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THE GENX MUSICAL
written by
SelDear

The songs that I have cannibalised in this are as follows:

It was an ordinary day.

Outside the window, the sky was a lovely autumnal blue. There was a faint breeze that was ruffling the leaves of the elm outside the study-room window, and the weather had acquired a faint tinge of cool to it - preface to the blowing winter.

Jubilee stared around her at her English Lit. class, not believing her eyes.

Standing on his desk, in full uniform, was Tristan Brawn. One hand on his heart, the other outstretched to a scarlet-faced Paige Guthrie, he was singing.

The other students were staring or snickering behind their hands. The teacher, Mr Emmerend, was staring at the blond young man as if he’d grown antlers. Paige’s jaw had hit her desk, and Angelo looked like he wanted to hit Tristan. Hard. In the teeth. His expression was gritted, like he’d swallowed something that didn’t taste too good.

But I can’t help falling in love with you!"

Tristan ended up on his knees, on the desk, begging position, blue eyes fixed on blue eyes. He opened his mouth to say - or sing - something, and the chime of the bell rang out in the corridor, startling them all out of the stupor they had been immersed in.

"Right," declared Mr. Emmerend, totally ignoring Tristan on the desk, now that the boy had stopped singing. "Next lesson we’ll be looking at Edgar Allen Poe, so be sure to read The Raven before the next class. Dismissed."

People scattered, most of them grinning as they passed either the blushing Paige, or the boy getting down from the desk. A couple of the guys punched Tristan lightly in the shoulder as they passed, and the blond boy shook his head, like he was clearing it from a daze.

Jubilee was waiting at the door for Angelo and Paige to come out. Angelo slowly rose from his chair, still glancing over at Paige who gestured for them to go. Her expression indicated that she had words to say to her boyfriend. The Hispanic boy with the grey skin shrugged and exited the classroom.

"I can’t believe Rat-boy did that!" Jubilee hissed to her companion as they hurried down the halls towards the next class. "I mean, he’s obviously got it bad but…"

Angelo grunted. "He was showing off, chica. Half the girls in the school - all those that haven’t already declared their hearts irrevocably Jono’s - are gonna flock to him like bees to honey!"

"I’m more in shock that he got up on the table and sang!" Jubes pointed out. She didn’t quite share Ange and Jono’s absolute dislike of the human boy. "I mean…singing?"

"Hah!" Ange said with a curl of his lip, "I could sing better than Rat-boy there!"

Jubilee opened her mouth to agree with him - Tristan had sounded, if not like a dog in pain, horribly close to it - and found her mouth saying something that she had totally not expected!

"Give it to me baby!"

Angelo looked at her bewildered for a minute, before an almost panicked expression came upon his face and he replied: "Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"

"Give it to me baby!" Jubes couldn’t stop what her mouth was saying - and people were staring.

"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!" responded Angelo, almost helplessly.

"Give it to me baby!"

"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"

And together the pair of them chimed: "...and all the girlies say he's pretty fly - for a rat-boy!"

Out of nowhere, there came a burst of background music - and Jubilee looked around at one of the students who was manning a portable stereo and had the volume turned up…playing Offspring.

Jubilee had a moment for a mental wail in realisation that there was something in this beyond her control before Ange began singing the first verse of the song…with changed lyrics:

Jubilee wanted to wince, wanted to run, wanted to scream for it to stop - but whatever it was that had her in the grip of its music hard and fierce and would not let her go!

Evidently Angelo was trying to stop singing, but it was kinda like in The Mask, where the Mask is singing "They call me Cuban Pete…" and then the female cop starts to join in - looking horrified, but unable to help herself. Now Jubilee knew exactly how the woman felt!

By this time, more students had turned up to listen to the pair who had stopped in the middle of the corridor, trying to work out what it was that had suddenly possessed them. Jubilee saw Ev’s stunned face, and Jono’s bandaged one as they pushed through the crowd just in time to hear the third verse.

"Now he’s singin’ on the tabletop, to music by The King,
He might be rich and pretty - but he sure can’t sing!
We say he’s tryin’ too hard and he ain’t good enough,
But in his own mind he thinks he’s got the right stuff!"
"Give it to me baby!"
"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"
"Give it to me baby!"
"Uh-huh! Uh-huh!"

