Log: Bright Lights, Big City

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Backdated to Saturday late afternoon/early evening. Clarice and Amanda go to Brighton to h ang out, reconnect and most of all, PARTY. And Clarice gets another tattoo.



Clarice had teleported to New York, but she wasn't exactly sure where the new brownstone was actually located within the city and had a google map to help her get there. She had an amazing sense of direction, a byproduct of her powers, so she'd never forget how to get there, but that didn't mean she knew exactly how to get here blindly. She did know she was headed in the right direction at least, "Excuse me?" she asked an elderly gentleman playing chess by himself in the park, "Do you know where this address is?"

He looked at her suspiciously before pointing down the street.

"Thanks..." Clarice said uncertainly. It was times like these she
really wished she was normal looking. Getting directions from people were a bitch and a half. "I hope Amanda appreciates this, if I ever find her."

The Village did tend to be difficult to navigate around, so Amanda had wandered downstairs to see if Clarice was wandering around the street outside, given she was late. Being a teleporter meant Clarice was rarely late. Besides, it was a nice day and sitting on the steps was far preferable to shutting herself inside. Especially when inside involved sorting through the boxes of books that were taking over her spare room and figuring out which ones would be best taken to the office for reference purposes and which ones she should keep.

Finally, she spotted a familiar face - Clarice had stopped using the image inducer. Way to go, Pixie. "Oi, Pixie!" She called across the street. "Over here!"

"Hey Blondie!" Clarice grinned, walking out in traffic like a proper New Yorker instead of teleporting across. Making poeple honk at her was fun! "I've missed you!" she grabbed Amanda in a bear hug and tried to break the older girl in half.

Amanda made a muffled squeaking sound, but she was beaming as she
hugged the younger girl back just as tightly. Considering what Clarice had said when she'd left, the welcome was a surprise. A good one - it seemed that perhaps she'd underestimated people's ability to forgive. "Missed you too, Pixie," she said when Clarice let her breathe again. "And look at you. All graduated and eighteen. How's it feel?"

"Surreal. I never thought I'd graduate, you know?" of course Amanda knew, Clarice mentally kicked herself, "I'm going to college. And I'm an X-Man trainee! Me! Can you believe it? And you're all blonde! I can't get over your hair!" Clarice had gone to Betsy's colorist to get it close to her natural purple color, but there were still blonde highlights in her hair with purple roots.

Amanda couldn't help chuckling a little at Clarice's enthusiasm. Still the irrepresible Pixe. "Well, I know how it goes with the not quite believing things are happening, but I knew you'd make it. You worked hard for it - time for you to enjoy what happens next." The topic of the team she left alone - Amanda still had Issues in that regard. "And yeah, back to the natural hair colour. Nothing like a magical reboot for that, and I decided to keep it. New me and all, y'know?" She reached out and tugged gently at a strand of Clarice's. "Tho' it looks like someone decided to turn to the blonde side themselves. Decide you didn't like it?"

"Blondes have more fun, but roots are a bitch," she explained seriously, still boucing slightly. "So...Brighton? I gotta get rid of this," she gestured to the mostly healed scar on her forehead. It wasn't very large, but it was noticable. "And when it goes all white it will not work."

"Brighton," Amanda agreed. She'd already let Pete and the rest know she'd be gone for the weekend, so all they needed to do was go. "All right if we go from the lobby? Pete'll skin me alive if I drag too much attention to the place and I think teleporting in the street might count. The security guy's okay, tho'. Ms. Frost hired him so he knows who we are."

Shrugging, Clarice headed into the brownstone, "Lobby, street, it's all the same distance to me," she said. It had been a long time since she had gone to Brighton and even longer since she'd been with Amanda. This was going to be a weekend to remember! "You let Frank know we're coming or is it a surprise?"

"I called ahead and booked us in," Amanda said, nodding at the deskguy. "You never did explain how you got that scar, tho'. I have a feeling it's a story that's going to need a couple of drinks first."

Opening a portal, they headed to Brighton. The alleyway that Clarice usually ported into was thankfully empty in the late afternoon. She had learned quickly to take advantage of the time differences, even though she did not suffer jetlag. "Shiro and I went to Japan for his cousins wedding. Samurai vs Ninja wackiness ensued. Then they were reintroduced to American expediency. It wasn't pretty, but it worked."

