Illusion is Reality

Chapter 82

-Well there are some fates worse than death-

The next morning, while they were cooking breakfast up on the deck together, Miz suddenly sat up straight with a frown. "Can we call them something different so I don't get confused when we mention you all by name?"

The four Stans looked at each other.

But before any of them could say anything, Bill raised a hand, index finger pointing straight out, and pointed it at young Ford, saying "'Ford," and then moved his hand around to point at young Stan, "Lee."

(The young Stanley grimaced a little at this, not looking forward to being called 'Lee' again, but didn't complain out loud at this.)

Then Bill pointed at "Stanley" (his Stanley) and "Sixer" (that Stanford that was his)...

-but Ford looked angry at being called that and immediately snapped out, "-Don't call me that!"

(The young Ford, for his part, blinked and looked between them.)

"I… I'm okay with being called Sixer," the young Ford offered.

"That Stanford is Sixer; you are 'Ford," said Bill. Because that Stanford was his Six-Fingered Hand. Sixer. (...even if he didn't ACT like a Sixer most days.)

Before Ford could explode at Bill again, Stan cut in with, "-Kid, we'll call you Sixer; Bill will probably call you Ford. Yeah?"

The younger teenaged Ford ("Sixer") looked between Bill (who was relaxed as anything and looked completely unconcerned) and Ford (who looked ready to have an aneurysm over it), and said, sounding slightly amused, "...Sure?"

Miz clapped her hands. "Yes. Thank you. This will make it much easier for me and everyone else to understand." She looked over at the pancakes (and remaining pancake batter mix) and realized there was no way she'd be satisfied with just that much. So she turned to Stan and asked, "Can I go catch some more fish?" They still had the other fish steaks that Stan had made from what she'd caught, placed under a Preservation effect, but as far as Miz was concerned, that was for them to eat, too. Miz needed more than that; she could polish the rest of that off herself in one single meal.

"Sure, same rules as before," Stan grunted out. Miz nodded and floated down the side of the boat, not bothering to go into her dragon form this time, She was just going to swim after them. Her clothes changed into a cute one piece swimsuit as she stepped into the water. Having a Perception Filter 'on' to cover her was pretty much a constant by this point.

As Miz went to get herself some food, Stan motioned for the kids to come with him back down into the hold, so they could get more stuff to get the fish Miz was going to bring back squared away. (It was gonna leave Ford and the kid on deck with each other for a couple of minutes, but if they couldn't manage that at this point, then Stan figured things were a lot worse between them than he thought. ...And it'd be better to figure that one out now, too, when the niblings weren't around to see anything go horribly wrong, or the aftermath of that.)

Stan sent Ford a look before descending down the ladder after the kids. Ford caught it, and all but rolled his eyes at him. (...Well, fine. Maybe the sleep had helped him, or just the niblings being outta the line of fire now.)

Stan let out an old man sigh as he stepped off of the ladder in the bottom of the hold. The two teenagers had been pretty quiet that morning overall, still in a stunned state from the upheaval of their lives yesterday. They seemed a little nervous now; it was probably really only starting to sink in for them exactly what it happened, and what their lives were going to be like from now on moving forward.

Sixer was going to live here on the boat while he finished school; Lee would be staying as well. Stan would be providing for them both - a stance he refused to back off on, no matter how much Sixer protested (this morning as well) that he didn't want to bother or burden Stan.

"Kid, you're gonna need money and food and supplies to get through school. I'm an adult and I can make money," Stan grunted out.

And when Lee suggested just dropping out, so he could work to help save up enough money for him and Sixer to live off of until Sixer graduated, and pay for him to go to college...

"Yeah, no," Stan told his younger self, as he finished shooing the two of 'em back up the ladder, took the stuff they'd helped him carry up from them, and then continued walking the two of them across the deck. "You two are going to school," he leveled a hard look at Lee, who hunched his shoulders a bit and looked kind of annoyed - yeah, that was gonna be a problem, keeping him in school when he wanted to work to fix things instead. With money. So he wouldn't feel useless. Shit. Stan could relate, but- "We're gonna swing by the pawnshop first, though," Stan grimaced, "Backdoor. Get your junk.

"Could just sneak in the window again," Lee muttered, and that had Stan looking over at him, blinking, then thinking.

He turned away from Lee, and looked to Bill, who was waving his hands around all magic-y and junk - helping Miz haul (read: float) a bunch of fish up onto the deck for her, and receiving a "Thanks big brother," and nuzzle for his efforts as he finished. Stan smiled.

"Kid, add this stuff to the hat too, yeah?" Stan added, as Bill scooped up the fish into his hat (read: floated them in, in a long continuous head-to-tail stream). Bill looked over to him, then down at his arms, and made a quick gesture, floating what Stan was carrying out of his arms and into his hat, too. Stan got a thoughtful look as Bill put his hat back onto his head.

"Kid, if you went up to their bedroom, you think you could grab everything they might want you to grab for them, up in your hat, if you go up there?" Stan asked the kid. The kid looked interested, but reminded Stan, "Need permission from both of them."

Stan nodded (good, the kid was still following that one), then looked over to Sixer and Lee, who looked confused, up until Stan explained the 'solution' and the 'problem' with: "Kid can grab anything you want for you, easy. But bedrooms are personal spaces. Ya need permission from everybody whose bedroom it is to go up into it, door or window or anything, and the kid's not stealing anything or breaking into places," Stan told them. (Those were the rules for bedrooms at the Shack, and Stan noticed that the kid was not just paying attention to and following those, at home, with him and his family, but also applying them elsewhere - like pretty much everything else that the kid had learned from him so far. -Which was exactly what Stan wanted, and had been going for.) "You gotta tell him what's okay, and for how long you're okay with him bein' up there."

Sixer blinked at him and adjusted his glasses, then turned to the human-looking demon. "You have my permission to enter my room… the once, today," he added carefully, looking at Stan, before looking back to Bill. "And… retrieve my bookbag, and books, and clothing for me," Sixer told him. "Nothing else." Stan and Lee both frowned at him, and his shoulders slumped. "I don't want Pa sayin' I stole anything from him," Sixer muttered angrily, looking away. "He won't care about books and clothing. He doesn't care about the books, and he can't sell any of our clothes for anything, really."

Bill nodded and shrugged, then looked to Lee. "Need your permission to enter too, before I can!" Bill told Lee brightly, with a fixed smile. Miz was Flickering, checking to see where their parents were, wondering if there was a way she could arrange 'accidents' for Filbrick without Stan noticing? Nothing lethal, just tripping over stuff and if he happened to twist an ankle or bruise an arm… or break his nose...

She frowned. No. Bad Miz. THIS Filbrick was an ass for tossing his son out, but he didn't really deserve her brand of karma. He wasn't quite bad enough for her to justify that to herself. She sighed. Fine. She'd leave him alone. Besides, Stan had already given her another stern lecture this morning about it already, before the rest of them had woken up. Figures she and Stan would be the early risers? It was odd that Ford had slept in for so long, considering how little he trusted her and Bill, though...

Lee frowned. "Yeah, okay," Lee said. "I can carry most of it myself, though."

Stan shrugged and said, "Just tell the kid what you're okay with him grabbin' for now, in case Filbrick comes up the stairs after ya."

Lee winced, as did Sixer, and Lee said, finally, "Clothes and shoes and jackets and belts and junk. Bookbag, and anything inside it, and all my school books and papers and school junk, too," Lee added, rolling his eyes at the look Stan gave him, "Any of my duffel bags - eh, all of 'em, I guess - and I already got my wallet," he said as he patted his front jeans pocket, then hesitated.

"Oh, yeah," Lee said, then shoved a hand in his back pocket and pulled out a familiar-looking wallet, which he handed over to Sixer. "Here." Sixer blinked, as he took his wallet from his twin brother. "Checkbook for the boat accounts," Lee added, talking to Bill again, as they all took turns climbing their way down the side of the boat and down onto the sand. "-But I'll grab that myself," Lee added. "And maybe… all of my comic books?" Lee added after a moment's thought, glancing over at Bill, wondering if that was even a thing? "I have a lot of them."

Bill nodded. "Not a problem!" the demon told him. "My hat is bigger than it looks," he said next, as he pulled it off his head and demonstrated by shoving his hand in to pull out… a pitchfork? full-sized?... and then shove it right back in.

As Lee and Sixer stared, both for very different reasons, Miz spoke up, saying, "I can distract your dad." Stan's narrow-eyed glance let her know that she hadn't been able to hide her feelings about Filbrick.

Like hell Stan was gonna let her do that. Stan had already barely been able to talk her out of outright 'destroying' the man during their discussion last night and again this morning. (The only upshot about that had been that she'd had that verbal fight with him inside one of those no-sound bubbles, out of earshot of the younger twins. And that she DID end up backing down, both times ...for the moment. Stan was uneasy and very irritated about the fact that Miz apparently knew it was wrong to want to hurt Filbrick, and had still wanted to, though, just because she'd been angry and projecting.)

Stan thought back to their talk that morning.

"You know that it's wrong to hurt others, yeah?" Stan stared down at her. Miz looked a little uncomfortable, wiggling in her seat.

"...yeah…"

Stan breathed in deeply to calm himself down. "So why do you still want to do it?" he asked. Because that was the main thing he needed to know, to know just how dangerous Miz was. If she chose to do something that she knew was wrong… hell. That was a major problem, no two ways about it.

Miz hunched up where she was sitting. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, but seemed to have trouble figuring out how to say what she wanted to say. Finally, she sighed. "Would you get mad if I explained?" she asked finally.

...As opposed to, what, her not explaining at all? Like hell. Stan's stare didn't waver. "I'm plenty mad right now," he said, leaving it at that - because did the demon-kid really think that not telling him was gonna make him any less mad?

Miz rubbed her face. Finally, she spoke. "Sometimes, I think that some people deserve to be hurt, at least a little bit. Like, a punishment."

Before Stan could let Miz know just how he felt about that, Miz continued with, "I punished the poachers who took Xanthar's family from him. I punished the king who kidnapped and raped his citizens. I punished the god who demanded infant sacrifices. I punished that man who DRUGGED me with an aphrodisiac… and many, many more." She had her hands balled in her lap. "I know that, maybe I could have tried to get them arrested so 'the law' could punish them. But, they wouldn't have been. They would have gotten away scot-free for their crimes. And I couldn't stand that. I couldn't stand the thought that they were free to continue hurting people and no one was going to stop them." She trembled a little before relaxing. "So I did it myself. And, I know it's wrong to hurt people, but they were bad people. And aren't bad guys supposed to be punished?"

