Nothing In The 'Verse
Episode 45: If You Want Blood, Part II.
WARNING: Contains some violent and potentially disturbing imagery.
Ariel. White Sun.
Dani and Keith moved cautiously through the research facility, weapons at the ready. Lori and Jess followed them, covering both front and rear with their own rifles.
"Seem odd to you, there ain't no alarm blarin'?" Dani asked tensely.
"A bit," Keith grunted, cheek pressed against the stock of his rifle as he scanned the hallway before them. "Could be a silent one."
Dani made a noncommittal sound. She was trying very hard not to dwell on the fact that they had not yet found Sara. The complex they moved through would have turned them about and gotten them hopelessly lost were it not for the floor plans Keith had found. They stopped every so often to consult them, moving through all the cells they could find, but they had covered this entire floor without success. Finally, they came to a stairwell.
"Up?" Jess asked succinctly.
Keith nodded and nudged the door open. He immediately jumped back when a barrage of fire rained down, shattering the glass in the stairwell door and punching holes through door and wall alike.
The four crew members pulled away from the stairway to huddle against the far wall.
"Three, flash bang?" Keith inquired.
Jess nodded, and flipped a few switches on the grenade launcher of her rifle, selecting a stun grenade and setting it for close range. She nodded again, and Keith readied himself.
She took three quick steps forward, crouched, aimed through the small doorway window and fired the grenade inside, immediately ducking back again to the far wall. As soon as it went off, Keith was charging ahead, shouldering the door open and opening fire.
"Convenient window there, huh?" Dani murmured.
Jess shrugged and grinned. "I'll take it. Besides, it works in the vids."
Within a short few seconds Keith signaled for them to follow. They picked their way up the steps and over the bodies of four soldiers, all in purple bodyarmor. "Everyone still have AP in their mags?" he asked quietly.
He was met by a chorus of affirmatives, including Dani who shouldered her shotgun and drew her Ares Predator sidearm instead. She had made sure to load it up with armor-piercing ammunition on the ship since she had no such option with her automatic shotgun.
They reached the next level and paused at the door. Keith glanced at the floor plan again and shook his head, letting it drift to the floor. "We're blind now," he commented.
"Well, wouldn't want it to be too easy," Jess commented, joking weakly.
Keith eased his head around the corner, checking both ways. "Looks clear," he reported, and they moved out into the hallway.
It wasn't clear for very long.
A door to their right banged open and a soldier leaned out with his rifle. Jess, who was fortunately covering that same door, jerked her finger in reaction and stitched him with a row of bullets. He dropped his rifle and flailed backwards.
"Other way!" Keith barked and they headed off to the left. They made it half a dozen steps before soldiers started pouring around the next corner.
Snarling, Dani kept running, sending accurate shots into the faceplates of each soldier's helmet. Keith added his fire to hers, scattering the reinforcements and sending them back. Dani paused to reload, slapping a new magazine home. "Last AP mag," she reported.
Keith nodded, selecting a flash grenade on his own launcher. "Three, HE in that room," he ordered without looking back. Both Jess and Lori had been trading shots with the soldiers who kept poking their heads out. Another did so now, and Keith grunted as a round glanced off the bodyarmor over his ribcage from behind, but offered no other reaction.
He raised his rifle, waiting. When he heard the muffled 'whump' of Jess's high-explosive grenade eliminating the threat to their rear, he launched his own, sending it ricocheting around the corner where it detonated. "Go!" he barked as he set into motion again.
Dani careened around the corner, immediately spotting four soldiers recovering from the effects of the stun grenade. She quickly dispatched two, and Keith took care of the other pair. They paused then to search for more targets, but only silence greeted them.
"That take care of them?" Jess whispered while walking up behind them, as if afraid to break the dome of silence.
"For now," Keith replied, and they headed out again.
Many doorways later Dani was beginning to lose hope. There seemed to be an endless row of examination rooms, even one laboratory. They came across an operation room and what seemed to be an infirmary, all deserted as if in a hurry with papers and medical instruments scattered about.
"D'ya think they took 'er out when we came in?" she asked with a trace of dread.
"Don't think like that," Keith tried to reassure her. "We're moving fast, faster then they can move reinforcements in, I'm sure we're moving faster than they can move prisoners out."
Dani nodded rapidly, trying very hard to keep a grip on her spiraling emotions.
