Leaning forward and flipping the autopilot on Sam looked from the controls in front of him to the controls in front of Maya. She was a fast learner and she was already capable of flying the X-Jet on her own. It didn’t mean Sam would let her fly when he was still able. Besides if he was flying the jet some passengers who were still unconscious for the most part might try to swing on him. If needed at that point he could just tilt the jet and make them smack their heads on something hard and metallic. That and Sam loved flying.

”You brought all the supplies I asked you to bring? I packed the bags for the other two. You might find some good use of the gear in their packs. Pretty cold out.” he didn’t say it but some of the gear he packed were extra warm clothes and a few extra blankets. Each one had one large backpack and a one smaller pack. The large backpacks contained deep winter clothing, some tarp, a subzero-sleeping bag, a space blanket, one hundred feet of paracord. After that Aiden’s backpack and Persi’s backpack differed slightly, Aiden had a collapsible saw and a hatchet while Persi’s had a collapsible shovel and a slightly larger hatchet. Each of the smaller packs had a canteen, water purifying pills, steel wool a flint and some twine. Not to mention some pretty basic first-aid kits.

”Keep an extra eye on the kid, he needs some toughening up.” he didn’t say why but he figured Maya would learn soon enough once everyone comes to. Sam might have gone a little over-board in gathering the other two. Especially since Sam had a previous incident where he kidnapped three of the kids and then stole the X-Jet. Granted he was under the influence of a very crazy ex-girlfriend who happened to be one of the most powerful telepaths he had ever met, but now he was sane and very much in control. When Persi started protesting and arguing Sam might have put the kid in a sleeper hold till he passed out. It was either that or a dart gun. The sleeper was a little more personal which might have been the reason why Aiden tried attacking Sam and also the reason Aiden was now with them.

Sam learned about Aiden’s abilities when he was looking for a third member of Maya’s little team and seeing as he and Persi seemed so close and his abilities made him more adaptable to the cold, it just seemed right to knock the guy out and sling him over his shoulders along with Persi and take them to the X-Jet where Maya and their supplies were waiting for them. ”Also packed you a little whiskey in Aiden’s bag. More of a way to say congrats. You get to be the first one to lead a team in my survival boot camp.” Sam paused and the looked in the back to Aiden and Persi who were buckled up before looking back to Maya. ”You are the ranking X-Man. Or rather woman, I’m gonna give you the map when we land. Aiden should listen to you for the most part and Persi will follow who ever promises to keep him alive.” Sam turned his head back to the windows and watched as some clouds passed by. ”Any questions?”

>>”You brought all the supplies I asked you to bring? I packed the bags for the other two. You might find some good use of the gear in their packs. Pretty cold out.”

Maya glanced at the screen that marked the Jet's itinerary. Due north. No wonder it was going to be cold.
When Sam told her she was going on a mission, stat, Maya thought lives were in danger. She soon found out, however, that the only loves in danger were going to be hers, the two kids', and Sam's if he screwed this up for them. She could always count on Eve for taking revenge for her.

>>”Keep an extra eye on the kid, he needs some toughening up.”

The kid in question was probably Persi. Maya knew a few basic things about him, mostly because she had been his greeter once upon a time. She didn't know why he was out, or why he was accompanied by snow guy. She knew better than to ask.

>>”Also packed you a little whiskey in Aiden’s bag. More of a way to say congrats. You get to be the first one to lead a team in my survival boot camp. You are the ranking X-Man. Or rather woman, I’m gonna give you the map when we land. Aiden should listen to you for the most part and Persi will follow who ever promises to keep him alive. Any questions?”

"So, all we gotta do is survive, or do we also gotta defend the Wall and capture the flag?" Maya smirked. Good thing she dressed warm. Her archery gear, the one she used for missions, was prepped and ready, but she had never tested it in colt weather before. That was gonna be interesting.

This whole thing was going to be interesting. Sub-zero babysitting. Fun.

"Please let Eve know where I am. Someone's gotta feed Angua."

Persi's first thought when he woke up was that since he could hear an engine he must have fallen asleep in the car. His second was that since he felt hungry they must be on the way to grandmother's instead of home. His third was that the engine sounded completely wrong.

That was enough to wake him up completely. He was... definitely not in the car.

...And wasn't going to be. Right. All of... that. Persi was... not in the mood to think about it.

