Unfriendly Competition

Earlier in the day before noon on this clear day, there were all kinds of students spending their day off from school hanging out, running and doing all sorts of athletic thing on the outdoor track. Besides the black, white-striped track which the large football field-sized area got its name after, there was also some workout equipment nearby on the opposite side of the white metal bleachers, so there was plenty of other ways to spend time in the area.

Chitose was there to meet some new people and work out her body a little, keep it fit and limber. The tiny girl was convinced that running didn't do anythingg for her figure since she was no longer human, especially since she had no heart that beat when she ran. Even so, it still felt refreshing to get a nice run. And besides, maybe there was still a way that Chitose could compete with other runners on the track? She came dressed in a proper yellow jogging sport shirt decorated with the black, white and yellow symbol of the game that her appearance was from, simply called P4. She then had on black sweatpants and sandals to finish it off.

Now, it was firmly in the afternoon with a sunset bound to happen relatively soon, and the tracks were much more sparse now. Chitose didn't spend much time running, because she very quickly learned that being six inches tall made competing with people more than ten times her size impossible. So, instead, Chitose spent her day using her powers to draw all kinds of imaginary devices into reality, trying to come up with a way to run like she used to. From gigantic, silly looking stilts to more detailed prosthetic limbs way too large for Chitose to move by herself, it was apparent that the artist was getting more and more frustrated as her designs didn't work well enough for her.

The anime figure's determination could only last so long until she just laid down on one of the seats at the top of the bleachers, finally defeated by her efforts - evidence of her zeal to compete properly with other joggers strewn all about the bleachers as discarded animated sketches drawn into real life. Happy that she could at least mimic breathing, the small woman heaved her chest up and then let out a light sigh. She made the sound, but no air actually passed through her body, something that she was still getting used to. She shivered lightly in response to the sensation while she thought,

I never ever realized how dependent I was on all of my friends at L.A... I have never felt so useless in my whole life. Nobody would have fun doing anything with me if I am so damn tiny... there has to be some way to compete properly.

Chitose looked at a few of the clouds, trying to see if there were any interesting shapes. That helped with inspiration sometimes, but she felt so mentally worn out that all she saw were cottonballs. Nothing but cottonballs, the most unimaginative cloud shape ever.

God, I really need some inspiration. I am not going to get anywhere if I do not do or make something to produce a name that people can care about.

Now simply resting on the bleachers, the defeated girl tried to spend her time cloudgazing rather than experimenting with any further designs. Sky sky was mostly clear, without that many clouds to gaze at to begin with, but even so it was one of the few solo activities that actually acted as a stress reliever for Chitose.

The clouds were wholly uninteresting and would require someone with a very active imagination to see anything more than various shapes of fluffy and shredded cotton balls. Since the anime figure's imagination was at an all time low at the moment, that was still all that she was seeing too,
I really hope something interesting happens... maybe that would get my brain thinking.

As if by the power of her thoughts alone, more clouds seemed to be rolling in by the minute - not so fast as to seem unnatural, but fast enough to actually see the clouds changing. It was a sight that Chitose had never seen before in her whole life, so it had her rather entranced for a time. Still, it did not help her see anything special in the clouds... especially not when they all darkened and merged into one gigantic mostly gray blanket over the sky.

That has been the quickest development of rainclouds that I have ever seen. That will probably scare everyone off of the track...
Chitose let out another clearly audible yet disconcertingly breathless sigh,
It is not like I was actually using my time with anyone constructively today. Rain would likely be better company, I guess.
Chitose liked the rain; it made her clothes wet, true, but she really liked the feeling of rain falling on her. What's better, now that she couldn't catch colds there was literally no reason to fear the rain beyond how dirty the water itself might be. Thankfully for Chitose, she didn't think of rain as dirty.

However, creamy food falling from the sky all over the dirty ground to melt and get all sticky, that was dirty. Chitose hardly got to notice the pink shade in the sky as she thought about the rain to herself; she was expecting rain droplets when instead she got slammed by chunks of ice cream. A great majority of these chunks were larger than Chitose herself, and one of the very first ones happened to cover the entire top half of her body.

Only seconds later, while Chitose was trying to figure out what fell on her, another chunk of the ice cream covered the rest of her body. Normally Chitose would hold her composure no matter what, but the feeling of having something mushy and unknown all over her body sounded disgusting - had someone just played one terrible prank on her? It was cold, but that didn't do much to tell the girl what was all over her.

Chitose jolted upright and let out a horrifying scream, her movement shoving most of the ice cream off of her body. The small teenager frantically flailed her arms and legs to get the stuff off of her, up until she tasted something notably sweet in her mouth.

