Uneasy Feelings Tend to End with Explosions

Sylvia was stuck in class. She didn’t particularly enjoy class and put in about as little as she possibly could without failing. Today, Sylvia’s class was getting back their test results, right before they were let out for the day. And what’s better, it was the last class of the day.

“Okay, you know the drill. Pass it back, I have it in the correct order already, so yours should be the one in front.” Said the teacher.

Sylvia grabbed her paper from Kaneko and lazily looked at the score. 85. She passed. That was all that really mattered to her, so she didn’t bother to look at any of the questions she got wrong.

In front of Sylvia, Minny started to discuss with Kaneko, “I got… uh a 71. Okay, well at least I’m still not failing. What about you?”

Kaneko flatly said, “99”, still looking through the test to see what she got wrong. “Ah dang it. I knew this one, I just made a mistake…” Kaneko looked slightly bemused. “I could have done better.”

“I mean, you got 99%. That’s good enough, isn’t it?”

Kaneko looked up at her cousin and gave in. “Yeah, I guess besides passing it doesn’t really matter. I just like to know my preparation was worth it.”

Meanwhile, Sylvia was passively watching the clock. She was going to loiter around the school again with her friends. It wasn’t exactly exciting, but it was probably better than this class.

It wasn’t long until the bell rang. After a quick dismissal by the teacher, Sylvia was packed and walked out of the classroom quickly. She was actually the first one to leave despite not being the closest to the door. In spite of this fact, there was someone standing at the door, waiting for something.

“Woah! Geez, the bell just rang, step off man!” Sylvia exclaimed, nearly running into the boy.

The boy smiled and looked around almost absentmindedly as people began to pour out of adjacent classrooms and a line started to form behind Sylvia.

“So it is. Could you point out Kaneko and Minny for me? I need to talk to them.”

Sylvia looked befuddled. “What are you talking about? Who the heck are you?”

“Oh! I’m known as… Ace. I believe.”

“Okay… Whatever. Get out of the way, would ya?” Sylvia asked, moving past him and putting as much distance between them as she could.

Ace didn’t follow after her, but Sylvia still made sure to check behind her as she darted toward her friends. That kid gave her the creeps.

Thankfully, a few of her friends were already posted up on the side of the gym where they all usually met up.

“Oh, thank goodness. He’s not behind me.” Sylvia said as she finally reached her friends.

“What? Some guy ask you for your number again?” One of Sylvia’s friends guessed.

“I bet one of the teachers is chasing after you, huh? What did you do?” Another speculated.

“Nothing!” Sylvia responded. “There was this creepy kid standing outside the classroom. Like, right outside the door. He seemed juiced out or something. I don’t know.”

All of Sylvia’s friends nodded and moved on with the conversation. The one that normally never spoke gave her a slight reassuring smile.

“So, did you guys see that new post by Sepha-Sora? That new palette looks really cute. I think I sent in the group chat.”

“Yeah yeah, the collab? It looked like you could really pull it off.” Another one said, a total sheep.

“Really?! Thank you!” The girl said, fluttering her eyelashes, trying to look cuter than she already was. And this girl was obnoxiously cute.

Sylvia was still checking over her shoulder every couple of seconds, so she barely gave her friends any attention. Thankfully for her, Ace never came to follow her.

“Did you guys hear? Apparently that new girl from Japan is on probation.”
“Oh yeah, isn’t there something in Japan where you have to leave the cities if you commit a crime?”

“So they have to live with all those monsters stomping around and destroying their towns all the time?”
Sylvia finally realized what they were talking about. “No! They won’t force you to leave the city as a minor. That would be insane. She could have gotten expelled maybe, but no. Besides, tons of people live outside of cities in Japan and are fine. Kaiju aren’t always roaming around. That’s a stereotype.”

Once Sylvia finished her rant, she looked at the faces of her friends. They all looked somewhere on the spectrum between shocked and annoyed.

“Oh crap, I said too much.” Sylvia thought, looking away.

A few seconds later, the cute friend said, “Well, I’d prefer to never see a giant monster in my life. Supervillains are one thing, but those things are too creepy!”

The sheep responded, “Yeah, I mean, it must really suck to have to live in the city all the time. LA is so trashy. I can’t imagine what Tokyo must be like.”

“Geez, these guys are morons.” Sylvia thinks as she continues to listen to their conversation.

Sylvia let them talk about stuff they didn’t understand. All three of them were having a great time discussing by themselves. As she was listening in, she heard something strange coming from behind her.

“Ace said to meet him there? Why?”

