17269/HUNGER: The Sky Is Falling

HUNGER: The Sky Is Falling
Date of Scene:	25 February 2024
Location:	Basketball Court
Synopsis:	Rogue finds an alien pod in the woods. Together with Jean and Scott, she takes it back to the X-Base in time for it to open a reveal a feathery passenger.
Cast of Characters:	Scott Summers, Rogue, Jean Grey
Tinyplot:	Hunger

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Scott Summers has posed:
It's below freezing and after sundown on the grounds of the Xavier School, but there's no snow and the weather is crisp and clear. It isn't too much of a surprise to find Scott outside rather than indoor enjoying the heating, evening television, or any other collection of things. Instead, he's out for a run.

He jogs up from the pathway around the lake, wearing grey athletic gear with the Xavier's School emblem upon it. The shirt is sleeveless despite the cold, and his eyes are as usual concealed behind a pair of thick-framed glasses with ruby quartz lenses. He's wearing what look to be some cheap knock-off airpods, and his phone is strapped to his bare bicep.

His breath fogs in the air ahead of him in clouds as he takes a moment to pause, hopping from foot to foot on the spot to keep himself warm.

Rogue has posed:
Scott will either hear a dog bark, or see a dog barking at him from the fenced-in basketball court. It is Jeepers, Rogue's yellow lab. He's pinned in the court with the door closed shut. The dog is pacing back and forth, barking at Scott, clearly trying to get his attention to let the silly Human (Mutant?) know that he needs his help.

A few moments later, and Rogue comes sweeping in from the north, above the trees that surround Breakstone Lake, she's flying up high, and carrying something by a makeshift handhold... at first it looks like some kind of satellite dish, fancy and smooth, but as she draws closer it is clearly not something 'normal' in design.

Rogue sees Scott down near the courts, and begins to rapidly descend down toward him, as Jeepers continues to bark, seeing his Lady now, he has his tail wagging, and is jumping at the fence like a raptor testing its defenses.

Rogue settles the metallic pod down on the grass between the pathway and the basketball court, her hands going up to brush her wind swept hair out of her face, as she lets out a heavy sigh, dressed in some dark green denim coveralls, a pair of Doc Martin boots, and a leather jacket with a fur collar around her neck and chest. "I think I found some space junk!" She calls over to Scott as she stands beside the 'thing' tying her hair back behind her head in to a loose ponytail.

Scott Summers has posed:
"What're you doing in there?" Scott asks Jeepers, using that tone of voice reserved for animals, "Thought you were an inside pooch. Did she go off for an evening fly again?"

He takes a deep breath, rolling his shoulders as he lets his heartrate come down from the exercise and approaches the gate. As he does, Rogue descends from the skies with a pod and dumps it on the ground right next to him. To Scott's credit, he doesn't seem in the least bit shaken. He crosses toned forearms across his chest, narrowing his eyes at the strange piece of technology through his glasses.

He takes a few steps closer to the pod, lifting a foot to nudge it with the toe of his shoe thoughtfully.

"On the ground? Doesn't look like anything I'm familiar with, but I'm not an expert. Makes sense with all the off-planet visitors in the Atlantic, though. Think it belongs to the,?"

Rogue has posed:
Jeepers ran over to the fence door, anticipating Scott releasing him, only to find him distracted by his Lady's return. Foiled again! The dog starts barking once more as Scott walks away to investigate the alien pod with Rogue, who stands now beside it with her hands upon her hips. She watches Scott approach the 'thing' and give it a light foot nudge.

She shrugs her shoulders, and huffs out a heavy sigh. "I mean, what do I know? It could be Chinese, right?" She asks, stepping around the thing, looking at it in the dark from all sides as she comes around to the opposite from wence she began. "I mean, some kinda weather drone? I hate thinkin' everything HAS to be a freakin' alien ship. But, I was scrollin' social media shorts this morning in the bath tub, an' heard about somethin' going down at the Alantic Space Place. Buncha alien ships came down, and want to become Earthlings, so they can rabble about all our problems with us." She states, showing a playful grin toward the bespectacled man before her.

"So yeah, Chinese, I'm sure of it." She's not.

Scott Summers has posed:
"There was an article in the times about Tianzhou-7," Scott answers Rogue, his Mandarin pronunciation making full use of the tonal language even if it isn't his own, "They had an artist's rendering. Didn't look anything like this. Maybe Latverian, but if we can make orbit without chemical fuel rockets then I can't imagine they haven't been able to do that for years."

