Previously on Calamitous Intervention
In the Owl House, King had discovered a magic pencil that Anne had tried, but Eda had confiscated and destroyed it before the human's drawing could come to life. Anne went with Willow to the Bonesborough fair to watch her try out Flyer Derby. There, she met Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus for the first time. During the match, Willow was doing well at first, able to take Viney out of the game, and fought Jerbo, but he had managed to snatch her flag, destroying her growing confidence. The jeering from the stands set Willow off, and her vines went berserk. Anne failed to stop her, but Principal Bump stepped in, scolding Willow. However, Anne defended her, also convincing him to let Willow in the Plant track. Impressed by her potential, Principal Bump offered the human a place at Hexside, which she reluctantly accepted.
Chapter Twenty - The First Day
It was now time for Anne to begin her presentation for the entry exam in Hexside. Both she and Eda were backstage, about to begin. Not long ago, Eda had taken her to the school to sign her up. She begrudgingly had to do many chores and revert the pranks she had pulled to get Anne accepted, so Eda was a bit worried that all her efforts would be in vain.
"You sure you got this, kiddo?" Eda asked. "That guy's hard to please sometimes."
"Nah, I got this," Anne assured her, pulling out her power glyph and applying it to herself. "Guess it's go time."
"Well, good luck!" Eda said, pushing her forward as Anne went up on stage, carrying something, confident she would blow the socks off the principal. As the curtains parted, the human stood there next to a large dresser that Eda had definitely not stolen for this presentation.
In the rows of chairs below, the only one watching and judging the performance was Principal Bump himself, who had a neutral expression on his face. He looked down at his clipboard before saying, "Right, the human who caused trouble back at that Flyer Derby game... Against my better judgment, I've allowed you to take this exam into Hexside. But other than your physical prowess, can you even do magic with all your... human parts?"
Anne immediately stopped in place, before muttering awkwardly, "Well, no, but I can learn. I'm using magic right now with this power glyph. Watch this."
She picked up the large dresser with relative ease and tossed it high in the air, which intrigued the principal. He watched as she hopped up as high as she could and did a spin kick midair, completely shattering the dresser.
"That's impressive, but nothing I haven't seen from you," Principal Bump said, his eyes wide with surprise. "Is it enough to pass the exam? I'm not sure about that."
Anne landed, not knowing what to do, and began sweating. Seeing this, Eda peeked out from behind the curtains, whispering for her to "Improvise!"
"I mean, I'm pretty good at tennis," the human replied, pulling out her racket, alongside her tennis ball. She tossed it up in the air, hitting it with such force that it whizzed by the principal's head, just narrowly missing him, much to his surprise. Anne's intent was to bounce it off the wall so she could do a cool trick but due to her using a power glyph, it instead immediately crashed through the wall, leaving a bright hole of light spilling into the dark inside. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
The human winced at this, realizing how much she had just messed up. "Err… Did I fail?"
Principal Bump glared at her for a moment before saying, "Well, not the most outstanding performance, but I've seen much worse."
He stood up, pulling out a pamphlet and offering it to her, clearly having gone through the motions hundreds of times before. "Welcome, Anne, to Hexside School of Magic and Demonics!"
Anne hopped down from the stage and took it. "Cool, when do I start?"
"You start at noon," he replied, walking toward the exit. "I expect you to be back tomorrow morning for the baby class."
"Alright, see y- WAIT, WHAT?!" Anne yelled, and her eyes widened. "What do you mean 'baby class'?!"
"You don't know a single spell," he explained. "You must participate in the baby class until you can at least learn two spells, then you'll be assigned to a track of your choice."
"B-But… Doesn't the power glyph count as a spell?" she muttered, feeling her whole world fall apart.
"No," he simply replied, leaving the auditorium. Anne stood there at a loss for words, regretting her decisions up until now.
As she had the rest of the day free, Anne walked out of the front doors of Hexside in shock and betrayal, not caring about where Eda was right now. She already wasn't too into attending school and learning about magic, but hearing about the baby class gave her a huge sense of dread. She already knew how chaotic and patience-testing toddlers were, but in a world as wild and unpredictable as this, she didn't even wanna imagine it.
An hour later, the human was groaning rather overdramatically in the slayground, where Eda dragged her in so Anne and King could hang around and let off some steam. While King was happily flexing his power near the slides and swings, Anne was sitting and complaining on a green bench to the side, next to an unemotive Eda. "I can't believe it! I showed off all I could… and he treats me like a BABY!"
Eda, who was sitting on the bench just a few feet away, wasn't too surprised by any of this as she sipped a small carton of apple blood. "Oh yeah. If you don't learn at least two spells, then you're stuck with little snotty toddlers and screaming baby demons."
"Screaming baby demons?" the human questioned as she saw all the hyperactive and messy toddlers playing on the slayground equipment. "Oh, God, please no. They're gonna kill me in three seconds!"
Eda slightly adjusted her feet, moving her legs a bit, but still wasn't willing to get up. "It's a punishment worse than losing your magic, if you know what I mean," she remarked as she flicked her index finger at Anne.
As the two were talking about Anne and her fears about Hexside, King was rather angrily trying to move his way up a slide, dragging his arms up the rails and making weirdly endearing grunts.
"Stand back, cretins!" King warned as he looked down and around to see some baby creatures looking up at him from the ground. He was more than halfway up the slide, confident he would reach the top. When he reached the top of the slide, he struggled briefly to reach his arms up and turn around so he would be on the top floor of the slide, but once he did, he felt euphoric. "Yes, yes!" he cheered.
"This is a throne worthy of a tyrant!" he bragged out loud, happy that he was now one step closer to conquering the world and being the most powerful being on the planet. The audience was there to excitedly witness history in the making… all two of them.
Two very young toddlers on the ground looked at King in confusion before saying, "Okay!" as they moved and stretched their bodies.
No matter who was praising him at the moment, King felt a huge rush of excitement and joy. "Yes, appease your master!" he encouraged them as he failed to notice a darker-skinned toddler wearing a hat and a very huge green bubble of snot pouring out their nose walking up to him—the perfect sum of all of Anne's fears.
"Best friend!" the toddler greeted, and Eda snarled under her breath.
"Oh, great. It's that little brat," she muttered. Anne also watched, worrying that this was what she was going to face in the baby class. Perhaps a playground wasn't the best place to be when she was trying to get her mind off of the baby class.
"You forget this is for sliding, not standing," the toddler said, before pushing King forward and down the slide. King yelped as he bumped around rather messily, hitting his head and horn before crashing to the ground. Seeing this gave the Owl Lady déjà vu.
Hearing nothing but negative things about the baby class made Anne feel even worse. "Where could I possibly learn two spells?!" she whined.
Eda remembered all the mental torture she endured when she had to babysit just a few days ago, and Anne's whiny behavior was starting to remind her of those not-so-pleasant times. Thrust into the role of a substitute parent yet again, she sighed quietly before offering some words.
"Hey, relax, kid," Eda tried to calm things down with her best attempt at a calm face. "You'll get there, eventually. Sometime, I gotta take you to the Titan's knee to help you connect with the island, since that is definitely what you need right now. Also, as much as I despise Hexside with every bit of my soul, I don't want you suffering with those demonic infernal babies."
Her mood instantly flipping like a switch, Anne suddenly popped up right next to the witch's face, surprising her with a sideways smirk. "Will I learn teleportation spells? What about time magic?" she mischievously asked with the same energy as a preteen wishing for holiday gifts.
Before Eda could answer, she heard King overdramatically crying out her name as she saw him rush desperately to the bench. By the tone of his voice, she quickly guessed it had something to do with his ego being challenged and not any serious danger, so she didn't react too much. Anne wasn't impressed either, still wanting to know the secrets and tricks of doing magic.
"That monster took my throne!" he cried as he pointed toward the slide where the snot-nosed toddler was currently.
"You mean the baby?" the witch quickly corrected him.
