jaegerbombdad

"Mr. Hansen?" Raleigh said, poking his head into the office. And wasn't 'Mr. Hansen' just the most horrifying thing to hear from him ever?

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Survey said...yes. Herc allowed himself to feel old for a moment before saying, "Raleigh, please, come in. What can I help you with?"

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"Mr. Skywalker said that you also knew about the San Francisco thing." You know, the one weird attack. Of which there were no repeats.

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"...yes," Herc said after a longish pause. "Yes, that did happen in my reality." Several years and kaiju ago!

Hopefully Raleigh would not think to wonder how he knew which 'San Francisco thing' he was talking about immediately...

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Well, it did stand out. And it had only just happened for him, so he was lucky on that one.

Raleigh nodded. "I just wanted--" Well, he wasn't sure. "I mean, this place is crazy enough. Everyone not knowing about that was just beyond weird."

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"Yes," Herc agreed, his voice soft and his eyes sad. Although in his case it was more of a blessing, too, the not-knowing, but he wasn't about to tell Raleigh that. "Yes, I can see how it would be. But you're not the only one who remembers it. This place is just a bit weird."

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"A bit? I'm rooming with a girl."

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"That seems like it would be..." a teenage boy's dream? "A bit awkward," Herc finally settled on. "I've been told whoever's in charge of the office may have a few screws loose." By someone who he was pretty sure was lying to him for some reason he hadn't yet figured out, but that part he could buy.

Edited Date: 2013-09-05 11:32 pm (UTC)

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Well, it would be a dream if she was less terrifying. And more drift compatible.

So.

"That doesn't surprise me."

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If Mako Mori showed up at this school, Herc would...he didn't know what he would do. "Apparently there's a moose?" In the office. He didn't even know.

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"Um. Aren't those dangerous?" Alaskan.

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"...I really wouldn't know." Australian.

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"They are," Raleigh confirmed. "They might want to do something about that."

Wait until they saw the teal deer. Pardon. Kaiju Blue deer.

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Based on what Herc knew about this place, "They'll probably give it a raise."

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"This place is weird," Raleigh told the guy he would be fighting Kaiju with in six more years time.

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"Yes," Herc agreed, perhaps more heartfelt than Raleigh would have expected his reaction to be. "Yes, it really, really is."

He hesitated for a moment, then said, "Listen, Raleigh, I find myself in need of an assistant. I've had one volunteer but apparently I'm allowed two, so, I don't suppose you'd be interested in the job?" This was totally not as terrible an idea as he suspected it was, right?

Edited Date: 2013-09-06 02:56 am (UTC)

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It was the worst idea ever.

"Really?" Raleigh was all over the whole 'bad idea' plan. "Sure. That'd be cool."

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Must be a Jaeger pilot thing. "Great," Herc said. "It's a deal."

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Zeela had given a lot of thought to just skipping this meeting because she hadn't come up with any better way to handle this in the meantime. But the problem was that she really, really wanted to take this class and if she didn't show up, Mr. Hansen would bench her for sure.

Plus, maybe if she were there, she could help obfuscate things a bit more?

Okay, she was grasping at straws now.

"Mr. Hansen?" she asked, lurking in the doorway. "You wanted to see me?"

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"Ah, Miss Morragen," Herc said, smiling at her, "good, yes, now that you're here I'm sure we can get this straightened out."

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"Uhh, sure," she said, giving him a weak grin. "That'll be great. Though..." Hello sudden inspiration! "...I'm worried the moose won't be very helpful. I don't think it likes me."

Okay, Zee had never met the moose before in her life. She wasn't even sure there WAS a moose, but people kept referencing it. But maybe that might serve as a good excuse for....anything. Who expected moose to be reasonable?

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"Well, the moose can be as unhelpful as it likes, as long as we get this straightened out," Herc said. "Surely the moose isn't the only, ah, person in the office." He was a military man. He knew a thing or six about bureaucracy and passive-aggressive clerks.

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"No, but..."

=Anyone? Anything?=

::You know I'm not good at lying!::

=Right. Zhahar?=

*I'm thinking!*

=Think faster!=

*Stall harder!*

"...Can I ask what happened to your arm? Did you get that fighting?"

SHE WAS TRYING HER BEST HERE!

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Yeah, that was pretty obvious, Zee. "It's a bit of a long story," Herc said, "and completely irrelevant. As I'm sure you know," he added pointedly. "Do you want to tell me what's going on here? Because if you're just trying to mess with the new teacher, I meant it, I'm the wrong person to try that on with."

