Hello! Yes im as surprised as you are that it didnt take me over half a month to post this like the last chapter did. Sorry again about that lol. I honestly can believe i managed to get this chapter out, i had a lot of difficulties editing it to make it even somewhat legible and you can kinda tell
So anyway! i drew another picture, this one for how i personally imagine humanized sulley. I ALSO have an extra drawing planned for both michaela and sulley together. i know you guys would probably prefer me posting actual chapters but ive been in an art mood lately, also i think i wore myself out writing and editing when i was working on my pokemon legends arceus fic despite only having 1 ½ chapters for it atm lmao
Also im SUFFERING while drawing randalls picture. I accidently saved the sai file for the picture as a png without realizing and lost ALL my layers. but i was seriously so close to being done and really didnt want to give up on it. So what am i doing? Well i will TELL YOU. slowly tracing over the entire picture. Also NO i couldnt have just used the free version of photoshop to make it transparent again because it wouldnt LET ME
Anyway. Lol. the new drawing is in the second chapter of the AO3 version of this fic, just like the ref for michaela is, so go check it out if you want! Obviously you can ignore it and just imagine sulley however you like, i just wanted to draw him how i imagine him and also share it with you guys.
So yeah! Idk when i'll be posting the next chapter. It could be in a few days or 2 weeks or half a month or more honestly lol. Sorry in advance if it takes a whilel, hopefully it wont! Sadly tho im gonna be pretty busy starting around next week, so we'll have to see
Now onto the chapter! Sorry this one isnt too good, again it was sort of difficult to edit. Also this chapter used to be like 5k words long, but i cut it in half so it was more manageable
Please enjoy!
The next morning, sunlight streamed in through the singular window belonging to the tiny space of their new room. Michaela snored softly, rolling over in her bunk and into a large, warm hand. She cuddled up to it, murmuring.
"I know you're a prince, and I'm just a stable girl, but…"
She slowly cracked an eye open, wincing against the harsh sunlight as she buried her face into the warm hand pressed against her cheek.
Her eyes shot open as her mind caught up with her, the fuzz of sleep ebbing away as she realized she was nuzzled against a hand hanging down from the low bunk above her. She gave a horrified squawk, sitting up and shoving the hand away from her with probably more force than was strictly necessary if Sulley promptly falling from the top bunk as a result was anything to go by.
He landed over the floor with a loud thud, quickly pushing himself up and looking around frantically.
"MOM?!" He cried.
He calmed within seconds, his erratic breathing returning to normal as he looked at her from the floor.
"What're you doing?" He asked, voice scratchy with sleep, "Why did you—"
"Your grubby paw was in my bed!" She yelled, wiping at her face as if to remove his cooties from her.
"W-Were you kissing my hand." He asked as he held up his palm, looking at the spot of drool on his skin from where saliva had been pooling out from her mouth.
She pretended to laugh harshly, quickly falling into a defensive, angry expression, "No! And what about you with all your tail shedding?"
"My tail doesn't shed," Sulley replied.
"Really?" Michaela asked skeptically. She raised a hand and pounded her fist against the top bunk above her, a cloud of blue hair pluming forth and dancing across the sunlit air, mixing with the dust motes. "Just another reason why you shouldn't have been on the top bunk to begin with."
Sulley merely scowled at her, wiping the wet spot on his hand against his sweatpants and moving to stand as Michaela threw her duvet off her legs and attempted to rise from the lower bunk.
Sulley grumbled as she stood, trying to maneuver around her.
"Excuse me," Michaela said, annoyed as she attempted to grab the folded clothes she had set out the night before, intent on taking them and going to the bathroom to change, "Would you just let me—"
"I just want to get my stuff," Sulley growled.
The two started struggling as they tried to move around the small space, Michaela managing to open the door as they both tumbled out of the bedroom and onto the hallway floor in a tangle of limbs.
There was a flash above them. Michaela and Sulley looked up from their position on the ground to see all the Oozmas gathered in the hallway outside their door.
"First morning in the house," Squishy said fondly, holding up a camera.
