Fantasy PHANTASMA: SCHOOL OF THE STRANGE

[MechaGhoul]

"W-whiskey!?" Suzette quickly exclaimed, before crouching down low behind the desk, and holding her puppet hand up above it. Using her puppet, she made it gaze around the room. W-why, whiskey? Why not wine? Wine at least is a better flavoring agent, and isn't as strong. I mean, wine in with a responsible tas- SHE'S ONLY EIGHT.


Susie poked her head above the desk, and glanced towards Anya, "Y-you aren't going to eat that are you?" She glanced towards the fridge, knowing full well, she probably should move the liquor to somewhere safer. So that no one could get to it, except those above eighteen years of age, who could buy such products. Well, where she was from anyway. Note to self, make sure to check the age of purchase here.

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"Of course not." Anya answered her elf friend.


"Lily's my taste tester! Well.... I guess if you really, really wanted to try, I could cut it in half. But only if Lily agrees." she explained, stroking her sandwich. Truly, an artist's creation was always beautiful in her own eyes, the cat decided.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Suzette's face blanched as she lowered down a bit. "E-err ah-ah, no, no, it's fine." She quickly said as she emphatically waved her hands from side to side. "Se il vous plaît, ne me fait pas." She muttered out to herself. Keeping her puppet on her hand she opened another drawer, as she glanced inside, searching again for a table-knife. From an initial glance, she did not appear to notice any knifes within, truly an unfortunate situation.

 

[CSA]

"Oh, is that it?" Lily asked, quickly searching around for a table knife with her vines as Anya added more and more horrible and less than legal things to her sandwich. The Alraune shuddered in particular at the inclusion of whiskey, which she wasn't old enough to have.


One of her tendrils landed on a proper knife, and slithered towards Susie with the implement. Lily looked at the Elf seriously, and said in a particularly commanding tone of voice, "That's right. I'm her taste tester, and I'm going to test the taste of this sandwich no matter what."


Lily wasn't screwing around. If she didn't eat this horrible thing, Anya would be really hurt. And the girl was already so sad about her parents. Normally she wouldn't care that much, but Lily said that she would protect Anya and that was what she would do.

 

[MechaGhoul]

"Même si elle vous tue, il semble." Suzette said, with a sardonic tone of voice, as her lips curled into a odd smile, before quickly fading back into a deadpan expression. She remembered what she promised the Alarune, and was going to stick by it. Glancing up she noticed that Lily was there, and had a table-knife. Susie gave a quick nod, "Thanks. Strange I didn't see one at my station." She said as she picked up the implement with hand that lacked the puppet. She returned fully upright as she glanced at the jars she got for the sandwiches earlier.

 

[CSA]

Lily still didn't understand French at all, but it sounded nice and it was probably something about how wonderful and kind the Alraune was with an agreement not to kill Anya's sandwich thrown in. Lily's expression softened somewhat.


"Well, it's easy to find things when you have a bunch of tendrils looking for you," replied Lily before turning to Anya.


"It looks ready," said Lily, hoping to gods and demons both that the girl wouldn't decide to add any more, "May I eat it now?"

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"It is ready." Anya said solemnly, taking in one last mental picture of this sandwich. It was perfect in all ways, of this she was sure.


"Eat up! You'll be skin and bones!" Anya smiled, gazing up at the alraune. It was a great feeling, to have someone enjoy eating something you made.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Suzette placed the knife on the table, alongside her puppet. Clasping her hands together, she closed her eyes as she began in a short prayer. "Oh Dieu dans le ciel, ton nom soit sanctifié. Protéger les gens de abominations qui ne existent que pour détruire." Susie opened her eyes as she finished it, and gave a short sigh of relief. She glanced again at the jars as she opened up the one containing peanut-butter, as she placed the knife in and swirled it around inside.


Pulling it out, the knife holding onto a large section of the material, she swiped it on the slice of bread that wasn't the heal. Stroking it over in an oddly methodical fashion, up and down, up and down. She covered the bread in peanut-butter. She remembered one of the drawers had a napkin, and as such she promptly opened it and began cleaning the blade. Again she methodically cleaned it, much in the same fashion that she did with spreading the peanut-butter on the sandwich. Once she cleaned it up, she placed the dirtied napkin on the counter, deciding to keep it there for now and toss it out when she wiped off the remains of the jelly.

