[Plot] Meet the New Boss...

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Oh, that's a very serious, condition. Here, let me take a look for a moment," he said, mock seriously peering in one of Tosh's ears.

"Ah! I see the problem!" he said, reaching for said ear. Tosh would feel a slight tingling sensation -- not unpleasant, per se, but weird -- and then Quinn was drawing his hand back, a stack of cards revealed.

"You simply weren't playing with a full deck."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh rolled his eyes and smirked. "You must be a real hit with your grandkids."

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Oh, surely you don't think I'm that old", Quinn joked, shuffling and riffling the deck with one hand. "I just enjoy a good trick.

Though, I will have to say, coming from your head, I suppose that means there's something....fishy about this deck."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"It couldn't have been easy to ferret that out."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Says the guy who turns into an electric shark. Where's the energy and mass for that come from, huh?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"First, that was a pun on my second creature form. Second, you've seen me eat, right?" he smirked.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"I tend to stick away from the freak shows," Quinn joked, unlocking the door to his room.

Quinn, apparently, had a single room -- part of the benefit of being a Prefect, apparently! It was a little cluttered, with pictures and posters hung on the wall in a sort of massive collage. A lot of rock bands, some superheroes, musicals and stage plays, that sort of thing.

"Alrighty then, I promised you a demonstration," he said, heading to his closet and trying -- and doing a rather poor job -- of pulling out a large chest, banging it on the side of the doors as he pulled.

[Nailah Weaver]

"Is the demonstration how you managed to fit that into the closet to begin with?" Nailah chuckles as she tries to help Quinn get the chest out.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Well, it was smaller then," Quinn protested, as the two managed to get the thing out with a bomf and a clattering and a nearly falling on their own butts but not quite.

"Ah! There! A perfectly ordinary chest," he said, opening it up. "As you two can feel free to verify yourselves."

[Nailah Weaver]

"How ordinary can it be if it apparently grew in your closet." Nailah chuckles, but does humor Quinn's request, giving the chest a quick check for any hidden panels or secret hinges.

[Quinn Quartermain]

As far as Nailah can ascertain, there's nothing out of the ordinary about the chest -- no secret panels, no hollow areas, nothing that would indicate it was special in any way.

"Then, you wouldn't feel uncomfortable stepping inside, would you?"

[Nailah Weaver]

"Are you gonna close it? I don't feel super great about tight spaces..."

[Quinn Quartermain]

"I am, though I can assure you, I will let you out shortly thereafter, you will not be harmed, and anything that happens can be un-happened just as easily."

[Nailah Weaver]

"That's not ominous at all." she says as she gets into the chest. Chickening out isn't exactly an option she recognizes as a viable course of action.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh winced in sympathy. The chest did not look comfortable, especially for someone with wings. But he silently watched the impending trick closely.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Don't worry. You can trust me," he said, after in no way earning that sentiment.

He made sure the chest was upright for poor Nailah, so she wouldn't at least be lying on her back -- that would be coffin-esque. Everything to put her at ease.

"Now, Tosh. I'm going to need a little help here. You said that you're skeptical about magic. I think, in all honesty, that skepticism is a wonderful attribute to have, but sometimes it helps to see things from a new perspective. Would you do me a favor and knock three times on the top of the chest, please?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Alright."

He stepped over to the chest and rapped on it three times.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Alright, let's see what we have here," Quinn said, waving his hands over the chest and mumbling under his breath.

He then took the top...oh, say sixth of the chest, and cranked it, rotating it 180 degrees.

As both Tosh and Nailah could attest, there hadn't been a seam or hinges or anything like that to allow that to happen, as far as they could tell from their initial inspection of the chest. And Tosh did notice a slight glow as it happened, which faded as Quinn removed his hands from the chest.

"And let's see what new perspective we have inside," Quinn finished, rapping his own hand on top of the box three times, with the door to the chest popping open in time with the third knock.

Nailah seemed mostly unharmed. Well, except for the fact that while she was facing forward, her face was facing backwards. Her head had been rotated 180 degrees on her body, with apparently no other side-effects to speak of.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh looked horrified.

"Holy shit! What did you do?! What did you do?!"

[Nailah Weaver]

"Whoa wait what, how?" Nailah gawks more in astonishment than shock.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Magic, boys and girls. Just a little bit of prestidigitation and pizzazz," he said, holding out a hand to help Nailah from the chest.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh calmed down and gagged a little as he said, "At least put her head straight first."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Haha, no way, this is freaking awesome!" Nailah says, wobbling out of the box, balance thrown off a little. "I can see my bu--tail!"

[Quinn Quartermain]

"As you can see, no harm is done to the lady. Just a new look on life -- entirely reversible, but also entirely safe."

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh averted his eyes until his stomach could settle.

"So your power is to fold space or something like that?"

[Quinn Quartermain]

"I told you, I do magic. Do you want to be turned into a toad or something for more proof?" Quinn grinned.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"'Do magic' is not a mutation," he smirked, "I suppose you could be a mutant and a mage though."

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Mmm. I suppose, if you want to be technical about things, they describe what I have as Mutative Mimicry. A smorgasbord of powers that merely imitates the repertoire of a stage magician.

That seems like an awful lot of words to say 'magic', though."

[Nailah Weaver]

"If it quacks like a duck and swims like a duck and has feathers like a duck you think horse, not zebra. Wait, I got that all jumbled up." Nailah jokes, clearly trying hard not to crack up at her own comedic genius.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"You're right. It is just easier to say magic," he acknowledged, having made a similar statement to Miss Minamida about Tereza's condition.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Plus, it makes me sound less like a lab rat and more like a person, wouldn't you agree?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"... Agreed. After all, I just experienced first hand how much being one sucks."

[Quinn Quartermain]

"And that's what we're trying to prevent with the new administration!" Quinn smiled with a flourish. "So you see, there's no need to get bent out of shape about it," he joked, elbowing Nailah slightly.

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah hops into a 'tadaah!' stance, arms spread wide along with her wings, legs splayed slightly. Except her body is facing the wrong way as she grins at Tosh.

[Toshiro Narumi]

That was when Tosh cupped his mouth and ran for the nearest bathroom.

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Must be allergic to cats," Quinn quipped. "I guess he won't want to see the 'saw the lady in half' trick."

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah's mouth hangs open in excitement for a moment.

"You can do that? Could I still move both parts? It's not gory, is it?"

[Quinn Quartermain]

"Yes, yes but I assure you, you would be clumsy and awkward, and no. I'm afraid I'm no good with blood."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Okay, so no multi-tasking trickery. But I could fly around as a torso! That'd be hilarious."

[Quinn Quartermain]

"You'd have to learn your new center of balance, of course -- there's a reason most stage shows just do a quick reveal, and then end things.

That, and those are fake."