See first chapter for disclaimers.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this. As usual, if you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy. RandR.

PREVIOUSLY: She-Ra: Princess of Power

Substitutes

Maddy Smith got to her history class a bit early, hoping to have some time to catch up with her friends after a full moon weekend. She hadn't seen Tom or Shannon since Thursday and wanted to talk to them. Unfortunately, the day so far had been rather hectic, and they hadn't had the chance. She smiled as she spotted Shannon going into the history classroom ahead of her and sped up.

Her friend was standing just inside the door, looking at a notice written on the board. Maddy read it and rolled her eyes. They had a substitute today, two actually, and they were going to be giving the class a special presentation. In her mind, special presentation equaled nap time, or at least it should. Their teacher had done this before when he had to be out, and no matter how boring the material was, he would expect some sort of report on it, just to prove that they'd propped their eyelids open.

The girls watched the two curiously and listened in as they chatted with the students. Both were Americans by their accent, and both fairly young and fit looking, though the man was missing his left eye. They seemed nice enough, but something about them made her nervous for a reason she couldn't put her finger on.

She looked around for the rest of her pack. Rhydian and Tom came in and she felt a little better for having them there. She took her seat as did the others. She tried to catch Rhydian's eye and saw him frowning as he watched the substitutes. Apparently, whatever it was about these two that bothered her, it bothered him as well. She wished she could talk to him about it, but there was no opportunity.

The rest of the class trickled in, and when the bell rang for class the two told everyone to get settled and did a quick roll call. The two had evidently done this before, and they got the preliminaries out of the way quickly. They then got the class' attention and managed to hold it. Quite a feat, Maddy thought.

The presentation's topic did manage to pique her interest. The two were talking about myths and legends. They made a point of bringing up werewolves and reviewing the wildly varying stories about them. Some of those, Maddy had to admit, were pretty ridiculous. The legends conflicted on some points and the modern versions of tales of lycanthropes were just plain silly.

"One thing most of the stories have in common," the man continued, "is that the transformation is only forced on the person during the full moon. That means that at every other point during the month, they're a person, same as anyone else."

The woman nodded. "That seems to be true even of your local legends. The Beast of the Moors has only ever been reported seen during the full moon."

"You think the beast is a werewolf then?" Shannon asked curiously. She had grown worried for her friends during the presentation, wondering what they knew.

"It fits," the woman shrugged. "Based on what the stories say, it could easily be a werewolf."

"Best be careful, miss," Jimmy laughed. "If there is a werewolf here, it's probably Rhydian; he's close enough to bite you."

The woman glanced at Rhydian, whose desk she had paused beside. Jimmy had meant it as a joke, but the woman was giving him an assessing look that made the boy very nervous. All he could do was meet her gaze and hold very still, suddenly knowing what it was like to be on the receiving end of a predator's gaze.

Then she shrugged and the feeling passed. "As long as you don't start humping my leg, we're five-by-five."