"No, the usurper! I want you to go over there, and blow him up!" he confidently shouted, fully hoping Eda would blindly obey him. To add a finishing touch, he gestured his arms outward to fully make his point clear. "Kaboom!"
"Kaboom!" the toddler shouted back as an awkward silence was felt back at the bench. Anne strangely would've sided with King on this one, finding the baby to be pretty annoying and just a sign of what was to come for her, but didn't say anything as she would've looked like a monster otherwise.
Eda clearly wasn't impressed, and wasn't going to consider King's request. She grabbed her staff and unscrewed Owlbert as she calmly but fiercely shot down any chance of King coming out on top. "Yeah, I'm not using Owlbert to blow up a five-year-old. I have some morality."
"Uhh, what about my magic?" the human interrupted, feeling things had gone completely off the rails. "I've only got until tomorrow, and I need to learn all the best spells!"
"Oh, right, don't get your hopes up too much," Eda replied. "Just the basic elements. And if you learned all that sophisticated shwamo right now, you'd be dead in just a few hours. It's all about knowing the essentials!" The Owl Lady knew the human was thinking way too ambitiously and wanted to keep her reined in.
"Fine! Don't help." King grumbled, making a realization. "Revenge will taste all the sweeter if they fall by my hand alone." He let out an evil laugh as the toddler approached him from behind, wanting to play with him again ever since the body swap event.
Without warning, he shoved King to the ground, catching him off guard. "Tag! You're it!" the toddler announced, and he ran off, giggling, while Anne cringed a bit as she instinctively leaned further away from the toddler.
"Oh, man, here we go," Eda said, grinning. "King's squeak of rage."
Anne had heard about how overdramatic his tantrums were, so she didn't wanna miss a beat and quickly grabbed her phone to record it. King slowly got up, enraged. "Nyeh… Nyeehh!"
He let out a very long, high-pitched squeak, throwing a brief temper tantrum. He paused and ran forward, squealing again, leaving both Anne and Eda laughing. The human didn't think King could make a noise like that. In any case, it helped lighten her mood a bit, and she nearly forgot all about her upcoming day at Hexside.
Whatever Anne said next, Eda's consciousness wasn't registering it as her face suddenly stopped showing any emotion and her eyes began looking ahead, all without any direction as her jaw naturally slumped down to open her mouth slightly. Without even having any control, she suddenly jerked back as everything went black.
Having full awareness now, she looked around to see absolute pitch black all around her. When she saw a soft gray floor that extended for seemingly forever, she immediately knew what was happening. There was nothing she could do—no way to know what chaos or trouble her body could be causing in the real world. All she could do was stand or run. Before she decided what to do, she was suddenly back next to the playground again. All of that was just a memory.
She was lying back on the bench, with Anne shaking her. "Eda? Eda!" she yelled, concerned at what was happening. "Snap out of it!"
The Owl Lady sat up and shuddered. "W-What?" She blinked, realizing what had just happened. "Oh, no…" she muttered. "The curse… Hey, we have to get home. Now!"
She reached down and picked up her staff, walking off with a serious expression. Seeing this, Anne knew they had little time. "Hey, King! Come on, let's bounce!"
"Five more minutes, please!" King replied, ready to fight the snot-nosed toddler, but when Anne called his name again, he realized he had no choice. "Aw, man… This isn't over!" he declared, pointing at the kid threateningly.
"Okay, let's play again real soon!" the toddler said, and he approached King, unnerving him.
"No, no. Keep those sticky hands away!" King demanded, backing away. As the kid hugged him, he began to overdramatically panic. "Oh, no! He's touching me!" he yelled and screamed.
Back home, Eda immediately fell forward on the couch, face first, and groaned, feeling tired. Anne approached her from behind, frowning. "You sure you're okay?" she asked. "You literally just blacked out back there."
"I'm fine," the Owl Lady lazily replied. "I'll get my elixir in a bit."
"Well, I would wanna watch over you, but I kinda have to get ready for school tomorrow." the human said. "I'm sure Hooty and King could look after you just fine."
"Caring only about yourself, huh?" Eda pointed out Anne's priorities as she hastily walked upstairs to her bedroom to really let the pressure and responsibilities sink in. "Hopefully I'll be fine, as long as King's here."
Later that night, as Anne was in her sleeping bag, and King settled on a small mattress pad nearby, she looked visibly nervous about the baby class. Anne didn't know how it was going to go or how much it could even help someone her age. "What the heck am I supposed to do?! I hate babies, and I'll never learn anything useful!" she wondered out loud.
King opened his eyes a bit, feeling tired. "Still angry about going to some… baby class, or whatever?"
"Of course I am!" Anne replied. "Seriously, why can't Principal Bump just cut me a bit of slack?"
"I mean, to be fair, you did break into the school," King reminded her.
The human rolled her eyes at this. "Oh, come on. That was like forever ago!"
"It's been like... a little over a month, or something," King tiredly said. "I've seen Eda go through a lot worse in the past eight years. You'll be fine."
Anne cracked a slight smile when he assured her. "Thanks, King. Good night."
He didn't reply. When she looked over at him, she saw that he was already asleep. The next morning, the human was sleeping very soundly in her bed when Eda suddenly zoomed into the room and yelled, "Wake up, sleepyhead!"
Her shouting completely startled Anne, making her yelp and scoot back away from Eda as quickly as she could. Having her sleep rudely interrupted already was no fun, much less when it was a sign of what the day would await. "Seriously, Eda?!"
"Time to face your screaming baby demon fears!" Eda teased. Anne could only shoot her a glare of death, feeling worse now that she realized it would be her first day in the baby class. She was seriously starting to wish she hadn't taken the offer from Principal Bump, but it was too late now.
Begrudgingly, she began getting ready. Even if she had to sit in a class all day with a bunch of demon children that would test every bit of her patience, at least she still had the chance to see her friends, so it couldn't be all that bad. She'd just have to learn those two spells as fast as possible, and then she could actually somewhat enjoy school.
Since she was woken up early, she had some time before she had to leave for Hexside. Anne wanted to at least have a good start to her day, so she insisted that she cook breakfast today. She meant no offense to Eda, but most of the food she cooked was basically inedible to her, except for griffin eggs.
For breakfast, she decided to make Khek Ma-Muang—a Thai mango cake. It was one of her favorite breakfast/desserts back home. Of course, the Boiling Isles were weird and insane all around, and food was no exception. She had to improvise baking it with whatever they had here, and needless to say, there was a LOT of improvising required.
Surprisingly, it didn't taste that bad. Eda and King absolutely loved it, and Anne could tell why. This was probably the best-tasting thing they've had in, well, ever. After that nice meal, reality snapped in as Anne now had to go to school - the dread of the baby class zooming closer and closer.
"I know how to take care of myself, as long as nobody breaks my elixirs," Eda assured her, facing her. "I've had this curse longer than you've been alive."
"Well, alright," Anne replied, but she still wasn't sure. If anything went wrong, well, a ruined house would be the least of anyone's worries. And she wouldn't be here to protect King and Hooty if it happened this time.
As she got ready and put on her blank Hexside uniform, reality snapped in as Anne now had to go to school—the dread of the baby class getting worse and worse. Whenever something big and unfamiliar was coming up, she would always have a huge, dreadful feeling about it—even if there wasn't much to be afraid of.
She headed toward the front door with her backpack, stopping to say bye to King before she left, who was scribbling on pieces of paper to vent his frustrations and plan his revenge on the toddler/usurper.
Anne patted him on the head and scratched him under the chin. "See you later, King! Try not to plot your revenge while I'm gone."
"Never!" he replied. "That drooly-faced heathen will know my wrath!"
"See ya later, kiddo," Eda said. "Remember, if you ever wanna be sneaky or a prankster, listen to your heart and let it all out."
"Yep, you got it," Anne said, smiling. Eda could tell they both had a heart for causing mayhem and not conforming to the rules, even if right now was not exactly a good time for saying that.
As the human left and headed across the trail to Hexside, she imagined what actually being a student there would be like. Whatever she did, she would definitely have to avoid going to the Detention Pit at all costs. She did not want to get brainwashed by some magic school.
