This is so fucking /frustrating/. I has a fix on him. /We/ know what direction they are. But we can't take any damn risks, not a single one, to see what we can get. We have five people just sitting there waiting and who knows /what/ the hell is happening and we're playing it so damn safe we might as well be staying at home. Can't even fly a dozen miles to get a better fix on the line, and the satellite is nothing but clouds and more fucking clouds tonight.

It's clear as fuck that someone planned this, someone knew things, someone is covering their asses so deep that we still can't figure out what they're covering. Right now, I don't /care/ what they're covering. I care where they took our fucking team.

That is just about all I care about right now.

The valley nestled in the mountains of Big Sky Country would probably be absolutely beautiful in the morning light, were it not for the twisted, charred heap of Cessna and the path it ground out in its crash. Rescue teams and firefighters have come and gone to the remote location, extinguishing the fire that burned so hotly and had begun to spread to the neighboring woods. Now, all is quiet, all is still before the X-Factor team arrives, the graveyard hush disturbed only by the chop of the helicopter's rotors, and refusing to completely depart even after.

Lines of yellow 'DO NOT CROSS' tape flutter in the wind caused by their entrance, twisted around trunks, probably placed up more out of procedure than necessity; it is a long, long hike from civilization to get here.

The slowly purpling bruise on Alden's cheek has been obscured by large sunglasses that work against the morning glare. His suit is trim and nicely fitted, hardly even wrinkled from the ride in the helicopter as he stretches muscles once away from the blades. He sweeps the area visually before committing himself anywhere, asking Xen first, "Any orders?"

Isabel is less dapper in tight-fitted jeans and a thin denim jacket shrugged on over her tee and vest in the morning air. Her hair is swept back from her face, twisted up into a sloppy bun at the back of her head, and she stands just in front of that line they're not supposed to cross with her arms folded over her chest and her weight settled into the brace of one leg, staring.

After turning off the blades of the chopper to let them go silent and still, Xen pulls of his headgear and slides out of the chopper's pilot seat, leaving the chopper otherwise active and ready to go. He steps around the helictoper, surverying the scene of disaster grimly, his eyes trying to take everything in. "Yes. Be careful. The plane's fuselage is likely to be weakened by the fire. But I'm more interested in the surroundings than in the plane itself. The location of the corpses should be already identified."

Isabel glances briefly at Xen and then nods, shifting her weight to stir. She carries a camera with her, but it's the slim sort that tucks away into her pocket rather than her usual monster. "I'm going to do a sweep of the perimeter," she answers. "See if there are any signs of people moving any further than we ought to expect."

"Ok, then. I'll take a look around," Alden offers in response to the orders, jerking a thumb vaguely before turning to follow a trail of debris with sharp focus on anything sticking out in the grass. He gives the plane a wide berth.

The jet sits, silent, tail still at the odd angle from the fuselage. The heavy scent of the fire still hangs thick in the air. The large amount of foot traffic that has come through the scene will become painfully apparent to the agents, soot and grass trampled alike. It will not make it easy to discern what has gone on, at least from the prints, as they have been left behind by all manner of rescue workers and investigators in the days before.

Xen nods to Isabel in return, "Sounds good. I need to get a look at the plane itself, find out what I can from the wreckage, verify that this was, in fact, ours." He turns back to the chopper and opens a side compartment, pulling out a bag of tools, slinging it up and over his shoulder before looking at Alden, "Keep your eyes peeled for anything that doesn't belong. Maybe see if there's anything left behind that might be around." Remy and Nadia should do much of the same, as four pairs of eyes are better than just one or two. The pilot turns and steps under the yellow tape, marching his way towards the plane, though his eyes scour everything in sight. And as he gets enough distance from the others, he speaks lowly into his comm, "And keep your ears open for anything at all. Whoever took this plane down is probably going to keep tabs on the crash site."

