It was Thursday morning at Monster High. Cleo, Clawdeen, Frankie, Draculara and Ghoulia had gathered outside the school to talk before classes started. Purrsephone ran up to them.

"Hi ghouls," Purrsephone said with a smile. "First day of a new era. Exciting, isn't it? Has news broken yet about my defection?"

"Not yet, but that's bound to change soon," Frankie said and noticed that some of the other students were noticing her talking to who they still knew as Toralei's minion. She then saw someone she knew approaching them. "Hey Venus."

"Hey Frankie," Venus said as she walked up while holding some flyers. "I would really like it if you could make it to….. what are you doing here, Purrsephone?" the plant girl said as she just noticed the werecat.

"That's a long story," Purrsephone said after turning and revealing that she had put on a surgical mask that she kept in one of her vest pockets when she heard Venus coming.

"Are you still upset about what happened that one time?" Venus asked.

"What, this?" Purrsephone said as she pointed to her mask. "I'm trying to start a new trend."

"You're not, are you?" Venus asked disbelievingly.

"Of course not," Purrsephone admitted with a hint of irritation. "I'm still pissed about the last time you used your mind control spores on me and this is a justified precaution."

"Right," Venus said awkwardly then walked away. Ghoulia then moaned something.

"What did she say this time?" Purrsephone asked while putting her mask away.

"She asked," Draculara began, "if it was necessary for you to be so confrontational with Venus."

"Yes, yes it was," Purrsephone said with determination. "By the way, how do you understand her: it just sounds like moans and groans to me."

"There's a trick to it. We'll go over it later if you're interested," Draculara said.

The group then migrated inside the school and walked along the hallway. After a few minutes, they ran into the one person they didn't want to run into.

"Hi ghouls," Toralei said with a mean grin. "Enjoying the company of your newest turncoat."

"We are, actually," Cleo said as Purrsephone tensed up and reached into one of her vest pockets. "Turns out, she's quite pleasant and funny when she's doing more than just standing silently next to you." Cleo then began staring at Toralei as though she were looking for something.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Toralei asked with obvious annoyance.

"I was just looking for signs that you're actually Japanese, which I probably should have known before," Cleo said.

"That's because I'm not Japanese, my parents are," Toralei explained with obvious disdain. "I'm as American as apple pie and outsourcing jobs overseas to cut costs. By the way, have any of you checked the gossip site this morning?"

"I don't like where this is going," Purrsephone said as she got out her iCoffin with her free hand and went to the gossip site. She was horrified to see that an embarrassing childhood photo of her wearing the cone of shame after finding out about her allergy to bird feathers was now available for the school's viewing pleasure.

"Did you really think that a little blackmail would keep me from pursuing petty revenge, the most noble purpose in the world?" Toralei asked condescendingly to her former friend.

"Two things," Frankie said. "First, I'm pretty sure noble doesn't mean what you think it does. Second," she turned to Purrsephone, "you're blackmailing her?"

"Blackmail is a harsh word. And accurate," Purrsephone responded. "In my defense, Toralei is not the kind of ghoul you should handle with kid gloves."

"I just want to say," Toralei started, "that a part of me is proud of you for making such a display of treachery and initiative, but another, much larger part of me is going to destroy you for displaying such traits at my expense. Also, I think this belongs to you."

Toralei reached into her jacket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Purrsephone before turning around and leaving.

"She's taking this even worse than I thought," Purssephone said in a dejected tone as she unfolded the paper and looked at it. It had cartoonish drawings of Purrsephone and Meowlody hugging Toralei in between the two of them. "Meowlody and I gave this to Toralei when we were eight as a sign of how we considered her to be our third, non-identical sister."

"That's unfortunate," Cleo said in her best sympathetic tone. "But now that Toralei has posted this incredibly embarrassing photo of you," Cleo said as she held up her phone with said picture on it, "it's time for you to expose whatever you thought you could blackmail Toralei with to the school."