Stan closed his eyes and breathed. Okay. Okay. So this was a thing. After he opened his eyes again he still kept on glaring at her, though. "And Filbrick?" Stan pushed.

Miz wilted. "Okay, yeah, that was… a bit extreme on my part. I was just angry. He doesn't actually deserve to lose his eyes, even if he's blind to how important his children are. I'm not gonna mess with him." Miz rubbed her face. "I'm just, really unhappy at how distressed little Ford and Stan are. I can't Feel it, but I can See it just fine. And I don't like it."

Stan stared at her. "...and you want to hurt the man who made them unhappy?"

Miz nodded, relaxing a little in relief now that she'd finally gotten that off her chest. "I was angry. But I held myself back from actually doing it." Miz sighed. "Is that… good?"

Stan eyed her. He had a hell of a lot of things he wanted to say to her about this whole thing, but for now... "No. That's what you should do. Holding yourself back from hurting other people who don't have a damn thing to do with you, who - hell - don't even know who you are? That's the minimum. 'Good' is a whole 'nother thing else. -Nobody is askin', or needs you, to run off punishing Filbrick over anything - and if anybody else says different, you come talk to me, first," Stan told her. "Making Filbrick blind over this, or anything else to do with those kids, is definitely bad. -You hear me?" Stan told her next, as firmly as he could, trying to get the point across, and she nodded. Stan saw this, then let out a tired sigh and ran a hand over his face.

"Look, maybe hold yourself back from other stuff you wanna do when you're angry, at least while you're here in this 'set' of ours. And if you do get in a situation where there's a 'bad' person that you want to punish, maybe…" Hell, the examples she listed did sound pretty bad, and Miz believed that 'the law' wouldn't have done anything about them. Yeah, Stan could relate. There were plenty of mobsters he'd wished could have just dropped dead on the spot, so he wouldn't have to deal with 'em anymore. (Rico? Had been one of them.) "...get a second opinion before you actually go after 'em. Or third. Talk to someone and see if maybe there's some other way to stop those 'bad guys' without having to tear their eyes out or somethin'. -There's a reason you keep judge, jury, and executioner separate, you know?" he told her, wincing. "There's justice, yeah, and maybe there ain't a hell of a lot of mercy," not like he'd ever had much of any of that ever thrown his way… "But decidin' who deserves to get hurt, and how much for how much they hurt other people? You need that second and third opinion, kid, and maybe even a fourth," Stan told her. Because she really, really did. Because the way she equated 'her emotions being hurt' to this kinda stuff? -What was gonna happen if she decided 'hurt feelings' were 'bad' enough to require a punishment like stabbing out somebody's eyes, or chopping off their head at some point, or who knew what else?!

And Miz looked up at him as he told her all this, with that odd expression that just made Stan feel uncomfortable. An expression that was so… trusting, like Miz thought Stan would know the answers to everything. "Then, what should I do about Filbrick?" she asked him, and Stan had to look away.

"Absolutely nothin'," Stan told her. "You leave him alone. I'm fixing it. -You want punishment? I do penalties and lessons. -He tossed away one son like garbage? Well, guess what, he's losin' 'em both, all on his own. -I'm just helpin' to make it go along a little quicker, by helpin' that younger me stay with his twin like he should, leaving the house earlier on his own, too, without either of 'em havin' to worry about how to survive or anything. -That's 'punishment' enough for Filbrick, and then some. He don't deserve them, and they don't deserve havin' to put up with him anymore, either," Stan told her gruffly - to which Miz then nodded, and that was that.

Shaking himself back into the present, Stan stared Miz down.

"I can distract Pa," Stan said heavily. "I'll go in the front of the pawn shop. -You two," he looked over at Lee and Bill, "Go up the back, take the window inside. -Sixer, Ford, you two keep watch. Miz," Stan gave her a long look. "You're either behaving yourself and sticking with Ford, or you're taking a trip inside Bill's hat." Because Stan was pretty sure that she wouldn't be able to do anything from in there, if that one guy from the kid's magic show had been any indication, what with the whole frozen dead time thing the kid had going on, on the other side of that thing.

Miz pouted. "I'll be good." She folded her arms and huffed, but didn't protest otherwise.

Stan gave her a long look. ...Yeah, she didn't look like she was lying.

"Okay, good. You be good," Stan told her, reaching out to pat her on the head a few times. Even agreeing without lying about it was a step in the right direction, far as he was concerned; he'd worry about penalizing her later if she ended up losing her temper or something. "You do that," he told her, then added, to hammer the point home a bit, "Means less work for your brother, not havin' to go off fixing more things while he's helping me out. Yeah?" That, at least, got him a more positive reaction. Miz whined a little but nodded again.

Stan patted her on the head again - positive reinforcement still being a thing - then moved off to the front of the pack. (He didn't miss how the kid dropped back to where she was, to pick up patting her on the head himself... and kept it up as they walked along. Huh. ...Probably a good thing? Stan looked over his shoulder as the kid worked on her, and realized that maybe the kid thought - as he was starting to realize himself - that Miz was having a hell of a lot harder time keeping her temper than he'd thought. ...Well, whatever. As long as it worked and kept her settled. And at least the kid had noticed and was trying to help him out, in a way that might actually be helpful?)

(...He was gonna have to pat the kid on the head later for this one, too, wasn't he. Or, y'know, now. Once they stopped walking.)

They were all mostly quiet as they turned onto the street and approached the house; even Ford looked pretty subdued. As they got closer, not more than two blocks away, Stan asked, "You two sure that's all of it? Everything that you want?" He turned to Sixer and asked, "What about your schoolwork?"

"What?" Sixer frowned. "-Do I really need to be that specific with what Bill can take?" Sixer asked them, thinking back on what-all Lee had said, and what he himself had said about wanting his bookbag. "Schoolwork and papers is obvious, isn't it?"

"You want more than just the backpack?" Bill added easily enough, and that had Sixer's eyes going wide, and Lee letting out a half-snort half-laugh. (Stan let out a quiet sigh, and patted the kid on the head a few times himself. Wasn't like the kid didn't deserve one or two after saying that, heh.)

"-Sixer, he's a demon," Lee reminded his brother good-naturedly, elbowing him in the side. "Gotta be careful with the wording!" he told him, as Sixer scowled and readjusted his glasses, sending his twin a 'that elbowing was not appreciated' look.

"Fine," Sixer said, straightening up in place. "Bill, please add any and all schoolwork of mine-"

"-That is in our bedroom," Lee cut in, sounding amused - because he knew his twin had shoved all of his old stuff into boxes and put them all up into the attic, every last school assignment and old textbook and binder - and Sixer made a sound of annoyance and hunched his shoulders a bit.

"...That is in our bedroom," Sixer muttered, glaring at Lee and looking like he felt vaguely harassed. "And shoes and clothing - which I already said - and socks and belts and jackets and hats," he added, trying to one-up his brother on his listing (except said brother just let out a laugh and said, "But you look stupid in hats!") ...Sixer gritted his teeth, then straightened in place and added after that, firmly, "And gloves and scarves and my knitting."

Ford blinked and gave the younger him an odd look at that last one, knitting, and then looked away. He didn't remember ever having knitted... (Was this something that he had forgotten? Like what a proper breathable air mix for humans had actually felt like, to take in? Because when he'd first gotten back, after so long…)

(...or was it yet another change from something far more recent gone wrong, having to do with their arrival? Mabel had been wearing one of her own hand-knitted sweaters while they'd been here...)

...but there was also no Bill Cipher in this Dimension's past. That had been why Bill was so upset before they'd come here (something about draining the weirdness from his Nightmare Realm?), so perhaps something about Bill's absence had triggered other changes, as well? ...Except Bill himself had said that the Stan o' War was 'all but identical', and he hadn't been lying. So what could have possibly impacted his younger self, yet somehow had had no impact on that younger Stan? Stan had been the one out of the two of them more interested in sewing-like things, not...

Ford frowned and let out his breath in a quiet huff, then grimaced. (Because this was yet another odd thing that didn't add up, that just felt out-and-out wrong…)

"Spare glasses and the supplies for cleaning them, if there are any?" Miz spoke up, glancing over at Sixer. "Tooth brushes? Hygiene supplies?"

"Spare glasses and your regular checkbook, nerd," Lee prompted his brother, who repeated it in a mutter. Stan piped up at the other items, "The toothbrushes and all that stuff are in the bathroom, not the bedroom, and these two probably need new junk for that, anyway. -We'll buy replacements for that stuff. Combs and hairbrushes and deodorant and everything else," Stan added, knowing a little more by this point how the demon felt about cleanliness, at least a little. ...Enough to know that he should tell her this junk outright, instead of just assuming that she knew that he wasn't just gonna let that stuff slide. Stan was a cheapskate, sure, but not that kind of cheapskate. He'd lost his teeth from a couple of straight-up fights, not a lack of brushing.

"We'll grab the stuff from the house, then stop by a quickmart on the way to the school," Stan continued, "-and grab some things there." He had enough of his own earnings on him right then to cover that, easy, and he knew that he could get more without issue. "Bill can fix up a duffle bag for each of ya then," Stan said to the younger twins next. "-This is gonna be a grab-and-go," he said of the twins' bedroom, "A quick in-and-out." He didn't want to risk what might happen if Filbrick (or their ma) realized what they were doing, upstairs. "Kid'll get your bookbags in order while you two change clothes in the gas station bathroom, and we'll be getting you all to school there in time for you all to use the locker room showers for the rest of it," Stan told them all, kids both demon and human.

The younger twins looked at each other in slight confusion, at the long sigh from Bill and the excited look Miz got upon hearing all this. ...Wasn't really a surprise. Stan had talked it over with the demons earlier that morning, and Ford, before the younger twins had finally woken up. (Ford hadn't liked it, obviously, but then he hadn't liked it the first time Stan had brought it up at home, either. Probably still thought Stan was out of his mind.) -Bill Cipher in high school. It was gonna be a thing.

