Calamitous Intervention

The First Day

It was now time for Anne to begin her presentation for the entry exam at 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 reverse 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 while 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 intended 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, pulled out a pamphlet, and offered 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 by '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 until now.