X-Men Evolution: Rogue Evolution

Sanctum 2.1

There wasn't an airport anywhere near the dusty old road that had been pelting the decrepit undercarriage of Logan's burnt sienna gremlin with small stones and clumps of dirt for the past twenty minutes. Still, when he passed a thicket of trees, just beyond Anna spotted a massive black aircraft parked in the middle of an abandoned field. As the car followed an old driveway, she got a good look at the long, seemingly windowless, impossibly smooth, alien craft. It was all curves and its only edge was its pointed nose that looked as if it could split the earth if it hit it hard enough. They stop just short of one of its massive landing gear and Logan got out of the car without killing the engine. He whistled and waved one of his hands and a second later Anna heard the obnoxiously loud buzzing of a phone from somewhere in the car. The whole vehicle shifted towards the driver's side as Logan eased himself back inside and rooted his hand around the back seat.

He produced a phone from his duffel bag and hit the answer button. "What?" He shouted as he shielded his eyes against the setting sun with one of his thick hands. "By which way does the crow fly?" Asked a man's voice over the little speaker.

"Eh -" Logan scratched his stubble. "In the winter's moonlight, the crow stays gathered by the farmer's lamp light."

There was a pause, then the rear of the aircraft began to hiss air as a ramp appeared from the seamless body and lowered towards the parched earth of the field. "Stupid poetry crap," Logan muttered to himself while he killed the engine. "Bet the damn weather witch came up with that particular hippie fluff." He stood out of the car, folded the front seat, and started dredging up his remaining gear out of the minuscule back seats. Anna popped open her door, it shuttered on its hinges as it tried to bare its own weight, and she stood. A gust of humid air caught the edges of her hair and the loose dust from the earth kicked up and caught her in the eye. She was forced to rub them with the heels of her hands, and when she opened her eyes again, there was a remarkably tall woman standing at the foot of the ramp. Her long hair was as white as freshly fallen snow and her skin an ebony that almost seemed to glisten under the biting rays of the sun. A moment later she was joined by a guy that looked as if a pencil started walking around on its own. All legs and arms, the dude was rail thin and wore some sort of black jumpsuit with a yellow band around his waist and two around his chest that looked like he had been rubber-stamped with a gigantic yellow 'X'. Most notably he wore a funky-looking plastic visor around his eyes that made him look like some sort of Star Trek reject.

"Logan, I'm glad you made it back -" The woman paused when he got close. "Goddess, Logan - what happened to your face? You look as if someone took a brick to it."

Logan made to touch his nose but pulled his fingers immediately back when they grazed the tip. "Eh - had a run-in with... a local. Wasn't anything I couldn't handle." He and the woman exchanged a look.

"A civilian did that to you?" The guy asked. He angled his too long of a neck to get a better look at Logan's face. "Wow. What did you do to piss them off?"

"There isn't enough time in the day, kid." Logan looked back. "You coming?"

Anna didn't look back at Logan, instead, she stared at the massive ship before her. "Who... are you people exactly?"

"What? He didn't tell you?" The guy rounded Logan and approached Anna. "We're the X-Men. My code-name is Cyclops." He held out a hand for her to shake. "And you must be Anna. It's a pleasure!" The way the guy spoke sounded like he was a doll with a string being pulled out of his back, all canned and pre-recorded.

She looked down at his hand, which was wrapped in a thick yellow glove to match his bright yellow bands, up into his visored face, then past him towards Logan who just gave her a single shoulder shrug. "Uh, right." She took his hand, shook once, then let go. "The 'X-Men' huh? Are you guys supposed to be, like, superheroes or something?"