Adjustment.
The last couple of days had been all about adjustment for the group that had once been known as Vanguard. To be sure, the burdens on their shoulders were far weightier than those of most anyone else on the planet. In the past 48 hours, they had been flash forwarded one year into a future that none of them had ever experienced, into bodies that simultaneously were and weren't their own. Coping with new powers and limitations, the group had essentially been rediscovering themselves... as well as realizing that, metaphorically speaking, they weren't in Kansas anymore.
Vanguard, it seems, was not the only thing to change. The world around them was... different. Vanguard had never existed as a formal group. La Perdita was a lump of lifeless igneous rock. No one had ever heard of Mandelovia. Grissom Montag was a millionaire. Penny was one of his myriad employees. Tommy Foxe had died of a drug overdose. Drake Marshall had died at the hands of their friend Ozzy Baxter.
And, to top it all off, the group was falling apart at the seams. After Prometheus replaced them back into the 'real' world, Edmund had essentially vanished and Adem had decided, for reasons all his own, to leave. Ozzy was taken by a government mercenary known as Nadia for his crime... and went willingly, filled with remorse at being responsible for the death of his hero.
Icarus, Lykopis, and Victor were the only members of Vanguard Europe still left.
They were not alone, however. They had been joined by two of Ozzy's friends from the original Vanguard: Grimm and Phil Smith. While both remembered the world as it was, they too were incredibly different. Not that Icarus knew one way or the other, having never really gotten to know either. Oh, he'd met them, sure... but he really only knew their names.
Then, there was this Merrick guy. Apparently, he was just a man from this present timeline. Whether he had existed in the old world is uncertain and, at this point, irrelevant. He had helped rescue the group from a barrage of Munich law enforcement officers. Lykopis was now in the back of the plane, attempting to explain how the group had come to be and what they knew up to this point... but something told Icarus that it would probably just leave the man confused and only make him want to leave. A story like theirs was just too unbelievable to be true.
New world. New abilities. New team. New struggles.
Adjustment.
"...ain't it a bitch..." Icarus sighed, gazing out at the skyline ahead of him.
"Beg pardon?" Phil spoke up from the pilot's seat beside him.
"Just talking to myself, Snow White," Sidewinder answered, not really bothering to make eye contact. "No need to concern yourself..."
Phil raised an eyebrow. "Something on your mind, Icarus?" he asked.
"What the fuck do you care?" Icarus said, eyeing the gauges beside his station. "Besides," he said, finally turning toward Phil, "can't you just read my mind?"
Phil's eyes narrowed in frustration. "No, for your information, I cannot." Now it was Phil's turn to avoid the gaze of the other. "For some reason, while my telekinesis has improved exponentially, my telepathy in this new place has... regressed."
"Well," Icarus said drolly, "sucks to be you, doesn't it?"
The formerly Unidentified Man tightened his jaw and furrowed his brow. Then, he flipped on the automatic pilot and spun to face the younger man next to him.
"Listen, kid," he said evenly, yet forcefully, "you're not the only one suffering here. We're all hurting. This is a time of adjustment for all of us..."
"Y'know, that's really easy for you to say," Icarus said. "What happened to you? Your hair changed colors? Your powers switched off a bit? Let's go through my changes, shall we?
"One: I can't fly. Two: I can hear, see, and transmit information in my head! Three: I am a fucking cyborg with no more hope of getting a date again. Ever! And, four: I am absolutely worthless in a fight!"
"How so?" Phil asked. "Surely, you know basic hand-to-hand combat skills, yeah?"
"Sure," Icarus said, "when I'm in the air! As long as I'm grounded, I'm not good for shit! I mean, even back in the old days, I had a gun!"
"Yeah," Phil said, running a hand over the spot where his old shoulder holster would have been.
"Seriously, when that Nadia bitch showed up, I would've given my right arm to have a gu-- AAAHH!"
A pain shot up Icarus' right arm. His grip immediately released from the controls of the plane, where his hand had been resting. His eyes clamped shut from the pain, which seemed to be twisting his arm inside out. The sinews and bones that made up his arm felt like they were being ripped out and reformed altogether.
Suddenly, the pain was gone altogether.
"...whoa..." came the whispered voice of Phil Smith from somewhere beside Icarus.
Slowly, one at a time, Icarus opened his eyes... to see that his hand had been transformed into something resembling a small cannon.
"Yeah," Icarus said, nodding slowly. "'Whoa' works..."
