Leilani was prepared for a bustling hub of fairies who were planning to murder her behind her back. She was prepared for massive discrimination, immediate mistrust, and maybe even being chased out of the building. She was prepared for rejection the most.

What she was not prepared for was a near-empty school and a headmistress who offered her some very delicious hot chocolate.

"Tell me again," said the headmistress, who had introduced herself as Crown Princess Bloom Peters of Domino, then promptly asked Leilani to simply call her Bloom. "What made you want to study magic?"

Leilani took a breath, trying not to rush through her story almost inaudibly for a second time. "I don't have any sad story or anything. I mean, I do, but that's not related to magic. It's just fascinating, you know? How does it work? How can it work? What can we do with it now, what have people done with it in the past? I have so many questions, Miss Bloom, and I want all the answers."

Bloom sat her own hot chocolate down on the small table next to her. "And I doubt you're the type to hear a short explanation and say that's good enough."

"You're right."

The headmistress looked into her cup as though she were reading answers in it. Maybe she was. Leilani didn't know. All she knew was that the woman couldn't be much older than she was. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. She definitely wasn't older than twenty-five.

Except she was also a fairy, and fairies could look however they wanted to look.

Bloom looked up. "You're accepted under the condition that you promise you're aware of your situation. You obviously can't participate in practical classes, though you're welcome to observe. Also, we're a residential school, so you'll have to live on campus. We have uniforms. You have free time after school lets out at four, and the doors lock for college students at midnight, but since high school lights out is ten, you'll have to be quiet after that time. You understand… due to having high school students on campus, we will have to be stricter on our students than a traditional college program."

Great costs. Freedom, mainly. Not living with Andrew and Alexa would also be a sacrifice, though she knew her boyfriend and best friend were crowded even without her crashing on the couch. Then, of course, there was the entire matter of Anthony's dream of transferring from community college to Penn State, moving far away. Maybe, now, without her.

"Can I think about it?" she heard herself asking.

"Take as long as you need," Bloom said with a smile and a little wink. "But I hope you choose soon. Classes start tomorrow, you know."

The first day of school was surreal.

There were more teachers than students, despite the fact that half were digital. Though technically Roxy was in a different class than her two friends, they held all lessons together.

Normal lessons were first, mainly worksheets since the girls were all in different places in their lessons. Roxy was supposed to be a senior, but had dropped out to go to Alfea, so hadn't been studying even while she was on the road. Avalon and Saf had been back in school for three weeks, a month if they counted the week they spent transferring to the Royal Fairy Academy, but they were only juniors and Saf was in an advanced track.

While math and science were struggles, this worked fine for classes such as English (Roxy was slightly surprised to find that Saf, whose first language was Arabic, was the best of the group in that class). They could all read and analyze the same book, an old novel written by one of Nebula's childhood friends. History had a bit of a gap, with Roxy head of that class due to her knowledge of magical history as well as human.

After a quick lunch came the magic classes, which were slightly more separated. First, Saf and Avi worked with Wizgiz and Tecna over the computers while Roxy took face-to-face lessons with Tora. After an hour and a half, they switched.

Tora was a good teacher. Avi had peeked away from the program she was magicoding under Tecna's guidance to see her working with Roxy. Roxy had seemed to single-handedly levitate her half of the classroom's desks and chairs. The teen couldn't suppress a jealous sigh. It looked so cool.

"Avi?" Tecna said over the webcam. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry, just got distracted."

Finally, it was time for her and Saf to work with Tora.

Tora had decided to make them play with crayons.

Saf struggled with the giant crayon that was hovering in the air. "I think it's stuck," she said with a sigh. "I can't get it back the way it was."

Avi, for her part, couldn't even get the crayons to come together. "What is this?" she barked, "a kind of torture?"

Tora was patient. "It's a simple matter merge exercise. All young fairies do them."

Avi stuck her tongue out at the crayon, then turned back to Tora. "Do we have to just visualize? Isn't there some sort of trick?"

"There's always a trick if you can find it," Tora said.

"What does that even mean?"

The teacher just shrugged and grinned.