He unfolds his arms, placing his hands on his hips. He even uses the moment to bend slightly from left to right, stretching out tensed up back muscles. No reason his exercise regime shouldn't be thrown by the wayside.

"It'd make sense if it was alien," he answers, finally turning his eyes back to Rogue, "The footage they showed on CNN didn't make it look like those ships were in good shape. I guess something might've fallen off."

He clicks his tongue against his teeth, the gears in his head clearly turning.

"We should get it downstairs. Whatever it is, SHIELD or someone less savory might come looking for it and we don't want a team of government agents coming around. There's enough grumbling about 'different' people as it is."

He turns about to move back towards the basketball court. He hasn't forgotten about Jasper, and he reaches out to open the gate and let him free. His lips purse to make a thin, high-pitched whistle in an effort to call the dog to heel.

Rogue has posed:
The tip of Rogue's tongue is extended up to press against her upper lip as she just stands there, listening to Scott and staring blankly at the pod she'd brought down. She kind of spaces out a bit at what Scott says, but when she draws her tongue back in, and looks toward him, she flutters her eyelashes and re-focuses her attention upon him. "Hmm?" She asks, then shoots her eyes back at the pod thing. "Oh, right, sure..." She states, as he goes to get JEEPERS from the basketball court. "You wanna key that thing open so I can just take it down to the Blackbird hangar? Or are you wantin' me to fly it all the damn way out to the hangar tunnel?" She asks, groaning at the mere thought of it, not that it'd be any real big deal for her.

When Jeepers is released, the dog moves to Scott's side, and takes a moment to sit down, panting so happily now that his tongue might fall out of his face, as he looks up at Scott like it's the best day ever, then looks over at his Lady like she's the best day ever, and the Pod is the best day ever too!

Rogue flies up in the air, silently moving like a zero-G astronaut in to position over the pod. "What if there's somethin' alive inside it..?" She asks. "Or worse..." She grimly adds, as her hands wrap around the same handhold she'd brought the thing in with.

Scott Summers has posed:
"I thought you liked flying?" Scott asks, the corner of his mouth turning up into the faintest of faint half-smiles. He reaches down to rough Jeepers between his floppy ears, the other hand keying a concealed pad and prompting the basketball court to make a loud grating sound before it begins to slide open.

"Well, whatever's in there, better to keep it somewhere safe than just lying around in the woods somewhere. If it's a person? Well, maybe Jean can talk to them. If it's something worse, then you can punch it."

All the bases are covered, there. Though the mention of Jean prompts Scott's brow to furrow beneath his sweat-streaked hair. He opens the basketball court's gate again, standing on the edge as it begins to open and looking down into the X-Base below.

"Stay," he says to Jeepers in that universal command tone some people reserve for dogs, patting him on the head but keeping his hand ready to grab him just in case he decides to make the leap.

"And if there is someone in it, try not to shake it up too much."

Jean Grey has posed:
So, one of those fun things... Jean can read everyone's minds!

OK, OK, this isn't news to anyone, and also occasionally more creepy and weird than 'fun.' But its occasionally handy. One thing most people underestimate is her range, and that's more one of those 'don't brag, it'll scare people' kind of things. It also means she mostly just filters a lot of stuff out, down to where it's basically background static. But 'familiar' thoughts are a different category, somewhat. And who's more familiar to her than Rogue?

And so, quite abruptly, a thought intrudes. <<You want me to open them? I'm down in the base working.>>

Then a moment later: <<Oh, you've got it. Hi Scott.>>

Yes, she's a little less restrained about this kind of thing, when it comes to people she's familiar with it. It's one of those 'live your mutant life' things, not feeling so restrained to do stuff that comes naturally and makes life that much easier. <<I can get some containment set up down here, if you think you need it? What is this thing? No ideas?>>

Rogue has posed:
"I like t'fly when I can open up an' pretend I'm an F-22, except curvier in all the right places!" Rogue says in that sassy flirty way, as she gathers up the alien pod, lifting it high enough to get it over the fence that is a good 10 feet high all on its own. She silently is flying it over the fence when Jean's voice chimes in, Rogue biting her bottom lip as she hovers over the opening basketball court's skylight hangar entrance.

"It's definitely Chinese." She says in response to what this thing is. "Wait, what if there's a face hugger inside it? I'm too pretty to have my face be the pathway to my own demise."

She's in the process of lowering the alien pod down in to the hangar, a long drop down to the deck below, where the Blackbird is resting quietly in its berth.

