ArchivedLogs:MacGuffin

MacGuffin
Dramatis Personae Ion, Isra, Scramble, Dragonlord, Pietro, Wanda	2017-10-29 "It is an iron wind held captive."
Location <BOM> Beachfront - Ascension Island
Largely rocky and desolate, the majority of the waterfront on this small island is an unwelcoming place. Craggy and forbidding, lined with jagged black rocks, the coast here can take a fair bit of scrambling to navigate. Here and there, though, the coastline levels out to narrow sweeps of pebbly beaches littered with shells and seaweed carried in on the frigid tide. Occasional old trunks of fallen trees dot the narrow beach, victims of the storms that frequently plague the island. One small stretch of the western shore holds a small dock, a few boats usually moored there. Tucked off the mainland coast in Jamaica Bay, the buildings and lights of the city can be seen far across the water. This brisk autumn afternoon has gone even chillier for the overcast sky, though it does not look like rain. For the moment, at least. There's been a desultory beach cleanup, but this has sort of devolved into beach hanging-out and eventually into a smallish beach bonfire. Scramble is busily coaxing the latter into a roaring blaze, having started it with flammable beach trash (mainly a couple of washed-up wooden pallets). She's wearing her MMMC cut over a purple cropped jacket and skin-tight black jeans tucked into ancient Doc Martens. Sitting back on her heels, she admires her handiwork. "There we go. Should be good for a while." She picks up the bottle of beer she had set aside to work on the fire, takes a long swig. Ion, so /very/ helpful just at the moment, is lazing on a sandy flat jut of stone, sparks dancing idly from his fingertips as he just -- watches Scramble tend the fire. He has a beer of his own, his guitar nearby, though at the moment he's not doing much with either of those things. Just staring kind of fixedly at the fire -- intermittently at Egg, who is eschewing all their toys (laid out on a blanket, a range from large colourful blocks to trucks to chewed-up old stuffies to an ostentatiously glittering jewel-crusted elephant statuette to a Very Shiny diamond-inlaid watch, not currently running) to instead play with a seaweed-strung bit of flotsam too damp for the fire. Ion turns the beer over in his hands. Watches the dancing flames. "{Had some chicken marinating. Maybe go get it, cook dinner out here.}" Not that he looks inclined to move, really. Isra has just returned to the beach cleanup-turned-hangout from the last actual trash run. She alights gently near the others, her seafoam green dress flapping in the window, carrying a faded old canvas tote. Her skin is a gradient of deepwater blue, shot through with a subtle ripple pattern that grows more pronounced on the darker color of her dorsal side. Her wings are night-black and filled with stars, her talons and horns bright gold. She produces from the tote a mixed six-pack of random beers and ciders, a bag of potato chips, and a resealable bag of venison jerky. "{I can go fetch the materials, if you'd like,}" she offers quietly. Though even as she says this she is lifting her head to look at the water. Not so noticeable to unaugmented senses initially but rapidly becoming more so, a trail of spraying water snakes its way over the leaden waves toward the beach. It is not until the source of this trail reaches the beach proper -- spraying up a rooster tail of sand as it slows to a halt -- that the unaided eye can discern the lithe form of Pietro, carrying his sister Wanda in his arms and a large knapsack on his back. They look understandably wind-tossed, and as soon as Wanda regains her own feet she drifts toward the fire for warmth. Beneath her long maroon coat, she is wearing a fitted black t-shirt featuring an adorable cartoon red dragon, smoke curling from its nostrils, and faded blue jeans. Her brother is in a silvery gray softshell jacket with electric blue reflective piping and matching pants, following a step behind her as he hefts the large back on his back. "Good afternoon, brother and sisters," it's Pietro who speaks first. "May I?" He's indicating the six pack. "Gracias, Hermana." Scramble makes grabbyhands at the jerky. "I'm /starving/, but I can last a while on beer and snacks." She pauses, consider. "Can damn near last just about indefinitely on that, but grilled chicken on the beach sounds a lot more appealing, for sure." She watches the twins approach impassively, used to the spectacle by now. "Hey. Our booze is your booze, right? How goes?" "{Soon, maybe. Don't want nobody starving. Some asparagus in there too. Proper feast.