The next couple of days felt like they inched by. Vic stayed at Abuelita's house or hung around town. He didn't really want to stay at the Shack with the twins there, though Soos apparently missed his amateur guitar skills, which was a little funny.
He didn't especially want to go to the Shack, but then Stan decided he was throwing a party to celebrate the return of the Mystery Shack, and he felt that ignoring that would just be going too far.
He was sat at Lazy Susan's diner, sipping on an early-morning soda (nothing like lots of sugar for breakfast) and contemplating life when the theme song picked up out of nowhere, making him jump. That . . . was weird. Usually there was the scene before the theme song, but none of that had happened.
Had he just missed it? He was pretty sure he would have heard that, and he had probably changed some stuff with . . . whatever happened with Bill.
How much had he screwed up?
Either way, it was seven in the morning on the day the party was when the next episode apparently started, and he supposed it was probably time he paid them a visit again.
At least Stan. Stan had been super nice to him and didn't deserve to be ignored this time.
But first, he was tired of walking around. He'd nearly forgotten about it, but there was that scooter in the dump that McGucket was holding onto, and since the Shack was so far out from the main part of town, he figured it was worth taking care of a little junk on it.
"Ooh. Time made me forget how nasty you are," he told the scooter. He was pretty sure the original color was silver, but there was so much rust climbing up it he really just didn't know. The handlebar padding made a squishy sound when he touched it and it all smelled funky. He sighed.
Yeah, no, back to walking.
"Hey! Hey!" somebody shouted. He turned to see who, and lo and behold, McGucket was awkwardly running towards him, smacking his feet with his hands between every step for some reason. "McBanjoStringer! C'mere!"
"Why are you running like that?"
"I don't rightly know! Come on, come on, like a jackraccoon in a suitcase! I got somethin' to show ya!"
". . . it's not gonna scratch my face like last time, is it?"
"Nah, nah, come on!"
He seemed very excited, so Vic shrugged and followed him to investigate. He was led around a couple lumps of trash to the lean-to of scrap metal that McGucket called home, at which point the loon went behind and pulled something out.
"I was a-seein' that you were mighty intrested in that there scootsmatoo! And since ya been so kind to me, I made you somethin'!" He grunted as he pulled on something. Vic stepped forward to help, but he put out a hand. "I got it, I got it." With a final great tug, it came loose, a shiny (well, at least in comparison to everything else) metal stick with a flat bit and two circles that might've been wheels.
Wait.
"McGucket . . . did you make me . . . a scooter?" he asked, stepping forward and grabbing it from the old man.
"Yep! Do ya . . . do ya like it?" he asked hesitantly.
It wasn't perfect by any counts. He could visibly see that the screws were loose, and the edges were sharp enough that he could probably cut himself on it, but there was so much care put into it . . . he found his arms wrapped around the man as his nose ignored the smell.
McGucket's hands were delayed, but then he felt them on his back. He squeezed one last time before releasing.
"Thanks, McGucket. It means a lot to me. Really."
Were his eyes deceiving him, or was the old man more sane than usual? His eyes seemed to line up, and . . . dang, was he crying?
"Yer a good kid. Thanks fer helping out with an old guy like me. It means a lot, ya know."
"You're welcome. You coming to the Mystery Shack party tonight?"
"Nah, they won't want someun like me there."
"I mean, it is Stan, who isn't likely to care, but whatever floats your boat. Bye, McGucket. See you later, and thanks for the scooter."
"Yer welcome! How'd you like the rocket function?"
"The WHAT?!"
He scooted his way with his rocket booster, turning a fifteen minute walk into a five minute flyby, and he slowed in front of the Shack.
His heart was pounding. Why was his heart pounding?
He stashed his scooter under the porch so nobody would steal it and steeled his nerves before opening the gift shop door. The twins weren't in there, thank goodness, though Stan was, and he looked up at the ring of the bell.
"Hey, kiddo. What're you doing here? It's been a hot minute since I seen your face."
"I just . . . I dunno, figured it's been long enough since I popped in. How have you been?"
Stan shrugged and leaned against the counter. "I mean, we finally got that Gideon smell out of the carpet, and the Shack's opened back up, so pretty good. How 'bout you?"
"I . . . I've been better."
Stan nodded, then got up close and knelt. "You feelin' any better? I know . . . whatever it was that the twins and Soos did did a number on you. Have you talked with any of them yet?"
"I mean, I made up with Soos a couple days ago, so that's good . . ." He trailed off, and looked away.
