Introduction to Law Enforcement, Monday

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, hello, children."

Lucifer was clad in an impeccable black suit with a red vest and - of course - matching pocket square. He was also clad in the world's broadest insincere smile. "My name is Lucifer Morningstar, though you can call me Beelzebub in a pinch if you prefer," he began, with his heavy posh British accent in full swing. "I'll be your - ugh, I can't believe this - teacher for this semester in all things law enforcement."

A pause.

"I am not a cop, mind you. No, the cops have their own ways of going about this sort of thing, they can just be so... limited. A tragic thing, because finding the wicked, punishing them, that's no small task for any human to bear. Sometimes you won't get where you need to be with a dour face and your best Miranda-ing shout, you need wit and charm and a willingness to trade some trivial bit of evidence for more insight."

He was keeping his distance from the children. They seemed hateful.

"But that'll be next week's lesson. I've been told by this lovely brochure that the first week is introductions and I don't actually have to do anything." He gestured at a random student. "You. Your name, your class, and... ah, I don't know. Someone wicked you've once punished?" His expression went... difficult. "Or just tell us what you desire most from these next few months, whatever suits your fancy."

He sprawled in his seat, eyeing the class with a mixture of casual disdain and genuine concern.

Comments

Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

Name, class, whichever one of those two questions you care to answer.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[intotheout]

Tip waved. "Um, hi. I'm Gratuity Tucci. Most people call me Tip. I'm a senior, and . . . I once helped keep a crooked politician from stealing a culture's first presidential election?"

She'd been twelve. One of the candidates was a parrot. Tip had lost all hope for American-style democracy even before the shit show in 2016.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

"Okaaaay," Lucifer drawled. "I'm not quite hearing the punishment here, but I'm willing to be convinced."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[intotheout]

"Um," Tip said. She was half-Italian. Making her go to church regularly as a small child was pretty much the only "normal" thing her mother had done. She was very uncomfortable with what she knew about the names the teacher had used. "Okay. I mean. I called him several bad names on interplanetary TV? And got him thrown into an alien prison. Is that punishmenty enough?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Uhhh, welllllll," said Prompto, slowly, because he still thought this was kind of a weird class for him to be in, but maybe it made a little bit of sense if you squinted hard enough, and he couldn't even begin to guess which one of the guys back home was responsible for this one, "my name's Prompto. Prompto Argentum. And I can't think of a time I really punished someone, like, actually wicked before?" Except perhaps just a few weeks ago when he threw his best friend and little sister into a torture chamber because he was brainwashed into thinking she was wicked, but, yeah, yeah, totally not bringing that gem up in class. "But I guess, uh, my...desire?...for the class is to just sort of make it out alive?"

It was all anyone could really hope for from this school these days.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

"Oh, don't worry about it, I don't murder humans," Lucifer said, with a pleasant grin that was probably only a little disconcerting.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[hashtag_chocobro]

"Uhhh, well," said Prompto, his head tilting just as much only this time just in the other direction, because, yes, he was very easily disconcerted, thank you, "that wasn't at all what I was worried about, but I do appreciate you taking care of the concern that I didn't even know I should have had. Also, dude, two of my best friends aren't humans, might not hurt to update that a little to just students in general."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[unusual_sith]

"Lana Beniko," she introduced herself. "I'm a junior. I may be part of keeping the law at home when I return there, so I thought I might find it interesting how other cultures do that."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

"Ah, explore the whole buffet, so to speak?" Lucifer clapped. "Excellent. I like how you're thinking, Lana. Pray, share with the class, how do they do it where you're from?"

Heh. It.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[unusual_sith]

"That depends on the Sith, really," Lana said. "Some will work with the local military and leave it mostly up to them, some will get more involved. And that can mean anything from being slightly intimidating to lightning or choking people to death. Personally, I'd prefer not to have to kill the people I'm protecting if I can avoid it, so the more options in my arsenal, the better."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[raisedbybooklice]

"I'm Elisabeth Scrivener and this is my first class," she said, not knowing any other answer to give. "I've never punished anyone wicked-" the other way around if anything, "-so I suppose the thing that I desire is to spend the rest of my life being a warden for Summershall?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer looked at her, nonplussed. "And... that is?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[raisedbybooklice]

"The Great Library of Summershall." Elisabeth said, proudly. "We're one of the six Great Libraries in Austermeer that keep sorcerous grimoires safely out of the hands of those who would abuse them."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[following_my_fishie]

"My name is Delirium and I'm in this class," she announced proudly, able to follow that question all to the end! "Um.. I don't punish wicked people much. That's not my job." She gave Lucifer a funny look, "That's kind of .. someone else's job? But not mine. I don't like wicked people much, though. They're mean. Well, mostly? Sometimes they're not mean but just scared or sad or hurt inside and confused and they do bad things and.. well. What was I saying?"

"You were answering what you'd done to punish someone wicked, or what you desire most from the next two months," Barnabas prompted.

