2012-11-21 XMN: The Hills Have Eyes

It was 7 PM when Cerebro's sensors registered a short, sharp burst of activity in the Adirondack Park; by 7:05, a team - Storm for her aerial reconnaisance and incredible range, Wolverine to track the mystery mutant through the wilderness, and Colossus in case things go south - was assembled and loaded onto the Blackbird.

As the stealth craft nears the designated drop zone - a point determined to be both far enough from the pockets of civilization dotting the region and near enough to the fleeting signal to facilitate a silent and efficient investigation - Logan lets go of its controls to start pulling his cowl into place.

"We go in quiet," he says, voice as low and coarse as ever, "We assess the situation. We make contact if it's an option, an' we subdue if it ain't. We got the location of the spike on GPS, if we need it, but assume they're movin'." His fingers are drawn from the bottom of his mask, allowing the little *snap!* of its unstable molecules conforming to the contours of his face to punctuate the mission parameters.

"Any questions?" he adds, glancing towards his teammates. "Concerns? Suggest you get 'em off your chests before we hit the ground."

Meanwhile, somewhere below, Helen Wilkes slumps against a tree and slowly slides to the ground, sighing with relief once she's finally settled. Her parents are back at the camp site, about fifteen minutes due west, and if it were up to her, /she/ would be there too--curled up in her tent and trying to sleep as best as a city girl surrounded by fresh air and noisy goddamn crickets can.

Unfortunately, her parents had other ideas, ones involving campfire songs and blackened hot dogs; ducking out to 'forage for berries' was the best plan she could come up with, and so far--no berries. Or so she assumes; it's so dark out that she wouldn't know a berry shrub from a patch of poison ivy, so she mostly kept her arms high above her head and stridently pulled away from anything even remotely brush-like for the duration of her hike.

"Don't even know who they think they're foolin'," she mutters to herself as her head leans back against the trunk. "Might as well just get the div--"

A rustling from a few feet away - in the brush Helen so carefully avoided - draws the young girl's attention, but as soon as her head turns towards the sound it stops, leaving her to stare fruitlessly at that spot for a few seconds before she just sighs and looks up at the slivers of starry sky she can see through the tree tops.

"God, nature blows..."

"None here." Piotr answers. He's wearing the black costume he usually wears for X-Men business. It's handy in that it can pass for normal street clothes, if a bit eccentric. Or perhaps fetish gear. He hasn't bothered to shift to metal yet, hoping to avoid that kind of escalation. "Except did the Professor pick up any other minds in the vicinity?"

"None that I think we have any answers for," Storm replies as she fastens the 'wings' of her cape to the cuffs on her wrists. Her eyes go from blue to glowing white as she draws her focus together in order to let the winds carry her. "If we knew the nature of the activity, I imagine the professor would have told us," she reasons.

"I'm ready whenever you two are," says the weather-witch. In fact, she's a little antsy to get out of the jet, never quite being comfortable in any aircraft.

"Three," Logan replies as the Blackbird makes its descent. "Two human..."

---

"... car next year. I /know/ we could afford it now; bet mom'd go for it if she thought I'd--"

Another rustling breaks Helen's daydream; the adolescent leans forward, squinting in the darkness. "Hello?" she calls, sweeping her eyes around until she settles on a spot a couple feet away from the disturbance--at which point it once again ceases. "I--huh--hello?" she repeats in a shrinking voice. "Is any--"

---

"... one mutant."

He stands and makes his way to the exit door before the plane even touches down--though he makes sure to yield the way for Ororo once it does land. He's off not long after she is, though, and as soon as his feet hit the ground, he hunches over 'till his nose is almost scraping the dirt and tries to get a sense of his surroundings.

The clearing that they're in is probably part of some official campground or another during the warmer months; there are a couple stone barbecue pits near one of the wings, and a wooden table mere feet away from having been crushed by the landing gear. Other amenities - water, power, et cetera - are stationed around the area, as well. There are a few clearly marked hiking trails that lead deeper into the woods from here, and they probably lead to other, smaller sites for more adventurous campers.

