Sophia and Chloe had little luck with connecting two portals with each other to skip the detour through the blonde's storage dimension. Having given up on it, for the time being, the two reunited with the others of the group, only to find out that the princess had accidentally managed to enchant a stone with the portal magic.

“W-Wait, what...?” Sophia still couldn’t believe it.

“How...?” Chloe wasn’t much different.

“No idea…” Anna shook her head. “It, uhh… it just happened.”

“See?!” The blonde suddenly raised her voice while staring at Maya and the wolves. “Even Anna is ridiculous when it comes to magic, and she just learned to use higher stuff today! Fennyfenny taught me, and Chloe also has been learning from someone overpowered for years. You all are the weird ones for not coming up with such fun stuff! Not Chloe, Anna, and I!” She needed to get that out of her system. “You lot need to get more creative instead of calling us breakers of common sense and other unjustified things!”

“…” The trio got silent.

"A-Are we really the problem…?” Fen started to doubt his entire life.

“That can’t be, right…?” Maya also didn’t want to believe it.

“There are three of them already now, though…” Aura was a little more open to the idea.

“Welcome to the true side~.” The chaos duo welcomed the princess.

“I’m not sure if I like this development…” Ari seemed slightly concerned about her girlfriend being put on the same pedestal as the chaos duo.

“Sounds fun!” Anna herself was quite in favor, though.

“Ehehe~.” Sophia liked her reply. “So, what did you actually do to get it to work? The rock was simply inside the portal when you shrunk it?”

“Pretty much, yeah…”

“Mhmm…” Chloe got closer to the still open portal and put her hand right against it. A moment later, it began to shrink, and once it encircled the stone on the ground again, it disappeared into it while shining in a bright white light. "Wow, it really gets absorbed into the stone… Why?!"

“No idea…” The princess shook her head. "I don't really understand that magic too much, but maybe the portal shrunk into the stone, and because you can't touch it anymore, it stays like that. If you pour some of your magic into the stone again, it feeds on that…? Or it becomes one with the stone and grows again once it has more magic to use…?”

“Those guesses are as good as any I have.”

“Yup.” Sophia and the fox-girl had nothing to add here.

“…” Ari had no opinion on it besides being concerned about her girlfriend joining the dark side for real. Still, Maya and the wolves kept exchanging confused glances. They felt a little left behind. The trio thought Chloe was just another weirdo on the level of their tiger, but Anna, even though it was an accident, managed to create something equally outstanding the first time she used chantless magic.

“Let me try, too!” The blonde kneeled down next to the fox-girl and placed her hand on the stone. Soon after, a portal, about 2 meters in diameter, grew out of it. “This is sooo amazing! Does it still work?” Saying so, she peeked inside and quickly retracted her head again, only to reveal a bright smile. “It does!”

“Awesome!” Chloe clapped her hands. “To enchant something by accident! This is amazing!”

“Enchant…?” The princess tilted her head.

“Do you remember the idea of using the portal magic on items? So that you can carry the portal around even if you can’t use the magic? That way, you and Ari could use that to join us?” Sophia tried to explain it to her.

“Yeah?”

“You just did that, idiot.”

“E-Eh?! I just messed up, though?”

“That’s how half of my inventions happened.” Chloe smiled at her.

“90% of mine, even.” The blonde had a similar expression.

“Magic is a lot more whimsical than I imagined… Especially after everything I learned in school and from my private teachers…” The princess had a complicated expression.

“I already told you to forget everything they taught you!” Sophia raised her voice. “Now more than ever! Embrace the chaos!”

“Don’t!” Ari really didn’t like the direction this was going.

“There’s no need to worry.” The blonde then smiled at the jaguar. “We already know that you have the potential to be the most chaotic out of all of us after the school incident~.”

“D-Don’t overexaggerate!” The jaguar raised her voice.

“Hehe~.” She liked her reply. “You definitely do have the potential to do some great things with magic!”

“Urgh…”

“Chaos!” Anna didn’t care about much else. “Wait, does that mean with my discovery, there will absolutely no problem with Ari and I coming with you?!”

“It never was, especially after I put the portal in your dressing room, but it just became even more convenient.”

“YAY!”

"We're still doing the reven-, err, training to make you and Ari being able to keep up with us on foot.” Sophia hadn’t forgotten about that after they had made her explain everything to their parents.

“A-Ah…”

“Anyway!” The blonde ignored their reactions before pulling something out of her storage. "Let's try this again while using something else!” She was holding a random red pillow she had grabbed. Afterward, she made another portal and placed the pillow inside of it. “You just sucked the magic power out of the portal to shrink it, right?