"Yeah," Isabel mutters back into the com as she picks her way away from the wreckage and toward the forest. She finds the line of activity and pauses there with a keen-eyed study that's a bit hopeless. She pulls out her camera anyway, recording various angles with no real focus yet, and then moves several yards beyond the visible perimeter to start a slow circle of the crash sight. Her eye on the ground is sharp and detail-oriented - she spents a lot of time looking at the particulars of forest floors, although usually with different objectives. She's looking primarily for footprints or other large signs of passage, but more convenient things like a trail of breadcrumbs would be acceptable.

As Alden gets closer to the line of debris, he takes out a pencil and kneels at each piece, lifting them for a quick study before moving on. He keeps a sharp eye out for anything shiny or attention catching, anything that doesn't look burned enough or any melted metal that may have been the team's weapons.

As Xen approaches the fallen and scorches beast, his lips pull tightly into a thin line. That number on the tail of the plane is the first identifying marker that confirms this as X-Factor's plane. Taking his time, he walks around the plane, taking a route that passes him by the cockpit to inspect the damage done to it there. And then he's walking around the far side, looking over the plane exits before approaching. Watching carefully to climb up, the pilot hauls himself into the fuselage, ears and eyes alert. It's well-trodden and a mess, to be sure.

There are, indeed, little flags within the Cessna to denote where the bodies were found; the charred remains of the seats are tagged, and there is also one up in the mangled cockpit. It is clear, by the damage, that if anyone had been in the cockpit of this jet when it slammed into the trees, they were most likely instantly killed.

As Isabel searches, it can almost be easy to miss, but off a little ways in the woods, there in a swatch of dried mud and grass, there is still a matted down depression. It could have been a deer. It could also very well have been a human.

Alden's search might be incredibly frustrating. It will take him a while, a lot of poking at things that might look like something and turn out to be nothing. But when a small rock gives way as he steps past, the sun catches on metal and gleams brassy. A spent shell casing for a pistol.

It could have been a deer. Isabel isn't willing to trust it as such. Her camera comes out, snapping several shots with quick and precise efficiency before she starts a sweep of the spot itself, working her way outward in concentric circles looking for any further signs of passage.

Boring, frustrating. Nevertheless, Alden stays insistent and pays careful attention to each burned piece of wreckage, scanning grass as he moves. He stills as he seesthe shell, jaw tightening before he bends down to hook the empty metal onto his pencil and hold it up into the light for an examination.

Illyana arrives from a disc of crimson light, bringing the scent of evergreens with her.
Xen stands in the middle of the ruined fuselage, staring unhappily at the little flags tagging the locations of the bodies in the seats. He re-hefts the toolkit over his shoulder while staring blankly at the seats, and then raises his comm. Back in California, there's a sudden and unexpected beeping noise that lights up Illyana's own comm unit. Hello, Magik.

No grogginess to her answer this time. Since it's not the middle of the night, Illyana answers immediately and worriedly. "Yes?"

"Magik, do you have a 'where' for me? Or anyone on my team here?" Xen's voice sounds a little hopeful for just a moment, his eyes staring out the back of the ripped open tail of the plane as he talks thousands of miles away.

"You are with Isabel, yes? I have hers." Illyana's voice goes a little dry. "If you wanted me to have /yours/, you should have asked me to get it before you left."

"I'm sorry. We'll have to fix that when we get back." Xen's voice sounds just /faintly/ amused, though there's still a more urgent and serious edge to his voice. "Okay, you have Ibis's 'where'. And you still have Sachs' 'where', right? Can you sense both of them at once?"

As Isabel widens her search, she leaves the trampled mess before and eventually comes across a series of tracks leading deeper into the woods. Depending on her tracking abilities, she might be able to discern that one set of prints were made at a run, while the others were at a steadier pace. In any case, this set of tracks both leads to and heads back away from another depression in the dried mud.

As for Alden, the shell casing bears a strong resemblance to the type and caliber favored by X-Factor.

"Yes. You want me to say how close they are, yes?" There's a pause, probably of concentration, as Illyana checks her initial impression carefully, since she has one immediately.

Assuming we've brought evidence bags (and why would we not?), Alden removes one from his pocket and drops the casing into it very carefully without touching it. He tucks it into his jacket pocket before moving back to searching for other evidence of anything dropped.

