The name Leon Powalski refers to a chameleon character in the Star Fox game series. It is also an alias Randall uses in the next few chapters. OCs are going to be major characters in the next few chapters, but we will see Mike, Sulley, and Celia when our story returns to Monstropolis. Mike and Celia's son will be a main character in future chapters. Warning: This chapter has some of the ugly side of the adult world in it but I'm trying to keep a T rating and be no more vulgar than necessary. I also changed the lyrics in the last chapter's song since posting to make them more unique and less copy and paste fro Les Mis.

Five years had passed since Randall Boggs broke parole and disappeared. During that time a normally green scaled chameleon monster named Leon Powalski had appeared in the coastal town of Screamvile-by-the-Sea. He wore a business suit much like Waternoose's and glasses. He had no known family, but, through acts of philmonstrophy earned the town's respect and was now serving as the town's mayor in the first year of a four-year term. One of his greatest acts of charity was investing in the locally owned supermarket, the unimaginatively named Bay Market. It had been a move to give more employees better salaries, health plans, and more time off than they would get at Monstromart. Mayor Powalski's guilty secret was that he was really Randall Boggs. His innocent secret was that he was completely oblivious to the sexual harassment that the store's manager put the female employees through.

The store was located close to the center of town, in fact it was directly across the street from Randall's office in Town Hall. Beth—a purple cyclops who did not share Mike Wazowski's cannonball shaped body but had a distinct head with a mouth and no external ears—wished the customer who had just left the checkout line a nice day. She then looked down at the letter she'd been carrying all day.

"Dear Elizabeth," the letter began, "you must send us more money; your child needs a doctor and there's no time to loose!" She felt her heart sink. The Souzas had told her in previous letters that Sandy was developing a cough that would not go away. If the worst were true and she needed surgery on her lungs…Beth's parents were dead and she had no close family. Sandy's father had left them before Sandy had hatched. Even with the larger paycheck at the Bay Market she could not afford an insurance plan that would see to an operation for her child.

The blue cephalopod with eyes on antennae that ran the next checkout line had no customers at the moment. She saw that Beth didn't either and that she was reading a letter.

"What do you have here?" She said, snatching the letter from Beth's hand.

Indignantly, Beth snatched the letter back. "Give that letter to me! Its none of your business!"

But the cephalopod had quick eyes. "The letter clearly said something about 'your child.' I thought you were a virgin?"

Beth could see where this was going. She had refused to put out for the manager. Not wanting to insult him and lose her job she had sighted moral reasons. Actually she was not a loose monster and the reason things got as far as they did with Sandy's father was because she had naïvely believed that they loved each other and had a future together.

Now, however, the cephalopod was running toward the manager's office—a room inside the market close to the entrance and exit with a door marked "manager." Beth ran to her to stop her and in the process created a disturbance that caught everyone's attention. As the cyclops tried to hold the cephalopod back, customers and other clerks stared to comment and laugh at the spectacle unfolding before them. The manager, an orange furry monster with a horn emerged. Before he could ask any questions his appearance was upstaged by the arrival of a more prominent citizen. Mayor Powalski had just come to do his weekly grocery shopping. He found the sight of two adult monsters grappling with each other to be less than amusing.

"Someone tear these two apart! This is a supermarket not a circus!"

Beth and the cephalopod let go of each other.

"That's better," Randall nodded. "Know do you have anything you'd like each other in private, anything you'd like to say to the manager in private, or anything you'd like me to say to the manager for you in private?" The manager was right there listening to the mayor speak.

Beth came forward and said, "Actually there is something I'd like you to hear me say to the manager."

Randall and the manager were both listening intently when one of the mayor's assistants, the two headed Terry and Teri approached.

"Mr. Mayor," Terry said, "the police force from Monstropolis…"

"They're here," Terri finished.

"And an Inspector Rookings wants to see you."

Him…Randall felt fear gnaw at the pit of his stomach. There were only a few monsters who could expose Randall and he was one. This had to be dealt with at once.

"But they weren't supposed to be here for another four hours…Ah, well." Randall looked at Beth and the manager, before saying to the latter, "Hear her out. Be as patient as you can."

When the Mayor left the manager ignored his advice. He brought the two clerks into his office and asked the cephalopod what had happened.

"I saw in a letter that there's a kid she's hiding in some other town. There are monsters that she has to pay and you can guess how she earns her keep."

The manager stared at Beth. She felt a shudder of fear come over her entire body

"You told me you weren't interested in sex?"

"I'm not. I've never sold myself to pay for my child."

"Then where did the child come from?"

He had her there.

"I made a mistake with a monster that I thought loved me and that we would live the rest of our lives together. It was my mistake and my child is paying for it, but please help her! I need the money!" Beth was not sure when she dropped to her knees.