An unfortunate young man standing opened his mouth and spoke the bridge line in a deep voice.

"Uno, duos, tres, quattros, cinquos, cinquos, sais…"
"So don’t debate, a lover straight,
but we all know he doesn’t have it anyway!
He has a put-up feel to keep it real
for Paige - no way!
For Paige - no way!
It’s Tristan Brawn we hate
Ain’t gonna compensate,
And whatever Guthrie thinks of him
for her he doesn’t rate!
We don’t need wannabes!
Don’t want no wannabes!
And Brawn is such a wannabe!
So Paige, Paige
Do that dumping thing!"

And that simply, whatever it was that had possessed them, left them to deal with the laughter and applause of their peers.

Jono and Everett appeared swiftly, to pull the bewildered pair down the corridor to the stares and the points of their classmates.

"What the hell was all that about?" Everett demanded of Jubilee.

Jubilee shivered, "I wish I knew!" she wailed, wiping sweat from her brow onto her Powerpuff Girls T-shirt. "Rat-boy was singing to Paige in the classroom and…and we were just saying that Ange could sing better’n that…"

Down the hall, there was the unmistakeable sound of two people singing - from the tones of the voices, an operatic row. <You must be bloody kidding!> Jonothon snorted, his mental voice only reaching the other three, <What is this? Bloomin’ West End or somethin’?>

They hurried down a corridor towards their personal common-room…and suddenly emerged from a side corridor in the middle of a face off.

The singer was a husky young man of Mediterranean origin with a powerful bass voice:

"When you’re a Cat you’re a Cat all the way
From your first big gazette to your last dying day!"

Ev yanked Jubilee back into the corridor, "We’ll have to go around another way," he said. "If the Cats are fighting the Silvers, then we don’t want to get involved!"

"‘Cats’?"Jubilee demanded, "‘Silvers’? What the hell are you talkin’ ‘bout, Ev?"

<Gangs,> Jono said shortly as he took a series of turns down corridors that Jubilee was willing to swear she’d never seen before. <This may be a private school for rich kids, Lee, but y’get cliques and gangs as much as a public school in the London dregs. They jus’ don’t resort to knives when push comes to shove.>

"Yeah," Ange snorted, "They sing instead! Something in this school is sending people muchas loco, vatos."

They weren’t bumping into any more singing students, and Jubilee was just about to ask if Jono was using his telepathy to ‘scan’ ahead of them, when they turned a corner and bumped into Paige. She opened her mouth to ask what the hell was going on - Jubilee could see it in her eyes, and Jono took her arm, <This way, sunshine.> His personal nickname for her rolled off his tongue without thought. It was probably the first time he had called her that in quite a while considering the frost that had been between them since Paige had begun going out with Tristan.

"Don’t call me sunshine!" Paige sang at him sharply, pulling her arm from him like he was poisonous.
"You got some lovin’ Jono, that’ll never do!
Y’know ah don’t belong to you!
It’s time you knew ah’m not your sunshine
- ah belong to me…
so don’t call me sunshine!"

She probably would have sung on, except for that a grey membrane stuck itself across her mouth, and Ange moved closer to her so that his hand was actually over her mouth and not just his skin. "Let’s move, vato," he nodded to Jono, deferring to the oldest of them as the leader in this situation. "Best not to say anything right now…we’ll just start breaking into song."

By the time they got to their common room, Jubilee was willing to swear that Jono was scanning ahead - they walked down a dozen corridors and didn’t meet anyone with a musical bent.

He held open the door for the other four, wordlessly, and they preceded him in. Behind them he shut and locked the door.

<What the hell is goin’ on?> He demanded, dark eyes looking from Paige to Angelo to Jubilee. <First yer singing in the corridor - somethin’ about Rat-boy, and then we have people all over the school singin’ like their hearts gonna break in two! And then sunshine, ‘ere,> he gestured sardonically at Paige, <chucks a ‘Mariah Carey’ at me!>

"I don’t even know the song I was singing," Paige gasped in protest.

