Disclaimer: Blah blah. Not mine!
Chapter Fourteen: Plan A
4:45
"You alright?" Chris said the words lowly as if it would make up for the sheer absurdity of the question. Looking back at the cliff notes version of the current doom hanging over them... time travel, alternate evil versions of people floating around, incredibly small amount of time in which to set it back right... yeah, he couldn't find anything in there that sounded even remotely right. It had some effect at least. Bianca looked up at him with a brief flicker of amusement before descending back into the silence that had overtaken her.
He let her, even though he knew that Leo and the Valkyries were likely getting more skittish by the moment. They wouldn't leave him alone for long. He shelved the worry along with everything else, he just didn't have the mental strength to support it at that moment. He had numbed himself so thoroughly that he could really only think of one catastrophe at the time, and the old memories had been taking up that slot for a while.
For the moment, he was warding them off only with the supreme relief at the fact that he'd found Bianca alive and well... or well-ish. He was pretty sure her ankle was broken but she'd been pretty insistent about knowing what they were dealing with before she would even think about letting him take her to get healed. He considered it a small victory that he'd coaxed her over to the bench so she could at least stop standing on it.
After he'd seen her bleeding on that floor, and with that sideways taunt the pale man had made, Chris had though the worst, deep down. He thought she had been the last life that tipped the balance on the timelines... and she was, he imagined. It would explain a lot. She died long enough for the world to shift but came back to life soon enough that it threw the whole thing out of wack. It was why they weren't in November 16th in this timeline, they were earlier. He'd figured it out finally. They'd been dropped on the day he was supposed to travel to the past, the last stable day in the timeline. It also explained how some people in the middle of it had kept their memories.
Time simply hadn't decided who it was going to side with yet.
It was all so very, very messed up, and all a little to complex for him at the moment. Chris shelved those thoughts along with the others and pulled one leg to the other side of the bench so he could face Bianca properly. She was in the same position she had been for a while, head partially bowed, her good leg folded in front of her on the bench, the other stretched out to the side. She was deciding something, though Chris didn't have the first clue as to what. He figured he'd let her go for a bit longer before he asked any more stupid questions like 'Are you alright'.
Thankfully, Bianca saved him from that embarrassment, raising her head up a bit before shaking it, "Unbelievable."
"What..." Chris prodded softly.
"When I saw your family," She looked back up at him eyes narrowed, not at him, seemingly more at whatever thought had just occurred to her, "They said I was that Bianca. That I came back. They knew me."
"They said what?" Chris had the sudden urge to slap himself in the forehead, instead he just let out an aggravated breath, "See, and they wonder why they don't get told all the big secrets. When was this?"
"Right after you almost bled to death on the floor." Bianca responded, deadpan.
"Not an excuse," Chris shot back, still annoyed.
Bianca frowned at him, "It was a huge shock, people do things under pressure like that."
"Oh yeah, and then they can lock people in the attic just cause they're paranoid."
Bianca snorted a laugh, "Oh yeah, and you have the right to talk about paranoid reactions."
"Wait, wait, wait," Chris halted in the middle of the argument, hands coming up to motion for a halt. He looked quickly around and then back at Bianca, confused, "Wait, why are you defending my family and not me." Granted, he didn't like having his girlfriend mistreated, but he did generally know where his family was coming from by that. It was almost protocol these days. A new person comes in and you don't know if they're an innocent or not, you take them to the most protected place in the house, the attic, so they no one can hurt them, and put them in a crystal cage so they can't hurt you. Even after he'd vouched to Piper on Bianca's behalf it had seemed the best route, Piper had said that they would keep her up there at least until they'd taken all the kids to Magic School, if only to keep the variables to a minimum.
Still... Chris couldn't see anywhere in that equation that would make the Bianca feel anything but mistreated, yet she seemed eerily accepting of the whole thing.
The amusement on Bianca's face dulled somewhat, shoulders hitching in a low shrug, fingers twisting together. "The way they said it, it's pretty obvious I came back too at some point, and when I did... it wasn't to do anything good." She shook her head again before looking back up at him, "She said I tried to kill her son."
Chris's heart sank but he didn't break eye contact.
"She wasn't talking about Wyatt, was she?"
For a moment, he considered lying. Even though the likelihood of it actually working on Bianca was slim. He really considered it. Like usual, though, it seemed like she could read his mind, and the look on her face warded him away from any tactic.