When Anne approached the entrance to Hexside, she saw a banner hung above, welcoming everybody to "the new semester". It was the third time she had approached the school, yet she still couldn't convince herself it wasn't some sort of castle from one of Marcy's fantasies. She saw many young witches in different-colored attire walking around. She even saw one student securing a freaking unicorn to a bicycle rack like it was nobody's business.
Intrigued yet mildly unsettled by the unreal sights around her, she walked up through the large entry doors, and saw a large horizontal red stripe on the floor, symbolically marking the bustling and huge nature of the school.
And that wasn't all. She also noticed a large, magic, yellow whiteboard resting on an easel, warning students to be on their best behavior. Apparently, the inspector was coming today, and something about it gave her an uneasy feeling. She didn't know who this "inspector" was, but she shrugged it off after a few seconds.
She glanced at the entrance before sighing, knowing her spirit wasn't fully into studying or going to school, but there wasn't much else she could do right now. She raised her right foot, passing the stripe, before walking ahead and into Hexside.
As the human looked around the front entrance, she saw a sign up above on the ceiling reading 'New students, enter here!' and an arrow that pointed to large open doors leading into a gym, with a decent line already trailing out of it.
Right before she made her next move to go to the line, she suddenly saw a familiar green-haired figure approach her, who was carrying a stack of books in her arms. "Oh, hey, Anne." Amity was surprised to see her at Hexside, and this meant a lot of implications down the line.
"Wait, what are you doing here?" Amity asks, before looking at Anne's uniform and going slack-jawed. "You're…"
Anne nodded quickly, not wanting to keep this conversation for long. "Yep, Principal Bump has enrolled me into Hexside. Crazy, right? Anyway, I gotta go—"
"I thought you didn't know any spells," Amity interrupted, her mind filled with questions. "What track are you gonna join? Wait, are you gonna end up in the baby class?"
The witch bombarded her with questions, making Anne starting to feel slightly pressured and wanting to quickly back out, for fear of making this morning more tense. She quickly rushed away from the young witch, not responding before getting into the line, the business around it hopefully making Anne tough to find.
She formed in the line with an ever-increasing sense of doom approaching her, and a few minutes later, she was right in front of a small table, hosted by a disinterested middle-aged green-haired witch.
"Last name," the male witch flatly declared, in a low growl devoid of any enthusiasm or emotion. Right away, things were not off to a great start.
"Anne Boonchuy," Anne affirmed while spelling it out to make it clearer. 'B, O, O, N-'
"You haven't learned two spells, so in the baby class, you go," he interrupted as he handed a pink folder to the human. "Room Æ21 on the main hallway, three turns to the right."
Just like that, Anne's mood for the day was already shot down by his rudeness, but she wasn't too surprised.
As she clutched the folder and looked at it, it suddenly glowed yellow, blinding her for a second before disappearing to reveal her name and face magically imprinted on the front cover. Near the bottom, the text 'BABY CLASS' was in bright, large gold lettering. Naturally, the human was not amused.
With nothing stopping her at this point and no way to back out now, she sighed, as she had no idea what would await her in the baby class. But at least she'd get to learn magic, right? Right?
She headed down the large hall and approached the classroom's door. She could see many pint-sized demons and strange babies sitting in a circle on a large circular carpet through the windows. While she found them slightly adorable at first, she still had a dreadful feeling about what was to happen. Back on Earth, she never really liked having to deal with toddlers at restaurants or stores, so having to deal with them here (And who knows what powers they might have?) was a nightmare waiting to happen.
She remembered one incident in particular when she had to deal with a very annoying toddler at her parents' restaurant around a year ago. She was around two years old and had a tablet with her that played kids videos at max volume, the only thing entertaining her while her parents mostly ignored her. Anne's parents forced her to look after the family, and while she did her best to accommodate and be respectful towards them, her patience was tested when the baby blew green snot out of her nose and splattered all over the table and plates.
Cleaning up the mess and feeling glad she didn't grow up babied around by some cheap CGI baby content, like watching Cocamango, this incident had made her deeply fear and resent them since then.
When she entered the classroom through the open door, she instantly caught a whiff of a very horrid, unearthly smell that already told her that if she entered, she would not have a good time.
"Yeah, screw this," she muttered, leaving before the teacher could notice her. There was no way she was going to be a part of this. She was going to march right up to Principal Bump's office and demand he reconsider.
As she hurried through the halls, she heard the screams of the children fade as she got further away. Never before had she been so relieved to be alone.
As she wandered through the halls to the principal's office, thinking about how to escape the situation since she was NOT about to go to the baby class, she noticed something in the corner of her eye. There was an open closet filled with crystal balls. As she slowly approached them, an idea formed in her head. Maybe she could use some witchcraft to figure out how to escape the baby class for good without being expelled.
She could almost hear Eda's voice in her head, encouraging her to do it. A mischievous grin appeared on Anne's face as she reached over and grabbed one of the crystal balls, closely examining it. Out of nowhere, a strange, bandaged spirit flew out of the crystal ball, alarming Anne. It pointed at her, before declaring in an echoey voice, "You will be in trouble very soon…"
"Uh, what?" Anne replied before hearing a throat clear behind her. She turned and saw none other than Principal Bump, as if her luck couldn't get any worse.
Back at the Owl House, King had been planning all about how to get revenge and finally cement his legacy. Eda previously told him she'd be fine and headed up to her bedroom to take a long, good rest. He didn't know how the witch was doing right now, but was nonetheless excited to share his plan.
"Eda, great news!" King said as he headed up the stairs and opened the doors to her bedroom, carrying a stack of papers. "I thought of the perfect way to get revenge on that usurper."
He turned the stack around to reveal the word "FIRE?" crudely written in large, red paint on the top page. Knowing something like this would get a weird glance, he clarified his plan. "Now, don't be put off by the complicated premise. I'll break it down for you in small pieces," he confidently said as he looked up from his papers and glanced toward the bedroom, but not before being startled by a very unusual sight. "Huh?"
He saw Eda in her Owl Beast form laying in her nest, but something looked off. Her left eye was pitch black, like they usually were in this state, but her right eye appeared normal with her gold iris shining through. She was also in a more relaxed sitting position, not the feral crouch she usually had in this state.
Before King could register things, she began growling instinctively and got up from her nest, snarling and slowly walking menacingly toward the surprised demon, who yelped in fear and landed on his back, covering his head with his arms. "Owl Beast! Stay back!"
The shadow from the giant Owl Beast covered him completely as he feared for his life and shut his eyes hard. If this was the end, he would forever feel guilty for not helping Eda while Anne was alone.
He felt a loud stomp as the floor shook loudly and braced himself further. But to his confusion, he then heard a weird growling-like noise and cracked open his eyes to see Eda standing away from him now.
"Did you just… listen to me?" he wondered as he looked confused and slightly got himself up, staring at the Owl Beast, who was silently sitting in a feral stance, a very good distance away from him.
As he stood up, curious to see what would happen even if there was a pretty big risk, he gestured at her. "Umm, come here. Sit," he invited, as the beast began walking closer to him and stopped right in front of him, obeying his command.
When he examined Eda's face and her half-normal, half-beast eyes, his lust for power and finding minions kicked in, as he remarked out loud. "Oh, this is an interesting development."
"Eda's only partially transformed, which means she's totally suggestible." He smirked as his eyes started to squint in a scheming fashion. "Yes, yes! I think this will do nicely!" he gloated as he assumed a dominating and conquering stance, realizing he could turn this strange twist of events into the key to ultimate victory.
"Forget fire; I've got a greater force to unleash!" He told the owl beast, as he knew if things went his way, he could live like a true king for possibly centuries to come.
"You!" he pointed up at the beast, who was silently sitting right in front of him, towering over him. Nothing was stopping her from turning against him at any moment. "You're going to help me regain my throne!" he yelled in a very dramatic but excited tone.
