A Whateley Academy Adventure

-Of Pranks and Finals

by

Morpheus, Domoviye, Fiddlerfox, and Amethyst

Part Three

Domoviye
Whitman Cottage, Friday morning, Dec 14th, 2007

Stepping out of their dorm room, Mary rubbed her temples wishing her tiny roommate and friend would shut up. She liked the little fairy, somehow, but at least once a week Tink would get excited about something and become the most annoying person on Earth. And considering some of the bullies at Whateley, that was saying something. Today was worse than usual, because she’d slept horribly after watching and announcing Just Me’s bloody combat final. “Tink for the final time I'm not doing your stupid shoulder angel thing.”

“It's not angels, that would be against the rules. It's the fun fairy and the boring fairy,” Tink insisted, following after her roommate.

“It's still stupid, and I'm not being a boring fairy.”

Tink flew quickly to get in front of her. “But you'd be perfect for it. You have the cool grey skin, and the awesome black wings.”

“I'm also not a fairy! In case you hadn't realized, I'm a little too big to fly around and sit on someone’s shoulder. And unlike you I can't hover in place.” Maybe that would finally get through to the purple fairy's tiny brain.

It looked like Tink was about to say something, but she stopped. Her mouth was open but nothing was coming out, a rather delightful change after the last half hour. Finally, Tink said “Oh yeah. That would be a problem.”

“Finally!”

“You would make a terrible fairy. I know someone a lot better than you!” Tink exclaimed before zooming off at top speed.

Mary rubbed her forehead again, muttering to herself, “I know I should be happy she finally shut up, but I still feel insulted.”

Domoviye
Dickinson Cottage, Friday morning, Dec 14th, 2007

Interest yawned as she entered the bathroom, toothbrush and other things at the ready. Blinking tiredly, it took her a moment to realize there was no one in the mirror. “Uh...” she said intelligently. Usually her problem was having too many of herself, not an absence of Interest's.

A figure came running in from the far side of the mirror, and then Interest was looking at herself.

“Sorry! Slept in and the coffee maker wasn't playing nice,” her mirror self said, while messing up its hair and fixing its robe to match her.

Another girl came in, properly and from the door this time. “Talking to yourself again,” Khrysalis asked.

“I... don't know,” Interest responded. Thankfully her mirror image seemed to be behaving herself and only mimed her actions.

“Hey! Where's my reflection?” Khrysalis demanded, realizing she was missing something important.

“Oh hush up. I'm coming, I'm coming!” mirror Khrysalis said, coming from the side of the mirror with a cup of something steaming.

“Did you do that?” the real Khrysalis asked Interest.

“Nope. I'm just going to pretend it didn't happen. My life is weird enough as is,” Interest said, keeping her eyes down as she applied toothpaste to her brush.

It looked like Khrysalis was about to say something, while her mirror image did some stretches, then shrugged and started washing her face. This was Whateley, weirder things had happened.

Domoviye
The Library, Friday morning, Dec 14th, 2007

Smile walked out of the library, trying to not look upset. Her roommate and best friend, Jane, was not handling the horrifying combat final from yesterday very well. And after the hard cry during breakfast, Jane had gone back into her passive not talking about anything mode, she did when she was upset. For her own mental health, Smile had had to get out for a little while and do some studying for the upcoming exams.

Rubbing her gloved hands together, wishing it was warmer, or that there was a tunnel for students to Dickinson, she was completely unprepared for the purple fairy who chose that moment to slam into her, driving them both into a snowbank.

“SMILE!” Tink shouted. “I HAVE THE MOST BESTEST IDEA EVER!”

“TINK!” Smile yelled, brushing snow off of her face. “What was that for?”

“Good fairy, bad fairy, you and me. We'll go around the school and try to get people to do fun things. It will be hilarious!” Tink said, not making much sense.

“What?”

“You're a cute fairy, I'm a cute fairy, it will be like shoulder angels, but cooler because we're fairies.”

Taking a moment to think about it, Smile asked, “So you mean we'll fly around as fairies and annoy people for fun?”

“YEAH!”

She thought about it a little more. She'd so far managed to avoid the worst of the prank war, mostly by keeping an eye out and being as inconspicuous as possible. But she felt that she was missing out on some of the fun. And Tink for all her many, many faults, usually knew how to make something funny. Maybe this was what she needed to help her have the energy to help Jane.

Shifting to her small fairy form, Smile flew out of the snowbank and dusted the snow off of her sparkly dress. “OK, tell me more. But somewhere warm.”

“This is going to be great!” Tink said, as they flew back into the library.

Morpheus
Friday morning, Dec 14th, 2007

“CENTURION AND ROULETTE, PLEASE REPORT TO THE ARENA.”

Amy Maguire heard the announcement over the intercom and let out a sigh. It was time. Finally. All of her friends in Shenanigans had already gone through their combat finals, leaving her as the last one in her training team.

“I hope I do better than Monkeywrench,” she muttered with a sigh. “Otherwise I’ll never live it down.”

She glanced to the front of the classroom where Dr. Quintain was continuing with his lecture as though the announcement hadn’t interrupted him. This wasn’t quite the normal Powers Theory class since most classes were optional during the week of combat finals. All she’d really miss out on by leaving right then, was a little extra review of the materials.

“I can’t believe they’re making YOU do the combat final,” Blackbox said from a few seats of way, giving Amy a look of pity.

“And why shouldn’t I?” she responded, giving the boy a flat look.

Blackbox squirmed uncomfortably. “Because you’re… You know…”

Amy knew exactly what he meant, and he’d merely said what several of the other students in the room clearly thought. It was because of her burnout issue, the very problem that resulted in her being in Hawthorne. A lot of the students seemed to think that she was so fragile that she could just fall over dead without warning. Well, they weren’t really all that wrong, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her.

“I’ll be fine,” Amy assured them, picking up her duffel bag at the same time. “Besides, I’ve got some gear that I’ve been looking to try out…”

“Good luck,” her friend and former roommate Alyss said, not looking the least bit worried.

Her other friend and teammate Chris merely nodded at that. “Yeah, good luck.”

“Thanks,” Amy told them with a smile. “But after how well you both did, I’ve got quite a high bar to reach.”

Amy glanced at Dr. Quintain at the front of the classroom. He’d stopped his lecture and was waiting patiently, but he didn’t say anything. However, he did give her a polite nod before she turned and hurried towards the door.

Amy tightened her grip on her coil gun as she looked around the inside of the arena, where she appeared to be in the middle of a large wooded area, maybe even some kind of park. Her match had only begun a few seconds earlier and she hadn’t had a chance to scout the area yet.

She reminded herself that people were watching, and though she was tempted to adjust her purple domino mask, she managed to restrain herself. Barely. The only thing that she wanted to deal with less than being watched for someone else’s entertainment, was having them think she was self-conscious about it.

So, with a sigh, Amy adjusted her grip on the coil gun and then began walking down the clearly visible path through the trees. There were plenty of places for enemies to hide, so she kept her eyes open, looking for any signs of a threat.

Amy resisted the temptation to call out, “Here zombie zombie,” mentally noting that she might have been spending too much time around Melissa and Monkeywrench.

The first zombie appeared a few seconds after this. It looked like a zombie from an old black and white movie, the kind before they ever showed any gore on screen. It looked like a gaunt man with dull grey skin, wearing clothes that were little more than rags. And for some reason, the whole creature was entirely in shades of grey, including its clothes.

“Brainssss,” the zombie groaned as it staggered towards Amy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Amy muttered as she fired her coil gun.

With the pull of the trigger, magnetic fields fired a ping-pong ball sized sphere right at the zombie. As soon as the sphere hit, it exploded, tearing the zombie to pieces. The pieces continued to move around, even though the monster was no longer any kind of a threat.

“Bad move,” Amy realized just a little too late. She’d wasted one of her limited rounds on a single zombie, one that she probably could have just run away from, and she’d made a LOT of noise in the process. “I’d better move before more of them show up.”

Amy glanced down at her coil gun, knowing that it only had two more rounds loaded into it. She had some spare rounds, including some of other varieties, but she didn’t have enough to waste like this.

“Too bad I can’t use my needle gun,” she muttered, thinking of the weapon that was strapped to her hip. It fired metal flechettes that could be effective against most normal people, but which would be practically useless against zombies. And after this one was still moving around after having been blown up, she was even more certain of that. “And it probably won’t do much against Centurion either.”

Her thoughts quickly turned to her actual opponent in this combat final, Centurion. The other boy had a bit of a reputation around campus, especially among her friends in Poe. He was considered to be a bit of a bully, especially after some of what he’d done to Gwen. And unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be an easy opponent.

Centurion was an energizer brick who liked to brag that he was as strong as a hundred men. Amy suspected that this was a bit of exaggeration, but probably not by too much. The boy was an energizer 5, which made him fairly powerful.

Amy’s thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of more zombies, five of them which had been drawn in by all the noise she’d made. For a moment, she considered shooting them, but then she quickly discounted it. The zombies were far too spread out and she could still avoid them without wasting ammo.

As Amy started to hurry away, she noticed more zombies coming. There were lots of trees for them to hide behind, and if they’d had the intelligence to hide and ambush her, she would really have been in trouble. As it was, those shambling monsters were easy to avoid.

A few seconds later, Amy began to smile. “I’ve got an idea…”

“BRAINS!” zombies called out from around Amy as she made her way past them.

“Come on, you walking corpses,” Amy called out to them. “I have nice tasty brains. Come and get em…”

Amy continued through the woods, making enough noise to draw in more zombies while ensuring that she didn’t go fast enough to lose them. Several times, she had to stop and wait for the growing mob to catch up. And slowly, all the zombies began to meet up and group together, which was just what she’d been waiting for.

“Nearly two dozen of them now,” Amy said, quickly counting the zombies. “Perfect.”

With that word, she snapped a specific round of ammunition into her coil gun and took aim. She fired a single shot right into the middle of the zombies and a moment later, there was a powerful implosion that destroyed all the zombies that were closet to it while pulling more of them right towards that spot.

“The singularity grenades work great,” she mused, silently reminding herself to thank her mom. Her mom had sent her a couple of singularity grenades earlier in the week, smaller and weaker versions of her own singularity bombs, and just the perfect size for Amy’s coil gun. “Too bad they break down so fast if mom isn’t around to maintain them.”

More than half of the gathered zombies had been either destroyed or damaged too badly to be threats, while the remaining ones had all been pulled closer together. Amy took advantage of that to fire two more shots into the mass, both of them normal grenade rounds. Two explosions later and the remaining zombies were gone too.

“That takes care of them,” Amy muttered, knowing that she still hadn’t even encountered her real opponent, much less defeated him. “That will be a little trickier.”

