So, I upped the rating on the story, because of dark and nasty things that kinda happen. Once again, the events in this chapter are based on the old versions of Cinderella I read as a kid (which probably says a bit about me as a kid) which aren't in the Disney version.

And I own none of the characters and make no money, obviously. But I do promise to deliver the happy ending in good time.


The scene in the sitting room, if Vince had been able to see in through the window, was not a pretty sight. Anthrax had been the first to try on the boot but her attempt had yielded some rather unexpected results, the most pressing being that despite the fact that she was a young woman of slightly below average height, she did in fact have rather large feet. She had struggled for nearly ten minutes but had been unable to wedge her ankle into the shoe due to the length of her toes and had eventually thrown the offending piece of footwear to the floor and stormed from the room in a rage.

Ebola had been next but her struggle with the mirrorboot had been quite the opposite of her sister's. Her foot had slipped in to the shoe without effort because her own feet and legs were so thin and delicate. She had smiled smugly at the glaring Naboo and requested to be taken to the palace immediately. That was until Bob Fossil asked her to show the boot was a perfect fit by taking a walk around the room.

She had risen from her chair without trepidation but her first step had been her last. Her foot slipped in the boot - too large for her as it was - and as she fell badly the bird-like bone of her shin snapped with a loud crack. She crumpled to the floor like a science room skeleton with its pin removed and stayed there, in a dead faint, as her father scowled. He turned away with a shake of his green head and bellowed for his other daughter to get back in the room before he came looking for her and didn't look at his stricken first born again.

Naboo removed the boot gingerly from Ebola's foot and passed it to Fossil before muttering an incantation to set the bone. It would still hurt like a motherbitch but at least she wouldn't be permanently crippled. He'd had some idea of what Vince's life had been like but being here, in this shadowy and neglected room, with a witch whose aura oozed evil, and who had just chosen to ignore the pain and need of his own offspring, made him feel genuine remorse over not stepping in to help sooner. Screw the clause about Vince needing to reach his narrative turning point and character development through hardship, the Board of Shaman should have stepped in years ago to stop the Hitcher. Instead it was just him and that boded ill, like intensely bad juju.

And then Anthrax re-entered the room, and it all got worse.

She wasn't the first to try something extreme in order to fit the description of the prince's mysterious spouse-to-be in order to be whisked off to a life of relative ease at the palace - that morning they'd had to endure too many young men and women with badly dyed black hair who had glimpsed Vince at the ball and tried to copy his look. One contender by the name of Lance had been a near dead ringer and even Naboo had needed to check his facts so he didn't make the wrong call but his foot hadn't fit the boot and he hadn't thought to change his feet. No one had until now.

Anthrax had been angrily red in the face when she'd stormed from the room but her face as she shuffled back in was deathly white and lacked any kind of expression. The only clue to what she might actually be feeling was a muscle twitching by her left eye as she attempted to walk.

The Hitcher grinned at the sight of her and pulled a small vial from his coat, handing it to her like a reward.

"Thank you, father," she whispered before pulling the stopper free and drinking the potion within. Within a minute a little colour returned to her cheeks and she walked over to take her sister's place in the chair, stepping over her sibling's unconscious form as if it weren't there at all.

"I would like to try the boot again now. I believe I tried it on the wrong foot before, very remiss of me, silly even, since it's my boot and all. But I'll be trying it again now thank you."

She spoke stonily but Naboo could hear the slight waver in her tone that betrayed her. Something wasn't right and the feeling of foreboding was growing like fuzz on cheese. Then Anthrax held up her foot toward Fossil and they were finally able to see the reason for her unsteadiness.

Fossil stared at the blood soaked sock and fainted, far less gracefully than Ebola had, but Anthrax caught the boot before it could hit the ground. She tore off the sock and Naboo's eyes widened as he took in the sight of her foot, now devoid of its toes, before she plunged it into the boot.

"IT FITS!"

The woman's face lit up like a deranged jack-o-lantern and Naboo took a few steps back she jumped to her feet and he saw an unhinged glee take over her face. Outside, beneath the window, he heard a faint thump but didn't have time to think what it could be as he tried to come up with a way to escape the sitting room.

"IT FITS! I'M GOING TO MARRY THE PRINCE! OW! MOTHER LICKING- NO, NO, IT FITS! IT'S FINE!"

She held her arms out toward Naboo as she stumbled, not to ask for help but to stop him from coming to her aid and the twitch by her eye started up again. Things had officially gone from bad to worse and Naboo pressed the jewel on his turban which would (hopefully) send a distress signal to the Board of Shaman.

A movement by the door caught his eye and he saw the large, hairy shape of Bollo peering though the opening, but as he tried to edge toward the ape he tripped over the rotund body of Fossil, who groaned as he pulled himself to his feet.

"Holy shit sauce on a tasting platter!" the chubby man screamed as he too scrambled back.

The Hitcher was grinning and chuckling darkly to himself as he watched his daughter move about the room in mismatched boots, limping like a victim in a real zombie apocalypse. She began to giggle hysterically, moving toward them now as they moved back and Naboo realised that if things had already gone from bad to worse they were about to descend into something approaching surreal horror. He pushed himself backward through the door and began to run, yelling as he did so.

"Fossil, get up to the palace as fast as you can and fetch the king and Howard. And guards. We're gonna need lots of guards I reckon. Bollo, try and keep the Hitcher and that poor girl in the house, you hear me? Don't let them leave!"

The Hitcher wasn't trying to leave - yet - but Anthrax was still lurching toward them, her eyes unfocused and near frantic from the obvious pain in her foot.

Bollo stepped forward with a grunt and Fossil took his cue, running with surprising speed to the front door and then out into the street. Naboo began back out more slowly, not wanting to take his eyes off the man-witch standing so calming amid the growing chaos.

"I got a bad feeling about this," Bollo grunted, just as Naboo reached the door. "What Naboo going to do?"

"Me?" Naboo replied quietly. "I'm going to go find Vince. Then I'm going to sort out this mess and give him the happy ending he damn well deserves."

The Hitcher just grinned.