~~Read the note at the end of the chapter to know why this chapter took as long as it did~~

(Sorry about that)

Shiro

I calmly rested as light wind passed through my fur. Traveling outside for a change felt good, I liked all of the fresh air outside of the Nest. There were a lot of pokemon there, which I didn't like too much, so the space was nice. I was sitting on Kuro's back with my eyes closed, focusing on the clean air. Naru was here too, walking next to us. I had my two forepaws resting on Kuro's scarf, which was wrapped around him tighter than usual because he said the air was cold. I couldn't feel it though, and neither could Naru.

For the first time, I was going with Kuro and Naru on one of the missions that the Nest gave them. Needless to say, I was experiencing a few different emotions. I was excited to see what they did whenever they had to go out, but also nervous, because I didn't really know what to expect other than what Kuro and Naru told me. The two of them explaining it helped me out a little bit, but I also knew that sometimes, things go wrong, and I didn't want that to happen. I thought back to the scary pokemon that chased me out from the small place I lived in for a little bit, and then the other scary one that came to the Nest and hurt Kage. Just thinking about them made me shake. I was glad that there was someone to protect me both times, otherwise I don't know what would've happened.

I told myself to stop thinking about scary things and think more about happy things, like how this was my first time leaving the Nest since I started living there. There was so much out here, and I liked looking at all of it. We passed a few groups of buildings on the way here, and they looked a lot different from the ones at the Nest. I thought everywhere outside would look the same, but none of it was. Everything we passed, whether it was a tree or a group of rocks, it was always different. I was fascinated by all of it, and I wanted to see more. I don't know what it was, but being outside of the Nest just made me endlessly curious about so many things. I guess I'd already know if I had my memories... I pondered for a second. Oh well! I'll just learn again! No use focusing on the negatives, especially since I couldn't do anything about it.

Kuro and Naru hadn't talked too much since we left, which I thought was weird, since they always talked with each other. I knew that Kuro didn't talk much when he was outside of our room, but he talked a lot when he was with us. Maybe they just have nothing to talk about? Since they weren't in a busy conversation, I thought that it would be a good time to ask about some things I was curious about. In order to get his attention, I rose one of my forepaws and tapped Kuro's head a few times. He tilted it a little bit, acknowledging me. "What's up?" He asked. He knew what it meant when I tapped him like that, I've done it a bunch of times before.

"I have a question." I said before taking a breath. "Do pokemon live in some of the places we walked by?" Kuro turned his head back to look in front of him, making sure that he didn't walk into anything.

"Of course, there's probably someone living in all of the areas we've walked by." He told me. Is the Nest really that different?

"We live in a huge place, but most other areas don't have living spaces like ours. That's what makes the Nest special, it's gigantic!" Naru said, putting emphasis on the last word in her sentence.

"Although, some pokemon like to stay in the wild and make their own homes to live in. They usually don't like all of the buildings and the crowds of a town, or they just like to live as close to nature as possible." Kuro explained. It surprised me that some pokemon didn't like to live in towns, it seemed so much harder. Although, if they wanted to live there, then it was their choice in the end.

"Where did you live before you came to the Nest?" I asked generally, wondering about both Kuro and Naru. They never talked about where they lived before the Nest. I did know that they didn't always live there though, just not where they came from.

"I used to live in a huge town far away from here, it had a lot of stores, places to get food, and just fun places to go everywhere!" Naru said excitedly, but then her mood seemed to drop a little bit. "The pokemon there aren't very nice though. Most of them just pick on each other or live like criminals." She sounded less excited than when she started, but not sad.

"Wow… That place sounds cool!" I responded, picturing a big town with a lot of buildings in my head. I probably wouldn't want to live there though, she said the pokemon there weren't nice, and I wasn't good with meeting new pokemon, especially if they weren't nice. "What about you?" I placed my forepaw on Kuro's head again.

"I used to live in a small den far away, near the town Naru came from. There wasn't much there besides a really big forest behind it that I spent a lot of time in." For some reason, it felt like Kuro shuddered a little bit, but I thought it was my imagination. "Other than that, there was a small hill, but nothing else. It may be small, but it was a nice place to live in for a little group." Kuro's place to live sounded a lot less impressive than Naru's but he sounded like he liked it, so that's all that really mattered.

He did say something though, something that made me curious about a new idea. Kuro and Naru had been watching me for a while now, and they were the closest things to parents that I could remember, but where were their parents? Neither of them were adults yet, so why were they both alone like this? "Where do your parents live?" I asked among the two.