"I'm just gonna grab a little bottle of elixir in case you go rogue on me," he said out loud as he ran toward a purple messenger bag leaning on a small round table with an elixir on top. He snatched the elixir and dragged the bag by its handle as he ran back to Eda, not noticing several empty elixir bottles sliding out of the bag.
Now that he had stashed the elixir safely and comfortably carried it on his shoulder, absolutely nothing and no one could stop him from enacting his devilish plans! "Now to destiny's battlefield—the playground!" he proudly yelled as he angrily raised his fist up in the air, standing next to his newly gained minion (for now).
Back in the closet full of crystal balls, Anne realized she was in pretty big trouble—just like the crystal ball said.
"Typical…" she muttered, as Principal Bump forced her to put the crystal ball back and grabbed her hand, leading her further away from her class.
"I expected better from you, human," he scolded. "You know you aren't supposed to be studying magic tracks until you pass the baby class!"
"But the baby class is sooo boring!" Anne protested, but he ignored her, taking her to a door with a barred opening. After opening it, he shoved her through it with one hand, which irritated her. "Hey! What gives?"
"You will be spending your time in here from now on," he said. "This is the Detention Track—the place where all troublemakers go." He drew a spell circle, changing the color of her attire from white to gray.
"Wait, didn't you say there was a Detention Pit?" she asked, and he narrowed his eyes.
"Yes. Actual detention still needs... repairs," he elaborated. "It was destroyed by two troublemakers, whose names I will not mention." He didn't want to elaborate, as it would only bring back some bad memories. "You may try for the baby class next year, or, if you take the time to learn new spells, then you could try a new track."
Hearing that, the human knew she had to ask Gus about that later, but now was not the time to think about that.
"Next YEAR?! I'm not even gonna be here by then!" Anne replied angrily.
"Maybe you'll do better in human school," he said, walking away as the door shut in her face. Already feeling done with today, and wanting never to set foot in this school again, she turned around and saw three familiar faces that immediately lifted her spirits.
Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus were sitting next to each other, apparently also in the Detention track. When Viney noticed her, she nudged Barcus's shoulder to get his attention too.
"Guys, look," she whispered, and all three of them saw Anne and grinned, waving at her. For a moment, the human forgot all about her troubles and went over to them to say hello.
"Viney? What are you three doing here!?" the human asked in surprise and delight.
"I didn't expect to see you here," Viney said, and Barcus followed her statement with a bark. Anne sat down, happy to see them.
"I haven't seen you guys since the Flyer Derby game," the human said. "How have you been, Viney?"
"I've been pretty good," Viney replied, leaning back on her chair. "Well, when I'm not sitting here, that is. How did you get detention?"
Anne groaned and leaned her head on the desk in response. "I had to deal with literal demon babies, and when I backed out, they shoved me here!"
"Ouch, that's rough," the young witch replied, before the teacher in the front immediately put an end to their discussion. "Hey!"
Anne looked up to see the detention teacher, who was sitting there while using his scroll.
"You all better be quiet! Unless you want to scrub the classroom again," the teacher growled, and Anne rolled her eyes. "Mr. Buzzkill over here is drunk on power, I see."
The teacher paused before looking up from his scroll and glaring at her. "What did you just say to me?"
"Dude, you literally get paid to do nothing but gripe at kids because it's the only power you have," Anne remarked, and the other three just looked at her, amazed at her audacity.
"Oh, is that so?" he replied, getting up. "I don't like your attitude!"
Anne felt her anger boiling over, and it took everything she had not to snap. She was ready to leave this school, so she got up. She had nothing to lose here anyway other than her brain cells listening to this jerk. Before she could leave, however, Viney grabbed her by the sleeve.
"Don't listen to him," she whispered. "It's not worth getting into trouble over."
"It's too late," he growled, drawing a spell circle in the air and causing the mop and bucket to hover over and shove into Anne's arms. The teacher rubbed his temples, muttering, "I don't get paid enough for this… Just mop the entire classroom or whatever! I don't care!"
He stormed back to the front, giving Anne a dirty look while she was taking deep breaths to calm herself down. She knew she was getting way too worked up over this, but she wasn't about to let a detention teacher trash-talk her.
Not wanting to make this day even worse, she decided to do what he asked. Ten minutes later, as she was scrubbing the windows with a bored expression, the teacher was using his scroll, still looking a little irritated at Anne.
Out of nowhere, as she was staring into space, her baby class teacher suddenly walked in front of the window, surprising her. Following her were the toddlers she didn't want to see again, but thankfully, they seemed calm.
She ducked so none of them could see her, as she heard the teacher saying, "Alright, kids. Who wants to go on a field trip to the astral planes?"
"Yay!" said one very deep voice that sounded kind of familiar to the human.
"I do!" replied another. Anne couldn't believe her ears. Just now, they were actually doing something fun? It almost made her regret leaving the baby class, but she still preferred this, as she really hated being surrounded by babies and figured it wasn't worth the trade-off.
As she went back to scrubbing, she heard the teacher get up and leave the room, presumably to use the bathroom. She didn't think much about it until she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Viney smiling at her. "Hey, Anne. While the teacher's gone, I've got something cool to show you."
Immediately, Anne dropped the rag she was holding, happy to no longer do tedious work. "Say no more. I'm in."
With that, Viney led her to the front of the classroom, in front of the chalkboard. She picked up a piece of chalk and drew a square with a keyhole in the middle, then tapped it. The human watched with an intrigued expression as an opening in the wall slid open to reveal a small, dark corridor with a wooden door at the end.
"Well, I've seen enough horror movies to know where this could be going," Anne muttered. "But wait, won't that jerk wonder where we went?"
"He will, but I don't think he cares enough," Viney replied. "Last time, absolutely nothing happened. I think he just wants peace and quiet."
"Well, works for me," the human said, climbing through the opening. "So… What is this place?"
"You're one of us troublemakers now, so you'll get special access to…" Viney began, opening the door to reveal a tall room with a spiraling ramp, with every inch, even the ceiling, covered in windows and doors. "... the Secret Room of Shortcuts," she finished.
"This looks like one of those abstract old paintings," Anne said, looking around in awe. The place was almost like a labyrinth, in a way. "This is kinda sick, I won't lie."
Jerbo and Barcus were also waiting for her, happy to see her in the hideout as well. Anne walked around and approached one of the many wooden doors. "Why are there so many doors, anyway?" she asked. "I feel like a monster's gonna pop out of these."
Anne cautiously opened the door and peeked through to see she was somehow back in the hallways, next to the lockers. She spotted Amity pacing back and forth, rambling to herself.
"So, you go to the same school now," she muttered nervously. "That doesn't change anything, but… Why is she avoiding me?"
The human was about to greet Amity, but decided it would just make things awkward. She slowly closed the door, and the young witch didn't even notice anything was off. Anne turned toward Viney, shocked. "Dude, no way all these doors go around the school, right?"
"Oh, but it does," Viney replied. "We found it after being thrown into the detention track. The witch who made it is known as…"
She gestured to what seemed to be a framed picture that was now completely painted over and defaced. "... Lord Calamity."
"They started this troublemaker wall, and we added our names in their honor," Jerbo added.
"Oh man, the pranking potential here is insane," Anne said, rubbing her hands together and grinning. "My friend Sasha would love this place. How old is this hideout, anyway?"
"I'm pretty sure it goes back many decades," Viney explained. "Pranking's one thing, but we can do so much more." She pointed up to where Barcus was sitting next to another door, listening in on one of the classes.
Curiously, she went up to see what the deal was. Upon peeking in, she saw rows upon rows of chalkboards with super advanced mumbo jumbo drawn on them. She felt herself getting a headache just trying to process what she was seeing.
The teacher, an anthropomorphic goatlike demon, was folding a piece of purple paper while explaining the lesson. "Remember, seeing the end of a life is the beginning of reading a fortune," she explained. "We have to work backwards from it to see the truth."
Barcus replicated the paper folding, understanding what the teacher was saying. Anne was completely lost, though, and knew that if there was any class she never wanted to attend, it was that one.
