1965-03-31 - Dawn in Northern Ghana
Summary: Dawn, following the X-Men's Ghana mission. Diz, Shift and Rogue make some initial plans.
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
rogue julie kwabena 


Morning finally comes, though it's unclear just how much many of the X-Men slept. The area around the bunker still smells of battle; the tank that had been utterly obliterated by Colossus lies near the edge of the massive clearing, still spilling small amounts of smoke into the trees.

Inside the bunker, the soldiers have been separated from the mutants into different rooms, but they're all asleep and will be for a while; likely a result of Jean's sorcery. Beyond the lingering smell of battle, something fresh and undisturbed lingers here. It is the smell of a country not disturbed as heavily by the fires of industry and the smell of automobile exhaust.

Well. For now.

Kwabena finishes lighting his cigarette, and takes a very long, very grateful drag. He stands at the bottom of the Blackbird's boarding ramp, mask removed, silver eyes locked upon the eastern horizon where the sun peeks through the African foliage.


Julie is up bright and early, herself, whether that's youthful resilience or some kind of gyroscopic immunity to jet-lag, looking out from atop a guppy-shaped cargo helicopter she's climbed up to examine the rotors and linkages up there, she's paused herself to check out the unfamiliar sights and smells of the place. "So, here's the mighty jungle. I wonder when the big kittycats wake up," she murmurs.


Battle brings all kind of foreign scents to the nose, be that burnt motor oil or spent shells still hot from the firing. Battle in a foreign land redoubles the assault on the senses, ripped earth yawning with a different perspective than fallen trees and shrubs. Scarlett wanders the landscape, relatively unbothered. Mosquitos and other insects can land on her, but do no more. Any horrified guerrilla hiding in the bushes can deal with the dark eyed, silent maiden staring them down like the wrath of Iemanja herself. Violence pock marks a landscape of human conscience as much as terrestrial places, and she is merely a passing spectre to darken their day.

Sadly nothing replaces the alcohol she and Jean shared up to that fateful moment, though it hardly matters. Cigarettes aren't a necessary cause, either, as she moves through the perfumed weight of the woodlands, restlessly on patrol. One might not know it to look at her, but she's comfortable in nature as much as the city, and concealing herself goes with the code name. The man who gave it to her is patently the best in the world at stealth; it goes she has a generous sliver of the same talent, and if anyone has set up a camp or tried to mine a field while the others slept — she doesn't — then it's to their own disadvantage finding Scarlett in a tree taking measurements or possibly lobbing bouncing Betties back at them. Otherwise, it's back to camp after another wordless patrol.


"Not exactly what you had in mind?" asks Kwabena. Somewhere not far from here, a hornbull squawks; Rogue may notice the watchful eyes of monkeys in the trees as she returns from her patrol. "Dey will be sleeping, for now," he tells her. "But you ah unlikely to see dem. Dey will smell us and keep wide berth."

He steps off the ramp, cigarette in hand, looking from the bunker to the edge of the jungle before peering up at the helicopter where Diz is perched. He lifts an eyebrow at that, mouth forming a knowing smirk, but a sound at the edge of the jungle catches his ear.

"All clear out dere, Scahlett?"


Julie laughs a bit. "Well, I guess it ain't exactly Wild Kingdom around here after all the shooting and all. Maybe they didn't get no sleep or something." She buttons up one of the engine panels, "Anyway, this bird'll fly, in case we need it to get somea these people home. I was thinking there might not be much in the way of roads, or maybe there's more bad guys out there."


Nothing has forced itself upon her, therefore the dark-haired girl shakes her head. The riotous coils of her hair, usually worn in countless thin plaits spun in elaborate designs, more resemble a torrential sea, foaming wine dark on the shore. Heavy-lidded eyes gone lightless in the dim dawn skim over the vehicles so out of keeping with the encampment, and after measuring Julie up high and Kwabena there, she shakes her head. No calling out here, either in Twi, English, or an articulated kind of bird song.


Kwabena watches Scarlett for a moment, before moving to be a bit closer to her and Julie's commandeered helicopter. "It won't fit all of dem," he tells Diz. "But… it would fly us, yes?" He looks down from Julie to Rogue, then back to the bunker. "Jean has told me she has a safe place to keep dose mutants," he says. "But de soldiahs… if I can contact my fathah, he can send peopah to collect dem for trial."


Julie nods down to Kwabena, "Yeah, not all at once, but they ain't bad. Got a radio frequency to his staff or anything? Blackbird'll probably have a better range, but this one's radio probably works." She smiles over as Rogue gets a little closer, and says "Morning, Scarlett, this place is something else, isn't it?" The Brooklyn kid does seem perhaps a bit out of place here. She fishes some smokes out of a pocket and lights one to koin Kwabena.


The roll of Scarlett's shoulders is a noncommittal answer in most things, though not altogether unkind so much as reserved. Her sunshine lies entirely in eclipse, her gaze traveling towards the bunker. All sorts of precious information down there for the right kind of people but the focus lies topside, therefore she does not wander off. However, the cigarettes bring her backing up to gain a bit wider berth for clean air, such as it's possible. Whatever sensitivity exists she keeps to herself, listening for the most part to the conversation between Kwabena. Shadows pass over her eyes, and that's something, considering they're black.


Kwabena draws another deep drag from his cigarette, but after a moment, he snuffs it out on the sole of his boot before stuffing the butt into a belt-pouch. "It will not have dat kind of range," he tells Julie, but then opts to shake his head. "Is not my call." Kwabena is clearly in no desire to step into any kind of leadership role, and so he crouched down deep, slipping a gloved hand into the earth. Somewhere clean, without shell casings or shrapnel… or blood.

