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H P Gyrich
Henry Peter Gyrich

Posts: 119
(5/7/06 1:21 pm)


Re: Whale: Inspection/Gyrich/Logan
... where d'you wanna be dropped off?"

"Thera Island will do," Gyrich replied, looking slightly distracted. Turning on his heel, he headed off in the direction they'd been going. "Let's go."

OOC: Main home computer still down and no time at work thanks to those La Raza morons Monday. Plus side -- mondo overtime.

Wolvie6
Wolverine

Posts: 465
(5/7/06 6:20 pm)


Re: Whale: Inspection/Gyrich/Tag: Logan
After completing their sweep of the Whale to make sure it contained no nukes or WMD they returned to the command center just as the last of Gambit's group stepped through the transpad.

Logan stopped, blinking and scowling, then said to no one in particular, "Nice that they checked in before hightailing it home." Then he turned to Kurt, "Let's not test fate, huh? Take Nemesis in the shuttle truck an' drop him off where ya' found Gambit an' then get yer butt back here. We're goin' home."

After some final words, Kurt and Gyrich departed and Logan made sure that the few members of the team still present could actually get the ship home. He was ready to just abandon the damn thing... all of it... and step through the transpad himself, seeing as everyone around him seemed to prefer taking the easy way out of a situation no matter how many got left behind. So why should he care about Xavier's mission??

Once Kurt returned to the Whale he ordered them to plot a course for home. Once they were underway without any glitches he left the command center to sit in the lounge and thought long and hard on his position here... finding few reasons to remain with the team when he returned to the mansion. Right now all he wanted was a hot shower and a long sleep. He dropped back into the large comfortable chair, letting his weapon rest on his lap haphazardly and rubbed his eyes. He was tired... in more ways than just the physical. Closing his eyes he let his head drop back and just concentrated on keeping his anger from flaring while considering his next move.


___________________________________________________

Will be continued in the Xavier's Mansion forum.

Logan

SilverWind13
Crow

Posts: 128
(5/7/06 8:03 pm)


Re: Thera Island/Crow/Tagless
((Makin’ up for lost post time here…@#$&, I need to drop out of school. It’s interfering with my RPing.))

Escape!

A lone grey-and-white sea gull wheeled over the abandoned lighthouse, slowly coming to rest on its dome, already a perch to several other birds. Of course, none of them could change into a wild teenager at will, as this one did. It just went to show that Crow really was “special”.

Miri lay sprawled across the length of the dome, arms folded behind her head, backpack resting at a slightly precarious angle beside her. Around her, the sea gulls stared. She let out a soft chuckle, startling one of the birds into flight. The laugh was a slightly strained mixture of relief and amusement; she herself wasn’t sure which was dominant. Perhaps neither. In truth, she wasn’t positive if she was lucky to be alive, or unlucky to have the X-Men know of her.

Figuring out the transpad tutorial had been even more profitable than the thief had hoped. In addition to getting a fascinating insight to alien technology, she had a viable reason browse around the ship’s stores. And if a few things completely unrelated to the transpad’s repair happened to go missing—well, they wouldn’t be noticed for some time. To top her day off, slipping away had been even easier than getting in, with everyone distracted with things bigger and better than some lowly shifter.

Miri lay on the lighthouse for a longer time than she should have, staring upward and grinning like an idiot. Finally, she stood up, startling a sea gull off her knee. Soon, someone would notice the PDA left in the control room, or the missing alien tech. Crow planned on being far away when it happened. Besides, she had a plane to catch.

((Exit the Crowishness. With stolen technology.))

(\ /)
(O.o)
(><)
/_|_\

copy the bunny to your siggy to help him achieve world domination.

Mana4X2
Ramana 'Mana' Cavanagh

Posts: 487
(11/8/06 1:35 am)


Re: Whale to Thera Island (Gyrich/Kurt)
Who: Gyrich, Nightcrawler
When: Saturday, 13th May, 2006
Where: Whale to Thera Island
OOC: A JP.
Warning: Mild profanity from Gyrich





Henry Peter Gyrich glanced around the odd, somewhat alien-looking aircraft as he climbed aboard. It was boxy and spacious, clearly designed for transporting fairly substantial quantities of cargo or passengers at need. Thoughtfully, he made his way forward, studying the interior of the craft and storing as many details as he could in his capacious memory. Between what he'd observed of the larger craft and her new mutant owners, it was starting to get crowded in there.

