Disclaimer: I don't own TMNT or anything related. I just own Maggie any my
originals.
A/N: *using fire extinguisher on keyboard* Hey, please excuse the smoke. I sort of had a meltdown with the keyboard from typing on the poor thing too much lately. But I should be able to talk Don into fixing it for me or else I'll just pull out of one my spares. Whichever comes first.
*tosses extinguisher into closest* But onto more important things. I'm pretty sure everyone's curious to find out what's happening with Casey and Maggie right now. Either they've managed to kill each other or they're hot on Raph's trail. Read ahead to find out and I'll see ya when you're done. Later.
Chapter 2: The hunt is on
Just as it was any other night, even in the latest of hours, New York City was alive with activity. All over, people were going to parties or heading home from one, while others were just going to see a show or movie somewhere. Still others had remained at home, choosing to sleep the night away to be ready for the next day instead of having fun in the late hours. But that was not the case for everyone in the city.
There were two figures that would know neither sleep nor fun this particular night. These two, unlike the others who inhabited the city, had a mission before them. They sought to find one who was very close to them both. Someone who was missing in the night and who's fate was unknown to them both.
At the moment, these two figures were hot on the trail of the one they were seeking. They had been on the trail for more than two hours now, having gone through several different blocks and neighborhoods as they went. It had been bumpy at first, since the trail had almost been cold by the time they had started. But they longer they went, it went from bumpy to certain and then to a mixture of the two.
"Anything?" Casey asked.
Maggie shook her head and shrugged. The scent that she had been following had tapered off and then disappeared down the alley they now stood in. It was the fifth time that this had happened now and it was truly starting to get on the girl's nerves.
She knew her brother's scent as like the back of her own paw, as she did for all her brothers. Each one smelled differently to her. Each one had the scent of turtle mixed with something that was unique to each of them. From his constant practicing, Leo smelled like leather from the practice mats and metal from his swords. Mikey, from all the food he was around, smelled like pizza and other concoctions mixed as one, while Don smelled like oil and metal from all the machines he worked with.
Perhaps the most unique of all the smells was the one that she had been following. Raph was the brother who spent more time on the surface than any of the others. Because of that, he encountered a variety of things that one would never find underground in the sewers. Together, these mixed with the metal of his sais and the oil he used to clean them. And this made it much easier for Maggie to follow, even when the trail seemed to be going cold.
Pulling her jacket closer around her, Maggie was suddenly grateful for having it and her fur coat. With these, it was possible for her to keep from going cold like the trail she was attempting to follow. Not that it was really that chilly this evening, but it still felt nice to keep the cold out and the warmth in.
Like her brothers often did when they came to the surface, Maggie was dressed in a way that would supposedly hide her difference from the humans. But what she wore and how it effected how well she hid in the upper world varied greatly from the way it did for her brothers. For unlike her brothers, who wore trench coats and hats to hide their features, Maggie wore a regular jacket, a hat and sometimes a pair of gloves to keep herself hidden.
The jacket, an old brand that April had found for her after Maggie's last growth spurt, was of the lighter variety. It was tan in color with stripes of black around the collar and at the wrists of the sleeves. One of the elbows was patched over with a strip of gray to cover up a hole that had been there when the jacket was first found.
This jacket matched and fit very well with the clothing that Maggie wore constantly. As had been the case when she was a child, she only had a few outfits for everyday wear and something to wear at night. Right now, she was dressed in a pair of tan, knee-length shorts and a tie-died shirt of green, red, orange, blue and yellow. Around her waist, her tail was wrapped so that it appeared like a belt.
Using her tail as a belt helped to further create the illusion that Maggie was at least semi-human in appearance. It kept people from asking too many questions if they caught sight of her and also gave the girl a surprise advantage if she found herself in a fight. After all, if no one knew that you had a tail, then it would be quite a shock for someone if that tail suddenly came out of nowhere and stole a weapon from your own belt.
It wasn't totally comfortable for Magnolia though. Normally, she was used to allowing her tail to just hang behind her since that was its natural position. So have it wrapped around her waist at an angle for any extended period was just still enough to make her feel sore there.
That feeling also applied a bit to Maggie's paws. Though not as sore as her tail was feeling right now, they were still a bit cramped from the gloves that she was wearing. The gloves were for keeping people from noticing the fact that Maggie had claws. Most of the time, she either kept these sheathed or just allowed the tips to show through her fingertips.
