Chapter Four:
Changing Winds
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Wind shear is defined as the amount of change in the wind's direction or speed with increasing altitude. When the wind shear is weak, the storms that are part of the cyclone grow vertically, and the latent heat from condensation is released into the air directly above the storm, aiding in development. When there is stronger wind shear, this means that the storms become more slanted and the latent heat release is dispersed over a much larger area. (from: WW 2010. University of Illinois. Hurricanes.
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"Caw, why isn't this thing working?" I called out in frustration and struck the side of the inoperable Flying Machine's chassis with my closed fist.
I had left Castle Plundarr at the exact moment that SSlithe had designated. I had been making good time when all of the sudden the engines had inexplicably stopped working. They had just shut off. I had managed a gliding landing and had ended up in a small clearing just west of the Temple Ruins, but so far I could find no mechanical reason as to why the vehicle was still not in the air.
I would have to try the radio again. S-Slithe was not going to be happy about my delay, but at the rate I was going, I would be a no show.
"This is Vultureman; come in S-Slithe," I reported and released the trigger on the two-way communication device. A static filled hiss was my only response.
"I don't get it," I muttered under my breath. The transmission relay had been broadcasting clearly when I left this morning. S-Slithe and I had been in continuous contact from the start of the attack. Everything had been in perfect working order until now, well, until my forced landing that is.
I tried the radio again and received only dead air this time, not even a garble of static. I was stranded, but I was not going to sit here and do nothing. I was one of the brightest engineers and inventors on Plundarr; I would not sit idly by and leave my masterpiece to rust in these trees. I would figure this out.
I'm not sure how long I bent over the engine compartment testing the connections to the fuel supply and the electrical components. I do know that it must have been for quite awhile since the sun that had been barely dawning had now moved to bathe the clearing in a reddish glow of full morning light, shortening the shadows cast over my still inoperable machine.
I stood to stretch out the muscles that were beginning to cramp in my back. As soon as I straightened fully upright, an explosion echoed through the secluded glade. The sheer noise of the blast seemed to have a concussive force behind it, and I fell to my knees, partly in defense and partly from surprise.
Immediately, I sprang to my feet and started running in the direction of the detonation, somewhere within the Temple Ruins. I had made it to the edge of the woods separating me from the ruins when my brain caught up with my body. I did an about face and returned to the Flying Machine. I wasn't going to investigate the abandoned buildings without reinforcements. My back up was in the form of a sleek, new blaster that I had recently crafted. Taking comfort in my fire-powered companion, I retraced my path back to the forest edge and carefully began to make my way into the Temple Ruins.
I followed the sounds of a struggle. I kept to the periphery using the trees and the structure remnants as cover. I had just made it to a small outcropping when I felt my mouth fall open in a wordless gape as I recognized one of the participants in the battle that my ears had been witnessing.
S-Slithe was grappling around with someone on the ground. I could just make out the glimmer of his weapon held in the hands of the figure pinned under the lizard's massive body, but the reptilian didn't seem to be concerned about the weapon at all, he was more interested in the prey beneath him.
In a flurry of movement, a struggle for dominance, S-Slithe suddenly reared back with a roar of something that sounded like pain and rage. I saw blood pour from a wound on his lower lip; additional blood had soaked through a makeshift bandage across his chest and abdomen. I could not tell what color the cloth had been as it now seemed to be drenched in the greenish wetness of what I knew to be reptilian blood.
I finally got a glimpse of the creature with which S-Slithe was engaged. To my surprise, I saw the female ThunderCat Cheetara. Her eyes were wild, and she was mostly covered in blood but not hers. She spit some of the brackish green liquid from her mouth, as it had been she who had caused the gash to appear on S-Slithe's face. She tried to scramble to her feet only to be trapped by S-Slithe grabbing hold of one of her legs. She kicked out frantically with the free leg, hitting the reptile fully in the groin. S-Slithe slumped over giving her a precious few seconds to slide from his grasp.
The cheetah remained in control of the Sagaris. I could make out green staining its deadly blade. I adjusted my weapon and trained my sights on the she-cat. Rather than admitting defeat, S-Slithe was suddenly on his feet, lunging at the armed ThunderCat.
"No more!" Cheetara screamed, and as she swiveled to plunge the battle-axe into the reptile again, I fired my blaster. I heard a cry of pain as a bolt lanced across her shoulder and temple, and the cheetah slumped to the ground along with the hurlbat.
