“I’m telling mom on you…” said a girl nervously as she yelled to her older brother as he continued to climb up the side of the hill that lead to one of the dormant volcano’s on the island Lanai it has been dormant for both of the young teenagers lives and from what they knew due to their schooling has never erupted or if it has ever erupted it was never recoded which was why Kale the older brother of Alana wanted to check it out. The climb wasn’t as long as either of them thought and when the reached the top there was nothing their except a large hole in the ground that lead to an open football field of nothing. It was bare a few plants laid out across the barren grounds.

“Cool right?” Kale said to his sister full of confidence as he turned to face her only to find her with her eyes closed and out of breath. “Alana? It wasn’t that bad was it?” Kale asked as he walked to his sister to find out her brow was sweating profusely. “Lana?” Kale said as he walked closer and caught his sister as she fell backwards her eyes open but now milky white. “I don’t feel good.” She whispered as she fainted in her older brothers arms. Kale shook her once and started to tear not sure what he should do. His sister shook quickly like she was going into a fit then stopped abruptly.

“Lana?” Kale screamed and his heart stopped when he saw his sisters fit and picked her up and held her close she was small and light so he had no problem carrying her anywhere but for her safety he was going to have to run. He took a step to the side of the dome and the ground shook and Kale froze scared. He looked around and the ground ceased to shake. Paying no mind to what he thought was a tremor in his legs Kale ran down the side of the volcano to bring his sister to his mother she’d know what to do.

---
24 hours later
----

The jet roared as it started up everyone he wanted (minus a few people who he couldn’t get in contact with) were now sitting behind him to his left sat one of his students and someone he knew who was ready for a mission a mission such as dangerous as this one he doubted but he knew she could handle it. Her mother on the other hand he planned on not telling until after they arrived besides her job wasn’t going to be a dangerous one she was only going to pilot the X-Jet through falling fireballs from the sky find a safe place to land then help with the evacuation. It wasn’t like she couldn’t handle that she had been flying the X-Jet for a few months now… she could handle that right?

The other three members who had sat behind him consisted of Maya, Jorge and Slate. Maya he was thrilled to have because of her experience with the team and her abilities made her an obvious choice to lead the evacuation process while Jorge and himself would set up to try and stall the eruption or at least the flow of magma as long as they could so everyone could be evacuated.

Slate was the only wildcard Sam wasn’t sure about on this mission he just happened to be around when Sam found Katrina. His skills in healing will coming in handy and Sam wasn’t comfortable having only two people on the evacuation team while one of them was flying. Which was why he asked Slate to come along, given their past experiences Sam had an idea of what Slate was capable of and he knew that if things escalated he’d be able to handle himself accordingly after all he was in the camps for a time. Not only his ability to heal but also his telepathy was going to be one of the biggest assets here. Radio signals were down which meant no communication links, meaning without Slate they’d be in trouble. All things considered even if he wasn’t a hundred percent confident with Slate (which bared a striking resemblance to his brother and the main reason he wasn’t as confident in Slate as he would have liked) he was glad to have him there. The pat on the back when he entered the X-Jet demonstrated Sam’s thanks.

Sam waited till after take off to brief his team and hand over the controls to Katrina whom he knew would be listening. ”Listen up, we have approximately 34 hours before the volcano on the Hawaiian called…” Sam looked down trying to recall the name. ”Lanai, population is a little over 3,000 people so we are lucky for the most part.” Sam stood now looking back at his team and then nodded his head to Slate and Maya, ”you two and Kat will be helping officials in the evacuation process while Jorge comes with me.” Sam’s eye fixed on Maya, ”Start in town and get the heavy populated areas cleared first and go from there. Just make sure there is enough escape boats for everyone if not keep them on the edge of the island. I don’t want anyone boiled alive… Oh and you will be leading the evac. Team.” he paused and gave Maya a reassured nod.