Instead of the immediate answers I got before, the two of them both paused, like they didn't know what to say. It also felt like Kuro shivered again, but that could have been the cold weather, especially since I was an ice type and making contact with him. After some time passed, Naru took a deep breath, and glanced at me, still walking forward.

"That's not really important, Shiro." Naru told me with a smile. "We don't need to live with them anymore, and the two of us wanted to go out by ourselves, so we did."

"She's right, it's nothing to worry about right now." Kuro said after Naru stopped talking. The way they sounded was weird though. For some reason, it didn't sound like their voices, they were slower, and quieter. I'd never heard them sound like that before, so I thought it was weird. Even if it was though, I knew that they were still the same pokemon, they just put on different voices for a few seconds, that's all.

"Okay." I responded to them, despite still being curious. Their voice changes made me feel weird, so I didn't want to ask the same question again, otherwise their voices might sound like that. I don't like that sound. I looked in the same direction that we were walking, and saw another group of buildings, these ones were made out of wood instead of the other ones we walked by, which were made of something else that I didn't recognize. There was a road in between the buildings, made out of some rocky material. It was smooth, but it looked hard, harder than the grass we were walking on.

Instead of changing our path to go around it, we were walking towards it, which was different than what we did with all of the other places we saw. "Is that where we're supposed to go?" I asked, assuming that Kuro and Naru would know what I was talking about.

"Yep! That's our destination! It's called… Um…" Naru sounded really excited and then stopped talking to think. "You know, I don't think we were given a name, were we?" She turned her head to look at Kuro.

"I'm pretty sure we weren't, all we know is that this is the right town and what house we need to go to, nothing more." Kuro responded.

"Huh. Well that's weird. We usually get the names of the places we go. Wait, why didn't I notice this when I took the mission?"

"You're the one who did it, don't ask me." Kuro told Naru with a smile, and I chuckled a little bit. Naru didn't seem to pay attention to small things, which led to some funny times when we were all talking. "Although, you did get all of the other information correct. As in, we're not in at the wrong town, right?"

Naru paused for a second and dug her head into her bag, taking out a large map and placing it on the grassy ground. Kuro stopped walking and turned to look at her. Naru's eyes were quickly darting around the map, looking for where we were now.

"Yep, we're in the right place, I'm sure of it!" She exclaimed. "As for the house we're supposed to go to, it kind of looks like your old place." Naru rose her head and looked at Kuro.

"Really? In a town and not in the wild? That's interesting." Kuro glanced back at the town. "Then again, from what we do know, I guess it makes sense." I tilted my head.

"What do you know about this place?" I asked them, curious to know myself. Naru looked at me after I asked.

"This town doesn't have very much money, so some pokemon probably made their own houses instead of having one built for them. It usually takes less to do that rather than pay someone to build you a stable home." She rolled the map back up and put it back in her bag using her maw.

"There are pokemon that build houses for others?" I further questioned, wondering if that's how all of the houses here were built. Or, some of them at least.

"Yup! They ask pokemon to pay them to build a stable place for them to live. In the town I used to live in, the leader paid a lot of different pokemon to build up the entire place all at once. After that was done, it became one of the largest towns I've ever heard about!" Naru said excitedly. It sounded like she liked the town a lot, so why did she leave?

I looked at the town we were walking to again, thinking about what Kuro's home used to look like, wondering if it was similar to any of the wooden structures I could see. I figured I would find out soon, so I decided not to ask about it. Once Naru slung her bag over her body once more, she walked up next to Kuro again, and we started to walk into the town. As we entered and began walking on the gray path in the middle of all of the houses, I kept glancing back and forth, observing all of the new buildings in my sight.

Most of them were made out of wooden boards, but a few had different colors, and looked like they were made out of something else. I had no idea what it was, but looking at all of the unfamiliar buildings excited me. Maybe it was because I didn't recognize anything, but I really liked picking out all of the differences in every building we passed, even if it was just a board being slanted. I was totally drawn in by the new imagery that was before me.

