Welcome to Gaia! ::

Peggy forced a smile and tried to keep her voice friendly

"I'm NOT a centaur, remember?"

She sat down and made busy arranging her rainbow of ink pens next to her brand new, crisp notebook. If this boo was going to call her centaur every day, this was going to be a long long scaremester

Dashner got out his notebook, one he bought that he could use once the second Scaremester started. He smiled slightly at Rory. "Ready for it to be Cryptmas break... Flying out to Fangland to see my mum. Promised her Falconnie and I would come visit for Cryptmas. Gives me something to look forward to," he nodded, clicking his ink pen against the surface.

"How about you? Did you have a good Fangsgiving break? Well, in the parts that I didn't see you..." he said awkwardly.

<>

Perry had been seriously waylaid by Vinnie's prank, meaning he didn't make it to Chop Class until it was a good 20 minutes in. And no, his excuse hadn't gotten him out of deadtention, which was really the last thing he needed in what was already turning into the worst week of his unlife.
And it was only Monday!

While he'd managed to dig out his PE shirt and letterman to replace his slime covered shirt, and rinsed his face and hair repeatedly, enough of the noxious stench of gloop lingered that everyone was giving him a rather wide berth and nobody wanted to sit near him in class.

He trudged down the hall, plotting revenge when a hand clamped over his shoulder.
He turned, eyes narrowed, half expecting Vinnie.

"What do YOU want?"

Nathair let go of him and recoiled a little. All four hands raised.

"Hey, calm down. We need tae chat."

"Chat? you mean you feel like lecturing me?" Perry huffed and folded his arms.

"Tha's nay... ok yes... I know ye, ye're plotting revenge."

"No i'm not."

"Yes ye are. I KNOW you Perry, ye always plot revenge. But listen tae me... dinnae do it, you understand me?"

"Why not? She started it."

"No she didn't!" The naga clenched his fists in frustration. "Ye jus... argh... never listen d'ye? Ok.. please, jus' promise me ye won't prank her back."

"Why shouldn't I? Come on, one good reason."

"Because if ye do, it'll escalate. Ye prank her, she'll prank ye.. it'll keep goin' till either ye kill each other or ye bring the entire school down on all our heads. An let me tell ye, Glen and Lin are already trying their hardest to blow this school up! We dinnae need the two a ye joining in!"

"You're being a drama queen again."

"Ye know i'm right. She's YOU, ye're as bad as each other! An I know what ye like, ergo, I know what SHE'S like."

"She is not me, she's nothing like me."

Nathair stared at Perry, then burst into laughter. "Are ye serious? D... d'ye actually hear yeself? d ye like... actually think before ye speak?" He snorted. "a course ye don't, if ye did ye wouldn't be in this mess."

"Are you quite done?"

"Perry please, do... not... escalate this. Put those thoughts a revenge outta ye head and jus' appologise tae her! be the bigger manster! Have some sense a self preservation jus' fae once!"

Perry sighed. He knew Nathair was right, if he gave in to the temptation to prank Vinnie back it WOULD escalate rapidly and while it would, for a time be both terrifying and entertaining, it could only end badly, potentially even with expulsion. He relented a little.

"Fine, i'll talk to her."

"Good. An... try NOT tae be yeself... I know monsters always say be yeself but in this case.. yeah... jus... try tae channel a decent monsterous being ok?"

Perry growled softly.

Nathair looked a little uncertain, he wasn't convinced Perry could actually make this right on his own. the guy was clearly completely inept when it came to dealing with other monsters.
"ok.. at the very least.. try nay tae make her more mad ok?"

"I'll do my best." Perry spoke flatly, glaring a little. "you finished?"

"Aye.. i'm done. I said me piece. " The naga boo hesitated, then patted his friend on the shoulder. "Good luck tae ye... " he slithered away, mumbling to himself "ye gonna need it."

Kai came into the Creepateria from Physical Deaducation, the class he had right before lunch. He enjoyed having it right after Art Class, because some hacktivity was just what he needed to clear his head after another 'advising' session from the Art Class teacher, Ms. Moanatello. It seemed that every monster in Art Class except him was really chugging along on their final projects. Even Abbey Bominable, who'd been talked out of carving an entire glacier down to just an ice portrait, was well over the halfway point in her project.

Kai's collage, though, just wasn't taking any form. It was unfocused, Ms. Moanatello had frankly informed him, and he was just taking items and sticking them wherever without any consideration for artistic function. It stung to hear, but Ms. Moanatello was right. He needed a THEME, she'd stressed, and deciding on one theme above every other possible theme was agonizing.

