Songs of Power Chapter Eight
Disclaimer: Ally, Mia, Ben, Lucas, Sarah, all the new teachers and Dr. Gonnal are all mine. Anyone else recognizable is someone elses's.
Shout-outs:
Mattb3671: Thank YOU! For everything, first and foremost lots of reviews! Glad to see you're back!
MuggleBuddy: Madeline issues? Can't say I blame you. She can be on the frightening side... That Bad Hat character always made me nervous as a child. I though he'd hurt my doggie.
bant: I'm so glad you like it! It's always nice to have someone new show up and leave me a review. Thanks so much!
LalaithCat: Hah, Mercer, indeed!
iamhollywood: Quite frankly, I'm amazed at the number of responses I got back about squirrels. And slightly frightened. Ah well... I'm glad you like my characterization! Very nice indeed!
To Everyone, from The Choir Gang (Ally, Mia, Todd and Fred) And the Assorted OCs: Thank you for reviews! We're glad you like us people from the depths of Read's mind! Read and review again soon!
The Fic:
The next morning everyone woke up at more or less the same time and dragged themselves downstairs to scrounge for breakfast. There was muffins laid out, along with fruit, juice and other breakfasty items that wouldn't spoil.
Later, suitably fed and watered, they all—Ally, Mia, Fred, Todd, Lance, Tabby, Ben, Lucas, Remy, Rogue and Sarah—wandered off vaguely in search of Dr. Gonnal.
They found him walking around outside, comparing a building in the process of construction with a rumpled set of blueprints in his hands. "Oh, hello!" he said once he noticed the group. "I see you're up. Good; you're new teachers are due to arrive soon. Why don't we go wait for them in the main building?"
"New teachers? Cool." Said Sarah.
"Are we going to be staying here or going to a public school for actual schooling?" asked Ally.
"Well, most of you were brought here because you don't fit into a traditional school environment. It wouldn't make much sense to put you into another public school then, would it?"
"Good point." Conceded Rogue.
"Will there be a choir teacher?" asked Ally, Mia, Todd, Fred and, surprisingly, Ben simultaneously.
"Yes. Charles told me that some of you were particularly interested in the subject, and so it's been made a part of the general curriculum. You're all going to be in choir."
Remy looked shocked, though the expression slid fairly quickly into horror. "Choir?" he said incredulously. "Remy be a thief."
"Shut it, Swamp Rat," muttered Rogue. "Ah'll have to sing too, you know."
"And I'm sure my Cherie will sing beautifully," soothed Gambit, earning him a backhanded slap from a gloved hand. "Ow…" Rogue gave a satisfied smirk.
Gonnal chose to ignore this and walked in the direction of the school, students following like the tail of a comet. They were shown into a large living-room type space, pretty typical in its shelves of books and such, TV, cushy couch, other assorted furnitures and the like.
Soon after everyone was settled down chatting companionably or ignoring astutely, depending on personality. This was interrupted by the entrance of a new teacher.
"I'd like you to meet Cynthia Rodds, aka Glimmer. She'll be our English teacher for your stay here. Glimmer, your new students." Introduced Dr. Gonnal
"Hello!" Glimmer said cheerily. "It's going to be great fun teaching you!"
"I don't think she's ready for this," whispered Sarah to Lance.
"I give her a week," he whispered back.
"My mutant ability is to create will'o'th'whisps 1! They're really pretty and hypnotizing and people seem as if they can't help but follow them!" she continued. "In English we'll start with a type of book the majority of you like, then we'll read some ones you sound as if you might like. What do you like to read?" she said with sugary smile, directed at Ally. "I just finished reading Where the Redfern Grows; it was good. Have you ever read it?"
"Uh-oh," sang Mia under her breath.
"Personally," said Ally, her voice cold, "I have not read that book, if you can call it that, because I was finishing reading 'The complete guide to advanced musical theory'."