The excitable one -- Nightcrawler -- would be acting as pilot, which he viewed as both a good and bad thing. It would have been useful to get more of a feel for the secondary leader, Cyclops, who struck him as entirely too capable for comfort. On the other hand, Cyclops appeared to have some sort of military training and would probably be more on guard against him than the younger civilian was likely to.

Reaching the 'cockpit' area, Gyrich settled himself into the co-pilot’s seat, nodding politely at the mutant. "Afternoon," he said, doing his best to cram his 6'8" death commando nature into the image of amiable passenger.

Where a sparse emptiness had once graced the driver's compartment next to Gyrich, a pronounced *BAMF* and flurry of wilding kinetics filled its space, banishing the abhorred vacuum with a presence which could have been only barely enhanced through an application of gongs and clanging cymbals. At the same time, the vents kicked into overdrive, straining to adjust to a newly announced brimstone tang.

"HoooKaaaaay, Mr. ..." Kurt looked at him for a moment as his arms reached up to hit controls before slumping down again on the control wheel. "Autopilot: ON! Driver assist: OK, ON!". With that last snap of the controls a red flashing presence filled the cabin and a voice chimed repeatedly: 'Driver Assist has been manually disengaged. Driver Assist has been –' With a flash, his finger stabbed out and reversed the earlier control, prompting the light and chimed warning to cease. " I said ON! OK! OK!"

He flashed a wry grin at Gyrich, before locking his hands together in front of him and then rubbing them together before placing them on the steering control. "Off to the island vhe go then!" he reached out to hit a control with his index finger, but stopped suddenly. "Oh! Your legs! here I know just the thing" he announced, reaching down to press a lever on the lower control bank. The seat Gyrich was in began to move, but – Wrong! His legs began scrunching even closer to the dashboard then they already were, but a second later Kurt rocked the switch the other way after a brief mutter "Oh!", whereupon the seat moved into a proper position, giving the tall redhead sufficient leg room.

"Don't worry, mister! I don't really drive this thing, I just tell it where to go! It drives by itself, fortunately, and it won't even let me make a mistake. Well, not a bad mistake, at any rate. Which is really, really, really good, since ..." at this his hands slumped over the control wheel and his head hung down slightly "I don't know how to drive yet."

His head popped up suddenly, and with a sudden quizzical look at Gyrich he asked "Seatbelt?"

Gyrich was already reaching for the restraining straps, hiding increased misgivings. Since the crash that had injured him so badly he disliked flying, even with mature, experienced pilots. He sighed inwardly. He didn't much like children and wasn't very good with them, but he was going to have to try to calm this kid down. Perhaps distract him a little.

"I'm sure you'll do fine," he said, lying through his teeth. "It seems to be a very advanced craft. I wonder how Magneto came by it ... "

"I'm sure you'll do fine,"

Kurt relaxed visibly, letting an audible sigh escape out as he braced himself and strapped in.

"It seems to be a very advanced craft. I wonder how Magneto came by it ... "

"I really don't know, I guess I never thought of that, Mr..." at this he gave yet another curious look at Gyrich. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name," he said, straightening up. "I am ... Nightcrawler, I guess I have to tell you. I suppose we wouldn't be using code names if there wasn't a reason for it." At that the fuzzed mutant extended his hand.

He tapped another control, and a vidscreen popped out of the ceiling. For the briefest of seconds, it displayed an odd alien font, before a Google Earth map appeared. "Oh! that happened in the elevator too! I wonder..." he gasped.



The map quickly resolved to a global display, showing a bright green flashing dot in the Aegean surrounded by a pulsing disk some 1500 kilometres scaled radius. Cycling through the touchpad displays, he zoomed in Thera island.

