Welcome to Gaia! ::

Still burning from the announcement of the Math retreat spoiling their creepover-crashing crusade, Toralei's ears perked up at the sounds of Doriana's plans. With a deliberate, lilting stroll, she wandered over to Hellene and Draconia's table.

"So sorry that we can't make your creepover, Draconia." Toralei purred, her eyes twinkling. "But I guess that's all right, because we simply aren't very accomplished sewers, are we, ghouls?"

Behind her, Meowlody and Purrsephone shook their heads, barely containing their giggles.

"Sewing?" Draconia chewed on her lower lip. "No, there's going to be makeovers, and scary normie movies and snacks and truth or scare-"

"Oh, realllllly?" Toralei purred. "Because that's not what Doriana Tailor is telling people. In fact, she said you're all going to be sewing a dress for Marceline LaGhede instead."

"Wait, wot?!" Draconia had flashbacks to her last sewing project - a costume for Necrocon of the Visible Ghoul from the Freaktastic Four. That costume had taken her months to make, and it had involved significantly less fabric than a dress. "Why would she be saying that?"

"Well, it sounds like poor Marceline can't afford a dress for the dance, poor thing, and it sounds like Doriana has decided you're all doing some charity work instead of a creepover."

"Well, I'll just hexplain to her that this is a creepover and we already have plans." Draconia stood up, preparing to walk over to Doriana and Marceline. Toralei grabbed her arm.

"Oh, you wouldn't want to do that, would you? I mean, look at poor Marceline." Marceline had her arms up, and Doriana was taking her measurements. "You wouldn't be so terrible as to rob her of this, her only chance at having a proper dress for the dance, would you?" It was clear Toralei could barely keep herself from breaking out in laughter as Draconia's face fell, and she slowly sat down.

"No...no, I couldn't possibly do that." Draconia's ruby heart gave a sad, sideways bump. She felt all of the points in her mental checklist become un-checked as she thought about having to make room for sewing machines, patterns and fabrics. There was no way she'd hurt Marceline's feelings, especially if she couldn't afford to go to Fashion Bites and get something off even the discount rack for the dance. Toralei looked at the were-twins and the three of them shared a silent laugh. Turning back to Draconia, Toralei put a hand on her shoulder.

"You are SO nice, Draconia, I'm SO sorry we won't be able to make it to your sweatshop, I mean, creepover!" And with that, Toralei couldn't hold it in anymore, and the three werecats walked off laughing. "We'll be thinking of you when we're solving for X, Draconia!"

Draconia slumped down in her seat. Before anyone else could react, the bell rang, and it was time to head off to her next class.

Bidding farewell to her new friends, Jewels tidied her tray away and headed toward class as the bell rang.

Jewels' phone pinged as she made her way down the corridor and she stared at the message in bafflement for a while, very nearly walking straight into a tall gargoyle boo.
She squeaked and nearly dropped her Icoffin.

"s.. so sorry Mason! IknowIshouldn'twalkandread... "

The boy just smiled and moved aside to let her pass.
Jewels scurried on. She couldn't make stalagmite or stalactite out of the Ghostly Gossip's latest tidbit. Piracy? Hijacking? Well it all sounded terribly exciting and a little scary to her. Here she was assuming a creepover was all painting nails and truth or scare. Now there were nefarious schemes afoot? Oh dear.

She trudged toward class, her mind churning with speculation.

"Hey! Jewels! Wait up!" Kai flagged Jewels down as she strolled out of the Creepateria. When she slowed down, Kai caught up to her and grinned. "Hey, congratulations on getting the winning theme. I had a ton of ideas, but I couldn't narrow it down enough to submit one." Decision-making. It was the eternal struggle, and sometimes, Kai got burned by his indecision. He synched in-step with Jewels as they pushed through the crowded hallways.

Already, the Student Body Council Party Preparation Committee had hung up glittering banners in the hallway towards the Grimnasium, announcing 'Puttin' on the Glitz' as the dance theme. Kai felt a little bad for the cursedtoadians, who he knew would be vacuuming up glitter for the next 8 months.

"Anyways, I wanted to let you know that I talked to Mr. Deathknell at the Arrgght-House, and I told him to quintuple our order of glitter, glue-on jewels, metallic ribbon and glue. I think we're gonna see a huge run on that stuff this next week." Kai suddenly grabbed Jewels by the shoulders and yanked her towards him. An instant later, a can of glittery paint fell on the floor with a giant splashing 'SLOP.' On the ladder next to them, a cyclops apologized profusely.

"Sorry! Sorry about that!" He pointed his paintbrush at the "Glamour & Glitter" banner he had been applying paint to. "I don't have great depth perception, and I sort of miscalculated where the paint bucket was..."

" S'okay, Cy." Kai waved the flustered Cyclops back. "No harm done! Right Jewels?"

Draconia was in the ghoul's locker doom, getting dressed for Physical Deaducation. Normally, she actually rather liked Phys. Dead. It was the one class she had with Manny Taur, and it seemed like everyone was much more tolerant of her clumsy wings in this class than all of her other ones. It was nice in the early Fall that Coach Igor let them go out and play football, which Draconia very much enjoyed as well. Draconia wasn't the most skilled ghoul on the team (that was, claws-down, Clawdeen Wolf), but the rules stated that only HANDS had to stay off the ball, which instantly made her wings much more useful in the game for manipulating and passing the pink and black-chequered ball.

