So while I was rewatching the first season of our favorite monsters, I suddenly got this idea in my head. There aren't enough fics for this series anyway, so let's see where this goes. :)

"This plan is fool-proof. You hear me? Fool-proof!"

Rachel sighed and put her head on her hands, bored to tears. "You know the University is never going to give you the funding back, Simon."

The monster hunter stopped his maniacal laughter and put his wrench down, stepping away from his latest invention. "Never say never, Rach. I can't go wrong with this one, and you wanna know why?"

She sighed once again. "No, but you'll tell me anyway."

"This device is programmed to turn human DNA into monster DNA. So when I activate it and step inside, I'll be able to turn into a monster and get the proof I need!" He picked up the wrench again, still laughing and muttering every once in awhile about his plan.

Rachel rolled her eyes and got up from the stool by the counter. "Whatever you say, Wile E. Coyote. You'll get that roadrunner one of these days. In the meantime, your cousin is starving! I wasn't aware I'd still be on the college diet when Mom forced me to move in with you!"

Simon scoffed from behind his machine. "Go out and get something then."

"With what money!" She pinched the bridge of her nose under her glasses. "You know what? Never mind. I'll scrape something together. Have fun with your science fair project." With a last huff, she grabbed her messenger bag from the front hallway and slammed the door behind her. She stuffed her hands in her duster pockets and blew a sharp breath to get her mop of brown hair out of her hazel eyes. "Stupid lamer cousin." If she had had her choice, all her frustrations would have been behind her. But of course, parental units are not always sympathetic.

"'I don't want you on your own in that neighborhood, mehmehmeh,'" Rachel mimicked, kicking a rock out of her path as she headed towards the nearest Taco Bell. "Nothing a switchblade wouldn't fix. I mean, living at that house is scary enough."

There was a rustle behind the trashcans of an alley she was passing, but she brushed it off as just a cat.

"No need to get jumpy like him. He's made a fool of himself enough without having it rub off on someone else."

Truth be told, she had been interested in monsters for the longest time. When she was little, big cousin Simon always had the best bedtime stories about the creatures. It was only when she entered high school that she realized he was taking it too far. Sure, the thought that they really did exist was intriguing, but he had let it consume his life. He was well past the age of meeting a nice girl and settling down, and all the money he managed to get had recently gone into that blasted DNA machine. It had reached the point that the employees of that particular Taco Bell knew exactly what she was going to order before she even got into the store. They even knew her name, and pretty much anything else an acquaintance would know. In return, she knew all of them personally too.

"Hey Sean," Rachel muttered as she walked up to the register and pulled out her scrounged up cash.

"Simon's on another kick, isn't he?" the blonde-haired boy asked. He had been in a few of Rachel's college classes, and so knew her a bit more than the others in the store.

"As always. You're on break now, right?"

"Of course." He went into the back to fix himself something to eat while Rachel sat in her usual spot, looking out into the alley next to the store.

It didn't take Sean long to join her, pulling her from her drifting mind. "He's still putting together the DNA machine?"

"He's putting the finishing touches on it now. He swears the thing works, but I honestly doubt it."

"Ah, give the guy a break. He's sacrificed a lot to try and prove his theory."

"So have Bigfoot and Martian enthusiasts."

Sean rolled his eyes. "Humor me for a second. Say monsters really exist: why wouldn't the machine work in that sense?"

"In that sense, the DNA structures have to be different. From the drawings Simon's got up on the walls, all the monsters look different. One's like a stripy stick, another's a big potato thing that holds its own eyes, and there's a red bunny-thing too. Oh, and some kind of strange four-legged one that wears red high heels." She finished off the rest of her taco. "Point is, we have a set DNA strand. Their… species, race, whatever, they don't."

Sean frowned. "Well yeah, ours is set in the fact we walk on two legs and not four, but no one apart from sets looks the same. Everyone has differences in their strands of DNA. These creatures can obviously mate and make new monsters, since there's no real breed of them. So if that's possible, then I don't see how different their strands would be."

Rachel scoffed. "Simon's told me that they can pull up their own guts and grow three times their normal size."

"Um, all right, then yeah there's differences like that, but if they can all breed more monsters, then they aren't that much different than us. Besides being able to pull up our guts."

"This is all on the speculation that they're real though."

Sean was quiet while they ate their food. When she was finishing up, he broke out into a grin. "How pissed off will he be if we use that machine first?"