(OOC: Continued From A Day To Forget)

IC:
Luke sat on the couch with a cell phone in one hand and a credit card in the other. Since he had been given the job of getting munchies for Sam's upcoming party he was going to make sure that the ice mancer got the best of everything. No way would he splurge on something as important as the 20th birthday. Of course, that meant he'd have to work even harder to make sure that the following years 21 would be even bigger but he'd just deal with that later. First he had to round up the group he would need to help make this party a success.

"Hey Ghost, it's Luke. Listen, can you meet me in the mansion living room? It's Sam's birthday today and some of us are trying to make sure he has a great one. You in? Great! See you soon."

Unfortunately Ghost was the only one that Luke actually got to speak with so after leaving messages for both Shawn and Shin, Luke returned to making a mental list of what they needed to do.

"Dom's going for a surprise so we can't make it obvious that we're inviting Sam to a party... what about if we set up in the Danger Room? It'd make it a whole lot easier for decorations plus we can make it happen anywhere in the world. I wonder if Sam has a favorite place..."

Sam had made Ghost's birthday a day to remember by helping her out at the store. Free labor. What better gift could a girl want? So now, Ghost was tasked with finding out a good present for Sam. Ghost was surprised to hear from Luke. Not that she and Luke weren't friends, but it was Sam's birthday. Surprise party or not, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to Ghost to find out that he was born today. She just hoped this party wasn't extremely thrown together from the late notice.

The mist of Ghost wafted into the Mansion living room that was wholly a twitter with the tell-tale sign of Luke's sonar. The mist politely cleared its throat before coalescing into the form of a girl and then finally solidifying into the form of Ghost. "Got here as soon as I could. Looks like I beat the crowd too. So what's the plan, Stan?" She ran her fingers through her hair and flopped onto the couch next to Luke. Hopefully she'd get a little more used to the sonar and this wouldn't be a miserable day.

"Yeah, Tex. What's the vex?" Shin slipped in after Ghost. He wore a red sweatshirt and red sweats again today, and had Thor in toe. After a long run, the dog was starting to calm down. His muscles were relaxing, his tongue lolling out, and on a hot day like today, the best thing a dog could do was yawn. Still, at the sound of Sam's sonar, Thor's ears perked up. Shin eyed the dog with apprehension, then looked at Luke. "Maybe I'll take him back to my room... save me a seat, Ghost. Be right back!"

He lead Thor out the door and back to his room. He shoved a few of the comics off the floor, back onto the shelves, and made a place for Thor on a pillow in the center of the room. That was Thor's pillow now. Shin made sure to let him know. Everything from the pillowcase with the Norse God and Comic Book Super Hero, down to the way he set it out by the food, led Thor to one conclusion: Sit your buns here. And so he did. Shin ran his hands through Thor's fur and scratched behind the dog's ears. A dull thump of the tail against the carpet showed Thor was enjoying the attention.

"Sorry, Thor. I've gotta go back to the meeting. Take care of my room while I'm out, though! And make sure you eat all your food. Yup. If you do, you get a treat." Which was more food at dinnertime. Always a good incentive. Shin was such a pushover. Thor barked like a laugh.

With a smirk, Shin slipped back out the door, walked the halls back to the living room, and plopped down on a recliner, kicking it out.

"As I was saying, Luke... are we giving him a fountain of cherry cola, or a moon bounce?"

Streak was the was the last one to get the message on his phone about the little meeting that was going to take place about Sam's party. I didn't know Sam's birthday was today. He thought as he closed his phone after listening to the message on it. Streak was also the last person to show up in the living room where they were holding their little meeting. Luke, Ghost, and Shin had already arrived and he hoped that they hadn't started planning without him. "Hey guys. What's up?" Streak said as he walked into the room.

Shawn's mind wasn't completely focused on making plans for a party. However, if there was someone that could make him think of some fun get back to reality the key would be to helping plan the party with them. "What've we got set in stone right now?" Streak said hoping that if they'd started without him they could fill him in.

"You require that much notice to set something like that up?" Luke asked in surprise on the phone as Ghost walked in. Waving idly to her and Shin, Luke did his best to wrap up the conversation before they both felt like he was ignoring them. Shin walked off to do something with his dog apparently while Luke continued to talk. "There's no way to do it faster? Ok. Yeah, I understand. Special orders and all that. Alright. Thanks."

