The New Salem Maul

[Perry Hartley]

Perry dusted himself off and glared reproachfully at Shad, until he realised they were now INSIDE the maul.

"Wait... that's... a cool trick dude." He grinned and attempted to high five the sackboo, who was still struggling with a mop.

He looked back at the broom closet they'd just stumbled out of, certain that had Nathair been here he'd have made some joke about finally coming out of the closet. Thankfully he wasn't here to be embarrassing.

"Oo a free hat, just what I need." He snorted and peered out of the door into the shop itself. "Uh.. might want to keep your voices down... " He hissed.  

[Lin McGearloch]

Cassandra MH

Lin gasped, "Oo! Gryff! They're getting ready!"

Gryff turned about from depositing the three werecats elsewhere to see that the manticore security guards had taken station at the entrance doors where the zombie janitor stood ready to unlock the door and unleash the madness that was the annual Bleak Friday chopping tradition!

"Initiate chopping maul procedures!" Atomica buzzed as her internal hard drive rebooted itself to include the now all-important plans for the initial phase of the chopping scarathon that Gryff had prepared and Lin had downloaded into her system to 'memorize'.

Gryff arrived back with his Tribe just as Cassandra arrived on the scene and she took her spot at Atomica's side. Claws clasped behind his back, Gryff marched back and forth in front of HIS triad, like an army drill sergeant, and unlike any good sergeant, he gave his squad a pep talk.

"Alright Tribe! The mission today can be broken down into several small simple ones so we'll achieve skulltimate success!" Gryff announced. "First we hit Beast Buy!"

Lin clapped in glee.

Gryff continued and pointed to the automaton, "Atomica, get Lin to the iBlargh display! It is IMPERATIVE that he gets his claws on that FIRST! We do not know yet WHAT it does but it is only FAIR that MY gremlin get first pick!"

He then turned to Cassandra and said, "YOU hit the classic BOOVIES section and get your hands on anything Eartha Werekit, Jackie Gilson or Ghoulcille Ball!"

He cleared his throat then proclaimed with a claw jabbed into his chest, "And I'LL be getting hold of that ... gag gift, for Byff! If ANY of you see the display before I do, GET. IT. FIRST!"

"What about the rest of the maul?" Lin asked.

"We handle chopping for everybluddy else AFTER we procure these all-too important items FIRST! We have all day so PRESCARE YOURSELVES!"

Lin and Atomica drained the last remnants of the coffins that Gryff had brought for them, and Cassandra polished off her own drink! And just in time too, as the zombie janitor undid the chain around the handles inside and started to unlock the double doors...

Atomica scooped Lin up and tossed him onto her back where he held on for dear unlife while her SKRM roller blades descended from her boots!...

Cassandra leaned in, ready to make the mad dash!...

Gryff took to the air, readying himself!...

The doors swung open with a clatter!...

"GO!!!"  

[Draconia St George]

"So should we-" The sound of a dull roar echoed through the Maul. Draconia looked at Perry, who looked at Shad, who looked at Hellene, who looked longingly at the free hat display just outside of the closet door - nearly within talon's reach.

The roar grew in grimtensity, and the floor started to rumble. It could only mean one thing...

"The Maul is open!" Draconia cried, almost as if it were a battle charge.

"Sweet. See ya 'round-" Perry started to say, swinging the door open and clearly intending to head to anywhere other than Bloburry. However, the broom that had bonked Shad on the head when they'd emerged had somehow gotten tangled between Perry's feet, and as he stepped forward, he tripped. His wings flailed out grimstinctively as he started to go down, and Draconia's scaled wings managed to get tangled up with Perry's feathered wings.

"Hey! What're you-leggo of me!" Perry shouted as they both started to fall.

"Oh dee-eeaaar!" Draconia reached out, managing to grab onto Hellene's jacket. Instead of stabilizing her and Perry, though, Hellene -who had hollow bones like a bird ANYWAYS and was about the last monster you'd want to grab to stop a fall-simply joined in the tumble, turning them into a three-monster pileup on the floor.

"Haaaaaat!" Hellene cried out as the rumble shook the entire store and suddenly dozens of monsters poured in.

