Mrs. Kimberly kept writing on the board.
Bill put his hand out without even really looking, and gently pulled Miz's hand back down. Miz huffed. She couldn't believe she got detention on her first day.
"It's fine," Bill told her. "We'll make friends in detention. We want to go there!" Bill told her quite cheerfully.
"...What was that?" the teacher said, turning around at the front of the classroom. (Bill hadn't exactly been trying to be quiet.)
"What was what?" Bill said right back. Lee was covering his face with his hands, unsure how this was all going to work out. (Except he already knew it wasn't. Having demons in school wasn't going to work out.)
The teacher narrowed her eyes at Bill. "What did you say, right before that?"
"I said, 'It's fine. We'll make friends in detention. We want to go there!'" Bill repeated quite clearly, which had the entire class staring at him again.
The teacher was staring at the new girl in flat out disbelief.
"...Detention is a punishment," the teacher said slowly, wondering if the two girls had been homeschooled, or something. (Had the transfer order said something about that? It had only gone through this morning, she hadn't really gotten a chance to read it thoroughly…)
"HA!" said Bill, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, looking triumphant. "No, it isn't!" he exclaimed, grinning.
The teacher pulled in another breath, and let it out in pure exasperation, passing a hand over her eyes (but being careful not to touch her makeup as she did so). Miz raised her hand. Mrs. Kimberly glanced at her. "Yes?"
Miz lowered her hand. "English isn't either of our first languages." she said simply. ("This is true!" Bill chimed in, happily enough.)
The teacher blinked at this. She glanced between the two of them, trying to figure out if they were both actually being serious or not. (They didn't have non-native accents, but...)
...Lord have mercy, if she didn't say something now, the girl and her sister would likely be racking up detentions the entire rest of the day, at this rate. And right now, the teacher wasn't entirely certain whether they'd actually all be deserved or not.
"A detention isn't a gold star," Mrs. Kimberly tried. "It isn't a reward for good behavior." She glanced between the two of them. "Do you understand?"
Miz nodded slowly, looking a little worried. She'd never actually gotten detention before.
Bill smiled and said, "Yes!" The teacher breathed a sigh of relief, until Bill said, "A gold star is a gold-shape, made of gold, with an intrinsic value. A detention is an artificial human concept that involves a piece of paper being handed to a student, who is then supposed to report to a room to sit in for a period of time starting after the end of a school day's classes, and if they do not do this then they get another piece of paper handed to them later, the next time they are seen by the people who handed them the first piece of paper in the first place, and are supposed to report to a room to sit in for a period of time starting after the end of a school day's classes!" Bill affirmed to her, showing that he understood what she was telling him. "It's fun!"
Miz blinked slowly. "Sounds like an inefficient use of time that could be spent doing homework." Were they allowed to do homework during detention? She didn't actually know what happened in detention.
"It can be spent doing anything!" Bill told her. "But sometimes the things end in yelling. Especially if you try to leave the room before they say you should leave the room. It's supposed to be like jail," he told her, "But with no locks on the doors, and no people with guns who will shoot you if you try to leave the room, and no innocent-until-proven-guilty system that is meant to prevent the absolute violation of basic human rights and decency as listed in the Constitution of the United States and thus leads to systemic abuses of the system for no good reason!"
"And no beatings!" Miz grinned. "At least, there aren't supposed to be beatings right? I think some schools still allow teachers to smack students with heavy objects…" She frowned. "Will there be beatings in detention?" she asked the teacher with her hand raised. She used to get her hands smacked with a ruler for drawing in class, back in Chinese school.
"If there are beatings, then I will destroy them first, so there will be no beatings," Bill affirmed. "But there are no beatings here, yes. I checked for that already. They do not do that here."
The teacher's gaze bounced back and forth between the two girls during this exchange.
She opened her mouth to say something (because had the taller girl really just brought up the Constitution?)--
And then the bell rang again, signalling the end of homeroom.
"English class next!" Bill said enthusiastically, jumping to his feet. "The insane usually audally-transmitted time-delayed voices of the damned, instead transcribed and related to others through a quasi-randomly-chosen set of groups of markings on paper! How fun!" He grinned.
Miz got up and pulled on Sixer's sleeve. "Show me where the classroom is? I saw the layout of the school but it would still help to have a guide." (Sixer, blinking and grinning as he packed up his notes on Demons and how they apparently understood human concepts, nodded. "Sure.")
Lee muffled his groan as he followed after his brother, who was dragged out of homeroom by the demons. Bill was still laughing loudly. Everyone was staring at them. (Lee DID smirk when he noticed all the jealous looks being sent at his brother when Miz pressed close to his side, though. Heh.)
"Oh, good lord," the teacher said, as she watched the four of them leave the classroom, looking on after them in horror as she found herself afraid of what else those two were going to do in their other classes.
And it was only as the rest of the students slowly packed up their things and filed out, she realized that she hadn't actually handed either of the two new girls their detention slips on paper.
The teacher sighed, shaking her head as she turned away and bent down over her desk to get ready for her first class of the day, when she was interrupted by--
"--Aha!" The teacher turned back around and stared at the doorway, where the taller new girl was pointing at her and looking… not quite triumphant exactly. The teacher pursed her lips, fully expecting the next words out of the girl's mouth to be, "HAH! You didn't give us our detention slips!" Fine, yes. She was supposed to give those out before the period ended.
"Yes, you got me," she acceded, turning away from her.
"Where are they?" the girl said next, and the teacher hesitated. She slowly straightened back up and said, "What?"
"The detention slips," the girl said, walking back into the classroom and right back up to her. "Where are they?"
"I…" the teacher stared down at her. "They're in the top drawer of my desk," she said slowly. "Why do you ask?"
"Give them to me," the girl said, and for a moment the teacher almost protested, angry and alarmed -- why in the world would she just hand over her entire pad of detention slips to some troublemaking-- "It's mine, you gave it to me, I want it. I and Miz get detention! You said so!" the girl told her before the teacher could read her the riot act, and the teacher's eyebrows went straight up to her hairline.
And the teacher stared at the girl for a long moment, as she stood there, arms crossed, looking impatient as she waited for her detention slip.
"...No," the teacher told her slowly. The girl stared at her, then blinked, and her face went a little slack.
"What?" the girl asked her, frowning.
"I'm not giving either of you detention. Go to your next class," Mrs. Kimberly said, because if the girl wanted it so bad, she wasn't going to get it.
Mrs. Kimberly wasn't stupid. She'd raised three daughters of her own. If something that was supposed to be a punishment was considered a prize, you switched it up on them, and made not 'punishing' them a punishment, instead.
"But--" the girl began.
"--No," Mrs. Kimberly repeated, just as firmly to her. "I am not changing my mind on this. Go to your next class."
The girl stared at her for a long moment. And then the girl huffed out a breath in annoyance at her, turned on her heel, and marched right back out of the room again. The teacher could just about see the frustration steaming off of her in waves.
Mrs. Kimberly smiled.
And then she let out a sigh and turned back to her desk again. ...Well, homeroom for the rest of the year was certainly going to be interesting. At least she wasn't going to be having either of them as students of her in any of her regular classes...
Hm. Actually…
------
"She said no," Bill informed Miz, looking frustrated as he caught up to his sister in the hallway.
Miz patted Bill's arm. "It's ok. We don't need detention to have fun at school." Well, then again, she'd never had detention when she was human, maybe detentions were actually fun? She wouldn't know. Lee was staring at them incredulously.
"Hm," Bill said, frowning and not entirely convinced of this fact(?) and/or opinion(??) just because Miz said so.
Miz admitted, "I never had detention the last time I was in high school and I still had fun?"
Bill eyed her sideways. He looked away from her again.
"Fine," Bill said huffily (again, still not all that convinced that Miz was correct about the levels of fun involved in this). Then he brightened up as it occurred to him: "We could find out where the detention room is and go there anyway!" and at this, Sixer glanced over.
"Well, I'm sure you could ask Mr. Moon when we get to English?" Sixer told them.
"Yes," Bill said, grinning. "I shall use LIES to ABSOLUTELY get what I want this time." He nodded once firmly, while grinning twice as wide as before.
Lee felt like crying.
------
Bill stomped out of English class, looking even more frustrated.
Lee had a headache by this point. (Sixer was stifling giggles, having WAY too much fun observing the demon, the jerk. Could he take it seriously! This was serious!)
"I… I can't believe you got in an argument for the entire hour with Mr. Moon over how you deserved a detention slip!" Sixer wheezed out. They'd even been arguing in Shakespearean couplets for a good twenty minutes there, just because Mr. Moon had said that Bill had to match him in doing it for at least as long as he could, in order to show him that he really deserved one. --A detention slip, not a gold star.
"His soliloquy on the merits of gold stars was stupid and not factual," Bill complained. "And also stupid. --And Romeo should have checked for breathing with a mirror!" Bill complained further (...which had Sixer stifling giggles all over again, because Mr. Moon had still managed to work the topic of the class into the hour-long argument, too).
"The entire point of the play was that teenagers were illogical and do stupid things in the heat of the moment without thinking things through." Miz pointed out. Which… was a fair assessment for teenage drama. Seriously, Romeo was a hormonal drama queen. Then again, from what she'd seen, all humans were hormonal drama queens.
