ic Phone a Friend (IC, Open)

[Heritage]

Lulu Beaumont, despite having lived with the Harrows for over a year now, still felt a bit out of place at these fancy soirees. But she knew Mia was planning to go, and she wanted to be their for her friend. Plus Davyd was always good for  a fun afternoon, and Leroy and Eira were...themselves, so really, did she have a choice?

 

Stepping out of one of the guest rooms, Lulu looked quite fetching in a one piece turquoise swimsuit with matching pool sandals, her hair coiled up on top of her head in a neat bun. She strode up to her best friend, then stopped as her jaw dropped in shock, her hand on her chest.

 

"Oh mah Gawd! Is that what you've been hidin' all day? You look amazin', hon!"

[Gizmo]

On their way to the join the party Dee and Erick ran into a handsome man with a single long braid of straight black hair heading in the same direction. “So much for my cunning plan to be the last to arrive.” Form fitting athletic swim trunks topped by a borrowed cotton robe might have been a far cry from the uniform they’d seen him in earlier but the sly grin unmistakably belonged to Jim Pegahmagabow, the current Coyote.

 

The lines of lean muscle on full display would have been a good hint as well. He looked Erick up and down in particular. “Well now I’m worried one of us is overdressed, bud.”

[Brown Dynamite]

Erick chuckled as he heard the comment.  Aware that he was dressed more for a gala than a pool.  "If you want to make a grander entrance, you can shed a layer and ensure it's not you.  Though that may be showing off more than how effective your leg days have been,"  Erick joked as they walked.  "I'm staying on dry land for this one.  That doesn't mean I have to save the dress up time for when you're punching a guy in the face, gotta enjoy every moment y'know?"

 

He then brushed the sleeves of his blazer with a wide grin on his face.  "And I'm definitely enjoying the moment."

 

[Thevshi]

Synapse

 

Dee had smirked slightly at Erick's comment about escorting her to the ball, but still took his offered arm anyway. They had not gotten very far when they ran into Coyote, now out of costume for the social gathering.

 

The Englishwoman gave the Canadian hero a smile as he mentioned his plan being ruined. "No reason we cannot all arrive last together." She said in her refined English accent before glancing over at Erick at the overdressed comment. "He cannot help himself sometimes." She said before looking back over to Jim.

 

"I am sure it is not too hard to place us outside of costume, but please, call me Dee." The Englishwoman added.

[RocketLord]

The green eyed boy had been lunging by the pool in a pair of dark green bathing shorts, simply taking it all in. Eira had asked him to come here, something about meeting her aunts, which, well, would be interesting. His red hair was wet, pulled back from his eyes and forehead, which still looked good, if not nearly as wild as he usually prefered it. Aside from Claremont, this was probably the first place on Earth where he had seen such a collection of, well, extraordinary people. Super heroic teams were, well, a sight to see? Not that many of them didn't look pretty regular out of their costumes.

 

Still!

 

New people to meet, new places to see! It was amazing! Finally making his choice, he decided to stick with the people he knew, at least for now, and floated over by Lulu, Mia and dark haired woman. "That looks absolutely brilliant, Mia! I love the color!" Reds, greens, it was all good. Hanging upside down, he flashed a huge grin at Indira, extending a hand towards her. "I am Pan, a pleasure to meet you!"

 

[Shofet]

Soliton

 

Mia blushed at all the compliments, wrapping her arms around herself and smiling as she looked down at the ground, though she did receive the high-five. Scratching her cheek, she found it impossible to remove the grin that was now stretched across her face. She hadn't expected this amount of positive reception at all.

 

"Thanks, everyone," Mia said, still not making any eye contact. Then, she sighed happily, and looked up over at Ben. "Oh, uh... By the way, uh..."

 

She stopped, then rubbed her cheek. "So I was gonna... There's a new like, horror anime my mom bought me the Blu-Ray for and I was wondering if, after all of this, you would like to watch it with me," she said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Really glad you like the hair, by the way."

[Amelia]

Octoman

 

"Uh, yeah, totally, that sounds awesome."

