NickStricker: Prepare to feel worse

coldblue: I don't really see a reason as to why Vincent would kiss Mabel, if it was just to mess with Dipper. Vincent is pretty practical and pragmatic. He does whatever he thinks will benefit him the most and get him closer to his overall goal. He definitely doesn't like Dipper but I'm sure if he wanted to do something bad to him, it would probably just be finding a way of keeping him from intervening in general since he views him as a theart. Annoying him isn't as valuable as stopping him

Dip the Hashashin: Yeah, I wanted the problem to be more complicated that what it initially seemed. And I thought I should make the hand cuffs power to sound both science/magic

Lennoxmacduffes: Thank you none the less. And btw, really like your own story

Guest: Ah come on. She's not that lovable


After walking for about half an hour through the woods, Vincent, while not taking special care to avoid any dirt, branches or mud in his path for the sake of Mabel, finally stopped when they had reached their destination. Realising that they had stopped moving, Mabel got back to her feet again.

"Are we there yet?" she asked, shaking some branches out of her hair. She was about to ask a follow up question about where they were, but soon got her answer when her eyes focused on what was up ahead. They were standing in front of a familiar looking old gate that had been tumbled to the ground and preceding it was a large, burned down manor that Mabel had visited not too long ago with Dipper.

"My old home" Vincent said, gazing over the desolate building. "It's been…quite a while since I was here. There's something I need that's inside. I can't move forward with my plans until I get it, which means I have to…go back in there". For some reason, his voice carried something that sounded close to reluctance.

There then came a long moment of silence as they both stood in front of the gate. Mabel was waiting expectantly for Vincent to say or do something else before he took her inside the mansion, but he made no move in any direction, as if waiting for something else to happen. After nearly five minutes of just standing around, Mabel rubbed the back of head, genuinely beginning to feel a little awkward about the situation.

"Um, are we… going in yet?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes, of course we are" Vincent said a little sharply, as if the question itself was irrelevant. Despite having said that, he made no move to go forward and just remained where he was. After another minute of silence, Mabel spoke up again.

"Are we going in now?" she asked.

"Yes, in a minute" Vincent replied impatiently. But once again, nothing else happened.

"How about now?" Mabel asked.

"Not yet"

"Now?"

"I said not yet!"

"Nooooow?"

"We'll go in when I say we go in!"

"Can't we just go in already?" Mabel asked, growing increasingly restless from their perpetual waiting. "If what you want that's so important, then why are you wasting time out here?"

Vincent opened his mouth slightly and gestured with his hands, as if he wasn't sure how to phrase his answer. "I'm just, um….just…just collecting myself a little. And you…you keep throwing me off with all your incessant distractions".

Mabel didn't take his comment too well. She was about to give him a sharp reply, but it was then she noticed how apprehensive Vincent actually looked and realised that he had been staring at the old building since they arrived, not even looking over in her direction the whole time. It was then that another thought slowly occurred to Mabel

"You're not scared to go in there are you?" she asked with a wryly grin.

Vincent became visibly unnerved by her accusation, but did his best to mask any anxiety. "Scared? Me? Ha, please. I am a vampire. We are fear itself" he said, with an egotistical flair of pride. "I'm just, you know….um, catching the breeze a little and enjoying the day"

"You are scared aren't you?" Mabel said, growing more amused by the second, poking Vincent in his arm. "Scared, scared, scared!"

"I'm not afraid!" he said angrily, swatting her hand away from him.

"The why don't you want to go into your old house?" Vincent gave no response to this question, which Mabel decided to take as positive incentive.

"Tell me, do you prefer to be called a chicken or a fraidy cat?" she asked him. "I'm gonna say chicken"

"I'm not a chicken!" Vincent snapped.

"Buk, buk, brrr-awk!" Mabel taunted.

"If you think that's going to get to me, you're-"

"Brr-awk!"

"Stop that!"

"Fine" Mabel said innocently. "Fraidy cat it is. Meowmeowmeowmeow"

"Will you please just-"

"Meowmeowmeow!"

Vincent crunched his face up with frustration. "Enough already!"

With a renewed sense of resolve in his stride, Vincent marched forward, yanking at the shackle on his wrist to pull Mabel along. They crossed the courtyard of the manor, walking past the fountain and up the front steps without breaking their pace. However, once they reached the front door, Vincent paused for a moment, looking uncompromisingly nervous as he stared up at the wooden frame in front of him. With a slight gulp, he placed his hand on the door and slowly started to push it open.