Amanda shook her head in a combination of confusion from Clarice's
'explanation' and the usual queasiness she got from teleporting. And something else... Remembering what Moira had said about paying
attention to her powers, she realised Brighton did indeed have a buzz. Not as strong as London, stronger than Kathmandu, about on par with New York. Noticing Clarice was looking at her expectantly, she smiled and followed her out of the alley. "Grey out," she said shortly. "'Porting always makes me feel odd the first minute or two. So, ninjas attacked this wedding?"

"Well, the marriage was supposed to unite the ninjas and the samurai. But yeah, they poisoned Shiro's cousin. Honor demanded immediate retaliation, if only to save Mariko. I ended up getting sliced with a wakazashi, am damn lucky he didn't take the top of my head completely off actually. Not sure what happened to that guy, maybe I should see if Shiro can find out," she mused aloud. It would be interesting to find out if he ever found his hand or if she should expect a one-handed visitor one day attempting to kill her. Cutting off people's hands was not how you won friends and influenced people.

Now it was straight bemusement that made Amanda shake her head. "Only at Xavier's," she muttered. "And here I was thinking ninjas were just on those bad movies from Japan," she said wryly. "What're you up for first? Appointment with Frank's not for a couple of hours with the time difference, so we could grab some food. Or you could have your first legal drink." Amanda winked at her.

"What's the fun in drinking if it's legal?" Clarice asked, heading down the street to one of the many local pubs, "But food I can do. Bottomless pit meet unending canyon. Teleporting makes me hungry!" she knew it was the energy expenditure needed to teleport. She had to maintain her energy levels without bottoming out or they wouldn't get back home! "And you gotta fill me in on this whole thing with you."

"Well, I just like the taste of proper beer, but I know just the place - one of the student places here does plates of food bigger than your head." Amanda grinned. "And the bottomless pit is more like a slightly deep hole these days. Without the magic I'm not burning off whatever I eat as soon as I eat it."

"Yeah...the magic. So you have no powers? Or what? I mean...that's just weird," Clarice was fishing for information, but at the same time, she was worried that Amanda would run into the problems she had before with the magic consuming her. And she didn't miss the convenient sidestep of what was going on with the Snow Valley facility, "You seem to be doing a lot better with everything."


"It's... complicated, but most things are with my power." Amanda
waited until they reached the pub and were settled in one of the
booths at the back before really answering the question. "My mutant power's back on, but it's not the same as it used to be. Moira says what happened at the..." She hesitated a bit, then ploughed on. "At the Hellfire Club last year reset things back to how they should have been before Rack got in there and started messing about. I'm still an energy absorber, but not the mystical energy any more. What I do we're still working out." She shrugged a little. "The magic's separate, always has been - it was a side effect of my mutation and what Rack did to me, really. I asked Tante to remove the ability to do it, and she did, so these days I'm pretty much harmless. Makes things trickier with the new job and stuff, but I'm managing. Get to use my brain instead, god help us all." She laughed a little.

"I am so glad my powers are relatively straight forward. I don't think I could handle yours. Oh! That reminds me," Clarice opened her purse, a rather large hobo-style bag that could hold everything except the kitchen sink, "Present!"

She present the unwrapped gift with a flourish. It was a coffee mug with only half a handle. Around the mug it said 'I had a handle on life, but it broke.'

You know, it's good to hear you say that about your powers. I
remember when you turned up you were terrified of using the
teleporting." Amanda laughed out loud when she saw the mug, the sound drawing the attention of a couple of the regulars. They merely shrugged at the sight of the two girls and went back to their drinking. "It's perfect, I love it. Something to put on my desk and all." Carefully stowing the mug in her own bag, Amanda pulled out a plastic bag containing something soft. "Got this for you at one of the street markets in the Village," she said. "Happy birthday."

Clarice pooh-poohed Amanda's comment about her powers, "That was years ago! Before I believed in evil twin clone demon socerers with sadistic zombie dragon sidekicks," unfolding the glittery t-shirt, she grinned. It was a Fruity Oaty Bars add from Serenity, "This is so cute! Thank you! Should I go practice my samurai moves on everyone now or later?"

