Chapter Text
Frankie Stein had not even reached a month of life, stitched and patched together with the parts of those that had passed from the world of the living, and so she had entered the halls of Monster High wholly unfamiliar with the world. She had a way of lighting up the room, making those in her companionship comfortable and left with an exceedingly high view of her. The creature was in a perpetual state of teenagerhood and with it brought a wonderment of a life that she was only just beginning to step foot into. Her joy for life was contagious, those who considered her a friend and even those who did not were often left with a brighter outlook than which they might have held prior to their encounter.
She was determined in a way that few others were to live and live to the absolute fullest. Oftentimes her companions were more than happy to accommodate. Whether it was to go out on grandiose experiences or sharing what might have happened in the past.
It was the precise latter of this that this story begins. Walking through the corridors of the high school, Frankie was engaging in pleasant conversation with one of her dearest of friends, a werewolf with dreams of merging the fashions of monster and normie in a way that was enjoyable for both sides of the coins. Clawdeen Wolf was a fiercely loyal, determined teenager who had worked hard to win her own personal reputation rather than simply relying on that of her family. She had come from a large family, as was how it so often was in werewolf families, and she cared for them as much as a sister could, even if, on occasion, they set fur pricking and fangs flashing in irritation. But it was, as it always was in families, the anger was rarely long lasting.
The pair at that particular moment were meandering through the corridors, largely empty of students given that it was after class, the two having lingered back to work on an assessment they were doing together and, when their work had reached an adequate point of near completion, they had decided to head home for the day.
"Hey ghoul," the werewolf began, something inquisitive enough to have this be met with a questioning hum, "Do you know who's locker that is?" asked she, offering a gesture towards a particular locker, letting her stride fall still. One hand was resting in the pocket of her artfully ripped, purple jeans, the other tapping a claw upon the metal of the locker.
"I think so?" returned the patched together creature, her nose wrinkled up as if she had expected this to help her recall, "Why?"
"I saw somethin' super weird with it the other day, if you wanna hear it?"
"Oh!" exclaimed Frankie, clasping her hands together excitedly, "Do tell!"
Clawdeen's story went as follows.
Clawdeen had been heading to Study Howl the other day, her spirits particularly high as she had just gotten a decent mark back on an assignment she had been proud of. There weren't all too many people still in the hallways, but she did not have all that much of a need to hurry.
Although she had been quite off in her own thoughts, she heard the sound of footfalls thundering about in the near empty hall, which was not all too unusual, but what it was that made the experience memorable was that the source, a manster that she had seen once or twice in passing but had heard significantly more often had collided straight into a student from the junior high, tumbling right over her in a way that would undoubtedly hurt. Rather than even looking back to make sure the child was alright, the lad who's skin glowed blue from the intensity of the flames that burned beneath his skin, he simply picked himself up and carried on.
"Hey!" she had called out to him, but when he didn't react, she had decided to give chase. It was not just that the child, a shy little scrap by the name of Twyla, was injured but because of the absolute disregard for the fact that he had caused harm to her and simply carried on that really bothered her.
Thankfully she had her own naturally enhanced athletic ability that came about due to her being a werewolf, and his own smaller stature to her advantage and had caught up before too long.
The fuss had drawn the attention of those still not yet at class, a few clustering around the distraught child, which did little to make the poor Twyla feel at all comfortable, the rest watching on curiously as she hauled the protesting lad back, gripping the back of his collar like a disobedient puppy.
"Apologise!" she growled at him, tossing him vaguely away from her, the little group of onlookers quickly making it obvious that his escape would be difficult indeed.
"Aww, why ya killin' my cool, ghoul?" whined the flame haired lad, his voice obnoxiously loud to combat the headphones that here sitting snugly over his ears. It was to no surprise that he was winning no friends with those gathered.
"Why?" she scoffed, teeth bared, "You just hurt my baby sister's ghoulfriend!" exclaimed the werewolf, flinging her arms up into the air in a display of exasperated, irritated emotions, "You don't hurt kids, or anyone, but especially not kids!"
One of the group, a vampire who had not shared her name with the wolf offered to take the child to the nurse, and while he and the now limping Twyla departed, much to the latter's relief as it meant she would no longer be the center of so much attention, the rest bundled up the now assailant and they made their way to the Headless Headmistress' office. His complaints and flat threats fell on unlistening ears.
Given that the Headmistress was in a meeting at the precise moment they had arrived, the collective was bustled over to the waiting room. There was an odd weight to the room, the witnesses and the one of which was witnessed seated there in an oddly stiff manner, nobody there having a particularly pleasant time.
"You don't gotta snitch on me, that ain't cool, yo!" the one who was hardly riding the waves of social graces at the moment declared, "We don't have to make anythin' out of this. Look, I have a gig on the weekend, how's 'bout I jus' give you lot tickets and we can jus' pretend this never happened. Whaddya say?"
"She," Clawdeen had returned, "Wouldn't want to get caught in a crowd. That'd make things worse!"
There was something almost musical in the way he groaned, his head thrown back in an unseemly and unrestrained display of emotion. He pouted but, as a glance about the room made exceptionally clear, nobody there was going to sympathise with him.
"Alright alright, tickets for whoever wants it, and I have a cupcake in my locker that she can have. Deal?"
"Alright," said one of the group, "But you have to prove you actually did it."
It was this that had lead them to the very locker that had reminded the young Clawdeen of this tale at all. They were clustered about him as he opened the locker, a locker of which the werewolf could have sworn was not his own, made a great show of taking the pastry out, writing a note on a scrap of paper that he tore out of a workbook with no regard for it, and then, with the same flourish, he even lead the march to offer the treat to the child so that she might forget that he had injured her at all.
"That's horrible!" Frankie Stein exclaimed when the story had reached its conclusion, her mismatched eyes wide.
" I know! It wasn't even his locker he went to, he just stole someone else's food to try and bribe a kid! It's been botherin' me, you know? He coulda just apologised, but he had to make a whole show out of it!"
"You know it isn't his?" asked the monochromatic haired individual, glancing back to where the locker in question had been.
"I've seen someone else using it. Why, the very next day I passed by to get to class and there was someone completely different using it. I didn't mention what had happened to him, he always looks scared half to death so I didn't want to make it worse, but I was tempted to!" declared the wolfgirl, letting out a huff to punctuate the ending.
"Who was using the locker?" the frankensteinian creation asked, realising then that she knew who it was that the locker should have belonged to, the slightest spark at her bolts coming when the realisation occurred.
"That DJ, Hyde. Holt or whatever his name was."
"Have you told anyone else about this?" the almost corpse asked cautiously.
"No, I didn't think it was fair. Jackson's having a hard enough time here, I'd hate it if news that other monsters were trying to steal from him and use him as some sort of scapegoat got out. Don't think that'd help anything, adding to gossip and things."
"That's wise, I'm sure that if he needed help he would tell us. I'm sure it was just a coincidence that it was Jackson's locker that Holt had stolen from."
As it so often was with stories, the conversation then changed to something generally mundane even as the oddity of the situation settled into her heart. Frankie would have liked to say she was on friendly terms with the normie-passing lad, and so she hardly wanted to think that another monster was causing him problems.