"Dramatic entrance!" Mabel shoved her hands into Vincent's back forcing them both to tumble right through the door.

"What'd you do that for?" he demanded.

Mabel just smiled and shrugged back at him. "When someone's scared of something, the best thing to do is forcefully thrust them face first into whatever their afraid of so they'll overcome it, and hopefully not have a nervous breakdown"

Vincent rolled his eyes once again with disgust. "Thanks for the advice, but like I said before, I'm not scared"

There seemed to be some more truth in his statement this time round, as now that they were finally inside the house, he's anxiety issues appeared to have satiated somewhat. He took the led forward, with Mabel walking behind him as they made their way the interior of the house. They abruptly stopped when they came to a large hole in the floor in front of them that extended far down below.

"This is new" Vincent said, craning his neck out over the pit.

"That's the hole me and Dipper fell into last time we were here" Mabel said. "And then we landed into that evil secrety underground lair place"

"Well what a coincidence" Vincent said. "Because that's where I need to go. So spare me your pitiful screaming when I-"

"Pocahontas!"

Without warning, Mabel leaped right off the edge of the hole, laughing in merriment as she plummeted downwards, with the weight of her body acting like an anchor that dragged Vincent right along with her. Just before they hit the approaching ground, Vincent caught himself in the air, stopping his own momentum from the fall which was also brought Mabel to a halt, her feet just inches above the floor below them as she dangled from the chain between them.

"What's wrong with you?! " Vincent snapped as he lower them both down. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"Noooo!" Mabel drawled. "I knew you were going to catch me. I break my neck, you break yours, meaning I can take unnecessary and thrill seeking risks anytime I want and you have to cover for me"

Vincent scowled at Mabel, feeling greatly aggravated, by both her teasing and the fact she actually made a valid point. Taking his mind off her for a moment, he soon focused his attention on the underground chamber they had landed in. His eyes settled on the huge shelf at the far wall, filled with numerous books and scrolls.

With nothing but a thought in his mind, he removed some of the scrolls from the shelf and held them up over his head. Vincent then turned toward the old workbench at the other end of the chamber, which was lined with broken and empty glass vials, as well as ones that were still partial full of some strange and unknown liquids. He and Mabel walked over to the bench with the scrolls following behind them in the air.

Clearing a large enough space, Vincent placed the scrolls down on the bench and took a seat on the stool in front of it. He then reached into his cape and pulled out the book he had taken from the library, before setting it on the bench as well. Finally, he reached into the pocket of his pants, taking out a small folded up piece of paper

Holding the paper in between his hands, Vincent threw a cautionary glance over to Mabel, who was staring up at celling with an idle expression, while picking at strands of her hair. He didn't like the idea of her being present while he did his work, but for the moment he could see no other alternative.

He unfolded the secret map he had spent so long trying to find and spread it out across the bench. He then opened up one of the scrolls, along with his book and with all the appropriated pieces arranged together, he diligently began to analyse the information laid out before him.

"Whatcha' reading?" Mabel asked, poking her head over his shoulder.

Vincent eyed her coldly, before shifting his shoulders up to obscure her view. "The same thing everybody else in the world reads. Letters"

"But you're also looking at pictures too" Mabel said, moving to his other shoulder and standing on her toes. "Is that a map?"

"That is none of your business" Vincent said in a low voice, changing his position once again to block her, but Mabel was unrelenting. Unable to see over his shoulder, she quickly tucked underneath his arm and popped out between him and the desk, getting a full view of what he was looking at.

"What's an…. Under-land-tis?" Mabel asked, squinting her eyes to make sure she was reading that right.

"It's another word for Axolotl" Vincent answered swiftly, placing his palm over Mabel's face and pushing her away. "Now stop interrupting me. I found what I was looking for at the library, but now I need to cross check it with some of my grandfather's old scrolls. And once I get through all this, I'm going to try and look for a way to get these shackles off us, so stop pestering me"

Mabel pouted in annoyance and crossed her arms. Not being able to wander off by herself, she slumped her back up against the side of bench, beginning to feel a great sense of boredom wash over her. Trying very hard to think of some way to alleviate it, she sighed heavily and leaned her head down on bench. And it was then that something in front of her caught her eye. Straightening herself up, she glanced over to Vincent, who was completely absorbed into his own work, and she quickly got a great (and definitely not stupid) idea in her head.

Still reading and paying no mind to anything else, Vincent absently moved his left hand to the side to pick up another scroll, but to his surprise, his hand grasped nothing but empty space. He turned his head in confusion to see that all the scrolls he placed on the bench were now gone. He then heard a loud moaning noise coming from behind

"What the?" he said, turning around.

