Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been a really long day for Atomica, frankly. The day had started out REALLY early...before sunrise even, when she and Lin had met up with Ronan Aalto in the Monster High parking lot to follow up on Atomica's gracious offer for Ronan to polish the chrome on Mr. Hackington's hearse. Truthfully, Atomica saw no reason SHE had to be there, since Ronan was the one who got into trouble and was supposed to be doing the polishing, but she supposed it was one of the pitfalls of having a lab partner. And Lin had agreed to come with to keep things from getting too boring. What a friend!

What Atomica hadn't counted on was how annoyingly exacting Ronan was about EVERYthing. The morning had dragged by as Ronan had insisted on trying to polish EVERY single corner perfectly of the car. Atomica had drained a good part of her daily battery charge just playing games online to keep from boring herself into sleep mode.

At some point, something had exploded. Atomica wasn't sure what, but that sort of thing happened all the time when Lin was around so she was pretty used to it. And in the end, she'd wound up covered in chrome polish somehow and it had all buffed out beautifully, so no big deal, right?

Too bad Ronan didn't seem to agree. WhatEVER. That guy so needed to learn to relax.

At any rate, all of that battery expenditure had meant that once Atomica had agreed to downgrade to dial-up during Truth or Scare, her power level was already hovering on the lower side of the dial. And when Demona had put the brakes on the game, her energy had hit the red. Now, Atomica was in sleep mode, drawing ambient energy from around her to repower her atomic battery.

So she could be forgiven for breaking the cardinal rule of being the first one to fall asleep at a creepover, right? With sixteen colorful balloons statically-charged to her, and the Encyclope-die-a, volumes A through H balanced on her head, Atomica was fast becoming less of a participant in the creepover and more of a modern art sculpture.

She let out one last dial-up grinding sound, which sounded exactly like a giant snore, and then sunk deep into sleep mode for the night.

Hellene opened the can of soda and mulled over this. This had to be a real and truthful answer and it couldn't be about the time she regretted hiding all of Melly's left shoes because she only regret that over being grounded.

"Weeelllllllll...." she began, "You know that's a difficult one because there are different kind of regrets, like when you regret doing something or not taking an opportunity, but those aren't really bitter so much as wistful..."

She took a long gulp of Mad Doctor Pepper, nearly emptying the can.

"I think the thing I regret most is not telling Nero exactly how I feel about what he did at the end of that summer we shared so long ago, and how much he hurt me and not to mention what a jerk he is."

Some of the ghouls looked at each other in confusion.

"They used to date," Draconia offered helpfully.

"Ahhhh...." they said in unison.

"Anyway, now it feels petty if I bring it up, even though he NEVER apologized."

She finished off the drink and sighed before carefully setting it atop the book on Atomica's head. She looked at Atomica's shiny chrome finger-tips.

"Someone pass me a bottle of talon polish," she said, smiling wickedly.

Draconia stacked the "O" encyclopaedia on Atomica's head as Hellene began painting her fingertips. By this time, Atomica was covered in designs, had nearly twenty-five balloons statically charged to her, and most of the Encyclopaedia Horrica stacked on her head. It was becoming quite artistic.

"You know, someone really needs to take a picture of this and upload it to Instagrim..."

The Night after the Big Game...

Draconia unlocked the front door of the Looking Glass and stepped in. She turned around and waved good-bye to Hellene and Glen as they sped off in Glen's S-Boo-V. Glen was still rather riled up, after his outburst aimed at Chase at the Die-ner, and given that tomorrow was going to be quite a big day, Draconia had delicately suggested that perhaps they all go home and rest up. Sleep would be best for Glen right now, and frankly, Chase needed the night to sort out his feelings after such a tumultuous game and the scene that had occurred afterwards.

Tomorrow! Draconia felt a chill running down her spine at the thought of it. The Tombcoming dance! Glamour and glitter! Fashion and fame! Well...perhaps not quite so much fame, considering she hadn't-

"So, did you get crowned?" Draconia nearly jumped out of her scales at the sound of another voice in the dead-silent book store. She glanced up and saw her sister, Wyvernia, sitting in the book nook, nursing a hot tea, texting her producer on her iCoffin with one hand and typing a story summary on her computer with the other. For Wyvernia, that was a relaxing evening at home.

"Tombcoming Scream Queen? Thankfully, no." Draconia replied as she pulled off her coat and had a seat opposite her sister. "Jewels Underne got the nod, quite deservedly so. Rory Bludworth is Scream King."

"Aw." Wvyernia gave Draconia a sympathetic hug around the shoulder. Even if Draconia professed to not wanting the royal title, it still felt nice to get a little sympathy for not winning.

"Anyways, tomorrow is the most grimportant part of the whole week! The Tombcoming Dance, Wyvvie! I'm so hexcited I could nearly pop!"

"Mmm, I remember my Tombcomings." Wvyernia replied, putting down the iCoffin to reminisce. "Granita Graves spoiled an entire one spending the whole evening crying up a storm in the ghoul's bathroom because some boo wouldn't dance with her. Ugh, drama."

"Tell me about it!" Draconia replied, emphatically. She then proceeded to tell her sister the entire storied saga of Chase, Devlyn the Imp, Whinnie and Glen, from Chase's initial chest-thumping, to the game, to the kiss kam stunt, finishing up with Glen's Glen-splosion at the Die-ner. Wyvernia listened and laughed.