Looking to Jorge and continuing, ”You and I will be attempting to give everyone more time before the lava hits the populated areas. At most we can give them an hour maybe two but that could be the difference between casualties to none.” Sam continued to talk for another half hour giving the team rally points and emergency procedures in the event one of them was injured which resulted in a priority one preservation mode. Lives were at stake and they wouldn’t be saving anyone if they got them self killed in the process.

Once they reached Jorge and his drop point (thirty feet away from the island) he gave the orders for Katrina to lower so they could jump. Looking down at the blue ocean Sam leapt from the drop doors and dove into the crystal blue waters scaring a school of fish in the process.

OCC: Jorge and CS’s mission will be carried out in Elementals vs. Nature

Slate just happened to be around when Sam found Katrina.

Her mother always seemed to be around Katrina's bedroom, since they had returned from their Egypt trip. Checking if she'd left something on Katrina's desk; bringing up a snack to help them study; dropping off the key to Slate's own room, which was in the boy's hallway—back that way, and keep walking to the end. Yes, the very end. You can't miss it. Really.

The living room was always full of other people—not good for studying at all. The kitchen was better, but tended to collect tigers. Tigers who would watch them from across the room, eyes unmoving, as they methodically chewed through tomorrow's ground beef or turkey or the morning's leftover bacon.

Slate had not known about the library's study rooms until their interview with Shin. He suggested one of these, when mother and tiger were distracted elsewhere for a moment.

The arms of their chairs had touched as they leaned in over her Pre-Calculus book. The unit circle. SohCahToa. The perfect relationship between—

Sam did not knock when he entered. Apparently Hawaii was about to light on fire, and Katrina had to go now. Oh, Slate. You come too.

The former Kabal Leader was fairly certain he'd sprained something in his back when he'd straightened up. Sam's bro-slap managed to hit the spot dead on. Wince-smile, he replied, to Sam's grin-smile. Fortunately, he was a healer. Unfortunately, he presumed he was supposed to be saving his energy for their destination.

The plane ride went smoothly; Slate had expected no less of their pilot. For himself, he claimed an unobtrusive seat behind her, and attempted to re-focus his thoughts.

Hawaii, yes. Volcanic eruption. Rally points, emergency procedures, priority one preservation mode, rescue plans, evacuation plans.

And then Sam was jumping out of the plane, taking the other adult with him. His orders, as he understood them... were to stay close to Katrina. Slate found himself approving of the X-Commander's leadership style.

Except that Maya was still with them, he remembered. With a baby blue blink, he stared at his brother's friend.

Some things were not meant to be.

>>”Listen up, we have approximately 34 hours before the volcano on the Hawaiian called Lanai, population is a little over 3,000 people so we are lucky for the most part. You two and Kat will be helping officials in the evacuation process while Jorge comes with me. Start in town and get the heavy populated areas cleared first and go from there. Just make sure there is enough escape boats for everyone if not keep them on the edge of the island. I don’t want anyone boiled alive… Oh and you will be leading the evac. Team.”

Maya wished the X-team was bigger.

Evacuating an island that was about to go up in a volcanic boom? Sure, no problem. At least they did not have to do it alone. They had police, they had boats... the X-men were just here to make sure everything happened on time, and help out if needed.

Sam and the water guy would keep the elements in check. Maya bet it would be badass. Too bad she was not going to be there to watch.

She had a team to lead.

Her team consisted of Katrina (since when was she able to fly the freakin' X-jet, by the way?...) and the poor man's Calley.

The latter was staring at her with baby blue eyes. Apparently, he was a healer. That could come in handy. But he looked so much like the young knight's aughisky, he was giving Maya the creeps. When Sam first showed up with him, she thought it was a joke... but given the guy's quiet nature, joke was the last thing that came to her mind.

"Aye aye Capt'n" she smirked. And then Sam jumped out of the jet, because you cannot get any more badass than that. And with the two grown-ups gone, Maya was in charge.

"All right" she sighed, looking at the island through the window "Let's find a good place for us to land."

The Blackbird was a sophisticated piece of equipment. It had gauges monitoring dozens of things. It had dials, switches, and levers that controlled the most minute aspect of the flight. It was sound proof, wind proof, aerodynamic, insulated against heat, water proof, and ice resistant. It had computers capable of doing complex equations Katrina couldn't even dream of solving.

