Following Miss Carmi’s declaration chaos immediately broke out between the young witches. Rhonda could only watch as most of her fellow students threw themselves into cover or cast shield spells to protect themselves. The most outstanding examples were one girl, who gave herself a turtle shell (that somehow accentuated her figure) and hid completely inside of it, and another witch, who turned invisible, probably unaware that this doesn't really help when dodging random fire.
The dragon girl managed to break out of her stupor and grabbed May to pull her behind a close rock for cover. Only moments later the spot where they stood suddenly exploded.
“Thanks, Rhonda.” May breathed out. It was unclear whether the blush on her face came from stress or the latina.
“No worries, I’m used to it.” For a moment Rhonda lamented the fact this wasn't a lie to sound cool. Instead she decided to peek over the rock and take another look over the remaining class. Some girls seem to have started to see this as a challenge and are trying to block with their own spells as many shots as possible. A shudder went down Rhonda’s back as she saw one girl being hit in the head and falling to the ground. Miss Carmi was right in the middle of it all listing off facts about the battle while effortlessly dodging everything as if she had already done this once or twice (she did).
The battle in the background seemed to be about to reach its end. Only a couple of witches were left, but their attacks got anti-proportionally bigger. Just in time did the latina spot a fireball flying right towards their rock. She held May close and jumped out of the way as the rock was pulverized. The shockwave had them roll over the ground a few feet, finally stopping with May on her back and Rhonda right over her, their faces only inches apart.
Golden eyes stared into blue ones. Rhonda could let herself drop down, playing it off as an accident, and their lips, breasts and loins would meet. Judging by her heavy blush May probably wouldn't mind it either, though the dragon girl correctly assumed that her own face also was as red as her hair. She got reminded of the previous day where she got into a similar situation with Abigail. Unlike that time however her whole mind was unified in screaming at her to do it (and only a small part of them did it to forever deprive Abigail from getting her first kiss). Inch by inch their faces got closer, Rhonda figuring that May would just stop her, if she was against it.
But before their lips met Rhonda was thrown off May by a random magic shot.
“Rhonda!” May shouted as she ran up to check on her. Said latina was lying on the ground, clutching her shoulder and mentally kicking herself for hesitating. As May checked her friend for outer injuries, she noticed to her horror another shot approaching their position.
May Hudson saw herself as a very logical person. Even as a witch she felt herself naturally drawn to science, as it always annoyed her how even in modern times most matters regarding magic were still just shrugged off as “Because it is so”. A logical person would have quickly found several simple ways to protect both of them. Right now May’s mind was anything but logical due to several factors. She threw herself over Rhonda, held out her left arm to protect herself and with her other hand cast the first spell that came into her razzled mind that could reduce the damage caused. Her arm blocked the attack in a small explosion and she only had to grit her teeth from the pain.
When the smoke lifted Rhonda got a good look at the left arm of her savior. It was a pale white and featured seams as well as ball-joints. It was a doll’s arm. More surprising however was that it was completely unscathed, not even a scratch in her sleeve. “May, your arm…”
“Don't worry, is your shoulder alright?” she replied.
Rhonda noticed that the pain was fading unusually fast. She lifted her claw to see her shoulder and her uniform were perfectly fine. Looking over to her class she noticed several classmates having similarly confused reactions. The girl, who was hit in the head, sat up rubbing her temple.
A giant explosion marked the end of the battle and the field faded back into their classroom. “How’d y’all like it?” asked Miss Carmi the students spread around the room.
“What just happened?”
“What y’all just saw was a recreation of the battle done with illusion magic. They can't actually harm y’all, but fer additional immersion they still cause pain proportional to what hit y'. Course not fully, more like 10% maybe. Y’all didn’ really think Ah was just throwing y’all into danger. Th’ whole necromancer thang was just a lil’ joke, that’ll hopefully teach y’all not to make fun of other folks’ accents,” Miss Carmi explained.
Most students needed to sit down to process that revelation or their phantom pains. The girl with the turtle shell raised her hand. “That means we technically didn't leave the classroom, right? Does that mean our transformation spells were unaffected by the curse?”
“Nope, because Ah never cast the ward.”
“Why?” the girl shakily asked.
“Why should Ah waste magic castin’ a ward fer transformation spells durin’ history class? Ah’m not like Wandler, she even casts those fer math, not like she’ll ever need it.”
In a flash the invisible girl reappeared in the classroom, except her whole body, skin and hair, was now a bright pink. Turning her whole body translucent was considered a transformation spell and to become visible again, she wasn't able to return her body to its natural colors, so she was forced to do something else.
While the students were still dealing with lingering pain or their transformed bodies, Miss Carmi quickly gave them their homework assignment before the bell rang. Rhonda and May actually were among the first to leave the room. Dragon body recovery for the win.
“Are you okay with your arm like that? Sorry, that it's this way now because of me,” Rhonda said as she watched May experimentally open and close her left hand.
“You don't have to be concerned,” answered the scientific witch. “I did it to save you like you protected me, even if we were technically safe all along… I protected you from a headache. Not to mention I planned on joining the Automata-club anyways.”
“Automata-club?” the latina asked.
“Automata, golems, puppets, pretty much robots powered by magic.” May rolled up her sleeve to reveal her doll arm in its full artificial glory. Writs, elbow and shoulder were replaced by round, white ball-joints, with the latter transitioning into normal flesh. “I have always believed in improving the human body. I already have so many ideas of what I could do with this baby. With a chain and some precise cuts I can turn it into a hookshot or I could integrate my wand into it to always have it ‘on hand’.”
Rhonda was glad that her self-inflicted temporary permanent transformation did not impede May's optimism. “That reminds me, May, you wanted to tell me something after class. What is it?”