That didn't take too long...oh, who am I kidding? At least I had a legitimate excuse. School. Fortunately school is over until January so I will hopefully actually write something more than once a month or whatever I'm averaging. This is insane. PsychoJean is fun. I love her Phoenix powers, they make for good quality slapstick
The van pulled out of the garage and the X-kids got out of Bayville quick enough, considering the city's normal congestion around five and six o' clock traffic time, and they got onto the major westbound interstate.
Jubilee sighed in frustration, turning the map of New York around and around. "I hate this state, there are so many little red interstates everywhere. Even California's not this bad."
"You're holding it upside down, turn it over," Bobby pointed at a thin red line, "That's us. We need to go this way…how long?" The last part was directed at Jean, who was arguing with Laura quietly up front.
"Huh?" She asked.
"How far northwest are we going?" he repeated.
"Oh, um…" she shrugged. "I don't know. Until I get a stronger sense of a specific location. Maybe to the border."
Kitty frowned. "Why is it that everything centered around Logan happens in Canada? How cliché."
"Hey, I don't write these adventures, I just get drawn into going on them," Jean shot back. "Just deal with it."
The van got quiet.
It remained quiet for about four and a half minutes.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Jamie complained.
"Well, you should have went before we left," Jubilee said crossly. She'd been crammed between Rahne, who kept trying to stick her head out the window, and Sam, whose long legs kept taking up her private leg space, in the way back of the van.
"There, like, wasn't exactly time to go before we left. Maybe we should pull into a rest stop for a minute." Kitty tried to stretch her legs without actually moving and gave herself a mild Charlie horse. Bobby and Jamie were almost laying down sprawled out in the middle row of seats.
"I'm good," Bobby shrugged.
"I'm not." Jubilee whined. "There's no room- Rahne, get your butt out of my face- back here."
"It smells funny in here," Rahne said.
"Does anyone have any snacks?" Sam asked hopelessly.
"You all be quiet or I'll keep going." Jean threatened. "There's a rest stop in a mile, can you wait that long?"
"Yeah, I think so," Jamie squeezed his puny legs together.
"Okay then. Problem solved." She glanced at the squished row of mutants in the back. "And when we get back in the car Bobby and Sam are trading seats. Rahne, get back in the car. All the way."
The large green sign the grey van was about to pass had the names of two cities in the U.S. and one in Canada, and none of them were more than seventy miles away.
"Are we there yet?" Rahne asked. Her forehead was pressed against the window as she stared at passing trees with extreme boredom. The mutants were taking turns asking that question. Now it was Laura's turn, to be spoken at her disposal but no more than within five minutes of another person's asking.
Jean slammed on the breaks and swerved off the road onto a little turnoff.
"Yes. We're here."
The kids all looked out the car windows. "Where is here exactly?" Sam wondered. "Everything looks…green."
"At least we're not in Canada," Kitty shrugged. "I, like, can handle only so much stereotyping in one day."
Here turned out to be a gravel path too thin for a van and too faded for casual bikers that passed through the trees and promptly got swallowed in semi-Canadian wilderness. Everything was at least slightly green. Even the scattered rocks had green molds on them. In the distance they could hear a dull roar.
"Waterfall," Rahne muttered. The kids fell out of the van and stretched stiff limbs for a few minutes.
"So," Bobby sighed the sigh of a man not particularly wanting to be where he is. "Not to sound like a spoilsport or anything, but does anyone have any clue where we are?"
Kitty studied the green sign on the other side of the highway facing southbound traffic. "We are…85 miles north of a town called Pinewood."
Jean was zoned out through all of this, standing calmly by the drivers' door of the van. "It's stronger now…I can sense everything except…except that…."
Laura blinked. "So are we there yet?"
"This way," she moved gracefully down the completely inconspicuous gravel path, trailed by confused or irritated teenage mutants.
'This way' led through an increasing amount of foliage on either side of the path that ended in a tall but insubstantial wall of wild plants and saplings. On the other side of said wall was about a hundred yards of pure green lawn interrupted only by four heavily-armed security guard men milling about the premises and 360 degree cameras that weren't even pretending to be subtle.
"How in the world did someone like Sabertooth get this kind of money?" Sam whispered. Laura narrowed her eyes from her vantage point flat on her stomach on the ground peering through trunks of bushes.
"I don't know yet, but we're going to find out. We need to take out the guards and cameras first without being loud."
"Wait, take out?" Jamie muttered from the very back of the group. Several people shushed him.
"Jean, could you-." Laura started, pausing as a mysterious breeze made several large branches break from the tree above them with a crack and float unnoticed towards the nearest guard. One suddenly dropped and with impossible precision neatly broke the guard's radio on his belt into several pieces. It thudded into the ground so hard it barely wobbled.
The second branch made a similar beeline for the man's ammunition belt and gun, destroying both just enough to make a reliable shot impossible should the need arise. It too thudded unnecessarily hard into the ground. The third branch, also the thickest and bluntest, dropped like the very large tree branch it was on to the guard's helmet hard enough to knock him out before harmlessly falling on it's side.
"Remind me to stop playing pranks on Jean in the future," Bobby whispered to Sam, who just nodded mutely.
Another guard, further away, happened to glance towards his guarding companion and let out a shout for the other two.
"One's reaching for the walkie talkie thing!" Rahne exclaimed nervously.
The man's radio flipped itself over in his hand and exploded, stunning the man enough to knock him out at least temporarily. The other two guards found themselves slammed together and left to slump to the ground.
Jean blinked and got up from her crouch behind the bushes.
"Well," she smiled, "That was easy. Maybe another power spurt isn't so bad after all. Now what, L.?"
"Um." Laura said, temporarily at a loss. "Let's um, go inside now and…save…people."
Jean giggled softly and raised one red-sleeved arm, concentrating. All of the camera heads swiveled around to watch other directions without being obviously redirected, but left a clear if not jagged path straight to a small steel door near the far corner of the wall they were facing from their foliage.
"It's getting so easy now," she sighed happily.
"You think she's enjoying this a little too much? Jubilee muttered, wiping dirt off her pants.