It was so sophisticated it could literally fly itself.

It was so smooth, it was like they were still sitting on the ground back in the hanger. Katrina almost wished the volcano had been spewing rocks and fireballs so she could show off what she could actually do, but in the end a smooth safe flight was probably for the best.

She hoped Sam appreciated the fact that she could practically hover this thing. Helicopters hover, airplanes don't. Unless they are the Blackbird and their pilot is Katrina. That was it for fancy flying, though. She'd save the barrel rolls for the way home, in celebration of a successful mission.

A few moments later, they were touching down on the open grass in front of the city hall. Around them, gardeners rushed forward with pained expressions on their faces. The little pilot opened the hatch and stepped out to greet them.

“Don't worry, we're here to...”

“What the hell you think you're doing? Get off the grass!” Someone waved a gardening trowel at them.

Huh?

“We've got tourists to worry about! Do you think perfect grass just grows that way naturally?”

“But,” Katrina stammered, “We're here to help with the evacuation. You know, because of the volcano?”

The gardeners looked at her like she'd just grown another head.

“It's extinct, princess, and you're off your rocker. Even if the volcano did erupt, the worst that would happen is a little smoke and a little pahoehoe. No big deal. The tourists love watching lava rivers. It'll be great. You can get a boat cruise for cheap down by the beach, but right now, you need to get off the damn grass!”

Slate discretely used his Blackberry to look the word up, from behind Katrina and Maya:

Pahoehoe: Basaltic lava forming smooth undulating or ropy masses.

The image search proved more enlightening. He offered to tilt the screen his teammates' ways, if they similarly required enlightening. The Blackberry fit in his hand like an old friend, even if it was a newer model than the one he'd left behind in Serbia: slightly slimmer, with a much better touch screen. He took a photo of the island through the windows, as Katrina flew them to the actual airport. It took the better part of an hour to get landing permissions; something about unlogged flight paths, and unscheduled arrivals. Also, appearing out of nowhere, so far as the control tower's radar was concerned.

It was well known that they were mutants before they landed. Mutants, or very young government agents in possession of cutting-edge technology. Also, that they were sadly misinformed about the island's volcanic activity.

"It's like this," the very nice officer explained to them, as they sat around a table in the baggage handler's break room. "The crack on the ocean floor--that's this donut hole, okay?"

He brushed powdered sugar off of the table, and set the donut hole down. Slate did not think its particular location relative to the napkin dispenser and the styrofoam coffee cup had any meaning, in this demonstration.

"So the crack, it's sending up the real lava--the stuff that formed the islands. Is still forming them, in fact. This paper plate is like the plate of the earth--that tectonic stuff. It's moving over the donut hole--"

That's the lava, the man's mind helpfully reminded Slate, whether or not he needed said reminder.

"--sort of getting pushed along by the lava. And the lava is rising up and forming islands on the plate as it goes past--boom, boom, boom, island. Like that. So our part of the plate," the man helpfully pointed to a grease stain, "is here, but we left the serious lava behind way back there,"

Like a billion years ago, you idiots, continued the side-commentary.

"So it's not too likely that our volcano is about to blow its top, even if we are getting a few tremors. It'd just be impossible, see?"

Why do I have to do this? Why can't I work in California, or New York? Those cops deal with real problems.

"The worst we're going to get is some smoke," he finished.

"Or a little pahoehoe," Slate helpfully added.

"Or--yeah. A little pahoehoe." The cop smiled. Great. The kid knows how to look on Wikipedia. Wikipedia 'lunatic', lunatic--we don't evacuate the island every time someone asks nicely.

Slate was beginning to get a headache.

Well, damn.
This was not really going according to plan.

Maya felt like she needed to deal with the situation; first, with the guy whose biggest problem was the freakin' grass, and then the officer with the donut thing. Of course he had a donut. Geez.

