fandomhigh | Hunting 101 - Class 9 (Wednesday period 7)

John was leaning against his desk as the class filed in, listening with a faintly amused expression to Blair who was going on at length about something that seemed to require a lot of gesturing and a fair amount of bouncing. The sign up sheet was in its usual place and beside it were several handouts.

The more observant of the students may notice that there was also someone who looked remarkably like Seely Booth only wearing more black lurking in the shadows at the front of the room. Those that are observant and also know him would recognise this person as Angel.

"Good afternoon," John said when everyone was settled. "I trust you all enjoyed your week off. Today we're going to be discussing the undead. The simplest definition of undead is something that is dead, but still act in some ways as if they're alive. You've been given a handout that lists a number of the more common undead entities you may happen to encounter. The biggest group, ghosts and spirits, we've already covered earlier so today we're going to focus more on things with an actual physical body still." He smiled slightly. "The walking corpses.

"The one thing in common that undead entities seem to have is that they're all missing something that living beings have. Ghosts are missing bodies, the corporeal undead tend to be missing heartbeats and breath at the least. And a great many of them are missing consciences and souls. Or whatever you want to call the essence that makes us human.

"That doesn't mean all of them are going to be amoral or evil, but it does certainly raise the odds considerably that they will be. Add in the fact that probably the majority of the undead can or do feed off of living humans and the chances are that any you run into are going to attempting to hurt you or innocents around you. And those are the ones we're discussing here today.

"With ghosts I was able to give you a list of things that are going to work, if not all the time, damn near it. That unfortunately isn't something I can do with the undead. There are so many variations and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Even the same type of creature can vary depending on origin and home dimension -- the vampires that exist where I come from -- which are described in the other handout I gave you -- vary significantly from the vampires in, for example, Miss Summers dimension." He nodded in Dawn's directioin.

"As for zombies, I have a list as long as my arm of various methods of dealing with them, none of which is guaranteed to work on every zombie. There are some basic things though that you can try that are more likely to work than not: holy water, silver, iron, wood inserted in various interesting and specific ways, and," he smiled, eyes seeking out various students who had shown pyromanic tendencies, "always a favourite, fire. Generally one or more of those will work in some way, though there are no guarantees. You'll have to experiment and do your research to determine what will work against any specific threat you face.

"Basically, the thing you most need to remember when dealing with the undead is to not take anything for granted. An example of that would be our guest speaker today," John turned to the figure lurking in the shadows, "Angel. He's a vampire so he can give you a sort of insider's view into what being undead is like. Feel free to ask him any questions you have." John's smile may have turned just a little wolfish.

When Angel had finished his part of the class, John said, "We're going to try something a little new -- a homework assignment. I want each of you to pick something that would be categorised as undead and then find out all you can about it -- how they're created, what they're said to do, what is said is to be effective defenses against them and why. Next week is of course the practical class so you've two weeks to get it done. If you have any questions about this, you can see me after class or during my office hours."

[ooc: ~~wait for~~ ocds are up. Have at it!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There was a long pause as though not only was Angel unprepared for Dawn to ask that question, he'd never actually asked it of himself.

"I've got a dog that I like," he finally said. It sounded a little lame even to him.

"A dog?" Well, that was a big difference from the Angel she knew. "Does he help you hunt demons and vampires?"

"He's a Lab, so he's mostly into fetching stuff," Angel said, starting to warm up to the topic like the proud papa he was. "But he's protective too. He thinks somebody bad's coming by, he sounds the alarm. Uh - by barking. Not literally with an alarm. We don't have one."

We? She decided not to ask in front of everybody. "How accurate is he?" Any help slayers could get, and all that.

"On the hearing or the bad guy?" Angel asked. "He's pretty good on both. Maybe as good as I am. Uh - not that I bark when I see somebody evil."

Dawn giggled at that image. "He can really tell good guys from bad ones? Does he have special training?"

"Just normal dog stuff as far as I can tell," Angel said. "He could figure out when I switched bodies, though. That might be related."

"Huh?"

"One time this spell - " Angel might've glanced in Bel's direction " - made me switch bodies with someone else. Sean could tell who I was even when I was in the wrong body."

Dawn may have glanced over in Sam's direction. "That's impressive, especially for a dog. So you'd recommend them for demon hunting purposes?"

"Dunno if I'd call 'em a requirement," Angel said. "But the right breed? Could be helpful."

"Would they get in a slayer's way?" Dawn asked without thinking.

Angel shook his head. "Not if they were properly trained. Sean doesn't get in mine."

Dawn wrote a bunch of notes and drew a little sketch of a puppy. She'd have to suggest the idea to Giles, then convince him that it wasn't just a scheme to get herself a puppy. "So, do you work with other people, or you the lone lonely guy?"

"I've got two people working with me," Angel said. Adding, mostly to himself, "Assuming they haven't killed each other yet."

"How does that work?"

"Mostly I try to make sure there's enough alcohol in the hotel that they forget that they want to kill each other. Either that or their aim's bad enough that they can't do it successfully."

Dawn gave him a funny look. "No, I mean, is there someone in charge of researching and someone else in charge of hunting it down, or does everybody do everything?"

"Ah," Angel said. "Logan's mostly in charge of talking to people because he's the only one of us who's good at it. All three of us take care of various aspects of the research and fighty stuff."

Dawn had never met Logan, so she didn't see anything out of the ordinary about this statement. Other than that she didn't know anyone named Logan. Hi, divergence. "Is there a part you're better at?"

"Fighting," Angel. "Super speed, strength, healing, and tons of practice. Cal's good with fighting too, but that's where you'd put me if we're looking at my area of expertise."

"Are the things you fight...are they bigger and stronger than you, ever? How do you handle it when that happens?"

"Oh yeah," Angel said. "Just gotta do your best to look for a weakness and hit 'em where it hurts."

"Huh." She doodled some more fur onto the puppy, then started drawing a vampire stick figure with its leg caught in his teeth. "Thanks, Angel. You've given me some stuff to think about."

Dawn still didn't understand his appeal, but she didn't think he was quite the butthead that Xander did and Spike had, either. That had to count for something.

Hunting 101 - Class 9 (Wednesday period 7)

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture

Re: Angel's lecture