Stan had thought that one over, hard. Food, clothing, shelter, and schooling. And schooling didn't just happen at home. The kid needed more exposure to people, not less. Kid was working off of a limited dataset, or whatever. Not enough experience at actually being human, in the USA, in 'modern times' and all that junk. Stan wanted the kid thinking 'how things are now, bhere' first when stuff came up these days, from here on out. Not some stupid junk about cavemen and ancient Egyptians and native tribes did things instead, and whatnot. Stan was getting tired of trying to explain the differences to the kid, and the easiest way to fix that was to get the kid interacting more with more people, daily.

The Mystery Shack (had been and) was mostly out. The kid didn't like interacting with adults, and the ones stupid enough to visit the Shack museum would send the kid the entirely wrong message, for what Stan wanted the kid to learn. Having the kid go to school with Wendy, the Valentino kid, and the other teenagers in town, though? That should work out just fine. The school was 'the school', not 'the town', and the school had its own 'zero tolerance' rules about not fighting. ...Well, at least these days, in 2013, it did. And Stan hadn't really liked or appreciated those rules himself, thinking them pretty dumb himself… at least until he'd realized how he could make that work for the kid.

Because those rules were set up kind of like the same structure as the agreement he had going with the kid. And, technically, some of those rules were even more rigid. One strike, and you're out; as in, straight-up expelled. It was kind of halfway between most of the 'you only get one chance to do it right or you die' junk the kid kept trying to convince him of, and Stan's own, 'you can make mistakes and have accidents, but there are damn well consequences that get pretty damn bad really damn quick if you start trying to step on or step over anybody's lines'. Really, it was more like the kid's competitive junk, except the 'or you die' was an 'or you get expelled and/or laughed at like the stupid fool you are'... which was also kind of the same, come to think of it.

So, yeah. Stan wanted Bill going to high school, all right. To learn how to interact with other people. And the best trick Stan had managed to pull off, to have the kid even considering it at all back home, was that Wendy was going to school, and Stan couldn't follow her around all day keeping an eye on her for trouble… but the kid could. And the kid was supposed to be helping Stan watch out for her as part of the agreement.

...which, yeah, the kid was suspicious of for a good reason, 'cause Stan had never tried to take things that far for her or Soos before, even though he did have a reputation in town. But. Stan knew the kid was takin' it all seriously, because the kid had taken it all one step further; Stan knew the kid had been thinking about '...what happens when the kids go home for the summer?' with Dipper and Mabel. Because the two of them? Wouldn't even be in town with them anymore, and it was a full day's car ride down to their parents' place in California.

(Stan was almost positive that the kid had already started something sneaky, trying to get the two of 'em transferred to Gravity Falls High. And, y'know, he wasn't exactly stopping him. As long as nobody got hurt…)

Stan shook it off, as he pointed towards the alleyway to the back of the house, and Ford gave him a long look as the lot of them made their way around to the back.

And that left Stan alone at the front of the building, right outside the doors of the pawnshop.

Stan pulled in a sharp breath, then grimaced at himself and forced himself to let it out again slowly.

And then Stan braced himself, took those two steps forward, and opened the door.

...Well, that had, uh. Been a thing. Stan wasn't sure how he felt right then. -But hey, at least the kids had pulled off their own stealin'-their-own-stuff 'scam' just fine, right?

Stan tried not to think too hard about the folded piece of paper sitting down in his front pants pocket, and he straight out ignored the almost-concerned looks Ford kept sending him, as they all walked the way-too-short distance from there to the best (read: one and only!) gas station on the walk between the house and the school. It took a lot more than Stan had expected to not say anything to Ford on any of it. (Yet.)

Stan roamed the aisles of the gas station mart, and so did the kids, while Ford took up a position by the door like some kind of stupid bodyguard or something. (Hell, Ford…) They all gathered at the front register in less than five minutes, got all their junk up onto the counter (with Stan having to send a glare Lee's - and then Sixer's - way, to get them both to empty out their pockets of 'accidental' items, were they tryin' to get themselves arrested for shoplifting? they were seventeen, not seven - their heads came up above the counter, and those bulges weren't anything like inconspicuous, not even a little), and Stan slapped down the cash and got everything bought up and bagged in even less time than that.

They went outside and around the side, over to where they'd left the two demons to their own devices for a bit. (...Hell, maybe Ford had been watching them; Stan had been able to see 'em from the door, once they left.)

Stan sat down on the curb with the kid, Miz, and the younger twins to help out with the repacking of junk out of the hat, and also out of the one duffel bag of Lee's stuff that Lee had insisted on carrying himself, slung over his back with the strap across his chest. (Stan had to cover a snort. He'd forgotten that he'd made that 'bug out bag' such a long time ago. He'd read about them in some survivalist spy thriller thing, and made one for himself for 'date nights', thinking of a call and a quick bug out for an overnight stay someplace. Wasn't really meant for a long trip, or getting kicked outta the house, and it had been under his bed, not in the truck of his car, but...)

Stan could kind of understand the urge. (Wasn't like he hadn't taken that urge and practically turned it into a damn near subconscious survival instinct, those ten years that he'd been living out on the streets, neither.)

Stan didn't forget to give the kid, and Miz, a couple of headpats for their trouble (and patted the two kids on the head too, for good measure, though the looks he'd gotten out of them for it had darn near made him chuckle). The two of them (he and the kid) had the teens' bookbags and duffle bags together in short order, and Stan shooed the two human kids off to the station bathroom, to go brush their teeth and change clothing.

That left him sitting with the two demons, and Ford standing over them all.

Stan turned to the demons and opened his mouth to say, "You two are gonna enroll in school with the twins."

The utterly befuddled expressions on their (and Ford's) faces nearly made Stan laugh.

"What," Stan said. "You didn't think I was serious about it, this morning?" Then he sort of got it. "You didn't think I was talkin' about actually goin' to school here, right now," Stan said next, sitting back and looking at them all kind of incredulously. (Because, seriously, had they all just thought he was talkin' about stuff two months from now and back home for his health? ...What, had they all just thought he'd meant sneaking them into the school only to use the showers, earlier, too?)

The kid and Ford looked about to object - okay, well at least maybe they had been taking him seriously, but had thought he'd just 'magically' changed his mind or something in-between falling asleep and waking up that morning? Meanwhile, Miz looked like she was actually considering it. (Yep. Dragon-lady probably thought he'd just been talking about havin' the demon-kids usin' the showers earlier; otherwise, she'd be looking that same kinda excited all over again as she had earlier, Stan figured.)

"Well, it would let us keep an eye on the twins," she pointed out. (Heh, she was jumpin' ahead on him, there.) Ford stared at her, suspicious as all hell, while the kid let out another, even longer sigh, and looked resigned when he realized his sister was open to the idea… because the kid knew, and Stan knew, that he wasn't going to let her run off to human school all alone. (Hell, the kid hadn't even liked having to send her through the portal on her own without him, even with the thought of being away from her for only five minutes at most. And that couldn't have just been worry about her getting through the portal okay. Kid hadn't even been able to think of leaving her behind and having her go through the Door to him - which would've been less than a minute, Stan was pretty sure.)

That didn't stop the kid from trying to take a different tack at it, though, with a: "We can do that from the outside, just as easily."

"Heh," said Stan. Wasn't like he hadn't had a good night's sleep and about an hour under his belt to figure this one out. "Sure, try and cop out of it. If you don't think you can handle it," Stan said next, which had the kid eyeing him. Good. "What?" Stan said, affecting surprise. "You're the one who thinks 'normal' high school in Gravity Falls would be too easy for you," Stan told him, "And that you'd get nothing out of it because it's all kindergarten playtime, what with all that zero-tolerance policy crap? Well guess what they don't have here, kid," Stan told him. "You really think you can handle an 'advanced class' without any prep, just walk right on in and you're golden?" Stan challenged him, with a laugh, and he saw Bill's eyes narrow. (Yeah. There we go.)

Miz actually teased Bill with a smug "Ooooh~" which pulled a very interesting expression from the older demon.

"Stan…" Ford said quellingly, and Stan just flat-out ignored it (except for the 'shut up' hand gesture he made at his side to Ford, the side that Bill couldn't see outright).

Stan pulled in a breath instead, and went for broke. "Kid doesn't want to go to the school at the 'Falls because he thinks it's easy to not get into fights and not get suspended or expelled or all the rest of it, as long as they've got that 'no fights' rule in place that everybody's following," Stan told Ford, using him as a wall to bounce things off of here... and an excuse to rehash a few things to death that he hadn't told Ford yet, that the kid had been arguing about to exhaustion. Literally. "Here, there's no problem if things go wrong, because we ain't living here. Ain't the Falls, nobody knows him, no bias starting out to begin with for most of 'em maybe," Stan said, "And anybody tries to say he's a demon here is gonna get themselves sent to the loony bin, so long as the kid keeps the magic under his hat," Stan noted dryly. "Only 'problem' is that I don't think the kid could pass as a high school student at home for a week as-is - not without getting his idiotic triangular ass suspended or expelled, and every last one of the teachers hating his guts - let alone here," Stan said, crossing his arms and looking down his nose at the kid. "Where fights can happen and sometimes the 'wrong' people get expelled… and sometimes nobody gets in any trouble for it at all," Stan noted.

Bill's eyes were narrowed to slits. He looked both challenged and pissed.

"Terms," Bill practically spat out at him, hands pushed down against the curb beneath him so tightly that every last joint of his fingers was white. (Ford's harsh intake of breath was nearly inaudible.)

Stan smiled.

"It's simple, kid," Stan said smugly, knowing it was gonna be anything but - for the kid, at least. "You attend school for a week. Five days straight, not counting the weekend. Actually attend. Every class. You don't get yourself suspended. You don't get yourself expelled." Stan pulled in a breath, before continuing. "You don't go castin' magic on school grounds, unless you ask me first and I say it's fine, or unless somebody's gonna die if you don't intervene and go magicin' up somethin' to stop it. Agreement rules apply." (Stan saw Ford twitch at that one. -Wasn't like that was any real out, Ford. Hell.) "If you get in a fight?" Stan challenged him. "You don't kill them, you don't leave any of them needing hospitalization, and you don't end up in trouble over it," Stan told him, "Not even so much as a detention slip over it. -And you don't have any of your teachers hating you for any of the junk you pull," Stan told him, "Inside or outside of school."