I heard a few unfamiliar voices coming from farther down the road, and I moved my head to the side to look around Kuro, and observed the end of the road. There was a pretty big crowd of a bunch of pokemon that I didn't recognize, not that I knew many species in the first place. I knew that Kuro was an umbreon, Naru was a glaceon, Kage was a luxray, Vero was a zoroark, and a few more random ones. That was pretty much it though, so I had no idea what more than half of the pokemon in the crowd in front of us were called. Disregarding that though, I felt an uncomfortable shudder go down my body at the thought of walking through a crowd like that. I didn't like interacting with pokemon I didn't know, it made me really uncomfortable. I didn't know if that was due to my lack of memory on talking to others, or if it's because the first pokemon I can vividly remember was one with an angry expression in a dark room. Either way, I didn't like talking to pokemon I wasn't familiar with, it always made me wonder what they were really like, and I always assumed the worst.

I also assumed the worst when Kuro first started giving me food, which is why I was always scared when he came by. Then another scary pokemon came to the place I was sleeping, and Kuro helped me, made me feel safe. The same thing happened when Naru talked to me, sounding really nice, instead of scary. Then I found Kuro's teacher, and he helped me, which made me comfortable. And finally, after that, Kage and Vero helped me when another scary pokemon came to the Nest, which also made me feel safe with them. Other than those pokemon, if I had to talk to someone, I always felt scared.

I decided to dig my head down into the back of Kuro's neck, not wanting to look at the crowd before me. I was a bit disappointed in myself for denying my ability to observe the area around me, but it was worth it to avoid the crowd. Or, at least, to make myself feel like I'm avoiding the crowd. I felt the small bumps of each step that Kuro took, presumably moving passed the crowd I was just looking at. I didn't like the thought, but it wasn't as if I could just deny what was happening when it was the only real possibility. I'm sure it won't last long…

While listening to the many different voices surrounding me, I focused on the vibrations coming from each step that Kuro took. He had a pattern of walking that kept on repeating, like each time he moved one of his legs to take a step, it was always exactly the same. I took a second and wondered if I was the same way, but after that second passed, I recognized how random of a thing that is to notice. Granted, I was trying my very best to distract myself, so that sort of led to paying attention to really weird details. I liked finding them though, like when I saw all of the different places on our way here, I felt really excited to know something new. Maybe it's because I didn't know too much about the world, or anything really, but I liked observing or learning new things a lot, it just made me really happy!

Just as I was thinking about something I recently learned, I felt the repeated vibrations stop, and the voices from earlier were much quieter now, although they were still there. "Wow, they really do look similar!" Naru chimed, making me feel curious as to what she was talking about.

"No kidding. Although, this one may be a bit smaller, and not on a hillside." Kuro said afterwards. Letting my mind get the better of me, and because the noises that made me anxious sounded so much farther away now, I took a breath and lifted my head back up to see what Kuro and Naru were talking about. What entered my vision right after wasn't something I was expecting.

We were standing in front of what I thought was a house, but looked more like a huge lump of dirt on the ground. The only thing that really keyed me in to this being a place of residence was a bunch of wooden planks that looked like they were stuck together in the front of the giant hill. Besides the makeshift door though, it wasn't really easy to look at this and recognize it as a house of some kind. It was very possible that it wasn't, but the thing that Naru said before I looked up also made me think that this might be a house. She said that 'they looked similar,' and thinking back to our conversation topic earlier, and how Kuro responded, I put together that this place looked like Kuro's old home. I wasn't really sure why I was able to piece all of this together in the space of a second, but I didn't question it. Instead, I wanted to confirm whether I was right or not.

"Is this place like your old house?" I asked out loud, tapping Kuro's head like usual. He nodded his head right after.

"Yes, it is. I think this one is a little smaller though, at least from the outside." He seemed to look up and down the giant hill of dirt that was sticking out of the ground. "I also didn't live in a town like this. It was a decent bit away from everything else." I thought back to what Kuro said about his old home earlier, something to do with living near a forest and a hill, and I didn't see anything like that around here, just some thin paths and trees, along with a few bushes.

"Well, no need to keep our client waiting!" Naru excitedly shouted before walking up to the collection of wooden planks. She rose one of her paws and tapped it on the wood a few times, which made each of the planks move like they were about to fall apart. It really didn't look like this place was very stable, as if the whole thing could come down on top of itself at any moment. It definitely seemed out of place from the rest of the buildings here. All of them looked sturdy, except for this one. Even so, it had a strange sense of… something. Like, even though it was out of place, and even though it looked less safe than the others, part of it just felt comforting. I had no idea why, but that was just that way it felt. I was distracted from my strange thoughts by the sound of shifting wood scratching together. I peeked around Kuro's neck once more, seeing a small orange lizard-like pokemon peeking out of it, the door not quite fully open. "H-Hello?" They timidly spoke.

