Fight For Your Right (To Party)
Posted on Sun Aug 27th, 2023 @ 5:42pm by Scott Summers & Connor Bruin & Iris Walker & Cameron Hood & Elias Buckley & Tammy Thompson & Ethan Hale & Aurora Summers & Max Herrera
2,130 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Episode 3: X-Tra Ecclesiam
Location: X-Mansion | Ground Floor Parlor
Timeline: August 13th, 1990
Scott was the first back to the ground floor after Aurora had left the observation deck. She was nowhere to be seen at the moment, either mingling with some junior students or having taken her leave. No matter. Scott grabbed a sip of punch from the refreshment table and leaned back in the corner to watch the others rave over the pizza and try to best each other's dance moves near the sound system. A smile crossed his face. It wasn't so long ago that he and the other First Class members had acted exactly the same.
The party drifted away from the grand parlor and into the hallways, main hall, and even the courtyard. Right now things were calm. Hopefully, they'd stay that way.
Ethan wasn't in a big hurry to join the party. He wasn't shy exactly but he wasn't really a party animal either. He took his time taking a shower before putting on a pair of black jeans and an olive-colored A-shirt. By the time he arrived the pain of his once broken collarbone was almost completely gone.
He got a paper plate and filled it with five large slices of pepperoni and mushroom pizza. He was always hungry, and there seemed to be plenty for everyone. Then he grabbed a can of ginger ale and headed out to the courtyard.
Tammy couldn't dance. She was well aware of that fact. Still, she knew how to enjoy herself. She had grabbed a couple of slices of pizza and a cherry coke and just kind of swayed with the music as best she could and hung with her teammates. She slipped over to Scott. "C'mon, wallflower! Join the party!"
"I'm chaperoning," Scott said. "But you go on." He noted the cherry coke. "I still owe you that shake, though, huh?"
"That's a big yes! Umm, this pizza is good! I love pizza! Especially mushroom and green Chile. hard to find a place that puts green Chile on Pizza up here! Or on anything for that matter!"
Scott's brow shot up in surprise. "Green chiles? On pizza?" He crossed his arms and chuckled. "You're an odd one, Tammy." Looking over his head and through the door that would ultimately lead to the kitchen, he said, "Tell you what. I think things are calm off enough here that I can blend you that milkshake. Come on."
"Hey! I grew up in New Mexico! Chile is the state fruit! I was raised on the stuff. To me you guys are the weird ones!" nevertheless she followed him to claim her reward
Cameron had overheard Scott's excuse to avoid mingling. He couldn't help but feel some sympathy. He had lost his friends to mystery, and now new people were attempting to make him feel included, attempting to become his friend again. And Scott seemed to try and keep his distance. Now Cameron wasn't exactly the life of the party himself, keenly aware of the differences in life experience, add to that Cameron's own guilt about not being where he was supposed to be and instead be among these young people. He finally pushed himself off the wall, crossing the room. He was about to encourage Scott to make that milkshake when the younger man walked away. A small smile graced Cameron's lips to see it happen.
Leaning against the wall at the boundary between house and courtyard, Elias had adopted a nonchalant, but observant state of indecision. He could dance, but he didn't want to, he could eat, but he'd swept round the food tables earlier. So, for the moment, he simply lurked and occasionally sipped from a can of Dr Pepper. Basic original, zero extra syrups. His gaze tracked each of the other mutants and he made a point of checking to see if he could notice Iris, before locking onto Cameron and Jace.
Ethan had already eaten two of his slices of pizza when he saw the other student. Elias didn't come all the way into the room, almost as if he were indecisive, or at least that is how Ethan interpreted the situation. Never one to be shy he moved toward the newcomer and said, "Hey, my name is Ethan, I'm new here. How is it going?
"Hey dude," said Elias, confident and without any obvious issues regarding the newcomer. "Yeah - I know ya. Gryphon. I'm Elias - Fable - been here couple months. You need anything..." He stopped as Cameron strolled into the mix, and gave the older man an upward nod in greeting. "Sup," Elias said, gruffly but not impolitely.
"What are you two ne'er-do-wells talking about?" Cameron asked with a grin as he joined the conversation. Cameron looked at Ethan and side-nodded to Elias. "He hasn't been bragging about his griffon, has he?"
"I've been stuffing my mouth with pizza," Ethan replied with a grin. "Besides, I don't brag."
"You should do," Elias interjected. "Must be kinda cool to have wings, right? Fly anywhere you choose.... Though your healing is awesome, bud. Envious of that skill," the teen admitted openly.
Connor wandered shyly into the parlor and felt overwhelmed at first. So many voices, so many people, so much bustling activity. But after a moment of gawking, the music overtook him. Rather than dance, Connor swayed back and forth while tapping a lento beat on his chest with each pointer finger. It didn't match the rhythm of the music but still somehow didn't seem totally out of place.
Max had already been at the party for some time. What better place to meet new people? And now there were a bunch of new people arriving. This was excellent. He hurried over to one of them. “Hi!” he said cheerfully. “I’m Max!”
Pausing his lento-beat tapping on his chest long enough to access his SGD, Connor typed the words, "I KNOW," in reply to Max. He then returned to his tapping and gentle swaying while staring out the window.
Max blinked. Between the guy tapping on his own chest, typing on some strange device, and then the weird voice, he didn’t really know what to think. “You… you know?” he asked. “Did I somehow forget meeting you? I don’t usually forget a face.”