As Anne jumped down the ramp, Viney continued, "We aren't allowed to study any kind of magic, so we study every kind of magic. In secret."
"Wait, if you guys like learning, then how the heck did you end up here in the first place?" Anne asked, confused.
"We might've liked it too much," Viney muttered, having a mixed expression on her face.
"I tried mixing plant magic with abominations," Jerbo elaborated. "Bump was not thrilled. Barcus mixed potions with oracle magic and traumatized the potions teacher."
"As for me, mixing healing and beast keeping was slightly unconventional," Viney said. "I had my assistant Puddles burst through the wall and cough up some lollipops for the student I healed. But she was a great assistant, dang it! We all want to be in more than one coven track! But Bump just says we need to focus."
"So, you're saying he put you in here for a single mistake?" Anne replied, crossing her arms. "Seriously, what the heck is wrong with the education system in every world?"
"What's school like in your world?" Viney asked, and Anne sat down, sighing.
"Well, it's not so different from this place as you may think," the human explained. "The lockers aren't alive, there is no detention pit, and it is a lot more boring, but the teachers are all the same. They treat it like a prison."
"I'm sure they're doing their best," Viney said, trying to reassure her. "I mean, heck, other than the detention teacher, the rest of the teachers here are pretty cool, for the most part."
"I've also had two other friends with me," Anne continued. "We used to love causing mayhem and pulling pranks back at our school, like the time we let a bunch of dogs loose and blasted my favorite K-Pop song on the intercom. But then we found some sort of music box, and now we're separated. No idea where they are."
The young witch was silent for a moment, before saying, "Well, Barcus is a prodigy with oracle magic," she said. "Maybe when he learns to, he could help you figure out where your friends are. Part of using oracle magic is fortune-telling, after all."
Anne's expression lit up when she heard this. "Thanks, Viney, Barcus."
Barcus barked while Viney smiled and pulled out a marker. "Well, since you're here, would you like to add your name to the troublemaker wall?"
"Heck, yeah!" Anne said, taking the marker and walking up to the portrait. As she was about to write her name, she heard a familiar voice calling her name through the wall from the detention class.
She paused and listened closely, realizing it sounded just like… "Gus?"
Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus turned to the source of the voice, briefly confused, but Viney realized who it was. "Oh, it's Gus! What's he doing there?"
"Wait, you guys know him?" Anne asked.
"Of course," Viney said. "You did ask me to help Willow, and I did when I got the chance. We even befriended Gus, and he once rescued us from the Detention Pit."
"Have you shown them the hideout yet?" the human replied.
"Well, Gus knows about this place," the young witch said. "Willow's been busy these days with the plant track and Flyer Derby."
Right as she said that, the opening in the wall slid open, and Gus himself peeked in. "Hey, guys, have you seen-..." His eyes widened as he climbed in and ran over. "Anne! You're here?"
"Yep!" Anne replied, writing her name in big, bold letters next to the others. "Been hanging out here for a bit. What's up?"
"Well, I was gonna help get you out of the detention track, but I didn't think Viney would show you the hideout yet," Gus replied.
"Wait, aren't you supposed to be in class?" Anne asked, frowning.
"No need to worry about that," Gus said, drawing a spell circle in midair and creating an exact replica of himself with illusion magic. "I left a double like this in class. Hope he's still taking notes."
An awkward silence followed before Anne decided to give in to her intrusive thoughts. "Who wants to pull some pranks?"
Seeing as they were doing nothing else right now, nobody objected to this idea.
Over at the slayground, lots of toddlers were riding on slides, or playing near the sandpit. One young witch had just finished building a sand castle, and as they looked down, proud of their work, loud footsteps suddenly shook the ground, instantly destroying it
The toddlers were suddenly filled with terror, they heard a familiar voice clear their throat. Surprised by this, they turned around to see King riding on the back of a partially transformed Eda, who was perched on top of a small hut topped by a slanted roof. King was all decked out in regal ruler looks, using a makeshift cardboard box as armor for his chest and carrying a red flag with his head on it. With looks like these, he would be a scary name to fear!
"Listen carefully!" he began as he angrily pointed down towards the shocked toddler audience, who were all under his rule (for now). "You all have two choices. Grovel before me, or-" he continued before Eda suddenly looked up and loudly screamed in an unsettling tone that didn't sound at all like her normal beast form.
With their playtime suddenly ruined by a seemingly out-of-control monster, the toddlers quickly ran away screaming. Within all the commotion, Braxas could be heard screaming, "A monster!" in his typical hilariously deep voice.
"Good enough!" King found it pretty tricky to control Eda, but he still did the best he could as the beast jumped off the roof and onto the ground and began running around and terrorizing the young witches as they feared for their lives.
Seeing everyone fear his presence was the ultimate joy for King as he piloted the beast toward the slide, stopping right in front of the annoying, snot-nosed toddler that had earlier ruined his shot at royalty.
As the toddler stood there, whimpering quietly in absolute fear, it was extremely satisfying for King to finally do some excellent payback. "Your time has ended. Mine begins!" King yelled at them in absolute rage and power from the comfort of Eda's back, raising his flag as he did so.
The toddler, reacting as anyone their age would, began crying as they slid down the slide and ran away as King kept boasting proudly. "Not so tough now, you spongy hatchlings," he remarked as he watched the disgusting nuisance run away from him and vanish from his eyesight. "I will eat you!" he finished while Eda watched the toddler leave with a blank stare on her face.
His quest for glory and power completed, King got off Eda's back and headed toward the bottom of the slide. "All who stood in my way are gone!" he smugly noted as he began walking up the slide.
He didn't realize this wasn't the right way to head up a slide as he struggled near the top, wiggling his feet before finally reaching the top of the structure. "I declare myself despotic ruler of this land!" he finished as he proudly raised his flag in the air.
"Nothing can stop the almighty-" he announced before a loud crunch interrupted him, startling him and making him wonder what the heck was going on.
He looked down to see that Eda had gotten right next to the slide and taken a bite out of it, leaving a large hole as she blissfully crunched on the rather unhygienic food.
King was naturally not amused. "Hey, whoa, whoa, no eating the throne!" he angrily reminded her as she glanced up, looking rather unhappy, her mouth open with drool pouring out. As she began looking back at the slide, King realized he may need to be more blunt this time.
"Nooooooo." He warned Eda with a sharp glare. She looked at the slide again, her mind freezing for a moment, before ignoring him and taking another large bite out of the slide. King got impatient as he whined and stomped in rage. "Stop that!"
Outside Hexside, a spiral of blue magic appeared, terrifying the nearby students. From it emerged a black-haired female witch, sporting a blank stare. She wore a plain, gray uniform, with her hair tied up in a ponytail. In her arms, she held a clipboard and a feathered pen.
As she walked up the steps and approached the entrance, Principal Bump was waiting for her arrival. "Welcome to Hexside, inspector," he greeted.
"Greetings, Principal Bump," the inspector replied, bowing to him. "If everything's in order, the Emperor's Coven will be happy to cover your repairs."
"Excellent. Please come this way," he said, gesturing inside and leading her in. "We've prepared a show with some of our finest students."
Ten minutes later, in the auditorium, Principal Bump and the inspector sat below while an abomination stepped forward and growled, holding Amity in the air like a figure skater. After they did a pose, the abomination set Amity back down.
"And that concludes the presentation from the Abomination track," Amity concluded, as both she and the abomination bowed to the crowd. Principal Bump clapped while the inspector kept that blank smile on her face.
"That was some real Hexside magic, huh?" the principal said, nudging her with his elbow.
"Yes, this is... good," she replied, suddenly sporting an evil grin. "But let's see if your student can put up more of a fight!" She got up and walked forward.
"Yes, yes," Principal Bump agreed, before he realized what she said and was confused. "Wait, what?"
The inspector approached the stage and slammed her hands down on it before her head morphed and her neck became elongated, revealing she wasn't a witch but a greater basilisk. As it licked its lips, the principal watched from the seats with a bewildered expression. "Is, uh… this part of the inspection?" he asked.