"I only worry dat Ghana does not have de resources to contain dem," he says, still speaking of the soldiers. "President is… principled. As fab as I can tell. Many of de oddah provinces in Africa are not."


Dizzy's abilities are often hard to spot, but up on the lip raised cockpit of the Sikorsky, she stands as casually as if she were smoking and chatting on a sidewalk, "Yeah, not mine, either, but Scott likes to know he's got options." She then stoops a bit, peering in to have a glance at said radio equipment, and flips a couple of switches, and there's a crackle. "Meanwhile, just in case there's more bad guys, they could still be using the frequency this thing's on, now maybe we'll hear 'em coming or something. Or who's waiting for word from em asking." She turns to have a look at Rogue, who seems to be in a particularly-weird mood in this place.


Scarlett stares off still at the bunker. A question follows, quick curling flashes of her fingertips making short work of a numerical count at Kwabena, followed by a question mark. «How many?» If anyone speaks sign language, or can interpret the basics, good enough for her. Relying on Jean for telepathy may not be a good option, either, considering the wasteland of her mind full of shattered fragments of psyches. She watches for a response, then draws her finger across her throat with another questioning shrug.


Kwabena nods his head to Julie, and is about to compliment her on her good thinking, when the silence from Scarlett gets under his skin just a little too deep. He stands up and turns to her, irritation visible on his face. "Ah you," he starts to say, when he recognizes the sign language. He cannot interpret it, but he at least recognizes it. The irritation disperses, and there's a chance that he's actually a bit embarrassed. He looks toward Diz, shaking his head, before looking back to Scarlett.

That motion he understands.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "No, Jean said it. No killing."

Truth is, he's hiding behind that command. He's hiding, because, at the test site, he killed them all, and knows that he'd be willing to do it again, given the inch.


Julie nods, "Could be a few sore heads this morning for sure, …think I broke someone's nose, too, but apart from who, well, that red gas killed, think that part went pretty well considering all the hardware."


Scarlett makes not a sound, nor an impression of irritation at the reality of the situation. Her fingers flicker in short, fluid motions so unlike natural sign language in the US, more like classical Indian dance performed for the sake of the pair than language. But in all dance is a certain ancient, timeless communication shared across cultures; gestures hold significance, just ask any mystic. She flips her hands upwards, palms open, and makes a sharp sweeping gesture. Cleaning off the dirt, off the deck. Nodding to Kwabena, the bitter knowledge is shared there, and her wrists are raised, as though shackled. Gloves conceal most, but not all the bandages she wears; one at her wrist, others at the tips of the gloves easily dispersed by a flick of a gesture. «Prisoner.» Or close enough.

That's her last word on affairs. Blowing an idle kiss over her shoulder, she takes to the air at breathless speeds that eventually blow apart the air molecules in a ring around her. The sonic boom is loud, no concealing that, which may be the point. The Blackbird also creates a very loud boom. Could well be someone wants to see what kind of anti-aircraft fire can be drawn out. Little do they know it's a young woman on their radar profiles.


Rogue goes home.


Kwabena watches the woman's departure, a little grimace forming when the sound barrier is broken. "When did she lose de ability to speak?" he asks, turning to look Julie's way.


Julie shrugs a bit, climbing down the helicopter's built-in steps as she watches her go. "No idea. Then again, I dunno how she can do *that,* either." Some mutant powers seem to particularly defy comprehension, perhaps. "Maybe she just decided to do that for some beatnik reasons or something, but now I got *no* idea what she's trying to say. Was that her wanting to croak someone, or something?"


To that, Kwabena looks to Julie with a smirk. "Practice." He twists his hand, and it briefly transforms to smoke, the glove going limp for a moment, but the smoke seeps into the fabric and it becomes solid again. "All fabrics are porous, but dey use de same ones on dese uniforms," he tells her. "So, I have taught myself to become familiah with de way it feels, so dat I don't… always lose it."

As for Scarlett, he looks back to the sky. "No, I think she was asking if we considered killing dem. De soldiahs." He shakes his head. "As prisonah, dey can be rescued. Live to do bad things again." He turns back to Diz. "But killing dem. What would dat make us?"


Julie ahs. "Yeah, I dunno how they do things around here, but that ain't what we're here for. Figure they're hired flunkies, or maybe from somewhere else? Commies or something?"


"No," Kwabena counters. "Dese men are African soldiers. I recognized some of dere insignia. Most of dem not from Ghana." He reaches for another cigarette. "I am guessing dey chose to use dese lands because dere have been challenges with leadahship. Easy to have a mess like dis go unseen."


Julie nods, hopping to the ground and flipping catches to open the nose cone of the bird, which, apparently, is where the engine is, "Probably would be a good idea to figure out what they got to say for themselves, I guess. And I guess files and …Well, anything that's a clue what they're doing, maybe. I don't know much about the biology in all this, but they sure had a lotta equipment in there." She glances up as an aside, "Worked on these before, by the way, flew em, too. My uncle Angelo has a place out in California. We can take twelve at a time, I figure, more if they ain't heavy or I offload fuel and use my thing to stretch it."


"You can fly dat thing without fuel?" asks Kwabena, smirking. "Groovy." He nods his head then. "Get it working. As for me…" He reaches down to collect a knife discarded by one of the soldiers during the battle. "I am going to hunt us some lunch."


Julie smirks, and nods. "I'd rather have her running, but she looks good so far, rotortrain ain't bad and that's all I really need. So far, it don't look like anything important took a bullet in the crossfire, so she oughtta fire right up." She's inspecting various components as she speaks. then looks over to Kwabena, "That oughtta be an interesting lunch."


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