Tropic of Capricorn: The X-Men Arrive

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

The Blackbird makes a timely entrance to force Mystique to retreat.

Waves crashed against the rocks behind and below Adrienne, like a hungry predator that had been denied its prey before, and had just finally caught back up with it. The drop was sheer and straight, offering no avenues for retreat without wings involved. There had been the briefest thought of trying to duck back into the foliage, but that had been discarded when Mystique emerged from the brush.

"Go ahead, throw yourself off," the shapeshifter taunted, holding her knife with practiced ease as she ducked under the waving branches fringing the edge of the island. "Dead is dead, I don't care how it's done. Though after the trouble you've caused I wouldn't mind gutting you myself."

Balanced on the balls of her feet, Mystique was about to lunge forward when suddenly a sound above the roar of the waves alerted her to the presence of interlopers, and a moment later the Blackbird decloaked above them, causing the blue-skinned woman to bare her teeth in an angry snarl. "This isn't over," she warned Adrienne and turned to dart back into the thick jungle growth, her skin shading to a mossy green to hide her retreat.

"Seriously, that's the retreat line you're going with?!" Adrienne shouted after her, briefly considering going after Mystique but deciding to leave that task up to the arriving cavalry. "You sound like you're from Scooby Doo!" She flipped the retreating villain off and then waved like an enthusiastic tourist at the Blackbird.

Scott glanced after the retreating figure of Mystique as he walked over to stand next to Adrienne. "What was that about?" he asked curiously, "She really didn't look too happy with you." he teased as his eyes took in the view around them. "Nice island you've got here Cover Girl, think they'll mind if we crash the party?"

"Uhh, yeah," Adrienne retorted in her best exasperated teenager voice, dragging the 'yeah' out to two syllables. "Why the hell do you think I called you here? I'm not crashing this thing by myself cuz they're gonna go apeshit!" She was a little bit giddy that they'd arrived to help, not to mention being hopped up on adrenaline, accent unusually thick. "C'mon, we gotta move. Smurfgal will be on her way back to them by now."

Fred came off the Blackbird, and immediately lit a cigarette. Maybe it was his power, or his road-based experience, but air travel didn't agree with him at all no matter how fancy the plane. The cigarette was small as he grew to a more formidable size and girth, and he pointed his freehand towards the brush, "Ah could pro'ally catch her, iffen yah want, Cyclops. Hell, she's proally still in throwin' distance for me..."

Scott stared back in the direction Mystique had run off in before shaking his head. "No, I don't think so. Thanks for the offer Adipose, but it's probably best to stay together now and stick to the plan. We don't know the island, so if you went after her she'd have the terrain advantage, and we've learned never to under-estimate the Brotherhood. Besides," Scott gave a cold grin which didn't quite make it to his eyes, "it can't hurt for her to go running off to the others and tell them we're here. Play with their minds a little."

"We can worry about Mystique later. I think we have bigger fish to fry." Lorna asked as she flew up to the group after exiting the jet. "Wanna give us the cliff-note version of this amplifier you mentioned?"

"It's a power amplifier for Erik Lensherr," Adrienne explained. "Apparently it'll allow him to make the island completely attack-proof, which will mean no one will be able to stop him from detonating the warheads. So we need to take it out." She didn't know much more than that, unfortunately. "I know where it is," she added. "I can show you if you guys have a team put together."

Yvette nodded, half-raising her hand. "We do," she said, almost shyly - this was one of the bigger missions she'd been on, and with more of the 'veteran' X-Men involved. Not to mention Magneto and the Brotherhood, who were almost legends to the younger members of the team. "Half of us will go to the machine, and half will stay with the Blackbird, for the back up."

Johnny nodded. Stay in the plane, be back up. He could manage that. His grin was entirely bravado as he said "What she's saying is that we're too pretty for them."

Walters had paused at the entrance of the Blackbird and grinned down at Johnny. She was feeling pretty terrified herself; she'd only been asked to even be on the team a short while ago. "Damned straight, don't want to mess this face up." Turning more serious, she nodded at Scott. "You know, you people keep telling me I'm pretty damned invulnerable but all things considered, I'll let the people with the actual experience take lead on this. I'll help mind the plane but don't blame me if we end up with a parking ticket. I really don't think we're in a legal parking spot."

"We'll give them our best welcome if they choose to protest," Laurie noted, stepping to one side of Walters where she stood at the entrance to the Blackbird. "I'm pretty sure we can handle ourselves long enough for the others to join us if it comes to that. We'll have the Blackbird ready to go on your signal anyhow, Scott."

"We should get to this power amplifier and get it out of commission. Warheads going off does not sound like a good idea." Lorna said not wanting to waste anymore time.

"When has warheads going off ever been a good idea?" Dori pointed out, "Unless you're talking about the candy. Gosh, does anyone have anything? I'm so hungry," she realized. Monkey Joe had eaten everything she had brought along and was looking around as if trying to find more food. She glared, "So I mean anyway we should stop that. I'm ready!"

Scott nodded in agreement, "No sense in wasting time, lets get moving." The X-men's leader looked apologetically at Dori, "Sorry Squirrel Girl, this time I need you to stay with the Blackbird and help Wallflower look after the Blackbird and co-ordinate between the teams." Scott turned to look at the psychometrist, as Dori groaned loudly behind him at hte order to stay behind, "The rest of us are with you, we need to take out that amplifier before Erik can use it."

"Alright then, tally ho, X-nerds," Adrienne murmured with false enthusiasm, making an overexaggerated 'come this way' hand gesture. "Let's go blow shit up."