A Crude Awakening

[Juggers]

Cain pulled himself out of what passed for a bed and blinked owlishly in the morning light. The little TV which he had been watching last night was still on, informing him that Jade had opened a new boutique in east end of London. Thank you Richard and Judy. The Juggernaut stood and switched off the badly tuned BBC before glancing at his reflection in the corner of the mirror.

The rest of the mirror was on the floor and had long since ceased to be reflective.

Cain sniffed and pulled a razor from the small window-sill and dragged it across his head a few times, taming the little growth that had occurred over night. Satisfied that he was now well prepared for the day ahead the Juggernaut stomped off in search if the next most important thing in the morning :

Food.

And drink.

A few minutes later and he was rooting through the kitchen cupboards. Python had managed to get some stocks in after the bank raid and all the essentials were there. Cain pulled out a box of Weeta-bix, ripped open the packaging and emptied four into the largest bowl he could find before soaking them in half a pint of milk, smothering the lot in honey and then drowning it in sugar.

Then he pulled a six-pack of John Smiths from the fridge, yanked a can free a tore off the ring-pull. Foam erupted over the table and settled in a fluffy halo where it fizzed contentedly.

Well pleased with his morning feast Cain settled himself into one of the chairs and began to eat.

[mystique]

Black hair half dried and pulled behind her ears, shorts(could they be called that?) under a man's white dress shirt, barefooted, but still Raven.

She stepped into the room with her dancer's grace, just ahead of Pyro, looking a little... well, like Pyro did when he thought too much.

"Good morning." Mystique nodded to Cain, going immediately for the coffee maker.

[Pyro]

Pyro wandered into the kitchen behind her, sparing the Juggernaut nary a glance as he slid promptly into a seat at the table and began to play with an abandoned teaspoon.

After about a minute and a half of failing to get it to stick to the end of his nose, he sighed heavily, looked over at Cain and mumbled something that sounded like it might have been 'good morning', but may just as easily have been 'I say, Carruthers, that's a mighty fine looking moose: do hand me the spak cannon, would you?'

Then he got up again and mooched over to join Mystique at the coffee machine.

Odd boy.

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut took a mighty swig of John Smiths, chomped down half of one of the weeta-bix and belched contentedly. There was probably something to be said for eating the sugar content of a Cadbury factory before ten in the morning, but it always set Cain up right as rain.

As did beer.

"Mornin'" He greeted the pair jovially.

The fact that the pair had arrived together might have registered as significant to somebody more astute than the Juggernaut. But there wasn't anybody more astute around and so the event went largely unnoticed.

Cain took another bite of the sugar-soaked cereal.

"Nice shorts," he commented.

[mystique]

Mystique looked over her shoulder at him with a sly smile. "Thanks." She slid John a mug and had hers black, wandering to the fridge to see what was there.

"I have a question for you... if you can stomach business over breakfast." She pulled out an apple and a loaf of bread, popping four pieces in the toaster. She thought maybe she should tell John to eat some eggs or something, his skin was translucent these days. Then she caught herself being maternal and shook her head.

[Pyro]

John helped himself to coffee and slunk back to the table, sitting down and staring at it for a while. Then he added six spoons of sugar to it, tasted it, made a face, poured it away, got more and didn't add any sugar at all.

"I don't take sugar," he said, helpfully, then lapsed back into whatever train of thought was carrying him away, far away this time.

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that for all intents and purposes he may as well have not been there at all.

[Juggers]

"Question?" Cain said around a mouthful of sticky breakfast.

He looked at John slumped on the table in case the question was directed it him. It usually was. People didn't tend to ask the Juggernaut much. Or at least more than once. After that they came to realise they probably wern't going to get an answer they liked and moved on to more promising conversationalists.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing, "what ya want to know?"

He up-ended the bowl, draining the remaining contents in one long draught of milky, sugary syrup before wiping his mouth with his hand. For a long moment he contemplated the coffee machine before writing it off as a bad idea.

He'd once drunk the base out of coffee when the beer and soda had dried up and spent nearly three days charging around the island like a rabid maniac. After that he'd slept for another three days.

After that he had a very clear memory of feeling like shit for almost a week.

After that he hadn't touched coffee again.

[mystique]

Mystique sat next to John, shoving buttered toast under his nose. Sometimes she thought there was a good chance he was autistic.

Then she turned her attention on Cain once more.

"How exactly do your abilities work? I'll tell you what I have in mind- let's say you came across a water tower, fourty feet high. If you were to run against one of the stabilizing arms, say a good... five, six feet in diameter." She sipped her coffee, and levelled her blue eyes at him again. "Could you bring it down?"

[Juggers]

Cain shrugged his massive shoulders and put his hands behind his head, meshing his fingers together. Then he leaned back on the chair which proceeded to creak alarmingly.

"Ain't nothin' can stop the Juggernaut," he said simply.

"Least not that I've ever found," apart from a wall and a kid that stopped his power working, but he didn't like to talk about that.

"Why?" He asked, vaguely intrigued, "you want somethin' knockin' down?"

If it had been anything else Cain wouldn't have given it a second thought; he didn't take orders from Mystique.

Hell, he wouldn't even take suggestions from Mystique, but the opportunity for a bit of demolition was never to be passed up.

Even if it did come from some cured, skinny bint.

[mystique]

Somebody had to run the operation. It certainly wasn't Pyro, at the moment.