}" Ion's deep voice is quiet. His eyes didn't lift to track Isra's descent but they do when the spray of water nears the beach, skids into sand. He just tips his own bottle toward the rest of the booze in silent invitation. "/You/ probably hungry." His chin jerks up to Pietro. "We'll make certain no one starves here on our watch." Isra relinquishes the jerky to Scramble and the six-pack to Pietro, settling herself down primly beside Egg, arranging the skirts of her dress just so. "Good afternoon," this to the twins, "what have you been up to?" Her eyes skip to the bag Pietro carries, her tone idly curious. Wanda sinks down to sit on a fancifully twisted driftwood log, extending her long, pianist's fingers toward the flames. "We went," she says, not looking at anyone in particular, though by context she's /probably/ answering Scramble, "and then we came back. We got what we wanted." Pietro pulls a bottle of doublebach from the six-pack. "Gracias," he says, prying the cap open with a keychain. "I'm very hungry, yes. A /lot/ of running, today." He tips his bottle subtly at his sister as if to agree with her. "Well worth it, though. We liberated /this/ from an Oscorp lab." He eases the knapsack down to the sand and unrolls the top opening. From inside he pulls...a metal and glass cylinder a foot long and half that in diameter. It looks like a Star Trek prop. Scramble takes a long drink of her beer. "Congratulations?" There's no sarcasm in her voice, but she does sound a bit uncertain. "I'm glad you got your MacGuffin, anyway, but what the frak is it?" Ion sits up a little straighter, watching Wanda's fingers extend toward the flames. Then turning his gaze toward Pietro, head tilting as he opens the pack. "Well it shiny." He actually takes a pull from his bottle, now, rolling the lip between his teeth. His eyes are a little wider, a touch brighter. His fingers dance in quick taps against his knee, the crackle of sparks between them starting back up. "It do something? Fun?" "It is an iron wind held captive," Wanda replies dreamily. "A mist of steel. It does not do much..." Where she trails off, her brother picks up, "...on its /own/. But if we can contrive a way to get this into the ventilation system at Father's prison..." Here he just grins, drinks long from his beer. Egg has very magnanimously presented their new favorite to to Isra, who dangles the driftwood fragment by a ribbon of seaweed for the toddler to swat at. "So this makes more concrete your plan of liberating him, then." It's not exactly a question. She picks a cider out for herself, pops the cap with the heavy thumb claw of one wing. "I imagine it will still be quite the undertaking." Scramble sits up straighter. "Huh! Aerosolized metal? I'd love to see the chemistry behind /that/, but I guess how it's made ain't necessarily relevant to your mission." She chews on a piece of jerky meditatively. "You'll still need support, though, just /getting/ to an access to the ventilation." "Shit you serious?" Ion bounces to his feet, bounding nearer to the fire to peer more closely at the cylinder. "How they put that magic in there? What /Oscorp/ gonna use with steel gas? Do I probably not want to know?" His brows furrow deeply; he bounces restlessly on the balls of his toes. "We doing this shit for real then?" "We're doing it," Pietro confirms, swigging his beer. "It's not just aerosolized, it's /nanotech./ And we're sure Oscorp was developing weapons with it -- or would, sooner or later. So I trashed all the equipment in that lab just for good measure." Wanda stares blankly at the leaping flames. "They'll just make more." She sounds philosophical about this, not defeatist. "We should do it /soon./ As long as we schematics of the facility, I'm sure we can manage. Though it will probably go easier or safer with at least some escorts. For us, as well as the others who may be freed in he attempt. I'm sure /Father/, at least, will be fine." Isra's ears press back against her skull. "You'll need more than just schematics, I'm sure. The power suppression grid alone will take some arraging. Preferably off-site." 