Monster Hearts Ch. 10 Day of the Living Tutor
"You want me to have a tutor?" Sora tilts his head.
The Keybearer is sitting across from Headmistress Bloodgood in her office.
Bloodgood's head is currently resting on her desk as her body is shuffling through some papers. "I do," the head nods. "And given the mock exams we've given you to assess where your placement is, I don't think you have a choice. Especially since you're attending my school," the body hands Sora the papers, revealing that they all have negative scores. "You said that you were out of practice, but I had no idea that it was this bad."
Sora stared at the ground in thought then looked up at the ceiling. "So, to maintain my cover I'll have to play catch up? Got it!"
The woman smiled as her body sets her had back over it's stump. "Glad you can see reason with this," she then writes something down. "Monster High's best student has already agreed to make sure you're up to speed. Or at least bring your score up to a more believable average."
The Normie tilts his head.
"Never mind," Bloodgood shakes her head while passing a slip of paper. "This is everything you'll need. I trust that you will not let yourself get distracted and not get into trouble unless it is absolutely necessary."
The boy looks at the palm of his hand as he knows exactly what the headless woman is talking about. "Don't worry! I'll do my best!" he then runs out of the room.
Blood good blinked a couple times before turning to Nightmare. "He does know that I haven't dismissed him yet, right?"
The horse gives out a neigh as it shrugs.
.oOo.
Sora was running down the hall, not planning on stopping until he gets to his destination. That is, until he spots a certain lime green ghoul in her fear uniform. The first thing that the boy noticed is that she seemed upset.
"Frankie?" the boy stops in front of her. "I thought you had Fear Practice?"
"Oh, yeah! I sure do! We're only taking a short break," despite the living cadaver's positive exterior, her smile gives it away. Along with one of her neck bolts sparking.
"You know you don't have to lie to me, Frankie."
Hearing that, Frankie slumps with a sigh. "Okay. Fearleading is on hold until further notice. Over half the team quit."
"Wow! But surely you don't have to cancel. Who's still left?"
"Counting me and Cleo?" Frankie starts counting. "Me and Cleo."
"Oh? Well, at least that means you're off probation?" Sora only receives a broken smile. "Oh…"
"But Cleo is warming up to the idea and surely after the next try outs, I'll be able to step up."
Seeing his friend's enthusiasm, Sora smiles. "Good luck, Frankie. I know you can go the distance."
Frankie beams at him. "Thanks, Sora. Want to hang out after practice?"
Now it was Sora's turn to slump. "I can't. I have to meet my tutor."
"Tutor? Why would you need a tutor?"
The boy looks away as she scratches the side of his face. "You know how I said that I've been traveling?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, that didn't leave a lot of time for schoolwork."
"Oh, please. I'm sure it's not that…" Frankie stopped midsentence as Sora shows her one of his mock exams. "Woah!" she takes it. "I know that I'm only a few weeks old but even I know that this is bad. Well then, good luck with the tutor."
"Thanks, Frankie," the boy sighs. "I'm going to need it."
.oOo.
Sora rushes into the Library. "Sorry, I'm late!" he then looks around to see that the room is empty. The boy tilts his head to look at his iCoffin. "Am I late?" a hand then reaches for his device to turn it right side up. "Oh? So, I'm early."
A moan is heard to his right.
"Huh?" Sora turns to the source to find a grey skinned zombie ghoul with glasses. "Hey! You're Cleo's friend, right? Ghoulia, was it?"
Ghoulia lets out a grunt as she nods and goes over to the nearest table to set down her books and papers.
The Normie follows her and looks among all the zombie's stuff and recognizes everything as schoolwork. "Are you here for a tutoring session to?"
The zombie then groans.
"You're my tutor?"
Hearing the question, Ghoulia gives the boy a series of moans and groans. She's heard it all. About how all zombies are too dumb to know anything. That they like brains because they themselves are brainless.
"Sounds like Zombies have it rough." Sora tells her, catching the ghoul of guard.
"Huh?"