"Haaaaaat!" Draconia cried sadly as several ghouls from school descended on the rack and picked it clean like buzzards on a corpse.

"Heeeeeaaad...." Perry moaned as he rubbed his noggin and extracted the mop from around his ankles. Hellene turned to him with a flash of anger in her eyes.

"YOU have just cost us the first doorbuster, Mister. YOU officially owe us."

"Hellene, I'm sure he didn't mean-" Draconia began to try to play peacemonster as they all stood up, but Hellene cut her off.

"No time! We have to go to Segorea before they run out of talon polish kits! And YOU-" Hellene grasped Perry around the wrist. "-are going to help us make sure we get it!"

"But-" Draconia began.

"But I-" Perry started, catching a glimpse out the entryway of the skate store.

"NO BUTS!" It turned out Hellene had a strong grip when she wanted. The three of them were already halfway across the Maul on the way to Segorea.





Meanwhile, Shad finished checking out at Bloburry. He admired his free hat, taking his old beret and putting it in his bag so he could plop the new one on his head. Groovy! Now...where did the rest of his chopping group go?!  

[Perry Hartley]

Perry struggled in vain to pry his hand out of Hellene's talons, but all that happened was her grip tightened.
He whined.
"You're hurting me"

She ignored his protests, shooting him a withering glare that made him shrink back a little.

He gulped. Ok Hellene was scaring him now. He made a mental note that if he survived this day, he was gonna try not to make her mad again, well, not unless he was sure he had a foolproof escape plan.

He gazed longingly back toward the skate shop as he was tugged through the crowds.

Perry whimpered a little. Maybe sneaking out hadn't been such a great idea after all.

"If we don't get those talon polish kits..." Hellene began. Shooting the Peryton a meaningful look.

Perry nodded.

"Fine, if we get your stupid talon polish, can I go?"

"We'll see..."

He gulped. It was gonna be a LONG day.

Segorea was in sight, and already it was chaos. Ordinarily Perry would have delighted in standing back and watching the carnage, but that hungry look in Hellene's eyes made him shudder.

"So uh... what's the plan?"  

[Ronan Aalto]

Ronan wasn't so convinced this was a good idea. The crowds were far denser than he'd anticipated but Dashner was remarkably persuasive. Well, more Dashner simply didn't seem to be listening to Ronan's protests as he dragged him into line with Falconnie.

Ronan gave her a strained smile, looking around at the other monsters anxiously.

"So... w... what happens when the doors open?"

Unfortunately, his companions had no time to reply as the doors opened and the crowd surged forward violently.
Ronan struggled to stay on his feet, swept along by a current of monsters screaming and clamouring.
He tried hard to stay near Dashner, but the crowd had other ideas and he and Falconnie were swept one way while Dashner was swept another.

"HELP!" Ronan cried out, but nobody was listening.

He lost his footing, reaching out a hand desperately. Someone grabbed him, yanked and tugged him out of the current and toward a relatively quiet area near the fountain. Ronan collapsed, panting, looking up to his saviour.

"F... Falconnie?"


She smiled down at him. "Come on, we have deals to snag!"

Falconnie looked extremely hexcited, and apparently Ronan just volunfeared himself for bag carrying duty.

She pulled him to his feet and with Ronan clinging to her for dear unlife, plunged back into the seething crowd.  

[Hellene Harpie]

Hellene shoved Perry forward in front of herself and Draconia.

"You are going to be our monster shield. That way when you fall down again it'll be on other shoppers."

She dug into her bag, pulled out her iCoffin and began scrolling.

"Ok, so we're going to Segorea first, then we can swing left and head to Were-ovski three stores down where the bracelets, rings and tiaras are all buy 1 get 2 free for the next 30 minutes. We can fly down to the next level and we're right on top of the Card Chop and Fashion Bites. Draconia, you can use your wings there to block off the racks so we don't have to fight for mini-dresses the way we did at their Laboo Day Sale."

"What ab-" Perry started.

"MONSTER SHIELD," she said, and pushed him back in front of them.

"Can we fit Howllister in there? They have free hats for every purchase!"