Of course, Amy knew that she didn’t actually have to defeat Centurion directly. Everyone seemed to assume that the two combat final participants had to fight each other, but she’d seen enough finals during the last week to know otherwise. She could avoid Centurion entirely and still win, as long as she reached the target first.

Amy quickly slotted another three rounds into her coil gun, wincing as she did so. She’d already used up nearly half of the rounds that she’d brought with her, and there was no telling how many more threats she’d need to deal with before this was over.

More zombies were coming, drawn in by the noise she’d made. This time, she ignored them and hurried on her way, eager to find the ‘cure’ that was the main goal for this final. The zombies were an obstacle, not something that she really had to deal with. The only reason that she’d gone after all those previous zombies was so that she could show off and demonstrate what she was actually capable of. Hopefully, she’d look good to her friends and also get a better grade.

“And it’s not like I could have used that singularity round on Centurion,” she mused.

A minute later, Amy found her destination. There was a large clearing in the woods with a crashed helicopter crashed in the middle of it. There was a corpse beside the vehicle, wearing a strange uniform and laying motionless, a briefcase still clutched in his head hand.

Zombies wandered around the clearing, getting between Amy and that briefcase. She didn’t consider them much of a problem, but the fact that Centurion was rapidly approaching from the other side of the clearing was.

Centurion was tall and muscular, with a hawkish nose and short black hair. A red ribbon was wrapped around his head to act as a mask, making it look like he was trying to impersonate a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. This was different than the helmet that Amy had previously seen him wearing in a match, making her briefly wonder if this was for better visibility. A shimmering glow surrounded the boy, making it clear that he was currently using his energizer power to enhance his strength and durability.

Amy frowned as her opponent ran straight for the briefcase, casually knocking several zombies out of the way. More zombies were coming from all directions, which would make it difficult to get away from the clearing once they’d retrieved the briefcase and whatever was in it.

She briefly considered her second and last singularity grenade, knowing that she could stop Centurion with that, but there was no way she was going to risk using something like that on him. At least not directly. There was a reason that she’d reserved the most lethal rounds for the zombie hordes.

“Well, it looks like its time for the surprise,” Amy mused, pulling out a golden metal sphere that was around the size of a baseball.

Amy quickly slid the hidden switch on the side that activated the weapon, then she threw it as hard as she could. The sphere hit the side of the crashed helicopter, just as she’d intended, then it suddenly bounced off with a lot more force than it should. It flew back across the clearing until it hit a tree, then rebounded again.

Centurion came to an abrupt stop as the golden sphere shot past him, smashed into a zombie, then bounced off again. It continued to bounce around the clearing a few more times, almost resembling a ball from a pinball game. Then, the sphere reached a small group of zombies that were a short distance away from Centurion and suddenly exploded, destroying the zombies and knocking the boy to the ground.

“Perfect,” Amy said, her hand on the detonation button on her wrist band. “My ricochet grenade worked even better than I’d hoped.” It was useful for throwing a bit of distraction and controlled chaos into a fight.

While Centurion was distracted, Amy ran for the briefcase, snatching it out of the hand of the corpse that was holding it. Suddenly, the corpse jerked and grabbed at her ankle, its skin and clothes turning grey as it did so.

“BRAINS…” the newly animated zombie exclaimed.

“Try his,” Amy said, gesturing towards Centurion. “I’m sure his are tasty…”

Amy stepped back from the zombie, having expected something along those lines. After all, why would anyone trust a dead body to remain still when dozens of other corpses were wandering around nearby. And with a smooth and graceful move, courtesy of her current exemplar status, she turned and ran.

“GET BACK HERE!” Centurion yelled. “FIGHT ME FAIR!”

“Why in the world would I ever want to do that?” Amy called back as she reached the edge of the clearing.

But just then, Amy’s legs suddenly gave out on her and she collapsed face first into the ground. A surge of pain rushed through her body along with a wave of heat.

“No,” she gasped as the seizures began. It was a burnout…and at the worst possible time… “Not…now…” Tears filled her eyes as she pleaded for mercy from whatever god had stuck her with that horrible condition. But as always, there was no answer.

Centurion stood over her, grabbing the briefcase from her hand. “I’ve got you now,” he started to say, only to pause and stare at her with a look of surprise. “What the fu…”

Several zombies rushed forward as fast as their shambling pace would allow them. Centurion snapped around and backhanded one, then used the briefcase to smash a second across the side of his head. This was the last thing Amy saw before everything went dark.

Before Amy opened her eyes, she already knew where she was. She recognized the familiar sounds, the faint beeping of a heart monitor, the regular whoosh of pumps, and the quiet voices of people trying not to disturb anyone as they talked in the hallway. Then, there was that sterile smell which tickled her nose. A hospital. She was in a hospital.

Amy finally opened her eyes and saw the familiar sight of a room in Doyle. She let out a sigh, already having guessed that her latest burnout had been a little more serious than her usual micro-burnouts. This setting was all the confirmation she needed.

“How are you feeling?” a gentle voice asked from the side.

“Alyss,” Amy whispered, immediately recognizing her diminutive loligoth friend.

Alyss had been sitting off to the side of the room, but now stood up and made a show of smoothing her dress before coming closer. “The nurse said you were stable again.”

“For now,” Amy muttered under her breath. Then in a clearer voice, she commented. “I really don’t like hospitals.”

“I know what you mean,” Alyss responded with a sympathetic look. “I’ve had more than enough of them to last me a lifetime, and I imagine you have too.”

“Definitely,” Amy said, sitting up a bit in her hospital bed.

Amy did a quick mental inventory and noticed that she was currently in her energizer mode. She could feel the ambient electro-magnetic energy around her, especially in the walls and equipment beside her hospital bed.

“Well,” she mused with a wry smile. “I suppose this means I lost my match.”

To Amy’s surprise, Alyss just chuckled. “Actually…they declared it a draw.”

“What?” Amy asked, blinking in confusion. “But I…”

Alyss shrugged. “After you want down, Centurion protected you from the zombies until they ended things.”

“What?” Amy gasped in surprise. “Centurion…? But he’s…”

“Yeah, I know,” Alyss said with another shrug. “Surprised me too. But just because someone is an assho…jerk in one situation, that doesn’t mean they can’t do right in another. People are complicated that way.”

Amy chuckled at that. “Look at you, sounding so old and wise…”

“That’s me,” the loligoth responded wryly. “The wise old mentor.” They stared at each other for a moment before they simultaneously burst out laughing.

“Don’t make me laugh too hard,” Amy warned her friend. “I might go into another burnout…” That was pretty unlikely, not from something like laughing, but that was all the more reason she could get away with joking about it.

“Anyway,” Alyss told her. “Before you went down, you were doing pretty good. In fact, you were kicking some serious zombie ass…pardon my French. I know you really impressed a lot of the students who saw it, so I imagine that the teachers probably liked what they saw too.” She gave yet another shrug. “I don’t know what grade they gave you, but I am sure that they won’t fail you just because you had a legitimate medical emergency.”

“I hope not,” Amy said with a sigh. “But I was hoping that if I put on a good enough showing, that people would stop looking me like I was some kind of fragile flower that might die at any moment. Now, after this…”

Alyss put her hand on Amy’s arm. “Yeah, it sucks, but you’re still alive and that’s the important thing. Now, lets see when you can get out of here. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Amy snorted at that. “The drinks in the cafeteria are free.”

The other girl grinned and gave her a wink. “Then I’ll buy you two.”

Ian Henderson scowled across the common room of Emerson cottage. Other students kept commenting on his combat final and how it had ended, or how it should have ended, and he’d had enough of it. Maybe it was time to head to his room instead.

“Good job, Centurion,” Tektonix said with a nod as he walked past.

“Damn it,” Ian growled to himself as he began to get up.

“Hey, Ian,” a new voice said.

Ian looked up and saw his friend and roommate, Lewis Braekowski, or Switchblade as most students knew him. He was a lean boy who always came off a bit jittery due to his speedster powers.

“That was an interesting match,” Lewis exclaimed. “And you would have had that girl if she hadn’t tripped and faceplanted into the ground… Yeah, you definitely won that one…”

“I would have,” Ian stated firmly, annoyed that a clear victory had been denied him.

Lewis nodded. “Too bad you got matched with the crippled girl, because you couldn’t really show off…”

“It wasn’t a fair match,” Ian complained bitterly.

Ian was all about a fair fight, especially since he was confident in his ability to win in any fair fight. A fight against a girl who could go into a burnout and die at any moment was definitely not fair.

The other boy nodded again. “I just don’t get why you protected her like that. I mean, you could have just grabbed the briefcase and ran… You could have officially won…”

“No,” Ian responded firmly. “Not like that…” He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. “Roulette was sick…for real. Seriously sick. Maybe even dying. No real man is going to just ignore that… I had to protect her.”

Ian knew that he could have taken advantage of the situation to win, but he also knew that he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he had. He wanted a fair match. A fair win. That was why he always played fair…unless his opponent cheated first. Whenever that happened, then the gloves came off and anything went. But this definitely hadn’t been that kind of situation.

Cerberus, who had been standing nearby and listening in on the conversation, abruptly said, “I’m just impressed by what Roulette did BEFORE she went down. You should have seen what she did with her weapons… A whole mob of zombies, wiped out with one shot.”

“Yeah,” Broadsword agreed with a grin. “And she’s kind of hot. I wonder if she’d be interested in going out…”

“But have you noticed,” Cerberus asked Broadsword, “that a lot of the Underdog types are turning out to be secret badasses?”

Ian scowled at that and stood up. The way Cerberus was talking, it was as if he thought Ian would have lost if the match had continued. There was no way that would have happened.

“Whenever she’s better,” Ian muttered to himself. “Whenever she’s healthy and stable…I want a rematch.”

One day, Ian was going to face Roulette in a fair fight…one where he could fight without having to hold back. When that day happened, he’d crush her and make sure that there was absolutely no doubt that he was the winner. He could barely wait.

Domoviye
Friday late morning, Dec 14th, 2007

Interest ran to the gate, she couldn't wait to show off. No one at Whateley had really seen what she could do, she'd only ever gone all out in Detroit and Boston, so this was going to be her chance to really prove herself.

Sensei Ito was waiting for her, looking stern as ever. “Interest, come with me,” he said, motioning for her to go into a side room.

Adjusting her mask that looked like an extra-wide black and white headband which covered half her face with eye holes, she followed her sensei into the room. He looked her costume over for a moment, taking in the armbands and fingerless gauntlets that looked like rope, but were actually a bulletproof composite, her tight tank top, the sash around her waist that matched her headband, and the knee length black tights with hidden knee pads. She'd copied the look from Cambodian martial artists, focusing on mobility more than protection.

