Friends Who Became Villainesses

By Henry Cobb

Chapter Seven: Freshmen Pranks

Fourteen-year-old Princess Amesombra Pludom stepped back from the old woman and took the device she called a "stethoscope" out of her ears. "It's Tuberculosis, I'll need to use death magic."

The woman looked as shocked as I felt.

I stepped up to the princess. "Your Highness, it's just a bad cough. Surely you don't need to execute her?"

"Oh, Kitten! That's not it. This woman has tiny monsters eating away at her lungs. If you heal her lungs then the monsters will just keep eating away at her. I'll cast my Black Magic to kill the monsters and then you need to instantly cast your White Magic to heal the damage the monsters and I have done. Ma'am I'm going to need you to lie down on the table and be very quiet. Can you do that for me?" She then turned to the teacher and the students sitting above us on the benches. "I need all of you to leave immediately."

"But Your Highness!" The teacher rose from her bench. "We are here to observe your procedures."

"This is an infectious airborne disease. Please stop breathing the air in this room and get out. I'll cast a disinfectant spell when we're done."

I watched the teacher and students leave and then turned to Amesombra. "Amy, we're right next to the patient, don't we have to worry about ourselves?"

"No, Angie, our powers protect us from infection, though in opposite ways. For example, it will be very difficult for me to ever conceive. The one thing a princess is needed for, and I suck at it. Now, are you ready to cast?"

A few minutes later the old woman walked out of the classroom, seeming much stronger than when she had entered. Once we were alone in the room, Amesombra raised her arms and chanted out a short spell. I felt a tingling all over my skin as the entire room flashed inky black and then returned to normal.

Synthia was waiting just outside the room with the teacher and Amesombra turned to them and said, "My apologies for needing to clear your classroom, Professor Hirudine."

"It's quite understandable, Your Highness."

"I look forward to attending your class, if I may when I join the academy next week."

"Attending? You ought to be teaching it! Your knowledge of medicine is centuries ahead of mine."

"Please, I have no formal medical training. I've just read some books."

"Your Highness simply must share these books with me."

"I'll see what I can do."

Synthia followed as we crossed into the capital's central square from The Academy. We had almost reached the walls of the palace when I asked Amesombra, "Amy, is the part about the books of medicine true?"

"Yes. I read those books in my past life, so it may take a bit to find their like here. I also attended a few first aid classes, but those were mostly about workplace safety."

"Given how smart you are, you could have started at the academy two years ago, or skipped it entirely."

"Without my kitten? Never! The time invested in getting you up to grade level has been time well spent."

When we entered the palace grounds I saw my unicorn grazing in the distance and waved to him. "Yinshou!"

He trotted up, then stopped ten yards away.

Amesombra sighed. "He still doesn't like me, does he? Well, have fun tending to your horse that's so shy that he won't let anybody else touch him."

"Yinshou is a unicorn."

"Yeah, whatever. See you at dinner, Kitten." She walked towards the palace with Synthia following.

That evening as we settled in bed I said, "Amy, I'm sorry about Yinshou."

"That's not your fault. It's just the way I was reborn." She reached over and grabbed my hand. "Here is the only creature of Light I want next to me. That leaves only my reduced resistance against possession, but I'm already possessed by a ghost from another world. As long as you stay by my side I'm the most blessed person in this or any world."

At the entrance ceremony, all of the new freshmen students wore identical uniforms (in male and female variations), but any illusion of equality this may have granted was shattered by the seating arrangement, which was strictly by noble rank. I was the sole exception to this as instead of sitting at the very rear with the five other commoners, I sat next to Amesombra and hence directly in front of and beneath her brother Prince Tenecoeur, a junior student who as the student body president gave the introduction speech.

Amy's three friends were seated next to us (being the only ducal children in the freshmen class) with the highest ranking baronial heirs filling up the remainder of the front row and spilling into the second and behind them were the non-inheriting baronial children and so on. As the children of knights didn't have guaranteed admittance, our class was 60% male and 40% female with the difference being made up of the first and a few second sons of knights. (Also only two of the six commoners were girls, and one of those was me.)

