The Many Faces of Tully
Jace's Birthday

I haven’t exploded in a long time. I still look the same as I did after I exploded on Jace. I like this body even though it’s really pretty. I’m comfortable in it. These chocolate brown eyes are exactly like my originals and even though my thick brown hair is hard to manage, I love it. Even though I’m a little on the busty side, I don’t mind. I feel attractive but in a good way.

Today is Jace’s birthday. It’s been a while since I’ve celebrated a birthday, or any holiday for that matter. I try not to pay too much attention to dates but I know I won’t forget this one, just like any other day that’s really important to me. It’s November 24th. We’re getting so close to the final battle, but we don’t worry about that today. We celebrate today.

Even though Jace is sort of the loner here, he is probably the most cared for. We all love Jace. We all know he is the best out of all of us. Apparently we’ve all had our shady pasts, but only Jace and I have done stuff that we didn’t mean to, though no one knows what he’s done.

Haides, Toshi, Zazu, Hutsi, Elsu and Mirage were all thieves. Gunther and Nash were hit men. Rozen, Edmund and Damon all used their powers to get things for free, so they were technically thieves too, but they were given what they wanted. I don’t know Kato’s or Calchas’ pasts. I’m afraid to know Calchas’ but I think Kato kept more to himself and never really bothered anyone. He seems to be the most normal out of all of us.

Today my job is to keep Jace away for as long as possible while they set up his party. We go to the little diner to have steak and potatoes. I already gave him his present this morning. I got him all the X-Men movies. I thought it was weird that he didn’t even own his favorite movies. He was pretty ecstatic about it. He’s in a pretty good mood today.

“So when is your birthday? I’m assuming it hasn’t passed already seeing as normal people don’t let their birthday’s go unnoticed.” He smiles at me.

I keep my face straight as I say, “Since when have I been normal?”

“You’re not telling me it’s passed already, are you?” he asks me incredulously. I make a face at him. His face hardens. “When was it?”

“In June,” I tell my plate.

“June! Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell anyone?” he accuses me.

“Uh… Because I didn’t like the coincidence,” I say haltingly. I can’t lie to him and I hate it sometimes. Some things are really better left unsaid.

“What coincidence? Was it the day of the panther attack?”

“No, it wasn’t… It was uh, June 22nd.”

“I’m failing to see the coincidence?” He furrows his eyebrows together.

I sigh heavily. “It’s the same day. The day Kato started recorded was the same day I was born. I hate the coincidence of that. I hate the fact that I was destined to come here since birth. It’s almost like my birth made Kato get that knowledge. Like my birth was super significant or something. I didn’t want everyone finding out and making a big deal about it…” I’m still staring at my potatoes.

Jace doesn’t say anything. I peek up at him quickly and he’s staring at me the way he always does when I admit something I don’t like. He’s sad that I’m hurting in some way. He’s always like that. You can’t really heal feelings though.

All of a sudden his face brightens slightly. “Well if you think about it, then it makes sense. You are the most important piece aren’t you? Maybe, without you, this whole thing wouldn’t matter. Like without you, we wouldn’t stand a chance against this great evil. We couldn’t win without you, but since you were born, we could do it. There is a point to this, all because of your birth.”

His words reassure me slightly. I guess that is true. I still don’t like it though. Was I given these powers because of this great evil? Just to defeat him? Will they disappear after he’s defeated? One could hope so. Maybe I would never have to use them again after March. That would be nice. I could live a seemingly normal life after that. With Jace.

I stall as long as possible. I even order a dessert, which I never do, and force myself to eat every single bite, even though I am stuffed. I make Jace let me pay for the meal because it is his birthday. I quickly text Nash saying we are on our way back, to warn them. He texts me back quickly and says that the coast was clear.

Jace drives; another gift to him from me. He still loves my car, but who could blame him? I hold his hand in his lap and fiddle with the radio station for something to do. I hardly recognize any of the songs, but I hardly hear them either. I’m too excited for the party. I hope Jace likes it.

As soon as we get off the elevator I’m trying my hardest to not bounce around. I’ve never thrown a surprise party for anyone, or been to one, so this is just as exciting for me as it’s going to be for him. I let him open the door to go into our lair, I guess you could say, and its pitch black in there. I know that it’s just what Mirage is making us see.

“What the-” Jace starts but then the black image disappears and we see the living room.

“SURPRISE!” they all shout, just like a corny movie. I’m smiling from ear to ear and look at Jace’s reaction. He’s smirking and actually looking a little embarrassed.

“Are you guys serious? A surprise party?” He laughs and I pull him into the room.

“Of course, and we have a lot of fun games planned so you better enjoy it,” I threaten him.

“If I’m right next to you then of course I’ll enjoy it. Your presence is better than any lame party,” he whispers in my ear and I blush.

“Stop your whispering and start your partying!” Nash shouts, and we both laugh.

It is a great party. We all have little skits to show Jace with our powers. It was kind of our thanks for helping us develop them so well. Zazu and I have a routine set out where we juggle random objects back and forth between each other’s powers. We have things zooming around the room, chasing each other, flipping around, and occasionally hitting someone playfully.

Nash and Edmund set up a skit together where they are mimes. Edmund did the whole wall thing and Nash ran headlong into it. Then Edmund did the trapped in a box and Nash felt around it, and then he miraculously climbed on top of Edmunds shield. Then Edmund stepped aside and his shield disappeared, making Nash fall six feet to his butt, uninjured. We laugh a lot at that one.