Bill was staring at him expressionlessly, except for his eyes, which were staring at him hard, almost searchingly.

"Define 'my teachers'," Bill said next.

"Any teachers you interact with," Stan said, and he noted the grimace from the kid. "Teachers you're taking classes with," Stan elaborated, "And any teachers you see at the school who aren't walking up to you biased, because of only something that somebody else told them," Stan told the kid, then pulled in a slow breath. "You can't manage any one of those things? You lose," he drawled out at Bill, and saw the kid's eyes go all cat-slit thin on him. (There we go… C'mon, now. Hook, line and sinker...)

Bill cocked his head slightly. Kid was considering it. (Good.) And, after awhile, Bill said…

"...If I do this for a week," Bill started out slowly. "After I show you I can do this and win." (Heh, bold of the kid to assume thatone.) "I will have done the 'advanced course'," Bill continued, sitting back a bit. "You think this is harder than the school at the Falls. You will stop trying to tell me that I need to enroll there. I won't go to school there."

-Gotcha.

"I'll stop telling you that you need to take 12th grade at the high school, to get better at being able to be around other kids your age," Stan amended. "You won't have go to school there." Stan saw Bill's eyes narrow again, going over the differences in the statements. He hadn't given any other reasoning for going to school beyond that, other than the 'watching over Wendy and the Valentino kid' thing. And yeah, if the kid could show that he could watch them and do something from outside the school if something went really wrong, like he'd just suggested to Miz just now? And if Stan didn't think he needed to up his 'how not to mentally attack everybody around you whether you're trying to or not' game anymore? Then sure. Stan would let it slide. ...But Stan was-

"What are you betting on?" the kid asked him next, flatly, and Stan couldn't help but grin. (He ignored Ford's hissed-out "Stanley!" 'cause it wasn't anything like helping him out right now.)

"I'm betting that you don't got all your mental attack stuff figured out yet," Stan told the kid, which had the kid giving him an immediate and annoyed clickety-whistle-chirp refusal in reply. (Not like Stan hadn't expected that one, either.) "And I'm also betting…" Stan drew it out, and he couldn't help but grin a little wider, toss a Mr. Mystery grin at the kid for this one, "That even if you manage five days of this, here, starting today and doing everything right, for all of it?" Stan leaned in a little closer, grin full-on in place for this one. (And really, he had to fight back a laugh as he said...) "You're gonna want to go to school at the Falls."

...Kid was actually leaning away from him slightly now, looking taken aback. (Ford was looking at him like he was out of his frigging mind; what else was new?)

(Which was kinda stupid from both of them, really, far as Stan was concerned. Kid liked talking to people he thought were smart, and second-best was people who were at least trying to learn. People who cared about learning weren't on the kid's list, but Stan figured that was just one of the kid's 'oversights'. And Stan wasn't stupid. You went to a school, or a college? And that was all that was. That was where all those people were, the easiest and largest place to find 'em. Kid was a nerd; he liked nerdy stuff. Kid did other stuff, too, but Stan figured that, if he could just get the kid coloring within the lines well enough not to be mentally demolishing people, just because he was talking at them too long and was practically colorblind - line-blind? - to the lines of everybody else and their dog, then...)

It was kind of almost funny. Kid was gonna like going to school. And Stan was sure the kid would never see it coming. And he was pretty sure that the kid would actually be happier, having some fun with it too.

"But hey," Stan said, shrugging like nothing at all really mattered, and dropping the grin. (...mostly. Heh.) "Maybe I'm wrong," he told the kid breezily, tossing his hands up in a showman's theatrical 'oh well!', and the kid knew that one real well by now. (Heh.)

Dead silence on the curb they were sitting on.

...At least until the younger twins cracked open the gas station bathroom and slowly made their way out. (Stan wasn't sure what was up, there. Sixer in particular was walking out looking a lot more tentative about something than he'd walked in. ...Huh. Maybe the reality of this shit was finally settling in. Guess the shock had to wear off, sooner or later.)

Stan wasn't worried, as he stood up and brushed himself off from the curb. (Kid was gonna end up attending anyway, because of his kid sister - though that one kinda sent Stan for a loop - hasn't she been 27 way back when she was human? Hadn't she 'survived' high school already? He'd think that she'd really be the last one who had any reason to go to school, of the lot of them. Maybe he should ask?)

"You two ready to go?" Stan asked them. He got nods from the younger twins. "Okay. Gonna have to hit the office first," he told them both. "Get you both re-registered." Stan was gonna be acting as their caretaker from now on until… well, when they were eighteen at the latest, but Stan didn't think that was gonna have to be a thing. Really, they just needed enough cash to hold 'em over for awhile, until they got their high school diplomas, and Stan had more than a few ideas on that one.

Stan took this time to actually ask Miz. "So, you already survived high school, why're you willing to go back to that hellhole?" (Bill didn't even bother tossing a look Stan's way for his choice of language descriptors; it was part of how the kid had described it himself, taken from others.)

Miz blinked. "Well, most of the other kids sucked, but high school was where I met my friends. My human friends. And they stayed my friends even after we graduated, and past college and everything." She smiled fondly, a little sad and nostalgic but practically radiating how much she had… cared about them.

Stan blinked at her. "Huh," he said. He scratched at his cheek. "Yeah, okay," he said to her. "Gotta mission for you," Stan said, "Since I don't want the kid getting on my case for making things 'too difficult' for him and 'sabotaging' him," he didn't quite outright snicker, as the kid let out an insectile click-hisssss. "Since, y'know, you've survived the whole thing once already," he told her. "If you're up for it?"

"Sure? Gonna need to know the terms first." Miz blinked at him.

Stan nodded. "Wanted to know if you're interested at all, first," he told her. "Not askin' for a blank check, here." He took a moment to think how he wanted to put this… "Your mission, should you choose to accept it…" (and Miz grinned, squealing out a short Spy Theme melody) then Stan just decided 'to hell with it', and told her straight-out that what he wanted her to do: "...is to make sure that neither of these two knuckleheads manage to sneak out of school or skip any classes," Stan told her, pointing to the two younger twin Pines. "Especially that one," Stan said, thrusting a finger in Lee's direction, and tossing him his very worst crotchety old-man glare.

Lee gasped, placing his hands on his chest. "Who? Me?" He gave them all such a wide-eyed innocent look that even Sixer was staring at him in deadpan disbelief.

Miz cackled. "Sure, I can do that." She tilted her head at the boys, smug grin in place.

Good," said Stan. "-Yeah, you," Stan followed up with to his younger self, looking annoyed. "You think I don't know that you're thinkin' about sneakin' off to go try to find another job and make more money, instead of trying to go to class?"

Lee frowned, not real happy that he was caught out, and unable to play any of it off. "But-"

Stan cut him off. "Nope. Nah ah. None of that. You, are going to go to class. You are going to get your diploma. You are not gonna be able to get a decent job from anyone anywhere without one; trust me on this," Stan said heavily, with the weight of forty two years without a high school diploma behind him. "I told you, you let me worry about the finances," he told them. "I don't gotta go to school. I've got nothing but time to kill while you're doing that, and I've been makin' bank for years," he told them both, not thinking he needed to get into the details.

But Lee and Sixer exchanged a glance. And then Sixer said, suspiciously, "...You don't look like you've been making that much money, for any amount of time."

Stan damn near lost it laughing his ass off at that one. It was a very near thing.

"Kid," Stan said, real cheerfully, and meaning every word, "What somebody looks like don't got anything to do with what they're making. -You think somebody's all expensive wine and caviar? They've just got something to prove." Stan shook his head. "I've been paying for the maintenance on this guy's gadgets for years." Stan tossed a thumb back Ford's way, and he ignored the way Ford startled slightly at that. "Expensive as hell to fix 'em up for parts, lemme tell ya. And the new stuff?" Like that bioscanner? Let alone the electric bill monthly. Stan let out a whistle, then continued with, "-We're living off of my retirement money at home now, and I bought myself a damn nice boat last year without even having to blink." ...mostly because he knew what was in his accounts, and had everything calculated down to a T long-since, but... Stan shrugged. It might not be 'millions', but Stan sure wasn't hurting for cash. The Mystery Shack had treated him well, but he'd been happy to let go of it and actually relax for a change, now that he had his twin brother back.

...And hey, some of the treasure they'd come across treasure-hunting during their boat adventures hadn't exactly hurt anything, either.

"Caviar is overrated." Miz muttered. "And screw those people who think putting GOLD LEAF on food is a good idea!" She devolved into an angry rant about over-priced food and needless extravagance that wastes money for no good reason and ruins food that would have been better off without putting goddamn expensive stuff on it just to be fancy- "You don't NEED gold leaf AND caviar on ICE CREAM-"

They all let her rant for a bit, until Bill put a hand on her head and she slowly started to calm down. (...Hell, was the kid actually stroking her head with his fingers? Gently? Stan blinked.)

Once they were all sure Miz was done with her ranting (and not about to start it up again), Lee said, kind of uncertaintly, to Stan, "...You don't dress like you've got a lot of money?"

Stan let out a huff of laughter. He was still wearing the 'Mr. Mystery' suit Miz had fixed up for him… or at least the suit jacket on top of what he'd already been wearing.

"Jumped through a transdimensional portal in my relaxing clothes," Stan told them both, shrugging. "Suit jacket's a quick thing." He shrugged it off and tucked it over an arm, showing them. "Say you've got bank, yeah? What're you gonna wear every day. A suit and tie? Or whatever the hell you want, and to hell with what anybody else thinks about it," Stan asked them both. "You tell me."

The younger twins exchanged another look. Stan mentally shrugged it off. Although… "Don't see you complainin' about what this nerd-owl's wearin' over here," Stan said, tossing a thumb Ford's way again, to a huff of not-quite outrage out of his brother.

That got a snicker of "Nerd-owl!" out of Lee, and Sixer coloring a bit in embarrassment. "-But his jacket coat looks cool!" was what Sixer blurted out next, with zero further embarrassment until both Lee and Stan looked to him in utter astonishment, and he realized how he must have sounded. Then Sixer turned bright red and ducked his head, shoving his hands into his pockets and muttering something to himself that Stan didn't quite catch... even if Lee did and it set him grinning up a storm and clapping Sixer on the back for whatever the heck it was.