Angelo shot Paige a quick glance, and sighed, "In the middle of English Lit., Rat-boy got up on his desk and began singing like some choirboy." His eyes flicked over to Paige, "Elvis. ‘I can’t help falling in love with you’." His mouth twisted, "He didn’t quite have the moves down, though. He looked like he was in convulsions of pain."

"It was … sweet," Paige said hotly, her irritation with Angelo finally breaking through. "Even if I would have preferred something less public!"

"Yeah, you’d say that, Guthrie!" Jubilee snapped. "I mean Rat-boy’s just so perfect - he’s sweet and thoughtful and rich and handsome, and wow, he has no compunction about blackmailing us…"

"Hey, I made the choice myself to go out with him…"

"Yeah, after he confronted us with being mutants and intimated that it would be issued on the school bulletin…we shoulda let Monet drop the train on him like she offered…"

<This isn’t the time for discourses on Rat-boy,> Jono interrupted harshly, and the four others stared at him, bewildered. Jono had never passed up a chance to snipe at Tristan since Paige had started dating him. <What I want to know is why everyone’s in such a singing mood!>

Ev looked like he was about to say something, and Paige looked at him, waiting for his opinion. He opened his mouth…and began singing.

"It's 10 o'clock on a Thursday,
The regular crowd shuffles in
There's a young man standing next to me
Who’s without his chest and his chin..."

Jubilee slapped him hard across the face and Ev’s head snapped back. "Jeeze, Jubes! There was no need to hit so hard!"

"Y’think not?" Jubes demanded sarcastically, "When you’re goin’on like Billy Joel for crying out loud!"

Jono said dryly. <Looks like everyone else has had their little musical number today, I’m waiting for my turn. Just as long as it’s not Oasis or the Spice Girls…>

Again, the others looked at him, the levity he was showing was way out of character. He looked back at them with level, dark eyes.

"Are you feeling okay, vato?" Ange demanded after a moment.

Jono shrugged, <I feel fine. I feel good.>

The other four stared at him. "And?" Jubilee demanded at last.

<And what?>

"It’s a song," Paige said. "By James Brown: I feel good…"

And the other three joined in: "Duh-na, duh-na, duh-na-na!"

Suddenly their mouths were all covered over with grey flaps of skin, stopping them dead.

Cautiously, the flaps lifted and Skin’s epidermis retracted. "Sorry ‘bout that, amigas," he said, looking a bit embarrassed.

"You’re forgiven," Everett sang suddenly, "Not forgotten…" Quick as a flash, a grey flap lunged to cover his mouth and he stilled.

<It’s getting worse,> Jono noted, with a momentary gleam of the eyes. <I wonder if Ms Frost is finding her day full of singers too…>

"Why would Miz Frost…?" Jubilee began, turning around with a frown on her face, then realised. "Oh, telepaths, right?"

<Right.> Jono frowned, <If Monet was still around, she’d probably be immune as well.> He paced one turn of the room, long legs striding precisely around the room. <Are we goin’ t’try t’stop this or just let it run it’s course?>

"Stop right now…" Paige began, and clamped a hand over her mouth before Angelo got anywhere near to silencing her. "I don’t even like the Spice Girls," she whimpered, appalled. "This has got to end."

<Any suggestions as to how to stop this?> Jono asked, <Short of turning everyone in the school into telepaths, that is…>

"Find out who’s singing. What they’re singing about." Ev said shortly, a faintly red mark beginning to appear on his dark skin where Jubilee had hit him. "Any common denominators…"

<Ask around - find the people who were singing and check them out.>

"We won’t have much time for investigating," warned Paige, "We’ve got training at two this afternoon…"

"If we’re not all sung out," Angelo added with spirit.

Jubilee sighed as she got up off the chair, "Jono and I are supposed to be in Art…we’re gonna be late as it is - we’ll speak with you guys later…"

As one, Angelo, Paige, and Everett opened their mouths to begin singing the farewell song from the Sound of Music: "So long…farewell…auf wiedersehen…goodnight…"

Jubes shook her head and exited the room, Jono behind her.

<You haven’t had a go at singing solo yet, have yer, Jubes?> He asked her, tucking his hands in his pockets.

