The planning room…
As he straightened the stack of papers in front of him, Professor Xavier glanced around the circular table. To his right, Storm was resting her hand on her own small stack of papers. To Xavier's left, Wolverine was leaning back in his chair, lazily eying the others under the brim of his hat. Across the table, the Beast, Xavier's newest assistant teacher, was listening expectantly. Xavier nodded to himself. "Right. Well, Hank, welcome to the faculty here at the Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Before we begin, are there any questions for Hank from the other faculty?"
Wolverine raised his chin a bit. Xavier nodded in acknowledgment. "Are you a pofter?" Wolverine asked.
"Are you a pofter?" Repeated Xavier, directing the question at Beast.
Beast blinked. "Uh, no."
"Good. Well, with that concluded, I'll ask Storm to please remind everyone of the faculty rules."
"Certainly," Storm cleared her throat and glanced down at the papers. "Rule number one—"
"No pofters!" Xavier, Storm and Wolverine declared together.
Taken aback, Beast blinked several more times.
"Rule number two;" Storm continued, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, "there is to be no mal-treating of the students in any way… If there's anybody watching.
"Rule number three—"
"No pofters!" the veteran faculty said in unison.
Storm cleared her throat again. "Rule four, now this term we don't want to catch anyone one the faculty not drinking.
"Rule number five—"
"No pofters!"
"Rule number six;" Storm continued alone. "There is nooooooooooooo… Chapter six.
"Rule seven—"
"Wait" interrupted Beast, holding up his hand. "No chapter six?"
Storm blinked a few times, and glanced back down at the rule sheet. "…No chapter six," she confirmed.
Beast frowned. "Then what are we doing here, then?"
In the silence that followed, all four staff members glanced around at each other. At length, Xavier shrugged.
"Well if nothing much is going on this chapter," Wolverine began, breaking the silence. "I'd really like to know what was going on last chapter."
Xavier nodded. "As would I. I confess it did seem a little… Strange."
The Beast leaned forward and rested his chin on his hand. "'Beyond the Pale,' if we dare pun."
Xavier raised his eyebrow. "Storm, did we ever figure what was going on?"
Storm sighed. "It took a while…" The dark skinned woman began flipping through her stack of papers. "But we did eventually figure everything out."
Wolverine grunted. "So, spill it."
"Please," added Beast.
Finding the sheet she was looking for, Storm sighed again and pulled the sheet from the stack. "Okay, on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, there is an anime called InuYasha. The show is named after its title character, InuYasha, a young half-demon. The boy has a foul mouth, a short temper, and is rather self-centered and impatient."
"Sounds somewhat familiar," mused Xavier.
"You're talking Quicksilver, right?" Questioned Wolverine
Storm nodded. "Yes. Right down to the silver hair, absentee father, and the sibling who wants his head on a platter. But the clincher was the voice. In the American dub, InuYasha is voiced by Richard Cox, the same actor who voices Quicksilver. With all the similarities between them, the two characters just… Merged, I suppose."
Beast frowned. "Or, with apologies to John Edwards, he 'crossed over.'"
"That may be a more appropriate way to put it," Storm finished. "Especially since members of InuYasha's supporting cast was dragged into this story. Unfortunately, things only snowballed from there…"
Storm ran her finger down the page she was looking at. "The voice actor for Sabertooth is Michael Donovan, who also voiced Wolf Bronski from ExoSquad. It's a little known American Anime from the early nineties.
"Michael Dobson voices the Blob, as well as General Revil, and a whole bunch of other random characters on one of the those Gundum shows. Could be 0083, or maybe Gundum Wing… He could have done work on both…
"Toad is voiced by Noel Fisher, who also voices Stan from Hamtaro."
The Beast frowned. "Isn't that the show that was inspired by the Happy Hamster Dance?"
Xavier raised an eyebrow. "Happy Hamster Dance?"
"Hamsterdance.com. The original version." The Beast shrugged. "They've changed it now. I guess you had to see it…"
Storm hook her head in bewilderment. "I wouldn't know… Moving on, Cyclops was 'crossed over' with Van Faulken, from Escaflone. Both were voiced by Kirby Morrow, as well as having similarly convoluted pasts, families, and destinies.
"Beast, you are voiced by Mike Kopsa. Mister Kopsa did voicework for Jin-Roh: Wolf Brigade."
"Eh?"
Storm shook her head. "One of those dystopic near-future animes.
"Maggie Blue O'Hara is the voice of Shadowcat, as well as Holly from Monster Rancher. Like Quicksilver, she managed to drag part of her supporting cast into the story.
"Venus Terzo is the voice of Jean, and she plays Black Arachnia in two Transformers series; Beast Wars and the sequel Beast Machines."
Storm reluctantly turned her gaze towards Xavier. "Professor, your voice actor is David Kaye, who has the misfortune to voice Megatron on the horribly inane Tranformers: Armada."
"My sympathies," murmured Beast.
"Logan," Storm continued, turning towards Wolverine, "your voice actor is Scott McNeil, who also does a slew of characters on the new He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The character you actually crossed over with was Stratos.
"Coming to the end of the list," Storm muttered, putting down the sheet of paper, "Nightcrawler is voiced by Brad Swaile. Around the turn of the 90s Brad did a stint as Ace on the My Little Ponies TV show."
Beast winced. "Owch."
"Who remembers this kind of garbage?" Asked Wolverine.
"A more reasonable question," Xavier cut in, "Storm, why didn't you 'cross over' with any other character? It would seem only natural that you do…"
"Well, yes, it would," Storm rubbed the back of her neck uneasily. "But as it turns out, my voice actor hasn't done any other voice work. Just a handful of other live action stints. Spyke, Avalanche, and Rogue are in similar positions."
"Ah…" Xavier nodded understandingly.
The Beast chuckled. "So I'll be you guys were really pulling for that fourth season, weren't you?"
Storm glared at Beast.
"Well," he corrected, raising his hands defensively, "it's not like I wasn't, either. I mean, it is a pretty good gig."
"Until we have to put up with crap like this," Wolverine muttered under his breath.
"Every job has its hazards," soothed Xavier. "But at least this one is over, Logan."
Silence fell over the room.
"Why did you have to say that?" Wolverine wearily demanded.
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