(AN: Been meaning to write this for over a week. This chapter is meant to be optimistic.)
"You trying to bridge the gap with the fox families again?"
"It wouldn't be so hard if someone hadn't slaughtered their way through the Kumiho, so there are only a handful rumors to live in North Korea. The Huli jing of China said 'so if we do something you don't like you'll kill us all next?' The Reynard of mainland Europe and Great Britain think we're full of ourselves. The Firefoxes in Finland said 'the ends don't justify the means'. And don't get started what Sigyn and her foxes in Norway think of us for transforming humans for so long because of our curse the prevented us from breeding."
"You think Loki's wife would be more open to that sort of thing."
"Personally I think she's ticked she didn't think of it first."
===
First class of the first day of high school, and up first for Darren was Philosophy. And Darren had a plan.
"So you had a meet and greet with other catalysts from other worlds?" Hannah asked.
"Yep. One catalyst turned the world into rubber animal people nudists. Another into silvery robot women. A girl who created a world filled with horse-men. A catalyst who created a world where dragon-people constantly fought but always stuck to the rules of engagement and limited to one-on-one conflict. One girl filled the world with super-intelligent goblins with no taboos. Another girl created a world of fairies looked over by planet sized anthros. A lot of people who retconned a large percentage of the population of animal-girl maids who just want to see others happy, and more than capable of defending themselves. There was Fred, big guy with a jacket and pompadour, apparently his attempt to rewrite the world didn't work out so well, now that world doesn't exist anymore, something about too many bunny girls and casinos and not enough guys and farmers, now he hangs out in the nexus between worlds practicing baseball. And there was of course Bob."
"Whose Bob?"
"He's the guy who created the world of platypus people who all love polka and solve disputes with tiddlywinks instead of armies. They say his world managed to be the most peaceful of the singularities."
The time had come to the teacher to introduce himself. Before he even could, he retroactively changed. Now a fox soul-drive woman with a very shapely figure stood behind the desk, her plastic skin shinning in the light with a particularly skimpy 'swim suit' of red fur fused to her body with a fox head.
The students were based to come up and introduce themselves one by one, and as they were, they retroactively became Soul-Drive. The first girl up became a green raccoon model who introduced herself as Mary-Sue. Next was a blue wolf boy. An orange fox boy. A white furred cat girl. It continued until Darren was the only human in class.
Mrs. Scarlet asked Mary-Sue was asked to explain the concept of Stoicism for the class, "When the merchant Zeno of Citium lost everything in a storm, going from rich to poor in one night, he decided he had no power over what had happened to him, but he did have power over how he would react to it. We cannot control our destiny, but we can control how we chose to face it. All the great things we do are meaningless if we do not actually find happiness in doing them. We primarily sad by misfortune that is unexpected. By imagining ahead of time the worst possible scenario, it loses its power over us. For we can then emotionally prepare for it."
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Next was PE swim class. The PE teacher became a Gynoid Dragon with blue scales instead of fur. Miss Neptune had her student dive in, but when they came up on the other side of the pool with no need to breath, they'd never been human. The dolphin, otter, Orca, seal, beaver, and a surprisingly attractive hippo. Once again, soon Darren was the only human present. The Soul Drives proved they both buoyant and water proof.
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Art-class, the model was able to stand perfectly still with no problem. The students after their retcon into Soul-Drives proved a talent for detail. But their teacher, a Pink Poodle Gynoid, told them how while her own paintings didn't have as much detail, they did convy FEELINGS, and it was important for them to learn that ascetics wasn't always about detail, but about self-expression. She showed some holographic displays of J. M. W. Turner's works to show what she meant about 'less can sometimes be more.'
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English Class after the students and teachers were all Soul-Drives was... more efficient, but just as boring. Though the teacher, a male peacock gynoid (they were the ones with the pretty wings after all) did tell his robot students.
"Remember, words change over time, language changes over time, morals change over time, society changes over time. It's important not to dragged works into the context of today, but instead try to grasp the context of the culture that gave birth to these works. Remember, people a 1000 years from now will damn even the most fanatical liberal as 'regressive'. Don't be swift to pass judgement on people who literally lived in a completely different world from you."
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History is what it always is, being taught what the teacher and the school should be taught and discarding the rest as junk or trivial. With the class and teacher upgraded into avian gynoids, the class taught by a wise old Gynoid woman, the class naturally focused on the growth and advent of robots and AI.
They were made to read the original play from which the word 'robot' came from. The students cringed at how the robots in the story wiped out mankind, but had by that point become completely human themselves.
Then they read a story on the opposite end of the spectrum were humans were strapped down by robots and fed a constant stream of chemical to induce constant happiness until the sun burned out. Then expected to write essays explaining the fallacies in the fiction robots' logic.
"Why do you robots even NEED to go to school and take tests anyway?" One of Hannah's classmates who wasn't in any of Darren's classes asked.
"It's to make sure we can apply the knowledge we download realistically and if we can assimilate information in a real life situation. All the downloaded info in the world is worthless we can't actually realistically use it. Our purpose to look after and serve sapient organic creatures: to serve to live, to live is to serve, our sacred duty and purpose to ensure you humans (and other sapient organic creatures, disclaimer), find fulfillment and happiness. We have to understand how you think and feel. I understand when someone says 'I wish that guy would smile' that you mean you wish he was happy. And I know you don't want me to just inject chemicals into his brain so he has no choice BUT to be happy, but to enable him to find situations where he can make HIMSELF happy."
"Why do you say 'sapient organic life' and not just 'humans?' "
"Oh!" Hannah's eyes darted, knowing it was a bad idea to talk about fairies and wizard. "It's a fail-safe, in case humans eventually evolve into something that can no longer be categorized as 'human' but are still people."
"Ah, gotcha, you things sure thing long term, oh, sorry."
"Don't worry. Biologically speaking I am a 'thing'. But it would be way too creepy if I was 'mostly human but with some glaring flaws' like cruder models were. Or if I was a box on wheels. This way humans can interact with us and feel comfortable. After all, most people love animals. Our design is so our similarities to humans are endearing rather than alienating."