Ford coughed into a fist and looked away, turning slightly pink in sympathetic embarrassment himself. Miz pointed out, "It does make him look pretty hot, really unfair." She turned to Sixer. "Want a cool space-worthy trench coat?" she purred, looking him up and down before pausing. "I'm sorry, you're too young for my tastes."

That had Sixer looking over at her and blinking. (And Bill eyeing her oddly.)

"...thank you?" Sixer said, looking slightly confused and grateful, to Lee's rolling eyes, up until he added, "I'm glad you don't think of me as edible," and that had Lee freezing for a minute and glancing between them, trying to figure out if his brother was serious? (Okay, yes.) And flirting? (Okay, no.) And…

"Demons don't actually eat people when they get too old, right?" Lee asked, glancing around at them all. "Right?" Because, uh, maybe that explained why the two super-old thems were hanging out with two of 'em? They were like, circling buzzards or something? Only weirder, because Sixer was all about the weird?

Miz rolled her eyes. "Not without permission." She shrugged. "And I don't like eating people if I can avoid it." ...and that time that she found a planet of creatures that looked like burgers and she had eaten a few without realizing they were people… but she brought them back! She DID.

"Uhhhhhhh," Lee raised a finger, because he had a question there, and it wasn't getting answered? And that came out sounding… really really wrong if... "Are we talking, like… 'eating' eating?" Lee asked. "Or… uh…" the other one, which was the really wrong-one sounding. Because she had looked Sixer up and down in a definitely-checking-him-out kind of way only about two seconds ago. (Ford let out a groan and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn't quite as oblivious at 60-something as he had been at only 17-ish years of age, anymore. He knew full well what Lee was asking. ...And so did Stan, who was having to stifle both a wince and a chuckle.)

"I'm not into the whole, 'having sex' deal. And my eating habits have nothing to do with my appreciation for looking at things I find attractive," Miz told him. "So don't worry your fluffy little head about it. I'm not gonna touch your brother. Heck-" she thumbed her hand back to point at Ford "-I haven't touched mister tall, sleep-deprived, and sexy over there. Just looked at him." (Ford looked vaguely horrified at the descriptors Miz had just used for him, especially so as he realized she wasn't wearing those glasses Bill had made for her anymore!)

("'Fluffy little head'?" Sixer echoed, looking over at his brother incredulously. "Fluffy-head?" Sixer tried out, starting to smile, as Lee gave him a confused, consternated look. "What? My hair ain't fluffy," Lee said, sounding almost offended. Birds and chicks and cats and cute things were fluffy. Not him!)

"We are going to have a TALK about getting you a set of BETTER STANDARDS VERY SOON NOW, little sis!" Bill said both firmly and loudly, as they all approached the school 'gates' - or, more like, the opening on the wall surrounding the school grounds.

...Welp, time to enroll the demons and re-enroll the kids. Stan took a breath and looked over at the kid. Last chance.

"-Challenge accepted, kid?" Stan asked Bill. Bill stared - no, damn, all but glared at the building, then turned to look at him.

"YES," said Bill, looking for the world like he thought he was gonna win this one, from the straight-backed set up his shoulders, the raised chin, and the look in his eyes.

...Yeah, the kid really hadn't figured out the whole win-win / lose-lose situation thing yet, had he? Stan had to stifle a snort. He just nodded his head at the kid once instead, and said, "I hear ya. Let's get to it."

But Miz suddenly stopped in place, looking torn, and Stan had to stop to look back at her. (So did Bill, and Ford.)

"Problem, dragon-lady?" Stan asked her.

"Well…" Miz gestured to herself, and... Stan understood the problem, kinda. Her current physical form looked too young to be in high school (she'd be a freshmen at MOST) but she wanted to stay with her brother.

"...Yeahhhh, just make yourself look older?" Stan said, not really getting why the problem was a problem. The demon-kids could both do the whole ageing-deaging thing to people's bodies, right? So why did Miz look so embarrassed right now?

"My vessel is already technically SUPPOSED to be 27 years old in human years…" She rubbed her arm. "And I don't know how to make myself 'age' since this is already as old as I can remember looking."

Stan was about to suggest one of those illusions, when Bill looked over. "I can modify your vessel for you?" the kid offered, walking back over, and sending a glance Stan's way. ...Because that was probably gonna take some serious magic stuff to do.

Stan glanced around. "Yeah, okay," Stan said, "But filter it," Stan told him, as the younger twins realized something was up, and turned around to walk themselves back over. "Toss one up." They were there early, but not that early. There were other people around.

Miz flicked her fingers, looking around to make sure it worked. It did. She leaned against the wall to prepare herself, before Bill asked her, "Any requests?" and her eyes lit up.

"Oooh! Gimme huge boobs!" Miz requested, making both Ford and Sixer choke with embarrassed horror, while Lee practically bent over laughing. (Not like Lee wasn't expecting to hear something like that.) Stan, being older and a little more conscious of what stereotypes could do to younger girls, just sighed a curmudgeonly sigh and looked away. The kid, on the other hand, seemed confused.

"Why? They'll just get in the way!" Bill told her, from a knowledge born of experience, and Miz responded to that by placing her hands on her chest and patting her small, barely there breasts with a pout.

"I just wanna know what it's like to actually have big boobs…" she said, then muttered something about how her human friends had all been utterly stacked and teased her about being so small. It all left Stan feel bad enough about what she was saying to want to turn his hearing aid off. The whole thing was making him uncomfortable, because he was used to hearing the opposite from Shermie; it was still a familiar sort of griping, though. (He didn't want to feel sorry for the demon-kid, not in any way, shape, or form. He was still pissed off at her for hurting Ford before. And pitying her? That would really get him in trouble. Stan knew better than that, to let things go that far.)

Bill waved a lazy hand at her, telling her to get on out of her body so he could handle things properly for her. So Miz jumped out of her vessel and into the Mindscape to let Bill modify it. Because what Bill was doing wasn't as simple as just using weirdness to stretch her out and make her taller; this was a biological vessel, not a taffy pull, and human faces and other proportions had proportions to them and those things were supposed to stay within certain acceptable ranges and change with age. So Bill wasn't just doing a slap-and-dash external mod to her vessel; he was literally tweaking the DNA and 'resetting' the whole thing, walking the changes through each and every cell in waves, and then setting off the 'proper' cellular regrowth patterns, to rebalance everything both biologically and chemically.

It went on for awhile, a few minutes. And it seemed that Miz was still making some more requests from the Mindscape, since Bill would nod or ask questions to no-one that Stan (or the rest of them) could see as he worked. Miz's vessel stayed the same sex and general ethnicity, but it slowly shifted and grew from looking like a 13-14-year-old to something more accepted in this time and era to be closer to 17, filling out with curves. The Stanfords both looked away at first, too embarrassed to watch the process. But Lee watched the whole thing from the start with rapt attention - not in a sexual way, but he was very much curious and interested. (And after awhile, Sixer started snatching glances over at what was going on, too.) Stan just sighed and waited the demon out. Because really, these kids.

Miz slipped back into her vessel and gasped as she examined herself. "Holy shit! I'm sexy!" she grinned maniacally. She grabbed large handfuls of her chest and purred. "So this is what they feel like? Ooh~" and Stan wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. This was his life now. Still, he had to speak up before things got any worse.

"Hey Miz," he called, for her attention. She turned to him, still groping her own chest. "Maybe see about fixin' your clothes so they fit again?" he told her, with a tired sigh, waving a hand up and down at her. Her dress had been cute and modest on her previous form, but now the end of her dress was up around her upper thighs, and probably just barely covering her butt in the back. Her new chest was also straining the fabric in front.

Miz looked down, blinked and then her clothes lengthened and shifted to fit her new form. "Better?" she asked, finally letting go of her breasts and twisting around to look herself over. Stan nodded, noting with relief from the straps peeking out at the sides of the wide-cut neck that she had even given herself a bra. "Yeah. That's a lot better. Good job." He didn't pat her on the head as he turned away from all of them to head for the double doors in and the office, but he sent a glance the kid's way, and saw the kid start to do it for him out of the corner of his eye.

Getting the two demons into the school ended up not being too hard. After they all sat down in the 'waiting area' chairs at the side of the principal's office, and Miz threw up another filter for them (Bill being barred from using magic during the school day, except for emergencies, as the start of what Stan hoped would become a good habit for more than just school...), Miz forged a few documents the way Stan directed, for both herself and her brother.

Stan already had everything he needed for re-enrolling the kids in his pocket; the rest was all on him. He was essentially going to be Lee and Sixer's 'guardian'-slash-caretaker both, with Sixer having been thrown out by Filbrick. (And according to an angry Miz, Filbrick had ALWAYS intended to throw Stanford out. Stan wasn't holding his breath on that one - not without getting a bit more context outta the kid for what had happened to the two of them specifically - but from a few things that he'd seen and put together so far...)

Stan was taking the twins as a matched set (despite Sixer saying at first that Lee should keep living at home, not wanting to risk him getting thrown out, too, and Lee thinking of maybe sneaking him food and stuff, and keeping the money costs for keeping Sixer in food and stuff more easily that way by keeping his own that low). It hadn't been that hard to convince those kids that he had the right of it, either. Stan had just made it clear to the two of them that he'd be damned if he was going to be the one to split up the two of them, and they'd both stared at him wide-eyed, looked at each other…

...and they'd mostly just gone along with it after that. (Well, except for Lee wanting to drop out of school and get a job. Not that Stan was gonna let him screw things up for himself that way; not if he had any say about it, and he did. Have a say in it.)

For now, they were all gonna be living together on the boat. Bill and his sister were gonna be staying in the magical sandcastle up on the deck from now on - one which had a larger opening now, and was a hell of a lot more stable, up to Bill's own standards. (They'd worked on that first-thing, after Stan had finished his little pow-wow with the demons and Ford, just before he'd started working on cooking up breakfast.) Ford was going to help Lee (and Stan) make the final repairs and upgrades to the boat that Lee had been intending to make for awhile now, but hadn't really had the time or the ability to do all by himself. (Sixer would concentrate more on his homework, and applying to colleges.) Miz would go fishing to get enough food to feed herself as a start, for now, while Stan would continue to run his cons along the boardwalk to earn enough money for food for the rest of them and other necessities and then some. Once Stan had enough money to bootstrap himself up to something more lucrative and more easily self-sustaining, he figured he'd do just that - at which point he'd take over paying for the food for all of them, including Miz.

