Unconventional Tactics, Tuesday, Period 2

[raspberryturk]

Today, Reno hadn't set up any big, dramatic Danger Shop scenario that was intended to scare the pants off of the other students. Nope. Today, the Danger Shop was set up to look like a nice, normal classroom.

Full of wee, teeny, fluffy little bunnies. Please don't sit on them. They're too cute to die.

"Yo, rookies!" Reno gave the population of the classroom at large a grin and gestured to the seats that were set out before them. "Welcome to Unconventional Tactics, yo! I'm gonna skip the introduction crap for a few minutes, so I can let you all in on what this class is gonna be about."

He picked up a bunny and held it up for the class. It made big, adorable baby bunny eyes at them all, awwww.

"Sometimes, things invade this island. Those of you who ain't new know that much well enough, but I got a couple new faces in here too, so I'm gonna explain real slow-like, and maybe you won't think I'm completely friggin' nuts before it actually happens around here. See, Fandom Island, it ain't normal. Some days, they go by perfectly natural as you please, sure. And then some days, you wake up to shit."

That was the technical term. 'Wake up to shit.'

"I'm gonna break it up into three- Nah, into four categories, yo. Harmless, trouble, lethal, and what the hell." Again, technical terms. Take notes, kids. "First of those, harmless, is what you walked into here. We're goin' with weetiny bunny invasion, because... Weetiny bunnies. They can be interchangeable with little donkeys or elephants, miniature sheep, toy-sized soldiers... Anything that you can blink at an' go, 'Well, shit, that's weird,' and then keep goin' on your day around. Maybe they get annoying, because let's face it, they're small and underfoot all friggin' day, but they ain't hurtin' nothin', and they'll probably be gone on their own before you wake up the next mornin', yo."

He put the bunny down, grinned at the class, and clapped his hands. Thank you, Danger Shop, now all of the bunnies... weren't. Or, rather, they were still bunnies, yes, but now they had a look in their eye.

"You wanna keep outta the reach of these ones," Reno noted. "Here's your next level, yo. Here, we got Trouble."

He reached for a pencil, and moved to poke the rabbit that he'd set on the desk with it. It made a growl in the depths of its throat, and then it launched itself at the pencil, reducing it to splinters with razor-sharp bunny fangs of doom in about two seconds flat. Reno, fortunately, was too fast for it, pulling his hand back in a blur that was too fast to be natural, and then holding up his hand. All of the evil bunnies in the room, which had been silently advancing on the students, ground to a total stop.

Ah, how he loved pause.

"Trouble, you might think is harmless, at a glance. The island likes to play with your heads that way sometimes. You walk outside, and the ten adorable friggin' rabbits you're lookin' at all launch themselves at you and try to rip off your friggin' arms. Or you open the fridge, and evil vegetables come fallin' out. Or there are harpies chillin' out on the roof, and they wanna throw shit," this was not in the most vague sense. Harpies really did throw shit, "at you and maybe claw out your eyes for fun. We get that now an' then. It's easy enough to avoid, yo. Stay inside. The dangerous stuff usually don't hit inside the dorms. But it's somethin' that can be fought off. Give the fighters on the island a day with it, and it'll take off for the hills by nightfall. All you really gotta worry about is bein' careful."

He grinned. "Look down." And, if students did, they would see that they, for just that moment, seemed to be the gender opposite of what they might normally be used to. It wasn't real, it was simply Danger Shop illusion, but it was probably damn convincing. Especially since Reno was what he'd like to refer to as the Hottest Lesbian Ever when they looked up again.

"This is your what-the-hell level," he shared, winking at the class, and then holding up his hand again, so that everything returned to normal. "It ain't necessarily an invasion, but it's friggin' weird. I'm only includin' that one so that you know, Fandom is capable of breakin' reality just to mess with you. That's half the island's charm. And stuff like that? Like wakin' up with the wrong plumbing or as somebody else entirely... That shit can follow you home." And it had been fun to torment the boss with his cleavage that one day, too, yes. "Ain't gonna hurt nothin', but you wanna be prepared for that, yo."

