"Goood morning, class."
Today was Monday, which meant for our ...heroes? I guess? That it was time to go back to school. The four of them all go to a school called 'Flamingo High School' , where they learn the usual school things, as well as combat, which is basically a gym class but way more awesome, because you get to learn about rescue missions and stuff that you can use if you wanna be a L.E.A.F Agent.
Today, the four of them, alongside the other 10 students in their class, found themselves in art class. A Sunflower with a cowboy hat, a pink bow, and a red outfit stood in-front of class, holding a giant, seemingly magical paintbrush.
"My name is Sunny, you'll just call me Ms. Sunny because I keep forgetting my last name."
A rose, who some know as a popular singer named Crystal, was poking holes into her eraser with her pencil while she listened to their teacher, and she quietly said to herself:
"I feel like everyone doesn't remember they're last names.."
"Eh, fair enough, I wouldn't be able to find my birth certificate any day of the week."
Said Zackary, who was sat next to Crystal, he had his stem up on the desk and his leaf feet crossed disrespectfully.
"Today, class, we're going to be painting.."
Sunny took her big, magical paintbrush to a canvas in-front of her and quickly painted a Turtle on the canvas.
"A turtle!"
The turtle then magic came off the canvas and into life, and he started slowly walking around the classroom. The students all watched this happen with a gasp.
"O-Oops! I uh..I didn't mean for that to happen.."
Sunny admitted, scratching her head.
The turtle slowly waddled towards a Shadow Peashooter named Sombra, and he picked up the turtle.
"Wow..he's so tiny!"
Sombra said, gleefully.
"Awww..he's so CUTE!"
Exclaimed Jamie, a Water Peashooter with a Pink Bow whom was sitting next to Sombra.
"Can I pet him?"
"Uh..sure!"
Sombra agreed, as Jamie gently pet the shell of the turtle.
"Uuh..anyways! You'll have 'till the end of class to paint a turtle, and based on how good it looks, i'll give you a daily grade!"
"Aaanny questions?"
Sunny asked the entire class.
A count chompula named Alucard raised a vine into the air.
"Uuhh, yeah, do our paintbrushes magically turn our paintings into stuff too?"
"Well, no, because if I did allow that, I would probably get at least four lawsuits depending on what you guys create."
"...Seriously, some of you guys got messed up heads."
Some of the students briefly starred at Zackary.
"...What?"
Everyone just quietly stopped and got to work.
"Whaddaya mean what? Zack, everyone knows you could unleash absolute horrors on the world if you could create anything with a paintbrush."
Mana, a sunflower with dragon wings and a dragon tail added - who was also sitting next to Zack.
"Aaaahh you're no fun, Mana.."
"Imagine how fun of a weekend that would be!"
"It won't be fun when you blow up half of Town Center.."
"That's the fun part."
"I..I am genuinely convinced that you're crazy, sometimes."
"Crazy? Or just not boring?"
Lily was attempting to paint a turtle, but it looked more like a bunch of green lines.
"Hhrg.."
She whined at the progress of her painting, starting to fear the idea of getting a bad grade. Her parents were quite harsh on her when she got bad grades, and she just didn't wanna get scolded again.
"Lily! How's your painting going?"
Said another Vampire Flower in a blue and pink dress, who was sitting right next to her.
"Oh! Uh - Hi Rosie, I'm uh..doing.."
"..Okaaay..?"
Rosie took a peak at Lily's drawing.
"Hmm..is drawing not really your strong suit?"
Lily sighed and drooped her head a bit.
"You can tell, huh.."
"W-Wait! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything-!"
"O-Oh, really?"
"Yeah, I just meant that..not everyone is good at drawing and that's okay, you know..?"
"O-Oh, uh, yeah, that's fine.."
"..T-Thanks Rosie."
Lily said, with a weak smile
"No problem!"
Rosie said, giggling a bit.
"But I dunno, Rosie..I feel like i'm not trying hard enough."
"Well, I mean, art isn't for everyone, Lily.."
"If you're not good at something, you probably just don't like the process - which is okay!"
"If..you don't enjoy something, that's not your fault, you know?"
"..Yeah..art doesn't seem all that cool anyway."
Said Lily, who put her elbow onto the table and her hand into her face, starting to see Rosie's point.
