Author's note:
Again thanks for all the lovely reviews and constructive criticism. That's what it's all about – keeping my writing standard high for your reading pleasure.
On a slightly less positive note, "la rentree" is now over, so the first semester here is kicking off with full force. And I'm rapidly running out of the prewritten and beta read sections. So updates will probably slow down. I'm going to try for a chapter of a week and see how we go. However, now that the readership has shown interest, and with a beta (the ever delightful Hannah) within easy nagging distance (nagging both ways, that is) I should manage to keep a high enough level of momentum going. (Insert juggernaut joke here).
As always, the disclaimer – I don't own 'em, I'm just giving them a light-hearted, teenybopper outing with a topping of fluff… All credit must go to Marvel, and those people who bought the film rights off them!
Again, thanks for reading and thanks for your feedback!
Xxx
PaintR
Chapter 7)
Kitty opened the door of the cab and tumbled out of it onto the path almost before the car had come to a stop. Jubilee and Rogue followed at a more sedate pace, as Remy paid the driver. "I'm so excited!" squeaked Kitty, gesturing wildly with her arms, and spinning around, making a lethal weapon of the wired black tail attached to her belt.
"I'd never have guessed, Chica," drawled the canary yellow, winged and beribboned Jubilee, who had decided that she was dressed as a bumblebee, by adding a black belt to her rather yellow ensemble. "Excellent, here are the others," she announced as a second cab pulled to a stop and disgorged Bobby, Pyro, Kurt and Warren. "So let's go talk to our bouncer, and confirm the guest list."
They walked up the ramp into the end of the mall a gaggle of laughing teenagers, the two of the three girls teetering slightly on their heels, Kitty admitting that she was phasing her feet, allowing her to stay upright. Footsteps echoed through the mall which was empty except for similarly raucous clusters of other young people also heading for the club, some in fancy dress, some not.
The arduous climb up the stairs took forever, Kurt gave in to the pressure of the other boys as they waited at the top, and teleporting the girls up the last flight of steps. Finally arriving with Jubilee, her yellow clashing horribly with his natural blue tones, they rounded the corner from the staircase into the glass and carpet corridor. Their feet stuck to the carpet slightly. "Sign of a good club that!" John declared knowingly, inspecting the hem of his brown cord trousers which trailed slightly on the floor and his faux crocodile shoes with a mixture of approval and concern. The corridor was divided in two by a velvet rope which confined a queue of demon girls and mini-skirted witches, and guys wearing mostly black, although one was trailing loo roll everywhere, obviously dressed as a mummy. The X-kids strolled past the queue to the entrance, where a bouncer who would have dwarfed Colossus stood, with a counter in his fist.
"Hi, are you David? Kitty asked, pushing to the front of the group. The bouncer nodded, and Kitty continued at a rate of knots, "Excellent, I'm Kitty Pryde, we met on the phone," she said, seizing his huge right hand in her tiny one and pumping it furiously for a moment. "We're the guest list!" Kitty said, "Well, not all of it, obviously, but you said on the phone I'd need to run over the list quickly with you when we arrived, which is super, 'cos, as I said, we're not all here yet." She continued barely pausing for breath "Oh, before I forget, here's a little thank you present for your time and help on the phone, and being so patient with me." She handed the plastic bag which had been hanging round her wrist containing a box of chocolates over to him, which he accepted with a blush, passing it and the clicker to the other bouncer, shorter and… with more relaxed muscle.
"Why'd she bother with that?" Bobby stage whispered to Remy.
"'Cos, mon amie, she was so stressed and incoherent on da phone dat even Remy, who was standin' right next to her, had no clue what she was sayin'. Da man is deservin' dose. He has da patience of a saint." He stage whispered back.