"THERE WERE TOO MANY ILLOGICS IN A ROW," Bill complained. "And the nurse should have kicked in the door! And where was Romeo's nurse!" Bill said caustically. "In a society full of THAT MANY people THAT DUMB, for INTERNAL CONSISTENCY there should have been equal amounts of oversight of both parties! Otherwise, no teenagers who are being dumb always would EVER survive long enough to procreate. --Thus, no adults! --Thus, no more children! --Thus, no Romeo and Juliet to live even THAT long-enough to be THAT stupid, let alone EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!"
Sixer was delighted to listen to Bill's ranting all the way down the hallway to their Physics class, while Lee heard Miz muttering "Great, physics. That thing I'm constantly breaking. This'll be fun…" She sounded almost annoyed as she looked at the classroom.
Bill stopped in his rant when he heard the word 'physics'.
"...Physics?" Bill said to Miz. Then he blinked. "Oh, yes. The limited human sciences. Yay." He sounded far less than enthused about their upcoming class this time.
"You don't like physics?" Sixer asked him worriedly, readjusting his glasses. He liked physics. (...Was there something wrong with it that the magic-wielding demons knew about, that he didn't know?)
"Chemistry is more fun inside buildings," Bill informed him. "Because you get to BLOW THINGS UP!" he grinned, while tossing his arms up in the air demonstratively. As Bill never bothered to lower his voice, a few kids nearby shuffled a little farther away from their group.
Miz grumbled. "Energy cannot be created or destroyed? How rude. I'm creating energy all the time!" she muttered. "Acting like all my work means nothing…" (Sixer stared at her. She could create energy?)
"Energy to matter to energy," Bill hummed out. "So inefficient usually. Have to take shortcuts! Closed systems are a lie! And you shouldn't try to bypass the etherics ever," Bill scolded, "No-no-no!" (Sixer had his notebook out and was already scribbling stuff down as they all sat down in the front of the classroom. Lee tossed him an aggrieved look for riling up the demons even more on the way to the classroom.)
"Amuse me, mortal teacher," Bill demanded as the physics teacher turned around. "For I am happy to destroy your vile certainty in all things physical, for your ignorance offends my Sight!" (He was still in a bit of a mood from English class.) "Also, give me a detention slip!"
"Why?" Mr. Harman (the physics teacher) said, blinking at the new girl in the front row. (He'd gotten the paperwork from the office of course: two sisters, William and Miz. He wasn't sure why her name was William; he had thought it would be a brother and sister until he actually saw the two of them in-person. Interesting.)
"Because your ignorance offends my Sight!" Bill repeated. "I just told you!" (Miz smiled at their new teacher. "--We just came from English. We did a Shakespeare block," she said to explain why her brother was still speaking like this.)
("Right," Mr. Harman said. Frankly, he was still stuck on the fact that…) "Was that supposed to be your justification for destroying my vile certainty? Or the detention slip?"
Bill blinked at him.
And then Bill grinned.
"The first one!" Bill told him. "Also, you're being amusing, so I don't have to destroy your vile certainty now!" (The other students filing into class were staring at them. Some of them were from homeroom, others had been there in English with them. They were all watching; these new girls were crazy but they were interesting.)
Now, the thing about Mr. Harman was that he was a bit of a kidder. He liked a good joke as much as the next guy, and he was friends with Mrs. Kimberly. And it wasn't as it they all didn't have the new girls' schedules, or didn't have student runners at this school. He'd been 'warned' by his friend, as it were.
So when Bill told him this, Mr. Harman sat back on his heels and he said, "Well, now. That doesn't seem very fair. You only gave me one reason for the one thing there, not two. And what if I want my vile certainty destroyed?" he asked of the new student, who was apparently related to, if not friends with, one of the best students that their school had ever seen.
Bill blinked at this. And he thought about that one for a moment, as Miz perked up. "Did you know that some electrons spin like planets? They match up but are still asymmetrical! And that spin makes the atom they're attached to more likely to annihilate another atom that's got a normal rotation?"
Mr. Harman looked over at her. "...I had heard of that, yes," he said to her, perking up a bit and getting a bit more interested in the other sister, who apparently wasn't as much of the abnormal sort of troublemaker? (He technically wasn't a teacher by schooling, exactly. He'd gotten the training to be certified for it, but he had a Ph.D. in physics from a, well, not very prominent university, but he liked to think he was well-versed in most of the general field's matters, and the most recent atomics!)
Miz grinned wider. "Did you know that all those differently spinning electrons happen because they're actually from another dimension? They get accidentally phased into this one and the atoms they annihilate are actually just being sent back to their original dimension?"
Mr. Harman blinked at her. "That one, I had not heard about," he told her honestly. "What scientific journal did you read that one from?" he asked her.
Miz laughed. "I've Seen it happen with my own eyes!"
"Well, that's all well and good," Mr. Harman told her. "But the thing about science is that an experiment needs to be repeatable by others for the results to be verified for a hypothesis like that," he told her with a smile, "And I really don't think it'd be nice if a bunch of curmudgeonly old scientists of note had to try and borrow your eyes for that one, my dear," he told her kindly, with a twinkle in his eye.
Miz grinned. "Get me a particle accelerator and a few matchsticks and I can make it happen again~"
"But how can we view the results?" Mr. Harman asked her. "How will we know what is happening in that other dimension and this one, otherwise?" This was one of the more advanced classes, so he was used to having debates -- what he really liked to think of more as brainstorming sessions for the group.
Miz scoffed. "Why do you think I suggested the matchsticks? Most people would be able to see when fire appears and disappears!"
"Ah," Mr. Harman said, "But at a macroscopic level, it would be difficult to prove that the fire appearing and disappearing is due to electrons and atoms moving between dimensions, when the processes we are viewing at a macro level are happening largely between complex molecular chemical compounds that are going through the oxidation process?" he asked her. "The release of energy could be explained by other things, and it would be hard to prove that a disappearance of energy from this dimension was occurring."
"Open a viewing portal into the other dimension so you can watch the reaction taking place in both spaces at once." Miz shrugged. Simple as that.
"And how do I open a viewing portal?" Mr. Harman asked her. "Does it also show the processes at a subatomic level?" he prodded her gently verbally, because she hadn't really addressed the primary problem he'd just brought up -- isolation of the experimental properties, and the problems in resolving the differences in scale involved.
Miz blinked. Then she walked up to the front of the room and picked up a piece of chalk to begin writing out a complex series of equations onto the board. "Add a magnification effect… distort the light particles, make it into a waveform…" she mumbled to herself as she calculated the changes needed to produce the desired effect. Human eyes couldn't SEE into the tiny subatomic particle sized spectrum of reality. Sixer was staring at the board, copying down EVERYTHING.
Mr. Harman left her to it. He turned back to the other new girl. "So, any thoughts on whether I have to remain stuck my vile certainty for all time?" he asked her. Interestingly, that seemed to get the girl over whatever stumbling block or wall she'd been working through in her thought process -- because clearly, she had been thinking.
"...'For all time' can be a long time," the girl said slowly. "TOO LONG."
Mr. Harman leaned back against his desk behind him and crossed his arms, expecting something of an interesting verbal argument out of the girl.
What he got instead was a raised arm and a shot of-- he wasn't sure what. But he felt the shockwave from something that travelled through the air that was right next to him, and he saw something else go flying out of the corner of his eye.
He most definitely heard the crash, as he whipped his head around, to try and see what had just happened.
...and the entire stack of textbooks that had been sitting on the far side of the desk was no longer sitting there anymore.
He looked back to the girl, who was sitting there easily… while the rest of the class was left staring speechless.
"...Did you just throw something?" Mr. Harman asked the girl.
"No," she said.
"What did you just do? --No, wait," Mr. Harman said, standing up and walking around the side of the table. ...Yes, there were all the books. He picked them up and stacked them up on the side of the table again, before turning to her and asking, "Would you mind doing what you just did again?" while gesturing to the books, and the girl raised her arm and--
Mr. Harman blinked.
He looked down.
He looked at the intervening distance.
He looked over the side of the table, where all his poor (and rather thoroughly abused on a daily basis) books were strewn all across the floor again, some of them missing pages now.
Then he looked up at the girl and said, "...How did you do that?" Because he had no idea how she had done that. He knew the books didn't have anything magnetic in them, an air gun simply wasn't strong enough for that, and the girl didn't even seem to be holding anything where she was sitting. She'd simply raised her arm and made a fist, and--
"Force wave," the girl told him simply. Mr. Harman blinked. ...Well, at least there was a name for it that made sense?
"Did you just use some kind of mechanism, or…" and he trailed off as the girl did something at her wrist and… "...Were you wearing that a moment ago?" he asked her next, because she seemed to have some sort of bodysuit on under her normal clothing.
"Yes!" the girl told him.
"Why couldn't I see it before?" he asked her, and the girl told him: "Because I was bending the light around it so that you couldn't," and Mr. Harman blinked at her again, because… Stanford's friend had somehow made a functioning invisible suit?