Before setting the destination he turned to Gyrich again and asked "You want here, right? Perhaps you should set vhere you vhant to end up," he noted, swinging the display over slightly so Gyrich could grab it and set the course if he wanted to, but keeping his finger poised over the airport terminal as a silent default. "Don't worry about my driving, Mister! Once a course is set in the autopilot takes over."

((The controls will respond to Gyrich since a Mutant is within detection range))

"Oh! That's right! You had a question!" he squawked suddenly with embarrassment, his left arm reaching behind his head with a startled scratch. "I guess he just built it, the man's a genius," Kurt answered in reply. "He sure has put in a lot of work into making things easy to use, I guess he doesn't expect his people to pay attention "

Gyrich studied the display, quickly figuring out the interface but letting himself stare at it for a little extra time, feigning incomprehension. People tended to equate size with stupidity, and it suited his purposes to foster that illusion. Being underestimated was one of his greatest strengths.

Finally, he reached out and traced a line from the ship to the island airfield. "Like so?" he asked.

"Vhell, its better just to set a destination so the truck can set its own course, but this will work, too, I guess. I hope we don't run into any helicopters or planes coming in to the airport" he said, noting the line Gyrich had traced. They'd be flying over the island, instead of staying closer to the water and using the roads.

"You've known him awhile, then?" Gyrich asked casually.

"Only from what I've heard," he said quietly, a growing knot of discomfort arising from within his stomach. He swallowed hard and continued. "I suspect they're not telling me something about how he fits into my life, he and mystique, but -"

He balled his left fist, digging it into his left thigh out of obvious sight of Gyrich. "This is boring! Hey mister, My turn now. And you never did tell me your name!" he said with soft accusation, wandering his eye over Gyrich as they glided out of the hanger.

Gyrich couldn't see the fist, but he could see the tensing of the muscles in the younger man's shoulder and chest and guess the result. Intrigued, he filed the reaction -- and the puzzle that caused it -- away for later investigation.

"I am Nemesis," he replied to the mutant's question.

His eyes widened even more at the announcement. "Nemesis? What kind of name is Nemesis? How odd! Even for a codename!" he remarked, genuinely startled by his pronouncement. He gripped the control wheel even tighter than before, his knuckles turning white.

"Do you always carry your gun?" he asked, his eyes growing just a touch wider. He still wasn't used to them and without putting thought to action he shifted his weight away from the man.

Fine words, Gyrich thought, for a guy named after a worm. Nightcrawler's nervous shift away with the second question brought a bit of grim amusement, but he kept the hard smile from his lips. Past experience told him it spooked civilians and he really didn't want the kid's hands shaking on the controls, automated or not. "And yes, when I might encounter people who can blast me with a glance or claw me to pieces, I always carry my gun."

"Vhell, I guess that makes sense then, I ... suppose," he said with a disapproving frown. So much violence! After a long moment he asked: "Why do you call yourself Nemesis? Is it because somebody hurt you?"

"Nemesis," Gyrich said dryly, "punished hubris. And balanced the scales on those who had been ... unduly gifted by fortune." His green eyes glittered, what might have been amusement mixed with something else. "And it was not I who first brought violence to the Olympia, was it?"

"Yeah, you got that right, Mister! Hey! I'm very sorry about what happened to your men, I hope they're alright now! Were they able to get back OK?"

"Yes, they all got back alive. One of them was badly hurt, but I'm told he'll make it ... thanks to you." Flattery and gratitude, he thought. Never underestimate their power. It helped that he genuinely was grateful.

Kurt beamed for just a moment, thrusting both thumbs up while in mock irritation he wailed "Hey mister! What do you feed those guys? That guy was sure heavy!". He rubbed his back, only half in jest - he'd be needing a long soaking bath soon with all the lifting he'd been doing.

Gyrich took the question to be rhetorical but answered it anyway, if somewhat obliquely. "Never know what gear you'll need," he said, "especially when you're 'helpless' against a mutant with even the 'slightest useful power."

Eyeing the young man's tension he said, as mildly as he was capable of, "Is there a problem?"

