It's Gonna Take An Airplane

[The Brotherhood]

You couldn't very well miss a Bell chopper growling its way across a clear desert sky. And you didn't take a huge bird like that for a sightseeing tour or for picking up your business partner from Phoenix. As soon as Boomer saw the chopper, he knew it was carrying trouble their way. The only question was what kind.

That was answered the moment two idiots went diving out the doors as it screamed overhead. Gene-traitors. God, he hated those.

The airstrip was at his back, and Ironhide and Spitfire on his flanks, and Echo was still in the belly of the C-130 with Orcus. The three Brotherhood mutants fanned out and squared up against the interlopers like hyenas considering a couple of incautious wildebeests.

"This ain't Comic-Con, muties," Boomer said. "You best leave while you still can."

And just in case they had any second thoughts, Boomer opened both hands and, with a flick of his wrists, sent a crackling energy bomb with a one-second fuse arcing toward each intruder.

[Orion]

Orion barely dodged in time, running and diving into a roll that brought him back into a crouch dozen meters away; far enough to keep his hood from getting singed, but not far enough to escape the shower of debris kicked up by the detonation.

His eyes settled on the mutant with the explosive powers. "What the hell kind of power is that?" he exclaimed, wondering how on earth he was going to concoct a subconscious nickname for that.
But now was hardly the time to dwell on such things. A hand reached over his shoulder, plucking out one of his blunt-headed arrows; he hesitated briefly as he knocked it onto his bow string. "You still alive over there?" he asked of Tradeskill, drawing back the arrow and letting it fly - with a decisive thrust of his powers - on a ballistic trajectory towards the mutant's chest.

"Watch out for Plasma Girl," he added as a warning. "The shiny broad got taken down by a little kid, so she shouldn't be too tough; but if that ninja-looking chick throws one of her glowy arc things at you, it's gonna burn that uniform right off your back."

His mouth drew into a thin line. Along with most of your skin too, probably.

[Tradeskill]

Tradeskill mirrored Orion, feeling debris and heat wash over her body. The force of the blast pushed her a few feet more as she rose and began a swift advance on Ironhide.

"Doing fine. Got it," she replied to Orion's question and advice combo. "Well, let's start at the bottom-tier and work our way up, huh? Make a quick job of this whole dirty mess." Tradeskill hooked her right fist at Ironhide's temple.

[The Brotherhood]

Ironhide threw up a forearm to intercept Tradeskill's fist. To her surprise, the force of the blow sent her stumbling and deformed the chromium surface of her wrist, like hitting an aluminum pipe with a crowbar.

She stared at the crooked limb and then straightened it with a metallic ping. "Who're you calling bottom-tier?" she growled, and she charged at Hannelore like a linebacker.

Spitfire seized the opportunity and sprayed a plume of plasma at Han's back. Even if Ironhide was caught in the middle, the worst it could do was to make her metal skin red-hot.

Boomer tumbled out of the path of Orion's arrow and popped back up onto one knee. "Bow and arrow?" he said. "Who're you supposed to be, Robin Hood?"

Before Orion could pull back another arrow, Boomer tossed a cluster of glowing, white orbs the size of gumballs from his left hand. They scattered and bounced across the dusty ground toward Orion, then went up like cherry bombs, filling the air with smoke.

Then Boomer rose to his feet with a much more powerful bomb growing in his right hand, watching for any movement behind the smoke screen.

[Themis Kallianos]

The sounds of the fight outside reached his ears and cast a grimace across his features. Dark eyes looked over to Orcus for a moment, before shaking his head and making his way through the crates that remained in the airplane. This just wasn't right.

It wasn't. And he was going to throttle his sister for getting him involved. And then perhaps shoot himself for being unable to say no to her.

Themi had a life. A home. A doctorate in geology and a job as a professor at UCLA. He didn't want to jeopardize any of it, but there he was. A favor for a favor, Phedre had said. He owed her, and this is what she wanted in return.

Just a little thing. There wouldn't be any trouble. It would be simple - smooth out a runway in the jagged rock, help off-load the plane that would land, and then return the terrain to the way it was. It was just his dumb luck to be the only one capable of it.

"Phe, tha se skotoso..." he muttered under his breath, stepping off the end of the C-130's ramp. The steel link chain around his neck had several smooth 'rings' strung on it, and his fingers sought out the smooth, shiny black one. Between one blink and the next, his tall six-foot-two-inch frame turned into a smooth obsidian statue.

One that moved swiftly down to the side of the truck, where it sat idling on the road leading up to the ridge they were on. Dropping down to one knee, Themi placed a hand flat on the ground and flexed his fingers back and forth. The rock of the ridge rumbled and shook as it began reverting to its natural formation, the temporary runway beginning to disappear.

[Joe Maitland]

A cloud of frenzied dust leapt upwards from beneath the helicopter as it hovered low, close enough to the ground for Joe to leap clear without needing a death wish or magical powers to land safely. Through the tinted aviator lenses that shielded him from the cloud's abrasive onslaught, he picked out his targets, and steeled himself to jump.

Then the ground started to move, and he rapidly began to rethink his plan.

A low whistle was torn from between his lips as he watched nature slowly reassert itself. He'd witnessed some pretty fantastical powers before - even amongst the small cadre of mutants he worked with, the powers of flight and telepathy were right out of the pages of comic books and fantasy novels - but this was by far the most god-like, and the most titanic in scale. Someone, somewhere, was quite literally moulding the world around them, bending the ground beneath them like it was as malleable as clay.

Joe's eyes swept the scene again; settled on the mind-breakingly odd sight of a statue sprinting through the dust. His jaw clenched. His muscles tensed. With one controlled breath, he snatched a rifle from the weapons rack beside him, and leapt from the plane.

A fraction of a second later, Joe snatched another rifle, and leapt. Then another, and again. The mini arsenal slowly depleted itself, and yet Joe remained seated in the helicopter doorway, six perfect replicas trying their utmost to stagger swiftly across the shifting ground.

The seventh turned his attention back to the hefty, large calibre machine gun he'd wielded before, silently cursing the inadequacies of his powers. As he and Doctor Harriman had discussed at length, his mutation gave him the ability to duplicate himself and, after far too many accidental clone streaking incidents, he'd learned to replicate simple inanimate objects in close proximity. Clothes were easy: it was simple enough for his mind to conceive the feel and weight of the fabrics, and with a little effort he could even manage to properly lace up and tie his duplicate's shoes. It had been much harder to learn how to duplicate basic electronics like watches and radios - Treadstone had helped by developing low-tech field gear for him to use. to make life easier. Unfortunately, they hadn't managed to develop weapons and ammunition that was simple enough for him to safely and accurately clone: one miscalculation, and his clones would end up blowing their faces off when the rifle misfired. Again.

Harriman had graciously offered to school Joe with a little archery and ye olde martial skills: weapons simplistic enough to be made in a cave with a box of scraps. Joe had declined. Right now, that seemed like an incredibly stupid thing to have done.

While his mind raced, his hands and eyes had been sighting down the machine gun's sights, years of practice guestimating the rate at which the stone statue was moving; aiming far enough ahead to compensate. Joe breathed out slowly, readied himself for the force of the recoil, and fired.