A/N: So, here's chappie two, for your reading pleasure. The story is beginning to take shape. Need a bèta to proofread. PM le me if you're interested.

- Chapter 2

His MOSS-unit, his pokémon, all confiscated.

Not good, God damn it.

But then again, he was glad it was over. For over four hours of waiting and then being interrogated by a tough guy with a stick up his ass and with a social worker present being his only saving grace, he decided he was glad to be out of that hell hole they called a police station. His dad didn't even bother showing up... Well, whatever. He expected no less of the man nowadays.

Keeping mostly silent during the interrogation, he had listened intently to all the accusations they heaped on him to find out what exactly they knew. One thing you should know; Viridian City was Big Brother, meaning there were hidden camera's everywhere. Who knew. They had footage of him handing over packages on four different occasions, with one of them showing how he got into an argument with one of his customers and it eventually breaking out into a pokémon fight. Which he won, of course. The ugly fat chick – his opponent, had sent out a raticate in her anger over one of his insults and he had countered by sending out his cloyster, one of his stronger pokémon at the time.

He had hid himself behind the thick armor of his cloyster and told it to withdraw and pelt the foe with Spike Cannon. But even with his cloyster's ability Skill Link, that allowed it to double the amount and size of the spikes he ejected from his shell armor, the raticate was too fast to hit. Over long distances the accuracy of the spikes increased because of the homing element this ability allowed. But this had been a short distance battle. When he had heard the fat chick shout out 'Super Fang' from behind a dumpster to her furry rodent, he knew he had to act fast. He had quickly ordered Pearl – his nickname for his cloyster - to use 'Ice Shard', a move that would allow his pokémon's attack to hit first because of it's rapid production rate. As the raticate closed in with it's fang glowing an eerie yellow light, Pearl had opened her armor and momentarily glowed an cyan blue, forcefully expelling an icy mist that flash froze into sharp missiles. In mid leap, the raticate had stood no chance. The shards had pierced the rodent in it's side, a large spike of ice almost running it through and mortally wounding it and another gauging out a chunk of neck fur, it's low defense thus proving costly.

That's when the film had paused, the bad quality of the video showing as a thin band of discoloured pixels moved up and down the screen. They had told him that the raticate had died in the pokémon center later on. Which shouldn't have happened if she had the brains to recall her pokémon instead of carrying it all the way to the Pokémon Center, thus letting the rodent bleed out. The fat chick had pointed towards him as the culprit, stupidly giving away information about what happened and incriminating herself in the process.

Because unsupervised battling in the city proper was considered a criminal offense in Viridian. It was made so after crime rates in the city involving the use of pokémon was at an all time high and public order needed to be restored. Those who did, could expect a fine of 6'000 credits up to a towering 110'000 credits excluding possible property damages. If assault and battering or manslaughter by use of pokémon came into the picture, then jail time was a given.

The former he had been unfortunately guilty of. A couple of times actually. There had been the time with the Murkrow Gang, another time with the crazy mid-life crisis lady, and just three weeks ago a Team Rocket goon in disguise he had crossed paths with. Nothing too severe, just some broken bones, ruptured eardrums and maybe mild cases of hypothermia. Reasons enough to be nervous, right? But then again, he could claim self defense. In all off those instances he was attacked first.Besides, he didn't even have his cloyster anymore. Sometimes he regretted doing it, but then he rationalized that it was for the best. Shelly didn't like fighting that much, so he had traded her for a young and still untrained lapras from a Cerulean City Gym representative. The Lapras was still in stasis at the moment. So he could say it wasn't his cloyster...

Like that defense would hold up. But it would do a lot to cut the losses, he thought. They couldn't confiscate a pokémon he had already traded off. One point to Eli. He wasn't sure of the score though.

Maybe they had linked him with any number of small time robberies he did with Mikey last spring. They shouldn't have, their faces were hidden and the pokémon he used wasn't registered. But still. Not too many people used a porygon-2 after all. Which was their loss. Those little buggers could just about bypass any digital security system. And his Que-ball had a knack for breaking and entering. A boon in many a heist, as I'm sure any robber would agree.

"But that couldn't be it, could it?" Eli had thought out loud.

