Disclaimer: Exceedingly not mine.
A/N: Written for Ms. Kinnikufan. Possibly the most difficult of all requests I received when I threw out the 'challenge me' collection plate on Livejournal.
Continuity: Post-Titans Together (Season Five penultimate episode).
Feedback: Oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please!
Career Change
© Scribbler, July 2006.
The first thing Mumbo does is yowl like a baby. Then he crumples into a boneless heap, all the fight gone out of him. He's had enough. Not even the Brotherhood is worth this, and not even the combined attentions of Madame Rouge and Monsieur Mallah could make him move from this spot. No way. If those Titans want a fight, well then, they can jolly well look for one somewhere else, because he's done with fighting. He's rather more in the mood for a good dose of sitting pretty, and perhaps conjuring a nice glass of scotch or twelve if he can muster the energy.
"Are you going to just sit there all day? Please don't tell me I thawed you for nothing."
He doesn't recognise the voice, but it echoes strangely. He's suddenly aware of the lack of noise – battles with the Titans have never been so quiet when he enacts them. Then again, he's never been one for the softly-softly approach anyway. There's no pizzazz to sneak attacks, no flair. That's one of the reasons the Brotherhood appealed to him. They think big. They like fireworks. They appreciate true showmanship in the trade. When he was shoved under Chang's confounded machine there was a real ruckus going on all around him –
Waitonecottonpickingsecond. Chang's machine. The one that cryogenically freezes whatever it touches. It did a real number on the Titans the Brotherhood collected, until the rest of the little snot-nosed children turned up. All that beautiful craftsmanship, ruined by pubescents. Oh dear. Oh dearie dear. How the mighty hath fallen.
"Who the heck are you?" he asks the unfamiliar woman in the suit. She looks a little tweedy – chignon, steel-rimmed glasses, clipboard under one arm. Reminds him of a librarian, except for the fact that she's standing on the other side of his very own Plexiglas tube. He's absolutely certain this thing is new, but it's obviously nothing he can't shatter with a flick of his wrist. With this in mind, he allows her to catch his interest – for the moment. "And where the heck am I?"
"HIVE Academy," she answers without hesitation. "Version 3.0. I'm Mistress HIVE, the headteacher."
"HIVE Academy? I was just working with some of your former students. At least, I think I was just working with them. Pretty screwy with the body clock at the moment. Any calls while I was out?"
"You've been in stasis for approximately three months and eighteen days, by our calculations."
"Our?"
"The governors, caretaker and myself. We requisitioned you twenty of those days ago, and have been working diligently on your case until now."
"I feel like a school project. You gonna put me on display at your science fair, toots?"
Her voice is unusually calm and guarded, he feels, with little affect or inflection. She sounds like a dried up old turkey of a dame, more interested in paperwork than party-poppers. "You didn't think I went to all the trouble of thawing you out, making sure there was no lasting damage to your physical structure, and supervising your awakening simply out of the goodness of my heart, did you?"
"I guess not. Probably too shrunken to have much goodness in it, if you clawed your way to the top of the HIVE ladder. That's if you've even got a heart, of course." He watches for a reaction. He's trying to stir her up a bit, goad her into a response. He hates boring people. High drama, lots of colour, and fun – that's what he likes. This dame seems a total antithesis to this.
Not even her glasses glimmer in response to his words.
He stands up. "Nice pad, by the way. Very Doctor Frankenstein. Though it could perhaps use a little," he grins, snapping his fingers, "jazzing up." Immediately, flowers of every imaginable colour empty into his tube, garlands pouring from the empty air to rain down on his head. For a second he's shocked. He was aiming for them to spring from between the floor tiles and shoot from the bits of wall not covered in blinking machinery outside the tube. All that enforced sleep must have made him dozy. He's just a little out of practice, that's all. But you can't disappoint the punters by letting them know you got it wrong. "Oh yeah, baby, I've still got it!"
"Indeed." There's no acknowledgement of the magic in the austere woman's voice. She flips a page on her clipboard and runs her eyes down the dense text there. "Your mental health was always a little deficient, I see. No matter. Your skills and field expertise are what most interested us."
Mumbo snaps his fingers again and the flowers vanish. "Hey, toots, grateful as I am for the revivification whatsit, I'm not part of a window display, y'know. Can't pick and choose me. Mumbo Jumbo is his own man, and while I don't deny I'm the most interesting guy you're ever likely to meet (who's this side of puberty), it's time I scram to see what's up and what's down in the world these days. Three months is a long time to take a sabbatical. My fans will be worried about me!"
"Please don't try to escape from the tube. Since we couldn't remove your wand without potentially shattering your arm, several shamans and a druid have enchanted it to contain you. The runes are specially designed and quite strong. You might do yourself an injury trying to break them.