The transformation surprised Amity, but she retaliated, ordering her abomination to fight the imposter. It ran forward and yelled, grabbing the inspector's head, but it quickly morphed into its full basilisk form, now towering over all of them. It knocked the abomination up and roared, opening its mouth as it swallowed it whole like it was nothing.
"The magic at Glandus High was tasty," the basilisk said, approaching Amity. "But I hope yours will be more filling."
The young witch backed away in fear as Principal Bump ran in front of the basilisk to protect his student. "Amity, stay back!" he ordered. "She's an imposter!" He drew a spell circle, but the basilisk inhaled, forcefully starting to take his magic.
Before he could complete his spell, it was already too late. The basilisk absorbed some of his magic, leaving his skin pale. He was now weakened. Amity knew she couldn't win, but she tried to fight back as well, only for the same thing to happen to her.
The basilisk roared and picked up the principal with its clawed hand, eating the rest of his magic. He groaned, completely helpless against the intruder. "Only three hundred years until retirement," he muttered, shaking his head.
Back at the slayground, Eda was eating more playground equipment, including a slide, all in pure bliss as she didn't pay attention to an angry King right beside her.
"No, no. Bad Eda! You are my beast, and I control you!" he protested as he raised his fist in anger from a structure not far from the ground, perfectly at eye level with the Eda beast. Realizing she was either ignoring or simply not understanding him, he threw a punch at the beast's body out of pure rage and desperation.
This finally made her stop, and she froze for a moment before turning toward King, angrily growling while slowly approaching a quickly terrified ruler, who realized it wasn't the best idea to tick off a large beast, no matter how senile they may be.
King yelped, quickly and instinctively beginning to scoot backward as the snarling beast began approaching him. "What was I thinking?" he wondered out loud to himself. "I'm such a fool! I'm such a…" As he kept scooting back, he suddenly felt something soft. He glanced behind him and noticed the bag with the elixir he had brought earlier.
He grabbed the potion, with the Owl Beast ready to pounce. "... genius!" he finished triumphantly, as she got up right behind him and snarled aggressively.
As King turned around, Eda snarled, leaving her mouth open. He took this chance to toss the entire bottle in her mouth, which she swallowed, confused, then anticlimactically spit out the bottle cap, bouncing onto King's head.
The tiny demon felt some relief seeing this, figuring the situation was already solved. "Great. Now, change back to Eda," he nervously said as he waved his arm at her.
The beast simply growled, looking rather nervous, and he started to get worried. "Anytime now. Just magically transform," King pleaded, backing away, hoping this was a sign of her beastliness disappearing.
Eda snarled again, raising her clawed hand to strike him, and King realized he was screwed. "Aw, nuts," he said, squeezing his head and limbs out of his makeshift box armor just in time as a distraction, right before the Owl Beast's claw came down and instantly imploded it.
He ran forward and found a tied grid of rope leading down from the structure onto the ground. Using his small body, he began climbing down, but not before getting his right leg caught up in one of the ropes and knocking him forward, dangling upside down helplessly as he was now face to face with the creature.
The Owl Beast angrily observed a helpless King until a bird squawking noise suddenly surprised them both. The noise turned out to be from a strange unbird-like creature strapped onto a van labeled 'ANIMAL CONTROL', carried by a few demon hunters.
King quickly realized the consequences of his actions as he saw the demon hunters enter the playground. He was still tied up within the ropes, watched by a surprised-looking Eda.
"Matches the description the parents called in," a skull-like hooded demon hunter said as King's pupils shrank, realizing he was pretty much totally screwed. "Bag it," he ordered as the Owl Beast began walking toward them. King was able to do nothing but cry out as he helplessly wiggled his body in vain to get out of the ropes.
The Owl Beast quietly snarled as she slowly crawled toward a wide-open spot on the ground, unknowingly being led into a trap by the hunters, who were all surrounding her at this point.
The demon hunters formed small, green spell circles with their hands and touched them on the ground, which formed a huge green grid dome that formed above the beast and quickly shrank to perfectly trap her like a tight net.
As one of the hunters got close to the loudly screeching creature, he formed another spell circle to shock her violently. King, still helplessly watching from the ropes, could only shut his eyes and cower in fear and regret.
King opened his eyes to see the hunters had now lifted an unconscious Eda off the ground, and were guiding her as she floated toward the back of the van, its doors automatically shutting once she was fully in the vehicle. "Eda!" he cried out.
Determined to do something and with the urge to save her guardian stronger than ever, he moved his body around to try to free himself from his tangled predicament, instinctively grunting and yelping as he did. He eventually managed to free himself as the ropes all slid out loosely! Well, mostly. His right foot was still tied up, which sent him dangling upside down, now more helpless than ever. "Awesome, fantastic," he grumbled.
Minutes later, as Anne and the others were going through the various doors in the hideouts, looking for students to mess with, Anne couldn't help but notice something was off. The others didn't seem to notice this, but things were uncannily quiet all over the school.
At least, they didn't notice until they found out that some of the classrooms were completely desolate, as if everybody had suddenly disappeared. The reason for it soon became clear, though, as when Anne peaked into the halls, she saw the oracle teacher from earlier running from a large, serpent-like creature.
"Guys, look!" she whispered, which caught the attention of the other four. They all watched in shock as the oracle teacher spun around and drew a spell circle, launching a light beam at the basilisk. Despite her efforts, the basilisk sucked up the spell like it was nothing. It seemed to be completely immune to magic. As it licked its lips, Anne, Viney, Barcus, Jerbo, and Gus all gasped, realizing how dire the situation was.
"Don't let it see us!" Viney said, closing the door. "I think that's a greater basilisk. I heard about them in a class. My cousin at St. Epiderm said she saw one, but… those things should be extinct."
"Well, we can't just sit here and let it do what it wants!" Anne told her. "What's the plan?"
"But if Bump catches us mixing magic again…" Jerbo protested.
"He'd kick us outta school," Viney finished. Anne frowned, knowing they were right, but if they weren't willing to help, she had to do things alone. Since she didn't have any magic, she would be able to beat the basilisk.
As the inspector slithered through the halls, leaving many students helpless, it felt unsatisfied since it was expecting more from the school. "Hungry… Still hungry…" she said.
Suddenly, Anne leaped in the way, getting into a stance as she held her tennis racket as a weapon. When the basilisk saw her, it growled and opened its mouth, launching at Anne, but the human managed to leap out of the way in time.
Applying a power glyph to herself, she launched herself toward the basilisk and nailed it in the face with her tennis racket, sending it back across the hallway. It went to bite Anne, but the human dodged it again, struggling to keep up with its speed. "I'm kinda glad these things are almost extinct!" she yelled, jumping back.
The basilisk roared again and bounded toward her. She did her best to keep some distance from the monster, knowing she wouldn't be able to face it alone. Sure, she did have her power glyph, but she wasn't unbeatable.
Seeing what she thought was an opening as it went past her, she ran forward, but the basilisk sharply turned its head and opened its mouth, attempting to suck the magic from her. She wasn't expecting anything to happen since she's human, but she felt a weird sensation in her body.
She gasped as her eyes briefly flashed blue. A stream of strange magic shot from her body into the serpent's mouth. She didn't know what was happening, but after it was done, she felt strangely exhausted.
As the basilisk licked its lips, it grinned. "I've never had magic quite as pure as yours… It's almost… chaotic."
Anne panted, falling to her knees, as she could barely do anything now. Whatever happened, she would have to worry about it later. Right now, she was completely at the monster's mercy. As Anne looked at the reflective floor, she thought it was over for her, but something strange then caught her eye.
When she focused on it, she saw… some sort of marking flashing in the reflection. "What the…?" she looked up, seeing that it wasn't reflecting anything, so how…?
Anne didn't have time to think about that. The marking was pretty detailed and complex, and she had a gut feeling it would come in handy. She quickly reached into her backpack, pulled out her notebook, ripped out a page from it, grabbed a pencil, and began to recreate what she had just seen.
