A/N: Welp, its time for the Courage fandom to rise from the grave. The Scooby Doo/Courage crossover is fully confirmed now with a trailer and a release date! Its a huge bummer though that John R Dilworth was not approached to work on the project, but I can't help but be hyped for some new Courage content anyway. It's still a bit of a dick move though considering the fact that Dilworth has been trying to get the greenlight to make something new for Courage for years now, and of course when the corporate suits did finally decide to go for it, they left him out of the project entirely. Supposedly they are using this crossover to gauge interest in Courage and if it does well there is a chance we might finally get that prequel special that was apparently shelved early in production because of the usual corporate fuckery that seems to plague CTCD. Never forget that one of the big reasons why the corporate folk haven't had any interest in doing anything new with Courage for years now is because they have said they can't market or sell toys of a pink dog to boys. You'd think with all the crazy creature designs the show has that they could use them for a toyline, but pink just isn't manly enough, I guess. In fact, that one running gag in this story with Courage occasionally being insecure about his fur color and insisting that it's purple has always been a bit of a meta jab at this small bit of stupidity that Dilworth has cited for decades now as the reason for why CN has never had any interest in reviving CTCD. (Srsly tho, CN. Do a toyline. Unmarketable pink doggos aside, the crimes I would commit for a posable spider-leg Computer figure would be vast and terrible lmao. And yes I would pose him to be eternally flipping me off from atop my bookshelf.)

Chapter 7: The Change

A collective gasp rose up from the puppies after Courage explained to them what he was planning on doing. The gasps quickly turned into a mixture of childish giggling and 'awww'ing from them. Even they seemed to know exactly how Atticus was going to react.

Courage hung his head. "So, yeah. I'm kinda in a bind here, guys. I've gotta tell him somehow, but we know he is not going to take it well. The only way this is going to work is if I can somehow get him past his initial-" What could he even call it? His initial 'Blue Screen Of Death'-ing? Well, Courage would be lucky if that ended up being the worst of Atticus's reaction.

He closed his eyes and sighed. "It's up to me to do this though, no matter how nervous I am. It's...it's not going to be him. I could wait forever and he would never be able to muster up the courage to confess anything to me. The feeling I got from when we were sharing the same head space was that he's terrified that acting on his feelings would only lead to him being hurt yet again." Courage rubbed the back of his head. "I can't blame him for feeling that way, but I'm going to do my best to prove him wrong. If I can just show him that there's nothing he needs to be afraid of, I-I think...I hope..."

He suddenly realized that he was grinning like a fool at the thought of them finally overcoming this one last hurdle. Nothing quite made him as happy as seeing Atticus happy, especially after everything they had gone through together. He just knew with all of his heart that if this worked out, they'd both be happy. Sure, Atticus was not so great at showing affection, at least not yet, but it was obvious that he was at least trying and would get there at some point. Even then, Courage was well aware of his companion's dislike of many of the physical aspects of romance, and that was perfectly okay with him. He loved him too much for something like that to be a problem and there were plenty of other ways to show your love for someone. Atticus, intentionally or not, had been proving that for a very long time now in that Atticus-y way of his.

Courage's smile began to fade a little as he considered something else. "The other sense I got while we were sharing the same brain was that he thinks I deserve someone better. I think he believes that he's treated me too badly for too long to ever make up for it enough that we...that I-" He broke off as he clenched one of his paws into a fist and brought it up to eye level. "It's not like I was much better back then either." He sighed. "I've caused him so much pain, even if most of it wasn't intentional. I just wish that he could understand that we've both messed up in so many ways toward each other and that we've both worked to make it up to each other and treat each other better. Otherwise, we wouldn't feel the way we do now, I think. It's...it's really been a long road getting to this point."

Despite himself, that familiar feeling of guilt bubbled up inside of him and he opened and closed his paw. So much of the pain Atticus had gone through on their journey had been because of that one simple and stupid action Courage had taken in a moment of sheer frustration and anger. There had been no way for him to know at the time how afraid Atticus was of being harmed by another owner. There had been no way for him to know that so much of his companion's infuriating attitude had come from that same fear and the misplaced belief that acting aloof and snide was the best way to protect himself. The way Courage had snapped and beat him like that had ignited all of his worst fears and drawn the Fear Eater to them, and when Atticus saw the illusion of Him, it was all over. So much suppressed trauma had returned to the surface at full force, causing an unfathomable amount of damage that the two of them were still working through even to this day.