 

Waitaminute, did she just...is she...is this a vibe?

 

Ben's tentacles weren't stretched anymore, but they were still visible. After he'd deployed them, he'd more or less forgotten that they were out. While Mia was talking, they were sticking out of his back and sides, floating and drifting randomly in the air around them. Suddenly he felt self-conscious, and all of his tentacles were sucked back up into their internal pockets, sliding into his body with the usual slurping noise. He also made a conscious effort to close the gills lining both sides of his neck.

 

"And yeah, the new 'do is sweet A-F. Like, legit impressive. I mean, I can do this..." He reached up and ran a hand through his medium-length Afro curls, and they changed color, from black to blue. "...But it's totally not the same. Pretty much goes away as soon as I stop thinkin' about it." His hair immediately faded back to black. "But yours, that, like, looks like it took EFFORT and stuff. You look like a freakin' ROCK STAR."

 

NAAAHHH, c'mon, what're you thinkin'? You look in a mirror lately? And this ain't even a full dose of the freaky. This is just the edited for network TV broadcast freaky. Chica just wants to hang. And you're lucky she even wants THAT. Plus she's tight with Ginger Daisy Duke over there, and who KNOWS what crap SHE'S dug outta your head this year...CRAP IS SHE LISTENING RIGHT NOW?! Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap THINK ABOUT THE OCEAN THINK ABOUT THE OCEAN

 

Ben was not thinking about the ocean.

 

[Exaccus]

True to form Joseph had made his leisurely but indelible way down to the party floor he'd been lucky that the elevators and stairs were built to last.

 

Though he refused to shake hands for fear of breaking fingers he offered his fist for a bump or tap instead as he slowly found his way to the buffet bar in search of shrimp.

[Avenger Assembled]

Angelic 

 

Eira Katastroff was the last of the teens to enter the swimming area, accompanied closely by the spectral figure of Kimber Storm. As she entered the room, she seemed to come alive. The gold of her blue and yellow swimsuit glowed visibly, crackling and shifting like lightning in a bottle, an iridescent illumination matched - even echoed - by her shining lower lip and blue and gold hair, as if girl and suit and makeup and hair were all one bottled storm in a clear Swedish sky.

 

She snapped her fingers and the party's music shifted to a loud Swedish metal band, the same one she'd used to announce herself on the Claremont morning announcements.  As the growly-voiced female singer urged her audience to not believe in Heaven or Hell, she walked out to the pool without looking left or right, a vaguely bored expression on her face, and stopped next to Pan. She looked him over and broke out in a smile. "Hi Pan. Nice suit. Watch this!" And then she took a few steps forward and stepped into the deep end of the pool bare feet first as gracefully as a dropped anchor, immediately plunging straight to the bottom. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Bluebird 

 

The projected intelligence took Leroy off into a changing room at one side of the pool, where it flickered, shifted, and resolved itself into a semi-translucent image of Leroy's intended bride. 

 

"Is this thing-oh!" Judy folded her arms and peered in Leroy's direction. "Can you see me okay?" she asked Leroy. 

 

Bluebird 2.0 

 

As the Vanguard members entered, a Bluebird projection declared "Presenting from Vanguard - Dreadnaught, Foreshadow, second of his name, Synapse - and their escort from True North, the mysterious Coyote!" If Bluebird winked at Coyote as he entered, it was a look so fast it was hard to see - maybe just a programming glitch? 

[RocketLord]

Eira positively glowed as she entered. It seemed she did not go unnoticed by Pan as she approached, but well, how could she, given her entrance, complete with soundtrack and lightshow. Yes, yes, she obviously knew how to make an entrance. "Likewise. You look good in blue." His ever present grin didn't reveal much, he opened his mouth to say something more, then promptly shut it when Eira plunged deep into the pool in a single step. 

 

He looked over at the others around him, shrugged, then dove into the pool face first, with far more grace than Eira's splash. 

 

Under the water, the glowing Pixie Dust that pushed him forward was perhaps even more obvious than in the light as he moved nearer, stopping in front of Eira, where his lips split into another grin.