He had to sit up before he could figure out that the seats he could see the bottom of belonged to an airplane, and not a bus. That was... very confusing. Why was he in an airplane?

...Oh. Right. Psycho pirate guy.

...Why did psycho pirate guy have an airplane? Seriously. Of all things to give him, who ever thought that was a good idea? At least a regular ship would be limited to water. But no, they had to give the lunatic an airplane.

And... someone was talking to him. Friendly talking. Not arguing.

Well... hopefully Persi knew who to blame for giving him an airplane? Hopefully only one person in the world would think that was a good idea....

Persi managed to stand up surprisingly easily. He'd have expected it to be a lot shakier on anything that was technically just hurtling through the air under relative control. In theory. Persi would have been more confident in that 'under control' part of the theory if it had been basically anyone but the psycho pirate guy controlling it....

Anyway, he managed to stand up. And then spot Aiden, who did not seem to be awake. Persi was pretty willing to bet the psycho pirate guy was to blame for that too, even if he hadn't actually seen it.

So... now, should he go try to make psycho pirate guy and whatever lunatic gave the psycho pirate guy an airplane take them back home, or go see if Aiden was alive?

...Unconscious ex-roommates were much less scary than awake crazies with a plane.

Not that Persi had any idea what to actually do for Aiden. Was he supposed to do something? He had no idea. Um... figure out if Aiden was alive was a good start, probably.

Well, Aiden looked like he was breathing, so... that was good, probably? And he had the weird vague healing thing, so he'd probably be fine then, right? Right. That made sense. And meant Persi isn't have to do anything, which was good, because he had no idea what to do.

Shame he wasn't smart enough to become a doctor, or he could have decided to learn all that stuff.

And since Aiden was fine, that meant....

...You know what, Aiden would probably have better luck convincing the lunatics than Persi would. One of them clearly didn't like Persi already. So Persi should wake Aiden up. Except he had no idea how to do that.

Persi settled for staring and waiting.

((Not dead! Really! Trying to get away from sheer thesisness x.x))

He did not feel particularly pleasant. His head seemed rather sore and there was a niggling feeling that he was forgetting something significant that was currently largely forgotten because it was external rather than internal. Internal was mostly taken up by the sore head thing.

External gained extra points when he realized that it was vibrating. Perhaps waking up would be a good idea. Vibrating things were rarely good.

He opened his eyes. Okay, nothing dramatic. Unfamiliar, but undramatic. He gave his head a weary shake and looked around. Seats, mostly empty, with straps. Seat belts? Were they in some weird vehicle?

Wait, that was a window. Except it didn't show land. Those were clouds. Really close clouds.

Clouds instead of land. Airplane?

Aiden had never been in an airplane before. He now realized that he had never been more than a few stories off the ground before. He hadn't thought he had a problem with heights.

If the arm rests weren't quite so strangled right now (and, you know, were capable of communication) they might disagree with that idea. Aiden would agree with them when he got past the whole OH SH!T DON'T MOVE thing going on in his head at the moment. He might even notice that Persi was staring at him by then too.

A stirring from both parties, meaning they were both aware of the situation now or at least where they were. They were in the X-Jet, in the sky and Sam was driving. That was all they would know really for the moment until Sam decided to explain in detail what exactly was going on. Luckily they were close to their destination the jet flew pretty quickly when the throttle was pressed forward. ”Wait till the others wake up and we land, I’ll explain things a little more. I want them to hear this as well.” Sam shifted his gaze back to the clouds as the location of the camp came up on the radar and eventually the distance through the windows.

Another few minutes passed and Sam jerked the controls back from the auto-piolit. The jet shook slightly when he wiggled the steering 'wheel' and when he flicked the landing gear open. ”I left her a note.” he said simply, the note read somewhere along the lines, ‘Hey blonde, stole your boyfriend/girlfriend for a month you can get him/her back if she/he survives. Attached to the note is a key to a drawer in my office that has a GPS tracker attuned to Maya/Gawain’s X-Men communication device. The one next to it is one attuned to mine. That is for my girlfriend, she worries as well. Someone will need to feed the animals while we are gone. Duces, -CS’

He wanted to make sure the two in the back were aware they were landing he jerked the jet again slightly. Snow blew up as the jet set down and Sam unbuckled once the engines were off. His sixth sense made it easy to feel the body heat in the jet and a little directly outside. The jet engines were still hot so he did his best no to feel in that direction.

