<<< Holding Down the Fort, Open (for those who stayed behind)

[Inkling]

Time: 10 am
Date: May 28th
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With the departure of those going to face down the threat from the would-be conquerors, it still remained that somebody needed to hold the Base in stable working order, ready and waiting for the larger team’s return. Sentry duty, by formal terms, was at least a function of necessity, at least that’s what Marina told herself. She was still helping in her own way, even if not contributing to divisions of the X-Men in opposition to the Skrulls, meeting them head on. The base reasoning had been simple and direct... Inkling had not enough requisite experience, specific skill, nor sufficient training to validate her joining them. Thus, the current shared assignment, with any of the others who had opted to stay behind on the Base, was deemed an acceptable compromise.

Helping.. by not being in the ranking member’s way... by keeping ‘home’ safe for their cumulative return... by several more dissolute rationales... This was how Inkling validated her usefulness for now. Not the most exciting work detail in the world, but it was a start, and at least it proved her responsibility to anyone in upper rank who might later be surveying her progress; that she could be trusted. A trace slipped in her purple consciousness of the conversation earlier in the day with Wolfsbane and Violet. They, and everyone else going on the mission, had an expectation, if not to fall in battle, of settling back into welcoming safety of ‘home’ upon their return... Marina was going to make sure they got it.

Given that the outer grounds had been well-cleared of superfluous bodies days previous with Jorge and Roberto, Marina had taken a slightly different track. With the vaster damage outside the main building, she was taking account of what was askew inside the facility and making a list of what needed repair. By her thinking, they might make much use of the exterior grounds, but the inside areas were where most actually did the majority of training, living, and work. Not a secondary consideration, safety of the adapted temple’s walls as a secure fallback position reinforced the inner confines as a priority focus to ensure all was in proper working order. Anything beyond simply returning items to original placement, like dislodged shelving from walls or extensive mechanical repair on ill-spared equipment, gained clear mention on her clipboard, plus annotation on the nature of what needed fixing as best as she could diagnose.

Her path left no level of the facility un-surveyed, but passed through areas of probable traffic, ordinal of most to least. Currently she was just above ground level, gauging the lingering marring done to the Dorms, Living areas, and working her way out from there. It was hard to place where a core area of repairs were necessary so far.

[Skids]

As per usual, Sally wasn’t quite sure what to do. However she was committed to getting something done anyway. She had of course made some progress on the shed but that seemed like a minor note compared to the amount of damage Utopia had suffered. As one who was constantly zooming around the grounds and looking at everything she had been tuned into the reconstruction and cleanup efforts in a way that was incredibly rare for her. She truly wanted to help and to do what few things she could. So she did, a flurry of action to move things here, and bit of paint there, yelling at a too curious creature or two over there. All minor things, but slowly she was building confidence in herself and connecting with others.

She had come to this place in flight from what she viewed as her family. She had been attacked, turned into a monster, been connected to a group mind of people that she knew little about, and had in many ways lost the most important person in her life. She had also battled her personal demons (in a very real sense), learned a lot about her powers, met people that were changing her life, and grown up a little. Skids was starting to learn that she loved this crazy ass jungle. Russell had been right, well about this at least. Coming here had changed her for the better and it would keep changing her.

Case in point, on her normal jaunts out, about, in, and everywhere else she came across a pretty purple girl carrying a clip board and looking all official. As best as Skids could recall she was a student of some stripe or another. Normally she’d play shy or assume she was unwanted, but today was a day for a different tactic. She concentrated; leveled off her emotions and felt her ever present anti friction bubble disappear, for now at least. Next she cleared her throat, stepped forward and offered her hand in greeting to the unknown student.

“Hey, I’m Sally. Anything I can do to help?”

