"Oh no."
The color had left Rhonda's face completely well before the principal's speech had finished. Before she'd actually arrived in this auditorium, the sixteen-year-old had still possessed some shred of hope for the school year. She'd really hoped that her harebrained scheme could be pulled off, that she could coast through without suffering a major problem. Oh how very wrong the young latina now realized herself to be.
She wanted to smack herself as she stood up to leave with the rest of the departing girls. God, for a girl with such amazing grades, she had sure pulled off a real dumbass move. Nobody probably agreed more than the girl who quickly caught up to her, walking alongside Rhonda and putting a hand on her shoulder and running the other one through her blonde ponytail. "Now do you get why this was a bad idea?!" Sofia asked, her slight German accent hanging off even brief and quiet words.
"I didn't think the students did stuff like that!" She whisper-shouted right back. Ohhhh, but she should've. If Rhonda had learned anything from the past few years, it was that teenage witches were as mean and spiteful as any normal human teenager, plus or minus a few magical inclinations. "I thought you said they have wards or something to stop it!"
Sofia rolled her blue eyes. "In the teachers' rooms, you dummkoff! Nowhere else!"
A low groan left Rhonda's full lips. She really, really should have been able to see this coming. This was, what... eight years she'd been best friends with a witch? For the better part of a decade, she had been getting wrapped up with all the mystical nonsense that happened to Sofia. So many times she'd watched magical duels, or heard about some wild and insane circumstance, or been subjected to magic herself. She'd lost count of how many times she'd been transformed into something weird by one of Sofia's mistakes, or somebody trying to harm the teenager. It was a disturbingly common occurrence, and it never got any more pleasant with experience.
If anything, she'd hoped that sneakily getting herself into St. Chariot's would see that shit come to an end. Between the magical protections surely in place, and a little help from her BFF, Rhonda had figured she could get by without being turned into a mermaid or centaur or coffee mug or statue or any other random-ass thing she'd been changed into too many times. Just take it easy, take some of the best non-magic-related classes taught in any high school ever, and ride her diploma into a swanky university.
God she was an idiot sometimes.
"Look, we just have to stay out of trouble, okay?" She was mostly saying that to herself, rather than Sofia. "I just have to go the whole year without making any enemies, or being in the vicinity of anyone trying to pull off some kind of prank, and we're okay. It's fine, okay?"
She squinted at the latina. "We can't go a week without getting into trouble, at least when it's not summer." Neither girl really questioned why everything seemed to happen to them between September and May, or why some dangerous threat or another always started escalating around spring. Rhonda just shrugged it off as 'weird witch things'. "And I can't be around to protect you every waking moment."
"You can't even protect her when you're around, Little Miss Wienerschnitzel."
The insult, and the stuffed-up, snobby tone in which it had been delivered, stopped both girls dead in their tracks. With dread they both turned their heads away from each other and straight ahead, to a girl they had both dearly hoped to never see again. Rhonda was the first to response, practically spitting out the name of the elitist little shit before them. "Abigail." Afraid as she was, the mere sight of Sofia's longtime pain-in-the-ass caused her to sneer in disgust. "I didn't think you'd have time to attend this school, what with your busy schedule of ripping the tails off kittens and throwing them to alligators."
"And I didn't think they'd lowered their standards enough to let you two in here." She made a small 'hmmph' noise, running a hand through the lengthly brown locks of her meticulously-styled hair. "You know, just when I think I've learned all your dirty tricks, you surprise me again. Helping to sneak in a-"
She was cut off by a growl from the blonde. "Back off, you little skank. You spill those beans, and the principal finds out about your little scheme last year." Her eyes narrowed. "All the money in the world won't buy you out of expulsion after that."
There was a stare-off for what felt like hours between the two witches, but finally, Abigail seemed to back off, unwilling to challenge Sofia's threat. Quite frankly, after how much damage her plotting against the German girl had caused last year, Rhonda wasn't too surprised at how effectively that seemed to dissuade her. Their hometown still hadn't quite recovered economically - and she was still pissed off about what happened to her pet bird. "I won't tell a soul, Wienerschnitzel. But if other girls here find out..."
"Yeah, let 'em try," Rhonda growled. "I'd like to see somebody cast some shit on me with a broken hand." She cracked her knuckles for effect. While she may have been lacking in magical talent, all the years of dealing with the weird shit Sofia attracted had forced her to become pretty good at throwing a punch.
At that, however, Abigail merely turned up her nose. "So brutish." She sighed and turned away, waving behind her back as she headed down the hall. "Watch your back, Wienerschnitzel. I'm not the only one to watch out for here."
Frustrated as she was, Rhonda knew the little bitch had a point. This was a ludicrously dangerous place to be, even with a talented witch as a friend. Part of her wanted to just get out of here right now and avoid any potential trouble... but the rest of her was too stubborn to just up and leave. Especially knowing that Sofia's constant nemesis was here - she might need to go and kick the rich twit's ass. That was too important of a duty to just abandon.
"C'mon," Sofia muttered once Abigail was out of sight. "Let's just go check out our rooms, and just... hope we can get there without getting into trouble." Knowing their luck... it was a possibility, but not a likely one.