Strawberry Pandemonium Part 3

It was a seemingly normal looking day at Astrea Hill, the clouds were fluffy, the wind blowing gently, and the sun shining down on the picturesque greenhouse that stood in the middle of the forest.

The light filtered softly through the slightly foggy window panes, casting an almost angelic light on a dirt caked Shizuma.

'I'll KILL YOU!!' Shizuma screamed in a fit of rage as she chased the strange looking tadpole around the greenhouse, knocking over several pots of rare Azaleas in the process.

The blue tadpole merely squeaked out, 'Mudkip!' and bounded away in a zig zagging and seemingly mocking fashion.

The tadpole thing was digging into her rare flowers again, devouring the roots and subsequently massacring the flowers that Shizuma had tended to for so long.

Panting and seriously out of breath, Shizuma sat down on a step and muttered obscene curses against the Mudkip under her breath.

'If only Nagisa were here to help me...' Shizuma thought, 'She's probably agile enough to catch that Mudkip...' Shizuma's mind suddenly wandered it's way over to the soft curves of Nagisa's slender legs, causing her to blush bright red.

'What am I so embarrassed about? It's not like I didn't see her naked before...'

Shizuma shook her head. The afternoon heat was obviously getting to her, and she could feel the damp soil on top of her head quickly hardening and caking.

'I'd better get back to the school to check on that dolt Kouta...Kaname probably sent him in on false charges just so she could have the fun of torturing him.'

Shizuma smiled, 'Still, it was quite fun putting on those electric ball clamps...'

She winced slightly at her own sadism, and then decided that the afternoon sun and the Mudkip was getting to her.

Picking up her garden tools and padding out the door on a pair of seriously sore quadriceps, she vowed out aloud to the Mudkip, 'I'll flay you alive when I get you someday!! And don't you forget it!!'

With a huff, Shizuma made her way out of the greenhouse and started her way down the quaint little stone path that led to the school.

She almost had her front teeth knocked out when she collided with Miyuki, still focussed on how to exterminate the Mudkip with Raid.

'Owww...watch where you're going Shizuma...'Miyuki furtively ran her tongue over her teeth to check for any loose ones.

'Anyways, I was just going to the greenhouse to tell you about something strange that happened in one of the Lulim dorms.'

Shizuma rubbed her temple and groaned, 'Just what I need...'

'Apparently, a dog eared young man appeared in one of the classrooms, covered in...feces and ranting about his magical sword. I was wondering if you can help me untangle this puzzle?'

Shizuma looked up at the ceiling and tried to take in what Miyuki just said.

'A dog eared young man? Are you sure it wasn't just another washed up Otaku that tried too hard to find us?'

'Nope, the ears are real, and he stinks. Can you just come over and take a look?'

Shizuma gave another mental groan and followed Miyuki into the school.

Chikane and Himiko had just finished their classes, (family studies and psychology in a row.) And felt the innate urge to go check up on their newfound dog demon.

'Are you sure this is such a good idea, Chikane chan? I mean...what if he has rabies?'

Chikane gave a low chuckle and patted Himiko on the head.

'Sometimes you really amuse me. He's under anaesthesia, and I don't think he can do anything at the moment.'

Himiko gave a twitch of her mouth and followed Chikane to the infirmary, still wondering about what to do for a term paper about Freud and his accomplishments.

They found a frowning Shizuma and an emotionless Miyuki in the sterile looking room, analyzing the newfound visitor to the school.

Shizuma looked up at the transfer students, 'Aren't you supposed to be hurrying off to your next class? Tardiness isn't very ladylike.'

'We have lunch right now, and we're just wondering how our dog-eared friend is doing.' Chikane said cheerfully. Himiko shrunk back a bit and gripped Chikane's arm tighter, remembering how violently the creature reacted the last time they met.

Miyuki said as-a-matter-of-factly, 'I think the only thing we should do right now is call the police, even though those idiots might get lost in the forest again. We can't have a...genetically modified Otaku running around the school and causing mayhem.'

'Here, here.' Said Chikane, looking at the dog boy's twitching ears, 'I think it would be best if we put him in a...straightjacket. He tends to react quite violently when he's provoked.'

Miyuki felt a slight twinge of annoyance at the new girl's brash and bold attitude, 'Who does she think she is? The new Etoile?'

She bit it back and smiled a little too widely, 'Yes...I think that's a very bright idea. Shizuma, what do you think?'

