Going to party like it's 1999!

[Juggers]

Cain stomped down the corridor with a vaguely disinterested expression on his face. Since the whole 'smashing of the mercenary' incident he had kept to himself and had retired to his room with a six pack of John Smiths, a pizza and the twenty four hour sports channel.

It was however, Angie's Birthday.

And he liked Angie in a big brotherly sort of way.

Eventually, he had come to the conclusion that while he really couldn't be arsed with the whole party crowd idea he owed it to the girl to at least put in an appearance and offer best wishes and all that crap.

It had been a long time since the Juggernaut had been to anything resembling a party.

They did usually mean food and drink though, two things that Cain had run out of over the last few hours. The sounds of merriment coming from the kitchen were promising.

The big man stepped into the room and grinned.

"Evenin' all."

[impact]

Lucas adjusted himself in his chair carefully so as not to break the steel and plastic contraption. Sneering vaguely at Roy he put an elbow on the table, watching that beautiful girl from the hotel walk back in... good lord what was that she was wearing... and then the Juggernaut.

Now this was a man with a reputation, whom he'd not had the chance to meet. Lucas watched Cain for a few seconds more before his attention was pulled back to Aurora.

God damn... those are legs.

He lit another cigarette and reached over to tap the ashtray into the trash nearby before settign it in front of him again. Yeah. It was about time to move on out of here before things got tense. He cracked his neck, jaw flexing.

[Nightingale]

At Aurora's urging, Angie carefully untied the ribbon (it was pretty, she wanted to use it for her hair later) and peeked into the box; it contained all manner of lovely looking looking girly things - she unscrewed the cap of one to find that it smelled divine - which were covering something brightly coloured. The young Australian blushed when she pulled out a frilly pair of knickers, it looked like there were a few pairs of sexy underwear in there, and down the very bottom she found a new cookbook.

"Oh, thanks Aurora, that's really... thank-you." Her cheeks were still pink at the fact that she'd pretty much just flashed her underwear all over the place, but she ignored that in favour of putting Roy's gift into the box. She was just about to wander out toward her room to put those away (Dharma's tree was going to have to wait) when Cain walked in, and her face split into an even wider grin.

"Cain!" She was in a huggy mood now; she wanted to run over and throw her arms around him but they were still full of the box and she had a feeling it would end badly.

So instead she just hugged the box to her chest and waited for Cain to come in properly so that she could totter down to her room again.

[Aurora]

Aurora grinned as Angie discovered her gifts, laughing as she realized what the scraps of cloth were. She gave her friend another half-hug and turned to the rest of the gang as Angie went to greet Cain. She swiped a bottle from the counter and sat herself at the table so that a few of the new people were around her. "Alright, so. People I haven't met properly," she said, looking around at the four faces.

"We met briefly in the hotel, but the name's Aurora, not Bindy."

Starting with Impact, she held her hand out across the table in offer of a shake. The corners of her lips tugged upwards as she looked the handsome man in the eyes.

[impact]

Impact didn't smile back. It really wasn't it his style. Reaching out his large hand, he took her hand to shake, his thick fingers wrapping around hers.

"Yeah. You can call me Lucas. Though if we're going by code names, I'm Impact."

Damn she smelled good. Like those women from social services who work in offices all day and have competitions to see who can by the most expensive perfume. Lucas nodded again, and sat back, continuing to watch her.

[avalanche]

Oh come the fuck on! Dom thought, staring sideways at Lucas and Aurora. What's with ladies always falling for the asshole? Every single freaking damn time. It's amazing.

Of course, immediately following that:

Hurt Gracie, Big Man, and I bury you. Of course I mean literally.

He shook his head, smiled, and nodded to Aurora. No reason to interfere with the two, since he was fairly sure she didn't much care about his name. He'd already given it, in any case. He sipped his beer, and went back to watching the room. He gave Juggs a happy little wave, and was glad that it appeared most everyone was there.

That would no doubt cheer Pyro up a little more.