I backed my head up a bit, not wanting to be involved in a conversation. I wondered what species this pokemon was, especially since I knew I'd seen another like them somewhere before. Not exactly like them, but with the same color, and with the same type of tail, topped with a small flame. Regardless, I felt just as timid in front of them as I did in front of everyone else in the past. Naru clearly didn't feel the same way though, as she put on a bright smile and looked down at the somewhat short lizard. At least, shorter than her, not much shorter than Kuro. "Hiya!" Naru greeted happily.

The lizard seemed to scan Naru's body for a second, before his eyes landed on one specific part, near the center of her right side. "Are you all Ravens?" He then asked, not really extending out of the door any more than before. He sounded a little bit afraid, almost like I usually sounded when I tried to talk to someone that I wasn't familiar with, save the stutter I was well aware of.

"Yes we are!" Naru told the lizard with gusto. Kuro also nodded his head at the question, but I doubt that it was noticed due to Naru's volume. That seemed to gain the lizard's attention rather swiftly. "You're the one who put up a request, right?" The small orange lizard nodded his head, almost exactly like Kuro did before.

"Y-Yes Miss, I did." The lizard backed up and pulled the weak-looking door open more, taking a step back. "Please, come in. I'll tell you about why I put up a request. I-If you don't mind." As soon as he stopped talking, the lizard looked down bashfully. Naru shot Kuro a quick glance, and he gave a small nod, I almost missed it.

"We'll listen to you, that's why we're here." Kuro said a little quietly. His voice was always quiet, the only time I heard him get loud was when he yelled at one of the scary pokemon that tried to take me. Other than that one time, he's always had the same, quiet voice, never really speaking up unless Naru and I were the only ones there.

"T-Thank you!" The lizard kept his head down, and waved one of his hands to signal that he wanted us to enter the small home. Naru walked in with a spring in her step, and Kuro then followed after her. As soon as we all entered, I looked around, and despite not knowing what to expect, I wasn't very surprised at the interior of the place. The inside of the home was nothing but a hollow dirt hill, with nothing inside other than a small pile of wood in one of the corners, as well as another pile in another corner, but these ones were charred, as if they had been burned. The home itself was also very warm, a lot warmer than the inside of the Nest felt. It was a pretty safe assumption that the lizard living here is a fire type, judging by the heat of the home, and… well… the fact that his tail was on fire. After a few more glances around the room, I noticed a pair of beds against one part of the dirt interior. They looked kind of like the ones that we used in the Nest, but without the same type of quality. The last thing I noticed about the inside of this place was that there was another door on the other side of where we entered, looking almost identical to the one we entered from, but in seemingly better condition. After my observations were concluded, I saw Naru lean closer to Kuro, away from the lizard that let us in.

"You know, you could've added a bit more energy to your voice there." Naru told Kuro, to which he gave a small sigh. Lately, she's been trying to get Kuro to be more social, or at least, speak up more. I guess part of that is making him do some of the talking when they're out on missions, but it looks like he's still in the improvement phase.

"I know… No need to tell me again." He responded, sounding a bit… annoyed? He used a weird tone that I haven't really heard him express much.

"Well, if I don't say it every time, then you'll forget!" Naru sounded determined, like she was on a mission here.

"I don't think forgetting is going to happen anytime soon." He said with another small sigh. "I'm just… Not used to it is all."

"And until you are, I'm not going to stop reminding you!" She smiled brightly, before turning back to the lizard that let us in, and Kuro followed suit, making me face him as well. He looked back at the three of us, still seeming bashful. I could imagine why, as, he didn't sound very old, even if I wasn't too sure what type of voice could relate to what age, I've heard enough to give a good guess. "Cozy home you have here! What's your name?" Naru asked the lizard. He took a step forward, coming a bit closer to all of us.

"T-Thank you miss, I'm glad you like it!" He bowed his head. "My name is Charm, it's nice to meet you!"

"You too!" Naru bowed her head in return. "My name is Naru, and this is Kuro and Shiro!" She rose a paw to gesture towards the two of us. Kuro was the first one to say something.