Mumbo frowns. Needless to say, he does just what she says he shouldn't. After he's finished yelling and putting out the fires in his hair and cloak, he scowls deeply at her. "Okay," he says after a moment, and in a very different tone of voice. "I'm listening."
"We didn't thaw you, Mr. Jumbo, for your own benefit. Rather, your name came up in relation to the new students the academy has been receiving of late. After the Brotherhood fell, the villainous population took quite a strenuous hit. The governors felt it prudent to resurrect HIVE Academy in an attempt to fill the hole left by the meddling of the extended supergroup, the Teen Titans. I was brought out of retirement to oversee this project."
"Let me guess, HIVE Academy 3.0 has some stupendous fees it charges these precious new villain kids?"
"Nothing of the sort. I wouldn't hear of it. I have, however, put through a new policy of recompense from students' missions, and a system of fines for failed final exams."
"Just as an extra incentive, of course."
"Running HIVE is a costly venture. We have great plans for our students, Mr. Jumbo – great plans."
"Uhuh. Well, after seeing what the last bunch amounted to, I'd say you don't have to aim too high to eclipse them. They're talented, but incompetent. Not a good mix. And I think one of them's actually dating a Titan now. You might want to work on that. Not good for the whole 'School of Evil' reputation thingy.
"Unfortunately, after the previous incarnation of the academy dissolved - "
"That was Brother Blood, right? Hey, were you two an item?" Mumbo just can't help stirring. She's downright demoralising with all her enthusiastic unresponsiveness. She makes playing to a brick wall feel like the Sydney Opera House with a (literally) captive audience.
"Brother Blood was both my successor and my predecessor," Mistress HIVE says evenly.
"Oho, so you were headteacher first. Then he kicked you out of your job, and now the governors want you back to start afresh. And you've come crawling back? I hope you at least asked for a pay rise. Might I suggest some plastic surgery with the extra cash? I'd erase the wrinkles myself, but …" He gestures to the small space the tube allows him. "I'm a little indisposed at present. But let me out and I'll do the whammy, quick sharp. Won't hurt a bit." A scalpel conjures up in his hand. He twirls it like a very small baton.
"After the previous incarnation of the academy dissolved, all faculty members found new work, or were absorbed into the Brotherhood. As such, we're now on what you might call a … recruitment drive."
Understanding dawns like a big ball of fiery gases in the sky. "And you want me? Me, teaching classes of little snot-meisters?" Mumbo is incredulous. "I think not, madam. Children and I have a mutual relationship – I hate them and they hate me. Just because I have a magic wand doesn't mean I do kiddy parties. No siree. Mumbo Jumbo is strictly kid-free."
"We were able to thaw you by interacting our technology with your brand of magic, since it's the simplest."
"HEY! No disses, missus. My magic could still give those damn Titans what-for!"
"You're the first member of the Fallen to be brought back, and we're not sure how many others are possible after the Titans destroyed all of Dr. Wong-Fu Chang's cryogenic devices and destroyed his research. Since the doctor himself was frozen by his own machine, he is also unavailable as a resource. You're in quite a unique position, Mr. Jumbo. I suggest you consider your response to our job offer carefully." Mistress HIVE adjusts her glasses. Light bounces off them, and somehow it makes her look far more threatening than should be possible for a middle-aged a woman in tweed.
Mumbo glares at her. He's been backed into a corner – not an easy feat in a circular tube – and he hates it. He's used to freedom. It's the basic component to all he does.
"Okay then. My considered response is this - " And with that he turns around and drops his pants.
She doesn't even blink at the sight of his bare, waggling backside. "I see. Well, Mr. Jumbo, I think you'll find that sort of argument doesn't cut much ice with the governors. When they set their minds to something … well, let's just say that this time, I thought my retirement might stick. Brother Blood is not the first usurper I've outlasted." She turns to leave through a sliding metal door. "The runes should keep you contained until you're ready to be more civilised, Mr. Jumbo. I shall return at that time to put our offer to you again."
"You'll be waiting a long time for me to crack, toots. Mumbo Jumbo picks his own fate, and it doesn't involve mortarboards or timetables. I'm a free spirit, a child of the Summer of Love! Your grandkids will have grandkids before I'm ready to be a friggin' teacher."
She pauses in the doorway and says in her clipped, refined alto, "Mr. Jumbo, the students of HIVE Academy are my children. And I think you'll find that when it concerns their interests, I can be just as tenacious as a two-bit supervillain with an ego the size of Yellowstone, a blighted turnip of a nose and buttocks like two dried kippers. Good day to you, sir."
Mumbo gawps at her as she leaves. A nugget of something stirs in his belly. He'd like to think it's gas, but he has been three months and eighteen days without his lovely assistants, and with the way his luck's going lately … "Wow. Consider me bitchslapped."
fin.