Ah, the Texas wild... Here, pronghorns are hunted. And that's hardly all.
Across the ground, quick as a nervous hog, an armadillo scurries. Alas, he's a mutant armadillo. His armor looks a lot like Magneto's helmet...if you can believe that. The helmet protects this little creature from telepathic attacks.
Magneto would pay a fortune to have Sheev, this armadillo, caught. And if he was spreading Hansen's disease, he'd pay double to have the thing caught...
Up a dirt road, a Jeep travels. Its crew has come a long way...although the Jeep itself comes from somewhere much closer.
The flies are everywhere. More than once, one of them risks hitting the Jeep's windshield. Somehow, a giant tongue flicks itself from the Jeep and laps up each fly every time, before this can happen.
Not too far off, a horned lizard, camouflaged with the land around him, looks on in envy. With luck, he's spotted a worthy opponent...
The Jeep parks. Its crew alights. Its driver, Marshall Stone III, opens the Jeep's back, and unpacks the hunting equipment. He and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants have come out here to take some time off, and shoot the pronghorns. Stone's got the perfect rifle; scope and all.
The other mutant in the Jeep kept eating the flies. Meet Mortimer Toynbee. With his long mutant tongue, he keeps flicking at flies, long after his dismounting. True enough, he could leap the length of this great state of Texas in just a few bounds. For the time being, though, he's just here to help Stone hunt the pronghorns.
"There's a dude ranch not too far from here," Stone tells Toynbee, "in case we get sick and tired of the pronghorns and the peccaries."
Toynbee also has mottled skin in a few places...and his legs are built just like a toad's...both anatomically and physiologically. He's one of a demographic of mutants who has to walk on four legs...for Toynbee can't stand on his back two without falling over. Stone wears a white sock over his head, and sunglasses over them; unclear as to how he can see, with all of that cover over his eyes...unless his eyes automatically react with some mutant power that helps him see better...
"If that dude ranch is protected," Toynbee admits, flicking at another fly, "I don't recommend it. It's already bad enough that the game warden out here hates us."
Stone scoffs, loading the pronghorn rifle. "Magneto's not afraid of him. With him on our side, nothing can go wrong."
Using seismic vibrations to levitate himself, Avalanche arrives. He's not Dominikos Petrakis; he's a random mutant who Mesmero once had brainwashed, recruited, and outfitted for his own Brotherhood, from years back. The rest of the Brotherhood just calls him Constantine.
Gradually, he lands. It seems he's learned a thing or two from the Inhuman Quake about how to use his powers to fly. Either that, or Mesmero brainwashed him with that info, too.
Constantine doesn't feel secure using his powers to hunt. So, when Stone offers him one of his hunting rifles, he accepts.
Moments later, St. John Allerdyce arrives, like a rocket. He can generate and control fire. He's also noticeably more blonder than Toynbee, Stone, and Constantine. He uses his fire as thrusters to levitate himself down.
He doesn't like his pronghorn well-done; so he, too, accepts one of Stone's rifles, as he offers it. Here, the other three mutants notice that these rifles are MUCH higher-tech than Henry or Remington. In fact, they're apparent products of Yashida Corp.
"They're mutant's rifles," Stone explains, swabbing the bore of his. "They generate bullets based on what the user's mutant powers are."
To have some fun, the mutants test this out. When Toynbee fires his, a very long pink tongue shoots out of the barrel, reaches the end of its slack, and whips right back into the rifle barrel, where it came from. When Constantine fires his, it sends a bullet of compressed seismic energy across the plain. It pulverizes a rock. When Allerdyce fires his, it sends a bullet of fire across the plain. It causes a bunch of sagebrush to catch fire.
Alas, there's a lot of sagebrush around it. To prevent a wildfire, Stone automatically levitates across the plain, and blasts the sagebrush with a temporary stream of water; the water puts the fire out. As a mutant, Stone can randomly adapt to anything that threatens him; rival mutant's power, or otherwise.
Spontaneously, the Jeep levitates itself from the ground. It slowly revolves 360 degrees...and is set back down.
Across the sky, the Brotherhood's master arrives. Meet Max Eisenhardt. As a mutant, he can control metal. He's also a Jew. His cape flies like a flag in the wind, as he approaches where he plans to land.
As he lands, a Yashida crossbow levitates itself towards him. He receives it, moments before he lands. Its bolts are of metal, of course. Hence, he levitates the quiver to himself, too...and fastens it around himself via its metal fasteners.
He faces the plain, aims, and fires a bolt without making many preparations. As the bolt flies, it circles. It loops, and rolls. It looks a lot like something out of Wanted, a spy/action thriller starring Angelina Jolie and (to Eisenhardt's resentment) James McAvoy.