"Okay. Find some time to talk with them at the party, okay? Even if it's just small talk."
"Okay. I should be able to do that."
He awkwardly stood there for a minute, rocking back on his heels, and he was about to open his mouth when the door opposite him flew open and Mabel came running in. Her eyes landed on him and they both froze.
She stared at him.
He stared at her.
The tension was palpable.
"Hi, Vic," she said.
"Hi. I . . . I think I'm gonna go now."
He scootered away before she could stop him.
That night came quickly, and Vic found himself standing awkwardly in the corner at a party. He'd arrived too early. The only people here were Wendy's gang and Candy and Grenda. Dipper was awkwardly trying to talk to Wendy, who was preoccupied with her friends.
"Yo! Thompson! Take off your shirt again! That was hilarious, dude!" Wendy called with a laugh, which only got louder when he did so. Dipper chuckled along awkwardly enough that Vic felt Mabel-levels of confidence by relation.
Not enough to do anything but stand in the corner, mind you, but confident in his standing.
As the party started to fill up, he got more and more anxious, but at the same time . . . less . . . anxious? More people meant he had less chance of accidentally bumping into one of the twins or even Soos.
Face after face came in, until . . .
"McGucket!" he said, his face breaking into a grin. "You came!"
"Why, after your words of encouragamentin', I wouldn't miss a hootenanny like this for a turtle-snappin' horseshoe!" the old man replied, dancing to the music. "How'd yer scootsmagoo's rocket engine work?"
"Pretty well, I think. It made it a lot faster to get here. Thanks for that, again."
"No problem! Hey, ya think I could get a cuppa that liquid fruit?"
Vic blinked, then looked at the cup in his hand. "Yeah, there's some fruit punch on that table over there."
McGucket laughed his classic crazy old man laugh and jigged over that way. Vic's smile slowly faded from his face when his gaze slid to the side, on a pair of familiar brown-haired preteens, and he averted his gaze.
Dipper was having zero luck with Wendy. Their gang had gone off and formed a rave in the corner, and she'd naturally gone off and joined them, leaving him sighing with nobody to talk to, since Vic was also ignoring them.
Mabel sauntered over his way. "What's up, broseph?"
"I just . . . I dunno, I feel really bad about going into his head to look for Bill. We didn't even get him out, either. We just broke his trust and ruined our friendship," he huffed. Maybe there was something in the Journal that could fix this . . . he shoved that thought away.
"Don't overthink it, Dipper. We'll figure something out. We always do! Now come on! It's a party! And we've got our karaoke bonanza to get ready for, so you better get your groove on!"
She backed away, shooting finger guns the whole way.
Dipper couldn't focus on karaoke, though. Vic just looked so . . . well, small, and alone. His jacket seemed to swallow him up.
And Dipper really wanted someone to talk to.
But he couldn't just talk to him, that wouldn't go well in any scenario. This was even worse than the last party, where he was trying to talk to Wendy. He'd actually done something wrong this time.
If he just tried to talk directly to him, he'd find some reason to pull away, which meant there had to be something they needed to work together to fix.
He slipped the Journal out of his vest. A little peek wouldn't hurt anything, right?
Vic could pretty easily tell that Dipper was looking at the Journal. This was not good news.
Another thing that was not good news came in the form of a blonde-haired girl strutting in like she owned the place. At this point, he was avoiding enough people that it felt like the only place he could look was the floor. At least his sneakers didn't have any emotional tension between them.
Unless he was vastly unaware of the complicated lives of shoes.
"Ahem," a familiar voice said, and he looked up from his rounded red and white shapes to see Pacifica right in front of him. Great. Why did the problems always have to come to him?
"What do you want, Pacifica? I dunno if you noticed, but I'm not in the best mood right now."
"Yeah, actually, I did. It's a little hard to miss. You keep glancing up at them like it's taboo." Well, ow. "Don't look so offended, we both know it's true. If you play some songs on your guitar, it'll give you an excuse to avoid them, and I'll pay you."
He glanced at his guitar, still in its case and sitting on the floor next to him. "How much?"
"Mm, five bucks per song enough?"
He felt kinda like Stan, and could imagine dollar symbols appearing on his eyes. He could do ten songs and get fifty bucks. Twice that and he got a hundred.
"Deal."
Nope, gnomes would be the least viable option here . . . squash with human face and emotions . . . nah. He flipped through page after page, trying to come up with something that would distract everyone in the party that Vic could fix with him.
Zombies.
He glanced up at Vic, who was playing songs on the guitar in the corner for Pacifica and drawing quite a crowd.
