Yeah, this is going to be an intermission by technicality since there isn't a movie related to this. It's going to be rough, remember that. The Ed's did essentially go through their trauma in a speedrun that was livestreamed in front of their friends.

Either way, I hope you enjoy this chapter! I'm setting up kind of a game at the end.

Bloodgood's was normally a very professional and sometimes cheery place that she made sure her students were always comfortable to walk into. Today, though, it was understandably a very dour place, with enough tension that someone could choke on it if they weren't careful.

Her office wasn't meant to hold too many people, but considering what had happened at Heritage Hall, she wanted to make sure the girls didn't do anything to jeopardize the work she and the Ed's had put in for these months, but looking at their glum faces, she could tell that they most likely hadn't done anything yet. She'd forced herself to give them a few days to process the situation and hoped they wouldn't say anything. Since there hadn't been any local law enforcement busting down her door, she figured it was safe.

She had to make sure, though.

"I don't think I have to explain why I gathered all of you here today." Bloodgood received some half-hearted nods and moved forward. "Then I guess I have one question to ask; where do we go from here?"

The question caused some confusion from the girls, which was quite understandable. She figured it would be better to elaborate.

"I'll admit that most of you are probably still feeling betrayed right now, but I want to reiterate on this; I'm doing what I think will be best for the future that you will have to face soon." The headmistress continued. She was doing her best to not sound patronizing. "Yes, what I did was underhanded and might seem frivolous, but you have read the reports. Either way, the charade will end, and I want a way to ease into that change."

"Why are you making it sound like the Ed's didn't do anything?" Ghoulia stated. She tapped her hands on one of her binders, her fingernails making a loud sound in her office. "They did most of the lying here. Especially to us."

"I put them up to it, though. The assignment I gave them was to blend in until we could safely introduce themselves and their expertise through their actions in due time." Bloodgood was glad to finally have someone respond to her. She was starting to believe she was talking to a brick wall. "Now, I don't know what your feelings on humans are, but I do know you must have some opinion on your friends. Do they seem like bad people to you?"

"What part of lying to us for months do you not understand?" Cleo was trying to keep a straight face, but she looked just as wrecked as everyone else. "It was their choice to keep going."

"And you know the reason why they decided to stay here instead of go home." That got Cleo quiet as well as Ghoulia. It was crude, but Bloodgood figured she would apologize later. "You're also forgetting you and those boys have gone through plenty of things together and they've proven to be trustworthy outside of this. Don't you think it would've been much harder for some situations to be resolved if they hadn't been here?"

"…She's got a point." Raven could feel everyone turn to her and she waved off the stares. "Don't look at me like that. They helped with Hellscream, Elissabat, and who knows what else. They aren't here to hurt anybody."

"We get that, Raven, but you do have to admit that it was little hard to swallow there," Maddie wasn't against anything going on, but that didn't mean she didn't have some feeling about the situation. "We got dumped with a lot of information that we probably should've known earlier."

"Apparently Clawdeen and Cerise knew plenty for us, judging from their reactions." Apple said dully. It wasn't filled with malice, but it wasn't meant to be friendly either. "They apparently thought it was ok to keep this from us."

"Hey, don't give me lip here, blondie. I only overheard some things and didn't know what to do about it." Clawdeen poked the princess in the side. She didn't get a reaction, much to her chagrin. "If I figured they were dangerous, I would've mentioned it."

"Wish you told me that you knew, though." Cerise's voice was sharp, compounded by the fact it was technically the first thing she'd said to them since the incident. "I know I was keeping secrets and stuff, but hell-"

"Girls!"

Bloodgood's voice rising shut them up and made them move away from each other. The headmistress let out a long sigh, rubbing her temples.

"I've made plenty of mistakes going into this. I'm sorry about all of this, but I need to remind you this first,' Bloodgood pulled out some files, putting them on her desk. She had updated her information on the boys since Heritage Hall, even if it pained her to go over her failure. "The Ed's are your friends, and they're in pain right now. You know why they left and decided to stay here."

Again, the mood turned dour. Some of them were mad, but they did realize that the visions they saw from the Storybook were upsetting. Extremely so.