"Of course," Hellene replied excitedly, "we can go there right before Haut Topic, the Doctor Boo shirts are 2 for 1."

Just right of the corridor they could see the large Segorea doorway, a beckoning white entry that had every rainbow on display in their racks. Just inside stood the giant pyramid of talon polishes.  

[Atomica Servo]

"Beast Buy! FINALLY!" Lin, on top of Atomica's shoulders, jumped up and down. Atomica did a quick scan. Cassandra was over by the boovies section. Atomica noted she was looking at something starring Veronica Von Vamp.

Gryff was nowhere to be seen, probably using his hexpert ability to be ahead of the crowd on ANYthing to make it to the coffinchino machines first.

No, wait...he was over near the retro vinyl record section. He REALLY wanted that gag gift for Byff, apparently. Though Atomica's memory files did not recall even once Byff claiming he was interested in the Special-Limited-Edition-only-500-pressings-pink-and-silver-two-disk-set-autographed of Catty Noir's Howliday Hits....

"IBLARGH! FIIIINALLY!!!! Hurry, Atomica! If I don't get one, I'll JUST DIE!" Lin reminded her gravely. Atomica poured on the speed. Just as they skidded up to the display, a gargoyle sales representative reached up...and pulled the last iBlargh case into a handbasket.

"What...what are you doing?!" Atomica hexclaimed as the gargoyle put up a 'sold out' sign. "We are the first monsters here! They can't be sold out already! TOTAL LIKE, LOGIC ERROR!"

The gargoyle shrugged.

"Go talk to my manager." Was all he said as he walked behind the counter and locked the iBlarghs behind an acrylic case.

"SO sorry. But a VIM-that's Very Important Monster- just called and reserved all ten of those iBlarghs." The manager loomed behind Atomica and Lin. Atomica spun around. She instantly pulled up a recognition file in her memory of who this manager was, even before she scanned the name 'Rocco' on his name tag. Rocco was the team captain of the Skulltimate Roller Maze team for Granite City....AND the boofriend of a certain were-cat that the Trouble Tribe had snubbed at the entrance.

"That has to be against the rules!" Lin shouted, waving a little fist. "On Bleak Friday, the most demanded item at ANY store, and one monster can reserve ALL of them?!"

"There's, like, noooooo way Toralei can afford ten of these things!" Atomica protested. Rocco just shrugged, grinning smugly at them both.

"As the assistant-swing-manager of the electronics section of Beast Buy, I'm able to make judgement calls like this, and I say, if Toralei needs ten iBlarghs, then she can reserve ten iBlarghs. If you have an issue with that...fill out a ghostomer satisfaction form."

Rocco pointed over to a pad of paper next to a box. Atomica looked with a panicked hexpression at Lin. Would he keel over dead any moment?!

"AT LEAST TELL ME WHAT IT DOEEESSSS!" Lin shriekd at Rocco as he headed into the back to take a 15 minute break. As the door swung open, Atomica saw a giggling Toralei hang up her iCoffin and hold up her paws for a hug from Rocco.

Atomica fumed. Never did she want to fire off her atomic death ray more than just this moment!

Sad, and slumped over even shorter than normal, Lin walked over to the Ghostomer Satisfaction survey and sadly filled one in. He wiped a tear from his little gremlinny face.

"*sniff*...I guess I'll give them a 5 for store cleanliness...but I'm only giving them a 1 for salesmonster courtesy!" He informed Atomica as he ripped the survey off the pad and folded it in half. Atomica's atomically-powered battery of a heart nearly gave out at the sad scene. If only there was something she could do to get even with Toralei and Rocco!

Lin deposited the slip into the box. Just as his claws let go of the survey, suddenly a bunch of sirens started going off.

"Oh no! What now?!" Atomica shouted over the din. Confetti started dropping from the ceiling.

"CONGRATULATIONS!" Another sales associate, this one a lizard-ghoul, walked up, applauding. Her nametag read "Allie Gator." "You've just won our random ghostomer survey contest! Every survey submitted automatically gave you an entry for the random drawing for a BEAST BUY CHOPPING SPREE!!!!"

"I won?!" Lin looked up, a tear still running down his face. "I won a chopping spree?!"

