With the Cuckoos manning Cerebra, I gathered a team and set out to follow whatever lead they could give us. Accurately enough, they could identify and track Quire's position. They took great care to avoid doing anything that would put them in his head, as they weren't fans of the kinds of thoughts he had.
True to my word, this time I had Hellion in the lineup, along with Mercury, Wing, Armor, and Pixie.
I wouldn't lie and say it wasn't awkward at first to sit on the plane with Megan after everything that had happened. It was still weird whenever we so much as made eye contact, but business was business. We had work to do, and I could dwell on the personal stuff later. Pixie could fly, she could magically teleport, she had that nasty Souldagger of hers, and that trippy dust that could cover a whole area. She was a viable combatant and was useful for the mission.
Besides, it was a matter of time before she had to get some reps in the field. I couldn't just leave her on the sidelines forever because I didn't feel like interacting with my ex.
It took a few hours, but we were able to reach the point that had been pointed out by Cerebra. A big, glowing mark on a world map, and according to what we had, were right there, yet we couldn't see anything.
Julian, eager to prove himself for his first time suiting up wanted to get a piece of our new enemies, "Well, we're right on top of the Cuckoos' coordinates. So, where the hell are these guys?"
Eddie cracked his knuckles and stood up from his seat in the jet, a cocky grin on his face, "I've got this, Sol. Keep the comms on. Just open the doors and let your old buddy Wing do the legwork."
He'd also been excited to go out and do X-Men things. Also, he might have been motivated to show off in front of Cessily. I'd say I might have wanted to pay more attention to relationship dynamics on the team, but come on. That was like walking through a mine field. Almost everyone had some kind of wonky personal dynamic with someone else. As previously mentioned, even I wasn't immune.
I gave Eddie my consent and called out to him as he headed to the back, "You see anything weird, you call it in and bolt right back here," He gave me a thumbs up and went outside to scout while we continued to hover in the air.
It took a moment before he floated in front of the windshield, giving a wave to the rest of us inside, focusing specifically on Cessily. Yeah, he was definitely showing off.
Inside, Julian kicked his feet up and crossed his arms, "So now we play the waiting game," He snarked, "Bets on what'll happen first. Either Wing finds the bad guys, or Marcher destroys another plane. Which one'll come first?"
Armor rolled her eyes, and of all things, had my back, "Bel didn't destroy the last plane. Trust me, I'd be the first to get on his case if any of what happened to the last Blackbird was his fault. He'd never live it down."
Paladins for life, baby.
At that point, I started mouthing off for myself, "Hellion, even if the plane goes down, everyone else should be fine. You can create a telekinetic bubble, Wing can fly, Mercury will survive without a scratch, Armor can armor up, and Pixie can teleport away from the crash. Out of the five of us, I'm the only one here who's fucked."
Hisako grinned and chuckled, "He's right. Me armoring up kept me from going 'splat' when my space pod crashed."
The reminder that we had been on an adventure of that magnitude did little to improve Julian's mood, "Man... the bad guys pick now to pussy out? Did you have to kick their asses so bad, Marcher?"
I scoffed. Kicked their asses. Right. We beat them so bad, they wound up getting exactly what they wanted from us.
At least one of us wasn't looking forward to the next clash. Cessily seemed a little hesitant, "I'm really not looking forward to fighting, Julian," She admitted aloud.
Julian threw his hands into the air in frustration, "Come on. That's what we're here for. We've got to show these clowns that no one messes with the X-Men."
His enthusiasm did nothing to bring Cessily's spirits up, "And what if we have to fight Jay?"
I didn't bother speaking up. I left that for Julian. Jay had been on their team for a moment before switching with Kevin Ford to join the New Mutants. He hadn't meshed with them in the slightest, as Julian had run a much tighter ship as team leader than Sofia and David had.
For all his faults, that was one thing I wouldn't knock Julian for. I didn't think what happened with Jay would have happened with someone on the Hellions. Not with how that team was run. That whole laissez-faire crap wouldn't have flown – not with him, and not with me. Laura was evidence enough of that.
"It is what it is," Julian grumbled, "If no one else here is up for it, leave him to me or Marcher."
I looked back at Hisako, and she simply shrugged. She didn't have much of a connection to Jay at all before he fled. At best, he was the friend of a friend. Megan had even less of a connection to compromise her once everything jumped off. In the case of a fight, I could count on them.
This would work. I felt good about our chances. That lasted until Eddie spoke up over his communicator.
"Uh... Sol?"
The tentative way he got my attention left me with a sense of foreboding, "Yeah?"
"The Blackbird is cloaked, right?"
Last time I checked. I made sure to do so again before I answered, "Yeah."
"Have you moved?"
This was getting silly now, "I'm pretty sure you'd know if we moved, so no," I deadpanned.
"Oh," Eddie went silent on the other end of the line for a moment, "That means there's something else up here. Like, right in front of you."
I started scanning the area nearby for Eddie and saw him. If I squinted really hard, I could make out a large shimmer in the air that caught and kept my attention. As the only person with a real view onboard, I had to play things cool to keep from freaking everyone else out, "…Wing. I'm gonna need you to get back on the plane. Now."
"Dude, I was on the way back the moment you said 'no'."
I kept my composure until I heard Eddie scramble back onboard and get back to his seat. Once he was safely strapped in, I kicked on the jets as quickly as I could and gunned the Blackbird out of there. Behind us, a large vessel, similar to the one I saw in the skies above the U.S.-Canadian border bore down on us.