Him and Mikey had hit specific warehouses, breeding institutions and laboratories to not only get valuable products they would use to train their pokémon or things they might need on their trip, but to get information on pokémon such as location data on rare pokémon or the newest research on a specific pokémon. The point is, the targets had to seem to have been random to any outsider; different methods of entry had been used each time, and most importantly they had made sure to leave no witnesses or traces. Some of the robberies hadn't even been noticed. They had been careful and had stashed their loot away in a camouflaged shack of an abandoned mining pit just outside of Pewter City.

Bottom line: it was unlikely they suspected Mikey and him were responsible for all those robberies. And even then, they probably didn't have enough proof to make it stick.

Before he had had time to further try and analyze his precarious position, the cop had already confronted him with his next piece of evidence. The contents of the package he had tried to deliver earlier that evening, he had been told. After he had made out what was in the evidence bag, he had grimaced. Drugs. Six vials complete with syringes and alcohol pads. Illegal steroids. Considering the green luminescence of the substance, it was probably 'Hench'.

It turned out that the lanky loser was a second stringer on the high school basketball team called the Viridian Victreebells, and desperately wanted to be promoted to first string. This year was his last chance of making the cut and maybe getting a scholarship. Being the angsty, stupid noob that he was, he had wanted to get an edge. That's were the supercharged steroids had come in, obviously. It was sometimes used on pokémon in underground battle arena's to give them a temporary physical boost en making a quick buck. It would be a viable strategy on the short term, if not for the nasty side-effects. Those side-effects included physical addiction after the – on average – fourth use (that shit stays in the system for a long time), after the physical boost of about thirty minutes depending on dosage, comes the physical crash. Which could permanently damage your pokémon's growth and overall potential. So basically, only dicks who don't give a fuck about their pokémon use it. They bet big on the hopes that they will win big, but they forget that they always lose no matter the outcome. It generally wasn't even a cost-effective way to make money. But he was getting off topic.

He'd been fuck out of luck. It was time to capitulate, as they say. Mikey and him had their contingency plans for several different situations like this one. Plans A through Z, all intended to keep their asses out of juvy or worse. And Eli had made sure they were thorough. The guidelines for this particular situation: on a delivery mission, when caught by the police red-handed, and the situation looked bad (i.e. they had solid evidence), get a deal by offering to give up their supplier in exchange for a light punishment.

So he had. So they both had. Sorry Thomas Prack, nothing personal.

After an hour of grilling him on all he knew about Thomas Prack and evidence that could put the man behind bars, such as warehouses, e-documents etc., Mikey had joined them in the room. The same story had more or less went down in the other room and now it was time to talk punishment. They had left Mikey an him alone in that room with a silent officer at the door, to probably agree on some form of punishment under the table. That's how it went in Viridian City.

When your dad was a local hero turned captain ranger, turned city representative, turned disabled drunkard at least. Or, if you were born into a well-off family like Michael James Keenan, AKA Mikey.

"What else is family good for, right?", Mikey had said sarcastically. He was right, in a way. With his family's power and connections, he didn't have to worry too much about repercussions in general. At least not in Viridian City. The family's legal advisor sure played no small part in that. Eli on the other hand had to bet on the emotional attachment and misplaced feelings of loyalty and duty the local cops had for the legendary Jack Singleton, the role model of every Viridian law enforcer newly sworn in, and coincidentally also known as his piss poor excuse of a father.

When the judges and executioners had come back in, faces grim, the dignified figure of Frank Price had followed. Being the legal adviser of the Keenan's and right-hand man of one off the three current city representatives, no-one dared question his motives for being there. Price had told Mikey to follow him, and he hadn't seen the blond since. The family lawyer had probably made a deal with the police chief. No serious repercussions for him at least, the lucky bastard. Eli thought he had to look into some legal representation of his own in the future. It was bound to be needed, knowing himself.

Then the judge on call layed out the punishment for him. He got off decently. A rather stern warning, since it was his first time to break city rules – taking his young age, confession and ignorance plea into account. That and three hundred hours of community service in Viridian City owned institutions, six days a week with a maximum of 8 hours a day, doing cleaning and hard manual labor. No pokémon handling allowed during community service hours. They would be monitoring the ones registered to him. Tough break. No time for training his team. How was he going to explain this to them?