Mabel was now covered from head to toe with several layers of dry, brown paper, which were wrapped haphazardly around her head, arms and torso, giving her the appearance of a burn ward patient.

"Behold! I am the living mummy!" she said hauntingly, sticking her arms out straight while waving them up and down rigidly. "Fear me or I will eat your brains because I'm basically the same thing as a zombie, but with toilet paper arms! Bewarb! Bewarb!"

"Stop that!" Vincent angrily grabbed a handful of the papers and yanked them off Mabel's body. The papers slide off without effort since she hadn't done a good job of securing them. Scowling deeply, Vincent scooped the bundle of scrolls off the floor and dropped them back on the bench

"Don't touch anything!" he snapped at Mabel as he began to unjumble the mess she had created. "These are delicate scrolls that contain secret knowledge so ancient and deadly they could bring untold destruction upon the world in the wrong hands"

"But in the hands of someone artistically gifted like myself, they can also be used for origami!" Mabel picked up a scrap of paper off the floor and quickly folded it into an undiscernible shape. She held it up for Vincent to see. "Now I know what you're thinking. And you right. It does look exactly look a cat!"

Vincent snatched the paper, er, cat out of Mabel's hands and smoothed it back out on the table. "I am trying to focus here" he said, rubbing his eyes with frustration. "The longer you waste my time, the longer we're going to be stuck together, so stop messing around!"

Mabel responded by sticking her tongue out at him. After another few moments she spoke up again. "I'm hungry" she moaned, beginning to feel a grumbling in her stomach. "And thirsty"

"Oh really?" Vincent said dryly, opening another scroll. "Well give me a minute and I'll serve you up a nice plate of Not-My-Problem, along with a tall, cool glass of Tell-Someone-Who-Cares, and afterwards I'll make you my special, Shut-up-and-Let-Me-Work-In-Peace cheese cake for desert. Might smell a little condescending, but you'll figuratively die when you taste that rich flavour of pure, organic sarcasm"

Mabel said nothing and just stared back at Vincent with a deadpan expression, her eyelids half lowered. She then slowly started to clap her hands in a mocking gesture. "Bravo sir, bravo. You're right. I can taste the sarcasm". Mabel gave a brief glance to her side. "So maybe, I'll just wash it down with whatever this is!"

Mabel reached out and grabbed one of the unbroken vials that was still on the bench. At the bottom of it was a small of amount of some strange green liquid.

Vincent looked over to Mabel with a lazy expression, which quickly melted into fear and alarm once he saw what she had picked up. "N-n-no, no, don't drink that!" he said, jumping off his stool and making a move toward her. He tried to grab the vial out of her hands but she pull it back from him.

"You drink that and you'll kill use both!" he exclaimed, growing more flustered. "That stuff will eat through your organs like a school of piranha and then it'll make your eyes balls violently implode inside your head, which means it'll eat through my organs like a school of piranha and make my eye balls violently implode inside my head! Give it to me now!"

"Oh really? Well if that's the case, then I'll gladly sacrifice myself no matter how excruciating painful it's going to be, if means stopping you and your evil plans!" Mabel declared. Without hesitation, she arched her neck backwards and tipped the vial over her mouth, guzzling down its contents. As soon as she finished, she let out a raspy gasp, dropping the vial to the floor. She clutched her own throat as if choking, her body shaking and her eyes rolling into the back of her head

"No, no!" Vincent put his hands to his own throat in panic and started to gasp for breath, dropping down to his knees, already feeling the effects of the poison running its course through his own body.

Mabel continued hyperventilating, looking to be on the verge of losing her ability to breathe entirely. Then in an instant, she completely froze up, taking in one very long, last inhale of oxygen, before finally….

"Blaaahhhhhh!" she exclaimed loudly, a goofy smile crossing over her face. Vincent, while still on his knees, stared back at her, his mind suddenly going blank. Seeing his face, Mabel soon burst into a fit of laughter.

"Haha, fooled you!" she giggled. "I would never drink that weird stuff. Watch this"

Mabel picked up another glass vial and tipped over her mouth. However from this angle, Vincent could now see that Mabel's head had been in the foreground, the glass aligned up with her mouth in the background to create the optical illusion of her actually drinking the substance in the vial. Vincent gaped incredulously at her at as she started laughing once again. His pride had been wounded enough by her little stunt, but what really drove the nail into him was that Mabel wasn't laughing out of mockery or contempt, or that she was even laughing at him. She was laughing simply because she thought the situation was genuinely funny.

