Kyle woke up the next morning, half-expecting to find himself on his cot on the top floor of his rickety old house. When he opened his eyes, he saw the open window, felt the gentle breeze, and understood that this was real. He heard the sound of shuffling feet outside his room, along with muffled voices and laughter. He turned over and decided to try and fall back asleep for a few more minutes, at least until there were less people in the halls.

Then there was an enormous growl, and he felt a pain in his stomach. He realized how hungry he was. He rolled onto his stomach and groaned a bit. Fledermaus crawled onto his back.

"I forgot, I skipped dinner last night."

Fledermaus let out a quiet whine.

"I guess you're pretty hungry, too?" He gently pushed the dragon off his back and then slid out of bed. "Let me get change and we'll head to the cafeteria, wherever that is."

After a quick change of socks and underwear, Kyle slipped out of his room and into the crowded hall with Fledermaus on his shoulder. He bumped right into Sean and Drake, who happened to be going to the cafeteria as well.

"That's right!" Sean recalled when Kyle explained what he and Fledermaus were doing. "You didn't have dinner with us last night. Man, you were out cold!"

"So now I'm pretty hungry."

"I'd imagine." He pointed downward. "The cafeteria is underground. It's connecting all the towers, dorm and school alike. There's other ways to get in, or at least that's what Vincent says. He also said there's a bunker beneath that, and that the entry ways can be sealed if they have to."

Kyle offered a half-hearted chuckle. "I'd hate to imagine a scenario where we'd need to go down there."

Sean offered a larger chuckle. "You said it."

Then a hand appeared on either boys' shoulder. "Mind if I join you?"

The two looked back and saw Nixie. She, like Kyle, was wearing the same outfit she had worn the previous day: a grey tank top that was a little too short, a dull green combat jacket with the sleeves rolled above her elbows, and cargo pants that were the same color.

"Sure, but is that the only outfit you have?" Sean joked.

Nixie looked him up and down. He was wearing a tank top and basketball shorts, like he did almost every day. "You're one to talk." She did not sound offended, but instead as though she, too, was playing. She looked at Kyle, who was also wearing the same jeans and jacket he had been wearing the day prior. "What's your excuse?"

"None. I just wear the same thing every day."

Sean then asked aloud, "I wonder what we do about washing our clothes? Vince didn't bring us to a laundry room or anything."

"Downstairs."

The three looked at the new voice. It came from boy who was tall, but not as tall as Sean, with straight black hair that was messy, but in a stylish sense. His eyebrows, ears, lip, and, presumably, tongue were all pierced. He wore ripped jeans, black boots, a leather vest loaded with pockets, a white t-shirt with a black skull on it, and a dog tag that was a bit hard to read at that distance. He wore fingerless gloves and a few different wrist accessories, including a checkered sweat band, a watch that was built more for style than function, and a half dozen rubber bracelets with anything ranging from passive-aggressive phrases to bands he enjoyed to a canceled cartoon he watched when he was younger. His arms were slightly toned, but for the most part he was rail-thin. He had a very strong bad boy image. To Sean, he read as trying too hard.

"And before you ask," the boy continued, "there are bathrooms and showers on every floor, just look for the symbols on the doors. Don't ask how they manage, they just somehow do."

"Zach Hunter, is that you?" Nixie inquired with more enthusiasm than Sean and Kyle had ever from her before.

"In the flesh."

"I remember you," Sean began with significantly less enthusiasm, "you're the upperclassman who transferred a year or two ago."

Zach shrugged somewhat smugly. "Along with a few others, yes."

Fledermaus looked the new boy up and down and let out another one of his strange sounds.

"Whoa, a dragon boy!"

Kyle shuddered as he recalled the old man in the woods. "What's yours?"

Zach opened his vest, which had pockets on the inside as well. One of the pockets bulged and squirmed a little bit. "Sheena, come on out." And on this command, a shiny black reptilian head poked out of the pocket. It opened its piercing emerald green eyes sleepily.

"Drake also?" Sean asked casually.

Zach nodded. "Yes, she indeed is."