And then, with a wave of his hand, the room was all harmless bunnies again.

"The last one, Lethal, is the one that the rest of the semester is gonna focus on. This ain't the stuff that you're gonna wanna laugh off later. This is the nightmares. This is the stone angels with fangs that haunt you in your sleep two years later, this is the zombie infestation that turned you an' half your friends into meat-hungry corpses. This is the time Hades tried to turn the island into Hell, or a few weeks ago, when reality itself started to break. This is the one that you're gonna need help for, because there ain't one of you that can handle it alone."

He looked over the class, and then nodded a little.

"Rest of the period, introductions. Name, grade, and one invasion that you saw or heard about, either here on the island or back home. I'm Reno, I'm teachin' you, and I think you already got an idea about the invasions I been through, yo."

He picked up a bunny, set it in his lap, and grinned, pointing at Chloe and Jacob if they were there. "Rookie Junior, Jake, you're with me this semester. The rest of you? Get to it, yo."

[Wait for the OCD or the bunnies will eat you! OCD is up! Roster and syllabus are here!]

Comments

Introductions

[raspberryturk]

Pretty straightforward. Name, class, and an invasion that you've got some knowledge about, or some experience with. Any of the above levels will do, so long as there was an invading force involved.

Yes, even the little kids from the future alternate realities. They totally invaded.

Re: Introductions

[awakestheghosts]

"Chloe Saunders, sophomore. Invasion, the one with the creepy fog and the dinosaur things from the ocean."

Re: Introductions

[raspberryturk]

"You know, I missed that one?" Reno gave Chloe a crooked little grin. "Gonna have to read up more on that one before we get deeper into the semester, but it sounds like people had an interestin' time of it, yo."

Re: Introductions

[life_inshadow]

"Tara Maclay," Tara began, with a slight glance to Kennedy. They hadn't had a class together ... ever? It might be ever. "I'm a j-junior. There were monsters who invaded, um, a few weeks ago. I m-mostly saw mean dogs and really big bugs."

Re: Introductions

[raspberryturk]

Reno nodded a little, giving Tara an encouraging sort of smile. See? Reno could be encouraging when he wanted to be.

It helped that his students were his rookies, at least a semester at a time.

"Yo, Tara. I missed the dogs, unfortunately. I wound up where them huge roaches and scorpions came from, yo. But that was sure a hell of a time, wasn't it?"

He didn't mean that in the 'oh, awesome!' sense that he'd been looking at it as at the time, no. He at least understood that other people weren't so great with bloodied up mutant monsters trying to kill them as he was.

Re: Introductions

[intraspective]

"Yamanaka Ino, senior."

See, she could do this.

"The angels." Flat. Flat flat flaaat. Years later and that was still the first one that leaped to mind.

Re: Introductions

[raspberryturk]

Reno actually frowned a bit at the angels. The angels were the one thing the island had pulled that had scared the shit out of him.

"The angels," he agreed. "With any luck, we won't have to deal with them again, zoto." A pause. "Good to have you in my class again, Rookie."

Re: Introductions

[mathletenomore.livejournal.com]

"Lindsay Weir. I'm a junior," Lindsay said to the class. "I was here for the break in reality a few weeks ago. I saw things that I wish I could forget."

She shuddered slightly.

Re: Introductions

[raspberryturk]

Reno frowned a bit at the shudder, and he nodded.

"You stay around here, at least? Or were you one of the ones that got swept away?"

Re: Introductions

[trigons_child]

"My name is Raven," Raven said, "and I am now a junior. I have been in Fandom for over a year now, and I have experienced many invasions...including when many of us were transported to the vampire-ruled Fandom." Yes, that was always the first one in her mind, even a year later.

Re: Introductions

[raspberryturk]

"Missed that one, too," Reno shared, frowning a little. "I know a bit about it, word of mouth an' all that while I was back home, but I'll probably have to go diggin' through the library about that one before long, too."

