The prawn shrugged noncommittally. She might be there one to host detention, it might be someone else. That was up for someone else to decide. Jack padded towards a closed door with a plaque that read “Campus Security”. A sliver of light filtered underneath. Jack popped the door open, gesturing for Alice to went. Another member of security sat behind the desk.

“Hey Chief,” the guy greeted, “Who've you got with you?”

“Alice,” the prawn said simply, “Caught her 'reaking curse-ew. Can ya get her written-up?”

“Sure.”

The prawn turned to the kid, her mandibles twitching. She patted Alice's shoulder. Just because she'd found someone breaking curfew, didn't mean her patrol duties were over.

“Go to slee’,” Jack said by way of a farewell, “I'll catch you around later.”

=//=

Alice's detention was to be served on Saturday, in addition to a few other students. Conveniently, Jack was elected to be the supervising staff. It was thus that the prawn found herself in the entryway, toting a clipboard and some tools for today's detention service. Lavender eyes cut towards the clock. The students had a little less than ten minutes until they'd be considered late.

Oh s---, oh s---, she was late, for her punishment that she kind of deserved. Why did she stay up so late playing games, or more importantly, why the hell had her damn alarm not woken her up. She'd only managed to throw on her clothes, basic jeans, a vaguely nerdy t-shirt and her jacket stuffed full of energy bars. Great start to you time here girl!

After Big Chief had basically lied for her, something she was fairly sure she could lose her job for, she really didn't want to screw around with the chance she'd been given. Especially since she still kind of fangirled a little about her. Jack was just so cool.

Sprinting through the halls, dodging the occasional surprised classmate or teacher, most who'd probably never seen her move at anything more than a leisurely walk, she was soon getting close to their meeting point.

Sliding around a corner and seeing the hulking figure, she slowed to a more casual walk and gave a half wave as she wandered up.

"Hey Jack, hope I'm not too late, got a little sidetracked this morning. You know how it is." Chances are she was pretty obviously freshly roused from bed, but hopefully the beanie covered most of the bed hair.

The prawn peered at the blue-haired student as she trotted closer, attempting to encapsulate an air of calm. Of course, the prawn was not fooled. Her antennae flicked forward, brow ridges drawn in scrutiny.

>> "Hey Jack, hope I'm not too late, got a little sidetracked this morning. You know how it is."

Jack inclined her head, giving a shrewd click.

"Cuttin' it close, aren't ya?" she countered. She shook her head, lavender eyes rolling in her skull. She didn't actually know how it was. Working two-and-a-half jobs (her hours at Chrysalis had dwindled), most of which entailed working nights, required timeliness in all facets of life. You had to be diligent about scheduling sleep, find time to workout and eat and, on rare occasions, decompress. She didn't have time to dawdle.

"Here," the prawn grunted , handing Alice an empty plastic bucket with a sponge, a face-mask, gloves and a sundry of cleaning chemicals, "Janitor is sick. Get to hel' clean dorn-itory restroon's."

Jack had a few more buckets of a similar persuasion, both for herself and for any other students who were serving detention. Lavender eyes surveyed the entry hall, accompanied by a contemplative hum.

Seeing no one else, the prawn nodded to Alice.

"Shall we?"

A grin followed the comment. "Oh I don't know, if I'm not late enough to be marked down it's a good day." Alice failed to mention that by far she was a better student than she liked to admit. At most she skipped one set of lessons and that was English. Strangely enough, getting taught a lower level of English than she was used to was kind of pointless for her.

Great, cleaning toliets. That was going to be a pain. Best not get caught next time obviously. "How long's this going to be by the way. If the schools wasting my time I'd like to know how much." Right now she'd probably prefer sitting in detention doing lines.

Is this really what the school thought was an appropriate punishment for breaking curfew? Pick garbage up from the grounds with tongs sure, even having to help in the kitchen she could see but cleaning up after people in the bogs? That was going a little far. "Wait, didn't you say the person present picks the punishment? Was this your idea Big Chief?"

No, she wouldn't would she. Scratch that Jack would, especially with her catching Alice with booze and covering for her. She'd pick the worst punishment she could to hammer the point home. Shame the only lesson she was learning was hide it smarter, not to stop doing it in the first place. Sighing and gesturing forward, "Lead the way then, lets get the fun over with quick."