'Fly, fly, fly!' Egg is signing as they scramble up onto Isra's shoulder. "Have you talked to B or Dusk?" "Al/right/." It's unclear whether Scramble's approval is related to the nanite show-and-tell or Pietro's general declaration of intentionality. "So this /your/ show, personal-like? Or is it a Brotherhood thing?" "Nanotech? What it do?" Ion ambles closer to Isra, tipping a glance up toward the spar of her wing. "{You gonna try it yourself? I think you could get about to that rock there, easy.}" His bottle tips toward the rock he'd been sitting on earlier. Maybe a bit ambitious of a flight for Egg, but at least there is only sand (and not fire or ocean) in between them and it. He nods toward Isra, dropping into a crouch with one hand resting behind him on the blanket full of Egg's neglected toys. "Them nerds they can do all /kind/ of magic for you. Find --" Though here he breaks off for only the briefest skipped beat, eyes flitting back to the fire. Then to Pietro. Gruffer: "... just about anything." "We haven't yet, but it sounds from what you say like a good idea. I'd like to consider freeing the leader of the Brotherhood a Brotherhood thing, but the heads of other cells have been hesitant to commit time or resources toward even /finding/ him, much less mounting a rescue. Which...is understandable, I guess, for many reasons." Pietro runs his fingers distractedly through silver-white hair. "Nanotech...is just /very small/ things?" Here he glances a little dubiously at his sister. "/Very/ small things," Wanda agrees, her eyes straying to Egg, now, expression unchanged. "It could do all sorts of things, I guess, but this one..." She turns her hand, gestures elegantly at the canister in brother's hands. "...just gives us steel small enough to ride the breeze. And that's all we need it to do." Egg's eyes have gone quite wide with evident delight at Ion's suggestion. They don't seem to waste much time /thinking/ about the potential consequences of failure, promptly launching themselves from Isra and snapping their wings wide. Their glide is not very stable, though, and when a couple of flaps fail to correct their course, they stall out and tumble toward the sand. Wanda lifts a hand as Egg stalls, as if she would reach across the several steps separating them and catch the child before they hit the sand. But she does no such thing -- only splays her fingers and turns as if scattering a handful of thistledown to the wind. At the same time, by some accident of aerodynamics, Egg's fumbling wings catch the air again, enabling them to glide down to the sand, ungainly but safe. "Yeah no, what they said," Scramble agrees readily. "Talk to the hackers. And getting your dad out, I mean..." Her mouth twists to one side. "Leader or no leader, he's a /brother/. That's gotta count for something." She also turns to watch Egg, and seems blithely unconcerned about the toddler's imminent fall. Her eyebrows go up when they manage to correct out of it. "Well done, Small Monster!" "/Ey-o/ little dragon you nearly there!" Ion lifts his beer in excited salute when Egg catches themselves (ish.) "Those wings they stronger every /day/." His excitement subsides into another pull of beer. Longer, slower. A drawn-out exhale. "{Something,}" he agrees. "You need a ride, I good at that." Egg doesn't quite make it to the rock Ion had pointed out on the wing, but upon touching down they scuttle forward and leap onto the target. 'I win!' they sign triumphantly. 'I'm the strongest.' Then adds, half to Ion and half to the Maximoffs, '/I/ give /everyone/ rides.' Isra inclines her head at Egg. "Not quite yet," she cautions the child. "But soon." Then, looking back at the twins appraisingly, green eyes steady. "Not soon enough for this mission, hopefully. I do, however, wish you the best. I would be willing to consider providing support, when you have a plan of attack." "It counts for a lot," Pietro says. "More, in some ways, than our actual blood relation to him. At least in his book." This last almost bitterly. "We'd appreciate any assistance you can offer on this. We don't have our own cell, but we are gathering people from all over for this mission." "You made it! Such wonderful flying." Wanda smiles gently at Egg as they reach their mark, and claps. "Yes, soon, perhaps."