"Remind me again, how we get in this position?" Lilith asked quietly while she's hiding behind a provisional hideout with a few other witchlings.
"All I heard was, 'I need your help in the class with something. I swear it'll be funny' and then we were trapped in this place with a starving the choosy hat." Raine replied in a stage whisper.
Eda chuckled sheepishly as she scratched back of her neck, "Sorry, I kinda forgot that the choosy hat is immune to most form of magic."
GRRR!
The small group of witchlings peered between in the workbenchs and saw how the choose hat crawl across the floor. It was still on the other end of that room.
"We're doomed. We're doomed. We're doomed!" Darius rocking scared while he kept repeating the words, like they'd mean something different if he said it enough times.
Apparently annoyed, Odalia turned to him, "You're freaking out."
He was almost yelling at her: "YES! I AM! I INVITE YOU TO FREAK OUT WITH ME!"
Odalia put her hand over his mouth, silencing the boy. "Shh Deamonne or we'll all get gobbled up."
But lucky for them, the choose hat was still busy tearing off some paper that it pulled from the one of left backpacks on the floor.
"Great! the choose hat ate my homework." Lilith whispered, "Miss Jenkinmeyer will never believe this."
Eda and Raine chuckled at that. That is the oldest excuse in the book, and it really happened.
Darius grabbed Odalia's wrist, moving the palm off his mouth, then lowered his voice to a whisper, "We need a plan."
"I have one." Eda said with an excited smile and mischievous all over her face that her sister know all too well.
"No arson." Lilith told her.
"I got nothing then." Eda replied dryly.
"Of course," Odalia gave out a sigh, then narrowed her eyes at Raine. The bard looked impassively as the girl spoke, "Raine, why doesn't you just lull the choose hat into a state of satisfaction and we'll get of here."
"For the same reason that Darius can't summon Abomination. I don't have what these spell needs."
"Great. Just great. No instrument. No abomination goo. No crystal ball. And out of all the places we could have trapped to, we are in the only room that is not connected with the Room of Shortcuts." said Odalia furiously, "Could it be worse?
"We could be in the detention door with Alador where all the brainwashing took place." Eda's tone was conversational; she might have been talking about weather forecast.
The choosy hat picked that exact moment to muttered some creepy rhyme before ate the class pet. Buttercup - the two-headed hamster.
This motivated all teenagers to turned their head, looking for a way out of here or anything here that may be helpful to fight the choosy hat.
"Okay, does anybody have any brilliant ideas. Because I'm too cool to die in school." Eda said, looking at her friends.
After a great deal of thought, Raine said: "I have an idea."
"A good one?" Lilith asked. She didn't doubt the other witchling's intelligence, but Raine have proved more than once their definition of sound plan not fully agrees with her definition in most cases.
They turned and replied. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. But first we," the bard pointed to themself Eda and Lilith, "Have to get to the ingredients cabinet really fast."
"And how do you plan to get past the choosy hat?" Odalia asked.
"Ever heard of live bait?" Darius looked pointedly at her.
"That's a great idea, buddy." Eda tapped him on the shoulder, "Thanks for volunteering!"
He straightened up, shooting her a look that was half annoyed and half 'are-you-kidding-me?' "Eda, I hate you right now."
Judging by the curl of her lips, that answer seemed to amuse her. "I can live with it." She gave back. "Now go and do your thing."
They all heard him swallow, then Darius inhaled long and deep, to say a long, but fast: "If I die, tell my mom I love her. And tell my dad that I always knew he was the one wearing the costume during the Creepmas gift-giving ceremony, but I pretended to think he was Krampus because I thought I'd stop getting presents if I admitted I knew the truth."
The gang blinked several times in response to this statement. Completely aware to his practically a suicide mission Darius jumps on the other side of the desk only to hear Eda call dibs on his scroll. However, there is no time to even comment his friend's faith in him.
The choosy hat swiftly turned and noticed the witchling.
"Better not come out, bonnet, if you know what's good for you." Darius took up an elegant pose that made him look a lot braver than he really feel right now.
'Fair greeting, o ye who've guts to face the hungry hat.
Child, this school, of both magic and kind.
Were I the nice-hat, we'd both have a good time
But I am true me, and desire rather… to feed.
Be your flesh roasted or raw in its own bloody brine
It shall do for my hunger, for the flesh of man.
Has always seemed to me most fitting and fine.
Aye, you brave witch shall do for greed of mine'
And the choosy hat begins to laugh, moving towards Darius. Razor sharp teeth glinting in the light. Because Darius didn't have a abomination goo on himselfe, he did what anyone would have done in this situation - he ran as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.
The choosy chased him like a hungry wolf.
Odalia watching this, under different circumstances, she would have called it funny.
The choosy hat took a bite out of Darius' school uniform. So, he climbed to the tall rack with open shelves and shouted, "A little help here?!"
"Just hang in there a little longer!" Raine shouted back from across the class.
"If I die here, I'll be your personal poltergeist!" Darius exclaimed while the choosy hat chewing on the rack. The fall of the rack and the male witchling were a matter of seconds.
Odalia knew this when she noticed something. She crawled out from behind the hidden spot, ignoring how stupit this action is.
She reached the short table in the corner of the room and bent down to retrieve the item. It was a five-inch knife, the one used for cutting the components of the potions.