Or he could just talk to Elena about it. She'd been there, and all.

"I hear it wasn't a hell of a lot of fun."

Re: Introductions

[brat-intraining.livejournal.com]

"Kennedy something you totally all know here really, senior." Huh. First class of the semester, and suddenly it wasn't as cool to say that as she thought it would be. A little more like holy crap. Her eyes occasionally flicked toward Tara as she spoke-- this class-together thing was a first. "My first invasion was the crazy vegetables, but, uh... kinda going with this last one, with the holes in reality, being the one that sticks out in my mind the most."

Re: Introductions

[vanillajello]

Again with the class that was useful yet kind of disturbing to be in. Kate was slouching in her seat most of the time, though straightened up when it was time for her introduction.

"Kate Gregson, senior, and... The gremlins. Not the regular almost funny kind."

She just went for something no one had mentioned yet. Also happened to be the only one she had actual scars from.

Re: Introductions

[need-no-moon.livejournal.com]

"Jacob Black. I'm a junior," he said. "The gremlins were my first invasion and then there was the one with those dinosaurs and those monkeypony-things. Which was sort of disturbing."

He was still sorry he didn't get a shot at Godzilla, he tended to lack in the self-preservation department.

Re: Introductions

[stylin-wizard.livejournal.com]

"Alex Russo and I'm a senior." Yeah, that was kind of scary to say. "As for the invasion? It would have to be the tears in reality." She couldn't get those damn crabs out of her head.

Re: Introductions

[glacial_queen]

"Karla, sophomore, and the first invasion I experienced was the alligators with bitey goldfish," Karla said when it was her turn. "Sounds funny, but they all had nasty teeth and I think the goldfish got flung at you and tried to eat your face."

She didn't remember it much. She'd been Craftless and terrified the entire time.

Re: Introductions

[momslilassassin]

"Ben Skywalker, junior, and we had a visit from dead relatives and friends not so long ago," he said. "It was certainly memorable."

Even if Mara hadn't come.

Re: Introductions

[talks-backwards.livejournal.com]

"Zatanna Zatara, freshman. Invasion...invasion...invasioooooooooooon..." Okay, so history had never been her best subject ever, and her father had been happier to teach her how to make coins come out of people's noses before going over America's past.

"Ah well, the Day D?" And now she had to remember what had happened there exactly. World War II, and the names and dates started to flow slowly. Hopefully.

Re: Introductions

[notmyownage]

"Claudia Donovan, Junior. I've been here for gremlins and monkey-ponies -- so, yeah, the whole bunny thing, got that memo -- and, uh. Well, like you said, the thing a few weeks ago." Claudia twitched. "That."

Re: Introductions

[pastmewrong.livejournal.com]

"I'm Effy, senior... The one that really stuck for her was the most recent one, but she didn't want to talk or think about that so-- "Heard something about the vampires. I was a cat." Safer to concentrate on the ones that weren't her personal trauma, it really was.

Re: Introductions

[swordsandsoccer.livejournal.com]

"Dolf," said Dolf, who felt stupidly out of his depth. "Uh-- second year? Invasion... there were some farmers." Farmers was the right word, yes? "They--"

He mimed an attack by pitchfork.

It was that, or refer to the whole swarming children's army as an invasion - though really, there had been times even he'd have to concede 'locusts' where it came to them.

Re: Introductions

[dontvotemeout]

"Jason Todd, I'm a sophomore, and I was here for the invasion of monsters that happened a few weeks ago." After a pause, he added, "Okay, technically I wasn't here because I was in a crazy version of Washington D.C. instead, but I was here when they first showed up."

Re: Introductions

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Triela. Senior. That incident from the end of the summer." Chronological recent!

Re: Introductions

[imcalledandros.livejournal.com]

"I'm called Andros," Andros said, "I'm a senior and for invasions, the Angels."

Re: Introductions

[oops-mbad.livejournal.com]

"Diana Hansen, Senior. And I don't know, the attacking food way back when was weird." Diana said with a shrug.