"Gah!" Kurt oomphed with a disgusted wave of both hands across the control wheel. He pushed his seat back as far as it could go and leaned back, his arms held behind his head as his feet gripped the controls. "Too many hard-edged people with hard minds and goals!" he announced lazily. "Everyone just needs to loosen up and relax and all. What was Magneto up to, anyways? I don't think it was just a rescue mission, hey was it, Mister?" He now leaned up slightly with one elbow propping him up, scanning the controls he had temporarily taken his eyes off of. He blew out a loud puff of air to move a strand of hair from his eyes.

He wasn't refusing to call the man "Nemesis". It was just that he'd already gotten into the habit of calling him by "Mister".

"A rescue mission was all it was for us," Gyrich replied, discipline keeping his voice steady despite being severely disconcerted by the young mutant's 'driving with his feet.' "As far as Magneto's intentions ... I suspect your friend Cyclops was correct in his theory that Magneto was trying to provoke a fight."

"Vhas? That's CRAZY! Why would he want to do that? I'm not saying he didn't, he's always, I mean, well -"

Lost in thought, the fuzzed mutant stopped, his mouth open as his hands gripped the wheel. "Oh! the race thing, I get it now!"

He turned to gaze at Gyrich with a different, softer look than before, and then faced back to the window, speaking slowly. "Do you know why God told Moses to avert his eyes, back with that burning of the bush thing?" he asked softly. "It was because he loved him and wanted to keep him as a friend, that is why. God knew that if Moses saw, that he would stop being who he was, he would become lost and no longer be who he was, not a willing friend, but a servant, because some things are too big for people to take in. I think that is how it is with Magneto, he saw something and lost himself, and now everything he does now is a reaction to something or to someone, he's lost his free will, the person who he would have become." After a long pause he continued: "I think that is why we have to turn the other cheek, because another person cannot take who you are, well, not unless you give it to him and then you are lost. That's what father Bernhard told me when I was young. Not that thing about Magneto, I mean, I mean the other stuff."

Gyrich considered that for a long moment. "Sun-Tzu," he said, advises us to know ourselves and warns us against allowing our enemies to define us." Then he paused thoughtfully before dangling a bit more conversational bait. "Seems like a bright young man, Cyclops."

"Mr. straight arrow? Mr. military? He certainly is, although I wish he wouldn't take everything so seriously, he - "

He stopped and paused for a moment, as if in dawning realization. "Hooo! Vhell, OK, then! Fine! More questions, well, I guess you're always on the clock huh mister? Hey! You got a card or phone number or something? maybe I can give it to the professor or Mr. Logh - er, Wolverine."

Gyrich raised an eyebrow that didn't quite achieve the expression of innocence he was aiming for. "Just making conversation," he drawled. "I'm afraid I don't have a card," he answered, "but SHIELD can get a message to me."

Kurt didn't say anything, but gave that kind of expression he would have reserved for a younger sister proclaiming her innocence by way of "She didn't break the vase, her imaginary friend broke the vase".

From the leftside and two kilometers away, a Cessna drifted in front of them as it lined for a runway approach.

Nemesis' eyes narrowed. This was supposed to be restricted airspace. He tapped his radio on, switching frequencies. "Thera Island Control, this is Fleet Field Command Alpha-1. What's the ID on that inbound Cessna?"

When the Cessna drifted into view, Kurt snapped forward, hands and eyes totally engaged and business-like. He ran a quick check while the man was talking on his headphones, and breathed a sigh of relief when the diagnostics package indicated that collision avoidance was auto-engaged. He gently tapped the indicator to bring the man's attention to it while fiddling with a com control to broadcast the tower frequency to the cabin.

Gyrich studied the indicated display, nodding a little as he divined its purpose. Good to know. Mid-air collisions were worse than collisions with the ground, since they tended to involve double the fuel and were inevitably followed by collisions with the ground.

"Alpha-1," crackled the reply over his radio, "Cessna is identified as a Reuters crew."

Gyrich swore inwardly. Reporters. Self-absorbed morons whose total ignorance of all things military was exceeded only by their total ignorance of the extent of their ignorance. They all thought they were experts. He hated reporters.