Now, Chitose couldn't actually eat mind you, but her tongue was fully functional when it came to taste buds. Finally taking a moment to discern what fell on her, the young girl let out a sigh and started talking, though she was not yet looking around the track, "I am not a garbage dump... look, whoever-"

Mistakenly thinking someone just threw ice cream at her thinking she was a discarded toy or something, Chitose was about to look for whoever the culprit was who was probably still nearby and surprised that she was now moving. She was cut short when another chunk of ice cream fell on top of her, though, covering her yet again.

Not at all happy, Chitose was so down that she couldn't even will up the energy to throw off the ice cream this time around. It was unlike her, but today hadn't been the best of days for her so far. It killed her to think if this ice cream was already licked on/eaten too, but it was surprising to realize what people would ignore when they are in a blue mood.

It did not take a very long time for Chitose to realize that even more of that ice cream was piling up on top of her. Was someone seriously still dropping discarded food on her? Of course the anime figure still didn't know that it was actually raining ice cream, so she had just thought that someone was being an asshole.

Wrong her once and she'll be annoyed, wrong her twice and she'll be a bit down without help. Wrong her even more and she'll just get plain mad. So that was exactly what she did - she threw all of that ice cream off from her with one notably displeased look about her face once she was finally out of it all. It only took one short glance about the area to see that the whole area was starting to get just absolutely smothered in ice cream due to the weather having taken a turn for the strange. While she was definitively confused, she was a little bit desensitized to weird occurrences ever since she was turned into a walking, talking and thinking anime figure, so she didn't even wait for a second before she started looking for the perpetrator to the bad weather.

After all, Manta Carlos' whole conception was based around people with powers, so she knew there had to be someone. There was only one person still left outside other than Chitose herself, and that was some 'guy' in a hat actually munching and playing around at the ice cream. Normally Chitose might think a bit more before getting mad, but she really needed someone to blow some steam off at. As such, she pointed at Seth,

"HEY!!! You!" She yelled, "YOU ARE the cause of all this," Chitose accused, gesturing towards her still relatively ice-cream covered body as she paused for a moment. Then, she clenched her fist, "Are you not?! Your actions speak for you with how you totally act like this weather is not insane! And for god's sake, you are a disgusting pig eating this off of the ground like that!"
Depending on whether or not Seth was even listening, Chitose may have tried to give her another set of angry words specifically calling out Seth's 'rude attitude'. The tiny teenager never got a chance, though, because another glob of ice cream landed near her - this time shoving her off of the bleacher seat she was on. With a brief and notably feminine yelp, she fell forward and hit her head on the edge of the bleacher seats below her. This force caused her body to flip backwards, letting her hit the back of her head on the ground before landing on her back.

With one bad ringing noise in her ears, Chitose tried to hold the spots of her head that hurt while she squirmed on the ground. Now she was dirty, lonely and had one really bad headache. Even so, Chitose was never the type to let the last word go, so she still managed to yell out "I am OK! Give me a second and you're going to get it!" before she went back to trying to help her aching head.

In all reality, Chitose was likely making more of a fool of herself than being intimidating. Who would ever be afraid of a six inch tall talking collectible? Let alone one covered head-to-toe in ice cream.

It was notably painful to have fallen from that first bleacher level, but as Chitose started getting back to her senses and looked up to the sky she realized that it was also a blessing. The reasoning was simple; she could just barely spot yet another chunk of ice cream that could very possibly land on her. Still lying on the ground, Chitose rolled herself out of the way and underneath a set of the bleachers, dodging the ice cream on the way.

Having obviously gotten the other girl's attention, Chitose was covered in ice cream and shivering slightly due to how cold it was. Shivering didn't help since she had no blood or muscles to get warm, but it was an instinct she had gotten as a human that wouldn't be going away anytime soon. Even more than that, though, the anime figure's throat felt a little sore - she hadn't ever yelled that loud before in quite awhile. All of that stress of dealing with being... well, inhuman, had really gotten to her today. She had totally lost her composure and that was really the most embarrassing thing that had happened so far.

So, by the time Seth got up to where Chitose was, the young woman was already feeling sorry for her outburst. Upon hearing what she said, Chitose shook her head lightly, "W-well, I think and feel too... but I guess I don't do anything else but that." Chitose said, cutting herself off before she whined any further. The resin girl was well aware that there wasn't anything she could actually do to get some respect, so she instead just tried to redeem any dignity she had by calming herself down and getting a hold of herself. So, when Seth laughed at her idle threats Chitose just shook her head,

"Maybe not... I was just in a bad frame of mind. Not a good excuse, but that is it. I'm sorry for calling you a pig." Chitose said, and rather genuinely as well. Chitose peeked out from the bleachers to look at the sky above before looking back to Seth, "...Are you the one who made this happen? And if so... how? I thought being an anime figure was the weirdest, but..." Chitose smiled weakly. She'd rather just move on rather than stick around on her embarrassing outbreak for too long.