"I'll give you time to decide on what to do next. If you file a report in, I won't stop you, but I want you to actually talk to your friends before you do." Bloodgood grabbed another folder, this one with the golden pages they had collected. "I will focus on getting them counseling when I can while dealing with Giles curse. Please, think before you do anything else."

The headmistress got up from her desk, deciding to move forward from this, her students following her example. The past couldn't be changed now and while she regretted not reaching out sooner, it couldn't be fixed now.

You didn't reach out because everything was going to well.

Bloodgood shut out the traitorous thought before it forces itself in. She had some business to conduct.

And thankfully, so did the girls.

Ghoulia knew that Bloodgood had technically given them an order, but that didn't mean she had to go look for Ed right now. At least, according to her thought process. As long as she found and talked to him eventually, she would still complete her "assignment."

No, she wasn't stalling. That would be ridiculous. Besides, she did have important business to conduct at the dragon hatchery.

The zombie knocked on the door, hearing Rosabella shuffling behind it. She distracted herself with the message she had sent earlier about an urgent piece of business they needed to conduct.

"Oh, thank god you made it!" Rosabella said as she swung open the door. She grabbed the girls arm and quickly pulled her inside. "Something's went wrong with the incubators at some point, and I don't know what it was. The dragon eggs are fine, but some of them were overheated."

"What do you mean overheated?" Ghoulia noted that some of the incubators did seem messed up, for whatever reason. It looked like someone had set the dial up to almost double what it was supposed to be set at. "Did someone come in and mess with them?"

"I've tried to check, but it doesn't appear anyone was in here physically. That's why I'm assuming something broke." Rosabella brought them to the back door, opening it to the lawn. "I already got one of your friends back here, but I'd like a second opinion."

Ghoulia felt her heart drop as she could see Ed fiddling with one of the incubators, having not seen them yet. He was focusing heavily on the device, his tongue sticking out as he worked, and it almost felt like nothing had happened for a second.

"I'm going to keep an eye on the eggs. I want to make sure these things are working soon, otherwise it'll stunt their development." Rosabella was already heading back inside when she was saying this. "Ed, I brought Ghoulia here! Hope you find a solution soon!"

"Wha-" Ed hit his head on the bottom of the incubator when he tried to look up, causing him to hold his head. "Ow! Darn it, how is this thing still hot?"

Ghoulia sighed, the feeling of normalcy returning. "Hold still, I have some stuff in my bag for that."

Ed froze as the zombie moved to kneel beside him, pulling out some burn ointment and a bandage. Ed's wound didn't hurt, but he still kept still anyway as she dressed it up. It took a few seconds for her to realize why, the unpleasant memory returning and causing her hands to stumble.

"…Hey." Ed started lamely, not looking her in the eye. He shuffled his feet until his knees were near his chest, making him look more pitiful somehow. "I guess Rosabella called you too? The incubators went into overdrive and some of the dragons might turn out different apparently."

"Right, most Legends believe if you overheat a dragon egg, it'll turn evil." Ghoulia tried to hide her discomfort through the fact. It didn't do as well as she hoped, judging from Ed's raised eyebrow. "I'm not exactly sure of the science behind it, but I have heard of some correlation between heat used during incubation and general attitude of a dragon."

"Sounds interesting. Cool if true." Ed gripped his shoulders. He was looking away again, keeping his eyes at the middle distance. "…Have you told anyone what happened? With everything?"

"…No. I probably should, but I haven't said anything." Ghoulia wanted to be mad right now, but Ed acting like this was depressing her enough as is. "I'm not sure why. Any reason why it should stay that way?"

"I can't really say either. Kinda surprised you didn't either." Ed let out a breath. There wasn't a good way to actually move forward with this. "Don't you have some questions then?"

"I suppose I do. I guess my first question would be when you were planning on telling me about all of it." Ghoulia tightened a bandage roughly. "When the semester ends? Near the end of the year? Graduation?"

"I wanted to talk about it at some point." Ed pointed out quickly, feeling himself frown. He could get her being angry at him, but that didn't mean he didn't feel his own temper rise at the barbs. "None of us could agree on a when. Or even if there was a possibility of sharing."