[deadpool]

“So then I said: 'Dictum? Damn near killed em'!” Deadpool said, before breaking into peals of laughter. Gill was laughing too, the joke, as always, a good one. “Oh man this is great! ”

He turned to Pyro, and gave him the thumbs up. “Thanks for letting me stay for dinner, man. This was just what the doctor ordered. And Angie, you are an awesome cook. Sort of a Rachel Ray meets international mutant terrorist kinda thing. Touche!'”

Then a shadow fell over him, and he looked back to see Juggernaut in the doorway. The big man gave a hello to everyone gathered, so Deadpool raised his drink to him. “Heya, buddy! No hard feelings on that fight we had earlier. How about we call it a tie?”

[Aurora]

Aurora's smile didn't falter under Lucas' intense, unsmiling gaze. Her eyes narrowed the slightest bit - it might not even have been noticeable. But if it was, it might have said something subtle. Interesting. Of course, she hadn't been around him enough to know whether or not he was intruiguing, as her first impression had told her, or just surly.

She turned to the woman sitting next to Lucas second, offering her hand to her. "And you must be Recluse. I like your hair," she said, her eyes on Grace's short cut. She sounded earnest, though she spoke casually - but whether or not it would be taken as a compliment or as sarcasm was to be seen.

[Mercy]

Mercy had been watching Dharma since he'd turned from a huge black bug to a Chinese guy. He wasn't in the heart of the conversations going on, rather sort of to the side, so Mercy spoke to him. "You can...be a bug?" she asked, unsure whether to be awed or repulsed. A bug wasn't exactly her first choice of an animal to turn into. But maybe he could turn into any animal. That would be pretty kickass. "Can you be other animals, too?"

“So then I said: 'Dictum? Damn near killed em'!”

She was momentarily distracted by Deadpool's punchline, which made no sense whatsoever because she hadn't heard the build-up (though...with a word like 'dictum', she doubted she'd have got it anyway. Whatever the hell a dictum is...). She watched Deadpool and Fishman laugh for a minute before turning her head and her attention back to Dharma for his answer.

[Pyro]

“Oh shit, I totally forgot to ask you. My room sucks... can I create my own room? I know this is Magneto's joint, but do you think he'd mind if a created my own chamber? I'll make sure it's structurally sound.”

"Wha'? Oh, sure, man. Go ahead. Jane did all flowers and shit in her room, it looks pretty spectacular. Me, I just hang all my clothes up on the floor. Gives it a more...lived in feel, y'know?"

He waved a hand vaguely and watched the various social interactions between his team in silence for a while. As alcohol is wont to do, it slowly began to switch his mood from happy and sociable to more melancholy.

He stared at the glass in his hand. He had known that drinking would make him feel like this. So why, exactly, had he gone ahead and done it anyway?

Because you're an asshole, Allerdyce, his inner self sneered at him. And you may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Go get a refill. Maybe you can drink yourself into obliteration in two glasses. That's gonna make you look hard, isn't it?

John swivelled a finger in his ear and set down the now-empty glass. "I'm jus' gonna got out and get a breath of air," he announced, standing up and wavering ever-so-slightly. He was still bewildered as to where Mystique was. Aurora was back, but no Mystique.

And that confused him.

(It would have confused him even if he'd been sober, just a little less).

"Yeah," he said, grinning broadly at the assemblage. Truth be told, it was getting a bit cosy in here for his liking. He'd never done particularly well with crowded rooms and here he was with an entire island at his disposal.

As he wandered happily past Angie, he leaned towards her, nodded at the gift Aurora had brought and which she had duly flashed around the room and said, in a loud stage whisper, "Nice knickers."

Then he wandered off, humming cheerfully to himself.

[dharma]

(ooc: just a note, dharma was a small bug, regular sized, not large.)

Dharma looked to the young woman, who seemed almost more awkardly youthful than Angie, if that was possible. Nodding to her, he responded in his even, low tone.

"I can become anything earthly, or change anything similar." He wasn't going to mention the next thought- that he could change the air in the room to sand, thus killing anyone within it that still needed to breathe, but most often he found those still clinging to life feared death. Fear most often lead to violence.

And Dharma usually avoided violence.

