o15. closed.

[forgodssake]

CHARACTERS: Charles Xavier and David
LOCATION: Satellite science "lab", beyond camp.
WARNINGS: Violence.
SUMMARY: We're being hunted.
NOTES: Forward dated to mid-January.



"I believe I've just missed my second year anniversary."

This, Charles idly mentions in a natural pause of conversation. Their progress through the jungle has the same easy pace as a stroll, but tangled underbrush, uneven terrain, oppressive humidity, insects, and the permeating feeling of unease kind of make it a struggle -- or at least, this is the case for Charles. His has in his hand a tall, solid walking stick he uses primarily to push aside nature, and occasionally lean into. He swats away a ubiquitous yellow beetle that had attempted to perch a ride on his ear.

Onwards. They're less than a minute out from the satellite laboratory, even if it is mostly a more ramshackle version of the tent and platform set up they have nearer camp. Charles has, on him, a single canister containing nanite fluid, tucked away in the bag hooked on his shoulder. "'Missed', as if anyone commemorates that sort of thing. Erik and I are the only ones left of the twenty-sixth jump."

And the matter of time spent, out here, is specifically more complicated for Erik, than it is for him.

"Someone I considered a colleague made me a cake, last time," Charles has to concede. He is a little breathless and should probably stop talking, but he never stops talking. "Albeit sarcastically."

Maybe David will see it first, as Charles mostly looks at the jungle ground immediately in front of him. The shelter coming up is in view, but the tarp is torn, hanging wrongly off where it had been pegged up. The jungle is only as quiet as jungles are; the constant ticking and squeaking of insects, the wind in the canopies.

Comments

[noman]

David is perhaps a bit better at hiding his own fatigue—mild in comparison, kept largely at bay by whatever strange physiology was bestowed upon him—if only through longer silences. The insects bother him only when they approach his face. The various topographical challenges are trivial. He carries no stick. The humidity, though... the humidity. If David ever looks outwardly uncomfortable, more likely than not it's because he's sweating, and the sweat is creeping down the backs of his heels, and it's giving him blisters, and it's gathering elsewhere and causing smells. That or it's the issue of his hair, which is becoming progressively less blond as it grows, which grinds hard against his own vain attachment to a particular aesthetic, to the point that anxiety now dusts his thoughts nigh constantly. Thankfully, conversation does its part to keep him from dwelling on his various objections to the human condition.

"Congratulations on your longevity." Surely this style of humour is no stranger here. "Did the two of you arrive at once? Together?"

At the same time he declines to conceal his prying, he reckons they're nearly there. It's a wonder the lonely little ancillary site hasn't been ransacked, really, considering the rash of intrusions they've had to deal with at base camp of late. The irony of that thought must have been laying in wait for this moment, because it occurs to him before anything else—and directly on its heels comes the impulse to interrupt:

"Sir."

(Sorry, Charles, you know how old habits can be; vestigial programming is uniquely stubborn.)

He's stopped, he's raised his arm to indicate the site ahead, one long finger directing Xavier's attention to the glimpse of skewed fabric granted them by the gaps between trees. Threads hanging, savaged, swaying gently where the air moves them. The low timbre of his voice, a rough edge sanded smooth. "It seems we've had a visitor."

[forgodssake]

"Thank you. We did. Mystique was a few cycles later. There were others -- Alex, long before us, one of my students. Hank, after, another--"

But he's interrupted, prompting him to glance up.

"Charles," he gamely corrects anyway.

(Maybe it's rude; it's at least well-meaning. There is a sense, already, that David is adapting from something he was, to something he now is. If he can help, in his way, he will.)

Charles pauses a fraction late, but pause he does, peering after David's gesture. He experiences a slight tickle down the back of his neck, visceral and fleeting. "I suppose it was a matter of time." His tone remains normal. He's quieter than he was a second ago. There's a beat, before a decision is made, and he continues onwards.

It's right there, anyway.

[noman]

"Yes," comes from behind, then a little closer as he catches up, quiet in his narrow ship-issue jumpsuit, "it was." As always, the pragmatism is appreciated. Not immediately being told you'd better go first, David or go secure the site, David is nice too, and it's why he offers, quite casually, "Shall I take the lead?"

Since you're smaller and softer, and not nearly as durable or as fast, and if anything dire happened to you he might feel something about it, and he would definitely have to answer to a man who wanted to kill him on first contact were it not for your intervention. Charles. Sir.

The aborted conversation will continue once they've regained some security; he won't forget.

[forgodssake]

It hadn't really occurred to Charles to do anything but directly wander onwards and take point, and he's about to protest when glimmers of David's thoughts -- at least those along the lines of true pragmatism -- have him hesitate.

"Alright, I'll-- watch your back," he says, like he supposes that's a thing he might to, usefully, simultaneously a little wry as well as completely serious.

Once David steps past, he follows, walking stick idly gripped in his hands in a resting readiness, although his expectation is that of someone walking into a site where the main event has been long since concluded. It does, at least, seem that way, a ransacking having taken place. Samples stolen, equipment strewn.

[noman]

The faint smile he wears for Xavier's quippy hesitance fades once he's moved past. His scan of the site is far less complex than it would've been months earlier, comprised only of analog readings, seeing only what this organic machine is capable of seeing, with minimal advantages—minuscule advantages compared to what he once had. He sees the shredded tarp, upended cooler, all manner of paraphernalia scattered, no movement besides the occasional sigh of a breeze. By all accounts, it does indeed appear abandoned. So did LV-223, at first.