With the reply of a thank you for the insults from Earlier, Chitose was already feeling a bit elevated with her mood. Shortly afterwards, she was literally elevated when Seth picked her up. Some small people could be really sensitive about their size, likely getting very flustered or even violent when picked up like Chitose was now. No matter what the case, though, the anime figure liked getting attention from others, she liked being cared for in general. So, when she was picked up by Seth, the tiny girl had absolutely no objections.

Now likely more at eye-level, Chitose listened to what Seth had to say... with a confused tilt of her head. Not only did this young 'boy' seem to talk in riddles or with some kind of mystery, but she also had a rather pretty face for a guy. Chitose didn't think very hard about the latter part, though, as she had seen more girly guys in the past. Hell, Chitose herself was a pretty girly guy before she became a figurine and pretty much full-on female, so she knew what it was like.

Chitose scrunched up her face a little and closed her eyes as Seth wiped away some of the ice-cream on her face. She was very appreciative for the help, but still felt like she would need a bath after this. A plastic girl obsessed with keeping herself clean... the world was full of surprises sometimes.

Once Seth explained herself further, the young woman nodded to the tomboy. So it was mostly out of her control... Chitose had already figured that the 'boy' did not have anything against the anime figurine herself. In fact, Seth didn't even know Chitose was being pelted by ice cream until she made an angry outburst about it. Seth didn't seem to care about what happened to Chitose at all, but the young girl figured that it wasn't her business anyway, Especially not when I'm so less than human, I suppose... Chitose thought. No matter how she cut it, that seemed like it would always be a problem until she got a human body back. Now fully composed, though, Chitose did not let her negative emotions show on her face - she looked calm and neutral for the time being.

Relaxed in Seth's hand for the moment, the resin girl heard a question finally get sent her way. It was an easy question to answer and one that she was more than happy to elucidate, "Oh. I am a student here. I was trying to compete with some of the other track members here... but I am so small," Chitose began, letting out a brief sigh before continuing, "I failed miserably, so I tried creating gizmos to help me compete. That didn't work either," the freshman continued, gesturing with a free arm towards all of the drawn-into-reality stilts, prosthetic legs and the like discarded about the bleachers, "...and now I'm here, learning that the sky can throw giant ice cream globs at me whenever it wants to. I don't care if it's dangerous, though, I'm not staying cooped up in some closet as a lifeless figurine or anything," Chitose finished with a good deal of resolution in her voice.

The supposed boy did bring up some rather good points about how dangerous it was to move around the school as a six inch girl. In fact, on Chitose's second day on Manta Carlos she did actually get stepped on. Her leg and one of her arms got snapped off her body - it was very, very painful. Luckily, though, Chitose learned that another person could completely repair and even re-attach things onto her body by using color-based utensils such as pastels, paints, and so on.

Shivering lightly at the thought of being stepped on again, Chitose shook her head towards Seth, "N-no, I'm not worried anymore. I got some training to help prevent anyone from stepping on my again. Conditioning... it has really helped me. Furthermore, I can draw myself contraptions to fly every now and then, so if it's too crowded in any particular place I can fly above people for awhile. At least, until my drawing breaks," Chitose said, remaining confident as she spoke of her artistic constructs. In all reality, she had little faith in her flying drawings - but part of the challenge of improving was believing you could get there. That was something the resin girl believed very firmly!

With that out of the way, Chitose nodded to Seth as he continued on with his surprisingly philosophical sort of miniature lecture. The determined teenager had no intentions to give up, "Yes, I don't plan to give up... and I do not really take after the fates much. After I woke up as a little anime figure, well, I don't really follow any specific belief. Sometimes, it might be best just to take things as they come. So, that is my plan!" Chitose said, not trying to sound like a downer as she spoke.

Noting how it rained as Seth made some vague prediction, Chitose started to get a similarly vague understanding of the tomboy's powers... especially when it was snow instead of ice. Although much preferred to ice cream for the pink cream covered girl, having snow in such warm weather was only a little less strange than the weather before. Seth's power seemed to be incredible... yet entirely unpredictable. Such a thing actually sounded pretty fun, but dangerous at the same time.

Then, Seth had the bright idea to try to make a 'false promise' about Chitose's height. The tiny girl didn't think too much of it at first, but when she started to feel an odd tingling sensation near her head she couldn't help but get a bit hopeful. Was she going to get taller? When Chitose only felt her head getting heavier, though, she couldn't help but bring her hands to her head to see what was happening.

Chitose was definitively getting taller, but not as one would normally expect. Instead, it was her hair; it was starting to get longer at a pretty fast rate for someone her size. Within moments, it was longer than six inches from her body, which wasn't actually too hard considering how long it already was. However, it continued to grow, the abnormally flexible resin hair flowing past Seth's hands as it continued to grow.

Chitose tried holding onto her hair as she looked up to Seth pleadingly, "U-um, this is not what I had in mind when I wanted to get taller!" she cried out - though she wasn't mad or terrified in her voice. Instead, she felt rather helpless as someone's power was yet again taking over her body.