“Do you know your opponent?” Sensei Ito asked.

“No, Sensei, I've never met Laugh Riot,” she replied.

“She is a special student, and you should know what to expect. Laugh Riot is a rager and suicidal.”

Her eyes went wide. She'd seen the rager warning on the MID, but she wasn't expecting the suicidal part.

“She has tried several times to initiate violent fights with students hoping they will kill her. Normally we wouldn't put her in a combat final, but it's believed if she doesn't get a chance to fight, she may resort to self harm which is much harder for us to control,” he explained.

“So, I need to give her a good fight, but make sure she doesn't get badly hurt," Interest said.

“Exactly. I believe you're up to the task.”

“I won't let you down, Sensei.”

“Good, now then let me go over the details of the combat final,” Sensei Ito said.

Five minutes later, Interest was entering the arena. Out of sight of her martial arts teacher, she began to grin. This was going to be so much fun.

Splitting into twelve identical girls, they split into three groups, each group running down one of the three available streets. As they came to an alley or another street, one of her would run down that way. She was barely able to think with all twelve clones out, but they each knew enough to separate and look for Laugh Riot, a building with lots of monsters coming out of it, or something flashy.

Interest saw an ugly looking monster running down the road attacking other people, trying to bite them. Her simple mind told her this was a bad guy. Turning her jog into a sprint, she launched herself at the monster, hitting it in the chest with her knees, knocking it to the ground. Bringing her fist back, she cracked its skull with her gauntlet. She punched it a few more times because it was so much fun.

Standing back up she looked around for other monsters and laughed when she saw some more coming to fight. Just as she was about to get into a good scrap, her pants beeped. Why were her pants beeping? The answer slowly came to her. One of her clones had found something and needed to be smart again. Frowning, Interest let herself fade away.

Several streets over, Interest felt her clones disappear and her intelligence rose rapidly. When it was just her again, she turned off the signal device that let her communicate with her clones. She wished she knew what they had been doing, but most of them had been too far away for her to get their memories, so hopefully they hadn't been about to find anything important.

Down the street and coming rapidly towards her was Laugh Riot. The furry brown girl had large hyena ears and spiky brown hair covered in black spots. She was laughing crazily, which definitely explained her name.

Interest blinked a clone into existence and was running at the rager a second later. Behind her, her clone shouted, “Hey! You cheated!”

Laughing at being the lucky one who got to fight the crazy girl, Interest didn't look back. She knew that her clone would do the smart thing and go find the prize, she wasn't suicidal after all, not exactly.

Splitting into three, they all went to circle the hyena girl. The rager shrieked and threw herself at one of the clones. Interest and her other clone ran in as the third clone backed up and blocked a nasty hit with her gauntlet. Laugh Riot roared as she was kicked in the back of the knee and punched in the ribs. Then she yelled again from an open palm strike to the snout.

Interest jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting disemboweled. Unfortunately the Exemplar 4 hyena was faster than she was and teeth ripped out her throat a second later.

“Shit!” Interest shouted, as she saw her clone fade away with a missing throat.

“Oh wow! I've never had that happen!” her surviving clone said.

They each popped out another clone, and three of them charged the rager, while she stayed back waiting to make more clones or jump in if she saw an opening. Her clones put their BMA and gymnastics training to good use, swarming the enemy, using their fists, knees, elbows, feet and heads to keep the girl off balance and hurting.

One of her clones vanished with a shriek of pain. Interest made another one who after a few seconds whooped with glee as she ran into the fray. Her head spun briefly and her knees went weak from the strain of making another clone so quickly.

Her clones felt the same weakness. The short moment of weakness allowed Laugh Riot to grab a second Interest. There was a scream and the unlucky clone was thrown from the melee, missing an arm. Interest ran over to the badly injured clone. If the clone girl let herself disappear now, it would pass some of the injury to the nearby Interests’, hurting all of them. That couldn't be allowed.

Reaching into a well armoured pouch on the screaming clone's waist, Interest pulled out a small injector. Keeping it hidden from any cameras and the crowd, she injected a powerful poison into her clone, killing her in just a few seconds. The shrieking girl faded away as if she had never existed, not even leaving a blood stain.

Interest held back on making another clone, watching the fight carefully, wincing as her clones got more and more injuries. Finally she whistled. The most badly injured of her two clones jumped on top of Laugh Riot, bear hugging the girl even as sharp teeth dug into her shoulder.

With the distraction, Interest made a fresh clone. Once more weakness filled all of the clones, but with Hyena girl busy ripping one of her to shreds, they had a chance to catch their breath and go back on the attack.

By the time her clone grabbed the McGuffin and won the match, Interest was sweating and shaking from exhaustion, even with the stimulants Alchemical had made for her. Hearing the siren go off declaring her the winner, the clones who had been struggling to stay on their feet as they fought Laugh Riot let themselves fade away.

Interest groaned as their injuries became hers, right down to the ripped, bloody clothes, broken arm, and numerous gashes. Laugh Riot turned to glare at her, the rager was badly bruised even with her regeneration.

Laughing, Interest gave her the finger and faded away.

Well away from the fight, Interest limped to the gate. The zombies had been a pain since she couldn't clone herself, and having her clones make so many other clones, hadn't made things easier. But she'd won. Now she just had to hope one of her friends had recorded the fight so she could see what she'd actually done.

Morpheus
Friday afternoon, Dec 14th, 2007

Gwen Wylann slowly walked across campus with her best friend and roommate Dana. Green pixies floated overhead, darting about as Gwen used them to keep an eye on her surroundings. She’d been ambushed more than once, making this a necessary precaution.

“It looks like Gravmax has been having a pretty hard time of it since his match with Porcelain,” Gwen said with a chuckle. “Apparently, people keep teasing him about peeing himself…”

Dana burst out laughing. “I’m sure that smug jerk deserves every word of it too.”

“Definitely,” Gwen agreed. “But I think more than that, he’s being teased about being…completely crushed by Porcelain. I still can’t believe she’s that dangerous…and I actually watched the match.”

Dana nodded. “She does have a reputation, though I guess she’s going to be getting a whole new one now.” She shook her head. “I still remember the look on Gravmax’s face…”

“That was good,” Gwen responded. “But what I really wish I could have seen, was the look on her roommate’s face when SHE found out…”

“Why is that?” Dana asked, giving Gwen a curious look.

Gwen snorted. “You know Porcelain rooms with Drama Queen…”

“Yeah,” Dana encouraged.

“Well,” Gwen continued with a smirk. “Drama is friends with Gravmax…and has been pretty nasty towards Porcelain.”

Dana burst out laughing. “Oh yeah… I bet Drama is a bit nicer to her from now on. Hell, I bet most of the bullies will avoid Porcelain…if they have any common sense, that is.”

Gwen snorted again. “And how likely is that?” She raised an eyebrow. “Most bullies aren’t known for common sense or restraint.” Then she suddenly stopped. “Wait…”

Dana tensed up and looked around. “What is it?”

The green-haired girl pointed up ahead while several of her pixies flew in that direction to get a better look. “There’s something going on…”

Just ahead of them, right in the middle of the walk path, there was a present. It was a square box, about three feet across on each side. The whole thing was bright yellow and was wrapped in a red ribbon, which included the bow on top.

“That ain’t suspicious,” Dana commented wryly.

“Not at all,” Gwen agreed in a deadpan voice.

A moment later, Gwen spotted the person who was obviously responsible for this box. Trixie crouched down behind a bench, trying hard not to be seen. And for some reason, the girl was dressed oddly. She wore a blue jacket, white pants, and a white beret. Something about that seemed oddly familiar to Gwen, but she couldn’t quite place why.

“What are the odds that there is a stink bomb in there?” Gwen asked.

“Pretty good,” Dana admitted. “We should probably go, but I kind of want to watch.” She let out a lout snort. “That is, if anyone is stupid enough to open the thing.”

A couple seconds later, two other students approached the box. Gwen immediately recognized both Grit and Ribbit, though she didn’t think either boy was gullible enough to fall for something like that.

“This is obviously some kind of joke,” Grit announced as he looked around to see who might be responsible.

“Obviously,” Ribbit agreed. “But I wonder what’s inside.”

Grit shook his head. “I don’t care. I’m not gonna touch it.”

Ribbit chuckled and an almost evil grin spread over his green-skinned face. “Are you chicken?”

“What?” Grit responded in surprise.

“Come on,” Ribbit urged him. “You know you’re curious too…”

Grit looked mildly offended. “I am not…”

The exchange went on for nearly a minute with Ribbit pullout out “I dare you,” and then the, “I DOUBLE dare you…”

Gwen told Dana, “I really think we should get more distance…but I have to see what happens.” She pointed to where Trixie was still crouched down in hiding. “Especially with the way she’s acting.”

“FINE!” Grit snapped as he yanked the lid off the package and jumped back. An instant later, the box exploded.

Trixie jumped out of her hiding spot, yelling, “SURPRISE!”

However, Gwen’s eyes were locked on the brilliantly colored mushroom cloud that exploded fifty feet up into the air. All she could do was watch it in stunned amazement…and then horror. Glitter and confetti began raining down from the sky, spreading over nearly everything in view.

Trixie giggled maniacally, “IT WORKED! MY ULTIMATE GLITTER BOMB WORKS!”

“Dana,” Gwen started, only to notice that her friend stood back, completely surrounded in a golden force field bubble that kept her from being touched by the shimmering glitter cloud.

“What?” Dana asked with a look of mock innocence. “Hey, did you know you’ve got some glitter on you?”

Gwen glared at her. “You think?”

“You know,” Dana continued cheerfully. “It makes you look even more like a fairy princess than usual.”

For a moment, Gwen just glared at Dana, then she turned around and began marching back towards Poe. “I need a shower.”

Fiddlerfox
Whitman Cottage, Friday afternoon, Dec 14th, 2007

Catherine walked down the hallway with her roommate after classes. She typically met Rhys before dinner and the two of them would go to the cafeteria. Today however as the two of them were exiting the art wing, she heard a song being sung in her general direction.

"Robin Hood and Little John, walking through the forest

Laughing back and forth at what the other'n has to say

Reminiscing this and that and having such a good time

Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day"

She turned and saw Imp smiling at her from across the way.

"Good afternoon, Miss Fox! Mighty fishy you being here at the moment, wouldn't you say?"

Catherine blinked innocently. "Why, whatever do you mean Professor Imp?"

Imp smiled and tapped her nose, waving at the pair as they turned and continued towards the cafeteria.

"Contemplating nothing but escape and finally making it

Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day"

Domoviye
Friday late afternoon, Dec 14th, 2007

Darlene, also known as Glass by people who used codenames, sat in the stands with the Underdogs, dreading every second of the last day of the combat finals.