I hurried to the spot where the feline had fallen and looked down at her. Even though my shot had only been a glancing blow, it appeared that enough of the thundranium had penetrated her skin to incapacitate her.
"Caw, you call yourself the leader of the mutants," I yelled contemptuously, as I looked at the reptile that had almost bought it by a female Thunderian.
"Kassssi?" S-Slithe replied and then slid to his knees next to the feline.
What? I thought completely befuddled by S-Slithe's statement. Did he really believe the cheetah in front of him to be the Thunderian traitor, his one-time consort?
"Not Kasi," I clarified and flipped the feline onto her back to see her wounds better. She hissed softly but that seemed to be all she was able to do. I would make certain that her docile state persisted.
"This is Cheetara," I continued and pulled a set of handcuffs from one of the pouches I had on my belt. They had been meant to subdue Lion-O, but they would work even better on the smaller she-cat. "She would have killed you if it weren't for me."
"Not Kasssi?" S-Slithe repeated drunkenly and started to sway forward
I quickly put the restraints on Cheetara's wrists and turned to grab the lizard as he began to fall to the ground as well. "Get a grip, S-Slithe," I demanded and pulled him to his feet. It took him a few moments to stabilize himself with his tail.
Now, what? I surveyed scene in front of me: the female ThunderCat subdued and unconscious at my feet, thanks to the Thundranium laced shackles, and a less than lucid reptile barely upright himself. I certainly couldn't carry them both back to Castle Plundarr. It was quite a hike by itself. Carrying baggage, I wouldn't get more than a third of the way there, and given S-Slithe's state, I doubted that he would even make it that far. The Flying Machine would do us no good unless it somehow managed to fix itself while I was gone, and I knew better than that.
As I swiveled around to examine the ruins, find a place to rest, regroup, a sudden brilliance lit the area around us. It was so bright that all I could perceive was whiteness. The air around us crackled, and a furnace blast of heat took my strength causing me to fall to the ground limply. I barely had enough energy to raise my hand to shield my eyes against the glare.
Silhouetted in the intense luminance, the figure of a woman appeared. Squinting up at her, I made out a crown decorating her head; it was from this vestment that the light seemed to flow. Try as I might, I could not see her face, only the shadow of her form which was definitely feminine.
She stopped and bent down to S-Slithe, running her hands quickly over his inert body. Presumably not finding what she was looking for, the figure left him where he lay and moved to the Thunderian. As she bent down to touch the cheetah, she suddenly backed away in haste.
"It is forbidden!" a voice, both melodic and acidic, screamed in my head. That was the only way to describe it. I heard it, but it was all around me, inside me, and I had no idea to what the voice was referring.
The figure moved to stand in front of me. A set of fierce blue-green eyes seemed to burn from the shadowed face directly into my skull. I could not breathe, could not think, as my head seemed to split open, and all of my knowledge seemed to be forcibly taken from my brain. The sensation was too much to bear. As I slid into the blessed relief of unconsciousness, I had the distinct impression of the woman in front of me, and she looked like a lioness from Thundera.
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I stared at the view screen in front of me, waiting. I wasn't sure what I was waiting for; I just knew that something was happening, something that would be likely to change the events of our course in history on this small planet that we now called home. The long-range scanners pierced through several sectors a minute, yet I could find no sign of the mutants that had attacked our home or the three ThunderCats that had gone after them.
Only a couple of hours, I reminded myself as I typed commands onto the keyboard still scanning for signs of something, anything. The limited amount of time that had passed since Cheetara had gone in search of vengeance and Lion-O and Panthro had taken off after her did little to assuage the band of worry slowly constricting around the center of my gut. Even the quiet Sword of Omens attached at my side did little to mollify the sense of danger and wrongness I felt radiating through my bond with my companions.
The grounds of the Lair came into sequential view at the upper right hand corner of the main screen while the computer multitasked scanning the further sectors of Third Earth on the three remaining panels in front of me. Bengali, Lynx-O, Pumyra, Kit, Kat, and the snarves had already made tremendous headway on clearing the damage and rubble from the memorial gardens. None of the partitions had been spared, but the Acinonyx section had been completely destroyed.
