A/N: I'm an avid fan of the Borderlands series. As I played through Borderlands 2 I couldn't help but wonder about the backstory of certain characters. This is my interpretation of one in particular, Michael Mamaril.
For those of you who don't know this character; Michael Mamaril is a Vault Hunter much like the main characters of Borderlands 2. Every time you visit Sanctuary there is a one in ten chance you will find him at any of ten locations in the city. Talk to him and he'll give you a free weapon, shield, or grenade mod, all of each will always be of blue rarity or higher.
The backstory of Michael, however, is a bit more sad than many of you may be aware. Michael Mamaril came to be when a Borderlands fan named Michael John Mamaril passed away in October of 2011. Michael's friend Carlo sent Gearbox an e-mail asking that they give him a short eulogy. He got that and more when Gearbox got the voice of Claptrap, David Eddings, to give the eulogy, both in and out of character, as well as promising to include Michael in the game as a tribute to his memory. And thus the Vault Hunter Michael Mamaril was born.
This one-shot is mostly my attempt to give the in-game Michael a backstory of his own.
This story takes place around the time the six main Vault Hunters reach Sanctuary for the first time.
Disclaimer: Borderlands 2 is the property of Gearbox. I own nothing.
-Story Begin-
'Pandora is a hell-hole,' Thought a man as he trekked through the Three Horns area, slowly making his way towards Sanctuary, a small bandit town in flames behind him.
After roughly two weeks on this god-forsaken spit of rock on the very edge of civilized space; hell-hole was the only term the man could possibly use to describe it.
He was tall, around six feet or so in his mid-twenties. He wore an orange shirt underneath a red cargo vest, along with a set of goggles on his face. His pants and shoes were stained bloody red in spots from his travels through the hostile planet of Pandora. His name was Michael Mamaril, and he was a Vault Hunter.
Walking along the dilapidated road, he reveled in the brief period of silence and peace. Times like these, he quickly discovered, were rare on Pandora; the voracious wildlife and psychotic bandits turned every step into a fight for your very life.
Not knowing when he would get another peaceful moment, and still about an hour away from Sanctuary, he decided to take a quick break to organize all the loot he had claimed from his latest excursion into bandit territory.
He saw a large, relatively flat rock off the side of the road, sat down and booted up his SDU's inventory function. A blue and white holographic display popped up in front of him and he began sifting through all the loot he had obtained from his most recent bandit raid.
As he scrolled through the lists he couldn't help but grin lightly. It was almost all generic green or white classified shit. Nothing in here that was better than what he currently had, and selling it wouldn't net him much either. But for a pragmatic guy like him there was always the third option. He marked each of the weapons of green quality or lower before he reached down, and pressed a small button on his SDU, activating an aftermarket modification he'd picked up from a friend employed by the Vladof corporation.
He watched as the program did it's stuff. It analyzed each and every marked weapon before breaking them down into their component parts. Once that was finished he looked at his inventory once again, seeing what was left.
The rest of the loot was considerably more noteworthy. A dozen or so blues He would be able to use those. No purples. Unfortunate but understandable. It was no big loss, though; he already had a few of those stashed at his place in Sanctuary already. But the true gem of the day rested in the second slot from the top: an incendiary e-tech blaster made by the Dahl corporation. All in all, a good haul for about half a day's work.
Smiling to himself, he closed the inventory menu and set off once again towards Sanctuary, almost giddy with the thoughts of what kind of tests he'd be able to run when he got back.
-Sanctuary: one hour later-
One long walk later found Michael in his Sanctuary...home was a bit strong of a word. Hovel! That's it, His place of residence was a hovel, a small cramped space with litter and debris all over the place no matter how much he tried to keep it clean.
Right now, however, he chose to ignore the garbage on the floor and instead moved to the one of the few clean spots inside, his workbench.
Actually, workbench was a bit of a misleading term. In this day and age of digital construction technology, his workbench could actually be likened more to several computers hooked up to a holographic imaging system and a portable digistructor. His system was one of the few things he brought with him to Pandora after leaving New Elektrozavodsk.
He smiled as he sat down and powered up his system, plugged in the SDU containing his newest acquisitions, cracked his fingers and got right to work.
-Three hours later-
Michael bit back a yawn as he came to the last of his newest weapons, and his progress promptly came to a grinding halt.
