The New Salem Maul

[Gryff N]

Gryff sighed the most exasperated of all sighs as the horde of fluffy critters swarmed, fluttered, crawled, and hopped around him and Cassie in an endless sea of fluff and the puff.

With one free hand, he grabbed the skeletal horses mane and hoisted himself and Cassie on its back. It reared, and as Cassie clung to him like a tiny Japan Crate backpack, his shirt fluttered in a gust from the too powerful, energy wasteful, air vents. Aloft, he held his cell phone.

"I am EVEN NOW texting the Monsters for the Ethical Treatment of Animals!" he bellowed.

Swatting at were-finches and some unknown breed of pigeon that kept circling them, chirping merrily, he looked for their bags.

"This is why I hate the maul," he grumbled, guiding the horse with his legs. Rascally scarrets had decided they were a new toy and were busy trying to carry it up a decorative plastic indoor plant. Twisting in a circle, he tried to grab them, his skin glistening with sweat.

"They can't even have real plants!"

The skele-horse leaped up, Gryff grabbed the bags, and then everything shattered as they landed.

Bones skittered across the floor, brightly colored plastic petals rained down on them, Cassie landed on his chest, but it one hand he managed to hold the bags aloft, their contents unbroken.

He gritted his teeth. He'd landed on his coffee spoon and the tight pants were very unforgiving.

A white cloud of bones surrounded them as the skele-horse slowly coalesced, nudging hopefully at the plastic leaves.

"Don't..." Gryff moaned, "They're not scare-trade or goreganic...."

Cassie got up and Gryff used the skele-horse's ribs as a ladder. Unable to stand, he got back on the horse and started to dial Lin, hoping the Gremlin might have a cane or something, maybe something Dread Astaire used in a movie once.

He looked around for Cassie and patted the horse.

"It's ok, I'm 50% horse on my mom's side."  

[Atomica Servo]

"DOOT DOO DOO DOOOOOOT" Atomica's iCoffin went off SUPER loud in her pocket just as she and Lin got to the front of the pet store. It was Cassie's ringtone. Almost at the same time, Lin's iCoffin blared out the sound of bagpipes, which meant that Gryff was calling him.

"Whuh oh." Atomica could easily see Gryff and Cassie, standing at ground zero amidst the animally chaos. Their plan had failed, in possibly the most spooktacular way possible.

Atomica picked up her phone to answer it, but at that instant-

"YOU TWO! FREEZE!" A security ork from the Maul grabbed Atomic and Lin's wrists. "You're the ones who let all those animals out of their habitats!"

"But! But it was for a good clawse!" Atomica tried to protest, but the Ork growled at them.

"I'm going to call your parents." The Ork snarled. Atomica groaned.

"Good luck, they're probably in another galaxy by now."

"An' my parents are....uh...on vacation!" A panicked Lin tried to lie. "In Hoboken!"

"Nice try," The Ork huffed. "Nomonster would EVER willingly go on vacation to Hoboken."

"Darn! He saw right through me!" Lin wailed as the two started to be dragged off to the security office. Atomica locked eyes with Cassie and Gryff as the two were pulled away.

"WHATEVER HAPPENS NEXT!" She shrieked at her two friends. "DO NOT GO ON A DATE AND FALL DEEPLY IN LOVE! IT WOULD RUIN OUR FRIENDSHIP DYNAMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC-"

Atomica was cut off as she and Lin were yanked around a corner. Gryff and Cassie were left alone in the midst of the animals, who were now being gathered up by the pet shop employees. Most of the animals were more than happy to go back to their habitats, having had enough hexcitement for one day.  

[Harry Herne]

"LEAVE THE BUNNIES ALONE! NOT CRUEL! NOT CRUEL!"

Harry was shrieking at the pet store workers as they scooped up the vampire bunnies. Being a pacifist hactivist, Harry couldn't even lay a claw on them to stop them.

"HOP AWAY, BUNNIES, HOP TO FREED-"

It was at the moment Harry saw an Injustice of kaiju proportions. A tool of the Monster was ghoulnapping Atomica! And her little friend....BUT NOT ATOMICA! Harry shook with wighteous anger!

"GOOBLEDYGOOK!"

A Nevernever portal ripped open nearby and Harry's ever present friend/butler popped out.

"Young master?"

Harry was so upset that he didn't even correct the goblins use of 'young master.'

"The tool of the Monster has taken away Atomica Servo! I need an immediate protest march/drum circle! And signs! BY THE BLACK HEART OF THE HURDY GURDY MAN, I NEED SIGNS!"

Harry set off after Atomica and her ghoulnapper. Oh he was soooooo going get a protest. A PROTEST SUCH AS THIS MAUL HAD NEVER SEEN!  

