Prologue: With Love from Europe

Hey, Kuschelbär!

It's been great travelling around Europe. Spending the summer on my peregrination was worth every second. I can't wait to show you what I've learned about what it really takes to be a witch. I just wish you could have come with me. The others had a good time, too. Robecca can't wait to show off the upgrades she got. And I know Hoodude's eager to share everything he's learned.

But it's like they say in the song, 'all good things come to an end.' What it doesn't say is that something great is always bound to follow. Because by the time you're done reading this, I'll be flying back to New Salem. I should be back by the day after tomorrow, so don't get too antsy waiting for me and have some fun with the ghouls on your last days of summer break. And say hi to the guys for me.

Lieb für immer,

Wolf

"Vhat does that mean? This 'lieb fur immer?'" Abbey asked, pointing to Clawdeen's tablet screen.

"It means 'love forever' in german. Because he does," Clawdeen said, smiling at her last sentence.

"What about that first line? Kuss-chel-bar?" Frankie wondered.

"Kush-el-behr," Clawdeen corrected, "It's somethin' he started callin' me before he left. I don't actually know what that means. I tried lookin' it up, an' it doesn't translate to english. But he says it's a german pet name."

"I think it's cute. It almost sounds like 'bear. Because you're so furry," Lagoona said, teasing the fur on Clawdeen's arm.

"Hey! Flippers off, ghoul! It takes forever to get my body hair to match the main show," Clawdeen said, touching up her hair and the fur on her arm.

Right after she finished her hair, Clawdeen put away her tablet and returned to the rack she had been shopping from, filling up her arms with every shirt, dress, shorts, pants, tights, skirt, and jacket that was within her reach. She might have used her bags, but they were already brimming full with everything else that she had stuffed in there.

"Can you believe this? She's shopping like a ghoul possessed," Frankie said.

"Is not like her to lose such cool as she is," Abbey replied.

"Can you really blame her? She has a lot of firsts going on," Lagoona said.

"Firsts?" Frankie wondered.

"Sure. First boyfriend. First time apart from each other. First day back to school. First back to school reunion with her first boyfriend. First time directing an organized event. You understand," Lagoona explained.

Of course they did. After everything they had gone through over the summer: the pitfalls, the triumphs, constantly learning what it took to make something worthwhile; nothing could have been better for them. Nor could it have been so harrowing.

Clawdeen continued to overload her arms with merchandise until they began to ache. More articles of clothing filled her arms, building up a fortress of fabric around her with only a small window for her to peer through. The only thing that gave her pause was that the rack she was pulling from had run out. But it still wasn't enough.

Pivoting precariously on the balls of her feet, Clawdeen saw Cleo's face appear in the window she had left to see through.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Cleo asked.

"I'm shoppin'. That thing you do after you chuck out your dirty laundry," Clawdeen said.

"Ehhh," Ghoulia moaned from somewhere out of sight.

"Nicely said, sweetie," Cleo said, taking one of the articles that Clawdeen had collected. One that was baggy with sequins. "Now, does this really say 'werewolf' to you?"

"Uh…no," Clawdeen meekly said.

"Or this?" Cleo asked, holding up something that was covered in bows and frills.

"Not really…" Clawdeen answered, trembling from the weight on her arms.

"Or this?" Cleo asked, holding up something made of pre-shredded denim.

"Mmmmaybe if I found something like it an' shredded it myself?" she unsurely asked, her knees buckling slightly.

"Ehh," Ghoulia moaned, taking some of the load off of Clawdeen and putting it back on the racks.

"Do please, Ghoulia. Ra knows this ghoul's losing it over this project," Cleo said, tossing aside a skimpy, pinstripe bikini from Clawdeen's haul.

"I'm not losin' it! I'm– I just– Rrrrr!" Clawdeen trailed off into a low growl.

Ghoulia took one of the excess jackets off of Clawdeen's arm and showed it to her. One that was avocado green with padded shoulders.

"Oh my ghoul, I lost it!" Clawdeen nauseously moaned, her heart plummeting into her stomach.

Ghoulia, Frankie and Lagoona all started lightening Clawdeen's load for her. And in one sweep, Abbey took the remainder from Clawdeen in her arms and dropped it to the floor.

"Very good, Abbey. Let's begin by picking out what howls 'werewolf.' Something that would be unmistakably Clawdeen," Cleo said.

