I Am A Chemical

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Context: Every adult in the elements' lives are anonymous volunteers who wear masks that are only see-through on one side. They are addressed by the thing they do; 'Physics', 'Chemistry', 'Social Sciences', 'Janitor', 'Counselor', et cetera. The Labs want to minimise the personal contact their lab-grown children have with teachers and caretakers, so they swap them out every now and then, and make it as unclear as possible to the elements which people are the same people and which people are different.

Also, the children are all assigned female. They use "she" for themselves because the adults use "she" for them, they have no idea what the gender binary is though they are taught about biological sex in biology class; they have not spoken with any masc people outside of faceless teachers, with all their features hidden because they wear a full body suit.

You can use "they" for these kids as well. Since they have no idea what gender is, they could theoretically be anything.

-

After the lesson ended and the children went down for recess, Mr Physics took some time to compile his notes and walked out of the classroom, just to see some kids coalescing in the courtyard downstairs.

"009, calm down!" he shouts, mortified, his voice muffled under the mask as he ran down the staircase to stop Fluorine from swinging a frying pan at Iron. "Please! We talked about this, we don't want any casualties this early!"

"What did you just call me?"  Fluorine screamed indignantly at the kid she was threatening to hit, ignoring the teacher. 

Iron was not one to cower, either. "I said all you halogens are electron-stealing brutes! That's what Chemistry taught us, all right, and it is absolutely evident!"

"Well, do I look like a [redacted] dot-and-cross diagram to you, you blockheaded rusty metal [redacted]!? I will make sure that none of your electrons are on your [redacted] face by the end of the day!"

The crowd was growing. Hydrogen whispers something to her best friend Carbon, who nods and frowns. Gold looks distastefully at the scene, with an expression indicative of the fact that she'd probably be judging everyone with her noble metal friends later on. Iodine shamefully leans her head to the side, hoping the whole thing would just blow over. Potassium gave her a comforting pat on the back. Krypton pursed her lips and stared wide-eyed for two seconds before lumbering off as if she had not seen anything.

"It's just facts, okay?" Iron grunts. If there was a table in front of her, she would have slammed her fists into it. "Chlorine stole my pencil case yesterday. You're all thieves!" She pointed her finger accusatively at Fluorine, who folded her arms and grunted.

"Wait, how did she find out I did that?" Chlorine blurted, having just entered the scene with no context whatsoever. "I thought she was convinced it was Arsenic!" Iodine glares at Chlorine. 

"And you're part of the D-block! You know what D stands for? I bet it stands for depressing!!! Or disgusting. Or [redacted]!!!" Fluorine keels over in laughter. "And guess what I'm going to steal? YOUR FUTURE GIRLFRIEND'S LOVE AND AFFECTION!!!"

Iodine looked over at Gold and whispered. "She only means Iron, she's nothing against the rest of you, please don't take it to heart." Gold frowned at Iodine, before looking away without a word. Iodine knew she'd messed up and clammed shut.

Iron gasps, mortally offended at Fluor's comments. "Well, then, I'm going to rough you up!!!"

"By the end of the day you would be an iron (XXVI) ion!!!"

"And by the end of the day we'd be learning about acids with F+ instead of H+!!!"

Fluorine lands a hit on Iron's shoulder, but her athletic body was able to withstand the attack. Iron then tried to land a punch to Fluorine's guts, but narrowly missed. Fluorine counterattacked, swinging the nonstick frying pan over Iron's head. Iron ducked out of the way and kicked her in the groin, to which she responded by smirking up at her, feigning being perfectly unaffected by it when in reality it hurt like the living underworld.

By this point some of the crowd already began picking sides and placing bets on who would win, cheering "Fight! Fight! Fight!". Others were contemplating if they should go in and stop the brawl, and some others were standing off to the side doing their own thing because it wasn't their problem.

Meanwhile, the physics teacher, completely at a loss, was running up to the Admin Office to report the problem. "Look, I don't have any idea how the kid got her hands on a frying pan but you gotta stop them, oh my God. I don't know if we need an ambulance or anything or..."

"I'll go," Discipline grunts. She storms out the room with a metal ruler and a whistle. That day the kids got an earful, and then some kids got publicly humiliated. Of course, 'tis a normal occurence.