"Look" she said, trying to sound more polite than she felt "You might be right about volcanoes, or might not - maybe you have a degree in Geology for all I care. But trust me, we wouldn't be here if there wasn't any danger."

Did this guy ever watch movies? Classic disaster movie template, 101: warn them and they ignore it. And then comes 55 minutes of screaming, running, and donut guy starring as the lead redshirt.

Blessed are the dumbf*cks.

"Is there anyone else we can talk to? Maybe someone who actually knows the volcano? Because, think about this: if we are wrong, it was a drill, and we're sorry. But if we are right, and you don't let us help, people are going to die. Is that really such a hard choice?"

I freakin' hate disaster movies.

“If you want to talk to the island's official expert on the volcano, I can give you his address,” the cop handed them a receipt with some scribbles on the back. “Tell him Officer Kuni sent you.”

The “official expert” tried to give them a 50% discount on a scenic jeep tour to volcano's rim. Then, for friends of Kuni, he offered to throw in a special jungle zip line adventure for only...

Katrina didn't hear about how great the deal was; she was already storming out the door. If she ever saw that Officer Kuni guy again, she'd strangle him. If the volcano didn't get him first, that was. They didn't have time to waste, and yet, that's all they seemed to be able to do.

“Maybe we could hook up a loud speaker or something and fly over the town? We've got to at least give people a fair warning.” She tried to figure out in her head how slowly she could fly the jet and keep it aloft. It was an amazing vehicle, but it wasn't a magical hovercraft.

“No, that won't work,” she muttered to herself. She couldn't go slow enough for the sound waves to not get blasted to pieces and be unrecognizable to anyone on the ground. Maybe a massive illusion to make them think it is blowing up right now? Scare them off the island? That was a lot of people in a very large area that she'd have to affect. She bit her lip when she saw the look in Slate's eye. Was a couple thousand people's lives worth her sanity? Maybe. But if she needed that ability later in a way that could save even more people, it might not be worth it.

“Gah! Any other brilliant ideas? Want to kidnap a school full of children, so we can at least save them? Or maybe skywriting a warning to 'run'?” She was pacing back and forth outside the door to the jet, wearing down a track parallel to their plane.

The ground shook; for the first time they could really feel it in this part of the town, and Katrina stumbled into Slate. Above them, the beginnings of a dark cloud were starting to rise from behind the peak of the volcano.

From inside the plane, Sam's voice crackled over the radio.

>>“Cold Steel to all X-Men on the island…” staticstaticstatic “****.”

That meant there were at least two people on the island that actually wanted to be rescued.

“Let's go get them.”

They piled into the jet and strapped themselves in. Katrina fired it up and took off. As she flew towards the mountain, she could see that Sam and Detective Cerventes had been busy: all around the side of the volcano were ice dams filled with water, like a cold white skirt. Katrina scanned for them, avoiding the peak of the volcano and circling around to the side.

“Do you see them anywhere?”

They were almost even with the plume of smoke when their entire world turned upside down.

A black and red plume exploded out of the top and back of the volcano. Large rocks flew threw the air with even more force that an Abyssi propelled Lady of Liberty. Not bigger-than-a-bread-box large, but bigger-than-their-jet large. The smoke grew thick, flames shot upward, ropes of lava flung outward like Jackson Pollock threw paint around, not caring at all where it landed.

Of course, all they could see from the cockpit was flames and smoke.

Something pushed upward and there was a terrible wrenching sound of tearing metal. They tumbled sideways. The occupants were jerked this way, then that, and for a moment Katrina lost hold of the yoke. Just for a moment, though. As quick as she could she grabbed it and yanked them out of their spiral. Or tried rather. She caught a patch of blue amidst the black and red and then they were out of it.

The word “turbulence” did not even come close to describing what their plane was going through. A cowboy might have compared it to riding a bucking bronco that was also on fire and throwing rocks.

Katrina pulled up, but something was wrong. Part of the dashboard that was blinking in such an alarming color was the little light up plane diagram. It seemed to think something was wrong with the wing. Something that felt like it might not be there anymore.