"Great, there was a possibility none of you would have said anything unless provoked." Ghoulia huffed, putting on the finishing touches for the bandages. "Probably wouldn't have known about you three until it was ten years too late, right?"

"Hey, I tried to get Double D and Eddy to consider it when I could. They had different ideas and I couldn't just go over them." Ed got up quickly. Ghoulia noted that he actually seemed angry, a rare sight. "And remember when you found those plans? You went on a whole tangent about it would be a disaster if any humans got in at all."

"Well- but that's- you're really going to take that out of context! I was thinking about Hellscream and what he did to the school!" Ghoulia pointed an accusing finger in his face. "I know we don't talk about some parts of our adventures, but you can't tell me that he didn't leave a bad impression on the idea."

"None of us are Hellscream! Not all humans are Hellscream! You know that!" Ed was really trying to keep his anger down, but God, why wasn't she listening to him? He had a reason and she's usually better at listening than this. "I don't go around saying or thinking all zombies are the same."

"None of the zombies here have tried to attack the school in any capacity. At worst, we have the occasional delinquent." Ghoulia put her head in her hands, counting her breaths. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. "Look, I'm sorry for what I said. I just… I put my heart out to you and it turns out you couldn't trust me with anything about you. I get it, especially with what the book showed us, but it still hurts."

Ed felt his anger slip away at that admission, quickly replaced by guilt. He frowned, thinking it all over. He impulsively put a hand on her shoulder.

"I really did want to say something. I'm not lying about that." Ed said slowly. He had to be good with his words for once. "You have to understand…"

He trailed off, not finding anything to say. He let his hand fall off her shoulder, balling into fists. The two remained silent as they stewed in their emotions.

That was about the time when the back door finally opened up again.

"Hey guys, I got some more help! Frankie wanted too…" Rosabella stopped as she noted the gloomy atmosphere in the room. She stopped Frankie from getting too close, just in case. "Is everything alright? The damage can't be that bad."

"Huh- Oh, right, that." Ed scrambled, putting on the mask again. It was disturbing to Ghoulia since he looked so sad just moments ago. "I think we're going to need to replace the gauges and the limiters to make sure whatever happened doesn't happen again. Frankie, you can provide some electricity to test them, right?"

"Uh, yeah. I can do that." Frankie let a few sparks show up, smiling awkwardly. "If you can set that one up first, we can get started."

Ed immediately turned around, taking the distraction immediately. "On it! I'll get it done in a jiffy!"

As Ed moved on, Ghoulia rubbed at her eyes, subtly letting out a shaky breath. She felt like she was making progress there until they were interrupted. Forgiving him was going to be hard, getting him talking was going to be harder.

"He really is good at putting up an act…" She whispered to herself. Ghoulia figured she'd do the same, giving Rosabella and Frankie an easy smile. "Let's get on it. I'd rather not keep those dragon eggs waiting."

Rosabella and Frankie just nodded, letting the zombie go. Frankie leaned over to the princess, raising an eyebrow.

"Did we run into a couple's fight or something? I didn't know they were dating. " Frankie was sure she'd hear it from Spectra and Blondie if that was the case. "Is that the vibe you got, or am I alone here?"

"I kind of agree with you. Seems a lot more tense though." Rosabella didn't want a fight breaking out, but she wasn't sure if was her business to interfere. "…Maybe we'll keep an eye on them and see how they're feeling before the week ends. We'll do something then if it isn't resolved."

"Deal."

Watching the skies for their friend wasn't something that Clawdeen figured she'd do for today, but here she was, hoping he'd show up. It was only made a little more awkward with Dexter and Jackson doing their best to stay out of their business and failing.

"So," Jackson started awkwardly, tapping his hands on the MirrorPad Dexter had loaned him. He was quickly getting situated at Monster High from what Clawdeen knew, but other than that, she didn't know much about him. "What exactly do you want to talk to Double D about again? I'm only asking cause I don't want to help hide a murder."

"It's nothing you need to worry about, just personal business. Keep doing your thing." Clawdeen looked briefly on what was going on the screens the two had and raised an eyebrow. "What are you guys doing again? I'm not even sure I asked yet."