Jeepers has his leather leash hanging from his collar, making it easier for Scott to wrangle him, and take the side lift beside the court down to the hangar below, and bring Jeepers with him, who rarely gets the chance to go in to the X-Men base, but whenever he does, the dog acts as though it is the BEST DAY EVER!

Scott Summers has posed:
Scott gives Rogue's 'curvier' comments a blank, featureless stare. When she reiterates that it's Chinese, he opens his mouth to reply only to pause when he hears Jean's telepathic missive.

<<A piece of space junk Rogue found,>> Scott answers, well-used to telepathy by this point given he's known Charles Xavier for most of his life, <<It looks like it's a sealed pod of some kind. Could be a survivor from one of the refugee ships. Or it could be an alien septic tank. I guess we'll find out. Set up containment in one of the labs.>>

It's hard to mark tone when it comes to 'thoughts turned into words', but Scott's are stilted and sharp. His mind is usually open to 'instant messaging' like this, but he's practiced hard to keep whatever is beneath the surface beyond the reach of a casual scan. Whatever he's feeling, he keeps it to himself.

<<Let's just take it easy. Step by step.>>

Jean Grey has posed:
<<Facehugger? We killed all the Brood. Again.>> Jean is confident! Possibly confidently wrong. But at least on the scale of Earth, right now, it's true. <<Remember? So probably not that. Plus the Shi'ar still have a cruiser in-system, I imagine they're watching for any of the known threats like that. Dunno what they think about the refugees, though.>>

Jean is just walking out onto the hangar floor below to meet them, as the big doors open. She stopped along to borrow a medical bed from Hank, which rolls along behind her on a gurney on a telekinetic leash It's not exactly the highest end containment equipment like SHIELD uses, but it does have a basic quarantine setup. This is really a 'just in case,' sort of thing, having it on hand, and more for the unlikely case that it's an escape pod with injured, rather than a monster.
R
"But if we're worried, here-"

At some point in Rogue's flight, she'll feel the gentle tug of Jean's mind on the object itself. "I can put a bubble around it, and we open it that way. If its anything really, really bad, I tear it down to atoms?"

That's a little harsh. But then again, turning the school into ground zero for some alien horror show is probably not something any of them want to risk.

Rogue has posed:
It's when Rogue feels Jean taking control of the object the last 20 or so feet from the hard deck, that she lets go of it, and flies herself down in a swooping arc that ends with her comfy Docs touching down herself. "I found it over by that waterfall north'a Pugsley Creek. I got a text from the neighbor fella, he said he saw somethin' metal through the trees, he thought it was like a car or some such, an' wanted one'a us to check it out, so I flew out and found this... sittin in the mud beside the water."

And indeed the underside of the object is caked in mud, which is going to leave quite a mess on the shiny metal hangar floor.

Rogue steps over to a nearby work station where she pulls her jacket off, and drapes it over the bench, leaving her in just her dark green coveralls and the black tee-shirt she was wearing beneath it. Her hands come up to hook fingers under the shoulder straps of her denim cool-girl clothing, and she steps back toward the others, offering a hand to take the leash from Scott when he catches up with the happy tail wagging dog.

Scott Summers has posed:
Scott finds himself watching Rogue fly down and Jean help with the aid of telekinesis. That leaves him and Jeepers to find their own way down into the hangar.

When the two women look up, they'll see Scott climbing down the ladder into the hangar with Jeeper's front paws wrapped around his neck and the leash turned into a makeshift harness. Once he's finally down on their level, he passes the leash over to Rogue along with a very happy pup who has just been on a great adventure in the vertical.

"See if you can sense anything inside the pod," Scott asks of Jean, crossing his arms over his chest once more and looking critically at it.

Jean Grey has posed:
Once Rogue lets go, the object floats along steadily, brought nearly to the floor of the hangar, but not quite set down. Though the weight isn't much of a strain, she nonetheless holds a hand out toward it, while the other shifts up to her temple, familiar gestures of concentration and focus taught to her by Charles so long ago.

For a few moments, she just gently turns it in the air, 'feeling' over the surfaces. It doesn't take much time at all for her to pronounce a verdict.

"Oh, there's definitely something alive in there," she tells Scott. "No clue about the kind of system we're looking at here without getting Forge to look at it, or maybe Doug to talk to it, but my instinct says escape pod. Slowed life signs, minimal brain activity, but not zero. Not that different from how they brought us Xandra."