In the end, Courage's desire to fix the damage he had caused, and out of a genuine desire to help Atticus feel better as well, he had decided to give the Dreamworld a try. With Nina's help, he had pressed Atticus into going through with it even when he had not wanted to. It had helped, yes, but it had also hurt too. It was only later, after having some time to reflect, that Courage was now certain that much of what Atticus had gone through in the Dreamworld had only caused his mental state to deteriorate further. It had to be part of the reason why he had started to believe that there was no hope of him ever being able to change for the better, no matter how hard he tried. Trapped by that belief, irrational fear had taken hold and he had spiraled further. He became paranoid that his only two friends either secretly hated him or were on the verge of giving up on him because of his perceived inability to change. Even now Courage couldn't help but shudder when remembering that awful dream he had shared with Atticus, the one that had been so bad that it had left a mark in the real world. Courage knew with certainty that Atticus's current feelings had to be linked to so many of those lingering fears and doubts. He was going to prove to him how wrong he was, that he 'was' good enough and 'had' changed for the better. Just like how Courage knew that he was good enough too, despite the mistakes he had made, and despite how so many of his attempts to help Atticus had also harmed him. After all, Atticus was not holding it against him, so despite his guilt, Courage wanted to press on and keep doing better. It was for that exact same reason that it was high time Atticus stopped beating himself up over his own mistakes and understand exactly why Courage lo...

That thought drifted away unfinished and a warm, affectionate smile once again spread out across Courage's face. Gazing down at the giggling puppies, he said to himself, "Boy, Atticus and I really do have a lot that we need to talk about, i-if...if he really does decide-" Flustered again, he ran his paws down his face as the puppies giggling turned into outright laughter.

Ignoring them, he crossed his arms, looked upward thoughtfully, and muttered, "Now if only I could think of a way to do this that isn't going to end with Atticus running for the hills."

"I have an idea!" One of the puppies yelled, jumping up and down with a paw in the air like he was waiting for a teacher to call on him.

"Oh boy..." Courage uttered out nervously, ear drooping.

The pup turned to his companions and they all huddled together. Courage looked on as they 'whispered' way too loudly to each other. The only reason why he couldn't understand what they were saying was simply because too many of them were talking at the same time and too quickly. He was not sure if their excited pace was a good omen or a bad one. Finally, they all turned back to him again. Some of them returned to their childish gigging, others were 'aww'ing and making goofy kissing faces, and Lily was among the ones grinning mischievously.

"Y-you guys wanna fill me in on what you discussed?" Courage asked, although it came out sounding more like a plea.

"Wait here! We'll be right back!" The pup who had started all of this exclaimed, and before Courage could even hope to stop them, the gaggle of puppies charged out of the tent to do...something.

Certain that his fur was going gray in real time, Courage collapsed into the grass. He was so nervous that he felt like he was about to lose his non-existent lunch. There was no way that unleashing the puppies like this was going to end well, but since he could not think up a way to confront Atticus, maybe letting something crazy happen was the solution he needed.

…...

Atticus was sitting in a chair. In Elizabeth's tent. At her Desk. Tied down with enough rope to hold a baby elephant in place.

"Was the rope really necessary?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at the old woman who was quickly becoming the bane of his existence. At the very least he was getting some satisfaction in knowing that he was very much becoming the same for her.

Breathing heavily, Elizabeth all but collapsed into her own chair. "Apparently? YES!" She cried out, glaring viciously at him. She was considerably disheveled at this point.

You see, when she had first brought Atticus into the tent and sat him down...the second he was free of her grasp he had booked it out of there as fast as his legs could take him. His escape attempt had not lasted long, however. It seemed that either the neglect of his dog body had weakened it far more than he had ever imagined...or Elizabeth was a terrifyingly good sprinter for an elderly woman. She had tackled him like a linebacker and brought him back while swearing under her breath the entire way. That was when the rope had come in.

"Now then," She said in a much calmer tone while trying to fix her frazzled hair. "We can finally get to the point of this whole charade."

"I'm still waiting on that industrial sized coffee maker." Atticus quipped, knowing that it would annoy her, and the seething look she gave him confirmed it. At least he was getting some small amount of amusement out of the situation.

"I have one question for you." She said, doing her best to ignore his attempts to infuriate her and drive her off track. She clasped her hands together and let them rest on her desk. Then, she breathed in deeply as if she needed to steady herself. "What is the extent of your knowledge on Edgar?"

