Homecoming

[Pyro]

The flight home was uneventful. The only thing that stuck in John's head particularly was the fact that every time he opened his mouth to enquire as to the whereabouts of Psylocke and Sekhmet, something interrupted him.

Eventually he gave up.

As they circled the island of Genosha as Python came in to land, John lost himself for a few moments in thought. He'd never liked country music, despite Kitty's attempts to change his mind, yet in his mind, unbidden, popped lyrics.

Country roads take me home to the place I belong
Ol' Virginia mountain mama take me home country roads

He rapped smartly at the side of his head to make the tune go away. It steadfastly refused and remained in his head all the way down the runway and then during the short walk to the base. It stayed in his head until he was seated back behind the desk in his office - which nobody had tried to take over in his absence.

"Home," he said, vaguely, "is where the heart is."

He fired up the computer and braced himself for the onslaught of emails. Several thousand separate pieces of spam. He didn't want a larger penis, thank you very much.

One email caught his attention, though.

To Whomever Reads This Message,

I am curious to know what sort of state the Brotherhood of Mutants is in, as well as why Pyro and the Juggernaut were robbing a bank in Liverpool.

Sincerely, a Friend

John stared at the message. He read it.

He re-read it.

He tried closing his eyes, counting to ten and reading it again.

It still said the same.

Thoughtfully, he considered the best response.

Dear 'Friend',

The Brotherhood are going from strength to strength.

We have need of all like ourselves.

If you wish to meet to discuss - you know how to contact us.

A Freedom Fighter

Then he did something rather random and rash.

He fired up his Hotmail account and sent an email to Kitty.

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Quick note

Country roads, take me home to the place I belong
Ol' Virginia mountain mama take me home country roads

Sparky
-x-



Quite why he did that, he'd never know.

Once he hit the 'send' button, he began research NovaTeX.

[Jane]

Jane actually managed to stay away all the way to Genosha, at least half due to the fact that she hadn't been able to get "The Entertainer" out of her head on the flight there. Solitaire had quickly become boring, especially after she actually did manage to win completely fairly (twice), and reading had gotten old after about two hours. By the time they finally landed, Jane was itching to do something, not caring what it was so long as it didn't involve sitting in the cargo plane for any longer.

She restrained herself from bolting off the access ramp, though she did trot down at a fairly quick pace, but once she was standing up in the semi-outdoors of the hangar she didn't have the same urge to run around in circles just to burn off energy. The climate was hot, humid, and the plant life she could see outside the bay doors was overgrown and lush, if unkempt - she could do a lot here. Maybe even set up a farm thing so they wouldn't have to rob so many banks...

John shot off into the base almost immediately, leaving Jane standing awkwardly next to the plane, bag slung over one shoulder, her hands tight around the strap, a reflex built from one too many snatchings.

"So," she said to the remaining two. "Um, here we are. What now?"

Hopefully it wasn't go sit down for another six years. Jane didn't know if she could deal with a conference room right now. Or even, really, a chair.

[Juggers]

"Now," said Python as he stepped from the plane, "now you can do whatever you want. That's the great thing about Genosha; nobody will bother us here."

The earth jumped a little as Cain leaped the ramp altogether and landed with a thud.

"Yep," he said, "we got a whole island all for ourselves." Granted most of the island was untamed jungle but that just made it better for training purposes.

The base itself was a sprawling, grey, multi-tiered edifice, built by the earliest of Magnetos' recruits. It was surrounded on three sides by a high curtain wall that kept the jungle at bay. The ocean lapped steadily against the rocky shore of the forth side. It would have been hard to call the building beautiful but it was ornate and had a kind of alien allure brought on by the twisted metal architecture that crusted almost every available surface.

"You can go and pick yourself out a room and then your time is pretty much your own. Pyro will be in the office making plans already, I'm going to see about getting in some of the essentials, food, fuel and the like and ... " he was cut off.

"An I'm gonna go use the practice yard ... can't be arsed with sittin' around any more, done enough of that to last days!" Inserted the Juggernaut. "An order us in a portable TV will ya? I ain't sittin' on a boat to Boston with nothin' to do either!"

[Jane]

"Now you can do whatever you want. That's the great thing about Genosha; nobody will bother us here."

Jane hugged her bag a little closer and wondered how many sociopaths you could fit on an island this size. She knew what it was like to want to be left alone, but all the time was kind of lonely. And boring, eventually.

She looked up at the base, noting for the first time its sheer size - colorless, weirdly-shaped, strange-looking, but it was huge. How many mutants were even here? Well, after Alcatraz, not many - how many had there been?

"You can go and pick yourself out a room and then your time is pretty much your own. Pyro will be in the office making plans already, I'm going to see about getting in some of the essentials, food, fuel and the like and ... "

"An I'm gonna go use the practice yard ... can't be arsed with sittin' around any more, done enough of that to last days! An order us in a portable TV will ya? I ain't sittin' on a boat to Boston with nothin' to do either!"

There was, actually, plenty to do on a boat, but it mostly consisted of bugging the sailors until they taught you words and played poker with you, and they probably wouldn't take as kindly to Cain as they had to Jane, who, at the time, had been young, female, pretty and blonde as opposed to hulking, male and... Cain.

"Thanks," she said, wandering up inside the complex, which had helpful maps stuck to the wall involving detailed floor plans and emergency exits, but also "you are here" stickers, which were always the solution to Jane's usual problem - she could never figure out what the room she was in was called, and would just get more and more lost.

However, she did actually find her way up to living quarters (after getting lost only once, but was helpfully corrected by a man who appeared to be at least half fish) and found a half-cleared-out spare room, which she was told by the same man had belonged to someone who'd been atomized at Alcatraz, but she was welcome to it as long as she wasn't frightened.

She gave him a look and started moving in.

[exit thread, obviously]