That was how Splinter had taught her to keep her claws when not in a fight or using her claws to get a grasp on something. Usually, Maggie was able to keep to these teachings and there wasn't a problem. But there were still the occasions when she was frightened or angered so radically that her claws came out on pure instinct. When that happened, Maggie could only go with her survival instincts and start swiping at whatever was coming at her.
Hence the reason for the gloves. There was no much on the surface that Maggie wasn't prepared for that she might fall on instinct in order to protect herself. Which could only lead to trouble if whoever she started clawing at happened to be an innocent bystander. So they had to stay on, even when Maggie was uncomfortable in them.
But feeling comfortable would have been a great deal more enjoyable than the real discomfort that Maggie was feeling when it came to her hat. Like her brothers' hats, it was an old fedora that really didn't fit too well with the rest of the outfit that she wore. Only with Maggie's, the hat had to extra large in order to hide her ears.
Far larger than any human's or even Splinter's, Maggie had to put a great deal in hiding her ears. Instead of allowing them to stand straight up, she had to keep them angled down so that they were slanted straight against her head. Doing this for more than a few minutes at a time always made Maggie's ears hurt and even more so when she was forced to cover them with a hat that literally pinned her ears to her skull.
It was a time like this that Magnolia really did envy her human companion. He didn't have to feel uncomfortable in his clothing in order to get around. All he had to do was just keep on his coat and walk in just about wherever he pleased. That was something that Maggie would never be able to do nor was it a feeling that she would ever admit to Casey Jones or anyone else.
No sense in making his ego bigger than it already was or wasting the effort. That kind of energy could better be used to get something useful out of Casey. Like, exactly where he had last seen her brother and the information about what had happening when they lost track of one another.
Earlier in their search, that was exactly what happened. Maggie finally managed to pry the details of the earlier evening out of Casey. It had taken a bit of work though, as he kept evading the situation and insisting that they had to keep their minds on finding Raph first. Though she agreed that they had to find her brother, Maggie still wanted an explanation as to what he and his human friend had been doing at a bar.
Casey had been a little reluctant to admit what had happened to her. He was still embarrassed that he had lost track of his friend so easily. If he had known Maggie's exact words, he would have more than readily agreed that it seemed very hard to lose a giant, upright turtle in a trench coat. But soon enough, when Maggie started giving him the feline version of the evil eye, Casey spilled. There was just something about having a cat constantly glaring at him like that that was unsettling.
He had begun with what Maggie already knew. Earlier that evening, he had come by looking for Raph so that they could go on their weekly punk patrol. As always, the Turtle had come along without a complaint. He always looked forward to being able to bust in a few heads.
Yet tonight, Raph's head didn't seem to be entirely focused on his 'work'. He seemed to be distracted by something. Enough so that even Casey noticed, who asked his pal if anything wrong when they finished with another bunch of street punks. Raph had of course denied such a thing and insisted that he was just a bit tired from having to deal with Leonardo's nagging all day. Since that was a normal circumstance in his friend's life, Casey had accepted that excuse and let the matter drop.
They had just gone on with their usual business for a good while before they finally came across something that made them stop for a time. One of the punks that the duo had come across happened to be a thief who had stolen something from an elderly friend of Casey's. The item, a gold ring inscribed with her late husband's name and his feelings towards her, had been stolen almost a year before and had been missing ever since.
Knowing how heartbroken Mrs. Montana was over the loss, Casey had made a promise to himself that he would find it for her. That was a long shot of course, since New York was a big city and there were no clues as to who the thieve had been. Nonetheless, Casey was determined to find that ring and return it to its rightful owner.
Tonight, Fate had smiled upon Casey and he found the long sought after ring. At first, he was completely stunned that he had actually managed to find the ring. But that feeling soon gave way to excitement as he realized that he could keep his vow to Mrs. Montana and return her ring. So excited that he decided then and there to phone her so that he could tell her the good news.
There was just the problem of finding a phone to consider first. Casey didn't have a cell phone with him and the one that Raphael carried had dead batteries, so there was no hope of calling from the streets. Instead, they would have to find a closer location out in the city in order to make the call.
