Episode 28: Friends in High Places
"Wow!" White cooed as she looked at her Servine which she named Seraph. "So this is how you talk!"
White's grass type starter agreed. "It's wonderful to finally speak to you Madam!"
"Just call me White," The girl said with a smile as she bent over and petted her Pokémon.
"You sound much cuddlier than I imagined!" Jamie chuckled as he held Sylveon in his arms. At that, he quickly looked around with both Wes and Anto staring at him strangely.
"This is so cool Jamie!" Jamie's Sylveon spoke up happily before being put down by her trainer.
"Yeah, it is pretty cool isn't it?" Wes' Espeon beamed with pride as he and Umbreon were nearby Jamie's Sylveon. "I learned how to do this from a legendary!"
Umbreon stepped closer to Jamie's Sylveon while slightly leaning towards the place between his psychic brother and her. "He also chucked one for our friends over a bridge later on that very same day."
Espeon narrowed his eyes towards his dark counterpart. "Well you tricked an Empoleon into eating one of the spiciest foods in the world for the fun of it."
The two then stared down each other, making Sylveon look at them all worryingly. "W-Why don't you tell me more about the story of how you two met the others?"
Lily looked over to the three Eeveelution Pokémon. "I swear…" She placed a hand on her forehead before shaking her head.
The group of four was on their way towards the Driftveil Draw Bridge which was close to uninspired name of Driftveil City. However, despite the peaceful walk that everyone was going through and getting to know their new travel partners, Anto was feeling very nervous.
Why you ask? Because he was just expecting something to pop up during his travel to Driftveil City and add to the horrible misfortune that was his life and so far, nothing was happening. He kept waiting for whatever accident to come crashing after him, but it hadn't come yet. This was very stressful to the amnesiac since he kept expecting it to come out at any moment.
Wes, noticing the rather tense look on the black haired boy's face as he continued walking, spoke out to him, "Dude you look horrible."
"Don't you find it odd how nothing bad is happening right now?" The mute responded as he turned back to the older teen.
"Oh, so that's what you are worried about right?" Wes nodded as if his question was a proper answer. "Well I guess it's kinda weird."
White and Jamie looked at Wes.
"What do you mean?" White raised her brow as if there was some hidden meaning lost between the two's conversation.
"Ever since I've woken up in a Pokémon Center, I've literally been through one misadventure to the next one. Now? There's nothing happening!" Anto emphasized the 'nothing' part of his psionic speech. "It's nerve racking!"
Jamie stared at Anto in surprise. "You're kidding right?" The tense look of Anto glancing around warily as they all continued to walk told the Kalos boy that the mute wasn't faking this.
Wes seemed to talk out loud as they all slowed down their walking. "Don't worry about it. Just relax until this supposed 'bad thing' happens, otherwise you're just stressing yourself. So you know, calm down and enjoy what peace you're being given. When trouble comes, we'll just cross that bridge when we get there."
Everyone stopped walking and looked to Wes.
They were all in view of the Driftveil Draw Bridge to the next city which they were all about to cross.
"… Did you just make a pun?" Anto questioningly looked to the usually sarcastic Orreian.
All eyes were on the silver haired boy as he blinked and looked back to everyone else, including his own two Pokémon. He shrugged his shoulders. "What? I can't make a pun or something for the fun of it? Besides, we're near a bridge, seems like a shame not to make a reference to one."
"You didn't do this during Skyarrow Bridge." The mute pointed out.
"It didn't occur to me then." Wes relaxed and looked back. "Huh, you know I didn't expect things to be this awkward after saying a pun." He scratched his nose lightly.
"What were you expecting?" Jamie raised his brow.
"Dunno. Weak, forced sitcom laughter?"
Anto sighed before looking ahead. "Can we just go? I'm getting a headache. And If what Wes is saying is true, I want to sleep in a bed before whatever it is comes and snatches me off the gro—"
Soon as he turned to walk towards the bridge, a bright circle appeared around Anto, and burst to light wall that surrounded him.
"Anto!" White and Jamie cried, and all of Anto's Pokémon looked on with shock.
The boy with black hair just face palmed before the light around him brightened and he vanished in an instant.
Anto thought that he had terrible luck. He admitted that more than he wanted to.
