Depression and Digression

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*Full episode list: List of Magical Monster High School Drama! episodes*

This page is about the thirteenth episode of Magical Monster High School Drama! It was released on May 25th, 2017. The story for this episode begins directly after the events of So This Is How It Feels, wherein Sashi was finally forced to reveal to Zeroeth how much she had done to make the dragon suffer. Understandably furious, Zero attempted to kill the kitsune, but failed miserably to even scratch Sashi, tired herself out, and fell unconscious.

## Production

The episode was written by Terry H and features the voices of Kitto M and George H-S. The episode is notable for featuring only two characters from the main cast, and is considered by some to be a filler episode.

## Plot

Friday, Zero wakes in the infirmary to the voice of a newly employed nurse: “Nurse McFee”. Oblivious to this individual’s unsettling smile as she mentions Sashi, Zeroeth discharges herself from the infirmary. She leaves to her plane and violently slaughters all but five of the kobolds there. Their resistance is pitiful, and the remaining reptilians are left mentally scarred. She does not feel any better.

After classes(PE), Zero takes Rowan aside, seeming frustrated. Rowan tells her about Sashi, and Zero halts them, saying that she already knows, and explaining what happened in limbo. She asks them if they know any way that she can restore her hoard to gold, and Rowan directs her to the third floor of the Wizard’s Guild. They ask Zero if she would like to come to dinner later that evening, and the dragon accepts, then leaves.

She strides into the guild’s third floor and locates the old men who discovered the formula. She explains her situation to them and they go pale, thinking from looking at her that if she finds out they were responsible for giving Sashi the information, they might get hurt. As such, they bow to her demands to use their services on her now leaden hoard, and accompany her back to her dorm room. There, she shows them the gigantic slab of hardened lead, and their faces fall. They explain, hesitantly, that the lead to gold process they perfected will not work on such a large mass of lead, in fact, in testing, they only transformed 100g of material at once. This is going to take an extremely long time. They take away the bulk of the lead through a dimensional portal, and turn the thin layer of lead covering the floor of her apartment to gold as a demonstration.

Meanwhile, Rowan seeks out Dimitri Grimoré. He finds the vampire at his apartment, and is invited inside. Dimitri tells Rowan that his prinny has been misbehaving, then explains that a prinny is a human soul trapped within a doll. These living dolls are created by vampires so that humans who misbehave may work for eternity. Dimitri quickly explains that he did not create his prinny personally, rather he rescued the creature, who is now his butler. Rowan then tells Dimitri that they are here on DC business, and ask the vampire for their help catching a peeping tom. Dimitri is glad to offer his assistance, and the pair go to the girl’s baths. Dimitri fails to scent any males among the female smells in the baths, so Rowan transforms into Promethia, surprising Dimitri slightly.

Promethia ventures into the bathrooms alone and begins stripping, catching the attention of Nikkie. The goddess tells Nikkie to feel her breasts, and this activity seems to cause a rattling in a nearby locker. Promethia immediately breaks off the fondling, telling Nikkie that she was just bait, and opens this locker. Inside is a large, white rat. She portals the creature to Las Vegas, then follows after it. At first the rat speaks common, but then it abruptly becomes quiet and more animal-like as a mage possessing it leaves. Promethia morphs back into Rowan, they tame the animal, then leave back outside the baths. They tell Dimitri what happened, and the vampire recommends checking the school systems for a pet register of students. Rowan agrees that this would be a good idea, and the two part ways.

At the DC tower, Rowan finds eight white rats total on campus: three belonging to Lara of the science faculty; three are registered to various members of the arcana society, two of which specialising in divination; one to a dean; and one to “Tiaru”. They rule out Tiaru as a culprit when they see that her age is twelve, then they cage the rat and leave it in their apartment. Rowan then begins to explore the science faculties. He finds two rats, three cages, and thinks that they may have found his suspect, but then Lara appears with the third rat, and they leave. Next they return to their room to find the rat gone. They cannot find the creature anywhere within their apartment, even after assuming cat form.

They transform back into Quentin and begin cooking for Zero, as he had promised to have her over for dinner. Still getting used to his prosthetic hand, is cooking is slightly off, but still delicious. Zero seems to feel slightly better after this meal, and she remarks that Quentin should teach her own cooks some recipes. He says that he would like that, and invites her to dinner the next evening also, as he needs the practice. She asks about the cats in his private planes during the meal, and he answers that they were not his, but Rosalie’s. He takes antidepressants, Zero leaves, and they sleep.

The next morning, Rowan and Zero attend classes. Sashi and Akio are both nowhere to be seen. After lessons, Quentin goes to counselling with Dr. Hans and Zero goes to the DC tower. She asks whether her tail cuff might be removed, as Sashi provoked her. Kimberly says no, considering that the dragon did still cause all that damage. Zero asks about DC tryouts, and receives the answer that they are this Monday. Finally, she asks if they have the Sword of Aria, and whether she can have it back. She can, but she must fill out paperwork. As she is filling out forms, Rowan enters the tower and checks the surveillance of their room.

The footage shows a monkey entering their room and removing the rat from its cage, so Rowan looks up monkey owners - there are two, and cross references with the rat owners. No students own both a rat and a monkey, but one of the monkey owners, Gary would have been in contact with one of the rat owners, Jerry, as they are both in the divination department. Rowan returns to Zero and helps her with her paperwork, putting their signature as a DC member to it, and she finally regains the golden sword, now empty of any spirit.

