Lauren's day would always begin with social studies. It was a class she excelled at, thanks to her wealth of history knowledge. She had a desk in the back of the classroom, where she mostly kept to herself and read all the history textbooks. World History was always a point of interest for her, and she greatly enjoyed reading about events of the past. This week, the subject was World War 2. The test was the following day, but she was hard at work on her unit review when the teacher came into class.
"Good morning, Miss Quinn." The students greeted her when she sat down in her seat. Then, an unfamiliar kid came through the door. She wore a white jacket over a royal blue shirt, and she wore a teal skirt that matched her hair and her eyes, which were always fixed in a vicious glare.
"You're probably wondering about the new kid here." Miss Quinn started. "Well, this is our newest student. Would you like to introduce yourself?" The teacher asked. The kid nodded and walked up in front of the teacher's desk. She glared at the entire class.
"My name is Sam Strahan." Her voice was low and her tone was razor sharp, matching her fiery glare. "Do yourselves a favor and don't mess with me." Sam gave a stern warning as she walked to the only empty desk, which was in the back right corner of the room. The students looked around nervously. Sam was clearly a very intimidating figure, and everyone knew it. Even Lauren was sweating a bit as she tried to ignore Sam and focus on her work. Sam turned to Lauren and shot her a death glare. Lauren's heart practically skipped a beat. She tried to turn back to her work, but throughout the entire class period, she couldn't focus on it at all. The only thing on her mind was Sam, and the intimidating vibe she gave off. When the class bell rang, every student filed out of the classroom, except for Sam and Lauren. Sam walked up to her, wearing a fierce expression.
"What the hell do you want from me?" Lauren asked.
"I'm only warning you to stay out of my way." Sam's voice retained its sharp edge. "If you get in my way, I'm more than willing to burn you to ash." Sam's hair took on the appearance of blue flames as she gave Lauren her warning. A blue soul gem on her neck briefly glowed when her hair lit ablaze. Then her hair powered down and she left the classroom. Lauren left shortly afterwards, heading to her therapy session, far away from Sam. Meanwhile, Sam went to her second class. She repeated the same introduction, and once again, everyone in the class was scared shitless. Everyone, except for Azusa. She had a seat behind Sam, and she was very intrigued. Azusa put her wind up mouse toy on her desk and played with it like a cat would play with their prey. While she hunted her mouse, she looked at Sam, and when Sam looked back at her, she purred a little bit. Sam turned back to her work as Azusa kept playing with her mouse. This went on until the lunch bell rang. Sam left the classroom and Azusa pursued her, weaving through the crowds just to follow Sam, who was on her way to the gym. She disappeared into the equipment room and Azusa slipped through the door before Sam closed it. Sam noticed Azusa's presence and shot her a nasty glare. Azusa wore a devious smirk before climbing up onto the top of the equipment shelf.
"What do you want from me?" Sam's voice could cut through glass. Azusa giggled.
"I'm just watching you because you interest me~" Azusa titled her head and stared into Sam's eyes with her own blood red, hate-filled eyes.
"Are you an extension of the incubator?" Sam glared into Azusa's soul, sensing nothing but hate.
"No, I work on my own accord." Azusa began. "You look like a very powerful magical girl, but I have one question."
"Make it quick, kitty cat." Sam gave a stern order. Azusa snapped her fingers and shut off the lights. Her soul gem had an eerie pink glow to it.
"How much do you fear?" Azusa's voice got a bit softer, but her tone became sharp. Then, a small blue spark was launched behind Azusa, and it sprouted into a wall of blue flames, illuminating the room. Sam's eyes gained a turquoise glow as her hair began burning like the flames in front of her.
