*Note: This chapter takes place during the events of Monsters University, but I won't explain where. I'll let Frankie do the talking for this chapter.

Chapter 13: MU Pt. 1

Well, after that embarrassing entrance, we made it into the other world. But the weirdest part about this world was that it looked a little bit like New York back home. The only Disney movie I could think of that takes place in New York was Oliver and Company, but this world didn't look like 80s Manhattan. It felt different, but I didn't exactly know why. The only way I can explain was that some buildings, including one that looked like a courthouse, had a dome roof with horn-like spikes on it.

Anyway, as we were walking along, the imps and Genie walked in front of me to give me some space after my little outburst back in Toaster's world. Panic glanced back at me for a moment to see how I was holding up after my outburst, but did a double take and started screaming in horror when he saw me. Followed by Pain, and then Genie.

"What?" I asked them in concern and confusion.

Panic tried to speak first. "You're a mon-mon-mon-"

"Monster!" Pain finished as he clung onto Panic in fear.

I gave the imps a confused look and then threw one at Genie, who promptly magicked up a full-sized mirror, and I was able to see what all the fuss was about. I was -in fact- now a monster; a fluffy, sunset colored monster with two small pink horns on the top of my head. My hands were now fingerless as if I were wearing mittens, my feet were tiny and dainty little paws with black claws sticking out, and a long, pink tipped foxlike tail came out of my backside. My blue-framed glasses were now rounded instead of square and the temples wrapped around my horns.

"Huh, well, this is new." I nonchalantly said as I examined my new look. It was weird, especially considering that I had either been human or half human in every other world I've been to. But at least now I had an idea on what world we were now in. Monstropolis, the city within the world of Monsters Inc. and Monsters University.

Panic was still flabbergasted at my new look. "How are you a monster?"

"Simple, the world we're in is home to an entire race of monsters." I summarized where we know were. "No humans. Everything is just monsters."

"Then how come we didn't change?" Pain asked as he pointed at himself, Panic, and Genie.

"You're all shapeshifters." I gave him a simple answer. "We've already figured out that you all are unaffected with other worlds changing you."

Pain leaned against a light post as he processed everything. "This is weirder than the talking toaster."

"Fellas, this could be a good thing." Genie spoke up with his usual positive energy. "If Frankie's like this now, it'll be easy for her to get by and find the next Border! It'll be just like how it was back in our worlds and in Atlantica."

"Yes." I agreed. "Thank you, Genie."

Genie smiled at me before he looked at the map once again. "And, hey, speaking of the invisible wall. Look at this! According to the map, the next Border lies just past this place."

He showed us a place on the map where the next Border was located. It was shown to be next to a familiar college campus that I knew all too well. But I was still excited about where we were going, because when I saw a familiar blue flag with an M with an eyeball in the middle wave a few blocks away from us, I knew we were getting closer and closer to finding the Border that led to the next world.

"I know where that is!" I said with a grin. "C'mon, it's not that far away from here!"

The guys nodded, and after Genie turned himself into a scaly blue monster with a clubbed tail to better blend in with the civilians., we were on our way to Monsters University.

Later

We found Monsters University about twenty minutes after arriving at Monstropolis. And everything looked so much cooler than I ever remembered. The students on campus were out and about, having fun and waving to us as we walked around. I was lucky the four of us managed to convince someone that we were visiting for a college tour, although, back home this would be considered illegal to do without the proper forms. Oh, well.

"Okay, this counts as my college visit." I said as I looked around at all the unique monsters on campus. If I had known college would be this cool in person, I probably would've gone with my family to move Ty in -on second thought, I probably still wouldn't have.

"This is a college?" Genie said as he was also impressed with all the campus had. "Not bad. I wonder what the educational system in a world of monsters is like."

"Kinda like one for humans, except these guys have a whole program dedicated to scaring humans." I explained to him, but I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings. The next thing I knew, I accidentally bumped into someone and nearly fell on my face again. Thankfully, someone grabbed my hand and made sure I didn't hurt myself. It wasn't Genie or the imps, this person had only three fingers on their hand, not four.

"I'm sorry!" I quickly apologized. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

"A-are you hurt?" a stranger worriedly asked me, no doubt it was the one who grabbed me before I fell.

"No." I shook my head, only to now realize that I lost my glasses again and my vision was blurry. "But now I can't see."