"Oh," Delirium replied, "Um. I.. want to understand. That's why I'm in school. To understand people better." Beat. "I think."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

Oh, it was her again. That strange, disconcerting creature.

Lucifer righted himself. "Is it working?" he drawled.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium hummed a little tune to herself and fidgeted with the tattered sleeve of the fishnet top that covered her arms. Distracted for a moment by the way a thread had escaped and looked like a tiny black snake - hiss!

But she did answer. Even without Barnabas nudging her.

"Yes," she said softly, "Yes it is. Before, um. I know people who are mine? I know all of mine. I always know them. I know everything about them. They're easy to talk to because they've been to my Realm and sometimes even sorta always are so when I see them I always know them. It would be rude if I didn't. Very very very very very very verrrrryyyyyy very rude. Big rude. Mean rude. So I do. Only sometimes do I know people who are also someone else's. Mostly my big sister because everyone is hers, everyone at all is always hers, and sometimes my brother's too. Sometimes the twins. Usually only one of the twins. Our realms sort of overlap. She's nice. Most people don't think she's nice but she is. She takes care of people in her Realm just as much as the rest of us. Um. But. Um. Sort of.. her Realm.. um. Well. It's not a very nice Realm? It's not her fault. It's just how it is. She doesn't make it that way. I like the rats. Rats are nice, they're very smart and their whiskers tickle and their little squichy noses are cute. They gotta use their noses, you know. Their eyesight is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallly bad. Um."

She stared at the wall for a moment. Then continued. "Um. So. Yeah. I know them. I understand them. Those people. But those people are all sort of the sames-y sort of people even when they're different people. That's how it always is, you know. They wouldn't be there if it weren't true. So it's true. But I never really talked to the other more different people, the ones who aren't? Everyone's my sisters. Everyone. But not everybody's mine."

Another small hum. Pat of Barnabas' head. "The people here, they mostly aren't, you know. Even when other people think they are. They're not. I'd know. I'm getting to know them, though, in another more different way than I'd know them if they were. The how and why and what and who and everything of them. Sometimes they're nice and sometimes they're not so nice but nobody's been really mean that I've seen. They're all just people."

Fidget. Play with Barnabas' head again until he poked her with his nose. "But that's a lot, just being a people. Because they gotta be a person first, and person.. that's complicated. It's different and unique and messy for everyone. I won't ever understand everybody because I won't meet everybody. I'm not her, not my sister, she meets everybody. I don't. That's not my job. But here I can meet lots of different persons and that's helping me understand people a little better. A little itty bitty bit, a smidgen bit, an oonze bit, just a tiny little itty bitty bit of a bit better than I did before."

Beat.

"Yes," she said again, "It's working. I think."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[mylandmyrules]

Nell wasn't sure about this person joking about being the Devil, but there wasn't much she could do about other people's bad manners. "I'm Nell Ingram and I guess m'a sophomore now."

She had to think about the next part to try to figure out how to say it without saying too much. "Just before I came here, a man tried to hurt me on my land. Guess I showed him not to mess with me."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

"How?" Lucifer said, settling down on the edge of his desk. He gestured for her to carry on. "Details, child. We can't really learn what level everyone's on when you obfuscate."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[mylandmyrules]

Well, she wasn't about to tell him that she'd fed him to her land, now was she?

"He died," Nell said. "I guess I hurt him back some and then, well, he died."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"Illyana. Sophomore." Because why use full sentences. "My personal favorite was using a broom to teach a trucker about manners and little girls."

Belasco was too personal, and that trucker had been the last one before him. Illyana was still a little annoyed that Strange hadn't let her finish the job.

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

Lucifer leaned forward, looking delighted. "Oh, now I must know how."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"He perceived a debt where there was none, and demanded disproportional payment," Illyana said flatly. "I gave him a lesson in fear to discharge the debt."

"...I was interrupted before the lesson could be finished, but I'm pretty sure I'm now a vengeful hitchhiker ghost story on the I-20."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[axe2grind]

"Um. Jack. Jack Two, if you need a last name." Jack had never heard of any 'Lucifer Morningstar', but judging by his classmates' reactions, this was not a good thing. "Junior. And, ah..." He had so many conflicting deep desires for the next year, that what he blurted out next was, "I tried to murder a wizard with an ax? My ax. Not murdering him with his ax, I mean."

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[my_own_advocate]

"Well, good on you for sticking to personal property, I suppose," Lucifer said, waving that off. "You know 'tried' is the operative word, don't you? Did you at least scare the pants off of him?"

Re: Introduce Yourselves

[axe2grind]

Why did I say that? Jack grimaced to himself, then blinked at the teacher's response. Right. Um. "Yes? I mean, yes. We took him prisoner after someone stopped me. He didn't look very happy." He'd looked terrified, then scheming, so it didn't last long. "Not sure how it turned out, I ended up here a few hours later." He paused, then had to ask, "Everyone seems to know who you are, here? I'm sorry, but I didn't recognize your name."