"That's going in the album." Art added, reaching down to help untangle the two from each other.
Michaela stood up with a huff when they were properly separated, Sulley scowling down at her. She gathered her fallen clothes from the floor, looking at him just to turn her nose up in his direction, making him let out a low growl as she began walking towards the bathroom to change.
"Guys! We got a letter!" Don said from where he'd rushed up the stairs.
"A letter?" Squishy asked, scrunching his face up.
"We never get mail," Terry said.
Don held out the black envelope to Michaela when she extended her hand for it, the girl attempting to take it from him. It stuck to the small tentacles on the skin of his palm, forcing her to struggle for the envelope as she attempted to remove it from him. Don smiled meekly and attempted to assist her.
"Tentacles… sticky." He chuckled.
She finally just yanked the mail from his hand irritably, opening the envelope and sliding the letter out as she held her bundle of clothes to her side. The folded paper bore a hodgepodge of letters spelling out "Scare games" across it.
"It's the first event of the scare games." She noted, folding the paper out and reading the jagged script aloud, "A child's room is where you scare, but avoid the toxicity lurking there."
"Wait," Sulley said, reaching over her shoulder and taking the letter from her hands, "Where do they want us to meet?"
That night they were dressed for the cold weather of January, Michaela making do with some thick leggings, a turtleneck, and her puffy coat.
They stepped into the entrance to one of the large sewers on the edge of the campus, water dripping from the concrete ceiling as their footsteps echoed in the cold, damp tunnel.
"Of all the sewers on campus, this one has always been my favorite." Art remarked, trailing his fingertips across the low ceiling above them.
"Art, you've been here before?" Terry asked.
"I have a life outside of the house, you know!" He said defensively.
They could hear the intensifying buzz of a frenzied crowd deep inside the sewers as they walked, following the spray painted red arrows pointing them in the correct direction. Peering through the darkness, the smell of mildew sharpened within their nostrils the farther in they trekked. The small group soon turned around a sharp bend in the tunnel, the sound of the crowd growing deafening as they came upon a massive, cylindrical room where all the tunnels appeared to converge, the night sky shining above them. Droves of people were scattered behind the grated sewer openings punctuating the high walls as well as swarmed up against a concrete platform below where Claire and Brock stood, the words "SCARE GAMES '' spray painted above them in red and lit by floodlights.
They came to a stop at the cusp of the wild assembly of students, unable to push their way through any further.
"Welcome to your worst nightmare!" Brock's yelled, his voice reverberating around the sewers as he climbed up on the metal railing of the platform and stretched his arms out over mass of people, "THE SCARE GAMES!"
The already untamed mob was only encouraged by his yelling, growing nearly rabid with excitement as Brock continued to hype them up.
"Yes! Yes! I love it! I love this energy!" He shouted, reveling in the crowd's growing fervor.
Michaela glanced up as a wave of air blew over her, spotting Dean Hardscrabble as she flew across the open-topped sewer and perched herself high up on one of the numerous ledges lining the curved walls.
Claire slowly but surely managed to calm both the crowd and Brock.
"Let's hear it for the frats and sororities competing in this year's games!" She yelled.
Brock enthusiastically called off the fraternities and sororities. A floodlight overhead shone down over them one by one as they were introduced, cheering following close behind.
He faltered as he reached the end of the list, badly withholding his amusement. "And finally, uh, Oozma Kappa."
The floodlight fell over them, the students around them backing out of their space. The crowd was completely silent, the only audible noise was water dripping and Ms. Squibbles as she cheered in the distance from a sewer opening above them.
"Hi mom!" Squishy waved up with a wide smile.
"Smile!" She called, followed by the distant click and flash of a disposable camera.
Michaela rubbed at her brow as she looked down, embarrassed.
"Let's begin the first competition!" Broke finally said, ending her suffering. "The toxicity challenge!"
"Human children are toxic!" Claire yelled, emphasizing her last word by gripping the railing and leaning over it towards the horde of people beneath her, "And anything they touch, is toxic!"
