Disclaimer: I now choose to recite a list: Cellotape. A book of matches. Pickles. I believe you have my stapler. George Foreman. ipod. I don't own Ace Attorney. Brothers in Arms. Vacuum. Get. Remote Controlled Vehicle. Drew Carey. I own Chancellor Moore. Shinto. Scissors. Canaan. Michael L. Diablo. Answers in Genesis. Skyler is awesome. Stewie Griffin. Za Warudo. Snickers. Calculator. Cell phone. Pole vault. Shimmy. Amaxing's real name is…

Yeah. I'll spare you all any further. And now, on to the show! Remember, Chancellor Moore is kept commercial free with contributions from Viewers like YOU! And… the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation but… mostly you guys.

Turnabout of the Ancient Mariner

(Investigation, part 2)

(Yup, only part 2. Weird, huh?)

-District Courthouse. 7/11. 12:30 pm.

"Good gravy…" muttered Chancellor, holding his head. "That last half hour felt like weeks."

He had just emerged, battle-worn and limping from the 'Alexis, Ben, and Chancellor meeting of the minds', which, when boiled down to its most basic (and most complete) form, consisted of Alexis yelling and giving directions, Ben nodding and saying "Yes, Mademoiselle", "No, Mademoiselle" and Chancellor getting hit over the head with a dictionary.

"You're not supposed to be interfering!" she had yelled, bringing the terrible tome to his top, "This is my trial! I can do it myself!"

She's kind of cute when she's in denial he thought to himself, but, as Tony the Tiger so aptly put it, I wouldn't touch her with a forty-nine and a half foot pole.

Lost in thought, he rounded a corner and bumped into a rather angry looking woman.

"You." Tanya said, arms crossed (luckily, otherwise the positioning of Chancellor's face would make things quite awkward indeed). "We need to talk. Now." She pointed to an empty room, and dragged Chancellor inside.

Not again… Chancellor thought to himself, as he heard Jack Noble sing faintly in the background: "She knows how to puuuuuuuuuull my chaaaaaaaaaaaain!"

He shifted his full attention to the woman standing in front him who, as he hadn't noticed before, was biting her bottom lip, which was quivering.

"Oh no…" Chancellor gasped, grasping Tanya's shoulder softly. "I know I haven't been completely silent, but…"

"I know you're trying… really, but…" she shook her head furiously. "Even the little hints to the others, even the side comments…"

"But you love the side comments!" Chance exclaimed. "You said yourself the other day that my 'mastery of sarcasm and references of the obscure variety was one of my only redeeming traits!'" He scratched his chin. "At least, I think that was a compliment. I never know with you…"

"No it was… and you're right." She nodded feebly. "But… every time you open your mouth, it's just…"

"Stiletto to the throat?"

"Yeah." She uttered weakly, burying her head in his chest. "Slava bogu, it must be horrible to have a girlfriend who wants you dead half of the time you're together."

He kissed her head softly. "Don't worry about it. In America, that's perfectly normal."

She chuckled softly, and Chancellor sighed. So. Complete silence is necessary, huh?

You'd better find some duck tape, Chancy his reflection chided him.

Chancellor groaned. My partner… my girlfriend… my face… the number of women who nag me have tripled in the last two months! Good Gravy, why me?

"CHANCELLOR!" came Cassie's voice from the hallway. "Where are you?"

Ok. Quadrupled. My bad.

S.S. Noble: 7/11. 12:30 pm.

"So… this is seriously where one of my victims died…"

Liam looked around the room, carefully observing everything in it. "It's… seriously never felt so real before… seriously, this is…" His head fell to his chest. "This is serious…"

"Moping isn't going to bring anyone back from the dead" Ricky asserted. "If you seriously feel that you have to redeem yourself, wipe your glasses off and help me."

Liam nodded. "Seriously" he said, and wiped his glasses on Ricky's sleeve.

"Oh c'mon!" Ricky said, reeling back. "I know it looks dirty, but these clothes are in pristine condition!"

"Whatever… seriously…" Liam said dismissively. "So, 'oh seriously great detective Writchard', what are we looking for, seriously?"

"Anything information that the police have either withheld or overlooked… for instance." He gestured grandly towards the safe. "Here we have a safe clearly broken into… but we've yet to be told whether there are any fingerprints on it or not!"

"Wouldn't someone breaking into a safe… seriously be wearing gloves?" Liam balked.