It was a Vladof assault rifle, classified as blue rarity. A few more button presses and the holographic imager produced a life size image a well as listing off it's parts.
Vladof Angry Guerrilla:
Classification: Blue
Body: Vladof
Barrel: Jakobs
Grip: Vladof
Stock: Torgue
Sight: Dahl
Accessory: N/A
Element: N/A
Michael leaned back and frowned. What a mishmash of parts this one was. He put a hand to his chin, thinking of how best to improve the design. As he was thinking his eyes flicked back to his inventory list on another screen and took a look at the weapon at the very top, his prized possession, a Vladof Shredifier.
It was a memento from his father, and he tended to look at it whenever he needed inspiration. To him, it was ballistic perfection, it's patented Vladof minigun barrel capable of emptying it's massive 110 round magazine in less than thirty seconds, turning anything unlucky enough to be in its way into a red mist.
Looking at it also reminded him of why he was here on this world in the first place.
He thought back to his childhood, where it was just him and his dad, his mother having passed not long after he was born. His father was one of the best gunsmiths in the six galaxies (or so he often liked to boast) and even helped to develop and perfect Vladof's new Gatling barrel system giving Vladof weapons rates of fire above all others.
He remembered how, as a kid, his father would bring him into his personal workshop and teach him everything he knew when it came to weapons. By the age of eight Michael could successfully identify every part of a gun right down to who manufactured it. By age ten he could take apart any weapon by hand and rebuild it from memory. By age fifteen he was taking weapons apart and modifying them with all the skill of a professional.
He loved those years he spent with his father in their workshop, building, creating; it was his passion and he wanted nothing more than to one day be a great gunsmith just like his dad. He remembered getting the Shredifier he now possessed on his eighteenth birthday. The Shredifier was his dad's magnum opus, the combination of years of trial and error to create a gun that was less of an assault rifle and more of a lightweight, portable minigun, capable of laying down a storm of bullets on it's enemies.
It was a beautiful weapon, almost all of it's parts were of Vladof's highest quality, with the exception of the gun's stock, which was produced by Dahl; it was a strange choice, but his father insisted on it as a way to reduce to the massive amount of recoil the weapon produced when fired continuously.
It was also the last gift he ever got from his father...
It all really began five years ago with the opening of the mythical Vault. Everyone in the six galaxies at large was told that Handsome Jack was the one to do so and had slayed the abomination inside, though Michael had learned differently since arriving on Pandora. Not long after that, the Hyperion corporation began licensing the use of a brand new kind of weapons technology they called E-tech. Using Eridium discovered on Pandora to augment weapon designs, allowed for weapons to transform their ammunition from ballistic projectiles to energy bolts.
It was revolutionary, the energy projectiles behaved so differently from bullets, allowing the projectiles to bounce, explode and even improve elemental effects. Unfortunately it came at the cost of the weapons using more ammo, but most agreed that such drawbacks were negligible.
His father was particularly interested in the technology, mostly seeing it as Handsome Jack directly challenging the skills of gunsmiths everywhere. Rising to the challenge his father began experimenting with E-tech, trying to utilize it in ways Handsome Jack couldn't even dream of. He threw himself into his work, attempting to merge E-tech with his own Gatling barrel system to create a weapon that could fire an entire storm of energy projectiles.
That was when it happened. It was the test of the first prototype Gatling E-tech blaster and it went off with a literal bang! In order for the E-tech Gatling barrel to function his dad was forced to discard the E-tech fins that would normally have been located along the barrel of the weapon. This had the unfortunate side-effect of preventing the weapon from venting all of it's excess heat and energy, the gun was building up more energy than it was releasing and it eventually caused a massive explosion. The failure of the prototype took out the entire testing area and adjacent observation room, killing several scientists including his father.
Everything following that was blur to him. He vaguely remembered a funeral, many tears being shed, and spending the following days inside him and his dad's—no, it was his workshop now-trying to do something, anything, but the inspiration and motivation just wouldn't come.
Eventually, after several weeks of not being able to work, he had an epiphany. A new spark set his imagination aflame. He first decided to sell his and his father's older designs, both as a way of getting rid of some emotional baggage and raising money for his new project. He went down to the slums of his home and located a local black market weapons dealer on whom he unloaded all the completed weapons and designs he had, saving only the Shredifier.