[Cassandra MH]

Cassie turned to see what Gryff was saying then quickly realised he probably was talking to the horse, she scooped up some bunnies and held them close to her chest when she looked and saw Atomica AND LIN

"wait what?" She whispered doing a double take trying to figure out what they were doing at the maul since they said they weren't going to be there today.

Atomica Servo

"WHATEVER HAPPENS NEXT!" She shrieked at her two friends. "DO NOT GO ON A DATE AND FALL DEEPLY IN LOVE! IT WOULD RUIN OUR FRIENDSHIP DYNAMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC-"

"WAIT WHAT?" she blushed a bright red "I'm not- we aren't- you dont like like me like that thats ridiculous right...Right?" She frowned looking at Gryff still trying to take in everything

Harry Herne

"The tool of the Monster has taken away Atomica Servo! I need an immediate protest march/drum circle! And signs! BY THE BLACK HEART OF THE HURDY GURDY MAN, I NEED SIGNS!"

she saw Harry rushed past her and she looked at Gryff

"Do we go with him or do you think they can handle it?"  

[Harry Herne]

The security orc disappeared into an office with Atomica and Lin but not before being spotted by one of the many goblins flooding into the maul. Word was quickly passed to Harry who arrived on the scene quickly. He organized signmakers and a drum circle and chanters.

"Dudes, be loud and proud. WE NEED JUSTICE FOR ATOMICA!

...

And her little buddy too, I guess."

The sound of bongos and chants filled the air.

"Get up and get down, let Atomica out on the town!"

"Hey, hey, ho, ho, Atomica has to got to go!"

"Two, four, six, eight...Atomica's freedom can't wait!"  

[Lin McGearloch]

"But that's what we're trying to tell you!" Lin pleaded desperately with the security orc, while Atomica sat on the lone chair in the Maul Security office. Lin remained standing, as there was just the one chair and he was a gentlemanster after all -- well that, and Atomica beat him to the seat in the first place.

"WHAT DO WE WANT!?"

"ATOMICA'S FREEDOM!"

"WHEN DO WE WANT IT!?"

"SOON!"

Lin frowned, the continued chant of whatever and whoever that was outside of the store breaking his concentration as he sought to prevent the security orc from calling his home and telling his mom and dad what had happened, or worse -- his nan!

^The surly orc turned back from the door, his own attention span taken away courtesy of Harry and his goblin protesters. The orc looked down at Lin and the tiny gremlin held his claws out, "It was all an accident!"

"We were framed!" Atomica piped in.

"YES!" Lin yelped. "Framed! That's what happened! We were just strolling by when the animals escaped their cages! We have enemies! That's only natural when you're as popular in school as we are!"

The orc looked at Atomica who nodded sincerely. "It's true."

"I'll be phoning your parents." The mean ol' orc declared. "Then we'll see if that's true or not."

Of course, Lin had his iCoffin out already, wanting to send Gryff an S.O.S.! Gryff would come to their rescue and everything then would be alright! That is until the orc snatched it from the tiny gremlin's even tinier hands. Being a gremlin, his nature had already 'infected' his newest iCoffin edition and it exploded in the orc's own claws!

The orc yelped, and the current swept from the iCoffin to the store's security cameras....across the Maul and down the electrical wires leading to the Pet Store... and right through the electronic locks on all of the store's cages -- and they popped open again and the animals flooded out -- AGAIN!

"See!? See!?" Atomica pointed with double jazz hands! "It wasn't us!"

Lin pointed at the orc! "It was YOU all along!"

The orc swerved his head back and forth between the kids and the view of the freshly escaped animals and growled! He turned and charged forward to the door, ready to help round up the animals as Lin and Atomica wasted no time before they casually slipped out behind him and towards the Maul's exit door....  

[Atomica Servo]

"Come on!" Atomica didn't want to waste any time, so she scooped Lin up and put him on her shoulders, werepiggy-back style. "We've got to get out of here!"

"THERE SHE IS! YOUNG MASTER! OVER HERE!" Atomica was blocked from a speedy escape by...Globbygork? Was that his name? Harry Herne's main goblin servant. The rickety-looking goblin was surprisingly agile, and Atomica's efforts to slip by him failed as the gob bounced up and down, pointing and calling for Harry furiously. Other monsters who had been part of the drum circle/chant/protest/whatever noticed her and Lin as well and started cheering.

"It's her! She's free! And also so is her little friend I guess!"

"We did it! THE POWAH OF POSITIVITY WON!"

(Yes, the New Dead were there. They may have possibly been stalking Harry because of previous antics that may or may not have had a chance to be followed up on.)