"Nah. Only with Ange in the corridor…and the others in there." She thought about it for a moment, "I’ve got some latent telepathy - maybe it’s saving me from the worst of it all…"

<Be grateful,> Jono advised her.

"Oh, I am!"

They made their way through the corridors, dodging the worst of the singing - but couldn’t escape two girls who were intent on singing love-despair songs at Jono.

<Got yourself a regular groupie crowd, Starsmore,> Jubilee thought at him as the girls begged, pleaded and cajoled from behind them, and he glared at her.

<Shut-up,> he replied, shortly. <Ange is already on my case.>

<He’s not doing a very good job of it then!> She shot back. <Jeeze-louise! Get over Guthrie and move on! You could have any girl in the school - almost…>

<I told you to shut up, Lee,> he snapped as they turned in to the Art room.

Jubilee listened to the undertones of his mental voice and decided not to push her luck. She was very fond of Jono in her own way - kind of like a much-respected big brother that she could pester, but who didn’t quite know how to deal with her – but it wasn’t wise to push him too far, especially about Paige.

Art wasn’t much better than the corridor had been. Colossus had long since returned to the Mansion, and their Art teacher was exceedingly susceptible to the musical bug. They endured at least half a dozen operatic arias, and one or two students singing single lines in answers to questions.

Lunch was quiet - around them, people were bursting into song , but the team remained as silent as possible - and as low a profile as possible. They had too many secrets to be risked by the propensity to start singing.

"No common denominators," Paige reported after they’d left the cafeteria and were safely in their sitting room. "None that we can find," she amended.

"I reckon that people doing creative stuff are more likely to burst into song," Jubilee noted, glancing sidewise at Jono with a wince. "Our Art class was more about people singing than it was about Art." Suddenly she, along with the others, turned to Angelo who was humming.

His grey skin didn’t change colour, but if it could have, then it probably would have been flushing. "It’s not something that you can help!" He defended, the dark eyes resentful at their scrutiny. "Your mouth starts singing, and your brain can’t stop it…"

<And evidently even keeping your mouth shut doesn’t always work,> Jono noted.

"But it’s better than spilling the beans about being mutants," Paige said, forthrightly.

"Much better," Ange muttered.

They hung around in the sitting room as long as they could, until the last possible moment, then made for the door to get to their next classes.

As he opened the door of the sitting room, Everett reminded them that they had training that afternoon with Tom in the gym.

"I’m almost minded to skip it," Paige said, thoughtfully, "I hardly want to start singing in the middle of a danger room scenario…"

Jubilee snorted in reply as she headed off for Math, books under her arm. "How much can happen at training? The way Tom trains us, we’ll be too exhausted to do much more than pant…"

"Tom’ll be furious if we miss training," Ev muttered, "C’mon Jono." And the pair of them headed off towards their Math class without another word. Words were evidently dangerous for Ev right now.

"Training," Angelo grunted simply, as if that decided the matter. Evidently, Angelo was very sensitive about the possibility of his mutancy coming out. The colour of his skin was explained through a melanin defect, but as it was, many of the students carefully avoided him. The possibility of not only being labelled a ‘skin freak’ but a ‘mutant freak’ was not one that appealed to him.

If the truth be told, it didn’t appeal to any of them.

A couple of hours later, they assembled in the gym, clad in their Generation X uniforms, clustering together, almost as if for protection lest they begin singing again.

"Did anyone else get the ‘Two and two are four…’ song during Math?" demanded Jubilee as they met up.

Everett made a face, "We had someone singing times tables…"

<It seems to be getting worse,> Jono added. <I almost caught myself singing a couple of times…>

Angelo fisted one hand and punched it into the other. "I can’t stand this, amigas, everyone’s acting the family von Trapp, we’re in danger of having our secrets revealed before the whole school and we haven’t an enemy in sight!"

"Ummm…" Paige interrupted, blushing a little, "I hate to ask this, but…who are the Family von Trapp?"

