The 'jets' Beast was referring to turned out to be so small that they almost looked like a toy model airplanes.  If these things were actually to take off, and deliver them to their destination, it would be miraculous indeed.  There were so small, and light, in fact, that Zoey imagined she herself could flip them over sideways, if she wanted to.

"Here we are.  The auto-pilot is smart enough to take off, fly, and land at our destination.  As long as nothing unexpected happens along the way, there would be no need for you to take the controls"

'Unexpected' was very reassuring, considering the circumstances

"There are spare uniforms at the lockers down there" he pointed at the door on the far side of the miniaturized hangers  "You can change while I get everything up and running"
This message was last edited by the player at 09:19, Sat 06 Feb 2021.

"No, Zoey, I'm not saying we shouldn't respond. Just like in chess, you still need to respond to a gambit, but that doesn't mean you don't recognize it. I'm just trying to be aware. And if it is a prison keeping mutants, it must be special in some way."

Ana Sofía doesn't seem particularly excited looking at the little planes. Beast's next comment surprises her out of that thought, though. "You have suits in our sizes? They better not be so ugly they ruin my modeling career... So, if we're going on a mission assigned by the professor in X-Men vehicles and wearing X-Men suits, does this mean we're X-Men now?"

With a shrug, Frank went towards the locker room marked with the large M (for Men, not Mutants). In there he found the spare uniforms, with dark blue bodysuits, plus yellow trunks and tunics, and blue masks. He found the largest of these and began to get changed.

He emerged a few minutes later, using his left arm to pull his right across his chest and flex his shoulder. The suit was tight enough that it felt uncomfortable without actually being restricting. Frank just wasn't used to clothes that fit that snugly.

"Suit fits so tight, you can tell I'm Jewish," he joked.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:07, Sat 06 Feb 2021.

Ana Sofía quickly heads to the women's lockers and gets dressed. She soon emerges showing off more of her figure than she usually does outside of swimming or a modeling gig. Coming just after Frank she hears his comment. "Is that TMI or are you giving a heads up, Frank? And if it's too tight, you could forgo the top." Once she's got his attention she does a little runway turn. "So, how's it look?"

Zoey follows Ana to the women's room. Her eyes widen as she realizes what Frank meant by uniforms. She flicks through the options, finding her size; being fairly average in physical respects meant it wasn't difficult. She holds the insubstantial thing up to the light, trying to draw an estimate on its thread count. Looks like spandex... she remembers the pain of having to cut melted polyester from her breasts after Manhattan and isn't particularly eager to repeat the experience.

No, it can't be that bad. The X-Men wore this shit in combat situations. It had to be made of some stupid sci-fi material, right?

Zoey takes out her Leatherman and flicks out the straightedge to try and cut the uniform in her hand.

In reply to Ana Sofia Garcia Mendez (msg # 48):

"You look great," Frank assured Ana Sofia after a cursory glance. He'd have looked longer, but he didn't want to stare. She looked as though she had been poured into the uniform, rather than put it on. It accentuated every curve in a way that reminded Frank just how snug his own uniform was. "Very nice."

"Good thing I was headed to the gym to do yoga after the tacos, so I was already wearing a sports bra. Otherwise this could have been disastrous. Zoey may be a moment; she's looking over the material. We all probably should have, but maybe I trust Professor Xavier a little much."

Beast was busy opening the cockpit of one of the jets and and starting with the pre flight checklist.  He answered Ana with his back still turned toward her, so pre-occupied with his work that the full significance of her question escaped him:

"You're one as far as I'm concerned"

In the meantime, Zoey found that her knife slid over the fabric, rather than cutting it.  It was somewhat resistant to damage then, but counting on it to stop bullets would probably not be so wise.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:08, Sun 07 Feb 2021.

Zoey returns, looking not altogether different than when she first entered the locker room. At first it seems as though she hadn't changed at all but for two differences; an X-logo pinned to the neck of her red hoodie, and the blue and yellow fabric visible around her neck and wrists.

"I hadn't considered myself to be even remotely overweight until I put that thing on," she explains, a little sullenly. She half-unzips the front of her hoodie to reveal both that she's wearing the uniform underneath and her concern over her appearance is undeserved. "I hope this is...satisfactory..." She blinks and swallows as Ana's confident strut nears her. Her own insecurities are buoyed a bit higher by jealousy.

To take her mind off Ana, Zoey turns to the planes and starts getting her engineering geek on. "They look a bit like the German Komet don't they?" she observes. "They're cute. Can you really fit a VToL system in an airframe this small? You'll have to tell me what other crazy sci-fi technology the X-Men have sometime. If we live through this anyways; on that topic, who's flying with who?"

"Well, I think you look great," Frank said to Zoey, strongly suspecting that she wouldn't allow his opinion to influence her own.

It was about then that his brain finally processed what Dr. McCoy had said about being X-Men. Holy crap, he was an X-Man. Tank was officially an X-Man. Frank couldn't help but smile.

"Now we just need to come up with a better codename for Ana than 'Tacos'."

"Zoey, you look good."

After Zoey's plane comment Ana Sofía suggests, </Blue>"If weight limits matter, Frank and Prof. McCoy should fly separately."</Blue>

She replies to Frank's comment about 'Taco' with, "I was considering 'Windtalker' to honor my great-grandfather, and it seems to fit speaking to peoples' minds. It might sound like something akin to Storm, though."