Kyle looked curiously at the little lizard. Then he remembered what his uncle had said about Familiars shrinking to take up less space. "Is she really that small or is she-"

But Zach broke him off with an enormous laughter that turned Nixie a bit pink. "Of course she's not this small! She's a drake, she's really about the size of a van."

"I was getting there, jerk," Kyle muttered under his breath. Already he was getting the inkling that he would not be very fond of Zach whatsoever.

"Why don't you sit with us?" Nixie offered shyly. Her voice was a bit higher-pitched and she seemed almost dazed.

While Kyle and Sean were groaning to themselves about Nixie's not-so-subtle crush, and long before they could protest allowing the pretentious goth kid, or whatever style he was going for, to sit with them, Zach had answered, "Sure! The breakfast here is awesome, by the way."

Suddenly Nixie felt someone wrap their hand around hers, which caused her to jump and bump into Kyle. When Kyle turned to see what the big deal was, he saw Elvia bouncing behind them. "Guys, wait up!" she pleaded.

"Hey, Elvie!" Nixie beamed. "You remember Zach, right?"

Elvia looked Zach up and down. "Is everyone in our school a giant?"

Nixie snickered at this. Sean and Zach, tired of going their whole lives hearing this comment, rolled their eyes. "Yes, and the weather up here is fine." Sean groaned with a very noticeable attempt to cover up his disliking of the joke.

Zach and Sean led the group through the hall, down the stairs, past the desk (which, at that moment, had no one standing behind it), and down another flight of stairs. There was a break in the flight where a floor began. Zach pointed to a door to their left. "That's the laundry room. If you can't read the symbols yet, you can recognize it with that circle. It's supposed to be a bubble but they did a bad job." After that quick tidbit, they continued down the stairs. A light flooded the dim hall, and chatter echoed through an open doorway. Kyle noticed the doorway did not have a proper door, but seemed to just be a threshold where the school builders simply chose not to finish a wall. "The doorway closes after a few seconds, but opens up when it senses students and staff coming through. Think of it as like the automatic doors at a grocery store."

"But what if one of the teachers or students is the threat?" Kyle asked suspiciously.

Zach pointed to the corner of the stairwell. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the halls are filled with spiders."

Elvia and Sean both shuddered.

"Killing a spider is a serious offense at the school. I hope you haven't squashed any." Zach continued to talk as the group entered the cafeteria. "They're in the corners of the halls, they're in the walls, they're everywhere. When something's wrong, they tell the staff. I myself am not too sure of how it works."

There was a silence as they took that in. Elvia and Sean did not like spiders. Nixie was not too fond of them either, but could handle knowing there were some outside her door. Kyle was raised to love and accept spiders, because they were good and were more terrified of you. Still, he thought they were creepy. He could stand being around spiders, he could even tolerate holding them in his bare hands. He would rather not, though. He happened to lift his head at this moment and saw Aoife at a table in the distance.

Aoife looked terribly bored as Asim smiled and enthusiastically chattered away. The two both had plates and cups in front of them, Aoife's mostly empty and Asim's mostly full, probably because he was too busy chewing the fat to chew his food. Their Familiars were picking at their plates. She happened to look up as well, and their eyes met. She had a look on her face that seemed to say, "Save me from this snore fest." She called out to them and waved, but her voice was drowned out by the other students. Asim paused, then frowned a bit, but continued to chatter after her mouth closed.

Kyle waved and started over, ignoring Sean and Zach's calls telling him he had to get his food first. Though Kyle was hungry, he was willing to ignore it to get his friend - well, acquaintance - out of a dull, one-sided conversation. He made it to the table and sat next to Aoife, but put a little bit of distance between himself and her to avoid coming across as creepy one, and two, avoid Asim accusing them of being lovebirds.

Even so, the first thing out of Asim's mouth was, "You sure you're not secretly crushing on each other?" followed by a hearty chuckle at his own joke.

"Nah, I just felt better about eating with people I know are from my planet."

Asim looked at the section of table in front of Kyle. "You're going to eat the table?"

"No," Kyle started slowly, "I'm just waiting until I'm ready to eat." He cleared his throat. "So, what's going on with you two?"

Aoife shrugged. "Oh, nothing much."

Then Asim chimed in, "We were discussing the change, as well as the people around us, and back at school."