"--gotta get movin'," he hisses after a couple of seconds. "Somethin'--" His features are all screwed up as he straightens. "Somethin' ain't--"

---

Another, louder rustling from the brushes behind her tree sends her bolting to her feet. "I--" Her eyes dart around as she backs away from the brushes, but this time, when the strange sounds stop, a pair of bright red eyes open amidst the brush to peer back at her.

She manages to hold its still, unblinking gaze for a whole second before letting out a blood-curdling scream.

---

A young girl's frightened cry pierces the night air, and it's all the reason Wolverine needs to start sprinting down one of those trails.

"Right." Piotr finishes for Wolverine as he hears the scream. He starts running after Logan, shifting to metal in mid stride since a scream usually implies the situation has escalated. Behind him the Blackbird's ramp retracts and the jet seals until they need it again.

Storm quickly takes to the sky- or, well, the air above the treeline, anyway, flying in the direction of the girl's cry. With most of the trees close to bare of leaves (with the obvious exception of the pines), she doesn't have to rely /entirely/ on Logan's tracking to find the girl, but it certainly helps.

Finding the girl is indeed not out of the wind-rider's reach; the dull, golden glimmers from the rough area the cry emanated from could only help. The forest is fairly thick in the area, but there's still a trail winding through it that eventually leads to the campsite the girl was sharing with her parents.

The gold flashes are in a little clearing just off of the trail, where the girl is huddling fearfully against a tree--and facing an extraordinarily detailed, golden statue of an unusually large fox.

Just as Wolverine starts hacking through trees to cut his own path to the girl, a great dark shape hurtles through the trees to his right with such speed that the scrappy mutant is caught off-guard; a powerful blow send him flying through even /more/ trees, leaving the hulking, snorting beast that ambushed him in his place.

With a rumbling in its throat, it turns to set eerily bright red eyes on the man of organic steel, and then with a thunderous, territorial roar, the great black bear rises up on its hind legs to loom a solid two, perhaps even three feet over Colossus.

"Bears don't normally have red eyes, da?" Colossus asks. He's not really expecting an answer given that Storm is flying and Wolverine... went flying. It takes more than that to put Logan out of action though so he's not worried. Instead of doing what most creatures would do when confronted by a bear that size, he steps forward and into its reach, grabbing a handful of fur and snaking a foot behind its leg to try to trip it. Bears, even ones with red eyes, aren't usually trained to avoid judo throws.

"Nor are they quite so aggressive unless challanged," Storm replies from above, as she lands not far from the cowering young woman. "It's alright, child. We'll get you back to your family soon enough," she promises her. "You're not far at all from the camp site," she says, but also studies the girl. Is this the mutant they'd detected, or merely a bystander? Is there someone else here, controlling the bear? And what, exactly, is up with that golden fox statue? This does not seem to be the simple mission they thought it to be.

Ororo turns away from the girl, arms outstretched, using her cape to hide her from the view of the bear, while summoning a focused gust of wind to pummel the animal, hoping that a good scare will override whatever's causing that strange red glow in its eyes, and send it running. She doubts, however, that they will be so lucky.


 * "Normally? No,"| Logan transmits over a chorus of madly chittering squirrels, |"but I don't think normal's on the menu tonight, Petey!"| Storm probably could have gotten a look at the man scuffling with a pack of the curiously ferocious rodents around where the bear knocked him; it's not a fight he's likely to want to discuss after the mission. Or ever.

"Stay--stay back!" the girl squeals when Storm touches down. Her hands shoot up into the air, and there's a soft golden glow against her palms; midway through scrambling back to her feet, she realizes that Ororo's attention is elsewhere, and after standing, she tentatively lowers her hands and clasps them tightly in front of herself.