"I like it." Frank nodded. It was a good name, given Ana Sofía's power combined with a Navajo heritage. "And I wouldn't worry about overlapping with Storm. I think they call her the 'windrider'. They don't really sound the same.

"Do you actually speak Navajo? I read an article a couple of years ago that said the language was almost dead for a lack of native speakers."

"Yes, I speak Diné, mostly with shimá sáni. It's her first and main language, and it's my second, after Spanish. English is actually my third, but that's what we focused on in school in Albuquerque and that's what so many others spoke. Well, that and Spanish. At home it's all Spanish or Diné."

"...and if you've heard me on the phone with José, that's mostly Diné with a little Spanglish showing up naturally. It's nice to be able to talk privately even right around people."

"Okay. We've got Windtalker, Tank, and..." Frank wasn't entirely sure he'd head Zoey correctly as he was leaving the kitchen earlier "...Red, was it?"

Zoey blushes at the compliments and mutters indistinct words of thanks as she mills about with her... team mates. What a weird idea that is, that she's actually part of a team now. A team with a weird name and weirder uniforms but a team nonetheless, which meant that someone out there saw that she had something useful to contribute and wanted her to be a part of them.

Superficial nitpicks aside, it felt good to feel needed.

"Huh?" Zoey replies when she realizes Tank is talking to him. Right, they needed to agree on code names. "Oh, uhm. Red was kind of... not-serious? But it works, I can imagine it sounding clear and distinct when shouting orders over a radio while everything is exploding all around us." She pauses to think. "I'm not sure that Windtalker has that same quality. Whisper, maybe?"

"It's easier to come up with names for others than myself. Call me whatever you think sounds good I guess," says the woman largely content with Fishgivinggirl.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:28, Sun 07 Feb 2021.

"How about Heartbreaker?" Frank suggested. "'Cause, y'know..." He clutched his chest and made an exagerated face like he was suddenly dying "...Gack!"

Zoey chuckles a bit. "If that's the route we're going, I'd go with Kira." She wonders, not for the first time, if all these wacky mutant powers and sci-fi technologies could be wrangled into making a functional Death Note.

"Seriously?" Frank was a little surprised. More than a little, really. He wasn't that into anime, but he knew stuff, and to his ear that name was a bit racist. "Isn't that just 'killer' pronounced in a stereotyped Japanese accent? L's become R's, final R gets dropped?

"I mean, if it doesn't offend you, then maybe I'm just overthinking things. But I can't say I'm too fond of calling a teammate 'Killer'.

He sighed, and his voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"So far, I'm the killer on this team."

"That it certainly is, but given that the show was made by the Japanese..." She hums thoughtfully. "Still, can't argue that it's not the best look. Guess it's back to Heartbreak then."

Zoey gives Frank a blank stare in response to his breathy mumbling, several seconds of blank stare even, before speaking. "I've often wished there had been someone to stop me when my mutation first went rampant, but there hadn't been and because of that seven people died. That woman was a police officer, a public servant... if she could speak to us, I doubt she would hate you for what you did. If anything... she would hate me. I was in a position to stop her, but because I was more concerned about Kate liking me I didn't act when I should have. So I won't let you feel guilty over that."

Immediately after Frank's whisper Ana Sofía puts a gentle hand on his upper arm. She doesn't say anything, just warmly letting him know she's here for him.

In reply to Zoey Fujino (msg # 53):

"If I told you were the technology to build these jets came from" Beast bended over to make sure the tires of the jets were properly inflated.  "- you'd never believe me"

He stayed silent when the others were busy talking about their call names, trying to focus on his work and get the jets ready to go.  But he just HAD to stand up and say something after Frank called himself a killer:

"I wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for you, young man" he reminded him "And countless others owe you their lives as well"

He let that sink in for a moment before he tapped the side of the miniaturized jet closest to him:

"Tank, you ride with me. Heartbreaker, Windtalker, climb on board the other one.  We must be on our way"
This message was last edited by the player at 12:26, Mon 08 Feb 2021.

"Thank you," Frank said. "Everyone. Really. But there have been nights when I've woken up with a dry 'Crack!' echoing in my ears. It's been pretty rough. Obviously I've still got to come to terms with things."

He moved towards the two-seater craft that Dr. McCoy had pointed out for them. One seat was obviously for the pilot; he climbed into the other one.

"Ready."

Unnoticed by most several closed doors behind more quiet footsteps trod through the underground facilities of the Mansion.

Zoey lowers her head a bit. She reckons there is a world of difference between thinking someone to death and feeling them die in your hands.

"Aliens, got it," Zoey replies flippantly to Professor McCoy's non-explanation of the technology's origins.

Looks like it's time to go. Zoey climbs into the pilot's seat of the second microjet, figuring that if something goes wrong with the autopilot she'd probably be better at the controls than Ana. Hopefully these things don't share the Komet's propensity for exploding on takeoff. That'd be a really stupid way to die. At least it'd be quick, though; much better than drowning in concrete... lungs burning, unable to move... wow, these cockpits really are tiny aren't they...

Stop it, brain, Zoey chastises herself. It's not a coffin, it's a plane. People use them allllll the time. Just breathe. There you go...