"Yes, you did! Five minutes to get ANYTHING you want from the store!" She informed him, reading off of the rules posted next to the ghostomer survey box. "Today is your lucky day! You can pick one friend to help you, but you only get five minutes."

"And anything from the store is fair game? Anything?"

"Yup!" Allie looked again at the rules. "As long as it's not nailed down."

Lin looked at the sales associate. He looked at Atomica. He looked at the back room, where Rocco and Toralei were just stepping out, drinking coffinchinos from Scarbucks.

His face broke out in a wide, wide smile.

"Can we do it right now?!"  

[Perry Hartley]

"i.. i'm not sure I like this plan" Perry protested as he was shoved forward and into the crowd.

He considered his options.
The longer the ghoul's shopping trip took, the less likely he was to get to the skate shop before they sold out of everything.
He did a few quick calculations, glanced back at Hellene and Draconia and a sly smirk started to spread across his face.

"I have a better idea. You want talon polish right?"

He raced off, ducking and diving through the crowd. This was just like a football match, only EVERY monster was the opposition.
He dodged a laden werewolf with a teetering pile of bags, leapt over his diminutive vampire ghoulfriend and made a wild dive for the talon polish display along with several other monsters.

For a moment time seemed to stand still as he reached out to grab whatever he could.

He rolled as he hit the ground, panting heavily as Hellene and Draconia rushed over.

The display had been picked clean, Hellene looked fit to break something... or someone... till Perry slowly opened his hand, revealing the single kit he'd managed to swipe away from bargain hungry monsters.

"If... you need a second one... i'm sure I can tackle one of this ghouls for you. Just.. let me catch my breath... a moment.."  

[Lin McGearloch]

The hexcitement was abuzz! Word has gotten around! Someone won the chopping spree at Beast Buy, and on a day that had all the gorious Bleak Friday deals to boo! Some were oblivious, like Rocco for hexample who was too busy laughing with Toralei across the store about the one they pulled over on the (in)famous Trouble Tribe. Others, however, were maneuvering closer to the front of the store, all but forgetting about their own chopping to watch with interest as the Tribe was led to the forefront of the store.

As the other choppers maneuvered about in the confines of the store, Lin, along with Gryff and Atomica, stood near the chopping carts and Annie, the fiendly clerk, readied them.

"Okay!" Allie said as a reporter jumped in and took a flash photo, causing Lin to stagger back against Gryff who swiftly caught him. "Are you ready? Do you know the rules?"

Gryff stood Lin upright who blinked back those little 'spots' and gave her a claws up.

"Hexcellent!" Allie clapped. "Now! Is who is going to be your friend that'll assist you?"

"Um..." Lin bit on his claw, and looked up at Gryff first, then Atomica. Gryff was, of course, his natural first choice, but Atomica was as close as a blister, er, sister to him ever since his folks took her in and practically adopted her as a daughter. He didn't want to disappoint her any more so than he would Gryff! What was a gremlin to do, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Lin turned around and looked up, as Gryff lowered himself down to whisper in 'his' gremlin's ear.

"Take Atomica."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! She has the whole layout of the store and its stock downloaded into her hard drive! She knows what we want, where it is, and the fastest routes there and back!"

Lin looked up at Atomica and smiled, "You feel like puttin' those SKRM skills to good use, lass?"

Atomica paused a moment from posing for one of the boospaper reporters, and shrugged, "Affirmative! It is nice to see my TOTALLY hardwire SKRM skills put to good very day use!"

Lin looked back to Gryff who nodded and patted his shoulder before standing up right once again.

Lin looked at Allie and pointed to Atomica. "She's going to help me! She's..."

Atomica skated right in front of Lin and posed again, saying, "Atomica Servo! SKRM B Team of Monster High!"

"Alright everybluddy!" Alllie turned around to the crowd gathered and the reporters and camera crew. "We have our pair, ready and willing! Get yourselves your carts!"

But rather than allowing Lin to risk his health further by pushing his own cart on those stumpy legs of his, Atomica grasped him by the back of the collar and hefted him off of his feet...!

"Hey!"