"No." He answered thickly, "But you didn't-"
"Chris," She cut him off, sharp and low, "Don't try to sugar coat this. For a second, I saw what they thought of me written on their faces. Then there was that..." her voice faded somewhat, suddenly unfocused. She wasn't looking at anything anywhere near them. Chris had to wonder if that's what he looked like when one of this old memories hit him. Lost and confused. He slid a hand over her arm to her fingers, giving her an anchor point.
"I thought it was a dream," She laughed airily, "but I guess it was a memory. When I was a kid, the Charmed Ones came after my mom, I never knew why, though," another laugh, "I can guess now. My mom took me to a safehouse with my uncle. I was supposed to stay there but I got worried so I shimmered back to the apartment. When I got there, there was someone lying on the couch. A man. Unconscious, nearly dead."
Chris let out the breath he'd unintentionally been holding, unease gripping him. Bianca finally looked back up at him, amazed at her own realization.
"That was you."
"Yeah," Chris answered, wishing he had something more profound to say.
Bianca faded off again, momentarily going back over the memory, her eyebrows came together, "You," She searched for the words, "You weren't doing well...I saw that mark on your chest and then... then my mom found me and took me away. I remembered it recently, but I thought it was just a bad dream, you know? Placing someone you loved into a traumatic memory... I always wondered what happened to you." She snapped back over to him, "You didn't..."
"Die?" Chris added as she halted on the word, once again his brain was supplying him with all the heart wrenching memories he might need and all those he didn't. So much that he had to pinch his eyes shut to wrestle them back into their places, he made a point to grasp her hand a little tighter to make sure she didn't misinterpret the motion. "No..." he finally forced them out even as the memories did their damndest to do as much damage on the way out as they did on the way in.
"No I didn't die, not that day at least." He shook the last bits out of his head, "Bianca, you weren't trying to kill me, you were just doing what you thought was right."
Bianca frowned, "What I thought was right. But it wasn't."
Chris shook his head again in frustration, pulling himself closer to her on the bench. "All we wanted, we, was to make all this right. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without you. I'm the one who left you back here in this hell hole to get captured and 'convinced' by Wyatt that the only way to save my life was to drag me back here." Chris poured every ounce of conviction into his voice, allowing the emotion of every memory swirling in his head to mix in, if only to blunt the old guilt.
They had thought that one person going back would be better that it would make less waves in the timeline and Chris obviously had the easier in. Still, he'd never felt right leaving her there.
"You may have brought me back here, but it was only because you thought Wyatt would have some sort of humanity left and not kill me when you did. When he proved that he didn't, you died helping me get back out. So don't even start to blame yourself for something you didn't have a choice in." He was distantly aware that his grip was now much stronger than he had intended but he couldn't do anything about it. Everything he'd shelved up to that point was all toppling down on him, and he didn't have the strength to stop it.
He was so wrapped up in it, he was almost startled when Bianca freed her hands from his and replaced them on either side of his head. Her lips shortly followed and he met them eagerly. In that moment, all the dark memories, the blood, the death, the ever present tick of whatever oppressive doomsday clock he'd been living under, it all faded. Everything that had been clouding his mind was poured into that kiss, leaving him with nothing but a blissful silence. They remained like that for a while, feeling the clock tick but not really caring.
"Okay," Bianca whispered as soon as she had breath to, sticking close, arms wrapped around his neck. "You win."
Chris smiled tiredly, drained but at peace for the first time that day.
She leaned against his shoulder, and sighed, "I won't blame myself if you won't."
"Deal." He mumbled finally opening his eyes to look up at the sky, "I'm going to fix this."
"We." Bianca corrected with some amusement, pulling back far enough to give him a stern look, "We are going to fix this. So what do we have to do?"
"First?" Chris tilted his head towards her still curiously black and blue ankle, "We get you healed, then we think about saving the world." He stood up, pulling her slowly with him so she could keep her weight on the correct foot. She crinkled her nose as soon as she was upright, looking up at him like a child who'd been told to eat their vegetables.
"We have to orb don't we." She nearly groaned.
"You always make it sound way worse than it is." Chris shot back in defense.
Bianca merely rolled her eyes, "Oh yeah, it's just great if you like the feeling of being carbonated and then sucked up through a straw."
Chris coughed down a chuckle, but he couldn't stop the slightly evil grin on his face. "You could shimmer but you'd have no idea where to go."
"Fine, fine," Bianca reluctantly took a stronger hold on his arm, eying him warily, "On the count of three. One, tw-"
Chris orbed.