Rowan heads to Gary’s room and knocks. Gary seems apprehensive of a DC member, but follows them to Jerry’s room. Receiving no answer to their knock, Rowan forces the door. Inside, they find a male student gagged and tied to the bed. Behind them, Gary takes a length of wood and attempts to break it over Rowan’s head. Rowan catches this out of the corner of their eye and sidesteps, then shakes their head. Gary runs. Rowan raises their wand and shoots the fleeing student with holy light, stopping him in his tracks and knocking Gary unconscious.

After this, Rowan takes the sock from Jerry’s mouth and asks him what happened. Jerry tells them that Gary, Wilbur and Jasper tied him up and stole his rat, Binky. Rowan unties him and tells Jerry to go to the infirmary, then takes Gary to the DC tower. They use the systems there to log Gary’s crimes, then go after Wilbur and Jasper. They find the two playing pool, and order them to accompany Rowan to the tower. Wilbur runs, but Rowan trips him and knocks him out. Jasper does not resist after this, and helps Rowan to carry Wilbur to the DC Tower.

With that case solved, Rowan returns home, transforms into Quentin, and cooks. He then invites Zeroeth over again, and they talk over dinner. Zero tells him about her recruitment of the wizards to restore her hoard, complaining that they insisted on taking a cut of the gold. She also tells him of her kobolds and their deaths at her hand. Quentin hides his disgust at her actions, and goes for a run after she leaves.

The next day, Sunday, Quentin devotes to learning from books he borrowed from the school library. Zeroeth returns to her plane to terrorise the five remaining kobolds. Three of them are catatonic and seem to have lost all interest in the world; two of them are now terrified of everything. In the evening, Zero once more goes to Quentin's apartment for dinner. Also during this day, the DC finally installed security and survaillance in Zero's room, though they left Sashi's anti teleport wards in place. After dinner and a run, Quentin knocks on the dragon's door and tells her that he will soon be leaving Class 1E. Rowan intends to begin a new class in order to be a class representitive.

Monday, Rowan sets about doing just that. They are assigned an art teacher called Madam Bonnie, and Class 1F is created. Rowan is the only student. In the evening, Rowan attends a Student Council meeting and brings to light the flaw in wards of at least one school bathroom that allowed Gary to scry it through an animal. Meanwhile, Zero prepares for the DC tryouts at the same time. She visits the DC Tower first and asks to have the spell that restricts her dragon form on this plane temporarily removed for the tryouts, as she has head that they involve combat. Kimberly grants this request, after snidely commenting that she thought the dragon had some pride.

The time comes for the tryouts to begin, and Zero enters with confidence, resplendant in her true form, with her true size. Her opponent is a person in a metallic suit of armour that can fly using energy blasts, who had fought both Akio and Rowan in their respective duels. They circle each other, then the iron man blasts into the air, swoops, and sears the dragon's face with exhaust energy. Zero shakes her head, a scar of exposed, cauterised flesh across her forehead. She roars and leaps forward to grab him in her mouth, but he wriggles free, raises his hands and uses his energy weapons point blank. The blast obliterates the soft scales of the dragon's throat and pierces a cauterised hole straight to the bone. Zero gasps, a gaping wound cutting her supply of blood to the brain. She staggers and falls, unconscious and slowly dying, and is carted off to the infirmary. She wakes and leaves the hospital still severely injured, waved off by Nurse McFee. With a grim expression, she arrives at Quentin's apartment for their now almost routine evening meal. Through the meal she is solomn, and she recounts her tryouts bitterly.

Tuesday, classes begin. Rowan, still alone in Class 1F, begins to seriously regret their decision to create a new class as Madam Bonnie spouts artistic drival at them. In Mr Vyager's class, Zero ignores a lecture on the biology of tentacle monsters while inwardly hating herself. Sashi and Akio are still absent.

After classes, Rowan returns to dealing with DC quests, accompanied by Dimitri. Next on their list is a dispute over an AI, Jesebel, owned by a guild in the robotics department. The guild is dissolving. Tim, the person who created the AI; and Clarence, its pilot, both claim ownership. Tim wants to use the learning AI to sort his stamp collection, with his claim being that he wrote the program; while Clarence considers this inhuman and argues that as he taught the AI and flew with her for so long, he deserves to keep this beautiful being. At first, Rowan sides with Tim, but after speaking with Jesebel, they give the case to the pilot. They rule that as the AI appears to be a thinking, feeling entity, she will be her own being, with Clarence as her guardian. After all, a much simpler AI would be several times more efficient at sorting stamps. Tim vows to complain to the DC about the resolution of this dispute.

Next on the list is the illegal duels hosted by the Pet Monster Society. On the way, Rowan tells Dimitri how their last quest eventually went, and Dimitri tells Rowan about troubles with his parents. His parents did not agree to him leaving to attend the School, and they want him back. This has made travel to his own plane impossible for the time being. The pair arrive at at the society just as some sort of meeting is finishing. The room is filled with adolescant boys, and every member has a familiar following behind. Some are overly proportioned females of the huminoid variety, some are more monstrous, while many are much cuter. Most are miniturised.

Rowan questions the society head on why they are hosting duels without a member of the DC present to officiate. The head, Mikarl explains that a long standing member of the society who was also part of the DC used to officiate, but that person has now left. He also clarifies that the society is an umbrella society, and the main offenders are in fact subgroups. Rowan offers to officiate temporarily on their main meeting day, Tuesday, and to ask for someone to take a second day. They warn that if any of the subgroups continue to offend, they will be forced to shut the entire society down, despite its umbrella nature. They recommend turning the subgroups, such as the Mecha Battle Girls Division, into their own clubs if Mikarl cannot control them. Mikarl thanks them and agrees.