Mena, May and Janus snuck to the edge of the darkest, dingiest corridor in the school. Unlike the rest of the Dream Castle, the hallway for the Detention Block was ill cared for. The frosty clear blue of the rest of the building was instead a musty brown and it smelled like mildew and children's tears. According to Janus, the only people Gemini ever put in this hallway were the most violent, and sociopathic children in the school's history.

Mena frowned. If Ashlan was truly possessed, she didn't deserve to be here.

Room 102 was at the end of the hallway and it was guarded by more of those new fangled eye robots. Mena hated them because they were so much harder to fool than an average donut nourished guard.

"Drat rats!" Mena whispered. "Heavily guarded indeed. The first time those Tessellations were right about anything."

"How in Dula are we ever going to get the edge on them," May blubbered. "They got eyes in the back of their...eyes."

Janus was silent but there was a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Maybe...we can catch em off guard and blast em!"

"But how?!" Mena and May both asked.

"I know…" Janus said, pointing at her eye. "Or should I say EYE KNOW!"

Without warning Janus popped her eye out of her skull like a comedian skeleton.

She levitated it up in the air. It was perfectly spherical with a lovely purple tint in the iris.

"Eye think I'm going to be sick!" May said her face turning a putrid shade of green but Janus shushed her.

"Get ready to blast them!" The now cyclops Janus said as she hovered her eye out into the hallway.

The eye robots immediately focused on to Janus' wayward eyeball with their laser targeted eyesight.

At first, Janus was silent but then, in her most flightiest voice, she said, "Oh dear, eye seem to be lost! If only i had a nice strong pair of eyes to be my guide. I would love to be their pupil."

Janus gave a ditzy giggle and the robots looked at each other. Their pupils changed to the shape of hearts and they both said in their robotic voices, "HUBBA HUBBA!"

They zoomed straight around the corridor as Janus pulled her eye back to her. As soon as they turned the corner, Mena and May unleashed a hail of firework spells and blasted the robots. They immediately dropped to the ground, disabled.

As Janus popped her eye back in, she turned around and giggled. Once it was back in,she spun back and gave her friends a wink. "It seems that love truly makes you blind!"

Mena and May gave Janis a high bone and together they rushed to save Ashlan.

Ashlan reclined in a fetal position in a cobweb covered classroom. Everything from the desks to the blackboard to the bookshelves were all caked in dust. Immediately, Mena was consumed with guilt when she saw the pale shadow of her once boisterous roommate.

"Mena…" Ashlan said with a sad look on her face. "Why are you here?"

"Ashlan…" Mena said very sternly. "You must tell us the truth...did you stab Tal?"

Ashlan buried her face in her hands, shaking her head sadly. "Why does nobody believe me. I didn't do it. I completely blacked out."

"You don't remember anything?" May asked cautiously.

"I have no memory of the event…" the lioness said with resignation. "I wish somebody believed me…"

Mena frowned and her eyes softened as tears fell from the lioness' eyes. "Ashlan, we want to help you but you have to remember what happened."

Ashlan looked up, her emerald green eyes sparkling from the tears. She really looked quite comely when she was humbled, Mena thought.

"I don't…remember…" Ashlan said sadly.

Mena looked at her friends. She whispered low. "So Ashlan had no memory about what happened… not sure what we can do about that."

May rubbed her round chin. "You know, Mena. You and I were helping someone get their memory back recently. Professor Apo Carrie could brew us up a memory potion!"

Mena patted her friend on the back. "May, you've obviously been drinking a genius potion because that's brilliant!"

Mena seized Ashlan's hand. "Ash, come with us, we're going to get your memory back!"

Before Ashlan could answer, Mena seized her hand and dragged her off to Apo Carrie's dungeon.

***

"Absolutely not," said the gopher faced professor. "I will not brew you a memory potion."

"Why not?" Mena whined.

The gopher man's eyes bulged from behind his glasses. "You got me a faulty fishysuaz. One that doesn't lay eggs."

"Gee," Janus muttered. "Just because she won't lay eggs for you doesn't mean she's faulty. How chauvinistic."

The gopher man sighed. "I had such high hopes I'd finally get my mother's caviar delicacy once again but nope nada. So you won't get your potion."

"Please?" Mena begged.

"There are many magic words in this school," Carrie said, "and those absolutely won't work. The only one who probably has any potion left is that roly poly fish head herself."

Mena sighed as she saw Ashlan's helpless expression. There was only one last person they could turn to, and it was the fish lady she had scorned badly.

***

The four arrived in Scalia's classroom. She had her head in the bucket again, but when she removed her head, her eyes glared daggers at Mena.

"What do you want?" Scalia demanded.

"Scalia," Mena said. "Please can you help us?"

"Like you didn't help me?" Scalia responded glaring through her glasses

"Please…" Mena begged. "There could be an innocent life on the line."

Scalia's eyes widened. "What is it? What's going on?"

Mena proceeded to explain what happened at the play and what happened with Ashlan. As she did, the fishysauz' head nervously darted to Ashlan in alarm.

"I should report you," Scalia scolded Mena, "What if you're letting a stab happy sociopath romp through the school with you! So what if she doesn't remember? Haven't you ever heard of the Sleepwalking Stabber of 69?"

Mena looked at her ex roommate's face. Hot tears poured down Ashlan's face. Her lips wobbled and she hid her face from Scalia's pointed words.

Mena took a deep breath and said at last, "I've known Ashlan for two and a half years and she NEVER did anything like that. She may be bossy and snobby but she's not a killer lion."

Aslan let out a croak from her trembling lips, "Thank you Mena."

"Ashlan is innocent until proven guilty," Mena smiled. "That's how law works! Or so I think."

Scalia let out a soft sigh before she hardened herself again. "That's nice and all...but you still hooked me up with a rotten creep who wants to exploit me."

Mena faced Scalia. She looked her square in the eye and spoke person to person, "Scalia, I wanted to get you that memory potion so bad that I didn't think of the cost. But we can report Professor Apo Carrie for exploiting you and harassing you."

Janus giggled. "Our current headmistress has a degree in handling creeps like him. Once Stellaris is finished, he'll be making potions for you out of the goodness of his own heart….or it will be the unemployment line for him!"

Scalia beamed. "Good because I want to have good memory again, without wanting to forget what it took to get there."

Mena took Scalia's fin. "Professor Trident, I want to apologize to you because youre a really cool nice professor and you don't smell like pickled beets. Or make us run laps until our gym socks stink til next week. I only wanted to help you."

Scalia was silent. She looked beneath her desk. She removed the final jar of memory potion from her drawer. "Apology accepted," the fishysauz said.

She handed Mena the jar with a bittersweet expression.

"I don't want to go back to forgetting again," Scalia said. "Because I want to remember how I had such nice students who wanted to help a poor old smelly fish lady like me."

"Professor" Mena said, refusing to lose her grip on fish professor's fins. "You won't. I'll make sure you don't forget us."

Scalia smiled warmly at Mena for the first time in a long while. But the moment of kindness shattered by a harsh shout, "Zee I told you teacha. The peasants broke Ashlan out of the detention hall."

Mena turned her head in horror as the Tessellation Twins stood with Electra, and several members of the Lollypop Security taskforce.

"Book her," Electra sneered. "That lion is going back to the cage she came from."