4:45
It took six tries, twelve floors, stopping three times to eavesdrop, and him looking and feeling like a complete idiot before Wyatt found what he was looking for: his room. It was set deep in the back of the building, everything getting more and more grandiose as he approached it, less demons milling around, all ending in an elaborate set of double doors. He was beginning to wonder if a sense of false granduer came with the evil package or if it was some sort of weird learned taste. He could never imagine himself, evil or not, having any sort of design sense that included carved marble gargoyles. It was a minute comfort, but he latched onto it. Anything to separate his own self image from that of his evil one. He traveled the last bit of the hallway and was behind them before he'd considered any alternative, tugging them shut as quickly as would look natural, and then he simply sank.
Wyatt's back hit the door with a muffled rattle of hinges, legs deciding they didn't feel like carrying his weight anymore. He remained upright only long enough to pull Excalibur from his belt so he didn't unwittingly stab himself and let himself go, sliding down the panels of the door and into a graceless heap. He stuck there for a good long time trying to ignore the thrum in his hands from using whatever derivative of pyrokinesis that had been.
He had meant to just make it seem like he'd used it but when he'd called on his good powers to manipulate the illusion, the evil ones had leaped up first. He'd been lucky Rubiec had been so completely incensed that he hadn't noticed the slip up, though now he suspected he had to deal with whatever revenge the demon was going to exact. Whatever, he didn't care, he was pretty sure the demon was too much of a coward to try it though. Even from that momentary use of what was likely a stolen ability, Wyatt was keenly aware of just how much... power he held at that moment. Sure, he was used to being more powerful than your average witch, but this was staggering, or even beyond that, it was intoxicating.
Wyatt took that moment to loudly smash his head back against the door, driving the thought out of his head.
Bianca had warned him that demonic powers could twist you, and she wasn't lying. He sunk deeper against the door, scrubbing his hands through his hair and down the back of his neck, hitting all the tense muscles that had been tied in knots simply by his act of attempting to not freak out.
'Okay, Wyatt,' He mentally coached himself, running over the situation as much as he could, 'No big deal. I'm just evil, destroyed the world, started the next witch hunts, and seemed to be happy with it. Not too bad... Fixable. Totally fixable.'
Wyatt punched the floor, too wound up to bother wincing. The exertion did help somewhat, allowing him a tiny moment to breathe and try to filter some of the pent up anxiety that had flooded him since the day had started. The reprieve was only momentary before the sucking helplessness descended back on him.
He was not used to feeling helpless, he hadn't really had the time to acclimate to it like most people, he'd only experienced the feeling in recent years when he and Chris had really stepped up to let their mother and aunts retire. Event after event making him realized that simply having the power in the world meant nothing if you didn't have the experience to back it up. When he lost that first innocent... it was bad.
He'd been a mess, but a quiet one, covering it up with smiles and bad jokes. He wasn't very good at it, his mom was aware of the act in a second. Chris at least made an attempt at saving his dignity by covering for him with Piper and hauling him back to the apartment to shake the guilt out of him.
"Demons are evil. Things go wrong. People die." Chris had said to him sternly, "Deal."
Probably not the most sensitive thing that had ever come out of his brother's mouth, but it had oddly helped.
"You don't have to break down crying in front of everyone, but you have to deal with it."
Wyatt breathed and leaned his head back against the door. "Okay, Chris..." He mumbled to the air, "This is me dealing." If he wanted to work through this, he needed to know what exactly what was going on. He needed to know who this version of himself was at least in some aspect. Who was this Wyatt Halliwell who apparently ruled the world.
He opened his eyes and looked around the room for the first time, slightly surprised by what he saw. The room did not follow the building's motif at all. The way it had been going he was expecting the room to have a four poster "I'm compensating for something" bed comprised of raw human souls, nightstands shaped like blood altars, and gargoyles brimming from the walls. Instead, it was... home.
It somehow was the manor without looking like it at all. He pinned the feeling on the eclectic gathering of furniture that looked like it had all been salvaged from yard sales or passed down from someone's grandparents. All sturdy enough to survive a demon being tossed onto it or cheap enough that it didn't matter. Wyatt frowned at the sight, maybe he and this evil version of him weren't all that different after all.