Avi picked up a bunch of the crayons in her hand. "If only there was some kind of tool for this. Some kind of tool to make things bigger." But that wasn't the point of the practice; she was merging them, not enlarging them. With her free hand, she felt the small crayons. They were a tool, she realized. A tool to make art. And she was the fairy of tools, so she should be able to control them, to make them gather to her liking…

They raised up and merged. Just like that.

Avi jumped up and down, her pink tie knocking her in the face several times as she did. "Look! Tora, Saf! I did it!"

They applauded politely, and congratulated her, but soon Saf turned back to her own giant floating crayon. "I really don't know how I did this to begin with," she muttered.

"Try to tap into your power. Lightning can change sand into glass, right? When you think of how your power can change things, it makes everything a lot easier," Avi suggested. Saf closed her eyes. Avi could almost, but not quite, make out a lightning bolt that hit the giant crayon and split it into a dozen smaller ones that rained onto the girls. "Hey, you did it. Good job!" cried Avi.

She tried to focus on manipulating her own crayons, her own tools. Somehow, they seemed to be stuck. "Fudge," she sighed.

The last class of the day was a little different. Knowing how important the ability to defend themselves was to the fairies of Earth, Bloom set up a mandatory physical education period, so even if the girls had shaky magic, they could fight. Though the only two current options were T'ai Chi with Tora or archery with Lysis, Bloom promised more options in the future.

It had taken a while to decide what class to take, simply because they had wanted to take it together. "I want to take T'ai Chi," Avi had said firmly, "but I can tell how much Lysis hates Tora, and so I also don't want to pick that."

"I want archery, anyway," said Saf.

"I'm with Avi," Roxy said. "T'ai Chi sounds relaxing."

"I mean sure, but you can also kick butt with it," Avi said, throwing a mock punch. "It's one of the deadliest martial arts if you learn it right. All the best martial artists know it, along with all their other stuff. Besides, archery's cool, but not super practical. If those dumb Apprentices show up, what are you gonna do? Ask them to hold on while you run and get some bows and arrows?"

"Maybe we should just take this class separate after all," Saf suggested. "It sounds like you've already decided, and I know I have. Besides, that would spread the love around a little more evenly, rather than alienating one or the other."

They reluctantly agreed that was a decent idea, so Roxy and Avi went to Tora's class while Saf got private lessons with Lysis.

Roxy and Avi both found it was harder than they had expected. Roxy had wanted a fun and easy sport, and found the physical strain a little more than she had planned for. Avi had almost the opposite problem and always sped up her movements to nearly dangerous speeds.

Tora, for her part, was patient. "You'll get the hang of it. Don't do anything to strain your body, just relax for now and we'll add the cool stuff later."

They were shot by the time they got back to their dorm at four. "What now?" asked Saf, who was almost glowing from what she said was an amazing archery lesson.

Roxy shrugged. "Free time. Dinner's at six, curfew is at nine, and we have to have lights off at ten, though we can use a small study lamp until midnight."

"Let's go exploring," suggested Avi.

"We've explored the school at least ten times," Roxy noted.

"Not the school. The city. We're in a state capital and we've barely set foot off this property. I mean, come on? We'll skip dinner and eat out somewhere. We've got five hours, after all!"

"Five hours and a large stack of magiphilosophy and ethics homework each."

"Do you really think Tora expects us to do that?" scoffed Avi.

"Yes," said Roxy and Saf in perfect unison.

Avi rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. We'll go get dinner somewhere and be back by seven, in time to finish whatever stupid thing by midnight. Deal?"

Roxy glanced at Saf. "Think that's doable?"

Saf nodded and winked. "I know I can finish my homework in that time. I doubt that Avi can, but that would be her problem, not mine."

Avi smirked and shrugged. "I probably wasn't gonna do it anyway. So. What about pizza?"

Leilani spent the next day walking thoughtfully around the city, though she went to her apartment that night. This time, Anthony wasn't there, but Alexa was. The smaller girl was baking cookies in their cramped kitchen, but stopped and grinned when she saw her friend walk in the door. "LeLe! I thought you'd be back ages ago. Did you stop at the library?"

"Something… something came up." Alexa looked like she was about to ask for more details, so Leilani decided to beat her to the chase. "How would you feel if I moved out?"