"I'll give you a raise and help you pay for your child, if you do something for me?"

"Sir?" Beth felt hope rising within her.

"Sleep with me."

"No, sir I can't."

"Then I think you should be on your way. You're fired!"

Randall felt fear gnaw at his gut as he saw the police from Monstropolis gathered around town hall. Best to get this over with, he thought, nodded toward the officers on his way and entered the building with Terry and Terri close behind him. He entered his office and, as he was expecting, saw a familiar gargoyle waiting for him. He had apparently been promoted as he now wore slender silver sash that encircled his and encircled his back, left side of his stomach and right side of his chest. The sash formed the ends of its circle just before touching the wing near his right shoulder and again on his side just below his left wing.

Randall hoped his business suit, green scales, and glasses would keep him from being recognized. He extended a hand to the gargoyle.

"Inspector," Randall said warmly.

"Mr. Mayor," the gargoyle bowed and shook his hand, "Inspector Brandon Rookings, at your service."

"You've done some impressive things in turning this town around."

"I do what I can." After his conversion in the temple, Randall's heart had truly changed. He no longer needed the praise of others, but he still felt the shame of what he had done. He hoped that his work went some way toward making amends. He knew what the priest would say. His own works could not get him into paradise. But he felt that in this plain of existence the scales still needed to be set right.

"You have done a lot. Five years ago, this town was so impoverished, starving citizens would resort to theft and prostitution to get food. Your investments in local businesses have put the monsters here to honest work." It almost makes one wonder how you have so much money to invest and why there is no record of you until five years ago.

At that moment Terry and Terri stepped into the room and, inadvertently, on to Randall's tail. Randall grunted and for a moment returned to his natural purple color.

"Guys, could you please watch where you're going?"

"Sorry Mr. Mayor," Terri said.

"Won't happen again," Terry added.

Seeing that color made Rookings recognize the voice.

"It seems to me, we may have met."

Randall resumed his green coloring. "If we had met, I don't think I would forget you."

Beth wondered the streets night after night and day after for nearly three weeks looking for some way to raise money for her daughter and pay the rent on her apartment. She tried to return to work, but the manager told her he had lost interest. Each day her daughter grew sicker. She needed money fast. That's why she was on the streets tonight. She walked up to one of the businesses that was still open at this time of night and entered. Inside was a private practitioner, with a sluglike body and a tyrannosaurus-shaped head. He had a medical license but he preferred to collect materials that could be used in medications to actually practicing medicine. Beth entered his office.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm willing to sell my back teeth for dentures and my tears." Ingrediants for anesthetics could be extracted from cyclops tears.

"Well, Bob the dentist is out right now but I can see about harvesting your tears. If you would follow me," he gestured to a door at the back of the room.

It was a dark room with only one small light casting a sickly golden glow across the room. There was a chair for Beth to sit in while the doctor encouraged her to think sad thoughts as he poured stinging drops into her eye that caused it to water, but she couldn't think sad thoughts easily. She could see her daughter lying in a hospital bed easily enough, but no further letter had come from the Souzas. She had hope that maybe her daughter had improved or was at least stable for the moment. That hope was what kept her going and she couldn't let go of it for one moment. She had to act on her fears because her daughter, but she had to live on hope. She did cry but her tears were in far smaller quantity than what she'd hoped.

"I can't give you very much for this," the doctor said holding the vial.

"What can I do? If I give up hope that I can save my daughter …"

"Maybe you should hold out hope for your daughter, but grieve for yourself?" the doctor suggested.

"What do you mean?"

"Do something where you can still raise money for your daughter, but feel miserable about the way you're doing it." Beth nodded, already hating the suggestion but not disagreeing with it. She left the building with the decision that she would become a pickpocket or a prostitute. Between the two she felt the latter to be the lesser of the two evils since she would be providing a service that monsters paid for.

Beth got no sleep that night, having physical relations with monsters of every kind of description that came in from the docks and hating herself every minute of was now nearly seven in the morning, she would transfer the money to the Souzas' bank account. Then she would go back to the docks and find a place to sleep until evening. To think that everything had led to this when her scream had been so pure… Her scream…

I screamed a scream in time gone by,

Excitement was high,

And my love was indulging,

But our hearts were not unbudging.

Then I was innocent and young

Screams of joy were used and wasted

I could not see our hearts were strung

Around the lie we tasted.

The griffins are noble in the light,

Purrs soothing in the thunder,

But different in darkest night,

When they don't share your shame!

I laid gently at his side,

His eyes held me in wonder,

We walked hand and stride,

But he was gone when a child came

Still I want him with me.

I want him to hold our daughter.

I want shame to let us be!

But my dreams, they must be slaughtered.

I scream now for many reasons.

There's a new problem for every season.

My child is sick and I have no dignity.

My screams have killed the dream I dreamed!