As she finished it, she waited for something to happen. "Come on! Work!" She punched it in frustration, but then it glowed, making her eyes widen.
Before the basilisk could eat her, a giant pillar of ice materialized out of nowhere from the sheet of paper, sending it and Anne flying toward the ceiling.
The human yelled, falling back toward the floor, when suddenly, a griffin came flying from around the corner and screeched, catching her on its back. She held on for dear life as, before the basilisk could land on the floor, the griffin tackled it and knocked it hard onto the floor.
Viney ran up to Anne and helped her off the griffin while drawing a spell circle. "Attagirl, Puddles! Jerbo, now!"
Anne grinned, glad to see they were helping her, despite the risks. In the hideout, Jerbo replied, "On it!" As he drew a spell circle, an abomination he summoned opened a door on the ground next to him. He shot vines that grabbed the door on the ceiling, which turned out to lead to the floor right under the basilisk.
It clawed at Puddles's leg, drawing blood. The griffin screeched in pain as the basilisk threw it away, now enraged. Before it could attack them, the floor under it opened, sending it falling into the hideout and into the door the abomination from earlier had opened, falling even further.
Back in the auditorium, Principal Bump was on his knees, barely able to move, while an unconscious Amity leaned against a chair next to him. "Must find help…" he weakly said, before the basilisk suddenly fell through the ceiling above the stage and onto it, shattering the wood.
Anne, Jerbo, Viney, and Gus followed, surrounding the basilisk, which was a bit injured. Barcus walked forward from behind the curtains, as it was now his turn to fight. The basilisk's eyes shot open as Barcus poured a potion on its hand, startling it.
"Wh-Where am I?" it asked, now in a daze. It turned toward Barcus, who focused on the basilisk's hand, his eyes glowing purple. He barked, as the basilisk was now scared of what they were going to do to her. "What's he doing?! What'd he say?!"
Gus walked around the corner as well, creating a powerful illusion to cause the basilisk's surroundings to darken, so now Barcus was the only thing it could see. A purple, transparent avatar manifested around him as a swirl of purple energy briefly surrounded the serpent.
"He's pretty much saying your future is screwed, my friend," Anne said, smiling. Behind her, Puddles used her beak to cut a rope Jerbo's abomination had been holding, and multiple, extremely heavy bags dropped down onto the basilisk from above.
It screamed, the weight forcing it to release all the magic it had absorbed. It deflated like a balloon as blue, cometlike streams of magic flew back into their owners, completely revitalizing them. Anne watched as hundreds of streams left the school as well. It was kind of beautiful, in a way. She knew she had done well today.
The last stream of magic looked a bit different from the rest. It was sparkling and seemed to be a different shade of blue. As it flew into the human, she felt revitalized but confused. She would have to figure out what was going on there another time.
King was still trying to untie his foot from the ropes as he clung to it with his body, all while hanging upside down. Yelping as he pulled the ropes with all his might, he finally, FINALLY freed himself as he was sent down, flying a good distance before smacking against the dirt floor. It was quite a painful fall, but at least he was free now!
As he got up and winced a bit, he heard a very unappealing voice say, "Your pride has destroyed you."
Immediately knowing who it was, he glanced behind to see the snot-nosed toddler, who somehow made it back, all there to rub it in his face.
"The throne belongs to me now," they smugly remarked with half-shut eyes as King didn't even wanna look at him, for the huge wad of snot dangling off their nose would've made him wanna throw up if he even looked at it up close.
The demon angrily turned around and fiercely yelled, "Over my dead body!", making it clear he would not wanna back off, especially at this point. All of a sudden, he heard the uncomfortable sound of a screeching beast, and realized that with Eda in trouble again, he would have to make some rather tough decisions.
Fully knowing what King was feeling, the toddler rubbed it in his face even more. "Yes. Leave, and forfeit your reign," they said as they saw him very conflicted and nervous about putting either his ego or his family first.
"Well then, forfeit I shall!" the demon exclaimed as he ran away from the playground, begrudgingly knowing all this day was for nothing. But he knew there were much, much more important things to worry about.
"I'm coming for you, Eda!" King cried out as he sprinted toward the street, panting loudly and knowing time was not on his side. He stopped and finally saw where the screeching was coming from.
The van carrying a feral and out-of-control Eda had to stop behind a gated crossing, much like a railroad crossing, as a strange giant horned snail was slowly advancing, helpfully giving King some time to react. The beast wasn't patient at all, continuing to screech loudly while the van sat stationary.
With a miraculous opportunity at his side now, King began heading toward the van and climbed through the barred windows on the back doors. His small body could often be a nuisance for him and others, but here it proved to be very useful.
He made his way through the bars, but slipped and fell a few feet to the floor, landing on his back in pain. Luckily for him, he was already inside the van, so there wouldn't be any more pressure on him. All that lay in his way was whether or not a tied-up Eda would recognize him or do anything else toward him, good or bad.
He saw Eda still tied up in the glowing green net, her vast size taking up nearly the whole inside of the van. Hopeful that she couldn't do much to him in this state, King asked out loud, "You in there, Eda?"
The beast turned around and saw him, attempting to lunge forward but slipping and landing her head on the ground. She got up and snarled at King, doing all she could to intimidate him in her current state.
King didn't know if Eda could truly hear him or acknowledge him right now, but he wanted to speak from the heart and realize all the mistakes he had made today. "Eda, I'm sorry. I used you for your strength 'cause I felt weak. I'm your friend. If only there were some way to remind you who I am…"
If this was how it would all end with them both, at least King would know he did his best to apologize and show that behind that facade of a huge and power-hungry demon, was someone who still really cared about his family and those who looked after him as far back as he could remember.
His speech didn't seem to do much, unfortunately, as Eda tried to get closer, attempting to bite him. While she couldn't reach him, she still snarled again as a warning.
Snarling, screeching, noises… King suddenly got an idea as his pupils shrank in discovery and realization. "Wait, a sec… Eda loves my rage squeal!" he mused as everything suddenly connected and a plan to success shone brightly in his head. "Like this!" he teased.
The demon shut his eyes tight and frantically rocked his body, arms, and legs back and forth as he grunted twice before letting out a very long, high-pitched, unmanly squeal as he stood up on both his legs to complete the show.
Eda's feral and perpetual snarling face suddenly disappeared as she looked entranced and interested by his actions, before doing something that would've looked very strange coming from her in this form—laughing like an old lady.
Her beastly mind quickly returned as she snarled again, but she went back to innocently laughing as her mind was quickly reverting to her usual self. "So tiny, so angry…" she said in her first words in a very good while as her body appeared to shrink and deform slightly.
Suddenly, her owl beast body quickly dissolved as they turned into her hair as the green net seemed to fly up and disappear from existence. Her sudden change in size left her floating up in midair before she fell to the van's floor, grunting as her large hair lied above her and completely covered her body.
The witch got up from the ground, finally looking like her usual self as she brushed her hair. She looked pretty disoriented. Before she could let things sink in, she heard a delighted King suddenly run up to her. "Eda, you're back!" he screamed in delight.
She instinctively embraced her arms and hugged the little demon as soon as she could, as even if she wasn't fully aware of things, she would always care and think about King.
After a short but sweet hug, Eda put King down on the ground and had a very confused face. "What happened?" she asked as King was prepared to explain things, perhaps again, but this time fully knowing he would be understood.
"Okay, so I went to your room, and you were the beast," he quickly began, before stopping to really think things through. "And then…" He took some time to think about what Eda would think about him using her like that and what the consequences would probably be. Figuring it wouldn't be worth it, he quickly wrapped things up. "And then I woke up here, one second before you did."
The witch wasn't fully convinced, as she fully got up and looked rather skeptical. "Uh-huh. I'll deal with you later." Seeing how they were both inside a cramped van and how things couldn't possibly align with his story, she wanted to zip it outta there. "But for now, you wanna bounce?"
"Yes, please," King replied instantly, as they knew they had to get out of there quickly.