Considering the amnesiac's record, he always thought that these strings of unfortunate events were unwillingly preparing him to take on any situation imaginable, and not some kind of sick and twisted fetish of destiny that loved to watch him suffer.
But the thing about all of this?
"Hail and well met, Huuuu—woman! What is up in da buzyness? Fo Shizzle my nizzle when I be shipping!"
Anto underestimated how unbelievably unfair fate can throw curve balls.
Because he just got #$%$^ abducted by aliens.
"SUNNNNNNNNNUUUUUUUUUUVVVVVAAAAAA—!"
Jamie and White were in utter panic as well as their Pokémon, looking around frantically around for the disappearing boy.
Wes, his Pokémon, and Anto's Pokémon were just staring at the spot where the mute vanished.
"Dang it, after everything we did to get him back," Wes folded his arms and sighed. "He just up and vanishes out of thin air. What a jerk."
"Wes!?" Jamie frantically looked around. "We-We gotta find Anto!"
"Calm down, Sunshine," Wes relaxed. "I admit, vanishing out of thin air is a new one, but this kind of thing does seem to happen to Anto on a near daily basis."
"Did you just call me Sunshine?" Jamie's face froze before he narrowed his eyes towards Wes.
"Wes," White calmed herself down. "Why aren't you worried?"
"Well I am worried, but then again it's Anto. I'm sure he can handle it."
Now that he was done mentally screaming, Anto looked around the spaceship, it looked very… alienly? How else was he supposed to describe something out of this world?
He was pinned to something like an operating table that was left standing vertically, and with a strange Elgyem looking at him with a Santa hat, fake beard and over the top human looking clothes that obviously were too large for the psychic type. He looked around the room, seeing the sleek and almost alien like material that was so smooth, but also looked somewhat alive with its low glowing greenish-white colors.
From what little Anto already knew about the Elgyem Pokémon was that they were rumored to be extraterrestrials, and considering where he was now, and factoring his incredible luck, Anto came to the conclusion that somehow he was abducted by aliens.
The Universe just doesn't play fair. He swore, if there was some kind of balance check—maybe someone else was actually having a great amount of good luck to balance out his almost godly bad luck somewhere else, he promised tables would flip!
Meanwhile, In another Dimension…*
"Achoo!" A long haired, seventeen year old trainer sneezed while on a lunch date with his girlfriend.
"Are you alright, Katsu?" His girlfriend asked worryingly.
"I'm fine. Someone must have been talking about… oh hey, someone dropped 1000 Pokédollars…" The male trainer bent over to pick up the fallen and rare bill on the ground.
"… And you just happen to find that when you looked down to sneeze? Does anything bad ever happen to you?"
"Hey, it's not always like that. Besides, someone might be looking for this. What do I need 1000 bucks for?"
"I swear Katsu, you are too lucky sometimes."
Back on the other side of the cosmic spectrum, the Elgyem keeping Anto captive was psychically holding up a dictionary and looking through it. "Gimme a moment my main man, I be tryin' to search up the hidden meaning of your poetic words in the language master, young grass hopper…"
In other words, somehow, the alien was looking up a human dictionary looking for all of the words (Profanities) he just screamed out.
"Who are you?" Anto asked at last.
"Arg matey! Yar be trippin all kinds of stuff now, ya heard, eh young leafblower senpai?" Somehow the psychic alien Pokémon was mixing over several thick accents together as she psychically communicated to Anto.
It was starting to give him a headache honestly. "Please stop talking like that. No one talks like that."
"Excuse me? But was this not the accent of which you H2O carriers speak?" The Elgyem, now sounding more inquisitive and calm, asked as she continued to look at the dictionary.
"No, you're just mixing all accents together and now are sounding completely incomprehensible. Also, why am I tied to this?" Anto motioned to the clamps that were binding him.
The extraterrestrial placed a hand on her chin, "Odd, I thought this would be how humans greet one another…"
"No, it's not. Please let me go."
"Very well, homie!" Suddenly, from the smooth looking floor, a pedestal rose from that was quite like it was originally part of it. The spot turned liquid like before shooting upward slowly and forming into something shaped much like the Elgyem's head. "Log Baerilto: I have finally come and made first contact with the three dimensional beings known as a huwoman," Anto wanted to correct her but decided not to. "And I have been told that the 'chain play' is actually not acceptable among their kind! Perhaps I must study the video again once more."