In stilted, tense motions, Wyatt pulled himself to his feet and walked farther into the room. His steps were hesitant, like it was a trap, walking past an overstuffed blue couch and staring at patterns on the pillows. Apparently this Wyatt was an evil overlord with a thing for extra throw pillows, this was all too surreal. He pushed passed the couch to a chest of drawers, tugging one open curiously to see what sort of evil sock drawer lay in wait for him.
The drawer unexpectedly rattled and crunched as it slid out, the contents shifting with the motion. Wyatt saw something shine inside and pulled it the rest of the way out, several broken picture frames revealing themselves. He picked one up, trying unsuccessfully to see through the fogged spiderweb of cracks before he pulled the back off the frame and freed the picture within.
His heart sank. It was a family photo of course, he shouldn't have been surprised, but he was. It was a near identical copy to the one that sat on his father's desk at magic school with several pointed changes. No father, for a start, no Mel. Piper stood alone, one head on the tops of each of her boys' heads. Phoebe stood at her side, only one daughter hanging off a hip. Paige was completely alone on the other side.
The rest of the frames were similar. All photos he remembered taking but with missing faces. He searched his own younger face, searching for some hint of evil in there, some reason why things turned out this way. He couldn't find it. As a matter of fact, he looked... happy. Chris didn't seem to hate him, let alone look like he was about to actively stage a rebellion against him.
He poured the broken glass into the drawer and put the photos back into the frame before propping them back up on the dresser's surface.
Things seem to be the same, in the past at least. Same-ish. This wasn't some evil mirror world. It seemed more like what could have happened, what could have if something... changed. Something that would erase three fourths of his family and twist him so badly that he became... this.
What had happened? More importantly, could it happen again? Could it only be a matter of time? Could there be some switch in his head that made him this?
Wyatt turned, eye catching on something in the corner, laying closed on the desk. The Book of Shadows. A genuine smile broke onto his face, if there was any book in the world that would know what to do, it'd be this one. He practically pounced on it, fingers pulling the cover open... only it didn't.
He tried again, futily, to pull open the book, but it didn't budge. He could touch the book, but he could never look inside of it. Apparently his ancestors had a sense for the poetic. He swept the face of the book apologetically, freeing it from any dust before he placed it back.
The room's previous coziness seemed like some desperate facade now. Like someone gathering things that reminded them of a world lost and trying to pretend that it wasn't. The more he looked, the more he noticed the disuse, a thick layer of dust covered everything but the bed, giving him the distinct image of the evil version of himself just staring quietly at the sad replacement for the manor he hand constructed, and realizing how empty it was.
Suddenly he felt very claustrophobic, scooping up Excalibur, and escaping the oppressive room. It felt better to be in action anyway. He had at least a minimal idea of the layout now, thanks to his bumbling around the place earlier. Wyatt looked around the halls momentarily, trying to decide a course of reaction. Finally he just shrugged and chose a hallway. Time for a little self sabotage.
5:00
"You are worried." Freja noted astutely, though her tone didn't quite fall into line with her words. The fact that she spoke was odd enough to cause him to pause, but the way she said it made him stop his pacing altogether. He'd been pacing mindlessly ever since his son had said those two horrible words ("trust me") and orbed off, just to keep the nerves down. Apparently it bothered Freja enough for her to give him one of the most openly confused looks he'd ever seen on a Valkyrie.
"Yeah," Leo admitted finally after realizing a staring match with a demigoddess was a bad idea. He stuck his hands on his hips to keep himself still, "I'm a little worried." He waited for a good few minutes for Freja to respond but she seemed happy with just staring at him. He gave up and went back to pacing, looking back at her every so often to see that she was tracking his movements with that same perplexed look.
"Why?" She asked curiously.
"Because Chris just left to who knows where..." Leo stopped shortly and made a vague gesture at the broken landscape around them.
Freja didn't look any less confused, "He can defend himself. You don't think he can?"
"No," Leo sighed and dropped his hands noisily to his sides, "No, I know he can take care of himself it's just... He's my son, I'm going to worry."
A graceful tilt of Freja's head was his only answer he received, like she was considering the deep ramifications of what he'd said and slowly coming to some conclusion. After a minute, her lips drew up into a softer, almost indulgent smile, "I see many things are different in your time. I am glad for it."
Leo sank under the gaze, her meaning sinking in like a knife. Valkyries weren't entirely in tune with the concept of a blood bound family unit. The fact that you were supposed to love someone by accident of birth was simply something they did not deal with so they did not understand. They operated on love by mutual respect. This person impresses you, covers your back in battle, trusts your intentions completely, therefore they are family.