The nearest place with a phone turned out to be a local bar that Casey had been to a few times over the years. It was in one of the more unpleasant neighborhoods that Casey Jones had frequented in his life and filled with people who were not among the most affable of people. Under normal circumstances, Casey wouldn't have gone there with his friend. But this was too important to forget about until morning, so they had gone there anyway.
Raphael had followed Casey in, where they actually managed to get by without being disturbed by the bar patrons. Which was nothing short of a miracle, since many of these people weren't known for their manners. Had either human or mutant cast a glance the wrong way, there most certainly would've been a serious fight that evening.
Once they were inside, Casey had asked Raph to wait for him while he made the call. During the entire trip, his turtle friend hadn't been picky about their having to do this and just went along with it. And when Casey told him to wait, Raph just shrugged and said that he would.
It was only after he came back from his phone call that Casey learned how wrong it was to leave Raphael behind even for a short time. For when he returned, the mutant ninja was nowhere to be seen. Casey searched in the bar for his friend, asking people if they had seen the short punk he'd come in with. The few cared to answer only replied that they hadn't seen him since the two had come in.
It was strange, but when Casey realized that his friend had ditched him, he became worried. Raph may have been a hothead and wouldn't do what others told him, but it wasn't like him to just disappear if he was waiting for someone. Unless of course, he was in some kind of trouble.
If that were the case, then the human knew that he would have to go look for his friend. But he also knew that he wouldn't be able to complete such a task on his own. New York was just too large an area to cover on his own and there was no telling what he might run into while he was on his search. So he did the best thing that he could think of; he went back to the Lair to enlist some help. Which lead to where things were now, with Casey using Maggie to help track down Raphael.
The longer they kept up their search though, the more worried Maggie was starting to become and not just for Raphael's safety. She was also worried for her own, for more than one reason. Not only was she alone in the company of a man that she didn't entirely trust, but Maggie was also on the surface among uncountable humans.
Humans were something that she had been taught to both respect and fear. There was no telling how humans might react to one such as herself, so it was better to be cautious than stupid. And being on the surface like this seemed more and more insane than cautious as far as Maggie was concerned.
Her concern stretched out to cover the areas that they had been walking through. Though she was curious about the surface world as her brothers were and would explore certain areas if given the chance, Maggie still wasn't too comfortable about going above ground. There was just too much up there that she didn't understand about and too many new things for her to process at once. So she kept what she knew, trying to take in anything from the surface world a little at a time to adjust to everything.
She tried to ignore her nervousness for now however and instead attempted to focus on keeping track of Raphael's scent. It was getting stronger than before now, which told her that it was fresher than anything else they'd come across so far. Maggie took this as a good sign, since it meant that they were getting closer to Raph for sure.
That gave her the hope that they would be able to find him soon and then get back home before anything happened. She could only imagine what might be happening to her brother if he had been on his own this long. Even on his own, Raphael had excellent fighting skills that had more than once gotten him out of a jam. He could very well take care of himself if there was any trouble and the odds weren't too stacked against him.
If the odds were against Raphael or he had gotten himself into something that he wasn't prepared for, that's what made Maggie so worried. She knew her brother and his way for finding trouble whether he wanted it or not. Either way, he could usually make a situation worse whenever trouble found him.
Oh Raph, why couldn't you have just stayed with Casey? Maggie thought as she led the way further into the alley, You'd be a lot safer with a dope like him than on your own. You always have been before.
At the end of the alley, Maggie stopped again and knelt to the ground. Beside her, Casey stopped as well. He waited, allowing Maggie the chance that she needed in order to get their new bearings.
Lowering her head, Maggie allowed the scents of the area around her to flow through her senses. There were many that she to sort through and several more which had to be discarded as she sought out the only one that mattered. Soon, she was able to concentrate on the one she wanted and needed to find.
Looking up, she allowed her senses to follow the scent as was reachable within her range. But by doing so, Maggie was rewarded with something far more helpful than a mere scent. Her eyes lit up when she saw an open manhole hidden in the shadow of a building just across the street from there. Knowing that there was only one being who would willingly enter an open manhole besides a city worker, Maggie knew that they were on the right trail.
A/N: Okay, okay. Bad place to stop the chapter, especially since it's so short. I didn't originally mean to make it this way, honest. It was actually part of something much longer. But I decided that I really wanted a cliffhanger thingy somewhere in this story and this seemed like a good enough place to leave one. Don't worry though, you'll find out everything you want to know in the next chapter. Promise! (no pun intended on the title)
A/N: *using fire extinguisher on keyboard* Hey, please excuse the smoke. I sort of had a meltdown with the keyboard from typing on the poor thing too much lately. But I should be able to talk Don into fixing it for me or else I'll just pull out of one my spares. Whichever comes first.