 

[CSA]

"Great," replied Lily, smiling brightly at the Neko and then looking at the sandwich.


"Fuck, I thought you had to be a warlock or some shit to summon up a demon, but as it turns out all you have to do is be a misguided little girl."





Lily reached out a trembling hand towards the sandwich before realizing that it couldn't be safely picked up, which was the entire point of a sandwich. Instead, she took the plate and lifted the beast up close to her eye. She didn't even want to look at this horrid monstrosity, but every second she spent staring was a second she wasn't eating the thing.


Then it occurred to Lily that, once she did this, she could never again go back to a time during which this... this thing was never in her mouth. Once again, Lily started crying a little.


"Onions," she explained to Anya as she continued staring at the sandwich. Really, there was only one way to eat this.


Lily unhinged her jaw, lifted the plate up, and dumped that son of a bitch down her throat. She shuddered intensely as the demon slithered into her belly, and dropped the plate onto the floor where it shattered.


"Wow, yeah, that was good," Lily choked, a mysterious burning sensation in her throat and abdomen. Lily was only supposed to be able to feel enough pain to empathize with mammals, but at the moment she felt like she could understand any pain that was possible to achieve on this mortal plain.


Once again, her vines began flailing around. This time, they were looking for literally anything she could ingest that wasn't a sandwich made by Anya. One landed on a gallon of milk, which she desperately chugged.


"I... love... having... milk... with... my... sandwiches," Lily explained through the gulps.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Suzette pondered on a few things, before she quickly glanced at Anya, "Wait, didn't you need to leave that for the teacher to judge?" She said, realizing that Lily had gone through and ate it. "W-w-well er a-ah um, g-guess that was a bit late then." Suzette blinked as she quickly began rubbing the back of her head with her free-hand. "Eheheh... uh..."

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"Don't worry." Richter appeared behind the elf, spreading his arms with a devilish grin.


"I can tell Miss Darlingtonia enjoyed the taste so much, that sandwich was best in class. It looks like Miss Hawthorne receives an A for the day."


Anya let out a squeal of delight.


"In any case, that leaves your own works. Finish up soon, and I'll go over the results." he said, walking back to the front of the class as he adjusted the straps on his frilly white apron.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Suzette's ears twitched as nervously squeaked out, upon hearing a voice behind "Aaah~." She quickly turned around to notice Mister Richter. As he spoke she gave a quick nod, and muttered, "O-of course." She maneuvered her puppet to glance at her, as she looked in the beady eyes of it. Gingerly removing the puppet she placed it down as she grabbed the table-knife.


How? ...Distracted, that's how he did it. Susie thought pondering upon how he managed to sneak up behind her. Flicking her wrist, she opened the jar of grape jelly. Dabbing her knife inside she swirled it around in the jar, and pulled it out with a fair amount of jelly on the knife. She then grabbed the heel slice and began methodically spreading the jelly, until there was a fine coating. She reached back into the drawer and pulled out another napkin to wipe the blade clean. Placing the knife back on the counter, she grabbed the two pieces of bread and placed them against each other.


Now that she finished her sandwich, she returned her puppet back onto her left hand and grabbed the dirtied napkins, with her free hand of course, and walked over towards a nearby trashcan and disposed of them. She then returned to her station.

 

[CSA]

Lily honestly couldn't tell whether the teacher was kinda cool or a huge ass. He knew damn well that Anya was a terrible cook, and it was either really nice to encourage her and give her good grades, or a trap to make sure that Lily couldn't ever backpedal like Hell and have to suffer during every cooking class.


He was a vampire and a guy, though, so Lily assumed it was the latter. Either way, Anya was happy. That was good at least.


After downing a whole gallon of milk and quickly breaking down the sandwich on the inside, Lily didn't feel quite as bad. The tears still wouldn't stop, but doubtless a lesser creature would have been hospitalized. Lily rested a tremulous hand on the shoulder of the happy little Neko and smiled at her before returning to work.


