Chapter 4:

Fools.

Everyone was so distracted by the storm that no one was keeping an eye on any of the mirrors. It was almost too easy to escape.

That final blast of thunder had broken right through the mirror prison, and she was free. The Evil Queen was free.

Now that all of the Ever After High staff were disoriented by the storm, she could escape. She flung the window open, hoisted herself up, and dropped right down.

She had predicted this, but not so soon. She'd longed for the day when the worlds would collide, so she could enact her plan.

For now, The Evil Queen had to wait for him in the woods. She knew that the storm could de-petrify those affected by a gorgon's stare, so she knew the first thing he would do is escape.

There was the sound of footsteps through the leaves- there he was now! She smiled knowingly and turned around to face him.

"It seems you have escaped," she spoke slowly, stopping him. "I've been waiting for this day- Van Hellscream,"

He stood there, staring at her blankly, still shaken. He clutched something wrapped up in an old sheet, and he recoiled slightly when the queen neared him.

"Oh, don't be afraid!" She assured sweetly. "I've been watching you, and I would very much appreciate it if we could join forces," she looked around tentatively. "Now, where's your friend? Wasn't there someone with you?"

Van Hellscream remained silent for several seconds until he opened up the sheet and dumped out the contents: thick, copious dust.

"She did not survive the de-petrification process," he explained, his voice devoid of emotion.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and then the queen laughed nervously. "Well, then! It doesn't seem that we need her, do we?" she took his arm and smiled wickedly at him. "Look here: we both want different things, and we can both get them if we work together,"

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you have in mind?"

"Come with me," she led him through the trees. "When we get to my old castle, I'll show you everything,"

Back at the tree path, the boys on the Monster High Casket-ball team all received a text message from their coach, saying that tonight's game had been canceled. Despite the confusion and the students only knowing each other for a few minutes, they decided to just hang out in the clearing so they could get to know one another.

"Hey, Clawdeen!" Frankie called her friend, who was sitting on the bench a few feet away. "I'm taking the other girls to the library. You coming?"

Clawdeen nodded, retrieving her phone. "Yeah, just a minute," as she began to text her mother, Howleen came bounding up to the bench.

"What's that smell?" asked Howleen, wrinkling her nose.

Clawdeen quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Howleen sniffed deeply. "It's...it's another wolf!" she turned towards the trees. "Somewhere in the woods!"

"Howleen, don't be dumb," sighed Clawdeen. "There are no werewolves in..." she stopped, and then she caught the smell, too. "Wait a second. Who is that?"

Something rustled in the bushes, and the two sisters exchanged glances. They both headed to the woods to look around, only to see a figure dart far away from them.

"Hey!" Clawdeen called out, breaking into a run. "Come back! We want to talk to you!"

The two wolves caught up to the stranger, who was covered by a red cape. As the stranger stopped and pulled the coat tighter around themselves, Clawdeen tried to talk to them again.

"Who are you? We caught your scent back there. Were you watching us?"

The stranger was silent, and then they turned around. It was a human-looking girl, but her scent kept telling Clawdeen and Howleen that she was a wolf or at least a hybrid. She shifted nervously.

"I'm sorry," she apologized softly. "I just...I've never seen wolves like you before,"

Clawdeen tilted her head to the side curiously. "What do you mean? Don't you have a pack?" when the girl didn't respond, Clawdeen took another step forward. "What's your name, honey?"

Before she could answer, a few other wolves slipped out from the trees and stared at her curiously. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of all of them- they'd obviously caught her scent as well. There was no hiding anything now, yet somehow, that was a relief.

"Cerise," she dropped the hood around her shoulders, and her canine ears stood up, revealing themselves. "M-my name is Cerise!"

Romulus had stepped up beside Clawdeen, and he stared down at Cerise cooly. "Interesting, you're not like anything other wolves we've met. You wanna come hang out with us?"

Though she knew she could quite possibly get in trouble with the Headmaster for this, Cerise couldn't stop the laugh from escaping her chest. "Yes! Yes, I do,"

She ran with them through the woods, and she'd never felt so alive in her life.

Further down into the Monster High courtyard, a group of boys from both schools had spread out a section of a tablecloth to sit on in the grass, and they were all chatting about themselves.