"Double D's getting a birds eye view of the area to see if it can be mapped out when searching for the Book of Legends later." Dexter could see the blip of the screen as Double D approached their position. "If something like a small castle can get lost within the forests, then the Evil Queen might have stored it somewhere around there. Might as well make a map."

"I don't I've ever seen him go an entire flight around the place. He did build it for that, right?" Maddie asked Cerise, keeping an eye out in the sky. She didn't receive an answer, prompting her to elbow the hooded girl. "Cerise, you can't find him staring at the ground."

"Yeah, yeah." Cerise still remained unresponsive. She was slowly making her peace with the fact that Clawdeen apparently knew her own secret. And that she might have to tell the others about it too if they get too curious. "He'll show. The guys punctual if anything."

The sound of the glider proved her right, Double D appearing in the distance. It took him a minute to get back and land, using his metal legs to slow and stop his descent. Taking off some goggles and unzipping a coat he was wearing, he let out a breath as he leaned onto his knees.

"Well, I guess I can consider faster, sustained flights a success after all. Might need to adjust what I wear in the future, though." Double D continued to undress himself, taking quick look over at everyone else. "Dexter, Jackson, did we get everything…"

The boy seemed to realize who else was here, stopping himself as he looked at each of the girls with a frozen expression. The tension in the air ramped up, spiced up with an expected amount of awkwardness.

"Um, should we go?" Dexter whispered to Jackson, fiddling with his MirrorPad. He felt like they were trespassing, even though they were here first. "WE should definitely go."

"Yeah, lets." Jackson didn't care so much about the awkwardness, seeing as how he usually supplied it himself in his opinion. He just didn't want to be in the middle of whatever was going on here. "Double D, we're going to get this information copied and create some proper data. We'll see you after we're done."

"Wha- hey wait a minute! We still haven't gone over the data!" Double D realized hi panic was futile as they were already rushing away. He growled in frustration, running a hand down his face. "Great. Should've realized hanging around people like me would result in this."

There was another awkward silence as everyone stood around, realizing they didn't have much to say despite what had happened. Clawdeen was tempted to break it first, especially since she was the one to bring Cerise and Maddie here, but she found it much harder do it than she thought.

Double D, feeling a twinge of sympathy, decided to break it for them.

"Let's not beat around the bush here. Bloodgood made sure to inform us of everything. I know that… well, you all know now." Double D raised an eyebrow at Clawdeen, scrutinizing the werewolf. "Some of you have known longer than I thought too. This actually explains why you and Maddie were acting so strange after dealing with the monster hunter."

"I wanted to make sure we weren't going to have a sequel to all of that. And before you get testy, you and Cerise weren't really being quiet." Clawdeen sent Cerise a quick look too, the hooded girl not saying much. "I was hoping to talk about it. With everyone preferably."

"I don't think I have much to say, sorry. I didn't want my secrets to be revealed the first time, and I don't care to do it a second." Cerise noted Maddie wilting at her words, causing her to cringe. "No offense, Maddie. I just don't really want to talk about it."

"I think maybe it should be the opposite if you it's bothering you that much. But, okay, that's more than fair." Maddie definitely wanted to know, but one problem at a time. One really big problem at a time. "Double D, we kinda wanted to check up on you. We figured maybe you weren't feeling too well after… well, y'know."

"There's nothing much I want to say about it." Double D frowned as he noted the looks the girls gave him, mixed with disbelief and concern. "What? Were you expecting me to cry over the fact my mother and father didn't pay attention to me? I appreciate the concern, but I've been past them for a while now."

"Okay, quit with the attitude. We're just trying to make sure you and your friends don't panic and disappear on everyone after going through your trauma all at once." Clawdeen narrowed her eyes at him as he scoffed. "I'm at least cool with the whole human thing. I've had a while to think about it. We're your friends, and we're doing what we can to help."

"I get it, but it isn't needed. Besides, we have bigger problems to deal with." Double D pulled out his iCoffin, glancing it over. "We still need to find the Book of Legends while everyone is distracted with the former headmaster. Assuming he's been fired, of course."