"It's nice to meet you!" He said with a smile, also bowing his head. I could tell he tried to sound more energetic, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't come off as awkward. I could appreciate the effort at least, and I'm sure Naru would too. However, when Kuro bowed his head down, that also meant that I was now right in front of Charm, and his attention was half on Kuro, and half on me. I felt myself start to get antsy, and I looked down at Kuro's back.

"N-Nice to meet you." I said as confidently as I could. I hoped that I didn't come off as rude, I didn't want to sound like I didn't want to greet him, but I kind of had a hard time doing so. At the very least, I managed to get some words out, which was the best I could manage. Better than nothing I guess? Despite the strange decline in enthusiasm from Naru to myself with our greetings, Charm looked rather unaffected.

"So, what's the reason you put up a request? It was just a little bit vague, so we're not really sure what we need to do here." Naru said, looking at Charm. Luckily, Kuro resumed his original position, so I was able to hide behind his neck and avoid further conversation. It's not like I hated everyone that I came across, but it was hard for me to think of someone positively, even with a good first impression. I needed to be sure that they were good before I was comfortable, and one nice greeting wasn't quite enough for me to finalize my thoughts, despite it sounding genuine.

"R-Right, I'll show you." Charm took a few steps forward and walked to the door opposite of the one we walked in through. All of us turned around to face that side of the home, rather than where we entered. Charm placed his hand on the side of the door and pulled it open all the way, making it so we had a clear view of what was on the other side. At first, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, but upon closer inspection, there were a bunch of marks near the bottom of it, making what sort of looked like half of a hand, and a semi-circle. "For a while now, really late at night, I've been hearing a lot of loud scratches at this door, and after I stopped being too scared to check it, t-this was here." He pointed to the weird shape seemingly scratched into the door.

Kuro walked closer to the door, as did Naru, giving all three of us a better view at the pattern of marks on the bottom of the wooden door. It still looked the same to me, but something about it tugged on the back of mind, like I knew what this was supposed to be. It was odd because, well, I had no idea what I was looking at other than a couple of scratches on a door. Kuro and Naru seemed to closely investigate the drawing, taking a good minute or two to really determine what happened here, or what this was in the first place.

"W-What do you think about it?" Charm asked timidly from the side of us. After he asked though, Kuro's face turned really serious for a second, rather than inquisitive like it was while he was looking at the shape. He gave a nod to Naru, which she returned, and then he turned to look at Charm.

"You said that you heard scratches late at night, correct?" Kuro asked calmly. Part of me liked this version of Kuro's voice more than his forced energy. Charm nodded to Kuro's question. "Well, not to scare you, but whoever did this most likely knew what they were doing, which means it wasn't some random feral." Charm's eyes widened for a second, but Kuro kept talking. "That being said, I think they're just trying to scare you, so I wouldn't worry too much."

"W-What makes you say that?" He asked Kuro curiously.

"To put it simply, this looks like half of a certain symbol that we know, and it's not something a feral would do." Kuro responded, making me curious as well. We know this symbol? Or, at least, a bigger version of it? I was expecting Charm to be curious as well, but he ended up looking down at the ground instead.

"W-Well, I know that already, that's why I'm scared." He already knows the symbol? I saw Naru out of the corner of my eye change her expression, suddenly looking a little bit concerned. This sort of bothered me, being the only one here who had no real idea what the topic of discussion right now was. Obviously, it had something to do with this symbol that I had a very vague recollection of seeing, but I didn't know what about it made Naru look so concerned.

"I see." Kuro said after a small pause. "Well, rest assured, it's not who you think it is. If it was, they wouldn't bother with these tactics. Again, not to scare you, but if they wanted to do something with you, they would have done it already." He finished, his tone sounding firm, but not harsh. I closed my eyes and tried to think about who they could have been talking about. Kuro and Naru had talked about a symbol a few times in the past, other than the Raven one that they both have. Of course, I knew where that other symbol led to, but I wasn't sure what it looked like, so I didn't want to assume. Then again, given the subject matter, it wasn't unlikely that the two topics connected. But if that's the case, then they're talking about the Void…

"A-Are you sure? What else can it be then?" Charm asked with a small stutter. Despite not knowing too much about the Void, I've heard enough to know that they're not a very nice group. The first two pokemon who tried to take me away happened to both be a part of the Void, and that alone was enough for me to recognize that they were bad. Really bad.

"A really, really sick prank." Naru said. "Kuro is right with what he said, even if it sounds too good to be true really. I don't think you're in any real danger from whoever is doing this, otherwise, well, things would have been different." She sounded like she wanted to say something else, and Naru spoke a lot less confidently than normal. The again, she was presumably talking about the Void.