"Sssso Lucia..how's your painting going?"
Terry asked her. Terry was a normal weed and Lucia was a ghost pepper - though she carried a more human like appearance with arms and such. These two had been friends sense the beginning of their first year at Flamingo High School - and he's also her only friend, this is because sadly she has a hard time talking to other people verbally. She tends to write out her thoughts in her sketchbook instead of actually talking - they're quite the unlikely friendship.
"Hmm?"
Lucia was surprised at Terry's sudden conversation. She gently grabbed her sketchbook to start writing something. She finished doing so and showed it to him:
- I'm doing okay, how about you? -
"Uuh..I'm not really good at painting, so mine kinda looks like this.."
He showed her his painting, and it sort of looked like Lily's, except slightly worse.
Lucia, being the artist she was, noticed many, many issues with the whole thing, but she didn't wanna make him feel bad, so she just decided to support him.
- It looks good! - With a thumbs up drawn on it.
"Heheheh..thanks!"
("...Shee's totally trying to make me feel better..")
"Uh, anyway..what does yours look like?"
Lucia turned her painting in his direction. And it was quite literally the most magnificent thing he's ever seen on a canvas.
It had extreme amounts of detail on the turtle, an absolutely gorgeous background, and was in general just absolutely stunning.
It had also been about 10 minutes sense this was assigned to them.
Terry's looked at the painting in awe.
"L-Lucia..you did this in ten minutes?!"
She slowly nodded.
("D-Does he hate it?")
She somehow thought.
"This is incredible! I mean, seriously, you are so good at this!"
Lucia jumped a bit at the unexpected comment, she blushed a bit, and because of that she tilted her head away from him and covered her face.
"H-Hey, did I say something wrong?"
Terry asked, confused by her looking away.
Lucia, while still covering her face, quickly jolted her head back at him to quickly shake her head.
"U-Uh, okay good.."
"Pffft-"
Pathos, a Hypno Flower, was containing her laughter in the other corner of the room, because she had read Lucia's mind. Despite reading people's minds, she never really talks about what she learns from reading minds, because if she reveals it all, well, that just wouldn't be any fun for her, would it?
"Lemmie guess, Pathos..reading minds again?"
Moxie, a weed, similarly to Terry whom also wore headphones, was next to Pathos. He was used to these sorts of antics from her.
"Well DUH, what else is there that's fun to do in a super boring classroom?"
Pathos said, giving a somewhat sinister chuckle after words.
"What did you even learn this time..?"
"I told you Moxie - I ain't gonna tell you anything! that would just ruin all the damn suspense! It's like drama TV Shows, if we know everything, then that would make everything way less shocking."
"Hmph, Most Drama shows suck anyway."
"No, you're just uncultured, silly."
Pathos giggled a bit, she then telepathically brought her water bottle into the air and started spinning it around in the air while continuing to speak.
"When you got powers like mine..there's not much you can do except have fun with them."
"And that includes getting all the drama for everything, even the drama that hasn't even happened yet!"
"It's so fun to watch it all fall into place."
"...Y-You kinda sound like a psychopath, gonna be honest."
Moxie remarked.
She put down the water bottle.
"I mean..I am a Psychic, but I dunno about Psychopath."
Kiraki, a shadow flower, who similarly to Rosie, is a Princess undercover, was painting. Kiraki was alongside Gilbert, a Lantern Plant who usually has a mech with him - however he wasn't in said mech right now, as he's not allowed to use it on campus.
"Gilbert..do you ever wonder if anyone in our class is truly..normal?"
Kiraki asked him. She had been observing some of the interactions between other students during class, so she had been a bit curious on this topic.
*Gilbert responded in a text-to-speech voice:*
"Well, I wouldn't say so. Most of us in here have strange abilities, odd circumstances, or are just unusual in general."
"Honestly, I think weird is just to be expected at this point."
He had to use a text-to-speech voice to communicate due to him lacking a mouth, he seems like he basically thrives off technology, let alone the mech.
"I suppose..I may just not be used to how noisy things can get."
Kiraki came to the conclusion, they had only been attending this school for about 3 months, and she was just used to how quiet her castle can be.
BZZZZZZZZZT
Class was dismissed.
Everyone begun to leave their classes, as the passing period now begun.