"Later," Amanda said, pleased that Clarice liked the gift. It had said "Clarice" as soon as she saw it. "Brighton's pretty easy going, but they tend to draw the line at people running around with swords hacking away at stuff. Scares the tourists."

"Good, the food's here anyways," the shepards pie that Clarice had ordered smelled wonderful, "but y'know. Whatsherface went all crazy in the bar in the movie. Figured I should check to see if I was supposed to do that too."

Amanda snickered. Half of what Clarice said sometimes made no sense to her, but that was okay. "So," she said, attacking her own plate of bangers and mash. "What's the news at the school? I don't tend to read the journals too much, tho' you don't need to tell me about Doug and Angie - she called me after."

"They're splisville, at least for the moment," everyone knew about that, "And Mr. Marko is the Professors brother. Got a couple new students, including one with powers like Marie's. Terry and I are offical trainees and," Clarice paused to think and take a breath, "Yeah, I think that's it. Oh, no. Marius is in the medlab with a major powers something or other. They won't let anyone in to see him."

Blinking at the information dump - she had asked for it, after all - Amanda sifted through the details. "Marius? The Aussie bloke?" she asked, remembering him from last year. He'd been friendly, even after what he was bound to have heard about her. "Bloody hell, I hope he's okay eventually. Seemed nice enough when I met him."

The purple girl shrugged, "Not much I can do. The Docs are on it though, he'll be fine." It was nice to be a perpetual optimist. "And if not, Forge will build something to compensate, like he did for himself or General One-Eye."

"Captain Fuckwad?" Amanda asked, confused for a minute. "Oh, that's right, the eye thing. The school's lucky to have Forge around, especially if he can help people so much." And no, that wasn't a small pang of jealousy, of course it wasn't. Amanda had a mouthful of her beer and shoved a forkful of mashed potato in her mouth to shut herself up.

"Well, there aren't any other options," Clarice tried to backtrack from hurting Amanda more and stuck her foot in her mouth, "Mechanical whosits aren't the best option always, but beggars can't be choosers. The docs are doing all they can though."

Not any more since you threw all that away by going to Selene. For once Amanda understood why Margali had been so angry at her, had refused to speak to her since that one phone conversation before she'd gone to New Orleans. "The docs'll see him right," she agreed, shoving away the pang. "What's this new one like to work with?"

That was possibly the right, or wrong, thing to say. Clarice groaned dramatically gearing up for a good rant, "Russian dictator awful. Dr. MacTaggert's around sometimes, but she goes to Muir a lot so we don't assume she'll be around when we are. And Dr. Voght is an evil sadist, and she's not even a red head! She never relaxes, ever. Even out of the labs. She's just completely unapproachable."

"And given you're down to just you and Rahne... no, wait, Rahne'd be busy with this Elpis thing of Nate's these days, yeah? So it's just you and the Ice Maiden, yeah? None of the newer students looking like taking on the medlab helper job?" Amanda asked sympathetically.

Clarice had the good graces to look embarassed, "I'm not doing it so much anymore either. Didn't have a lot of time with graduation and all and well....the X thing now, but I still get in there a couple hours a week if nothing else. And Forge has been grounded to the medlab enough that he should be a helpe, but nada. None of the newbies seem to care so much. I bet after the next attack everyone will be clamoring to get in."

"Well, besides Rahne, it wasn't like any of us were that keen to help out at first either. Maybe a couple of months'll do it - I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for another attack. Place is secure as it's gunna get and with the worst of the trouble magnets gone or reformed, it's not like there should be anyone targeting the joint." Not that Amanda had been going through the files Pete had on such things, either, oh no. She'd assured herself that for the foreseeable future there wouldn't be any repeats of the incidents of her first year in the school. "Of course, now I've said that, the space monkeys will land."

"Not space monkey's that's so overdone, evil space cats and lizards. With...I dunno...human space pirates at the helm!" Now
she was just getting silly. "Guh. I'm done. You ready?"

Amanda finished the last of her pint and nodded. "Ready and raring to go. First Frank and then lets paint this town as many colours as we can think of, eh?"

"Brighton won't know what hit 'em."