"Now we don't have any human toys," Brock began, "But thanks to MU's biology department, we've found a close second. The stinging glow urchin!"
A handful of students carried out a large metal crate, Claire reaching inside with a long pair of metal tongs as they opened it for her. She withdrew a glowing pink urchin that hissed and sparked, holding it out for the sewer's gathered occupants.
"Trust me when I say you are not going to want to touch this bad boy!" Brock grinned out over the assembly, pointing both hands at the pink urchin.
"I wanna touch it." Art said, mostly to himself.
"And you certainly don't want to touch any of its friends," Claire said with a fiendish smile, pointing towards a long section of wall as a cloth was pulled away, revealing multiple entrances into a large passageway strewn with hundreds of glowing, crackling urchins.
"Yeah, I wanna touch 'em." Art nodded to himself.
Claire and Brock hopped down from their makeshift stage and approached a long line of yellow tape rolled out a few feet from the tunnel's entrance.
"This is the starting line!" Brock announced as he pointed at the line, turning his sights down the long sewer, "And the light at the end of the tunnel is the finish line."
"And whoever comes in last is eliminated from the game!" Claire cut a hand across her throat.
Squishy stepped up to Michaela silently, "Michaela?"
The girl jumped in surprise, placing her hand over her chest.
"What is it." She demanded, giving him a mild glare for startling her.
"Does that mean if we lose we're out?" He asked, worrying his pale hands together.
"Don't worry smoothie—"
"Squishy!"
"Squishy. We're not gonna lose, because we have everything we need to win right here." She pointed to her chest.
Squishy's face relaxed into a soft smile as he covered his own chest with a hand, "Heart."
"No! Me!" She corrected, "I'm gonna win the race for us!"
"Alright alright, that's very cute, but move, move." Sulley grabbed her around the middle and physically picked her up, setting her down behind him before he went on to stretch at the starting line, "I'm gonna win this."
"It's an obstacle course. What're you gonna do, roar at it?" Michaela snapped, shoving at him as she moved back to the starting line, tying her green hair back.
"I can get through faster than you, pipsqueak." He said. Michaela merely scowled at him.
The teams were gathering at the starting line when Claire signaled for their attention once more.
"Attention teams! One last thing." She said as she approached a wall next to one of the entrances. "Scarers work in the dark."
She flipped a switch next to her and the floodlit sewers in front of them turned pitch black, lit only by the intermittent glowing of the pink urchins that sparked ominously in the darkness
"On your marks!" Brock started, "Get set!"
Michaela glared at Sulley and Sulley glared right back as the teams around them shifted in place, readying themselves. The rest of the Oozma Kappas took their places behind the two unsurely, Michaela and Sulley hardly even taking notice of them.
"GO!" Brock yelled.
Art shoved past, charging forwards into the tunnel before anyone else. He was cheering loudly, arms wide open as he slid into a group of urchins and nuzzled into them.
The urchins immediately began to spark against him as their sharp spines pricked into his skin. His arms and face quickly swelled and he promptly released a scream of pain.
The Oozmas were attempting to keep up behind Michaela and Sulley as the two raced ahead, the two running neck and neck as they navigated the minefield of stinging urchins.
"That as fast as you can go?" Michaela goaded, sprinting down the tunnel in fast strides in order to keep up with Sulley's longer legs.
"Just getting started!" Sulley bared his teeth at her with a glare.
"Uh, guys!" Don called out from the rear. "We're falling behind a little!"
He went ignored as the two continued to run ahead, leaping over and swerving around urchins.
They quickly entered a new section of the sewage tunnel, the glowing sea creatures dangling from above by what looked like fishing line.
Michaela ducked under most of them with ease while Sulley had to take more care due to his height, just barely grazing by the pink spines a few times as he sprinted alongside her.
They continued to run, reaching a section of students lining the walkways on either side of them and throwing urchins down using protective gloves.