"Yeah, depth perception is pretty powerful thing huh?" Mabel said, once she recomposed herself. "One time I managed to eat a whole sun with that trick!"

Vincent looked to be on the verge of saying something back to her, but no audible sound came out of his mouth. His left eye began to twitch violently, as if he was in the middle of a seizure. With his hands shaking in barely restrained rage, he dug his fingers into the skin underneath his eyes and pulled at it, stifling a deep groan. He then took a very long, slow breath to steady himself. Closing his eyes, he calmly, yet stiffly stood up and moved back to the workbench, picking up where he had left off.

"Oh come on" Mabel said, following after him (not that she had any other choice). She took up position right beside him, drawing so close her shoulder pressed up against his.

"Don't tell me you're gonna be all sore about that" she said, playfully jabbing him slightly in the elbow. "I understand how tricking someone into thinking they're in life threating danger just for the fun can sometimes be taken the wrong way, but I was only trying to lighten the mood. If it makes you feel any better, I played that same trick on Dipper the last time we were here, when we fell down that big hole." Mabel leaned in closer, dropping her voice down to whisper. "He totally fell for it"

Vincent said absolutely nothing back to her, keeping his eyes glued to his papers, doing his best to pretend that Mabel didn't exist, but her persistently amicable attitude was hard to blot out.

"So what is the deal with this place?" she asked him casually, looking around the chamber with sudden interest. "Why would you want to live in a place like this? Did you live here with your grandpa? Dipper said that this was his old house"

Vincent flipped through another piece of paper, remaining completely silent.

"Did your parents live here too?" Mabel asked him. "Or did they send you here to stay with your grandpa for the summer, like me and Dipper did with Grunkle Stan?"

There came a loud tear as Vincent had inadvertently pulled a little too hard on a scroll he was holding, ripping in half.

"Dipper and I haven't seen our parents since we left home this summer" Mabel continued. "I wonder how they're doing. To be honest, except for their arms I don't really remember what they look like. But it's been really great living with Grunkle Stan this past while". For a moment, Mabel smiled warmly as she began to reminisce.

"Ah, I remember the first day we came here" she said, almost dreamily. "That was when I experienced my first summer romance". Her face suddenly grimaced in an expression of dread. "Too bad it turned out to be with a bunch of gnomes that tried to kidnapped me and make me their queen, but what's life without a little heart ache?"

Vincent lowered his head down further, breathing in hard through his nose and rubbing the right side of his temple, still making no attempt to engage with Mabel's small talk

"I remember that day, because I was wearing my 'Meow Wow' sweater" she said. "I make sure to wear a different sweater each day. That way, no matter what happens, no twos days of my summer will ever be exactly the same. Hey! You know what I just remembered? This was also where I found that really cool black sweater. You know? The one with the little red bats on it?"

Vincent's eyes snapped open like a whip being cracked, his whole body going very tense. He dropped the papers he had been holding, before hunching over and laying his hands flat on the table.

"You wouldn't happen to have another one laying around would you?" Mabel asked with tentatively, oblivious to Vincent's less than forthcoming demeanour. "In case you didn't notice, I'm sort of a sweater connoisseur and I gotta tell you that was one fashionable piece of wool you had there and believe me, I've worn a lot. But I never had one in black before. Do you have another? Maybe we could work out a trade or-"

There came the sound of splintering wood as Vincent sank his entire fingers into the top of the solid bench as easily as if it was made out of soft clay. Pulling his hands free with a loud snap, he rounded right on to Mabel like wild animal gone savage.

"Will you just SHUT UP!" he roared with fury right into her face, forcing her to back away from him almost immediately. "Can you go even five seconds without opening your mouth and acting like a complete and utter moron!? How many other ways can I phrase it? I…am….trying…to…WORK!"

Mabel continued to back track from Vincent with utmost terror as he bore down on her menacingly, poking his finger into her chest with each of his enunciations. "Don't talk to me, don't distract me, don't play games with me, don't even look at me! And don't you ever, ever ask me about sweaters again! Or I swear, I'm gonna-!"

Whatever Vincent was going to do, Mabel never found out, because just before he could finished his anecdote, she felt the back of her knees hit against something hard, making her lose balance and fall straight backwards. As she tumbled, Vincent was involuntarily dragged forward by the chain that bound the two of them together, crashing head first to the floor.