"That's exactly the kind of narrow-minded thinking that us protagonists are supposed to lack!" Ricky scolded. "Worst. Apprentice. Ever."

"Sorry! Seriously!" Liam whined, quickly covering the safe in fingerprint powder. "Alright, seriously alright…" he muttered to himself, referring to the files. "Here we have… well, Jacopo and Kendra Noble, seriously… Morage Thenue… Athena Aegis… Zak Newton… and…" He cocked his head. "Seriously? Culligan's prints are on here!"

"Ha!" Ricky yelled triumphantly. "See? The fact that his prints are actually on the safe is suspicious, no?"

"Seriously? Maybe he just forgot to wear gloves." Liam said skeptically.

Ricky sighed, laying his face in his hand. "Now you see, you're thinking like a prosecutor…"

"Seriously, isn't that a good thing? In order to seriously defeat your enemy, you seriously have to know what they're thinking. Seriously!"

"Whatever…" Ricky said, snapping a latex glove on and opening the safe. "Let's see what we have in…" he stopped mid-sentence, the Old Spice Swagger in his voice completely gone. "Jesus Christ…"

"Is that seriously a swear word for you?" Liam asked, head cocked. "If you seriously are Jewish, I mean."

"Later, Liam." Ricky said seriously. "We've stumbled on something big here."

"Seriously? Let me see, let me…" The excitement in his voice faded away. "Jesus Christ…"

There was no money in the safe. There was no jewelry, no illegal drugs, no firearms, nothing one would expect. The only thing contained in the safe was hundreds upon hundreds of files, all marked with names.

"Aegis… Anderson… Auburn…" Ricky read.

"Sherman… Shirley…" Liam gulped. "Sirius? Seriously?"

"It's all dirt," Ricky said. "Every single file in here has information that could be used to blackmail someone." He rustled through the files. "Jesus! Even I'm in here!" He opened his file. "Jesus Louise's… it's that story on the Melissa MacDonald incident…"

"And seriously, how the heck did Kendra Noble find out that I seriously accidentally killed a puppy? That was seriously years ago, I was only like seven!"

Ricky's head turned slowly. "You're a puppy killer?" He asked, considering disowning the man next to him.

"My Rube-Goldberg machine seriously backfired, and instead of pouring a glass of milk, it seriously launched a domino with the speed of a bullet." He shook his head. "It seriously haunts me to this day…"

Ricky shook his head, and turned back to the safe. "This is… huge. What on earth was that woman after?" He rustled through the files. "Everyone involved in this case is in here! Morage Thenue, Jonathan Sherlock, Chancellor…."

"Benjamin Paraclete, Alexis Lexington, Zak Newton…" Liam paused. "Ricky? There's… seriously nothing in this file."

"What?" he said, nearly falling over.

"Seriously! There's nothing in this file, or this one marked 'Sara Newton' either!"

They stood there silent for a minute. Then Ricky slowly pulled out his cell phone, and began to text.

-District Courthouse. 12:40 pm.

"Yo! Cocoa Bear!" Chance called. "Glad to see you!"

"Hey Chance!" Zak called back, grasping the lawyer's hand fiercely. "Short time, no see! … And I've already asked. Don't call me Cocoa Bear." He straightened the badge on his uniform. "Any idea why they've called me here today? I thought Detective Spade was giving the lo-down on the case."

"He did, and he managed to remember I was a man this time too." Chance nodded. "No you see… well, it sounds a bit silly but…" He cleared his throat. "DuClaw was called as a witness, and he says that everyone has been mistaking you for Kendra Noble." He laughed. "As glaring a contradiction as that may seem, it was enough to get court adjourned for an hour and a half, and they figured it'd be best to bring you in to clear things up." He shook his head. "Any idea what he might be talking about?"

Zak laughed loudly. "Well now, if I did, I certainly wouldn't tell you, would I?" He slapped Chance on the back. "I've never quite trusted old DuClaw myself, I wouldn't be surprised if… well, officially I'm supposed to say that Culligan did it." He put a finger to the side of his nose. "No Moore from me."

Chancellor laughed, and was about to joke back when his phone vibrated. He help up a finger, reached into his pocket, and flipped it open. He blinked once, and concentrated on keeping his face as normal as possible. "Zak…?" He asked casually. "Do you know someone named Sara? Spelled without an h?"

Silence.

"Zak?" Chance looked up, only to see a blurred shape strike him in the chest, sending him flying backwards into another person, and then running down the hall. Chance gasped for breath, the combined force and surprise knocking the wind completely out of him. Thinking quickly, he gulped in a huge breath of air and shouted at the top of his lungs: "BABY GRAND!"