"Oh," said Glimmer, deflating slightly. "What do you like to read, dear?"
"I read action and adventure books," said Sarah dignifiedly.
"Me too," said Todd.
"I like science fiction," said Fred off-handly.
"I like gothic horror," said Rogue with a smirk.
"Remy like a good romance," he said with a wink towards Rogue, who glared at him before whacking him across the face.
"I don't." said Tabby.
"I read science fiction too," said Ben.
"And I like high fantasy," put in Lucas.
"I like historical fiction, the good bloody ones." Said Mia, "As well as music-related books."
A doorbell rang somewhere else in the mansion. Looking relieved, the teacher let the students out of the classroom before turning sadly around and wiping off "The Wizard of Oz" and "Princess Diaries" of the chalk board.
Nathan Smithson 2, the new teacher, was next to step into the room. He was greeted by a horde 3 of mismatched students. "Um, hello," he said upon facing the group, all staring intently at him.
"Before we let you any farther in, what do you like to read?" asked Sarah, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"Mostly science books..." he said cautiously, nervous because he had a winged girl giving him the Spanish Inquisition. "Why?"
"The teacher who got here before you liked truly idiotically terrible books," she said with disgust. "What's more, she wanted us to read them." The venomous glares from the other students indicated their opinions about this.
"Well, I don't think there's a girly fluff version of science," he said slowly.
"Oh good. Do we get to destroy things?" the girl with wings asked him.
"Probably. What's your name?"
"I'm Sarah. What's yours?"
"Nathan Smithson. Good to meet you."
"Great." And with that she ran off, dragging Mia and Ally with her. Tabby shrugged and followed them, leaving Lance, Todd, Fred, Remy, Ben and Lucas standing in the living room with Nathan. Rogue had disappeared a while ago.
Soon the new teacher was left on his own in the hallways, some of the boys having wandered off to the basketball courts or the TV, and the others to their rooms.
The history teacher was the next staff member to arrive. "Hello," he said to Dr. Gonnal as he met him in the entryway. "Did you know there's a nearly dead person at your gate?"
"Umm, no, I can't say I knew that," he responded, shocked. Walking down the drive he was shocked to find the very bruised, battered body of Sabretooth. Though he had a healing factor he was so badly hurt that it was obvious that the healing factor alone wouldn't be enough; he was half a step from dying.
"I have an ethics question for you," he said to the history teacher, who had accompanied him. "If there's a dying homicidal assassin on your porch who needs medical attention, what do you do? Call the police, help him or kill him for the deaths of presumably hundreds of innocent people?"
"Help him, obviously." said a new person, striding over. "I'm John, the medic. I'm afraid, homicidal or not, the doctor's code requires I attend him. You have a med lab, right?" He asked, picking up the person bodily with his close-to-seven-foot, heavily muscled frame.
"Ah yes, you're the empath, right?" he asked.
"That's me!" the man responded cheerily.
"Follow me and I'll show you our hospital area."
A/N: Oh god, I am such a sick twisted individual. That comes later, though.
1 Will'o'th'whisps, in real life, are part fairytale/folktale, partly natural phenomenon. They're caused in marshes by rotting material producing various gases, which then burn. They tend to be a pale blue/green/white/lavender, not particularly fire-colored. The myth part is that people would end up entranced by them and sink to their doom in the swamp. Other variants include being driven insane by them; I dunno if the product of Glimmers' mutation will do that, but she will. ;) For the record, she's not modeled after one person but rather several. She's too horrific to come from my own mind.
2 A long time ago, people used to be named after their professions. Therefore, Smithson means "Smith's Son", or the son of the smith. That persons' father would be Blankitty Smith. What happened is that people would move to a place where the surname would be inherited, instead of individual, and it would be passed down long after all the smiths and sons of smiths did different things.
3 This fits very nicely. I believe it applies, given the potential destructive power of them. And the propensity for chaos.
