughed loudly, "We're just plain Wonder Twins...man, is anyone else, like, bad hungry man...?"