That reminded him that one of his pokémon was still recovering in the pokémon center from a grievous injury he had gotten when he had had him battle about a dozen run of the mill geodude. With a clear type disadvantage, but a much higher level, he had thought it would turn out fine. He was wrong. In his defense, it all went very fast. The geodude didn't wait in line and attack one at a time, they had actually displayed proper strategy and team work. One geodude would use 'Defense Curl' and another would use 'Rock Throw' to pick up the curled up geodude and hurl it at his pokémon. In no time they had been surrounded. He had let his porygon-2 out and deflect any incoming projectiles away with Psychic, while he concentrated on giving orders to his nidorino. Although his poison type held out valiantly under the onslaught of geodude projectiles, he had suffered a couple of bad hits a few moments into the battle. Twelve to one hadn't seemed such good odds any more. Spike – his nidorino – didn't know any area of effect moves yet, so had trouble taking on multiple targets at once.

Still, he had ordered his pokémon to duck and dive out of the way while getting closer to the foes. A devastating double kick to the face of one of the throwing geodude had sent it rocketing out of the battle and out of commission. They repeated the same tactic thrice successfully before the group of geodude got wiser and used Rock Polish. That move flipped the tables on them. It practically doubled their speed and impact power. His poison type stood no chance to evade and got hit on the side of his noggin, knocking him out and scrambling his brain badly. They had kept hitting poor old Spike though, intending to bludgeon him to death. Luckily he had his Ducky to bail him out back then.

He'd go pick him up tomorrow.

But now, here he was, standing outside in the rain, eight o'clock in the morning, waiting on some official to bring him his gear. He was mentally drained, utterly exhausted. The adrenaline from last night's sordid affair gone. He couldn't stop thinking about the events that had transpired and who had ratted him out. If there even was someone. Eli had been careful, but he wasn't foolproof. He had perhaps counted on the fact of being a small fry too much as a protection against legal scrutiny.

An orderly approached him from his side, with a box filled with his gear and pokéballs. He strapped the various belts on, clipped the gear into place and he was good to go. Manifesting his bike, he hopped on. With screeching tires he rained splashed the pavement behind him and rocketed forward. He stopped around the corner and texted Thomas, before tearing down the streets again, zooming around morning traffic. He should know what it meant.

BURNED

At home, his father sat at the breakfast table sipping coffee and indulging in a morning sigaret.

"Up so early? Today must be a special day." Snarked Eli from the kitchen entrance.

A dark glare was his answer.

"Whatever, I'm going to bed."

"Sit down." His father ordered in a voice that belied his past in law enforcement.

"Oh-oh, I can feel a self-righteous speech coming up. Okay, I'll humor you. You've got about two minutes before I fall asleep with my eyes open, though. Or 15 seconds, but we'll see how it goes."

His father slammed his palm on the table. "Sit. Down. And. Shut. Up."

Eli obeyed silently. You had to be careful when the old man was in one of his moods. He could get hands-y. Eli spied the pocket sized liquor bottle within hand reach of his father. He had probably spiked his morning coffee with it.

Nothing new there.

"I got a call from Nicky Emerson at 0300 hours, saying you got arrested. How long have you been selling narcotics, Elias?"

Eli rolled his eyes. "Stop pretending you give a shit old man, it's giving me hives."

He pointed his finger at me in warning. "Don't talk back to me! What is a kid like you doing, going around at night playing runner for gangsters and common criminals?! Don't you see they're just using you? How dangerous that is? Are you that stupid?"

"Guess I am. But to be fair I get paid a lot for being stupid." He couldn't help but bite back sarcastically. "You already know I've been doing shit like this since I was ten. Kinda late to step in now."

His miserable old man had the gall to look angry and disappointed. "I know, that's why I'm putting my foot down now. I'm not going to fund your trainer license, Elias. You've shown everyone that you don't deserve it. I mailed Oak to forgo your reservation for that charmander. You need to get back into school."

Eli was struck speechless for a long breathless moment. Then he sighed, and slowly stood up. "… Fuck you old man." He turned to go upstairs, feeling wrung out and done.

"Your mother would've been disappointed in the person you've become, Elias."

Eli stiffened in the doorway. He turned mechanically and pinned his father down with a furious glare. "I could say the same, asshole! A piece of advice, when you decide to try being a parent on for size, try not to fuck up my life even more than it already is? Next time you pull shit like this, I'm going to reconsider calling social services. Let the chips fall where they may. I'm sure they would love to hear that the legendary Jack Singleton is a hopeless, self-absorbed drunk and a neglectful father to his fourteen year old kid. The media will have a field day, I reckon. And instead of trying to fix me, why don't you start with the dick looking back in the mirror!"