"How much runway does this thing need?" Gyrich asked Nightcrawler.

"It can hover, not much I guess."

Nemesis leaned forward, studying the display and matching it up with the maps in his mind. "Good," he said. "Come in low. And land here." He tapped the location of the ruins of the old Ottoman fort.

"Huh? Vhell, at least we won't be fighting for airspace with that camera crew, Mister." As they got closer, the rough and barren landscape showed itself as a mixture of browns and reds with splotches of green amidst the piles of disused fortifications and broken bits of ancient habitation. It looked the perfect setting for a 2nd run straight to video adventure movie, save for the pair of white landrovers they whizzed over briefly - which belonged to a team of startled archaeologists who stood slackjawed in open amazement. Within a minute, they were gone as the craft continued its course.

"Why do you want to land here?" he asked. "There's nothing down there!"

Gyrich, distracted by a conversation with the tower regarding the course change, forgot to keep the scary smile from touching his lips. "Exactly," he said.

The craft was still hovering about eight feet off the ground, moving at 40 kilometers (25 miles) an hour. Now, normally Kurt was a pretty open and trusting sort of guy, but hey! You didn't run into steely-eyed armor clad people with grim expressions - and guns! - by walking to the hamburger shop on a Saturday afternoon. Well, not most Saturday afternoons any way. And the only people he knew with Wolverine's quietly grim and sardonic sense of humor were, well, Wolverine, and he was pretty dangerous if you got on his bad side. OK! What he was trying to say to himself was that normally he was an open and trusting sort of guy, but this wasn't normal. No sir, not by a long shot!

So of course he started planning, tensing his muscles momentarily before calling on years of acrobatic training to keep his limbs flexible, his muscles relaxed. "He probably won't do anything until the we've stopped or slowed down" he thought to himself.

Just then, they began slowing down, coasting in for a landing. While it was still moving at a fair clip, Kurt said "Vhell, Mister, thank you for flying mutant airlines."

*BAMF!!*

Kurt had teleported to the roof of the strange boxy craft, and, holding onto it with one hand, he leaned his upper body over the windshield, waving at Gyrich with his other hand, a goofy grin on his face. "Time for everyone to get out now." he said to the man on the other side of the windshield. They were still moving, but obviously slowing down and were now very close to the ground.

Henry Peter Gyrich was big and strong and had a raw natural courage that had been heightened and refined by some of the most extreme military training practiced anywhere in the world. He'd charged guns and fire, crossed minefields, crawled through pits of snakes, and cleared booby-trapped houses infested with armed suicidal fanatics. There wasn't much that frightened him.

Except crashing planes.

The relatively slow speed and short distance to the ground didn't matter. For an instant, all he knew was the chaos and pain of that all-too-recent crash. And, worst of all, the helplessness.

Then he had channelled the fear into action and was launching himself at the controls ... only to discover that, without a mutant present, they no longer responded to his touch. A slap released the seatbelt and Nemesis raked a glare across the mutant who seemed to be mocking him as he boosted himself out of the seat with surprising speed and grace, heading for the exit.

"Vhas?" Kurt asked, puzzled, upon seeing Gyrich's baleful expression upon exiting the now stationary vehicle. He was still seated on top of the forward passenger section of the craft, an easy seven feet off the ground. "You're upset? Vhell! I never!" he exclaimed, folding his arms and holding his nose up in the air, cantering it over to one side. "If anyone deserves to have a snit, Mister scary smile I'm afraid of mutants let's go drag a teenager to the middle of some lonely desolate place it should be me! I was afraid half to death that you'd go all Rambo over everything and shoot up some poor innocent piece of equipment! Again! Hrrumphh! Much safer on the roof when you're around, Mister, and its not like you were in any danger I told you it flies by itself!"

"Like the main ship attacked my men all by itself?" Gyrich gritted. "Why should I trust a ship that, at best won't even talk to me because I'm human?"

