Chapter Four: Super Stress
"...Why I should be featured as a main hero in your comics! Ghoulia, the people need me on the page!"
Cleo moaned dramatically, her hands making grand gestures as she leaned over her best friend's shoulder. Ghoulia was only somewhat distracted by the diva behind her, and focussed on the back and forth dialogue between Wonder Wolf and a villainous gargoyle that had just robbed a jewelry store of all it's die-monds. The banter was bordering on cheesy, and Ghoulia had to keep rubbing phrases out with her eraser until the paper underneath was soft and worn down. Clawdeen, her inspiration for the character, was also perched behind her, along with Draculaura who was sitting on the table, providing commentary on Cleo's ideas for her own super-persona.
"Being voted 'Bigged Diva' in the fearbook doesn't mean that monsters are dying to see you in spandex." Clawdeen smirked, her thick Brooklyn accent cutting through the otherwise silent library.
"Don't be ridiculous, I look good in everything. Why wouldn't anyone want to see me?" Sadly, they noted, that to Cleo that was a legitimate question.
"Besides the fact that you don't have any powers?" at Clawdeen's words, Draculaura let out a small 'oooh' under her breath. Them was fightin' words.
"I do so have powers! Have you completely forgotten about my snake-charming abilities? ...It seems everyone has." Cleo sat down in a chair, resting both her forearms on the armrests as if it were a throne. "Besides, I don't need anything except for my collection of amulets. Those are worth more than the Power Ghoul's abilities combined!"
"Ooh, ooh! You'd be just like the Batman!" Draculaura squealed in excitement, "All those gadgets, a huge mansion, being totally popular! Can you say twinsies?"
Clawdeen gagged at the word 'twinsies' and gave Draculaura a questioning look "You know about Batman? I thought geeky stuff like superheroes and comic books, no offense Ghoulia, were totally boring to you."
"I watched the movies. Duh. They were like, everywhere. Plus, Clawd really wanted to go and I thought 'hey, why not make it a date night'? The movie was actually fun though. Rich, sexy vampire turned vigilante fighting crime in a black skin-tight suit? Siiigh…" Draculaura pretend swooned against the table, and giggled.
"Um, excuse me?" Cleo said, drumming her long manicured nails against the plastic arm rest, "Not to say that Creeptian Bale looks anything but gore-geous less than 100% of the time, but weren't we talking about me?"
Clawdeen nodded "And a last ditch effort to join the Power Ghouls via super-alter-ego. No way. Right, Ghoulia?"
Ghoulia waved a dismissive hand in response, and let out a high-pitched moan. She wanted to focus on a Wonder Wolf's powers and how her destiny could change with just the simplest of actions. If Wonder Wolf let the robber go, she could lose her new-found powers. But Ghoulia wanted the change to be more subtle than that; comic books these days were darker and grittier than the ones she had read in her younger years, and took much more time to develop.
"What would your name even be?" Draculaura said, kicking her feet back and forth.
"Do I have to think of everything? Obviously something regal and fitting for a lady of my status" Cleo followed up her comment with a flip of her naturally highlighted locks.
"How about 'Drama Queen?'" Clawdeen drawled sarcastically.
"He-! Hey… That's not bad," a grin began to slink across Cleo's glossed lips.
Clawdeen laughed, her metaphorical hackles dropping "Haha, yeah. 'It's Drama Queen, Egyptian warrior-princess of the night! She protects the streets of Monstropolis and is not in the mood for any of your bull-crap."
Draculaura held out her hand and raised her chin haughtily "'Halt! Or face the wrath of my Daddy's credit card!'"
Ghoulia looked over her shoulder, expecting Cleo to be fuming with anger after being made fun of, even if it was in a playful way. But, to her surprise, Cleo had her head tilted back, shoulders shaking with laughter. In the corner of her eye, the zombie thought she saw a familiar wisp of lavender silk float by, along with the distinctive rattle of chains. Spectra?
"Aaughhhnnn…" she moan, slowly raising a finger in the direction of where she saw her ghostly friend. Perhaps she would have a word or two on the new comic.
Clawdeen's ear perked up, and she sniffed around in the air. "Ooh, yeah that is a good idea Ghoulia. We're- I mean, Poulterghoul and Wonder Wolf are on the same team. It totally makes sense for her to look at the new script. Hey Spectra," she called out "Over here!"
Instead of floating over, Spectra's forlorn head poked up from the floor beneath their feet. The ghoul had obviously been lurking about. She levitated up to eye-level, but hung her head morosely, letting her violet streaked hair form a curtain around her face. "H-hey ghouls… What's going on?"
Clawdeen looked back at her friends, but they seemed as clueless as she was about the usually perky ghost's change in attitude. "We're just going over some Power Ghoul's stuff. Since you're in it, we wanted to know what you think."