"Whoawhoawhoawhoawhoa! Stop!" Anto spoke out as the thought of him actually being in… he shuddered before looking back at his unusual captor. "Who are you and what are you doing?"
"Ahh! Apologies! Your species uses names as identification! I am…" The psychic Pokémon then blurted out a lot of unexplained sounds, as if indicating that was her name. "Ah wait, your orifices aren't capable of understanding this. You may refer to me as Kryxialvoimepotark, leading scientist on the frontier of Huwoman studies! Behold the collection of trinkets gathered from all corners of your society!"
As soon as she said this, a large wall opened up to reveal a large pile of baby toys on one side… and a bunch of ripped up toilets in the other.
"… Can I just call you Kryx for short?" Anto started off the conversation.
Much to his dismay, the floating telepathic alien gasped in elation. "You are shortening my name? Is this the cultural act of 'Nicknaming'!? This must mean we are in the huwoman courting ritual known as flirting! Now you must treat me to dinner and engage in more intimate conversations!"
"NONONO! Stop!" The mute spoke out, shuddering even more at the thoughts running through his head because of this person who is actually worse than Ohko. "Look, I probably shouldn't ask this, but what exactly are you doing with all of this?"
Kryx, The Elgyem, pointed one of her hand limbs high as his head and dramatically communicated. "FOR SCIENCE!"
Anto's eyes widened. "Oh Arceus, not another one."
"You see, Huwoman…"
The person quickly interjected. "My name is Anto, and we call ourselves humans."
"That sounds so bizarre! Anyway, Human," Anto face palmed. "As said before I am a leading scientist in the frontier of Anto studies." Anto face palmed again. "In my research, I have been collecting the most interesting of trinkets that I see your kind use."
Anto wanted to say almost everything Kryx said was wrong, and wanted to comment badly about how she was probably viewing humans using toys and or the toilets, but he did not want to deal with this and needed to get back at his friends.
"Kryx… as… fun… as this was, I want to go back to where you picked me up."
"What!? B-but you have a weird and unique signal that I picked up recently! I-I was going to science things… and probe you!" As if to torment him, Kryx telepathically grabbed a very sharp and alien looking needle from the ceiling and made it point towards Anto uncomfortably.
"Don't." Anto leered with his eyes and deadpanned. He sighed. "Look, Kryx, I'm kind of in the middle of something… like my own study of sorts and I would like to continue. So can you please let me go?" He worded in such a way that would hopefully appeal to the… science like nature of his rather friendly abductor.
The psychic type Pokémon slumped in her shoulders. "I suppose it's not very sciencey to stop you from your work..." She levitated just a little lower.
No.
Kryx sluggishly put away the alien probe. "I thought I was finally making progress in my research."
No. No!
"I'm sorry Human, I'll never bother you again…"
Just ignore—just ignore—just ignore—Dang it all!
Anto felt his brain popping. He sighed deeply. "Listen, Kryx… why are you picking up random things here? And why are you so fixated on humans? Yes humans; my name—that is me right here—is Anto. Not Human. I mean, you're from outer space! I'm sure there are plenty of other planets you can do way more interesting research on! You know like… Black Holes! Those things are a cosmic beauty!"
Kryx sat down as she did the ship made a tiny little seat right beneath her before she huffed in his seat and folded his arms. "Everyone likes to study those things… what's so great about the gaps in the universe that swallow everything? It swallowed up my Aurora Compressor Unit when I was part of the Larvae Caste." The Alien looked back at Anto excitedly. "Now Humans! Humans are soooooo amazing! They aren't very smart, but they keep striving to make their primitive technology better each slow progressing day! They are bipedal and physically incompetent compared to their sister species, but they are still capable of keeping evenly with them and sometimes subduing the most capable of them with a small object!"
Anto listened to Kryx shoot into vivid and boring detail about many things about boring and mundane things about humans that she already knew, sometimes interject to correct or inform her about whatever it was. But the little E.T. went excitedly on, as if this was his passion, and Anto respected that, going for their beliefs no matter what as long as it didn't hurt others.
However, Kryx slowed down. "Most of all, Humans are never alone. They are almost always seen meeting with other hundreds, maybe thousands of others of their kind every planetary cycle. They… they even have this concept of 'Friends' and 'Family' which are closed nit people that almost always stay with you no matter what. I want to research that… and… I want to have this friendship…"
"… You know, you could try to make friends in your homeworld… where ever it is…" Anto rubbed the back of his head.
