Hi everyone! New chapter ready to go!
Cater is giving the first years their first manual labor at this school XD

Let's see how that turned out. Enjoy!

Chapter 4:

"Stop that," Claire snapped as Ace sat at the top of the ladder and tried to dump his entire can of paint onto the rose bush. "You're going to waste all the paint. Look, do this in one sweeping motion. And don't stand on the top of the ladder! You'll fall!"

"Yes, Mom," Ace said, his voice laced with sarcasm.

"Hey, the last thing I want to do is carry you to the clinic after you swan-dive to the ground." Claire ignored Ace's eye roll and adjusted her ladder. She slowly climbed up, ensuring that she maintained a steady balance.

Meanwhile, Ace looked over jealously at Cater's group. The upperclassman was showing the two how to turn the colors from white to red, an instantaneous process with just a wave of their magic pen.

"This is stupid," he blurted out, dipping his paintbrush into the can and lashing out his frustration on a white rose, "Doing this without magic would take forever! I don't know how people do this!"

"Welcome to my world," Claire said, her voice now the one dripping with heavy sarcasm.

"By the way," he said, noticing how carefully she painted her flower, finishing rather quickly before moving on to the next. "You seem to be good at this. I mean the painting and cleaning and fixing stuff…"

"I volunteered a lot with organizations that rebuild homes back in my world." Claire never took her eyes off the flowers as she added a fresh coat to them. "You pick up a few tricks here and there. Though I will say, painting on real flowers is a first for me."

"Huh? 'Volunteered'?"

"Yeah, there are these organizations where you can sign up and… you know what, forget it." Claire shook her head, seeing Ace's bewildered look.

Everything in this world seemed to be ruled under a 'give-and-take' policy with more emphasis on the taking. Ace and the others would never be able to understand the concept of providing free services to the community by choice.

Despite their lack of magic and the constant complaints from Ace, the duo was actually faring better than Deuce and Grim, who both were clearly struggling with the magic bit.

"Come on, red! No, it turned blue," Deuce continued to panic as he kept sending spell after spell, his movement becoming more and more erratic.

Grim, meanwhile, managed to set the whole tree on fire.

"Watch it!" Cater exclaimed, immediately dousing the flames with a wave of his pen. "Geez," he sighed softly to himself, "you're more terrible at this than I thought."

"Guys, breath!" Claire called out from the ladder. "Deuce, don't panic! Focus on one flower. Grim, just… don't do anything."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" he cried out.

"Don't use magic until you learn how to not to set everything on fire. Look, why don't you watch me and Ace and let us know if we miss anything? You can be the supervisor."

"Supervisor? Sure, I can do that!" Grim grinned, pleased with the notion of ordering Ace around.

"Oh ho! Claire seems to know what she is doing!" Cater said impressed. He watched her now give additional instructions to Ace, who merely rolled his eyes in defiance.

"Yeah, she's really good," Deuce admitted. "She helped us not get expelled."

"Really?" Cater could feel a big juicy scoop coming up. Maybe he could get an exclusive Magicam story from Deuce about this. Just as he casually pulled out his phone, this thought was immediately banished by a scream.

"Grim! Stop dragging the paint buck– NO! STOP! There's paint everywhere!" Claire jumped down from her ladder and tried to wrestle the pail out of Grim's paws. Ace was laughing so hard that he almost fell off his own ladder.

"Hey! Stop that and help me clean this up," Claire snapped, looking up.

"No way!" Ace stuck out his tongue. "He's your responsibility."

"You're such a kid!" Claire retorted back.

Deuce stared, irritated as Ace continued to tease from above. How could he act so cheeky to someone who had just saved them from being expelled?

"Seems like they are getting along quite well," Cater said with a sly grin.

"I'm not sure if that could be considered getting along," Deuce sighed as Claire shook an angry fist at Ace.

"Hmm, could there be a rivalry between the two of you?" Cater said with a mischievous smile.

"It's not like that," Deuce sputtered, looking uncomfortable. "We are just friends… sort of."

"If you say so," Cater shrugged his shoulders. Since he had his phone out, he went to his Magicam account and checked the responses on the photo with the first years that he uploaded.

He immediately grinned. Just as he predicted.

His usual followers have already liked it, but hundreds more were quickly following. Scrolling through the comments now, Cater scanned through a couple of the comments. Quite a handful (or rather almost all) was asking about the girl – who was she, where did she come from, and most importantly, were the rumors true? Did she really have no magic? There were even some commenting on how rather plain she looked – a girl who managed to sneak her way into the prestigious Night Raven College should look like a dazzling model at the very least.

Last night's event was definitely a huge story on so many different levels. Cater knew this beforehand and decided to take advantage of the lucky happenstance. He was the only one so far who managed to get her whole face – everybody else had posted candid shots that were rather blurry and out of focus. He will need to play his cards right and slowly gain her trust first if he wanted to be the exclusive account with all the information.

Surprisingly, though, Cater found this nonmagic's personality rather refreshing and interesting. She was definitely an improvement compared to his overbearing sisters. After he was done, maybe he will actually try to be her friend.

"I will say that it's a shame she doesn't have magic," Cater said absentmindedly as he replied to some of the comments with light-hearted responses.

"Why should that matter?" Deuce asked, his voice a bit irate. His magic pen lowered now from attempting to change the rose's colors again.

"Oh, I don't mean it like there is anything wrong wrong," Cater said quickly glancing up to see the look on Deuce's face. He quickly placed his phone back into his pocket. "But you know that magic is everything here. It is like an expectation to have. Not just in our school but in our world in general. The more magic you have, the more respect."

Deuce paused and thought about Cater's words. There was some truth in them. People with natural talent in magic are generally praised by the community. Many of them held high positions in the community. Those with little or none struggled a lot and, to put it mildly, were not treated kindly.

Deuce suddenly remembered some unpleasant memories and could feel his inside squirming with guilt.

"Let's be honest," Cater continued, as if reading his thoughts, "Before yesterday, you probably wouldn't think much of her, right?"

"T-that's not true!" Deuce insisted though Cater arched an eyebrow in skepticism.

"Well, it is a good thing the headmaster has decided to take her in," Cater said calmly and turned to watch Claire scold both Ace and Grim. "Without the school protection, who knows what would happen to her. Especially…" He didn't finish his sentence as he took out his phone once more and held his gaze at Claire's profile.

Especially if she is from another world.

Author's Notes

Looks like there are a lot of secrets running around in this school ;D

We got to know a little bit more about Claire, but this is just the tip of the iceberg of what's to come.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the next chapter!

-JD