"How did you make it do that?" Mr. Harman asked her, eyes gleaming. Because he could take or leave chemistry most days (even though he taught that, too), but the electromagnetic spectrum, and advanced materials? Those was his bread and butter, and his meat and potatoes, his first two loves of science, and--
"--and carry the two…" Miz finished her calculations with a flourish. She turned to grin at the class. "And THIS should create a viewing portal into the nearest parallel dimension AND have a magnification effect so you can see subatomic particles with just the naked human eye!" She slapped the blackboard, leaving Mr. Harman distracted for a moment, with his eyes jumping between his two newest students. "And to see what this would actually look like--" She held the calculation inside her head and pulled on reality around her to make it happen. Her hand trailed down along the blackboard and a small line appeared before spreading open into a small oval, looking something like a mirror but within it were a series of flashing lights, dots, spinning particles that moved and clicked together as they stretched on for miles and miles within the viewing portal, as far as the eye could see and then some.
Mr. Harman stared at this awesome sight in pure wonder.
And then he turned to Stanford Pines and asked him, quite seriously, "Mr. Pines, did you just bring two space aliens from an advanced civilization into my classroom today?" And Stanford looked uncomfortable enough that Mr. Harman was about to reassure the boy that, no, he wasn't mad, he'd just really like to know, thank you...
...when the older girl spoke up again for herself.
"WELL," said the older girl, "MY Stanley -- not this one," she said, flicking her fingers at the younger Stanley Pines sitting not next to, but certainly nearby her, "-- does like to call me an ancient immortal alien space wizard on occasion," the older girl told him quite seriously.
"Really," Mr. Harman said, with a slow-growing grin. "Tell me more."
And with that, Lee buried his face in his desk. (That's it. His life was over. Seriously, the demons couldn't even pretend to be human for more than a few hours.)
------
Bill was very proud of himself. He'd managed to get himself a detention slip in Physics class!
"YES!" Bill enthused. "VICTORY IS MINE!!! --Ours," he corrected, looking over at Miz, because she had also been handed a detention slip, too.
Miz glanced down at her slip. Her very first detention slip. This was a big moment for her. "I'm gonna frame this on the wall back at the sand castle." She grinned.
"--You should!" Bill told her, with a matching grin.
"You know you only got those because Mr. Harman is the one doing detention today, and he just wants to be able to talk with you more about science stuff after school," Lee pointed out, not real happy with them, because he'd almost been given one too (for interrupting the teach when the bell rang and they'd really needed to get to lunch). At least, he had had one for doing that, until he'd explained the whole deal with the detention slips and junk to the teacher for him, and Mr. Harman had revoked his own detention for being 'very helpful instead of disruptive in class for once, thank you Mr. Pines'. (Which was kinda annoying, if you asked him, because he usually got 'Stanley' and Sixer usually got the 'Mr. Pines'. He wasn't a helpful nerd; that was his brother's thing.)
The other students were whispering about them now. Miz blinked as she finally realized they had pretty much blown their covers. Also, she didn't like some of the things people were saying about them. She shuffled a little closer to Sixer, reassured unconsciously by being close to someone she knew.
"Well, at least it's lunchtime," Lee said, with a sigh. Because hey, what could go wrong with that?
Miz gasped. "School lunches!" she cried out in excitement, jumping, bouncing and nearly toppling over. (...And a few boys walked into walls and lockers because they'd been too busy staring at her chest.)
"UGH," said Bill. "School lunches."
He shoved his hand into a pocket and pulled out his 'eyepatch', and twisted it back up into his top hat, right as they were walking in through the double doors of the cafeteria… (because that wasn't a magic thing, either, it was a multiplanar geometry thing that he was impacting through lower-dimensional shifts in applied force that left ripples through the time vector to unpack the folded matter at the tipping point of energy convergence at the most unstable zero-point state of flexure…) He'd 'compressed' it down and stuck it in his pocket while he'd been waiting out in the hallway for Miz to finish changing her clothes at the beginning of their 'in-school' school day today.
Lee looked back and forth between the two. "So, I'm guessing you two have very different opinions about the food served in schools?" he asked, as Bill grumbled and dug a hand into his 'recovered state' hat.
Miz grinned. "How do they manage to make food taste entirely unlike food?!"
"Decades of buildup of etheric poisoning," Bill said almost absently. "Mostly. Also, lizard people taking over the key human society supply chain points here, after losing contact with the logistics lines from the front, to try and make it their own -- unsuccessfully. Because humans. Also: cheese."
Miz looked around the cafeteria, there was a line of students grabbing trays and walking up to the side of the room where the lunch ladies were shoveling slop onto their trays. "Uh…" She tilted her head; her own high school never had actual slop for lunch before? "But does it contain the proper nutritional content that growing children need to keep them awake and alert for a day of learning?"
Lee looked at Sixer.
Sixer looked at Lee.
Sixer adjusted his glasses and then said, quite intelligently, "...Um. Welllllllllllll…" He winced. "That… may depend on your definition of 'nutritional content'--?"
"--No," Lee told her straight up. "It does none of those things that you just said there, no." See? Like ripping off a bandaid. Sixer didn't know what he was doing, being all not-blunt with the demons and all. It was fine! How could lunch not be fine? --Lunch was lunch. No schoolwork, no teachers asking questions, getting to hang out with your twin and eat food while flirting with girls… it was lunch!
Miz gasped, horrified. Then her eyes narrowed. Food was important. How DARE the school not feed the children? She glanced around and saw most kids were just tossing out the food after a few bites. This was unacceptable! She marched away towards the door that led into the kitchens. "Hang on, I shall be right back…" she growled out lowly.
Bill pulled a box of crackers out of his hat, then put his hat absently back on top of his head (to hover there where it belonged). He looked up to see Miz vanishing into the back, blinked, and turned to the two local Pines.
"Is she doing a cooking show?" Bill asked them. Because there was a very large and well-stocked and -outfitted kitchen back there. He wasn't sure what else she could be doing back there, if not that. The lines for the food-eating were out HERE, after all. She should know that, having gone to high school before and having survived it, and all, Bill reasoned.
The twins glanced at each other. "How would we know?" Lee groaned. What was the demon-dragon lady going to do? He was almost afraid to ask. Then they all heard a small commotion around the food line and the twins turned back towards the food line to see Miz running around, grabbing the large metal pans full of slop, running them into the back, and then running back out to replace them with… actual food?! Lee blinked when he saw one pan filled with filleted fish in a thick sauce with diced vegetables. Another pan had roasted chicken breasts with corn, string beans, and carrots. And Miz was still bringing out more! All different. All delicious looking...
"Oh man," Lee said, as the smell hit them from even back where they were still standing, pretty close to the doors that went back out to the hallway. "Please,/i> tell me that's not some crazy mirage or illusion spell or some junk."
Bill blinked and looked up, then frowned a bit as he checked the readouts he was getting from his suit. "Reconstituted at a subatomic level, not a temporary change. Not a 'crazy mirage' or 'illusion spell' or 'some junk'," Bill told him as he grabbed a chair, sat down, and looked down to start working at opening up his own box of crackers for a meal.
Lee's mouth watered when he saw one pan was filled with mashed potatoes and...wait, no, that was shepherd's pie! There was meat and vegetables under there! He saw the other kids were all scrambling to grab trays and run up to the lunch line. Lee wanted to join them.
And there was no reason why he shouldn't.
"--Your sister is awesome!" Lee told Bill quickly, and then he rushed forward to get some of that stuff for himself! The end of the line even had DESERTS! Cookies and cheesecake and fruit salad and-- was that ICE CREAM?!
Sixer looked over at the food. And then he looked down at Bill.
"Is there a reason why you're not eating what you sister is making?" Sixer asked Bill carefully.
"Yes," said Bill, and Sixer hesitated.
"Bill," Sixer asked carefully next, "Is that food… are those pans of what look to be food that your sister is putting out over there safe to eat?" Sixer asked next.
"Safe for who?" was the not so very reassuring answer that he got back next.
"...Safe for me and my brother to eat?" Sixer asked next.
"Yes," came a reply that was just as prompt as all of the others, and Sixer blinked at Bill in relief.
"So it's perfectly fine for humans to eat?" Sixer asked Bill, point-blank.
"Yes. It's perfectly fine for humans to eat." Bill finally got the plastic wrapper inside of the box open without incident, and grabbed up and started chewing on his first (of soon to be many) cracker(s).
Sixer observed him eat for a while before asking, "Is it perfectly fine for demons to eat?"
Bill paused for a moment, mid-chew, and looked up at him.
Bill swallowed the mouthful of cracker that he'd been chewing on, and said, "I COULD eat it. But I have reasons I DON'T WANT to." Bill looked down and grabbed another cracker up. "I said that before." He shoved the next cracker he was holding into his mouth.
Sixer nodded slowly. Okay. That was fine. He wanted to ask more, but his stomach growled and Sixer blushed, then decided that he'd be better off asking more questions later -- as they all ate, after he had a little more food in his system -- and ran off to go grab a tray for himself. Because he could talk to Bill more after he got some food. (Bill wasn't going anywhere -- the demons were supposed to stay with them, so their older counterparts knew neither of them had skipped school!)