Alexa paled and ran a hand through her thick black hair nervously. "Did you and Anthony break up? Cause I can't say anything if you did. He's my brother and you're my best…"

"We're still together," Leilani interjected. "But. Well. Something. I don't know how to tell you guys."

"Simple, let's go out and get some pizza!" Alexa said as she took a tray of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. "That was my last batch, after all. You'll think better away from the situation and with some food in your belly."

"Can we afford it?"

"I'll pay from my birthday money," Alexa responded with a smile. "I'd go out tonight anyway, now you're just giving me an excuse."

"You're gonna run out of money soon if you don't get a job," joked Leilani.

Alexa blew it off. "You know how my dad is. He'll send money when he starts feeling guilty. It's been a couple weeks so I'm expecting a check any day now."

"Don't you ever think you should go see him?"

"He doesn't want Anthony or me now that he has Alyssa and the twins," muttered Alexa darkly. "But whatever. Let's just go get some food, okay?"

They took the bus to a pizza place downtown and sat next to a small group of schoolgirls. "So," said Alexa after they placed their order, "What's up?"

Leilani shifted nervously. "I've been accepted into a Magical Studies program.

Alexa blinked and grinned. "That's great!"

"It's not at Penn State. And you have to live in a dorm, with a curfew. It's more like a boarding school than a college, but they want me. The headmistress seemed to, at least. I want to take it, but it means leaving."

"How far?"

"Just down the road. Literally. The old school. Still… Anthony's going away in a year, and…"

Alexa sighed. "He's only going away because you wanted to be with him and to be in that major. He could study at Penn State Harrisburg, he doesn't need to go to the main campus."

Leilani stopped. "It's really no issue, then?"

"Not at all. You worry too much, LeLe." The girl rolled her blue eyes. "I can't say I'm much of a romantic, but the mushy-gushy thing works out for you two. He'd follow you anywhere, you know."

A blush appeared on Leilani's face. "I know. But sometimes I forget."

Everything is going great, thought Leilani.

At least, it was until an old woman two tables away collapsed.

First it was a single elderly woman. Within a minute, it was half the restaurant, Avi included.

Saf and Roxy looked worriedly at their friend, face down in the pepperoni. "This shouldn't be happening," Roxy said, more calmly than she felt. "And it can only mean that the Apprentices are here."

"No," Saf said. "It could, but it could be any number of other things."

"Like?"

Saf bit her lip and shook her head. "Never mind me. All the other options are just as terrifying, maybe more so."

Roxy stood up. Around her, people were fleeing the restaurant. Others dialed for emergency services. She ignored them, unsure of how to help. "Apprentices!" she yelled. "If you're here, come out! We're waiting for you!"

Saf raced over to Avi and began to take her pulse. "She's still breathing and her heart rate is okay," she told Roxy. "I'd chance that it's the same with the others. Let's get them out of here, and let's get out of here too. There could be something in the air."

"I'm sure it's the pizza," Roxy said. "Avi was the only one who had taken a bite so far."

"I still think we should…"

The door that led into the kitchen exploded.

Roxy was about to change her mind and bail… she was sure that between herself and Saf, they could drag Avi out of there. When one of the Apprentices stepped out of the fire and smoke, though, she knew she had no choice but to stay and fight.

This was the apprentice with curves and sleek metal armor, the one who did not seem quite like a male or a female. Their skin was dark, both naturally and from the soot and ash in the air. Wild hair the color of chestnuts flopped over their eyes and pooled on their broad shoulders, and when they smiled, their teeth were sharp and predatory.

"Gunner?" Roxy guessed, and the Apprentice nodded. "Well, Gunner, you better not take another step, or we're going to make you regret it!"

"Really?" Gunner's voice was surprisingly high and melodic, the kind that could sing soprano in an opera. "It looks to me that you're at a disadvantage. No grown-ups around to save you this time… and yes, I heard your little chaperone beat up Trudric."

That wasn't the complete story… after all, it had been Saf that had come up with that plan… but nobody corrected them.

Gunner looked around the pizza place. "I knew my fairy tracker worked, whether or not my brothers doubted it. What I didn't expect was for it to lead me to not one, not two, but three fairies. Strong ones, too, from the signal. The kind of power I'd expect from four or five. It would be easier if all three of you had succumbed to my little sleeping potion, but I guess life can't be easy."

