“I volunteer,” a voice called out from behind Rhonda, who let out the breath she had been holding. The teacher signaled the girl to come to the front of the class, allowing the latina to get a good look at her. She seemed very big for a girl her age, at least bigger than Rhonda, and had the long, lean legs to match. Her straight, white hair was equally long, reaching fully over her back, and alongside her pale skin and sharp, red eyes suggested she had albinism. She also carried herself with a certain grace.
The presentation was expectedly short. Miss Lancaster threw a small fireball at the student and she easily blocked it by summoning a dome of hexagonal shapes around her body.
“Very impressive, I must admit,” the teacher said. “What was your name again?”
“Margo Keischo.”
The teacher's eyes narrowed. “Should’ve figured it was you when I saw that name on the list. Let me guess, you volunteered to show off in front of your classmates. Trying to match your sister Marni’s record and become student council president during your first year?”
Margo did not avert her gaze. “While I can't deny the latter, I only volunteered to make sure you wouldn't randomly pick out someone unqualified and accidentally harm them. My sisters already informed me of your rather crass methods.”
“I believe in giving everyone an equal chance, so I’ll just ignore that last line, and I was planning on avoiding trouble this year. I won't treat you badly because of the troubles your sisters gave me during their times, but you also won't get any preferential treatment from me just because you're from an old and influential witch line. Are we clear?”
“Crystal clear.” With that Margo made her way back to her seat. Rhonda couldn't help but be impressed with her fellow student. Not once did she flinch during her staredown with the orc woman. As she watched her walk back, their eyes met for a moment and Rhonda felt a shiver go down her spine. That was someone on whose bad side she definitely didn't want to get on.
After that the lesson continued normally and Rhonda didn't understand much more. But she wasn't discouraged that much, because she was already looking forward to her next class, math. Rhonda couldn't believe either she was thinking that, but she was good at it (more importantly she understood it) and she already knew she was sharing it with Sofia and all their roommates. Although that included Abigail as well, she was currently focused on only looking at the bright side after officially surviving her first magic class.
Once the lesson ended she made her way to the math class with Sofia and Lichi, also helping to acquaint her two friends with each other. On the way she also learned more about Margo Keischo and her family. The Keischos were a long line of witches with many taking on top positions in the magical community. Margo was the fifth and youngest daughter of the current head of the family. Each of her older sisters became student council president during her time at St. Chariot’s, with the second one being known as the first and so far only student to become president during her first year. Some were suspecting the age-gaps between them were intentional so they’d never have to compete for the same president position.
They reached the classroom and Rhonda was glad to see May and Usami already sitting there. She immediately took place beside the former, in front of a girl who seemed familiar, with Sofia and Lichi taking the remaining two seats around Rhonda. She was thankful when Lichi took off her hat. Rhonda also saw Abigail entering and taking a seat as far away from them as possible. The scary albino from the previous class didn't seem to be there, apparent due to the lack of an oppressing aura.
She had just managed to engage May in some small talk, when the door opened and Rhonda's eyes went wide. The latina had seen some crazy magical things in her hometown, but the woman who entered had already taken at least the Top 5. If you only looked at her straight from the front, she still seemed somewhat normal, only with her arms coming out of her hips instead of her bare shoulders. But from every other angle you could see that she was a kind of centaur. Except that instead of the horse body Rhonda was used to seeing, there was an entire additional human torso, with boobs, ass and hip arms, sticking out of her behind. Trying to focus on the face instead of her teacher’s backside, she saw silver hair in a short bob and in her eyes strangely rainbow-colored irises behind more normal square glasses. She wore a white dress shirt and two pairs of grey pants, the front one featuring a cut-out for her second torso, which also covered the breasts of the back torso. Her witch hat looked like the modern standard hat, but had letters embroidered into its hem. Maybe her name?
“Hello class, my name is Miss Jessica Wandler,” without looking her back-arms picked up the chalk and wrote her name on the blackboard. “And I’m teaching math, social studies and transformation magic here at St. Chariot’s. Some of you might be a bit surprised by my appearance, but don't worry. You won't have to get used to it, because I change my body every week or so, anyways. And don't worry, I’m trying to at least keep my face similar. Not to mention there's always my hat. I’ve transformed myself so often and in so many different forms I’ve completely forgotten what my original body looked like.
