The Catacombs

[Operetta MH]

Ancient and cavernous, the Catacombs are an integral part of Monster High - even though they predate the school by centuries. Spreading out like a spider's web underground and extending past the school into New Salem and beyond, large portions of the Catacombs remain uncharted to this day.

Mister Hack is fond of excavating some of the known locations. Operetta has found a completely intact recording studio in another. The Skulltimate Roller Maze team practices on an enormous, deadly track in yet another location. Many secrets have already been discovered by the student disembodies of Monster High, but many still remain shrouded in darkness.

What other mysteries do the Catacombs hold?  

[Atomica Servo]

"Come on, come OONNN!" Atomica's tinny, modulated voice badgered Lin as they navigated through the tunnels of the Catacombs. Thanks to her internal map software, she knew exactly the right route to take from the sewer entrance near Lin's house to the Trouble Tribe's secret hideaway. Only the three of them knew its location. Atomica was extremely sure of this, because she had been the one to discover it, 25 years ago when her atomic battery had died and left her stranded there until Lin and Gryff had found and rebooted her.

Yes, it's true that it was clearly some sort of junk storage room for Monster High, which meant that every now and then one of the giant troll cursedtoadians would throw broken SKRM equipment or malfunctioning keyboards in there through a hole in the ceiling, but STILL~

Secret. Hideaway. So rad to the max! That is, IF LIN WOULD HURRY UP!

"OH. MY. GHOUL, Lin, can you get the lead out?!" Atomica chided him as he finally came up behind her, dragging a large, slightly oil-leaking box of car parts. It's not even like he had a big load there...the box was only twice his size! Atomica was carrying the entire rest of the car with one hydraulically-powered arm. "We have to get everything set up this moaning, because this afternoon is the big SKRM tryout, and, like, the BEAST member of the team TOTALLY has to be there to help Coach Clawd tell all those other losers that they don't even need to bother trying out!"  

[Lin McGearloch]

"I'm trying!" Lin grunted as he tugged with everything he had on the handle of the large box. "I'm trying!"

Lin bit at his bottom lip and dug his heels in to try and get a good foothold to pull his favorite car parts to rebuild his racer in peace. Perhaps not the smartest move he's ever made as mentioned before, the box was slightly leaking oil. His feet slipped and he slid down and past the corner of the box and disappeared around the corner of the tunnel.

Atomica huffed as a grumpy gremlin came stomping back and he started pushing the box from behind.

"It's easy for you, lass!" Lin growled as he strained and struggled, managing to push it a further couple inches. "You can lift a good few tons with that one arm of yours. Me...? Not quite as much!"  

[Atomica Servo]

"Puh-LEEZE." Atomica would have rolled her eyes if they weren't LCD displays. She drew her arm back and pitched the car down the tunnel, sending it sailing past some very surprised scargoyles as it zoomed along the ground on its four mismatched wheels, coming to a halt when it hit a well-padded area of the T.T. Hideout. Atomica turned around and yanked up Lin's box of parts...and him along with it.

"I do NOT have time today for all this dilly-dally! If I'm even a MILLISECOND late to the tryouts, Coach Clawd will notice! And this year I'm going to try out for captain! It's obvious I'd be the beast at it, just like I'm the beast on the team. That's why they put me on the "B" squad. B stands for Beast!"

Atomica wound up....there was the pitch...and Lin and his box of parts went sailing down the same path as the chassis of the car. Atomica leaned forward and turned on her Atomic Plasma Skates, jetting her alongside the screaming Lin.

"I DON'T GET WHY YOU DON'T LIKE THIS SPORT, LIN!" She shouted as his careening box bounced off the walls, heading towards the Hideout at breakneck speed.  

[Lin McGearloch]

"I WANT MY MOMMYYYYYYY!!!"

Lin's frantic screams echoed off of the catacomb corridor as he was bounced off of one side of the box he was hanging off of, his legs and feet flapping in the wind generated by the momentum of Atomica's throw. He bounced hard against the box and was flipped up and into the contents before bounced right back out and dangling by one arm in the front.