[Inkling]

The Lavender Lass held an engrossed gaze shifting up betwixt a linear border where wall-met-ceiling and down to clipboard, walk-tracing the source of a singular electrical line from its point of minor exposure, back to its respective junction box. Fortunately, this one had a distinct lack of sporadic sparking or other problems, but double-checking for breaks in the line was just due diligence. A few basic skills taught by her father on household electrical maintenance served only so far here, and the sheer area of coverage of the range of power distribution around the Base made it a little daunting to try servicing any issues herself, but Marina was still set on documenting what needed fixing and where.

“Hey, I’m Sally. Anything I can do to help?” the approaching figure offered.

Sally first gained a snapping up-risen cluster of Marina’s tendrilized ‘hair’, giving her a steady perusal with all the aspect of a listless, lilac serpent; gauging the comely blonde immediately as non-threatening, it returned to Marina's mauve tresses without further deliberation. A half-beat later, Inkling’s head turned with the led-in view, and a certain but reserved smile took residence on her lavender lips. Marina still had her own residual cautious instincts to contend with, but was doing her best to simply allow trust to be the default condition among those she met here.

“Umm.. Hi...” she replied softly, but drew her voice to a more direct conversational level to share introductions. A scribble of notation punctuated her focus, then she lowered the clipboard, and appraised Sally with an unimposing coal-black gaze. “Marina.” she stated, purple digits making a light self-registry to her clavicle.

“Help? Sure... an extra set of hands and eyes are always good. I’m just covering what’s left that needs fixing inside the Base. Y’know... getting the ‘core areas’ as close to back up and functional as possible while the main groups are away.”

She faced the clipboard out to allow Sally to gain context from its content.

“If I run across something that I can just fix or clean up on the spot, I do. If it’s more complicated, or needs somebody’s approval, it goes on this thing. Example... that wire up there, on the ceiling corner, the one sticking out that looks maaayyyyybe like it’s not supposed to... yeah, not sure if pulling the circuit or fuse that controls power input through that line just to check on it is such a great idea... I might accidentally cut off electricity to something we realllllly need to stay on, so I just mark something like that here, what the problem is, where it’s at, if it seems like a critical issue, and my best guess on what’ll fix it. I’m not really a great techie or anything... I just get how some basic mechanical and electrical stuff works.”

BLINK BLINK went the coal-black eyes... Sensing her own tendency to drift, Marina re-routed her tangent back on-topic and continued.

“Right... notthepoint... ANYway... If you want to help me hunt things like that down, or already know where a potential problem area is inside the Base, by all means, lead on. This place is a lot bigger than I thought.”

[Lockheed]

The battle had been over. And eventually Rahne had been freed. That moment was the moment Lockheed disappeared from sight. His loyalty and love for Rahne had kept him there until he was sure she was ok, and then he took wing and left.

Through the jungle he flew, screeching and thrumming. It was a dangerous move, to be sure, but after years of feeling the light press of the Flock multitude against his unique mental block, that pressure was gone, and it gave him a strange sense of loss. So he made his way throughout the Savage Lands, practically careening from Flock Klutch to Flock Klutch, desperately hoping to be attacked of to find younglings, or anything.

A couple times, he felt a mind, or saw a fleeing stripe of color, but none attempted to connect with him. And after however long, he didn't even bother to keep track of the time, he flew back towards the mansion. He'd barely made it back to Rahne when the well of emotions running through him spilled out. In the middle of everything she had gone through, from being a monster to attacking her family, he hadn't the strength to hold back more sadness.

He ended up flying away from her to hide in a secluded spot to let himself grieve over being a member of an endangered species. One of, in all hopefulness, maybe twenty Flock. They used to number in flights more massive than the herds Rahne and Jack hunted from, and now there was twenty. Nineteen if the others decided that Lockheed was still an exile in the future.

He'd kept to himself even after Rahne had left for the city with the others, not wanting to let his moping seep into her own emotions, and he'd not even told her goodbye or that he loved her or that she needed to live and come back. It was the most selfish thing he had done since he had bonded to her, and after a while he couldn't hear to sit still and be with himself. Yet again he took off, this time on a much shorter trip as he passed a blonde and a purple girl in one of the hallways. Whatever. Maybe he should see what help he could be.