His piece said, and feeling too exhausted to feel anything but empty, he trudged upstairs to fall on his bed. He was probably asleep before he hit his mattress. Dreams of his fathers stricken face coming in and out of focus amongst other nonsensical images.

When he woke up, it was three o'clock in the afternoon. He stood up and washed his face in the adjacent bathroom. Noticing a pimple, he grabbed the RIT- Palm and shined its regenerative light on the area. Unblemished skin reflected back at him via the mirror.

As he passed his fathers room he noted that it was empty and went on his way to the kitchen, ignoring the empty whiskey bottle on the table. Going down the stairs he noticed his own smell and grimaced. A shower was in order. After breakfast. Or lunch more like. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he checked for messages. He had a missed call from Mikey and an official looking mail describing his punishment and obligations starting Monday.

Ugh.

As he grabbed some juice from the fridge, he auto-dialled Mikey's phone. It rung five times before he picked up.

"Hey man, glad I could catch you."

"Yeah, had some sleep to catch up on. I'm assuming you want to talk about yesterday?"

"Well, yeah. What the hell happened on your end?"

Eli finished his juice and sat himself down on the kitchen counter. "Back at the basketball court, I didn't bother fighting or running. I was already surrounded and heavily outnumbered. And I was stuck in a cage… You know, it feels like a set-up when I say it out loud like that."

"Huh, yeah I guess it kinda does. It does seem kind of much just to catch a couple of runners. I mean, I counted at least four squad cars. At first I thought we were being robbed. So I told Eggy to blast 'em. NOT a good idea in hindsight."

He couldn't help but snicker at his best friends misfortune. "Why, what happened?"

"Arcanine happened. Poor Eggy was weak against Fire Blast, who knew?"

Mikey's sarcasm was one of Eli's favorite things. He laughed out loud. "Yeah shocker that. Then what happened?"

"Then I got body checked by a 150 pound machoke, that's what happened. I still can't get the taste of dirt out of my mouth." Mikey ranted.

Eli laughed again. "Sucks to be you. So what was the verdict?"

Mikey turned hesitant. "I didn't get a verdict per se. Price got the judge to agree to a fine and a promise to let my dad dole out a suitable punishment. To handle it in the family so to speak. Being a Keenan has its perks."

Justice in Viridian City folks.

"Lucky bastard. So you got of with a slap on the wrist, or what?"

"Not exactly. My dad decided to punish me by not getting me my charmander and finally having an excuse to stop me from getting a trainers license. They want me to go back to school and study something respectable. Whatever that means." Mikey grumbled.

"You too huh." Eli grumbled back. "Fuck 'em. It's not like we need their money to get it anyway."

"You still have the money? I thought they would've frozen your bank accounts." his best friend exclaimed.

"Well, they investigated but couldn't tie the cash deposits to anything illegal. And most of the obvious illegal stuff got deposited into an offshore account under a shell corporation. So we're good. The illegal stuff they did have on us, just looked like delinquency. Be thankful I'm careful like that." Boasted Eli.

Mikey snickered. "You're the man, alright. But damn, what are we going to do now?"

"Well, I still got six weeks of community service to get through." Eli griped. He stood up and searched for some snacks.

Mikey's response was comforting in its commiseration. "So you're out for at least a month and a half." he acknowledged. "What about after, since we can obviously kiss that charmander goodbye. I know we can still get our license in another city. We can't get it here, because our parents would block it. We can forge their signature if we have to."

"Yeah we'll do it that way. I'm through living with my dad. I say we bail to Pewter City, get registered as trainers and get this show on the road. After last night there is nothing stopping us anymore."

When a trainer gets his license he is granted a special status. Not quite an adult, but still independent. That meant that he would be held more accountable for his actions, but he would have more freedom as well. The most important freedom would be his involvement with his dad. After a trainer has earned an Elite Gymbadge, those perks and costs increased even more. In essence you wouldn't have the protection you enjoyed as a minor, but you couldn't be tried as an adult either. There was even a special branch of government dedicated to this. You had to grow up fast as a trainer. Bills to pay, mouths to feed. Nothing was free anymore. Except maybe the services rendered by the Pokémon Center. That was a rare exception though.

