Christian leaned back and announced, "Five minutes to ETA."
Michael looked up, nodded, and put his book back in his backpack. "Right, people," he began, "we're about to visit Excalibur's Lighthouse. They haven't been answering our calls, so they may not be home--"
Mike interjected, "Why have we flown over here if they're not in? I've been on this plane all morning!"
"We've flown over here," explained Michael, "because there's a possibility they might be about. Anyway," he continued, "if a Cerebro-scan doesn't detect anybody down there, we'll go on to Muir Island and see if anyone at the School has any ideas on how to get Rogue and Iceman home."
"Hey!" exclaimed Mike, "Maybe Phoenix could do it!"
Everyone turned to look at Mike, even Christian. Bobby asked, "Do you think she could do it?"
Liane snarled, "We can't ask Jean to do this."
Michael raised his hands, gesturing for them to stop talking. "We'll ask Jean if she can do it only if every other alternative is exhausted. Every possible alternative," he explained, emphasising each word.
Liane subsided. "Good. You know what it might do to her."
Michael sighed, "Yes, we do."
Rogue tapped Christian on the shoulder and asked him quietly, "What might it do to her?"
Christian swivelled his seat back to face the controls. "Using the Phoenix-power might make her lose control again."
"Again?"
Christian nodded. "Again. Last time she immolated most of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle."
"So," Bobby asked Michael, "Excalibur might know how to get us home?"
"They've travelled between dimensions before," Michael explained. "In fact, the original members of Excalibur met each other while trying to get back here." He counted their names off on his fingers. "Ariel, Energon, Captain Britain, Nightcrawler, Samuel Blake, and Meggan."
Bobby frowned. "Some of those names aren't familiar. I recognise Brian, and Meggan, and Kurt, but what about Kitty and Rachel?"
Mike asked, "Who's Rachel?" as Liane stated, "Kitty is Ariel," and Michael explained, "No, not our Kurt." The others fell silent as Michael continued. "Excalibur's Nightcrawler is Kirsten Wagner. She's from a parallel world where everybody had the wrong gender." Bobby felt his jaw go slack.
Meanwhile, Christian told Rogue, "Take over the controls, would you? I've got to operate Cerebro." With that, he swung around to the right and faced the monitor screen. A red tendril reached out from his brow, taking the futuristic head-piece down from a hook on the wall and lowering it onto his head. He adjusted its position slightly with his hands. Once everything was in place, a red glow surrounded him, the helmet, and the thick insulated cables running into the depths of the computer.
Back in the passenger compartment, Michael was pressing on, confusing Bobby more and more. "You see, Energon couldn't control his energy discharges very well, and one day Ariel phased through him while he was discharging and they both disappeared. We didn't find out until much later, but the two of them had been zapped into another dimension. Oh, and Lockheed as well. Anyway, they met up with Captain Britain, who was serving a tour of duty with the Captain Britain Corps at the time. He had just rescued Nightcrawler from the Fury: she was the only survivor of her world. The four of them met Blake and Meggan separately not much later."
"How were they travelling between dimensions?" Rogue called back from the cockpit.
Michael paused to gather his thoughts. "Well, they found some sort of sentient portable dimensional gate--"
"Sentient portable dimensional gate!!" Bobby shouted. "I don't believe it!!"
"Easy," counselled Liane, reaching out from behind him to rest one hand on his shoulder. Bobby shrugged her hand off, swearing, "I don't fucking believe it!"
Michael looked impassively down at Bobby. "You'd better believe it, man, " he said calmly, "because it's true."
"Uh, a moment of everybody's time?" Christian said diplomatically. When he had everyone's attention, he continued. "There's some strong disturbances here: nothing unusual, the Lighthouse does it all the time. I'm pretty sure Excalibur are here, but ..."
"But what?" asked Michael.
"But in all honesty, it could be anyone." Christian looked apologetic and shrugged helplessly. "Sorry."
Mike muttered to Bobby, "We've gotta get a better telepath one of these days."
"Alright," Michael barked, "let's assume the worst. When we're overhead, Windwalker and Rogue will do a recon."
"Windwalker?" asked Rogue.
"That's me," responded Mike, raising an arm.
"Code-names," said Liane, looking up at Michael. He nodded. "Haze," he said, pointing at himself. "Challenger," said Christian, still suffused with redness. Liane stood up, stretching her back. "Shadowcat."
"Everyone got that?" asked Michael. After checking that both Rogue and Bobby had nodded, Michael continued. "Iceman, Shadowcat, we'll go down once Rogue and Windwalker have done a once-over for trouble. If they're attacked, Shadowcat stays up here and Challenger makes his own way down. Any questions?"
"Yeah, I have one," Bobby said in a surly tone. "What do you do?"
Michael bent over and adjusted one of the straps on his backpack. "I distort space," was his succinct answer.
"We're overhead," announced Rogue. She got out of the co-pilot's seat and headed towards the side door. Michael also got to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck.
Suddenly, Christian exclaimed, "No need. I've isolated Energon's signature, and gotten in touch with him telepathically. We can land over on the mainland, and they'll come over to meet us."
Everyone in the Blackbird relaxed. "Alright then, let's land," declared Michael, walking to the co-pilot's seat and sitting down. "No hostiles?" he asked Christian, who shook his head. "No, none," replied the telepath, as the aura around him grew brighter, then dimmed.
The others sat down in the passengers' seats, Rogue taking Michael's place. She glanced back at the others. Bobby looked flustered again, poor guy. He was finding it harder than she was ... or was he? Maybe it was just that every time she couldn't cope, she didn't make a scene in front of everybody. It must be hard finding out your lover is a man. Well, when you're a man as well, that is. Rogue didn't have any problem with Christian ...
Bobby sat in silence, disgusted with himself. "No self-control," he thought to himself. "Keep a grip before everyone thinks you're a jerk." He looked forward at the back of Rogue's head. "Why is Rogue having such an easy time when I'm going through agony here? Why couldn't the other me like a girl instead of that bearded Neanderthal?" Bobby felt powerless, impotent, and indulged in maudlin self-pity. "Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"
The Blackbird came to a halt, then lowered itself slowly to the ground, engines howling. The X-Men disembarked, grateful for the opportunity to stretch their legs, and waited on the rocky promontory for Excalibur to arrive from their Lighthouse. They did not have long to wait.