"Okay, not saying that it isn't important or anything, but that just feels like you're using that as an excuse?" Maddie didn't regret saying it, even at Double D's offended expression. He did seem to be ignoring everything. "This is something we're going to have to deal with now. If not, this is just going to come up later."

"This won't have to come up later. Is it really that hard of a concept to understand that I don't need any help? I've been able to deal with quite a lot on my own." Double D looked at Cerise, his frown turning from irritated to sad. "I will say that I apologize for your situation being revealed, Cerise. I'm sorry that had to be a result of this."

"…Not your fault. Things just went wrong." Cerise retreated into her hood, but at least she seemed a lot less irritated. "My own problem to deal with, not yours."

"It doesn't have to be! It really doesn't!" Clawdeen pinched the bridge of her nose, grumbling at their stubbornness. She might've had her own stubborn streak, but it didn't mean she liked dealing with other people's. "You can't just push this off. Working away didn't work for you before, and you know it."

The werewolf wondered as Double D's eyes flashed with a genuine amount of rage for a second if she was about to meet the business end of an octo-claw. The boy wasn't violent, but he looked damn near it before it was all smothered down into a cold look.

"I'm not lying when I say I'm happy you want to help me, but as I've said before, we have made net zero progress on finding the Book of Legends." Double D took a breath, letting out through grit teeth. "Ed is currently emotionally unavailable, and while Eddy is trying to work on his own solution, he isn't exactly stable either. If what you're doing here represents what the rest of the group is doing, that means I'll have to take the reins here."

Double D brought out the octo-legs again, pushing himself off the ground. "If you'll excuse me, we'll talk about this later."

Clawdeen would've ran after Double D's retreating form, but Maddie pulled her back. She growled again, running her hands through her hair.

"Does no one in our group know how to handle their emotions?!" She didn't receive any response from whatever god she happened to be shouting at. The werewolf sighed, turning, and moving in another direction. "Change of plans. We'll have to tie him down to stop him from working himself to death. Come on, girls."

Maddie and Cerise looked at each other, with the former giving a shrug at the command. It was honestly overwhelming, and neither of them knew what to do.

"Any ideas?" Maddie smiled nervously. "As much as I'd like to skip to the conclusion, it would be anticlimactic."

"…I might have something." Cerise started to follow Clawdeen. Despite feeling resigned when they started, she felt like she needed to step up. She hated seeing him like this too and wanted to get things back into working order. "I'm not going to like it, but I do have an idea."

Cleo, Raven, and Apple figured that finding Eddy would be the easy part. The workshop they had made it a perfect place to hide, even if it meant having to turn down business for a little bit. Eddy wasn't exactly subtle either since they could hear some kind of work going on from outside the building.

Getting in said building was the difficult part, though.

"Eddy, you better let us in, or I swear to every god I pray to that I'll break down this door." Cleo banged on the door of the workshop, making sure it was as loud and annoying as possible. "We need to talk! I want an explanation"

"Fat chance, Queenie!" Eddy retorted from inside the building. They could hear more work being done inside, with him obviously multitasking despite the interruption. "I don't have to explain anything either, and you can't make me!"

"This is going nowhere fast." Raven figured this would happen, especially with their most stubborn member. "Maybe we should've realized he wouldn't want to talk. He didn't say anything when his own brother died for crying out loud."

"Hm. Quite."

Raven gave Apple a small glare, noting the blonde's feigned disinterest. It was blatant how much of a mask it was to hide her own displeasure with the situation.

"You can't be that angry with him, y'know. From the looks of it, he was just trying to make his life a lot better than it was." That was how Raven chose to see it. Everything she saw was… disturbing to say the least. "You can't say he deserved all of that either."

"I'm not saying that. But if anyone else figures out, we'll be in big trouble whether we tell them we knew it or not." Apple didn't want this kind of target placed on her. The Ed's may have been good so far, but it wasn't like anyone would care if everyone knew. "Bloodgood should've definitely mentioned this to us in the beginning, so we at least knew what we were getting into."

"If Bloodgood told us what was happening, we probably would've reported her immediately." Raven would admit she had a good point, but it wasn't totally correct. The sorceress looked in Cleo's direction, realizing things had gone quiet. "Looks like we're about get in, so put on a happy face.