"Um, that's great and all, but, like, we have got to be-"

Suddenly, Atomica's sensors picked up two other forms coming towards them at a galloping speed. It was Gryff and Cassie.

"Whuh oh."

With no where hide, and her escape paths all blocked by various monsters and all of the Maul security distracted by coralling the pets back into the pet store, there was no way to stop this. Atomica and Lin came face-to-face-to-face-to-face with Cassie and Gryff.

"Uhm." Atomica looked left and right. There was no avoiding this. "So you're uh...probably wondering...what's going on..."

She looked at Lin. Even with his Gremlinny abilities, there was no getting out of this one.  

[Cassandra MH]

"Yeah I do!"
She placed her hands on her hips frowning.

"You were supposed to be practicing!" She stomped a platformed shoe at them

"Tell us everything!" She said pouting, which looked more adorable then threatening. One of the problems of being a short dolly. No one really takes you seriously when you're upset  

[Atomica Servo]

Despite being able to calculate pi to a billion decimal points, Atomica's positronic brain couldn't think of a way to get out of this one. With Gryff looming above her, arms crossed, glaring, and Cassie looming BELOW her, arms crossed, glaring, Atomica gave up and confessed.

"You and Gryff are out on a secret date together and Lin and I didn't want to see the two of you get all lovey-dovey romantic and then inevitably break up and ruin our group dynamic so we decided to disrupt your date, but every plan we had just made things more and more goremantic and now it's all gone wrong and you two are probably gonna get married in Claws Vegas next week and all I wanted was for everything to stay the way it is with all of my beast friends!!!!!"

Atomica infodumped breathlessly, feeling her battery life flicker as she confessed. She looked at Cassie, whose jaw joint had dropped. She peered at Gryff, who slowly inhaled and let out the lowest, longest sigh she had ever heard.

"Atomica." Gryff stated in a flat voice. "Your first flaw was jumping to conclusions without having all of the data. We are most certainly NOT on a date."

"You're not?" Atomica asked, incredulously.

"No, Gryff asked me to go with him to the Maul to shop for a gift, because SOME monster's birthday is coming up!" Cassie squeaked.

"Ooohhhhhhhh." Lin piped up, sliding off of Atomica's shoulders. "That's riiiiiight! I forgot about that!"

"Who's birthday is coming up?" Atomica asked, searching through her database. Who would Gryff bother suffering through rampant mainstream consumerism for? That sort of thing usually made him break out in hives.

"Yours, dummy!" Lin elbowed Atomica. "Your birthday is coming up!"

"Oh. OHHHH." Suddenly, all of the fragments of data aligned in Atomica's database. Her cheeks burned red-hot. "Oh my GHOUL, I've made a fatal error!"

"You bet you have." Cassie tapped a toe. "Although...for not being a date that WAS the most goremantic date I've ever been on."

Cassie blushed a little bit, stealing a glance at Gryff. Gryff shook his head slightly.

"With the rose petals, and the rainbow, and the dramatic pose on a horse..." Gryff let out a strange, clipped, snorting sound. Was that...a laugh? "It was. It was the most goremantic non-date ever conceived at a maul. It was something entirely new and dramatic and, dare I say, even edgy."

"Edgy? Well...we did have to escape a security guard..." Atomica considered. The four of them walked together towards the exit. "And it was almost sort of like performance art, I guess."

"Avant guarde." Gryff nodded as he pressed the big button that opened the glass doors to the outside. "Probably blew all of these sad, closed-minded little monsters brains right out of their skulls to see such an emotional display. And I was at the center of it, just like I am for anything that ahead of the curve."

"And so much soda pop in the air!" Lin nodded, rubbing his hands together with glee. "Rewiring that soda fountain was the most fun I've had all week!"


Atomica paused.

"You two aren't dating though, right?" She asked, almost sheepishly. "You three are my closest friends and if something went bad...and we weren't all friends anymore..."

Gryff sighed and rolled his eyes.

"I've dated ghouls before. Never more than once each, of course. There's just no ghoul out there that can keep up with me and my obscure, better-than-anyone's tastes. And you haven't worried about the destruction of the tribe with any of them. Not even that rust monster who sneezed and delaminated your platinum overcoat."

"Well, she wasn't one of the Tribe. None of them were Cassie!" Atomica pointed out astutely.

"Exactly." Gryff responded. "Not one of those other ghouls is worthy of the companionship I've bestowed on you three. And that you've bestowed on me, I guess.

No matter what happens in the future, the three of us?" Gryff smiled darkly. "We will always be the Trouble Tribe."

And the four of them departed the Maul.