"WHERE?" yelled Zak, crumpling against the wall quickly and curling up in a ball. Chance quickly sprinted forward and slid his arms around Zak's, wrapping the detective in a full nelson.

But Newton was not to be held so easily. He trashed violently, regained his balance, and backed, full force, into the wall. Chancellor, jarred by the immense impact, loosened his grip enough for Zak to break free, but Zak also fell to the ground, grasping his back. Backing into a large tire chain leaves quite a few bruises. The detective slinked forward across the floor, moving as rapidly as he could towards the door.

"Not today, buddy" Ben said calmly, planting a foot firmly on the detectives back. Zak gasped suddenly, and stopped moving.

Chance groaned, and righted himself. He walked over to Newton, who was now out cold. "Damn, Ben" he grunted. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"Pressure point" Ben said simply. "He'll be conscious again in about two and a half minutes, so you'd better search him quickly."

Chance nodded, and bent over, examining the body. After about a minute, he stood up, shaking his head. "No good. Whatever was in that file, he's probably destroyed it by now."

"Don't give up that easily, Moore" Ben said in an almost scolding tone. "It's been mere hours since the incident. I think that he's probably only had enough time to stash it at his house." He sighed, and looked up at the ceiling, almost sardonically. "If only we had a search warrant. Then…"

Chance sighed, and clapped Ben on the back lightly. "Ben, my dear friend, it's time that I taught you one of my secret lawyer techniques. Techniques that my father taught me only when I was truly ready."

Ben's eyes narrowed. "Your father's a surgeon…"

"Yes, well, he still knows quite a bit about…well, everything." Chance smiled, and whipped out his phone. "And if my father taught me anything, it's this: "Sometimes, to find the whole truth, you have to use… unorthodox methods." He entered a text message, and pressed SEND.

Ben smirked. "You of all people, huh?" He mumbled. "Never would've guessed."

-Zak Newton's house. 1:00 pm.

"Are we seriously doing this?" Liam said in a hushed whisper, looking around frantically.

"We're not doing anything," Ricky reminded him, looking around as well. "If you recall, Chancellor said that if we waited here, sooner or later…"

There was a click, and the door swung open from the inside.

"Hello, boys!" Thompson Moore said cheerily. "Fancy meeting you here! Would you like to come inside?"

Liam's mouth dropped open, while Ricky simply shook his head in awe. "Mr. Moore, you really need to teach me how to do that sometime," he said, walking casually into the small apartment. "A locked apartment on the fifth story of a single's complex..."

"Seriously! How did you do that?" Liam said, mouth still gaping.

Thompson chuckled. "Well, let's just say that surgery isn't the only thing that requires nimble fingers." He stared wistfully at the ceiling. "Oh yes… in another life… I'd have been told to kill you both to reduce the number of shares."

"SERIOUSLY?!??!?!??!"

Thompson laughed. "No, of course not. Now come on then." He stretched. "Find whatever it is you're looking for."

The apartment was small, with few lights. It had the distinct feeling of being recently disorganized. Books were on shelves, dishes were on their racks… but there was a single recent spill on the carpet from a knocked over juice glass, and a set of clothes simply thrown on the floor.

"Alright then!" Ricky said with a rally cry. "Prepare to be investigated! Using my super sleuthing skills, I will deduce the location of the documents with nothing but my senses and my exceedingly sharp wit!"

"It's seriously lying right there on the table" Liam sighed.

"I…" Ricky faltered. "Was… about to deduce that…" He bounced back. "But I suppose I've taught you well, haven't I?"

Liam rolled his eyes and grabbed the files. "Anything else while we're seriously still here?"

"Ooh! Me! Pick me!" Thompson said, his hand raised.

"Seriously… just say it…" Liam groaned.

"I went back to the hospital during the break" Thompson said, reaching into the folds of his white jacket. "I picked up the patient file on Kendra Noble… thought it could be useful."

"Doesn't that break patient confidentiality?" Ricky asked.

Thompson shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned… she's dead. She doesn't have anything to be embarrassed about." He shrugged again, and strolled out the door. "Later!" he called from the hall.

Ricky and Liam stared at their respective files for a minute, then looked at each other. "We're in the middle of someone else's apartment…" Ricky began

"…and the door is seriously wide open" Liam finished.

Two short seconds later, they were gone.

