The Occult Experience
Chapter Five
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The school day should be nearing it's end soon, or at least that's what Shauna thought. She had no watch, and the nether realms she traversed were generally sun-less. So telling any time that wasn't noon, or near enough, was an ability beyond her.
She was sitting against the tree outside the Skool building, reading more of the file the Other-realm had on Dib. Absolutely fascinating stuff, wishes from pig-overlords for toilet scrubbing, failed attempts to capture or photograph bigfoot (Though successful contact had been made with his child). There was also some mention of searching for The Goat sucker and other small hoaxes, but details were generally lacking. Chickenfoot though? Seriously? It was just some poor crazy idiot in a Chicken Licky suit...
She was going to have to have a talk with Dib on differentiating the paranormal, the abnormal, and the plain stupid. Especially long talk about that last part.
She was also going to send a glass of water to either Shin or Hatch. There had to be a reason why there were so many stupid people, especially with this kind of quality of stupid. Quantity or quality, there shouldn't be such a dense cluster of both.
She heard someone sit down next to her, and chanced a small glance over. Blue skin? Eyes up, ah, Shin.
"I didn't think I was going to get a review on my first day." Shin raised a red eyebrow, Shauna was rarely so flippant.
"Hatch wanted someone to talk with you, and he'd be here if he wasn't busy. Wants to know what you think of your kid, if you've come up with any plans yet, that kind of stuff. Where is your kid, anyway?"
"It's only been a day, I didn't even expect to get picked! You're looking at the wrong end of the spectrum if you want miracles... I think he's a good kid. Definitely misguided though, according to the report. He's all "givegivegive", not even able to stand up for himself. Has teen suicide case written all over it." Shauna flipped to another page, this one listing the people that had harmed the boy listed in descending order by level of threat. It was surprising and disturbing for his family members to be in the top slots, but frustrating in that it didn't list how they were a threat or how they'd harmed the boy. That was in another section entirely, two, actually.
The files were comprehensive, not necessarily convenient. Just like every other source of information in the world.
"Anyway, Dib's in that building there, but it's sorta like holy ground, bad idea going there." Holy ground was a subjective term. Bad for some, pointless for others, it varied from place to place based on whatever group made the monster. A church was no obstacle to a Yuki-Onna, and an oriental temple was the same to creatures representative of the Sins.
"We've also been trying to scrap together whatever information isn't in that folder that you could use. We're not finding much." Shauna clicked her teeth in annoyance. Arguably her least violent method of exhibiting irritation. "It's not like we're getting blocked or anything, so don't make that face. We just don't have access to all the information in the world, we can't pick their brains if they're not dead."
Shauna's teeth clicked again, because of what Shin said, or because of what she'd read, Shin knew not.
"I think the boy just needs someone to listen to him. At least that should help balance him out... Why was I chosen for this, Shin?" Red eyes dimmed slightly, reading but not quite seeing the words in the files before her. A muscular blue arm wrapped around her shoulder blades and pulled her against the side of her poorly covered fellow demoness.
"What's a' matter? Having second thoughts or somethin'?" Shin's other hand landed on Shauna's exposed skull, moving it back and forth in what almost looked like a noogie. Shauna's head moved in a near mockery of a bobble-head doll on a hyperactive spring.
"Nonono he-hey stop it!" Shauna pushed off the offending hand and glared at the overly friendly fiend. "It's more like first thoughts! Aside from killing them, I didn't deal with children... And I never had any... So I don't know what I should be doing to help Dib. I don't know what I should do to his sister. And here's the biggest thing Shin, I don't have any idea how to use most of these confounded contraptions!"
The lich forced herself out of the demon's grip and stood up, her spine cracking as she stretched and started pacing a short loop in front of Shin.
"They have these box-things in the room where they eat, four of them! And I only know what one of them does, but I don't know what the rest do, or how to use any of them. And there's too many other things that don't make sense. Horseless carriages, another box that produces sound and images, and countless other things I can hardly begin to describe! I understand the Ripper King's reservations after the Nny boy, but at least he knows how to exist in these worlds... I don't- EH!?" Shin grabbed her cloak and pulled her back to the ground, staining her cloak with spots of green. The blue demoness had started to say something, but there was a quiet ringing coming from the school.
"I'll be back later Shauna, and I'll try to bring the boss. Go help your kid, and we'll help you when we can." Shauna didn't bother trying to glare at Shin, by the time she'd turn around the demoness would already be gone. Instead she got back up, wiped the grass off her cloak, and walked over to meet with Dib as he slowly walked out of the school building.
Maybe, she hoped, they could trade questions instead of her just answering all of his.
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The walk back to Dib's home had been silent, barring the beeps and bloops of dying piggies. Even after returning to his empty domicile things had been quiet, Dib and his summon just sat in place in his kitchen, watching each other.
"So... Yeah." Dib tried and failed to start something, but he wasn't sure just where to start. There was just too much to ask, and no good places to begin.
"Yeah... Eh... What's that thing?" Shauna pointed to the biggest metal box closest to her.
"It's a fridge, it keeps stuff inside it cold. How are you moving? I mean, you don't have any muscles or tendon-y stringy things?" Shauna stood up and opened the fridge, her curiosity apparent in her actions.
"It's a kind of magic, but it's a little hard to explain. I will my hand to move up, and it moves up, so long as it's attached to my wrist, arm, shoulder and spine. If it's not stuck to the rest, it won't move. Knock off my skull, and it all just stops, probably falls apart, too. What's that thing do?" For the first time, Dib noticed just how pointed the liches phalanges were, most likely for jabbing or tearing.
"It's a microwave, it heats things up. You push the numbered buttons to tell it how long. This morning Gaz-" There was a quiet rumble coming from the other room, the vicious girl-thing must have heard her name. "sat right through you, but you can sit on the chair, open the fridge door, touch things, but nobody else can see you or touch you. How does that make sense?"
"I'm a little out of phase with your dimension. I can interact with it to an extent, but with enough force the things in this reality will go right through me. I guess you could say that I'm less real than everything else you see. And you can see me, along with everything else in... Frequency is the word I think, everything else from your 'Frequency' to the one I'm on. Supposedly there's certain technology-thingies that can see me too, but you're the only thing that can interact with me unless I intentionally phase down the rest of the way into your reality. So what's this one do?" Shauna picked up the toaster and pushed down on the lever, watching the metal inside turn red.
"It's a toaster, you put bread-things inside to heat them up, and I guess it burns it a little bit to make it stiff or change the flavor, y'know, de-POP!-pending on what you want. Do those light-thingies let you see? How do you feel, or hear or other stuff? You're kinda just bare bones and stuff, right?" Shauna paused in opening the oven door, apparently to give that question some thought. She almost knocked Dib out of his seat in surprise when one of the red orbs flew out of her skull and stopped right in front of him.
"That's... That's really disorienting, but yeah, I guess the red orbs let me see. I guess this is why that one guy always had his flying around like a hyperactive hummingbird. But you know, for the rest..." She tapped her fingers against the top of the oven.
"I really don't know, huh."
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AN/ This feels a lot better, a lot more complete than what I had up earlier. That's the fun thing about magic, you can use it to explain away anything you don't have a real answer for.