Isabel's tracking abilities aren't /that/ good. Her eye for detail is sharp - her ability to interpret that detail rather less impressive. She can, however, follow the tracks, and she does so for a good twenty yards before she stops to speak into her com, "Rebound. I'm thirty, maybe forty yards outside that mess, and I've got tracks leading into the woods."

"/Yes/," Xen replies almost fervently to the apparent mindreader on the other end of the comm. "Is there any way that you can give me vague directions of how they are separated, too? Even just telling me that Sachs is closer or further away would help. Though, if you could /possibly/ give me directions, that would be emminently useful."

"It would take me under ten minutes to travel it, I'd estimate. It takes me a few minutes to go from here to San Francisco, if that helps?" Illyana's frown of translation is nearly audible through the connection. "Direction, I can't tell you. My directions are not directions in his world."

"Copy that, Ibis. Can you tell how many different tracks there are?" Xen pauses for seconds to respond to Isabel as her message comes in, and then flips back over to Illyana. "Okay. No directions. Who is closer to you, then? Sachs, or Ibis?"

"Ha--Sachs." A beat of a pause, then-- "If you're asking me, you can't have many leads, can you? Please tell me it's not all on trying to translate Rus into this world?" She sounds pretty worried.

Isabel doesn't respond to Xen's questions, not yet. Instead she listens in, her attention sharp and considering. She interrupts suddenly to ask, "Princess, can you tell if I'm getting closer or further, if I'm moving?"

"It's still early, Magik. We have /some/ leads. But this is an advantage you have that we don't. If we rule out their deaths, it becomes a matter of finding out which--" Xen cuts off as Isabel interrupts, and his eyes automatically cut in her direction. He can't see her through the wreckage, but. Brilliant thought.

Unfortunately, Alden's search proves to be more or less fruitless after the shell casing. Except, there's something funny about it. Here and there, away from the heavily trampled spots, it's almost like things are too neat. Grass is too jaunty. Dirt is too evenly spread.

"Magik," Illyana corrects, with an embarrassed throw-away. "I--don't know. Maybe. Probably? Easier to do it when you've gone some distance and stopped than when you're moving, I think."
Alden perseveres despite his fruitlessness. Maybe he'll find berries in the woods. Keeping an ear on the conversation, his eyes nevertheless remain sharp as he sweeps.

"Right," Isabel mutters, gaze lifted to the trail that disappears into the woods. After a moment's silence she says, "Rebound, I'm going to follow this trail and see if I can get enough distance for her to pick up on closer-or-further."

"Nightmare, back Ibis up. Keep her in sight at all times, but stay separated." We'll just assume that Nadia will do as Xen so politely asks. The pilot actually sets his toolkit down in the cockpit as he moves to the front of the plane, poring over the console and examining the cockpit as he talks. He makes ready to pull out the other brains from the plane, even though the black box has already been removed. His techs might be able to recover /seomthing/ of use, anyway. "Magik, Ibis will let you know when she's ready. Otherwise, we have a method of moving her more quickly should we need to."

"Understood," Illyana says, and then settles into the background, ready to play hotter and colder as requested.

Isabel waits a few seconds for Nadia to catch up to her before she starts off down the path. She moves at a good clip, but not so fast that she can't keep a hard eye on the ground, or stop to snap a photograph of anything more depression-y than trail-y.

There are no berries for Alden to find. :( Maybe they have all been eaten by a bear that is now hiding because XF agents are ttly scary (at least, some of them are). As for Isabel, the trail of footprints does eventually come to an end. A convenient deer trail continues on in the same general direction a little over, though, so she can try to follow that. Heading in a Southwesterly direction away from the crash, she will indeed be closer to Harrison. By a tiny amount.

Isabel comes to a halt at the end of the trail, muttering a curse under her breath before she jerks up her com to ask, "Magik?"

Remy? He's been off doing investigative things like everyone else, silent and pensive as his own camera snaps and clicks away and an occasional probe is taken into the furrows and scrapes of the crash landing, analyzing depth and direction of the plane's drag marks while keeping an eye out for ones that don't seem to fit the pattern. He's dressed in broken in hiking boots and a battered denim jacket, just a trifle bulky for the heat because of a bullet-resistant vest beneath. There is likely to be sweat.

