“What can I say?” Erik asked with a shrug. “Sometimes trying to find the best in people slows me down.” His grin got a little wider. “Particularly when there's nothing there to actually find.”

Gordon chuckled, was distressed how odd the noise sounded coming from him, and decided then and there that he needed more practice. Fortunately, he knew just how to help that along. “Touche,” he conceded as he signaled the bartender for two more drinks.

In a club full of people with the power the move (or at least rattle) mountains if they so chose, Gordon and Erik certainly didn't look like much, and they looked even less like people who would deserve special treatment. Dressed in the jeans and a T-shirt style he preferred whenever he had the luxury of dressing for comfort as opposed to dressing for battle, Erik, with his chiseled form and “blonde bearded beach bum” looks, fit the role of a regular club goer nicely, but looked as out of place in this club as “a pebble mixed in with polished diamonds.” And Gordon, despite his dapper white suit which set off his pale features and shockingly red hair nicely, looked even less appropriate, being, among other things, “too scrawny” and “too old” for this club's scene.

All these words had been disdainfully uttered by an inebriated young man decked out in a fantastically expensive suit of technologically advanced combat armor. He then added some unflattering speculations as to why a guy like Erik would be having drinks with a guy like Gordon in the first place.

The wiser and more experienced clubbers were already moving away from the table even before Gordon shut down all power to the young man's armor with nothing more than a baleful glance. By the time Erik had finished peeling away the kid's “indestructible” armor off him piece by piece with no more difficulty than peeling an orange, Gordon and Erik's right to be in the club, as well as their privacy, had been firmly established. Aside from the still grinning bartender who had assured them that their drinks were on the house tonight, nobody even looked their way anymore, particularly the now more sober (and hopefully wiser) young man who was still mournfully considering the ruins of his armor and wondering what he was going to tell his father when he got home.

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