by Perdita Finn
“No, you can’t go!” screamed Sparky. “You’re supposed to stay here with me!”
But it was too late. The Creature was already gone.
Backstage, the ghouls were trying to figure out what to do about the lost lens. There was no way to fix the Fusions without it.
Dracubecca was upset. “Without a time teleporter, does that mean we’re Fusions forever?”
Cleolei flipped. “I can’t be stuck with Toralei for the rest of my life!”
“I thought you two were getting along now,” said Clawveenus.
Cleolei stamped her foot. “That was then, this is now. There were zombie-corns, flying horse ghouls, I got confused.”
Mr. Where’s glasses peeked backstage. “Showtime, people!” He ushered Frankie toward the front of the auditorium. The house lights were dimming. The audience was quieting down. Everyone applauded when Frankie stepped in front of the curtain.
This is going to be some acting job, thought Frankie. She smiled and waved. “Um… hi!”
There was dead silence in the audience. From one of the back seats came the shy voice of Neighthan. “Hi, Frankie!” he called.
Frankie took a deep breath. “For two hundred years, our great school has stood as a shining example of monster unity. All monsters—the big, the small, the hairy, and the clawed—are welcome.”
At that exact moment, a giant arm thrust itself through the stage floor right in front of Frankie. It was the Creature! Frankie let loose a bloodcurdling scream! The audience couldn’t figure out if this was part of the show or not.
The Creature smashed through the floorboards and emerged. It was a terrifying mishmash of computers, phones, and plain old junk. Its face was a laptop screen with an image of a face projected onto it. It had giant bolts on its shoulders and a license plate on its butt. This wasn’t a living creature—it was a technological construction. Where its heart should be was the giant time-machine lens.
The disoriented Creature blinked under the stage lights. It turned toward the audience. “Fa-mi-ly!” it roared.
Students and their parents screamed and rushed toward the exits.
Iris turned to Manny. “I think it’s time to go.”
“I think you’re right,” said Manny, getting up.
“Where are you going?” asked Heath. “The play is just getting good.” He ducked as the Creature ripped out an auditorium chair and hurled it over his head. “Ahhh!” He followed his friends as fast as he could.
Everyone was fleeing from the rampaging Creature.
“Destroy! Rah!” it shrieked.
Backstage, the ghouls were horrified.
“What is that thing?” wondered Clawveenus.
Ghoulia recognized the time teleporter lens on its chest. She groaned, trying to explain to the others what she’d seen.
Out of the hole in the stage clambered Sparky. He was out of breath. “Okay… here I come… Just… stop…”
“Sparky!” Frankie recognized him.
He stopped, a guilty expression on his face.
Frankie couldn’t believe it. “You followed us through the time portal? Just so you could build… that?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said defensively.
The Creature ripped out another chair.
Sparky laughed nervously. “It’s okay. There’s just something wrong with its programming. I can fix it… I think…”
Cleolei pulled out her iCoffin and took a photo of the Creature for her Fearbook profile. But the flash made the Creature furious. Its eyes flashed red.
“Yeah,” said Sparky sheepishly. “It doesn’t like that.”
The angry Creature charged the stage. It knocked Sparky aside and grabbed Cleolei. Like King Kong, it lifted her into the air.
“Put me down!” ordered Cleolei.
“No, put me down,” said the part of Cleolei that was Toralei.
The Creature held Cleolei close to its chest, which somehow activated the time portal lens. The swirling blue vortex appeared, exerting its magnetic pull. Cleolei felt herself being pulled closer and closer—until it sucked her inside! She was trapped! The ghouls could see her hovering behind the lens. She was even angrier than the Creature.
“I did not see that coming,” admitted Sparky.
“Ugh! Gross!” shrieked Cleolei from inside the portal. “Let us out of here!”
“Rahhhhhh!” roared the Creature as it lurched and stumbled out of the auditorium.
Frankie was stunned. “That thing just absorbed my friends.”
“That thing,” Sparky corrected her, “is Geneologi-bot 4.0.”