Draconia looked at a group of ghouls looking at their iCoffins and giggling. Hers was already securely locked away in her locker. She wondered if Toralei's news about Marceline's poorness had hit the Ghostly Gossip. That would be so terrible!

"DRACONIA!" Draconia suddenly jumped at the unfamiliar sound of Hellene bursting into the locker doom. Hellene skipped Physical Deaducation thanks to a mad doctor's note excusing her. So it was no wonder it took her a while to find Draconia sitting on the bench in front of her locker. Hellene wrinkled her nose at the gym clothes Draconia had on.

"Oh, those shorts are just awful, they must be about ten decades out of style, they're practically PANTALOONS, Draconia, really, but never mind that I have much more important things to talk about! Have you SEEN the Ghostly Gossip?!" Hellene didn't pause long enough for Draconia to respond. "I don't know who that gossip thinks she is, spreading rumors like this it's going to just ruin absolutely everything if it's true so I thought that I should check with you and make sure that it's some sort of mistake-"

Hellene paused to draw a breath and Draconia quickly replied as fast as she could.

"No! It IS a mistake! It's not true, trust me!" It was the least she could do, Draconia figured, to try to dispel these rumours about Marceline's destitute stituation in any way she could. "It's clearly just a clawful, hateful rumour!"

"Oh." Hellene looked a little bit taken aback. "So, the creepover...."

"It's going to be fangTAStic, you'll see! I mean, how could it not be..." Draconia's eyebrows furrowed together a bit worrisomely. She had seen Hellene sew before....or rather, try to sew. Last year in Home Ick, Ms. Kindergruber's first assignment had been to sew a simple pillow. Draconia's had gone together all right, but Hellene and her sewing machine were like dire enemies. Finally, after hours of struggling with it, she'd gotten all four sides sewn together - only to realize she'd left the stuffing out.

Draconia thought perhaps it was best for Hellene's stress level to not mention the fact that Doriana had already promised poor Marceline that everyone would sew her a dress at the Creepover. "Just...forget about those terrible rumours!" Draconia declared. "We'll make sure that every monstress at our Creepover has so much fun they'll forget all of their troubles, both everyday AND financial, right?"

"Yes, all right, but-wait, financial?!" Hellene sputtered, but it was too late. Draconia had already made a mad dash out to the field for Physical Deaducation.

"Oh uh.. GoodafternoonKai."

Jewels felt her cheeks burning as the Chimera fell into step beside her and offered his congratulations.

He's talking to me! He knows who I am!

Her heart did a little flip and she felt slightly giddy.

Don't freak out ghoul.

It was difficult to restrain the urge to squeal in excitement.

He's talking to me!!


"Well uh.. thankyou... it'sreally nothing.. I mean.. I didn'tthink i'd stand a chance...

All this attention from the student body was more than she could quite deal with. Oh it was nice, but she wasn't really an in the spotlight kind of ghoul. This sudden celebrity was overwhelming. She swelled with pride, but simultaneously felt incredibly nervous. What if the theme didn't work out? it'd all be her fault right? And it being her theme, there was an expectation she'd look uhhmazing.
What if she couldn't pull that off either? She didn't even have a date yet!

"I'm sure you'd have come up with something extraordinary "

She flushed an even more spectacular shade of crimson.

She chewed her nails anxiously as Kai chattered about art supplies, doing a terrible job at hiding her growing anxiety as she nodded and made appropriate "mmm yes, I can see that" noises.

"Wa... " She couldn't get the sentence out before Kai pulled her into his arms and out of the path of a spectacular glittery concussion.

Caught in the moment, the mole girl just stared up at Kai wide eyed.

"Y... you saved me.. "

He was a hero! HER hero! She wanted to swoon but that was perhaps a little too melodramatic.

"I... I... "

Her heart was racing and her mind went blank. Maybe the paint tin HAD hit her after all, and she was actually having some sort of dying hallucination.

Doriana was walking pretty fast to get to class on time. On her way, she had heard about the rumor about somebody hijacking a creepover... Great. She felt her face burning in frustration, feeling like she was being accused. Suddenly, she collided with the running Dashner Hawke! Oh no!

"Oi! I'm so sorry, I hope you're okay... But I really need to get to mad science!!" He scurried off.

"Well... T-Thanks, 'bro,' her voice broke. She gathered her things, and scooted up against the wall. Exhausted, she held her legs close to her body with her arms, and looked down. Nobody noticed her as the rushing students passed by.

Jewels was stuttering, which Kai took to mean that she was a bit traumatized by the near-miss of the glitterpaint can. Maybe living underground all the time, mole-people had a chronic fear of getting bonked on the head by stalagmites?

Or was it stalactites? Which ones pointed downward? Kai was about to ask Jewels when his phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his back pocket and gave it a quick glance. Glen was having a freak-out about some sort of hijacking. Kai gave out a great sigh. This wasn't the first time Glen had gone crazy about someone sabotaging his plans.







Kai sighed. This sort of thing was exactly why he didn't subscribe to the Ghostly Gossip, unlike most of the monsters in school. He just didn't get all tied up in imagined drama. Kai texted back to Glen.

From: Kai Merha
Hey, all are welcome. If someone wants to hijack, let them, that could be fun! I don't really have a lot formally planned anyways.

With that taken care of, Kai turned back to Jewels, who was still babbling a bit.

"Hey...you want me to escort you to class? You look a little....flushed."

She sighed and pulled on the bottom of her bob. "Yeah... I guess... Okay, no. Not really."

She sighed, and looked back down at the floor.