Hitting the floor hard, Mabel shook her head, feeling disoriented. Sitting up right, she saw that the thing she had tripped over was a large, grime covered cinder block, laid out in the middle of the floor. This was the first thing she noticed. The second thing she noticed was what had happened to Vincent during the scuffle. When they had fallen over together, while Mabel had vaulted right over the cinder block, Vincent landed on the opposite side, having been pulled straight downward due to Mabel's fall, and as a result, he smacked his face right off the top of solid stone block. Mabel winced, knowing for a fact it hurt him a lot. Because it had hurt her a lot.

With a stiff groan, Vincent pushed himself up, his face covered by his hands. When he lowered them again, he opened his eyes onto the concrete block sitting between him and Mabel, their chain laying over the top of it. He stared into the grey stone, as if it was some kind of long lost acquaintance that he was meeting for the first time in years.

Very slowly, Vincent blinked once. Then again. And then…

"AAAAARRRRHHHHHHHHH!"

The cinder block rose at least ten feet in the air as Vincent extended a claw like hand toward, his eyes burning with crimson energy. He then clenched his hand into a tight ball. A thousand tiny fissures appeared on every corner of the block, cracking the exterior. In the span of only one second, the entire block shattered, collapsing on itself, being crushed into pieces. But things didn't stop there. The broken pieces continued crackle as they were further compressed together, tighter and tighter, shrinking down to a tiny ball of dust. The ball hovered down in front of Vincent, who was still clenching his fist as tightly as he could, every ounce of his concentration focused on crushing the block into as tiny a fragment as he possibly could. Finally he released the breath he had been holding in and open his hand again, letting what was left of the block drop to the floor as a fine powder of dust.

Vincent looked down at the pile of the dust, eyes wide and breathing heavily as if he had just run a marathon. Standing across from him, Mabel could only stared apprehensively at him, half wondering if he would turn his anger on her next. Unable to bare the silence any longer, she wet her lips slightly, aware that she could very well have been tempting death.

"Whoa! Is it tense in here, or is it just your lack of prescribed medication" she said with a cheerful smile.

Vincent slowly turned his head and cast one dark glare of his eyes in Mabel's direction. Her smile instantly dropped from her face and she soon fell silent. Without uttering a word, Vincent turned on his heel and marched back to the bench, quite literally dragging Mabel with the force of his tug.

"I've got enough information here" he said curtly, picking up a handful of papers and stuffing them inside his cape. He took a moment to fold one piece of paper and carefully place inside his pocket. "We're going out again"

Vincent pulled Mabel along back to the hole in the ceiling, ready to leave again, but stopped when he noticed how the floor underneath the hole suddenly looked a lot brighter than before. Turning his head upwards, he saw a ray of sunlight shining down the hole in the floor above them from the large gap in the collapsed roof up above

"Dammit" Vincent cursed under his breath. "The sun is out again and it'll be hours before nightfall. That means we'll have to wait the rest of the day out in here" he concluded, sounding very bitter about the prospect.

"While that doesn't sound too bad?" Mabel said trying to stay optimistic. "I'm sure we can entertain ourselves till then. What to watch me make some shadow puppets?"

As soon as Mabel stuck her hand out into the sunlight, she pulled it back again into the shadows with a yelp. Looking at her hand, she saw that it had turned bright red, as if a cup of boiling water had been splashed over her flesh.

"Looks like you've also gained my weakness to sunlight" Vincent said, noting the burning sensation on his own hand

"So now I can't even go out in the sun shine?" Mabel said with despair. "You're supposed to have fun in the sun. Do you know how few words there are that rhyme with fun!? Do you?!" she exclaimed, grabbing Vincent by the helm of his collar in a desperate plea. Unsympathetic, Vincent detached her hands from his collar and then started toward another end of the chamber.

"Where are we going now?" Mabel asked as she was forced to follow him.

"Somewhere I can think" he answered.


Vincent led Mabel back upstairs through a hidden stair case. They moved through the dilapidated mansion, being careful to avoid any patches of sunlight seeping in. They finally came to an unmarked door in less damage section of the house. Together, they entered into a relatively smaller, room, which held a single bed against the far wall.

"My old room" Vincent said, with a weary sigh.

"This is where you slept?" Mabel asked, looking over the bare room, that was around the same size as the room she and Dipper slept in. But unlike their room, this one was almost completely empty, save for the bed and the small shelf beside it. There wasn't even a window on the wall.