Of course, then she notices that Ororo's attention is on a /bear/ wrestling with a /robot/ and her knuckles go white as she starts edging away from the weather witch.

As for that bear? It's well and truly no match for judo; more than likely, it is unused to facing prey so strong and shiny as Colossus. Hitting the ground stuns the creature briefly, but as it recovers, it tries to viciously swat the Russian away with one of its monstrous paws, roaring defiantly as it struggles. Just as its eyes should not be red, its jaw should not be quite so wide as it is, nor quite so full of teeth--and it should /certainly/ not be anywhere near so large as it is to begin with.

Great size or no, though, when the weather witch's winds buffet it, not only is are its writhing, desperate attempts at mauling Colossus thrown hopelessly off course, and after a few seconds of the focused onslaught, it abandons them entirely in favour of yowling angrily and trying to just wriggle its bulk free of the Russian's grasp.

"Oh--oh my God," Helen stammers as she presses back against the side of her tree. "Oh my God, ohmygodohmygodohmygod I died and I'm in hell oh my god..."

"I do not wish to hurt you." Colossus tells the bear and after shifting his weight and adjusting his grip, lifts the bear above his head. "So you will be running away, da?" He helps by lobbing it a few dozen feet away from the direction of the girl and picking a path without any trees for it to crash into.

"I assure you, child, you are very much alive, and we mean you no harm," Ororo tries to assure the girl. She wonders if she should offer to help Logan with his squirrel problem, but decides it's probably better for his pride if he handles the little woodland creatures himself. The girl she's protecting is clearly a mutant, but she can't help but wonder if something /else/ is causing the strange behaivor of the animals. If it /is/ her, she doesn't seem to be in conscious control of it.


 * "Are we certain"| she asks, via the team's comm links. |"That there was only one source for the spike in activity levels?"| Something is very strange. Not that anything is ever /not/ strange on their missions, but something is /particularly/ strange here.


 * "One big spike,"| Logan transmits, followed by a sound thumping sound. |"Then nothin'. 'nother mutant on top'a that, two humans."| Another thud, accompanied by a high-pitched squeal. |"What're you thinkin', 'Ro? 'cause things are /definitely/--"| Beat. |"--the hell?"|

The bear crashes into the ground /hard/, but it retakes its feet quickly enough to suggest that it's not hurt particularly badly. Once it's on all fours again, it stares at the two X-Men for a few lingering seconds before turning and loping back into the woods from whence it came.


 * "Squirrels are gone,"| Logan reports. |"Comin'--hh."| There's some rustling on his end, and then: |"Got a body; bringin' it back,"| followed by more rustling sounds.

"Is it--" Helen stammers, eyes flicking between Storm and Colossus as she edges another step away from both, "--over?"

Colossus waits for the bear to charge and then nods as it turns and runs. Smart bear. Once it's disappeared and he's fairly sure it's not likely to return, he turns and walks over to Storm and the girl. "Hello there." he says to the girl and stopping a safe distance away so as not to spook her. "Da, it seems to be over. I am called Colossus. My friend is Storm. What's your name?"

Ororo lets Colossus speak to the girl, and takes a step back to investigate what Logan is dragging back with him, giving the two a quiet "excuse me" before she slips back. She trusts the big, shiny Russian to keep the girl distracted, lest she be traumatized by the sight of some mutatated animal carcass. Or worse.


 * "What is it, Logan?"| she asks her friend in a hushed whisper over the comms. |"Because the girl is most likely a mutant, but I don't think she caused any of this. Perhaps some form of matter-conversion, given the fox 'statue' where we found her..."|

The girl has brown hair, green eyes, and a full face. She is wearing a thick down jacket over a turtleneck, cargo pants, and a sturdy, yet modestly chic pair of boots; her hands - glowing palms and all - are /still/ tightly clasped near her belly, and while Colossus' friendly post-bear fight demeanor takes some of the obvious tension from her posture, she is still edging away.