This would suck. A lot.

Jack huffed at the quip, shaking her head. A humor glimmered in her eyes, but she wasn't going to give Alice the benefit of knowing that the prawn was amused. Cheeky kid.

>> "How long's this going to be by the way. If the schools wasting my time I'd like to know how much."

"'ro'ly all day," Jack remarked almost immediately, her mandibles flexing in a smirk beneath her surgical mask. It probably wouldn't take all day, to be honest-- it might take four hours, tops, but that still left the bulk of the afternoon open for merriments. That didn't mean that Jack couldn't have her fun, tough.

Jack shrugged as Alice pressed onward, seemingly indignant about the fact that detention entailed manual labor, rather than staring at a blank wall for six hours. She accused Jack of choosing the punishment, and the prawn huffed again. This time, it sounded more like a laugh.

"Can choose a little," Jack explained, "Can choose to has you sit in a desk sore six hours, drooling and s'acing-out and such. Udder choice is to do diss-erent tasks around school. Nore worse-while to 'ro'ide a ser'ice den to just sit around."

She didn't need to explain herself to a teenager. Jack nodded her head towards the residential areas, towards the bathrooms that needed attenion, "Cun on-- sooner we're done, sooner you can go do whate'er."

Obviously scrubbing toilets and wiping down mirrors would be the end of the world, for this one. Jack surveyed the checklist that the janitor had left them, trailing behind Alice.

All day.... ALL DAY!! "You've got to be pulling my f------ leg Jack, it can't be all day. That's just, cruel. And unusual. Thought you people had something in your constitution about that." Didn't they? She was hardly an authority on American legal documents and while she was playing catch up in history lessons, well the ones here were just soooo boring compared to back home.

She could understand doing a service, but did it really have to be cleaning loo's? Weren't there other, less disgusting jobs to be done. "Ah right, good to know I still get punished for the thing that shall not be mentioned." Which she was still glad about, to be honest. This just seemed like Chief was playing a joke on her.

OK so maybe Jack was messing with her, Christ she'd do the same if she was a guard and it sent a pretty powerful message. Don't get caught again. At all. Ever.

Following the prawns directions, with cleaning supplies in hand and dreading how this was going to go, at least the company would be cool. Sure Jack had sold her down the smelly river, but she was cool. Just doing her job if Alice could take a minute and appreciate it. "Fair warning, I might throw up depending on how bad they are. Oh and I'll need to stop for a snack bar about every thirty minutes." Yay for mutations. Why couldn't she have gotten something useful to counter balance the eating. Like laser eyes or exploding saliva or something.

"So apart from torturing poor innocent students, how do you spend your time. You know when you're not working." Alice was not probing for any specific information at all. Nope, she didn't want to know if the big blue beauty had a partner, or anything.

She really needed to find a girlfriend. These thoughts were getting out of hand.

As fun as it was to hold the threat of “all day bathroom-cleaning” over Alice’s head, Jack couldn’t keep a straight face about it. As one would suspect of any teen in a similar situation, Alice got self-righteous, declaring the punishment to be cruel and unusual, and citing the constitution of all things. Hey, it was better than expulsion. The prawn could scarcely contain the chittering chuckle that escaped her.

“Least you’ll ‘e close to a toilet,” the prawn mused, “Hel’sul sore s’rowing utt… dunno if ya wanna eat in dere, doh.”

Especially with all of the cleaning chemicals. The prawn followed the halls towards the residential wing. They’d have to start at the janitor’s closest, first, but then they’d likely start with the boy’s bathroom. (Jack imagined that it’d be worse than the girl’s room, so she’d rather finish on an easier task.)

>> “So apart from torturing from poor innocent students—“

Oh, this was gonna be good. Jack arched a brow ridge at the blue-haired girl, staring at her with an incredulous expression. She wasn’t lumping herself in that category, was she? Both of them knew how accurate that was, if that was the case.

>> “—how do you spend your spare time? You know when you’re not working.”

The prawn’s lavender gaze cut towards Alice, ascertaining that she was still following, before looking away once again. Jack was actually, genuinely enjoying Alice’s company. Which was not to say that she didn’t enjoy the company of all of the students, but Alice was particularly fun to banter with.