"This part of the house is still pretty much intact" Vincent explained. From his pocket, he pulled out his phone and set the alarm on it. He took out a small candle and lit it, placing it on the shelf beside the bed in order to bring some light into the room. "Once it's dark again, we can leave"

"What are supposed to do till then" Mabel asked.

"I am going to figure out to remove these restraints" he answered, pulling another book out from the two dimensional fabric of his cape. He then plopped himself up onto his old, creaky bed and opened his book.

"Do you do anything other than study?" Mabel said, sounding exasperated.

"What else is there to do?" Vincent replied lazily, as if he found the actual question pointless.

"I don't know". Mabel shrugged. She gestured around toward the empty room. "Maybe if you had something in here that you could play with, like some toys or board games or colouring books. Or maybe your own mini golf course

Vincent paused while turning the page of his book. He lowered the book and rubbed his eyes wearily. "I'm sorry, but what?" he said, almost certain that he had not heard Mabel correctly.

"A miniature golf course" Mabel reiterated with a happy smile. "With some glue, tape and little imaginative plagiarism, you make your very own mini golf course right here in your bedroom. Me and Dipper make them all the time. If you want I can show you how make one too and we can have a round of golf to pass the time. We could start by-"

"You know what, I have a better idea" Vincent said, putting on a convincingly fake smile. "Why don't we play a different game? Let's see who can stay as quiet as possible the longest while collecting the most dust". Vincent then scraped up a handful of dust off his bed shelf into the palm of his hand and then blew it right into Mabel's face. "Look, your winning" he added coldly, as he went back to his reading.

Mabel shut her eyes as she felt the dust particles spray all over her face. Coughing slightly, she blinked a few times before wiping her face clean with the sleeve of her sweater. When she saw that Vincent was still just reading his book, not looking the least bit sorry for what he had just done, her face slowly furrowed into a very unamused frown.

"You know, it's not my fault that we're chained up together" she said, her tone resentful. "And I didn't ask to be stuck inside this tiny little room with you all day when I could be outside playing in the sun. I'm only trying to make the most of this bad situation, but you have to keep being such a jerk all the time. Why don't you lighten up a little?"

"What and be like you?" Vincent scoffed. He hopped off the bed to stand opposite Mabel. "You treat everything like its one big joke. Playing stupid little games with yourself and everything you can get your hands on. And why? For what point? What can you possible hope to achieve out of such childish antics?"

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to have some fun" Mabel said defensively.

"Fun is worthless! Vincent snapped, suddenly angry. "Fun gets you nothing and nowhere in life. Hard work, absolute focus and total commitment are the only things that do that"

"Jeez, now you sound like my brother" Mabel muttered, with a slight eye roll

"Except your brother is a loser" Vincent sneered coldly.

"Hey! Don't talk about him that way!" Mabel said, her anger flaring. "We kicked your butt before and pretty soon, he's gonna show up to rescue me and then we'll stop…. whatever it is your doing!"

"I'm not scared of your brother" Vincent said, his voice hard as he drew closer to Mabel, meeting her angry gaze with his own. "I'm not scared of anything! I have great things planned for my future. A future where I'm working toward something, something worthwhile. I work for it every single day, with everything that I do and I overcome any problems or obstacles that get in my way. But you?" His voice now dropped to a mocking tone. "Your idea of an obstacle is figuring what stupid little sweater you want to wear at some ridiculous dance off, where maybe get the attention of a dreamy boy who thinks your cute"

Mabel narrowed her eyes dangerously at Vincent, moving her face closer to his. "Keep talking, I'll show you how cute I can be!" she growled at him

"You know what you are?" he said, poking her in the shoulder. "You're a child. A silly little child, who doesn't want to make anything worthwhile out of your life other than just to live it. You're pathetic"

Mabel was left momentarily stunned as Vincent insult sank in, but her rage soon bubbled back to the surface. "That's it! You asked for this!" She raised her right hand up and made it into a fist. She spun it around a few times, before punching herself in the face. Vincent flinched as he felt the impact on his own face. But Mabel didn't stop there, as she continued her assault on own body, knowing the damage would also go to Vincent

"Take this! And this! And this!"

"Stop it!" Vincent snapped at her, grabbing her arms by the wrists to restrain her. Mabel quickly leaned her head down and bite her fingers. Vincent exclaimed, releasing his corresponding hand. He lunged at her again, as they grappled across the room, Vincent trying to hold Mabel down while she began slapping herself in order to hurt him. They pushed and pulled at each other until finally, Mabel was backed up into the nearest wall. However when she hit against it, the wall produced a strange, deep echoing sound as though it were hollow. She only had just enough time to register this noise when she then heard a strange creaking coming from inside the wall. Mabel then pushed at Vincent again, moving away just as the section of the wall collapsed on itself.