"So, tell me again," Dexter scratched his head, trying to understand. "You mean to tell me that...the name of that sport that got canceled was...'casket-ball'?"

Jackson nodded. "Uh-huh. I understand that it takes some getting used to, but it's really not that weird. It's just basketball, really,"

"But...why? You don't throw around an actual casket, do you?"

Deuce couldn't help but laugh. "Ha! No, we'd never do that," he then gave Heath a look. "But there is someone who tried that,"

"Can you shut up about that!?" Heath blurted out, embarrassed. "That was like a month ago!" As his friends just laughed at him, Heath rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Say, what kind of sports do you have over there?"

Dexter stood up and pulled out a strange device that almost looked like a phone, and he opened up some app. "I have a list you can look at, hang on,"

The device grabbed Jackson's attention right away. "What is that? Is that a phone?"

"This?" Dexter tilted the screen towards Jackson to show him. "This is a MirrorPad. Do you have anything like this?"

Jackson stared at it, perplexed but intrigued. "You mean...you have advanced technology? But aren't your people perpetually stuck in the Middle Ages?"

All the Ever After High boys in their circle suddenly stopped, and they stared at Jackson as if he were talking nonsense. "Uh..." Hunter raised a brow. "No? Did you think we were?"

"Well..." Jackson swallowed nervously, anxious to have everyone staring at him. "I mean, a lot of you are dressed like that, and a lot of those stories..." he trailed off, seeing something in the distance. "Who is that?" There was a girl setting up a DJ table several feet away.

Dexter looked up. "Oh, that's Melody Piper. She's our DJ, and it looks like she's about to play something,"

Jackson stared at her open-mouthed for a few seconds, before he rolled up his sleeve to look at his bare wrist. "Look at my wrist. I have to go!" with that, he turned around and bolted to the school parking lot.

"Wait, what? Hey, come back!" Dexter tried to stop him, but when he realized this attempt was futile, he turned back to the others. "What's gotten into him?"

Deuce just shook his head. "Uh...we'll explain everything later. Hey, there's some great frisbees left in our gym. Wanna toss them around?"

Inside the Monster High library, the girls were trying to figure out how this happened.

"There's no indication that this has ever happened before in history," Frankie explained aloud as she browsed through a library computer. "Did any of you find anything in the books?"

When the answer returned as a unanimous 'no', Raven Queen suggested, "Well, maybe there's something in our library, or we're just not looking in the right places,"

"Oh, there has to be something!" Briar Beauty reached for an incredibly thick book titled 'History of The World'. "There's got to be something here. With so many pages, you would think-" she let out a yelp when she saw a face staring at her from the spot where she'd pulled out the book, and she fell over in shock. "Ah! Madeline, stop scaring us like that!"

Madeline leaped down from the bookshelf and retrieved a small package from her dress pocket. "I was crawling around in the ceiling tiles, and I found this pack of gourmet bubble gum! It's cherry pie flavored!"

Her friends just shook their heads, as they were used to this behavior, but Draculaura remembered her. "Hey!" she greeted, getting Madeline's attention. "Earlier, when we were outside, you said something about a 'Great Storm'. What was that?"

"Oh, The Great Storm?" Madeline unwrapped a stick of the gum and popped it into her mouth. "My Dad told me all about that. He said that our ancestors used to live in an entirely different reality, but then a storm, just like the one we just had, came in and took our ancestors away. And then there was this prophecy that it would come back and return our world to this one, and it came true!" Her bubbly attitude suddenly vanished and she turned to the ceiling and screamed, "SHUT UP! DON'T MAKE ME COME UP THERE!" there was a pause, and she turned back to the other girls. "Sorry about that. Anywhoo, we can ask my Dad all about it when he returns from the mountains. He had to make some hats for the mountain-goat people. They have big heads, you know!"

Frankie tried to piece this all together. "But, do you know where it came from, and why? Did anything cause it the first time?"

Madeline shrugged, blowing a bubble with the gum and watching it pop. "Dunno. My dad never said,"

Cupid had been listening from another section in the library, and after she heard this, she walked towards the others. "No matter what happened," she began, gaining the attention from the others. "At least were together now. Right?"