"When I asked if you were the tutor, it had nothing to do with you being a Zombie. I honestly had no idea who my tutor was," the boy shrugs. "All I was told is that they're the school's best student," he then gestures to the table. "So, where do you want to start?" he sits down and the Zombie takes a seat next to him, thinking that this one may not be so bad.
Ghoulia then comments at how well Sora can understand her language even though he's a Normie.
Sora tilts his head. "You're speaking Zombish? What's that?"
That comment confused the ghoul as she blinks in response.
Two Hours Later
Ghoulia bangs her head on the table. As the smartest ghoul in school, the Zombie is used to tutoring her fellow students. She has even given lessons to some college students from a nearby university. But Sora? This one Normie is a whole other level.
Headmistress Bloodgood had told Ghoulia that tutoring this strange boy would be challenging. At first, the Zombie nodded her head, believing that Sora was like Heath and was just another student that didn't have the best concentration. But now? She's seriously considering advising Bloodgood to have the boy tested for a learning disability.
"Sorry," Sora says, causing the ghoul to look up at him. "Even back at my old school I wasn't the best student. It probably doesn't help that math was my worst subject."
Ghoulia sighs as she waves it off, groaning that she'll figure some way to help the boy. For now, they'll continue their session tomorrow and dismisses him.
As they were collecting their things, Sora speaks again, catching the Ghoul's attention.
"At least one good thing came from this."
The Zombie blinks and moans out what that would be.
The Normie smiles, "We became friends. Didn't we?"
Ghoulia once again blinks before smiling and agrees with the strange boy. However! When she looks back up, the ghoul notices that Sora is no longer smiling and is seemingly looking behind her. before questioning this, the boy runs past the Zombie.
"Gotta go! See you tomorrow!"
The grey skinned ghoul stares as the boy exits the room as she notices moving shadows where there shouldn't be. At first, Ghoulia was just going to leave it be. But being so smart also tends to come with curiosity and curiosity can get the best of anyone.
.oOo.
It wasn't hard for Ghoulia to find Sora. Even though the boy is unusually fast for a Normie, he's not the quietest as any moment the Zombie lost track of him, the sound of struggling puts her back on his trail.
Ghoulia opens a door and finds herself peeking into the room just beneath the bell tower. The Zombie sees Sora surrounded by more of those small shadowy creatures that interrupted the dance. There were also more that the ghoul did not recognize.
"Come on!" Sora shouts as he jumps over a large round bodied creature with a peculiar heart shaped emblem on its belly. "I told Bloodgood that I wouldn't get into trouble." He then uses his strange key-like weapon to slash through some smaller creatures with claws wearing some sort of helmet and the same strange emblem on their front. He then turns towards where several Shadows had gathered and points the tip of his Keyblade at them before shouting, "Fire!" and a large ball of fire is released towards the group, causing them to disintegrate. One of the Soldiers goes to kick the boy, only for him to do a flip and striking the Heartless.
Ghoulia is amazed seeing this boy taking on these strange creatures. The thing that the Zombie has to praise the boy for the most is his precision. Not only is Sora skilled, but he's also very tactful with every single movement.
The Large Body glares at Sora before banging on its belly and tipping forward. The Heartless starts sliding across the floor, making headway towards the Normie. Ghoulia would have expected the boy to dodge or retreat. Instead, he holds his ground and raises his weapon. The boy then swings the Keyblade in a way that lifts his opponent in the air. He then strikes at it several times before moving so fast that it appears as if Sora had teleported, and he ends up on a different side of the Large Body. With one powerful swing, the Heartless was thrown into the remaining group of these creatures, causing them all to vaporize.
"Oh, yeah!" Sora cheers, swinging his Keyblade before letting it rest on his shoulder. He then senses something and is quick to cast Guard to block a sword and is pushed away just as his new opponent has been as well.
Before the Keybearer is a humanoid shadow creature with horns, a tail, small bat-like wings sprouting from its back, and strangely some feathered wings sprouting from below it's wrists. In the creature's chest there is a heart shaped hole similar to the giant one from during the dance. Within this beasts hands is a large sword.
Sora lets out a sigh. "I really hate dealing with you guys," and the boy grips his keyblade as he and the Invisible charges at one another. However! The two are stopped by a shrill whistle.