They opened another door to see what appeared to be a viewing room. There was a long table against the wall overlooking a window, likely a one-way mirror. Two chairs sat in front of the table.
The group edged into the room to peer out of the portal. It showed a stark white room with two chairs, one of them secured to the floor and with bloody restraints, and the other overturned. They could see from their vantage point a body lying on the floor. It seemed to be that of an old man wearing a lab coat, and he was staring sightlessly at the ceiling with his throat torn out as if by a wild animal. Lying on the floor next to him was a handheld unit, smashed to pieces.
"Ji du (Christ)," Jess murmured.
Keith picked up one of the chairs in front of them and threw it at the window, shattering it. He grabbed another to carefully clear away the glass shards, and the four of them climbed on through. Now that they were inside the room they could see that the door leading out was open, blocked by the corpse of a guard with a stylus through his eye and driven into his brain. A trail of small, bloody, bare footprints started at the first body and led out into the hallway.
"Leastways we can track her easy," Lori murmured, the first she had spoken in some time. "Still fresh, too."
"Part of me is prayin' we found her," Dani sighed. "Other part is prayin' we didn'."
Following the trail of footprints they came across a pair of bodies, both of guardsmen. One of them looked to have had his throat torn out by claws and the other's throat seemed to have been shredded by teeth. The red liquid was sticky and cool on the floor, and the small footprints began anew, fresh and bloody, leading away down the hallway in the same direction as before.
"It doesn't look like she's running, or in any hurry," Keith commented, rifle still at the ready.
"What does that mean?" Dani hissed, wanting to charge ahead but knowing it could get them all killed in short order.
"Not sure," he muttered. "She's not moving like an escapee, more like..." He trailed off thoughtfully.
"A predator," Dani whispered as it dawned on her what Keith was getting at. "Oh no, didi, what did they do to her?"
"Calm down jiejie, we'll find out soon enough," Keith murmured. "Panicking won't help her."
She nodded her head rapidly, her pistol clutched between stiff fingers.
Around the next bend in the corridor they came across another body of a scientist. It looked like he had tried to run, as his handheld was lying, shattered and sputtering sparks, on the floor three meters behind him. He was on his face, a pool of blood still spreading from his ruined neck.
"She's close, step it up," Keith ordered.
Two turns of the hallway later they found her, naked and covered in blood. It coated her like a second skin, as if she had purposely spread it over herself. Sara was crouched over the twitching corpse of a woman clad in a lab coat, teeth latched around the body's throat, shaking back and forth like a dog with a bone and growling ferally.
Dani stared at the scene with wide eyes, trembling. "Didi, hold my gun, stay back," she whispered.
"Dani-"
"I got this, get back." She handed her shotgun to Keith and got to her knees at Sara's level and crawled closer, leaning forward on her hands. She started murmuring as calmly as possible. "Sara. Baobei, it's me, Kaasan. C'n you hear me? Come back to me, sweetie, I'm here for you now, 'kay?"
Sara looked up at her from the body with wild eyes, baring her bloody teeth. Streams of warm red liquid flowed down her chin.
"C'mon girl, I told ya I'd come for ya no matter what, an' here I am," Dani continued soothingly. "I came for ya. C'mon Sara, wake up, listen to my voice, wake up..."
Sara's eyes cleared suddenly, widening as she saw the bloody body she was crouched over like a predator protecting her kill. She scrambled backwards against the wall, pulling her skinny legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. "Kaasan? What did I..."
"Sweetie, you survived. There's no shame in that, 'kay?" Dani crawled the rest of the way over, heedless of the blood on the floor or on Sara, and hugged her shaking daughter tightly to her chest.
Keith bent over the small woman lying dead on the ground and flipped her over, taking the lab coat off and offering it towards the two women on the ground while keeping his eyes averted. Sara nodded her thanks, standing self-consciously to pull it around her. "C'n we go now?" she asked in a small voice.
Dani smiled and held out her hand. "Let's."
She glanced over her shoulder towards Lori. Her wife was standing guard down the hallway, looking tense and anywhere but back in her direction. Jess was next to her but offered a small smile of encouragement.
Dani walked next to Sara as they headed for the exit, as best as they could figure out. Dani looked at her blood-covered hand clasping that of Sara's and tried vainly to wipe the other one against her pants leg to clean it. "Said I'd do anythin' to get you back, nu'er," Dani murmured absently. "An' I did."