The way he looks down into the ground foliage, his focus abrupt and absolute, suggests he's just seen something. He has. Without hesitation, his long body folds at the waist and knees and he lifts it into view: a sample bag, the zipper seal still intact, its newly thawed and liquefied contents dribbling through a tear in the plastic.

"That's a shame." The arrangement of his fingers is delicate, as if he's holding a lace doily or a cup of tea. "This was the only sample of brain tissue we had."

[forgodssake]

"There'll likely be more where that came from. Not everyone will be vigilant about burning what they hunt."

Having allowed David to take point, Charles experiences some practiced double-vision as he views what David sees, all the while watching the green all around them. Some small part of him senses their surroundings as empty, an empathic impression that only telepaths achieve, even if intellectually he is absolutely aware that his powers don't have jurisdiction over brains too primitive for him to touch.

He remembers the manticores. If you'd ever met a manticore, you'd remember them too. But he remembers the dull throb of sentience he could detect, buried deep in their rage.

But he hears it at the same time as David does. A faint rustle, ahead of David, past the recent ruin under his investigation. Leaves shifting aside, jungle ground soft underfoot, the odd sound of bone scraping wood.

[noman]

Vegetable matter is pulverized, bark crumbles under friction, and David stands to his full height with the perfect fluidity of caution, the sample bag left just where he found it, his eyes fixed forward. His foot lifts, swings backward, steps down in near silence. Without instruction, the big muscle in his chest begins to thump; he feels it, the shift in pressure, in his neck and his hands; he sees the jungle around them with new clarity. This body of his, ready to panic before anything's really happened. This pathetic, cowardly thing.

Be still, says the gentle spread of his hand, showing his palm to Xavier in lieu of a word or a look.

What is it, how close, which way is the wind blowing, try to catch its smell, one good look to know if we should run, stay between them, what is it, come out, you're beautiful aren't you, stay between them—

A low murmur: "Can you sense it?"

[forgodssake]

No.

It's Xavier's voice, just apparently taking out the middleman of sound to nest that negative in David's soft animal brain. It sounds like him, a calmer version of him, an echo around the edges that has nothing to do with soundwaves bouncing off anything. Behind him, David can, in turn, sense that Charles has halted properly, remaining still.

The idea of running is only received with a touch of ordinary dismay, even if he can feel his own physiological response warming to the notion, ready to turn and flee at a moment's notice.

Nature has other ideas.

As jungle brush shifts and dances with movement, captured in David's sharp, attentive stare, another sound rustles through the rest of the foresty ambiance -- a sudden shift of plantlife, a thump, rotting wood shattered under something coming down heavy on it. The second creature in the vicinity comes barrelling over a felled tree, crashing through branches; it is the size of a black bear, but made bigger for the mutated, bony protrusions breaking through its flesh, jagged spikes and ridges along its spine and heavy on its already dense, plated body, the battering ram of its face.

They hunt in packs of two to three, and apparently, still do, even as they bleed and grow and become mad with whatever is changing them, and this one opts to go for the smaller one. Charles only has a second to react, whirling around and bringing stick up that would not otherwise feel flimsy against most things, but nevertheless, splits and breaks as the creature drives into them, disappearing them both into the thick green, Charles startled yell swiftly escalating into something more frightened.

Not a second later, the first one comes charging out of its hiding place, looking to crash through the ruined construction, and David in the midst of it.

[noman]

The voice inside him resonates like a distant bell, powerfully soft, and at once he turns his head toward its source. His face is gentle with awe, and his body already turning after it when the beast comes for them.

What is it that they say? Time seems to stop? They're wrong, it hasn't stopped; but it stretches itself long, so the scene plays at once in perfect detail, both too real and dreamlike, an overexposure of clarity, muffled in a sudden and curious silence. That massive body bursting from cover. Charles' valiant, but ultimately useless, defence. The sound of the branch splitting against unyielding bone like a clap of lightning—he's not standing where he was, he realizes, he's reeled aside. Away from them.

The pursuit impulse has come too late. He starts off like a shot, ready to sprint after the shape already disappearing, screams of terror already growing fainter, when the decoy finally shows its face. And it is beautiful, grotesquely beautiful, as it falls upon the outpost like a storm.
And David in the midst of it.

He escapes the animal's path, but barely—and gracelessly, hitting the ground like a flung scarecrow, his chin meeting the soil. It's no better when he rises, but he is quick, at least, and should have time enough to look at the alien creature before it turns. If it turns. He chances a look toward the now distant voice, opens his mouth as though to call back to it, but doesn't, only flashes his open teeth to the forest, panting.

So fast, it's all happening so fast—

[forgodssake]

Charles' time spent aboard the Tranquility had certainly been an education in what it's like to feel danger grow teeth and bear down on you, but Charles has also fought monsters back before. He's shot them to death, crippled them with the panicky swings of a construction hammer in one particularly gruesome act of self-defence, slithered his influence into the minds of those more powerful than he to wipe them out.

This one bites his hand raised in automatic defence in a sudden easy crunch of bone and gristle, making his vision go white, and the next thing he knows--

--either distance quiets his yells, but more likely his head smacking into rock as he's dragged away had something to do with it too.

The dinobear remaining slams its bony head into what's remaining of the structure, more crazed than confused and set on destruction. By the time it swings around to look at David, he'll notice that one of its little nocturnal eyes has been gouged away, leaving only tracks of gore in thick hide. It doesn't seem to mind, or in any way let it hinder it, issuing an animalistic bellow, blood-flecked.