There is the sense not to push his way too far away from the wreckage site, especially as he finds nothing else of interest. In the privacy away from everyone else, he lets out a slow breath for a moment as his fingers rub the plastic of the evidence bag between them. Then he turns to head back to the others and the plane.

"Only closer by a very little bit," Illyana helpfully provides for Isabel.
There is the sense not to push his way too far away from the wreckage site, especially as he finds nothing else of interest. In the privacy away from everyone else, Alden lets out a slow breath for a moment as his fingers rub the plastic of the evidence bag between them. Then he turns to head back to the others and the plane.

"Okay," Isabel says, ducking her head down and taking off sideways along the deer trail after a few snapshots to mark her place. "Alright. Rebound, you got that? The tracks end here, but there's a bit of a trail. Give me a few--" Presumably Nadia follows along behind her. Hopefully she's more watchful for people in trees with guns.

As Xen waits for Isabel to report in, he pulls out some of his tools and disassembles the flight and nav computers, pulling them out and securing them into his toolbag with the rest of the equipment. His eyes also look for anything else out of place, or that may be missing from the cockpit aside from the electronics he's just taken, or the black box that's been removed. And as he hears Isabel report in, he holds his breath for a minute before letting it out with Illyana's response, "I copied that, Ibis. What's your direction from the site here? What direction were you heading?"

Remy has a fair distance to walk, as the Shermanesque swatch of destruction stretches the length of the valley. It is very clear that, unless people worked a long time at it, the plane did indeed come in for a crash landing, instead of being broken up and dumped here. If he strays far enough from the path the Cessna ground out, he might come across a large area of grass that looks like a half-assed crop circle, about thirty yards from the jet itself.

As Alden moves back to the Cessna, he passes by a specific tree. This specific tree has a specific dart lodged in it, at about shoulder height.

"Fuck if I know," Isabel mutters into her com, feet faster on the path than they were following the footsteps. "Track my GPS."

Let us say for the purposes of getting a look at half-assed crop circles that Remy does stray. He even parkours his way up a tree to get a better look at things and spots something suspicious that way. "Rebound," he relays over the comms. "No sign of people, but I got a sign in the grass about thirty yards off from the crash. Gettin' a better look."

As Isabel's repsonse comes in, the pilot grumbles something and moves to orient himself on true north before bringing up his little comm unit and watching Isabel's GPS trigger move. Belatedly, he sends a quick message to Old Home to have them track and record all of their GPS movements specifically for the past 20 minutes. As Remy's comment comes in over his radio, Xen pauses in watching Isabel's GPS to respond, "Sign? What does it look like?"

Alden almost misses the dart, a combination of watching the ground and having already covered this ground. In fact, he passes it before the sunlight glinting off the tip catches the corner of his gaze and he whips around. His own camera is slipped out of his pocket, nothing fancier than a simple digital point and shoot. He takes a picture of the dart before he slides an evidence bag over his hand and grabs on to the end of the dart to attempt to wiggle it free of the bark gently.

"Either aliens are among us, or we got a chopper that's been here, is my guess" Remy reports, as he cuts a path through the tough grass to where the half-assed crop circle lives, eyes narrowed and alert. "You mark where the FAA's been?"

In addition, Xen also relays back to Illyana, though more privately now, "Magik, thank you for your help. We're going to continue here, but I may need your help shortly. Just remember where Ibis is now for future reference, okay?"

Also, Xen won't find anything out of the ordinary in the cockpit, besides the fact that it is a mashed and twisted remnant of what it once was. When he moves out, if he looks closely, however, and really thinks about it, he should be able to tell that the door to the Cessna burned while partway open, as otherwise it would have had to have been pried by rescue crews.

The dart gives Alden some resistance, the metal tip breaking off, forever lodged in the pine. The half-assed crop circle does, indeed, somewhat resemble the one their own helicopter has made, only it is larger in scope.

Isabel's steps quicken into a jog and then a run, eating distance along the deer trail for some time before she asks her com, "Magik?"

"I'll try," Illyana tells Xen. Then her attention is back to Isabel, ready to provide answers as long as she's needed.