There was sky in front of her, and water, and off to the side a bit, just to the right, another little piece of land.

They could maybe glide there, Katrina decided. Maybe.

It was a water landing, followed by a sudden impact with the sand at the edge of the beach. Then everything was still.

All kinds of things hurt. Too many things fer her to even think of what they all were. She could get out, and check on her passengers, but it was so much easier to just stay in her seat. Stay and maybe sleep a little bit.

(See also, Elementals vs. Nature)

The first thing he did was check his pocket; the one inside of his coat, next to his heart. It had become a habit, though he generally tried to be inconspicuous about it—Katrina could be alarmingly observant sometimes.

Katrina.

Slate struggled back to full awareness. His chest hurt where the seatbelt had caught him; his brain hurt where his skull had caught it. It was a testament to Katrina's flight skills that he was no worse off; he had been in car crashes more fatal.

Katrina.

She was in the seat in front of his; the pilot's seat, of course. He could see her shoulder slumped to one side; her head leaned against it; a fall of blonde hair obscuring them both. His seat belt had done an excellent job of catching him—now, it seemed that it did not want to let him go. His hands fumbled with the buckle dumbly; the metal device seemed more complicated than he remembered, and the straps tighter. It was significantly easier to unclasp once he had remembered to heal himself. His head still hurt, but simple devices made sense again. He stumbled forward.

Katrina was breathing. It was not the most steady breathing, but she was. He did not stop to assess her other injuries; did not look for fractures or contusions or bleeds. His mutation did not care. She was breathing. Her heart was beating. That was all he needed.

Slate placed his hands on either side of her face.

We must work on your landings, he said as her eyes fluttered open, with a smile.

The plane would be somewhat less easy to heal. The right wing was not even worth talking about until they had gotten it into a proper hanger: it was, in large part, simply missing. The engines were still present, but both were issuing thin curls of black smoke. Systems based on air intake will do that, when flown through a volcano's debris field. More pertinent to their situation was the electrical system: Katrina's landing had not been gentle on it, and somewhere underneath the plane's panels, something had gone very wrong. They were out of his telepathic range with Sam and Jorge; that was clearly why the X-Adults were not responding to him. He would see what he could do about getting less mutationally related communications restored. It seemed they were going to be here awhile.

First, however, Maya. After some small delay, Slate remembered to heal their other teammate, too.

Maya held on for dear life as the jet got hit and was propelled out of the sky. She could see Katrina struggling with the controls, but you can only do so much with a machine that made that noise only seconds ago.

Ladies and gentlemen, please admire the stunning scenery on the left while our staff ductapes the right wing back to place...

For a moment, she was quite sure they were going to die. She thought about mirrorwalking out of there, but there was no way she was leaving the team behind, and no time to do it anyway. She sure as hell was not going to undo the seatbelts before the plane reached a complete halt.

Which, eventually, it did.

Hours, days, or seconds later, Maya groaned and tried to lift her head. Ouch. They were on the ground all right, but everything was wobbly and spinny, and for a moment she panicked, thinking they have landed in water after all.

Then she kind of saw Slate stumble out of his chair. Good. He was good enough to move around and speak. And apparently, Katrina was moving too.

Reaching down, Maya fumbled with the seatbelt. Everything hurt equally bad, and she didn't really feel like checking for wounds before she was out of the damn seat.

"Sh*t." she muttered, kicking the seat in front of her in frustration.

Then, suddenly, Slate showed up. What the...
... oh.

"Thanks." she blinked, much clearer now, undoing her seatbelt and standing up. They were standing at a weird angle, but then again, so was the jet. A brief glance around told her they were not going anywhere anytime soon.

"You two okay?" she asked, looking at both of them. What a tiny team. And not really useful, when you take the jet out of the picture.

"All right" she sighed, looking out the window "I guess that settles the question. I hope those dumbf*cks have enough brains to see what's going on by now." she looked at Kat "Can we contact Sam and Cervantes?"

That would be so... unlikely.

