Into the World of Twisted Wonderland

Prologue Chapter 18

As the four of them travel through the portal and returned back to the college, they fell out of the mirror and landed on the floor.

"Oww!" Ace says as he tries to get up only to be held down by Deuce on top of him. "Get off me! You're heavy!"

Deuce tries to get off, only to look in front of him and see a pair of legs in front of him, and as his eyes followed the pair of legs upwards, he instantly scrambles to stand up, knocking Angel and Grim down in a rush until they looked up and scrambled to their feet as well. Ace, finally able to move from the weight of the others, got to his feet and dusted his uniform off, only to look at see the one and only Crowley staring at the four of them in surprise.

"What are you four doing here in the Mirror Chamber so late?" Crowley ask, eyes staring at the three kids and Grim in surprise.

"We just came from the Dwarf's Mine, sir!" Deuce replies attentively, shocking Crowley even more.

"Pardon?! You're telling me that you actually went to the Dwarf's Mine in search of a magestone?" Crowley asked, bewildred.

"Uh....? Yes?" Everyone but Angel replied, in which she nodded.

"I...I didn't expect that you'd seriously do it," Crowley says, shock still in his voice. As he says this, he hovers over Angel, who was holding the stone in her smock pocket, shining through the light blue color of the smock, making Crowley have a smile on his face. "And never in my wildest imagines did I think you would actually return with a magestone!" He claims in happiness. "And here I spent all evening preparing your expulsion documents."

"Are you serious?!" Grim angrily screams at Crowley as he crawls on Angel's shoulders to get as much eye level to him while Angel get the magestone out of her pocket. "While we were fightin' some crazy monster for you, you were expelling us?!"

"Monster...?" Crowley asked the quartet.

Ace replies with slight anger in his voice. "Yeah. There was a monster all right. A big nasty one. It nearly killed us!"

"Hmm...." Crowley hums in thought. He looks at the quartet, processing their statements. "How about we head to my office so you can retell the story in full?" He says as he starts heading to his office.

Everyone looked at each other in confusion before following the headmage. With the headmage wide steps, Deuce and Ace had no problem catching up to him, but Angel lagged behind, exhausted from the use of anymore running to catch up to the three. Deuce noticed this and slowed down so she would have someone beside her, keeping an eye on her to make sure she won't fall or trip from exhaustion. He noticed a small scrap on her knee from when she fell luring the monster towards him and Ace and felt bad for her appearance. When he met her, she was barely covered in dirt but as he looks over her outfit, he sees that her hair turned into a wild ponytail, with strands of hair sticking out on her face from sweating, her smock which was neat and clean, was covered in dirt and stains, with little tears of fabric everywhere. Deuce felt bad for the girl and though to himself that this would at least be good enough until she was hopefully at her home away from home for the time being.

When the quartet reach the headmage office, they were quite surprised at how bare it was. The only things that stood out, or was even in the room, was a big desk and a couch situated in front of said desk. The walls were bare aside from portraits of the Great Seven placed on the wall behind the desk. There was a singular purple rug that ran from the door to the office to the area behind the desk, making it seem that it was pathway towards the desk. As the quartet gasped in awe, Crowley sat at his desk and motioned at the four to sit on the couch, which they happily accepted. Angel sat down in the middle of the couch, with Ace and Deuce sitting on her sides, relishing the time to relax and unwind from the day they had. Grim that was situated on Angel's shoulders crawled into her lap, laying down while she petting him, with Grim happily accepting the warmth of her hand on his fur.