"The Sentinels. We have more information on them. They'll simply need to be taken down as fast as possible, when we see them." She gestured her toast a bit as she swallowed. "I know, I know, foregone conclusion. But we never had a chance to discuss *how* that was going to get done."

[Pyro]

At this point, John got to his feet. "I have to go out for air," he said, absently picking up his toast and heading towards the door. "I'll be right back." He paused at the door and looked at them both.

"I have a few ideas about the Sentinels," he said, his tone definitely tuned into this particular reality, regardless of how he might have been acting. "I just need to work through the thoughts in my mind."

Then he was gone.

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut shrugged again and the chair gave another warning creak. "Big tin men," he said simply, "you push 'em, they fall down, what's to know. I reckon they ain't gonna 'ave any cure guns about with the President gettin' all mutant friendly, so what's the bother?"

He glanced out the door at John's retreating back and raised an eyebrow.

"What the bloody 'ell is up with 'im this mornin'?"

He looked back at Mystique.

"'e needs to sleep more, works too bloody 'ard for 'is own good."

Cain paused and took a draught of the John Smiths.

[mystique]

As if she'd share any of her thoughts with this walking couch. What kind of people did you leave behind, Erik? Was this who was left to you after I was gone?

A bit disgusted at the people she had to deal with on the island, she got up and took her coffee with her, headed back to her room.

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut watched her go with a small frown; why'd she got her panties in a knot all of a sudden? Not that it really mattered. And, Cain suspected, not that she was wearing any panties anyway. Mystique seemed the sort.

He finished the John Smiths, crushed the can flat and tossed it over his shoulder. It was the start of a new day, a day that held the promise of a fight in the not-too-distant future.

He didn't see what all the fuss was about with these walking tanks. Sure they were big, but so were buildings, and they fell down easy enough.

Eventually the quiet of the kitchen started to get to him and he extracted himself from the chair, at last wondering where everybody else was. Python would be doing whatever it was he did on the plane. Engineer things.

Gill would be in the security office, probably smoking already and most likely looking at porn on the internet.

Dead Man. He didn't even want to hazard a guess.

That left Jane.

Maybe Jane would share his joviality this morning. The idea that he might be the only one in a good mood sort of took the shine out of an otherwise fine morning.

The Juggernaut shook his head, "I do live with a bunch of fuckin' freaks," he commented to himself before stomping off in search of brighter company.

[Jane]

Jane was not an early riser. This habit was on the low end in summer and spring, as the life around her somehow seemed to give her a little energy boost, rousing her at nine or nine-thirty rather than halfway through the afternoon, which was what happened in fall and winter. She expected it had actually more to do with sunrise patterns than with her drawing invisible strength from surrounding vegetation, but whatever. It was true.

At nine-fifteen in the morning, she'd finally stumbled out of bed - now more a nest than anything - and made herself Presentable, forgoing breakfast. Eating three meals was expensive. She probably wouldn't relearn the habit for a long time.

In a pair of old, softened jeans and a huge t-shirt (plus gloves, of course), Jane wandered through the halls, now officially and completely bored with the new place.

She wondered if she could find the kitchen again.

She wondered if the kitchen had coffee.

She wondered if the kitchen had coffee after John got there.

Hmm...

She opened a window at random in the hallway, leaning out and breathing in the smell of morning. Here, for once, it wasn't diesel oil, urine, and rat. It was more like... well, not perfumey, really, which was nice, but more just growing. Alive.

She reached out and a vine crawled up the surface of the compound, an orange popping out of one side as it reached Jane's hand. Leaning back inside, she peeled it and pulled the sections apart carefully, trying to be neat as she continued down the corridor.

[Juggers]

Once again whistling the tune to Amarillo, badly, the Juggernaut stomped his way through the base in search of entertainment. He had once suggested getting some sort of games room for the base, for those times between causing havoc, when time seemed to draw out for an eternity. Apparently nobody else had thought it was necessary; they were wrapped up in planning, or practise, or something equally dull.

Not that Cain had anything against practise. It was just that there was only so much car smashing you could do before it became tedious.

He rounded a corner and almost walked into Jane coming the other way. She was carefully disecting an orange; an unbelievably light breakfast by Cains measure.

"Mornin'," he announced cheerfully, "how you doin'?"

[Jane]

Jane was in no danger of hitting Cain, despite the suddenness of his entrance. When something that big came your way, it was basically instinct for her to leap immediately out of the way, though it translated (thankfully) into a less-embarrassing side step.

"Mornin'. How you doin'?"

"I'm doin'," Jane said, swallowing the section of orange she'd been chewing on thoughtfully when the Juggernaut rounded the corner. She considered offering him a bit, but it would be something like giving a breadcrumb to another normal-sized person.

"Do you know what's up with Baltimore?" she asked, picking at the peel goo under her nails. "Because I'm still confused, other than that we're going to blow things up."

[Juggers]

Cain smiled broadly, "that was pretty much the size of it," then his brow furrowed in thought, "least ways it was 'til Mystique showed up." He turned on the spot and slowed his pace to match Jane's, glad for someone to talk to who was apparently not in a foul mood or still asleep.

"Way I see it now is, we gonna go in quiet so Mystique can do 'er thing," whatever that was, "then when we get a signal we go in, find the cure an bust the place up. Pyro reckons these Sentinel things are gonna show up for a fight, so we give them a kickin' too an then we come on 'ome."

It all sounded a bit long winded for Cain, especially when the original plan had simply been 'smash the place up', but John knew what he was doing.

Most of the time.

Probably.