Kai tried not to dwell on it through Dodgeskull, but his mind had clearly been wandering and Manny Taur had taken full advantage. As a result, Kai was more than a little winded from dodgeskulls to the gut as he sat down and reserved a table for himself, Layla, Harry and Peggy.

"Over there, the lurch ladies will fill your trays and you pay at the end of the line." Kai told Peggy as he sat down and pointed her to the lurch line. "Looks like today is Mystery Meat day, so....I wish you the beast of luck."

Kai always packed his own lunch, since crippling indecision in line at lunch could lead to a lot of unhappy glares from students unlucky enough to sit behind him. He unwrapped his ham and queeze sandwich and grinned at Peggy to reassure her as she headed for the lurch line.

"Hi Drakie!" Glen chirped scarily as he plopped into thee usual chair beside her and set his Spellbound lunch pail onto the table with a heavier *KLUNK* than its light frame would indicate it should. "Boo! I forgot it was even Moanday! Mystery Meatloaf Day and I had to go and pack a lunch!"

Glen popped the lid of his lunch pail open and looked up briefly to share a smile and thumbs up to a Scarecrow boo who hurriedly averted his gaze when Draconia glanced up and smiled at Glen.

"So Glen..."

ARGH! I'm not planning anything that could be misconstrued as a surprise!!!

"Oh! Uh..." Draconia blinked. Would she ever REALLY get used to how strangely Glen could act sometimes (all the time)? Discretion being the better part of valor, Draconia opted to ignore that little loss of composure. "So what did you bring for lunch Glen?" Draconia asked with her usual sweet smile, preparing to dig into her own meal.

"I'm not sure." Glen said as he stood up and peered down into his lunch pail with one open eye and the other tightly shut. "I wasn't feeling too hungry so I asked the cook to just go light."

Glen then reached down into the lunch box and started rummaging around, going elbow deep...

"Hmm.... there's my notepad and pen. Gonna need that for no particular reason. NONE at all!" ... Oo! Here's that prezzy I got for you in Normie Town!"

Glen sat a colorfully wrapped little box down in front of Draconia and kept on digging, almost going into the magically enhanced lunch pail head first.

"Oooo! Just what the mad doctor ordered!"

Glen set a six pack of Red Ghoul down and then started pulling out the longest and largest monster sub sammich in the history of monsterdom. He kept pulling it out until the one end landed on the lurch table with a thud and as he pulled out more (and more) it started sliding down the length of the table, further and further until he reached the very end.

With a satisfied sigh, he closed the pail lid and asked Draconia, "You want some to go with your salad? I have plenty!" Glen then stood up and leaned over to look down at the startled students who were staring at the massive sammich! "Feel free to start on that end! Ha!"

He then plopped back down into his chair and tied a napkin around his neck and lifted up his end of the King Kong Sub and looked excitedly at Draconia and her prezzy.

"Well? Go on!" He clapped his hands. "Open it!"

Lunch

What a first day so far for Harry. Bite-ology was by far the highlight with Harry setting a new wreckord for getting into trouble at a new school. It was all Centau-
....no...respect her life choices. I was all NOT Centaur Ghoul's fault.

A blast from the past, man! FIRST PERIOD BITE-OLOGY!

"How dare you! I do not weigh as much as a centaur! Do I need to to show you my butt too like I did for Kai?"

"Whaaaaat? Take a chill pill, NOT Centaur Ghoul."

"I will not take any pills, chill or otherwise, you-"

"MR HERNE AND MS SPRINGWELL! I know this your first time in my class but students do not talk while I teach!"

Ms. Id slammed a vine...tentacle...hand...thing down on her lab table.

"I know. Why don't you share with the class what was so important?"

Harry's eyes lit up! An opportunity to speak on a clawse! He clambered up onto their lab table and struck a pose. Peggy tried to hide under the table as every monsters' head craned to look at her lab partner.

"My fellow Cosmic Voyagers on Gaia, corpserations are destroying our beloved planet! They pillage her for her wealth in the name of greed! If we do nothing, our chill-dren's chill-dren's chill-dren will have no planet on which to live! We must bring these corpserations to heel with the sound of our voices, the beat of our drums, the hack of our sacks, AND THE FIRE IN OUR HEARTS!"

Peggy groaned in embarrassment.

"Join me and NOT Centaur Ghoul...respect her life choices....at the Woestock Boosic Fearstival and we can make a difference! LET YOUR FRIGHT FLAG FLY!"