“Work at a nightclu’,” Jack grunted, coming to a halt before the janitor’s closet. A small, black plaque reading “Janitor” confirmed this. She reached into her pocket, fishing for her keyring, before perusing the tiny metallic pieces for the key to the janitor’s closet, “Also radder enjoy woodworking, ‘ut I don’t usually has tine to do any-sing… too con-licated.”

She didn’t talk about her personal life, with the students—most of the staff (at least those who bothered to broach the subject), knew Jack had a girlfriend, but it never occurred to the prawn to mention that kind of thing to a kid. Other jobs and hobbies were definitely conversation-worthy, though.

"Oh I was just planning on putting down a nice picnic blanket in loo's and just having a nice little meal," so she was being just a little sarcastic, who could blame her for that. the idea of clean loo's all day was not one she was looking forward to, no matter how much she may actually deserve said punishment. It wasn't going to stop her but, well she was thinking she needed to by way smarter about certain things. Or find a friend in the mansion who already had the hook up.

At least she was getting the impression Big Chief was not entirely un-amused by her grumbling. She was pretty cool, all things considered and Alice genuinely thought she was friend material, if they could get past the whole teen drinker thing. Or she got better at hiding it.

That wasn't a surprise and Alice had a pretty good idea what Jack did at a nightclub. She was big, bulky and a security officer at a school, it wasn't hard to guess she was probably a bouncer. Not many would argue with her when it came time to break up a fight or kick out a particular irate customer. Not that she'd argued with bouncers anyway, they could usually spot and underage kid a mile off and lets be fair, they were all a fair bit bigger than she was too. She was a skinny thing at the best of times and most of them, well they were cave men. And women.

"Wood working, that's pretty cool, you been doing it long?" Since she was so bad at creative stuff, she got really curious when people brought it up. There was also the fact she hadn't actually met someone who did wood working, so the idea was intriguing for the moment.

Since they were at the janitor closet, she assumed they were picking up some more supplies, "What do we need then, apart from the obvious rubber gloves and sponges?" Alice wasn't exactly skilled in cleaning a home. At all.

Oh God she was spoilt! She'd never clean a toilet in her life, it was always done by servants. Don't let them know girl, they can't think of you as some high class b---- who can't do anything.

“Since high school,” the prawn said simply, “Only ‘A’ I ezz-er got.”

There was a note taped to the door. The janitor had helpfully left a checklist and set of instructions. Empty all of the trash cans and replace with unused garbage bags, scrub toilets, wipe mirrors and sinks, scrub and hose-down showers, mop floors. Don’t forget the “Wet Floors” sign, and the bar that declares bathrooms “Closed for Cleaning”. Wait for students to clear-out. Thankfully, the janitor had left his cart for them, which was already stocked with all the necessary materials—various sorts of scrubby-brushes and soaps and solvents.

“Need diss,” the prawn said, awkwardly wedging herself into the closet in an attempt to push the cart out. After some fidgeting and adjusting, the cart was freed, and the prawn pushed it into the hallway.

Although this was punishment for Alice, she had no intention of leaving the girl to do the work on her own. It would be a joint effort. A collaboration.

“Guys’ roon sirst?” she asked, “Get duh worst o-zer wiss?”

It was commonly-held wisdom that guys were usually more untidy than girls.

“Glad dey lest a checklist,” the prawn murmured, “Ne’er done janitor stu-ss e’sore.”

You get get grades in wood working? Was that just an American thing or was it the same back home? That was pretty sweet though, she'd never really thought about it much but it kind of made sense. It took as much practice to be skilled in it as any scientific field's needed for studying. It was also artistic, which Alice loved! Probably because she was decidedly not.

The cart? Yeah that would probably help. Watching Jack struggle a little she helped wiggle the cart through the door, more than a little amused by the image of Big Chief in such a small closet. The world wasn't really built for so much awesome.

"Sounds disgusting but you've a point. From experience the girls isn't usually too dirty so it shouldn't be too bad." Never in her life, had she wanted to see the inside of the boys loo's. In fairness during high school she'd barely wanted to be in the girls either, too many b----y teenagers hung around there.

Checklist? Score! That always made tasks easier, left you a solid series of things to do rather than guess work. "I swear to god if my power gives me a quest for this I will official hate it." Seriously brain, don't you dare make fun of her now.

