Supernatural Powers: Class One, Spring Semester

[Kitty Callahan]

Kitty Callahan was really, really hoping that this semester would go better than the last one. She'd only had time for one class before an 'urgent matter' had required her immediate recall back to headquarters, and time flowed oddly there. By the time she'd returned, the spring semester was approaching. She'd sent a message back stating in no uncertain terms that she needed this vacation and couldn't bloody well teach if they kept hauling her back in for every little mishap.

So today she leaned against the wall by the chalkboard, absently humming a song by The Police and bouncing a SuperBall on the floor.

"...every little thing she does is ma-gic, everything she do just turns me on, even though my life before was tra-gic, now I know my love for her goes ooooonnnnn..."

If anyone with an enhanced sense of smell walked into the room, they would likely be able to tell she was chewing cinnamon gum.

[Susan Daunt]

Susan was definitely going to be the first one to this class. This was what Daunts *did*, using their gifts to solve problems and smite evil, and even if best suggestion Ms. Callahan had for her was 'cut things up with her knives harder', it wouldn't be a wasted semester by any means.

Thus, Susan Daunt walked into class with a smile on her face, dressed in a bright green dress and jacket, and with one of her long knives wrapped in warding cloth stowed in her backpack just in case the teacher wanted a practical demonstration of her training already.

[Kitty Callahan]

"Hallo," Kitty said as Susan walked into the class. "Congratulations, you're the first in, you get a door prize." She tossed the SuperBall to the student.

"What's your name, then? Got to make sure my roll's right." She picked up her pen and tapped the end of it against the desk rhythmically. She always had to be doing something with her hands...

[Susan Daunt]

The Daunt scion caught the ball with both hands and nodded, blue eyes taking in everything about the woman in front of her, "Susan Daunt. Are you Miss Calllahan?"

[Kitty Callahan]

"Daunt, with a D as in deinonychus. Ayup, here you are." She scribbled on her roster and looked up. "Yep, that'd be me - but the salutation is unnecessary. Call me Kitty, or Callahan if you wish. It's easier on all of us."

She looked around. "Well, I hope you're not the only one who shows up! Rather thought this class would be popular. I knew I should have named it 'How Not To Set Your Head On Fire'."

[Susan Daunt]

"I don't know," answered the Daunt Scion, sitting down behind a desk, "I've been set on fire and it isn't that bad an experience if you keep your wits about you. Sounded like an honest description of what we'd learn."

She paused, "Or what I'd think we'd learn anyway."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less sauntered into the classroom at the point where Susan and Professor Callahan were talking about other names for the class. He sat in the first row like his did with most of his classes, and gave a wave to the teacher. "Hello! I think I met you on the bus last semester," he said before promptly joining the conversation. "I've scorched myself a couple of times trying to light fires. Alpha was never one to mind giving practical lessons to pups who try to do too much too early."

[Damien Griffiths]

Damien knocked on the doorframe. "Hey, can I join even if I don't have anything to do? I'm just kind of interested in what goes on in the weird places of the world." He smiled. It wasn't in the least bit suspicious, oh no. And sarcasm was a deep hole in sar. Wearing three layers of clothes because it was 'cold', drinking tea while it was still practically boiling.

[Shihab]

Shihab headed into the classroom, grinning as usual, and swung into a desk near an aisle, making sure he had a clear path to the door-- too high up for jumping out a window, he thought, at least unless he could throw something together... anyway.

"Hullo! Is this the class where we learn how to make volcanoes out of palm trees, cyclones out of meteorites, and asteroids out of hermit crabs?"

Pausing, he actually stopped and registered Kitty's appearance. His grin widening a bit, he held up a right fist a la 'pound'. "Eh-hey, desert dwellers represent!"

[Kitty Callahan]

"I set my hand on fire once!" Kitty said cheerfully. "It was an accident, though." She turned to Less. "Ah yes, I think I do remember you...talking about Alpha and pups, you'd be Less, right? Cool." She scribbled that down on her roll call sheet.

