“Thank you for your help, Miss Smi– Miss Drakensdottir,” The Countess said, as they were about to do the last lines on a rather complex summoning circle.
“No problem, Miss Countess,” Lichi responded. “I always like to help, especially if it's the teacher of my favorite class.”
“You flatter me. You know what, you can call me Miss Youngblood.”
“Okay, Miss Youngblood. If I’m allowed the question, what class is such a complex circle for?”
“Oh, this one isn't for a class. It's for a… let's call it a pet project.”
Lichi looked pensive for a moment, before replying with a smile, “Then I’m glad I could be of assistance.” Then her eyes fell on the clock. “Oh, sorry, I have to go to my next class now.”
“Don't worry, you already helped more than enough.”
Once Lichi was gone and the door closed, The Countess broke out in her signature ojou-sama laughter. The slime was just a small, spontaneous appetizer for her real revenge against Rhonda and Sofia. With this circle finished she was one step closer to its sweet taste. The vampire licked her lips in anticipation, still not used to her blunted fangs (due to child safety regulations).
And once she achieved her sweet revenge, she could finally fully commit to her teaching career. The Countess never expected that passing on her knowledge could be almost as fulfilling as the blood of a virgin. She might have found her true calling. Usually Selena Youngblood hated being called by the name of her fallen clan, but when it was a pupil saying it, it didn't sting as much. She almost felt bad for making use of one of her most eager students. Almost.
“Only a few lines left~”
She wouldn't have done those with Lichi anyways, this was a special circle after all. One connecting line at the right spot and the circle became as unstable as a fork in an electrical socket. Utmost carefulness was necessary now or it could blow up in her face, literally. The Countess was about to lean forward and draw the last few lines, when the unthinkable happened and one of her foot tall plateau heels broke. The small teacher fell face first onto the circle and smeared a huge chunk of it.
“Uh oh…” were the only sounds she was able to make when she saw the ink on her hands after she wiped some of it out of her face.
~~~~~~~~~~
Lichi heard some kind of grumbling when she walked through the halls to her next class, but ignored it. The adopted daughter of a hell dragon and a lich (though for some reason most people didn't believe her on that) really hoped that she'd do good in her summoning class, considering it tied into her big goal of summoning the lords of the underworld one day. Maybe she might actually start learning for this class, just to be sure, usually she just perfectly remembered everything her teachers said during lessons. It's how she managed to skip a full grade, after all.
…But learning was boring.
Speaking of boring, she hadn't seen Rhonda ever since she disappeared the previous day. Sofia told her during a shared class that she and May had reappeared, but she still wanted to make sure her first friend was fine. Plus, lots of cool stuff seemed to constantly be happening around her. Without her things had gotten back to dull surprisingly quickly. Lichellia Drakensdottir wished her life was more exciting like that, that every day was as thrilling as the last few days she spent at Rhonda’s side.
“Hey, that’s my wand you're holding!”
“You might need to have your eyes checked. That's always been my wand.”
Lichi had long since mastered the technique of tuning out the talking around her, even if there weren't any mean bullies making stupid jokes about her family.
“Let go!”
“No, you let go!”
“If you don't let go of the wand, I will make you!”
Lichi noticed a crumpled up piece of paper on the floor. She bent down to pick it up. As she did, she didn't notice the blast of magic, accidentally shot by two girls fighting over a wand, passing only a few centimeters over her head. Instead it hit a blue-haired girl with a bulge on her skirt. Her hands turned to rubber and inflated in size until they became pink rubber paws, each the size of her head.
“W-What happened to my hands, Brynleigh?”
“Which of you bimbos did this to Vivianna?!” the blonde girl beside her with a similarly bulged skirt shouted.
The two girls struggling over the wand each pointed at the other with one hand.
Meanwhile Lichi had begun to read the paper she had picked up. For some reason it started with the demand to copy and send it to at least 10 people she knew. The whole time she was entirely unaware of the transformation spells being flung around the hallway, many of them barely missing her by sheer coincidence.
The other girls in the hallway weren't so lucky (or oblivious), as they futilely tried to run for any cover they could find. Brynleigh herself wasn't able to evade this either, her head inflating into a balloon with her face printed on it, while her neck thinned into a simple string that connected her balloon head to the rest of her body. One girl’s hand turned into talons, another grew a mushroom out of her tailbone, a third one grew metal antennas out of her head, while the head of the one beside her rotated 180 degrees. And of course, being teenagers aka hormone-filled time bombs, each girl hit retaliated with her own spells, escalating this chaotic, magic all-out brawl more with every second.
Lichi finished reading the letter with a shudder. That took an unnecessarily morbid turn. Who would send something like this to others? It said she might get cursed, if she didn't send it to her friends, but she’d rather risk being cursed herself than shifting this peril onto her friends. She crumpled the paper back into a ball and with the most epic throw she could muster chucked it toward the bin only two meters away.
She missed completely.
With a sigh at another reminder of her complete and utter lack of athleticism she trudged forward (barely missing a magic blast passing right through where she was standing only a moment before), bent down again (unintentionally dodging another shot that would’ve hit her head) and properly dropped it into the trash, before continuing on her merry way toward her next class.
Right after she turned the corner the hallway brawl was stopped by the teleported arrival of the principal via area-of-effect paralysis spell. She surveyed the amalgamations of transformation spells that were stopped in mid-air around her. “I hope you’re going to enjoy having to live with the consequences of your actions.”
A few more corners later Lichi had already gone back to contemplating that nothing exciting ever happened around her, when she perked up at hearing a familiar voice. Immediately she picked up her pace only to come upon a strange sight, even by the standards of this school: Tiberia pulling Rhonda by her tail through the hallway, the latter’s arms stretching cartoonishly longer and longer as they held onto May’s legs. Looking closer you noticed that she achieved this length by adding additional lower arms in-between her increasing number of joints, the segments randomly switching between human, dragon, slime, rubber and doll. All the while Rhonda was shouting something about life being unfair, biology sucking, her being a cosmic plaything and… seafood? She didn't know Rhonda liked oysters.
Speaking of Rhonda, where did all the cool slime, rubber and doll features of Rhonda’s body go? Or the additional limbs? Was her chest always this big? And weren't her scales black, not red? Similarly, what happened to May’s doll parts? Did Lichi miss something awesome?
With a particularly violent yank Tiberia finally managed to get Rhonda off May, whose long arms began to flail around as they tried to grab back onto her lifeline. The effort was fruitless however, as Tiberia walked faster than Rhonda was able to grow her arms. It didn't take long for both to disappear around the next intersection. It did however for Rhonda's arms.
Once enough time had passed for both to snap out of their reveries, Lichi approached May. “What cruel play of fortuna did befall the latin tempter of fates in the absence of the daughter of death and dragons?” (Translation: What happened to Rhonda while I was gone?)
“Miss Tiberia happened to overhear Rhonda’s idea to skip her biology class again today…” She wistfully looked at where Rhonda had disappeared. “I should probably go to my own class. I hope my teacher doesn't react as badly to me missing yesterday.”
May turned to the side and left for the hallway Lichi came from. On her way she happened to pass The Countess, who was in a very foul mood. Her hair was standing up in a poofy afro, as if she just survived an explosion. (Literally) On top of that giant several feet long, white bunny ears with pink polka dots were rising out of her hair. At least technically she was finally towering over everyone.
At the same time Lichi continued trudging toward her next class. Dangit! She had forgotten to ask May what happened to her and Rhonda. Probably something really cool. Lichi sighed. Nothing exciting ever happened around her. And with the way Tiberia looked, she doubted any of them were going to see Rhonda again anytime soon.