Xaviers!

A familiar black car pulled back up to the university, and Prince Alex once again stepped out, striding across campus.

He knew where he was going this time, after all, and was on a level above all the riff-raff which surrounded him. And so he strode, with a confidence that only those secure with their place in the world can have, across the quad and towards the campus buildings proper, trailed by one of his two security staff.


Across campus, leaning up against a tree, the man who Nailah had caught skulking around campus earlier watched, slowly smoking a cigarette.

((open))

A certain suspicious flying reptile sidled up to the watcher.

"Word of advice friend, if your trying to blend in, you could try not looking so... skulky," Drake said congenialy.

"Have no idea if it of you speak which," the man said in his broken English. "Am just enjoying fag, yes?"

"Mmhmm... on the campus of a school for mutants, watching a spoiled foreign dignitary you totally don't work for."

"With a flimsy cover, so... bodyguard?"

"Am reporter for major metropolitan newspaper. One royalty showing up is gossip. Two is news. Simple. "

"Symkarians must really love their royal gossip for your paper to send you all this way to watch him make unwanted passes ay college students," he said, not giving Katarina's identity away. See! Not an enemy!

"Covering the future King of Symkaria does tend to increase circulation numbers, yes."

"Assuming he proves himself worthy, of which I have my doubts. I understand the crown princess is a bit unconventional in her choices."

"So the gossip mills say. But who is to know?"

"Is your job not finding out?" he asked, almost teasingly but it was hard to be sure.

"Do you believe that the royalty is not allowed to have the privacy?"

"An odd position for one sent all the way to the UK to report on royal activities."

"Or perhaps a principled one?"

"I suppose I just don't subscribe to giving them greater privacy than the rest of us, with the exception of national secrets and whatnot. But then we don't have royalty where I come from, though some act like they are."

"Yes, I see your point. If we are reporting on the royals, than perhaps we should do the same level of detail on the locals.

So. You would tell me now your complete sexual history, yes? And we publish it on front page of papers, and have everyone criticize you? Yes?"

"I didn't say less privacy. But I get your point as well."

"You said that the princess has unconventional choices. You critiqued me for not finding out. You said royalty should not have greater privacy than the rest of us. Therefore, not finding out about your unconventional choices would be equally unfair, no?"

The stranger's grasp of English seemed to be getting stronger by the minute.

"I merely commented on your unusually principled journalism, for this age anyway. Besides, my unconventional choices aren't secret. I walk around as a dragon when I don't have to."

"Perhaps here in the decadent west, principles are unusual.

Did you have something you needed from me?"

"Just sizing you up. Mutants are wary of strangers poking around. I'm sure you can understand why."

"And yet a prince of Symkaria is allowed to enter unmolested. Interesting that a campus with such heightened security would allow such a thing, no?"

"The gates are terribly insecure, yes. Clearly campus security isn't run by a Genoshan. Or even a Symkarian."

"And yet, they do seem to know when their students come and go without much trouble."

"The new headmaster seems more interest in protecting us from ourselves than from outsiders," he responded.

As he spoke, he casually took out his phone as if checking a text. In reality, he was checking if his phone cloning app had finished its work or simply not found a phone.

Apparently, the man did not have a phone on him; or there was weird interference or...something. Something, at the very least, was not normal here, and the app failed to clone anything as a response.


"I find that interesting. You do not? To each their own."

Reporter my scaly ass.

Putting the phone away, he said, "What I find interesting is a reporter with nothing but his memory and a cigarette with which to gather information. And a rapidly evolving grasp of English, I might add."

The man watched as Prince Alex entered the dorm rooms.

"Well, I am flattered, I assure you, but spoken for."

He dropped his cigarette and ground it out on the floor, starting to walk back towards the campus entrance.

"Have a nice day Mister Totally-A-Reporter," he smirked.