Turning, the two sees the Zombie ghoul.
"Ghoulia?" Sora's eyes widen. "What are you doing here?"
Instead of answering, the ghoul reaches into her pocket and digs out a pen. She then tosses it. The pen simply falls to the floor and rolls across the floor. It comes to a stop at a beam that starts to groan and creek, disturbing a small rat bird who fled its nest, causing an egg to fall out. Instead of shattering, the egg bounced and rolled from one wooden beam to another.
Sora and the Heartless simply watched the whole thing play out. Neither were sure what to think of what's going on.
The egg suddenly comes to a stop at a loose nail, and nothing happened. Suddenly, the nail pops out and a piece of the beam shoots out, knocking the Invisible's sword out of its hand. The sword flies across the room, and slashes through a rope. Looking up where the rope leads, it is seen attached to the school's bell that is suddenly coming closer to them.
The Invisible eyes widen as its tail, wings, and horns seemingly drooped and worriedly looks at Sora just as the bell crashes on top of it.
Ghoulia walks up to the stunned Normie wearing a proud smile as she is satisfied with her handiwork.
Sora turns to the Zombie. "Woah! How did you do that!?"
Ghoulia moans that she simply calculated the trajectory and necessary speed to create the needed force.
"You can do that!? With math!?"
The Zombie nods.
"Who knew that math could be so cool!?"
Ghoulia knew and this gives her an idea as she informs Sora to meet her in the library tomorrow.
.oOo.
The Next Day
Sora walks into the library and finds it darker than usual.
The boy walks to the spot where he and Ghoulia were studying the day before. Across the table was a gridded map with tiny figures across it, most of which were black with heart painted on their chests. Sora picks up a figure of a knight that appears to have been recently painted in a pattern similar to his own clothing.
A pale grey hand grabs the figure and sets it back down on the map. Ghoulia then tells Sora to take a seat and the boy does so. The Zombie then sits on the other side of a screen, preventing the Normie from seeing anything in front of her.
Ghoulia closes her eyes briefly before groaning, setting the scene of an encounter between a Spell Knight surrounded by Shadow Goblins. She then asks Sora what he would do in this situation.
Looking at the map briefly, Sora picks up the figure of the knight. "Well, normally I would just zip towards the middle and slam my weapon into the ground to create a shock wave to scatter them."
The ghoul then hands him a dice and presents a paper and pencil, asking him to calculate the needed force and relays that she'll talk him through it if needed.
Gripping the dice, the boy nods as tosses it onto the map.
.oOo.
A Few Days Later
After another rough Fear session, Frankie exits the changing room but smiles as soon as her name is called.
"Frankie!" Sora runs up to her. "Check this out!" and shows her his graded homework.
"Uh, a C minus isn't great Sora," the Living Cadaver looks up at him. "It's not necessarily bad. But not great."
"Yeah! But it's much better than what I was doing before," he beams. Sora then noticed that Frankie is smiling but it wasn't as bright as usual. He tilts his head and asks. "What's wrong? Have you not filled the team yet?"
Frankie straightens and her smile brightens. "Actually! The good news is that we now have enough for a full squad since Cleo had mellowed out."
"Uh-huh," the Normie nods. "And the bad news?"
At that, Frankie slumps. "Cleo now has it in her head that it's because she's such a great leader and is now being harsher than ever. We just cheered for a chess match the other day."
"Oh?"
"Yeah," the lime green ghoul sighs before perking back up. "But I know that we can do it and we'll be heading to Gloom Beach in no time!"
"I know that you can do it to Frankie," Sora pumps his fist. "I believe in you."
At that, the ghoul's bolts spark as she claps her hands together. "Thanks, Sora. That means a lot to me."
"So, are you going to cheer for me?"
Frankie blinks. "For… you?"
The Normie nods. "Well, for me and the rest of the team. With my grades up, I can finally join Casketball."
The Living Cadaver blinks again before smiling once again. "You know that I will along with the rest of the Fear Squad. We'll give a cheer so good, that body parts will go flying!"
Sora smiles. "I look forward to it."
End