His eyes bugged out and he kicked his feet, trying to get up as the box came careening towards the cavern wall!

"I'M TOO ADORABLE TO DIE!!!"

A jolt on the floor caused him to flip up and into the box just as the box hit the wall. The impact sent him flying out and he tumbled across the floor in a series of flips until he came to a halt in the corner, upside down.

"Ohhhh! I see little birdies!"  

[Atomica Servo]

Atomica frowned at Lin.

"My internal chronometer says I beat you by .0023 seconds. Not TOO bad...I guess. But I really should be faster! I guess I'll have to skip powering up my Atomic Death Ray for the tryouts so I can pour that energy into my speed." Atomica initiated a sigh cycle. She just knew if she could get ONE chance to fully charge her death ray and let 'er rip, she would win all of SKRM forever. But it always seemed like something prevented her from doing it. Like last year, how it always seemed like Monster High managed to win their matches without even putting her into the maze. Atomica knew it was because Coach Clawd assured her she was Monster High's Super Secret Clawesome Best Weapon Evarrrr, but still, just ONE chance was all she needed to clear the playing field and win completely!

"Clickers! Where are you boy? Cli-ckers!" Atomica looked around in the various Lin projects and stacks of Gryff high-value-low-print collectibles for her pet computer mouse. Finally, she found the little shiny blue monstrocity nibbling on some floppy disks. She petted Clickers till he double-clicked and gave her a squeak. "Good boy!" Atomica initiated a cooing cycle. "You're going to cheer me on at SKRM, aren't you? Aren't you? And Lin is going to mouseysit you the whole time, isn't he? Isn't he?!"  

[Lin McGearloch]

eek

Lin bent over backwards away from Atomica who bent over forwards, only an inch or so away from his face as she sought assurance that he would mind her pweshus widdle Clickers.

"Uh... sure! SURE! We'll both be cheering you on!"

The tiny baby skunk swiftly maneuvered out from behind the stack ofUrtha Werekit albums and skittered up onto Lin's lap where he absently reached into his pocket and offered the skunk a berry.

"See!? We'll all be there jeering, er, cheering you on!"  

[Atomica Servo]

"That's right!" Atomica skated away from Lin and admired her SKRM outfit in a mirror propped up on some broken belt sanders. "I just know that, like, this year is going to be my BEAST year yet! I'm going to finally be recognized by more than just you and Gryff for all of my incredible talents that I've downloaded and installed."

Atomica gave herself a victory pose in the mirror.

"Starting with being crowned SKRM Team Captain."

She spun herself in a circle on her skates. "Sooo, why did we bring all of this junk, er, your car rebuilding project down here, anyways? I didn't mind it being in my room back at home."  

[Lin McGearloch]

"I thought Clawd Wolf was the Captain of the SKRM team?"

Lin looked down at Sweety who was nibbling at the berry and the small skunk glanced upward at him. Lin shrugged and his pet went back to its treat.

"Maybe you'll make the B Team Captain? Do they have one?"

Lin sighed as he climbed to his feet and walked over to the box against the wall. He stood on his tiptoes and started to remove parts from it to sort them out.

"I know ye dinnae mind. Yer a top class lass. But there's more room down here an' the way that wardrobe of yers keeps explandin', you could use a wee bit more room. Besides..."

He looked up from inspecting a clawful of tools and gave Atomica a toothy watermelon grin.

"I thought I could build ye a wardrobe carousel in the new space."  

[Atomica Servo]

"He's the team coach this year." Atomica made a face. "Everyone thinks Robecca Steam is going to be team captain this year, just because she's all famous for her SKRM-ing and a legend of the sport and whatEVERRRRR. Defrag me with a spoon!"

She was drawn out of her impending rant cycle about Robecca by Lin's offer to make an automated wardrobe, though.

"OMIGHOUL that would be the KEWLEST thing EVAR, Lin! You're taking Chop Class this year, right? That would be such a clawesome project! For ME! To have!"  