“And before anyone asks, no, the standard transformation cancel-spell does not work on me, so I can't find out. I’ve been born with a rare condition called ‘shifting essence’, as you might see from my eyes. The essence is essentially a completely unique blueprint of your physical body. It normally stays the same if you change your body by magical means. Only the strongest spells can affect it. The transformation cancel works by automatically scanning your essence and then recreating your original body based on that information. But my essence is constantly changing to adjust itself to my current body, making me basically immune to the cancel, as it would only create the body I’m already in. The technically only way to turn me back is to transform me into a body that matches my original body by inputting the necessary information into the spell on your own.”
Yet unsure if they should speak up or stop their teacher, the students only watched as their teacher continued rambling. “That's actually also what Miss Hexe’s anti-prank-curse is based on. A true marvel of spell weaving. It strengthens the spell cast to also affect the essence, while also creating and saving a copy of the essence to make sure someone doesn't transform back using the complicated way. Not to mention Miss Hexe exclusively can use the essence copies to restore your bodies if she needs. We teachers were taught wards to allow the casting of spells that don't change your essence, so those transformations can then be reversed.” Miss Wandler’s eyes gained a dreamy look. “Oh, only a woman like her could come up with such a powerful array of spells. I wish I could body merge with her, even if just for a day~”
Miss Wandler seemed to remember she was in a classroom. She pretended to cough into her hand. “Ahem, sorry, I tend to get lost in my rambles. So, let's see…” Rhonda's hopes for a normal math lesson were dashed as the humantaur teacher scanned the students with glowing eyes. Especially when they seemed to stop on her. “Oho, now look at that. Someone here has already been transformed. Congratulations!”
Rhonda stiffened. She was sure she had checked her whole body when waking up. Did she miss something? Did Abigail pull something after all? She prepared herself for the worst when the teacher walked towards her. Only to deflate when she walked past Rhonda and focused on the girl sitting behind her. The girl looked like she wanted to shrink into another microverse right now. She seemed fairly normal to Rhonda. Reddish-brown hair in twintails and freckles were the only outstanding part of her. But Rhonda couldn't shake the feeling she knew that girl from somewhere. Sometime recently… That's when it hit her and she remembered where she saw that girl. It was just last evening.
“What's your name?” Miss Wandler asked.
“A-Amelia. Amelia Fuchs,” the girl answered in a small voice.
Miss Wandler bent her four legs to be on eye-level with her. “It will be better once you let it out. I know it's hard and you're afraid, but the sooner you do it, the sooner you will accept as a part of you. Trust me, I know how it feels.”
Amelia was fidgeting in her seat at all the attention she was getting. After a few more moments a foxtail peeked out of her skirt. From the small glimpse she got, Rhonda saw it was mostly the same brown tone as her hair with the upper quarter being white and the very tip black. It reminded her a bit of an inkbrush.
“Aren't foxtails the cutest?” Miss Wandler said to Amelia with a smile and put a hand on her shoulder. “Don't worry, it’ll get better, especially once others get transformed, too. And if you want to, you can come over to my room after lessons are done today and I’ll give you some pointers on how to properly groom your tail. Does that sound alright for you?”
Amelia nodded with a small “mhm” and the teacher walked back to the front of the classroom.
“But that is also a great transition for our lesson. You see, due to the human losing their tail during the evolutionary process, creating a tail is one of the easiest transformative spells as the body easily adjusts to it–”
One girl raised her hand and finally asked the question that was on everyone's mind. “Miss Wandler, you are aware this is math and not ‘transformation magic’, right?”
“Huh?” The teacher stopped mid-step, staring at the class with wide eyes. “Oh god, it happened again. Sorry, sorry, sorry!” She rapidly bowed with her upper torso. “I just love transformation magic so much that I constantly wanna talk about it and you know when your brain turns on auto-pilot and I’m sorry!”
She finished after her eleventh bow and addressed her class again. “At least it was only the first lesson. It's mostly for getting to know each other anyways, isn't it? Let's just call it a small excursion. Although, if nobody is against it, I could at least finish off the excursion by showing off some nice transformation spells, maybe even a body merge. Maybe with a volunteer or two. Don't worry, I already set up all wards to make the use of transformation magic safe and we have more than enough time for the math curriculum during the rest of the year. Let's just put it to a vote.”