The others looked at each other in disbelief, before Jubilee sighed, "Never mind, Hayseed. We’ll just have to talk to Sean and Emma and Tom and see what they can help us with - they can’t have missed seeing all the people singing in the school…"

Ev was about to say something else, when suddenly, music started blaring from the speakers in the gym: deep bass synth bounces…and then a deep evil laugh…

Like in a dream, Jubilee stepped into the middle of the room, fighting every inch of the way, but finally coming to stand in formation - right of Chamber who was centre stage, on his left was Husk, looking like it was taking every inch of her to battle whatever arcane thing had her in its grip. Rallied behind them were Synch and Skin, visible in the gaps between Husk, Chamber, and Jubilee.

The song was familiar - one by a band Jubes adored - usually. But singing to the Backstreet Boys was entirely different to being taken over by the musical-fairy to sing to the Backstreet Boys!

There was now way to stop it…there was no way to fight it…the musical bug had taken them over…

And it was, of course, at that exact moment, that their instructors came in.

"We’ve been training hard with this steam in my veins, alright!" Paige was the one who got to start off the song, her mouth moving and the words coming out, even through her evident struggles.

Jono was next - a line curiously appropriate for him…his singing voice wasn’t all that bad - even if his accent made the words sound strange: <But let me tell you now, there are prices to pay - c’mon!!>

Most of them - Jono was the exception - couldn’t hold a tune if their lives depended on it - and it showed most embarrassingly.

"All you humans can't you see? Can't you see?
How your fears will beome your reality
When your world is down
We can make it right
And that makes us larger than life..."

There was no escape. There was no relenting. Every move, every word, every bar, every note was moved, spoken, sung, played…

Their limbs were moving of their own accord, in the robot-like dance movements of the Backstreet Boys in the clip - Jubilee could see Jono and Paige in the motions of the dance; when the thing controlling her required her to turn around in a tight circle, she saw Everett and Angelo also punching and kicking the air as the movements required.

Emma’s jaw was on her chest in shock. Sean was open-mouthed and wide eyed. He couldn’t believe his Irish eyes. Tom was surprised, but grinning and enjoying the show for all he was worth.

"All you humans can't you see? Can't you see?
How your fears will beome your reality
When your world is down
We can make it right
And that makes us larger…
That makes us larger…
That makes us larger than life..."
Jono was the one to do the final wailing note that died into nothingness.

In the silence after the music finished, there was only the sound of their harsh breathing, and the stunned amazement of their teachers.

Then, in the silence, echoed the sound of someone clapping.

It wasn’t an enthusiastic kind of applause. It was the steady clap-clap-clap of someone who is being sarcastic about their appreciation. As they turned to see who it was, their bodies were suddenly theirs again. They shifted their poses, rubbing muscles and testing joints, and tensing themselves in preparation for facing whoever the perpetrator of this fiasco was.

"Well done!" laughed the young woman who was walking towards them. "Marvellously done, if you don’t mind my saying so…" She grinned, a twinkle in her eye, "Pun intended."

Emma turned so hard on her heel she almost overbalanced, "Who are you?" she demanded of him.

"Someone you don’t know," the woman said, laughing. "And you’re not likely to, either!" She was young, only a few years older than the kids themselves, and of Asian descent. She was also totally unconcerned by the fact that she was in the presence of seven powerful mutants and didn’t have any apparent mutation at all. "Did you like my musical?"

Blue eyes turned to ice chips, "You’ve been messing with the minds of the students at the school?"

"It’s not really messing with minds, you know, Emma. That’s your ability, remember? This is more like… like directing a movie! You have the cast," a wave of the hand indicated the eight people staring at her, "The audience," she waved a hand around to the empty air of the gym, "The crew…well…no crew in this case…and the Director." A brief smile, "Which is me!"

Sean growled, "I don’t know what ye’re on about, child, but ye’re certainly not playin’ w’ a full deck ‘o cards!"

The girl-woman took offence at that: "Hey, you should be glad it wasn’t Mojo, he wouldn’t have just stopped at having you performing musical numbers. You’d have been up on television screens about the world – and where would your Academy go then? Mutants in their midst – you’d have a riot on your hands." The ponytail flagged back and forth as she shook her head and muttered, "‘Mojo’. Now what kind of name is that for a villain! He certainly doesn’t have any!"