Speak of the devil. It was Kaneko talking to Minny. They were both walking back towards this side gate of the school where nobody ever leaves. It exits out into a really confusingly laid out neighborhood so most kids decide to use one that’s slightly closer to the entrance because it opens into the parking lot.

Minny responded, “Yeah, he seemed kinda weird. Like, he was simultaneously super forgettable and off putting. Do you know him?”

“You don’t remember? We went to round 2 like, a week ago. There’s gotta be something wrong with him since…” Kaneko’s voice trailed off behind her as the pair turned a corner towards that gate.

“That’s weird. I guess they do know him. Or Kaneko does at least. Maybe he’s just a weird harmless kid. There’s nothing wrong with that…” Sylvia thought as her friends gathered around one of their phones to watch some video.

“Woah!”

“Why are you showing this to us?”

Sylvia looked over and the quiet one looked up. She lifted her phone so Sylvia could see a compilation of cats failing jumps and tumbling to the floor. The girl had a grin on her face, but Sylvia could only respond with an awkward smile. She could only barely understand the appeal of pet fail videos.

〰

A few minutes passed as Sylvia continued to be a nonparticipant in her friend’s conversation. Suddenly a large Wubwubwubwub sound came from around the corner, where she just saw Kaneko and Minny, shaking the ground as it passed through the area.

“Woah! What the heck is going on!?” The cute one screamed.

“We gotta get outta here!” The sheep called out.

“Come on, Sylvia!” The quiet one exclaimed, reaching out as the other started to run.

Sylvia decided that she had to help them out. There was a serious chance that that kid was a supervillain or something and Kaneko and Minny were about to be his first victims. She’s gotta get them out.

Sylvia ran around the corner in quick order, only to find a towering metallic beast. Its head was some sort of speaker, the kind you see at movie theaters or stadiums. It was massive, easily over 2 stories tall if it stood up all the way. Or maybe not. The shape of the creature kept shifting between sizes. Between moments, it seemed to get noticeably smaller before inevitably growing yet again. Slithering around across its bipedal body was some sort of serpent. It was not what Sylvia was expecting when she ran over there.

And something else unexpected, Sukeban and Pastel Princess were standing directly in front of it, with their weapons drawn. Sylvia knew she had to get out of there fast, so she looked around for Kaneko and Minny, who were nowhere to be found. The only place they could possibly be, aside from inside the stomach of that gross metal snake thing (which happened to be an image that Sylvia did not want to imagine) was an open classroom door near the corner. Thankfully the two magical girls were drawing the monster’s attention, so she could sneak in relatively easily.

Once inside, Sylvia looked around only to find a single teacher beaconing her from behind her desk.

“Get over here! Someone will be here soon to take care of that thing, I’ve already called the police!”

“Where are they? Have you seen two other girls come in here? There’s no other place they could be!”

“I haven’t seen anybody! Get over here, it’s not safe!”

Sylvia could tell that the teacher, who she didn’t really know at all, was trying to protect her, but something inside of Sylvia needed to get answers as to what’s going on.

Instead of moving toward the teacher, she stayed next to the doorway she came in through, peeking from inside.

“Stop fighting! You won’t win!”

Peeking around the corner, Sylvia saw that it was the snake that was shouting.

“Get around to its back! I can distract them.” Pastel Princess shouted.

Sukeban did as she was told and ran around the monster, tying his left arm around his back. At first he tried to swat at her with his other, until Pastel Princess ran to that side and started shouting. “Hey! Hey! Big dumb face!”

Because of his unavailable arm Pastel Princess easily dodges an attack, although she leaves herself open to another. The monster easily turns further in Pastel Princess’ direction and nearly hits her, but before it's able to, Kaneko jumps and kicks it away.

Unfortunately for Sylvia, the monster was sent flying directly through the doorway she was hiding behind.

“Ahhh!” She screamed, leaping away from it. Sylvia tumbled over a number of desks and chairs, trying to gain as much distance from it as possible. Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, the teacher started to chuck as many things off her desk as possible, doing her best to catch its attention and buy Sylvia some time.

It actually worked, the monster turned toward the teacher, who had already hidden under her desk. Seeing this, Sylvia crawled under some of the comparatively tiny student’s desks. It probably didn’t hide her at all, but there wasn’t much else she could do.

The monster moved towards the teacher’s desk, with the snake slithering up its right arm and sniffing all around. It made a quick movement to one side, before its neck straightened upright and it turned around suddenly. It looked like it was a robot being given new orders.

Abruptly, the monster ran back out the door, ripping off the tape from its left arm by momentarily growing it to a massive size, larger than the rest of its body, before returning to the normal one.

