Unconventional Tactics, Tuesday, Period 2

[raspberryturk]

"Yo, Rookies!" Why, yes, Reno was in an excellent mood as he sauntered into the classroom today. Why do you ask? "Funny thing, ain't it? I always had a hell of a friggin' time stayin' awake during history lessons, and here I am about to give you one?"

Well, Reno thought it was amusing, anyhow.

"Today we're gonna go over a few of them big, bad, friggin' lethal invasions we touched on last week. I went an' picked out a couple in particular, so we ain't sittin' here coverin' ones that were way too friggin' similar by the end of the day, yo. You can thank me for it later."

Or else smack him for dredging up old trauma.

"First one I'm gonna talk about is one that most of you weren't here for, lucky you. I'm gonna talk about that group of stone angels, sittin' in the preserve. They're different from most of our other invasions, worth makin' a note of, because this was the invasion where no matter how hard we fought, no matter how many explosives we set out or how hard we kicked 'em in the face or what magic we used, none of that worked. Didn't leave a scratch, never would'a. See, they're just statues, right? But only so long as somebody's lookin' at 'em. Moment you blinked, that was when the fun started."

Unlike usual, Reno actually didn't mean that these guys were fun at all when he said that. There was something friggin' unnerving about an enemy that you couldn't hurt, and that much was probably as apparent in his expression as the nose on his face.

"People started disappearing. Wasn't long after, we started gettin' letters from the ones who were gone, postmarked from places like London an' Paris an' Cairo, like a century ago. Takin' care of this one took a few different things, yo. Safehouses were set up here an' there, just places with lights on and a shitload of people too damn afraid to close their eyes to sleep. We had researchers in the library and on the computers, tryin' to figure out how to hurt them damn angels, and also tryin' to figure out how to get our people back. At the same time, we had people who were sent away, comin' back to us that many years older, tellin' us everything they knew about the angels, too. Once they all puzzled it out, we had to get the message to people in the past. In the past, gettin' our people home meant puttin' 'em all to sleep for all that time. Here on the island, takin' down the angels involved a bunch'a idiots walkin' backwards in pairs and blinking until the angles were all starin' at one another. We got some of the island's teleporters to grab our folks to safety, an' then a shield was put up around the angels so nothin' can move 'em, and nothin' can ever break the eye contact that they're makin'. After all, statues don't blink."

Reno hated those damn things.

"Next one I'm gonna talk about started with a paintball game, if I got my story straight. Gun club went on a field trip to an abandoned mall off-island, an' they were ambushed by zombies, yo. They managed to all get back in one piece, but the portal didn't shut all the way, an' next thing we knew, the whole damn island was crawlin' in 'em, and some of 'em were us." Reno did not look terribly pleased at that statement. He did not have good memories of his time spent as a member of the shambling undead. "They weren't all fun and games and musical instruments like the ones in the bar. Zombies tried to storm the dorms, and people had to fend off not just the ones that came up outta the ground, but also us. People got hurt."

And not just physically, which was a bit of a trend with invasions like these.

"Fixin' this one involved our research teams again, yo. People in the library, lookin' up what the hell was goin' on. Voodoo curse, turns out. Also turns out that the island's got a bit of a voodoo master livin' here, too. Not the last time a gremlin helped save the island, yo. After a bit of negotiation, we convinced him to help break the curse, banished the voodoo priest away so that this crap wouldn't happen again, and got to work cleanin' up the damage, yo."

Reno was doing that frowning thing, again. He didn't do it often, but when he did, it was probably a good sign that the little gears in his head were doing that turning thing that they occasionally did.

"Last one I'm gonna talk about, it was a bit different than all that, yo. Some crazy-assed island called Nemesis, somewhere out there, is kinda like Fandom. It collects people from all over space an' time and the universe at large, just like we do. Funny thing about it is, the residents of Nemesis wanted Fandom. An' their showin' up here kicked off a tournament to see who gets to keep this place. Some of us were paired off against people from there, an' demonstrating what we're made of in front of a panel of judges, we had to prove that in the end, Fandomites are the ones that are better at what it is we do, an' they can just go back to their own damn rock, yo."

"Now that I went an' talked about some of the island's trauma, we get to play discussion time, yo. I want you to each pick out one thing that you noticed these events might have in common, either the way we were invaded, the way we survived the invasion, or in the way we took care of it in the end. Anything you can think of that we might'a used in the past that's come in handy for the more recent things that we've been hit by? Anything you think we might end up pullin' out again for sure, just because we know it's tried an' true? If there's one thing I can say about the people livin' here, it's that we're capable of learning, yo. So... Tell me, Rookies, what is it we managed to learn?"

[Open and rambly, as is the way of Reno's classes.]

Comments

Sign In

[raspberryturk]

Historically!

Re: Sign In

[intraspective]

Yamanaka Ino

Re: Sign In

[awakestheghosts]

Chloe Saunders Who so needs more icons of different expressions

Lecture

[raspberryturk]

Sit, take notes, try not to be too upset if you remember any of this, or think about the more recent invasions, the ones that Reno didn't cover in some teddy-bear bid to avoid dredging up recent trauma.

Or whatever it is you do during a lecture, anyhow.

Re: Lecture

[intraspective]

Ino grit her teeth at the mention of the angels and refused to look up at any point during the lecture. She was just going to doodle.