The question surprised him, and when he took a moment to really think about it, he only ended up even more surprised. Squinting thoughtfully, he answered her with, "Almost everything I know about him has come from you. I...don't actually recall his name coming up from back when I was still with the SCC. That doesn't add up though. It was his project. Even after he was gone, you'd think his name still would have come up fairly often."

"It does actually make some measure of sense." Elizabeth answered in an even tone. "Edgar made sure that those who worked under him had a...'healthy' level of fear and respect for him. Once he was gone, I'm sure that most did not want to invoke his name around his Construct. Silly superstitions, I'm sure, but that would explain why you know so little about him. I suppose I'm going to have to explain quite a bit for you to get the full picture that I wish to paint."

…...

Two of the pups returned to Courage's tent a little while later.

"Come with us!" One of them exclaimed, bouncing up and down on all fours. The other grabbed Courage's paw and yanked him out of the tent.

"Hey, uh, just what exactly are you fellas planning?" He asked nervously as they rushed him through the camp.

"You'll see!" One of them sang in a gleeful tone.

They brought him to the edge of the camp and then entered the tree grove that surrounded much of the camp clearing. They did not need to go very far in before Courage saw what they were putting together.

"T-that's-" He stammered, too stunned to say much more. This had been the very last thing he was expecting to find.

The puppies had set up a tree net trap and were in the process of covering the netting in leaves and branches to hide it.

"W-where did you guys even get the net?" Courage asked, feeling something between awe and complete and total dismay.

"Stole it from one of those vans those soldier guys use." A pups answered as casually as if it wasn't insane that they had stolen a net from the SCC...all just to trap Atticus.

"I-I'm thinking this might be a little excessive..." Courage uttered out, then he reminded himself exactly how Atticus was going to react to his confession and... "Actually, you guys might have the right idea about this after all...u-unfortunately."

Lily pulled out a coffee mug, grinning wildly. "We took this from the same van and we're going to leave it sitting in the middle of the trap to lure him into it. It's empty...but he doesn't know that." She laughed manically.

Courage couldn't help but grin a little too, even if he was still feeling very reluctant about going through with something as crazy as this. These truly were some devious puppies that Atticus had befriended.

One of the pups pointed toward a fallen log close to the trap. "Hide behind that while we look for him. After we've lured him into the trap, you can tell him everything that you need to say."

"R-right!" Courage exclaimed, his voice cracking. He could not even remember the last time he had felt this nervous, and considering what a normal day was like for him back in Nowhere...

Another of the puppies threw something down at his feet.

"W-what the heck is this for?" He yelped, realizing that it was a muzzle.

"After you tell him that you loooovvveee him, you can use that to stop him when he starts screaming." The pup giggled.

Courage groaned and ran his paws down his face. "You know what? He is probably going to do just that."

…...

"As I've said before, Edgar was an inventor first and foremost. Before he became the leader of the SCC he helped in the creation of the personal computer among many other pieces of technology that are now considered common household items. He was even the one responsible for getting the ball rolling on the creation of the internet. You will never find his name in a history book, however. When one becomes the leader of the SCC, if you have any notable accomplishments that has made your name known to the general public, supernatural means are used to obscure your history, for security purposes. I'm sure Edgar did not mind. He considered his work inside the SCC far more important than anything he had accomplished in the earlier years of his life. In fact, he revolutionized the SCC. This Organization had once been considered rather archaic, tradition bound, and stuck in its ways before he took over and modernized every aspect of it. Old arcane methods were tossed out in favor of a hybrid approach. It was the coming together of ancient magic and modern technology. I suppose if you look at it a certain way, the Constructs were his final expression of that philosophy."

Elizabeth shifted slightly in her chair and began to pluck absentmindedly at a seemingly nonexistent string of fabric. If Atticus hadn't known any better he could have sworn she seemed nervous.

"There are a few things you need to understand about Edgar. He believed that humans were meant to be the dominant species of this planet. He believed that all things unnatural were a threat to our continued domination. He worked to eradicate as much of it as possible. If he had been given the chance, he would have eliminated every single sentient non-human creature from this planet all in the name of keeping humanity on top of the food chain. Although, as he grew older, he became just as disillusioned with our own kind as well. He believed that we are moronic beings doomed to extinction. That even if the supernatural threats all around us did not do us in someday, that we would inevitably destroy ourselves anyway. Toward the end of his life he was convinced that, above all other things, humankind needed a protector. A person greater than all who had come before, one who could guide our species into the future and the next stage of our existence, protecting us from threats within and without. He, of course, believed himself to be that person."