Maybe it was too over the top. He didn't need to risk anybody getting hurt. Maybe he was overthinking this. What would Tyrone think?
He found himself absently mumbling as he read through the page. "Do not read aloud, yadda yadda yadda . . . corpus levitas, diablo dominus . . . mondo vicium . . . wait, what did it say up there?"
The ground started to shake and he blinked, going over what he'd just said.
"Well, crud."
Fittingly enough, Vic was playing Monster Mash when everything shook. "He did the mash, he did the . . . wait that's not normal."
It wasn't the shaking that caused him to say that, not really. It was more the giant green crack opening in the middle of the party with literal zombies crawling out. And, oh yeah, the dramatic horror music that started to play in his head. Vic just kind of stared for a moment, then sighed.
Of course.
People started running around screaming even more than normal, which was a valid reaction. He calmly but quickly put away his guitar, picked it up, and headed around the edge of the party, around the crack and the zombies, to his scooter, again stashed under the porch.
But a sharp scream stopped him. He turned around to see Pacifica getting pulled by a zombie, trying to take her into its green crack of a home, which didn't seem very homey.
"Somebody! Help!" she shrieked, kicking at it to no avail.
All around, people were getting snatched. Poor Gorney was being held over one's head, the pizza guy was struggling to outrun it despite it being slow, and Tambry had gotten grabbed because her phone was inside one and was lighting it up from the inside.
He froze for a moment, conflicted, which was all the time one of them needed to get to him. Its clammy, dead fingers on his ankle were exactly what he needed to get a shock back to reality.
Move move move!
He slammed his other heel down on the bony hand, which released, and he ran for Pacifica, his hand outstretched. He tripped and slid across the ground, grabbing onto her hand, but it kept trying to pull her down. He braced his legs against the opposite side of the crack and pulled as hard as he absolutely could.
Which was apparently pretty hard.
With a yelp, she came up with the zombie in tow, and he kicked it in the face, causing it to let go of her and let him throw her onto the ground behind him. She was crying and clearly panicking, and completely frozen.
"Run!" he told her, pulling himself back up to his feet to charge at the one attacking Tambry.
His heel stomp wasn't good enough for this one, apparently, and another zombie grabbed at his arms and pulled him back. He writhed and shouted and fought with all his might, but he was still a small twelve-year-old, and it wasn't good enough.
"HELP!"
But his voice couldn't carry in the din. Too many people running and screaming, and too many zombies attacking. Another one grabbed at his legs, and panic started to set in.
No no no no no I can't do this if I die I'll never even have a chance to get back to my dad
I'll never have fixed things with the twins
I'll die a cartoon character in a plotline that isn't right since I haven't been getting any cues
No no no . . .
Then somebody came down, hard, on the one holding his legs, and Vic's eyes widened at the familiar large figure.
"SOOS!"
"You got it dude. Hyaah!" He threw himself at the other zombie, and Vic crashed to the floor along with it, scrambling out of its way.
"Soos! Thank you! I don't know how to—SOOS!"
A third zombie came down and bit down on his shoulder, and before his eyes, Soos's skin paled and his eyes changed to match everyone else. Vic backed up, his eyes wide, and he turned tail and ran.
Right into another zombie.
He didn't even try to fight them anymore, he needed to get out of here. Out of town. If zombies got to everyone, he wasn't sure they could fix it.
He couldn't get to the porch in this mess, so he backed up against a wall. The music spiked dramatically, and his heart rose to his chest. This wasn't good. He didn't have any weapons, and he was surrounded, with not a single friend left in any of this.
No. I can't give up. Figure a way out of this mess.
Dipper. Dipper had been flipping through the Journal before this whole mess. If anything had the solution, it was the Journal. He needed to find Dipper.
With a goal in mind, he pushed off of the wall and under a zombie lunging for him. He ran through the horde at super fast speeds. Tambry was a zombie. The pizza man was a zombie. He was pretty sure that Robbie was fine and the other zombies were just convinced he was one of them.
This was not good.
"DIPPER!" he screamed, his throat hoarse already. Not a good sign either. "DIPPER! MABEL! STAN! SOMEBODY!"
Somebody came, sure. Pacifica came.
Armed with a purse that apparently had a brick in it, she slammed it into the side of a zombie's head, and it fell to the ground dramatically. He lit up and, inspired, picked up a rock on the ground and chucked it at one behind her.
It missed by a mile, but hey. It hit a different zombie.
