Xavier Cleans Up, Sort Of

Clean up garbage? Who does Jon think I am? I didn’t become the headmaster at a prestigious prep school so that I could clean trash. Clearly this was going to be a job for my henchman.

I summoned Arthur telepathically, telling him to bring a mop and bucket. He dropped the heat-seeking missile he was calibrating and flew to my side at top speed.

“You need me Professor?” he asked enthusiastically.



“Yes Arthur. I cannot complete this next challenge without your able assistance. Everything depends on you.”

“Gosh Professor! I’ll do my best.”

“Excellent. Now I want you to take that mop and start cleaning the stands. Be thorough. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed with a sharp salute.

Feeling rather satisfied with myself, I slowly backed my chair around to watch the others’ progress. My chair suddenly jerked violently to a stop. I looked down and saw that I had backed into a thick mound of dark leather. With a loud groan, the pile of leather got to its feet. He wiped the blood from his cheek.

“Ho ho! Now that was a good Hargh!” the thing with the weird forehead said loudly.




“A good what?” I asked.

“A . . uh . . battle! A good battle! Ho ho ho!” For such an ugly fellow he certainly was jolly.

“Were you one of the gladiators?” I asked.

He threw his head back and launched a giant wad of spit high into the air. The gooey blob sailed several feet before it made a rather disgusting splat on the stone floor. “Klingons would never debase themselves to battle for others’ amusement. We only fight for our own pleasure. Or to kill an enemy, of course.”

“If you aren’t a gladiator, then how did you get injured?” I continued.

“You are an ignorant savage, aren’t you? Watching war makes our blood boil. We have no choice but to start fighting whoever is around us. In this case that meant each other.”

He then pointed behind his row. Peaking around, I could see several scattered body parts clad in Klingon armor.

“I see. Well mister . . um . .”

“Klerg.”

“Yes, Mr. Klerg. You see the thing is, the arena is now closed to spectators. I’m afraid you will have to leave.”

The seven foot tall alien warrior bared his teeth and leaned in close to me. I have to say, his teeth were the most hideous shade of yellow I had ever seen. I felt the fire fish sandwich I had for lunch start to fight its way back up my esophagus. Klerg’s breath wasn’t helping either.

“Do you dare give me a command, human?!”

Fine. Clean up duty it is. “Police this area,” I ordered, reaching into his mind and removing any ego defenses. He nodded curtly and immediately reached out and ripped the mop from Arthur’s startled hands.

Turning to my sidekick, I saw that he was staring at me in a rather odd way. I quickly scanned his thoughts. He didn’t realize that I had used my psionic powers to control the Klingon. Better not to tell him or he may start to wonder if I’ve been controlling him too.

“All right Arthur,” I started. “What I’d like you to do is take the plastic bags Jon gave us and-”

“You!” a shrill voice screamed. “You made me lose!!”

I spun around and saw a mostly naked woman running up the stairs towards me. Witchblade!

“You shall pay for cheating me of my victory!”

The warrior woman lifted her arm and fired a volley of darts straight at me.



I took control of Klerg and had him dive in front of the deadly bolts. He crumbled to the ground.

“Now see here!” I said as forcefully as I could. “What on Earth makes you think I had anything to do with your loss?”

“Because my sword is sentient and told me that my mind was being messed with during the match! Now you die!”

The armor surrounding Witchblade’s arm grew into a long twisted sword that she raised over her head as she charged at me. I tried to reach into her mind but the consciousness in the sword was now resisting me.

Arthur, the ever-faithful sidekick, flopped out his wings and flew overhead. He dropped a plastic bag down around her. Momentarily confused about this strange attack, Witchblade whirled around, swinging the blade behind her, shredding the bag. Looking up, she saw Arthur hovering about her and she lunged at him. Arthur managed to swoop out of the way.

I switched the focus of my attack and went after the sword. I could sense that it was actually a trans-dimensional being of great power. As we struggled against each other, Witchblade kept leaping up and swinging at Arthur.

Probing for a weakness in the sword’s defenses, I realized it was the link between it and the girl. I unleashed a massive psionic feedback surge, which served to momentarily sever their connection. The sword and armor dropped off Witchblade and she stood there naked. Seizing the opportunity, I reached into her mind and erased any memory of my involvement in her gladiator match. And just for safe measure, I caused her to feel very friendly towards Arthur. I’d hate for her attempts at killing him to interfere with our detente.

Arthur, who was blushing like a virgin on prom night, offered Witchblade a plastic bag to wrap herself in. She seemed rather confused but did manage to put the bag on in an appropriate way.




By that time Klerg had gotten back to his feet. He seemed rather the worse for wear at this point but being the good warrior that he was, he joined in with our clean up efforts. Our crew scooped and scrubbed and in no time at all, our entire section was as sparkling as . . well, let’s just say it wasn’t as dirty any more.