[Mercy]

"Hold up, hold up - anything? Like, we talkin' anything like that breathes?" Mercy gestured to her throat to emphasize-- "Or anything like...you could be this banana?" She picked a banana from a bowl of fruit on the counter. She looked to Dharma for clarification, her eyebrows high and looking like she was on the verge of thinking he had a very kickass power, no matter which answer he gave.

[dharma]

Dharma nodded, that same even look about him. "I could become that banana. Though," he smiled. "I generally don't prefer to become objects without eyes. While we are all the same material, I am still in this illusory body. I will still need eyes to see."

The smile was one of very few he ever offered, displaying that apparently, he found the idea of being a banana amusing.

[recluse]

Grey eyes followed the Bindi chick as she moved away from Angie and toward them, sticking her hand out for Lucas with a smile that Gracie didn’t fail to notice.

Whore. Pretty chicks like that, in her experience, always acted all morally superior to other girls not five minutes before they were opening their legs for the first hot guy to come near them.

She was just so… conventionally good looking. Pointed ears aside. Not to mention that her hair was far too long for her to be interesting in Gracie’s eyes; the spider-woman watched the exchange for just a moment before going back to her beer. Whatever. If Lucas wanted to make eyes at some other chick, she wasn’t going to kick up a fuss. He’d remember who he belonged to in the end.

"And you must be Recluse. I like your hair," Aurora’s voice brought her attention back to the woman, and her eyes flicked back up with a look that could only be described as disinterested.

“Thanks. Nice ears.” She only clasped the hand for a moment; long enough to show off her unusual grip but not long enough to be entirely friendly. But there was nothing rude about her words, or her tone, just no attempt at actually making friends.

“You want a beer or anything?” Gracie pointed over her shoulder with her own, half-empty bottle.

[Nightingale]

A deep red blush spread over her cheeks immediately at Pyro’s words, and though she quickly ducked out of the room after him, the cooler air in the hallway did nothing to help. It should have helped, Angie reasoned, there weren’t ten bazillion people around. Just him.

Why did it hurt? He didn’t like her like that, and she knew it. But he’d given her Catch-22, and for some reason the young Australian had thought that it was a sign that she actually meant something to him. Even if it was just as a friend. Yet here he was walking out of her birthday party.

She reminded herself that she was doing the same.

Then she reminded herself that she’d only been intending on going to her room to drop off the latest gifts and perhaps try on some of the nice undies.

With the box still clutched to her chest like a security blanket, she looked up, speaking with words that were slow and careful, neither too loud nor with a hint of slurring. “Are you coming back?”

But he was already rounding the corner, already gone. Her face fell, and with a sigh, she took off in the opposite direction, heading for her room.

[Aurora]

Recluse seemed nice enough. Civil, anyway. Which was good. She didn't like the idea of living down the hall from a bitch and having to deal with her every day. Aurora looked past Gracie at the beer and nodded, sliding from her seat to get herself one. After countless hours with nowhere to walk but back and forth on the plane, she wanted to stretch her legs as much as she could.

After grabbing herself a bottle, she turned and addressed the final person she didn't know. Placing her hand on the table he sat at, she leaned across, setting down her bottle and extending her hand to shake.

"And you are...Avalanche?" she guessed. She remembered being told that Avalanche and Pyro were friends, and the man still present had been sitting by and joking with Pyro, whereas the other had come and gone quickly, she had a feeling she was correct.

[Jane]

(I'm sorry, guys, just... pretend this isn't random. Agh.)

Well. Her pot had, unsurprisingly, received an odd reception. But she hadn't really expected much different; she'd make it up at Christmas or something. Except she'd need to get off the island now if she wanted to do her shopping, wouldn't she... damn. Sometimes, tropical seasons were not fun.

She looked down at her gloves. She could still tell what color they were through the fabric, oddly. She felt different when she was green or orange. Half-dead, or fully alive. Being pale was nice, but it felt so... static.

Conversation surged around her and she found herself, almost against her will (but not quite), fading automatically into the kitchen, where a black bug skittered across the floor as she reached for a glass in the cabinets, pouring herself a glass of milk. She might have a drink later, but she knew better than to start early. Jane really, really liked alcohol, but it did unfortunate things to her for far longer than strictly necessary.