She grinned at Damien. "Yeah, knock yourself out! Or don't - though I suspect that might happen in this class from time to time, haha! We're open to all, animal, vegetable, or mineral. Besides, even if you don't have any powers? This class'll teach you when to duck."

Oh! And there was another one! She turned to the guy who'd just slung himself into an aisle desk. "Well, yeah - if you ignore the law of conservation of mass. Which magic usually does anyway. But we're not going to get to that for a little while. Now...are you guys in Professor Freeman's class about theory? That'll save me some time, which is good, 'cause I hate the boring stuff."

When Shihab walked up to the desk, she paused, and then grinned wider than she had before. "Aw yeah. Fist bump it, bru!" she said, completing the pound, and 'locking' it.

[Shihab]

Shihab laughed and nodded cheerfully, sitting back down. Now this, this could be fun.

"I am indeed! Though I've got to say, it's pretty interesting stuff." He shook his head, a briefly amazed expression crossing his features. "Never thought I'd take so many notes in such a short time."

[Susan Daunt]

Susan grinned and nodded agreement with her classmate. Mr. Freeman's class promised to be very good and this class the application of a bunch of the theories they learned there.

"I like his voice. It's convicing," she admited with a chuckle, "And are we going to meet in here everyday, Mrs. Callahan? Or is there a practical part of this class?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

As Less absently began doodling in his notebook (a rather sloppy drawing of a rather tiny airport) with one hand, he raised the other in the air. It was about time to ask something that had been bothering him for a while. "Professor Callahan? How does one tell what's a supernatural power and what's magic? Or are they both magic under different names?"

[Kitty Callahan]

"Yeah, you gotta read the manual and know the rules before you start the car," Kitty said, nodding sagely. "And we can do a lot of the practicals in here! Although for some of the later lessons, we might need to move outside. Water stuff would work better by the beach. B-Y-O-towels."

At Less's question, she paused, leaning against the desk. "It really depends on who you talk to. Some lump them together. Others claim magic is perfectly natural, and thus by definition not 'super'-natural. For the purposes of the course name, I lumped 'em together, since 'Magic, Wizardry, the Art, Supernatural Powers, Innate Abilities, Not Setting Your Head On Fire, and Cool Stuff I Can Do That Isn't Quite Normal' is a little unwieldy. That's a debate for the theorists; I won't get into that. Not far along enough to even take a decent stab." She chuckled.

[Pieter 'Tomski' Tomachowski]

Pieter almost ran into the desks as he rushed into the room, he'd gotten lost on the way here and was now terrified he was late. "I'm sorry, Professor! I thought this was somewhere else but then I was somewhere else and this was here and it took a while for me to be here as well. I'm sory, I'm not late am I?" It was only because the main server had run the lights in the direction of the class that he'd got here at all. The school layout really was too complex, he'd have to learn it properly soon.

[Damien Griffiths]

Damien sat down. "Well, ducking's a good thing. Also, I personally wouldn't stick supernatural and magic together. there's a lot of things, and people, who have things out of the ordinary but do not actively use magic."
Like dragons. "Like shapeshifters: they're not using magic, but they can still chenge their forms, which isn't something everyone can do." He set his bag down at the desk, but suspected he might not need his notebook for this class. It seemed fun, especially since their teacher was very young - even though he knew looks could be deceiving.

[Kitty Callahan]

Kitty turned to see the new kid run into the room. "Ah, don't worry about it. Time's relative, and you haven't missed much anyway! Who're you, then?"

She nodded. "All right, fair point. Shapeshifters are tricksy things, they are - although some do use magic to accomplish it and others use...well, other means."

[Susan Daunt]

"Um, so what about those with a magical bloodline that lets them punch through walls and survive being punched through a wall without being hurt very much? What would you consider that, Ms. Callahan?" Susan ventured, wondering if this class was exactly what she thought it had been.