The Elgyem alien looked down sadly. "I'm… not exactly… welcome back in Prinax-35 due to a miscalculation with a Hyper Nova Simulator."
"What's that?"
"It was supposed to simulate the power of an exploding Super Nova! … I just wasn't aware I had accidentally primed it…" She spoke excitedly before sheepishly playing with her hands, making Anto both cringe and be impressed at the implications. "I assure you we all lived! Our nursery planet on the other hand…"
Kryx slumped lethargically and woefully into her seat before she pointed to a pedestal with a large white button on it. "… You can go home now. Press that and you'll be back where I picked you up."
Anto looked as the little alien seemed to be in state of depression. She just seemed to be giving up… and she obviously didn't mean to accidentally destroy a planet. I mean… even aliens can make mistakes right?
The amnesiac looked between the button and his previous captor.
Anto had a huge feeling he would regret this. "Hey Kryx. You know… there isn't anything saying that we both can get what we want."
The shine in the Elgyem's eyes and other body parts glowed brighter all of a sudden. "Excuse me?"
"You want to learn more about humans right? And I need to get back home, but can't we both do that in the same time?"
"What are you suggesting?" The little psychic levitated back in the air.
Anto inhaled deeply, as if trying to ask himself why he was doing this before looking back at Kyrx. "Why don't you come with me? Learn how humans are up close and personal. … Why don't you become my friend?"
"Y-Y-Y-Y-You're m-ma-mak-making m-me your… friend…?"
Anot nodded. "Yeah. Come travel with me, and I can show you how humans and friendship works to the best of my ability. It's really not as fantastic as you think, but..." Anto thought back to all of his friends he's met so far. "You learn to appreciate them."
"SENSATIONAL!" Elgyem whooped as she floated around Anto excitedly and quickly. "This shall be the best experiment of all times! And we must start right away!"
"Alright, so come with me back to the warp—"
"There is no time for that!"
"Wait what?" Anto raised his brow in confusion before he saw the escape button fade back into the floor and a new giant red button appear nearby Kryx. Now his eyes widened in shock. "What have I done?"
"To truly understand the Human Experience, I must be like my collective cousins of this world! Goodbye my loyal spaceship! You were very comfy!" The psychic type cried out before slamming her limb into the button.
In one instant, the entire spaceship disappeared, what was once a giant cloud over Driftveil City was now instantly gone, making some people look up in surprise at the sudden lack of shade.
With her spaceship somehow no longer existing in the physical plane, Kryx felt the wind rush to her form. "Ahh! Taste that earth turbulence, Anto! … Anto? Anto, where have you disappeared to?"
"Kryx, help!" The psychic type felt the psionic scream coming from beneath her, towards the ground around a good ten thousand feet in the air above from.
"It hasn't even been a month since last time I fell from the sky dang it!" Anto screamed as he tried to stabilize his body to reach maximum wind resistance. Wait, why was it that he was actually an expert in falling to one's death?
"Anto! I'm not sure if you realize, but Earth has an above average gravitational pull than most planets its size! Falling from this height will cause your body to explode when impacted on the ground." Kryx, mentally yelling back as she floated beside the falling Anto.
"Kryx! I'm not capable of levitation like you are! I'm literally going to die if you don't help me!" The boy screamed back.
"I see! Do not fear first friend and fellow scientist! I shall help you!" Then the psychic type cried out before blasting Anto with some kind of psychic energy.
However, the boy noticed one thing, or rather two: he was still falling, and he was still accelerating.
"Kryx, I thought you were helping me!"
"I am! This psionic shield is designed to absorb most of the kinetic energy you'll have when you hit the ground!" The being proudly beamed as she continued to fall with Anto.
"What do you mean absorb most of the energy?!"
"Oh some if it might still go through, stupid unpredictable variables… but you won't expire at least!"
Anto briefly wondered why on earth he met with all of the weirdest Pokémon out there. "Why don't you just use your powers to stop me from falling!?"
Kryx's eyes widened before she stopped mid air in a stunned manner, despite Anto continually falling. "I 'can' do that!" She gasped at the revelation.
Anto gave a deadpan look as he saw Kryx momentarily lost in thought as he fell to his not death at an alarming rate. "No seriously, I would like to see how this could possibly get worse."