Aurora appeared in doorway; she shared a girly hug with the birthday girl. The black bug turned into Dharma. Some guy in leather showed up with a little ghetto-ho. Same old, same old.

She sipped her milk with the air of an old matron observing young scrappy orphans finally beginning to grow up and make new friends. She had no right at all to feel motherly, but she did anyway. She was stupidly proud of the little group, really, even if Mystique really had more claim to the female-figurehead position than she did - or Angie, or really any of the other girls, since she'd been Missing In Inaction for so long.

Too late, she realized that, of a sudden, everyone had someone to talk to but her.

Nice.

So she latched onto the strangest faces she could - then reconsidered and latched onto the face that came with him, and Dharma, since Dharma was, if nothing else, inoffensive.

"So - you're Mercy, right?" she said, referring to Mr. Bondage's introduction and smiling a hello at Dharma, though of course such things as welcomes and smiles were transient and pointless. "The mouthed merc's lovely intern? How's that one workin' out for ya?"

[Juggers]

Cain grinned even wider at the mercenary.

"I 'it you, you fell over but ain't dead ... I'll call that a tie any time you like," he said cheerfully. There wern't many people who would take having their head bent the wrong way and be a good enough sport to laugh about it afterwords.

Pyro looked slightly worse for wear as he left the room but then as he had come to accept, their young leader couldn't hold his drink. Or just about any other potentially intoxicating substance for that matter.

Angie ducked out after him with something that looked like a box of dental floss.

Some people gave the oddest gifts, he thought.

Then he glanced around the congregation in the room and it didn't seem quite so bizarre after all. Pyro had lived up to his promise of some new faces. A snarly looking beefcake was greeting Aurora with a faintly interested look in his eyes and was in turn being pointedly ignored by a spiky rocker bird.

Well, what happened between consenting adults within the confines of the base was none of his concern, as long as they kept the noise down. Gill would probably tape the whole thing anyway if it proved to be interesting enough.

And there was a guy who could only be Dom, the one Pyro knew from before Xavier's place. Apparently he had the ability to make stuff break or something.

Cain could see himself liking that.

He swiped a can of beer from the table and took a swig before returning his attention to the human hornet.

"Anyways, I told ya we didn't 'ave any swords," he said with a mountainous shrug, "they'd sort of stick out around 'ere."

There was also pale looking girl he hadn't seen before talking to Dharma.

Damn ... Pyro had been busy. Either that or Angie had called up some old friends and invited them to party.

[deadpool]

Deadpool leaned back, pulling his mask back into place and taking off the bandit-bandana. He nodded at the big man, and pointed.

“And you know, I should’ve guessed you weren’t playin’ around. But mama always said I’ve got this way of keeping on keeping on, and that one day some giant superhuman guy’s gonna smash my head in.”

He shrugged, and held up his can in a sort of toast. “But no sweat. I had a chat with Pyro and he said I could stick around and enjoy the festivities. You guys could be future clients, ya know. I’m still a merc, and I hear the Brotherhood has some pretty premium jobs. Besides, gives me clout if I say I got hired by you, and looks good on my resume. Maybe it’ll hide that my degree in community college was in 8-track technology.”

He looked around, obviously grinning (or grimacing, hard to tell through the mask.) “You know, you wouldn’t think this was what life with the Brotherhood was like… you guys really get some bad press. You should consider going through an ad agency or something.”

[avalanche]

Dom nodded up to the woman – Aurora – and shook her hand firmly. “That’s right, though you can call me Dominic or Dom if you’d prefer.”

He felt her skin through his grip, and made note of the lack of give. She was soft, as any beautiful woman was supposed to be, but it didn’t go all the way down. It was almost as if there was a layer of thick muscle there, but it couldn’t be seen. Invulnerability?

He glanced at her hand, then let go. He’d get around to forming a tactical assessment of everyone’s powers at a later date. With a name like Aurora, he could only imagine she had some sort of light-powers.

“Good to meetcha when you’re really you.”