NOVEL NEXT 50: Frog Stretches
The five graduate students and seven Class Zero students filed into the training area after a couple minutes. Though Nyssa didn’t need to change, she waited for Celeste before entering with her. Once in the training room though, they spread out and began stretching and warming up for their dodgeball match.
“Nyssa...” Celeste came to a stop beside the white-haired girl lying flat on the ground. “What type of stretch is this?”
“The ‘preparing to sleep’ stretch,” Nyssa murmured, her voice muffled by the fact that her face was directly pressing into the ground. “Go on, don’t worry about me. I can just transform to be more limber.”
“... True,” Celeste shook her head. “I guess I can only lament your privilege, I’m going to go back to stretching...”
“Goooood luck,” Nyssa gave a thumbs up. “I’m cheering for you to carry our team.”
“I’ll try,” Celeste saluted before jogging off to build up a light sweat. She did a couple loops around the training field before Angelica gave her a few stretches to run through. The same scene replayed around the training area as Angelica gave all the students pointers... except one.
“Nyssa.” Angelica tapped her foot after she walked up beside Nyssa. “Not going to... you know? Take care of your body?”
“My body demands rest, so I’m, you know, taking care of your body right now,” Nyssa wormed a little further away from Angelica. “Yep, yep no need to worry about me at all.”
Angelica matched Nyssa’s pace. She took slow steps to end up right in front of Nyssa’s worming trajectory. “I think you should do some stretches at least. It doesn’t hurt to be more limber.”
“I’m very limber,” Nyssa rolled over, looking up at Angelica from the ground. “Tell me any movement and I guarantee I can do it.”
“Without transforming?” Angelica raised an eyebrow. Crouching down to Nyssa’s level, she reached out and poked her nose. “Roxanne said you should stretch more too. If you’re not going to listen to your teacher, at least listen to your sister.”
“... Fine,” Nyssa grumbled before rolling over and pushing herself upright. “What would you like me to do?”
“Well, you want to be dynamic most of the time, but can you do a few static stretches so I can get an idea of where you’re at?” Angelica pulled out a clipboard. “You know, can you go through the basic stuff? Touch your toes, touch your hands behind your back, whatever you can think of.”
Raising her hands, Nyssa bent down and began her performance. Without using powers—as Angelica had asked—she pressed her palms against the floor, grabbed both wrists behind her back, and aced every other test Angelica could think of. As she ran out of stretches, she decided to continue on with a few yoga poses. Pigeon pose came up first where she pressed her entire leg against the ground, no sweat at all.
“... Alright, you can stop there,” Angelica sighed as she crumpled the paper. “Are you sure you didn’t use your powers?”
“None at all,” Nyssa laid back down as a smug expression appeared on her face. “What can I say, I’m just... naturally limber. Everyday I aim to embody the spiritual energy of water. It allows me to sleep in any position and keep my body limber.”
“I don’t think that’s how this works. I won’t ask you to stretch though...” Angelica massaged her forehead. With Nyssa closing her eyes on the ground beside her, she couldn’t help but murmur to herself. “How did Roxanne not know this? I’m so confused. She didn’t use her powers for sure since she has a few obscure tells when she’s using them...”
She tapped her clipboard. “I still can’t let you just lay here though. You need to get at least a little bit of movement in, and before you say it, I don’t care if you plan on transforming into a leaf when dodgeball starts. So, while everyone else is still warming up, do at least two laps around the entire training field.”
“Two?!” Nyssa lamented as looked up at Angelica with her best pleading eyes. “How about one?”
“Just go before I up it to three,” Angelica sighed. “The ground can’t be that comfortable to lie on anyway. Movement will help you wake up a little.”
Nyssa, unable to retort, just shook her head before transforming into a very rotund, waist-height frog. Once transformed, she raised her arms a couple times before murmuring “frog power” and beginning to roll forward.
Roooolll....
Roll...
“Angelica just doesn’t understand what it means to embody the spiritual energy of water...”
Rolll...
Rooooolll...
The frog made slow... very slow progress around the training field. It drew gazes from the other students, but after watching the frog roll forward like a bowling ball in honey, they returned to their own devices.
“So, that’s Nyssa, huh,” Thalia crouched in the middle of the training field as Isolde and Scarlet stood next to her. The three of them had overheard the entire exchange between Nyssa and Angelica, but had continued their own warmup routines. “Some reason I didn’t expect someone like that... especially considering the more intense personalities both her older siblings have.”
“She seems quite mild, doesn’t she?” Scarlet sighed with a gentle smile. “Unburdened by the worries of the world. A nice life to live in all honesty.”
“Beyond that, do you two even realize the significance of that frog transformation?” Isolde gazed at the distant rolling frog with a frown on her face. She squinted and pushed her glasses up a little further. “It’s quite the powerhouse. If my estimates are correct. Something that really fits the Ravenstein household. No matter its derpy look.”
“In... what ways?” Scarlet tilted her head. “Isn’t it quite cute with how round it is? The eyes are pretty big too, and the bright green makes it seem like it's out of a cartoon.
“No, no, maybe we’re underestimating Nyssa,” Isolde leaned in closer as Thalia leapt to her feet with a serious gaze. “I think that frog is actually optimized for combat efficiency. That derpy look is to make us let our guards down. If you look at the faint indentations in the ground behind it, you can assume the frog actually weighs a lot, it’s able to cause the ultra-compacted dust beneath us to compact even further.”
Isolde pointed to a few areas around Nyssa’s path. “Then if you look at the flattened rocks, you can see how the skin is as hard as metal armor. The liquid secreted to give it the cartoonish sheen? Acid. Look at those burn marks along the path. In fact, maybe Nyssa’s doing this just to give us a warning. Like a predator circling its prey.”
“Holy... turns out she’s just like the other Ravensteins,” Thalia gasped, putting her hands to her mouth with an exaggerated eye pop.
“I doubt it for some reason... but I’ll... uh... take your word for it,” Scarlet murmured, still unable to match the picture Isolde conjured with the derpy, slow-rolling frog in front of her.
---
“Wheeeee...”
“Rooooolll...”
“I’m certainly embodying the spirit of a frog right now, I’m sure my frog ancestors are proud of me... ribbit ribbit...”
Nyssa the frog continued on her way as she finished the first of her two laps around the training field.
In fact, unbeknownst to the Class Zero graduate students who had begun worrying out of their minds, her quirks of her transformation had little to do with combat. Extreme weight? An easier time rolling, and it makes the second lap easier because there’s a great path already. Skin hard as armor? Makes the rocks hurt less when they’re rolled over. Acid sweat? Well... that was just to annoy Angelica and make the school have some repair costs...
“A frog never goes down without a fight... ribbit ribbit...”
“Wheeeee...”