That faint foreboding sensation in the pit of my stomach spasmed as I thought about Cheetara. She had been on shaky ground ever since she had used her sixth sense to help find our Thunderian brethren. I hadn't realized how shaky or even why until everything had fallen apart after the anointment ritual for Bengali, Pumyra, and Lynx-O. The gardens were supposed to be a way for the cheetah to find some solace, a path toward healing, but the mutants had destroyed that in less than a few minutes, just as they had Cheetara's whole clan, whole life.
I closed my eyes and lowered my head in an attempt to shut out the despair that reared up with those thoughts. The mutants could not have picked a worse day, a worse way to hurt us, her. They had taken her last hope today, and that was something I wasn't sure could be restored even with the help of Lion-O and Panthro.
As my thoughts drifted to the Lord of the Thundercats, the Sword of Omens, his sword, anchored at my hip, suddenly felt heavier. I should never have taken the weapon. In fact, it hadn't been my idea at all. I was all set to follow Lion-O, stop Cheetara, but when Lion-O had stopped and called out Jaga's name, I found that I could see the phantom visage of the previous commander of the sword as well.
I had been so startled to actually see Jaga that I too stood still to hear his counsel. The last time I had physically seen him was during the ghostly battle against Grune over the very Lair I found myself currently watching. For me to be able to see him now meant that there must be more layers to this whole situation.
Jaga's words resonated with me, broke through the rash desires I had to go after Cheetara myself, maybe even aid her in her quest. But, there was more; when Jaga had vanished to leave Lion-O to make up his mind, he hadn't really left at all. He had ended up appearing next to me.
Jaga had known that Lion-O would not allow Cheetara's actions to go unanswered that the lion would give up his title rather than abandon her. Of course, if I had been given the choice, I would have done so as well. But the choice Jaga gave to Lion-O meant that I would have no choice at all, and given what I had witnessed this morning, I had taken my one and only option.
The cheetah and the lion had become so much closer these last few years and especially this last month. Their friendship seemed to be growing maybe even changing into something else, something more. While on monitor duty this morning, I had seen them in the memorial gardens. Their camaraderie seemed natural, almost second nature. It was the first time I had seen Cheetara smile, much less laugh, in weeks. I had quickly looked away and scheduled the monitors to scan elsewhere as I had not wanted to intrude. Of course, had I not given them privacy, I might have picked up on the mutants before they began their attack this morning.
My hand hit the console in frustration. I felt like such a pawn. I had wanted to go after Cheetara as much as Lion-O. She was, is, a dear friend. Oh, who am I kidding, I thought bitterly. She could have been, we could have been, more than that, if I had been willing to act.
My feelings for the cheetah were complicated. Our age gap alone would cause people to talk. What about the age difference between Lion-O and Cheetara? My traitorous thoughts whispered back. Stop it! I warned myself. My rational mind made the calculation anyway. Ten years, it responded quickly, only three years less than our age difference would be. Although by all physical indications, she and Lion-O were only a year or so apart.
I shook my head even as I continued the internal argument with myself. There were other factors: Kijani, my own deceased mate, my mentorship of Cheetara as a ThunderCat…my curious feelings for Nayda. The last thought seemed to fly from the recesses of my mind and slip through just before I slammed a mental door on my wayward feelings. I refused to go down that path or to allow myself to analyze those thoughts, not now, not ever.
Lion-O's feelings for the cheetah were at issue, I reminded myself, not mine. The fact that Lion-O hadn't even questioned my agreement with Jaga's advice, asked how I had known what his mentor had said, spoke volumes as to how distracted he was over Cheetara's actions. Even without that evidence, there were the times I caught him protecting the cheetah a little too zealously, almost borderline over-protective. Then again, if I had allowed myself to worry over her, perhaps we would never have been in this predicament in the first place.
The door to the control room flew open, and an out of breath WilyKat entered the room. His entrance snatched my thoughts from the what-might-have-been and grounded them firmly in the here and now.
"Kat," I began to admonish his reckless entry but quickly stopped when I noticed his eyes. They were as wide as saucers.
"She's not here!" he yelled, his gaze scanning the room, looking for something, presumably a someone from his words.
"Who's not here?" I asked.
"WilyKit." The answer came from the doorway from an equally out of breath puma as she entered.
"She's not with you?" I asked. Even as the words came out of my mouth, I realized the answer. Skipping the wait for an obvious response, I continued, "When was the last time you saw her?"