"Yes. We landed at the coordinates they gave us, which means it was their landing and launch point also. If you're seeing signs of a chopper, that's new." There's a moment of silence from Xen as something catches his eye on the way out of the cockpit, and he pauses to stare at it, turning slowly as his eyes scour the small space. And then he's back into the main cabin, "Take some pictures, would you? How big is it?"

A curse is spit out in a fancy foreign language as the thing that Alden was attempting to avoid happens, frustration tightening his jaw for a moment. He bags the dart quickly though, by turning the plastic inside out so his own fingerprints remain on the outside. "I've got evidence of shots fired with at least two different ammunitions, live and tranquilizer darts. Both could have been used by our agents," he reports as he holds up the dart. It goes unsaid that both could have been used on their agents.

"Bigger than ours," is Remy's helpful reply as he scans the area, then scans the nearest stand of trees for a sturdy one. "Y'want exact, gimme a minute to get some elevation. Can't get y'a good pic from ground level."

Isabel is, indeed, a little closer to Harrison, so long as she sticks to the Southwesterly course. Eventually, she will run out of the deer trail.

"Let me know when you have it, Gambit," comes Xen's voice over the comm. And then he reponds to Alden, "Did you manage to get a sample of the tranquilizer agent, Caduceus? Or is it just a spent casing?" The toolkit and airplane electronics are set down by the exit of the plane, and Xen starts to comb through the fuselage, looking for items left behind by any of the Agents from the crash. Despite the heavy charr, are there any signs of personal effects? Maybe burned husks of laptops? Guns? Or is the cabin surprisingly clear of all types of X-Factor gear?

Isabel comes to a panting halt at the end of the trail and props herself against a tree, gaze directed off into the distance. To Illyana's confirmation, she says nothing. She lingers for almost a minute, then turns sharply to return back to the crash site.

"The dart was stuck in a tree, so likely it hasn't spent all of its contents," Alden confirms simply, turning to make his own way back to the crash site as well.

It is one sleepy tree for sure. And why yes, the cabin /is/ surprisingly clear of all types of X-Factor gear, in much the same way that some patches of grass are jaunty. Although many effects could have been burnt to ash, you would think something like the corner of a laptop would still be around, right? How odd.

Remy's response is delayed by the necessity (for Remy, anyways) of climbing another tree.
There's a hairy moment or two when a branch breaks under his weight, and by the time he's high enough the tree is swaying ponderously, but he's able to hook an arm and his legs around the trunk as his free hand lifts his camera, still looped around his neck by a strap, and commences fiddling with zoom settings. "Can't get y'a hard number until I measure out the pictures," he reports. "But I'd say about twice the size of our footprint, maybe a bit less. Big chopper. Military, maybe SAR?"

Isabel moves into the area with her hands shoved in her pockets, head dipped down. She waits til she's within speaking distance of Xen to note, "Definitely that way. We've got some weird depressions, like something laid in them, but the trail cut off and I didn't want to go too far." She glances over her shoulder toward the helicopter. "When we're done here, we could try the copter?"

"I don't think we should resort to that first," Alden remarks as he comes upon Xen and Isabel, stopping a pace or two behind and to the side of the latter. "We know there was some sort of violence here; it would be dangerous."

Rustles and snappings of smaller branches bleed over the comm as Remy, his arboreal photography concluded, descends to earth. "Not to mention they already brung -one- bird down."

Xen scowls at the decided lack of X-Factor gear, though he does not seem terribly surprised at this point. He continues to search for anything else that might catch his eye and look suspicious; maybe there are signs of a fuel leak? Or how the fire started? Maybe there are some funny burn marks! "It could be either. We should check back in town, find out who around here has got mid-range choppers. Right now, we're looking at 200-300 mile round trip, carrying capacity to get all of our agents and their gear, plus whatever complement of people they brought with them." There's a slight scowl on his face as he pauses in his search before adding, "That doesn't add up. That mark is too small for all of that. Can you see any other landing sites from up there? They may have had two or three different choppers if they wanted to retrieve our team."