But that wasn't the strange part. Once the section gave way, it released a mountain of toys that had been concealed within, which all spilled out from the hidden closet behind the wall, into one massive heap on the floor.

Both Mabel and Vincent quickly ceased their struggling. Though Mabel looked only mildly surprised by this unexpected event, Vincent immediately sucked in his breath and had tensed up as soon as he laid eyes on these toys, with an almost guilty expression on his face. He was so stunned by what had just happened that he didn't think to stop Mabel as she pulled them both closer to the pile

"What is this stuff?" she asked, looking over all the toys with curiosity. She turned back to Vincent "Is this all yours?"

"No!" he lied immediately. "It's not mine!"

"They how come it's in your room?" Mabel said, picking up a small, toy spaceship.

"Don't touch that!" Vincent snatched the spaceship out of her hands and for a moment clutched it protectively to his chest. He then realised what he had done and quickly pulled the toy away from himself again.

"I mean, this is….this is nothing" he said, gesturing frantically with his hands as he tried to explain himself. "This is just some stuff that I-I-I stole, from ah….these little kids a long time ago, because you know, I-I-I'm evil and because I feed on their…. tears and stuff"

Only half listening, Mabel continued to shuffle through the pile of toys, when she came across a small, kid sized helmet with a glass lid tapped over the front. She picked up the helmet and turned it over in her hands when she came across a scribbled note on the inside.

"Space Adventurer, Captain Vincent?" she said, turning to Vincent with a curious expression.

Vincent turned away, now looking extremely embarrassed. Mabel slapped her cheek and gasped deeply. "You're a sci-fi genre enthusiasts! Otherwise known as a nerd!"

"I am not! I'm…I'm…I mean that's just…um….". Vincent could only open and close his mouth helplessly, still trying to think of some way to denying her accusations, until finally he caved in.

"Yes, fine its mine" he admitted with contempt. "When I was a child. All children play with silly little toys when they're children. Then they grow up and move on to bigger and more important things to do with their time which is what I did" he said, crossing his arms and scowling angrily.

"You still are a kid" Mabel said, feeling immensely happy about this sudden role reversal. "You're no bigger than me"

"I'll have you know that by vampire standards, I am at least thirteen, technically a teen" Vincent replied, rather pointedly.

"A teen who keeps a Hunter Solitar and Chum-bobo dolls in his secret closet". Mabel held up two separate dolls in her hand, one of a handsome man with a laser pistol and another of a big hairy beast man.

"Those are not dolls, they are collectables!" Vincent said quickly, but he then covered his own mouth as if he had just said something rude. "I mean, I don't care about those… stupid things"

"Then you won't mind if I play with them?" Mabel asked teasingly.

Vincent hesitated for a moment as if he was about to answer no, but he quickly recomposed himself, turning his head away and lifting chin up high in a pompous manner "You can do whatever you want with those useless, childish distractions. I, on the other head, am going to read up on how to find a way to get these chains off us, so I can finally get rid of you and then get back to my own work."

Vincent moved back over to his bed, pulling Mabel along by a few feet. He jumped back onto the bed and stuck his head down inside of his book. Before she was dragged back over to the bed, Mabel scooped up a number of the toys into her arms and dropped them down in the front of the bedside.

"Well if you're not going to play with this stuff, then I guess I'll have to" Mabel said. "No sense it letting these stuff go to waste"

"Whatever" Vincent said. "Just keep it down"

Mabel got down her knees and picked up the Hunter Solitar and Chum-bobo dolls. She cleared her throat and cracked her neck, preparing to set the stage for her own magnificent performance

"So Chumy, ready to go on another crazy space adventure?" Mabel said, with what was supposed to be her best Hunter impression.

"Oooowarrrrrrhhhhhhhh" she replied as Chum-bobo

"I agree. You know I really don't appreciate you enough. We've been on all these space adventures together for years now, but when was the last time we just sat down and talked about ourselves? I feel like I don't know the real you"

"Ooowarh, wrahuhuh, gurrrrahhh"

"Oh, Chumy. What would I do without you? If I wasn't so popular and handsome, I might end up getting myself killed one of these days. But I'll always be here for you Chumy. We're like two hands that belong to the same person"

Mabel hugged the two figures close together in a touching display of affection. Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Vincent let out a small noise of disgust.