They made their way around to another stairwell. Keith cautiously poked his head in but no fire answered him this time. They continued as a group, Dani sheltering Sara behind her and taking back her shotgun again from Keith.
The hallway on the next floor they found themselves on seemed to be deserted. "Are we at ground level?" Jess whispered from behind.
"Believe we are," Keith murmured, indicating the path ahead of them. The light coming from around the corner was different, and Dani recognized it as sunlight rather than the artificial light they seemed to have been under for days now.
As they crept forward cautiously, Blue Sun sprung their ambush.
Doors slammed open all around them and guards poured forth, firing wildly. The crew members returned fire calmly and accurately, sending each attacker sprawling backwards or onto their faces. Dani felt a yank on her holster as Sara pulled her handgun out from behind her, adding her own gunfire to the mix.
After what seemed like an eternity, the firefight was over. Jess was panting in pain, a pair of shots having gone through her left arm. Keith examined and bandaged it quickly, indicating they were both clean through-and-throughs, while Dani and Lori stood guard. He moved stiffly, and Dani suspected he likely had a busted rib or two from chest impacts. She herself had taken another shot in the thigh but it was again only a graze. Sara tended to it.
"I'm sorry Kaasan, I'm gettin' yer bandage all bloody," she whispered.
"It's fine, baobei (treasured one)," she laughed quietly. "Don' worry 'bout it."
Finally they were on the move again, heading around the corner and towards freedom. There didn't appear to be any more ambushes waiting, nor any guards left. That must have been their last-ditch effort to eliminate the intruders.
The five crew members walked through the deserted lobby and out into the waning sunlight. Traffic was light on the street, though they got a few second glances from their bloodied state and Sara got more than her fair share of stares. But they made it back to the Mule, two blocks down, without incident, and then they were on the way back home.
Dani clutched Sara tightly to her side for the entire ride.
Fortune's Favour. Outbound from Ariel.
The bone-weary captain of the Favour sat alone on the bridge, feeling every one of her forty-four years of age. It reminded Dani somewhat of her state of mind after the Battle for Serenity Valley.
She had just taken them out of Ariel's orbit. There was no planned destination, just to head into the Black for now and get away from the planet, away from the Alliance, and away from the reach of Blue Sun for the time being. She hoped and prayed they got away cleanly and that there would be no reprisals.
As soon as they had arrived at the ship, Dani had gotten her wounds seen to in order to take the bridge back from Rain. Once she did, her eldest daughter joined Cali in swamping their sister with tearful hugs. Sara herself had only major abrasions on her wrists and ankles where the skin had been shredded from her escape. Maribelle had bandaged her up and cleaned her off as best as possible, then sent the three girls off to Sara's bunk while she tended to the rest of the ground team's injuries. Kelly as well had wearily retired to her room. She had remained on the bridge all day, manning the comms and monitoring the city communication network for any activities or indications that the crew had been discovered, but Keith's friend had covered for them admirably. Now, though, Kelly was worn out. She still wasn't fully healed, and the day had taken a toll on her.
Dani knew it could have gone much worse, from not finding Sara at all, to losing another of her family, to having the Favour be indicated in their rescue attempt.
Her thoughts drifted to the soldier she had tortured to get Sara's location. Dani knew it had been a horrific act, but one she could not muster an ounce of regret over. Her family was safe. That was all that mattered.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and Keith came into view. He stood next to her, staring out the viewport.
"Got a couple things I need to tell you," he began quietly.
She turned in her seat, looking up at her brother inquiringly.
Keith glanced down at her, smiling slightly. "First off, I want you to know I've got no problems with your actions today. I've done far, far worse myself in service to the Alliance, but what you did was for our crew and family. So don't you feel guilty about it, alright?"
Dani smiled up at him gratefully, reaching out her hand to clasp his. "I don't. But dao xie (thank you), didi."
He squeezed her hand back and then dropped it, looking back out the front viewport. "The other thing is, not everyone is going to feel the same. In fact, some of the crew want a word with you in the galley."
Sighing, Dani nodded. "'Spected as much, just not so soon." She stood up with a groan, stretching her aching back. Somehow I don' think I'm gettin' a back rub anytime soon.
They headed back from the bridge, Keith preceding her. Most of the crew were assembled with the exception of Kelly, Sara, and the little boys.