Well, it was behaving.....for now. It'd probably do something stupid in a bit.

"The boys are that way right?" pointing down a hallway, Alice had a decent idea about the layout of the mansion by now. Came with years of living with an accurate map apparently.

The prawn nodded her head at the sentiment. If anything there might be lipstick kisses in the girls' room. And the sanitary recepticles, but those were far less daunting than... guys' bathrooms overall. Alice remarked about her power giving her a "quest" for this, and the prawn uttered an inquiring chirr.

"What's your," the prawn flapped her hand, "Nyu-tation again?"

Had she asked that already? She could remember. Why would it give the girl quests? What did that mean. The prawn nodded up the hall, and the two of them progressed with the cart past the few students who had risen from their beds. Hey, it was Saturday-- early birds were few and far between, unless you counted the younger ones who got up early for cartoons.

Eventually they reached the boys' room, which was declared as such by a blue plastic sign. The prawn pushed the cart past the door and, certain it wouldn't budge, approached the door. With one hand she pushed the door effortlessly open.

"Any-un in here?" she demanded, not crossing the threshold.

"Yeah, gimme a sec!" a hoarse voice demanded.

"Here to clean, hurry utt," the prawn advised the unseen student, grimacing at Alice. The kid finished their business, came bustling out, and beelined for the door.

"Chief no way, you're the janitor too?!" the boy exclaimed, all gappy-toothed and grinning. His hair was in desparate need of combing.

"Gross, dude, wash 'er hands," the prawn said, her voice thinly amused despite the reprimand. She extended a foot, as if to toe him towards the sink.

"Fine, fine, fine," the kid went to the sink.

"Any-un else in here?"

"No, Chief."

It was the shortest hand-washing job ever, but at least there was soap and water. Jack allowed the kid past, who cheerfully held up hi still-dripping hands as he went.

"A'ight," Jack grunted, pulling out the sign that they could wedge in the doorframe, to keep kids out while they cleaned. The sign was passed to Alice, "I'll get cart. You do sign, 'lease?"

She really had to be more careful with how she spoke about her mutation, too many people were finding out about it. "It's kind of weird. You ever seen video games and all the health bars and stuff they have on the screen? That's basically my power. I have the power of nerdiness." Did kind of make her like the nerdiest mutant ever, her power itself was based on games. Still a little embarrassing to explain.

The dreaded boys room. Oh god why did it have to be cleaning toilets? Now she had to enter the one place in the mansion she wanted to see the least. The home of the dirty, smelly boys. Their domain.

Thank God Jack kicked out the only guy in there, though not after further proof that boys were just not as good as girls, she had to roll her eyes at the shrimp when the teen finally left along with a muttered, "Boys." Was there an all girls chapter of Xaviers? That'd be cool.

Taking the sign and getting it set up and grabbing the wet floor one as well and propping it up outside the door for later. It must have been needed for liability reasons or something but hey, at least that was an easy job.

Having a quick snack before they started, that should at least tide her over for a while, at least it was maybe an hour until her bar was completely empty. "So, what task do we start with? I'm guessing it's cleaning the mirrors or something." Hopefully it was a less disgusting task, something to ease her into the horror that was to come.

Gloves! No way she was doing this without gloves. Pulling on a pair of oh so fashionable neon yellow rubber gloves, she must have looked one hell of a sight. "Lets get this over with then, can't be the worst experience of my life." It'd be up there true, but a forced marriage kind of trumped everything else as far as life experiences went for her. Hard to find something that topped that.

Jack’s experience with video games was limited at best, but she nodded despite her lack of understanding. Her power was the screen of a video game? Huh. Okay. She’d just have to settle for not knowing. Once the boy was out, Alice set-up the sign bemoaning the tendencies of the opposite gender. Jack huffed in mild amusement.

“Showers,” the prawn reported, “Sanitize and den s’ray down.”

They could do that together. Jack looked at Alice appraisingly. At least she was capable of wearing gloves. Jack had no such luck.

“Let’s do it,” the prawn agreed.

By some miracle, the two survived, despite the assault of stringent cleaning chemicals, unpleasant surprises, and the occasional (attempted) interruption by students needing to use the restroom. It was an experience that both would be happy to never have to endure again.