Kendra Noble; Medical Report: Blood Type: O. Weight: 120. General Notes: Allergic to Penicillin. Blood clots at abnormally low rate. Pacemaker present to control erratic heart rate. Fears anesthesia, will only be operated on under hypnosis.

Sara Newton (page 1): Order of discharge from Boston Police Department. Officer Name: Sara Newton. Date: 7/10, 1997.

Sara Newton (page 2): News Story Headline: "Barrister" Aetius Convicted, Forger Makes Deal.

Sara Newton (page 3): Letter: As long as he doesn't know. I don't care how much, as long as he never finds out.

Zak Newton (page 1): Birth Certificate: Zak Newton born to Sara and Jacob Newton, 2/27, 1992.

Zak Newton (page 2): Tabloid Article (never published): New Police Protégé' from Shamed Family?

Zak Newton (page 3): Letter: Who are you? What do you want? What are you talking about?

-District Courthouse. 1:10 pm.

"Chancellor! Chancellor!"

Chance groaned and sat up slowly. Wait a minute… was the first thing he thought. Why was I lying down in the first place?

Cassie breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness! You're ok!"

"Yeah…" Chance said, swinging his legs over the bench and preparing to stand. Again... what am I doing on a bench? "Why wouldn't I…"

And then the pain pulsated through his head.

"Agh!" He yelled, grasping the back of his skull. "Good gravy… what the hell is that?"

"Well, I am not a doctor, monsieur" Ben said grimly. "But it looks like getting rammed into a wall, in combination with all those hits from Mademoiselle Lexington, brought on a minor concussion." He inspected the back of Chancellor's head carefully. "It is actually a surprise that you have gotten up so soon…"

"That's just like Moore" Morage said gruffly, looking down at Chancellor distastefully. "Never wakes up when you need him, always wakes up when you don't."

"That could be a seriously awesome advertising slogan!" came Liam's voice, as he and Ricky entered the defendant's lounge.

"Yeah… but what would it advertise?" Ricky asked skeptically.

"Um…" Liam thought. "Seriously… 'Never up when you need it, seriously always up when you don't…"

"If you say anything involving the word 'dysfunction' I'll end you" threatened Cassie.

Liam laughed nervously. "Seriously always the warrior woman, huh Cassie? And you were seriously sweet at the…"

"END! YOU!"

Liam shrank back. "When she uses as seriously little words as possible," he whispered to Ricky. "It means she's seriously mad."

"You ain't seen nothing yet," whispered Ricky back. "At least Cassie doesn't carry a dictionary around."

"How would you know about the dictionary, Mr…?" Ben whispered.

"Ricky" the detective said, shaking Ben's hand firmly. "And you know how some twins can sense what the other is thinking at times? Chance and I have pretty much got that down pat."

"STOP! CONSPIRING!" Cassie yelled. "Seriously! Do you think it's polite to whisper directly in front of people? Well it isn't! There's always the nagging doubt in your head that they're talking about you behind your back, yet don't care what you think so much that they do it right in front of you! Do you know how degrading that feels? How humiliating? How oxymoronic that someone can talk behind your back in front of you? Don't parents teach any sort of manners these days? AND SINCE WHEN HAVE I USED SO MANY RHETORICAL QUESTIONS IN ONE RANT?!??!?!?" She stomped her foot on the ground. "You people should be ashamed of yourself," she said in a softer voice.

Ben, Ricky, and Liam sat in the corner of the room, shivering in fear. Chancellor thought for a minute, pulled out a piece of paper, wrote on it, and flipped it around, revealing a '7'. "Not as good as some have been" he added, "but certainly better than average, and quite stinging. It could have been better had it been longer, and included at least one obscure reference from the early 1990's."
"Yeah" Cassie nodded. "I just wasn't feeling that one."

"Anyway…" Ricky said, daring to move out of the corner. "Liam and I investigated the crime scene, and we seriously collected…" He slapped himself across the face. "We collected every scrap of evidence there was to find." He smiled broadly, grabbing his shirt lapels. "But then again, did you expect any less?"

"He helped?" Cassie said, looking at Liam warily. "So who died?"

"Seriously! Not! Cool!" Said Liam, swiping a hand through his Liberty Spikes in anger. "And for your information Ms. Cassandra, my quota has seriously already been filled for this week. The case we're trying right now is seriously testimony enough to that."

"So it was you! I knew it!" Cassandra yelled, pointing a finger accusingly. "We should be putting you in jail for this!"