She still hadn't had her final. With her humiliating losses last year when she'd been put up against Bunker in the Winter finals, and then Pestilence and his disgusting bugs in the Spring finals, she didn't want to even think what this year would be like. Making it even worse was watching the horrible fight between Just Me and Counterpoint yesterday. She'd had nightmares of that horror show all night, where she was running from one or the other, getting sliced up and her eyes gouged out.

Taking some calming breaths she watched the arena shift with work crews and ANT's moving cars, bikes and other things, while the buildings shrank or grew, the holograms over the shells changing to make it unique for the next match. And then she heard her name.

Looking up she saw her stupid MID showing how useless her power was, Warper 1 and able to turn transparent. It wasn't even proper invisibility, people could still see her outline and how her glassy appearance distorted things behind her. She sometimes wished she'd never come to Whateley, even with the great friends she'd made, like Anna, and Lucille, and Trish, seeing all the other students who were so powerful made her feel useless. But she didn't exactly have a say in things.

When her foster parents saw her turn transparent for the first time, the Michigan foster care program had shipped her off to Whateley, happy to get her off of their hands. She couldn't exactly ask to go back into the system now that they had her safely set aside until she aged out. So sim fights where she was outclassed and humiliating combat finals were now a part of her life. Lucky her.

Shaking her head to put aside the sad thoughts, she looked at who her competition was and groaned. OMAG, One Man Army Group, an annoying idiot who was always doing stupid stunts using one or more of his sixteen clones to make sure he survived when anyone else would end up very dead. And he thought he was god's gift to women while getting way too gropey and gross. She'd managed to avoid him, but she'd seen him corner girls and get in their personal space before finally taking no for an answer.

“Why me?” she asked, putting her face in her hands.

Anna gave her a hug. “You'll do great. You've really gotten better at fighting, and you've done well on our training team. You've even gone up in the ranks, you're 298 now, instead of 312.”

Darlene hugged her back. “I just wish I could get something like a reasonable combat final for once.”

“Come on, if you don't challenge yourself you won't get better. I know you'll do well.”

“Thanks Anna. I guess I should get going.” Getting to her feet, she walked to the briefing room with all the enthusiasm of a death row inmate going to their final seat.

Gunny was waiting for her, looking more unhappy than usual. “Glass, let me see your MID.”

That was unusual. Reaching into her pocket she handed it over, thankful that she had it on her. Gunny ran it through a scanner, nodded and handed it back. “We're just waiting for OMAG and you can get started.”

Nodding in return, Glass did some stretches that she'd learned in her martial arts class, getting ready for her failure. The time ticked down and OMAG didn't seem to be coming. The wait stretched on and she began getting annoyed. She was going to lose anyways, why did she have to sit around and get more nervous?

Gunny growled to himself and checked his watch. “Five minutes and OMAG forfeits.”

Her annoyance turned to anger. Her opponent couldn't even bother to show up because she was so weak. Her mouth spoke without asking her brain for permission. “Gunny, what did I do wrong?”

“What?” he asked.

Realizing what she'd said, her face turned pale. Looking up at the angry old man, she realized that silence probably wasn't an option. Taking a deep breath, she went all in. “I always get put up against someone a lot stronger than me. Why? What did I do wrong?”

He snorted. “You weren't supposed to fight OMAG.”

It was her turn to ask, “What?”

“You were supposed to face Just Me.”

“WHAT?! Are you trying to get me killed?”

The old man just scowled like he was tasting something rotten. Glass didn't ask anything else, she was too busy trying not to have a panic attack at the thought of having to fight the psycho shapeshifter. She'd thought Bunker was nuts for pointing a gun in her face in her very first combat final, but that plain looking freshman was terrifying.

OMAG came running in at the last possible minute. “I'm here!” he shouted in his Scottish accent.

“About time,” Gunny snarled.

Glass ran down an alley, trying to escape a small horde of zombies that she'd stumbled across while looking for a good place to hide. “Come on OMAG,” she muttered, “just win this stupid thing already so I can get my F and forget this ever happened.”

Just as she was about to reach the road, more zombies appeared cutting her off. Sliding to a stop, she backed away from the five zombies, and looked over her shoulder at the dozen or so who were following her. If there was just one, she could have probably beaten it. Two or three, she had a chance of slipping past, but fifteen of them with nowhere to run. She was doomed. Hopefully they'd only hold her.

“Alley oop!”

Strong hands grabbed her under the arms and hoisted her into the air. She screamed in fright, kicking and flailing until she was pulled onto the roof of the small building. Turning around, she saw OMAG and his clones standing there looking really pleased with himself. And then she yelped again as a hand grabbed her butt.

“Well looks like I saved you from a little bit of trouble,” OMAG said in his thick Scottish accent.

Keeping her hands behind her, to protect herself from unwanted hands, Glass tried not to snap. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Now it seems to me, these zombies will break through that door soon enough, lassie,” he pointed at the door leading down into the building. Moans could already be heard coming from the stairwell. “So you're in a little bit of trouble.”

“Like I didn't already know that,” she grumbled.

“If I leave you here, you might get hurt. And you'll get a bad mark.”

Sighing, Glass said, “So what, you're going to help me out. Let me win or something.”

“Oh no, lass. I'm gonna win. But I can take you with me, you can watch my back, offer a bit of motivation,” he leered.

“I'm going to be sick.”

Grinning OMAG kept talking. “You come on a date with me, and I'll keep you safe. Making deals to survive, that'll help you get a good mark.”

Facepalming, Glass wanted to scream. What was the worse option, getting attacked by zombies and failing her combat final, again. Or going on a date with a creep. The door started to shake as the ANTs began hammering on it.

Hating herself, she said, “Fine. You get me to the end safely, and I'll... ugh... go on a date with you. But It's just a simple date, no funny stuff!”

The annoying grin became a leer. “Of course, lass.”

The clones suddenly vanished and OMAG walked to the edge of the building. Then there were ten of him sitting on his shoulders making a human ladder. They fell forward with the top three landing on the building across from them. They held on tightly to each other and two on both ends stood up, grabbing hold of the OMAG's still hanging over the alley. “Come on, Glass, it's safe,” one of them shouted from the other side.

Gingerly, she walked across the human bridge. “I'm going to hate myself in the morning,” she said.

Glass followed OMAG to the top of the building. Somehow the idiot had kept her safe, and they were almost at the drop off point with the USB chip they needed to win. The Scottish lech had done a lot of stupid stunts that seemed really painful, like using his clones as ladders, bridges, cannon fodder and other things, but he just kept going. And she'd done a bit to help as well, using her BMA training to take out a couple of zombies without getting more than a few bruises. If he hadn't taken every chance he could to cop a feel, she'd actually feel pretty good about this combat final.

Looking around she spotted the ladder leading to victory. OMAG clambered up onto the roof, he'd let her go first to in his words, 'catch you if you fall'. She was certain he just wanted to see her butt, fortunately she'd worn pants instead of a skirt.

“It's up there,” she said, pointing to the ladder. “Get going and we can finally get out of here.”

“Good work, lass. You remember our deal right?” OMAG asked.

“Yeah, we go on a date to the pizza place in Dunwich, holding hands, no kissing unless I decide to, and maybe a movie afterwards if you impress me.” Like that would happen.

Grinning, he was going to say something when a group of zombies poured through the roof access door. OMAG reacted quickly, making more of his clones and charging the zombies. Glass stood back ready to act if any of the clones went down and she needed to help keep them from getting flanked.

She winced as the OMAG she was pretty sure was the original was knocked on his butt by a particularly large zombie. She started to run to help, but he was on his feet again a moment later pounding the zombie with his steel knuckle gloves. Glass was about to look around and see if any of the clones needed help, when her eyes fell on a USB chip. THE USB chip they needed to win.

It had to have fallen out of OMAG's pocket when he fell.

Looking around, all the clones were busy fighting and not paying attention to her. Sprinting, she grabbed the chip and ran to the ladder, climbing up as fast as she could. OMAG didn't even realize she was gone until she inserted the chip and hit the red button signaling a win.

The siren went off and the ANTs stopped moaning and fighting, grabbed the ones too damaged to move and started going back downstairs. Looking down, a dozen OMAG's were standing there dumbfounded, then he looked up at her.

“Sorry OMAG! I really wanted to win for once,” she shouted down, almost apologetically.

His face turned red and it looked like he was about to start cursing. Then he paused. “You're still going on the date with me, right? I got you here safely like I said.”

Wincing, and wishing she wasn't so nice and scared of making an enemy, she nodded. “Yes.”

OMAG sighed. “Fine, that's better than an A. Come on, let's get outta here.”

Climbing down, Glass wondered if she could get Anna to go on a double date with her. That might help keep OMAG from being too handsy.

Domoviye
The Quad, Friday late afternoon, Dec 14th, 2007

Against her better judgment, Smile sat on a tree branch slowly freezing to death, watching the supper crowd head towards Crystal Hall. Tink was flying around the dark sky looking for their first target. Since the six inch tall fairy was so small and quick, she didn't have to really hide. And, if Smile was honest with herself, if anything went wrong, she wanted the crazy fairy to be the one to get the blame.

Their target finally showed up. The Imp was walking seemingly unaware that she was being stalked and watched from above. Smile bit back a giggle as Tink came flying down to land on the notorious teacher's shoulder.

The fairy crouched down, digging her claws into the Imp's coat. Tink looked pretty good in a thick red dress, with little horns sticking out of her purple hair. Her squeaky voice was loud enough for Smile to hear from her hiding place. “You know what would be fun?” Tink asked. “Making your students have to perfectly copy a Van Gogh for their art exam. Really make 'em suffer!”

As the Imp seemed to be struck between confusion and laughter, Smile flew down. Since she was a foot tall fairy in a poofy baby blue dress, she couldn't really sit on the teacher’s shoulder. Instead she placed a hand on the free shoulder, and waved her glittering silver wand around like a fairy godmother. “You mustn't do that. That would be so wicked, and your students have done nothing to deserve it.”

“They're teenagers! They're always terrible,” Tink said.

“Only if you treat them terribly,” Smile said in her role as the good fairy. Then she pretended to think things over. “Well, there are some bad students, but most of your students don't deserve it.”

“Iron definitely deserves it,” Tink said.

“Oh yes. You should definitely punish him,” she agreed.

“Does Carson know you're doing this?” Imp asked, grinning at the pair of them.

“No,” Tink said. “Does she need some good advice?”

“She really, really does. How about you go see her now, she's having supper in Crystal Hall.”

The way Imp was smiling made Smile's common sense alarm start blaring. “Tink, maybe we should stick to students.”

