This chapter and the previous were written by Ruff.

Sorry for the wait, I've been pretty busy with other projects and we took a long break before actually putting FS8 together. -Ian


The door to room 98 greeted its new visitor with a silent 'whoosh,' swirls of frosty air, and almost complete darkness, the fancy machines of Medical Bay serving as the only lights.

"Afternoon, Brynn, Sam..." The visitor, a dressed-to-the-9's Ixi, greeted, "So, uh, you heard that the Evil Fuzzles plan was actually a green-light way before we thought of it? Turns out Junior—that's the lead-man of the Fuzzles, by the way—actually had beef with the Wraiths before they even thought of Roar Metal. Pretty amazing, huh?"

No response from either of the occupants; just the sounds of the medical equipment running.

Hanso peered into the darkness. "Kind of dark in here, don't you guys think? Mind if I turn on the lights or something so I don't flail around in the dark?"

Still no response from either.

Hanso sighed. "I'll take that as a no or either or both of you are ignoring me. If it's the first, forgive me, but I'm not going to risk breaking something again out of ignorance."

(Click.)

The solar powered lighting of her room fired up, slowly replacing the darkness with sunlight. Not the poor, so-called "Sunlight" the call center and her apartment supplied her for two years; pure, straight from the solar panels sunlight delivered to her by only the finest optical fibers Virtupets could manufacture. It was warm, it was lovely, it was real, but it was the last thing Brynn wanted to see second only to Hanso.

Did you have to do that?" Brynn asked, "I was pretending that I was somewhere nice and far away from here... like roaming Arcadia, feeling the fresh grass on my feet and smelling the sweet flowers and stepping on petpet 'baked goods.' Or at the Recreation Dome, lounging about the swimming pool with my feet in free water or paying my way in to the premium side so I can avoid the Free Man's Crush. Heck, I would kill for a chance to be back at my apartment, playing Move it to the Beat on my G-Cube 720 and fail on Helliconia – Hard Mode again. Anything to distract me from knowing that I'm in here for the next three days, all because of you and your little Paralyzer."

Hanso sheepishly looked away. "Okay, I admit it: it was wrong of me to shock you like that. But you admit it: I had to stop you. And by the way, using force on a women is out of my morals! I didn't want to risk breaking your arm or something, and I had to stop you, so what was I supposed to do?"

Oh, I don't know... talk me out of it like the Smooth Criminal you are, maybe? And by the way, get your morals for a recalibration: breaking an arm is a lot better than potentially killing the person you're trying to subdue."

Hanso cringed. "I'll keep that in mind..."

Indeed you should. Hey, I have an idea: why don't you do something right and leave me alone so you don't dampen my day even more. Oh wait, there is no sunshine here... so to speak."

Hanso looked at Brynn with a look of disgust. "Hey, what's all this talk about no bright side in your situation? There is a bright side, Brynn. Multiple ones, actually! Let's see: You get to have a mandatory vacation for three days. Video games, movies, e-books, art, internet... all free for you to use and you don't even need to lift a finger 'cause it's all right here. No paparazzi, no Xandra, no TNCZ, no Record Label, no stress whatsoever, too! With all those combined, I'm sure you'll pass by these three days without even remembering a single bit of it."

Still radiating obnoxious sunshine, Hanso stepped over to Brynn and manually turned her brain jar to face the smaller brain jar that housed the infected batch of brain cells that is Sam. "Look at Sam! She's so enamored with watching all those films with Hedlund in them, I bet she hasn't even noticed it's been half a day since I accidentally paralyzed you and consequently her from the bottom neck down, forcing the doctors here to extract you two from your head so they could repair the damage I did! You can do the same, can't you?"

Being forced to see how nonplussed Sam was by the loss of their body only sought to make Brynn angry. Hanso's doing it only made her angrier. So, as she was currently a brain, eyes, and part of a spine floating in a preservation unit filled with spinal fluid, she immediately communicated her anger the only way she could: words and sarcasm.

Great points, Hanso." Her thought-translation unit said, her eyeballs brightening up sarcastically in the jar of spinal fluid, "I do have a rather great set-up here! No stress and no physical body, just entertainment for three days! You know Hanso, I'm surprised that I desperately tried to think I was someplace else other than in this jar: I'm my core essentials in the very literal sense of the phrase! That's awesome! I'm so very centered with my self and my very being. It's actually pretty awesome to be like this, unable to communicate with you outside of talking, what with my not having eyelids to give you a dirty look, no face to make angry faces at you, and most importantly, no paws to rip you to shreds with!" Brynn proclaimed with biting sarcasm and murderous cheer.