Clawveenus smacked Sparky on the side of his head.
“Ow!” He rubbed the sore spot. “I guess I didn’t find the ingredient that creates life. It must realize something is missing and is trying to replace it.”
Clawveenus smacked Sparky again.
“Ow!”
“How do we shut it down?” asked Frankie. They could hear it rampaging through the hallways of Monster High. There was no telling what it was doing.
“Shut it down?” Sparky couldn’t believe it. “You can’t! It’s my family!”
Frankie, who was normally very gentle, grabbed Sparky by the collar of his shirt. “You have a family, Sparky. And they’re out there running for their lives from the thing you created. We’re your family. And Professor Steam. Monster High is your family.”
“And we’re part of it,” said Neighthan, appearing at Frankie’s side.
“Look around!” Frankie ordered Sparky. “Is this what you had in mind when you built that monster?”
The auditorium was destroyed. The curtain was ripped. The floor was smashed. The chairs had been ripped out. Sparky was trying to take it all in. “You don’t understand,” he said at last.
Neighthan shook his head and turned to Frankie. “What can we do to help?”
“I don’t know,” said Frankie. “You’ll have to ask Sparky.”
Sparky was slumped to the ground, holding his head in his hands. He looked up at the monsters standing around him. “You really see yourselves as a family?”
Frankie nodded. “Freaky flaws and all.”
A light seemed to turn on inside of Sparky. “You’re right. We have to stop this.” He got up and started pacing back and forth, brainstorming. “I brought it to life with electricity. I suppose a large-enough blast of energy of opposing polarity might stop it.”
Ghoulia had something to moan about all of this.
“Yes,” agreed Sparky. “Hexiciah’s Recharge Chamber! That could work. But we have to lead the Creature to my lab in the catacombs. It’s in the security room behind the time lock.”
Frankie took charge. “All right, then. Ghoulia, you and Sparky head down to the lab and prep the charging chamber. The rest of us will figure out a way to lead the Creature down to the catacombs.”
Ghoulia and Sparky hurried out, and Frankie and the Fusions geared themselves up to tackle the Creature. Screams echoed from somewhere in Monster High. Sirena looked distracted and a little lost.
“All right, ghouls, let’s do this,” urged Frankie.
“Let’s do this,” echoed Sirena, not entirely sure what she was saying.
The Creature was trudging down the hallway, smashing its fist into the lockers. It was crushing fountains, pulling down candelabras, and destroying everything in its path. Floating inside the time portal lens, Cleolei watched the chaos unfold.
“It took getting absorbed by a giant gross-smelling Creature, but I finally realize there are worse things than being fused with you, Toralei,” said Cleo.
“Aww, that’s really sweet,” said Toralei, touched.
The Creature let out an enormous burp as it bashed its way toward the main entry, ripping down bite-centennial banners.
“We can’t let it leave the school,” said Frankie, alarmed.
“A little steam power if you will, love?” Lagoonafire stepped onto Dracubecca’s feet. She activated her boots
and the two Fusions blasted down the hallway. Lagoonafire laid a trail of flames behind them as they swooped past the front door that blocked the Creature from leaving.
“Raaa!” it roared. It recoiled from the fire.
“It doesn’t look happy,” said Dracubecca. But they were too close to it—and the blue vortex was beginning to pull them in.
“Hold on to something!” yelled Clawveenus.
But it was too late. Lagoonafire and Dracubecca were sucked into the lens with Cleolei.
“No!” screamed Frankie.
“Raaa!” roared the Creature, charging past the ghouls into the hallways of Monster High.
Clawveenus watched it rampage. “Okay, how are we going to get that thing to go to the catacombs? Because I don’t think asking nicely is an option.”
Frankie took out her iCoffin and studied it. “I’ve got an idea. Everybody meet me at the door to the catacombs in the hallway.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Neighthan gallantly.
“No, I’ve got this,” said Frankie. “I’m not letting anyone else get sucked into that thing.”
