Mark was on her way to the cafeteria for lunch, still a bit confused about what had happened earlier that morning. One of her "sisters" had been sending out feelings of distress and the sensation of...well, it felt like being lifted clean off the ground. Then all of a sudden she'd been dropped, and then moments later someone was hanging all over her in a rather unsettling fashion while she tried to send out positive feelings...
What had happened to trigger all that? Mark had noted that it happened not long after her shower, but she knew it couldn't be a clothing malfunction - she'd have caught a lot of flak from all five sisters if that were the case. She wondered...
She felt a sudden knot in her stomach as she walked down the hall, and made a sudden stop, her socked feet skidding a bit on the tile floor. She looked; a taller girl, built so very like an exaggeration of a sex symbol that she teetered between "gorgeous" and "cartoonish," had stopped just in front of her. A black aura flickered at the edges of her shape.
By the descriptions she'd heard, Mark guessed that this was Tiffany Sanders. But there was something else about her that the other students hadn't mentioned, or perhaps hadn't noticed. Tiffany evoked in Mark a feeling of anathema, like antimatter to matter. By the look on her face, Tiffany felt the same way.
It was odd; Mark was not a particularily moral type, or at least not someone who cared much about it. And she certainly wasn't a good person, even to the extent that she did care. But something about Tiffany just...ugh! It made her want to...she didn't even know what, but do something pure and wholesome and not at all like this thing in front of her.
The thing in front of her spoke. "You again?" Tiffany hissed. "I thought I told you to stay away from me!"
Mark frowned. "You again?" What was she...oh, right, she must have mistaken her for one of her sisters. This was going to get old pretty fast...
"Sorry," she smirked. "I think you've got me confused with one of my identical twins."
Tiffany scowled, the aura around her flaring up. "I have had it with you!" she seethed. "Don't make me hurt you...it wouldn't take much to make me snap, got it?"
Mark could hardly believe this. She couldn't stop herself from letting out a laugh. "Or what?" she asked. "You wanna fight? Come on, show me what you got." She didn't drop into a fighting stance, but she did loosen up in anticipation.
Mark had been in her share of fights. It wasn't something she was very proud of, but the way she'd grown up it was a skill she didn't regret having. She knew that her body was built lighter, and that she had more grab points for a dirty fighter to take advantage of, but on the other hand, she was in better shape now than she'd been before her change, and she doubted Tiffany knew anything more than scratching and hair-pulling; she could probably wipe the floor with this bitch, if it came to that.
Tiffany seemed to be assessing the situation, clearly mad as all hell but not moving to initiate a fight. Whether she was unwilling to fight or just confused by the apparent 180 from her previous confrontation with the angel-girl Mark didn't know, but she kept herself at the ready. She wasn't going to throw the first punch, but she didn't plan on just letting it go unanswered.
Before it could get any further, one of the teachers, a rather hefty anthropomorphic bear, interposed himself between the two. "Break it up, girls," he said. "Don't make me give you detention."
Tiffany was visibly angry, but stormed off without making an attack. Mark shrugged and headed on to the lunchroom. She was pleased that she hadn't had to back down to Tiffany, but at the same time she was a little disappointed. This...it kind of felt like a fight she was supposed to jump into, like she'd be able to make a difference by defeating the...thing in Tiffany.
Then again, maybe it was just that she enjoyed fighting a little more than she liked to admit to herself.
Jon sat at the lunch table with Karyn, Tim, and Brittany. She was still a bit shaky from earlier, but a seat on the other end of the room from Tiffany and a drink to slowly sip at were helping to calm her jangled nerves. It also helped that the cramps had subsided, at least for now.
"So, Tim," Karyn said, "how long have you been like this?"
Tim smiled, scratching at the back of his head. "Eh, only a little over a week, actually," he said. "My sister's been changed for three, though."
"Really?" Jon said. "What's she?" It was strange how these things were becoming topics of casual conversation, she mused...
"Oh, she's half-dragon," the dark elf replied. "I don't think you know her, though - she's only a fourth-grader. She nearly burned the garage down trying to figure out how her breath worked."
He chuckled, and Jon laughed as well. "So," he said, "how about you?"
"Oh," Jon said, "I, uh, I've been this way since day one, actually." She didn't really think about it much; she was too busy thinking about getting back to normal...
Tim let out a low whistle. "Oof," he said. "They said things got kinda crazy in that first week or two. That must've been pretty hard on you."
Jon sighed. If he only knew...what did he know, actually? It struck her that she'd never explained what she used to be to anyone who didn't know her besides Michael, at least that she could recall. But then, wasn't going by "Jon" enough of an indicator?
"Well," she said, "it...it was kinda hectic, but we didn't really have anything too terrible going on..."
He smiled. "That's good."