"Yes! Agreed. And hey, we can still meet up Sundays to go to the Battlegrounds. You're probably going to be stuck for the rest of the week though."

"Ugh, don't remind me. By the way I'm going to the Pokémon Center today to pick up Spike and find someone to trade the five Stacy's with. So you get to pick two. I know you want the munchlax, so pick an extra."

Eli smiled hearing his best friend laugh in delight.

"Wait, you still haven't told me which ones you got from the game!"

He feigned surprise. "Really? I didn't tell you? It must've slipped my mind. Understandable in all the chaos."

"Don't play coy with me, tell me! And which ones did you want, anyway? Since I got to pick munchlax you get to pick next."

"Alright I guess I'll tell you. Excluding munchlax, we got a machoke, a kadabra, a mr mime and a poliwhirl. I've kind of been eying that mr mime. It would diversify my team a lot, with its double typing."

"If you want a psychic type, why not go for the kadabra? Alakazam are wicked strong and top tier..."

Eli smiled. "Yeah, they peak strongly but their growth rate is sub-par to say the least and that's not what I'm looking for. And mr mime are super rare in the battle circuit, so not many people will know any counter-strategy's of the top of their heads. Besides I don't know any high ranking trainers that use him. It could be a pretty sweet calling card. People don't really remember you when you're the seventeenth ranker with an alakazam, even if you do flatten your opponent. People expect you to win. You'd definitely remember a trainer with a badass mr mime, though." He reasoned.

Mikey chuckled. "Yeah~, but are you sure they have the potential to compete? Because maybe there is a reason mr mime aren't used for battling."

"Oh don't worry, I know my shit." Eli assured him. "What's your pick then?"

There was a pause as Mikey seemed to mull it over. "Well, I don't need a psychic type since I've got Eggy. Machoke are kind of bland and thick-headed. So, I guess I'll take the poliwhirl. Poliwrath have a duel typing that I could use to diversify, as you said."

"Yeah I would've suggested that one to you as well. Especially since it would suit your head-on battle style." Eli agreed. "Okay, so that's over with. I'll let you know which one I got in return for kadabra and machoke."

"Sure. I'll come pick up the poliwhirl tomorrow afternoon. Hey that reminds me, you want to head over to the Battle Arena this Saturday?There are a couple of ranked battles scheduled. So the place is going to be packed with amateur trainers."

"I don't see why not. What day is it, Thursday? Yeah, should work."

"Okay. See you tomorrow!"

"Later."

Arriving at the Pokémon Center, Eli made a beeline for the register to retrieve Spike's pokeball. He let him out of his ball for a moment to check up on him.

His nidorino looked as good as new. No evidence of the defeat left save perhaps on his warrior spirit. But Spike looked as quietly confident as ever. No way to tell for sure until the next battle or training.

Looking at his little purple dinosaur, he was reminded of how excited he was when they met in the wild. The thrill of the hunt, his pounding hart as the little male nidoran accepted his challenge and they squared of. He petted the head of his pokémon, avoiding the poisonous barbs with familiarity. Spike leaned in, its pitch black eyes closing in comfort. The quadruped was a lot bulkier now, with a power level of 23 he was already eligible for evolution via moonstone. But he wanted to hold out until he felt the time was right. It would be held off as a reward for a good performance. That way it would mean something.

Recalling his companion of nearly a year back to his pokéball, Eli took to the second floor. Spying an unused terminal, he logged in and registered his Stacy's.

The trade worked as followed. You log in with your ID, you register your pokémon by putting them on the platform and digitizing them. That means that the physical gets digital. Once in the system you can start trading with other registered pokémon put up for trade. You basically send a trade proposal to them via the terminal or their pokégear and they can choose to accept or refuse the trade. An easy user friendly system, but with no refunds.

As he scrolled down the list, there were a few that caught his eye.

A level 14 evee, male, average weight, energetic. Known moves: Shadow Ball, Quick Attack and Growl.