Katrina blinked her eyes open when she felt the cool touch of familiar fingers on her face and the whisper of a familiar voice in her mind.

She was alive.

Slate was alive.

Her eyes fluttered open and there was the familiar baby blue gaze.

They were alive and she could still do this: she leaned forward as far as her seat belt would allow and kissed the familiar smile.

It was good to be alive.

She freed herself from her seat as Slate went about diagnosing their electrical problems and healing Maya. Then she gave the plane a once over, herself. They had slid up onto the land, mostly, so they didn't need to worry about using their cushions as floatation devices or anything like that. The water level was low enough that they could open the hatch without worry of flooding. She did so manually, because the electrical systems were offline, and let light and fresh air come wooshing into the cabin.

The light helped her to see what kind of damage they had sustained.

It looked pretty bad. It was even worse on the outside of the plane than on the inside. She wasn't even sure how she had managed to get them as far as she had, what with one wing a twisted stub. She stepped out of the plane and into salt water up to her ankles.

They were alive, but the plane looked like it might never fly again.

It was heartbreaking to see their jet, the last Blackbird Lockheed SR-71 serving, so horribly mangled. The last of its kind, finally out of commission, unless by some miracle they could put it back together again. That seemed highly unlikely on a tiny little island in the middle of nowhere.

“Jěbati vulkan¹,” she whispered under her breath, her eyes watering slightly as she ran her hand over wing. She wiped away the moisture with the back of her hand and returned to the hatch to answer Maya's question.

“It doesn't look like it. All the electronics are down, including communications, and we're pretty far away by now, so we're going to be out of telepathy range.” Illusion range, too. They were going to be here for awhile. They'd have to be smart about it.

First, a look around the island to see what they were dealing with. Then food, shelter, and emergency signal concerns.

---

јебени вулкан¹ = (censored) volcano.

Slate following Katrina out onto the sand to see up close what they already knew. Unlike the other wing, this one was not still smoking; there was not enough of it left to smoke. "It will be all right, Katrina," he promised softly. "I will heal it. It is what I do."

...Though he might have to take a few more classes first, or enquire with his teachers as to the name of a good pro bono airplane mechanic. The Mansion certainly had a budget for the X-Jet's fuel and basic upkeep, but he did not believe they had volcano insurance.

"We should determine if there are settlements on this island," he suggested. "I... do not believe I saw any human habitations from the air, though I admit to being somewhat distracted at the time."

Somewhat.

"We can search for a food and water sources at the same time," he added. As for shelter... the X-Jet was not going anywhere. Somewhat belatedly, he added: "...At least, I would suggest so. What do you think, Maya?"

As acting Team Leader, she was his superior. He was... not yet adjusted to being a subordinate officer.

In the distance, heavy black plumes were rising up from a volcano they could no longer see, rapidly obscuring the thin black trail left by their own descent.

>>“Jěbati vulkan..."

Even without speaking whatever language that was, Maya was pretty sure she grasped the meaning.

>>“It doesn't look like it. All the electronics are down, including communications, and we're pretty far away by now, so we're going to be out of telepathy range.”

"Well, damn."

They were out of mirror range too. Even without slipping into one of the compact mirrors she was carrying, Maya could tell there would not be another reflecting surface close enough to make the jump. And what would they do back on the island anyway?...

>>"We should determine if there are settlements on this island. I... do not believe I saw any human habitations from the air, though I admit to being somewhat distracted at the time."

Wow, the Slate kid was... calm. For someone who just crash landed on an island. It could always be worse, of course, but still...
He also had a point. The island did not look big, they could search around and see what they had to work with.

>>"We can search for a food and water sources at the same time... At least, I would suggest so. What do you think, Maya?"

She nodded.

"If we are stuck here, we will need supplies. Also, if no one else lives on this rock, we need to figure out a way to let people know we are here. Smoke, lights, whatever. I don't feel any mirrors in jumping range, otherwise I would hop back to the island, but... well. Do we have any provisions on the jet?"

Slate was calm, which helped everyone else to be calm, too. They couldn't help it, calm was contagious, just like panic was.