*tosses extinguisher into closest* But onto more important things. I'm pretty sure everyone's curious to find out what's happening with Casey and Maggie right now. Either they've managed to kill each other or they're hot on Raph's trail. Read ahead to find out and I'll see ya when you're done. Later.
Chapter 2: The hunt is on
Just as it was any other night, even in the latest of hours, New York City was alive with activity. All over, people were going to parties or heading home from one, while others were just going to see a show or movie somewhere. Still others had remained at home, choosing to sleep the night away to be ready for the next day instead of having fun in the late hours. But that was not the case for everyone in the city.
There were two figures that would know neither sleep nor fun this particular night. These two, unlike the others who inhabited the city, had a mission before them. They sought to find one who was very close to them both. Someone who was missing in the night and who's fate was unknown to them both.
At the moment, these two figures were hot on the trail of the one they were seeking. They had been on the trail for more than two hours now, having gone through several different blocks and neighborhoods as they went. It had been bumpy at first, since the trail had almost been cold by the time they had started. But they longer they went, it went from bumpy to certain and then to a mixture of the two.
"Anything?" Casey asked.
Maggie shook her head and shrugged. The scent that she had been following had tapered off and then disappeared down the alley they now stood in. It was the fifth time that this had happened now and it was truly starting to get on the girl's nerves.
She knew her brother's scent as like the back of her own paw, as she did for all her brothers. Each one smelled differently to her. Each one had the scent of turtle mixed with something that was unique to each of them. From his constant practicing, Leo smelled like leather from the practice mats and metal from his swords. Mikey, from all the food he was around, smelled like pizza and other concoctions mixed as one, while Don smelled like oil and metal from all the machines he worked with.
Perhaps the most unique of all the smells was the one that she had been following. Raph was the brother who spent more time on the surface than any of the others. Because of that, he encountered a variety of things that one would never find underground in the sewers. Together, these mixed with the metal of his sais and the oil he used to clean them. And this made it much easier for Maggie to follow, even when the trail seemed to be going cold.
Pulling her jacket closer around her, Maggie was suddenly grateful for having it and her fur coat. With these, it was possible for her to keep from going cold like the trail she was attempting to follow. Not that it was really that chilly this evening, but it still felt nice to keep the cold out and the warmth in.
Like her brothers often did when they came to the surface, Maggie was dressed in a way that would supposedly hide her difference from the humans. But what she wore and how it effected how well she hid in the upper world varied greatly from the way it did for her brothers. For unlike her brothers, who wore trench coats and hats to hide their features, Maggie wore a regular jacket, a hat and sometimes a pair of gloves to keep herself hidden.
The jacket, an old brand that April had found for her after Maggie's last growth spurt, was of the lighter variety. It was tan in color with stripes of black around the collar and at the wrists of the sleeves. One of the elbows was patched over with a strip of gray to cover up a hole that had been there when the jacket was first found.
This jacket matched and fit very well with the clothing that Maggie wore constantly. As had been the case when she was a child, she only had a few outfits for everyday wear and something to wear at night. Right now, she was dressed in a pair of tan, knee-length shorts and a tie-died shirt of green, red, orange, blue and yellow. Around her waist, her tail was wrapped so that it appeared like a belt.
Using her tail as a belt helped to further create the illusion that Maggie was at least semi-human in appearance. It kept people from asking too many questions if they caught sight of her and also gave the girl a surprise advantage if she found herself in a fight. After all, if no one knew that you had a tail, then it would be quite a shock for someone if that tail suddenly came out of nowhere and stole a weapon from your own belt.
It wasn't totally comfortable for Magnolia though. Normally, she was used to allowing her tail to just hang behind her since that was its natural position. So have it wrapped around her waist at an angle for any extended period was just still enough to make her feel sore there.
That feeling also applied a bit to Maggie's paws. Though not as sore as her tail was feeling right now, they were still a bit cramped from the gloves that she was wearing. The gloves were for keeping people from noticing the fact that Maggie had claws. Most of the time, she either kept these sheathed or just allowed the tips to show through her fingertips.