Hanso felt the biting sarcasm and the thinly veiled death threat all too much. He turned Brynn's brain jar back to the default position. "I can see you're still angry about that. Would it make you feel better if I finally said sorry?"

Brynn just dropped the sarcasm at that point and went to plain, unadulterated fury. "Sorry is not going to make me feel better, Hanso!" She screamed, "Sorry is not going to speed-up my body's re-wiring! Sorry is not going to undo your paralyzing me from the bottom neck down! Sorry is not going to get me the chocolate cake I desperately need because of this mess! Sorry is not going to let me violently maim you!"

The fury suddenly went down a level, stopping at neutral. "Sorry is not going to let me express how happy I am that you visited me, even though Animal, Pick, and Xandra were the ones who got to it first."

The neutral fell further, stopping at sadness. "Sorry is not going to let me hug you..."

Then, the sadness just turned into crying.

Hanso patted the glass of Brynn's jar. "There, there..." He gently rubbed the glass, "It'll be all right..."

Eventually, Brynn's tears stopped registering on the translator. Soon enough, the two found themselves in the silence again.

Thanks." Brynn said, "I needed that."

Hanso gave Brynn's preservation unit one last rub before putting his hand off of it. "No problem. I should probably get to business soon; I can't stay here for very long."

If Brynn had eyelids, they would have opened wide in shock and sadness. "Go? Can't you stay?"

Hanso shook his head. "Didn't the others tell you about it?"

No! They were all smiles and well wishing... with a subtle flavor of dread and... wow I am an idiot... so... what's the bad news?"

Hanso pulled out a very official looking document from inside his coat. Brynn saw that it was a document from The Other Kingdom Records—Flip Side's label.

I was here to tell you that the Record got tired of our little reunion and the escapades, and they want us to stop. Immediately"

Brynn stayed silent.

Seeing that there would be no response, Hanso continued. "They want us to stop so much that they actually gave us a legal—and completely justified—Cease and Desist order. From what Animal and Xandra told me about the legal jargon, it all boils down to this: until you're signed up as an official member of Flip Side—contract and all that paperwork—you're not allowed to make or suggest business or plans to us, Xandra found a loophole that'll get the Record to pay for the operations and this room, and finally, for the sake of keeping our Investors and the concert goers happy, the Tour is going to go as scheduled which equates to me, Animal, and Pick getting sent on a one way trip back down to Neopia while you float in your spinal fluid and Xandra tries to reason with the TOK Records' Lawyers. They're not even nice tickets, by the way: they're Drop Pod tickets."

Brynn would have cringed had she a face. Drop Pods were the fastest, cheapest—and bizarrely enough, safest—way to get down from the station, but that was about as pleasant as they got. The rest of the trip would involve being stuck in a gyroscope, being forced to experience the rush of Atmospheric Entry, and finally get violently thrown out onto your designated drop zone once the pod smashed open upon impact.

Hanso made a look of disgust. "We can't even take any other ride down. Efficiency and punctuality, they say. Well, efficiency and punctuality my foot!" He quipped.

Brynn honestly felt guilty. Sure, she wanted to kick Hanso's butt to a bloody pulp then solidify him so she could repeat the butt-kicking, but she sure didn't want to subject Hanso—more-so Animal and Pick—to their life-stories in the span of five seconds and possibly get them in touch with their inner women. Worse, if they were going to do this in the Terror Mountain concert proper and they didn't stick the landing... hoo boy, the internet was going to get one more viral video to its name.

Hanso sensed the guilt. "Don't feel bad, Brynn. I always wanted to try out this safe screaming metal death trap. Honestly. And about the concert? We're not doing it there; management's smart enough to know that Drop Pod entrances go right once every twenty attempts. And before you ask, we're going to land by the Tyrannian border. Apparently, that's as far as This Other Kingdom Records trusts contracted movers with all our stuff."

Brynn nodded. Then, she remembered that, without a neck, she couldn't nod. "I see."

Hanso shuffled a bit. He looked at his watch. The grimace that came over him was not a very good sign. "I really gotta go; I was already running late before I got here."

Then, fast as lightning, Hanso got down to his knees, went eye-to-eyeball with Brynn, planted a quick kiss on the glass (right where her lips would have been if she had lips), turned off the lights and was out the door.

If Brynn had a mouth, she would have smiled.