"No," Purrsephone said. "Right now, Toralei is much like her pet smilodon when she brought it home for the first time and it started using all the chair legs as chew toys."

"What?" Draculara asked.

"She's testing her boundaries," Purrsephone explained. "Think of blackmail as a gun with a single, magic bullet. Since you can only shoot it once, you can't use it to solve every little problem. Toralei knows this and feels she can do a few small revenge pranks and I won't expose her because it would free her up to do bigger ones."

"Does anyone else think it's strange that Toralei has all the power in this arrangement even though she's the one being blackmailed?" Frankie asked.

"Yes, I do find it strange: and infuriating," Purrsephone replied. "Besides, I have hope that I can smooth things over with Toralei after she cools down and the odds have that happening will go way down if I expose her."

"Really?" Cleo asked incredulously. "You really think you can be on good terms with Toralei again after what just happened?"

"Yes, I do," the werecat answered. "I know right now that that seems impossible, but Toralei thought the same thing about being diplomatic with you and look how that turned out."

"Fair enough," Cleo admitted. "By the way, what were you reaching for inside your vest earlier?"

"This," Purrsephone said as she reached into the same pocket as earlier and pulled out a handful of sand. There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"You're going to make me ask, aren't you?" Cleo asked with a deadpan expression.

"Ask what?"

"Why do you keep sand in one of your vest pockets?"

"In case I ever need to throw it in someone's eyes, duh," Purrsephone answered and then put the sand back in her vest. "I keep all kind of stuff in here: money, makeup, duct tape, sunglasses, this sock full of pennies," the werecat said as she pulled out a sock with a bunch of pennies that were tied into a small pocket on one end to show everyone before putting it away.

"You're a very strange ghoul," Cleo said. "And speaking of strange, Toralei didn't act like she usually does in that last confrontation. I thought I knew her pretty well since I've known her for three years."

"You've known her for two years," Purrsephone corrected.

"Sometimes it feels like three," Cleo explained.

"Toralei likes to think that she's the center of the universe," Purrsephone began, "and can be very pissy when this opinion is challenged."

"I can't stand people like that," Cleo said and then everyone in her group started staring at her incredulously. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Fortunately, the bell signaling them to get to class rang so they didn't have to answer that question.

….

After the first class of the morning, Purrsephone went through the halls and came across Scarah Screams.

"Hi Scarah," Purrsephone said.

"Hello," Scarah said a little nervously.

"I take it you've heard about my falling out with Toralei?" the dark-haired werecat asked. The sixties-styled banshee nodded yes. "I need a small favor from you: I need you to tell Toralei that I haven't shared anything about her mixed heritage or preferences with Cleo's group yet."

"Why can't you tell Toralei this yourself," Scarah asked.

"Because Toralei is very pissed at me right now and likely won't believe me," Purrsephone explained. "She might believe you: especially since you're going to read my mind to verify what I'm telling you is true."

"Okay," Scarah said, understanding Purrsephone's viewpoint and agreeing to do the mental fact check. About ten seconds later, Scarah was done and had confirmed everything Purrsephone said. "What do they know about my…. history with Toralei?"

"They know that Toralei thought you were an alien," Purrsephone began, "but I left out the part where she hit on you because of that."

"Thank you," Scarah said. "It would have been really bad if that became more than a little joke between me and Toralei."

The two ghouls parted and Purrsephone went over to her locker to exchange books when she was approached by a certain half-normie/half-monster boy.

"Hey Purrsephone," Jackson said.

"Hey Jackson," Purrsephone said as she entered the combination to her locker and stood next get clear. "Get clear," she said to anyone nearby as she opened the locker door and a water balloon shot out from a small catapult inside. The balloon flew and broke against the locker on the opposite end of the hall.

"I see that Toralei is taking the recent development as well as expected," Jackson said.

"Yeah," Purrsephone said with a hint of sadness and then exchanged books. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

"I want to tell Frankie and her friends about the first time we met," Jackson said.