Lee was practically drooling as he scooped up the food. All the students had piled their trays up with it. Stan even spotted a pan filled with different salads and vegetable dishes (...for people who didn't want meat?). Miz had even placed placards in front of each pan that listed all the ingredients for anyone who might have food allergies or certain things that they couldn't eat. ...Heck, there were three different pans of shepherd's pie with beef, pork, or chicken for the people who might not be able to eat one or the other for non-dietary reasons.
Lee carried his tray back to the table where Bill was just nibbling on crackers. He looked around. Sixer must have gone up to get some food.
"You're not getting anything?" Lee asked Bill as he sat down and took a bite of fish. Ah~ tilapia~ The sauce was thick and creamy and the vegetables were diced so small that Lee didn't even mind eating them (because hey, if they were that small, were they even really there?).
Bill shook his head. "I don't eat that junk."
Lee shrugged. Whatever then. Sixer came back with his tray and immediately started cutting up his chicken to eat., then took a bite and moaned "Ooh…" at the taste.
Finally, Miz returned, tray piled high with a bit of everything and another tray with some plain salad and roasted vegetables. She slid that tray over to Bill.
"No meat, fungi, added sugars or anything like that. Just plain vegetables," she told him. Miz had been worried about Bill's eating habits. Toast and crackers weren't enough for anyone to get by.
She also placed down a glass of apple juice, real apple juice. "You need to eat more," she not-quite scolded her brother. She hadn't wanted to say much at first, being too busy eating food for herself, but seeing Bill eat nothing but crackers for meals was beginning to worry her. "What if you get scurvy or something? Can you even get scurvy?" She sat down with her own tray of food, a mix of fish, vegetables and shepherd's pie.
Bill looked down at the vegetables. The salad was plain, no dressing or anything. The vegetables had been dry-roasted. Bill glanced up at Miz. She had made this all with his preferences in mind? That was...
Bill glanced down at the tray as pulled out and he ate another cracker. But he was thinking (and looking at his suit's readouts) as he did it.
"...Not here," Bill told Miz finally, pushing the tray away from him a bit. Because this wasn't the sort of thing that gave off the right image for what he was going for at the school. Eating just vegetables and fruit… He knew what that looked like to omnivores who thought they were carnivores in every way that mattered. He wasn't going to be giving anyone any confusion on exactly who or what he was; not on their first day there, and not on their last one either -- or any day in-between.
But Miz frowned and put her foot down. "Eat. My. Cooking." She stared at Bill unblinkingly. Lee and Sixer looked back and forth between the two.
"Not. Here." Bill said unblinkingly right back. "I shouldn't have to explain to you why."
I can put up a Filter." Miz insisted.
That's cheating," Bill said, turning away from her. "You carried it over as-is. Too many people saw it. Eat it yourself." It would fit with the general image she was going for, anyway.
Miz sat up straight and declared loudly. "Eat. Your. Vegetables. NOW." Sixer and Lee stared. The other kids around them were staring too.
Bill gave her a long look. (Hm. This could work, too...)
He raised a cracker, as if showing it off.
"I. AM." he said next, before popping the cracker in his mouth and chewing it, rather loudly.
The other kids stared, unsure about this showdown happening. A few of them were whispering. "Dang, bitch fight?"
The tension seemed to grow before suddenly, Miz's entire posture changed. She pouted and batted her eyes at her brother. "Please eat your veggies? For me~? I cooked them just for you~"
Bill did not look amused at this, at all.
But he did sigh, turn away from her towards the tray in front of him, set down the cracker box on the table with a soft 'thunk', and pick up a fork.
"Fine," Bill said. "But only because you made them not-terribly this time. And said please."
The other students relaxed, glad that there wasn't going to be a fight. They were afraid of what would have happened if the crazy strong girl had started chucking tables or something just as crazy-go-nuts.
('Good', thought Bill, grinning internally as he popped a bell pepper piece into his mouth and started chewing. Miz had made something clean enough for him to eat, and even helped him set up a situation in which he could eat it without coming across seeming like a prey animal. --Leadership structure and parameters established for the idiot humans who were all watching them: he was in charge, but would listen to his sister NO MATTER WHAT, even if seemingly ANNOYED with her at the time. --Anyone attempting to mess with his sister would NOT find him distracted, or willing to brush it off if brought to his attention by her!)
As their group ate their lunch, a lot of the other students were all whispering. The lunch ladies were unable to explain what had just happened with the food trays in the back. Everyone went up to get food and the students were all grinning, even as they pointed over at Miz's table and gossiped about what had been happening so far that day. A few kids from the Physics class started spreading around the fact that the two new girls were apparently aliens. The ones who'd seen the beatdown that Bill had given Crampelter all shivered. A super-strong alien girl?
The ones from homeroom spread around the info that the crazy violent alien girl was apparently a guy, and had chosen to appear as a human female for some crazy reason that they hadn't really gotten to hear, because the homeroom teacher had interrupted them. When the students asked around about the other sister, who seemed quite nice compared to her more loud and scary sibling, the only info anyone could share was that she, at least, was actually female… and was apparently an amazing cook. (The students all moaned over the delicious food. Finally, actual FOOD at school!)
The main thing the kids talked about, though, was how these two aliens were constantly sticking around that nerdy freak kid and his twin. And the rumors about that ranged from how Stanford Pines had finally contacted space aliens and was now showing them around Earth, to Bill being here to subjugate humanity in preparation for their alien invasion (that being also Stanford Pines' fault).
The adults in the school who were patrolling the cafeteria exchanged amused looks from time to time among them. They weren't all that sure what was happening right now (although one or two of them thought that maybe a few of the kids had gotten a little too invested in one of the plotlines from Wagon Train to the Stars, of those who knew of the show), only that some prankster must have decided that today was the day to have some real fun with the student's rumor mill…
Miz offered to take everyone's trays to place in the drop-off area when they finished eating. As she carried the trays off, a tall teenage boy, slicked up hair, muscular arms, football team jersey, swaggered over to her. "Hey hot stuff, you really an alien?" He leaned against the wall, arm up as he not-quite boxed her in. (The guy, Thomas Dean, didn't really believe the whole 'alien' thing, he thought it was just some kinda weird foreigner joke. He heard about the food thing but hadn't seen it for himself and didn't really believe the rumors on how it had happened, because aliens weren't real.) His eyes trailed up her body, following the wide curves of her ass and hips up to her incredibly generous chest. Who cares if she was some weirdo 'pretending' to be an alien or whatever, she was HOT.
Miz blinked up at him. "Uh…" she wasn't sure if she was supposed to pretend to be human or not. Well, she kinda already blew her cover, and she DID just structurally rearrange all the slop into actual food… so… "...Yes?" she responded (wanting to try socializing with other humans, that's what this was all about right? She hadn't really gotten to speak to any of her classmates thus far), tilting her head and straightening up, unknowingly thrusting her chest out some more as she leaned back a little to counterbalance the weight.
The guy grinned down at her. He blinked at the weird looking headband he could see peeking out between her bangs. "What's this thing for?"
Miz blinked and reached a hand up to poke at the metal. "Oh, this seals off part of my powers..." Her eyes widened when she realized something. She'd dropped the magic cancelling bracelets on the ground back in the other dimension, outside of the barrier! Shit. Well… hopefully Shooting Star or Pine Tree found them.
The teenager snorted. "Right." Thomas grinned at her. Nerd alert. But she was still hot so he was gonna keep quiet about that. "So… why're you hanging out with those two losers?" He tilted his head to indicate the Stans.
Miz blinked, frowning a little. "They're not losers. They're showing me and Bill around the school."
"Well if you need a guide, I can show you to all the coolest spots around school." Thomas grinned, leaning in. Miz frowned and took a step back, uncomfortable with how close this boy was being. Also, his thoughts were…
"Uh, sorry, I need to get back to my group. Class is starting soon…" She stepped away but he followed her. "U-um…"
And then a hand came down on one Thomas Dean's shoulder.
"Is there a PROBLEM here?" Bill popped up beside the boy, grinning with far too many teeth. Thomas jumped. When did she get here? He heard about how this chick had thrown Crampelter around like a ragdoll this morning. He wasn't sure how accurate that was but Crampelter HAD been pretty beat up when he'd seen him last period.
And then the teenager twitched and had to stifle a yelp as the hand on his shoulder tightened abruptly; he barely managed to stay upright at how very painful that grip on him was. The boy began to sweat. --Accurate. That thing about Crampelter was probably definitely accurate! Shit!
Not wanting to look like a pussy, Thomas attempted to grin at the crazy chick. She was utterly terrifying, but her sister was hot. If he wanted any chance to score with the younger sister, he'd need to play nice with the older one, too. "--No problem! Just offering to show your sister around the school!" He began to breathe slightly more normally as the grip let up just a tad. "You know, all the places where the cool kids hang out…" The grip tightened again even worse than before, and his words cut off in a strangled gurgle of breath.
"Little sis, back to the table now, please?" Bill said mildly. "After all, there is all that sexy-kissing that happens at 'cool kids hang out places', isn't there? And you don't like THAT at all."
Miz blinked. Then she made a face. "Ugh, human mouths are filled with bacteria. No thanks." She backed up, ducking under Thomas's arm and made her way back to the Stans. She gave Bill a grateful look before turning around and running off.
