Air Python, New York Style

[avalanche]

It didn't take very long for the crew to reach the plane, and for it to be loaded and boarded. It also took an annoyingly short time for the plane to jerk forward and nearly make Dom's stomach fall out of his mouth as they lifted into the air.

For the record: Dom hated Airplanes. Not only did they make him feel like he was going to barf, but he had absolutely no use for his mutant powers on them. There was very little he could do but try to grapple an assailant in a plane, unless he wanted to destroy the plane itself.

Also for the record: Dom has a great poker face. Despite being sick, he still looked confident. This took years of practice, and some bloody situations... but he could mask his paranoia extremely well.

Now he sat back as the plane had leveled out, and was waiting for Pyro to ditch the costume and start spilling some of the beans. In the mean time he took out a Tom Clancy novel he'd picked up at the hotel and turned to where he left off.

[Gunslinger]

Roy leaned on one elbow, glancing out the window as the ground pulled away underneath them. Still smiling casually, he leaned his seat back, stretching out as well he could. Technically he was supposed to keep his seat up until they were told it was all right, but he found it rather difficult to care.

He hadn't been in a plane in years. His eyes slowly closed as he pictured the small boy running around his father as the man tried to calm him down.

Some father.

Opening his eyes again, he stretched, cracking his back. He didn't mind flying at all; it was being in an enclosed space where he couldn't shoot that got to him. He knew that long before the flight was over his entire arms were going to be tingling; he was just glad it was only a 10-hour flight. Anything too long and he wouldn't be able to shoot even if they disembarked at an airport. He was all to familiar with the response time of security when they heard any sort of discharge at one of those facilities.

[Pyro]

It didn't take all that long for Pyro to remove the disguise. Out came the contacts, out came the tooth plate and almost regrettably, he changed out of the suit and back into his regular combats and t-shirt. Johann Zauber was no more. John Allerdyce was back.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, almost startled by his own appearance after having just gotten used to Johann. Then he laughed at himself for being so stupid and put the disguise items away in a box and hung the suit on its hanger. He would keep them safe: who knew when he would need them next.

John splashed water on his face and ran his hand over his by-now very stubbled jaw. He would shave when they got back home. Maybe. Although he got the feeling that his very youth and inexperience was something that some people would exploit as a weakness.

Maybe he'd stay unshaven.

A slight smirk on his face, he exited the small bathroom and dropped down onto one of the seats.

"Guys," he said. "Thank you for your patience. I'm pretty sure you understand that it was hard for me to tell you too much all the time we were within earshot of a city full of norms - but now we're off the ground, I can tell you a little more."

He started by explaining where Genosha was, what was going on there, how he had long-term plans of carrying on Magneto's vision of making it a mutant haven. He briefly listed off the people who were on the island.

"The two women who were with me when I arrived," he continued, "weren't actually my wife and sister in law, but Mystique and Aurora respectively." He didn't move a muscle in his face, but waited to see if either of them reacted to the name 'Mystique', who was, after all, fairly well covered in the media.

He didn't mention his secret rendezvous in the bistro at all. The less he said about it, the better, in his view.

[recluse]

Well, ho-ly shit. Would you look at that? Little Sparks got hot in the five years since she'd seen him last, and Gracie's eyes actually left the window she'd been staring out of for the entire trip so far to follow him as he returned from the bathroom looking like himself again.

There was the boy that she'd known. No, the man that she'd always known he'd grow into. She couldn't help but smile at the thought that she'd contributed to that. Well, maybe just a little.

But if Pyro's wife was actually Mystique - and Gracie had no doubt that he hadn't been faking the fondness in that goodbye, even if he wasn't actually married to her after all - then she certainly wouldn't think... for more than five minutes... about seeing if they could strike up that same friends with benefits deal they'd had when he'd been just a kid. Funnily enough, what Lucas would think of it hardly came into her mind - him, she could deal with. Mystique was... dangerous.

Still, any more tension between John and Lucas and she'd have to get them into some sort of mud-wrestling match with a power nullifier so they could work it all out in a way that gave her something nice to look at, too. Although Sparks, while taller now, was still a skinny little shit, so he'd probably get his ass kicked.

She gave him one last appreciative look before reaching out to brush her fingers over Lucas' knee and go back to staring out the window. She'd been oddly quiet all day - and apparently that wasn't about to change just yet.

[impact]

Lucas hadn't heard of Mystique. What he heard was generally on the streets and suffice it to say those kids weren't always well read. He knew Magneto, and Pyro, but that was mostly because of Callisto's gang and they were a bit like a cult; any information coming from their direction was unreliable at best.

Frowning a bit at Pyro, he was glad they'd had their little talk before getting into the cab. No wonder Pyro had advised him to pick up 'anything you might need for the next month or so' and tacked on that they'd have plenty of room to get it where they were going.

He had enough cigarettes to last a normal man half a year and just as much alcohol. Something told him with the way Gracie was looking at him today, he was going to need it.

Leaning over to her when she touched his knee, he whispered in her ear, then stood and walked with her towards the back of the plane where Python had informed him the sleeping area was set up. Soldered aluminum bunks and military issue blankets. He had no problem with that. He was exhausted.