Ghoulia gently handed her few pages over to Spectra to read, and the violet hued girl took them, briefly scanning the pages before setting them down on the table. Ghoulia smiled hopefully and raised her eyebrows. "Aeehh…?"
"You want to know what I thought?" Spectra paused, and took a breath "…I think that maybe Wonder Wolf should count her blessings that she isn't in a relationship. Maybe she should spend less time trying to be a strong, independent woman and more time being a strong female character! Speaking of strong female characters, why do the Power Ghouls even need Poulterghoul when they already have two other perfectly good heroes and, sometimes, Weberella? Poulterghoul can do just fine all by herself!"
With that, Spectra choked back a sob and flew, quite literally, from the room. Concern flashed across Ghoulia's features and she stood back up, beginning to follow Spectra out the door but, before she could, a small hand came to rest on her shoulder. Draculaura had hopped off the top of the table and shook her head kindly at the zombie. "Let me handle this one, Ghoulia. You already have so much to do. Besides, matters of the heart? I've got it covered. I mean, I'm no Cupid but I know my way around romance."
"Romance?" Cleo echoed from her chair, "I just thought she didn't like the dialogue."
Draculaura scoffed "Uh, obviously it was about romance. Didn't you pick up on what she said? Other people being lucky not to have relationships? Her doing fine by herself? If it's not love-related, I'll toss my Alexander McScream heels right in the trash. Well, maybe not. Daddy called in a special favor to get me those."
Waving one hand, Draculaura headed out the door in the direction of where Spectra had flown off. Finding the gossip wouldn't be easy, especially since Spectra was freaky-fast and nearly impossible to find even when she was in a chipper mood.
Ghoulia watched her go, sighing under her breath. Upon hearing her friend, Cleo slowly rose from her chair and gave Ghoulia a rare one-armed hug. "You can't be there for everyone all the time, Ghouls. They'll be just fine."
She smiled up at her royal bestie, thankful for the kind words, and gathered up her pages to leave. Wydowna asked if they could meet up at the local Gorebucks for a quick coffinchino and to chat about the beginning of their story arc. The comics so far had been a big success, selling around a thousand or more in a month. Even though her publisher wrote for Deadfast, they were one of the lowest selling series the company had. Which was still a hefty load for two high school girls writing from inspiration they'd found at insanely early hours in the morning, and drawing during their study breaks in class. Sales had begun to pick up after a few indie bloggers generated some buzz about the '13 Best Obscure Series of 2013', and featured the spin-off comic Cat Tastrophe as #4. Ever since then people had been dying to get their hands on issues and Ghoulia thought it was about time she and Wydowna started their first big story arc. This meant new characters, bigger plot, and intricate details that all needed to be worked out pronto.
She would have to check in with Spectra later.
Ghoulia moaned once more, tilting her head towards to ask if Cleo would want to join her for coffee with her partner. Spectra's change in attitude set a small lump of worry in Ghoulia's throat. Had she really been neglecting her friends?
Shaking her head, Cleo ran a hand through her sandy locks "Can't, Clawdeen and I have plans to watch a crash and burn skating course down at the SKRM track. It's going to be the talk of the school for at least a week, and I have to be able to say I saw it all personally."
Clawdeen grinned, her fangs poking out over her bottom lip "Operetta texted me that she's going to teach Holt to roller skate. It's going to be hilarious," she clarified, swinging one hand onto her hip. "You should totally lurk over and check it out when you're done."
"Aughhnn…" Ghoulia said, innocently shrugging. Though she had no intention of watching Holt flail about on four wheels, it wouldn't hurt to give her ghoulfriends a soft maybe. She did have a few good memories on the track. She recalled back to her time co-coaching with Robecca Steam, the Skulltimate Roller Maze legend, and Clawd the team's star athlete. Though she hadn't participated in the sport, due to the decay and semi-rigormortis of her limbs, she had devised several fool-proof plays that were actually quite fun to come up with. It was like playing a very fast game of chess, an activity that she found intriguing never struck her as fun until her boyfriend Slo-Mo explained how chess was actually all battle strategies. It made sense that the meat-head would find a way to make the most intellectual game into a way to imagine war, or at least casketball. He could always combine sports and mathematics into creeperific combinations.
The manster was a complete jock, who loved being on the field almost as much as he loved helping people out. He was the biggest sweetheart Ghoulia had met, and somehow she grew fonder of the strong, silent boy every day. Some people claimed that she was moving so slow because that's just the way zombies were, but she actually found their relationship to be moving quite fast, based on the free time their busy schedules allowed.