Bill, for his part, leaned in with a bright grin and said, "Remember: no means no!" then let go of Thomas's shoulder and slapped it in the very same painful spot twice, cheerfully. Then Bill took one step back, rotated on his heel in place, and walked back to the table himself.
Miz was frowning, arms wrapped around herself. "Well, I guess I should have expected that when I designed this form…" She bit her lip, unsure how to feel. She… liked feeling sexy as a woman. She liked looking at herself and seeing a mature young woman and not the… child she had been. Never been flirted with before. Most people saw her as a child, even when they knew how old she was. They just weren't into children, or people who looked as young as she did. Heck, the few times someone had complimented her appearance for being attractive had been a older man who'd stared at her while she was at work… which was kinda creepy.
"What, was that guy giving you guff?" Lee asked, looking up at her, frowning. He'd seen Bill get up and go over, but hadn't been able to hear the actual words being said. "I gotta have a conversation with the guy for ya?" Lee offered, giving the jerk a long glowering look. 'Cause yeah, Bill was handling stuff right then, sure, that was obvious, but Stan knew that sometimes guys only listened to other guys, and Bill looked like a girl and junk right now. If the guy ended up cornering Miz alone again, without the rest of them nearby...
...wow, wait. Did this mean he was part of a girl posse now? Like, how the cheerleaders all traveled together in groups? Lee stopped chewing for a second, because he wasn't so sure how he felt about that.
"I… maybe?" Miz frowned. She smiled at Lee, "Well, I guess I'll just stay with you guys so that doesn't happen."
Lee swallowed. "Uh… sure," said Lee. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Just, uh, yell if you need anythin'?" Maaaaybe he should have a talk with some of the guys on the boxing and wrestling teams today. Y'know, so they could get the word out that Miz was all 'protected' and stuff. ...By, uh, more than just him. So everybody would know not to mess with her. Wasn't like she didn't have people lookin' out for her or nothin'.
Miz giggled, an admittedly cute sound. "Thanks Lee. You're sweet." Lee blushed a little.
"Nah, sure. No big deal," he shrugged off. The bell rang and Miz looked up.
"It's Gym next. Why do they make kids do physical activities right after eating?" Miz complained.
Lee and Sixer looked at each other, then Lee shrugged, not having an answer for that, other than… "We've got the geek rotation. Probably think we're gonna do bad anyway." Not everybody had gym right after lunch.
Bill came back over and their group left the cafeteria to start walking to the gymnasium -- and the locker rooms. Generally, the kids were supposed to go to the changing rooms and put on sweatpants or other kinds of clothes, so that their normal clothes didn't get all sweaty afterward. The twins walked off towards the Boys' changing room while Miz headed for the Girls' room (as did Bill, understanding full well that the signs here-and-now referred to bio-sex, not actual gender or sexual orientation). Miz's current vessel didn't sweat, but she realized she should probably change into a t-shirt and sweatpants anyway. After all, the teacher might complain if she didn't.
Miz found herself a shower stall (being a little shy about changing in front of everyone else for the first time, the stares she'd been getting out in the hallways had been bad enough!) and hummed to herself cheerfully as she began pulling off her sweater. She HAD taken a shower earlier before school but that had been mostly a quick magic-induced rinse. She didn't want to be late for school and hadn't quite explored her new body yet. She reached her hands back to unhook her bra, groaning in relief. She always hated wearing bras. Well, maybe she should just switch to wearing an elastic one instead of the wire one? All she needed was the light padding for modesty anyway? She massaged her chest, enjoying how nice they felt, but also groaning at how sore they were after only a few hours of, well, existing as she'd been walking around.
She reached into her backpack and formed a sports bra, modified with a fiber she had found on Feisk'Ok that was capable of holding up several tons while still being soft and flexible. A little overkill, maybe, but dammit these things were heavy! She slipped the new bra on, sighing in relief -- it was much more comfortable and didn't compress her chest as much. Well, her female friends had always complained about how much it sucked to have huge boobs, but Miz had always been curious. Miz glanced around as the sound levels abruptly began to drop off around her. She could hear the other girls rustling around in their own stalls (no doors, but there was a curtain to offer them some privacy), and... they were finishing up and getting to class without her! --Oh no! She was going to be late if she didn't hurry-hurry-hurry!
Miz slipped her pants down and quickly got changed into a large t-shirt and sweatpants. She packed her clothes back in her bag and left her shower stall to stick her bag into one of the lockers with a 'bang'. There were no locks on them since these were just used for quickly storing their things while they were at gym, but Miz placed a locking spell on hers, just in case.
"Hey, new girl." Miz turned to see a few other girls who were finishing up at the same time as her -- the last of the bunch, together.
Miz smiled. "Hello! I'm Miz!" (She still wanted to try and make friends.) And they... smiled back(!!).
"Hi, I'm Allison. These are Trisha and Jane." The girl looked Miz up and down. Damn, the new girl really WAS as big as the rumors said. And she'd heard from Jane, who'd heard from Angela that Thomas had been putting the moves on her during lunch! Lucky bitch. "So, what's that alien thing all about?" Allison asked, not liking the competition for the boy she liked, but still being kinda curious about THAT particular (nerdy) rumor.
Miz blinked before shrugging. "It's not really all that important." Allison and her group of girls raised an eyebrow, but shrugged it off. (After all, boys and their dumb rumors…) Miz was glancing at the door. She didn't like being late for class.
"Bill? Are you ready?" Miz called out, not actually knowing where he was.
"Yes!" Bill grinned as he stepped out into view before she had to Look for him, away from the wall of the corridor into the locker room. (And Miz saw that Bill… had not changed his clothing at all. Miz sighed. ...Well, his clothes were already just loose and baggy stuff, so it wasn't too bad, she guessed. They almost looked like gym clothes already.)
The girls around her blinked, looking a little shocked at Bill's seemingly sudden appearance out of nowhere. And, during their confusion, Miz left the girls' locker room with Bill and met up with the twins outside. They looked a little… worried. Miz blinked. "Are you two okay?" Sixer seemed a little pale and Lee looked disgruntled.
Lee gave her a reassuring smile. "Yeah, fine." He didn't mention the way the other boys had confronted them, asking all sorts of questions about their new friends. The most they could really say was that they were charged with showing the girls around the school -- not without giving away the whole 'alien demon' thing. (Which Sixer had almost done anyway, if not for Lee elbowing him in the ribs, hard. Lee was still glaring at him over that one a little…)
"It's been eons since I've been in a human school, what do you do during gym again?" Miz asked, walking with her brother and the boys into the gymnasium.
Sixer groaned as he said, "Strenuous physical activity."
Lee laughed at (what he felt was) his twin's (for the most part exaggerated) 'pain' -- which was, really, more about the 'A' Sixer wasn't getting in gym class, than anything else. "Well, we play kickball sometimes. Mostly we just run laps or do stretches."
Miz blinked. "Is that it? Huh… could have sworn there was more to it than that…" (Weren't there supposed to be more things, like Yoga? Golf? Weight-lifting?)
"Not really," Lee shrugged, "It's mostly just sports stuff with balls," and Miz sighed.
"So it's gonna be boring then…" she muttered unhappily (which got her a quick flick of a side-eyed look from Bill…). "But at least that means there's no golf." Ugh, standing out under direct sunlight surrounded by grass that itched and stupid balls that were dirty and she was supposed to touch them with her hands and having to hold the stick in the exact way that the teacher said, and swing in the exact way that the teacher said...
"...Golf?" Sixer asked in confusion, adjusting his glasses as he stared at her. "Did you mean… mini golf?"
Miz shook her head. "I went to a human school once, a long time ago. We had golf. I hated it. We had to go out to the hills and fields behind the school and there was grass and dirt everywhere!"
Lee and Sixer exchanged a look. Sixer adjusted his glasses again, and then said as consolingly as he could, while patting her on the shoulder, "Well, we don't have that here?" This part of Jersey was mostly concrete and glass shards, even away from the beach.
Miz grinned. "Mini golf would have been fun, at least it's colorful. But regular golf is just 'hold the stick like this' and 'no, your posture is wrong' and 'I know it hurts because the stick isn't the right size for you but you still need to hold it the way everyone else does~' and I hated that."
Sixer winced sympathetically. (He, after all, was used to that with things like scissors and other tools in shop class, and that had been a fight-and-a-half with the teachers, even with the biology and physics teachers on his side and backing him up about how he hadn't been holding or carrying things 'unsafely' or 'the wrong way', he just had more fingers than most people and thus, had to grip and hold things differently!) But Lee just frowned a little, thinking that it sounded a lot like some of his boxing lessons had before he'd grown up to be a bit bigger and… oh. Uh… right. Miz had that growing-up problem outside that her brother had needed to help her with, right? Maybe they hadn't let her grow herself up before, if she didn't know how.
They entered the large room, where some other kids were already milling around. As Lee said, they were told to run some laps. This immediately posed a problem.
"Eep!" Miz squeaked as her chest bounced at every. Single. STEP. --And it only got worse, the longer she jogged! She wrapped her arms around her front, to try to hold them in place so they didn't hurt on the down-bounce, or make her topple over (-- or hit her in the chin, with the way she kept ducking her head down in sheer embarrassment). A lot of the other kids were staring. Lee was trying to hold back laughter. Miz blushed as she ran.