"She was standing next to the destroyed Acinonyx sculpture after the mutant attack. I haven't seen her since Panthro showed up in the ThunderTank." WilyKat paced the room, his hands clenching and unclenching with worry.
"Pumyra?"
"That was the last time I saw her as well. She had looked extremely upset. I just thought that she had gone inside to settle down." The puma raised troubled henna-colored eyes to meet mine. "You don't think?" she trailed off.
WilyKat stopped pacing and looked directly at the both of us. "Think what? That she went off after Cheetara?"
I held his gaze, but Pumyra lowered her head and gave a slight nod.
"That would be crazy; that would be dangerous: that would be exactly something she would do," he muttered in quick succession. "Tygra, we have to call the tank, make sure she's all right."
I quickly flipped the toggle switch and adjusted the frequency to the ThunderTank. "Cat's Lair to ThunderTank, this is Tygra do you read?"
Only silence returned to us.
"That can't be good," Kat mumbled again and resumed his pacing.
His nervousness set me on edge, but I tried to push away my own foreboding. "Let's not jump to conclusions. They may not be at the vehicle. Perhaps, they have already found Cheetara."
Pumyra moved closer to the console and glanced at the controls. "Can you get a fix on their location?"
I pushed a few buttons, and the main screen in front of us switched to a grid of the explored areas of Third Earth. A reassuring blue blip blinked on the network, and I homed in on the location. "The tank is at the Bridge of Slime. If Cheetara crossed the River of Despair, they would have to go on foot from there. The tank's treads are too massive to cross the formation."
"Can you call Panthro on the comm?" Kat asked, his eyes glued to the monitor as if he might be able to see the area in detail.
I again adjusted the frequency and tried again. "Cat's Lair to Panthro, do you read?"
This time an odd static crackled over the speakers. I twisted the radio controls to try and clear the reception and again gave the call out. My results were the same; an interference of static was our only response.
"What about the locator beacons on their weapons?" Pumyra suggested and grabbed Kat's shoulder as he passed her a third time. "Cut it out, Kat; you're making me nervous."
"Sorry," Kat replied and stopped his pacing, but the anxiety radiating from him only seemed to magnify.
In a few more seconds, I saw the locator signatures from four ThunderCats register on the screen. While I heard both Pumyra's and WilyKat's exhales of relief, I did not share in their sentiment.
"Uccāra," I hissed, as I looked at the signals clearly registering from within the Temple Ruins.
Pumyra's head shot up quickly, and she threw me a look. For a moment I was surprised that she would even recognize my curse, but then again, she probably had learned several Tigris words from Bengali.
I glanced at Kat and then shook my head slightly to indicate that what I knew I would rather not say in front of the adolescent.
Pumyra nodded and then gently touched Kat's shoulder. "See, she did stow away on the tank."
"Yeah," Kat grinned, but even I could see the strain still lingering on his face.
"Is there something else, Kat?" I asked.
"It's probably nothing," the young wildcat hedged.
"But," Pumyra prompted.
"I keep getting the feeling that something is wrong. Like I said, it's probably nothing, right?" he suggested hopefully.
I didn't respond immediately. I knew that the twins shared a special connection sometimes bordering on telepathy. The fact that Kat sensed something amiss with his sister coupled with my own sense of wrongness and added to the warning that Jaga had given me suddenly became too much of an unknown. Without explanation, I pulled the Sword of Omens from the scabbard on my thigh and put the Eye to my temple. "Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight," I commanded.
The crossbars curled, and a haze of coalescing blue-green light flooded my mind. I felt myself go rigid with the impressions filling my entire consciousness. I had never commanded the sword, never attempted a second sight.
The images of buildings in ruins came sharply into focus. I saw a flash of lightning so bright it blinded me. A strident report of thunder, both musical and painful, rang in my ears. Slowly, the cloud of light faded, and I felt something, a hand maybe, carefully brushing across my forehead.
"Tygra," a voice called seemingly from far away. "Tygra." This time the voice sounded closer and clearer. It wasn't until I heard my name for the third time that I realized my eyes were closed. Blinking rapidly, the concerned face of Pumyra swam into focus with an equally worried WilyKat looking on from behind her shoulder.
"Thank Jaga," Pumyra breathed and settled back to sit on her knees. "What happened?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," I replied and tried to sit up until a blinding pain sliced through my skull.
"Easy," the puma cautioned.