Atticus winced. "And here I thought I had a bit of an ego." He halfheartedly quipped. "I hope I didn't inherit that from him, although it seems like he had plenty of it to spare."

Elizabeth ignored him. "The other thing you need to know about Edgar is that he was obsessed with his legacy. I was his first...experiment on that front. Oh, he did what was necessary in order to charm my mother. She fell for him and his lies easily enough and did not realize until it was far too late that Edgar was not someone capable of loving anyone. After I was born, he quickly deemed me a failure. He wanted the perfect continuation of his legacy and I could never hope to live up to that. Even having been born a girl was a failure in his eyes. Well, he tried to act like I did not exist after it became obvious that I would never live up to his expectations. As for my mother, the moment she became inconvenient for him, she...had an accident. Supposedly it was an SCC experiment gone wrong. Her body was never found. As for me, I signed up to join the SCC as soon as I was old enough and rose up in the ranks over the long years. I went from a lowly solder to...well, where you see me now. Edgar hated my presence within the Organization and tried to have me killed on more than one occasion, but...I was never my mother. I gave him no other choice but to begrudgingly tolerate me."

She gave Atticus a look of smug satisfaction, as though he were Edgar himself. The thought of it disgusted him. It was just his luck that the guy he resembled was a genocidal psychopath with a side order of egomania.

"Right, so, this is nice and all, but what exactly is the point?" He asked. "Why do you want me to know all of this?"

"You will understand soon enough." She answered before continuing with her speech. "Realizing that he could not rely upon anyone but himself to continue his legacy and agenda, he turned to supernatural means to prolong his aging life. He succeeded in that endeavor, but immortality itself was never on the table for him. The SCC does contain several objects and beings capable of granting mortals eternal life, but such things always come with dire drawbacks, and he knew this. It seemed that he was doomed to leave this world without seeing his grand plan for humanity through to completion, and I quite enjoyed watching his frustration grow with every year that passed. The extra decades he gave himself just was not enough."

Elizabeth once again looked pleased at recalling her memories of Edgar's failures, but her expression soon became grave.

"Just when it seemed like Edgar was doomed to shuffle off this mortal coil like the rest of us 'lesser' humans, he found that ancient, sentient book. Within its pages he found instructions for how to preform a certain ritual that you are quite familiar with...and he started getting ideas."

Elizabeth leaned forward, her severe, leering gaze practically drilling holes through Atticus's very being. "I want to make one thing very clear. Everything you have heard about the Constructs having been made to be weapons and spies for the government has always been a lie. It's what my father pitched to the higher ups to get the funding he needed. In truth, he always intended to merge the Constructs into a single, exceptionally powerful entity...one with his mind as the main consciousness in control of it. He wished to become a literal Deus Ex Machina for humanity. An all-powerful technological entity that would work unseen in the background, controlling the arc of human history and its technological progress while slowly and silently eliminating all threats to our dominion. There was, of course, just one major flaw in this grand plan of his..."

Atticus knew exactly what she was getting at. "A Construct is not the person they come from." He answered for her.

"Exactly. It was the one limitation that he worked every single day to try and overcome. None of his plans meant anything if he could not figure out a way to ensure that the soul of the original person would remain attached to the resulting Construct. He intended that once this limitation was overcome and the ritual preformed, he would, in a sense, lobotomize his Construct. He believed that if he could stifle the secondary consciousness while it was still new, he could do so without running the risk of the Construct destabilizing. Obviously he did not want to have to deal with another mind getting in the way of his work."

"Well, considering that I'm here and he is obviously not..." Atticus trailed off, wondering even more where Elizabeth was going with all of this and perhaps becoming just a little concerned.

That concern only grew as he watched Elizabeth reach under the table and bring up a metal security case that she began to unlock.

She continued talking, unperturbed, "It had indeed seemed like he had hit a brick wall with his project. No matter what he did, he could not overcome the rules and limitations of the ritual. That Constructs are not the people they come from, that the person must die for the Construct to be made, and that the soul of the dying person cannot be contained within the Construct to achieve a continuation of life. No matter how the ritual was modified or which other arcane methods were added to the process, he could not overcome its limitations. For all of his efforts, it appeared that Edgar wasn't going to get his greatest desire. His health had started to fail in those final months as well, and he had been growing increasingly paranoid that something was trying to kill him through supernatural means. It was looking like he was going to die the pathetic, paranoid, old man that he was, until...he found his belated breakthrough." Elizabeth's expression hardened. "He found his salvation in the form of the thirty-second Construct."