The sales netted him an impressive amount of money, his father's work still being in high demand, and used it to start buying E-tech weapons, as many as he could afford, plus large quantities of high quality parts. The last thing he needed was refined Eridium, which was much harder to obtain due to Hyperion's stranglehold on the supplies, but a few well placed bribes netted him a small amount for his purposes.
He brought all of his purchases back to his workshop and got straight to work. He knew what he was going to do now, his dream to be great like his father was still there, but he now knew exactly how he was going to go about it. He was going to master E-tech, and make the greatest energy weapons in the six galaxies.
The next few months were spent disassembling, cataloging, and re-assembling each E-tech weapon he had purchased. In that time he learned not only how they functioned, but began to formulate his own plans for future E-tech guns. Eridium, as it turned out, was akin to pure solidified energy. That property allowed the weapons equipped with E-tech to defy certain laws of physics, turning projectiles into pure energy. Working from there he began alpha work on systems that could transform the projectiles into something else entirely.
Unfortunately, all of his experimentation and research cost money, and after selling all of his and his father's old designs he was forced to start building and modifying weapons for sale. The Valdof corporation was sympathetic to his situation after the death of his father but refused to hire an untested gunsmith for the level of pay he needed for his research. So he turned to the black market once again, modifying weapons for much larger pay than Vladof would offer.
This continued for over four years, until he hit a wall in the form Vladof internal affairs finding out he had been modifying many of their weapons and violating several highly valuable copyrights in the process. Apparently, one of his usual customers tipped them off for a hefty payday. Vladof, like any of the other mega-corps, dealt with copyright violations...harshly. He couldn't remain on his homeworld, or he'd be hunted down and killed. Luckily, he had prepared in the event he was forced to leave his home suddenly and even knew exactly where he would be going.
Pandora.
The birthplace of E-tech, and the largest source of Eridium anywhere in the known universe, and it was out in the borderlands of colonization, only Hyperion held any significant sway there. It also helped that not one week prior Handsome Jack announced the presence of a second Vault somewhere on the planet, and issued an intergalactic message for all Vault Hunters to come and try to find it.
He was on the first shuttle out.
Once he finally arrived it was relatively smooth sailing...aside from the ambush on the train, but compared to what he'd been through beforehand a group of loaders and an exploding train were child's play.
Everything after that just seemed to fly by, he remembered meeting a guy called Hammerlock in Liar's Burg, a decent guy, all things considered, especially when taken in the context of Pandora's typical inhabitants. He also remembered stealing a boat from the local bandit clan and using it to get to Sanctuary, and from there meeting Roland, the leader of the Crimson Raiders and one of the four Vault Hunters that he now knew were truly responsible for opening the Vault.
Which brought him back to the present. He blinked and stared at the assault rifle schematic once more before setting to work with a grin on his face, fresh with ideas after his trip down memory lane.
He leaned forward and set to work. Using the holographic interface, he separated the assault rifle into it's basic parts. He then brought out another SDU, plugged it into his rig and opened it, bringing up a long list of individual weapon parts, the remains of weapons he couldn't use and were subsequently disassembled.
With practiced hands he opened a third window containing various statistics related to the weapon and began picking parts out of the list and swapping them with the parts of the assault rifle, comparing their effects, and occasionally re-swapping a part out that didn't fit with his new vision.
About half-an-hour later found him staring at a brand new assault rifle, a smug look adorning his face.
Vladof Resolute Minigun:
Classification: Blue
Body: Vladof
Barrel: Vladof Minigun
Grip: Vladof
Stock: Dahl
Sight: Jakobs
Accessory: Stability
Element: Incendiary
He sat there for a moment, giving his newest creation a final once over. Once he was finished with that he shut down the system and ejected the SDU containing the newly upgraded weapons and left his home heading straight for Marcus's shop, eager to sell some of his newest designs.
As he neared the entrance to the shop he paused as he saw Dr. Zed exit with some poor sod on a gurney. He looked fairly young with a blonde mohawk, and it appeared that he had been shot in the knee.
He nodded to Dr. Zed in greeting as he turned his attention to the wound in question. It was pretty gruesome, kid was lucky he his leg hadn't been completely blown off, but these sorts of wounds were common on a planet where the first law was "Shoot first, and fuck the questions!"
'Shot clean through, single bullet, high power. Definitely a pistol, most likely a Jakobs. Poor bastard.' He thought as he turned back to Zed.
"Tried to get a refund from Marcus?" He asked, though he was fairly certain what the answer would be.