That was how Splinter had taught her to keep her claws when not in a fight or using her claws to get a grasp on something. Usually, Maggie was able to keep to these teachings and there wasn't a problem. But there were still the occasions when she was frightened or angered so radically that her claws came out on pure instinct. When that happened, Maggie could only go with her survival instincts and start swiping at whatever was coming at her.
Hence the reason for the gloves. There was no much on the surface that Maggie wasn't prepared for that she might fall on instinct in order to protect herself. Which could only lead to trouble if whoever she started clawing at happened to be an innocent bystander. So they had to stay on, even when Maggie was uncomfortable in them.
But feeling comfortable would have been a great deal more enjoyable than the real discomfort that Maggie was feeling when it came to her hat. Like her brothers' hats, it was an old fedora that really didn't fit too well with the rest of the outfit that she wore. Only with Maggie's, the hat had to extra large in order to hide her ears.
Far larger than any human's or even Splinter's, Maggie had to put a great deal in hiding her ears. Instead of allowing them to stand straight up, she had to keep them angled down so that they were slanted straight against her head. Doing this for more than a few minutes at a time always made Maggie's ears hurt and even more so when she was forced to cover them with a hat that literally pinned her ears to her skull.
It was a time like this that Magnolia really did envy her human companion. He didn't have to feel uncomfortable in his clothing in order to get around. All he had to do was just keep on his coat and walk in just about wherever he pleased. That was something that Maggie would never be able to do nor was it a feeling that she would ever admit to Casey Jones or anyone else.
No sense in making his ego bigger than it already was or wasting the effort. That kind of energy could better be used to get something useful out of Casey. Like, exactly where he had last seen her brother and the information about what had happening when they lost track of one another.
Earlier in their search, that was exactly what happened. Maggie finally managed to pry the details of the earlier evening out of Casey. It had taken a bit of work though, as he kept evading the situation and insisting that they had to keep their minds on finding Raph first. Though she agreed that they had to find her brother, Maggie still wanted an explanation as to what he and his human friend had been doing at a bar.
Casey had been a little reluctant to admit what had happened to her. He was still embarrassed that he had lost track of his friend so easily. If he had known Maggie's exact words, he would have more than readily agreed that it seemed very hard to lose a giant, upright turtle in a trench coat. But soon enough, when Maggie started giving him the feline version of the evil eye, Casey spilled. There was just something about having a cat constantly glaring at him like that that was unsettling.
He had begun with what Maggie already knew. Earlier that evening, he had come by looking for Raph so that they could go on their weekly punk patrol. As always, the Turtle had come along without a complaint. He always looked forward to being able to bust in a few heads.
Yet tonight, Raph's head didn't seem to be entirely focused on his 'work'. He seemed to be distracted by something. Enough so that even Casey noticed, who asked his pal if anything wrong when they finished with another bunch of street punks. Raph had of course denied such a thing and insisted that he was just a bit tired from having to deal with Leonardo's nagging all day. Since that was a normal circumstance in his friend's life, Casey had accepted that excuse and let the matter drop.
They had just gone on with their usual business for a good while before they finally came across something that made them stop for a time. One of the punks that the duo had come across happened to be a thief who had stolen something from an elderly friend of Casey's. The item, a gold ring inscribed with her late husband's name and his feelings towards her, had been stolen almost a year before and had been missing ever since.
Knowing how heartbroken Mrs. Montana was over the loss, Casey had made a promise to himself that he would find it for her. That was a long shot of course, since New York was a big city and there were no clues as to who the thieve had been. Nonetheless, Casey was determined to find that ring and return it to its rightful owner.
Tonight, Fate had smiled upon Casey and he found the long sought after ring. At first, he was completely stunned that he had actually managed to find the ring. But that feeling soon gave way to excitement as he realized that he could keep his vow to Mrs. Montana and return her ring. So excited that he decided then and there to phone her so that he could tell her the good news.
There was just the problem of finding a phone to consider first. Casey didn't have a cell phone with him and the one that Raphael carried had dead batteries, so there was no hope of calling from the streets. Instead, they would have to find a closer location out in the city in order to make the call.
The nearest place with a phone turned out to be a local bar that Casey had been to a few times over the years. It was in one of the more unpleasant neighborhoods that Casey Jones had frequented in his life and filled with people who were not among the most affable of people. Under normal circumstances, Casey wouldn't have gone there with his friend. But this was too important to forget about until morning, so they had gone there anyway.
