Tony stared at the weeping green girl, his jaw dropping as the gears slowly turned in his head. "Wait... you're a teacher?!"
Hopeless Girl looked up at him, her face red and tear-streaked as she wailed in a pathetic, high-pitched squeak, "You can't even tell?! Oh my god, I knew it! I'm such an imposter! Waaaaah!"
Tony panicked, waving his small hands around frantically. "W-Wait, don't cry! You're totally fine, I didn't mean it like that! I just-ugh, if Alice were here, she'd know exactly how to cheer you up!"
He didn't see the way Smiling Girl's manic grin violently twitched at the mention of alices name. Before anyone could say anything else, a stray alien slithered into the alleyway, letting out an angry, guttural click. It raised a sharp tentacle, preparing to lunge at them-until a massive battle axe cleaved right through its torso in a spray of purple ooze.
Smiling Girl stepped over the dissolving carcass, her grin stretching even wider. "Hey, guys! Uh-oh, I think I got some alien goo in my mouth... I really hope I don't catch some rare, flesh-eating space disease from that! But hey, I'll probably be totally fine if I do!"
She noticed the sobbing, grown woman curled on the pavement and skipped over cheerfully. "Hey, hey, turn that frown upside down, teach! Or, hey, I could go chop up some more aliens! Would that make you feel better?!"
Tony stared at her, deeply unsettled. "How would that even..." He stopped himself, realizing she was vibrating with a terrifying, manic joy that she clearly couldn't control. He sighed, rubbing his temples. "Uh, never mind..."
"I'm so worthless," the teacher sobbed, wiping her nose. "I'm crying in an alley while a bunch of magical high schoolers are out here protecting me!"
Wobbling precariously, she managed to stand up and leaned heavily against a nearby metal utility pole to catch her breath.
Snap.
The pole instantly sheared off at the base. It fell forward, crashing directly onto the hood of a parked delivery van. The impact triggered a sudden, catastrophic engine failure, causing the van to detonate in a massive fireball. The explosion rippled down the street, triggering a domino effect of bursting gas tanks and collapsing structures that instantly obliterated half of the advancing alien horde in a spectacular wave of fire and debris.
The trio stood frozen in the alley, utterly stunned.
From a block away, a loud, booming cackle echoed over the smoke-clearly belonging to the rocket-launcher maniac. "Whoever just did that is freaking amazing!"
Tony looked from the flaming street back to the weeping teacher, his mouth open. "I think you just... killed more aliens than anyone else today."
Hopeless Girl stopped crying. She blinked in surprise, pulling herself up straight with a sudden spark of dignity. "Right! See? I've got this!"
She proudly took two steps forward, immediately tripped over a stray piece of rubble, and ate the pavement.
Smiling Girl clapped her hands together, her voice dripping with forced, unhinged cheer. "Yay! Hey, look at that! I can smell burned grape jelly from here! Good job, Hopeless Girl!"
"Hopeless Girl..." the teacher whimpered, fresh torrents of tears instantly welling up in her eyes.
Tony glared at Smiling Girl. "You are... seriously not helping right now."
Smiling Girl shrugged carelessly, her eye twitching as she adjusted her grip on her massive battle axe. "Hey, I don't think I need lifestyle advice from a pink, stalker."
Tony opened his mouth to deliver a scathing comeback, thought about his literal pink pigtails, and slowly shut it. "...Fair enough."