"Our /job/ is dangerous," Isabel snaps in return to Alden, her hazel eyes bright-flashed toward him before she turns back to Xen. Her arms fold hard over her chest, jaw working in silence as she waits. "Or they took them by foot," she points out, jerking her head toward the path she'd followed.

"Hang on a sec," says Remy, as the rustling pauses and then resumes, probably in the opposite direction. He resumes his perch and looks. Any other landing sites? Any sniper nests revealed? Any angry mother birds about to peck his face off?

Don't worry, Iz will choke them to death for you.

Aww, we knew she cared.

Alden's expression milds at the snap, his tone holding something unidentifiable before he comments, "We do not need to make it more dangerous than it needs to be."

It is probably extremely difficult to tell if there was a fuel leak or not, or how the fire started, unless maybe you are an arson specialist that handles plane crashes. It is a very, very burnt Cessna to anyone else. There could be another half-assed crop circle, closer to the jet, but then that area is already trampled. A woodpecker lets Remy know that it is kind of not happy with his presence, but he will be tolerated because he is, you know, kind of big. The only nests visible belong to said woodpecker.

Xen then shows up at the door to the plane, picking up the toolkit and bag, hopping down lightly and approaching Isabel and Alden, "I'm wary of using the helicopter to go too far in that direction. If we're spotted and they knock us out of the sky, we're not equipped to spend any amount of time in these woods." The pilot glances off in the direction of the trail Isabel suggests before looking back to her and Alden, "Possible but unlikely. Tranqs say that the team was taken unconscious. Dragging them this kind of a distance while dead weight? There's no way they wouldn't still be one the move somehow. Magik said that Sachs has been stationary for a while now."

"We got -maybe- another landing spot right snug up beside the crash site," reports Remy, caught between attempting to eeeeease away from the irritable woodpecker while still projecting an aura of I-could-totally-eat-you at it. A shift takes him a little too far from the security of the trunk and he flails a bit before getting a secure hold with a chuff of relieved breath. "Spot's a mess, though. Tore up an' trampled."

The woodpecker ttly mocks Remy's flailing.

Stupid bird. Woodpecker gumbo, for srs.

"Take a picture of it on your way down, just in case," Xen responds to Remy, oblivious to any Woodpecker territorial spats. "Then get back here to us. I think we've gotten most of what we're going to find here." He does not mention any jaunty grass or smoorth dirt.
Isabel waits in silence, arms folded across her chest.

With a flick of grey eyes over Isabel before they turn to Xen expectantly, Alden does mention it as Remy reports. "It's possible they've been trying to cover their tracks. I thought something seemed off myself."

Remy lacks the appropriate tools to capture and prepare a woodpecker for the dinner pot (And really, there's a time and place.) and so the woodpecker is left to her domain after one last glower. Down the tree he goes, pausing at the bottom to finger comb his hair and pluck some stray twigs from his hair before he moves to rejoin the others. "I would if I was them," he reflect.

"And if we'd bought their line of shit, they'd be safe. We'd be putting bodies in the ground none the wiser." Xen's eyes flash slightly as he hefts the bag of tools and electronics on his shoulder again. "The whole cabin's been cleared out. There aren't any signs of our gear, much less melted piles of computers," he says as he eyes the team.

"So someone's tranq'd them and taken them and covered their tracks. Awesome." Isabel's eyes flash hard to Xen. "If we're not following the direction they went, what're we doing?"

"Ain't -that- gonna be fun security holes to figure out. What do they know about us now..." muses Remy, coming into view at the crash sight as he sheds a few final twigs and leaves.

"We should consider leaving and discussing our next course of action somewhere else," Alden murmurs lightly, not in the least paranoid as grey eyes shift to skim the surrounding trees before they return to Xen.

"Agreed," Xen concurs with Alden. His eyes glance over to look at Alden, and then at Isabel, "We are certainly not making any trips while running blind. For now, we're heading back into town to plot our next steps. And get all of this gear where it needs to be so it can be looked at." With that, the pilot turns and heads back towards the waiting helicopter, his eyes scanning the surrounding woods as he does so.
Crash site.

Satellite staring. Sort of.