Leo had seen this time and time again when he'd spent that... time with them. They had respected him, still respected him not only because he could hold his own in a fight if he so chose, but because he never broke to their will. They didn't care that they hated them at the time, he was family, just... family they kept in a cage.
So the fact that Freja, the oldest and mother of all Valkyrie, with only her superficial knowledge of a nucleic family unit, had picked up on his faults as a father... well, it wasn't lost on him. The fact that she noticed a difference meant so much more as well.
"Believe me," Leo said genuinely, "I'm happy too."
Freja nodded in approval before abruptly tilting her head, listening, "Ah," she spoke, "I should have guessed." It was right then that the orbs filtered back in, depositing not one but two people. Chris, plus one nauseated looking witch with a death grip on his arm.
"Three." Chris grinned down at her and received an empty glare in return.
"Not funny." She growled.
"Little bit." Chris let the conversation go before he got himself in trouble and aimed a look over at the other people on the nearly deserted street, "Hey dad, can I get a hand here?"
It had taken Leo a second to really identify the girl, mostly because he hadn't been anticipating her being there at all. The shock of it only lasted long enough for him to realize that she was pointedly standing only on one foot, leaning most of her weight into Chris. His brain immediately transferred to whitelighter mode and he motioned her over. He and Chris helped her sit down on a toppled highway divider, trying to be as gentle as possible. Bianca still winced if you looked carefully enough, it was controlled in her face, but the knuckles on her hand clenched white every time she accidentally bumped her leg. Leo didn't waste any time and leaned down next to her foot, easily seeing the web of black bruises peeking from an unzipped boot. A few moments of healing and the color receded back to its normal healthy state leaving only an amazed looking Bianca in its place.
Leo was almost amused by her expression but managed to tamp it down. This was probably the first time she'd ever had the chance to be healed by a whitelighter, and for a girl who had been patching up her own wounds all her life, it must have been an amazing experience.
"Thank you," Bianca said gratefully, though her look was more cautious than anything.
Leo shot back a disarming smile, "Any time."
She rolled her ankle experimentally before she tried out a smile in return. The amazement was still on her face and it took a minute for Leo to understand. This wasn't the healing she was amazed at, but it seemed more like she was simply shocked that he even offered the help at all. Still in whitelighter mode, he had the urge to address the topic, not quite sure where it was coming from, but the setting of the conversation was all wrong. He could address it later, he hoped.
"We have to come up with some kind of battle plan," Chris broke in, drawing them all back to the task at hand. Freja nodded, brightening up considerable at the sound of her favorite word beginning with B. "As far as I can tell, we have until midnight to change the time line back to the way it was."
Bianca stood easily from her spot, gravel popping under her shoes on her way to stand next to Chris. "Any idea how to do that?"
"Same way we got here. He changed things on the good side of this time so that it looked more like the bad side. We just have to go the opposite way and change things here." The words were confident but Chris' tone and posture certainly was not. He'd crossed his arms agitatedly halfway through, a grim look deepening on his face, "It's not going to be easy. All he had to do was kill a bunch of people who had a heavy influence on this time, and since we can't bring anyone back to life, we're going to have to figure out a different way." Chris cast a short look over to Bianca when he said that and Leo couldn't help but notice her quick flinch.
"Well," Freja frowned, not used to being out of the loop, "What is your time like?"
"Not evil." Bianca mumbled bitterly. Leo could only nod his head in agreement. How was one supposed to separate all the different types of bad this place was from their own. It all bled together after a point. The four of them fell into a quick silence, trying to unthread the essential parts of the puzzle in their own minds.
After a second, Chris spoke up, "There are a lot of demons alive that aren't in our time."
"How do you know that?" Leo asked, confused, he hadn't recognized any of the demons they'd run into, let alone remembered anyone vanquishing them.
"Because," Chris answered distractedly, obviously caught up in another one of his memories, "The first thing I did when I came back was go and vanquish all of them I could find." He shrugged, the ghost of anger in his voice, "then I siced the sisters after the ones I couldn't get myself."
"Ah." Leo returned quietly, once again confronted with the reality that he hadn't known the half of what Chris did back then, nor cared at the time. It did explain an old mystery. Around that point, the Elders had been very curious as to why a whole slew of demons had dropped off the map. Question answered. "I'm sorry you had to do that on your own."
"I wouldn't have let you help anyway. Forget it." Chris waved it off with an agitated hand, "That part isn't so bad. They're probably all camped out in the city, we'd just have to draw them out." He looked over at Freja who was smirking even before he suggested anything, "Think you're ready for that battle?"