The bolt comes back, and flies right at Stone's face. Stone automatically reacts by shooting the bolt down and blasting it to shrapnel with a high-intensity optic blast; not too unlike one of Cyclops's.
The other three mutants stare at their leader, a bit concerned. Eisenhardt only grins. "Sorry," he admits. "I just had to see what Stone would to to protect himself from that."
"You're not wearing your helmet," Allerdyce notices. "Let me guess; you've finally killed Professor X?"
Eisenhardt only half-smiles. "Charles is still alive. And even if I could kill him, I wouldn't. Charles might be my enemy, but he's also like a brother to me. So you'll forgive me if I don't laugh at most of your Professor X jokes."
"Why else," Avalanche asks, "wouldn't you wear it?" Avalanche is perfectly qualified to ask that question; he wears a similar-looking helmet, too, as part of his own costume.
"I fought Mr. Sinister," he tells his followers. "He destroyed it with his own telekinesis. I will neither confirm nor deny whether he used that in addition with another mutant's telekinesis."
Stone scoffs. "Can't imagine why he'd have to. Might I ask what the fight was about?"
"You might not. Although I might or might not admit that it might've been because I...more or less, broke Susan Hatchi's heart."
"Who's," Toynbee asks, "she?"
Allerdyce scoffs. "She's Karma's evil twin. Also, last I've heard, she's a very loyal member of the Marauders. You know; Mr. Sinister's army?"
Stone scoffs. "Army? Why would he need an army, when he's grafted so many mutant powers to himself?"
"Unless he's tricking them," Allerdyce suggests.
"Susan wouldn't fall for it," Eisenhardt swears. "Not only is she telepathic, but she's smart. She's also straight; the same can't be said for her sister. From what I can tell, I've made her very mad. I don't expect that she'd try to pay us a visit, while we're out here. I just advise you to be prepared for the instance where I'm wrong."
Stone scoffs. "Self-defense is my power's middle name...if not my own."
"You're Marshall Stone III," Avalanche reminds him. "Did your father or grandfather have a middle name?"
Stone scoffs again. "You know I don't disclose myself that easily."
Eisenhardt levitates a pair of G36 rifles into both of his hands. He's got the Yashida crossbow slung to his back...just over the quiver. "Let's move out," he orders. "If Ms. Hatchi is behind us, I'd hate for her to crash our big game hunt just as it's getting started. Stone? Get that metal harness on, and I'll give you a lift."
Stone puts on the harness. Eisenhardt keeps him in tow, while levitating the pair of them across the plain. (Eisenhardt uses the two G36s as a pair of bridge rails.) Pyro and Avalanche both levitate after them. Toad hops along the ground, like the toad his powers make him like, following them.
Across the plain, the shadows grow long. Soon, the night has fallen. The insects of the Big Bend begin to sing their chorus.
From off the interstate highway, a mysterious grey sedan approaches the Texas wild. It bears a strange hood ornament. It's shaped like a crow...and made of tech. As the car moves, it flaps its wings and moves its tail, as if steering...but doesn't fly away. Every now and then, it opens its beak; to communicate with a satellite, it seems... Its eyes light up with eerie red light, as it does this...
The license plate number of this car is HATCHI. The plates aren't Vietnamese, but they're the same colors.
Something big and scary in the trunk rattles around. A few times, it nearly rolls the car over. Whatever's in there, he acts like he hasn't eaten in a month. But then, rumor has it that that runs in his genetic material...
Dusk is nearly over. Now, the sedan turns on its headlights. It drives and drives, until the dirt road dead-ends in the middle of the wild.
From the car, a Vietnamese woman dismounts. She's a mutant, and she's dressed in business attire. Still in pumps and a skirt, she orbits her car, to its trunk.
Up front, the crow wiggles its feet loose from the hood ornament. This robotic crow might not look it...but it's possessed by a psionic entity. Once, a long time ago, that psionic entity was a mutant human.
Ms. Manh opens the trunk, and lets the monster out. It's not a monster, but a mutant clone. He's younger than his parent specimen...but not by too much. Otherwise, he looks a lot like Victor Creed did, when the latter was twenty-two.
From above, a storm blows in. Its epicenter lands nearby...and stops spinning. It's Janos Quested, another mutant. He's a Latino with purple hair. He's come to accompany Ms. Manh on her quest to avenge her broken heart...as have Sabretooth 2.0 and Malice.
With her back to the car, Ms. Manh walks away, five paces. Staring out into the night, she has a wrathful expression on her face. "Magneto," she mutters, "wherever you are...you and your Brotherhood had BETTER be prepared for what's coming. Either way, I won't stop hunting you until we've painted the Painted Desert with your mercury blood!" She glances at Sabretooth 2.0. "It sure isn't liquid adamantium."