Apple would've questioned what that meant if a loud bang hadn't resonated a second later. She greeted by the sight of Cleo holding the Worshipper's Staff with a broken door in front of her, what she did awfully clear. The mummy, along with the others, didn't waste any time walking in.

Eddy was present on one of the tables, giving them a quick glare as he messed around with a device. He wasn't wearing his jacket this time, so they could see the parts of the suit that gave him magic spark as he used it gently.

"Alright, we really need to- what in the world are you wearing?" Cleo stopped, finally registering the metal on Eddy's body. "That isn't some form of body modification, right?"

"It's the suit that makes me do magic, and that's all I'm saying about it. If you want something more in-depth, I'll call you when I want to talk." Eddy pointed a screwdriver at her with an irritated look before pointing at the door. "And by the way, you're fixing that. I'm good with tools, but that doesn't mean I want to work on everything around here."

"That's all very… interesting, but maybe we should change focus here." Apple was actually fascinated by the suit, if only because it was proof of alternate ways to use magic. Her eyes trailed over the device that Eddy was working on. "What's that? I'm surprised you're even working on projects right now."

"If you need to know, Princess, it's supposed to be a tracker. Mostly for old magical artifacts, which have a different magic signature compared to more streamlined stuff." Eddy put down the screwdriver, finally looking at them completely. "What is it that you really want to talk about? The only reason I know you haven't snitched is because I haven't been tackled by security in the street yet."

"We wanted to check up on you. Considering the last time you went into a spiral, we wanted to make sure you didn't disturb someone's entire worldview again." Cleo figured something must've been going on with Briar. Apple had noted she'd been quiet ever since the incident but hadn't had time to check. "I suppose I also want to make sure I wasn't fooled by parlor tricks. I'm not going to pretend I'm not angry that you were able to fool me for so long."

"Like I said, you need to wait. Jesus, Queenie, don't you ever listen?" Eddy rolled his eyes. He got up, moving past them to grab at some blueprints he'd put on another table, looking over them. It was like he was pretending they weren't even there. "And you don't need to worry about me 'fooling' you anymore. It isn't going to be a lie much longer."

The statement was strange, but it did send a chill down everyone's spines. Apple herself could feel her anger take a back seat as she pondered the sentence and what it could mean.

"What does that even mean?" Apple gave the other girls a look, seriously confused. "Girls what is he- Raven, why do you look so pale?"

"…You offered to sign the book for me." Raven felt a piece click in as she remembered their deal. "Are you- are you trying to become-"

"Magic? Yes. Did it seriously take you this long to figure it out?" Eddy didn't pay attention to their horrified looks, keeping his work up. "Like I said, I won't need to lie much longer. Then a lot of our problems get solved at once! Ain't I a genius?"

Eddy cackled, an unstable sound that seemed to bounce off the walls of the workshop. Cleo pulled the girls back as he grabbed a few tools and parts with his magic, haphazardly moving them around.

"Okay, I can honestly say this actually a lot worse than what happened with Evan." The mummy resisted the urge to use the staff to knock him out. "We can't let him go through with signing the book, you know. I know you had your heart set on it…"

"No, we really can't. As much as it would make things easier, that isn't worth the cost." Raven held her hands over her mouth, feeling like she was going to throw up. "Do you think he knows what would happen if he… I don't think he does."

"We should probably tell him." Apple gave a nervous look to the flashes of magic coming from Eddy's direction. "Right?"

The girls realized something that would become the theme for the rest of this week; it was going to much harder than they thought to fix this mess.

Hope you enjoyed it! I was planning some more confrontations or something like it, but I didn't want the chapter to go too long. At the very least, this sets them up for later.

Also, that little game I mentioned; I saw some things people from Tumblr do 5 headcanons for an AU of their works or something related to what they wrote about. How about we play that? Pitch me an AU based on my fics and I'll give you some pointers on how it would go. Heck, I've got three of my own you can question (Childhood Friends AU, Reverse AU, The Bastard AU), that you can mess with. Just ask me in the comments and I'll reply with it, maybe eventually gather it all up into a document and post it in the side series.

Thank you, and have a nice day.