I took a quick second to observe Charm, which I hadn't really done yet, as I was to busy trying to shield myself from his view. After hearing his voice and taking another look at him, I swear he might have been even younger than I was. While I had no idea what my exact age was, I knew I was younger than Kuro and Naru, and they weren't adults quite yet, so I had to be pretty low in terms of age. By that logic, Charm had to be even younger, or at least around the same age as me. And yet, it looks like he's here by himself… At least, at the moment he is. Another weird thing about his age was the fact that he knew about the Void, and wasn't in a place like the Nest. According to Kuro and Naru, a lot of other places knew who the Void was, but I would think that the knowledge stayed away from children. Well, assuming him and I were children that is, I had no certain way of knowing that without asking someone.

"I-If you're sure, then I won't worry too much." Charm took in a quick breath, like he felt a little bit relieved, but wasn't quite out of worry. "B-But, someone is still coming by and scratching the door, w-what if they s-still want to do something?" Despite the earlier sigh of relief, Charm was indeed still worried.

"Well, since that's what we're here for, we can stay until night and try and catch this pokemon while they're in the act, I know we can get them!" Naru said excitedly.

"T-That's really kind miss, but you already made me feel better, so you don't need to." Charm responded shyly, though politely.

"Aw, come on! We have nothing else to do, so why wouldn't we stay? Besides, then we can talk for a bit, which will be fun!" Naru pushed forward, not wanting to give in to Charm. I honestly didn't mind staying at all, as long as I wasn't forced to talk much. As for Kuro, I assumed that he had no problem with it, judging by the fact he hadn't interjected yet.

Charm looked to the ground, looking almost conflicted. "I-If you don't mind then... " He said quietly, growing a small smile. I assumed that he would feel less scared if he knew that two Ravens were with him when this pokemon came by again, as Kuro and Naru could certainly do something about it. I probably wouldn't be so useful though.

"Great! We'll stay with you until then!" Naru shouted out. "Now, until then, anything you want to ask us? It'll be a good conversation starter!" Charm looked up towards the dirt ceiling instead of down towards the ground, seemingly thinking about the question given to him. I certainly had a few questions for him, but I wasn't too comfortable asking them, even if I felt like I could talk normally to Charm. I didn't want to make any weird assumptions as to why he was here by himself, or anything like that. I wonder what he has to ask…

Charm looked down from the top of his home and back at Naru. "W-Well, there was one thing I've been wondering since you all came here." Naru tilted her head and waited for Charm to continue.

"How do a glaceon and an umbreon produce a vulpix?"

Hello Readers!

I hope all of you are well, and that you had an amazing Christmas/Hanukkah, or whatever holiday you celebrate, if any! I also hope you all are having a great start to the new year!

Now, this chapter took a while, and I owe all of you an explanation, to which I will deliver. At first, I had a lot of writer's block for the opening, and the middle of this chapter, even know I only had one thing I really wanted to do, for some reason, I couldn't get my thoughts down no matter what, it was strange. Alas, that isn't the only reason. Although it still would have been late, I could've gotten this done on the 1st or 2nd, but I happened to be moving at the time, and lucky me, one of the cords to my computer got sliced during the move, and I needed to get a new one. That only took a day though, and I was ready to finish!... But I live in Connecticut. As some of you may know, this place got absolutely annihilated by a snowstorm, shutting my power down for the past two and a half days. Luckily though, that's over and done with, so hoorah for that!

Now, for the main reason this took forever, it's a simple one. For the past two or so weeks, I've been… stressed to say the least. I won't go into detail as to why, and I hate making an excuse like this, but I had a very hard time focusing on writing, along with my writer's block, which didn't make getting this done very easy. It looks like life is easing up on me a bit though, so I'll try my best to get my rate back up! Something else to say about this, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who sent me a message on Christmas day, wishing me a merry one. Seeing that put an enormous smile on my face, and helped my stress more than you can imagine! It shows that you guys aren't just a bunch of people who like to read whatever I put down on a virtual screen, but also people who care, which really warms me up inside! Thank you all!

Finally, I'll give my usual thanks to everyone who has sent in a review, a PM, etc. It means a ton to me, and I love every bit of it! I want to thank my beta reader for cleaning up my chapters and being an awesome person! (8-BitUmbreon)

See You next Chapter!