"Yeah," I grunted and swallowed a bout of nausea as it pressed against the back of my throat.
"What did you see?" WilyKat asked. "Did the sword tell you anything?"
With Pumyra's support, I pulled myself into a sitting position and leaned against the back of one of computers. "I saw the ruins. Then there was a flash of lightning and a boom of thunder and then nothing."
"That's it?" Kat prompted.
"Yes. What happened here?"
"After you gave the command to the sword, you went deathly still. Then, you turned as white as Bengali and crashed to the floor," Pumyra explained. "Kat and I barely caught you before you hit your head on the chair."
"The sword?"
"Here." Kat handed me the blade, and I looked over the weapon. It did not look any worse for wear. "What do we do now?"
I looked at Pumyra and then at Kat. Before I could answer, I heard the control room door slide open again, and Bengali entered.
"There you all are. Lynx-O and I were beginning to think we'd been ditched in the…What happened?" Apparently halfway through his remarks, the white tiger suddenly realized that my position on the floor was less than normal.
"The sword and I had a minor incident," I answered and accepted his assistance in moving to a chair.
"What kind of incident?" he asked, his baritone voice dropping into a bass range with his concern.
"Have Lynx-O and the snarves meet us in the council room in five minutes, and I'll explain everything."
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"I wish you'd stop looking at me that way," I growled, as the two males exchanged another look above my head.
"What are we supposed to do, Kit?" asked Lion-O.
"I don't know," I answered, some of the wind coming out of my sails. "I never had a reaction like this before. Usually, I just go through the motions, and I'm done."
"You've also never used your new found ability in a true battle situation," Panthro noted. "When we spar, we don't try to kill each other; from what you described, the battle between S-Slithe and Cheetara was much more intense."
That was an understatement. I shuddered as I remembered the blows. Cheetara had been fighting for her life and at times so had S-Slithe. I had never felt such powerful emotions attached to the kinetics of motion. The whole ordeal left me feeling dirty and confused.
I was equally concerned about my third eyelid. It was refusing to slide fully back into place. The result left me so unbalanced that Panthro had to carry me as we walked further into the ruins. Both he and Lion-O wanted to get me back to Cat's Lair, but since our communicators seemed to be malfunctioning, it didn't seem likely that help would be immediately forthcoming, and a jaunt back to the ThunderTank seemed a bit more difficult since there was no way I could retain my footing on the slippery bridge. So here we were traveling deeper into the ruins in search of Cheetara.
"Are you sure that it was Vultureman that you saw?" Lion-O asked again as he examined to the ground where Cheetara had battled S-Slithe, where I had seen her fall, fallen myself.
I watched his face carefully before I answered. When I had told him of everything that I had seen, felt, he had walked away from both Panthro and myself. I had wanted to follow, but Panthro had refused. He had told me to give the lion some space. When Lion-O had returned, his face had become a stony mask, refusing any and all emotion.
"I can't be one hundred percent sure," I finally responded verbally, "but yes, I think, it was Vultureman. Somebody shot Cheetara, and it certainly wasn't S-Slithe."
There it was, a flash of something in the young lord's eyes. His fists clenched tightly, and I was sure should the avian show his ugly mug, the lion would be wiping those knuckles across it numerous times. I held my tongue as Lion-O struggled to regain his earlier composure.
I'm sure that he would prefer that I was wrong in my findings; I certainly would, but I knew in my heart that in regard to the battle I was correct. I had felt the blast, the radiation's toxicity. It was the reason I had collapsed, the reason I had thrown up, and probably the reason my third eyelid was refusing to cooperate. Even from a psychic distance, I had felt the poison. I shivered again and tried unsuccessfully to not think about how horrible it must have been to endure it firsthand.
"Kit?" Panthro asked, worry carrying in his voice.
"I'm all right," I lied and shook myself from my reverie of the battle to which I had recently become a participant.
"Vultureman came from that direction over there." I pointed to a small outcropping in clear view of the scuffle marks where we currently stood.
Panthro carried me over to the crumbling building, and I looked further into the distance. If I concentrated, I could see a hazy glow of footprints entering the Temple Ruins from the forest on the western side.
"Did they double back this way?" the panther asked following my gaze.
"No," I answered, "There is only one signature, and it is entering the ruins not leaving them."
"All right, so where did they go?" Lion-O prompted when we returned to where he was still standing.