"It's seriously cute the way you two are flirting right now," Morage said caustically. "But could we possibly get on with things? There's only fifteen minutes until court reassembles, and even without a head injury, that's hardly enough for Moore."

"For Moore what?" Chancellor asked blearily, gripping his head in one hand. "Oh wait… never mind…" He turned to Ricky slowly. "That evidence? Can I see it?"

"Hm? Oh, sure. LIAM!" He yelled, placing a hand out dramatically.

Liam shook his head, walked past Ricky, and handed Chancellor the files.

"Thanks man" Chance said, clapping Liam on the back. "Let's see…" he mumbled, shifting through the files. "Kendra Noble is afraid of anesthesia, the safe as your fingerprints on it, Mr. Thenue… the safe was missing files on Zak and Sara Newton…"

"Sara… Sara Newton?" Morage asked softly.

"That's what it says…"

Morage was silent for a minute. "I… I never thought that name would come up again…"

Chancellor's head snapped up from the files; not exactly the smartest thing to do, seeing as he still had a concussion, and was rewarded with a sharp paint through the back of his head and down his neck. Instead of milking it, however, he remained focused on the task at hand. "What do you mean again?"

"Is there actually a back story to everything that's been happening so far?" asked Cassie excitedly.

Morage looked away quickly. "It's not really your business, but…"

"Sara spelled without an h was getting bored!"

"Mr. Noble!" Chance said, exasperated. "Could you please…"

"No. As always, he's right again. At least, according to official reports."

The room was silent. All looked at Mr. Thenue, except for Ricky, who had taken it upon himself to be the "caring, understanding, and insanely sensitive young man that helped a legal giant out of his depression." Morage sighed, realized that resistance was futile, and began.

"It was… Good God, has it been twenty years already? I was a young, hotshot attorney…"

Mr. Thenue? Young? That's hard to imagine…

"Not appreciated" Morage grumbled, and Chancellor gasped at the notion that his boss could read his thoughts. "Anyway, I have gone for about… five or six years in criminal court. Of course, after that long, my record wasn't perfect but… well, to give you an idea of how good I was, the newspapers would often call me "Boston's Mason".

"Mason? Seriously?" Liam asked. "Why? Some seriously complex reference to how your cases were 'seriously like solid, unmovable buildings, whose foundations were laid by a seriously gifted master mason?"

"As in Perry Mason! The lawyer who never lost a case!" Cassie said incredulously. "Honestly, Liam, you can't expect to be a main character if you don't get blatantly obvious fifties pop culture references."

"I live for the present! I mean, seriously!"

"ANYWAY" Morage growled, making it abundantly clear he did not wish to be interrupted again. "I was on this streak, living the good life, when…" his voice caught in his throat.

"You convicted your own colleague, right?"

Morage's eyes widened. "Good God, Moore, how did you…"

"I put two and two together" Chance explained. "Triple A was talking about a 'Barry' and how he used to work here, and then when I saw this headline…" He pulled out the newspaper clipping that said: "Barrister" Aetius convicted. "Well… Barry is a pretty decent nickname for 'Barrister', you know?"

Morage shook his head. "I underestimate you sometimes, Moore," he said softly, with only an undecipherable hint of pride. "And yes, well… that's the way it turned out." He cleared his throat.

"It was one of the most important trials of my life. You're to young to remember, of course, but about twenty years ago, the city of Boston was overrun by a terrorist group… the Carrites."

"That's a stupid name" Cassie commented under her breath.

"Seriously? I thought it was a seriously awesome reference to 'John Dickson Carr', the inventor of the 'Locked Door Mystery.'"

Cassie gasped. "Liam! You're right! How did you…"

Liam just smiled and winked.

"Anyway… yes. Aetius Barrister…" Morage grunted softly. "He was Moore than just a colleague, he was my employer, and my friend." He hung his head. "When, through my usually peerless logic, I arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Barrister was the head of the Carrites… the trial was concerning whether or not my client was head of that organization or not… I denied it. No matter what happened, I wouldn't believe it."

"That is terrible Mr. Thenue…" Ben comforted. "But how does Mademoiselle Sara Newton factor in to all this?"

"Sara Newton… she was a detective for the Boston Police Department. When I arrived at that terrible conclusion, I looked for contradictions in my own logic… then she…" His voice caught again. "She came forward, saying she had evidence that pointed everything to someone else." He sighed. "And then just when it seemed that the world was a fair and just place, the news came out that it was forged. Just like that. In duty to my client, I pressed my case against Barrister, won the trial…" He hung his head. "And that's the sob story for today."