[Pieter 'Tomski' Tomachowski]

He nodded, just thankful that he wasn't getting in trouble for being late. "I'm Pieter Tomachowski, ma'am. The Technomancer, I do that thing with talking to and with machines. They said it was a supernatural power and that I had to attend this class, ma'am." He hurriedly finds a seat and looks about at all the different people here. There must be a lot of different powers represented in this room.

[Shihab]

Shihab flashed Tomski a cheerful grin. "Hey, roomie! W'sup?"

A Technomancer? Now -that- was interesting.

[Kitty Callahan]

She eyed Susan carefully, then nodded slowly. "Well, that's certainly a special ability, especially if it's passed on through genetics. I'd say anyone here who can do that is in the right place indeed." Keep it cagey.

"To-ma-chow-ski, gotcha," Kitty said, marking the name down on her list. "And a Technomancer? Hmm, that must be useful, love to have a power like that...maybe it'd stop my electronics from exploding so often." Though to be fair, she was pretty tough on her work equipment.

"Speaking of which, what's everyone here do? Come on now, guys, don't be shy. It's not weird. This classroom is a totally accepting environment."

She dragged a bag of candy out from under her desk. "And if anyone needs any incentive..."

[Susan Daunt]

"Able to punch through walls and be punched through them without being hurt very much, Ms. Callahan," Susan answered with a grin, "Trained by my family to use it to restrain suspects with lethal or nonlethal force as required by each suspect."

[Kitty Callahan]

"Ah, see, now that's useful, wish I could do that," Kitty said, nodding. "So your family...cops or something? Enforcers of the not-strictly-normal variety?"

[Susan Daunt]

"We help protect people from supernatural evil," Susan answered short and honestly, repeating the rote answer drummed into her head from the earliest she could remember. How nice. It sounded like she did belong in this class after all.

[Shihab]

Shihab grinned at the incentive. "Oooh, sugar!" He raised an eyebrow a bit at Susan's explanation of her family, putting two and two together with what she'd said at the tennis courts. When she'd finished, he sat up a bit, still not into the whole hand-raising thing.

"My powers are still growing, and I've been told they'll take their sweet time about it," he said, "So I'm not entirely sure how far they'll stretch. At the moment, I've got some shapeshifting power, and a little bit of elemental control, mostly over fire, and more or less useless." Anticipating a hyper-encouraging answer, he quickly added, "And I do mean useless-- the extent of what I can do seems to be ensuring that a spark catches, and occasionally directing a fire to burn hotter in one or two flames."

[Damien Griffiths]

"I uh... don't do anything. I'm just interested." Damien averted his eyes for a moment, then eyeballed the candy and went for a toffee.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less reached for a piece of butterscotch after an initial bout of disappointment that there was no maple taffy. Well, if Damien was going to say that despite positively reeking of magic, that was his business. Maybe it was something that was going to appear instead of having done so already. He did have to answer the other boy's complaint about his own powers, though. "That is still useful when the fire must be lit of you risk dying. Winter is a dangerous enemy."

Everyone probably knew already, but Less felt he should say it anyway. "I'm a werewolf. It's not magic so it counts as supernatural powers, right?"

[Kitty Callahan]

Kitty selected a piece of candy from the bag - a small watermelon-flavored lollipop - and shucked off the wrapper while Shihab talked. "Don't sell y'self short, man, a spark's better than nothing in the darkness. And it's probably good they'll take their own sweet time about coming in. Saves you from having a whole mess of power and not knowing just what to do with it. Less dangerous overall, also keeps me from needing to clean up any detached body parts. Mostly."

She eyed Damien, and said, "Right on, welcome welcome," but it was hard to fool this professor. On some things. On other things, one absolutely could. She fiddled with the wrapper, folding it in her hands.

Kitty grinned at Less. "Ooh! I've got a best friend who's a werewolf. Not strictly magic, no, but it's not something the ordinary man on the street could do. So you're in good company!" And she popped the lolly into her mouth.