“Aw. It would be really fun to do it to Headmistress Carson, she needs to smile more,” Tink said.

“And this is a great way to make her smile,” Imp said.

“You're evil,” Smile said, pointing at Imp. Then she turned to Tink, “And if you listen to her, you're an idiot.”

Tink started to speak, but Smile had had enough. Shifting back to baseline, she headed for supper. She didn't know what Carson would do if they tried to prank her, all she knew was that if the Imp thought it was a good idea, it had to be bad.

Morpheus
Friday late afternoon, Dec 14th, 2007

Melissa Chambers poked at the food on her plate before looking up at her friends. Chris, Monkeywrench, and Alyss sat around the table with her, but there were currently three absences, one of which was especially noticeable.

“Is Amy going to be all right?” Melissa asked worriedly.

“She’s fine now,” Alyss assured her. “They just want to keep her in Doyle overnight for observation.”

“Doesn’t her bed have all those sensors in it?” Monkeywrench asked. “I mean, they should be able to keep an eye on her fine from there.”

Alyss shrugged. “They’re just being extra safe. I can’t say I really blame them.”

Chris nodded at that. “It sucks that she collapsed in the middle of her final. I wanted to see what else she’d pull out…”

Just then, Melissa noticed Sapphire coming towards them with her own plate of food. Glitter sparked all through her hair and clothes, including the blue scaled cloak that she usually wore.

“What happened to you?” Alyss asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Trixie,” Sapphire responded in a cold tone. “The wind blew a bunch of her glitter all over me…”

“It’s getting all over campus,” Chris pointed out with a shake of his head.

A few seconds later, Darqueheart arrived as well and quickly took a seat beside the other late arrival. Like Sapphire, she had glitter all over, though it stood out against her black skin a great deal more. Her normally black horns were also splotched with smears of bright color, remnants from a practical joke that she hadn’t been able to clean off completely yet.

“Not a word,” Darqueheart hissed.

“I can’t believe Trixie,” Melissa grumbled, more in jealousy than the annoyance of her friends. After all, none of her pranks had earned nearly as much attention as the latest one Trixie had pulled. Now, she was going to have to find a way to top that or Trixie would never let her live it down. “But what can I do to beat that?”

Melissa’s thoughts were interrupted a few seconds later when a familiar voice called out, “Hey, Melissa…”

“Hey,” Melissa responded as she turned to see the Imp coming up behind her.

The teacher and former villain had a mischievous grin on her face and she was holding one hand behind her back. Both of these things sent little alarm bells through Melissa’s mind.

“I didn’t think glitter and sequins were quite your style,” the Imp told Darqueheart, who just glowered. “But it does kind of work for you.”

Darqueheart kind of grimaced at that and muttered, “Stupid practical jokes…”

“Craft herpes,” the Imp said with a knowing smile as she reached over and brushed a couple pieces off Darqueheart’s shoulder. “The prank that keeps on pranking.”

“Can we help you with something?” Alyss asked in a polite tone.

“Melissa and I have some unfinished business,” the Imp responded with an evil grin.

With that, she revealed the hand that she’d been hiding behind her back, showing that it held a paint container with the words ‘PLAID PAINT’ clearly labeled. Then the Imp held out her other hand, revealing that she also had a paintbrush.

Melissa’s eyes went wide as she suddenly remembered the little prank she’d played on the Imp a few days earlier, and she gulped. “Eeep,” she squeaked before teleporting away.

Morpheus
Friday early evening, Dec 14th, 2007

It was Friday, well after normal school hours, so the building was nearly empty. However, ‘nearly’ empty was not quite the same as completely empty.

The Imp quickly walked down the hallway until she came to a stop at the door to the headmistress’ office, which was already open and waiting for her. A moment later, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. One look inside had been enough to tell her that this was a closed-door type of meeting.

Elizabeth Carson sat behind her desk, dressed professionally as usual, though the sparkling glitter that gleamed from her hair and from her clothes acted as a contrast to her usual image. The deep scowl on her face clearly announced the kind of meeting this was going be.

On the other side of the desk, close to the Imp, sat Amelia Hartford. She too was still dressed in her normal work outfit, and like Carson, it was dusted with specks of glitter. If anything, her expression was even harder than Carson’s, though she had far less glitter on her.

“I think I know where this is going,” Imp said as she took a seat in the other empty chair, just a few feet away from Hartford.

“These practical jokes have gone too far,” Caron stated. “They need to stop.”

“I agree completely,” Hartford responded with a deep scowl of her own. “We need to place a complete ban on these practical jokes and make it clear that there will be zero tolerance for any more of this nonsense.”

“Not a good idea,” Imp said with a shake of her head. Two pairs of eyes stared at her.

The Imp frowned as she looked back at them, not showing any signs of being bothered by the attention. She was not normally involved in matters of discipline or school policy, so she knew that there were only two possible reasons that she’d been invited to this meeting. One was that she was about to be chewed out due to her minor involvement with the recent pranks. The other…

“I assume,” Imp said in a casual tone, “that you asked me here because of my…understanding…of the prankster mindset.”

Carson gave a faint nod. “That is correct.”

“An ultimatum won’t work,” Imp started, only to look back at Hartford and pause.

If she was there to speak for the prankster mindset, then Hartford must have been invited as the voice of discipline. With that in mind, the Imp took a different direction.

“Amelia,” Imp said to Hartford. “Imagine if some company announced publicly that they had unbreakable security, and that they’d go after anyone who attempted to breach it with everything that they had. Now, how would hackers react to this? Do you think that all the hackers would be scared away from trying?”

Hartford stared at the Imp for several long seconds before reluctantly admitting, “That would only stop the amateurs or those who lacked confidence in their abilities. For those who were among the best…that announcement would only be seen as a dare and a challenge instead of as a warning.”

“Pranksters are the same way,” Imp explained. “That kind of warning might stop the casual joker, but any real prankster would only see it as a challenge. All you’d do is force them to become even sneakier and more devious as they tried to get away with it.”

“So,” Carson responded after a few seconds. “You don’t think that banning these practical jokes would actually stop them?”

The Imp shrugged at that. “It might in the short term, or at least slow them down a lot. But in the end, that kind of ultimatum would probably cause you even more problems.”

“And how do you use that?” Carson asked, her tone more curious than challenging. Imp had the feeling that Carson already saw where this was going and merely wanted to see how she followed through.

“That kind of ultimatum rarely works,” the Imp explained, “because once you make it, you limit your own options.” She shrugged at that. “Sooner or later, someone is going to play a prank, and then you have the choice. Are you going to expel some kid because they put a whoopie cushion on their teacher’s chair? That kind of reaction is WAY too excessive, but that’s what the whole zero tolerance thing means. Now, instead of being tough but fair, you’re overreacting and being a tyrant. You lose the respect of students and even some teachers, which creates further problems for you. Two…” She held up two fingers. “You ignore that prank, or give them an appropriate slap on the wrist. Now, you show that you won’t follow through on your own policies, so students will start testing to see how much they can get away with. Again, you’ve lost respect and that creates other problems…”

Carson had a thoughtful look on her face. “You do make some good points about limiting my options.”

“Are you suggesting that we should just ignore these pranks?” Hartford demanded, staring at the Imp. “These jokes are out of control and are disrupting the workings of this school.” She turned back to Carson and pointed out, “A firm ban worked for that ridiculous shoulder angel situation last year.”

“And Amelia also makes a good point,” Carson responded, her eyes fixed again on the Imp. She leaned forward and asked, “And as an expert in the prankster mindset…how do you suggest we deal with this situation?”

The Imp leaned back in her chair and considered that question. What would work on someone like her? Banning pranks entirely was laughable, because she’d ignore that ban, other than look for ways to get around it and snub her nose at it. No, a prankster has to prank. It was in their very nature. However, that didn’t mean that there weren’t ways to limit the mischief, or even direct it.

“They need a release valve,” the Imp mused aloud.

“What was that?” Hartford asked.

“I have an idea,” the Imp announced with a broad grin. “I say, we bell cats…”

Domoviye
Saturday morning, Dec 15th, 2007

Imp wandered through the Saturday optional art class admiring the work of the students, offering advice when necessary and a few words of praise. Eventually she made her way to the back of the class where a strange sight was waiting for her.

Tink, the little fairy she'd seen flying around the campus, and had heard many stories about, was floating in the air wearing a bikini, a pair of goggles, and her hair carefully wrapped up in plastic wrap, with a tray of purple paint sitting on a stool, beside a large jar of water, and a canvas ready to be used.

Before she could ask what was going on, the tiny girl fell backwards with her wings spread into the paint, splashed around a little, then floated up to the upper corner of the canvas and pressed her back against it like she was a stamp. She stayed like that for a few moments, and then floated away holding very still so as not to smudge the print.

She did this two more times, leaving three near perfect imprints going from the upper corner of the canvas to the opposite bottom corner. She followed this up by slipping into the water and washing the purple paint off.

“That's an interesting way of painting,” Imp said.

“THANK YOU!” Tink said, scrubbing at her wings. “I was inspired! I'm going to do some pink once I dry off.”

“I can't wait to see it,” she said.

Walking away, she smiled and shook her head. “Only at Whateley,” she muttered.

Domoviye
The Quad, Saturday morning, Dec 15th, 2007

Tink saw her target walking across the quad, everything was perfect for what was to come. Waving at her partner, she swooped down making a perfect landing on Ribbon's shoulder. “You should go tie Bloodwolf up in pretty pink ribbons!” she said.

Smile flew down, hovering by Ribbon's other shoulder. “She's right you really should.”

“You're not supposed to agree with me. You're supposed to be the boring fairy!” Tink shouted.

“What? Bloodwolf is a jerk, he should be tied up and embarrassed,” Smile said. “And I'm not boring!”

Ribbon bowed her head and sighed, sounding remarkably like an old man, despite looking like a ten year old girl. “Why me?”

Mischief looked at both of them, then seemed to scan the surrounding area. “You shouldn't do that,” she said. “The teachers really don't like shoulder angels for some reason.”

Frowning, Tink looked down at herself. “I'm not a shoulder angel. I'm the Fun Fairy, and this is my partner, the Boring Fairy.”

“I'm not boring! I'm just not crazy like you,” the boring fairy cried.

“See, we're perfectly fine,” Tink said.

Ribbon decided it was time to join the conversation. “When Mischief thinks something is a bad idea, you really should stop and think.”

“Where's the fun in that? So, are you going to go tie up Bloodwolf? I know where he is.”

“No,” Ribbon said. “He isn't bothering me.”

Suddenly from across the quad Darqueheart shouted, “YOU! That stupid paint still hasn't come off of my horns!”

Seeing the demonic looking girl with pretty rainbow horns running towards her, Tink grabbed Smile's hand and took off.