"What do we need to do?" she asked, slamming her handbag into another couple of them. Man, that thing was a weapon.
"Find Dipper. He's got a Journal that probably has a solution," he shouted back. "Come on!"
He grabbed her by the wrist and together, they made their way through the crowd to the gift shop door. He tried to open it, but it was locked shut. "Dipper! Mabel! Stan! Open up, whoever's in there!"
"Vic?!" a voice shouted back, but in the chaos, he couldn't make out which twin it was. "Hang on!"
Something that had been used to barricade the door got pulled back, and just as the zombies got too close for comfort, the door slammed open, and they fell through. Their helper, Mabel, slammed it back shut behind them and pushed the stuff back up against it.
"They're too strong!" she told them. "They're gonna make it in!"
They needed a defensible location. Somewhere with limited entrances.
"The attic!" he shouted back. "We gotta get to the attic!"
Both girls nodded, and they abandoned trying to keep the door shut, instead running through the zombie-ridden halls and up the staircase. The lights switched off all of a sudden and Pacifica tripped, sliding back down the stairs.
"C'mon, c'mon!" she said, and she was up and at it again in a few seconds. As soon as she was through, they shut the door. The girls got to work moving one of the beds—Dipper's—in front of the door, while he grabbed a sheet of craft paper from on the floor and covered the window. The three of them sat down and stayed quiet, all of their nerves shot.
"Mabel, do you know where Dipper is? We need the Journal. I think it's what caused all this."
She shook her head, tears in her eyes. "No, I don't know what happened to him! He was in the middle of all of it, he could be a zombie, or—or—"
"Don't think about that, Mabel!" Pacifica said, grabbing the other girl's shoulders. "We'll figure it out, okay?"
Vic, meanwhile, was two steps from a panic attack and was having a hard enough time as it was. Soos was as good as dead, Dipper and Stan were lost in the action, who knows about anyone else . . .
A fist burst through the door, and all three of them screamed. He grabbed a book from Dipper's bedside table, a good, dictionary-thick one, and wielded it. The door shook and buckled, until it opened, and it was . . .
"STAN?!"
"Close it, close it!" the old man ordered, and they shoved the bed back into place. He sighed in relief, though he was still super tense. Which made sense. They were going through a zombie apocalypse right now.
"Stan, do you know where Dipper is?" Mabel asked, shaking his leg.
"I dunno, kiddo. I dunno about anybody anymore." He sighed, his baseball bat lowering. "I thought I could lie to protect you kids, but now Soos is one of them and Dipper's missing, and something awful tore Vic from all of you. I dunno about you, Northwest, but you're caught up in all this too. I'm sorry."
Vic was full-on sobbing, the panic seeping into his bones. While it probably wasn't going to be permanent, that didn't mean it wasn't pretty dang traumatic at the moment. He felt like he had to do something, though, so he peeled back the paper on the window, hoping against hope to see some semblance of hope.
And . . .
He did.
A lone, blue-hatted figure, fighting off a horde with a shovel.
"Dipper!" he shouted, looking at everyone. "He's down there! We have to help!"
"Dipper?!" Mabel screamed, and she straight-up punched the glass and climbed through to try and get to her brother. Vic was a second behind, and Pacifica stayed up with Stan to try and hold their position and, y'know, not die.
They nearly slipped off the roof, on tiles slick with zombie guts, and ran across them to get closer. Mabel, at total disregard for her own life at the moment, jumped off, using a zombie to break her fall, while Vic used his arm to get himself lower, though it hurt like hell. They both ran through the growing crowd to get to him.
They weren't going to make it. The zombies were surrounding them too much, blocking their path. One got a solid grip on Vic, who squirmed and fought and tried to escape, but it was too much. He went under a sea of moldy green that stung his nose and ripped open scratches.
He felt teeth, and he thought it was the end.
But . . . it wasn't.
He kept his thoughts. His skin didn't change. He didn't feel dead. Even as it chomped down for a second time, he barely felt it.
It didn't get the chance for a third one, as a shovel slammed into its head and he was pulled from the crowd by the twins. They ran together, and it took him a second, all hopped up with adrenaline as he was, to realize just how hard all of them were crying.
How was he not dead, or changed, like Soos had been? What did that mean?
He remembered the more pressing matter.
"Dipper! Is there a solution in the Journal to get rid of them?"
"No!" the boy cried, the black light beneath them illuminating the tears even brighter. He pulled out the Journal to show him. "It doesn't say anything about weaknesses!"