It was massive. Easily as big as the main mansion building of the school, maybe bigger.
Then, it started shooting at us. Not bullets, or missiles, but with cannons that fired some plasma-looking blasts. I didn't want to find out how many of those the Blackbird could take before it went down, so evasive actions were taken. My passengers were none too pleased with the bumpiness of the ride, though their comments were limited to noises of surprise and fear.
Julian was the first to properly verbalize his complaints, "What the hell, Marcher? I thought you could dogfight!"
Dogfighting? What was he talking about? Did he not know what the Blackbird jets were outfitted with? Who was I kidding? Of course he didn't.
"This thing doesn't have any weapons on it, dipshit!" I yelled back at him, trying to keep a step ahead of the vehicle made for space travel, "So, unless you want to make yourself useful and try to catch this thing out of the air like an extraterrestrial frisbee, shut up and stop backseat flying!"
I said that, yet there was nothing I could really do but buy us time. I wasn't going to outrun a spaceship. I wasn't going to outmaneuver a spaceship. And even if I did, it would just catch right back up with us.
As I tried to keep us out of the ship's line of fire, Megan tentatively spoke up from one of the back seats, "Sol, I have an idea. You're not gonna like it."
I kept my eyes on the windshield and the external sensors to make sure we weren't about to get shot down, "Pixie, what I don't like is getting blown out of the air over the ocean. Whatever you have to say can't put us in a worse position here. I'm all ears."
It wasn't like I had the time to think of a real plan to turn things around, and no one else was ante'ing up.
"I've been working on teleporting since Limbo," Megan explained. She sounded confident in her abilities, which I could appreciate, "I think I can get us onto the ship."
Now that got my attention. And I wasn't the only one. Though it did seem like I was the only one who thought the idea had legs.
Cessily asked, "How could you get us on? You don't even know what the inside looks like."
Megan pouted at Cessily's skeptic question, "I said 'onto', not 'inside of'."
"Great," Hisako said, "So we'll just fly off and go splat."
I, for one, was not about to put down the only halfway decent idea anyone had come up with to keep us from dying so easily, "Hellion can make a bubble to keep us all from getting blown away," I told everyone, "Pixie, I'm not in love with that plan, but it's way better than just sitting here."
"You sure?" Hisako teased, "You're going to lose another Blackbird."
So what? I was certain that when I set the autopilot and swiveled around in my chair, the lack of concern for the stupid jet showed on my face. If I got in trouble for it with the senior X-Men later, so be it. Buy another one, you rich motherfuckers!
"At least this one will actually kind of be my fault," I said, gesturing for everyone to get close. Julian didn't need to be told, he threw up a telekinetic shield around all of us, "Gonna have to time this right; make them think we bit it. Pixie, you ready?"
Megan clinched her fists tight, a determined look on her face, "So ready, Sol. So ready."
Adorable. Wait. No. Fuck off, brain. Megan dumped us. She could be as adorable as she wanted to be - that ship had sailed already. Now, I had a wonderful girlfriend in Laura, and goddamn it, there were people trying to kill us right now! Priorities!
The ship chasing us finally locked on after I activated autopilot and laid into us with heavy fire. As the ship started to fall apart, we all tensed up and waited for the last possible moment to make our escape.
"Sihal novarum chinoth!"
One moment, we were on the collapsing Blackbird, the next, we were stuck to the side of a UFO hurtling through the sky, passing through the flaming remains of what once was an X-Men jet. Julian's telekinetic bubble held up, and even blocked enough of the wind that we could speak.
Hisako breathed a sigh of relief as the world sped past us, "Okay, so we're not dead yet. Anyone have any follow-up plans?"
"Hijack the ship?" Eddie offered boldly, giving me a side elbow, "Come on. You can fly this thing, can't you?"
Probably not, but if we tried hard enough, we could probably pull something out of our butts to salvage the situation, "Either way, we're better off trying to get inside," I said, "We came to get a piece of these guys anyway, right?"
Julian crossed his arms and grumbled as he kept up the shield that prevented most of us from plummeting to our deaths, "I'm down to clean house, but how are we getting inside-? Oh," He stopped talking when he noticed I had kneeled down to start burning a hole into the hull, "Goddamn, Marcher. You double as a blowtorch now?"
I sure did. 2800 degrees; fahrenheit, not celsius, because I'm an American, goddamn it.
"What can I say? I'm a utility player," I quipped to occupy myself while I saw to the work ahead, "Fleshy people, please cover your faces so you don't catch any sparks. Armor, Mercury, you two should be okay to bask in my incandescent glory."
Hisako rolled her eyes and nudged at me with her foot, "For those of you who've never worked with him before, it's like this all the time."
"Like what?" I shot back, "A wonderful experience that leaves you greatly enriched?"
"If by that, you mean noisy, then yes," Hisako said brightly, "Why is it that the only time you're not a grumpy dick is when we're all in grave danger?"
That was an easy question to answer. I didn't even have to delve very far into my own psyche to do so, "Because right now, we are all sharing a bond. And that bond consists entirely of fear."
Julian, ever the would-be tough guy and the contrarian just had to dispute my point, "Tch. Speak for yourself, Marcher. I'm not scared."
Eddie was able to react before I could, "Then you're a moron, because this is scary shit," He remarked off-handedly, ignoring Julian's immediate temper flare-up, "How long is this going to take, Sol?"
Well, whatever the ship was made of, I could burn my way in. It was slow going, however, "A watched pot never boils, Wingman."
I just hoped it didn't decide to go into orbit or something while we were still trying to get in.