fandomhigh | Wednesday: What was the school board thinking giving Jamie Madrox a teaching position?

Today the classroom... was a classroom. No scientific equipment. No duplicates in lab coats. No couch pillows.

Just Jamie, a projector and a screen.

"Good morning," Jamie said officiously. "Today we're going to try something different. I'm going to talk. Hopefully, you'll listen."

"I'm sure you've all been affected by recent events at home," Jamie said as he turned down the lights to the room. "And if you've been on the island long enough, you probably know that sooner or later it's probably going to start coming to us. It's also possible that you might decide to take on whatever danger is out there on your own. If that's the case? Here's some food for thought."

Jamie clicked on his remote and an image of a blonded haired kid in a x-man uniform appeared on the screen. "This is Douglas Ramsey. Back in the day, he and his friends were known as the New Mutants. They were all students at a school not unlike Fandom. Except without gremlins. And unlike most of the mutants you see around here, Douglas's power was not the flashiest. He had the ability to decipher any language including computer languages. One day they decided they were going to try and save a race of genetically altered creatures on their own. When his girlfriend Ra-"

Jamie paused a second to swallow before continuing. "When his girlfriend was in danger of being shot, he threw himself in front of the bullet and sacrificed himself."

He turned and gave the classroom a serious look. "Now if he and his friends had waited until an adult showed up instead of going off on his own? He'd probably still be alive today."

Jamie clicked again on his remote and an image of a man in a odd looking Apache warrior costume appeared on the screen. "This is John Proudstar. He was a member of the X-men with... a bit of a temper. When trying to defeat an enemy, he ignored his friends and leaders to try and take on a bad guy all by himself. He jumped on the enemy's airplane and tried to prove himself as a warrior. Instead the plane blew up and killed him. The enemy? He survived."

"And finally," Jamie said as he clicked on the remote, "We have Jay." The image on the screen changed to a handsome boy with a guitar and wings on his back. "Jay was also a mutant. He had the ability to fly and had a incredible healing factor. One day he showed up at a school with both wings amputated. He was tricked by a leader of a fundamentalist group who was trying to eradicate the mutant race. He told Jay by giving up his wings to God that he would be able to save his friends. Instead Jay accidentally told this 'man of God' when most of his friends were leaving school. The next day those buses were bombed and most of his friends perished. When Jay confronted the culprit, on his own, he was shot and killed."

Jamie turned and looked at the class. "Not to long ago I was sitting where you are now. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing and nobody could tell me any different. As a result I threw myself into a time device and got myself sent to the future where I was thrown into a mutant internment camp where I was beaten, had my head shaved and then given a tattoo on my face. Then someone attached a grenade to my chest and blew me up. Not long after that I was trying to save a friend who was stuck in that internment camp. For my trouble I got stabbed through the chest."

He gave the class a small smirk. "Clearly, I got better. I was also extremely lucky."

Jamie then turned off the projector and turned on the lights.

"I'm not telling you anything you don't already know or might have experienced," he continued. "All I'm asking is that in the days to come... think about what you do before you throw yourself into a situation. Don't throw away your life needlessly. All right? Good. Lesson over. Next week we'll go back to doorknobs."

[OOC: Today's class involves talking about character death. Avoid if you wish.]

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"It doesn't make any sense," Angelica said, folding her arms on her desk and dropping her head to rest her chin on them. "I don't understand how people could be so hateful. They can't even say it's fear, can they? How could they have been afraid of someone like Jay?"

"Because he wasn't like them." Warren pulled in a shaky breath. "Because people don't grow wings. Because they didn't understand and they didn't want to understand and because they could."

"But it's wrong," Angelica said. She blinked back tears. "It's wrong and it's stupid and they're stupid and how do we make them stop?"

Anyone close to Angelica would feel a distinct rise in the air temperature as she got herself worked up.

If Warren noticed the change in temperature, he certainly didn't seem inclined to comment on it.

"At this rate, it's looking like the universe is going to do a great job of taking care of that problem for us."

Warren was beyond getting worked up. Warren had retreated to that passive, quiet place that he'd spent a decade of his life hidden away in. The world was ending. Again. This was bad. Probably.

Angelica deflated. "Yeah," she said. "How do we stop that? I can't reach my dad or Ms. Frost. I don't know if anything's still there back home."

Empath and Roulette she could live with blinking out of existence. Her dad and Emma, not so much.

"Pretty sure there isn't anything back home for me," murmured Warren, who was leaning forward and resting the side of his face on his desk again. "And we don't even know what it is. It's like... trying to stop the rain before ever discovering water."

"But we have to do something," Angelica said, frustrated. "Instead of just sitting here talking about dying. I mean, you guys here have dealt with this kind of stuff all the time, right?"

The just waiting was driving her nuts. She wasn't going to run off and do something stupid, but she wanted to do something.

Warren shrugged his shoulders a little bit.

"There've been some weird things with reality breaking here before," he replied, "but nothing quite so huge. I mean... Even when rips were opening up and sucking us in, it was just the island and the three worlds that people were sent to. It wasn't anything so... so big."

"What'd you do then to fix it?" Angelica asked, picking up a pen and idly stabbing at the top of her desk with it. It was oddly soothing.

And now, Warren definitely wasn't looking up, no. He was shrugging, however, not entirely certain how the whole Nightmare... thing... had been resolved. There had been some... parts of something. Or something.

"Mostly, I just ran away from insane people with meat hooks. And then hid in corners and hoped nobody would notice me until it went away."

Warren had not exactly been the most useful person to have around, in Rapture.

Meat hooks? Angelica was glad she hadn't been around for that. Then again, just disappearing wasn't much better.

"Oh," she said. "Wow. But it must've worked out, because you're here and, um, so...." She signed. "I'm sorry. I'm just kinda babbling now I guess."

"Babbling's fine," Warren murmured. "This is all... pretty big stuff. I think we're probably allowed to babble at this point."

They were scared. Babbling happened, when you were scared. Right?

"Is hiding under my bed until it's all over allowed too?" Angelica said, managing a weak smile.

That or a pillow fort were seeming more and more like viable options if there wasn't anything they could do.

At least if they went out, they'd go out well-fortified, huh?

"I don't fit under my bed," Warren shared. "But I don't think anyone would blame you if you were to try."

"You just need to build a loft then," Angelica said brightly. "Prop your bed up on cinder blocks or something. That'll give you room."

... So help him, Warren was actually considering that, now.

"You suppose they have cinder blocks at the junkyard or something?"

Angelica cracked a real smile. "Bet they do," she said. "I mean, they've had to rebuild stuff around here sometimes, right? So they'd have to put the leftover stuff somewhere."

"I might have to check that out, then."

And a little nod. It was kind of good to have a purpose at the moment. Even if that purpose was 'hiding under the bed.'

Wednesday: What was the school board thinking giving Jamie Madrox a teaching position?

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