Cory cleared his throat from his seat at the table, looking over at Dani with an uncomfortable expression as she sat down. "We've all heard what happened. Dani, you know we're behind you, but what you did... You should have at least tried Jess or Keith's contacts, or worked through the channels..." He sighed, glancing at his wife before continuing. "You actually committed crimes against the Alliance. You put the rest of the ship, the rest of us in danger. Captain, I can't keep my children on board if we're an outlaw ship."
Dani was quiet for a few beats. She took a good look around room. Rain was sitting in the alcove with Cali leaning against her, panda hat askew, having left Sara so that she could get some sleep. They'd been inseparable from their sister since her return otherwise, and both looked worn out emotionally from the day. Seeing her gaze on them, however, they still offered her smiles of support. Emily was sitting next to them as well, and also gave her a warm smile, nodding gently without judgement. Keith was standing behind Jess with a solemn expression on his face, while Jess wouldn't look at her any more than Lori would. Mike and Julie were sitting together in their usual places, staring at each other and communicating wordlessly as those with years of marriage under their belts often do.
Finally she looked over at her very best friend in the 'Verse. Cory's wife had her hands clenched together tightly in front of her, white-knuckled, and was staring intently at them. "Maribelle?"
Maribelle looked up at her slowly, eyes filled with heated emotion. "Did you really torture that man?" she asked quietly.
Dani sighed, stood up, and splayed her hands out on the table, leaning forward intently while looking around as she spoke in a determined voice. "Mi you ling (listen closely), all of y'all. I will do anythin', and I mean anythin', to protect my family. You, all of you on this ship, are my family. Yes, I tortured him. I would do it again in a heartbeat, fer any of you."
She sighed once again heavily, looking down at the table. "I understan' though, this puts y'all in a tight spot. Got no cause to stay on, might not want this kinda heat if'n it's comin' down on my head. So if'n you wanna push on, do so."
Dani turned to leave but stopped when Maribelle spoke up again. "Dani."
She turned slightly but kept her gaze on the deck.
"Don't you feel anything for what you did?" the blond woman asked in a whisper.
Dani faced her fully and whispered back, eyes brimming with tears. "Gorram right I do. I feel relief I got my daughter back. And I feel like throwin' up every time I think about how I did it." She turned again and finished walking to bridge, calling out over her shoulder. "We'll let you off whichever port you like."
She heard footsteps from behind following her towards the bridge. She hoped with all her heart it was Lori, but was unsurprised to see Jess slip into the pilot's seat when she eased herself back into the captain's chair.
Jess just looked at her for awhile, conflicting emotions swirling across her exotic features.
"I understand why you did what you did," she said finally. "I do, really. It's just... It was a shock. And I know, as sure as I know how much you love all three of your daughters, that I will have nightmares about that room. It's just a little hard for me to stomach, alright?" Jess leaned forward on her hands and knees, her expression sincere. "But I understand."
Dani smiled at her sister-in-law. "I'm sorry, Jess. Really, I am. I shoulda asked you to wait outside with Lori, I just wasn't thinking clearly none."
Jess smiled back. "And I should have left as soon as I realized what you were about to do. So there's no need to apologize. Okay?"
Dani nodded, and then looked down at the deck. "She's pretty upset, ain't she. Lori."
"Yeah, she is, jiejie. Give her some time, alright?"
Dani nodded, smiling again weakly and staring out the window as a solitary tear trailed down her cheek. "Thanks, meimei," she whispered.
She stayed on watch for Rain until it was Keith's turn. She suspected her daughters were all bunked together in Sara's room, and she didn't want to disturb them.
Once Keith arrived, she murmured her goodnights and headed for her bunk, knowing her eyes were red from crying. Lori was already in bed, dressed in sleepwear which for her was almost unheard of, and facing the wall.
Dani slipped in next to her after undressing, barely touching Lori's back, and lay there facing the other way, staring off into the darkness. She could tell her wife wasn't asleep either, but they didn't say a word.
Sleep took a long time in coming.
Fortune's Favour. En route to Space Bazaar. Red Sun.
The Bilkes had been dropped off on Bernadette at their request. There were many tearful goodbyes, though Cory wouldn't meet Dani's eyes. Maribelle still gave each of them a tight hug, Dani included, and promised to keep in touch.