[Marceline LaGhede]

"*ahem* I hope I ain't too late..." Marceline wheeled herself onto the track towards Atomica and Lin, delicately balancing a cardboard tray of drink cups on one skeletal hand. She had known how to skate for a bit of her unlife, a skill fine-tuned by a summer job as a scar-hop at a retro drive-in back home. She pivoted slightly and skidded to a halt in front of them.

"Good mournin', everymonster!" She chirped as she took a bite of her breakfast beignet. "Atomica, I stopped at the Coffin Bean on the way here and figured I'd get you an electroccino on the grimployee discount!" She plucked a cup marked with a blue lightning bolt from the tray and handed it to the automaton ghoul. "Gotta be fueled if we're gonna be our best today, that's f'sure!"  

[Meme Pennywise]

Meme had set off for try-outs early with the intention of warming up and practising some moves before hand, but inadvertently gotten lost within the maze of the catacombs. She stopped for a moment to stretch her legs and pulled on her roller-blades. After a while of circling the dank tunnels she spotted a flash of green cross her path.

"Hey!" She called out to the monster, who skated quickly and carried aloft tray full of coffee cups. Meme unzipped the small bag around her waist and pulled out a pair of ski poles. She began to close the gap between herself and Marceline, poles clicking on the stone floor.

"Whhee!" She laughed, turning her feet at an angle and swerving to a stop at the monster's side. "Am I late?!" She wheezed, waving her ski poles to a pair of ghoul's she hadn't noticed in the hurry.  

[Atomica Servo]

Atomica took the electrochino and gave it to Lin, who was breathless and completely wiped out from the two of them dashing at breakneck speed from the Trouble Tribe Secret Hideout to the SKRM track to arrive mere milliseconds before Marceline had appeared to offer them a drink. Lin was escorted over to the stands to watch as other ghouls started filtering in, preparing for the tryouts.

Atomica's ocular sensors scanned Manny Taur, Lagoona Blue, Rochelle Goyle, Gil Webber and Operetta all making their way to the track. They had all been on the team last year. Atomica calculated their chances of making it again to be in the highest percentile.

More of a wild card were some of the new kids showing up for the tryout. Atomica knew Marceline, as she had been part of the summer band she'd formed with a few different ghouls, "Atomica and the Rest In Peace." Atomica had been the lead singer, of course. And lead song writer. And lead costume organizer. And lead travel coordinator. She was just so talented, there was no room for anyone else at the top!

She didn't recognize the second ghoul who skated up to them, but her logic circuits informed her that this one was going to be annoying. Atomica smoothed the front of her SKRM outfit and demurred.

"Well, look at all of the healthy competition. May the best robot win!"  

[Gryff N]

Gryff unfolded himself languidly from a vintage 60s couch nestled in the back of the Tribe's lair, rubbing his cheek unconsciously where a Ramoans album had left concentric imprints in his fur. Normally when he wanted to get away from home for a night he would stay at Lin's, but the gremlin furniture was too petite for his frame and his regular far-east educated Broodist massage guru was on a sabbatical trekking through the Grimalayas for another two weeks. It would not do to walk into the coffin shop hunched over so that no one could see his perfectly screen printed t-shirt.

Stretching his arms and wings he suddenly found his lip curling in annoyance, also known as Gryff's general state of being. Even though he was still wearing his very high fidelity Tesla AudioSnob5000 deadphones, he could hear something shrill echoing through the corridors of the catacombs. He tossed his luxurious hair back from his eyes as he removed the deadphones, placing them in their case by the grimophone. Yes, it was definitely the sound of teenagers with terrible taste in music.

He checked on Faust in her box in the corner, refilled her nectar dish and placing a few scraps of chicken and spent uranium in the food bowl before stalking off to see what insufferable, poorly dressed cretins had ruined his dream about taking Catty Noir to the pr - - something really obscurely cool.  

[Anne Arctica MH]

Anne swished through the catacombs, making her way to the SKRM track.
"Marcie! Hey!" Anne slid to a stop. " I hope I'm not interrupting anything!"
She twirled in her skates and tapped the track with her skate. Anne had played a similar game when she was 8, roller derby. She taught herself to skate and had been good ever since. She was excited to try out for the Roller Maze season.