Raphael had followed Casey in, where they actually managed to get by without being disturbed by the bar patrons. Which was nothing short of a miracle, since many of these people weren't known for their manners. Had either human or mutant cast a glance the wrong way, there most certainly would've been a serious fight that evening.
Once they were inside, Casey had asked Raph to wait for him while he made the call. During the entire trip, his turtle friend hadn't been picky about their having to do this and just went along with it. And when Casey told him to wait, Raph just shrugged and said that he would.
It was only after he came back from his phone call that Casey learned how wrong it was to leave Raphael behind even for a short time. For when he returned, the mutant ninja was nowhere to be seen. Casey searched in the bar for his friend, asking people if they had seen the short punk he'd come in with. The few cared to answer only replied that they hadn't seen him since the two had come in.
It was strange, but when Casey realized that his friend had ditched him, he became worried. Raph may have been a hothead and wouldn't do what others told him, but it wasn't like him to just disappear if he was waiting for someone. Unless of course, he was in some kind of trouble.
If that were the case, then the human knew that he would have to go look for his friend. But he also knew that he wouldn't be able to complete such a task on his own. New York was just too large an area to cover on his own and there was no telling what he might run into while he was on his search. So he did the best thing that he could think of; he went back to the Lair to enlist some help. Which lead to where things were now, with Casey using Maggie to help track down Raphael.
The longer they kept up their search though, the more worried Maggie was starting to become and not just for Raphael's safety. She was also worried for her own, for more than one reason. Not only was she alone in the company of a man that she didn't entirely trust, but Maggie was also on the surface among uncountable humans.
Humans were something that she had been taught to both respect and fear. There was no telling how humans might react to one such as herself, so it was better to be cautious than stupid. And being on the surface like this seemed more and more insane than cautious as far as Maggie was concerned.
Her concern stretched out to cover the areas that they had been walking through. Though she was curious about the surface world as her brothers were and would explore certain areas if given the chance, Maggie still wasn't too comfortable about going above ground. There was just too much up there that she didn't understand about and too many new things for her to process at once. So she kept what she knew, trying to take in anything from the surface world a little at a time to adjust to everything.
She tried to ignore her nervousness for now however and instead attempted to focus on keeping track of Raphael's scent. It was getting stronger than before now, which told her that it was fresher than anything else they'd come across so far. Maggie took this as a good sign, since it meant that they were getting closer to Raph for sure.
That gave her the hope that they would be able to find him soon and then get back home before anything happened. She could only imagine what might be happening to her brother if he had been on his own this long. Even on his own, Raphael had excellent fighting skills that had more than once gotten him out of a jam. He could very well take care of himself if there was any trouble and the odds weren't too stacked against him.
If the odds were against Raphael or he had gotten himself into something that he wasn't prepared for, that's what made Maggie so worried. She knew her brother and his way for finding trouble whether he wanted it or not. Either way, he could usually make a situation worse whenever trouble found him.
Oh Raph, why couldn't you have just stayed with Casey? Maggie thought as she led the way further into the alley, You'd be a lot safer with a dope like him than on your own. You always have been before.
At the end of the alley, Maggie stopped again and knelt to the ground. Beside her, Casey stopped as well. He waited, allowing Maggie the chance that she needed in order to get their new bearings.
Lowering her head, Maggie allowed the scents of the area around her to flow through her senses. There were many that she to sort through and several more which had to be discarded as she sought out the only one that mattered. Soon, she was able to concentrate on the one she wanted and needed to find.
Looking up, she allowed her senses to follow the scent as was reachable within her range. But by doing so, Maggie was rewarded with something far more helpful than a mere scent. Her eyes lit up when she saw an open manhole hidden in the shadow of a building just across the street from there. Knowing that there was only one being who would willingly enter an open manhole besides a city worker, Maggie knew that they were on the right trail.
A/N: Okay, okay. Bad place to stop the chapter, especially since it's so short. I didn't originally mean to make it this way, honest. It was actually part of something much longer. But I decided that I really wanted a cliffhanger thingy somewhere in this story and this seemed like a good enough place to leave one. Don't worry though, you'll find out everything you want to know in the next chapter. Promise! (no pun intended on the title)