"Don't worry, love. Your ghouls got your back," Lagoona said to Clawdeen and started sifting through the pile of clothes.

The ghouls began their treasure hunt, digging through the pile of clothes and pulling aside anything that they thought defined who they were. What it meant to be what they were. Although Frankie sneakily took the skimpy, pinstripe bikini for herself.

Clawdeen took an armful of clothes that did nothing for her and took them away to find their proper place on the racks. The pair of pink palm tree sunglasses she had taken were brought back to their proper place at the eyewear rack. And the designer jeans that were meant to catch the eye of approaching customers were taken back to the front of the store where they belonged.

The moment that Clawdeen was away from the others, she saw a new face appear in the entrance.

Draculaura walked slowly toward Clawdeen, keeping her eyes low as she approached. Clawdeen's eyes widened at the sight of her friend. Without a breath, Clawdeen placed the rest of the clothes she had taken on the nearby counter and approached Draculaura.

In only a few steps they were stopped in front of one another. Clawdeen wanted to speak. To say anything. Anything at all. Even just a 'hello' would have done. But she couldn't bring it about herself to speak. Not when Draculaura wouldn't even look at her. Neither did Draculaura speak. Not that she ever expected Clawdeen to speak to her again.

Clawdeen fidgeted with her hands, the silence threatening to freeze her completely. From beneath her gaze, a tiny smile twitched itself onto Draculaura's mouth and a remorseful eye glinted at Clawdeen.

Maybe it was just from seeing her smile for the first time in a long time, but Draculaura's smile spread to Clawdeen. Draculaura cautiously lifted her head, her smile unsurely broadening.

A tiny laugh puffed from Clawdeen's lips, and it was returned by Draculaura. Soon they were quietly laughing with each other and Clawdeen clapped an arm around Draculaura's shoulders. Draculaura answered by hugging Clawdeen

"It's really good to have ya back," Clawdeen said, taking her friend in her arms.

"Flight BA13: New Salem to Boolin, now boarding."

The automated woman's voice echoed slightly in the scareport terminal, alerting the passengers to their flight. Goodbyes were exchanged by friends, families and lovers who were all about to embark on their overseas trips. Among them, a young werewolf and witch were passionately conveying their farewells.

It was to be the first day of Wolf's peregrination, the journey all witches-in-training took to begin their steps toward becoming a fully fledged witch. On the biggest day of his young life, all of his friends had come to see him off. Except they couldn't see much, as they had all looked away from the romantic scene Wolf and Clawdeen were making.

Cleo had tried to occupy herself by touching up her makeup, but stopped quickly when she kept catching her amorous friends in her compact mirror. She then took out her iCoffin and started checking her social media feed, only to catch the couple's reflection again on her screen. She groaned and put her phone away. Her irritation only grew as beside her, Deuce had his arms crossed as he idly counted the ceiling tiles. More irritating than that was that he seemed to be enjoying himself.

Gill and Lagoona tried to tune out the sounds behind them, but they proved to be much too intrusive.

"Is this what it's like for the others with us?" Gill wondered.

"Bugger, I hope not," Lagoona answered.

On either side of Clawd, Draculaura and Frankie both tried to peek over their shoulders at the two, but Clawd turned their heads back away without even having to look. Directly after, Clawd resumed trying to tune out his sister doing things with his friend that he himself hadn't even done with Draculaura yet.

Ghoulia hummed a line from a song she had heard from her childhood. She didn't know what it was called and had forgotten the words, but the light and nostalgic tune stuck in her head for all those years. Next to her, Slo Mo hummed the next line of the song. Slightly surprised that he would even know it, Ghoula smiled and the two of them quietly hummed together.

Behind them, the sounds of Wolf and Clawdeen's goodbyes carried on.

"They're really going at it," Heath muttered to Abbey. Not that he was trying to eavesdrop. His hair began to glow as an idea occurred to him. "Think one of us should go on an overseas trip to spice things up?"

"Is neither time or place, Sparky," Abbey whispered back. "Ve discuss it later in private."

Heath's entire head ignited and was quickly extinguished by Jackson's handheld fan.

"You can't do that at the scareport," Jackson said, pointing to the nearby 'No Smoking' sign, before he went back to cooling himself off.

Finally, if only to stop for air, Clawdeen rested her head on Wolf's shoulder, pulling in every second of his presence into her being.