Terry and Lucia walked alongside each other in the hallway. Lucia wrote:
- I forgot to ask, Terry..what was that little robot you were with when we met with Chillius..? -
"O-Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you!"
"Well...before I tell you about that, I should probably tell you something for context."
"Hmm?"
Lucia said, curiously.
"I uh..basically got adopted-?"
"Huh?!"
Said Lucia, a bit surprised.
- Terry, you never even told me you were an orphan..I could have helped you, you know.. -
Lucia wrote, feeling a bit bad for him.
"Y-Yeah..sorry about that..I just didn't want you worrying about that stuff."
- Terry..I'm sorry.. -
"It's okay, I'm fine Lucia..I swear."
Terry was pretty used to suffering. At one point, he had no parental figures or anyone to help him, he was just alone. He fended for himself for awhile, with no memory of where he even comes from. So, he isn't exactly a snowflake or anything.
- You should tell me more about it later.. -
- So..who adopted you anyway? -
"Well, it was actually our Science Teacher, Mr. Snaplight."
Lucia's eyes widened. Did he mean the science teacher that caused all that destruction on the first day?! She was really afraid of him and how unsafe he can be - is it really safe for Terry to be around with that guy? Well, she did realize that it's probably better that he's under a roof at all instead of..y'know not.
- That's great...Terry. -
"Mhm..anyway-"
Terry reached into his backpack and pulled out Zetty, she was just in her mini form and in rest mode. Zetty soon woke up from rest mode after being removed from the backpack.
"This is Zetty..she's this robot that Mr. Snaplight made. He told me that she wants to see more of the world, so she likes to travel with me a lot."
Zetty did a lil wave at Lucia.
- I remember her and Momo were playing catch..so what can she do? -
"Well she can-"
Zetty suddenly grow to her normal size, Terry wasn't prepared for this, so he was toppled over by the unexpected weight.
"GAH!"
"T-TERRY!"
Lucia exclaimed, startled by this as well.
"Aagh..Zetty.."
Zetty fumbled over a bit as she stood up.
"S-Sor!"
Zetty said, as she was just trying to help answer Lucia's question.
"I-It's okay, Zetty..w-wait, did you-"
"Did you say my name, Lucia?!"
This would come as a surprise to Terry, Lucia was able to verbally say a few things in public, but so far she'd never said his name.
*Lucia gasped, realizing she just said that. What was she gonna do now? Should she just keep writing stuff? N-No! You just said his name, OBVIOUSLY you can say other stuff right?! But what if, but what if-*
*Lucia started panicking a bit.*
"B-B-b-b-b-b-b-"
"L-Lucia? are you oka-"
Suddenly, Lucia just sped off, she was just too overwhelmed now to do anything else.
"Lucia, wait!"
Terry watched as she dashed away.
" Sigh Man.."
Zetty just walked next to Terry. Terry turned to look at Zetty and her face screen turned into a question mark, she was confused as to what just happened.
"U-Uh, well...she's my friend, Zetty, but she's really, really shy."
"Stuff can overwhelm her really fast..so she can just run away from stuff like that sometimes."
Zetty's screen then showed a loading screen, before eventually turning into a check mark.
"Lucia." RECOGNIZED AS A "Friend."
"Exactly, Zetty!"
"I've been trying to help her with this stuff, but it can be really hard for her sometimes you know..?"
Terry said, as he went and sat on a handrail at the end of a staircase.
Zetty walked over and sat on the handrail next to Terry, just sort of listening to him.
"I'm pretty worried about her...It seems like I'm one of the few real friends she has, so if that doesn't change, I dunno if she'll be happy with herself."
Zetty's face screen changed to a somewhat sad expression, beginning to understand the weight of that situation.
"But..I'm sure I can help her figure this out."
Zetty's face screen turned into a ^^ as she nodded.
"You two could really help each other, y'know, she knows how to talk, but she's afraid to, and you don't know how to talk, but you're not afraid to."
"I'm not sure how she feels about Mr. Snaplight though.."
"Whenever we don't have a sub in science class, she's always really afraid of him.."
"And, I mean, his lab isn't the safest place..plus I don't think giving us just safety goggles and nothing else was gonna help the risk of injury."
Terry looked up at the ceiling.