"Far past ready." She smiled, "I already sent Katarjyna to gather the soldiers."
Chris returned the smirk and added a nod, "Good. That might be all we need, but we have to make sure. We need to make a huge change all at once if we want to kick this back over to our time."
"I have an idea," Leo said brightly even before it was fully formed, "The Planes. We can separate them. If we can break the spell holding them together, they should return to their natural state."
"The sigil." Chris paused on the though, almost looking hopeful but not quite daring to, "It won't be easy. I know it's somewhere in the castle but I've never actually seen it. There'll probably be demons guarding it too, a lot of demons."
Bianca raised a finger, "Wait, are we talking about a big triquetra in the floor. Glowing. Spells all around? Cause I know where that is."
"You saw it?" Chris asked, amazed, "When?"
Bianca shrugged, "It's where Wyatt and I appeared when all this switched over."
If Chris had sounded amazed before, the next words were closer to awestricken, "Wyatt? Wyatt was with you? You mean he's good?" He wasn't the only one with that reaction, even Freja's jaw had fallen open a bit. Bianca looked back at them like they were all crazy, and maybe they were, somewhat. None of them had even considered the thought that Wyatt wasn't evil.
"Yeah, I was with Wyatt when this all changed over and when the demons showed up and started saluting we played along. I had to run when they figured me out, but he stayed up there to cover for me."
Leo felt the world fall off his shoulders at that moment, the fear he hadn't been aware of dissipating with the realization. He'd seen an illusion of Wyatt evil before and that had been bad enough. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had been dreading the idea of confronting his own son, and to hear that not only was he not evil, but likely going to help... it was the best news so far. He traded a look with Chris and understood in that moment that it had been a fear they'd both held.
"That is..." Freja cultured tones halting, "unimaginably fortunate."
Chris nodded his agreement, "We have to get to him..."
"Most of the demons will be occupied with my army," Freja noted confidently, "We will cut you a path."
"Then that's it then," Bianca said, "We all go in, destroy the sigil, and this whole thing should go back to normal, right?"
Something drew Leo's attention up to the sky, the odd color of it, the shifting of a cloud over the sun, he wasn't sure, but he realized something. "I won't be going with you."
"Why?" Chris snapped over to look at him, not liking whatever it meant. Leo clapped a comforting hand on his shoulder to tamp down on any panic.
"Don't worry, I just have to do something first." He smiled, "If you guys separate the Underworld from this one, there will still be one plane that's not how it should be. I need to go up and reopen the Overworld. I shouldn't have been shut in the first place and I have a feeling we're going to need to push this as far as we can if we want to change it back."
Chris narrowed his eyes but remained deathly quiet and suddenly still, eyes flickering back and forth in thought, "Dad... there are other Elders up there and I don't know if they're just going to let you do that."
Leo tightened his grip on Chris's shoulder, "Then I'll make them let me."
For a moment, Leo was pretty sure Chris was going to try to keep him from doing it, his silence dragged so long. It devolved into a staring match between them, and, as stubborn as Chris was, Leo still had all the inherent persuasive abilities that being a father allowed.
"Fine." Chris sighed, "Just..." The word dragged, the half whitelighter not knowing how to end it.
Leo did it for him. "I know."
"Then," Bianca said seriously, knowing the depth of the situation, "We have a plan?"
Chris wound his hand into hers, "We have a plan."
AN
School is one big bag of crazy. Hope all of you are having a good season. It took me a bit longer to do this chapter as I was pretty much only able to work on it when waiting for renders to finish. Hopefully it doesn't sound as chopping as that. I do admit the wait wasn't all from school. I went and got Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood which came out, incidentally, on November 16th. I considered it an omen, and had to play it. Oodles of fun, as was to be expected. It even wrung a one shot outta me. So if anyone here has played the game, feel free to go take a look at that fic.
Also, I did a few practice paintings a while back of Bianca and my interpretation of Mel. If you'd like to see those, they are here: shinoutime (dot) livejournal (dot) com (slash) 4578 (dot) html (Hope that keeps from eating it.)
Anyway! We're in the home stretch for this fic. Hopefully that means I'll be able to write it faster. See you all next time!
Oh, also? I was sure Freja was spelled like... Freja. Now I saw it spelled with a y (Freyja). Is that just someone being nuts or have I been spelling it wrong all this time?