They would make this work. He would make this work. -Heck, part of the reason Stanley was even enrolling the demons in school was to keep them occupied for most of the day so that he could have some time to himself, to think and to plan - not just more time to himself to make money. Socializing Bill was the main point of the whole schooling thing, but really, Stan was doin' it for the same reason that he had originally talked Melody into helping out with him back home at the Shack for most of the day - and it wasn't just so that he could spend some more time with the niblings that summer himself.

After he took the paperwork from her, Stan only watched the demons out of the corner of his eye as Miz materialized different clothes for herself and Bill, and then stuffed them into (this time, pulled out of Bill's hat) two duffel bags 'borrowed' with a 'please' from Lee's own things from his room.

"This is what people think looks nice right back then now," Miz proclaimed, as she kept pulling at her current bra, adjusting it, unused to the weight of her chest.

"You sure you want them that big?" Bill drawled out, as he stood up and shouldered his own duffel bag, knowing exactly what Miz's problem was.

Miz pouted. "It's fine! I can do this!" She made a determined expression that just made Bill hum at her in exasperated amusement.

"What is it with humans and wanting oversized parts?" Bill muttered. "It's like all of you have completely forgotten about minimalism!"

Stan finished looking over the forged paperwork, then shoved himself up onto his feet himself. "Gonna take this over to the office," he told the kids, waving the pile of paperwork at them. "You four, go to the locker rooms, shower, freshen up, and change." He didn't wait to see if they did what he'd told them to do; Stan just turned and walked away, ticking his head at Ford, to have him follow him. (And as he did so, he slipped a folded piece of paper out of his front right pants pocket, to add to the bottom of the forged paperwork pile without any of them noticing, as he went…)

The twins and the demon kids looked at each other. And then they all seemed to shrug and get up to do just that.

Miz, fresh from the shower, decided she wanted to go with something different again still, and shifted her new clothes into a loose sweater-shirt and jeans, instead. She brushed her hair back (drying it instantly, making it fluff up) and hummed to herself before walking out of the locker room, to see Lee and Sixer already out there and done, and Bill (sans hat) leaning back against the wall nearby them.

"Does this look good?" she asked the human twins, as she materialized a pair of glasses and slid them on. (Sixer was blushing slightly; he was both taking glances over and over again at her, while also trying to keep looking away.)

Lee just gave her a grin and a two thumbs up. "Lookin' great! Super hot." Hell yeah. Curves in all the right places and legs for days! She was gonna make all the other girls jealous, Lee knew. (And sure, Lee also knew what the older thems had told them: that Miz was actually a demon dragon-lady who spent most of her time pretending to be a child. But hey, she'd wanted to look like a busty bombshell, and now her older form was a hot babe! Lee could respect that.)

Miz grinned at Lee's input, blushing a little. Bill glanced over at her and then turned to Lee, looking like he was halfway between deciding to scowl and maybe set him on fire with a glare, or something? Lee just shrugged and raised his hands up, palms-out, saying "Hey, she asked!" backing off. Because wow, overprotective much?

Bill ruffled Miz's hair. "Don't let the squirmy feelings get the better of you," he told her. He hadn't been able to do much to help with that, since Miz had told him it was a vision thing that wasn't just a body-thing, unfortunately.

Miz pouted. "I'll be fine. I've gone through high school once, I can do it again." Her chest bounced when she attempted to skip down the hall and she stumbled a little, not quite used to counterbalancing yet. ...And she glared at Bill when he slipped right up to her and 'caught' her by ducking his arm under one of her flailing hands, and then capturing said hand by clasping his other hand over it and pressing down.

As she put her weight on his arm to stabilize herself again, Bill simply returned her glare with a superior smug smile - after all, HE had no balance problems in commanding his body to go walking him around to other places! He was even good enough at it to help rebalance other people, HAHA!

Miz straightened, letting out a soft, "Thanks," despite her embarrassment and walked around carefully, adjusting to the weight on her front. Her chest bounced with each step. "I can do this. Not like I'm gonna be wearing heels," she muttered.

"Just don't try jumping again," Bill recommended, as the twins caught back up to them.

"...This isn't the way back to the principal's office," Sixer pointed out, adjusting his glasses. He hesitated a bit in place, feeling a little taken aback and overwhelmed, as Bill turned towards him and gave him a HUGE GRIN.

"YES!" Bill said enthusiastically. "What's your point?"

Lee and Sixer exchanged a glance. "Ah, well." Sixer cleared his throat. "How, exactly, will you know your schedule, if you don't-" He stopped, as Bill let out a loud "AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" at him, grinning, and then Miz's eyes began to Flicker. It was very odd to watch.

"Schedule, get!" she said cheerfully, blinking the static from her eyes.

"Schedule, ALREADY KNOWN," Bill said, even more smugly to his little sister, tilting his head at her. "Planning!"

Lee and Sixer exchanged another glance. "Uhhh, so…" Lee began, then stopped when Bill got right up in his face, and then tapped a finger to his chest.

"OUR schedule is YOUR schedule!" Bill told him, looking all kinds of excited. "YOU are not going ANYWHERE ELSE," Bill told him, abruptly leaning back to a normal upright position again, the usual amount of personal space away from him again. It left Lee blinking, and feeling a little off-balance.

"Um." Sixer glanced over at his brother, who usually was not at a loss for words, at anything. "That's… nice?" Sixer tried, not quite clutching his book bag to his chest. (He had his duffel bag across his back.) And this… got him no change in expression from the two excited-looking demons. "...We need to go to our lockers?" Sixer tried next, glancing over at his twin again, who let out his breath in a rush, and looked over at him again, finally.

"Lead the way!" Bill grinned at them both, then turned sideways and gestured forwards and past him with a flourish. Sixer adjusted his glasses and offered Bill a smile as they walked forward and past him… in the same direction he'd been going, to their lockers.

"...Are we allowed to bring demons to school?" it finally occurred to Lee to ask his brother under his breath, glancing over at him as he readjusted his backpack (still on his back) and his duffel bag (strap on one shoulder, under his bookbag strap).

"What, you're going to try and tell them no?" Sixer asked him quite realistically right back, just as quietly.

Miz was glancing around at the hallways and doors as they went. She had of course, gotten the full layout of the school, where all her classes would be, when they would happen (but knowing her, she was gonna forget unless she checked again before each class) and the fastest, most efficient route to them. Here's hoping this rendition of high school life would be easier! At least she wouldn't be struggling to understand the school work this time around. And… she grinned at Bill and the twins. She had friends who would actually be in the same classes as her now! Her human high school experience had only allowed her to see her friends during lunch and after school, since they were in all different grades and classes.

Bill was leisurely walking along behind them all, lifting his hands and arms above his head to s-t-r-e-t-c-h his body out a bit, then rotated and moved his arms back and forth across his chest from side-to-side, stretching them this way and that. And as he did so, he craned his head around, looking around for someone in particular. Because 'high school' was a cesspit of biological hormones, with the law of the jungle in play, and Bill knew EXACTLY how to end up on the top of the pinnacle of the heap in a place like this! EASY PEASY!

Miz was on the lookout for a particular person, herself. She wasn't going to harm or attack them, but… passive-aggressiveness was fine, right? Messing with them by simply being better than them in everything they cared about was fine, right? Miz walked a little closer to Sixer, swaying her hips as she settled into the proper mindset. (Sixer glanced over at her oddly, not really understanding why she was suddenly walking differently, then decided that it must be some sort of camouflage thing, since some of the girls in school did that, too.)

The two demons escorted the twins to their lockers without issue (though the Pines hardly realized that that was what the two demons were doing for them). They both managed to get into their lockers and get everything they needed to squared away (duffel bags shoved in, books and papers managed, bookbags back on). It was only after they both finished what they were doing and slammed their locker doors shut, to turn around and look down the hallway, that Sixer groaned slightly and clutched at the bookbag straps at his shoulders, not doing a very good job at stifling a groan. Neither did Lee, who outright said, "Crampelter," the way most people said, "Oh, look. A dead rat."

Miz glanced over, blinking at the large teenager coming down the hall. She saw his eyes roam up and down her body, lingering along her chest. Miz twitched. Right. This was gonna be a thing. She tightened her hold on the strap of her backpack. She was going to have to learn to deal with this.

Bill, on the other hand, lit up like every holiday and birthday that he'd never had? Had all come calling at once! He was grinning up a storm.

And, after Crampelter looked their way and seemed to get a 'what the hell' frown, the twins followed his gaze back and did their own double-takes at Bill's grinning reaction.

"Uh…" Lee said, looking back and forth between them, as Crampelter stomped his way over, still frowning. It was pretty clear that the big bully had no idea what the hell was going on, what with the Pines twins just standing there right next to two girls that he'd never seen around town before.

"Here!" Bill said, still grinning right at Crampelter as he grabbed the strap of his duffel bag and lifted it up and over his head, before shoving it straight into Sixer's chest. "HOLD MY BAG for me, will ya!"

'Huh,' thought Crampelter, as he made his way across the hallway and over. New girls? Around the losers? -Better fix that one real quick before they got the wrong impression about the city. And hey, that oriental chick was pretty fuckin' hot too. Time to roll out the welcome wagon! (He didn't get why the taller one was grinning at him like that, though.)

"Hey," Crampelter said, as he strutted up to the four of them, upping the machismo to cow the two losers while focusing a flashing grin on the girls. "What're two hot ladies like you doing with these two losers right here?" the bully asked them both. Wasn't like he didn't know how to charm the socks off the girls, and it was pretty clear after watching them for the half-minute it had taken him to walk over that the two girls were a pair themselves, probably sisters.

"Oh, I'm SO glad that YOU ASKED!" the grinning one enthused brightly, her grin getting even wider. She straightened up just a bit more, and put her hands on her hips as she loudly proclaimed, "I'm CHALLENGING YOU to a FIGHT!"

There was a second there where there was dead silence in the hallway, and Crampelter was still smiling down at her. And then the black-haired girl's words actually registered.

"...What?" Crampelter said slowly, confused. "A fight? With me?" He started to smile again, ready to laugh at what he thought must be a joke, but then slowly lost his smile as the girl let out a laugh and then nodded at him enthusiastically. The busty one was hiding a cute giggle behind her hand.

