It was the first day Cassandra could confidently say was chilly since last spring. The days blended from warm September to cooling October, although it wouldn't be truly cold for a few more weeks. The leaves were starting to turn warm toned as well, and it gave a nice festive feel to the campus as people dressed in sweaters.

Soon, she was bumping into someone.. Rather familiar.

"Raps, hi," Cass said, getting a good look at the girl she had run into.

It was a friend of hers, Rapunzel. They'd been close up until they'd had a huge fight towards the end of summer. They managed to make up just before school started, but they'd both agreed to go their separate ways, at least temporarily.

"Cass! How have you been? I haven't seen you in ages!" Rapunzel said.

Logically, it'd only been, what, a month? Month and a half? But it certainly felt like a very long time.

"I'm good, how are you?" Cassandra asked. She was glad this conversation wasn't shaping up to be as awkward as she had expected it to be.

"I'm good! I joined school here, and Eugene got in too! And I joined an art class, and made some more friends," Rapunzel rambled. "Oh! There's a fall festival coming up soon! Eugene, Varian, some of our friends, and I are all gonna go together. Do you wanna come with?"

"When is it?" Cass asked.

"Next week on Friday! It starts after school, but some of us are volunteering to help set up, so we're getting classes off that day," Rapunzel said.

What's the worst that could happen? "I'll go."

"Great! Aah, this is gonna be so fun! I'll text you the details?" Raps offered.

"Yeah, sounds good," Cass said.

With that, Cass watched as Rapunzel walked away, a spring in her step. It might've been there because of Cassandra, but Rapunzel was pretty energetic, even on normal days, so Cass couldn't say for sure.

Cass, once she was back on her way to class, absently noticed that she was feeling rather good about herself.

Students crowded around the poster on the wall that listed the parts that the students got. Some cheered for the parts they or their friends received, and some walked away unhappily.

Fred didn't go to the school, but the school authorities (professors? Teachers? The office ladies?) didn't seem to really care and let him in anyway. Seemed like a horrible security policy but whatever. From what he'd heard, there was some other dude roaming around who was the same.

"The list was also posted on the school's website," said an exasperated teacher who passed by. Fred thought it was the art teacher, the one Honey Lemon was assisting, but he didn't know because he'd only really met him once.

Fred didn't have a school email, so he wasn't allowed to get an account, which meant he couldn't look at the online list, so he squeezed through the crowd up to the front and looked for his name. He hadn't gotten a major part (which he was okay with, he only auditioned for fun after all), just the guy who argued with Hamilton the song before the King was officially introduced.

One guy, the dude who'd introduced himself as Snotlout during the auditions, looked absolutely appalled at his role. He had seemed over confident when he'd auditioned, so he probably didn't get a big part either.

Fred looked over the list for his name (and yes, he did appear on the list as 'Snotlout'. Was that his legal name? How unfortunate.) and found he was one of the backup dancers who only had ensemble singing roles. .. Probably for the best. He didn't sound.. Good.

The people cleared out relatively quickly, leaving Fred (who didn't have anywhere else to be) and Snotlout (who was still upset over his role).

"You okay dude?" Fred asked.

"No! I am not! They didn't give me a part!" he huffed.

"Technically they did give you one," Fred said.

"Hardly! It's so not fair," he crossed his arms.

Fred shrugged. "At least you're in it?"

He rolled his eyes but didn't refute it. "Aren't you supposed to be in class by now?"

"I don't actually go here, I'm just hanging around because my friend is a teacher's aid and I sorta followed her," Fred said.

"That's pretty creepy," Snotlout said.

"What about you? Shouldn't you be in class?"

"I got a free hour."

"So do you wanna go do something? Maybe practice for the play?" Fred offered.

"Fine," Snotlout said, but crossed his arms.

"Cool!" Fred said.

It was Friday evening and just starting to get dark when Varian, Danny, and Hiro met outside the boys' dorms of the high school. Technically, Hiro didn't actually live there, only Danny and Varian. Danny lived there full time, with holidays as exceptions. Varian only stayed there Monday through Friday, going back home with his dad on weekends. He stayed today, though, with permission from his dad because tonight was the dorm get to know you night.

They did these every year, although neither Hiro nor Danny had ever actually attended, and Varian had only gone once. He hadn't had a particularly good time, given that his dad was in a coma at that point after an accident in his lab. He hadn't gone home much the previous year.

So Varian was looking forward to enjoying this year's night! It was nearing the end of the first quarter of the school year, with the fall festival as the official end, in exactly a week from this day, so teachers were a little lighter in workload. Although, they'd probably start pushing more after that with midterms at the end of the next quarter.

"You ready?" Danny asked.

"Are you sure you can sneak me in?" Hiro asked.

"Pfft, of course. Even if they realize you don't actually go here, they probably won't kick you out," Varian said.

Hiro thought over this for a moment and then shrugged. He didn't know why he was worried, he'd snuck into plenty of places before. Maybe it was just the thought of being kicked out in front of Varian and Danny, his new friends, but something about this unsettled him.

Varian, excited for tonight, took Danny and Hiro's hands and pulled them into the building.

Hello all! Thanks for reading the chapter :D

I did get asked on the previous chapter whether or not I'd be adding the hotel transylvania characters in and the answer is nope! I won't be adding any more characters, because there are so many characters already that I have to work with, I can't watch those movies because I don't own them (and cant buy them because i'm broke-), and because if I added any more characters in, I'd have to rework my plot to include them. So! No more characters lol

Can you spot the ships I'm setting up for?

Shoutout to my very lovely S/O who's pretty much beta reading this thing for me! djdbsb hi there my stars 3