Shizuma was busy fiddling with a pen and lost in a trance of killing Mudkips again when she heard this. She quickly snapped out of it and sputtered a little too abruptly, ' Yup! Great idea! Never know who's gonna let the dogs out...get it?'

Himiko managed a small, forced giggle while Miyuki looked at Shizuma with a disgusted look, 'Honestly, don't you have any better jokes in your repetoire?'

'How about the one about the two lesbian frogs?'

'No.'

Shizuma shrugged and looked at her watch, 'I've got to do some paperwork regarding this Kouta boy's background, and then we can probably let him go. We've got an average of fifty males sneaking up the hill every year to peep on us. The joys of an all girl school.I think that Kaname's torture devices have successfully brought rates down, but I think she's getting a little drunk on her toys...' Shizuma departed with nary a farewell, muttering something about Raid as her three inch heels made clacking sounds down the tile hallway.

'Well Himiko, let's get back to lunch! I think they've got spicy tuna rolls today!'

Almost immediately, Himiko's eyes turned manic and wet, 'Really? I think I'm going to faint!'

'First one there gets the one with the most Roe!' Chikane sprinted off, with a squeakily protesting Himiko hot on her heels.

Miyuki shook her head, 'I swear, this school is going to pot. The founders would be rolling in their graves right now if they saw this...'

She turned back to the hospital bed, expecting to see a flash of obnoxious red pantaloons, but found that the bed was empty, with the sheets pulled off quite violently.

'This can't be possible...we gave him extra strength tranquillizers!' Miyuki's head spun around in a panic. The dog eared, allegedly feces throwing maniac had resistance to tranquillizers! Did that mean he was really...

'He's either one of those super strong serial killer maniacs, or he's a demon...' Thought Miyuki, breaking into a cold sweat. She spun her head around frantically, looking for any signs of a quickly fleeing blob of red and white.

She felt a breeze caress her back.

The window was shattered, letting the wind throw around the curtains in a ghostly fashion. Miyuki felt a chill go up her spine, 'I'd better contact student council...set up a red alert at the school...'

She ran to the Hello Kitty styled phone and dialled Chikaru's extension number.

A cold and empty silence responded to her call.

Frustrated, Miyuki slammed down the phone and tried Shion's number.

The maddening whispering silence seeped into her ears once again.

She tried several more calls, each one followed by a dead silence and seemingly punctuated by the flapping curtains in the background.

'The thing chewed apart the phone lines...the thing CHEWED apart the phone lines...'

Feeling like she was going to scream out her lungs in hysteria, Miyuki gritted her teeth and marched out of the infirmary, keeping a wary eye out for the maniac in red.

'Alright! You can have him back! Sheesh...no need to resort to violent methods.' Kaname whined as she shoved Kouta over to Lucy.

Lucy had given Kaname and Momomi ( who were the only ones lurking about in the staff room and tormenting Kouta.) A very brief but potent demonstration of the abilities her vectors possessed. When the devious duo refused to let him go followed by, 'Get out of here, Neko Majiin!' Lucy flew into a calculated rage, and cut off a small portion of Momomi's hair. The two then stared at Lucy with incredulous looks plastered on their faces, followed by Lucy cutting a flower pot in half with one soft swipe of her invisible arms.

They promptly let Kouta go once Lucy threatened to behead both of them.

Kouta just stared blankly into space, drooling and wondering if his balls were still attached.

'Don't you think we'll forget this, you Neko wannabe!' Momomi said, fingering the part when her hair was sheared off, 'We'll get you back someday.'

The evil duo then hurriedly and clumsily pushed their way out of the doors, leaving Kouta and Lucy inside the staff room by themselves.

'Oh Kouta...what have they done to you?'

Kouta winced and said in a hoarse voice, 'They...They did things to me...'

Lucy leaned in closer with a very concerned look on her face, 'What things? I'll report this school even if it's the last thing I'll do.'

'They...' Kouta stared into space once again and scratched his numbed testicles.

Lucy muttered an obscenity under her breath and proceeded to use her vectors to carry Kouta out of the room.

'Going somewhere?'

Lucy jumped, causing her vectors to loosen and drop poor Kouta face first into the floor. Lucy quickly said an apology under her breath and turned to face Shizuma, who was standing at the other staff room entrance with her arms crossed.