Kyle seriously wondered how a conversation like that would be that dull. He wondered how to respond, then just casually contributed, "So I got to meet Zach Hunter today."

Asim's eyes went wide and a smile crept across his face, but Aoife looked unphased. "Was he as cool as everyone says?"

Not wanting to face the same lecture Aoife had just braved, Kyle replied, "Yes."

"Who's that?" Aoife asked.

"Only the coolest kid at Birchwood!" Asim explained enthusiastically. "Well, he was, but I'm sure he's the coolest kid in Arachne now."

Aoife tsked and asked playfully, "Do you know everyone in our school?"

Asim nodded. "Yeah, just about." He looked and saw Zach and the rest of his class coming. "There he is now!"

Moments later their table filled up, Sean next to Kyle, Nixie next to Asim but with a bit of a gap, Elvia across from Nixie, and finally, Zach between Nixie and Asim. Asim almost fainted.

"So this is your class?" Zach asked with a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Yep," Nixie explained with a slight pride. "That's Kyle, next to Sean, and Aoife next to him. And Asim is on your left."

"Nice to meet you all."

Elvia leaned forward onto the table and called to Kyle, then slid a plate over to him. The plate was topped with scrambled eggs, bacon, a cinnamon roll, and a few berries. "I got you some breakfast. I wasn't sure what you liked, so I got a couple things for you to try." Then she started cautiously passing a cup of cranberry juice down the line. "Oh my gosh, you don't have food allergies do you?"

Kyle shook his head as he took the cup from Sean. "No, don't worry. Thanks a bunch!" He took a sip of the juice. "Cranberry juice is my favorite."

Elvia giggled excitedly. She was hardly ever right about what people liked, especially when it was all guess work, so this made her feel good about herself.

The moment Elvia was distracted, however, Kyle passed his bacon to Sean and whispered, "I was raised vegetarian and it doesn't feel right to stop now."

Sean snatched the bacon and whispered back, "Your loss. Thanks, though!"

Asim took a bite of his own food, which had cooled off quite a bit by that point. "So Zach, what's your Familiar?"

Zach swallowed his bite of sausage, then opened his vest again. Sheena, who was a bit more awake, crawled out and onto the table, and started steadily growing in size. "Sheena, no." Already she was the size of a toy breed of dog. She was sleek, but spiky, unlike Sean's drake who was thick and smooth. She then turned to Zach's plate and took a piece of sausage off and mashed it up. As she did this, Zach looked down at Asim's tiny gryphon and asked, "What's its name?"

Asim was in awe of the beautiful drake, but managed to stammer, "Leonidas."

"Good one."

Nixie then reached into her bag and pulled out the container that held her hippocamp. She pulled the lid off and watched the creature rear its head. "This is Marissa."

Zach looked at the sea horse. "You should probably give her more room."

Nixie nodded. "Yeah. This was all I had."

Elvia, too, took her Familiar out of her bag. She had gotten a small plate of salad for him.

"Whoa, jackalope!" Zach leaned in to look at the antlered bunny. "Now that's something you don't see every day!"

Sean leaned back to Kyle and whispered, "Because this is totally normal."

Then Sean's own Familiar crawled off his shoulder to investigate the new, larger Familiar. The two sniffed each other, then lay on the table comfortably.

"Surprised he isn't hungry. Soon as he came out of his shell he was eating."

Then Fledermaus jumped off Kyle's shoulder and started interacting with the other Familiars. He sniffed them, and they sniffed him. Soon everyone's Familiar was in a tiny mass in the middle of the table. Even Marissa leapt out of her little plastic container and joined the others. This was the first time anyone other than Nixie got to see the water horse properly. She had the front half of a horse, but the long tail of a fish. She dragged herself across the table with her front legs slowly, leaving a trail of water on the table behind her.

Nixie reached to put the creature back in her container, but Zach stopped her. "She's amphibious, she needs to learn how to walk."

The other Familiars turned to sniff the newcomer. She sniffed them as well. Then she, like the others, lay down and relax.

"Is it naptime?" Elvia asked, leaning into the mound.

"They're just getting to know each other," Zach told her, taking a sip of his coffee. "I'm guessing they haven't been allowed to socialize much?"