”Tweedsmuir North prov park” Sam said so everyone could hear him. Reaching into his pocket and standing he handed the map to Maya and turned to face the other two. ”You will be here for one month, during the time you will have one main objective, survive if you don’t well I deal with the paper work myself.” Sam paused and pointed to the bags he backed for the pair, ”Aiden, you got yours on the left and Persi, your on the right. One isn’t better than the other. In fact you need all three packs to survive. Maya has the other one, she is in charge seeing as she has the most experience in surviving.” Sam shrugged his shoulders and looked to Maya, ”Want to give them a pep talk or something?”

Maya helped Sam land the jet. The boys were stirring in the back, she hoped neither of them would freak out, not before landing anyway.

>>”Tweedsmuir North prov park. You will be here for one month, during the time you will have one main objective, survive if you don’t well I deal with the paper work myself. Aiden, you got yours on the left and Persi, your on the right. One isn’t better than the other. In fact you need all three packs to survive. Maya has the other one, she is in charge seeing as she has the most experience in surviving.”

"Wait, what?"

Wait. WHAT?!

They were in Canada. She expected cold, but come one, they were in freaking Canada in January.

One month.

Maya blinked, repeatedly. She expected a training for a few days. Maybe a week, tops. Since she was going with two green newbies. To Canada. In January.

She looked at Sam, trying to guess if he was joking or not. He was apparently not joking. Maya took the map and glanced at it before she tucked it into her backpack.

Right now the only consolation she could think of was that one of the bags held whiskey.

>>”Want to give them a pep talk or something?”

"Um..." Maya looked at the two guys, both of them at least as confused as she was. The whole deal had not sunk in yet, but it soon would. It might have been a survival training for the entire group, but for Maya, it was also about leadership.

"Well then" she smirked, picking up her backpack and archery gear "Sam's clearly an a**hole. Let's go show him we can do this."

Oh good Aiden was awake. And alive.

And... having a panic attack, apparently. Um. That wasn't very helpful. What exactly had happened between Persi getting knocked out and him waking up on the plane? Aiden was normally the not useless one.

Not that Persi was exactly being useful at the moment, but really. He couldn't do anything. Except possibly get someone else to do something. Someone else, in this case, being Aiden, who did not look very prepared to be useful right now. Persi eventually gave up on Aiden paying attention on his own, wandered over, and poked him. And then the plane shook.

...Maybe Aiden had a point with that whole panic thing. Persi squeaked and grabbed onto the back of a seat.

Oh. Landing. Landing was good. Maybe. It meant the psycho pirate guy and possibly his equally crazy accomplice weren't taking them anywhere anymore. Because they were already there. But could maybe get away now. That was kind of hard to do when in an airplane that was flying. So landing was good.

And then the pirate guy started talking. And the... whoever the crazy girl was, almost seemed like she'd argue. Except then she agreed with him.

There were so many things Persi could think of that were wrong with this scenario. Starting with: "Who thought it was a good idea to give an airplane to a bunch of lunatics?!" Or a couple of lunatics. Whatever. Lunatics should not have airplanes.

Aiden briefly heard his name. He didn't risk trying to find out what was going on. What were they supposed to do if this thing crashed? He couldn't fly! He was pretty sure Persi couldn't fly either, and he'd sort out later who else was there. Maybe one of them could fly, but if they could make everyone fly they wouldn't need the plane.

Oh look, a fly. Maybe something on this contraption would be able to survive a crash, if it somehow managed to get outside of the plane before impact. He was pretty sure nothing would survive the actual impact. Impact was bad.

There was less vibrating. And someone was talking. He'd care about the talking later. Something about a park and surviving. Yeah, he'd deal with that later. Right now, he just tried to decide if the lack of vibrating was going to last or not. He didn't dare look out the window in case they were falling out of the sky or something. He was never going to ever get into a plane willingly. Ever. If people wanted him on a plane, they could knock him out again.