'I swear, this school has some pretty demented methods of discipline, I'll report this to the police, I'll-

Shizuma gave an exasperated sigh and raised her hand in a dismissive gesture, ' This is only...prevention. Please try to understand that those two are mere anomalies in our school Unfortunately, their deterrent methods do work, and we have had the number of perverts peeping into this school cut down by 50 percent!'

Lucy glared at Shizuma, wringing her vectors together, 'That still doesn't give you the right to torture people! You've done something to his genitals! Now we probably can't-

Shizuma's eyes widened a little bit, 'You're straight?'

'What?'

'Never mind.'

Shizuma continued a long rant about perverts climbing into Astrea Hill's fancy windows to look at lesbian sex, but eventually being caught by a sentry and being 'interrogated' by the student council. She quickly said a formal, but quite insincere apology for Kouta's treatment, ( Lucy detected a hint of amusement in her voice when she said this.) Which Lucy accepted grudgingly and took Kouta back to her dorm to nurse the poor guy back to life.

Lucy took a wet towel and laid it on Kouta's head, adjusting the surprisingly ample and fluffy sheets over his thin body.

Nana was busy chatting away with Tsubomi about the joys of hair perms and the power of pink, while Yaya was marvelling away and drooling at Lucy's collection of horror and gore movies.

'You actually have the whole, uncensored Guinea Pig series!?' Yaya squealed as she held up two black sleeved DVD's with pictures of mutilated monsters and women on them.

'Yup, and I actually got them from...strange connections that I have.'

Yaya stared at the two DVD's eyes glazed over at the possibilities that Lucy's overflowing bag held.

'Guys, could you keep it down? Kouta's trying to rest here.' Lucy said over the din of chatting girls and Yaya's rummaging.

'Sorry, Lucy-chan!' Tamao said cheerfully as she signalled for the others to keep their voices to a minimum level.

'Say, guys...do you want to have...a movie night tonight, instead of a tea party?' Lucy suggested. She wanted to give her students good impressions of her.

Almost simultaneously, the other girls in the room piped up mixed responses of, 'Yes! Awesome! And fuck yeah!' (The last one presumably came from Yaya.)

Lucy grinned inwardly as she thought of the plethora of horror movies she brought from home The girls in Astrea Hill seemed the type to watch period romance movies once a month and have nice little tea parties, and Lucy, however nicely she wanted to put it, wanted to break their prissy little habits and give them something rough.

Of course, Yaya would probably lap Evil Dead up, which was quite arguably, one of her tamer movies. Lucy had taken an immense liking to Yaya, since she shared the same macabre interests, they had even discussed how anatomically correct the splatter was in Dawn of the Dead!

'By the way, has anybody seen that...girl what's-her-name Kagome in the last few days? She hasn't been popping up as often.'

Yaya frowned, 'Come to think of it, she didn't pop up as many times as she used to...I wonder what she's up to?'

Tsubomi mumbled something about 'probably nothing good.' while she fiddled around with her Hello Kitty watch.

Lucy had always had a bad feeling about the creepy little girl, she just didn't seem...normal, even in the special education sense. There was something sinister about her she just couldn't put her finger on.

'Oh, and you are one to talk. You probably have one hundred plus counts of thirty five to life sentences on your list...' A voice in her head bitterly intoned.

Lucy shook it off. Whenever she had spells like this, she tended to go into a trance and then reappear as the mentally retarded Nyuu.

'Lucy...What...just happened to me...' Kouta had apparently woken up. His eyes were still scattered from his ordeal, and the darting motions he made with his head reminded Lucy of an spastic ostrich.

Trying to keep herself from laughing, she walked over and sat down on the bed.

'How are you feeling? Think you need to stay here for a bit more? The girls have some tea going, and if you'd like-

Suddenly Kouta pranced out of the bed in a blur of motion and struggled to put his pants on, muttering hurried breathless words under his breath as he did so.

Quite mystified, Tamao cautiously approached him.

'Ummm...Kouta sama? Is something wrong?'

'WRONG!?' Kouta's eyes looked more dilated than ever as he looked about to foam from his mouth. 'My balls got shocked! I'm...I'm leaving this place of demons!'

Continuing to froth at his mouth and struggling to put on his jeans, Kouta looked at Lucy and immediately calmed down. Wiping the spit from his mouth, his dilated pupils stared at her wildly as he said shakily, 'Ummm...thanks for taking care of me...I'll...I'll SEE YOU AT THE END OF SCHOOL YEAR!! I LOVE YOU!!' Kouta lunged over and french kissed Lucy, giving her copious amounts of tongue as the girls of the opposite sexual persuasion looked on in fascinated horror.