"Uhhhhh…" the sweaty twin said next to them, as Crampelter looked around at them.

"-Is she serious?" he demanded out of the Pines twins, pointing down at her. He watched as they both turned to each other, and did that stupid looks-and-glances thing between them that they always did. Like it ever meant anything at all, except that they didn't have more than one barely-working nerd brain that they had to split between them.

"Ahh, welllll?" the freak twin said next, looking a little embarrassed and twitchy, and adjusting his glasses, not meeting Crampelter's eyes for some reason. "I… I don't think-" And Crampelter stared as the freak twin started talking to the girl and said, "Perhaps you, ah, shouldn't challenge him to a fight? Stan- uh. Your, uh..." The freak twin stopped and coughed. "He said-"

"-Don't get into trouble!" the crazy girl grinned. "I'm not getting into trouble, I'm planning on getting TROUBLE into trouble! -And then PUNCHING it like a dead horse and KICKING it into the river!" the girl enthused. "And then TOSSING IT into the lake! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Crampelter stared down at her, then looked over at the twins again.

"...Did you tell her I don't hit girls, or somethin'?" Crampelter asked them, confused. Because, what the hell? The twins just gave him identical helpless expressions.

"Oh, is that a PROBLEM?" the girl said to him brightly. "WELL THEN," she said next, rocking back on her heels, "LET ME FIX THAT FOR YOU!"

And the the girl moved her hands in front of her, to spread a hand across her chest, and closed her eyes for a moment, almost kind of like she was kind of concentrating?

And then...

Crampelter stared.

So did the twins.

"...I don't think you're supposed to do that in school," the freak twin said, sounding strangled and kind of staring.

"WHAT," the gir-guy said, lowering his hand, and what the hell was with his hair? "This is what I STARTED OUT looking like," he said (the HELL?!) "And it wouldn't really be all that FAIR if he didn't FEEL like he couldn't TRY to HIT ME while I DESTROY him in a fight, now, WOULD IT?" the guy grinned out absolutely maniacally. (And then the sweaty twin turned to the busty girl and asked quietly, "Can you do that too?" to which she laughed, "Of course! Though, I was female to begin with," which made the sweaty twin look somewhat relieved.)

Yeah, no. Fuck this noise. Buncha freaks! -And who the hell had hair that turned blue for no freaking reason? Crampelter pulled back a fist and sent it flying the Freak's way, straight for his skull.

The Freak moved a hand upwards and caught it. And stopped it dead.

(((((((((((((((((((((((Warning for VIOLENCE against a teenager))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Crampelter stared.

He felt his expression drop, and then a chill go down his spine, as the Freak flicked his gaze straight over to him, and paused. And then slowly turned his head towards him, slitted cat-eyes staring straight-out at him and into his skull the whole time, grinning.

Crampelter tried to pull his hand away. And then he realized… he couldn't.

The twins watched the blood drain straight out of Crampelter's face as he tried to tug his hand out of Bill's grasp, and Bill didn't move an inch. Crampleter's arm and his chest did a lot, as he tried again, but his hand, and... Bill's hand? Not even a little.

"Oh, shit," Lee whispered out quietly. He knew this feeling. Hell, he'd been on the wrong side of this feeling. But he'd also seen enough fights, standing on the sidelines, to know… Crampelter was about to get wrecked.

Miz hummed as she leaned back against Sixer's side. "Well, this shouldn't take long."

Sixer was staring. This was… this was...

Bill, still grinning like everything about this was the funniest thing in the world, pulled back his other hand in a fist... and planted it straight into Crampelter's gut, faster than Lee had seen just about anybody move before ever... except maybe that older Sixer guy when he'd been messing around with those cops, out in front of their house two days ago.

Crampelter… didn't go anywhere. His head drooped slightly, and he just...

There was a hushed silence around the hallway as the other students just stared. Miz was glad she'd thrown up that mild Perception Filter... (right before Bill had used the tech embedded in his bodysuit to bend the light being directed into a few select Pines-eyes, and one Crampelter in particular, in a very different way - in a fully 'scientific', technologically-enacted and selectively-applied 'illusion', since Bill wasn't supposed to be using magic in school...)

(Miz knew, as she'd heard Bill issue his challenge, that some of their conversation was really going to need some censoring. And she breathed a sigh of relief that, because of her own spell, all the other students had heard was the original challenge - not the rest - and nothing about the rest of that part of their conversation that would have conflicted with what little the rest of the hallway had been able to see.)

...as Bill pulled his fist back again to his side, Crampelter just sort of... folded up, his knees dropping out from under him, his one arm upraised… because his hand was still caught in Bill's iron and unmoving grip.

And then Bill laughed, let go, and Crampelter... fell the rest of the way to the floor, to let out a groan.

"Wow!" Bill enthused out at them all. "Color ME surprised! Who would have EVER Seen THAT coming?" Bill said to all and sundry, strutting forward a bit and out to the side, into the middle of the hallway, then turning towards Crampelter again and-

Lee barely saw the motion, almost heard Crampelter's body slam up against the lockers first just in front of them, from the kick Bill had just as quickly delivered to his side, one that had Crampelter letting out a wheezing breath and slumping down further with almost a whine.

Lee turned to Miz. "Shouldn't you… stop him?" he asked her. Miz scoffed. "That filth hurt you and your brother for years. This is just… karma," she grinned.

"OH," Bill said, kicking his foot against the ground, as the entire hallway stared at... her, because the only thing he'd really done there was modify how he'd LOOKED to those very few individuals standing near him (with a directed tech-based illusion, back to what he'd used to look like before, sexed-male and cat-eyes and blue-hair and all). The rest of them were still seeing the general magic-based Stanley-Pines-approved illusion he'd walked into school wearing, of a normal-looking, tall, short-haired, black-haired, fair-skinned girl… kicking Crampelter's dumb STUPID (carc)ass all across the hallway. "I think I'm done here!"

There was a pause for a moment, like the entire hallway was letting out a slow breath of relief.

And then Bill shot forward, grabbed Crampelter by the neck, and made an overhand throwing motion - lifting Crampelter up and over his shoulder as he twisting in place 180 degrees - to toss the boy DIRECTLY and bodily straight into the row of lockers lining the other side of the hallway. (Lee and Sixer, staring at this, could only blankly think that it was probably a good thing that nobody had been standing over there…)

Silence fell, except for the metal ringing sound of the lockers that was slowly fading out.

And then Bill straightened up again, and clapped his hands together once, with a grinning smile. "WELL!" he said, then rotated his body exactly 60 degrees in place to face the rest of the hallway. "I TAKE IT BACK!" Bill said loudly. "NOW I'M DONE!"

And while everybody was still staring at him, and at Crampelter, and trying to recover from what the hell they had just seen him do, Bill continued on quite happily with…

"I THINK we ALL KNOW NOW what happens if you cross A GIRL when you're A GUY who is an IDIOT who does not RECOGNIZE ME as someone who YOU ALL will NEVER, EVER want to mess with!" Bill proclaimed brightly… then suddenly lost the smile. "EVER." he intoned out at them all at the last, staring out at the lot of them like he was the spectre of death and destruction himself. (Because hey, that sure had been a fun Qxwel'Ken-or afternoon, taking over that minor deity's job for a 'sick' day, a couple billions years ago! HAHAHAHAHA!)

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Ok, the one sided beatdown is complete x_x;;;;; )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

The hallway was dead silent, except for the sound of the soft pained (and painful-sounding) groans coming from Crampelter.

And then the bell rang.

Bill went right back to smiling again.

"CLASS TIME, EVERYONE!" he called out, clapping his hands together three-times-fast, as the bell finished dying down so that he could be heard again.

And then Bill dropped his hands to his sides and strode off with a purpose, as if he owned and had an absolute right to every last inch of that hallway, if not the whole school entire.

The kids in the hallway stayed frozen for one long moment, except for the few frightened individuals who hurriedly moved out of Bill's path (or anything looking like it was within arm's reach of the crazy girl as she moved).

A teacher poked their head out of a doorway and looked around (not having many students in attendance for homeroom yet) and called out, "What the hell are you all doing, standing around out there?"

And then everyone started moving again in a rush.

Everyone, that is, except Crampelter.

Miz and the young Stans made it to the homeroom they shared. Bill was already there, having claimed the desk that he wanted, right in the first row in the front-and-center of the classroom. Miz giggled as she walked over, hips rocking back and forth. "Well, that's one way to win at high school." She glanced around before claiming her own seat. The twins sat down near them, Sixer was staring at Bill in awe, still clutching Bill's duffel bag to his chest. "That... wAs…" his voice cracked. "...AWESOME! Tha-that was amazing!" he squealed out.

Bill didn't just enjoy the praise, he absolutely preened under it. Sixer was practically bouncing in his seat. Watching the bully who'd tormented him all his life get taken down so easily was… it was so COOL. Miz glanced around, the students that were already here were giving them a wide berth. "I wonder if Stan would find out about this?" (And to this, Bill just gave her a smile.)

Lee looked over at them, feeling uneasy and not exactly liking what had just happened out there. -Yeah, sure, their old bully had gotten himself beaten up to hell and back; hooray. But Lee had kept up with his boxing lessons, unlike Sixer; he had a better idea exactly what that kinda shit took, and how badly a beating Crampelter had just been given. And he'd seen how the guy had hit the lockers - kind of sideways at least, rather than directly head-on - but… he'd also seen how he hadn't been moving afterwards, and heard how he'd barely been groaning. And they'd all just walked off and left him there. So…

"...Is he dead?" was Lee's question to the really fucking dangerous demon who was currently sitting in a seat that his brother had just sat himself right down next to without a care in the world. Within arm's reach.

"Don't worry so much." Miz told Lee. "This way, no one in the school would dare to mess with Bill, and us by proxy." She neatly took out a notebook and other supplies from a small pink backpack she had created to put her school stuff in. Might as well check to see if she had everything she needed. "Just go about your school day like usual."

"Is he dead," Lee repeated, starting to wonder exactly what he and his brother had just stepped into, and then Bill said, "No, he's not dead." Lee let out a breath of relief, up until Bill said next, "If I killed him or sent him to the hospital, I'd lose Stanley's challenge!"

Lee stared at him. "...What challenge," he said slowly to the crazy, way-way-way too strong to be human, killer demon.