Dr. Zed could only nod. "Yup," he answered.
Michael could only sigh and shake his head as he moved around the gurney and proceeded into Marcus's store. Poor kid was probably gonna loose that leg anyways, the kneecap was almost completely gone along with most of the joint; hopefully he learned a valuable lesson or two from the experience, chief of which being when Marcus Kincaid says "No refunds!" he means it.
As he came to the counter he was surprised to find that Marcus was not behind it. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, it wasn't often that Marcus stepped out from behind his little safety net.
As he was contemplating what could have drawn Marcus away from his precious store, he heard the telltale sounds of gunfire emanating from the shooting range next door.
There he saw Marcus, along with a group of six people he didn't recognize, test firing weapons on some of Marcus's "practice dummies". "Practice dummies" being Marcus's term for live bandits and Hyperion agents. Marcus appeared to be lecturing them on the properties and uses of elemental weapons, it was useful info for anyone new on Pandora so Michael opted to not interrupt and instead leaned up against the wall near the door and observed the six newcomers.
One of them appeared to be a soldier, decked out in combat fatigues with officers bars attached to his forehead for some reason.
The one next to him was a short, very hairy man in an orange shirt with muscles that looked freakishly huge on his stout frame.
Another was a woman with blue hair and a yellow shirt with tattoos crisscrossing her left arm.
It wasn't until he took a look at the fourth member of the group, a slender individual encased completely in some form of bodysuit and helmet, that he realized that he had seen them all before on the wanted posters attached to the front of the news ECHO stall. Each of them had large, almost obscene bounties on their heads and if rumors were true, they were also Vault Hunters just like him.
The one in the fatigues was Axton, and ex-Dahl commando wanted for several unspecified war crimes.
The short one was Salvador, a Pandoran native with a list of felonies almost as long as he was tall.
The one in the helmet was Zer0, a notorious assassin that never showed his face and spoke only in haiku.
The kid in front, who looked no older than sixteen, with with red hair tied in pigtails had to be Gaige. She was wanted for her unauthorized technology and murder of all things. The murder charge was odd in his mind, and looking at how uncomfortable she looked firing at the live targets Marcus kept around further reinforced that notion.
Then there was the tallest member of the group, shirtless and lanky with a mask covering his face like most psychos on Pandora. He was Krieg, and his only crime was that he was apparently "Property of Hyperion", which meant he was damned lucky to not be dead right now, though the loss of his mind may cause others to disagree.
This meant that the sixth and final member of their group, and oddest in Michael's opinion, was Maya, an actual Siren. He'd heard about them from all over the ECHOnet, special women that possessed incredible reality-bending powers. He'd never thought he'd live to see one up close...it helped that she was really easy on the eyes.
As he finished his observations of the group, they appeared to finish their practice with the elemental weapons and began to file out. Most of them nodded to Michael in greeting before exiting, except for Krieg who just growled at him.
After they all left he proceeded to walk up to Marcus, who greeted him with his usual enthusiasm. "Ah! Michael Mamaril! Come, come, what can I do for you today!"
Michael smirked and brought out the SDU that contained his newest weapons. "Got a few designs to sell, if you're interested." He said.
Marcus's face broke out into his typical business grin. "I'm always interested in your weapons my boy. In all my years on this planet, never have I seen craftsmanship like yours. Your creations are becoming quite the hot commodity, eh?"
"Heh, if you say so." Michael laughed as he and Marcus made their way to the store proper to take care of their business transaction.
Once he and Marcus were on their respective sides of the counter Michael slid the SDU underneath the bars, where Marcus plugged it into his own computer and brought up a list of the weapons inside.
As Marcus began to sift through the various guns his smile growing with every one, Michael tried to start up a conversation with him. "So what are our newest Vault Hunters like?"
Marcus, immersed in the guns, didn't register the question immediately. "Eh, they're alright I suppose, they might have the best chance of surviving this planet and that fascist Jack. Except maybe the small one." He answered, eyes still on the guns.
"Salvador?" Michael questioned. That made absolutely no sense, the guy looked like he could wrestle and adult Bullymong and win.
The questioning response broke Marcus's concentration away from the list and he looked at Michael like he was crazy. "What? No. The other small one. The girl, what was her name..." He trailed off trying to recall the name.
"Gaige?" Micael supplied.