[Gizmo]

”I can’t imagine where she picked up that flair for the dramatic,” Kimber laughed as she floated over one corner of the pool and over to India and the teens she was speaking with. She smiled broadly at Ben and Mia until it was just a little wider than seemed natural and her eyes faded to sunken pits of shadow with little pricks of icy blue light in the centres. “So who wants to tell me all about Pan?”

[Gizmo]

“She’s been talking to Shuster,” Jim inferred at Bluebird’s introduction, having introduced himself to the Vanguard heroes by name on the way to the pool. He blew a kiss back at the projection who’d announced them with much less subtlety than the wink.

 

Deciding to give the diving teenagers a moment he hung back from the pool to speak with Dee and Erick. “Wouldn’t have left my old boombox back on the rez if I’d known we were supposed bring our own entrance music. They do backyard trampoline wrestling in the UK?”

[Shofet]

Soliton

 

Mia blushed a deeper red, nodding. "Thanks, and yeah, it's a date, er, uh--I'll see you there," she said. She made finger pistols, and then disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing underneath the surface of the pool. It was then that she took the time to scream her excitement at not having screwed it up too badly.

 

While she was down there, Mia took a moment to think about what exactly was going to happen from here, but she resolved to let things happen as they did. She didn't want to freak Ben out by seeming too try-hardy, like revealing she had been trying to learn ASL for him or anything like that. She could reveal that more organically. Besides, she was really bad at it and only knew a few signs!

 

She teleported back up, now dripping wet. She gasped for air for a moment, before grinning. "Water's a little chilly."

[Gizmo]

Adhira looked stricken by Leroy’s wounded pride and strained decorum, placing a hand to her cheek. “Oh, sweetie...!” She didn’t try to stop him from walking off with Bluebird’s projection, only sighing to herself. Taking a few steps closer to the buffet table she looked it over without moving to take any food. “I wasn’t very good at talking to teenagers even when I was one,” she admitted to Joseph as the imposing man loaded a plate with seafood.

[Thevshi]

Synapse

 

Dee would have rolled her eyes at their arrival being announced, but realized it was something of a necessary evil to help the young Powers present easily identify the various adults present. The Englishwoman gave Jim a small smile as he mentioned having their own entrance music. "I would probably be a bit embarrassed by how dated any that I might chose would be now." She replied before considering his question about trampoline wrestling.

 

"I am not sure it is particularly common, space can be a bit of a premium for many, so they using up garden space for a trampoline is a bit less common." She replied as she stood off to one side with Jim and Erick looking out over the others gathered around the pool. As she scanned the room, Dee’s eyes fixed on a certain redheaded teenager standing near the pool.

 

Well hello there Lulu Beaumont. Fancy running into you here. The Englishwoman mentally transmitted to the Claremont telepath.

[Tiffany Korta]

Zhenshchina-voin

With the arrival of her teammates and friend Klara strolled over and swept the two up in a massive hug, even if they’ve only seen each other a few hours ago.

 

“I see you’ve both managed to be overdressed as normal.” Klara grinned as she put them both down

 

She herself had managed to source an oversized tee, though it wasn’t really oversized on her, rather than the rather more formal battle armour.

 

“I think we should have a pool back at Vanguard base, better than bathing in the Thames at least! And we should let Bluebird and VERA meetup, I’m sure AI’s love gossip as much as everyone else.”

[Avenger Assembled]

Underwater, Eira opened her eyes and saw Pan looking at her. A normal girl's hair would have been floating around her head underwater but Eira's was hanging down behind her back like a doll's. She smiled back at Pan and reached up to take his hands, first, one, then the other, as their faces hovered just a few inches apart.

 

And then Mia teleported under the pool's surface. Eira's mouth opened and she shouted underwater - "Augh!" She caught Pan under the arms, her hands around his waist, - and then realized they were alone underwater again. She looked at Pan, now almost on top of him - and began to count. Underwater, he could see her lips moving. "Three...two...one..."  