Sylvia and the teacher were left in shock. Sylvia panted as her heart pounded rapidly in her chest. She was sure she was about to die.

Outside, Sukeban shouted. “Keep it up!”

“I can’t… Hit!... Anything!”

Several cries of pain rang through the doorway before Sylvia had decided. She had to see what was going on. There was no way that she could miss a real life magical girl fight happening right in front of her. Nothing was going to stop her from seeing this. Including her own death.

Well… Maybe up to her own death. Sylvia didn’t particularly want to die.

She snuck back to her spot around the corner, continuing to ignore the teacher’s pleading to hide with her.

As she looked out, Sylvia saw Pastel Princess repeatedly hitting her staff against where the head of the serpent was. Sadly, the serpent would move around the monster’s body every time she was about to hit it.

Behind the two who were actively fighting, Sukeban was building an apparatus with the tape. It looked almost like a spider’s web and it was probably meant to fulfill the same purpose.

“I won’t let my father get fired!” The snake screamed out as Pastel Princess puttered it with a barrage of pain.

“What the~” Sylvia mouthed.

“Did you say your father?” Pastel Princess asked, astonished.

“Is he your boss? Where did he come from?” Sukeban shouted.

The monster didn’t answer any of the questions it received as it continuously cried out in pain.

“Whatever, Kick it over here!” Sukeban yelled.

“What? I can’t do that! I don’t train as much as you!”

Sukeban shook her head almost imperceptibly before sending out a length of tape to its shoulder so she could tug on it. She couldn’t get enough force to pull it off its feet. “Minny, just hit it!”

“Minny? Where?” Sylvia looked around the space, but nobody else was there.

Pastel Princess kept hitting the monster, keeping it off balance. Simultaneously, Sukeban was pulling on its back. They managed to work the monster close enough to the web that Sukeban cut the line of tape that was pulling it back and grabbed one side of the net that she had set up so she could easily wrap the monster. She ran around while Pastel Princess attacked its arms. In no time at all, Sukeban had encased the monster in the web, adding more layers of tape around that as she could.

The monster tried to grow parts of its body and escape, but it was apparently too much for it. It was actually trapped. Pastel Princess fell onto the floor in a controlled collapse. She panted as the monster continued to struggle.

Pastel Princess let out a long breath after a minute or two of sitting while Sukeban continued to absolutely swaddle the monster in tape. Out of the blue, a muffled voice cried out from the inside of the tape cocoon.

“Did you hear that?” Sukeban asked.

“No, I can’t hear anything over the sound of you pulling out more tape.” Pastel Princess responded.

“I think it's trying to talk again, hold on. I’m gonna find its mouth.”

Sukeban ran around the still exposed speaker-head and found a small bump in the fabric of the tape where the voice seemed to be coming from. Using the serrated part of her tape gun, she cut a small hole where the thing’s mouth was.

It gasped a large breath and then shrieked, “I’ll be back. My father found a better way to defeat you! He knows what’s going to really stop you. We’ll be back once we get it!”

“Minny get over here and hit this thing’s head!”

Pastel Princess stood with about as much urgency as seemed possible, but before she could get even close to hitting the head, the cocoon seemed to inflate before a large gust of wind shot out through all the holes and that Sukeban never filled in.

“Quick!” She shouted.

But by the time that Pastel Princess had made it over, the cocoon was deflated. The monster seemed to be shrinking down as well.

“It's gone?! How?”

“I don’t know.” Sukeban replied coldly.

“I’m really sorry. I could have gotten it!”

“It's fine. We have to go, come on.”

Sukeban stormed away, Pastel Princess following sheepishly behind.

Sylvia tracked them with her eyes, in a state of shock and confusion. What were they talking about?

A few seconds later, her question was answered. In a flash of light, Sukeban revealed herself. It was Kaneko! Weirdly, she didn’t change at all. To Sylvia, it simply became obvious that they were the same people.

Then, Pastel Princess also transformed in a glimmer of light. What Sylvia saw made everything make sense and it also made her want to throw up. It was Minny. Who else? Sylvia’s been obsessed with Pastel Princess since she was first introduced and it had to be Minny.

Sylvia almost fell forward, instead supporting herself on the doorway to the classroom. She couldn’t even hear the teacher ask if it was all over or whatever she was asking. Her mind was filling with every small interaction the two have ever had and how much they never liked each other. Did Pastel Princess, out of any superhero, have to be the one that hated Sylvia?

No. She was going to make it right. Sylvia couldn’t let that be the end of their relationship.