"Jeez, woman!" yelled a male bystander across the restaurant. "You're psycho!"

Gunner narrowed their eyes and walked over to the man. The heels on their boots clicked against the tile. "First of all," they said, "that is very ableist of you. Second of all…" They picked the man up by his shirt collar with one hand and let him dangle for a dramatic second. "I'm not a woman."

Their free hand whipped out and a bolt of power punched the guy in his gut and launched him through the main window of the parlor. Gunner watched for a moment, satisfied, before turning back to the fairies. "I'm agender. They. How hard is it to understand? Anyway. Where was I?" they asked.

"Uh," said Roxy. "You were… about to let us go?"

"Not likely."

"Roxy, if we're to fight, we need to get everyone out of the restaurant!" yelled Saf. Many innocent people were hiding behind tables or even simply standing in the way, their eyes on the battle. Others were still slumped in their chairs, asleep.

"Or we could go outside," Roxy suggested. "It might be easier than to organize everyone!"

"That's a rotten plan. There are more people outside downtown in this hour than inside."

Gunner laughed. They knew a victory when they saw one.

The tall girl with long, silky hair who was climbing up onto a table, though? Not so much.

"Everyone!" Leilani yelled. "Get your loved ones and get outside. The ambulances will be here soon, I know!" She looked to the villain who was laughing in the doorway. "This person has no quarrel with us. Right?"

Gunner shrugged. "Normal humans? No, I have no issue. Take yourselves and leave. The fairies are all I care about."

Leilani nodded and thought. "Get the kids and the sleepers out," she ordered. "If we all work together, we can help."

"Oh, how sweet, the nonmagicals working together like that," Gunner said, placing a hand over their heart. "Just know I won't pause this battle for you, so stay out of the way."

The fairies who had been yelling earlier looked at each other, and the one with long, pink hair frowned. "You know if we fight around these people, we could hit them!"

"Exactly," Gunner grinned, and shot two quick bolts of magic into them. The fairies flew back into the wall and lay crumpled on the ground.

It was too much for Leilani. Alexa was already outside, having carried the first woman to faint almost single handedly. There were no more bodies to lift, so she darted for the door, wanting nothing more to go back to her normal life. If this were what fairies had to look forward to, she didn't want to be one anymore. She would find a nice, normal major, find a nice, normal life. Something suitable for humans. Once she escaped from this place…

A hand caught her wrist and pulled her backwards. As she looked up, she found herself face to face with Gunner, almost embracing them. "Where are you going?" asked the wizard softly.

Leilani felt wetness on her cheeks and realized she was crying. "You said we could leave."

"Normal humans can leave." Oh god, here's where they tell me I'm a fairy. Right when I don't want to be one. Of course that's how it works, and now I'm going to get magically thrown against a wall. "Don't you realize you're no normal human? So clearheaded. So brave. You stood up among everything to protect something, though the lives of those people you saved are nearly useless." Gunner grabbed Leilani's other wrist with their remaining hand, keeping the woman firmly in place. "Do you know what makes a wizard?" they asked her.

She shook her head.

"Wizards are made from the power of knowing how to sacrifice. Not animals or people, not necessarily. The kind of sacrifices in choices. And you, you just sacrificed your own anonymity and freedom to save the lives of many. All it would take is one tiny ritual to lock that moment in time and unlock all your potential. That's all it will take." Gunner smiled serenely. "Fairies are all well and good, but wizards are even better for our purposes. Won't my brothers be pleased?"

Leilani struggled against her captor. "Let me go! I'm just normal, really, anyone would do what I did!"

"Yet no one else did." Gunner clicked their tongue. "So modest. So powerful. So…"

"Creepy. If you're talking about yourself," said the pink haired fairy as she stood. Right behind her, the dark-haired one rose on shaky legs. "Saf, let's transform and get this person."

As twin beams of light shone brightly, then faded to reveal the girls in sparkly outfits and wings, Gunner let Leilani's hands drop. Leilani took a couple shaky steps backwards and ran. She wanted to get out the door, but somehow, she found herself running for the only remaining sleeper in the restaurant, a dark-skinned girl with a curly ponytail and the same uniform that the two fairies had been wearing.