They left Bernadette soon thereafter with cargo bound for Space Bazaar.
Sara was up fairly early. She knew that the tai chi sessions were put on hold for now by an unspoken agreement, but she couldn't sleep. She sat, unseen, in the upper reaches of the cargo bay in the shadows. Her Kaasan had still gotten up early and was pummeling the punching bag with fierce abandon, hitting and kicking as if she could punch a hole through it. Eventually she stopped and stood there with her head down, not making a sound, for a full minute before heading back to get a shower before her shift on the bridge started.
She sighed. Her Kaasan was hurting, though Sara knew now it wasn't her fault. She and Emily had talked long and hard about it, until her guilt was finally resolved. Dani would have done the same for any of them.
But Sara still didn't like to see her hurting. And she had a feeling it had something to do with the way Lori wasn't talking to her much anymore.
She thought about waking Emily up to speak with her about it, but figured she'd let her sleep in some more. Instead, after maybe another half hour she got up and walked gingerly to the galley and made herself some hot cocoa, which always settled her turbulent moods. Her injuries from Ariel were mostly healed, but her ankles were still very sore and raw under the bandages where the skin was growing back. Maribelle had given her explicit instructions for the care of her wounds.
As she sat at the table, sipping her deliciously decadent drink, she heard a soft noise from the rear passageway. She looked up sharply to see Kelly standing there.
"Hi, Aunt Kelly. C'mon in, I'm jus' drinkin' cocoa. Can't sleep neither?"
Kelly smiled softly and shook her head. She padded over on bare feet and sat down across from her.
"That smells good," she murmured.
"Wan' me ta make ya some?"
"No, sweetie, that's okay, thanks." Kelly took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "I have to apologize to you again, Sara."
Sara looked at her over her cup as she drank it down slowly, eyebrows raised.
"It's my fault that the Alliance even noticed you in the first place," the former Agent explained softly. "I should have realized that even including you in my reports would make it back to them, but really I had no idea of the projects they had underway at the time. Well, I did, but not the extent of them. I tried to play down what you could do, water down the reports as best I could after a while." She glanced down at her interlaced hands, and then back up again. "I think after I left, though, they went back and started reading in between the lines, and decided to find out more."
Sara sat in her chair quietly for a moment, her cup empty in front of her. "What 'bout Rain?"
Kelly shook her head resolutely. "I outright lied. Said her abilities had deteriorated after puberty, useless now."
Sara sighed softly and then got up to walk around the table. Kelly closed her eyes resignedly, but Sara put her arms around her in a tight hug. "It's okay Aunt Kelly. I forgive ya."
Sara walked out of the galley towards her bunk, past Dani who was leaning against the doorway with her tea in hand and wet hair from her shower, having come down from bridge to listen in. Dani gave Sara's hair a ruffle as she passed, then came over and sat at her customary place at the head of the table. She glanced towards Kelly on her right, then back down at her tea.
"Did I ever really know you, Kelly?"
Kelly smiled ruefully. "You did. You, Beth, Maribelle. I think you were the ones who really ever knew me. I thought what I was, my whole purpose and being, was an arm of Blue Sun, working for the good of the Alliance."
Kelly sighed, leaning back in her chair and closed her eyes wearily again. "I know you've got no reason to believe me anymore. But I betrayed everything I thought I believed in to protect you and your family. My family, really, the only one I've ever known. And then, finding out what the people I've worked for are capable of, what they did to Sara..." She opened up her eyes again, they were blazing with fury as Dani looked into them. "I can't ever go back, but I wouldn't want to if I could, knowing what I now know."
She leaned forward, her hands still clasped together, looking down at them. "I understand if you want me gone. I'm a liability for you. Not sure why you've kept me around so long, I'm healed up enough I could make it on my own."
Dani tentatively reached over and placed her hand over Kelly's. "Because yer family. An' there ain't nobody in the 'Verse I'd trust outside this family that'd protect it like I know you c'n. Willya?"
Kelly looked up with tears in her eyes. "You know I will."
Dani nodded and gave Kelly's hands a squeeze, then got up again and headed back to the bridge.
Maybe an hour later a disheveled Mike stumbled in, yawning, and plopped himself down in the pilot's seat.
Dani glanced over at her grizzled brother-in-law. "Long night, old man?"
Sighing heavily, Mike rubbed at his eyes. "Yeah, Julie's kept me up again. Talkin'."