Kitty stood on tiptoes looking at the list the bouncer had pinned to the wall, as David crossed them off the list with a fat highlighter pen. "Well, this is us," she said, pointing to each as she named them, starting with herself "Kitty, Jubilee, Rogue, Remy… yes that one R E M Y, Kurt, John…" she peered up at the list, "no wait, he's down as St.John…"
"Sinjin?" the bouncer asked.
"No it's written as in 'Saint John'. Yup, there," she said pointing. "Can they go in now?" David nodded, and the others filed past her, adding to the steady stream that had been let in by his colleague, who clicked them in. "Uh, some others are coming later that are already on here, and can I please, pretty please add another person to the list? Her name's Lola."
David wrote the name down on the bottom of the list, and bent down to whisper something in her ear; her real ear, not the cat's ear sticking up out of her hair. "Oh!" she exclaimed slightly, "What really! No way! That is so cool! We should…" Kitty gestured as he continued whispering. "OK, you're absolutely sure, cross your heart and all that jazz, that that's normal?" He nodded, "Ok then, umm, Charles, Jean, Scott, Hank, Ororo and Wolverine."
"Wolverine? That's a name and a half."
"Well, it's not his real name, I mean hey, he arrived as part of a pair with the vampire," Kitty said, pointing into the club at Rogue, who was sitting at the bar, "and Rogue's hardly gonna be the name her mother gave her now, is it? But it's how we know her…them…go figure.
"Anyway, thank you so much! I'll see you later… give me a ring or something, you know where I live!" She stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek, before strolling into the relatively empty club.
"That was fast," the other bouncer said.
Kitty walked to over the bar, the noise and darkness closing in around her like a pungent blanket, where the other's sat on the tall metal stools sipping from bottles. Kitty pulled a face when she saw that the guys and Rogue were drinking beers. Jubilee noticed her expression, and pulled one in sympathy, holding out a bottle. Leaning close to Kitty she yelled over the music "Join me in a girly drink, Chica for your first official boozing. You'll hardly be able to tell that it's not lemonade, I promise." Raising her bottle she hollered: "To the birthday girl!" Everyone clinked their bottle necks together, making the alcohol fizz up.
"And happy Halloween!" laughed Kitty.
The club filled up gradually, noise and heat and smell increasing proportionately, and the party progressed to the dance floor, leaving Rogue and Kurt to prop up the bar, although Kurt was only drinking Coke.
"People keep asking me vat I'm dressed up as," he moaned at Rogue, gesturing expansively with his free hand.
Rogue looked at him askance. "Ya could always ask them what they expected ta happen when Hell froze over," she suggested. "Or tha truth, ya know, whatever works. Ah'm a vampire cos it's kinda true, almost too true for comfort, an' if ah didn't laugh about it, ah'd cry.
She gave him a brief pat on the shoulder "Cheer up, lets people watch, ya know, 10 points for figure, 10 for costume an' an extra 5 for probable personality."
Kurt grinned, his pointed teeth bright under the blacklight, "Vy not. You go first."
"Sure, ok. Only for people we don't know then, 'cos if ah had to do Kitty, she'd get an automatic 10 for figure an' 5 for personality, otherwise she's kill me if she found out! An' ah'd have ta give her 5 for tha costume, 'cos ah was there when she got it. Though while we're on the subject of people we know, what on earth are that lot meant ta be?" Rogue asked, pointing at Remy, Bobby and John.
"I think Bobby is Jack Frost, see he has a vite paper snowflake pinned to his shirt, and John is fire, vith all the reds. Remy vanted to be air, but it seems he's just vearing black…"
"So lame, he always wears black! Ohhh, Kurt look," Rogue squealed, pointing to the entrance of a pair of feathered wings, rather larger than all of the others in the club, which tended to be held on with elastic, held up freely under the high ceiling of the club, "Warren's wearin' a shirt! Lola must have made them for him today!"
"Vat about the game? Do him," Kurt said, pointing with his tail at a guy by the entrance standing with two friends flanking him, who'd just come in and was watching the bouncers, whose large forms filled the doorway, probably dealing with some mouthy drunk or underage kid.