Yay doodling.

Re: Lecture

[awakestheghosts]

Chloe was definitely here and taking notes. While she was glad she hadn't been around for the zombie invasion -- nothing like announcing you're a freak than by giving commands to dead bodies -- she couldn't help but wonder where those stone angel things would have sent the Edison Group and Lyle House bad guys.

She was also trying not to think about the phone call she had received a few days ago.

Re: Lecture

[brat-intraining.livejournal.com]

Researchers? Kennedy couldn't help frowning a little at that. Sure, she got the idea of knowing what you were going up against, it was just that she still wanted to get right into the fighting part and... every time? Really? She could totally hear the 'I told you so' from her Watcher now.

She could swear she could practically hear that 'I told you so' a lot.

Re: Lecture

[momslilassassin]

Ben remembered two of the invasions Reno mentioned and was rather glad to have missed the creepy stone angels.

He'd seen the statues on his runs and now would be avoiding them. You know, just in case.

Re: Lecture

[trigons_child]

Raven hadn't been on the island for any of that. She didn't want to imagine how she might've dealt with friends disappearing or turning into zombies.

Re: Lecture

[life_inshadow]

Tara had missed all of them, and was more or less glad that she had. None of them sounded like anything she could have been much help with.

Re: Lecture

[talks-backwards.livejournal.com]

Nooooooooooootes. So many notes. This was all magical somehow, she knew it. And yes, she knew Reno had mentioned voodoo. Zatanna had a number of pages filled with little notes and details and things she would be looking after later, and was trying not to be too enthusiastic, remembering some people had actually lived through that; she could do polite if she tried.

Re: Lecture

[imcalledandros.livejournal.com]

Andros remembered the invasions mentioned, particularly Nemesis and the Stone Angels. Neither he wanted to go through again.

Discuss

[raspberryturk]

Going from what you know about the invasions that Reno's mentioned, or the ones that you've experienced that Reno didn't bring up to spare you a three day lecture, what are some key elements that have gone into restoring our island to its former glory, time and again? Does your knowledge of invasions past affect how you think you'll handle the next one- Because this is Fandom, and you know there will be a next one- or do you think that every invasion should be dealt with as it comes, with no regard for the way things were dealt with before?

Re: Discuss

[intraspective]

"I think it's impossible to say that past invasions won't affect how you react to a new one," Ino said, glancing up. "You take how you reacted in one and apply the lessons learnt to a new situation. That's pretty much life 'less you're particularly dim."

And that was her being polite. Sigh.

Re: Discuss

[momslilassassin]

"But how things played out before can blind you to how things work now, too," Ben said. "When we had that other species of gremlin arrive, they were mean, not just poisonous. If you'd asked, say, Granddad about how to fight a gremlin, he'd probably have said to lock the door and wait for the venom to wear off while you're stuck singing showtunes, and that would have been useless information."

Re: Discuss

[glacial_queen]

"At least for the big invasions, not the smaller ones where nasty things invade for an afternoon, the need for fighters and researchers is pretty well split down the middle," Karla said slowly and not just because she worked with the Support Group. "Fighters keep the nasties off of us, keep us alive, while researchers figure out what's causing the problem and how to get our friends back. If we depended solely on one or the other, we might not have made it through any of them."

Re: Discuss

[life_inshadow]

"We need both. But none of them had an obvious pure magical solution," Tara said, going off Karla's point. "I'm sure witches helped, but it sounds like it's never, um, 'do a spell and everything is okay.' "

Re: Discuss

[talks-backwards.livejournal.com]

Being fresh from Fandom as its invasions, Zatanna had to wonder what was she going to do if an invasion happened while she was around. And considering she had four years to go, and Reno had only mentioned three...the odds were against her. "But how do you prepare for the unexpected?", asked, more or herself than to anybody as she made some more notes. "You can't just make every single spell you know and put your defenses as high as you can and sit back and...uh, build up stress while you wait for the next weird, probably dangerous thing to happen." And she was sure someone would tell her that in the meanwhile people just lived on.

"Although, the more you see, the less surprised you can be. Maybe. So that's something."

Re: Discuss

[glacial_queen]

"You could always dress up in a stupid costume and impede the efforts of the people who are doing the real work," Karla said sweetly. "While making snap judgments about people you don't know and situations you don't understand."

The TAs

[raspberryturk]

Who have both seen an invasion or two by now, so they're all qualified and stuff.

Re: The TAs

[awakestheghosts]

Chloe was here. She wasn't sure about the qualified part.

Re: The TAs

[need-no-moon.livejournal.com]

Jake thought he was qualified. It went right along with his lack of self preservation. Or something.

Anyway, he was here and kind of intrigued about these past invasions and stuff.

Reno

[raspberryturk]

Who is still in a damn fine mood, in spite of spending like half an hour rambling about shitty things that have happened, yes.

It might have something to do with how he spent yesterday at the zoo with his girlfriend, celebrating a three-year-old's birthday party. Aww.

OOC

[raspberryturk]

Apologies in advance if, like, none of that lecture made any sense at all. My brain seems to be doing this thing where it is insisting that I should be awake, but I should also spend that awake time staring at walls.

... If feels kind of like somebody lined my skull with shaving foam. Whee!

Re: OOC

[intraspective]

*admires that icon muchly*