"Oh, uh, here." the stranger said as he put my glasses in my hand. "They kinda fell off your horns."

"Thanks." I told the stranger as they gave me back my glasses. I put them back on and saw that in front of me was an 18–19-year-old Randall Boggs. Telling me that the time the world was set in was during the events of Monsters University. Most likely before he and Mike started classes in the Scaring Program at MU.

"Whoa…" I heard myself softly say in awe as I looked at him all heart eyed. Friendly reminder: I have a bit of a crush on Randall, and this meet cute was definitely something I never thought would happen, except for my wildest dreams, but I kind of liked it.

"You okay?" Randall asked me with a concerned look as he helped me to my feet.

"Uh, y-yeah! I-I-I'm okay, I'm alright!" I awkwardly told him as I tried my best to look good. "Uh, how are you?"

"Pretty good, I guess." he shrugged.

"Th-that's great!" I stammered before I wheezed out an introduction. "I'm Frankie."

"Heh, uh, okay." Randall gave a chuckle before he introduced himself the way I did with the wheeze. "I'm Randall!"

I could tell he meant it in good fun. After all, this was before he became the villain everyone associates him as. He was still a cute dork at this time, even without his cute glasses.

"Yeah, sorry, that was dumb." I chuckled nervously. "I'm not really used to talking to cute- uh, college guys."

Randall gave me a confused look. "You're not a student?"

"No, but I'm here on a college visit with my," I glanced at Genie and the imps before looking back at Randall. "Uncle and cousins."

I could practically feel Pain's eyeroll from where I was, but hey, I didn't want to look like a creep in front of my crush. Even though I did feel a little like a weirdo when I introduced myself with that dumb wheeze.

"Well, if you want, I can give you a personal tour of the campus." he kindly offered. "It is welcome week, after all. Might as well make you feel welcomed."

"Really?" I blinked with starry eyes.

Randall smiled and nodded. "Yeah, it won't be a problem with your uncle, will it?"

I practically felt my tail wag in excitement when I looked over at Genie and the imps, hoping they'd say "yes" into letting Randall show me around. After all, now that I have an extra day in Disney, might as well spend that time getting to know both the coolest fictional college there ever was and getting to know my biggest crush I'd ever have.

Genie gave me an approved nod and a thumbs-up. "Go ahead, Frankie."

"Thanks!" I told him with the largest smile on my face.

I quickly pulled myself together as Randall took me by the hand -he had such a warm and gentle touch for being a lizard monster. And with that, Randall led me for a tour of the campus, and I was feeling like I had died and gone to Heaven. Walking hand and hand with my fictional crush -well, before he turned into a sociopath. Could this adventure get any better?

Pain's POV

Well, she did it again. Frankie's wasting time in another world so she wouldn't have to leave and go back to her own. Except now instead of saving a bunch of gods or protecting a mermaid princess or just being nice to a bunch of appliances, she got all goo-goo eyed for some random lizard monster who seems like even a bigger nerd than Athena and a lot less cool than Hermes. Clearly, Panic and I made the mistake in agreeing to join Frankie on her adventure.

"Ah, c'est l'amour." Genie said as he magicked himself a black and white striped shirt, a sideways hat, a red bandana, and a cigarette -with that last one's smoke forming a small heart at Frankie and -whatshisname? Randall? Yeah, Randall. Even the name is kinda dorky.

I rolled my eyes, annoyed that Frankie was wasting time again after our whole talk earlier. "She's wasting time."

"But this time it looks like she's smitten." Panic said as he watched Frankie and that Randall guy walk off together. "Gotta say, it's a relief than her whole "helping people" schtick."

"Please, with that loser?" I scoffed. "She could do better."

"She looked interested." Panic shrugged. "I mean, a troublemaking vandal like her and a nerdy college boy like him?"

"It seems that our girl is in love, boys." Genie said as he turned back into his monster form. "Besides, he seems like a nice enough lizard monster. What harm could he do?"

"I give them eleven minutes before she remembers why we're here." I folded my arms.

"Please," Panic rolled his eyes. "Like you don't sappy when it comes to love."

"That's 'cause I don't." I told him.

Panic arched a brow at me. "Does Operation Hate Arrows hold any meaning for you?"

I felt my face get more pink in it as my eyes widened at the reminder of one of our failed missions. "Hey, we agreed to never speak of Operation Hate Arrows ever again!"