... And plopped him down in the child's seat of the cart, much to Lin's embarrassment, and everyone else's amusement!

"Hey!" Lin cried out in protest. "What's this all about!?"

"Quiet!" Atomica reprimanded her beastie. "It's, like, TOTALLY for your own good!" And it was too! Another scan and she could sense Lin's heart rate had to have tripled and he seemed awfully fidgety! That twitch in his right eye wasn't a good sign, either.

"Gryff!" Lin looked wide-eyed at Gryff who just shrugged his shoulders and stepped back to watch.

"Remember!" Allie called as Atomica wheeled the cart around, preparing herself as her SKRM skates descended again from the bottoms of her boots. "Five minutes to grab anything and EVERYTHING that isn't nailed down! Bring it up here for the clerks to check out while you go for more! Ready!"

"Ready!" Lin and Atomica shouted in chorus.

"GO!"  

[Falconnie Hawke]

"No time for chatting, we MUST get going!" Falconnie said, pulling Ronan's arm through the crowded doors. Dashner was infront of her, trying to plow his way through.

"Ow!"

"Sorry bro, didn't mean to step on your foot."

"Watch it, Hawke!"

"Okay, okay, okay!"

Falconnie dragged them into a "Forever 1,021" store, which consisted of all ghoul clothing. Dashner and Ronan sat there, bored to death while Falconnie tried on clothes that had huge discounts. Dashner turned to Ronan, "As much as I don't want her to be shy... I'm happy she's not like this ALL the time."

Dashner eyed a small hand mirror, used by ghouls to try on earrings. Nobody was at the station, so he told Ronan he'd be right back as he walked to the small hand mirror, and picked it up. Taking a deep break, his said slowly and clearly to the mirror, "Rorrim Bludworth," he repeated the name 12 more times, summoning his friend.  

[Ronan Aalto]

Ronan watched Dashner, tilting his head a little at his sudden mirror obsession.

"I hardly think Rorrim will be pleased to be summoned here to join us in this tedium." He remarked, watching the crowds warily.

"what do you boos think?" Falconnie gave a coy twirl as she emerged from the dressing room in a new dress.

"It's a dress." Ronan remarked unhelpfully.

Falconnie sighed. "What IS my brother doing?"

"Summoning Rorrim, though am not certain why. Perhaps he misses him?"  

[Rorrim Rory Bludworth]

"-never*hic* heard of The Rolling Bones, either-" Rory was cut off mid-sentence to Nero by the sudden sight of a dozen crazed ghouls ripping clothes off of a rack in front of him.

"AAAAUGH!" Rory jumped back, away from the crowd. He wound up face-first in a makeup display. "AUGH!"

Pulling back from that, his face now covered in dieshadow and blush, Rory stumbled over someone's discarded 95% off headband and landed in somemonster's arms.

He looked up, his makeup-covered face staring at Dashner.

"AUGH! *hic!*"  

[Ronan Aalto]

"Good morning Rorrim." Ronan had wedged himself against a wall, a little distracted by the crowd and the welling panic in his gut. This was like the football game all over again, no... it was worse.
The ghouls that surrounded them were screaming, bickering and wrestling over trinkets and sequined tops, Ronan had no doubt they'd attack anymonster who came too close to their coveted bargain.

"I don't suppose you're able to transport monsters with you when you disappear are you?"
He swallowed hard. Why oh why had he let Dashner talk him into this?  

[Glen da West]

Draconia St George

Draconia's iCoffin then started to buzz ... and to vibrate. And the vibrations grew stronger and stronger, rising in mild intensity until her purse started to bounce about as a result.

That clearly meant one thing: Glen.

He had cast a little hex on her iCoffin for emergencies ONLY, and the vibrations would only grow stronger until it was answered -- and thus could not be ignored.

(If only she had known about the hex before he had already cast it!)

Wait... emergency?

"Blimey!"

Draconia quickly reached into her purse to extract her iCoffin and she turned it on to read the hext message ... and thankfully the vibrations immediately ceased:

Quote:

Drakiiiieee! Emergency! S.O.S. 666! No Spellbound vendors here at the NG market! Did you find the Bleak Friday limited edition?