Ceasing his dawdling once more, Connor accessed a menu on his device and pressed a single button. A pre-loaded statement commenced while he went back to his half-body shuffle and chest tapping. "My name is Connor Bruin and I am nonverbal. This speech-generating device speaks on my behalf. Please be patient while I formulate a response."
After the statement finished, Connor began typing. "I. SAW. YOU. BEFORE. AND. REMEMBERED. MAX. HERRERA. WEIRD. KID. LIKE. ME."
“Huh,” replied Max, completely flummoxed. Well, it didn’t matter. “Hey, that thing is pretty cool!” he continued, indicating the vocalizer. “Did you make it yourself?”
"NO. IT. WAS. GIFTED. TO. ME. BY. PROFESSOR XAVIER." A smarmy grin came over Connor's face as he typed. "I. AM. PLANNING. MODIFICATIONS. TO. IMPROVE. IT."
Max’s grin widened. “Awesome!’ he replied. “I don’t know much about stuff like this, but I’d love to hear more. Or, you know, maybe just watch you work on it.”
Though Connor had heard him, all he did was nod firmly without replying before going back to his rhythmic chest-tapping and swaying.
In the kitchen, Scott removed a blender from beneath the sink and plugged it into an electrical outlet along the tiled backsplash over the countertop. There was a miniature television anchored to the corner that flashed one news headline after another. The ice cream was out of the freezer, the milk was on the counter, and Scott was just pulling the malted powder out of the pantry when his eyes finally registered the scrolling banner text on the screen.
The malted powder fell out of his hand onto the floor.
"Cameron!" shouted Scott from the kitchen. "Cameron!"
Cameron came running from the hallway. The happy grin from earlier had disappeared behind the stoic mask he often wore. The glass of rum and coke Cameron had been consuming had shifted into a thin dagger.
A large crowd of angry people with hastily scrawled poster board signs and flying fists were chanting silently due to the muted television set, but their hateful slogans spoke louder than any chant could.
Save the Children, Deport the Mutants!
MUTATION = CANCER
No Country for Mutants!
Where is a Sentinel when you need one?
DEATH TO MUTIES!
Putting the sharp stabbing implement down on the counter, Cameron replaced it with the remote. Turning on the sound allowed the last of the chants to echo through the now silent kitchen. The feed switched from an overview of the crowd to a pretty blonde reporter standing near the protest. Even from her hand-held microphone the chants and slurs could be heard.
Ethan had heard the shout and his curiosity drew him into the kitchen just as they started to show the protestors.
"Damn," he said. "The more things change the more they remain the same."
“Tell me about it” Aurora nodded in agreement at Ethan’s statement as she entered the kitchen. “There was plenty of hate when I was living on the streets, I saw mutants being harassed all the time.”
Left alone when both Cameron and Ethan had wandered into the kitchen, Elias blinked into existence atop the counter, taking up a cross-legged position and toying idly with the previously abandoned makeshift glass knife. "What's got 'em all riled up this time?" The teen asked. "Usually when they start chanting for Sentinels someone's done something stupid, or fucked up in public..." He smirked a mirthless smile. "Plus those signs look kinda rushed."
"As you can see, Bob, these so called 'Friends of Humanity' have gathered here on the lawn in front of Baltimore City Hall. The Anti-Mutant sentiment in the city has been growing ever since the mutant Trayvon Smith accidentally killed the non-mutant Allison Braith six weeks ago. This rally is just the most recent in at least a dozen all across the city of Baltimore."
"Friends of humanity? that's a joke! These people don't understand the definition of humanity!" Tammy said.
Scott had heard enough. It was time to act. "Cameron, get the team and gather them down in the War Room. We'll monitor this... development from there."
Tammy followed Scott to the war room! The party was going great guns then these idiots had to ruin it!
Fresh from the shower, Iris appeared in the kitchen just in time to hear Mr. Summers’s declaration. “What did I miss?” she asked, looking around at the grave faces before the chant from the TV caught her attention. She couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling at the spectacle. “What are they on about now?” she muttered.
"They're talking about flinching mutants," Cameron answered as he gestured down to the elevator. "Alright, Surge, Hoodwink, Fable, Caveman, and Gryphon, down to the War Room. We'll get ready just in case we can do some good there."
Elias nodded but didn't move from his seated position atop the kitchen counter just yet. He reached out his hand to Ethan in an offer of transport. "Wanna lift?"
"Sure", Ethan replied with a shy smile. "that sounds fun."
"NO. I WILL TAKE THE ELEVATOR." The words were barely out of Connor's speech-generating device before he had jumped into the high-speed transport tube hidden in the corner of the kitchen.
Grabbing Ethan's wrist with no more warning than that action, Elias blinked them both out of the kitchen and via another dimension straight to Cameron's requested location. Ethan would be aware of a shift in both temperature and colour, a bit like watching an octopus flash rainbow for a second, then normality returned and they were both standing in the War Room waiting for the others. Elias let go the other teen's hand and quirked a smile. "Beats walking," he said.
Ethan smiled back. It was slightly hesitant as Elias' grabbing of his wrist had been unexpected. He was sure, well relatively sure, that Elias had to touch him in order to teleport with him, and that it was not anything other than a friendly gesture between two new teammates. But still, there was a thought in the back of his mind, perhaps no more than wishful thinking since Elias with his dark hair, well-muscled body, and very cute face, was HOT.
"Sure does," he managed to say before turning his attention to more important and urgent matters
“I’ll just walk,” added Iris, already headed towards the door. “I could use the exercise.”
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