There's a brief flicker in the air as Jean establishes a bubble around the pod, while she feels over it for obvious control surfaces. "I'm a little hesitant to do this without medical on standby, as much for its sake as ours. But then again, who knows how long the pod is designed to run for..."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue crouches down beside her dog as she starts to untie the impressive harness Scott made out of the leather leash, showcasing just how much of a boyscout Cyclops really is. She's working on the knots while listening to the two talk, a groan escaping her when Jean announces that there is something alive inside it.

"Can we please just hang up a 'No Soliciters' sign outside our planet?" She asks, frustrations at her feelings on space shining through in her voice.

Jeepers licks her face as she works on the last tie, finally tugging the leather out of the knot, and smirking at her pet before standing up. "If this thing comes out swingin', then nobody better EVER question me when I complain about space again, kapeesh?"

Who the hell says kapeesh anymore?

Rogue guides Jeepers over to the Blackbird where she loops his leash over one of the hydraulic connections to the ship's boarding ramp, leaving the dog to whine again fifteen feet away from the action, while the Belle turns to walk back toward the pod, Jean and Scott, her hands tucked in to the pockets on her coveralls.

Scott Summers has posed:
"Maybe see if Forge can put something together, yeah," Scott agrees, nodding his head, "I can probably make a call to the Fantastic Four. The Professor knows Doctor Richards, and this seems right in his wheelhouse. Strange technology from space. Failing that, maybe someone at the Starport? You know Wonder Woman, don't you - "

As Scott talks, he fails to immediately notice the light that is coming from the pod. It seems to scan them, a web of laser-light passing along the inside of the telekinetic shell and the people beyond it. A moment later, it beeps and then hisses open. The noise draws Scott's attention and the X-Man turns swiftly, lifting his hand to his glasses. He's ready to blast if need be.

"Rogue, Phoenix, get ready ... "

A puff of mist rises into the air, fogging up the inside of the shell for a moment. Slowly, it begins to clear, and a noise can be heard like a ... cough?

> kaff kaff kaff <

"Keep back," says a voice from the mist, with a perfect if not slightly antiquated New York accent. As the mist clears, the creature becomes visible. A feathered yellow-white head, a broad yellow beak. A battered fedora sits on his head, and he peers at the trio from beneath it.

"I'm warnin' you," says the humanoid duck, "I know Quak-fu ... "

Jean Grey has posed:
"Aw c'mmmmon," Jean echoes back at Rogue. "What about 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...'?" She quotes from (the better known portion of) the New Colossus, that famous poem from the Statue of Liberty. Don't be racist against alien immigrants, Roooogue!

However, in this case, even Jean does a fairly quick verbal turnabout to concede part of the point. "But alien immigration is definitely out of OUR wheelhouse." This is fllowed by a nod back at Scott, as he goes through the options of more qualified scientists and alien babysitters. "Reed or Diana, or even someone at SHIELD, they're basically our neighbors anyway. This has to go through channels. And in the short term, it's risky to even open it, in either direction. For all we know, an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere could be like sulfuric acid to whatever's inside."

All fair, carefully reasoned points!

...which don't matter much as the pod starts scanning them and doing other STUFF on its own. Jean doesn't react quite with the militant tension that Scott does, but if anything, it's not because she's lax...

She's just that confident in her own powers.

Regardless, what they actually get, at the end of all that, is far beyond anything she was expecting. Including the fact that their guest seems to speak English. "I-" Her mouth opens, hangs there, shuts. Hrm. Nope. For once, the Headmistress is fully at a loss.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue sidles up on Jean's left side, with Scott on her right, the trio awaiting the grand opening of this alien escape pod. Rogue glances over at the other two, showing Jean a smarmy expression at her brain, and the use of all those science words, but she doesn't comment on it, she just idly shakes her head, an undertone of great amusement lingering on her visage as the scan web crosses over them.

With the alien vehicle opening up, Rogue pulls her hands from her coverall waist pockets, and tenses up a bit, ready for a fight like the others astride her.

Jeepers starts doing what dogs do in alien movies, which is to say he's at the end of his leash, barking loudly at the ship as it reveals its passenger...

With the plumes of steam rolling around them, and the feathered fellow stepping out, fedora and all, Rogue just flatly stares at him, her hands going loose from their balled-up fists.

Being that the Southern Belle has been nothing but troubled by space, leaving everyone on the team to know it all too well, she sees their new guest, and a totally exasperated exhale bursts from between her dusky hued lips. Her shoulders slump, and her head wobbles side to side, before she motions at the duck with her left hand. In a voice bathed in a tired tone, she looks at Scott and Jean.

"What the fuck?"