 

And then she threw him into the air, a casual toss that hurled him some twenty or thirty feet out of the water in a column of rapidly rising Pixie Dust. A moment later there was a distinct thrum in the air as the images of Bluebird closest to the pool rippled from a wash of magnetic energy - and Eira leaped out of the pool too, landing in a triple-point crouch at poolside, both herself and Pan having reached the side opposite Kimber and the students talking to her. 

[Brown Dynamite]

Erick laughed off the introduction.  It was a bit louder and more sudden then he expected.  But, fun in its own way.  At least they didn't actually throw up a wrestling titantron to go along with it.

 

"There are a couple of underground bare knuckle boxing arenas scattered about, usually in bars.  Sometimes in a teenager's backyard.  Despite it being legal, some types like the thrill of making it seedy.  Less flips, but the same amount liquor, bad hygiene, and cursing.  Haven't seen a trampoline yet, but at this point I'm not ruling out a trampoline themed villain.  There a lot of wrestling in the reserva-"  The sentence was cut off by the sudden hug from their teammate.

 

As Klara embraced them, and subsequently momentarily lifted them off the ground, Erick took a quick moment to look around the room.  Multi tasking his scan with conversation he answered Klara, "Last time I brought that up, the lady in charge said I already had two heated pools depending on which of our homes I went to."  Upon spotting a familiar face in Mali by the poolside he gave a quick wave before Klara set them back down.  Erick heard Indira was somewhere around the premises making for at least two people at the party he knew before their trip to Canada.  "

All we need is my ex-sister wife and that'd be all four birds of prey back together.  He mentally thought to himself without actually recounting the full story back to Dee in the moment.

[Ari]

9 hours ago, Avenger Assembled said:

"Can you see me okay?" she asked Leroy. 

 

 

"Crystal clear, Dee." Smiling shyly, the taller boy lifted the veil from his face started to reach out before arresting himself. "Soft, not hard light. These are still so rare on Prime. What is the cause of this pleasant surprise? Your faithful companion was very strict about this place. Has something happened?"

 

Tamping down lines of earnest worry on his face, Leroy glanced back at the distant sound of the thunderous splashes and laughter. "Night and Benicio, I expect. They will raise a riot in this tower." Turning back to Judy, he watched her face attentively.

 

---------------------------------------------

 

"Storm Lord!" Dio swirled around like a cork caught in a whirlpool "Hey, watch it! Some of us have mineral deposits!" Flapping his wings and paddling like a dog, the dragon priest trundled out of the pool to slump on its edge, flicking  a forked tongue out at Eira's general direction.

 

"Hey, Ben!" he called over to the shapeshifting sizzlespout, stirring the pool with his pointéd tail, "Got a riddle for you: love to have me, hate to see me, what am I?" his thin lips curled back from his bone-ridge teeth. "One guess!"

[Thunder King]

To her credit, Mali was not upset. She blinked a few times, and then broke down laughing. It was a long, hysterical laugh. 

 

"Oh, god, I'm sorry." She said when she finally stopped laughing. "I promise I'm not upset, and I'm not laughing at you. Seriously, you're good! I'm just amused at how, well, normal the situation was with you." 

 

She gave him a warm, kind smile. "Honestly, when I was in high school I got caught lying about my age as a superhero. That's how -I- ended up at Claremont." 

[Amelia]

Octoman

 

Ben grinned and nodded at Eira's display. "Hell yeah." He elbowed one of the people standing near him, not bothering to check who it was. "See? She GETS it. ALWAYS make an entrance. Solid branding. She does that in front of a phone, I GUARANTEE Reddit turns it into a meme inside of a week."

 

Quote

Kimber laughed as she floated over one corner of the pool and over to India and the teens she was speaking with. She smiled broadly at Ben and Mia until it was just a little wider than seemed natural and her eyes faded to sunken pits of shadow with little pricks of icy blue light in the centres.

 

"Oh wow. Are you, like, a ghost? Were you murdered? Did you come back and kill the guy? Or is this, like, one of those alien energy being type things? Are you, like, higher up the evolutionary scale than us meatbags?"

