fandomhigh | Hunting 101

"Okay, kids," Dean said, taking a seat on the teacher's desk. Look at him being all teacherly. And nary a dodgeball in sight! "Today we're gonna talk about shape-shifters. The kind that can turn into anyone they want, not the ones that grow fur and fangs. Those'll be covered next week."

"I apologize to anyone who ate right before class, because this might get kind of gross," Sam said with his best puppyface. "Like Dean said, shape-shifters can take on the appearance of anyone they want, and the ones we're familiar with do it by, well, shedding their skin with each new appearance. Literally."

That got a smile out of Dean. Because he was a twisted individual. "If they see you, they can look like you. And if they look like you, they start being able to think like you. And we mean literally. They have some weird ability to get your memories and and mannerisms. Which makes them harder than hell to catch when they start killing people."

"Not all of them are automatically killers," Sam said. He was still determined to be the diplomatic one here. "But it's pretty easy to get away with crimes when you can change how you look whenever authorities get too close."

"Or impersonate the cop investigating the crime..." Dean shook his head. "Easy way to check. Cameras. They can look normal everywhere but on film. Their eyes glow like they're on fire or something."

"And, probably obviously, finding a pile of gross skin sitting around is a bad sign too." This was the anti-eating class, seriously.

"Oh, and teeth. Hair too." DAMN IT, BOYS. Dean clapped his hands together. "Alright, how to stop these suckers is simple. Silver works on them. If you're fresh out of silver... decapitation. Which works for a lot of things, really. When it doubt, remove the head and burn the remains."

"We're not going to have you practice that sort of thing yet." Suck it up, Dean. "For now, we're going to give you guys some cameras and have you practice your photography skills. Taking pictures when something strange is going on is always a good idea in general. Snapping good shots of suspicious people takes a little practice, so try to get your shots without stopping and focusing for too long. You might not get the chance to take your time."

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"Oh." Alec had no idea what teachers liked. "That makes sense, I guess."

Could you tell he'd never gone to real school before?

"I walked in on him in some kind of mental torture room once," he offered.

Raven blinked at that one. ". . . What?"

No one had warned her about mental torture rooms!

"Oh. Did someone not tell you about the dungeon from last month?" Oops. "We all got teleported somewhere. There were these rooms that were playing mind games and I guess I accidentally followed him into one."

Surprise!

". . . You were teleported into an evil dungeon?"

They should really start putting these things in the brochure.

"For about a week," Alec confirmed. "In our pajamas. It was stressful. You're lucky you missed it."

Edited 2013-06-05 22:17 (UTC)

"Does that kind of thing happen a lot around here?"

Alec shook his head. "First time, as far as I know," he said.

Although-- "Not long before that, there was a week when we were in some sort of alternate universe," he added. "It was a little dystopian. There was mind control and a dictator."

Spoken by anyone else, the understatement and casual tone would be funny; for Alec, he was pretty much just a literal guy.

"That sounds like something out of a comic book."

Oh Raven. If you only knew.

"I wouldn't know. I've never read one." Of course he hadn't. "It's very... Fandom. You'll adjust, probably."

It might even be good practice for her world, later on.

"So you think it's likely to happen again? Why doesn't anyone ever sue?"

Alec had never thought of that possibility. "Do you think people would?" he asked, surprised. "I mean, it's dangerous, but it's usually not any one person's fault when things go wrong. More just the island acting up."

Pause.

"Maybe the school has really good lawyers."

"I'm from a pretty rich area back home," Raven said. "It's kind of the first thing they do when things go wrong."

"Huh."

Alec thought about it.

"Anyway, it wouldn't be my first move," he said. "If everyone else deals with the... strangeness, it'd be a little uncomfortable to be the one person declaring that it's too much."

"Or maybe you're all just shell shocked."

...

"I guess that's also a possibility." Well. "For a lot of people. I don't think I fall in that category."

"Because you're a professional ghost hunter."

"Right." Way to go, Raven! "And it's surprisingly easy to adjust to all this. I'd chalk it up to adaptation rather than shock."

"Being from a world with mutants has probably helped me adjust, too. I can't imagine what it must be like to show up and not know anything strange from back home."

"My boyfriend's like that," Alec offered. "For a definition of 'strange' meaning 'supernatural.' He deals okay."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Mutants? Is that what you call them?"

Raven nodded. "My brother is into genetics," she said, leading with that off the bat this time to avoid unnecessary "so why do you know about all this, then?" questions. "He says it most likely stems from irradiated DNA from all the nuclear testing at the beginning of the century. Change the right gene and it can make you telepathic or a shapeshifter or, well, almost anything."

"Oh." That was certainly more scientific than what Alec could grasp. "That's... really different from how it is in my world. Are there groups of people with similar abilities? Or is it just random?"

"Well, there's not very many yet," Raven said. "And the ones there are are still hiding, what with the way people might kill them and all. So there's not a lot of data, just yet."

He nodded. "Well, it sounds really... confusing," he admitted. Science was not his forte, okay? "It must be really upsetting to go through."

"Learning science?" Raven asked, the small laugh in her voice showing she was joking. "It's not easy to be different. But it's who w-they are."

"Just - you know, if there isn't a common frame of reference," Alec said. "Where I'm from, you're either born as something different and you have parents who are it too, or there's some kind of... transformation process where I presume things are explained." He didn't really know how it worked for werewolves and things like that. "You wouldn't have someone all... surprised and confused about what they are."

That was surprisingly thoughtful, Alec.

"It must be harder for mutants you're from, that's all."

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Hunting 101 - Wednesday

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