"It, uh--it--it's--"

"Helen!" a man shouts as he bustles through the woods. He's close, maybe a few minutes away. The girl turns her head, then her whole body towards his voice and shouts, "Dad! Dad, I'm over--" Pausing, she looks over at the statue for a second, swallows, and finishes, "--Everything's okay!" a little softer.


 * "It's fresh. Male. Filthy; probably been out here for weeks,"| Logan replies. |"Little tiny teeth marks everywhere."| After a long pause, he adds, |"Couple'a dead animal carcasses near 'im, too. Also fresh. Just bones, barely any meat left on 'em."|


 * "We'll check for missing person reports. Leave it out of sight for now."| Colossus murmurs before squatting down to put himself on more of a level with the girl. "Pleased to meet you, Helen. We do not have to tell your father about anything strange immediately." he says to her. "Though he'll have to know eventually." Raising his voice, he calls "She is well and not alone so you do not need to be afraid." Of that, at least. And to ease the fear of her NOT being alone he also calls "I am Colossus, from the Justice League."

Storm stands alongside Colossus. "Storm," she says in introduction to the girl's father as he comes closer. If the man wants to assume she's also with the League, and not a secret, not technically authorized group of mutant super-heroes, well, that's /his/ assumption, and not a lie on her part. "Your daughter is unharmed, though she was given a good scare." She summons a breeze, slightly warmer than the chill night air, hoping it helps keep people at ease.
 * "If the death appears to be natural, or at least mundane, we should alert the park rangers. If not..."| Ororo trails off.

"What?!" Mr. Wilkes calls back as Helen regards the steel-skinned Russian with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

"My wife /loves/ you!" The sounds of the man tromping through the woods swiftly increase in volume as his pace quickens.

As if on cue, an older woman's voice rings through the woods: "Colossus? /Here/?!"

"I think he's gonna /notice/," Helen protests, voice a good octave higher due to fright and downright embarassment. She sweeps a hand out to brush her fingertips over a naked tree limb, and the tip of the branch is suddenly sheathed in gold--gold that creeps up along the branch until Helen takes her hand away and clasps her hands together again. Ororo's suspicion: totally confirmed.


 * "I'd hold off on contactin' the rangers,"| Logan transmits, following a loud *THMP!* |"Considerin' what we just saw."|

"He will notice me and not you." Colossus murmurs quietly and straightens back up, moving toward her father but in a circular path that should cause him to turn away from the now golden decorations. Poor fox. He offers a hand and smiles at the man. "I was nearby when I heard your daughter scream. I suspect an animale frightened her. Naturally, I had to come see if I could help but she seems to be fine and my help was unneeded."


 * "We need to start taking Colossus on all our missions where we may deal with civilians,"| Ororo whispers into the comm. |"This is the best reception we've ever gotten from a family."| Piotr seems well equipped to deal with the girl and family on his own, so she doubles back to join Logan at the site of the body.

"The girl's powers have nothing to do with the strange behaivor of the animals. Can you detect anything out of the ordinary that may be the cause of this, Wolverine?" she asks, as she extends her own awareness out to see what /she/ can sense. Her connection with the earth and its weather patterns may tell her /something/. Or so she hopes.

Mr. Wilkes is comfortably north of 40 with the beginnings of a pot belly, short brown hair that's currently matted with dirt and twigs, and a thick brown moustache. He's dressed fairly similarly to his daughter - heavy coat layered over a warm shirt with sturdy pants - but his clothes are a /mess/: chunks of his coat have been ripped free, allowing down to spill out of it in a few places. He's missing a whole pant leg, and his shirt and pants - as well as his bare leg - are all smeared with thick layers of fresh grime.