“I think?” The princess tilted her head.

“Love the confidence!” Sophia smiled at her before continuing. Afterward, she brought her hand closer to the portal, and it began to shrink rapidly. Once it got to the same size as the pillow, it started to shine in a white light before everything returned to normal.

“Did it work?” Chloe was very interested in it.

“Hmm… Maya, give it a try.”

“Why me?” The cat-girl looked confused.

“Chloe, now Anna, too, and I are weird, after all. I want to see if someone normal can use it, too.”

“You won’t be forgiving us anytime soon for calling you and Chloe that, huh?”

“Not until you join the dark side!”

“Why are we the dark side…?” The fox-girl didn’t like that.

“Fair point.” Sophia saw the issue. “Join the fun side! We also have cookies!”

“Better!”

“I have to stay somewhat strong until Chloe’s mom returns.” Maya shook her head. “We can’t have even more of us go rogue… I’m basically the only one left after you even took Ari down with you.”

“Hey!” The jaguar raised her voice. “Wording!”

“Shouldn’t you rather complain about it being a false claim?” The cat-girl focused her attention on her.

“…” She scratched her cheek. “Well, you are not entirely wrong…” She couldn’t deny it. “Anna is worse already, though!”

“She hasn’t flooded a school so far yet.” Maya didn’t let her have it.

“…”

“So, to focus on the important part here, once Fey is with us, you’ll stop playing the responsible cat you’re currently acting as?”

“A definite maybe.”

“Let’s go, Chloe!” Sophia suddenly sounded very excited.

“Eh? To where?” She only got confused.

“To get your mom! I don’t even care if we have to travel through the freezing cold if that means I can get Maya to act like she wants to, have fun without caring, sooner like that!”

“I have no intention to do that during the winter, though.” Maya didn’t like the plan.

“Yep.” The wolves felt similarly.

“I’ll go with Chloe alone, then!”

“But I don’t know where the capital is…” The fox-girl wasn’t of much use.

“You’ll also never find it… Not with your sense of direction.” The cat-girl had no hope for her.

"Not to mention, even with your detection magic, there's a near 100% chance to miss each other if Feyanis isn't in the human capital anymore." Aura didn’t trust her even a bit.

“I’m really missing the positive reinforcement in our little group!” Sophia started pouting.

“You can do it~.” The female wolf changed her opinion.

“There’s no need for your voice to drip with sarcasm!”

“Ehehe.” She hadn't changed her opinion in the slightest.

“Grr…” The tiger didn’t like that, either. “Now that I think about it… It shouldn’t be hard to change the climate around me so that it always feels like it’s summer for me! There, problem solved!”

“I would hate that!” This time, Chloe started complaining.

“It also doesn’t help with actually finding Feyanis.”

“Doesn’t sound healthy for the environment, either.”

“Not to mention how weird how it would look…”

“WHY IS EVERYONE AGAINST ME LATELY?!”

“We’re just protecting you from doing something stupid.” Maya smiled at her. “Okay, what do I have to do to activate the portal?”

“I like the sound of that a lot better!” Sophia started to cheer up. “Just touch the pillow and start pouring a little of your magic into it.”

“Alright, sounds easy enough.” Saying so, the cat-girl kneeled down and touched the pillow lying on the ground. Soon after, a medium-sized portal opened up in front of her. “Wow, it actually does work! This could be really handy if you don’t have a Sophia around that can create as many portals on a whim as she wants. Also perfect for hiding… Wait, how does it work on the other side? Inside the storage, I mean? Does the portal there also appear and disappear the entire time?” She was pretty interested in magic, after all. Because of that, many questions came up.

“That’s… uhh, no idea!”

“Those are some good questions, though…” Chloe had as much as an answer as the blonde. “Let’s find out!”

“Speaking of portals…” The wolves had moved a little to all the portals the chaos duo had created earlier when they were trying to link two of them directly to each other. From there, Fen addressed them. “It worked? Linking two portals together, that is? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Huh?” Sophia looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Yeah…?” Chloe nodded. “It didn’t… That’s why we gave up and returned earlier.”

“What’s this about, then?” He gestured at the two portals right next to him. They were still a shimmery purple, but the inside was entirely see-through instead of being opaque. Looking through the one closest to the male wolf, one could see Aura standing in front of the portal a little further away from him. Looking through the one closest to her, Fen was fully visible. Those two portals were clearly linked directly to each other without anything in between.

“E-Eh…?” Sophia and Chloe had no idea what was happening.

 

 

 

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