"Sometimes, I wish he'd teach me how to do all that stuff he does in his laboratory.."
"Or just teach me stuff in general, you know? Kind of like a-"
Zackary and Mana were walking and talking, and slowly passed by Terry and Zetty.
"Wait, Zack, I forgot to ask.."
"I tried to call you a day or so ago, but you didn't pick up. That's kinda unusual for you so I wanted to ask - what was goin' on that day?"
"Oh yeah! I uuuh forgot to tell you something important."
"Eh? What's up?"
"Well, some things happened a day or so ago, almost thought I was gonna die, but I actually got an internship for L.-"
"Mmmphmmmphpmphh!"
Terry had walked over and stopped Zack in his tracks, covering his mouth.
"Hey Mana! Sorry about this, but I need to have a little talk with Zack, okay?"
"Uh- ...okay, but sense when the hell were you two cool with each other?"
Said Mana, who was suspicious of him.
"Ooh, uh, he just...wanted to apologize to me!"
He said, putting on a poker face.
"..Yeeaaah.."
"...Pft, Whatever."
Mana started flapping her wings and just flew off to who knows where?
"Phew.."
Terry uncovered Zack's mouth
Zackary aggressively pushed Terry off of him.
"GH!"
Terry stumbled for a moment but he stood up straight soon after.
"What the hell are you doing Terry?! You better not be trying to pick a fight!"
Zackary said, angrily.
"Hey, hey! Just calm down Zack, I just need to talk to you about something!"
Zetty went back to her mini form and just climbed up on Terry's shoulder; she was intimidated by Zackary.
"Why the hell did you have to approach me in such a damn...incriminating way then?!"
"Wait, you know that word? I MEAN-"
"I had to stop you from talking, okay?! Listen just- follow me.." Terry asked of Zackary.
"You better make this quick, bud.."
Zackary said, threateningly.
Terry and Zack sat outside in front of the school on a concrete staircase. Class was over for the day, so now the sun was starting to set, making the sky a beautiful orange.
"Well? Spit it out, bookworm - I ain't got all day."
Said Zack, impatiently.
"Listen Zack, I don't know if you remember, but after we had that meeting with Chillius, he told us that we aren't allowed to tell anyone about this internship."
" Sigh you always have to follow the rules, huh?"
"No! But there's more at stake than that!"
"Eh?"
"If our friends and family find out about this stuff..who knows how they might react?"
"Our family could technically take us out of this program..they could take this once in a lifetime opportunity from us, if they think it's too dangerous for us!"
"And who knows what other people might think about us if they know we're doing this?"
Zackary's sarcastic expression started to fade to a more serious one, he realized that if everyone knew about this..it might change his life for the worse.
"Until we're really L.E.A.F agents..we have to keep it a secret."
"All four of us.."
Zack sighed.
"Well damn. That's..no fun."
He said, looking at the sky.
Terry stood up and looked off into the distance.
"Zack.."
"Sometimes doing good things isn't fun."
"That's what really makes it good."
"..."
"*Sigh.*"
"Fine."
Zackary stood up.
"I'll keep it a damn secret, just..don't cover my mouth again, kinda gave me...PTSD from being gagged when we talked to Chillus."
"Thaaaat's not how PTSD works.."
He looked back at Zackary, chuckling a bit.
"It's close enough, bookworm!"
"Hahahah- not really!"
The nonexistent camera pans up to a nice view of the pretty, orange sky.
LATER THAT NIGHT...
It was about 9PM now. Lily was sleeping soundly in her bed. Sometimes she had trouble sleeping, but this was a good night, and she was sleeping well for once.
And then-
"LILY!"
"AHHH!"
She sprung awake, throwing a pillow at her wall instinctively.
Shewhipped her head around to see where that came from, and it was just on her nightstand, Chillius had called her on the communicator.
"C-Chillius?! What do you want right now? And how did you call me without me answering?!"
"Don't worry about that right now. I just need you and Lucia to come out to dave manor."
"It's time for your first training session!"
TO BE CONTINUED.
(Hey there, thanks for checking out the series. This is the latest chapter for now, but more are in the works! If you'd like to ask questions or give suggestions for future chapters, be sure to leave a comment or contact me on Discord!)
- Theseus