Luke disconnected the call as Shin made his way back into the room followed moments later by Streak. "So far we don't have a lot set in stone." Luke answered with a smile, "I only found out that it was Sam's birthday a couple of hours ago and then Dominic recruited me to help set things up. Most of the tent rental places want more notice than a few hours so we can't set up any sort of cover outside. So either this is an open air party or we have here in the mansion. Dom and Koga are planning on making the cake so... maybe we should order a cake just as back-up."

Lifting one hand, the blind man tapped his chin thoughtfully as he tried to think of what else he had covered. He really didn't want to let them know he had just been talking to a fireworks company that had informed him there was no way they could set up anything in under a week.

"We need to make sure all of Sam's friends know when and where the parties gonna be. Ghost, if you can handle that part of things once we make our decisions that would be great. Shin we need to get lots of snacks and food for the party. You can use my credit card. If you can handle ordering and then picking up if need be, that'd be awesome."

It was right then that Luke's mind returned to the bit of brilliance he had been considering earlier. The Danger Room was really the perfect place for a surprise party. They could have the party anywhere without anything seeming suspicious because of decorations that were appearing. "Streak, I know that you're really good at the danger room programing. Would it be possible to set up an environment in there that would work for the party? That would be especially awesome if any of you know where his favorite place is. Any thoughts?"

The brainstorming session was going well and Luke was listening to them carefully when he thought he heard some rather loud noises coming from the upstairs bedrooms. Turning his head ever so slightly, Luke concentrated just in time to hear one more blast of sound. "Sam, no!" It was doubtful that anyone else had heard it since Luke was the one with enhanced hearing but there was no way he could just ignore it either.

"Uh... you three carry on talking. I gotta make a quick pit stop. Be right back." Luke said as he rose to his feet, leaving the cell phone and credit card sitting on the table. As soon as he was clear of the living room Luke broke into a jog that carried him upstairs and into the bedroom area.

(OOC: Luke is momentarily popping over to join CS & Circe for just a moment per their request. He will be returning but feel free to skip him for a round or two.)

"That sounds like a really good idea actually. A party in the danger room is as good as a party anywhere in the world."Ghost wiped her brow after the mouthful that Luke laid on them. "I can let everyone know. There are contact numbers in the office, if they're connected to the mansion in anyway, I can get them here." Her only worry was getting a hold of Sara. Sam and Sara had seemed like they knew each other at the pool party, and Ghost had her covering shifts at the book store whenever the timing was right. Did the werecat woman have a cell phone? Ghost wasn't sure.

"So... no moonbounce?" That had sounded like fun to her. Ah but Luke seemed pretty distracted all of a sudden and then it was Shin and Streak sitting on their hands looking at each other. "Great. Okay so Sam's favorite place?"

She looked between the boys and realized that they looked about as lost as she did. "I have no idea." Shouldn't they know their friend better than this? "Maybe some place exotic? Venice or Paris or Rome? We couldn't have the whole city, but we could have the flavor of the city you know? Or would Sam like some place cold? Like... Siberia?" She sounded skeptical of her own idea. "If we could pull some kind of Venice thing, statues and boats on the water with candles... well, I would like it." She shrugged. Maybe not the candles part, but she could hang out away from the fire.

Already, Shin’s mind was dreaming up indelible ideas. Luke was lending him his credit card and putting him in charge of food. Shin had to come up with something original, right? Right!? But where would they get a cement mixer big enough for the Cheetos dust? And wouldn’t the fountain bubbling motion take all the fizz out of the cherry Coke? There were so many things to ponder, so many problems to hammer out. Then there was the matter of the extra cake, in case Dominic and Koga made an abomination that was an affront to the senses. “Will chocolate be alright for cake?” Shin turned to ask Ghost.

As for the places… wait, Venus? “Could we even program the danger room to simulate the sulfur-rich environment?” Or was she talking about Venice, and he’d heard wrong. “Oh, wait. Yeah. Don’t mind me. If we went with a Venice theme, we could do something with pasta… or would he prefer finger food? I know he has a Siberian Husky… Maybe Siberia. I dunno. My mind’s kind of a mess here right now, thinking of all the options for foods. What kinds does Sam like? I mean, we could do burgers and fries, but that might not go well with Italian cuisine. Or we could do pizza… that isn’t traditional, but it’s the life-blood of humanity. Then again, calzones are portable and delicious. Maybe calzones…? I know we’re giving him some sort of fountain drink for the party, like grape soda or cherry coke…” And then there was the décor. Would Sam really care if they got ice sculptures for his big day? Maybe they’d want something a bit more fantastical for the party…?