What the falling amnesiac didn't know was that there was a group of people beneath him…
Ghetsis was talking to Clay, the Driftveil Gymleader, about releasing one of the Six sages back to him.
"Huh, funny, I thought you had a face cast?" Clay chuckled lightly and fixed his hat as he looked towards Ghetsis on a wheelchair.
The green haired man simply scoffed. "I have simply healed. Why just today my bandages were removed and I can finally feel my jaw again, if not for that ruffian who stole a bike and ran over my face…"
The ground type gym leader held in a smile at the remembrance of such a strange kid. Then something caught his attention in the air.
Ghetsis didn't seem to notice this and went on talking to him, "Let me get down to business. I've come to pick up my associates who are in your care." He motioned to one of the Seven Sages standing beside Clay, Zinzolin. Then he continued on with talking about why they should be let go and to what they were doing here.
However, one of the Plasma members, curious as to what he was looking at, glance over to where the Gymleader's view was. His eyes widened and he gasped and shouted, "Lord Ghetsis, look out!"
Ignoring this eerily familiar situation, Ghetsis looked up to what they were pointing to—only to see what a close up of an object falling over 100 mph was like.
Everyone flinched and even felt that type of pain as they saw the teen-age boy shaped object crash and explode right on top of the man in a wheel chair.
Out of the dust, Anto came out coughing, and a little dizzy, but looking quite impressed. "Wow! That shield actually worked! I don't feel in horrible pain! Are things are finally looking up for me!?"
It was then Anto noticed that he was right in front of the Driftveil Gym, with a guy who looked like a cowboy along with someone who seemed dressed up as one of Team Plasma's Rood, perhaps they were in the same rank? Anyway, the two men were both staring dumbfounded at Anto until he noticed that they weren't really looking at him, but something behind him.
Anto turned back and saw a rather familiar site of a group of horrified looking Team Plasma members crowding around what looked to be an injured man.
"Lord Ghetsis!?"
Holy crap Déjà vu.
It was then that one of the grunts looked over to Anto and pointed to him with righteous fury. "IT'S HIM! THE CHILD WHO HURT LORD GHETSIS BEFORE! GET HIM!"
The young trainer thought that without a doubt this event was eerily familiar to him.
Anto bolted away from the group, mentally cursing everything he could possibly cruse. I mean seriously? He accidentally maimed the same guy twice in different areas? What did the universe want form him dang it?!
However, he didn't notice that Black along with a boy wearing glasses were staring at him as he ran back into the city chased by a group of Team Plasma and their Pokémon.
"Anto?" Black asked but couldn't say it fast enough as Anto dashed with the speed of an Olympic runner away from the angry mob.
"Black? Was that the trainer you were talking about?" The black haired and glasses wearing friend of Black asked.
"Yes Cheren. I just thought… he was on the ground last time I saw him."
The other boy fixed his glasses. "Well, I suppose you weren't kidding at all when you told me he was a trouble magnet."
At this moment, Cheren received a call from one of his friends, White.
White was talking into her cellphone as she, Wes, and Jamie were hurriedly walking into Driftveil City with all of their Pokémon. "Hey Cheren, I need you to send a message to Black if you see him. … Oh he's right there? Can you give the phone to him please?" She waited before a familiar voice called out to her. "… Black! Anto's gone missing! This is exactly why you need a cellphone—wait? What? … I'm sorry, what!?" The girl spoke out in utter shock. The brunette put a hand on her phone and looked over to the rest of her companions. "Black says he and Cheren Just saw Anto!"
Everyone brightened up, while Wes smiled and rolled his eyes. Jamie spoke up. "Well where is he!?"
"Umm everyone?" The group looked to Takezo standing on top of a fire hydrate. "I believe I spot our formerly missing comrade."
They all followed to where the small normal type was pointing and were in shock as they saw a large angry mob heading towards their direction.
Wes squinted his eyes as he looked at what the angry mob was following and spotted a very, very familiar sight of Anto running for his life.
"How did that happen?" Jamie asked in shock.
"And why is he being Chased by Team Plasma… again!?" White screamed as she did recall watching the first time this happening when Anto accidentally ran over one of their preachers.
The Snagger of the group noticed something off. "Hold up. Is anyone noticing that group of angry medieval roleplayers are heading directly towards us?"