"Sure, well… ah reckon a seven for tha figure from behind, an' a nine for tha costume, ah mean look, he's even got a gangster gun an' white braces! An' his friends playing at being flunkies! An' for personality…" the subject of Rogue's scrutiny turned round, and seemed to catch her gaze for a moment, through the intermittent strobe lighting and smoke. Oh Shit, thought Rogue. Minus fifty million.
"Heyas boozers!" said Kitty suddenly, plonking herself down at the bar. "Kurt, I've come to steal Rogue away, and you too if you want." Kurt shook his head slowly, and Kitty shrugged, turning back to Rogue. "Come on, it's podium time."
"Ya mean ya intend me ta come with ya'll now an' dance around that pole there? How about 'no'?"
"Please? It's my birthday!"
Jubilee appeared on Rogue's other side. "Come on, Chica, no raining on Kitty's parade now."
Rogue allowed herself to be lead off with an apologetic smile at Kurt. "But tha podium's tiny, we won't all fit on, why don't you two have ah go, ah can swap with one of ya later."
Jubilee followed close behind Rogue as Kitty marched ahead, sometimes phasing discreetly through gaps not strictly wide enough for her to pass through. "No dice, Chica. We've thought of that. You crack a glove and splice some of her moves."
Kitty looked back at them, "Yeah! Then neither of us will need any space at all!"
Rogue smiled as the other two laughed. "Ok then, if ya want me ta Kitty, ah'll give it a go."
Logan parked the bike and stood up. The Studio was well advertised, and it had taken him barely any longer to find it by the conventional method of looking at road signs than it would have taken him to follow the smell and noise of frenetic activity. He strode into the open entrance of the dark empty mall, past the locked and shuttered shops. His heavy footfalls echoed through the tiled space as he caught sight of a trio of young men trailing cigarette smoke disappearing around the corner to go up the stairs alongside the multi-storey car park. The three youths were talking loudly, aggressively. Logan dismissed them as unable to hold their drink as he made his way up the stairs which surrounded the lift shaft.
Rounding the corner at the top of the stairwell he saw a line of kids, all on one side of a velvet rope, apparently still queuing to get in. There was no sign of the three from downstairs. Logan walked to the front of the line, and entered the arched entrance to the club under the huge neon sign "The Studio" in lurid green. A meaty hand landed on his shoulder, and Logan spun round to face a bouncer who was huge in the horizontal, rather than the vertical sense, standing about as tall as Logan himself. Logan stared pointedly at the man's hand, and then back into his eyes. The bouncer met the prize-fighter's gaze briefly, encountering steel there, and realising that the prudent course of action was to remove the offending hand from the so evidently aggrieved shoulder.
"I'm looking for the party of kid's from the boarding school."
"'Kitty Pryde's Birthday Bash', ya mean?" the bouncer asked.
"I guess so. I'm looking for a vampire."
A second bouncer, more slender, but taller than the first and therefore towering over Logan, came up behind the first as he asked if Logan was on the list.
"Probably not." Logan said, walking past him and into the dark, smoky, strobe lit club.
"You know," said the shorter bouncer, "he looks like a guy I saw in a cage fight up north ages ago. Wolf…something. He was phenomenal, like half the size of everyone else, and undefeated." He clicked a pair of lads into the club as a girl and a boy left, holding an almost comatose girl between them. "Seriously scary dude."
"Hey Fred," said his partner, looking up at the list pinned to the wall, "That fighter's name, was it 'Wolverine' by any chance?"
Fred looked up nodding animatedly. "Yeah, have you seen him? I'd've thought you'd've been a bit young to see him fight."
"No mate, I've not seen him fight, but that Kitty put him on the guestlist." Fred's mouth dropped open. "I bet you're glad you moved that hand, eh?" said David, clapping him on the shoulder.