By Monday morning, Owen had learned all the basics of his new abilities and had mastered switching forms. Although with all his practice he may have been partially seen and had definitely spooked some of the people in the forest (yeah he had also learned to switch mindsets and was getting better at keeping himself from always saying that the forest was His). Monday morning also brought with it school, and he was hoping that no one else could tell something had happened to him over the weekend.
As he walked into the cafeteria before the first bell, he noticed his friends sitting at their normal table. As he approached the table he heard Stacy say “-They definitely do! Owen will help settle this!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him into the chair next to her, her long blue hair swinging in its ponytail. “Owen! Henry refuses to believe me and Alex that there’s a new cryptid in the forest! Tell him he’s wrong!”
“I only say that because we don’t have any solid evidence! It would be cool if we did, but I’m not going to just blindly trust internet conspiracies without proof!” Henry shot back, the brunette pushing his fellow brunette, Alex away from him. This caused Alex to huff, their shoulder-length hair moving with the movement.
“It’s not without evidence! There are multiple different accounts of people either seeing something or having the forest act all wonky this weekend! Owen, what's your opinion?”
Owen was in fact internally panicking. He hadn’t been prepared to be dragged into this particular conversation first thing in the morning! “I-I don’t really know? I haven’t seen anything on it yet, so I don’t have an opinion?” He lied to his friends. Forest give him strength, this wasn’t going to be anywhere near as easy as he thought. He let Stacy show the group various pieces of evidence that he had left this weekend until the first bell rang and they all had to split ways for their first periods.
By the end of the day, Owen had heard enough talk about his cryptid self to last a lifetime. He strongly regretted getting caught by so many people now. He’d even heard a group people saying how they were going to go cryptid hunting! He groaned at the thought.
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Not even the bus ride home gave him any peace! The two girls behind him kept chattering about how the cryptid might be ‘hot’, his poor aroace self had been so uncomfortable the entire time. Why are people like this? They couldn’t even be the kind of people that just wanted to catch evidence of the local cryptid for fame. He got off the bus as fast as he could.
The long trek from the bus stop was almost normal until a strange group of people, two men and one woman walked up and started asking him questions a few houses away from his. The three of them were all wearing the same outfit, it was sturdy but slightly formal, a mix of brown, grey and green. They were asking about the town, the forest, the cryptid, even about him (human him).
“Who are you guys? Why ask poor unassuming high school students?” After a shared glance the brunette woman stepped forward.
“We’re part of an organization that deals with nonhuman entities, called BNE or boundaries with nonhuman entities, our goal is to create peaceful deals with entities and to help deal with the more harmful entities when we have to. So establishing information from locals is essential," she explained. Oh boy, did he really make such a big impact that people like this were already showing up? “Allen! This isn’t a recruitment speech!” The redheaded man said to the woman, Allen(?).
“It could be Josh! Two birds one stone and all that. Hey kid, how would you like an apprenticeship?” The darker man with green-dyed hair exclaimed.
“Sorry about Josh and Jean,” Allen said to Owen, who was feeling rather overwhelmed. “We would accept your apprenticeship if you wanted” she said kindly, in the way Stacy’s older sister always spoke to him.
“Uhh . . . sure?” This was a terrible decision Owen! Why would you say yes?!
“Lovely, here’s the paperwork to sign up, we can collect it from you tomorrow after you’ve filled it out.” Allen pulled out a folder with a small stack of papers inside. “We can talk to you tomorrow, for now the three of us are going to go try to have a conversation with the local entity.”
“O-okay, see you tomorrow then?” Owen said as they walked away towards the forest.
Oh shoot! If they are trying to talk to him he should probably go deal with that. Or at the very least go see what the forest thinks. He rushes home.