--Okay. Right. Big boobs were actually quite difficult to have! Her alien fabric (wasn't quite a sports bra, more of an all purpose comfort and support garment) worked to hold it, but it was still stretchy enough to allow for bouncing. Miz was keeping these boobs due to sheer stubbornness at this point. Besides, she was only going to be in school for a week, right? She could get rid of them after that!
Miz ran her laps while hugging her chest, face red and unable to look at anyone in her embarrassment. Bill was holding back laughter, but not a grin -- an 'I told you so' expression on his face. Because THIS is why oversized parts were annoying! HA! (...Really, Bill didn't know why Miz was being so stubborn. He'd already set everything up for her if she wanted to change things up on the rest of the humans there -- after all, they were ALIENS! They could do WHATEVER THEY WANTED, even change their bodies' BIO-SEX! So she could do what she wanted, as long as she didn't mind everyone human thinking she was weird. Right? --And what was wrong with being known to be weird? NOTHING AT ALL, THAT'S WHAT! HAHA!)
As they all finished their last lap, and jogged to a halt, Lee finally let out a snort, unable to keep the mirth off his face. "...Well, having fun?" he laughed out, which left Miz pouting.
"Shush. I'm new to all this okay?!" Miz huffed out, stomping her foot. It was adorable. Lee laughed outright. This demon dragon lady was hilarious. "Being a sexy girl's difficult, huh?" Lee asked her, grinning. (He was pretty sure that her demon-brother really had called it at this point. --Hey, she'd been warned! And she could get her brother to help her change it back later. That made laughing over it fair game!)
Miz nodded. "But… I just want to look pretty… that's not bad right?" she asked. She'd never been a busty bombshell before, it was (still) kind of exciting to try it out, despite the problems. (She'd spent all of high school being teased for being small (in both her height and her chest size), heck, she'd spent all her life being teased for being small…)
Lee blinked at her and gave her a look, then just shrugged. "As long as you're happy with how you look…"
"--And jog!" was Bill's called-out contribution to the discussion of chest size, which had Miz groaning all over again.
Lee rolled his eyes at Bill's addition. "--Then who cares what anyone else thinks," Lee told her. Miz knew he was right, but she'd had to deal with eons of people hating her for just being a triangle, so… it was a little hard to just say 'I'm happy with who I am and screw anyone else'...
...especially when everyone else ACTED on it by throwing rocks at her, or shooting her, or using BINDING CIRCLES on her...
...and especially when making herself look like attractive and/or cute beings (or hell, practically ANYONE else!) had gotten her love, fame, and worship from those exact same people who had shunned her in her 'true' form…
Miz let out a long (and somewhat nervous) sigh as she looked around at everyone else in the gym. (Because what would they all think of her instead, if she just…)
She glanced at Lee. (He'd never seen what she looked like yet, either. And he looked kind of aesthetically pleasing himself. So what did HE know about…)
Miz pouted and looked away (while Lee blinked at her for going all quiet on him -- he'd expected her to agree with him). Sixer was also frowning a little at his brother, absently rubbing his hands. Sixer recognized Miz's expression; he saw it in the mirror every day -- he knew that feeling well. He didn't know why she seemed to be feeling the same way just then, but… Sixer looked away.
After everyone else had finished the warm up laps, it was time for stretches. Miz had fun with that, groaning in content as she arched her back and felt her spine pop. Ahhh, that felt so much better! She noticed all the stares and felt both a little embarrassed and also a little smug. --She was sexy and people appreciated looking at her.
Miz wasn't entirely sure how to feel about that, though. She… liked being 'attractive'… but was it bad to like having people look at her? The duality of her feelings, both wanting to be admired for how she looked and also wanting to hide her body in embarrassment at the same time, made Miz frown.
She followed along with the stretches the class was doing as she thought about it, trying to understand herself and why she felt that way. She liked... the admiring looks, because... it meant people liked her, but... they… didn't really like HER, just her outer-shelled appearance. Just like always. --But any sort of positive attention was better than disgust and fear! Right?
...But this sort of positive attention made her feel a little... uncomfortable. --She got stares like this when she was Jan as well, but he had bodyguards to keep the rabid fans away! So she felt safe enough looking like that then, because her bodyguards wouldn't let any of them... get close enough to touch her. But now…
Miz glanced over at her brother. ...Well, actually, she had a bodyguard here, too. So… it was fine, right?
(Miz was glad her headband was on though; she was pretty sure the Lust in the air would have been gross to taste. The thoughts she was picking up on and off were bad enough...)
The teacher, a tall older woman, blew her whistle. "Ok, split into teams of five and grab a kickball!"
Lee rolled his eyes. "Yup. Kickball again," he said, as the other kids moved off to form groups.
He, Sixer, and Bill stayed by Miz, but that was only four. The teacher had said she'd wanted teams of five. Miz looked around and saw a thin boy standing by himself. She strode over cheerfully. "Hi! Do you need a group?"
The boy, a quick scan showed his name was Ben White, jumped at being addressed. "A-ah…" He stuttered, having been hoping to hide off on the sidelines and get ignored like he usually was.
"Come on, we still need one member," Miz said with a gentle smile, as she took his hand and pulled him back over to where the Stans and Bill were. Ben was staring in petrified shock at this pretty girl talking to him AND holding his hand. (Lee snorted at the look on that kid's face. Miz really didn't understand what she was doing to the other boys around her, did she?)
(Bill hadn't really participated in the activities so far -- except for the first lap or two of the jogging, he'd largely done his own thing, including his own different and abbreviated stretching routine off to the side shortly after he'd seemingly decided he was finished jogging. It wasn't really an issue, since some other kids didn't bother either, and the teacher hadn't cared enough to make them. --Oddly, the triangle demon didn't seem BORED with the class itself, just… largely disinterested in the specifics of how things were being done by the rest of them all, and when; he did seem to be taking things seriously, just in his own way.)
Miz came up to the rest of her little high school posse, new boy student in tow, and grinned. "This is Ben, is it ok with you guys if he's part of our group?" Ben blinked, how did the girl know his name?!
"Will he help us destroy the other teams?" Bill asked Miz, his hands on his hips.
Lee, Sixer, and Miz (and the 'new' teen) all stared at him.
"--At kickball. By winning all the kickball games," Bill elaborated, rolling his eyes at the uncertain looks he was getting from the younger Pines twins.
(Lee and Sixer exchanged a look. ...Yeahhhhh, that was not makin' Lee feel any better about what he was sure was gonna be the upcoming slaughter.)
Bill turned towards the teenager who Miz had gravitated to and subsequently retrieved for them for some reason he had yet to ascertain. "--What are you good at?" Bill demanded out of him, leaning forward and getting up in his face to scrutinize him carefully.
"V-violin?" Ben stuttered out, and Bill narrowed his eyes at him slightly.
"HM," said Bill. Bill leaned back away from him again, more normally and usually upright. At this, Ben started to let out a sigh of relief -- he wasn't about to get killed by the crazy girl!
And then Bill pulled his hat off of his head, stuck his hand in, pulled out a violin and bow, and shoved it into Ben's chest, with a: "--Here."
Ben, blinking, barely caught it, to cradle it against his chest.
"...What?" Ben asked. Bill shoved his hat back on top of his head (...wait. Where had that… And was it floating?... Ben stared) and Bill said, authoritatively, "Hold that in front of you."
Ben stared down at the violin he was clutching, and then looked up at around at the rest of them, with very much of a '...Help me?' look on his face. (He looked a little too scared to speak up to the scary girl, asking her anything outright himself. He was already very intimidated by Miz -- though in a somewhat different way. And with Bill being Bill on top of that...)
"Uh, Bill?" Sixer asked for Ben, who was standing there, holding the violin he'd just been given, looking very lost and confused. "You just handed him a violin."
"Yes," said Bill, as he completed a few more arm stretches. "What's your point?"
"...This is kickball," Sixer added, adjusting his glasses.
"Yes," said Bill, turning towards him. "What's your point?"
Sixer and Lee exchanged a glance. Lee shrugged. "We're not supposed to have violins in kickball?" Sixer tried next.
"Why not?" said Bill, putting his hands on his hips. "Is there a RULE that says 'no holding violins!' in kickball?"
Sixer and Lee exchanged another glance. "...No?" said Sixer. That got them both a large grin from Bill, as he said:
"EXACTLY!"
The twins exchanged another look, and Lee gave another shrug, as Bill reached down and scooped up the ball that had just been rolled to them for the game.
Bill wasted no time in pivoting on one heel, turning 180 degrees right back towards them… and suddenly screaming out "--DIE!!!" as he flung the kickball right at Ben's head, hard.
Ben squeaked in fear and ducked, holding the violin out in front of him reflexively. Everyone else in the gymnasium (who'd been watching the new girls with wary curiosity) gasped, sure that he was going to be killed!
But the ball hit the violin and bounced off, shooting up towards the rafters where it got lodged between a few beams. Ben wobbled and fell to his knees, holding the still intact and unharmed violin. "I-I'm… alive?!" Ben's voice cracked, thin arms trembling.
Miz glared at Bill. "That was mean," she told her brother. She had barely managed to reinforce the violin in time. She was actually impressed that Ben had managed to redirect the ball upwards and away from himself (instinctually), and didn't even get hurt. Huh… looks like this kid might actually have a skill for this, if he was given the chance to learn.