"Yes, that one. Puts on a strong face she does, with her smart-ass mouth, but I could see just how squeamish she was during that target practice. Heh! You should have seen her when I blasted some poor fools kneecap when he tried to scam me out of a refund. She looked ready to puke! Hahaha!" He laughed as he went back to the list.
Michael frowned at that. A girl her age shouldn't have to be on the run, and certainly shouldn't have to kill people to keep her own life. Life on Pandora was hard, it did things to people after enough time, made them forget how to empathize or sympathize. People like that wouldn't give a damn if Gaige got herself killed.
However, he hadn't been on Pandora nearly that long...
Quick as lighting his hand shot forward through the bars and halted the list on one particular selection. Marcus jumped back in surprise, but before he could pull his own gun Michael spoke. "Huh? Now how did that one get in there?" He asked himself.
His hand still on the list, he turned to Marcus. "Sorry Marcus, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask for this one back," He said calmly.
"What? Why?" asked Marcus.
"Well, I don't know how it happened, but somehow my rig put an incomplete weapon on this list." He said, pointing at the list. "You don't mind if I take that one back, right? Could be dangerous and bad for business." He emphasized.
"Eh, sure no problem. Just don't pull that kind of shit again if you value your life." Marcus warned.
"Heh heh heh. Sorry about that. I just get jumpy when people see my unfinished work." Michael said.
Marcus just gave him a look, before shrugging. "Whatever. Excluding the last one, I'd say you got about 70k worth of weaponry here, and don't try to haggle with me on this one, I'm in no mood." He said, with a frown and a glare.
Michael just put his hands out in front of him in a defensive gesture. "Sure. Sounds good to me. I'll just take the money and the weapon and be on my way."
Marcus began downloading the weapons from Michael's SDU to his own system while he transferred the money directly to Michael's account. With their transaction complete Michael took his SDU, still heavy one weapon, and left the shop with the ghost of a smile on his face.
Once he was out on the street, it only took a few minutes of searching before he spotted Gaige sitting on one of the benches around Sanctuary's central square. She still looked ill from the elemental weapons testing so he walked up to her slowly, afraid that any more excitement and she probably would puke.
She jumped slightly as he sat down next to her. "You alright? You're looking kinda sick." He said.
She frowned at him. "What's it to you pal?" She responded, getting defensive. When he didn't respond immediately, she looked closer at him and her eyes lit up in recognition. "Hey! You're that guy that was in Marcus's firing range!"
"That's me. I had a little business dealing with Marcus after you and your friends were done shooting off those elemental weapons," he said.
Her face got a little bit more green when he brought up the firing range. "Right...that. So what do you want?" She asked, some of the edge seeping out of her voice and being replaced by genuine curiosity.
He smiled at her, before pulling out his SDU. "I saw how uncomfortable you looked in there. You're not really used to shooting people are you?" He asked.
She shook her head. "No, most of the time I just rely on Deathtrap to take out the baddies for me. He's my little robotic killing machine. But I'm not used to the whole "pull the trigger and someone dies" thing," she explained.
Michael nodded. "Yeah, it's tough at first." He looked at her and patted her on the back. "Eventually you'll get used to it though. Just as long as you don't go psycho yourself," he joked at the end.
She giggled lightly at his joke, before getting serious once again. "That won't really happen will it?" She asked with genuine worry.
Michael shook his head. "Nah. It won't happen as long as you still have something that's important to you. As long as you still have something driving you along, you'll be alright."
She gave a relieved sigh before smiling at him. "Thanks. You're a pretty cool guy...uh," she trailed off.
"Michael. Michael Mamaril. I'm a Vault Hunter too," he said, offering his hand.
She took his hand and shook it with vigor. "Gaige. But most people call me "The Mechromancer"," she said with a cocky grin.
Michael chuckled along with her before getting up from the bench. "Well Gaige it's been nice talking with you but I kinda need to get going. I've got a few errands to run. I want you to take this though," he said while offering the SDU to her.
She stared at it for a moment before hesitantly taking it. "What is it?" She asked.
"Just a little something from one creator to another. I don't need it and I thought a fellow Vault Hunter could get some use out of it," he said before walking off.
"Wait!" He stopped and turned around when he heard her call. "Why me? Why give this to me?" She questioned, standing up from the bench.
"Because out of all the other Vault Hunters you look like you could use that the most," he said. "It can be pretty rough out here on Pandora. You need to hold onto your humanity as best as you can. That gun in there will help you do just that."