Ben's lip quivered. Cassie leaned, ever so slightly, against Liam, who stood there in a daze. Chance nodded his head, figuring. "Well, I suppose that all makes sense now."

"It does?" Cassie asked.

"Seriously?"

"What makes sense?" Morage asked, flabbergasted.

"Well… I can't say anything for sure yet, but…" Chance nodded his head solemnly. "I think that, at the very least, it's safe to say that Culligan is innocent. That much I'll say. As for the rest…" He shrugged. "Well, I've been told by my concussion-causing colleague to stay out of this." He smiled. "I'm not worried though," he said, clapping a hand on Ben's back. "I'm sure you'll find the truth Ben. Just think: junior partner slot, huh?"

"A horrible thing to think, considering the situation, but…" Ben nodded. "I suppose it is safe to say the lawyer who does best on this trial will be granted the position, no?" He looked at Chancellor, concerned. "Are you sure you are ok with staying out of this? With everything you have done so far, I would think you would be a given…"

"I'm… actually choosing to be selfish on this one, Ben." Chance smiled. "Believe me. It's much better for me if I stay out of this one."

"Chancellor…" Ricky said, throwing an arm around him. "You're finally thinking like a man. I'm proud of you."

Cassie shook her head, a bit disappointed. "Maybe Freud was right after all…"

End of Chapter.

Author's note corner: RETURNS!

Alright! A longer chapter, and an author's corner! Things are finally returning to normal!

First of all, those of you who read stories other than this one, yes, I am recycling characters. You probably realized that with Tracy Spade all the way in chapter one, and now that you see Aetius Barrister… but don't worry. Despite having the same name, his fate is different. (He still has green hair though. Figure I'd mention that.)

Character In-depth: Ricardo Writchard

The last character from chapter 1 who hasn't gotten an in-depth (I think).

And before you say anything, yes I know there are red-headed Hispanics, yes I know there are Hispanic Jews and yes I know there are Jewish Red-heads! (One of my best friends is a Jewish "Gingerbread man" as I like to call him.) But have you ever met someone who's all three at once? If so, please a) review and tell me so and b) call them Ricky. Yes, even if they're a girl. Anyway, on to the questions!

Well? What's the pun/allusion/clever reference in his name? : I explained this in chapter 1, if you had a decent memory. However, I'll be nice and explain again. Chancellor Thomas More (who, if you forgot, serves as the name inspiration for the Moores) was the best lawyer ever during the time of King Henry the Eighth. He lived across the water from the courthouse, and a man named Ritchie Rich rowed him there every day.
Ricardo Writchard is an embellishment of that. Just like Ritchie Rich, he helps Chancellor out on an every day basis.

What exactly happened during the so-called Melissa MacDonald Incident? : All in good time, my friend. What I will tell you is that nobody died, though someone did come close.

Where does that self-confidence come from? : If you hung around with Chancellor all day, wouldn't the overwhelming gap between your normalcy and his make you feel awesome about your life?

Um… hi. I haven't been around for a while, but… : It's all right. I actually kind of missed you. Two questions, right?

First off, you would think Ricky's middle name deals with his being mismatched, right? Well good sir… you're wrong. Since Ricky is the token redhead, token Hispanic character, and token Jewish guy, his middle name is… TOKEN! Because I can.

His favorite song reflects his enormous ego: "I'm too sexy for my shirt."

Learn Russian! ALSO RETURNS!

After a long hiatus, I shall continue my teachings! WOOHOO!

ТОЖЕ И ТАКШЕ: These are both words for 'Also'. ТОЖЕ (pronounced 'taw zjeh') is used when referring to other people, such as: "He likes Chancellor Moore, and I also like Chancellor Moore." ТАКШЕ (pronounced 'tak sheh') refers only to one's self, such as: "I like Chancellor Moore, and I also like Gorgon Zolo." И is simply the word for "and". It's pronounced "ee."

УБИТЬ (pronounced 'oo beets'): Infinitive for 'to kill'. That happens a lot in this story so… kind of figured it's worth mentioning.

СЛАВА БОГУ (pronounced 'Slava bogu') (Tanya said it earlier in this chapter.) It means 'My God'. Basically, it's the Russian equivalent of 'Jesus Christ', 'Good Gravy', or something to that effect.

Have fun at the trial everyone!

Max English OUT!