I am back from vacation and I have a nice tan! Not that you care but I just thought I'd mention it.
Lavender Gaia: Thanks for the info on Rachel's age. In my story, though, I'm gonna make her in her twenty's because she has to be a certain age to do certain things (cough).
jenskott: I don't think I could bear the pain of leaving them stranded there any longer. PS: I share your bitterness with the current comics. (raspberry)
amazing redd phoenix and Emily: In my mind, Rachel is between 20 and 25. Kurt is around that age; like 23 to 28. But in the comics, the X-Men neither age nor mention any birthdays.
Rogue14: I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't hurt me! (hides behind Jean) Jean: "What are you doing? Get off me! Get back to that computer!"
I have assessed all your comments on my question and have come up with a conclusion: Joe Quesada has no idea what he's doing and Marvel screwed up. Thanks for your comments. :)
X-Men are not mine and the X-Copter belongs to Evolution. (and between you and me, if I had a helicopter, I'd come up with a better name for it.)
Chapter 8 of 'the seatbelt sign should be on at all times' called "Of Havoc and Helicopters".
"Ok girls, you can drop the manifestation"
Jean and Rachel sighed and dropped the phoenix aura. Jessica smiled her little toothless smile and kept her tiny firebird up. Her hair had streaked itself a fire orange-red that blended well with her chocolate hair. She waved her hands in random directions, causing the flames that glowed around her body to dance with her movements.
Jean entered her youngest daughter's mind and made her drop her phoenix. Jessica looked ready to cry but Jean suggested telepathically that she sleep and she did.
"You guys should rest. If nobody's come by now I don't think they're coming" said Emma with a sigh.
"But it was so perfect. And we were so close!" cried Betsy who was on the verge of tears.
Jean and Rachel dropped to their knees. Scott came to embrace his wife and daughters who welcomed his warmth after keeping their signal up for so long.
Hank kicked a portion of the Jet's tail in frustration which only concluded in a stubbed toe and much pain.
"Don't recommend that" he muttered.
Logan sat back down and resumed drinking his beer.
Betsy screamed threw a telekinetic punch towards the hood of the Jet which ripped a humongous chunk of metal off.
Emma slapped her shoulder.
"What are you doing! Do you want us to sink faster?"
"Sink?" asked Jean.
"Yeah" Scott sighed. "I dove under last night and there's a hole down there. We'll be under water in three days."
Rachel got up and prepared to telekinetically put back the chunk of metal that was ripped off of the Jet but was stopped by Hank's hand on her shoulder.
"I don't think that's a good idea. You're suffering from severe head injuries and we're going to need your part of the manifestation when we try again"
Rachel sighed her understanding and sat back down.
The second her butt touched the floor, Logan was up on his feet; like a dog that had just caught a scent.
"You hear that?" he said frantically, moving his head side to side in an effort to hear the noise better.
"What? What is it?"
"Hank, don't you hear it?"
Henry 'Beast' McCoy stood next to the shorter mutant to see of he could understand what he was hearing.
"I hear it. It sounds like a…" he broke into a wide grin, "…helicopter"
At the word 'helicopter', the X-Men were all on their feet, frantically searching the sky for the aircraft. Sure enough...
"There! I see it!" exclaimed Rachel.
The X-Men zoomed over to where Rachel was pointing. They could clearly identify a tiny black spot in the clouds.
"I'll send up a flare" Scott announced as her removed his visor.
"Yes, because we blend in so well to the humongous Pacific Ocean" quipped Betsy.
Ignoring her comment, Cyclops unleashed an optic blast into the sky.
"I see them!" exclaimed Rogue from the X-Copter.
Havoc had seen them as well and he sped up to reach the stranded X-Men faster. He slowed down as he got closer to the Jet.
At the sight of the unfamiliar object that made such a loud noise, Emily panicked and did the most instinctive thing for a human being: tried to protect herself.
But a Frost's definition of protection is different than most people's.
Emma Frost-McCoy staggered as the infant in her arms suddenly became extremely heavy. When she looked down at her child, her own eyes looked back at her through her reflection on blue diamond skin.
"Um…wow" was the reaction from the infant's father.
Alex 'Havoc' Summers, who was piloting the X-Copter, had quite a different reaction.
"Holy Shi'ar!" he swore as sunlight hit Emily's diamond skin and blinded him completely. He released the controls to cover his eyes as the members of his team did likewise.
With no one to control it, the X-Copter swayed dangerously in the air, close enough to the X-Jet to cause serious damage if it crashed.
Jean flew herself into the air and threw her free hand out in front of her, steadying the helicopter as Emma attempted to telepathically power down her baby.
But Jean was putting so much concentration on keeping the Copter in the air that she didn't notice that her sleeping child was slipping out of her arms until it was almost too late.
She wasted no time in dropping her hold on the X-Copter, grabbing her child safely to her chest, and throwing herself on the Jet below just fast enough to get out of the way of the Copter's tail which swung around and hit the section of air where she was milliseconds before.
After many years of training, the former Marvel Girl knew exactly how to fall if you were trying to soften the blow of an injured victim or, in this case, and infant.
Jean landed with a 'thud' on her back on the hard metal that was the Jet's roof. Though her body had pillowed the fall for her infant, it hadn't saved her from injury. Baby Jessica's delicate head banged violently against her mother's collarbone, where her necklace was. The necklace left a small cut near the infant's right temple, a wound that would not heal as quickly as it looked.
Obviously, Jessica woke up and began crying. Jean wrenched herself up to a sitting position as she cradled the baby. Her back and head throbbed but she could overlook that to comfort her child as she telepathically numbed the pain and calmed her baby.
She managed to focus her eyesight enough to see that the X-Copter was once again under human control.
Who gave that man his license? Sheesh.
Alex brought the helicopter down to hover next to the partially submerged X-Jet. He opened the hatch to let the X-Men in.
Betsy almost tripped because she was running so fast to get inside the Copter. She bumped into Polaris on her way in. Polaris looked slightly offended by her rudeness but understood her urgency on some degree.
"Well, glad to see that your all alive and well…" she began but didn't get to finish as she found herself jumping out of the way to avoid the stampede of X-Men rushing to the back of the Copter where the recently installed coffee maker was.
Havoc's team watched in amusement as the rescued X-Men fumbled with the coffee machine.
"OK, then" said Rogue as she furrowed her brow in attempts to cover up her smile, "We're homeward bound then?"
There was a unanimous nod from the seven X-Men in the back and the two infants gurgled as if they understood.
The co-pilot, Kurt, kicked the aircraft into gear and sped off toward their home.
Next time on 'the seatbelt sign should be on at all times':
"Ororo! You're home!" exclaimed Logan upon seeing his wife. She was looking at her reflection in the parlor mirror and looked over her shoulder upon hearing her husband's voice.
"How was Africa? Did you bring me back a souvenir?"
The Weather Witch smiled cleverly.
"Actually……"
Don't miss the next chapter. It's when things get interesting…