Atticus's ears drooped, understanding exactly what Edgar had figured out about Thirty-Two. "It was the ghost haunting her, wasn't it? He figured out that a soul can remain attached to a Construct as a haunting."

Elizabeth nodded solemnly. "Yes. He had already taken a far greater interest in that particular Construct over all the others because of its ability to predict the future. It was a power that he coveted greatly and he went through great pains to see to the creation of a Construct capable of inheriting the ability from the person it came from. He could not have been more thrilled to find out that said person had remained anchored to this world as a ghost through their Construct. It was the confirmation he needed that he could do the same. He knew that he had enough resolve and sense of unfinished business to remain attached to his Construct as a ghost."

"So I guess the question now is, what went wrong?" Atticus asked. "If he had everything he needed to see his plans through, why am I here with my mind intact and him seemingly dead?" He squinted as several possibilities crossed his mind. "I swear if this is leading up to you telling me that I 'am' him, just without his memories or something of a similar sort, spare me the trouble and just shoot me now. I do not want to be Mr. Genocide God-Complex Guy, thank you very much."

"Oh, it's much more simple than that." Elizabeth answered, putting on that triumphant smirk again. "I stopped him. That is all. You see, I knew the way my father's mind worked. He was already disillusioned with humanity and I knew that even after becoming a literal avatar of human progress that it would never be enough for him. He would grow to hate humanity as it is and do everything in his power to reshape it to his whims. I could so easily see him wiping out most of our species and all that we have created just so that he could restart humankind on his own terms."

Elizabeth placed a hand on the unlocked security case. "I knew that I had to do something. It was my duty as a member of the SCC to deal with a supernatural entity threatening to change humanity on a fundamental level, which is exactly what Edgar would have become if given the chance. It is ironic that he did not seem to notice or care that he was about to become everything he had spent his life crusading against. Well, I like to think that I gave him quite the wake up call."

She flipped open the case and pulled out one of the strangest and most morbid objects Atticus could ever recall seeing. Nothing Courage had ever had him search for back on the farm could compare.

Elizabeth placed it carefully down onto the table. It was a jar that looked like it was made out of mummified skin. Its cork looked like a tooth or fragment of bone etched with strange runes. What was truly concerning about it was a face bulging out of the mummified skin with a contorted expression screaming in silent agony.

"This is a soul jar." Elizabeth said in a quiet voice. "Quite the interesting artifact. These were highly prized by necromancers in the dark ages and the means to create them have been lost to time. Considering what these objects do, it is for the best, and I am fairly certain that the SCC has managed to collected all of the remaining ones. The occasional cult or fledgling necromancer would be caught with one of these from time to time, but we have not recovered a new one in several decades. These are used to trap a soul before it can leave this world. Necromancers would use the tortured souls trapped inside for their spellwork."

Atticus stared into the screaming, eyeless face. Sighing warily, he said, "You trapped his soul, didn't you? I guess you can't be a ghost doing your whole haunting thing if you're too busy being trapped in a jar."

"Exactly! While the ritual was underway and he was in no position to stop me, I took one of the soul jars out of containment and...captured his soul upon his death. The resulting Construct came out no different from all the others and it was assumed that Edgar's attempt to attach his soul had simply failed. Nobody knew the truth of what I had done and I have not told a single soul about it until this day."

Elizabeth picked the jar up and brought it close to her face. "He has been in this jar for over two decades now. It is believed that even when a soul isn't being siphoned for spellwork that their time within the jar is still quite torturous. I hope that is the case."

She turned her attention back on to Atticus. "It is my duty as the leader of the SCC to make difficult choices when the need arises."

With a sinking feeling, Atticus very much did not like where this was going.

"I have spent more time mulling over this decision than I ever should have allowed myself, and lives have been lost because of my inaction." She chuckled wistfully. "Well, I never could live up to my father's standards, now could I?"

Atticus was really regretting the ropes now. Try as he might, he could not move anything below his neck.

"In the end, if it comes down to choosing between a monster that will wipe out most of humanity but still preserve it in some form, or a monster that will continue to grow in size until it wipes out all life on this planet, I know what I must do."

She placed a hand over the strange bone or tooth cork.