Down in Sparky’s lab, Ghoulia watched while the teenage mad scientist tore open a panel on Hexiciah’s Recharge Chamber. “Let’s see… polarity, polarity,” he muttered to himself. He reached in to cut a wire and stopped. Then he reached for a different wire. He hesitated. Ghoulia grabbed the wire cutters from him and pushed him out of the way. Immediately, she began rewiring the chamber. Sparky was impressed.
But there wasn’t any time to lose.
The Creature clomped through the hallways, growling and destroying lockers. It turned a corner, and there, standing right in front of it, was Frankie.
She held up her iCoffin. “Smile!”
Flash!
The light hit the Creature. It blinked and recoiled.
Frankie took a quick look at the photo. “Ugh. I’d say I got your bad side, but I’m not sure there’s a good one.”
The Creature had recovered and seen Frankie. “That’s right,” she encouraged it. “You… Whatever… It’s hard to find the right word… This way!” She turned and ran, and it followed her.
Mr. Rotter chose that moment to pop out of his classroom. “Frankie Stein!” he shouted, displeased. “Your assignment was to complete your scaritage report, and instead I find you running through the halls?” He flipped his pencil into the air and caught it.
Frankie glanced around nervously. Where was the Creature? “Um… Mr. Rotter…” she began.
But before she could explain what was happening, there was an enormous crash. “Rahhhhh!” bellowed the Creature. Mr. Rotter jumped into the air and dropped his pencil.
“Your friend makes a good point.” Mr. Rotter gulped, quickly stepping back inside the classroom and shutting the door.
Frankie took off—but she was running so quickly, she tripped on her platform shoes and fell to the floor.
“Graahhh!” The Creature’s shadow loomed over Frankie. She screamed.
“I’ll save you, Frankie!” Neighthan charged down the hallway. He fell to his knees, heroically careering to the rescue like a baseball player sliding into home plate. Unfortunately, he whizzed past Frankie and crashed into an empty classroom.
“I’m okay,” he called, emerging with a wastebasket over his head. He pulled it off, threw it aside, and grabbed Frankie’s hand. He pulled her into his arms and whisked her away from the Creature at the very last minute. “When we get back to the others, can we skip telling them that part about the trash can?”
“My hero!” Frankie sighed, wrapping her arms around Neighthan’s neck. Her bolts sparked and sizzled.
But the Creature was dangerously close. It was stomping toward them, getting closer and closer. It was about to get them when Sirena hovered in front of it, distracting it from Frankie.
“Hey, look here!” she sang in her haunting voice. She wafted across the hallway. “Now look here!”
The beast, confused, paused. “Rahh?”
“Now look at this!” she trilled. She flew graceful circles around the beast’s head, leaving a glowing trail of ghostly haze.
“Be careful, Sirena!” Frankie warned. Neighthan was galloping away with her in his arms.
As they ran, Bonita and Avia hovered along beside them.
“Avia! Bonita!” Frankie was thrilled to see them both.
“Looks like you two could use a lift!” said Avia.
Both of the Fusions grabbed one of Neighthan’s arms and slowly lifted the couple into the air to safety.
Clawveenus, Frankie, and the Fusions raced through the door to the catacombs. Operetta was practicing her organ, oblivious to the mayhem happening above her. She barely looked up as the ghouls ran past her, the Creature in hot pursuit. Finally, almost out of breath, they arrived at the laboratory.
“Did you get him to follow you?” asked Sparky.
But before they could answer, the Creature roared.
Sparky gulped. “Okay, then.”
“I think it’s time for a little di-vine intervention,” said Clawveenus. She closed her eyes and raised her arms. Enormous vines pierced the walls of the laboratory, squiggled toward the Creature, and shackled its arms and feet. It struggled to free itself but couldn’t—but it reached out its hand and grabbed Clawveenus. It pulled her into the lens with the other ghouls!
“No!” screamed Frankie.
Avia and Bonita both grabbed a thick jumper cable, flew up into the air, and attached them to the bolts on the Creature’s shoulders.
“Do it now!” Frankie commanded.