He brightens at the sight of Colossus, waves excitedly and then speeds up to close the distance between them, offering a hand out to the mutant. "Good to know we little people have a guy like you lookin' out for us, then, eh?" He jerks his other thumb back towards the way he came. "Strange night, huh? The missus is back at the site, cleaning up; these raccoons, they came runnin' in outta nowhere and went /nuts/ while Helen was foraging. Whole place is a disaster area."

Elsewhere, Logan is shoving a badly bloodied body back into the brush as Ororo arrives. As advertised, it is covered with /tons/ of little bite marks; also as advertised, whoever this poor man was seemed to be taking the idea of 'roughing it' a little too far: he's absolutely filthy, with foliage and clumps of dirt matted into his black hair and beard. Like the Wilkes, he has also chosen to layer himself against the cold; unlike them, his layers are many, and were probably dirty and in serious need of repair well before the animals got to him.

"Bunch'a small woodland critters ate 'im alive, and he maybe killed a couple in self defense, best as I can figure," Wolverine replies. "'nother mutant; either that, or he was real, real hungry."

"Really." Colossus says, glancing in the direction the father indicates. "Raccoons. Maybe they eat some strange mushrooms or perhaps some pollution got in the water." That's directed as much toward his team mates as it is toward Mr. Wilkes. "I'm happy to hear none of you were seriously injured. Do you all live close by? And while I did hear you call for Helen, I don't know your names. Helen and Mr. and Mrs....?"

"Something is wrong," Ororo says. "The area itself... like..." she pauses as she tries to let her mind go blank. She can't speak to the Earth, per se, but she can listen to it better than most. "It feels as if... the land itself doesn't want us here. It's angry." She frowns. "We need to get that family out of here, before anything else goes wrong." She then addresses Piotr through the comm system. |"Colossus, can you convince Mister Wilkes and his family to leave? Perhaps using the animal attack- if the raccoons were rabid, he'll need emergency vaccinations."|

"Wilkes," the man says, reaching up to slap the armoured X-Man on the bicep like he would an old buddy at he bar. "Kevin; the wife's Sandra. We were thinking we'd come out here and bond over the holidays, /really/ learn what it meant to be thankful, but..." The man shakes his head as he trails off, then refocuses on Colossus. "Helen. Where's she?" He stretches to his right to try and peer past Colossus, for all the good it'd do him.

A few feet behind Colossus, in the statue and girl-occupid clearing, Helen is frantically shaking her hands around and hissing, "Turn off, turn off, turn /off/..." over and over, which mostly just makes her hands flare a little brighter now and again.

"She's okay, you said?" Straightening, he scratches a piece of caked on dirt off his neck and ruefully adds, "I'dve already /been/ here by now, if it weren't for those damn raccoons; thank God for the Justice League, right?"

Wolverine focuses on his teammate as she opens her senses to Mother Earth. "That don't--" he begins to protest before looking down at some of the little scratches the squirrels left in his costume.

"--maybe," he cautiously allows. "Hell if I know; one minute I'm pickin' myself up from the ground, the next, I got squirrels pickin' at me." Beat. "Didn't really bite 'till I let 'em know I wasn't playin' with 'em, though," he thoughtfully - and rather quietly - adds.

"We do what we can." Colossus says with a smile for the man. "Fortunately, except for the wildlife problem, there was nothing for me to do. But speaking of that..." He rests a hand on Mr. Wilke's shoulder and uses the other to gesture in the direction of their campsite. "I really do think you and your family leave for a hotel. If the raccoons did eat something that caused them to behave oddly, you wouldn't want to be here if... oh, let's say a bear was affected. Come, I'll help you pack and it should go much more quickly."

"Something here is not quite... in tune with the rest of the earth," Ororo tries to explain. "I... cannot tell if it's a natural phenomenon, though, or if something has caused it." Her brow furrows, and little whisps of wind curl around her as she focuses, shaking her head. The girl will need their help sooner or later, but this seems much, much more pressing.