”Riveting speech.” Sam said with a slight smirk in Maya’s direction. Before turning to the other two, it was clear the other two weren’t listening that well. Persi looked at them both like they were crazy. Maybe he was a little insane but for the most part things have worked out for him. Snapping his fingers Sam tried to get their attention. ”Aiden, best you pay attention if you want to survive. Persi, you listen to Maya, she will make sure you stay alive. I know it might seem messed up I’m putting you through this but.” Sam shrugged, ”No way in hell I’m gonna let you coast by while I’m your legal guardian. You need some toughening up. You’re too much of a ***** at the moment.”

Letting the fact that Sam was Persi’s new guardian till the kid turned, 18 which was only a few months away and why he agreed to it in the first place (even if it might have been his idea in the first place) sink in he continued, ”Aiden, you and Maya are here for another reason. You need to get some knowledge on survival. This is the only way I know how to make the know-how stick. If you are gonna be on the X-Men you need to be ready for the worst.”

With a quick laugh Sam added, ”Oh and if any of you want a chance to get back at me, survive long enough and you’ll get your chance.” he let the comment hang in the air hoping that at least Maya would pick up on the fact that they’d be seeing him before the month was up. He had no intention of revealing how yet but he figured they find out soon enough.

Turning and walking back to the center counsel Sam hit the open bay doors button and the cold air rushed in. ”Now gear up and get the hell out, I’ll see you in a month.” Sam waited till they responded, either with a complaint or a refusal to get out. Either way, they were leaving and with all the cold and snow around they didn’t stand a chance against Sam.

The guy called Aiden was obviously shell-shocked. Maya did not get much of a response out of Persi either, but she did catch his half-uttered comment:

>>"Who thought it was a good idea to give an airplane to a bunch of lunatics?!"

She smirked at that, but before she could answer, Sam took it on himself to deliver the rest of the speech.

>>”Persi, you listen to Maya, she will make sure you stay alive. I know it might seem messed up I’m putting you through this but. No way in hell I’m gonna let you coast by while I’m your legal guardian. You need some toughening up. You’re too much of a ***** at the moment.”

Wait, what? Sam as a legal guardian of a human being? Like, someone authorized him for it?...
Maybe this was as insane as it sounded...

>>”Aiden, you and Maya are here for another reason. You need to get some knowledge on survival. This is the only way I know how to make the know-how stick. If you are gonna be on the X-Men you need to be ready for the worst.”

Maya bit her tongue and didn't point out that she had plenty of survival experience, first hand, thank you very much. Sam was leaving her out in the middle of nowhere with two newbs. He probably had an ulterior motive, she just had to find out what.

>>”Oh and if any of you want a chance to get back at me, survive long enough and you’ll get your chance. Now gear up and get the hell out, I’ll see you in a month.”

"I'll save an arrow for your ass" she smirked, picking up her backpack and gear, and pointing to the bay door.

"Come on guys, let's get moving. He can leave us now, or he can unload us frozen in ice cubes from halfway up. Chop chop. Let's get this over with."

"Actually, most people call me a squirrel." Not that a squirrel was a whole lot better at surviving in frozen death zones than a cat, but there weren't any roofs around, so it wasn't like the crazy pirate guy could put them in more danger. "Not that that matters--uh. Wait, what?" Persi should, perhaps, pay a little more attention to comprehending everything he heard before responding. "You're what?"

"...Nope." Persi honestly wasn't even sure what he was refusing at this point. Crazy pirate guy being his (or anyone's) guardian, survival training, the frozen death zone it was supposed to take place in, or his chances or actually surviving. All of it, probably. It was all just no. He headed for the back of the plane to sit down and refuse to get near the door.

He tried to point out to himself that the lack of vibration had continued. The sky did seem the proper distance away now, although he didn't trust someone as issue-ridden as CS not to have something to do with that. Okay. He gradually relaxed a little bit more. He could breathe. He could listen to something outside his head. Crazy people who came up with whatever this thing was were talking. Okay.

Survive. He caught that word. That was not a good sign. Specifying survival meant that a failure to survive was a viable, reasonably likely possibility. Something about legal something. Probably waivers that HE HADN'T SIGNED or that crazy people like CS didn't care about liability.

DOOR DOOR DOOR FREEDOM DOOR

Aiden didn't flail or run or act particularly panicky, but he did get out of his freaky airplane seat, grab a bag (his, fortunately), give Persi a particular get your ass out of here because I'm not staying on this messed-up horrible contraption and I don't want to be alone with these people stare.