Jon the Integalactic Gladiator: Class is in session

I stumbled off the campus to Springfield Heights Institute of Technology holding all of the possessions that I had with me. Actually, I was kindly escorted out by the college’s security force. And by “kindly,” I mean “forcibly.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been kicked out of finer institutions than yours,” I shouted/mumbled back at them. “I’ve been kicked out of Brown, Vassar, and McHenry County College.”

Well this is really weird, I know I was supposed to come here and talk to the kids that we recruited in our new secret society, I wrote it all down here on my hand. That’s weird, my hand appears to be all smudged. Weirder still, I appear to be talking to a small dog right now.

“What do you mean I’m not supposed to be here?” I asked the dog.

The dog yapped back at me.

“Xavier’s school? Sure I’ve been there.”

The dog yipped at me.

“Oh, I’m supposed to be there now? You mean our secret society of mutant recruits are all at the secret mutant school?”

The dog yapped at me again.

“What do you mean I smell like booze?” I demanded/ mumbled. “Well, let me explain something, I’m a Universal Lynchpin and I bet that’s something your dog mind can’t understand.”

The dog yipped and growled at me.

“Well, first I had to save the universe by having several pints of ale at a pub in Galway, then I had to realign the universe’s bearings within the multiverse by having a few more in Limerick. Then I had to have a few Black and Whites at Durty Nelly’s in Bunratty.”

The dog yipped and yapped at me.

“Well, it was a highly explosive mixture of Guinness and Harp,” I explained/hiccupped. “If I didn’t do something all of Ireland might have been destroyed.”

The dog barked.

“Because I have a cast iron stomach,” I explained. “That’s how come I survived.

The dog barked once again.

“What do you mean I’m repeating your questions every time I answer them?” I asked.

The dog yipped and barked.

“Because I’m a dog whisperer, that’s why.”

The dog yipped and barked and yapped and shortly thereafter, I was clothed, showered, sobered up, in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and standing in front of our new recruits.

“Good morning students, I am your faculty advisor Professor Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator. I am here to teach you all the history of our prestigious society.”

“Uh, you’re the advisor?” some melty kid raised his hand. “I thought Carrot Top was.”

“Right.” I answered/ grumbled. “I’m his assistant.”

“What are you a professor of?” another kid asked.

“Intergalactic Gladiating,” I answered quickly.

“Wait a minute,” another kid piped up. “Are you and Carrot Top even mutants?”

“Well sure,” I answered. “As I explained earlier, I have the mutant power to talk to dogs (which sure comes in handy when a dog is the generalissimo of our team), and Carrot Top has an innate superhuman talent for invention. He’s like Forge, but funnier… Well not that much funnier, I guess.”

“So you’re here to explain the rich history of our secret society of mutants?” another one asked.

“Wait, I remember you,” I said. “What’s your name again?”

“Hoo.”

“You.”

“I said ‘Hoo.’”

“Right, I’m asking you what your name is.”

“I’m Hoo the Owl Girl from the snowy north.”

“Ah yes, I remember doing that bit before. OK, to answer your question, our secret society of mutants is so secret, we don’t even tell anyone our name. So I’ll just refer to it as the Secret Society of Mutants.”

The kids nodded blankly.

“OK, now before I tell you our rich and interesting history, I need you all to stand up and raise your right hand to take the Secret Society of Mutants Secret Society Secret Pledge.”

The kids all complied and I silently mouthed the pledge.

“We didn’t hear that,” a boy who can turn into a basketball whined.

“The pledge is a secret, too,” I explained. “OK, now that you’re all initiated and sworn in, I’m going to give you the history. Our society dates all the way back to colonial America and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Hancock (who had the mutant ability to pull his gall bladder out of his body and use it like a bola) met up with Samuel Adams (who had the ability to spray delicious beer from under his fingernails) and they realized that they had a mutual kinship. They knew that in just two hundred years or so, mutants like them would be hounded and treated poorly for their trivial superhuman abilities by human and mutant alike.”

I paused to let that sink in.

“They formed the Secret Society of Mutants as a brotherhood, a support group, and as a superhuman adventuring team all rolled in one. They soon recruited Francis Scott Key, who could melt cheese (and only cheese) with lasers from his eyes, and Betsy Ross whose ability was to sneeze whenever she saw the color blue…”

“Wait a minute,” Hoo said. “Betsy Ross sneezed when she saw blue?”

“That’s right,” I nodded knowingly.

“But she made the American Flag, that has blue in it.”

“That just proves how much she loved her country,” I answered announcingly. “I couldn’t possibly do the same if I were her situation. Could you even imagine a flag made out of cats?”

The kids looked confused.

“Fast forward a few hundred years and our society has grown widespread throughout the country. There’s Bea Arthur who can eat gravel, Michael Jackson who has the mutant gift of dance, Farrah Faucett, who can cut glass with her nipples, and Karl Malden who has the power to make us laugh.”

“Excuse me, Professor,” Basketball Boy raised his hand. “Aren’t all of those people you just mentioned dead?”

“Er, well yes I guess they are,” I answered.

“Well, does that mean that since we’re in the society, we’re going to die?”

“What? No, of course not. OK, kids, time’s up. Get out of here.”