They had met at the beginning of freshman year, not three weeks into the new scaremester. Ghoulia had snagged a volunteer job in the office, checking students in and out and organizing papers here and there. She remembered the moment a tall, hulking figure had filled the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly touching the sides of the frame. He had lurked there for a moment, staring, mouth gaping, at her before stiffly walking up to the counter. Ghoulia didn't know how she looked at that moment. Probably threatened.
She was the first one who spoke "Do you need a note? Or directions?" She had hoped he spoke zombie. He seemed like a zombie…
"...Just the nurse. Is she, uh, in?" He sounded just as nervous as she had felt back then. When she actually looked up to meet his eyes, she noticed one of them had severe Amblyopia, a lazy eye. The other was swollen over and developing a dark, black bruise. They were both the striking colour of early morning mist, a light grey.
"Unfortunately, at the moment, she is away for lunch. It should take no more than fifteen minutes or so. Until then, would you like me to retrieve some ice for your eye?" He mutely nodded and Ghoulia smiled, holding up one finger for him to wait as she disappeared through the door and scooped a spoonful of ice cubes into a plastic bag. She wrapped it with a paper towel and returned to the front office. When she got there, Slo-Mo had sat down in a chair, his large frame curled in on itself as he rested his arms on his knees. When he raised his head to look at her after she entered the room, his eyebrows crinkled in a way Ghoulia didn't quite recognize.
"Thanks." He grunted, taking the ice pack from her. As he did, his thick, cold fingertips brushed the back of her hand. It caused her to shiver, but she wasn't cold. Not in the slightest. And it was actually quite… exciting. So far, Slo-Mo had caused those shivers time and time again by doing little things like hand touching, walking her to her locker, or sitting next to her in the few classes they shared. Ghoulia was slightly worried that she was getting addicted to the feeling to butterflies in her stomach.
"Hello? Earth to Ghoulia? You've been staring at your notes for a while… Don't you need to get back to Wydowna?" Clawdeen waved her hand in Ghoulia's face, snapping the cobalt-headed zombie out of her fond memory. Her fashionista friend was right, she did have a meeting she needed to get to. She shuffled off out of the library, heading in the direction of her scooter. Due to her slow gait, it was the only practical way to travel. Climbing aboard her bike, she straddled the "undeath machine" (as her mother called it), revved the engine and took off like a bat out of hell. A smug grin was plastered on her face as she flew by several students hanging out in the courtyard. She wasn't just pretty fast for a zombie, on her shooter she was really fast, period.
~xXxXxXx~
It only took her ten minutes to get from school to the nearest Gorebucks, a coffee chain that seemed to sprout like weeds along the streets. As she found a place to park, she could see Wydowna from inside the cozy shop. The daughter of Arachne was hard to miss, with her six red eyes, coal black skin covered in micro-hairs, and four arms that were waving enthusiastically at Ghoulia. Well, only two of them were waving. One of her arms was pointing excitedly at a paper beneath her, while the other was giving the zombie a thumbs up. A pearly white smile lit up her otherwise terrifying face and she beckoned Ghoulia to come inside.
Wydowna began talking as soon as Ghoulia sat down. "You wouldn't believe the day I had, Ghoulia it was incredible. Okay, so first I had a run in with Jackson, you know that completely yummy normie boy? Completely scared him half to death, I guess he didn't see me. But watching that guy run away? Mmm, he is fine. And he's got a cute tuffet too."
"Ahhh?" Ghoulia raised an eyebrow. Wydowna, when she was worked up, could talk a mile a minute about anything. But this also seemed to apply when she was over the edge as well. It was important to know the difference if they were going to be starting a story arc. A stressed artist was not a productive artist.
"Oh, no I'm fine. Jackson's cute behind isn't the real reason why I'm freaking out. I was going around asking monsters on their input about our arc idea. Not like, idea ideas, we're gonna come up with that ourselves. They just loved the idea of our first big story though, and now I'm just itching to spin a tale!" her long, widowy fingers threaded through her hair, shaking it out.
Ghoulia slid her rough drafts across the table, to have them be picked up by the Daughter of Arachne's Slender fingers. She scanned them, nodded enthusiastically, and then handed her own sketches over to her co-writer with one hand. "I love your new idea. Wonder Wolf having to choose between her pack and her destiny? I see epic battles in the future!" Wydowna cackled at the idea of drawing a big battle scene. They were tricky, but fun to coordinate and the hard work paid off after hearing their fans rave about a big fight. Kids these days and their violence, she thought, they can't get enough of it.
"Can I bounce an idea I had off you?" Wydowna said "Okay- Voltageous meets another scientist while working on a project, they hit it off, only it turns out he's creating a doomsday device that's going to strip the Earth of it's ozone layer, causing us all to burn alive. But I don't really know how the science would work. I kinda need you on that one."
