Fantasy PHANTASMA: SCHOOL OF THE STRANGE

[ComradeSenpai]

"Augmentation? Like August?" Anya asked.


"Wait. That means upgrade.... what do I need an upgrade for?" she asked the set of armor.

 

[Parsnip]

"Mister sir coach guy sir!", Maggie gave a salute, causing her helmet to rattle a little, "I'm here for, uh, Gym? I'm here for Gym! I thought it would be hot in here 'cause gyms are always hot so I dressed appropriately mister sir coach guy sir!"

 

[Rancealot]

"Is not upgrades. A way to make friends?" Helada asked. Was she maybe going about making friends the wrong way? No, it worked for Maggie, it should work for everyone!

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"I thought I knew how to make friends. I guess not, though." Anya slouched her head.


"Maybe we can find out together?"

 

[CSA]

Lily felt slightly satisfied. Even though she was so slow, Anya didn't pass her even once. Maybe she was emotionally devastated or something, but that happened to the occasional Icarus who tried to get too close. She would still probably do things for Lily in hopes of getting on her good side, though, so it was fine as long as the Alraune could get some use out of her... right?


As Lily headed towards the locker room after the teacher shouted something at them and Maggie made her frankly disturbing entrance, she'd managed to peek Anya's tiny outline in the crowd of much larger ones.


Lily simply stared at her back while walking, and bit her lower lip a little.


"I mean, she IS only a kid right? She wasn't trying to do anything bad to me, was she? She's not my friend, and she was really presumptuous giving me a hug whenever she wanted, but... I could perhaps have handled things with more tact. She didn't really understand what she was doing, after all. It's hard to blame her when I'm as perfect as I am. Maybe I should say something later."





Lily quickly changed when she reached her locker. She didn't like the gym clothes that much, but she looked good in anything so it didn't matter too much. She glanced Susie at a nearby locker, however, and noted that she looked so much better when she wasn't dressed really badly. So much better.


"Hey, Susie. The gym outfit actually looks pretty good on you," said Lily politely.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Her ears twitched a bit as Lily complimented her, as she quickly turned around to face her. "Er uhm..." She said, blushing a bit. She was tapping her two index fingers together for a moment, before noticing... Ferdie! D-did you!? Susie thought to herself. Instinctively she quickly grabbed the puppet and placed it inside the locker, and slammed the door. As soon as she shut the locker door, she quickly headed outside to the track.

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"Well, anyways, I think we should head to class now." Anya said, pulling on the rest of her clothes. She wiped her face. A workout would clear her head. She was good enough to be Lily's friend; she just had to figure out what she was doing wrong, and make it right.


At this rate, there was no way Lily wouldn't be her friend.

 

[Rancealot]

"Yes. We must head to class." Helada followed suit and went outside to the track field. She noticed light frost forming on her armor while hearing some of the boys complaining about it being too cold.


"Must not freeze again. Bad idea." She tried to wipe away the frost while approaching the coach.

 

[Zerohex]

"Drop all the sirs and coach, just call me Mister McLaughlin. Or Mister Magnus. Or Mister Titan. Have you really not heard of me? I used to be really famous, look me up. Anyway, you'll be fine, I'm just going to test how well you people can handle the cold outside. It's not Russia or the Antartic, but I didn't start with that either". Martin pointed to one of the many doors in the massive indoors part of the gym "If you're ready then step outside please. And take off the helmet for this part, I'll let you put it on later".


Martin jogged to his office and quickly discarded his suit, stripping down to his singlet and tough boots, before jogging back to the outside portion of the gym, the one that resembled a modernized version of an ancient colisseum and was now set up as a racetrack. As the students started filing out of the locker rooms, basically all of them trembling under the harsh temperatures, he started imparting instructions: "Alright everybody! I know you're feeling cold but it was even worse when I was growing up! I was, however, a man! I overcame the cold because I had no choice! This doesn't affect me one bit!"