"Oh no!" Mabel yelled, lifting up the Hunter doll. "It's the evil space alien-time-traveling-tentacle-robot-mutant-clone-pirates buccaneers! Quick to Millennium Eagle!"

Mabel picked a small, circle shaped spaceship and started swooshing it through the air, while making a loud spluttering noise with her tongue like a motor propeller. For the next ten minutes, she continued to play by herself using Vincent's old toys in whatever way she could imagine. Although she couldn't stray very far from the bed due the chain that was still attached to her wrist, Mabel was still able to make the absolute most she could out of what she had been given.

On the bed the behind her, Vincent was finding it harder and harder to concentrate on his book. Grunting slightly, he turned over on his side, with his back to Mabel, burying his nose further into the inside of the book, but no matter how much he tried to focus on his reading, he was unable to blot out Mabel's narration coming from behind.

"Look out for the black hole! Now look for that supernova! Now look out for the asteroids! Now look for that pedestrian ship. Get in own space lane you jerk! Now look out for the black hole again! This space is surprisingly full of stuff!

Vincent groaned even louder and pulled his pillow over his head.

"Uh oh! We're being boarded". Mabel picked up a handheld, toy laser gun in her hands. She cocked it once and now looked ready for action. "Time to part-icle down!"

Vincent actually felt that one. It was painful

"Pu-to, pu-to. Pupupupu, pupu! Pu-to!" Mabel was now ducking a waving along the bedside, aiming her space gun at the alien monsters she was fighting, all the while adding her own sound effects. Vincent now pulled his pillow down tighter to his head, unsure how much more of this he could bear.

Mabel started to gasp as she was being strangled by an alien's tentacles, but quickly blasted herself free with her gun and then disintegrated one of the creature's heads as it came at her again.

"Pu-to! Pu-to! Pu-to!"

Vincent started to growl deeply, almost at the breaking point. He shut his eyes and tried to remain calm, tried to focus on his work, tried to remember his mission, but every other thought in his head was getting interrupted by-

"Pu-to! Pu-to!"

"That is it!" Vincent yelled, slamming his book shut with a loud bang that echoed throughout the room. "I can't take this anymore"

Mabel froze up and had no time to stand up or react as Vincent jumped off the bed and stood over her. She looked up at him with an anxious expression, wondering what she had done to set him off now. With an angry glare in his eye, Vincent snatched the toy gun out of Mabel's hands and held it up high. Mabel gulped a little and shut her eyes, already bracing herself for the loud smash to come

Vincent put both hands on the toy gun and aimed it at the nearby wall, in a shooter's pose. "Pew pew, pew pew!" He pointed the gun at a number of invisible targets, apparently hitting each one with pin point accuracy, before finally aiming the gun right between Mabel's eyes.

"Pew" Vincent said quietly He then dropped the gun down into Mabel's hands again. "That is how you make laser noises, rookie" he said, crossing his arms with a rather smug expression.

At first, Mabel wasn't sure what to say, as she was still trying to figure out what just happened. She glanced down at the toy gun her hands, then up to Vincent, and then over to the rest of the toys laying out on the floor. A wryly grin slowly formed on her face. Getting to her feet, she walked over to the pile, bent down and picked up Vincent's makeshift space helmet. She tossed unceremoniously it right into his arms.

"Oh really? Well how bout you show me what else you got, Captain?" she said smoothly. "Or are you too busy to have a little worthless fun?"

Vincent seemed surprised by her request and for a moment, he looked as though he had no idea what he was going to do, or more accurately he had no idea what he had just done a few moments. He glanced over his shoulder, back to his discarded book on the bed and then down to the helmet in his hands. Shifting it around in his hands, Vincent soon found his own name, still visible on the side. Despite himself, he could feel a wave of memories coming back to him as he read the words he wrote a long time ago. Looking back up to Mabel, Vincent grinned mischievously.

"Alright, you're on!" he said, placing his helmet back on his head for the first time in years. As he was secretly happy to know, it still fit.


Wow. Way longer than I expected. Sorry about the wait, but I'm finding that I can either make the chapters really long or really short. I can't seem to find the right medium in between.

Anyway, like to say I'm really glad this story hit over 100 reviews last time and I just noticed that it's been a year last month since I started this story. I'm really happy about how far it's come, and I would like to thank everyone who helped this story get this far. So let's see how far we can go.

Not sure when the next chapter will be. I'll try to have it within two weeks, but I can't guarantee anything yet. Hope you enjoyed reading, please leave a review, and peace out.