The zombie moaned curiously, frowning and holding up one finger. She didn't know if a semi-environmental message was the way to go for their first big arc. It would have to be something recognizable, but big. On the same level as a doomsday device, but something the Power Ghouls could throw a few punches at.
Sighing, Wydowna went back to sketching some quick character profiles. "Yeah, you're right. Gotta be some kind of big... scary thing. Like Godzilla. What about leviathans? Have we completely ruled out leviathans? Picture this: the sea, foaming and red with blood, curls back to reveal a huge monster wrecking havoc on the edge of town, but it's not there out of chance! Someone woke the creature up, and unleashed them onto the city. Someone far more evil and craftier than Cat Tastrophe! ...I dunno. I'm just spinning a tale here. Anyway, I just came up with designs based on most of our friends, for fun? There was some free time during Public Screeching and I thought 'hey, why not?' you know? Check this one out." She carefully tore a few pages out of her sketchbook and handed them to ghoulia, while shifting her pencil to the other hand and continuing to draw on the opposite page.
Ghoulia looked down at the page to find a suspiciously short ninja dressed in pink and black. She held a katana in her right hand and a cloud a smoke curled up around her left side. Behind her, a rather burly werewolf stood tall and regal, resting an axe on his shoulders. Ghoulia's face brightened and she made a mental note to think of a non-supernatural storyline she could fit the two into. Flipping through the others she read more possible titles 'Ice Queen', 'Shrinking Violet', 'Primadonna', even 'The Human Scorch'. "Aaaah…" she replied, nodding enthusiastically.
"I think so too. I call the duo 'Fanged Fury and the Huntsman'! Just a little thing. Anywho, all the pages for the Catastrophe issue #4 and Wonder Wolf issue #6 are here and you can tell me if there's anything wrong, or anything you want me to add." Ghoulia moaned a thank you and slipped the pages gingerly in her backpack.
She motioned to the menu with one hand, only to have the skin along her wrist violently tear in the process. Eyes widening, she quickly retracted her hand and held it to her chest,not bothering to check if bone was showing. It didn't hurt. It never did. But it always took her by surprise when she began to decompose. Her breath didn't begin to quicken, nor did her heart begin to beat like a snare drum, but that was merely because her body could not do such things anymore. However, her eyes began to sting, and after taking a moment to compose herself, Ghoulia used her free hand to pull out her iCoffin and turn it on. At first, she contemplated speed dialing her parents. It would be the most rational thing to do, and her parents specifically told her that if she began to decay at all to call them immediately. But… in front of all these people? Sure, most of the people in Gorebucks were fellow monsters, with a few normies mingling by the door, but having her condition exposed to the public was beyond embarrassing. She instead punched in Cleo's number and waited for her best friend to answer.
"Greeting, loyal subjects! You have the honor of recording a message on my royal inbox- so make it quick. Leave all your juicy details at the beep!"
She tried again. And again. And once more before finally slapping her phone down on the table with disgust. The action was accompanied by a dull crack as two of her fingers, and Ghoulia jerked her hand backwards, letting out a sob.
Wydowna then rushed to her side, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. The humanoid spider thought about giving it a squeeze, to be comforting, but she didn't want to risk putting any unnecessary strain on her undead friend's fragile flesh. "Ghoulia? Ghoulia, calm down okay? We're going to get through this. I'll just call your parents, and then we can go to the Clawspital, o-"
"Ahhhnn!" Ghoulia shook her head firmly. There was no way that she was calling an ambulance here; she'd already made too much of a scene. A few curious monsters, had glanced in her direction, and a particularly nosey Cyclops was ever so discreetly spying in on their conversation from two tables away.
Her friend sighed, and then supporting her friend with two arms, escorted the zombie step by step to the empty tables outside. "Call your parents. I'll wait here, okay? I promise I'm not going to leave until everything's okay." Ghoulia let out a tired, shaky moan and leaned on Wydowna's shoulder. The redhead began to flip through Ghoulia's contacts until she found a number labeled "Mom's Cell" and pressed the call button. Holding the phone up to Ghoulia's ear she waited as she heard a concerned voice at the other end, and let the two talk to each other for a good minute. After a while, Ghoulia said what Wydowna could roughly translate into 'Five minutes? Okay. Okay, I love you. See you soon.'
Sighing, the zombie curled into herself on the metal seat and Wydowna sat up a little taller, trying to stay calm for both of them.
(AN: I'm. So. Sorry. I've been reading all your reviews, and I've heard your cries for more ships and ideas! I have another chapter in the works, so it's not going to take as long as this one. I hope. I've been applying for college and it's taken up a lot of my time. But I haven't forgotten about you guys, and I'll see ya again soon!)