The demon hunters were in the front of the van, waiting for the path to clear out, when they heard a loud crunching sound that briefly shook the ground. Knowing this was not something good, one of them glanced to the back of the van, which now had a giant hole completely exposing the back of the van and nothing but some smoke billowing out from inside. "Argh, where did it go?" he grunted in frustration.
He looked further out to see Eda carrying King in her arms, standing just behind the ruined van. "Hey, lady," the hunter asked. "Have you seen a monster that kinda looks like you?"
Eda knew he wasn't smart enough to put things together, so she smugly shut her eyes and casually strutted away with a big grin on her face. "Lady!" he yelled, but to no avail.
As everybody was recovering, Viney used her healing magic to heal the scratch on Puddles's ankle, and the griffin rubbed affectionately against the young witch in return before flying off.
"You guys did freaking amazing!" Anne said, smiling at them. "You saved me big time, Viney."
"Thanks, but you did a lot of the heavy lifting," Viney replied. "Those attacks were amazing! Did you use a power glyph from the construction track?"
Principal Bump walked over before the human could reply, scowling at them. "You five are in so much trouble!" he yelled. "Leaving your homeroom, mixing magic, and…" He pointed up to the door in the ceiling. "Is that a secret hideout?!"
As Viney and Jerbo looked ashamed, Anne walked forward, knowing she had to stick up for her friends. "Dude, we just saved your stupid school!" she yelled. "You should be thanking us! We beat the basilisk that you did nothing about!"
"One, that's blatant disrespect," he began, pulling out a rule book and sifting through it. "Two, I don't care to know the ins and outs of rascality. But if the Emperor's Coven can send an actual inspector this time—"
"Things could've gotten a lot worse if we weren't here today," Gus interrupted. "Nobody, not even you, knew about the threat!"
"This whole thing technically happened because of you!" Anne added angrily. "Why can't they just study things they want? It's not like a single mistake is the end of the world!"
"B-But…" the principal protested, hugging the rule book.
"Do the right thing, ya dingus!" Gus said, and Principal Bump closed the rule book, putting it away. He knew he was in the wrong. "Alright, I'm smart enough to know when I've made a mistake," he admitted, turning to Viney, Barcus, and Jerbo. "Which tracks would you like to be in?"
They gasped happily, their faces lighting up. "Healing and Beastkeeping!" Viney stated.
"Plants and Abomination," Jerbo said, and Barcus barked his request, which the principal was seemingly able to understand.
"Then so be it," Principal Bump replied, drawing a spell circle and changing their uniforms to be the colors of their tracks. "But if any of you cause more property damage, I'm feeding you to the choosy hat."
He turned to Anne. "As for you, I will admit I came to conclusions too quickly," he said, reverting Anne's uniform to white. "Once you have learned two spells, you will be able to choose a track. Speaking of which, what track will you choose?"
The human tapped her chin and weighed her options. She could choose the construction track, but that wouldn't be very useful when it's mostly physical, and she's already good at that. There was one track she thought she would definitely be best at, though.
"I'll go for the Bard track," she said. She knew a thing or two about instruments, as she, Sasha, and Marcy had their own band back at home called The Sharps. "But can't I just skip the baby class? I don't wanna be around a bunch of drooling babies," she pleaded.
"I would, but you wouldn't get far if you didn't learn the basics first," he explained. "I'm not even sure you can learn a spell, to be honest. I haven't seen any magic from you."
"Actually, that reminds me…" Anne pulled out her notebook again and drew the glyph she had learned earlier. She set it down on the ground and tapped it, and it glowed. They all watched, intrigued, but it then flickered and created only a tiny bit of ice. "What the heck?!" Anne said, shocked. "It was way bigger when I used it earlier!"
"Maybe it's 'cause the circle looks kinda… distorted," Jerbo suggested, and the human realized he was right. On the spur of the moment, she was able to draw a perfect circle, and she didn't know how she managed that, but knew she had to practice drawing it.
Despite this, Principal Bump was intrigued. "Spells cast with paper? I've never heard of such a thing. I'll count it, but you'll have to learn one more of these… glyphs to pass the baby class."
"Well, that's progress," Anne replied, thinking of all the possibilities for what she could do with the ice. It would definitely help her in combat if she could just learn how to draw a freaking circle properly.
Viney walked over and placed a hand on the human's back. "Don't worry," the witch assured her. "Maybe sometime I could take you out on a trip with Jerbo and Barcus, and we can teach you what we know."
Anne smiled and nodded. "Sounds like a plan."
"You know, unlike anybody else, there was one student who wanted to study every track," Principal Bump said, summoning the defaced portrait from the hideout. "Unfortunately, she was never given the opportunity."
He waved his hand over the portrait, using magic to remove the paint to reveal a young witch with long, orange hair. Anne gasped, realizing who it was. "You know, I shouldn't be surprised…" She smiled, realizing things were all connected (in a vaguely hilarious way).
Later the day after school ended, Anne headed back home to the Owl House. Upon opening the door, she saw Eda, who smirked at her with a smug expression.
"How was your day, kiddo?" she asked.
"It actually wasn't too bad after the first hour," Anne replied, which surprised Eda. The Owl Lady wasn't expecting anything good to come out of her student going to Hexside, knowing how much the human had mentioned how much she hated school to her.
"That's not what I was expecting," Eda said. "What do you mean 'the first hour'?"
"Well, a lot of stuff happened today—good and bad," the human elaborated. "I literally got sent to detention after the first twenty minutes of school and found some sort of secret hideout."
Eda raised her eyebrows at this. "A secret hideout? Wait, a minute…"
Before she could say anything, Anne continued, "But I'm still not out of the baby class yet, so… I have to learn another spell. But hey, Viney told me we could go out on a trip!"
"That's nice, kiddo, but don't you think for a second I'm not coming with you," Eda said, wanting to make sure the human didn't get into any trouble.
Anne smiled at this. "Wouldn't have it any other way."
As she headed up the stairs, she said, "Well, I'll be up here if you need me!"
The Owl Lady pondered about what she had said for a moment, but smiled, happy that Anne would live on to carry her legacy of being a troublemaker.
As Anne settled in bed, tired after what felt like one of the longest days ever, she pulled out her notebook, looking at many glyph attempts she had tried during the rest of the school day. She had gotten a bit closer to making a perfect circle, but it would take more practice than she first thought.
She wondered how the heck the witches of the Boiling Isles can do this without thinking. Must take a lot of practice to do something like this, or maybe they just naturally have better dexterity than humans. Whatever the case, she decided to keep practicing before she went to sleep.
As Anne tried again and again to draw the perfect circle, and to nail the patterns of the ice glyph, the events that happened earlier with the basilisk kept replaying in her head. What was that strange magic that was in her? Did she get it while she was here? Could she use it?
She knew there was no point in worrying about it tonight. Setting down her notebook, she turned on her side and closed her eyes, slowly drifting off.
Meanwhile, as Eda headed up to her room, there were four empty elixir bottles on the small table next to her nest. She coughed, clutching her stomach. She knew things were getting worse for her.
"The elixir… It isn't working on the curse anymore," she muttered to herself worriedly, picking up one of the empty bottles. "This is bad."
She coughed again, and something unexpectedly large came out of her mouth. She held up a chunk of a wooden swing in her hand with a confused expression. "When did I swallow a swing?"
To Be Continued in Chapter Twenty-One
Hey there, we hope you enjoyed this chapter! It went through multiple revisions to get just right, but we are pleased with how the final product turned out. Special thanks to ChampionElCid for helping us improve the chapter's plot! Please be sure to check out their Owl and the Frog story!
For future chapters, we will no longer be including the entire b-plot if it has no relevance to the main plot, and if it doesn't change from the original. This will help speed up chapter production, since the unchanged b-plots add nothing but unnecessary filler to the chapter, and the reader already knows what happens. We kept the b-plot of this chapter since Eda's curse is a focus of the first part of the chapter, and leaving it unaddressed would be jarring.
~ Scruffy