Half bawling and half laughing, Kouta burst out of the door, leaving Lucy with a trail of spit on her chin and a very confused look on her face.

Through the window, she could see Kouta scrambling into his old puttering Mercedes and speeding off into the distance. To say that he was relieved to leave the school was quite an understatement.

Nana broke the awkward silence, 'Kouta san seems quite perky today, doesn't he?'

Lucy shook her head sadly, ' If only he was normally perky...I think he'll recover soon enough.'

'Ewwww...how was it like to be kissed by a guy?' Yaya said with a tone of severe disgust.

After a lengthily conversation about the taste and technique of male kissing, ( and subsequent groans and murmurs of 'cooties' from Tsubomi.), the clock eventually struck curfew, which meant that the Evil Dead movie marathon was to start.

Handing each of the girls ear buds, they hunkered down with some tarts Tamao had brought from the bakery and watched the horror unfold.

Nobody had an appetite after watching Ash cut a headless zombie in half, ( Tsubomi even made retching sounds as this happened.) Tamao stared at the screen in a bug eyed trance, and Yaya drank it all up, grinning ear to ear whenever a gory scene showed up.

Nana was too busy fiddling around with her prosthetic arm to be paying attention to the movie, as she found that the attachments were growing a little bit loose. Losing an arm with a doll joint wasn't the best impression to give to a school full of timid aristocratic girls.

When the DVD player was shut off, and when the girls snuggled comfortably with each other in the feathery beds, all seemed peaceful and serene as a perpetually giggling Nana was being touched by Yaya and a (still) bug eyed Tamao was staring at the ceiling, expecting zombies to come popping out of the closet at any moment.

Looks were deceiving, as the real trouble was only beginning.

The window shattered, sending a spray of glass all over the sleeping girls.

'What the fuck...' Yaya started to intone when her vision got blocked by a huge old fashioned leather case. Before she had time to react, she was struck in the forehead by the heavy object and rolled out of the bed quite comically, taking the bed sheets and Nana with her.

The case landed with a dull thump in the middle of the room.

Lucy stared wide-eyed at the case, unsure of what to do when Sister Hamasaka came a-callling.

Luckily for them though, Sister Hamasaka was busy patrolling another area of the dorms, saving her the disgrace of losing her teaching assistant job.

The break in the window wasn't too big either...Maybe Lucy could order new window panes and glass? Her stomach clenched and grew cold as she thought of the prospect of her being forced to hand in a resignation paper.

Goggling at the old fashioned and frankly quaint looking case, Lucy cleared her throat quietly.

'This...is a problem...'

Tamao was still darting her eyes from place to place, looking for any zombies that came with the box. Tsubomi was still snoring soundly.

The case opened with a click, with Lucy half expecting a cloud of smoke to waft dramatically from the innards of the case.

A four foot tall doll stumbled out, dressed in green Victorian era clothes, with body length brown hair and dichromatic eyes.

'Oh...my...God...' Yaya said in a choked voice.

Lucy rubbed her eyes and pinched herself once or twice, but it wasn't a dream.

'What...the...fuck...is...Suiseiseki doing here?' Lucy said, letting the words idly roll off her tongue as she blankly stared at the doll, who was dusting herself off and muttering something about the idiot Chibi human.

Suiseiseki looked at Lucy and swivelled her green and red eyes around the room, surveying the girls, and promptly asked sharply, 'Just where am I desu?'

'Aren't you...from that show...Rozen Maiden?' Yaya asked carefully, trying not to let her extensive knowledge of the show seep through.

'Why are there so many humans here desu? Where's the chibi human desu...'

Suiseiseki finally grasped what was happening.

'I'm not in Jun's house anymore, aren't I desu?'

Lucy was on the verge of saying something, but couldn't spit it out. How could a character from a television show of all things, pop into their bedroom like this? It didn't make any sense.

Yaya was sputtering something about defying the laws of the fabric of reality itself while Suiseiseki glided around the room, saying reassuring comments to herself about how it was just a dream.

Tamao was pretty sure Suiseiseki was a zombie by this time, and her Evil Dead soiled mind suddenly snapped, causing her to give out a great shriek.