Lily spread a thin layer of mayonnaise on the bread, added the turkey and vegetables, and put a tiny sprinkling of salt on the tomato to bring out that flavor before closing it up. The turkey sandwich was finished.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Susie grabbed her sandwich as she quickly brought it towards the front. It was ready to be judged after all, she quickly placed it down as she cast her gaze away, and back towards the jars she still needed to clean up. Once she returned to her station she grabbed one of the jars, and opened up the drawer. Susie placed it back up top, and reached for the second jar, and put it away much like the first.

 

[ComradeSenpai]

Anya wrapped her arms around Lily's waist. She knew Lily liked her cooking, but she never would have imagined it would drive the alraune to tears of joy.


"I'm glad you liked it, Lily. I'll make something even better next time! Twice as fast, so you can take your time to enjoy it instead of gobbling it down." she smiled, looking up at her friend.


----------


"Bread, filling.... You could have cut it into triangles, but otherwise adequate." Richter said, looking over Lily's sandwich. He walked through the class, going over the meals prepared.


"Ah, turkey on rye. A classic. I see you neglected marble bread, though." he commented on Lily's sandwich, scribbling down a note.


One stdent appeared to have smeared ranch dressing onto a kaiser roll. The vampire marked it as a failure.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Adequate? I... Susie paused, as she glanced at her puppet. It works. She glanced around her station, then glanced back towards Lily, then to Anya. Aaand... Huh. Well, Lily seems okay. If Anya's horrendous cooking is directed SOLELY to her, then I guess civilization is spared after all. She thought giving a sigh of relief and a slight smile at the thought.

 

[CSA]

"Oh, that sounds great, Anya," said Lily, smiling down at the Neko and rubbing her back gently. Faster food, to Lily, meant less horrible things on that food. Perhaps future meals would actually be tolerable. Rather, edible. No, more like 'not a food version of ET for Atari 2600'.


No, not that either. It made ET look too good.


Anyways, Lily at least seemed to get an alright grade as well as confirmation on whether or not Richter was an enemy. There was no way someone who wasn't evil or insane or something would like marbled rye, much less prefer it to the good kind. The Alraune eyed him suspiciously as he went down the line, but turned back to her sandwich before he was finished.


"So... Susie, Anya, either of you want to try my awesome turkey sandwich?"

 

[MechaGhoul]

Susie glanced at Lily and gave a nod. "Er a-ah s-sure, if er, Anya wouldn't prefer to have it." She then glanced at her puppet, and stared into its white beady eyes for five seconds, before glancing back. She turned the puppet to glance at Lily. "Right, in the interests of my client, how would you describe the word 'awesome', and are you verifying that claim to be correct? You don't want to do any changes to it? You are confirming an 'awesome' status. Her puppet said.


 
Meanwhile, in the garage, Achim was standing near a faculty car which was jacked up and was in the process of having its front left tire replaced, by Achim. His loyal mutt Junkyard was sleeping in an unused lot, next to his motorcycle. Achim was wearing a worn black leather jacket, which didn't have any logos, which he referred to as his 'Scouting' Jacket. Underneath it was his lime green turtle-neck. Achim was currently on his cell-phone, chatting with someone.


"...They did what to Luigi!? Manuel! Manuel! Calm the fuck down!" Achim instinctively looked around, to make sure no students were in the area. Luckily for him, there was no student there at the moment. Whew, good thing I didn't curse in front of the kids. What kinda role model would I be if I did that? I'd rather not encourage the tykes to swear all the damn time. He thought, as there was a lull as Manuel was calming down. "Right, right... Yeah, yeah, I can show up. Er not then, I have tutorial sessions then today. I can do Six. ... Right, meet you at Lenny's? ...Yeah the Kosher Deli. ...Ah I see. What about Hornet? Done." Click. Achim placed the phone back in his pocket as grabbed the tire and put it into place. He glanced at the ground and noticed only three lugnuts.