“Hey!” Smile shouted in surprise. “What's the rush!”

“Can't talk! Running before the shadows eat me!” Tink said as they headed for the woods.

Morpheus
Doyle Hall, Saturday late morning, Dec 15th, 2007

“Sneak, sneak, sneak,” Melissa Chambers quietly said as she tiptoed down the hospital hallway.

“You know,” Sapphire pointed out from behind her. “I don’t think saying that actually helps. And if you’re trying to be sneaky…why don’t you just turn invisible?”

Melissa let out an exasperated sign while rolling her eyes. “You’re missing the point.”

“Maybe I am,” Sapphire agreed with a shake of her head. She gave Melissa a wry look before adding, “Because I don’t see the point of trying to sneak in here anyway. This is normal visiting hours.”

With that, they reached their destination. Melissa knocked on the open door as she rushed inside, “AMY!”

Amy sat on the edge of the hospital bed, fully dressed and ready to go. The purple haired girl chuckled and shook her head.

“I don’t really need an escort back to my room,” Amy said, “but I appreciate it anyway.”

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” Melissa blurted out excitedly. “I was really worried when you collapsed during your final, and then when they didn’t let you go right away… And then when they kept you here overnight…”

“Hey,” Amy responded with an amused look. “I’m fine now. Really.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Sapphire added.

Sapphire reached beneath the blue scaled cloak that she usually wore and pulled out a small object that she handed to the startled Amy.

“What’s this?” Amy started to ask before realizing what she now held. “A rubber duck?”

The sapphire haired girl shrugged. “Fubar has been giving these out to everyone in Hawthorne, so I thought you might want one too.”

Amy gave her a polite smile. “Thank you.”

Melissa leaned down for a better look before gushing, “It’s so CUTE…especially with those little horns.”

“Do you want one?” Sapphire asked Melissa. “I’m sure Fubar would be happy to give you one too…”

“Sure,” Melissa responded with a broad grin. “And do you think he’d give me one for Imp too? I bet she’d love one with the horns…”

“Maybe you could ask him,” Amy quickly interjected. “I want to get out of here before they change their minds.”

“Good point,” Melissa agreed with an emphatic nod.

A couple minutes later, they walked out the front door of Doyle, with the doctor’s blessing. Melissa practically skipped ahead on the way to Hawthorne while Sapphire and Amy followed up behind her.

About halfway there, Melissa spotted Trixie, who seemed to be doing detention with the campus maintenance crew. The other girl looked unhappy as she pushed what appeared to be something similar to a vacuum cleaner over the lawn, cleaning up some of the glitter.

For a brief moment, Melissa thought about going over to either congratulate Trixie on that great prank, or to commiserate on the punishment. Then she glanced back at Amy and decided that this wasn’t the time.

When they reached the front of Hawthorne, a couple of the Thornies stood out front with signs that said ‘WELCOME BACK AMY’. This group mostly consisted of the younger kids who were members of Team Awesome, but there were a couple of the older students as well.

“Welcome back,” the little girl Ember said as she excitedly waved her sign.

“Yeah,” Miranda added cheerfully. “Welcome back.”

Sapphire gave Amy a smile and said, “They wanted to surprise you.”

Achoo, nodded at that, then quietly asked Dust, “Do you think she’ll be up to baking us snacks yet?”

“Shhh,” Dust responded with a finger to his lips.

Melissa grinned at the antics while Amy chuckled and said, “It’s good to be back.”

“Well, I should get going then,” Melissa said. She quickly threw her arms around Amy and said, “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

With that, Melissa turned and hurried back towards her own cottage. She was happy to have seen her friend safely back to her Hawthorne, but there was still plenty of time in the day for some clever pranks and she was now well behind Trixie. She was really going to have to make up for that.

Melissa made it back to her room in near record time and immediately began to dig into the drawer that contained her stash of prank materials. But after she pulled out a bottle of super duper glue, she finally noticed something from the corner of her eye. There was a white envelope on her bed, sitting right on her pillow.

“What’s this?” she asked curiously. It had her codename, ‘MISCHIEF’ written right across the front of the envelope.

There was a moment of hesitation as Melissa considered whether this might be a practical joke or not. It was too small and thin to contain a stink bomb or anything like that, and it didn’t seem to really contain anything more than paper. Then with a shrug, Melissa opened it up and pulled out a single piece of card paper.

‘MISCHIEF, YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED TO A SECRET MEETING OF SELECT INDIVIDUALS. TELL NO ONE.’

Beneath this, there was a symbol that resembled a jester’s cap along with the time and location of where to meet.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Melissa mused as she read the note over for a second and then third time. She had no idea what this was about, but her curiosity had definitely been piqued.

Domoviye
Saturday afternoon, Dec 15th, 2007

Tink tapped Smile on the shoulder and pointed down at the ground far below. Phase was walking along as proud and cocky as ever without a care in the world. She... or he... Tink had heard a bunch of odd stories about the Poe rich kid, would be perfect.

“Want to ask her about paying for a school pizza party?” Smile asked, catching on immediately.

“You go for the pizza party, I'll... ask for a catapult for bullies,” Tink said.

“Got it.”

They flew down, making sure to come at the Poesie from behind. They each took a shoulder and smiled sweetly.

“Hi Phase,” Tink said. “You want to know what would be cool? A giant catapult for all the bullies aimed right at the lake. You've got the money, you can do it.”

Neither Tink or Smile expected what came next. Phase gasped, looked at both of them in real terror, and then disappeared into the ground, leaving Tink hanging in mid-air, and Smile landing in the snow.

“OW!” Smile shouted, rubbing her butt. “What was that about?”

Tink looked at the spot where Phase had disappeared. “I don't know. Maybe Phase doesn't like fairies. You OK?”

Smile jumped up and started flying, still gingerly rubbing her rear. “Yeah, but I'm not sitting on any more shoulders. Let's go find someone else.”

“OH KITTY CAT!” Tink shouted, jumping up from her perch on top of Kane.

Smile peeked over the edge holding her human size winter coat tight around her small fairy body to warm up. Down below was a new student who looked like a really curvy bobcat. She hadn't seen the girl often, but judging by her combat finals, the Poesie was even loopier than Tink. This could be fun.

Shifting back to her human form, she put her winter coat on and turned back into a fairy. Despite only wearing a pouffy glittering dress, the cold wasn't too bad as long as she let herself warm up every so often. “OK, I'm ready. Want to play this by ear?”

“Yeah, this should be easy,” Tink replied, hopping over the edge and practically dive bombing the cat girl.

Smile followed a little more calmly, and Tink had already taken a seat on a very furry shoulder when she finally caught up.

“HI!” Tink said. “You wanna buy some catnip? I've got a really good supplier.”

“Oh I can't have catnip, it makes me go cr-” The cat girl stopped talking as she saw who she was talking to. Then her eyes went wide and she grinned like it was Christmas. “Lilith!” she squealed.

There was a crack of electricity, and Smile found herself blinking spots out of her eyes. There was a soft thump in the snow. She and the cat girl looked down to see Tink lying on the ground twitching a little, with her long hair standing on end.

“Oh noes! I killed her!” the cat girl wailed, sparks flying off her fur.

Smile zipped down, grabbed the still comatose fairy, and flew away at high speed before anything else went wrong.

“Note to self,” Tink said weakly, “don't surprise the kitty.”

Morpheus
Dickinson Cottage, Saturday afternoon, Dec 15th, 2007

Balderdash slowly made her way down the cottage hallway while helping to guide and support Trixie, who was shuffling along with a shocked look on her face. The normally excitable girl was almost acting like some kind of zombie.

“What the hell happened to HER?” a familiar voice demanded.

It took a moment for Balderdash to look up, where she saw Traci Hoffman, better known around school by her codename of Starbright. The expression on Traci’s face was more annoyance than concern, which was to be expected of the beautiful but selfish exemplar.

Jenny Merrowitz, also known as Fairy Girl, was much more sympathetic. She took one look at Trixie and gasped. “She looks…shellshocked. What happened?”

“Generator pranked her bad,” Balderdash answered. “She’s been like this since…”

“Ouch,” Jenny responded with a wince, “Let’s get her to her room…”

Traci just said, “Whatever,” before turning and walking away.

Balderdash and Jenny shared a look, then shook their heads and helped Trixie to her room. They carefully set her on the edge of her bed, neither noticing the white envelope that sat on her pillow.

“What did Generator even do?” Jenny asked while giving Trixie another worried look.

“You don’t want to know,” Balderdash answered with a wince.

Trixie finally blinked and looked up with a haunted expression on her face. “I have much to learn.”

Domoviye
Crystal Hall, Saturday late afternoon, Dec 15th, 2007

She-Beast was heading for Crystal Hall with her friend Nacht. Smile, who was still for some reason flying alongside Tink, watched as the tiny fairy giggled and flew down to land on the girl's shoulder.

“Jadis! I have a really good idea,” Tink said.

Jadis sighed and rubbed her forehead. “If I tell you to go away will it work?”

“NOPE!” Tink said, patting her cheek. “Since you're a Bad Seed you guys really should have a garden. You can grow things like belladonna, hemlock, deadly nightshade-”

Interrupting before the motormouth could get going, Jadis said, “That's not really what we do.”

“Then you could dress up like old witches, and cackle and have a big cauldron in the middle of the garden that is always steaming. And it would be really cool and creepy.”

Smile hovered in place off to the side, trying not to laugh as Tink kept talking while Jadis tried to get a word in edgewise.

“Aren't you supposed to be helping Tink?” Nacht asked in a monotone, although there might have been a small gleam of humour in her eyes.

“Yeah, but when the ditzy fairy gets like this, it's funnier to just sit back and watch the insanity,” Smile said.

Nodding in understanding, the pair stood back and watched the show.

Domoviye
The Quad, Saturday late afternoon, Dec 15th, 2007

“This isn't fair,” Jade said, watching two fairies fly at high speed across the campus laughing as they went. “Why do Tink and Smile get to play as shoulder angels, when I'd get a month of detention if I did it.”

“I don't think Smile realizes just how much Headmistress Carson hates shoulder angels. But Tink is being very careful to avoid teachers and security,” Phase replied.

“How soon before they get busted?”

“I'd give them another two hours, as soon as they go back to their cottages. Security is waiting for them right now.”

“Oh... I almost wish I could see the lecture they're going to get from Carson,” Jade said.

“If you keep up this prank war, you might get a worse one,” Phase warned.

Domoviye
Dickinson Cottage, Saturday evening, Dec 15th, 2007

Despite how cold she was after spending most of the day outside flying, Smile was skipping and giggling as she headed inside Dickinson. Tink was crazy and sometimes REALLY annoying, but she also knew how to have good old silly fun. It was too bad she couldn't have Jane join in, her roommate could really have used the laugh.