He stopped to flex for a bit, to let the point sink in. They could get immunity to this level of cold if they tried hard enough. "So, the instructions are simple, try to keep up with me until you can't take the cold anymore! When that happens, scream out "I'm not man enough yet!" and I'll let you step inside where it's nice and warm! I'll even carry you inside if you can't walk! But if I find your performance unsatisfactory you will warm up by wrestling with me for a minute! Now follow me!". And with that he was off, setting a brisk jogging pace that shouldn't be much of an issue to follow for basically anyone not a couch potato, at least for now.

 

[CSA]

Lily just smiled at Susie as she stuttered a bit and then ran away. She really was pretty cute, Lily would have to dress her up later. She would look so good in the things that Lily had in mind.


The Alraune followed her out the door and on to the track, where the coach gave out some sort of spiel about being a man and the cold not affecting him. That was all well and good, but Lily only felt a little bit of the cold and generally didn't have to worry about stamina. Those were stupid mammalian things.


Lily set off after the coach, who was actually going slow enough for her to keep up. If the man decided to keep this pace, only thinking about stamina and temperature, he'd likely fall over before Lily did. With this, no one would realize how slow she was. It was in the bag.

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"This is too cold." Anya moaned, rubbing her arms as she began to trudge forward. Her body was too frail to withstand this level of cold. Even Lily was becoming to frozen to move. Fortunately, this was her chance to be a helpful friend.


"Lily, we gotta keep going fast!" she said, getting close. "If we keep moving, we'll be sort of warm."


A brief moment later, Anya's teeth chattered, and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

 

[Rancealot]

Heleda followed after the coach. "Instructions. Keep up. Will try." She figured she could keep up and do her best by being directly behind the coach. She noticed her armor was getting more and more frosted as time went on however. Not good. Really bad. Super bad.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Okay, just keep up. She thought to herself as she followed at a brisk pace. These remind me of the mistral winds over home. Susie was shivering as she continued to follow.

 

[Parsnip]

"Alright, Mister McLaughlin-Magnus-Titan!", Maggie said as she removed her helmet and carried it under her arm, "I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna overcome the- oh wow that's cold.", her neck retracted until her chin was touching her collarbone. She jogged after the coach, her skin covered with goosebumps as she caught up with her roommates, Helada excluded, of course.


"Hey, guys, do you think we can wrestle with him anyways? Because I kinda want to do this but I also kinda want to wrestle with Coach Mr. McLaughlin-Magnus-Titan."

 

[MechaGhoul]

"W-why?" Susie inquired, genuinely surprised at Maggie's revelation. She continued jogging, while shivering due to the harsh cold winds.

 

[Parsnip]

Maggie rubbed her arms as she ran in an attempt to warm up, "Cause it would be really cool.", Maggie responded, "Why else do people do things?"

 

[CSA]

Once again, Lily found herself being pestered by the kid. She just wouldn't give up, would she? Probably had delusions of becoming incredibly well-liked among her peers for befriending Lily. Well, it wasn't going to work.


"I'm not cold, Anya," replied Lily sternly.


But she still had something else to say, didn't she? Lily hated admitting she was wrong, but it was the adult thing to do probably.


"And, I mean, I'm a little sorry I guess. I was a little too harsh back there. I didn't really mean to hurt you."


Then Maggie caught up, which wasn't too hard at the pace Lily was going. Why would she even want to wrestle that guy? What about that seemed fun?


"I'm... I'm not wrestling anybody," replied Lily, "But you can if you want to, I guess. He said it would warm you up, and you seem cold."


Lily would not partake in the wrestling, but she'd sure as hell watch it. She kind of hoped that they would reveal that they were secretly twin siblings and one of them kidnapped the other's girlfriend.

 

[zeke]

Brian arrived at the school in a bad mood, like always. It was cold, Brian hated the cold; he also hated the heat. It was just as bad. Back in his day temperatures had been sensible and were comfortable.


He hobbled down the front path of the school, his cane clicking on the concrete with every step he took. Before he went inside the building, Brian decided to check the back of the school by the gym, where the hooligans, played hooky and did drugs. As he slowly made his way, he noted a bunch of young people running around in "shorts" and "tee-shirts". Brian hated children, with their noise, their questions, their technology. They were Brian's worst enemy, and the school was his battle ground. The place where he would finally teach these snots some respect.