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"Why would I be trying to mess with you?" Zeela demanded. "You're like the one teacher in this entire place that's trying to teach me something useful. I just hate the thought of being benched because my name isn't on some stupid list."

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"Then help me help you get your name on the list," Herc told her, "instead of throwing up roadblocks about a moose."

Edited Date: 2013-09-06 01:28 am (UTC)

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"It's not my fault there really is a moose," Zeela said, lowering her eyes again. "That's all on Fandom."

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"The point is not the moose, and you know it. This is getting rather ridiculous. We'll go down there right now and get this dealt with," Herc said, rising from his chair.

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Zeela didn't stand up from hers. "Wait!" she said, biting her lip. "We...can't. I don't--" She coughed nervously. "--I don't exactly go here. I use another girl's name to sign up for classes."

::What are you doing?!::

"Most teachers aren't really worried about it, so long as the number of students on the roster and the number of students in the class add up."

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"Well, I am," Herc said. "You could get hurt in my class, and--why would you even do that, anyway, that's a terrible plan. You're lucky you haven't been caught before, young lady."

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"Because I need to protect my sisters," Zeela said, sitting back and folding her arms. "And your class is the only way I can."

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"Then why aren't you actually enrolled in the school?" If they had a moose in the office surely their standards couldn't be that strict.

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"Because my sister is," Zeela mumbled, eyes downcast.

It wasn't an answer and yet it utterly was.

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"Is there some sort of rule against siblings enrolling at this school?" Wait. "This is a boarding school. Where are you living?"

Edited Date: 2013-09-06 03:36 am (UTC)

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Zeela slowly got to her feet. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked. "I mean, if I show you something that makes it clear why only one of us is enrolled and where I sleep, can you keep quiet about it? If you can't..." She shrugged. "...just say so and I'll leave your office and you'll never see me again. Okay?"

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"That's not something I can agree to with no information," Herc told her. "I hope you understand why. I have responsibilities to this school." And the secret could always be 'I'm a crazy girl who killed her sister and hid her in the closet,' for all he knew. "If it's not harming anyone, we'll figure out how to deal with it. That's all I can tell you without knowing what in the bloody hell is going on."

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Zee didn't like it, but she was pretty sure this was the best she was going to get. She heaved a sigh and explained, "You were kinda close when you linked the names, but I was telling you the truth when I said Zee is my first name. It's just short for Zeela, like you guessed."

She was rambling a little, putting the grand reveal off until she had to. Unlike her sisters, who had only told people they'd trusted, Zeela was telling the secret first and hoping the trust came later.

"Sholeh is the sister on the records," she explained, nervously playing with the hem of her shirt. Zhahar is our older sister. She's like me; going to school here without anyone realizing it officially." She should probably stop dragging this out. "I guess you'll probably want to meet Sholeh first?"

And then Hercules got to watch the delightful transformation as one sister faded and the other came into view.

"Hi, Mr. Hansen," Sholeh said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Umm, I hope you'll keep our secret?"

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"Okay, so you're a shapeshifter," Herc said, a little slowly because he was mentally adding 'shapeshifters' to his file of 'things that exist here.' "This is a big secret you had to drag me through two conversations about a moose over...why?" He would have thought it would have been perfectly normal here, with every other absurd thing.

Edited Date: 2013-09-06 10:44 pm (UTC)

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"Shapeshifters are one being who can take on many forms," Sholeh corrected. "We are three girls in one body. I'm Sholeh, she is Zeela, and our third sister is Zhahar."

*I'm not coming out,* Zhahar announced. *If this all turns to tears, at least we'll have one aspect he can't point out.*

"We are Tryad, the three-in-one." Sholeh looked at him, drawing up every ounce of courage she possessed in order to speak so sharply to a teacher, "And it is not your place judge us for our secrecy. Where we come from, people die when they're found out. Even here, we prefer to be careful. It's safer for us and everyone we left behind at home."

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"Young lady," Herc said, because he was no longer certain how to formally refer to these people, since one of them was apparently what he'd thought was a middle name, "I don't know what to make of you. First you treat me like you assume I'm stupid or gullible, then you ask me to let you continue lying to the administration and my fellow teachers, suggesting you still think I'm stupid or gullible, to just go, 'oh sure I can see no downside in that,' and that they all are, too. I'm not 'judging your secrecy.' I am annoyed. I hope you spun a better story to everyone else than you did to me."

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