"...Damn it." Achim shook his head as he crawled onto the ground and began searching for the other two lug-nuts. With a quick whistle, he called for Junkyard who eagerly bounced up and rushed towards Achim. Getting back up he checked in the lot where Junkyard was sleeping and retrieved one of the lug-nuts.


"Now just need the fifth..." He grumbled out, as he began searching the garage again for it.

 

[ComradeSenpai]

"I..." Anya considered, picking up Lily's sandwich and taking a bite from it.


"Would prefer to have it." she said through a mouthful of turkey. Lily made a pretty good sandwich. And since Lily taste tested hers, it was only fair that Anya should taste tester this one.


"It's good!" she said, taking another bite.


"I don't think it needs milk, though."


------------------------


"Ah! Almost forgot." Richter slammed a stack of forms onto her desk.


"We're going on a field trip soon; everyone please take these forms and have your parent or guardian sign them. If they refuse, perhaps consider learning how to mimic their handwriting, or you'll miss out on the fun."


The vampire looked down at the forms, then back up.


"Forget that last sentence, actually. No one would believe you anyways."

 

[MechaGhoul]

Suzette glanced at her hand-puppet for a moment, before walking up and taking a form. She began scanning through it. "Oh, well, that'll be easy enough." Susie thought as she held onto the form, knowing it'd be easy work to get her parents to sign it. "Well, glad you enjoyed Lily's sandwich." She said glancing at the Neko, as she continued to read through the form.

 

[CSA]

Before Lily could reply to Susie or her puppet or whoever was asking her about the sandwich, Anya took it and bit into it. Lily's face fell a little, because if they both wanted some she had planned to cut it in half.


"Oh, uh, thank you Anya," replied Lily as the Neko continued to eat her turkey sandwich, "I'm so glad that you like it."


Well, at least the vampire's announcement didn't seem to hurt Anya very much considering how sensitive the subject of her parents was. If that sandwich played even a minor role in that, it was worth not gaining a couple of Susiebucks.


Lily went to the front of class and picked up a form. She didn't really have parents, but she bet she could get away with just signing her own name. This school was pretty crappy, after all.


"Maybe I should have gone to Thaddeus..."





Lily turned to Susie and gave her a mildly apologetic smile.


"I'll cook something nice for you later," she told the Elf.

 

[MechaGhoul]

Susie placed the form on the table, alongside removing her hand puppet and placing it down there as well. Susie glanced at the form for a few seconds and flicked her right wrist two times and pressed onto the form, as the form poofed out, with a bit of bright pink sparkles falling down. They strangely smelled of something, possibly ash? Suzette then glanced back at Lily.


She held out her palms and waved them a little as she glanced down. "O-oh, n-no you don't need to do that for me."

 

[CSA]

"Oh, I know I don't need to," said Lily, tossing the paper into her flower to sign later, "But I want to."


Lily got much closer to the Elf, and looked up into her eyes with a gaze more sweet and innocent than that of the tiniest, most helpless, most emotionally-needy puppy in the entire world.


"Please let me do this for you? I'm really grateful for the amount of understanding and companionship you've given me. Alraune are usually geared towards more physical displays of affection, but I think you'd prefer a lovely Lilypie."


"Also I'm going to need to ask you to find Anya's parents later and I don't know how expensive the service and components will be. This might cheapen it up. Not to mention you're keeping a Hell of a secret for me."

 

[MechaGhoul]

Suzette's face reddened a bit as she quickly put on the puppet on her left hand, and quickly stepped a few paces back, wanting a small bubble of privacy. She blinked for a moment before she spoke up. "Er-eer-ah-uhm..." Suzette gulped a little, before speaking up again. "I uhm, y-yes I w-would er, ah, um, i-if you r-r-really want to."

 

[MechaGhoul]

Achim grumbled as he furrowed his brow. "Where is it...?" He said as he got on his knees and continued searching the garage. Junkyard walked up near Achim and brushed herself against him. "Not now girl, need to find that last lugnut. I swore it had all five.... I'll get the rest in now then." Achim said as he pushed up on the concrete and picked up the wrench. He took the first lugnut and put it into place as he began screwing it into place.