"I fear nothing." Sam's voice rang out in the equipment room as she advanced closer to Azusa, glaring straight into her soul. Azusa began trembling in fear as the space between her and the flames shrunk. "There is only one thing I wish to do." Sam began a monologue. "I wish to reduce everything and everyone to ashes. I want to burn this world to the ground. Nothing will ever exist again." Two pillars of blue flames rose from Sam's hands and she held them scarily close to Azusa's face before turning back and leaving. Before she opened the door, she turned around and looked at Azusa. "If you get in my way, you will be my first victim." Sam left Azusa with a haunting message as she left the equipment room. Azusa wimped out and ran away from the flames, making a beeline for the girls locker room, where she hid out for the rest of the lunch break. Meanwhile, Lauren ate lunch by herself. She couldn't get Sam's words out of her head, no matter how hard she tried. For the first time, she felt genuine fear. She feared for her life. What exactly was Sam planning, she wondered. Just then, Ichika and Zain came to her table, along with Chrysler.
"So you're the russian that my girl told me about." Chrysler opened up the conversation. Lauren's thoughts were jerked away from her head as she turned to look at the towering man in front of her. Another look of fear hit her face.
"Relax, Lauren. Chrysler's not a bad guy." Ichika tried to soothe Lauren's fears.
"She's right, ya know." Chrysler responded. "She never told me your name, though. What's your name?"
"I'm Lauren Lavynov. I'm a friend of Ichika's. Did you say she was your girl?" Lauren asked.
"Yeah. Chrysler's my man." Ichika smiled and put her arm around Chrysler's shoulder.
"We wanted to keep it secret, but you seem like someone we can trust." Chrysler told Lauren the secret, then looked right at Zain.
"I said I wouldn't tell anyone, jeez!" Zain put her fingers together and blushed.
"So… did you hear about the new kid?" Zain asked the group. "Peyton told me that the new kid threatened to burn her classmate alive in second period."
"The new kid is in my social studies class." Lauren began. "Her name is Sam Strahan. She seems to have a thing for fire, and her voice is scary as hell."
"Sounds like she's one to watch out for. What does she look like?" Ichika asked.
"She's pretty much blue all over. Blue shirt, blue skirt, short blue hair, blue eyes." Lauren described Sam by appearance.
"So she's blue from head to toe. Got it." Zain noted.
"If I see her near my girl, she's gonna get fucked up." Chrysler vowed to protect Ichika. Just then, the lunch bell rang, sending everyone to their next class. Ichika entered her mathematics class with a distraught look on her face. Like pretty much everybody else, she despised math class. She sat down in her desk near the back of the class and sighed loudly. Then, Sam entered the room. She took a seat at the back of the class, a few seats to the left of Ichika. She turned her attention to Ichika immediately. She shot her a vicious glare. Ichika glared back. This seemed like the girl that Zain and Lauren warned her about, so she was going to stay on her guard. Her focus on Sam took away from her focus on the class, so she completely tuned out the teacher, who was going on and on about stacked bar graphs. Then he handed out an assignment related to the topic, and when he got to Ichika, he noticed her glaring at Sam.
"Why are you shooting dirty looks at the new kid? What's wrong with you?!" The teacher snapped.
"Well she glared at me first." Ichika retorted.
"It's true." Sam added. "She seems like someone who is worth my time."
"What do you mean by that?!" Ichika asked.
"Get out of my way, teacher." Sam ordered her teacher to get out of her way.
"You don't have authority over me, Sam. Sit down and do your work instead of having a staring contest with that punk. Don't let her rub off on you." The teacher scolded Sam. She stood up, and her hair began to flow like blue flames.
"I SAID. GET OUT OF MY WAY." Sam's voice boomed. Her eyes glowed with sheer fury. The rest of the students, and the teacher, all leaned away from Sam out of pure fear.
"I-I'll get out of your way then. Sorry to bother you, Sam." The teacher ran back to his desk. Then Sam grabbed Ichika by the hand and took her out of class. Sam glared straight into Ichika's soul, as her hair continued burning like a blue flame. Then, she took her blue Soul Gem off her neck. There were hints of black in it as she transformed. Her outfit changed to a glowing blue flame jacket with a royal blue feather boa around her neck, and fiery blue pants. Her eyes also began emanating a fiery glow.
