He was a red tomato in seconds as was Tanner, and Bianca flipped her hair and walked over to Tanner to reach and grab the envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket. Walking back to me, she offered the envelope.
"Don't worry. It's clean." She winked and I tried not to snicker at our continued effort to make Alaric and Tanner as embarrassed as possible.
I accepted the envelope and opened it up as Bianca moved back to stand with Alaric and Tanner. Minx floated to sit on my shoulder as I pulled out what seemed to be seven plane tickets.
"Tickets?" I began and locked onto the destination. "Bora Bora?!"
"No way!" my Trouble Four exclaimed before Lisette and Calvin were at my sides and leaning in to confirm what I was seeing.
"You actually got tickets to Bora Bora? Isn't that place only for rich celebrities?" Calvin questioned.
"Rich celebs and extremely powerful witches," Lisette revealed. "That's what I found during my research on the country when I used to study various places and their hidden perks for magic users."
"Since you guys did a wonderful job last semester, we were given the go-ahead by upper management, aka the Council, to treat you guys to a week-long vacation into the new year. You leave tomorrow afternoon and will spend your time there until after New Years," Alaric explained.
"But school starts right after," I acknowledged.
"They'll have a portal set up for your group to return the morning after New Year's Day. It'll bring you back here two hours before school starts," Tanner revealed. "So nothing to worry about."
"We did promise to reward you guys with a vacation," Alaric reasoned. "You all did your part and deserve a week of relaxation before the next semester starts. We figured it would be a good gift and since the seven of you get along so well, it would only be fair to let all of you go."
"What about the hellhound puppies?" I commented and pointed to them. All six of them were all cuddled up together near the Christmas tree, sleeping away from the raining madness from before.
"Watch, mawe!" Minx declared and floated off my shoulder to the cuddling puppies. She landed and with a poof, she was back in her familiar form before she split into her double form and stretched.
They sat down proudly and began to groom themselves.
"Minx can guide them, but we can take care of them while you're all gone," Bianca offered. "We'll have to add a familiar training class into the curriculum."
"What about school prep and such?" I asked.
"Don't worry about that," Alaric assured me. "The three of us can handle things. If anything goes awry, the R-squad is on on-call duty."
"That's nice of them," Calvin complimented before he added, "I don't have any new swim trunks."
"Express online shopping!" Lisette cheered. "We can do that now seeing as we've opened the main presents for the night!"
"What about your gift, Lisette?" I pointed out.
"Huh?" She blinked at us in confusion. "What? I get something?"
"Of course," we all said in unison and I moved quietly around the puppies to retrieve the pink wrapped box. "I feel like you would have opened it tomorrow, but you're the only one who didn't open something."
"A present for me," she practically squealed as her eyes twinkled with so much joy. She accepted the item and opened it quickly to reveal a black, red, and white Lolita outfit.
"Wow! The colors match our uniform!" she stressed and pulled it out to get a closer look.
"Well, I know the uniform isn't to your fashion standards, so I pulled a few strings and asked if a Lolita-themed uniform would be allowed as long as it matched the color scheme of Tracker Hive Academy," I explained. "They approved."
"Really?!" she shrieked and hugged the fabric to her chest. "I'll cherish this! It's so pretty! Flirty, and girly, and just so beautiful!"
"I made it," I revealed, which shocked everyone, including Lisette.
"You...made...this?"
"Mhm," I replied. "Shadow Jade kept asking me about getting her an outfit that resembled Lisette's so I began researching it and thought it would be really cool to make one. The fabric is from a special company that makes fabric that can change into three different versions.. I made it into a combat outfit for the second, and you can choose anything for the third."
"That's amazing," Bianca praised. "When did you have time to make it?"
"At night. Usually when everyone was sleeping."
"We didn't hear anything," Zackery commented and Zeus rolled his eyes and commented, "You sleep like a dead log."
"So do you!" he argued back.
"Very impressive, Jade," Zion praised.
"It'll look awesome on Lisette," Calvin complimented.
"Thank you, Jade!" she squealed and looked into the box, seeming intrigued. She lowered the outfit on the lid to pull out a red hanger with a skimpy lingerie piece and red handcuffs.
"And these?" she asked with a sly smile.
I pouted my lips. "I didn't...put those in there."
We all looked at Zeke and he blinked with innocence.
"Why is everyone looking at me?" he asked and even checked to see if he'd put his clothes back on from before. "I'm not naked this time."
"You put that in there, didn't you?" I accused with a suspicious look.
He shrugged. "I don't know what you're implying, but if I get to witness a sexy make-out session between you two, my life will be complete."
"Instigator," Lisette accused before she was tackling me.
"GAH!'
"Thank you, Jade, My Queen! We'll enjoy a lovely, kinky night soon!" she cheered and began kissing my neck.
"Ah! Lisette! Hehehe...that tickles!"
"Now that we got through some gifts, let's start packing," Calvin suggested.
I agreed with a head nod as Lisette and I rose up. "That sounds like a good pl-"
"KILL!"
"AH!" We all flinched at Shadow Jade's declaration, and we turned to see she was near the Christmas tree with Ceil, and a grand piano that came out of nowhere.
"Where did the piano come from?!" Zackery exclaimed as his jaw dropped like the others.
Lisette laughed and answered, "That's Ceil's. He has a bunch of instruments he likes to bring around."
"How do you possibly bring around a grand piano?" Zion genuinely asked.
"Magic?" Zeus and Zeke answered like it was common sense.
"Shadow Jade? Why are you back with Ceil and a piano?"
"Gift! For Jade and everyone Jade loves!" she cheered and put her hands up. "Need piano and Ceil!"
Ceil just nodded in agreement before he began to set up what seemed to be a white projector screen against the wall.
"Standby! KILL!" Shadow Jade encouraged.
We all seemed to exchange looks before we shrugged and gathered in wait before the white screen.
"This is totally random, but did we get an awesome picture of my puppy nakedness?" Zeke asked. "I want to make that big and hang it in the bedroom."