"I am-" She hesitated. "-sorry for this. If it is any consolation," Her eyes betrayed fear. "He will no doubt have me killed for my betrayal." Her voice shook slightly as she spoke, but then she closed her eyes and inhaled sharply. When her usual composure returned, she softly said, "But, I am willing to make a sacrifice for the greater good. And if you wish for those dogs that you seem to care so much about to survive, then you will make a sacrifice for their sake as well."

The jar was opened with a hissing, high pitched screaming sort of sound, and then a strange white light filled the room...

…...

Courage sat waiting behind the fallen log for what was starting to feel like an eternity. He kept straining to hear if the puppies or Atticus was approaching, but there was no noise aside from the distant sounds of people going about their day inside the camp.

"What's taking so long?" He wondered out loud, shifting around a little because his legs were falling asleep.

At least all of this waiting was helping to calm him down a little. He knew that he was going to have to go into this with as calm and clear of a mind as possible, even if he knew perfectly well that the very second Atticus appeared he was going to go right back to being a nervous wreck.

He was still having second thoughts about using the net trap on Atticus too, but knowing the way these things usually went, it would not surprise him at all if, in an effort to escape the net, Atticus would suddenly and miraculously learn how to break his body down on an atomic level to reconstruct himself elsewhere, all to avoid having Courage confess anything to him.

The mental image of it made Courage laugh. If only he had a way to make his beloved companion stop being so flustered every time he-

The sound of footsteps cut his thoughts off and made him nearly choke as all of his banished anxiety rushed right back up into his throat. Trembling, he couldn't help but silently mock himself for being almost as bad as Atticus about getting flustered too. Well, there wasn't any time left for him to regret being hypocritical, because...

A puppy climbed up on top of the log and leaned over to peer down at him. "We, uh, can't find him anywhere." She told him.

Courage stood up, his anxiety transforming into concern. The rest of the puppies were all in the clearing as well, looking a bit lost about what to do next.

Fighting back worry, Courage asked, "Are you sure he isn't hiding somewhere near your tent? Maybe he's just waiting for all of you to come back so that he can ambush you. You probably just missed him."

"We checked all of the places he could have been hiding near our tent." Lily answered, ears drooping.

Courage continued to battle with his growing worry for Atticus. He refused to let himself panic since it was entirely possible that the puppies had simply missed him if he was moving through the camp, or maybe they had missed a possible hiding place.

"Alright, we're going back to the camp." He told the pups. "I'll help you guys look for him. He's got to be around here somewhere."

More than likely Atticus was just hiding somewhere waiting to prank the puppies. There was just one big flaw in that line of thinking that had Courage feeling like an icy pit was forming in his stomach. He knew perfectly well how concerned Atticus was about him suffering from the side effects of their separation. It was unlikely that he would leave him alone for this long just to get a chance to douse the puppies in water.

Courage clutched a paw to his chest as he looked out at the camp. "I've got a really bad feeling about this..."

…...

Elizabeth felt absolutely nothing as she cut through the ropes and let them fall to the floor. She watched the dog as it brought its paws up to its face like it was seeing them for the first time.

She swallowed as 'he' carefully dropped down out of the chair, turned, and looked up at her.

He proceeded to smirk.

"You stupid girl." He chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "I never thought you'd have it in you to sabotage me, even at my most vulnerable moment. I'm almost impressed."

She kept her tone of voice utterly emotionless as she said, "You seem remarkably sane for someone who has spent as much time in that jar as you have."

"Ah, I should probably thank you for that, actually. I came to consider it something like an extended vacation. It was so very nice to finally have a chance to organize my thoughts without people pestering me every second of every day. Besides, I knew that a day would come when you would mess something up so badly that the temptation to bring me back would simply become too great for you to ignore."

He took a step forward, his smug smirk turning into an outright mocking grin.

"So, then. What have you mucked up so badly that you needed to bring back dear, old dad to bail you out?"

End Of Chapter

A/N: The most evil thing Elizabeth has ever done is deprive us of the shenanigans that would have ensued with the net trap. On a less silly note though, I wanted to give a heads up that my mental health took a huge nosedive over these last few months and hasn't improved since. It's a big part of the reason why new chapters have been slow to come out lately. I've been trying to stick to a schedule of getting at least one chapter out per month but even that has been a struggle. I don't want to publish something that I feel like I halfheartedly rushed out either. So, yeah. Updates are going to remain slow for the time being, unless by some miracle I manage to get my shit together.