"You and I are going to have a battle to the death. And I will not lose." Sam made a threat as she dragged Ichika through the hallway and up to the school roof. Then Ichika let go of her arm and transformed herself. Ichika pointed her guns at Sam and prepared to open fire. Sam shot streams of blue flames from her palms, following Ichika as she ran to her right. Ichika loaded up her guns and fired streams of bullets in Sam's direction before doing a backflip jump over the flames. Sam raised one of her hands to the sky and shot a small blue flare that exploded into deadly fireworks, and the sparks fell like meteors. Ichika dodged some of the sparks, but a few of them landed on her, inflicting searing burns on her shoulders and chest. She clutched her chest in pain, but she had a free hand, which she used to unload a storm of bullets. The bullest struck Sam in the face, and the flames on her head burned brighter with each shot. Sam put her hand in her hair, lighting it on fire before running up to Ichika and slugging her with her flaming fist, knocking her to the edge of the roof. Ichika's guns were dislodged from her hands and she was left defenseless. Sam slowly walked up to her battered foe. Ichika glared into her eyes as she braced herself for her demise.
"I expected more of a fight from you, Ichika. I'm disappointed." Sam's voice pierced through Ichika's heart as she put her hand on Ichika's face, and prepared to burn her to ash with a stream of flames. Before she could deal the killing blow, she got blasted with a stream of water, pushing her away from Ichika. Sam was sent close to another edge of the roof as she stood up and glared at the person who interrupted the fight. Ichika looked to her left and recognized the person who saved her.
"Z-Zain?! What are you doing here?!" Ichika shouted. "And when did you transform?!"
"I came to save you, Ichika. When I heard something slam on the roof, I knew you were in trouble! So I made a contract with Kyubey so that I could save you!" Zain explained herself. Sam shot her a glare.
"So you're Ichika's friend. Let me tell you this. Friends don't matter. You only grow stronger when you battle alone. Relying on your friends will get you killed." Sam gave Zain a stern warning as she walked up to her. Zain shook her head.
"My friends motivated me to get stronger in the first place! I wanna be strong so that I can protect Ichika and the others from maniacs like you!" Zain asserted herself. Sam shook her head and went to the stairwell.
"Kid, you're practically asking to die. Then again, I'll scorch you eventually so it doesn't matter." Sam descended down the stairs and left Zain to rescue Ichika.
"Ichika! Are you alright?" Zain un-transformed and ran up to her injured friend. She reached down to help Ichika get up. Ichika took her hand and stood up.
"My body is on fire, but I feel alright." Ichika responded as she clutched Zain's shoulder and walked with her to the nurse's office. "What did you wish for, anyway?" Ichika asked. Zain smiled.
"I wished to rescue my friends and save people's lives! I wanna be a hero, just like you, Ichika!" Zain explained her wish. Ichika sighed.
"Zain, I'm no hero. I make a lot of shitty decisions." Ichika talked herself down. "But the fact that you think of me like that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It shows that I have people in my life who actually like me, and that makes me happy." Ichika smiled as she held Zain's hand.
"Life just always seems to take a dump on you, Ichika. That just isn't fair at all. People like me and Chrysler are here with you because we like you and you deserve to have comfort in your life. You really do." Zain showed genuine sympathy for Ichika, which most people wouldn't do. Ichika teared up a little bit, continuing to smile at Zain while they walked to the nurse's office. Ichika's burns still needed attention, so she was admitted to the nurse's office. Ichika wasn't alone, though. Quite a few other girls were in the office with similar burns.
"Looks like Sam's been on quite the rampage. Does she just like hurting people?" Zain asked.
"I'd be inclined to believe that about her, judging by how she specifically took me out of class just for a fight. Looks to me like she's been doing that with other people too." Ichika's voice got a bit shaky. She genuinely feared Sam, and what she was capable of. She wondered, who else would Sam be targeting? More importantly, why was Sam like this? The question loomed large over Ichika and Zain's heads as they went to the nurse's office together. With Sam going around burning people whenever she wanted, she was going to be one to watch out for. Ichika and Zain would have to stay on their guards from this point onward, because Sam Strahan's rampage has only just begun.