As always, a huge thank you to Darweiner7 and Milkyfrankie, I hope you will like this chapter even though it's quite short...


Cleo de Nile was not what you would call a particularly observant person. Her curious nature would obviously guide her into casting a glance or dropping an ear here and there from time to time but even the worst kept secrets could remain secrets for her. She wasn't attentive to everything and found much more pleasure in spreading rumors than into seeking ones. This job was for Spectra VonDerGeist, Monster High's reporter, and one of the girls' good friend.

You could say that her boyfriend, Deuce, would easily notice smaller details than she would, like that time when he noticed a hickey on his best friend's neck, for example. But sometimes, things became obvious enough for Cleo to pay attention to them.

One day, a few days after Nefera's debut into the Fearleaders' coaching, Cleo, along with the other girls, caught a glimpse of something intriguing and rather interesting. Nefera had been letting the girls train for their representation in front of her, helping them nonetheless with some of the figures when Cleo noticed that her sister would always tense whenever she would get near Frankie.

It was slight, but she could see Nefera's whole body tense up when the green girl would speak to her, the princess' jaw would clench and she would either spat or mumble an answer. So, yeah, her sister could be, no, was a bitch. But Nefera would rarely hate someone for no reason. Well, reasons most of the time rather stupid but reasons nonetheless. And Cleo just couldn't see any reason why her sister would despise Frankie so much.

She forgot about it at some point and as the younger De Nile started to stretch her body before practice, she heard her sister yell at someone.

"Shut up and go back to your side of the gymnasium! No one asked you here!" Cleo and every other people in the area turned their head to see the princess' fight with no-other than Jackson Jekyll. To say that Nefera was tensed up again would be a euphemism. She was fuming and if she hadn't the title of an employee in Monster High, she would have probably jumped to his face and scratched it.

Jackson, on the other hand, was pretty much as irate as his opponent. Deuce could tell he'd never seen his best friend like this, it seemed like Jake was radiating resentment and hatred, something rather uncommon for the scientist. Gorgon's first thought was that Jackson was on edge because of the drugs, he knew his friend had committed a few illegal mistakes during the summer and though he knew the dark-haired boy hadn't completely stopped, he had considerably restricted his consumption, which was already a good thing. Although somehow, the way Jake acted didn't look like he needed a fix or something, it seemed like he was bursting as if he'd held things in himself for too long and could finally let them out.

But why the hell would he have things to tell Neffie?

"You don't talk to her like that!"

Both Deuce and Cleo hurried to separate the princess and the scientist, Deuce was literally torn apart between his sister-in-law and his best friend as he was in-between them trying to keep them from hurting each other. Frankie joined the couple as she was trying to pull her boyfriend backward, along with Clawd Wolf, as Cleo was doing the same with her sister.

Nefera and Jackson were screaming at each other. It began as meaningful quotes and ended up as basic insults yelled at the other in a fluid exchange as more and more people were getting closer to see the fight.

"Go on! Insult me!", screamed the young boy. "I'm sure the Headmistress will be so glad to hear about your relationship with an underage student!"

Between two bad words, the Princess cried "Go put some headphones on, let the fun one out for once!" to which Jekyll replied that she was a "Fucking bitch!" And if Neffie had never quenched at the previous insults, Cleo felt her hold on her sister loosen when the latter got out of her embrace and started to run into the student.

Halfway through her race, she heard loud music echoing in the room, as she found herself going forward to slap Jackson. Except her hand was held up in the air by Holt who had turned in a demi-second earlier. They held each other's gaze as the blue boy took in the elements around him.

Deuce, Frankie, and Clawd were restraining him and behind Nefera he could see her sister that was probably doing the same with his lover. Nobody dared to move and everybody wondered how would Nefera react in front of Holt. Nefera blinked and a tear fell down to crash on her shirt.

Cleo watched her sister let out a loud sigh as Holt let her hand free of his grip and let his own one running up to her shoulder, massaging it before he pulled her in for a hug and a kiss on her forehead. He was no longer restrained as everyone started to relax.

"Everybody goes back to what they were doing!" Screamed Deuce as he and his team went back to the Casketball training, glancing at the odd couple every now and then, just like the girls.


This incident had multiple consequences. First, Nefera got out with one strike, as she excused her reaction due to the multiple whistles of the Casketball players. She even asked the Headless Master to change their training schedule so they would not have to share the gymnasium and endure the heavy and disturbing comments of the players, The Headmistress did so and only left the common training on Monday mornings.

Then, Jackson got detention for a full week because he had disrespected a member of the teaching team. It was his first time ever in detention, and if last year he would have freaked the shit out of him, this year he just didn't care. His mother went crazy when she learned he'd insulted the new coach and even more when she learned that said coach had almost got into a fight with her son.

The Fearleaders all came to the conclusion that Holt and Nefera were a thing, if not dating. None of them had ever seen Holt so close or tender with a woman, although he had flirted and even slept with most of them. As for Cleo, she finally knew the name of the guy that helped her sister to get better, and even though she never liked Holt, she couldn't help but smile at the thought of them together.

Last but not least, Deuce was contemplating what his best friend had said, or rather, yelled at his sister-in-law. I'm sure the Headmistress will be so glad to hear about your relationship with an underage student. Surely Jake was talking about Holt and Nefera but Deuce couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something more to this. So, at noon, Deuce decided to have a little heart-to-heart with Holt.