An urchin was hurled at Sulley, hitting him in his lower thigh and forcing him to slow down and limp to accommodate for the sudden pain. Michaela looked back at him with a "Hah!" as the smaller of the two gained the lead. Sulley bit through the agony of his swelling leg and forced himself through the urchins still being pelted from all sides as he ran forward, taking hit after hit. He caught up with Michaela, who had been forced to slow down as she took her own hits from the urchins despite her jacket and thick leggings protecting her from the worst of it all. Sulley bounded past her, spotting ROR ahead of them.
Just when he managed to reach his former fraternity brothers, Sulley stumbled on his bad leg and went veering forwards, tumbling over the ground as the RORs left him in the dust. He got up with a growl, eyes catching on Michaela as she hopped over him and bolted onwards. He barreled through the remaining urchins that hung from above, his arms shielding his face and feeling as his muscles began to swell from the shocks and pricking spines.
He distantly heard Brock announce, "Roar Omega Roar wins!"
Michaela and Sulley leaped across the finish line in near tandem, landing across the ground painfully
They pushed themselves back to their feet, looking at the other furiously
"Take that, Wazowski!" Sulley said, breathing heavily as he shook urchins from himself.
"Are you delirious? I beat you!" Michalea protested, her speech slurred due to the side of her face swelling from an urchin that had managed to make contact with her at the last moment.
"Get your eyes checked—"
Around them, the crowd had begun to break out into laughter when it became apparent the rest of their team was still far, far behind them.
"Oh way to blow it, Oozmas!" Chet yelled.
"Hey! Second place ain't bad!" Michaela said defensively as she turned her glare away from Sulley and onto the other boy.
"Second place, Jaws Theta Chi!" Brock cried as said fraternity came running out from the tunnel.
"What!?" Sulley snarled from beside Michaela, who was looking at Brock in confusion.
"Your whole team has to cross the finish line!" Johnny said as he shook his head at them in amusement.
"Oh no," Sulley groaned. The last he's seen of the Oozma's they were sprawled across the tunnel floor.
"Third place, EEKS!" Brock announced as the remaining teams appeared from the sewers one by one, "Fourth place, PNKs!"
Michaela pressed her palms against the top of her head in growing distress as she helplessly watched.
"Fifth place, HSS!"
She and Sulley watched as the last of the battered and bruised Oozmas finally cross the finish line behind the last team.
"And in last place, Oozma Kappa!"
"Oh, shocker!" Claire said as she removed their green painted slate from the leaderboards. "Oozma Kappa has been eliminated!"
"No, no… no no no," Michaela mumbled as her palms remained planted firmly on her head, taking a step back as though she was about to bolt from the scene. Instead she bumped into someone behind her, making her whirl and face them. The already chilly temperature around her dropped several degrees further as Dean Hardscrabble gave her a small, satisfied smile.
"Don't look so surprised, Ms. Wazowski." She said, "It would have taken a miracle for you to stay in the game."
Michaela dropped her gaze to the concrete ground as a sudden weight overtook her shoulders, her eyes beginning to water without her permission as she angrily wiped at them. She barely heard the voice of Claire, who had begun to speak again.
"Attention, everyone! We have an announcement!" Claire called, "Jaws Theta Chi has been disqualified, The use of illegal protective gel is cause for elimination."
The crowd murmured as all attention turned to said fraternity.
"What? It's a moisturizer!" One of the members protested, a boy with a shock of neon yellow hair cropped short to his horned head. The referee wiped a wad of the transparent goop off his arm and pressed an urchin against his skin, his arm quickly ballooning up as he cried out and grabbed his arm in pain.
"Which means, Oozma Kappa is back in the games!" Brock announced, "It's a miracle!"
Dean Hardscrabble's faint smile vanished. She glared down evenly at Michaela, who was looking on in disbelief as their team's slate was slid back into the board alongside the renaming fraternities and sororities.
"Your luck will run out. Eventually." The dean said smoothly.
With that, she walked away from the short girl.
Michaela glanced at Sulley before looking to the rest of the Oozmas, who were swollen, bruised, and waving pathetically in their direction.
This was going to be harder than she thought.