He turned to the kids and shouted "You kids better stay off the grass! If I see you youngsters so much as take a single step on the grass, I'm sending you to detention!" He didn't actually know if could send a kid to detention for stepping on the grass, he really hoped he could.

 

[ComradeSenpai]

Anya's face lit up as she heard Lily's apology. She really did like her.


"It's okay; I know you didn't mean it!" she smiled, hugging Lily once more.


"That's why we're friends. It's why you don't have to act tough for me; you can admit you're cold if you want. I'll warm you up!" she told the alraune.

 

[Zerohex]

Martin started jogging backwards as more and more kids started dropping behind then calling out to quit. Whenever they did he asked them for their names, most of which he wouldn't remember, and let them go, telling them to go warm themselves up inside. They were looking a pretty bad shade of blue or purple, so he couldn't quite blame them for not taking it, they just weren't manly enough yet. Still, better to check no one got left behind, passed out or something, these kids were so frail and the school really didn't like injuries or deaths unless the students signed a specific waiver before the activity itself.


"Alright everyone, it's time for a little sprint. You go as fast as you can until I tell you to stop, don't hold anything back". Taking a deep breath in, he didn't just accelerate but seemingly exploded from where he was, racing down the track as fast as his superhumanly mighty body would take him. It was less a well-trained sprint and more an animal taking quick bounds with its powerful hindlegs, shortening distances by the leap. He was planning to lap around the group and see who ended up ahead of the rest or fell behind by the time he was done. He heard some yelling, but with the wind rushing around him, he couldn't really make out who it was or what they were saying.

 

[Parsnip]

"Aah! Mister Coach McMagnus, wait!", Maggie ran as fast as she could after the coach, "Mister McCoach Laughington my feet are going- ah!", Maggie gasped as she stumbled and tripped over her own numb feet, sending her and her helmet into the nearby turf. Her neck went slack, extending like so much fishing line cast from a reel, her head coming to a stop a good ten feet away in the grass.


"Aw darn.", Maggie spat out a chunk of dirt and probed a now-chipped tooth with her tongue, "Looks like I got detention, huh?"

 

[zeke]

"Yer' darn right you did!" Brain scolded, walking over to the fallen student, trampling all the plants in his path, "It'll teach you a thing or two. See, back in my day students had respect and knew enough to stay off the grass. These days you rapscallions seem to launch yourselves face first in the grass."

 

[MechaGhoul]

Her pupils dilated upon seeing the sheer speed of Martin's speed, as she began sprinting, following the other students, in some desperate move. She was panting a bit, as she noticed that Maggie tripped and fell down. She stopped running and took a few quick breaths, heading over to Maggie and the Faculty Member. "A-are you okay?" She asked to Maggie.

 

[CSA]

"Huh?"


As Lily looked back at the crotchety old man, Anya gave her yet another hug. She was able to keep her balance for a whole three seconds until she toppled onto the track, not having gone fast enough to shoot out onto the grass like Maggie.


"Crap!"


Lily angled herself so that she would be on bottom and take the brunt of the fall. Sure it was the kid's fault that the Alraune got tripped up, but pain was no big deal for her and healing was a breeze. Mammals were so fragile.


Except for their teacher, she guessed.


Lily looked up at the Neko as she lay on her back, her right elbow zested like a ripe orange into an organic marmalade.


"You OK, kid?" asked Lily.

 

[Rancealot]

Helada kept running. The others have done there best she had hoped, even if it wasn't enough trying is what mattered the most. However she found herself going slower and slower. "Mobility decreasing." She said aloud. But why? She didn't tire like the others, there had to be a reason.


She looked down and noticed the frost was spreading, making her heavier and slower. She continued to keep trying, but eventually found herself frozen still on the track, unable to move.


Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. It's going to happen again. Another hundred years trapped in ice. Bad.