"Take a lot o' pictures for me, baby. I don't wanna miss out just 'cause I don't get to go," she said.

"I know. But you have things to take care of here. And I wouldn't want you to let our friends down," Wolf answered.

Clawdeen answered back by tightening her grip on him, absorbing him into herself.

Wolf leaned down and whispered, "Don't miss me too much, Kuschelbär."

"What?" Clawdeen asked.

"It's a german pet name. Don't ask what it means, because it doesn't translate very well to english. But it's what you are. I've been waiting a long time to call someone that. And I'm glad it's you."

"You smooth talker," Clawdeen cooed, before kissing Wolf one last time.

A stuffed, acrylic yarn hand tapped Wolf and he grumbled quietly as he looked over his shoulder. Hoodude shrank slightly when he met his foster brother's glare and innocently pointed to the gate.

However intrusive Hoodude was being, he was right. It was time to go. Hoodude stepped out of Wolf's way as his chain unwrapped from around his waist and collected his duffel bag and guitar, which both were enveloped in shadows and disappeared up his sleeves. Wolf passed by Robecca and motioned for her to follow him, who said her final goodbyes to Venus and Rochelle, then followed her foster brothers.

The three of them all walked off to board their plane. Hoodude waved goodbye to the others and turned around to leave. When he turned a corner and was out of sight of his friends, that meant that none of them were able to see when a hand reached out from behind a column and pulled him aside. Hoodude smiled as he heard that familiar silky voice purring in his ear.

"Bring me back something fancy from Europe. You know the kinds of things I like," the owner of the voice said as she groomed Hoodude's hair with her tongue, smiling as she felt the same on her own hair.

Hoodude began to say, "Okay. Uh, how about a–"

"No, no. Surprise me," his captor said.

She began giggling as she licked him more vigorously, relishing the shiver that tingled down her back. It took all of her willpower to stop herself and bid Hoodude farewell.

"You need to go now. Before your brother stuffs you into your luggage and hauls you on the plane as carry on," she said, then nuzzled Hoodude's cheek one last time. "I'll miss my dolly."

"Bye. I'll miss you–Whuh!" Hoodude said as he was pushed toward the line to board. When he looked over his shoulder his captor had gone, but he waved goodbye to her anyway.

From behind the column, Toralei peered out and watched Hoodude go, giving him a small wave in return. In moments he was gone, leaving her alone in that terminal. Even so, Toralei smiled. For the first time in her life, she had something to look forward to. Someone special who she was sad to see go, yet happy to know he would return. Feeling as if she had lingered long enough, she turned around to leave. Her nerves snapped when she saw Frankie and Draculaura smiling knowingly at her, and Toralei's own smile dropped to a bemused grimace.

"Shouldn't you ghouls be doing something else?" Toralei sarcastically asked.

"No. Ve just figured that since ve're at the scareport, ve'd pretend to be tourists," Draculaura said.

"Look, Draculaura. It's a lovesick werecat. Click!" Frankie said, mimicking taking a picture with a camera.

"Get a life. Seriously. This undead thing you both have going on is so last year," Toralei said, before she walked away.

As it happened, the others were waiting in the direction Toralei was leaving, so Frankie and Draculaura followed her. Draculaura skipped up to Toralei's side and grinned mischievously.

"How come you don't act like that vhen Hoodude's not around?" she asked.

"Believe me, pint-size, how I act around you wouldn't change because of Hoodude," Toralei said.

"You certainly seem a lot giddier than vhen you're talking to your friends," Draculaura said, too complacent to care about the remark about her height.

Toralei's temperature sharply rose as sweat pooled up on her forehead. She tried to turn her head from Draculaura, but saw Frankie on the other side of her.

"Do Meowlody and Purrsephone even know you're here?" Frankie asked.

"We don't have to tell each other everything!" Toralei said.

"I think it's sweet that you have someone you care about," Frankie said.

"Who said anything about–!? Forget it. The rest of your little rat pack is over there waiting for you. Scurry off, before I do what cats are supposed to do to rats," Toralei said, before walking off to the coffee bar.

Draculaura giggled to herself. Teasing Toralei wasn't something she often got to do, and every second of watching her fur drench in her own perspiration was like a bite of a sweet, juicy orange. Still, Toralei made a point. The others were waiting, and she didn't want to keep them.

