Brotherhood Meeting

[Juggers]

Cain had removed his helmet during the proceedings and now stood, absently running one huge hand over his shaved scalp. The Juggernaut was not a leader, never would be a leader and had absolutely no desire to be a leader. He was happy to to sit back and relax while being pointed in the right direction.

He couldn't really see Gill as a driving force behind the Brotherhood; the fish man was far too laid back. Gill was an organiser, a network genius.

But not a leader.

Dead Man?

No. Fucking. Way.

Aurora?

The Brotherhood would spend their days chasing small, pink fairies.

Angie?

Too timid.

Poseidon?

At this stage, too much of an unknown. He had a certain aloofness that didn't lend itself to leadership though.

Jane?

Well now ...

The Juggernaut glanced over at the semi-green girl and considered. She was perhaps the best candidate in the room if he had been asked to make a choice.

Then Pyro stopped talking.

Cain rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"So ... I ain't goin' again then?"

[mystique]

Mystique smiled a bit- just a shadow on her beautiful face as she listened to him speak.

As she listened to the radio report in her other ear, her attention perked. A Senator out of Kentucky... talking about a 'Jane'.

With green skin.

Who had control over plants.

Her eyes registered quick thought as she looked at Jane, frowning a bit even as she smirked with amusement.

[dharma]

Dharma watched from his chair, as still as stone. Pyro had said some good things, and it appeared whatever illness he had suffered before Dharma had shown up was fading. The conviction behind their plans was present. Pyro was closer to understanding Truth and Duty. These were all good things, and would only serve to make Pyro's organization stronger.

He found the discussion on leadership amusing. They seemed to center a great deal of their strength on one person, rather than focusing on becoming a cohesive unit outside the guidance of one individual. That was a weakness, but a very Western weakness. Those tended to not be easily changed. Perhaps by strengthening the individual and unravelling the neurotic sense of Self they clung to, they would begin to understand.

Dharma's eyes shifted back to Pyro, and he absorbed himself in thoughts of coming days.

[Nightingale]

Only Jane spoke up before Pyro started speaking again, and the little speech of his left Angie feeling a bit confused. She'd told him before that it was his Brotherhood now, not Magneto's, but the way he was saying it seemed... well, it seemed like he didn't want to be leader. When he clearly still was.

He was pacing. That wasn't unusual. Maybe his thoughts were clearer on the subject than hers - that wouldn't be surprising. Finally he seemed to settle in one spot, and Gill was given the job of contact. No surprises there. It really did make sense.

So he didn't want any of them to step up? Angie had to wonder why he'd asked them to. Some kind of test, probably - she wasn't really cut out for understanding the politics of leadership. She was the youngest there, the least helpful in their fight, the very last person that would need to know about leadership.

That train of thought was broken when Juggernaught spoke. The knowledge that the intention had been for him to go left her feeling a little uneasy. Not knowing if Cain had asked to go, or if he'd known that he was supposed to go, Angie didn't know what should be said about it to leave him feeling good about the situation.

All that stuff about who was leading and being a cohesive unit and them being in a reasonably formal setting made her think that it probably wasn't her place to say anything. So she just stayed quiet, glancing over at Mr. Bones for a moment before looking back to see what Pyro would say.

[Pyro]

Pyro's eyes lifted to meet Cain's and he shrugged lightly. "I had to re-think my plans a little," he said, non-commitally. "If you want to know my reasoning, come and see me before I leave. I don't think in here is the appropriate place."

He looked around the assembled group again. "Dharma, I'd appreciate your help in pulling together a physical training programme of some description for everyone - Cain, I'm sure that your input into that would be invaluable. Right now, I have to go do several things that can't wait until I get back, so that's it from me."

Pyro loosened a couple of buttons on the white shirt then did them back up again, a faintly anxious gesture.

"I just wanted to communicate to you all what was going on. We'll not be gone long. Anybody wants to catch me, I'll probably be in my office. "

Without waiting for any further questions, the young man strode from the meeting room leaving the assembled Brotherhood there. He headed away from the hall and down the corridor to his office, where he flopped down in his chair and took several deep breaths.

God, but he loathed talking in public. Magneto had always thrived on it, but it gave him a terrible cold, hard knot in the pit of his stomach. It was a good job he'd not eaten much, because he would have been sick.

He'd been quite proud of his little impromptu speech, though.

There was hope yet.

[Aurora]

Aurora couldn't help but analyze Pyro as he stood up there in front of them all. She hadn't known him before he was leader, so he hadn't seen as much of a change in him as Cain and Mystique had...But she'd seen him change a great deal since Baltimore, even. Blowing off a top player like Juggernaut. He was a good...well...He had a good personality most of the time...But Aurora didn't see what Angie liked about him in that sense of 'like'.

Aurora didn't have much patience for romance, if it was at all troubling; after all, she'd spent her whole life in one sense living in a dark cave of her mind, and in the other sense, she'd spent her entire life in an all-girls Catholic school. She knew no one could tell by seeing her, but she'd never had a boyfriend, never kissed a boy. And it didn't much bother her. She didn't feel like she was behind; after all, she'd lost her accent in record time. And she'd rarely ever used her powers, and now she was doing pretty damn well with them. She figured if a guy ever came along, she could handle him just fine. But there weren't really any prospects on the island so far.