She chucked the knife in the general direction of the choosy hat.
"You're not helping!" Darius exclaimed, barely avoiding the sharp blade.
"I wasn't aiming at the hat!" Odalia shouted back the moment the knife hit the rope holding up the chandelier, which crashe down around the choosy hat. But it was perfect untouched; it body was so small it passed right through a gap.
"Aw, come on!" Darius complained, but fortunately for him, the choosy hat turned aroud to began bolting towards Odalia, ready to tear her body to pieces.
But, just before the monster hat could finish witchling off, a powerful blast of a yellow pounded into its face, blinding it.
Then a large glowing glass bottle with some smaller ones tied to it ended up in front of the choosy hat.
"Fire in the hole!" Raine warned everyone as they send a blast of sound towar it.
And then the air exploded.
The choosy hat was thrown away from Odalia, crashing into a door and ripping the door off of its hinges.
The smoke and smell of potion filled the class. The group of friends ran, coughing, and finally got out of the room.
"What the hex was that?" Darius made gestures at still smoking potion class.
"My plan worked." Raine noticed the level of damage. "Maybe a little too well."
"What?!" Odalia shouted while her ears were still ringing.
Darius wanted to say something but heard something behind them, "Is anyone else hearing hissing?"
Their head turned toward a knocked over three school lockers.
The tip of hat punching its way out of pile. The rest of its body follows suit.
"Come on!"
Witchlings were startled, shocked and horrified. In that order.
"Can't you just stay dead?" Eda said as the hat turning towards them with murder glare before she pulled out a weird little lunch box from her orange mane.
"Edalyn! What the hex? Have you gone mad?" Lilith hissed when Eda ran towards the hat, "Wait, what am I saying? Of course you have. Come back here!"
Of course she didn't listen to her sister.
The hat leapt at the witchling but Eda put her hand up through their mouth. For a second, it looked like Eda could lose the whole hand.
But suddenly, she tore her arm out of the hat.
The choosy hat fell to the floor and started shaking like it want to vomit over floor in loathing and disgust. And then suddenly... it's just frozen just as stiff as a fish stick.
"Exactly what was in that lunch box?" Odalia asked more herself than the others. And no one have answer.
"It worked?" Eda asked, poking the hat with a toe of her boot.
"You didn't know if it'll work?!" Lilith yelled and refrained herself from taking the fire extinguishers off the wall next to her and whacking her younger sister with it.
"It was a 50-50 chance." Eda said back, lifting a hand and tilting it.
"Oh sweet Titan, I...I actually thought we were goners..." Darius breathed out, letting himself fall flat on his back from overwhelming relief.
"If so, for what reason?" A voice asked from down the hallway. Everyone tensed up.
Not a second later, they saw Principal Bump walking towards them. His eyes slowly scanned the corridor and all witchlings.
"I need to confirm if someone's hurt." His voice was even. One could say he was far too calm given the situation.
"Still screaming inside but I'm alive." Darius said as he took the offered hand and let Odalia pull him up. "I'm also fine." She added a little louder than it needed to be.
Lilith looked down at herself. "No injuries."
"Just a bruise." Raine rubbed their left elbow.
"All limb still attached and I'm looking awesome as always." Eda said, a teasing tone in her voice.
"Very good." Principal Bump took a look inside the potion class, "Now, I need to know what happened here."
"Very shortly, we beat the choose hat and you totally missed it." Eda responded with a big smirk, as she had her hands behind her head.
Principal Bump's eyes narrowed questioningly, "Incidentally, who exactly opened the wardrobe where the choose hat compatriot here was hibernating? It's behind a rather formidable lock."
Five sets of eyes turned accusingly to Eda now holding the paralyzed choosy hat.
"What?" Eda blinked back innocently. The stare of principal turned into glare. "Look, I'm not saying I did anything. But would it kill the school to invest in a few signs?"
Principal held up a hand suffused in sligty green glowing magic, and the choosy hat flew to him like a dove.
"Strangely enough, the signs stating 'Keep Out' are generally enough for most of students," Bump told her, gesturing at Odalia and Darius to precede him out of the hallway. After all, someone must have to tell him about the details around what happened.
"Did today could count as extra credit?" Odalia asked as three of them went around that corner.
"The choosy hat knocked out and no detention. Actually, it went better than I expected." Eda admited.
It was then that school bell just went on, several dozen of students walked out of the class. Colorful crowd of witchlings ignored damage after the incident with the choosy hat.
A window broken by the forced door?
Smell of small ash eruptions?
Bite marks on the walls?
A portion class that look like whole bunch of unicorns were running all over it?
Nothing big. Typical Hexside stuff. A normal day.
"Soooo, who's hungry?" Eda asked her best friend and sister.
"You're really going to have lunch right now?"
"I'm burns a lot of calories saving the day." She said with smirk exactly one second before something exploded about several feet away from the corner of the corridor.
" ...What was that?" Raine finally asked, seeing students takes off screaming.
"The sound of problem." Lilith responded in a very slightly annoyed tone.
"The sound of someone else's problem." Eda quickly corrected as she hooked her arms around Lilith and Raine, "We can go get some screaming cake."
She pushed them to the opposite side of the corridor, ignoring their protest and the sound of students screams behind them.
Notes:
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