Bill squinted. He'd expected the kid to react that way to shield himself, but… "Was expecting that instrument to break… --You did something?" Bill asked Miz, turning to her as he gave out a huff of breath. Oh. Oh, she HAD! "MIZ! How is he going to learn to dodge out of the way if the violin doesn't break and he doesn't want it to break?"
Miz placed her hands on her hips, glaring at Bill. "He learned to block. This is kickball, not dodgeball! He doesn't need to dodge, he's supposed to redirect! Which he DID!"
"HM," said Bill. He considered this.
Meanwhile, Miz strode over to Ben and kneeled down to address him. "--You okay? Sorry about Bill, he's very spontaneous." She patted his back, trying to comfort the poor, terrified boy.
Bill frowned as he Looked over some of his previously-Seen memories, and did a bit of a more-extensive search this time, for the actual rules of the game. --He'd rather thought avoiding the worst balls was also part of kickball from the kickball matches he'd actually Seen, but… he also realized that Miz had a point. The rules for kickball themselves were not SUPPOSED to include killballs like dodgeball! Even if most actual plays using the balls seemed to mix the rules in kickball practice… when teachers were preoccupied or otherwise physically absent... HMMMMMMM...
"...Fine," Bill concluded after he considered his reassessment full and complete. Because Miz had had a point, and they were trying to follow the established rules of the game somewhat, after all.
"--Acceptable performance at kickball practice!" Bill called out to Ben next, with a grin. "Good job! --Pat him on the head, Miz!"
Miz patted Ben's head, stroking her fingers through his hair like he was a small puppy. "Good boy," she said cheerfully.
Ben nodded, whimpering slightly and feeling very, very confused by this point. "T-thank you?" he stammered.
Miz cooed. "Aw~ he's like a small animal~ so cute~"
Bill heard THAT, and he scoffed. "Are you getting squirmy feelings again?" he called out. "You better NOT be getting squirmy feelings again!"
Miz rolled her eyes. "I don't get them for everyone! I actually DO have standards!"
"...Right. But how does that Stanford rate at or above your standards?" Bill said, walking over a bit closer. Then Bill looked down at her suspiciously. "Do you have… LOW standards?"
"Look, he's hot. Even the baby version of him is cute, though not quite on the same level yet," Miz said while pointing at Sixer, who blushed heavily.
Bill stared. "What about that Stanford is attractive?!"
Miz shrugged. "The shy expression, the way his glasses sit on his face, the air of 'I'm a socially awkward nerd' that just makes you want to go up and protect him from any bullies who'd want to punch his face in…"
Bill stared at her. "Visual things. Right." He let out a breath and closed his eyes. Clearly she was not looking for deeper mental parameters there. 650 billion years old. ...He hadn't been like that then, though. It HAD to be a human thing. "Glad I was never human!" Bill said enthusiastically, turning away from her, to perform a few arm and leg stretches, to continue his work at properly 'warming up' his various muscle groupings.
"I don't really know them well enough on a personal level to know if they're attractive on an emotional level yet." Miz shrugged. "So I'm just making do with looking at them right now." She grumbled. "That Stanford is too close-minded for me to actually like him in the long term anyway."
"But he still makes you feel squirmy! LOW standards on visuals, NO standards on mental characteristics!" Bill pointed out, straightening up again as he finished his final stretches.
"I DO so have standards on mental characteristics. I just don't know any of these people well enough to know." Miz pouted. She wasn't THAT shallow.
"Then he shouldn't make you feel squirmy," Bill told her. "Not if you don't know if he's meeting a standard yet. --You don't get squirmy about humans you haven't seen yet, have you?" he asked of her. "It's the same thing."
"I've gotten squirmy off pictures of people before. And characters in books and tv shows, who don't actually exist." Miz played with the end of a lock of hair. She had her husbando and waifu shrines back in her room in the Death Star, hidden behind a secret door. She'd die of embarrassment if any of her Friends found them...
"That's seen-visual," Bill told her, trying to figure this out for her. (As far as he was concerned, this 'thinking Stanfords were attractive' thing was a real problem that she CLEARLY needed help with, AGAIN and STILL.) "Do you get that squirmy feeling hearing about someone, without the images?"
"...If they have a really sexy voice…" Miz blushed, thinking about a certain radio show host or YouTube horror analyst. AH, that Tad Strange guy has the same voice as Cecil, right? Ooh… Miz wanted to meet him just so she could give him a list of things to say with that voice of his… wow, she was weird. She sputtered. "L-look, it's not like I'm expecting to like them as a partner. I'm just enjoying looking at them! Like how I would enjoy looking at a pretty landscape. Though I guess I don't get squirmy about landscapes…" She placed a hand on her hip as she thought about it. Then, to stop this from being all about her (and turn the tables somewhat), she asked Bill, "What do YOU look for in terms of your standards?"
Sixer somehow had a notebook out (hey, their sweatpants didn't have pockets!) and was eagerly awaiting Bill's response. Lee sent Sixer a look like he thought his twin was crazy.
"Linear, intelligent, likes me, talks with me, wants to help me, lets me help them, thinks well of my brother," Bill said promptly with a shrug, then blinked and added, "Thinks well of you as my sister." He frowned slightly. "They have to be able to hold an intelligent conversation with me," Bill elaborated. "But it's not a squirmy feeling." (As far as Bill was aware of, at least, shapes and lines from his dimension didn't GET squirmy feelings. It wasn't like geometry had any internal organs to squirm about internally to generate those sorts of 'feelings'! And of the shapes and lines Bill had known, if they had ever felt that way about anything, 'partner' or 'landscape' or otherwise, they'd certainly never talked about it with him.) Bill shrugged. "It's simple compatibility."
Miz nodded. "Well, in terms of someone that I'd actually LIKE, in terms of compatibility, instead of squirmy-ness, I like someone who's fun to talk to, passionate about what they care about, willing to accept me for who and what I am and willing to talk and listen to me… indulge me in my hobbies." Miz giggled. "And thinks well of my brothers and sisters too." She paused. "Willing to accept my brothers and sisters for who and what they are too." She added.
Lee blinked. Those were… pretty normal standards, actually. A decent person who they could talk to, who cared about them and their family… that's all they really wanted. That was it?
"Those are decent standards." Bill thought about it. "Well, that Stanford isn't going to ever do any of those things for you; he's incapable," Bill said, nodding sagely, making Sixer frown in confusion at just what the heck his older self must have done to so horribly ruin his (chances and) reputation with the demon. "So you need to stop feeling squirmy about him."
Miz sighed. "I know. He's too set in his ways." She turned to Sixer. "Please don't grow up to be like him. He's the type who judges people based on what they are. And doesn't bother to want to know who they are. I played a prank on him once and he took that to mean I eat people all the time -- which I don't do, only under very specific circumstances and not that often," she explained quickly. Lee and Ben shuddered (with Ben being confused about what she was talking about, but no less disturbed) while Sixer looked confused.
"Wait, what?" Sixer asked, still writing in his notebook. "When do you eat people sometimes?" he asked, and Miz sighed and explained:
"So my friend Seb didn't want his vessel anymore and discarded it, kinda like shedding your skin, but not at all like that, and I figured I didn't want to waste a perfectly good meat sack so I roasted and ate the empty vessel. But Ford thought I just devoured my friend and refused to listen even when Stan explained that Seb was fine." Miz rolled her eyes. Ben was very confused by this point while Sixer just wrote this all down while muttering: "...Fascinating."
"Hey, uh, can we get back to kick ball?" Lee asked, very much wanting to leave this topic of conversation.
Miz blinked and shrugged. "Okay," she said simply before looking up and making a grasping, pulling gesture with her hand. The kickball dislodged from the rafters and fell back down, Miz caught the rubber object deftly. She turned towards Ben, sweet smile in place. "Ok, let's try kicking it this time?" She suggested before bending down to place the ball on the ground and then kicking it lightly towards the boy clutching the violin like a lifeline.
To Ben's relief, Miz's kick was at a speed he could match and he moved his foot to kick the ball back to her. Miz caught it with a foot and kicked it towards Sixer. The teen almost missed it, managing to hit it with the side of his foot and making the ball roll off and away from any of them.
Bill turned to stare at Sixer, then pointed a finger at him. "Unacceptable performance at kickball practice!" Bill declared. "--Miz, PENALIZE HIM!" Lee went cold and tried to get to his brother before the demon did anything awful to him--
--and Miz stepped up to Lee's twin and ruffled Sixer's hair, mussing it up. "Try harder next time, okay?" she admonished gently.
Sixer blushed. Miz had to stand up on her toes to reach his head and was all but leaning her chest against him.
(And Lee heaved a sigh of relief.)
Once Miz (and Bill, with an "Acceptable time of penalty!! More kickball NOW!") decided Sixer had been properly scolded, she pointed her hand at the kickball resting a few meters away and made a 'come hither' gesture. The ball rolled back towards her. She caught it with her foot and kicked it gently to get some distance between her and Sixer. "Let's try that again." Everyone in class was staring at them by this point, because... Had that alien girl just moved the ball without touching it?! TWICE?!