"Just a little game," Bill told him with a grin. "And I intend to WIN."

Miz was sharpening her pencils. "Don't worry about it. Stan's really firm about the whole 'not killing' thing." She grinned at Lee. "This is all about getting Bill to learn how to socialize with humans better!"

Lee stared at her incredulously. "How was that socializing?" he complained, gesturing at the door to the hallway.

Miz rolled her eyes. "He didn't kill him. Also, Crampelter attacked Bill first. Right then. So Bill defended himself."

Lee frowned. "But he challenged him," Lee pointed out.

Miz raised an eyebrow. "And that kid accepted. Or rather, he attacked, which, in a way, was an agreement." She didn't see the problem. That bully hurt the twins for years. She had no sympathy for him. And he wasn't dead and didn't require hospitalization. So there was no issue.

Lee was getting a headache from all of this. "You shouldn't be picking fights in school," he said to the older demon. Hell, was the older-him okay with this kinda shit? Or had he just gotten used to it, with the older-Sixer getting into fights with cops all of the time, instead of knowing how to run away well enough to lose them without getting into an actual fight with them all?

"I didn't start a fight with him, he started a fight with me," Bill said easily. "I challenged him. He could have said no."

Lee stared at him.

"Challenging a guy is starting a fight with him," Lee told him. Because seriously, what the hell?! Did the demon not realize a challenge was starting a fight?!

Bill looked over at him, and the demon actually looked surprised. (Hell. Was this an actual thing?)

Bill opened his mouth to say something, but the bell rang again to signal that homeroom was starting and drowned him out. Bill frowned as Lee waved him off, grimacing himself. The demon mostly settled in, as the teacher started reading the notice from the office.

Ah, new students. The teacher looked up to immediately spot the two new girls sitting in the front row of the classroom. "Everyone, we have two new students joining us today. Please stand up and introduce yourselves."

Bill glanced around and started to stand up, then paused with a frown, and made a twisting motion with his right hand before slapping it against his left wrist. Then he sent a glance over his shoulder, back Miz's way. (Bill didn't know why Miz had tossed up a Perception Filter centered on him, but the readings from his suit told him that it had been on him since right after his challenge to Crampelter in the hallway…) How was he supposed to be winning Stanley's challenge if she was helping him cheat when he was trying to win it by Stanley's own rules? (All he could do was try to cancel out or override the sound-altering magic with his own mix of science- and magic-based tech, but that part was experimental for other-magic-and-weirdness-not-cast-by-him, he didn't know if it would ACTUALLY WORK to...)

Miz caught the glance and took down her filter, giving Bill an exasperated look. Her expression was 'Please don't cause a scene now that we're in class' before she packed up her school supplies.

Bill frowned, and twisted his hand the opposite direction (following it up with a plucking motion to cancel the previous command and turn off and depower that experimental functionality again), before lifting it away from his wrist again. He didn't really understand why Miz seemed to have a problem with… him?

Bill looked down at his wrist, then blinked away the visual overlay from his suit (being beamed directly into his eyes) for the moment, and finished standing up. He moved to the front of the classroom, having Seen this sort of thing enough to know how this was supposed to go, from several of his memories of human things that he'd Seen before.

Miz got up and followed; the two of them drew glances from everyone in class. Terror for Bill and wariness for Miz. She also noted all the stares going towards her chest. Ah… this was… a little… embarrassing...

...but she wasn't going to let that get her down! She was going to enjoy having a mature, sexy body while she was here, and screw what everyone else thought! She wasn't going to be a child anymore! She's a big girl now! (Miz carefully ignored the part of her mind pointing out that she was just trying to justify this to herself and wasn't really fooling anyone. Shush brain! Let me have my busty anime girl fantasies~!)

"Hello!" Miz said cheerfully. "Um… I'm Miz Cipher. It's very nice to meet you all." She smiled like a sweet little angel, tilting her head adorably to the side. Lee stared incredulously. Some of the guys in class were already grinning stupidly at her.

Bill started out by laughing a bit, "AHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" with his hands on his hips. Then he stopped and said, "WELL WELL WELL." He leaned forward slightly, looking around the classroom. "LOOK at ALL of YOU!" he said while made a wide sweeping gesture at the class, then slapped his other hand to his chest. "My name is BILL CIPHER," he said, grinning out at all of them. "But YOU can call me BILL!" he said cheerfully to the entire class.

And then Bill dropped the smile.

He also dropped both his hands back to his hips, but moved them to a more relaxed pose this time, in loose fists, knuckles resting against his hips, shoulders relaxed and dropped a bit.

"It has come to my attention," Bill paused only briefly, to look over at Lee, before moving his gaze back up to the rest of the students in front of him, "That challenging someone to a fight here is something YOU ALL consider to be the same as STARTING a fight." Bill smiled slightly. "This is incorrect!" Bill told them quite cheerfully, pointing a finger up to the ceiling. "You can say no to challenges!" Then he dropped his hand and the smile, looking serious again. "But to avoid confusion, I will make this clear in the future by using the word for whatever YOU ALL call a CHALLENGE instead, if I decide that I want to do WHATEVER you all call a challenge at some indeterminate point in the future, as yet to be specified, that will probably happen sometime soon, because of course it will, but maybe just not here!" Bill said, giving them all an odd sort of smile at the end of this (because, really, even he didn't entirely believe what he was saying about the 'maybe just not here').

He looked out at the class. The class of students looked back at him.

Miz was face palming. Well. Y'know what, whatever. Let Bill do what he wants.

"Also!" Bill said next, with his original level of enthusiasm. "I will not start any fights with anyone! I will only end them! In self-defense!" he told them with a grin. "-Unless you start a fight with my sister, in which case I will destroy you," Bill said very seriously again with a nod - and quite reasonably, he thought! Warning was now given! Ground rules established. "ANY QUESTIONS?" he asked them all, looking around the room, looking (and feeling) very interested in anything that any of them might have to say to him.

(And, before the teacher could quite respond to any of this…) One very brave (or foolish?) soul in the back of the classroom raised their hand upwards quite tentatively.

"YES!" Bill said quite happily, pointing at the student in the back. "Miss Mary Johnson of 121 Turtle Lane, Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, of Earth! What is your question?" he said, looking downright excited.

Pretty much the entire class stared at Bill.

And then, nearly as one, they all turned in their chairs to stare back at the girl in the back of the classroom. (Except for two small groups of teenagers scattered at the sides of the room, who actually knew Mary and were all exchanging glances with each other, wondering how in the hell the new girl had known both her name and her address…)

Mary (who had gotten to class early, and had no idea what had just happened in the hallway) asked of the new girl at the front of the classroom, "Your name is Bill? Not Billie?"

"Yes!" Bill said. "My name is Bill Cipher. -Also, no!" Bill said quite happily. "My name is-" and he let out a fast series of odd clicking chirping sounds rather quickly, "Which translates most closely to 'William Cipher' in the current-day iteration of your silly arbitrary and constantly-shifting human American English language. -But YOU can call me Bill, because I said so!" Bill told her with a winning smile, like he thought Miss Mary Johnson in the very back of the backrow of the classroom had just won some sort of very special prize.

Now BOTH Lee and Miz were face palming. (Sixer, on the other hand, was feverishly taking notes on what he was tentatively calling, for now, demonology…)

"Um," said Mary. "But, you're a girl?"

"Incorrect!" proclaimed Bill. "I am a guy! My body just happens to be female-bio-sexed right now, because I decided that I wanted to do that," Bill told her with a nod. "And then I did that!"

There were the starts of a few 'is she serious?' smiles getting exchanged around different parts of the classroom, and definitely a lot of incredulous glances.

"...Why did you decide to do that?" Mary asked, propping her head up on her palm and just going along with it. She was used to homeroom being boring, but… this wasn't. And at least nobody was laughing at her for asking a stupid question from the new girl or anything, like they usually did?

"Because being a female human is SOOOOOOOO much EASIER!" Bill told her enthusiastically, holding his arms out from his sides and then kicking one foot off the ground and spinning around in place exactly 360 degrees on his foot, before coming to a stop again, and putting his other foot down again. "Meditation is SUPER-EASY!" he told her, dropping his hands to his hips again. "Male humans can't do it properly at all," Bill waved off. "And tossing people is so much easier, because the female human center of mass is much lower than the male-"

"-All right!" the teacher said, clapping her hands together. "I think we're done here!" she said a bit brittlely, which had Bill blinking and turning in place.

"We are?" Bill asked.

"Yes," the teacher said firmly.

"Why?" asked Bill, which sent another round of glances around the classroom.

"Because I said so," said the teacher, and Bill's eyes narrowed to slits.

Bill stared at the teacher for a long moment. "...Why do you say so," Bill said finally, not smiling at all, and not having moved from his current position at the front of the classroom. Miz wasn't sure if she should step in or not.

"...Because we need to let the rest of the kids introduce themselves to us too?" Miz asked tentatively.

Bill turned and looked at his sister. He turned and looked back at the teacher.

"Logical," Bill said to Miz. "But your explanation was flawed," he informed the teacher. "You should work on that! You can tell me your full reasoning. I am not stupid; I will understand you!" And then Bill turned around and took the few steps he needed to, to go back to his claimed desk and sit himself back down again. Miz sat down as well.

The teacher pulled in a deep breath, and debated whether sending the girl to the office was worth it… and thought about the questioning she would likely get from the girl before she actually left the room on it, if what had just happened was any indication, and exactly how long that would take. ...And then she decided, for the moment, to just avoid the potential headache by letting it go for now.

"Mrs. Kimberly-" Miz spoke up, "-Just saying 'Because I said so' is not a reason. It is just a statement. It doesn't explain anything. Please think more carefully in the future so you can give an actual reason when you ask for something." It would certainly save the woman a world of headache when dealing with Bill.

The teacher gritted her teeth, then straightened her dress.

"Detention, for the both of you," she said firmly. And at least she wasn't on the rotation for that day - and good luck to whoever was, because she had a feeling that they would need it.

Miz frowned. "Why are we getting detention?" she asked.

"Your sister was being rude and discussing about how she's going to be getting into fights with people, and you interrupted me without raising your hand," the teacher told her promptly, turning away from her towards the blackboard at the front of the room. Miz raised her hand. Then she waved her hand when Mrs. Kimberly didn't see it.

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.