They were stunned silent by the way this woman’s mind jumped from topic to topic – she changed trains of thought exceptionally fast. Only Jubilee had the initiative to strike, spreading her hands wide and bringing forth her powers in a flash of brightly coloured sparks. "You like singing? I’ll give you something to sing about!"

The stranger frowned and wiggled her fingers strangely in the air before her. The sparks stopped dead in the air. "Jubilee, you’re not going to get anywhere trying to use them against me." There was a crackle of psychic energy through the room, "And Emma’s psychic bolt isn’t going to get anywhere either." She sighed, rolling her eyes in overdone exasperation, "People just have no gratitude these days…"

"You expect us to be grateful?" Angelo demanded, "For being taken over by this musical bug and forced to sing songs that we don’t like – songs we don’t even know?"

The expression of the girl turned thoughtful and she tapped a finger against one cheek, "Resentment in actors… Hmm… Good point. I’ll keep that in mind for next time."

"NEXT TIME???!?!?" The cry was despairing. A person who could force them to sing against their will – who could take over the will of the entire school population, who was able to defunct their powers at a base level and could casually talk of next time?

She grinned again, a broad smile in an oval face. "Well, maybe something different next time. Or maybe not at all. Certainly I won’t be putting in an appearance. Getting oneself in is almost as tricky as getting oneself out – but it was either put the blame for the whole biz on someone else – one of your usual villains, or take the flak, and I’ve always believe in standing up for what you’ve done. If you’re ashamed of it, why do it in the first place? Besides which, I couldn’t remember most of the usual villains."

"Alright, enough already!" Jubilee snapped. "You’ve had your fun, now go leave us alone!"

The expression turned sulky, "Okay. You can have your school back." She made some more finger-wiggles in front of her, and it was with a kind of surprise that Jubilee realised that it looked like she was typing into an invisible computer. "I won’t mess around with it any more… leastways…" the black eyes twinkled, "Not so you’d notice." Before they could ask her what she meant, she spoke again, brightly: "Have fun, m’dears!"

And with that, she vanished.

"Who the hell was that?" Tom asked.

"Someone with a nasty sense of humour," Jubilee complained.

Emma frowned, "She shouldn’t have been able to stop my telepathy."

"She shouldn’t have been able to stop Jubilee’s sparks, either," Sean pointed out. "But she could."

Paige’s brow wrinkled as she thought back over the conversation, "What did she meant about directing a movie?"

"Who knows?" Jubilee dismissed. "Probably crazy, like Sean said."

"She wasn’t a mutant," Everett said suddenly. "She was an ordinary human."

<That doesn’t mean she wasn’t enhanced,> Jono pointed out.

"No," Emma said with certainty, "She was fully human. No superpowers. Just the ability to…to change the world around us…"

There was silence as they pondered the strange intervention that had driven them for the last six hours and the person who had caused it.

"Well, she’s gone," Tom remarked, practical as ever. "And she said that the school was back to normal, so," he eyed the five children with a raised eyebrows, "I guess that means that training is on as usual, then!"

Angelo groaned.

It was a sound that they were all making by the end of the two hours of training. Tom put them through workout after workout until they were exhausted, told them to head back to their dorms and get a wash before dinner was served.

They meandered along the corridors to their rooms, a back way from the gym to the dorms so their costumes wouldn’t be seen or noted upon.

"It’s a relief not to have to worry about breaking into song," Everett said as they turned the corridor that led to their rooms.

"Although…it was nice to have Tristan singing to me in English…" Paige murmured wistfully.

Angelo was about to make some cutting remark about Rat-boy but was interrupted. <I’m just happy not to have to listen to you guys singing,> Jono remarked coolly before he vanished into his room. <You’re none of you easy on the ears.>

Jubilee shrugged, "I’m happy that things are back to normal," she admitted, turning to go to her next lesson. She bounced along the corridor, punching the air as she went along and sang: "GenX back alright!"

Quite deliberately, Angelo thumped his head against the wall.

A long way away, and yet very close by, a young woman grinned as she watched Angelo on her computer screen. "Writing is fun!!!"