"Oh-ho-ho, Drake, I know you don't like it when I say this, but you KIDS!" Wyvernia wiped at an eye. "Trust me, that is a thing that is going to work itself out just fine in due time."

"Well, hopefully by tomorrow," Draconia replied. "Hellene and I are joining Glen at the Maul to meet up with another one of his infinite number of aunties for the Scarestylist's Hexpo."

"Scarie LeVeau!" Wyvernia quickly replied. "I'm going to be there getting a grimterview from her for my Monday show, in fact! She's got a very unique perspective on the evolution of normie/monster relations in the Southern part of Uhh-merica."

"Blimey, I think everymonster's heard of her except me." Draconia frowned. "Hellene is about to go crackers over getting to meet her, and for being an aunt, Glen seems bloody scarified of her!"

"Oh, she's not really his aunt." Wyvernia replied casually, going back to her typing. "At least, not in the way that the Jabberwock is our uncle. Witch relatives deal with hexperiences, not just with blood."

"Wot?" Draconia shot at her sister, raising an eyebrow. "I've never heard that from Glen before. I mean, he's just always 'uncle Merlin' this, and 'aunt Clara' that."

"That's a generational thing." Wyvernia hexplained, going into news magazine mode. "It all dates back to the Salem Witch Trial days. Before that, witches and wizards were very distant from each other, even adversarial. But as witch-hunting came in vogue for the normies, witches and wizards alike had to band together and help each other out to defend themselves. They came to recognize themselves all as sort of a unified coven, a brotherhood and sisterhood of magic. So they started referring to each other as 'Brother Merlin' and 'Sister Mary' and whatnot. I suppose to the next generation, then, it's only natural to call their elders 'aunt' and 'uncle.'"

"Really." Draconia rubbed her chin. That really cleared up a lot of confusion about Glen that she didn't even realize she had! "So Rory and Glen aren't blood cousins, so much as...er...spiritual cousins?"

"Like I said, family bonds for witches work differently." Wyvernia shrugged. "The way they have kids is pretty radically different, too, but frankly it's way too late at night for me to start teaching you about the bats and the bees, Drake."

Draconia stifled a yawn. "Yes, I suppose it is rather late. All right, I'm going to get cleaned up and pop off to bed then. Don't stay up too late, all right, Wyvvie?"

Draconia stood up and gave her sister a hug before heading up the stairs to their flat above the store.

"Only till I finish this story or Luna comes in to open the store, whichever comes first!" Wyvernia called up after her.

Tuesday.

The Book Nook in the Looking Glass.

5:15 pm.

"Uuuuugggghhhhh." Ghoulia moaned to her companion as the two arrived at the Looking Glass, hauling two large bags.

"I know! I'm so hexcited!" Wydowna Spider clasped two of her hands together in anticipation as the other two held the door open for Ghoulia to lumber through. "My first Comic Book Club meeting! I can't believe I finally managed to clear my schedule enough to show up."

"Uuuugghhh." Ghoulia agreed, and led her over to the Book Nook where the meetings traditionally took place. "Uuhghh."

"No problem, I can get it set up in no time." The pretty spider ghoul replied as her six arms went into overdrive digging into the bags and pulling out pencils, notebooks, comics, markers, and all other manners of comic paraphenalia. "Everymonster is going to be SO thrilled with this project!"

"Well I ... suppose I just... never thought... you never asked?"

Ascreama had been bubbling at him the entire walk, berating him about why he hadn't told her about his feelings for her beast friend. She'd also had a rant about something Vanissha had done but he really hadn't followed that at all, Vanissha was a strange ghoul who seemed to be short a few oars, which he'd flatly told his blob friend and been informed he shouldn't say such things to her face.
He made a note not to.

"Would it have made a difference?"

"Just because I didn't ask doesn't mean I didn't want to know! It's one of the unspooken things.. Ya'no?" She huffed, her flats slapping on the pavement as they walked.

Ascreama was slowly getting used to the fact that her first crush (second if fictional characters count!) was with, out of all the monsters in the booniverse, her best friend. Being her usual nosy self, she was saddened that she had been kept out of the loop, but felt there was little time for jealousy. Instead she would avoid becoming the 'third wheel' of their relationship and try and find a boo of her own. For now she she comics and drawings for comfort.

The blob ghoul sighed loudly, finding her patience with the selkie was wavering. "He'll learn soon enough.. Or remain clueless forever," She thought and rolled her eyes.

"You can confide in me." She said flatly as the approached the book store.

"I guess that makes sense.." She nodded, oblivious to how his mind actually worked "I haven't really had chance to talk to Meme, she's been busy studying. So, dish the deets!" The blob nudged Ronan gently with her elbow and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, I'm not sure what's on." She pulled out her phone, searching on Goo-gle to find local boovie showings. "I'm sure there's some sloppy rom-com you guys can get tickets for, do all that snuggling in the back row and awkward kissing and stuff." she said, wiggling her fingers vaguely. Of course she had only ever seen dates from boovies or TV but wouldn't care to admit it.

"Ooh, they're reshowing Dingy Dancing. That's a classic! I'm sure Meme will love that." She droned sarcastically.