Their team leader inquired about emergency provisions on the jet.

“There should be enough fresh water and food to get use through about three days.” The operative word being 'should'. “I'll check.” Katrina skittered into action, climbing back into the plane and sloshing wet footprints on the floor in order to check. It took only a moment to find the correct lever to open the emergency compartment. It was fully stocked, just as it was supposed to be.

“Three days worth,” she confirmed, “There's also a water filter, matches, a swiss army knife, a blanket, a compass, and a couple of flares. Oh, and a first aid kit. Not that we need that.” Luckily they had Slate. All the bandages in all the first aid kits in all the world were not as useful as Slate was.

She splashed her way back out of the jet, closing the door behind her to protect the few rations they had from scavengers, if there were any.

“How do we go about this? Should we split up or stay together?”

--

It turned out that there was not much on the island. It took only an hour or two to circumnavigate the entire thing; together, because no one really liked the idea of being alone on a tropical island, even if they were within mental shouting range.

They had a stream that bubbled up from somewhere and trickled into the ocean along the western side of the island. They had various trees with yellowish fruits hanging from them that looked like guavas. Katrina only recognized them because Hans was always making her try different kinds of fruits and vegetables when she was a kid. She also thought she saw mangos too, and of course, coconuts were everywhere. There were bird calls, now and then, but all the birds aside from seagulls seemed too shy to venture out of the thick jungle at the center of the island. The eastern side of the island was very rocky, and the waves hit hard.

Katrina was glad they hadn't landed on this side.

By the time the reached the jet again, the sun was setting in brilliant style, turning the smokey clouds from the volcano brilliant reds and purples.

Katrina didn't really appreciate it, though. Her feet were sore, she was getting hungry, and she really had to go to the bathroom and the nearest one of those was several dozen miles away.

She slipped her hand into Slate's and sniffled a very defeated sniffle.

Now what?

"Now," Slate said simply, replying to the thought where they could all hear it. "I will attempt to fix our electrical system. If we can restore communications, we can arrange a rescue for ourselves and proper transportation for our... transportation."

It was difficult to state that matter delicately, with the Blackbird's tattered wing glinting red in the sunset.

There was a basic toolbox in the X-Jet. A screwdriver; flat headed. A hammer. Pliers. A level, an adjustable wrench, and a tape measure. It did have wire cutters: he would grant it that.

As the light outside the jet faded, casting its interior in shades of grey, Slate took one look at the philips head screws holding the console together and stated, quite mildly,

"We should determine sleeping arrangements. Primarily: inside or outside?"

Slate voted for inside. The seats came in rows of two. As there was only one blanket, it was reasonable for Mirror to have it while he and Katrina shared body heat. A simple and logical arrangement.

>>“There should be enough fresh water and food to get use through about three days. I'll check... Three days worth. There's also a water filter, matches, a swiss army knife, a blanket, a compass, and a couple of flares. Oh, and a first aid kit. Not that we need that.”

Well, brownie points for the X-team, they did know how to prepare for a mission. Things were looking a lot better now. A broken wing was not the end of the world, the jet did not blow up... unlike the other island was about to. Damn. There was nothing they could do about the mission now, apart from waiting to be found.

They searched the island. It was empty, but it did not look hostile; there was water and some food too, in case they ran out. Maya did not plan on staying that long. Someone should be looking for the jet of the freaking X-MEN, right?
Katrina looked tired and upsed. Good thing she did not have to deal with that. That was Slate's job. It was pretty obvious, even for someone without telepathy.

>>"Now. I will attempt to fix our electrical system. If we can restore communications, we can arrange a rescue for ourselves and proper transportation for our... transportation."

Now she was curious to see how that would turn out. Maybe the kid knew more that she thought?

>>"We should determine sleeping arrangements. Primarily: inside or outside?"

"You two sleep inside" she concluded "I'll make a fire outside, someone should see it if they are looking for us. I'll be fine with a blanket. And I don't sleep much anyway. I'll be shifting soon."

Time zones were nasty.