Ghoulia hit a switch on the Recharge Chamber, unleashing a wave of electricity that traveled through the cables and blasted into the Creature. But it wasn’t a strong-enough current. The Creature ripped its arm loose from the vines.
“It’s not working,” declared Sparky. “There’s not enough energy.”
With its free arm, the Creature yanked out the electrical wires from the Recharge Chamber. Sparks exploded like fireworks. The machine smoked, hissed, and died. The Creature struggled to free itself from the vines.
“Frankie! Help us!” pleaded the ghouls trapped inside the lens.
“How could you do this?” Frankie yelled at Sparky. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Those are my friends!” She marched right up to the Creature. “You took my friends from me! The ones I love!” The bolts on Frankie’s neck sparked. “Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”
“What’s happening?” asked Sparky, noticing the flashes of electricity coming from Frankie.
“I’ve seen that before,” said Neighthan. “It’s her spark.”
Frankie was so filled with emotion that electricity was pouring through her body. “The sparks,” she realized. All of a sudden, she unscrewed her neck bolts, swapping them to opposite sides. She marched over to the jumper cables still connected to the Creature’s shoulders, picked them up, and clamped them to her neck.
“No, Frankie!” screamed Dracubecca. “It’s too dangerous!”
But it was too late.
“Give me back my friends!” shouted Frankie with her whole heart. Her body lit up with sparks of blue light that streamed toward the Creature.
“I don’t understand,” said Sparky. “It’s just electricity.”
“No,” Neighthan corrected him. “It’s something else. It’s her spark—her emotions, her life force. It’s… her!”
The Creature was resisting Frankie’s life force, trying to send out dark matter to squash the spark.
Sparky, watching the battle between the animated pile of junk he’d created and the ghoul filled with courage and passion, realized something at last. “She’s everything my creation isn’t. The spark. That’s what makes her alive. That’s what I’ve been missing. Professor Steam was right.”
The Creature flailed wildly, breaking free from another vine.
Frankie was concentrating, sending more and more of her life force through the cables. The Creature stum
bled backward. It fell. The vortex opened and Cleo and Toralei clambered out of the lens.
“What happened?” said Cleo, looking at her restored body. “I’m… I’m me again.”
Knowing that her efforts were saving her friends, Frankie focused her energy with even greater power, intensifying the current. Lagoona and Jinafire were free.
“Frankie, you saved us!”
Ghoulia groaned, explaining how their journey through the lens was restoring their original forms.
Frankie’s hair was standing on end, her stitches were beginning to loosen, and an explosion of sparks was flying out of her. Clawdeen and Venus climbed out of the lens, separated. But Frankie was on her knees. She had nothing left.
“I have to save Draculaura and Robecca,” she whispered.
“You can’t take any more,” said Jinafire.
Frankie struggled to her feet as the Creature ripped its legs free from the vines. It roared and charged toward the ghouls. But Frankie wasn’t going to let it hurt them. She still had something left. A massive wave of energy exploded out of her, blasted through the cables, and poured into the Creature. For a moment, it stopped, frozen. An error message started blinking on the laptop screen that was its face. Draculaura and Robecca fell out of the open portal.
The Creature was still. Ghoulia walked over to it, tapped it with her finger, and it crashed to the floor. A few last pieces of equipment—a cell phone here, a laptop there—flickered for a moment or two before dying out.
It was over. Frankie had defeated it. They were all safe.
Except for Frankie.
She was lying on the ground with her eyes closed. She wasn’t moving—at all.
“Oh, Frankie,” said Lagoona, bending close. “What did you do?”
“She saved us,” whispered Venus. “She saved all of us.”
Frankie’s eyelashes fluttered.
Draculaura rushed over. “Frankie! Come back to us! Wake up!”
Sparky pushed his way through the ghouls to Frankie. He kneeled down close beside her and gently took her hand. “This is all my fault. I should have listened to Professor Steam—and not forced the creation of life before I understood it. Before you showed me that there really is something… in here.” He touched his heart as tears spilled out of his eyes. “And now you’ve gone and used up all your spark. To save your friends.”