Swinging back, Lockheed landed on the purple lady's shoulder and peered into the clipboard.

[Inkling]

She’d been told to expect differences when coming here, and in truth, Marina’s awareness of the diversity among mutants had left her close to devoid of presumptions about the likely residents of Utopia. It was one of the ‘plusses’ in her mind, the range of forms and aspects by which people displayed their given abilities was wide indeed, so suggested a more permissive understanding of someone who looked like herself. Perhaps though, her lingering expectation had been more seated in crossing paths with those of the humanoid variety, at least in substantial part. This one... tagged a new definition of “different”.

The last syllables of Marina’s plea slid to Sally. If the girl had spotted any distinct issues that needed attention, or even simply knew the Base’s layout and could familiarize Inkling with it, her help was more than welcome. An interjection wasn’t considered in any part rude, but the form this one took was a defined surprise. The weight settling on her shoulder bore a shifting hold, then drew to a secure anchor. Lockheed’s footing would find his chosen landing zone rather pliable under the cloth of Marina’s loose shirt. Her boneless structure gave slightly under his perching, and his paws sunk in a bit before finding a settled purchase.

A defined widening sifted into the lids around her ebon gaze, and Marina’s eyes flitted a sure registry to her shoulder, while the rest of her body adopted a sudden rigidity. The scaly neck and fell of yellow eyes was traced to confirm Lockheed’s surveyal, and the upper edge of the clipboard was aimed outward a bit to allow him a wider view. Given the prospect of this new “animal”, Marina’s facial expression was affixed with all sorts of stark unknowns.

“Ummm.... Sally?” she quavered, “Just guessing here... this.. uh.. dragon... he lives here right? Like... NOT one of the things on the ‘Danger: This will eat you’ list, right?”

Marina gave the purple drake her unmigated, wide-eyed attention, wondering if she should offer to let him sniff her hand or some other equivalent gesture of fostering some minor trust. Closest she figured, the small beastie was possibly intelligent, but to what degree she had no gauge.

[Skids]

Wow… there was someone out there who did word vomit even better than her. The purple girl just rolled on and on and on. She gave her name as Marinna then launched into what Sally could only describe as a status report of the damage and repairs needed for the entire base. This was a mite beyond her own “I’ll get the hammer you tell me where to hit” approach. The bubble girl didn’t follow all the ins and outs of the apparent forewoman’s words. She was however able to listen long enough to make a general mental picture of what she was trying to accomplish.

Skids was about to reply and interrupt what could best be described as a debriefing combined with a request for help when Lockheed added even more purple to the scene. The reptile, who she still thought of as just another mutant, perched on Marinna’s shoulder and peered into the clipboard like he owned the place. The blonde simply couldn’t hold back her giggles at the sheer craziness of this scene or the insanity of recent days in this “Utopia.” It was a mix of nervous chuckled fused to some deep belly laughs and most likely made her appear to be a loon in their eyes.

Sally let the laughter come anyway, she needed it. Times had been tough and life had been hard for far too long and it was time to start moving towards recovery. So she filled her face with a genuine smile, controlled the laughter and glanced around at the place. Or rather the problem, the temple could have been worse, but the damage was extensive and would require a ton of work. Just as she was gathering her thoughts (she was sure her dad would have called it gathering wool) the purple girl launched into more questions. This one she could answer at least.

“Um… that’s Lockheed. He’s either a pet or a student or a full-fledged X-Man depending on who you ask. He reminds me of the Morlocks, I came from them. But… I don’t think anyone is 100% sure who and what Lockheed is. Well besides a dragon of course. I’m sure he’ll help though, plus he can fly which is a huge bonus. As for me, I know this place pretty well, I like to explore and I’ve pretty much been everywhere in here. I suppose I could help by showing you the places with the most damage. Though mostly I’d just be comparing my memoires of how the place looked vs. what it looks like now. I’m not really a detail person.”