So needless to say, she was one of the first up after Pyro left. She stood and stretched, her back arching as she leaned way back and cracked a few bones in her spine. "That was fun. I've got laundry to do, so let me know if anything important happens," she said to the room on her way to the door. When she passed Angie, she tapped her shoulder. "Hey, stop by later."

She felt something brush her ankle and looked down to see Mr. Bones looking up at her, bony tail wagging as always. Aurora grinned and stooped down. 'Why not?' she thought as she rubbed top of the empty skull. Mr. Bones nudged her hand and she scratched him once more before straightening up, her laughing eyes falling on Dead Man. "You should get him a skeleton cat to chase," she said jokingly.

As Mr. Bones trotted back to him, Aurora left the room and went down the hall in the opposite direction Pyro had gone.

[Nightingale]

[Angie and Juggs continued in 'Cabin Fever']

[Jane]

Well.

Okay then.

Jane didn't really see why John had decided to make a huge speech about leadership if he was just going to say they wouldn't really need to decide it yet, but she assumed he Had His Reasons.

What she didn't understand even more was why Mystique was looking at her so funny. Smirking and frowning at the same time. Jane couldn't fathom the amount of muscle control that must require.

Sick and frustrated with glancing out of the corner of her eyes, Jane turned slightly and made eye contact with the woman, giving her a questioning glance as her hands continued to move through one lock of her hair, not yet bored with the novelty of having it straight again.

Unfortunately, she spent too long on the questioning glance, and in the interim Angie had beat feet with Juggs after John had left. Or rather, both of them had beat feet in the same general direction. Beating feet with someone would both (a) look weird and (b) with Cain, probably result in death, dismemberment, or at least some seriously bruised soles.

Dang.

She'd just have to, like, set an Angie-trap at some point. Put out a bunch of cooking supplies and hang a crate over them. Or the crate again, but with John underneath, looking broody and unfriendly and difficult. (Nothing against their fearless leader, but Jane couldn't imagine dating anyone remotely like the man John had become, and was distinctly confused by Angie's crush.)

But that gave her time to glance back at Mystique. "Is there something in my teeth?" she asked in a quiet voice.

[mystique]

Mystique looked more amused by the moment. This couldn't possibly become more entertaining.

"Do you know an Isaac Foster? Senator Isaac Foster?"

Biting the inside of her lip a bit, a dark eyebrow arched and she chuckled.

"He certainly seems to know you."

[Jane]

Jane's face skipped susprise altogether and moved blithely into shock and horror, her mouth slackening and her eyes widening, their color intensifying as the blood drained from her face, leaving only white and their stark green.

"How do you know about - what's going on?"

Jane teetered on the edge of freakout. Thankfully for her, she converted stress to rage very quickly. This was not so thankful for those around her.

[mystique]

Mystique's eyebrows raised, and the amusement left her. Well if it was something bad, she didn't want to make light of it.

She could be cruel, but not without reason.

"He's... speaking about you. On national public radio."

[Jane]

"He's... speaking about you. On national public radio."

Why the hell was Isaac talking about her on NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO.

Obviously, he just didn't know when to sweep out of a girl's life and stay out forever. Or he had a skewed sense of reentry.

"Why is he - Jesus," Jane spat. Yep. There went the stress.

She held out a gloved hand for the little earpiece. "Can I?"

[mystique]

Mystique handed it over, pressing a few buttons to replay the message.

There it was, Isaac's sheepish confession that much of his mutant sympathy was based on the very bright green marauder sitting before them.

Mystique leaned forward on her elbows, watching Jane's expression.

[Jane]

Jane took the little thingamajig, which had always eerily reminded her of those little slugs from the Animorph books, and stuck it in her ear without trepidation or thanks, too buzzed on the adrenaline produced by the sudden onslaught of emotion.

There was someone, you’re right. When I was young man, just finishing at Stanford Law, my parents took in a young woman by the name of Jane...

His senator voice slipped halfway through the sentence. Why was his senator voice slipping?

At first Jane's face displayed only intent focus. Then the interviewer hit the romantic involvement bit and her eyes hardened, her face pulling slightly towards the center, a very pale reflection of barbarism. It looked as if she was trying to set the air between her and the table on fire.

It cleared very quickly with Isaac's response.

Ha. He had liked her.

It was an empty victory.

And she couldn't stop the little flow of guilt from roiling in her stomach at his high-flown, idealistic mini-sermon towards the end of the interview. It felt like she'd let him down. But they owed each other nothing; he'd made that quite clear when she'd finally left...

Jane removed the Bluetooth thingamajig from her ear and handed it back to Mystique. She had the brief, wild urge to cry, then a similar one to scream her head off. She suppressed both.

Instead she placed a gloved hand over her mouth, gazing into the middle distance as if in deep thought, when really nothing was going through her mind but another round of panic.

She murmured something like ohmygod into her palm, then looked up at Mystique.

"I - " She stopped. "I hate boys."

What the hell was she supposed to do now?

[mystique]

Mystique smirked, but her eyes held some strange sort of understanding.

"Me too. If you want to talk about what to do next, find me later."

Standing, she looked to the others. "Lovely to see you all again." She made sure to wink at Cain before she stepped out of the room.