Actually considering how people were avoiding Jane since her combat final, it was probably best that her friend hadn't joined in.

“Smile, come with me. Headmistress Carson would like to talk to you,” a large and annoyed looking security guard said, putting his hand on her shoulder as soon as she opened the door.

“EEP!”

She was marched to the Headmistress office in silence. The man didn't look talkative, and Smile was hoping that the meeker she looked, the easier they would go on her. She hadn't done anything bad, just a little annoying and funny.

They met Tink and her escort at the entrance to Schuster Hall. It was very obvious that Tink was not taking the fifth as she flew alongside the older security guard who looked like he needed a cigarette and a stiff drink.

“Micheals, you know me, would I do anything really bad that doesn't involve bullies?” Tink asked, trying to sound sweet and innocent. “Now how about you just let me go back to my nice warm cottage and we'll forget that this little mistake ever happened. And I promise I won't throw any bullies into the lake tomorrow.”

The tired security guard just opened the door and pointed inside.

“OK, OK, you drive a hard bargain. A whole week of not throwing bullies in the lake or leaving them on roofs. But that's as far as I'll go.”

Smile facepalmed. How had she thought that anything Tink would do would turn out well?

They marched into the Headmistress office, the first time that Smile had ever actually been there. She'd dropped off forms for the stables with Ms. Hartford, but the foreboding doors to Carson's office had always stayed closed.

Looking at the headmistress, Smile swallowed and tried not to cower as her old phobia of adults threatened to come back. The woman did not look happy. In fact raging hurricanes looked happier than the headmistress did at that exact moment. Looking down at her shoes, she slowly walked up to the desk.

Tink did not.

“Hey, Headmistress Carson, how ya doing?” the fairy said cheerfully landing on the desk. “You don't usually stay at work this late, so you must have some important stuff to do. So how about we save you some time, and I'll be at Hawthorne bright and early tomorrow with Smile and we'll do our thing, and we can all call it a night. Deal?”

“Sit down,” Carson said.

Smile's body reacted before her brain could and she found herself sitting without remembering going through the motions. Tink simply crossed her legs and sat floating just above the desk, unfortunately this did not shut her up.

“OK. It seems we broke a bigger rule than I thought. But in our defense, we were not shoulder angels. We were shoulder fairies, very different things,” Tink said.

Smile put her face in her hands. “Please just shut up before you get us expelled.”

Thirty minutes later Tink and Smile staggered out of the office, white faced and shaking.

“Wow,” Tink whispered. “I've never seen her that angry. Not even after I got Buster lost in the forest all day.”

“She's scary,” Smile whimpered. Carson had saved most of her ire for the fairy girl, so Smile hadn’t had a panic attack, but it had been a close thing several times.

“Yeah, she can be. Usually she's a big softy.”

They went down the stairs together, by the time they reached the bottom floor Tink was bouncing in the air and humming to herself.

“How can you be so happy? We got detention until the end of the term, and most of January.”

“Yeah, cleaning all the toilets in the school until they shine isn't much fun, but I've done it before. You got the easy job with Hawthorne. I'll tell everyone to take it easy on you, most of them are really nice, and I can send you a little list of rules so you don't make any mistakes. It's the least I can do after getting you into this mess.”

“You'd better,” Smile said.

“Don't worry, I'll make sure you get off as easy as possible. And you won't have to clean the basement bathroom, I'll even ask Roulette to make you a few brownies. They're REALLY, REALLY good, even if she makes me have the diabetic ones.”

Smile wasn't sure what to say to that. She was still angry at the girl, but Tink did seem to be trying to make it up to her.

“Anyways, it's late, and I'm tired. It was fun playing with you, Smile. We should do it more often.” Tink flew over and gave her a tiny hug. Then with a wave she flew for the tunnels. “BYE!”

Doing up her coat, Smile prepared herself to brave the cold. “Well,” she said to herself, “at least I don't have to tell my parents I got detention.” With a weak smile she headed out into the night.

Morpheus
Sunday afternoon, Dec 16th, 2007

Gwen Wylann stared down the tunnel, not being familiar with this section of the tunnel system. It wasn’t very far off any of the main areas, but she’d never had reason to be there before. Her eyes went from the tunnel ahead to the card in her hand.

‘ABSINTHE, YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED TO A SECRET MEETING OF SELECT INDIVIDUALS. TELL NO ONE.’

Beneath this was the part that was currently important, the directions. According to this, all she had to do was take the next left and then walk down the hall until she came to a dead end.

Gwen frowned as she considered the chances of this being a trap. There were plenty of students on campus who didn’t like her, either due to the fact that her dad worked for the MCO, or because of her feud with Centurion. And of course, there was the definite chance of this just being part of some practical joke.

It had been nearly a week since Jade and Beltane had launched their practical joke at her, and at the time, there had been the unspoken promise of more to come. Ever since then, Gwen had been keeping watch out for any further pranks, but she hadn’t seen any sign of one. Well, at least not more than that little half-hearted bit that Jade had pulled with the crackers, but Gwen was sure that was more of a gentle teasing than an actual prank.

“They’ll probably wait until I lower my guard again,” she muttered to herself.

Of course, there was the possibility that this invitation had come from one of those two, but Gwen doubted it. This just didn’t feel like a prank, or at least not one that either of those girls would pull. This had the feeling of something else. What that something was, Gwen still wasn’t quite sure.

Gwen sent one of her pixies down the hallway to scout ahead, and then for good measure, she covered herself in illusion and followed after it. Behind her, an illusion copy of herself continued walking in a different direction, just in case someone had been following her.

Once Gwen reached her destination, she saw that she wasn’t alone. Two other students were already there waiting, Mischief and Monkeywrench. Both of them held invitation cards in their hands. When she held hers up, they both seemed to relax.

“Any idea of what this is about?” Monkeywrench asked.

“No clue,” Gwen answered.

“That’s it,” Mischief exclaimed. “This is a scavenger hunt and we have to look for clues…” She began looking around intently as if trying to spot anything that could be considered a clue.

“There’s nothing…,” Monkeywrench started.

“AHA!” Mischief exclaimed. “I found a clue.”

Mischief pointed to a spot on the wall where there was a bit of graffiti drawn on it. Gwen saw a few initials as well as the words, ‘FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL JENNY. 867-5309’

“I don’t think,” Gwen started to say, only to see one more bit of graffiti. It looked like a drawing of a jester’s cap. She quickly held up her card and saw that this picture on the wall was a close match to the one included in the invitation. “It looks like this is the place.”

“And look here,” Mischief announced as she smugly pushed a button that was hidden right in the middle of the jester’s cap. Suddenly, a large section of the wall popped open and revealed a hidden door. “See…”

“Good eye,” Gwen told the excitable blonde.

Mischief went through the door first, followed by Monkeywrench. Gwen shrugged and then went through as well, though she stopped right on the other side and looked around with her eyes going wide.

Gwen saw that she was now inside a fairly large room, one that was about the same size as many of the school classrooms. At the far side of the room was a short stage, perfect for karaoke or similar performances, and there were several white boards at the back of it.

Off to the side, there was what looked like a bar, though the shelves on the back of it seemed completely empty of anything much less liquor bottles. But to add to the atmosphere, six round tables were spread around the room, each with three or four chairs placed around it.

The last detail that truly caught Gwen’s attention was the fact that the room was not empty. Six other students were already there, mostly sitting at the tables, but all looking both curious and suspicious.

Gwen immediately recognized Jade, Beltane, Robert Rose, Jericho, and the dinosaur boy Razorback. However, it took her a few more seconds to identify Stonebear, who was a member of that group the Wild Pack, whom some students called the Betas.

“Does anyone know what’s going on here?” Gwen called out.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Beltane responded.

Robert Rose, who stood near the bar, took off his top hat and gave a dramatic sweeping bow. “My lady, it seems we are all equally perplexed by this current situation.”

“We might as well take a seat,” Monkeywrench suggested.

“Not a bad idea,” Gwen agreed as she cautiously found a place to sit. For now, all she could do was wait and be patient.

A few minutes later, two more people arrived. Gwen immediately recognized Trixie, though she had no idea who the other person was until Monkeywrench leaned over and told Mischief, “That one is a junior named Bluejay.”

These newcomers immediately began asking the same questions that Gwen and her group had such a short time earlier. And as was expected, the answers were the same.

“Does anyone have ANY idea of who sent out these invitations?” Bluejay asked.

Suddenly, the sound of a drumroll filled the room, followed by a large puff of smoke on the stage. When both the noise and the smoke cleared, a person stood revealed right in the middle of the stage.

“That would be me,” the figure on the stage announced, taking a sweeping and dramatic bow that put Robert Rose’s to shame. “The beautiful, talented, and fabulous Imp.”

“IMP!” Mischief exclaimed, jumping to her feet and rushing towards the stage.

Gwen stared at the stage, or at least the woman who stood on it. Of course she knew who the Imp was. She doubted that there was a single student at Whateley who wouldn’t recognize the most infamous and controversial teacher on campus. There were countless rumors about the woman, though few really knew which were real and which were made up.

“Now, you’re all obviously wondering why I invited you here,” the Imp announced.

“You can say that again,” Stonebear said.

The Imp grinned. “Now, you’re all obviously wondering why I invited you here.”

Several students snickered from around the room while Stonebear just shook his head. Gwen resisted the urge to facepalm. Barely.

The teacher’s expression turned a little more serious and she looked around the room. “I’m sure that some of you have already realized what you all have in common.”

Gwen looked around the room, taking note of who had been invited. She was indeed starting to get an idea of what most of them had in common. Everyone else was looking around too, but nobody actually spoke up.

“You are the most dedicated pranksters at Whateley,” the Imp finally answered.

“What?” Gwen blinked at that and protested, “But I’m not a prankster.”

The Imp’s slitted yellow eyes settled on Gwen while a smirk formed on her lips. “Aren’t you? I know full well the part you played in setting off this recent prank war. Setting two of the school’s biggest pranksters against each other for a couple weeks straight is no small thing. I definitely think that qualifies.”

Mischief stared at Gwen with a look of amazement. “You did that?”

“Yes, she did,” Beltane responded while Jade nodded agreement. Both girls fixed their gazes on Gwen, making her want to squirm a little.

“And what am I doing here?” Stonebear asked.

“He’s got a point,” Jericho answered. “He’s not exactly known for his pranks.”

Jade snorted loudly. “No, he’s known for being a total stick-in-the mud.”