“Hrm… and I think ice sculptures are less fantastical, more fanatical…” Shin went off on a tangent. Everything seemed to be coming together now, but it was still a jumbled mess. He held his chin, then tapped his eyebrows in fervent concentration. Think think think. “Maybe he’d like honeyed cake.”

The three of them were talking nonsense. It all sounded incoherent to Shawn. He was trying to keep up with it all as fast as they were talking. Of course Luke had to disappear and make everything harder for the remaining plotters. What could he do? Help sort out all the information so that they have a talk with sequential events and a surefire plan that wont blow up in their faces when they tried to pull this off. Streak waited for them to finish talking before he started to throw his input in.

"First" He said getting Ghost and Shin's attention, "I think chocolate cake would be fine. Don't go to crazy on it because we ain't sure what he likes. Second, I don't think he's ever talked about what his favorite place is. That might be something Dominic might know." They at least sounded overwhelmed and he needed to try and sort this out so that they could start to make some actual plans. "I can set the Danger Room up for any place you want. Just tell me where. It wont take very long. I think the food should be related to the place we set the party in." Shawn was just trying to get them to stay in one topic at one time, instead of jumping around from idea to idea with out anything concrete before they moved on. Let's decide on a place before we discuss anymore food." Streak said hoping to get all three of them on the same track at the same time.

Poor Shawn was stuck with two of the most fantastical and non-grounded thinkers for a meeting that needed some real thoughts, not air puffed ones. There was just something about living in Japan that made one lose touch with reality about certain things. If prompted, Ghost would readily blame Japanese television and all the ADD inspiring doodads that always danced across the screen.

"Chocolate cake sounds great." Shawn was making entirely too much sense, it was such a downer. "And, yeah, I guess we can't move forward on things until we have a location." She folded her stick arms and thought for a moment. The feeling was different from their brainstorming session as if it were coming from a different part of the brain. "Even though he has a Siberian Husky, I think ice sculptures and cold weather would be a little redundant. He could make an ice sculpture faster and better than any of us could, though maybe that is part of the draw to have something where we obviously tried to imitate his power. Or maybe that'd be an insult, who knows?"

Ghost rocked forward and back in her seat for another short stint of thinking. "My vote for location, if we can't get a favorite out of Dominic, is some place Romantic. Sam is a romancer, right? Put him in a place that would be his natural hit-on-anything-that-moves habitat." She nodded at the wisdom of her words. "But don't make the cake shaped like boobs or anything." Though... the embarrassment would almost be worth it...

Shaped like... okay, yeah. No. He shook the horrible image out of his head and replaced it with the Thames... which quickly shifted into Rome, then Italy, then all of Europe on the map, then zoned in on Paris, France and the Eiffel tower. Little candles lit up the cafe tables as wine-shaped bottles of Kool Aid poured themselves out into glasses. He drummed up an image of Sam with a devilishly-curled mustache and a beret, sipping a wine glass with importance.

"Maybe we could set it in Paris, as the sun sets by the Eiffel Tower, and the sky is lit with faint hues of orange and pink. And as the sun sets in the background, the water of a nearby river rushes by, and a boat rolls along over the Seine. And the lights of the city will just start flaring on as we sit at the party, sipping our drinks at little cafe-style tables amid a background of violins... or whatever music Sam likes. Does he like polka, Ghost?" Shin turned to face her seriously with crossed arms.

"I don't think polka is really his thing." Luke spoke up as he walked back into the living room with a slight grin on his face. There was no reason for him to mention what he had just seen and heard while upstairs and there was no reason for these three to find out information concerning the newly blossomed relationship between Alexandra and Sam from him. Nope, his lips were sealed... it would be up to the two of them to make any anouncements. "I think he's probably more of a rock or rap type guy."

Walking over to the seat he had vacated several minutes before Luke parked himself in the spot and then raised an eyebrow questioningly at the other three. "So what sort of decisions have we come to? I like the sound of the whole Paris theme. I think that fits in with his romancing reputation pretty well."

Paris was a beautiful city and while Luke couldn't help them get the coloring right on anything, he could deffinately help with setting the atmosphere. After his trip there with Raina several months prior, Luke had to admit he thought it was one of the most romantic cities in the world. Perfect for a newly established romance between two of his friends.