"A /bear/?" Kevin's eyes grow wide with fright at the very idea. "Hell no!" He cups his hands around his mouth and calls, "Honey! Colossus and I are going back to the campsite, and we're getting the hell out of here! You want us to come get you, or--"

"No!" she squeaks. "Nope, I can make it back! Just a little shaken up! Totally fine! Completely--" The glowing abruptly stops mid-shake, leaving her to stare bewilderedly at her hands for a few moments before finishing, "--fine," in a slightly smaller voice.

Kevin lingers for a little while despite his daughter's assurances, but gradually, he decides to take it at face value and head towards the site. Every few feet, he glances towards the brush, ready to fight his way through it if he must.

The site is, as advertised, a complete mess: the tents are in tatters, a fine coating of down covers everything like a fresh coat of snow, food is scattered everywhere, and the cooler it came from is hanging from the upper boughs of a tree. Mrs. Wilkes - who is a few years younger than her husband - is about as disheveled as he is; it doesn't stop her from hurrying up to Colossus with a pen and a dirt-smudged piece of paper in hand when she hears the mutant's heavy footsteps, though.

"Maybe if Hank's not too busy runnin' around the jungle, he could tell us somethin'," Wolverine suggests, studying the meditating weather witch. "Personally, I'm outta my depth, here; me an' the earth ain't exactly chummy."

Those same cagey, borderline hostile impressions linger beneath the skin of the skin of the planet; it does seem to be a somewhat contained phenomenon, but 'contained' in this context mostly means that the entirety of the Adirondacks region has probably not been affected

Laying a hand gently upon Ororo's shoulder, Wolverine suggests, "C'mon; unless you wanna spend all night out here..."

Colossus gives Mrs. Wilkes a smile and an autograph and, as promised, helps them pack up. He, of course, concentrates on the heavier items. "So tell me about your daughter. Aside from a bit of a fright at the animals' strange behavior, she seems like a very brave girl. How old is she? What grade? Where did you say you were from?" He's going to pump them for information and take his time in the packing.

Storm almost startles a little when Logan touched her hand. She briefly puts her own over his, then releases it with a nod. "I have no desire to spend any more time here than we have to. Once we're sure the family is out of harm's way," she responds, and calls up the wind to carry her back to the aircraft that brought them here, keeping an eye on the Wilkes family from above. She trusts Piotr will leave the girl with a way to contact the school if she decides she needs help with her powers. As for the weird 'feeling' in the area... well, perhaps another visit, with more scientifically-minded members of the team is in order... provided they don't harbour a phobia of squirrels.

"She's sixteen," Mrs. Wilkes replies with a soft smile. "Just turned this last month. She's, ah, independent. /Very/ bright; keeps to herself a lot these days, though." Her eyes drift further and further from the X-Man's as she speaks about her daughter, motherly pride and fear both playing across her features. "She wants to be a writer when she gets older." That comment is accompanied by a small chuckle and a shake of her head as she moves away to start collecting the remnants of their tents. "We owe you; did she say thank you?" she wonders with a quirked brow.

Helen emerges from the brush just adjacent to the trail, then, prompting Kevin to toss his dented camp stove away and throw his arms around her in a great bear hug. There are a few muffled noises of protest from the girl, but soon enough, she settles into him and reciprocates.

Not too far away, Wolverine returns his teammate's nod and starts working his way towards the Blackbird, taking full advantage of the makeshift path the bear's ambush cut through the trees. It isn't as fast as flying, but he's /completely fine/ with keeping his feet either in the ground, or at least firmly on the floor of a high tech stealth fighter.

As the Wilkes pack up their camp, Colossus makes sure to get some quit words with Helen, explaining that she's a mutant just like he is, that her abilities tend to activate under stress but that she can learn to control them just as he has. And a lot of other people as well. In fact, there's a private school very academically respected that she could go to, full of young people just like her, who are learning to control their powers. She gets a card with the special phone number and tries to get her phone number as well.