The Imp smirked again, this time turning her full attention to Stonebear. “Let’s see… You were the one who covered the Twain hallway with banana peels…”

“WHAT?” Monkeywrench demanded as he jumped to his feet. “That was YOU? I got in trouble for that one…” Then he paused with a pouting expression and added, “And you did it before I could…” There were some chuckles from around the room.

“And lets not forget about the perfume you put in the showerheads of the boy’s showers in Laird Hall,” the Imp continued, “Not to mention the goat incident from a couple months ago.”

At this point, everyone was staring at Stonebear in surprise while he sat there with a stoic expression on his face. It was hard to believe that this serious boy was responsible for any of that.

“You, Mister Waller, are a secret prankster,” the Imp finished announcing. “You’ve been able to successfully avoid even the suspicion of involvement in these pranks, so well done.”

“Congratulations,” Monkeywrench told him. “That’s really impressive.”

The dinosaur boy said something in a bunch of growls and hisses, though he also seemed to be using sign language at the same time. Gwen couldn’t understand a word that he said either way.

“Thanks for outing me,” Stonebear grumbled.

“I did send out a couple more reservations, which were ignored,” the Imp continued, her eyes looking around the room. “And there is one noticeable absence, simply because I didn’t trust the girl to remain quiet about this meeting or what we are about to discuss.”

A squeaky little voice from above protested, “Hey, I can keep a secret.”

Gwen looked up and saw the tiny girl Tink floating near the ceiling, apparently using some of Gwen’s own pixies as cover. Tink came down and landed on one of the tables, her hands on her hips as she glared defiantly at the teacher.

“I can’t believe you’d leave me out of this,” Tink exclaimed. “This is because I glued your shoes to the gargoyle, isn’t it?” The Imp raised an eyebrow at that. Tink, apparently realizing that she’d just given herself away, deflated a little. “Oops.”

At this point, Robert Rose stepped forward. “And what, Miss Imp, were we invited here to discuss?”

“What he said,” Trixie exclaimed.

The Imp’s expression turned serious and she slowly looked around the room, her gaze settling on each student one at a time. There were thirteen of them, Gwen realized. That could be taken as a bad sign.

“Let’s get down to business,” the Imp started.

Someone called out, “To defeat the Huns.”

There were a couple snickers. The Imp didn’t seem bothered by the interruption. Instead, she gave a faint nod of acknowledgement and continued.

“We all just came an inch away from disaster,” the teacher announced. Everyone went silent at that, though Gwen didn’t know if it was the words or the serious demeanor. “Carson nearly put down a hard ban on ALL practical jokes on campus…”

“What?” Mischief gasped with a look of horror.

Monkeywrench shook his head. “No way…”

“Pranks have been getting a little out of hand lately,” the Imp explained with a grimace, her eyes settling on Trixie. “And the glitter bomb was the final straw… If Hartford had her way, there would have been a zero tolerance policy…and ANY infraction could mean serious consequences…”

“You said nearly,” Beltane pointed out. “I assume that something prevented this.”

“Yes,” the Imp agreed, her expression still serious. “I was able to talk Carson out of it…for now.”

“For now?” Jade asked with an unhappy look.

“I love a good prank,” the Imp stated, smiling once again. “That is why I am here right now. But I also know that sometimes you have to lay low for awhile to let the heat die down.” She looked around the room. “That means, cut back on the pranks for awhile. Use the time to plan your next ones, and maybe focus on quality rather than quantity.”

Robert Rose nodded. “I can see where Miss Imp is coming from. The recent pranks, while rather glorious, have been a bit…excessive in some regards and often lacking in style.”

“Quantity rather than quality, for a large part,” Bluejay said. “But then again, a lot of that was other students…ones who aren’t here.”

“The amateurs are already losing interest,” Beltane pointed out. “We are the ones who actually drive the pranks and keep them going.”

“Precisely,” the Imp agreed. “And that is why you are all here.” The teacher paused with an almost evil grin spreading across her face. Her tail swished back and forth as she announced, “I have a proposal.”

“But I’m not ready to get married,” Monkeywrench blurted out, earning chuckles around the room.

The Imp gestured around the room, explaining, “This was once the clubhouse of a campus club called the Jesters, who were all about standup comedy and the like. They went defunct a few years ago, and this place has been empty since. It seemed like an appropriate meeting spot.”

Gwen couldn’t resist calling out, “So, you’re saying that this is an underground comedy club?”

“Where’s the booze?” Tink demanded. When everyone stared at her, surprised that she was the one asking about alcohol, she shrugged. “Everyone knows that you’re supposed to have booze at a nightclub.”

“My proposal,” the Imp continued with a barely contained smile, “is that you make this place YOUR new clubhouse. I’m proposing the formation of a new campus club…one that would not officially exist. The prank club. And I will be your faculty sponsor…unofficially, of course.”

Jade jumped up. “The first rule of Prank Club is that you do not talk about prank club.”

The Imp grinned at that. “Exactly.”

There was a lot of whispering across the room as well as a few looks back and forth between the students. Gwen leaned back and considered the idea of a prank club. It didn’t really seem any more ridiculous than some of those other campus clubs. The only real difference was, if it was unofficial, they wouldn’t be able to get any funding from the school.

“And the second rule of Prank Club,” the Imp announced, her expression turning serious again. “Maybe even more imp-portant than the first…is to avoid drawing Carson’s attention. Avoid getting ANY attention from the admin people…” She looked around the room. “The first rule is part of that. This also means, no pranks that disrupt classes and school functions. Most teachers don’t have my sense of humor and won’t appreciate a good prank the way I do. If other teachers start complaining to Carson… Well, look at rule number two.”

There were nods from around the room and a few mutterings of, “That makes sense…” Gwen found herself nodding along.

“Now,” the eccentric teacher continued cheerfully. “As a club, I see you being able to share ideas and bounce things off each other…figuratively and maybe even literally.” There were snickers. “You can communicate, claiming dibs on specific targets, and avoiding stepping on each other’s toes unintentionally.” She flashed a grin. “Maybe even challenge each other to prank duels.”

Gwen noticed that this last one really seemed to get people’s attention. Several pranksters began looking at others, as if trying to decide who they wanted to challenge to a prank duel…and what such a thing might entail. She couldn’t resist wondering that herself. Maybe, that could even be a way to resolve things with Jade and Beltane.

“AND,” the Imp said, putting extra emphasis on that word. “You can see when things might be getting out of hand again…or when a specific prank might be about to bring down some unwanted attention. The kind from admin…and especially from Carson. You can deal with that kind of thing before it actually becomes a problem and bites us all in the arse.”

The Imp stood there for a minute, remaining silent as everyone else talked amongst themselves. Gwen sent her pixies flying around the room, using them to listen in to several of the conversations, at least until Tink decided to play tag with one of them and, which distracted Gwen too much to pay attention to the rest.

Finally, the Imp announced, “As your faculty advisor, I will be checking in on you and will be available for questions or advice.” She gestured towards Beltane. “I leave you in the hands of Beltane.”

Beltane stared at her, not looking amused. “And why choose me?”

The Imp just gave her a cheerful smile. “Well, you are the most senior student here…beside Stonebear. But unlike him, you already have the necessary reputation and respect as a prankster.” Her grin broadened even more. “The others will listen to you. Mostly.”

And with that, the Imp threw something to the ground at her feet and there was a sudden burst of smoke. When it cleared, the Imp was gone, having left the same way she’d arrived.

“Well,” Gwen mused as she looked around. “This was probably the most interesting meeting I’ve ever been to.”

The Imp was rather pleased with herself as she strolled down the tunnel, away from the new Prank Club clubhouse. So far, it looked like everything was working out just the way she’d planned.

She was sure that most, if not all of the kids she’d invited, would stay with the new Prank Club, at least for a time. After all, where else could they get a heads-up on what their rivals might be planning against them?

There were other reasons to remain in the Prank Club, too, though the Imp wasn’t sure they would realize all the benefits right away. For those students, it was a place where they could enjoy the company of other likeminded individuals, share ideas about pranks they wanted to play, and brag about their successes. It was a place where they could learn from each other and polish their skills to new heights of mischief. This was the kind of social gathering that most pranksters were never able to truly enjoy, and which the Imp herself had always secretly longed for.

“And of course,” she mused to herself, “people love being in on a secret…especially a secret and exclusive club.”

The school itself benefitted from this new club as well. For the school, this club acted as a pressure release, allowing the pranksters to express their creative antics in a somewhat more gentle and controlled manner. It also served as a bell for the cat, allowing the Imp to monitor the upcoming pranks so that she could take measures to redirect or limit the ones that might prove to be too troublesome for Carson to overlook.

At the same time, the Imp was able to enjoy the benefits of this new club as well. She now possessed a front-row seat to all the upcoming pranks, and the opportunity to watch the best ones develop from start to finish. That was going to be so much fun.

“And I can help guide the next generation,” she mused to herself.

The Imp grinned as she gleefully rubbed her hands together, looking forward to seeing where this would all go. This wasn’t the first time that the school had encouraged the existence of an unofficial club, just so they could keep an eye on some potentially troublesome students. However, the fabulous Imp knew without any doubt, that this was going to be the best club ever

Beltane scowled in annoyance after the Imp’s sudden departure. She had to admit, the teacher had made some good points about the Prank Club and why it should exist. And she was sure that the Imp had a few more reasons that she hadn’t shared with the group, reasons that Beltane could easily guess at. Still, she was annoyed that responsibility for this newly formed club had just been dumped on her, without any warning or consent on her part.

“And it’s not like I’m busy or anything,” Beltane muttered sarcastically.

As a senior who was getting ready to graduate at the end of the school year, she was quite busy. She barely had enough time to plan any proper pranks herself, much less herd a group of other pranksters.

“Hey, everyone,” Beltane called out, getting the attention of all the other pranksters. “Miss Imp made a rather interesting proposal, and in the spirit of that, I would like to make a proposal of my own.”

She began walking to the front of the room, stepping up onto the stage and then looking over the large whiteboard. There were even a couple markers there, making them ready for immediate use.

“And what’s that?” Jade asked.

Robert Rose gave her a curious look. “Pray tell, dear lady, what delightful idea are you proposing?”

Beltane smiled at that. “As a newly formed club, I propose a club activity…a team-building exercise, if you will, so we can practice working together on a single project.”

She paused to look around the room, waiting until she had the attention of everyone present. That took a few more seconds than she would have liked as Tink seemed to be distracted by a game of tag with one of Gwen’s little green pixies. Once she had the fairy girl’s attention too, she continued.

“I propose that we select a single target who we all work together on pranking,” Beltane announced. “Someone challenging. Someone interesting. And of course, following rule number two, someone who Mrs. Carson won’t care if we prank.”

Then with an evil grin, Beltane wrote the name of her proposed target on the white board. ‘IMP.’

The End