Everyone broke into a choir of "Uh" and started making up reasons as to why not, many of them half-baked and half-said.

"Don't worry, it's not uncommon. Most people don't let them socialize right away."

Then Skitter-Scamp stood. He wrinkled his nose, then turned and hobbled back to his plate of lettuce. He took a few large chunks in his mouth, then brought it back to the little circle. The others followed his lead until there was a salad of odds and ends in the middle of the table. They then began to feast.

"This is adorable!" Elvia gasped quietly. "It's a tiny ball of munching!"

"They're social creatures," Zach explained. "And sometimes they mimic us."

"That's so cute!" Elvia fawned.

"Stole my sausage," Sean muttered with a hint of bitterness.

"Can Skitter-Scamp and other Familiars like him eat sausage?" Kyle asked Zach.

"Sure. They're not like real animals, but usually they act like it. It's not going to hurt them."

"So a dog Familiar can eat chocolate?" Sean chimed.

"Technically yes," Zach replied somewhat quickly. "But people still don't usually feed their dog Familiars chocolate out of force of habit. Don't worry though, you can't poison the little guy."

"That's a relief," Elvia sighed. "I'm very accident-prone."

"Yeah don't worry." Zach took a sip of his juice. "They don't die until you die."

Everyone halted where they were, some mid-chew, some with food half-way in their mouths. "Well that's... morbid," Aoife droned.

Zach nodded. "Yeah. Luckily most go out naturally."

"Most?" Sean echoed uncomfortably.

Zach looked a bit uncomfortable. "Yeah. Should've let you learn that on your own."

The others exchanged glances with each other. "I don't know if I'm going to like this," Elvia moaned.

Zach swallowed his nerves, then assured her, "Everyone's nervous at first, but you learn to love it."

"That's a relief," Nixie sighed before taking a sip of her water.

Then the walls began to shake, and the loud sounds of the schoolbell came through as a very muffled sound that students who were hard of hearing were unable to notice. Many students stood and gathered their dishes, then moved towards trash bins and counters with all kinds of characters and phrases above them, one of which read "Dish Return". The group collected their Familiars, then rose and headed towards the dish return, scarfing down what remained on their plates as they went. They set their plates on the counter and headed towards the exit along with the crowds of other students. At some point, Zach, Nixie, and Sean found themselves separated from the rest of their group.

"You call that a relief?" Sean half-gasped, half-laughed as he recalled what Nixie had said. "Relief is when you forget to do your homework but then find out your teacher won't be collecting it, or when you get to the bathroom just before you pee yourself."

"What else was I supposed to say?" Nixie hissed. "'Nah, Zach, we're totally stoked to die!' or something like that?"

Sean groaned. "Yeah, it is tricky I guess. But I wouldn't call it relief."

There was a brief moment where no one spoke, so Kyle took this as an opportunity to ask, "Where do we go now?"

Sean and Nixie exchanged glances, then looked back at Kyle. "Mr. Raz's, I think," Nixie told him. "Even if it's not time for class, if we find him he should be able to tell us when it is."

So the group climbed the stairs until they reached the ground level, then shuffled through the doorway with the groups of students heading off for classes or to visit friends from other schools. Somewhere just outside they bumped into Elvia, who looked rather anxious.

"Can we wait for the others?" she pleaded.

"Aoife's probably stuck with Asim," Kyle said as if he felt he had to persuade Sean and Nixie.

"And no one should have to suffer through that," Sean shuddered.

"We'll wait," Nixie decided, "but hopefully that doesn't mean being late for class."

Sure enough, about thirty seconds later Aoife and Asim pushed themselves through the crowd. Asim's mouth was moving so quickly it was practically a blur, and Aoife looked as though she was about to fall asleep.

"Aoife! Asim!" Nixie called out, waving.

Aoife looked relieved and Asim looked disappointed. She broke out into a light jog towards the group, and he followed a few paces behind.

"Do either of you two know when class is?" Aoife asked.

Asim stared off into space for a moment, then replied, "I'm not sure, but I don't think it would be immediately after breakfast."

"Let's go see anyway," Aoife suggested. "Couldn't hurt!"

Asim shrugged. "Sure, let's go."