Xaviers!

Quinn smiled as he finished putting up the last poster.

Code: Select all

XAVIERS UNIVERSITY FIRST ANNUAL TALENT SHOW

(No Talent Necessary)

100 POUND GRAND PRIZE

Signup here!

"Good. Excellent. Perfect.

...Probably."

((open))

Shane stopped to read the poster.

"A talent show, eh? About bloody time."

"See? That's what I thought. We're so isolated here; some solidarity would be for the best!"

"Solidarity? That's certainly good but I'm more interested in finally getting to show off."

"Oh? And what IS your talent then, anyway?"

"I'm a musician. And a bloody good one too," he answered with total confidence.

"Quite a few of them around here, from what I've heard. You have a band, or are you a solo act?"

"I'd like to have a band but no one really fits my retro hard rock niche. I could look harder though, I'll admit."

"Oh, of course we're having this while Viv's away," Sam mutters as she looks at one of the signs.

"Well, some of us just have to fly solo," Quinn laughed patting Shane on the shoulder.

"Your double-act partner missing, Sam?"

"Three of us in the band, actually. She's our lead singer."

"Mmm. Maybe you can work something out? Something instrumental, or a replacement, or one of you two could sing."

"Just seems like a shame to leave her out, aye?"

"Would she want you to miss out because she isn't here?" Shane asked.

"Well, perhaps you can get her back in time?"

"We'll have to see," she shrugs.

"Just... bloody timing, aye?"

"Well, I do apologize, but then, I was only made a prefect quite recently. Ah well. Timing is out of all of our hands.

I'm sure we'll do whatever it takes to make it a magical night," he smiled at her.

"What does being a bloody prefect have to do with a talent show?"

"Well, I mean, I pushed the administration to run it. It's not bad, having the headmaster's ear," he smiled.

"Ah. Having connections is certainly useful," he said, hiding his usual cynicism.

"It's weird. They had all you lot already picked. Nobody I knew even got asked."

"It's a big school," Quinn shrugged. "Did you want a position? Because I could put in a good word."

"Well I mean, when nobody I've ever seen on the teams makes the cut it just seems a bit odd, aye?"

"I don't think punching power was one of the pressing criteria," Quinn joked. "I'm certainly not much use in a fight. I think I spent most of that dimensional chaos thing locked in my room."

"Well, he should have picked at least one person from the teams for the sake of representation."

"Well, I don't think we were looking to fill quotas," Quinn joked.

"Besides, being on the teams seems like something of a full-time job. It would be a bit unfair to ask someone to take on the workload of a prefect as well, wouldn't you say?"

"The thing is, someone needs to make sure the teams get the resources they need. Like access to the Point outside of classes."

Quinn took a notepad out of his back pocket, flicked his wrist, and grabbed a pen that popped out.

"Alright, let me jot this down here for you, so I can run it up the flagpole. What, in particular, do you need access to?"

"As I said, access to the DR for extracurricular training. And, of course, the War Room and Hangar for emergency use. Some of us do repairs in the Hangar anyway. And I'm sure the scientifically minded members need access to the labs for team-related projects. Lord knows they've saved our arses enough times."

"Mmmhmm, mmhmm, mmhmmm," Quinn said, writing all this down.

"I'm not sure what you mean by 'extracurricular' training. I mean, training is part of the curriculum, is it not? You just want to punch someone, don't you?" he teased.

"And, of course, emergency use is emergency use; if the X-Teams ever need to be called out, of course they'll have access to their equipment. That goes without saying."

"I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get any budging on using the labs without it being part of their classwork, however -- I mean, there's some highly sensitive stuff in there. But I'll bring it up, at the very least."

"Well, ask one of the science whizzes. I'm sure they could give you examples of putting resources to use in helping the teams. I know we discovered the Skrull incursion that way."

"Ahhh, I see."

Quinn walked over to Shane and wrapped his arms around him, giving him a hug.

"It's going to be OK, Shane. I know it can be quite scary, dealing with all these external threats. But don't you worry -- the administration has all of our safety in mind, and we'll get through all of this together."

"...starting to see why they picked you," she mutters.

Shane forcefully shrugged Quinn off.

"I'm not scared you idiot! I just don't believe your precious headmaster understands what he's dealing with."

Quinn staggered back a little as Shane forced him off.

"Look, I get it. Change can be frightening. We lost the previous headmistress. But at least give Dr. Lippencott a chance to prove that his system works, right?"

"Faith has to earned," he said stubbornly.

"You have to give chances for faith to be earned," Quinn countered.

"It's easy to be gung-ho about something when you're one of the people it's benefiting."

"But we're all benefiting from it. Every one of us."

"That remains to be seen."