Classes started the next day and I was on my way to collect books for my and Amy's studies when I overheard an argument between students.

"What's a commoner from Chavean doing here? It's not like your family are wealthy merchants so how did you do it?"

I turned and saw that four upperclassman boys had surrounded and backed against the wall the other commoner girl from my freshman class.

I stepped up and said. "Excuse me, please."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Miss, is this any of your business?" The boy reached out a hand for my shoulder, but another caught his wrist. "Are you mad? That's the pet of the dark princess! Do you want to be cursed?"

I waited for the four boys to walk away and then turned to the girl. "Hi. I'm Miss Angelica Pureheart of Mursol. Sorry to intrude like that."

"No, thank you for stepping in. Just this capital city of Mursol? No title or anything?"

"I was born in the slums of this city to an unwed mother. There are few in this kingdom who do not outrank myself."

"Well, I'm not one of those. I'm Peri Lugt and I was born in a small mining town in Chavean to a very humble family."

"Chavean, isn't that Lady Depecia's duchy?"

"Yes, you know Lady Depecia? I've never met her myself."

"Her Highness had Lady Depecia teach me archery, but I will never come close to being her equal in the art."

"Thank you for stepping in, but please excuse me."

"Yes, see you later."

That occasion was just two hours later at the first of two study sessions on Princess Amesombra's daily schedule (and hence mine), that being on alchemy studies and led by Lady Malheurfla. For our first session, Lady Malheurfla handed Miss Lugt a rock and had her perform a chant over this then pick out squares on another copy of her rectangle chart that Malheurfla had hung in this room. Amesombra and the two other friends from another world made careful notes about this, even though none of them could possibly replicate Miss Lugt's Earth magics. The session was sparsely attended with only four other students and the only ones who asked questions were the professor and assistant professor. These were really silly questions like "How can a rock be mostly air?" and I saw little point in the session.

At the end of the session Miss Lugt stepped up to us and said, "Miss Pureheart, I'd like to thank you again for stepping in like that."

Amesombra's head snapped around so quickly I half-feared that it would fall off. "Wait! That has already happened? Miss Lugt, you must join us for lunch in the cafe."

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I can't afford to eat in the cafe."

"My treat and I insist."

The four friends waited until they, myself, and Miss Lugt were seated and our cafe order had been placed before beginning their assault.

Amesombra started with "Lady Malheurfla, how did you find Miss Lugt so quickly?"

"The one clue we had was that she said on her first meeting with Angelica that she was from a small mining town. So I searched all of these in my duchy, and then I got a shipment of ore from the only mine in Chavean so I went to check that out and there she was."

"How did Your Ladyship know what I would say months later?"

"And she told me she was from Chavean."

Amesombra turned to me. "That is another change. Miss Pureheart, please write down everything that was said during your first encounter with Miss Lugt so we can puzzle this out."

"Changed from what?"

"Miss Lugt," I replied, "The change in your life is that you have now stepped into the basket woven from the plots of these four. The gods (or someone) have selected them for something and it's best just to play along."

Lady Depecia spoke up. "Another change I've noticed is the absence of Prince Fuarco."

"I had his application rejected," Amesombra then turned to me, "You won't miss him, Kitten. All your paths with him are terrible and end with the burning of Mursol."

"A black magic girl with the foresight!" Peri Lugt made the symbol of the gods in front of herself.

"Miss Lugt, they all have that." I swept my hand across all four of the friends. "It's nothing special to Princess Amesombra. But it's good to not speak of that aspect."

Amesombra's (and hence my) other study session each day was an independent study in the library as none of the professors knew how to teach Light or Dark magics. We still needed to make reports and prepare for graded demonstrations of what we learned about our powers. Most of our research was on the battles The Saint had fought against The Demon Lord a thousand years ago.