With that he turned and walked off leaving Gaige alone. She looked down at the SDU in her hands before plugging it into her digistructor. There was a flash of light, and a Vladof assault rifle appeared in her hands, she smiled as she read the name proudly displayed on her ECHO device:
Vladof Resolute Minigun
Gaige's smile widened and she offered a silent thanks to Michael as she caressed the weapon lovingly. "Don't worry baby. I'll take good care of you."
-Three Horns: thirty minutes later-
Michael smiled to himself as he once more trekked through Three Horns, this time however there was a little bit of cheer in his step. Helping Gaige the way he did felt surprisingly good. There wasn't enough altruism on Pandora. Everything on this planet happened at the whim of the greed of others.
He vowed early on that he wasn't going to be the same. There was no shame in helping others without expecting something in return. With that he got to thinking. He was an exceptional gunsmith, it wouldn't be hard to make a few weapons just to give away to people. He could help arm the Crimson Raiders and their Vault Hunter allies, and if he didn't charge for the weapons then hopefully Marcus wouldn't blow his kneecaps off. Honing his skills while helping the Raiders at the same time...he liked the sound of that.
So once more he set off for bandit country, looking for more materials to do his work. As he walked he began humming a little diddy he'd heard back on the train that brought him here. "...hmm hmm hmm hmm for no hero, hmm hmm hmm hmm for no better man..."
And with that a new legend was born on Pandora, of a lone Vault Hunter whose weapons were so powerful they could fell foes as mighty as Crawmerax Prime. Who willingly shared those weapons with those he deemed worthy.
And taking a cue from Gaige he had already picked out a title for himself. A title all of Pandora would one day know. His would be The Legend of Michael Mamaril, The Gunsmith.
-Story: End-
A/N:And there you have it everyone. What did you think?
I'm guessing a few of you are curious as to why I wrote this fic in the first place. Well, ever since I played Borderlands 2 and ran into Michael Mamaril I've been curious about him. We know why he's in the game, but beyond his habit of giving away great weapons we knew nothing about him. One day I just decided I wanted to give him a backstory and to do that I started looking at what we did know for certain about him:
1. He regularly displays any one of the five Legendary assault rifles on his back when he is encountered. For me the Shredifier was the most common. From there I started wondering where he got one and the idea that it was a gift from his father just sort of sprang from that.
2. Just how and why would he just give away such good equipment. My first thought: What if he made them? Pandora would be heaven for gunsmiths given what can be found there with enough patience. Him being a gunsmith just sort of fit.
3. Just about anyone who comes to Pandora has a criminal history of some kind. Going from my first two thoughts, I figured that fleeing from a weapons company for violating several of their copyrights by way of illegal weapon modification seemed incredibly plausible.
Working with this picture I also wanted to explain just why he felt the need to give out his weapons in the first place, starting with the very first time. He and Gaige actually share quite a bit in common. They're both creators, as I mentioned in the story, and they were both forced to flee their homes and come to Pandora. And Michael, being relatively young himself at 23, also relates to Gaige on the level of age as well.
Trivia:
1. The title of this story is taken directly from the trophy/achievement that you get when you claim a weapon from Michael for the first time.
2. Michael's last line of dialogue in his and Gaige's conversation was taken from one of the friendly NPC knights in the Tiny Tina DLC.
3. Since all of the other Vault Hunters got badass titles it's only fair that Michael get one too. Thus we have Michael Mamaril as...The Gunsmith!
4. New Elektrozavodsk Means: Power-plant or Electric-Factory. Seemed fitting of an industrial world under the control of a Russian inspired megacorp. I apologize for any misspelling as I don't know Russian.
5. If this Michael Mamaril were playable in-game, his action skill would allow him to temporarily upgrade his currently equipped weapons in a variety of ways.
And lastly: To all of you out there still waiting for a new chapter of Return of the Fallen. I'm sorry to say you will be waiting longer still. The chapter is between halfway and two-thirds done. However, I haven't had much motivation to continue it these days, but I hope that finally getting this plot bunny onto paper will help the writing juices start flowing again.
One final note to all my readers: I have a new, slightly different project I'm trying to get off the ground. Not another story, but a series of other one-shots dealing with various plot-bunnies I've had over the years. I'm already working on the first one, but like with Return I have no idea when I'll get around to finishing it.
