Issue 1 Downtime

Victoria sat in the tavern wondering if Nailah would show (and reflecting that the food here wasn't THAT bad). She'd stowed their guest in a room to get dried off and warmed up, and had taken a few moments to conjure him up some clean clothes to be sent up to him (more for her own sensibilities) and had then taken some time to regroup and think the situation over. And, naturally, she'd made a few calls, since three minds were better than two, or possibly even more than three.

And show she did. Regardless of how uncomfortable and twitchy she might be, this had sounded too serious to hide from in her apartment.

"Good evening, Vickie." she says, sounding more stilted than usual as she suppresses her accent.

"Ahhh, good. I was starting to think I might need to be the only one thinking about this mess. Hungry?"

"Absolutely, yes. And you may well be our only major line of defense for a little longer. Sam and me are... not cut off but certainly very inhibited in these matters recently."

"Hm. I was afraid that might be the case." He eyes moved involuntarily toward the door to the tavern's lodgings as she spoke. "Rather unique question... if a sorceress is put in another body, where does her power lie... with her mind, or with her body. I'm starting to think that the answer isn't exactly clear-cut."

"It's certainly there, but it feels like I'm lacking the talent to go along with the theory. In time I might be able to reclaim it but not within a week."

"Hm. Well, in the meantime, I ran into that lovely woman who started this mess. Little tart was in the middle of Maldon trying to tap into the World Tree."

"Certainly seems like they've been keeping an eye on the chaos they wrought. But the World Tree? Why? What was she trying to do?"

"Well, from what she said, they're looking beyond just this world. Now... we have the Lighthouse that can tap them into other realities, and the World Tree that takes them beyond this world... between the two of them there's just so much I don't want them touching."

"But as always, there's more. There was... something coming. I could hear it through the World Tree... claws, getting closer."

"Great. Well, that's hardly my field of expertise, but it doesn't exactly sound good. Any ideas what we might have bearing down on us?"

"Well, I do have rather a wild thought..."

"This whole mess starts with those fools bringing in a bunch of asgardian-powered mooks. Then that little bitch is seen trying to reach to the worlds beyond... what if I told you that I've come upon a rather unfortunate man, built like a goddamned house, who seems to have some kind of connection to the Tree and is apparently being 'chased' by storms?"

"You don't think... But if that's who he is then what is he doing here? Chasing our two friends from the Lighthouse?"

"Well, darling, that's where it gets touchy. He has no idea what's going on. Plus he seems to be linked into the same magical resonance that everyone who's had their body swapped is tangled in." She took a drink, motioning for a waiter to come over. "So my thought is that he's some poor sap that they did the same thing to to keep all that power out of the way, perhaps?"

"Great. Just great. Who is the one person from Asgard who has an axe to grind with Thor and is an insufferable git...?"

"Exactly. Once you have a few of the pieces, they all start to fall into place."

"So the question now is where to go from here. We can see the board, the question is what move to make."

"If I was myself I'm sure I could muster something to slow down, maybe even trap that friend of his. Go on the offensive. Like this..." she sighs. "They said they want the Lighthouse, but are we really sure what their plans are?"

"No, we don't. But we can only get so far second-guessing ourselves. Either they want to use it, or they want it neutralized because it could do something to hinder whatever they're doing."

"But what strikes me is that they definitely seemed to want HIM out of the equation. So a good step, I think, would be to get him back into it."

"Okay, so they swapped him with someone as well. Could we get him to try and step up to the plate?"

Victoria sighed. "And there's the question. How do you describe to someone how to be a god? More to the point... does this even work the same with a god? He's linked to the World Tree... could we take him to it and maybe get him fixed? I doubt it's as hard for a GOD to be set right than it is for a person. I mean, the storms are angry, he says. Probably this is a natural order wanting to be set right."

"Or he simply has no control over the powers he commands." she says, hoping there aren't pink feathers sticking from her hair right now as they have tended to do from time to time since the swap.

She sighed. "Well, I'm rather hoping that maybe we can do better than that, because the amateur hour that most of the X-Men are right now isn't going to quite cut it."

"We can certainly try. Else we'll have to make do with what we have."

"Well, eat up, it might be a long night then. Once he decides he's hungry enough to come down, at least."

She nods.

"Any idea on what is coming our way from the World Tree? Did our two lovely new acquaintances call for back-up?"

"Something chasing them? Something inevitable that they're running from? Asgardian rubbish isn't exactly my area of expertise, I'm afraid."

"Well maybe we should try to find out then. Could be that she was tapping into the tree to lead it here."

"That occurred to me, too," Victoria said, nodding grimly. I couldn't get a look at whatever it was, but she'd just vanished before I could really pick a fight with her, and for all I knew it was some sort of trap. Didn't seem like a good idea to stick around long.

Heavy footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs from the rooms above.

Nailah briefly flinches at the noise.

"Is that him?"

"He's the size of a car, so... probably, yes," Victoria said.

The large man shouldered into the room. Sartorial splendor was probably too much to expect of him, but he did at least look as if he'd washed up.

"Smells good..."

"Goddess... You weren't joking."

"...huh?" He said, looking to Nailah in confusion.

"Who's this?"

"Usually? Nailah Weaver, High-Priestess of Sekhmet. Right now I'm stuck like this though."

"I didn't think I should be doing all the thinking about this nonsense," Victoria added.

"...something happened to you too?"

"Yes. The same thing that happened to you from what Victoria told me."

"It's chasing you too?"

"What? No, I meant that you're in someone elses body. Right?"

"I don't... I don't remember being anything but this," he said with confusion.