Eli's eyes widened. Shadow Ball on a level 14 evee? That meant that TM was most likely used. Lucky him. They might go for a level 17 kadabra. Sending a proposal he waited with baited breath. An evee could prove an incredible boon to his team. He's been looking for an electric type for ages and wasn't willing to settle for a pikachu. If he had wanted a magnemite or a voltorb he would've had to go to the other side of Kanto with time he could use to make money. And Electabuzz were just very rare and elusive in the wild. Don't get him wrong, Red made it to the Master scene with a pikachu. But that just spoke of the amount of talent Red had as a trainer. Pikachu's strong points in battle was its small size in correlation with its high agility which made it a hard target to hit. Its average special attack power could be trained up to a decent level, but were outshone be many electric types. Like a jolteon for example. That was a top tier battle pokémon. Extreme agility, reflexes and high special damage output. That was exactly what he was looking for in an electric type. They weren't that uncommon in the battle scene of Kanto, seeing as there were breeders who specialized in evee. But they were hella expensive. This would therefore be such a sweet deal.

Ping!

Eli whooped in joy. "Score!" He had just won another addition to his team. He materialized the pokéball and clipped it to his belt. It wasn't a stasis ball so he'd meet the evee later.

Now, next up was the machoke. Honestly he was kind of thinking of keeping the fighting type. He could use one in his team. But since he was here, he might as well look for something better suited to him. Scrolling down the list, he searched for something that would strike his fancy.

Graveler? No.

Persian? Hmm… Maybe. Let's bookmark it and move on.

Primeape? … Too much of a hassle to train with that temper it had. Rage was a useful tool in battle, but it could just as easily be used against you. Not to mention possible disobedience issues.

Tyrogue? … Interesting. It had a power level of 16 which meant it would evolve in either a hitmonlee, hitmonchan or a hitmontop. All three were considered excellent battlers and were used frequently by the Fighting Type Master Bruno, formerly of the Elite Four. This tyrogue had the moves: Bullet Punch and Tackle.

Personally, Eli had a preference for hitmonlee. With its springlike legs it could cover ground quickly which he imagined would give it an edge over the other two in terms of positioning on the battlefield. They were also very eager to train and get stronger, something that any trainer could appreciate. He didn't know much else about the pokémon, honestly. Time to change that.

Taking out his pokégear clipped to his belt, he spoke to it. "Queball, find me information concerning Tyrogue training and eating habits." His pokégear shimmered a pink color as if in confirmation. Eli smiled, porygon-2 were handy creatures. Queball could act as his own AI butler/bodyguard.

His pokegear lit up in blue and projected a screen in front of him like a hologram. It was a lot of info to take in. Ranked win-loss rates, average, max and min heigths and weights, most succesful movesets and battle tactics, recommended food etc.

"You've outdone yourself once again Que." Eli complemented seemingly to thin air. An answering happy 10-bit sound, disclaimed that.

Going of these stats, he could justify choosing tyrogue. With a few adjustments to his moveset, physical training and diet, he could become fierce in about 2 months. Well, he couldn't be there 24/7 when tyrogue would be training. But he could train in the yard on his own following some instructions.

Shrugging, he decided to go for it. He didn't have any info on the intelligence level, but the growth-rate of the pokémon was decent – if that was any indication. A few minutes later another ding signified another successful trade, making him smile in satisfaction. Clipping the pokéball onto his belt, he made a beeline for home.

As he neared his street he got the sense that something was wrong. Police cars were surrounding his house, the obnoxious flickering lights a dead give-away even from a considerable distance.

He braked to a full stop.

Were they here for him? Did they find some new incriminating information? Maybe about his heists? Could he have missed something?

His panicking thoughts were interrupted by the loud arrival of an ambulance rushing past him towards his house. With a sinking feeling he followed sedately.

Later, he wouldn't even be able to tell Mikey who was in his house that evening, how he had managed to push his way through two police officers to get to his fathers room. All he remembered was his dads sunken and unseeing eyes staring at him in his bed – somehow accusing, a flapping scalp of faded black hair, the surprisingly large blood splat on the wall behind him, liberally decorated with pieces of grey matter.

He never told Mikey about the fight he had had with his old man the day before the event – afraid what the only person he still cared about would think of him. What he would think of him, knowing he had indirectly killed his own dad. And a big piece of him didn't want to give himself the opportunity to be rid of that fear, or to lessen the guilt. This was his penance, his burden to bare until death.

And in the privacy of his own mind, he was actually relieved his dad wasn't here to hold him back any more.

A/N: Next chappie in progress.