"I don't know."
I saw a frown cross the lion's features, and the sudden feeling of helplessness I'd been having since I started this course of action flared to the forefront. Tears sprang into my eyes. "I'm sorry," I whispered, hearing the sob bubble up through my voice. "They just stop."
"It's all right, Kit; I know you're doing your best," Lion-O soothed, but for some reason, his words only made the tears fall faster.
A sudden feeling of fury filled my mind. The coldness in how it swept through me left me breathless. With a burst of adrenaline firing through my body, I pushed out of Panthro's arms and threw him bodily into Lion-O. The two tumbled into a heap on the ground.
I could still feel the wet track of tears on my face, but I had no idea why they had been there. I turned to the two males slowly disentangling from each other and the earth.
"I need the sword," I growled, the voice that came from my lips didn't sound anything like my own.
Why did I need the sword? I wondered. I tried to speak, but I could not move my lips. I tried to run, but my feet refused to cooperate. I stood there facing my friends and suddenly realized I was trapped within my own body.
"What are you talking about, Kit?" Lion-O asked, holding his hands in a placating gesture as he took a few steps toward me.
"Don't play dumb, young Lord of the ThunderCats. The sword now, or the panther stops breathing," the voice, my voice but not mine, ordered.
My stance shifted to the right, and my hand, of its own accord, drifted up into the air. My eyes turned to look at Panthro. Somehow I had lifted him from the ground and was dangling him like a fish caught on a hook, my fingers closing around his throat, his toes barely skimming the ground.
I looked through my eyes in disbelief. There was no possible way that I could be doing this. I certainly wasn't strong enough to pick Panthro from the ground, especially with one hand. Secondly, even if it were possible to hold onto the panther and keep my grip, I was too short to lift him so that he was no longer touching the earth. My gaze flickered briefly to my feet, and I realized that I was floating above the ground.
Desperately, I tried to command my hand to release its hold to no avail. I could feel Panthro's fingers tearing at my wrist as he began to truly struggle to catch his breath. I saw his claws start to rip into my flesh, felt the stinging pain and the wet ooze of blood as it seeped through the deep lacerations, but I was a spectator in my own body.
A solid-muscled body knocked into me, and Lion-O and I went flying. I hit the ground hard, felt the air forced out of my lungs, and saw stars as I tried to remain conscious.
"Panthro?" Lion-O called, not moving an inch from where he held my wrists against the earth, effectively pinning me. I didn't try to struggle; I just lay underneath him trying to catch my breath.
"I'm okay," Panthro answered, his voice sounded raspy, and he coughed raggedly.
"Kit?" Lion-O inquired, cautiously loosening his grip but not fully releasing it.
"I, I, I don't know," I stammered, half-relieved to have found my voice and lips cooperating and half-fearful of what that meant. I had no more time to wonder as a bright light flooded the expanse of where we were.
"I want the sword, lion," demanded a shadowy feminine form coalescing inside the intense light.
Lion-O shifted his weight so that he was almost completely covering me. From this vantage, I could see more of the figure. Aquamarine eyes seemed to glitter with a light of their own from a face that had the markings and definition of a female Leo from Thundera. She wore a crown on her head. It wasn't the traditional crown of royalty; it seemed to have a disk fashioned to the center, and from that disk, the luminescence, too intense to look at, formed and poured. The rest of her body was covered in a fine golden fabric.
"Who are you?" Lion-O growled. I could feel the tension coiling through his body as he pushed me further away from the entity towering over us.
"I am Chaos; I am Order," the female snarled back. "And, I won't be denied. Give me the sword!"
"I don't have it."
"Then you shall get it," the being vowed.
Suddenly the earth around us trembled, and a great howling wind swirled. An intense heat flowed over us and made me feel as if I were a flower wilting on the vine. Once again, I could not move. There was that same cold touch that had flowed through me when I had lost control of my body, but this time it took my consciousness with it.
TBC
Uccāra – Bengali origin – means excrement – Tigris translation to shit
(found at SAMSAD Bengali-English Dictionary on the web)
A/N: Happy Halloween, all; I hope you enjoyed my gift of this chapter - yeah it turned out a bit of a surprise for me too - Lots of Laughs. Also, I wanted to send a quick shout out to my reviewers. Thanks so much, it means a lot and keeps me motivated to write more. Catch you on the next chapter, RL