Lunch

Ms. Id had rubbed the bridge of her nose and told Harry to see her after class. NOT Centaur Ghoul ignored her the rest of the period and he got quite lecture from his teacher but it was a good day so far!

Moving through the line, Harry took the vegetarian choice and sat down at Kai's table.

"Groovy greetings!"

Ronan's day had thus far been fairly uneventful, unlike several other students apparently. Gossip was already creeping around the school about something called "woestock" and the ongoing feud between Perry and Vinnie which was, so a group of ghouls in the corridor had exclaimed "just going to end badly for that boo."
He didn't know Perry very well, but he couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for him. Ghouls weren't exactly the clearest or easiest to understand monsters (Meme excluded of course, but that was precisely why he loved her)

He grabbed his lunch and looked around for somewhere to sit. Much as he'd have liked to spend his lunch break with his ghoulfriend, he knew her beast friend's eating habits would completely put him off his own meal. He waved to Meme and Ascreama across the room and instead plonked his tray down beside Dashner, oblivious to Dashner's sudden look of disappointment.

"Good afternoon." Ronan greeted the group cheerfully, he hadn't quite managed to grasp the concept of asking before just inviting himself to a table.

"I hear it's dodgeskull week." He didn't notice Rory's shudder at the reminder. "What's dodgeskull?"

Draconia unwrapped the clearly lovingly-wrapped present and held it up in the light.

"A snowglobe!" She hexclaimed, as the tiny plastic flakes and glitter shimmered down on a scene inside of the glass globe. "Is this somewhere you went on your trip?"

"It's called a Mystery Spot!" Glen replied. "There were attractions dotting the roadside, a place to get gas, and a giant ball of string! The GIANTEST ball of string in the world!"

"My, my!" Draconia replied as she looked at the tiny plastic replica of a giant ball of string inside of the globe. "String! Normies are interested in such unusual things!"

"You see that little building right there?" Glen pointed. "That's the gift chop...or, gift shop, as they call it! It's where I bought the snowglobe. I bet if you look close enough, you can probably see a tiny snowglobe in the window! It's snowglobe inception!"

"OoooOoo." Draconia answered, looking suitably impressed. "Glen, I uhh-dore it. You were so brave to stop at a normie attraction! I would have been so nervous and worried about offending the normies!"

"Naaah, they were great!" Glen waved off Draconia's concerns. "All the normies we met on the trip were super nice!......with a couple exceptions." Glen tacked on, suddenly remembering that he had spent most of the trip in a cage.

"Well, I have a little something for you, too." Draconia replied, reaching into her purse. "I almost forgot about it, and you probably already managed to get one, but I got THIS during the Bleak Friday sale at the Maul, and-"

"OH. MY. GHOUL!!!!" Glen cried out as Draconia held up a slip of printed cardboard. "Is that- Can it- Could it be?!!! IS THAT THE SPECIAL GRIMITED EDITION FANGSGIVING SPELLBOUND HOLOFOIL INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED EMBOSSED GIVEAWAY CARD?!!!!!!!"

Draconia flipped the card towards herself. Oooh, it was a hologrim!

"Well, yes, I rather suppose it is." She replied, seeing Glen's eyes becoming wider and wider. "So...you don't have this one yet?"

"No! I-is that really...for me?!" Glen's hands started shaking. Draconia quickly handed the card over, and Glen emitted the longest, happiest sigh she'd ever heard.

"Of course it's for you! I'm glad you like it." Draconia put a hand on Glen's shoulder to keep him from floating away in ecstasy. "So, what hexactly does it do in the game?"

"What does it do?! What does it do?!!!! Wait....what DOES it do?" Glen flipped the card over and scanned the description blurb on it.

"Maul Madness - Opponent must keep drawing cards and discarding them to their boneyard until they find one with a lower energy cost than energy output. If a lower cost card cannot be found, they must abandon the game, go to the nearest Spellbound shop, and purchase card packs until they find an acceptable card."

Draconia's eyes bugged out.

"Blimey, that sounds sort of....er...."

"BRILLIANT! Oh, I can't wait to play this during a tournament! Thank you, Drakie!" Glen put an arm around Draconia's shoulder and the beasties hugged.

"No, thank YOU for the snowglobe! I wasn't hexpecting such a lovely gift from your trip!" With their hug finished, the two returned to their lunches. Draconia set the snowglobe in front of her tray so she could watch the glitter fall down on the tiny plastic ball of string and marvel at the normie world.