As she and Frankie made their way back over to the others, something caught Draculaura's eye. Far at the other end of the room, something large and black wove through the crowd.

"Did you see that just now?" Draculaura said.

"See what?" Frankie wondered.

"That black thing over there?"

Frankie looked to where Draculaura pointed. She squinted to try and see anything out of the ordinary, but only saw the usual personnel and furnishings of a scareport. "I don't see anything," she said. "Oh! Do you think Wolf left his shadow behind? He's done that a couple of times at school."

"It vasn't his shadow. It vas– Look! There it is again! It's a dog, or something!"

Again, Frankie looked to where Draculaura was pointing to but saw nothing.

"I'm not sure what you're seeing," Frankie said, before Draculaura scoffed indignantly. "I guess somebody will pick it up if it's just wandering around here. Come on. Let's get back to the others."

Draculaura softly rolled her eyes, wondering how Frankie could have missed something like that. It was so big. And its color would have stood out greatly against the dull beige and sickly green of the building. It's not like she was crazy or anything. She peered uneasily over her shoulder, wondering for a second if the dog would show itself. If only to prove to Frankie that it was there at all, she wanted to see it again. Only now she saw nothing. Still, she knew that it was nothing that she should dwell on. Draculaura could see the others waiting for them by the exit, and she was going to spend the rest of the day with Clawd in only a few short steps.

"Where'd you ghouls go?" Clawd asked when Draculaura and Frankie walked up to him.

"Oh, you know. Seeing the sights and meeting the people," Draculaura said.

The group left the scareport and went their different ways for the day. Things were going to be different now that their friends were going to be out of the country for the summer. Wolf had planned to spend summer vacation learning what it took to be a witch. And the others had planned something around that as well.

A/N: Anybody get the feeling that something's going on here? We already know why Wolf is in Europe, but what are the ghouls up to? Are the guys in on it too? And what's up with Draculaura? You're gonna have to keep reading if you wanna know.

I was really surprised by how well received Wolfgang Hexe was as a character. Truth be told, he's supposed to be kind of a douche. But I got all these PM's about how much people loved him and how they learned about real life witches through him, and how much they loved his relationship with Clawdeen. It must be his rock star charisma that makes people like him. In any case, it made me happy that people liked Less Than a Monster, so I decided to keep him as a character. But he almost wasn't quite the same.

At first, this story was going to be a Gen 2 MH story. Wolf was going to be a witch from 1400's Germany who the ghouls discovered sealed in a coffin made of cottonwood (because of the superstition that witches can't abide pine). He was also going to be kind of a villain, siding with Moanica D'Kay for much of the story. Turns out it was a ruse, and he was doing it as a long con to regain his powers, humiliate Moanica and help Raythe hook up with Clawdeen. (His liking for love stories wasn't going to change).

Then as a joke I tossed around the idea of a Gen 3 story, where Wolf was an interdimensional traveler who ended up as a teenager due to a time paradox, and he's every 'inclusive' checkbox you can imagine (e.g. gay, transexual, anxious, non-binary, homeless, autistic, asexual, short, fat, biracial, introverted, et cetera), and he was going to meet a bunch of different factions who were trying to see who they could trust, before they all wound up going to war with each other by the end of the story. Basically, it was going to be every stupid device that modern cartoon writers throw at you.

Eventually, I decided that it would be best to simply follow the continuity of the previous story. And I bet you're all glad for that. But I do admit that the Gen 2 idea sounded cool.

Since we're here, it's time to learn about some more real world witch history. Wolf going on a trip to learn how to be a witch is, in fact, something that happened in real life. In some communities, when a witch reached a certain age they would journey for one year to learn how to be a witch. The same journey was undertaken by fledgling druids, shamans, and other magically-inclined people. Come to think of it, this whole rite is the premise of Kiki's Delivery Service. Interesting, isn't it?

So, what's up with this dog that Draculaura's seeing? Anyone familiar with the European legends of ghostly black dogs? How if you see one three times, you die? Good thing that Draculaura's already dead. What else could it possibly mean then? That will be answered in future chapters.

It's going to be a while until the next chapter is posted. This was just posted so that you all know what's coming to you later. The good news is that there are already more chapters finished, but you'll have to wait a bit for more. Early next year should do. Thanks, everyone.