 

Quote

“So who wants to tell me all about Pan?”

 

"Pan? He's cool. Kinda doin' the whole stranger-in-a-strange-land thing. Not, like, the polyamorous sex-cult, I just mean he's not from around here. He's, like, LITERALLY Peter Pan. Like, the dude here thought he was just dreaming it or something. Didn't know he was ACTUALLY making a DOCUMENTARY. Or that's what the P-Man says. I kinda got my own theory on that, that maybe the dude really DID make him up, and his whole world, like, didn't actually exist until then, but now it does, so, like, Pan WASN'T real, but he is NOW. Maybe I'm wrong, but, y'know, just in case, maybe be more careful what kinda fanfic you write."

 

Quote

Mia blushed a deeper red, nodding. "Thanks, and yeah, it's a date, er, uh--I'll see you there," she said. She made finger pistols, and then disappeared in a flash of light, reappearing underneath the surface of the pool.

 

Ben was halfway through returning his signature double-finger-guns gesture when he reflexively jumped backward a couple feet as Mia vanished. "WHOA! There's, like, three or four kids at my school who can do that. Should totally be used to it by now. Totally still not."

 

Quote

She teleported back up, now dripping wet. She gasped for air for a moment, before grinning. "Water's a little chilly."

 

"Oh yeah, I guess so. I kinda don't really get cold anymore? Keep forgetting everyone else does." One of the orifices on the side of his torso quietly opened up like a blooming flower, and a tentacle slid out. It stretched and snapped across the room, grabbed a fresh towel off the pile, and snapped back to hover in front of Mia. "Oh hey, these are still warm."

 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Grumblefloof

[Shofet]

Soliton

 

"Uh," Mia said, smiling as she took the towel. "So. Pan. He's a good guy. Kinda out there. Likes to have fun but, hey, who doesn't." She began mopping at her hair. "He's from another dimension, he can fly, can control his own shadow... Uh... Lots of stuff like that. Eira seems to get along with him really well, which is neat. Like right away, too."

 

Folding her arms, Mia thought about it. "I dunno why you're asking, though," she says. "...Can you see something with your ghost vision? Is Pan secretly something else?" She leaned in conspiratorially. "Because like, he's a good dude, right? We've hung out."

[Dr Archeville]

Horrorshow

 

'Stefan' exhaled, shifting back to Wetsuit!Davyd as he did so.  "Oh, God, that is such a relief!"  A big smile broke across his face, "and that was a wild night, yeah?  I mean, I was just trying to see if I could pull off acting like a grown-up.  And I think I did well, at first.  But then Ash-" he coughed, "ah, a fellow classmate showed up, too, and sensed something was 'off' about the situation.  I don't think she made me," he shook his heads slightly, "but she could definitely tell something wasn't kosher.  And then there was the business with that vampire, and-" he paused, chuckled, "well, I don't need to tell you, you were there!"

 

Something else she'd said suddenly clicked with him, "whoa, hold up -- you were a Claremonter, too!  Ha!  What a small world!  When were you there?  Are you still doing the hero thing?"

 

[Fox]

Wraith

 

"I do not know Pan," noted Indira, politely apologetic. "He smells slightly odd, but I cannot place it. Perhaps my new friends will know more; if you are asking, it must be important."

 

She smiled too, lips pulling back across a mouth that was quickly less 'teeth' and more 'bear trap'. "Important questions deserve good answers," she advised, eyes black and featureless. "I will leave you to answer them carefully."

 

---

 

"Hmm."

 

Indira hadn't been there a moment ago, and it would have been difficult to see her arrive, but arrive she had - all but popping out of nowhere near Mali and Davyd. She'd chosen her approach carefully, blind spots notwithstanding; she didn't want the teen to feel like he was cornered, but she didn't want him to feel like he wasn't cornered

 

"You must be Davyd," she concluded. She cocked her head, hands clasped behind her as she openly studied him. "We've heard about you. I...do recommend staying more true to your age at this party, just in case, though Daphne might be glad to hear you've been practicing."