Students were also required to engage in weekly duels and so we faced each other on the last day of our first week.

Amesombra started by twisting her arms together and then spreading them out to splayed fingers from which flowed a black fog that spread a yard or two along the ground from her feet before splitting into a half dozen shadow serpents. I waited until these were clear of her before tossing bolts of light to destroy them.

The final serpent lunged towards my leg, but I jumped over it and cast my bolt from midair.

Amesombra had somehow predicted the direction of my jump and was waiting behind the spot where I had landed.

As she reached for me I grabbed her arm and knelt as I tossed her over me to land on her back.

"Disqualification, Miss Pureheart!"

"What?" I turned to the professor who was grading our match.

"You never made any spell attacks against Her Highness."

"But Princess Amesombra is especially vulnerable to Light Magic!"

"You must learn to use every advantage. The ruling stands."

"She's right." Amesombra stood up and rubbed her shoulder. "Angie, if you don't shoot at me then I'll never learn to dodge."

"Are you hurt?" I put my hand on her shoulder and chanted a healing spell.

She winced and then said. "Thanks."

"Wait, do even my healing spells hurt you?"

"Oh they sting quite a bit, but I've suffered worse. They do seem to speed up my dark regeneration so overall it's still worthwhile."

"That's why you've always faced away every time I've healed you."

"I just need to work on my poker face. I can't let people know when I'm in distress. I have far too many enemies who will jump on every chance."

That weekend the three other friends gathered from their dorms to pet Yinshou (while Amesombra looked annoyed from a distance) then gathered in her room at the palace for tea and a discussion in their strange language that involved thrusting their hands out in various mystic gestures. The winner of each toss would then speak for a while, with the others offering what seemed to be short objections or perhaps suggestions. Once each had their say in turn Lady Malheurfla would write down the results in her notebook. I felt a little alarmed at how often the word "Angie" occurred in this conversation.

On Monday morning Amesombra had me go to the Academy a half hour early, then wait for her to approach with her brother, drop a handkerchief from my pocket as I crossed in front of them, and then continue on my way.

I did this but stopped when I heard her shout out from behind me. "Prince Tenecoeur, a gentleman is supposed to pick up a lady's handkerchief!"

"Miss Pureheart is a commoner, not a lady. And I wouldn't want to risk my health by touching anything she's blown her nose on."

"Angelica doesn't get sick."

"Then what does she need a handkerchief for?"

I decided to hurry to class.

On Tuesday Lady Depecia had me recite a story about two mean noble girls (Yeuxpera and Malheurfla) who had forced me to drop some cupcakes I had baked (they were actually from the Palace kitchen, and I ate them later anyway as the grass seemed rather clean), but Lord Gnouian just walked on by.

On Wednesday Lady Yeuxpera forced (by threatening a curse from the princess) the boys who had bullied Miss Lugt to play out the same scenario with me while a dozen other noble students passed by and pretended not to notice anything. I felt a little sorry for the bullies so treated them in the cafe (on the princess account) and promised them if anybody in their families ever suffered an injury they could bring these people to me and I would heal them. One of them was so impressed at this that he asked me to marry him, but I declined.

Every day that week the friends had me try out another such ridiculous scenario and then returned to Amesombra's room that weekend where she asked, "Angie, why don't any of the paths work on you?"

"Amy, I don't think you mean a footpath?"

"No, it's an event where you make somebody fall for you and then you pledge to be with them always."

"I would never throw anybody to the ground outside of practice or self-defense and I have already made such a pledge."

"What? With whom?"

"With yourself, Your Highness."

"When was this?"

"When we first met I agreed to the relationship you specified."

Amesombra smacked her palm into her forehead. "I've turned my kitten into a duckling!" She looked to the others and asked. "Where's the save point?" And they all laughed at this obscure joke.

The friends seemed to acknowledge that whatever it was they were trying to do just wouldn't work and their bizarre pranks stopped.