Dani leaned back and closed her eyes. It was bound to happen eventually. I won't cry again over this, I gots no regrets. "She want off?"
"Yeah," Mike replied sadly. "Not Em though, she's gonna stay on, sez Sara needs 'er even more now."
Dani nodded, eyes still closed. "Jiangyin?"
"If'n ya don't mind."
"Alright, we'll swing by there after Space Bazaar."
She heard the chair creak as Mike got up. His heavy footsteps echoed off the metal deck as he made to leave, but stopped at the doorway of the bridge. "I'm sorry, Dani-girl." he whispered, brokenly.
"It's shiny, Mike. No worries," Dani whispered back.
She heard him move off again, and then she let the tears finally fall. Gorramit.
Ariel. White Sun.
The two men were dressed in black suits with white shirts and black ties. They were remarkably nondescript, perhaps a little gaunt in the face, but otherwise displayed a distinct lack of emotion. The only other notable characteristic was their hands, encased in a blue latex-like material.
The senior Agent turned from his seat in front of his console. "Have you found any footage, Eight?"
"I have not, Five," the other man replied without inflection. "Both security stations were irrevocably wiped by an electromagnetic pulse."
Five's eyebrow ticked, a clear sign of irritation. "And there were no backups?"
"Negative," the Agent responded. "Backups were done on a weekly basis only."
"These facilities were sloppy."
"Agreed. The administrators were filled with hubris over their success, and failed to secure their work."
Five leaned back in his chair, looking at his partner thoughtfully. "Do you believe this to be corporate espionage, Eight?"
"I do not," Eight replied firmly. "One or two of the subjects obviously escaped, likely with help. It would appear to be more likely that they were assisted by those who specifically came to retrieve them."
"I agree with your assessment," Five replied. "We should deal with these bureaucrats."
"One already has been dealt with. Dr. Norton was a fatality of an escaped subject. His handheld was smashed, and forensics on it has returned negligible results."
"So we do not even know the name of the escaped subject?" If he were a man to display emotion, Agent Five would be expressing extreme incredulity.
"That is correct," Eight stated. "The subject was captured that same day, and had not been fully processed."
"Unforgivable."
"Agreed. It is fortunate that we have been given permission to terminate this branch of the program."
Five clasped his hands in front of him, pondering the state of their investigation. "No evidence was left behind at all?"
"We have shell casings. Some were marked as an armor-piercing type, multiple calibers, which would explain the elimination of Agents Sixteen and Twenty-Eight and the ease with which so many Alliance soldiers were dispatched."
"The current rate of loss for our brethren is of concern," Five noted.
Eight nodded. "Again, I agree. I don't believe this is related to the other incidents, certainly not the Primary Target. Her facility was entirely different, though there was a disturbance at the original location on the same day."
The senior Agent had an unprecedented urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, but refrained. "Any further evidence?"
"Shotgun shell hulls. Other than those, many of the bullet casings were from a caliber consistent with both military and civilian assault rifles. There were far too many to account for the ones used by the soldiers and guards at the facilities. I estimate three rifles, one shotgun, and perhaps one pistol."
Five sat in silence, staring at his monitor without seeing.
"There is one more item of note," Eight continued.
"Yes?"
"We have a blood sample from the subject. She escaped her restraints by means of injuring herself to do so."
"She?"
Eight nodded. "I have analyzed the sample. Definitely female, unknown age. Also not in our databases. But she has been flagged, if she shows up again we will find her."
"Very well," Five stated, turning back to his console resolutely. "File what we have and shut the secondary program down. We will terminate any other personnel in administrative capacity, and reassign the specialists back to the primary program."
He glanced back at the other Agent. "And if the subject shows up again, we will be waiting for her."
NOTES: Title track If You Want Blood by AC/DC is actually not in my playlist, but it was a perfect fit for the episode.
Hope you enjoyed the epicness I construed. At least, it felt epic when I wrote it. No idea if it came out that way. Well, pop me a review and let me know either way. Kinda feel like after Harry Potter: Goblet of Fire. "Everything Is About To Change."
As always, theradvlad, you are the epic to my epicness, your words do much to keep me writing! Many thanks to my other reviewers (Aww Potatoes), and my awesome Betas: Live to anger the World and CG and KK. And once again, much love and credit to Joss.