…

(Begin flashback)

It was Jackson's third day at Monster High and while he had made a few friends, most of the school was not happy about having a normie around. He was walking the halls in between classes when Toralei and the twins walked up to him. Toralei grabbed him and slammed him against a row of lockers.

"Listen here you normie scumbag," Toralei said threateningly. "I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you so if you try anything funny, I'm going to chop off your wang and force feed it to you." Toralei smiled and relaxed at the thought of enacting this on Jackson. "Have a nice day."

Toralei let go of Jackson and began walking away. With Toralei and Meowoldy's backs turned, Purrsephone stayed behind.

"I'm very sorry about that," she whispered into Jackson's ear. "Toralei has serious problems with normies. I can explain everything if you meet me inside the catacombs by the entrance near the library after classes are done."

Purrsephone caught up with Toralei and her sister before they noticed that she wasn't with them.

After classes that day, Jackson went into the catacombs at the place Purrsephone mentioned. He had Heath waiting outside near the entrance in the event this was a trap.

"So you decided to come," Purrsephone said, standing several feet Jackson's right.

"I did," Jackson said, taking a quick look around to see if Toralei or Meowoldy were nearby.

"They're not here," Purrsephone told him. "I came alone."

"Can you really blame me for checking?" Jackson asked.

"No," Purrsephone answered. "Anyway, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. Based on her own past, Toralei thought it was necessary to threaten you to make sure you abandoned any plans of getting together with other normies, putting on brightly colored spandex and beating monsters up till they exploded."

"What?" Jackson said with almost tangible confusion.

"Crap," Purrsephone said as she put her face in her hand and began thinking of a better way to start explaining things. "You know those TV shows the Japanese have been making sense the 70's where five normies in brightly colored spandex fight monsters of the 'that's a guy in a rubber suit' variety and kill it and it explodes?"

"Maybe," Jackson lied. Jackson used to watch Power Rangers when he was younger and knew that it was based on the long running Super Sentai series from Japan, which was what Purrsephone was talking about.

"Good," Purrsephone continued. "Those shows have occasionally inspired violence against actual monsters in Japan among very bigoted slash very stupid normies. Toralei's uncle was killed by such normies who were dressed up like characters from one of those shows. Even worse, one of them was never caught or identified."

"And that's why Toralei threatened me with genital amputation?" Jackson and asked and Purrsephone nodded yes. "I see." Jackson thought about what he had just learned for a moment. "I definitely feel better knowing that Toralei's words had nothing to with me and everything to do with her own issues, but why tell me this?"

"I don't think it's fair that you had the crap scared out of you to the point of constipation because of Toralei's past," Purrsephone explained. "If you are grateful to me for sharing this with you, then you won't tell anyone about this conversation. Otherwise, Toralei will have a reason to be pissed at you for something that's actually related to you. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Jackson answered.

(End flashback)

…..

"Why do you want to tell them about that?" Purrsephone asked.

"I think it will help you," Jackson said. "It shows that you haven't always seen eye to eye with her on everything and there was at least one time where you undid some of the damage she did."

"Okay," she said. "You can tell them about that."

"Great," Jackson said as he walked away.

Purrsephone hadn't thought about telling Cleo's group about her secret conversation with Jackson because she thought of it as something personal between them. Also, she did not see any connection between that conversation and her current situation. While she did not originally plan this for Cleo's group, she was pleased that Jackson had thought of this.

…..

Author's notes: I apologize to anyone who's Japanese or of Japanese decent for anything that might come off as racist in this chapter. I just thought that this could be a possible result of what Japan's love of Super Sentai would be like in the world of Monster High. Also, from what I understand Japan is not very tolerant of people who are different, especially people of Korean decent who live in Japan.

And if you're wondering why Japan would continue making Super Sentai shows after the occasional real life monster slaying, it's because the slayings were done by people who already had trouble telling fantasy apart from reality.