"No, we agreed never to speak of the Canathus Incident ever again," Panic corrected me. "You said nothing about Operation Hate Arrows."

"What's Operation Hate Arrows?" Genie casually asked.

My eyes darted at Panic frantically, and the growing smirk on his face said it all. "Don't you do it-"

"One time when we still worked for Hades," Panic stopped me by telling the story. "We were sent to Cupid's workshop, disguised ourselves as cherubs, to try to see if we could do anything to prevent Cupid from spreading love."

He was really gonna get it now! "I swear to Tartarus, if you tell him-"

"And the longer we stayed in the workshop, the more the effects of love got to us." Panic finished with a mean smirk. "Pain got all gushy and lovey-dovey until we left."

Genie looked back at me, and I could tell that he was hiding a laugh after hearing that embarrassing story. "And I can see those effects wore off."

"I was not lovey-dovey!" I snapped in defense.

"This sound familiar?" Panic asked before he shapeshifted into me and tried doing an impression of me. ""I love love!""

"I don't sound like that." I criticized his impression.

""I don't sound like that."" Panic mimicked back before smirking and shapeshifting back to normal. I growled and felt my hand turn into a fist, ready to punch him in the face.

"Fellas, ease up." Genie broke us up from almost starting a fight on campus. "Look, I think it's kinda cute that Frankie's got her eyes on someone. And it looks like he might like her too."

"But they just met." I pointed out the obvious. How could a guy and a gal fall in love at first sight?

"It seems like they've been struck by Cupid's arrows." Panic added before he finished quickly. "And that's the last joke I got for Operation Hate Arrows, I swear!"

It better be, 'cause I was just about to punch his horns right off him if he said anything else about that embarrassing story. It was not a fun mission, for either of us. Not just me.

"Look, can we just drop this conversation?" I asked them both so we could try to focus more on Frankie's dumb crush. "When she saved us, I didn't think this stupid adventure meant that we got roped into her dumb love story."

"Why are you like that to her?" Panic asked me skeptically. "Why do you have to act like it's such a bad thing she took us in after saving us?"

"Because I'm not buying it!" I told him. "No one cares about us that much to save us from being dragged into a vortex of souls."

"Well, why not?" Genie butted in with a question.

Why? That's rich! If Panic weren't so naive and thankful the moment Frankie saved us, I probably would've been just the way he was now. But neither he or Genie seemed to get the idea that I still don't trust Frankie, even after all the worlds we've traveled to together. Geez, is this what it's like when Hades hears Panic and I talk to him?

"Look at us: We're ex-minions of Hades." I told him as I gestured to Panic and I. "Nobody cares about us."

"C'mon, Frankie seems to care for you." Genie said. "Shouldn't that be enough?"

"Ya can't get something from nothin'," I shook my head. "I know something else is up."

"And here I thought I was the paranoid one." Panic said cynically. I eyed at him again before he started talking in Frankie's defense. "I'm just saying, you shouldn't judge Frankie for saving us or for being all lovey-dovey when you're capable of it."

"Y'know, you and her are kinda the same when you think about it." Genie pointed out.

I scoffed. "How?"

He then magicked up two graphs -one with Frankie and one with me- and used a pointer to point at the two. "Social outcasts who want to be more than what others see them as."

I was gonna disagree with him, but then I remembered that sad truth Frankie had told us earlier: She was constantly seen as a disappointment in her mother's eyes and was so afraid to stay in this world to better herself because she felt that if she stayed, everyone would hate her for being so selfish. I don't know how or why, but it actually did remind me how Panic and I always planned on trying to quit our jobs and run away from the Underworld but were too afraid of Hades finding out and dragging us back to torture us for trying to leave.

We wanted something better, only I was looking out for my brother and myself. Frankie's morals get mixed up the more she tells herself why she wants to stay. Overall, we kinda were a little the same, but that still doesn't mean I trust her after she saved us. I don't buy her whole "you didn't deserve to be punished". Please. If she knew all the stuff we did while we worked for Hades, she'd probably leave us for dead.

"C'mon, we'd better make sure she and her little boyfriend aren't doing stuff they shouldn't be doing." I changed the subject and went to find Frankie and Randall. I could practically feel Panic and Genie watching me ignore the earlier conversation, but there was no way in Tartarus they were getting me to admit that Frankie and I were the same.