"There you guys are! Hurry up and RUN!" Anto's mental voice reached them as he very athletically ran past them. Everyone else looked at him before noticing the rather blood thirsty look in every single mob member whether Pokémon or Human.
"Oh I forgot to mention!" Wes started off as he started running with everyone else after Anto. "Be prepared to run a lot when you're with Anto!"
"Wait what!? This is actually a daily occurrence!?" Jamie screamed over the yelling mob now after them as well.
"Happens more along the lines of three times a week so far, hope you're physically fit!" Wes screamed before running faster as he saw the mob gaining up, Jamie and White looked at each other with looks that screamed 'what have we gotten ourselves into?' before running even faster away from the group of angry people.
White then recalled she still was with Black on the phone. "Black, I'll call you back! I'm going to be busy for a while!"
After finally losing those psychopaths, the group were gasping for breath behind the Driftveil Bazaar. However, by the time they lost them, it was already sun down.
"Anto," Jamie started after catching his breath a bit. "What the heck was that!? Where did you go?!"
Before Anto could explain, a bright purple flash appeared and Kyrx revealed herself in front of everyone. "Ahh there you are Anto! Now we shall begin our experiments!"
The humans all looked in shock at the new psychic type before all zooming in onto Anto for an explanation.
Anto's eyes narrowed to no one in particular. "I got freaking abducted by aliens."
Wes, his Pokémon, and Anto's party, all raised their brows. White and everyone else all just gapped.
The alien beside him cooed excitedly before taking out a rather strange looking needle that looked to be alive. "That reminds me! Anto, can I probe you now?"
"NO!"
Well, at least Anto should consider this: his misadventure today felt like—not relating to actual time—the shortest one yet.
{Author Notes}
*For those wondering... this little cameo is by my good friend MangoLimePie and his take on Pokemon Black and White 2 games. I joked about this because he wrote his character to have good luck, while mine has the worst one imaginable, and we didn't mean to be so polar opposites in that department. It's a good story, you guys should go check him out. The story those two characters star in is "Icy Wrath".
A small filler adventure on the new group's way to Driftveil City! We meet Anto's new Pokémon: "Kryxialvoimepotark" or Kyrx for short. She's Anto's first actual Psychic Pokémon and she's an alien trying to probe him! Oh Anto… you have no idea what she's actually capable of, and I can't wait to show you all how living wither is going to be.
To ease up on the guy, he's going to be challenging Clay in the next chapter, Arceus knows I've been keeping all of you longer in Nimbasa City than I would like. Plus I don't really see much reason for Anto to explore the city here around this time. Maybe it will be briefly noted around here.
If one has noticed, most of Anto's Pokémon are natives from Unova. With the exception of Sentinel, I originally planned Anto to have all Unova Native Pokémon. My reason for this was rather simple: Anto would be in Unova for the first good half of his journey, so it stood to reason to give him Unova Pokémon. Some people might not like the fact that first time gen 5 games had all original Pokémon, but other have pointed out that it really even out the playing field and renewed the whole Pokémon experience, it felt like I had first picked up Pokémon Silver again for the first time for me.
As fun as it would be to write more reasons to have more of my favorite Pokémon from other regions come to Unova, it felt kind of cheap honestly. Just getting a Pokémon I want because I want it? So When writing up the story, I had to actually look up the list of Pokémon in Unova and choose my (6) five Pokémon that I wanted in my tale. Honestly? I found it to be way more fun with these restrictions. I actually had to pick and choose which team I wanted, and how they would be! It got me really excited in that I couldn't wait to bring them all together.
You guys should see the last Pokémon I planned. Trust me, Anto's collective family of crazy are not done just yet.
Another thing I wanted to talk about was a little running gag so far in this tale. Did you spot it?
Anto once more fell on top of Ghetsis.
Takezo was right, things do seem to repeat themselves around Anto. And Running gags will be abused to the point they will no longer be funny! (And let's just say I'm planning something a little… psychological… with this gag.)
Oh! Wait! Since this came a little late, (Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas!) Happy New Year guys. It's actually fitting that this story, the one I first uploaded in 2015, gets to be my last uploaded chapter of 2015. And I didn't even mean that. Here's to hoping you all enjoy next year, may it be better than the last!
Thank you for reading and please support this story with a review, favorite and/or follow.