Those two wouldn't be able to hold their own for long; they'd need all the help they could get. Leilani shook the girl. "Wake up, wake up! Please, oh please, wake up!"

The girl stirred, then yawned and rose. Were the situation not so dire, Leilani might have laughed at the piece of pepperoni pizza stuck to her face. "What's goin' on?" the girl asked tiredly. She looked around, and before Leilani could even think to answer, another beam of light revealed another fairy.

Gunner didn't seem nervous. They seemed eager, even. "Three fairies and a nice human? What a haul! It'll be nice to shove this in Trudric's face."

"Will it, now?"

Then Gunner looked behind them to see three more fairies. One of them was the headmistress of the Royal Fairy Academy, Bloom. And she looked pissed.

Gunner cursed. Then, with a single clap of their hands, they vanished.

The six fairies stood around for a moment, seeming half convinced the wizard would return. When it became clear that they wouldn't, Bloom looked around. "Everyone okay?"

"Sore, but quite decent otherwise," Saf said, with Roxy groaning for emphasis.

Avi yawned. "Still sleepy. What happened? Who was she?"

"They," corrected Saf and Roxy in unison. Then Saf picked up. "Gunner. Like Trudric, another of the Apprentices. Unlike Trudric, not so easy to defeat."

"They're learning our tricks," said Lysis, frowning.

Standing across the restaurant, as far away as she could get, was a glasses-less Tora. Her hair was poofy and curled more than usual, and her pink, blue, and green shirt had long sleeves, despite also baring her midriff. A loose blue skirt and high heeled pink and green sandals somehow tied the odd look together… more than her personality-devoid wings, the standard model of the Earth Fairies. "Or else they're getting stronger," she suggested.

"They need something," said Roxy.

"They need magic," said Leilani, putting her head up. "They're trying to capture fairies, and not only that. I'm not a fairy, and they were trying to capture me. They wanted to make me a wizard, somehow."

"Leilani?" Bloom said. "Are you okay?"

Leilani nodded. "Yeah. In fact, I think I'm better. I think I need to fight."

"What can you do against them?" Avi asked sharply.

"I can learn," Leilani said. "I can study them and think about what is going on. I can strategize. I have a lot to offer." And though she would not admit it, something nagged at her. Magic could be part of that. Could she find the ritual that Gunner had mentioned? Could she use it for good?

Could Leilani Castro really have magic?

She turned to Bloom. "I'm ready to accept my position at the Royal Fairy Academy."

Bloom smiled. "That's what I hoped you would say."

The second day of class was, if anything, more eclectic than the first. With a college student added in, and one who didn't fit the normal class requirements, everything was even odder than before.

Leilani looked surprisingly good in her deep red cardigan, white polo, and black skirt. Her pink hair tie looked lovely in her dark hair, and she wore her emblem… a generic heart shape etched into the silver… as a pin. She also wore a pink armband that signified her position as the student president. "I wanted someone who was a leader, someone who was knowledgeable about fairies," Bloom said. "Leilani may not be a typical student, but I think between her bravery and her studying, she fits the bill."

Roxy and Avi had spent the night before trying to fit their magiphilosophy homework around the big battle, only to find out they had all been excused on account of extenuating circumstances. Avi, who true to her word had skipped the assignment, laughed.

It definitely was an odd day. As the week went on, however, the school settled into normalcy. Nobody expected for the PA system to crackle on during Monday morning English class.

"Will the Core Four report to the front of the school with their travel bags? There's a mission departure in sixty minutes. This is mandatory for all travel team members. Thank you," said the distorted voice of Bloom.

Roxy, Saf, and Avi jumped from their seats and raced to their dorm to grab their things. "This is sure to be interesting," Roxy said.

"Definitely," agreed Saf.

Avi grinned. "Let's go save some fairy and kick some Apprentice butt!"

Roxy checked her watch. Fifty-eight minutes until they were on the road.

She couldn't wait.

AN: Five chapters in eight days? Whoa. But anyway, I recently started a job where the description is literally "sit at a desk" so my reading and writing hobbies are having a party. That's about all I do now :p

Alexa belongs to Authoress-in-training. And I will do more with Alexa, so please don't worry.

Thanks for all the support y'all have been throwin at me as I breeze through these chapters! It means the world.