Then Damon makes us play Simon Says. He makes as all line up next to each other against the wall. Jace, Calchas, Kato and Rozen are exempt. Then, Damon walks up and down the line, tapping his chin playfully and surveilling us like we are cattle to be bought.

Then, Damon turns on Toshi and says, “Damon says… Cluck like a chicken.” Toshi doesn’t hesitate and starts clucking away. We all start laughing.

He walks down the line and faces Mirage. “Damon says… Sing something in your original tongue.” Mirage starts singing something in French at the top of his lungs. We laugh even harder.

He points to Zazu. “Damon says, dance for us big boy. Dance like a ballerina!” And Zazu starts pirouetting on the spot. Toshi is still clucking but laughing, and the sound makes us laugh even more, and Mirage is having a hard time singing and trying not to laugh.

Damon looks at Elsu now. “Damon says, blow a raspberry every time someone laughs.” And since we were already laughing, he starts blowing raspberries. We laugh more, and he blows harder.

He faces me suddenly. “Damon says…” and I can already feel his powers behind his words. My body is ready to do whatever he commands. “Do a headstand.” My body moves without me telling it to and I’m up on my head. My shirt slides up my stomach slightly so more of my belly is showing. I can feel the blood rushing to my head already.

He points to Nash now. “Damon says, braid her hair.” Nash drops to the floor and starts fiddling with my hair. He keeps tugging at it painfully and makes it harder for me to balance. I think I kick him in the head as I almost fall over, which brings another round of laughter and more raspberries.

Hutsi and Haides are his next victims. “Damon says, dance together to this wonderful song that Mirage is singing.” They start doing some form of square dance around the room.

“Damon says, tie yourself into a not.” And Gunther twists into a pretzel

“Now, brother,” Damon walks up to Edmund, the last one standing, “Damon says, try to get everyone to stop what they’re doing.” Edmund starts running around the room, trying to trip up Hutsi, Haides and Zazu. He tries covering the mouths of Mirage and Toshi and tries to grab Elsu’s tongue. He tries to push me over and tries to take Nash’s hands from my hair, which just makes Nash grab on harder to my hair so it feels like they are playing tug-o-war with my hair. And then he tries to untangle Gunther to no avail.

Jace, Calchas, Kato, Rozen and Damon are just laughing at the chaos before them for about five minutes until Damon finally says, “Okay! Okay. Damon says you can all stop now.” I finally flip back over and my toes throb painfully as bloody finally rushes back to them. I wobble unsteadily back to my seat next to Jace. He wraps his arm around me, still laughing, and kisses the side of my head.

Mirage takes the floor then and asks Jace where he would like to see. Any kind of scenery or place he can think of, and Jace tells him he wants to be on top of hill, in the middle of the night with thousands of stars above. We all stay in that image for a little bit, enjoying the beauty of the twinkling stars. I lay right up against Jace as we look at the stars. He has a small smile on his lips every time I look at him.

Next up is Hutsi. He gives us a wonderful show of him controlling the elements. He has the water dancing around us, splashing around, forming into pretty shapes. He makes rocks float around him in circle so it looks like he’s hula-hooping rocks. He uses wind to blow around flower petals in pretty looping circles. And lastly, he goes out with a bang. He has fire roaring around the room, so large that I can feel the heat. He makes the flames form the shape of a dragon and then have the dragon breath fire. He finishes it with the dragon eating itself, starting from its tail until it completely disappears. We applaud him generously.

Then Gunther leads us to the practice room where all of his weapons are already all out. He uses each one of them and shoots at a banner across the room. In the end, there are multiple bullet holes, arrows and knives sticking out of it and it spells out, ‘Happy Birthday Jace’.

It really was a great party, and I think Jace really enjoyed it. He says he did and keeps telling us how much he appreciates it. Of course we end up getting into a huge cake fight. Damon started it by making me shove cake into Jace’s face. A cake throwing war ensued and by the end everyone had frosting in their hair, cake in their clothes, and a mess at our feet. I wish today wouldn’t end, but all good days always seem to come to an end a lot sooner than you would like them too.

Jace kisses me deeply goodnight, and I don’t want to let him go. We’re still covered in cake and I taste frosting on his lips. He entangles his fingers into my hair and I don’t even care that he is getting cake crumbs in it. I just want him to hold me closer, squeeze me tighter, and kiss me longer.

“Thank you,” he mumbles against my lips.

“For what?” I ask him, opening my eyes. He sighs contently and leans his forehead against mine, not opening his eyes.

“For today. It was perfect. You’re perfect. You made today perfect and I wanted to thank you for that. Today wouldn’t have been as amazing without you. You make everything better. I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’m one hundred percent grateful for it, so thank you.”

I smile widely. “It’s my pleasure.” I steal his line, and he laughs slightly. Then he finally looks at me. His eyes are warm, making me think of molten silver, and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I missed feeling like this.

“Goodnight, Jace. Happy birthday,” I tell him after we stand in the hallway for a while holding each other.

“Goodnight, Tully. Happy belated birthday,” he says back to me and finally unwinds himself from me. He kisses me one more time and then goes into his room quietly. How could I have someone so amazing in my life?

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