Miz sent the kickball at Sixer again and though this time he managed to kick it back, he didn't really pass it to her and she had to run a few steps to the left to catch it. Still, a pass was a pass! Miz kicked the ball towards Lee this time and the teenager kicked it back to her easily. Then Miz kicked it towards Bill...
...who once more kicked it with incredible speed towards Ben's face. The boy squeaked again but, once more, managed to bring the violin up to block. This time the ball was sent ricocheting off to hit the bleachers.
"Good job!" Bill yelled back with another grin. "Miz! Pat him on the head again!" Bill added, before running off to retrieve the ball.
Miz blinked. That kid had REALLY good reflexes and reaction time. She grinned and strode up to him. Good blocking too. If he learned how to do this on purpose and not just instinctually...
"Hey, you ever considered boxing or baseball?" Miz asked him with a wide grin as she patted his head again. Ben looked confused. Miz assured him, "You won't have to stop playing the violin. You're actually pretty good, but I think you'd make a pretty good batter if you learned how. Or tennis! Or bare handed arrow deflection!" Ben continued to stare at her with confusion. Miz pouted. "It's fine, kid. I was kinda joking with that last one. But tennis or badminton might work better for you, or ping pong, your arms are kinda weak. But you can work on that!" She patted his head cheerfully. "I'm sure one of those sports I've listed could be something you can try out and excel at!"
Ben sent another 'Help me!' look towards the twins. Lee shrugged. Sixer ran after Bill, to help him retrieve the ball. Everyone else was staring at their group. The teacher (who'd left the room for a few minutes to get the goal nets and had missed all of this) came back in dragging the equipment behind her.. "Alright, practice is over, it's time to start the matches," the teacher called out to them all, as she started shoving the goal nets into place.
Bill let out a loud "HAH!" as he jogged back after retrieving the ball (with Sixer trailing behind him), and turned to grin at the other teams. "We're going to DESTROY you! --At kickball," Bill added quickly, he wasn't starting a physical fight after all. "This is a challenge-that-is-not-called-a-challenge that you can say no to!" Then Bill paused and turned to Lee. "This IS a challenge-that-is-not-called-a-challenge that they can say no to, yes?" Bill asked him, and Lee nodded, somewhat aware that this challenge, although not a fight, was probably going to end up with more injuries. Just in case though…
"In kickball, you're not supposed to injure your own team." Lee figured he might as well put that out there, so Sixer and Ben didn't get hurt by Bill's playstyle.
Bill blinked. "HA! Of course not! That was practice. --If my own team is injured by me when trying to help me win, how is that winning?"
Lee groaned. How the heck did the older versions of them deal with this one? At least Miz was less… loud? "Well, can we also not injure the other team?" Lee tried. When Bill seemed about to protest, Miz piped in with, "It'll be more challenging to win with no injuries on any side."
"If they decide they want to be injured, I will not stop them," Bill said as something of a compromise. It wasn't as though he'd let them 'hold him hostage' by threatening to injure themselves if they did not win, by deciding to agree that some-injuries would constitute a loss. The point of the game was not to injure or kill, so he would not specifically go out of his way to do that -- it would be an attack if he did; simple.
A girl from another team stated loudly, "We would like to not be injured, please
?" She and her group grimaced, not wanting to go up against Bill. But to this, Miz just shrugged and said, "Then dodge or block."
The other kids didn't look all that happy about this advice.
"HAHA!" said Bill. "You don't HAVE to challenge us with a challenge-that-is-not-called-a-challenge," Bill put out there. "You COULD just not-challenge," Bill told them, "Or FORFEIT and take the LOSS!" he added with a grin. Bill was fine with not being challenged; he liked it better that way. Fear and respect were making his life easier, again!
The other kids all looked at each other and one of them spoke up: "We forfeit." They all nodded, every last one of them, not wanting to test this.
"HAHA!" Bill said, then grinned at them, as he accepted their forfeit with a, "GOOD." Bill turned away from them. "Miz! Sixer! Lee! Ben! MORE PRACTICE!" he called out, tossing the ball he'd retrieved over to Miz in an underhand motion.
Miz caught the ball and cheered "Yay! We win!"
The teacher looked around in confusion as she finished up with the nets, and heard the tail-end of this 'discussion' -- the last net being set up being the Pines and Cipher's (and Ben's) own. "But… the games?" She looked around but the kids seemed far more willing to do regular practice.
Bill looked over at her and grinned. "We won all the games!" Then he dropped the grin. "Are you going to MAKE them play one game when they want to play another?" he asked her very seriously, staring the teacher down. "The 'want' of gym class is 'strenuous physical activity'," Bill added. "That is happening this way still. Yes?" Bill added, taking a page from Stanley's book -- offering an alternate solution to the problem of a particular want.
The PE teacher looked confused.
"It could be practice until everyone is better at the game," Bill told her, trying to offer more information to someone who he recognized was confused. "And then everyone will enjoy the game more, once they are ready to play it well!" he enthused with a smile, nodding at her.
The teacher nodded slowly. "Well, if everyone wants to practice and not play a game I guess it shouldn't be a problem." She shrugged. "Have fun then." She didn't particularly care, her job was just to keep the kids occupied for a period. (As far as she was concerned, she didn't get paid enough to care. And more of them seemed to be actually doing something physically active this period for a lot longer than usual, instead of trying to get away with standing at the sidelines the entire time.)
All the kids heaved a sigh of relief at the teacher's reprieval, because at least they wouldn't have to deal with that crazy alien chick now. But they all started passing the balls amongst themselves, afraid that the crazy girl would try to include them if they didn't seem busy. They had seen how the Asian-looking girl had dragged Ben over to join their group earlier because he'd been standing alone, doing nothing.
Bill grinned, then turned back to the others on his team. "--More practice!" he called out, then pointed at Miz. "Miz, kick the kickball to one of us!" Miz grinned and kicked it to Lee, who passed it to Sixer.
"Well, hopefully, we'll have a quiet period for once." Lee mumbled under his breath.
Sixer fumbled the ball but managed to send it vaguely in Miz's direction. Miz sent it towards Bill (which made everyone's hearts drop) and Bill had a wicked smirk on his face as he reared back his leg.
This time, he kicked it to Lee -- just as hard as he'd kicked it to Ben the last time.
--And Lee brought up his hands in a boxer's block and smacked it away, not even joking around. He wasn't getting himself murdered by some stupid kickball kick!
Miz cheered. "Nice hit!"
Bill looked surprised, then even more surprised as what had just happened really registered.
...And then Lee realized that he'd never actually seen Bill grin before, because the grin that spread across Bill's whole face now looked absolutely ECSTATIC. (Seriously, Bill looked downright insane with glee.)
"YES-YES-YES!!!" Bill jumped up and down almost, hands up in the air but sort of bobbing in place, and he let out a chittering sound that morphed into a full-throated "HAHAHA!" of laughter, before he ran off after the ball again.
"Again-again-again, should do that again--" Lee heard Bill saying aloud (to himself) as he ran past him to retrieve the ball himself this time, not waiting for Miz to gesture at it, clearly wanting to get it back for himself even faster.
Lee looked over at Sixer for help, a little in shock at all this. But all his brother did was look at him, adjust his glasses, and tell him good-naturedly, with a smile on his face, "Well, you're doomed."
Lee sent his brother a dirty look.
And for the rest of gym class, Bill cackled as he kicked the ball at Lee again and again and again (and retrieved it again and again and again) from all angles. Lee twisted and planted himself solidly on the ground, punching away the ball every time it was sent his way (sometimes with not a lot of a breather, since sometimes Bill kicked it at him from clear across the gymnasium, and other times tried to sneak up on him using the other students as barriers, blocks, and shields).
While all this was going on, Miz had stolen a ball from another team and was using it to have a gentle passing practice between her, Ben, and Sixer. She was sending a few high balls at Ben so he would use the violin to knock them away, having fun with seeing how the kid reacted to the shots. "Really, your hand eye coordination actually isn't bad. Have you considered trying something with it?
"N-not really?" Ben squeaked out, deflecting another shot at his face. Miz didn't kick as hard as Bill did but they were still pretty fast. (Bill let out another cackling laugh in the background, that had Ben flinching in reflex.)
Miz grinned. "Just a suggestion. Take it or leave it, that's your choice."
Sixer ended up largely forgotten as he stood off to the side and wrote his notes while observing the two demons. "Enjoys… nurturing skills?" he mumbled out as he wrote it down.
Some of the braver kids walked over to Miz. "So… um… is there a reason you always aim at his face?"
Miz considered it.
Then Miz addressed Ben directly. "Can you hold the violin like a baseball bat and I can kick it NOT at your face?"
Ben let out a sigh of relief.
And a few minutes later, some of the other kids decided they wanted to join in with Miz's practice group (and shortly thereafter tentatively decided amongst themselves that the younger sister was definitely the nicer of the two).
Lee breathed a sigh of relief when the bell rang. He was straight-up sweating from this rather intense workout, but despite the way his arms trembled… he found himself grinning. Especially when Bill laughed in delight and told him: "GOOD! Very good!"
It… felt nice to get praise. Even if it was from a crazy demon.
Lee was definitely going to need that shower though.
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