"Vhell, anyways, you didn't shoot me or it full of any holes so I guess I'm over that now," he said as he easily slid off the roof and landed with an unnatural grace - as if he had merely descended a pair of steps. "Hey Mister! Are you sure you wanted to stop here?" he asked as he walked towards him, jerking his thumb to one direction. "I could still take you to the airport or into town, I guess. But you have to promise not to shoot anything that doesn't shoot you first."

Still a bit nervous, he kept a friendly smile on his face.

As he glowered at Kurt, Gyrich braced his fists on his hips, a posture that not only expressed his irritation but put his gun hand near the weapon tucked in the small of his back. Still, he didn't draw it. Couldn't shoot an unarmed kid for pushing one of your buttons, no matter how tempting the prospect at that particular moment. How sorely tempting.

"First off," the commando rumbled, "if I let somebody shoot me first, then I'll be too late to shoot him. Because then I'll be the one shot." Hell, he was even starting to talk like the kid. Next thing you knew, he'd be making entire paragraphs into words.

Kurt jumped back sightly at the man's reproach, his hands held level to his waist and splayed slightly outwards. After Gyrich finished that point, he held his right hand out before him, synchronizing the digits mechanically back and forth as a visual aid for Gyrich's scenario. He looked up, unconsciously putting his left hand over his left eye, fingers separated so he could see out.

"Don't you get headaches?" he asked, looking up. "I mean, from having to think like that all of the time?" he frowned with a puzzled expression. "Honestly!" he thought to himself. "It's as if the man was living in a video game."

"Secondly, I don't want to go to town, or the airport. I want to be here, where it's quiet." Nobody with microphones, or cameras, or pesky questions.

He looked around him, apprehensively at the lonely desolation. Unbidden, the lonesome plaintive whistling melody from a Clint Eastwood western came to mind, the one that began with the long single note which went on forever before breaking up in a series of cascading triplets. He fought back the strong temptation to begin whistling it.

"And thirdly, I am not afraid of mutants."

Kurt said nothing, but was rather obvious with the eyebrow action as he visibly bit his lip to keep from giving in to the whistling urge.

"The ship attacked your men? How? What happened? Tell me! Please! Tell me what happened!" he said, his voice filled with worry.

Gyrich scowled, remembering. "Trapped them in some kind of force bubble and bombarded them with radiation. No word what kind or how severe the exposure. It doesn't seem to have been a lethal dose. So far."

"Oooohh, I remember, now, it was shown on the control room displays but we couldn't hear what was going on and the computers weren't making sense, it sounded like they were fighting each other. Something about a shield diagnostics test, and the main computer sounded really cheesed off about it. Well, if a computer could be cheesed off, I guess." He put his hand to his head, scratching it. "According to the tutorials, the shields deflect stuff, like water in a fast stream. I wonder what happened? Is there anything we can do?"

In the distance, he could see two rooster tails of dust being kicked up. Something was coming, and fast - but still some far ways away yet. Their bearing was in the direction of the two Land Rovers spotted earlier.

Gyrich sighed and shook his head, adrenaline and anger both beginning to drain away and leaving weariness in their wake. "I doubt it, but thank you for the offer." He paused a moment, thinking about all that had happened. "There is one thing -- advice for your friends, should they consider teaming up with Magneto again. Tell them, when you let expedience trump integrity, sooner or later it will always always come around and bite you on the ass." It was something he'd learned from bitter experience and he wasn't sure why he was passing it along to those kids, but it just felt right somehow.

"Vhell, that man is always doing the wrong thing for the right reason or the right thing for the wrong reason or just plain wrong and wrong, but I hear he's a hard man to ignore, he only offers you a bad choice and a worst choice and its always urgent."

"Expediency," he said quietly while making a face.

Catching a glimpse of the 'ground contrails,' he motioned toward them. "Questions coming. You'd better get out of here."

"Und Ya!," he said, before teleporting into the grav truck. With a wave, he hit the stereo system full blast as German techno poured out, the craft lifting gracefully just a few feet into the sky before zooming off back to the Jonah's Whaie

The two landrovers had become visible by now, one slightly swerving as it caught site of Kurt's vehicle.



OOC: Wrapping up Kurt's involvement.

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