"Wait! Dipper!" Mabel said, pointing to the pages. Vic did a double take. They glowed in the purple light, another layer on top of it, completely different.
"What?!" He put it on the ground and flipped through the pages. All of them had a glowing overlay. "All this time I thought I know all the Journal's secrets. But they're written in some kind of invisible ink."
"Is there a solution on the zombie page?" Vic asked urgently, glancing over his shoulder. The zombies were preoccupied with . . . something, but they were starting to notice their hiding behind a table.
Dipper quickly flipped through the pages until he came to the right one. It brought back memories of the beginning of summer, when they thought Norman was a zombie. "Yes! 'Zombies have a weakness! Previously thought to be invincible, their skulls can be shattered by a perfect three-part harmony'." He paused. "Three-part harmony, how can we create that?"
"I mean, your scream is pretty high, but other than that . . ."
"Boys, boys," Mabel said, surprisingly cheerful. "I think you're both missing the obvious solution. Vic, what kind of songs can you play on that guitar?"
The lightbulb went off at the same time.
"Wait, is this gonna hurt Soos and all the others who got changed?" Vic asked, concerned.
"Uhh . . ." Dipper scanned the page. "It doesn't say. But if the music shatters their skulls, it's probably because they're weak from being dead, meaning recently turned people are okay?"
"Really?"
"I dunno! But it's better than nothing, come on!"
They hurried around the Shack to an area devoid of zombies and stood up on one of the cars. He mumbled the name of the song and they both nodded as he pulled out his guitar. No time to tune it, the zombies were getting closer. He pulled the strap over his head, grabbed his pick, and—
A chord, D chord, D A E,
A, D, D A E
Mabel started it off. "She's a good girl, loves her mama, loves Jesus and America too."
Dipper continued, his voice awkward and strained. "She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis, loves horses and her boyfriend, too."
Vic could feel the cold sweat sliding down the back of his neck as every single zombie turned toward them. Hit the notes, hit the notes, don't let it stop you, he pleaded to himself, and by some miracle, his fingers didn't slip up.
"It's a long day, livin' in Reseda, there's a freeway running through the yard," he sang, fear making his voice shake. His eyes fell on the twins, who were glancing up at him with fear.
They were counting on him. They would all die if he failed here.
"And I'm a bad boy, cuz I don't even miss her, I'm a bad boy for breakin' her heart."
Just keep up those chords. He could do this. It was one pattern.
Ignore the zombies.
"And I'm freeeee, free faaallin'!" they all sang as one, and the zombie that was reaching for Mabel froze. All of them froze. A swarm of green flesh and yellow eyes, all staring up at him. One heck of a concert. "Yeah I'm freeee, free faaallin'!"
Second verse.
They all sang, and slowly, they got more in sync, their voices harmonizing instead of clashing. One zombie reached for Vic's ankle, and Dipper stomped on its hand. By the time they hit the chorus again, they hit the 'perfect' mark, somehow, and the first zombie clutched its head before it exploded, sending green goo flying.
"Freeeee, free faaaallin'!"
Zombie after zombie fell. Pacifica and Stan peeked out of the window in the attic, and the shock on their faces was apparent even from this distance. Music and singing, destroying zombie skulls? It was nonsense.
But then again, this was a cartoon, and the world thrived on nonsense in moderation, so it fit in perfectly.
He almost missed the fact that the third verse shifted to Asus4, but his fingers moved as if they had a life of their own, hitting it perfectly.
"I wanna glide down, over Mulholland, I wanna write her name in the sky," he sang, his voice meshing with Dipper and Mabel's. It echoed over the crowd, and zombie heads exploded dramatically. "I wanna free fall out into nothing, gonna leave this world for a while."
Would he ever leave this world?
Would it really be such a bad thing?
"Now I'm freeee, free faaallin'! Yeah, I'm freeee, free faaallin'!"
Again and again and again. Time and time again, repeating it past when it usually went until every single zombie, except for Soos and the other casualties of the night, had fallen, and the ground was caked with green slime.
The last note rang out dramatically, and the three of them were left panting and covered in slime.
The adrenaline slowly ran out, and he slumped to the ground. His chest heaved like it would never stop, and he felt tight and nervous. He felt like he had to twist his wrists and squeeze himself to get rid of the tension, but it didn't help. Eventually, a hand fell on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Stan staring down at him.
"You're okay. It's over."
Vic closed his eyes, shuddered one last time, and nodded, rising shakily to his feet. Dipper and Mabel were looking at the Journal in one of the black lights and talking quietly with each other. He could vaguely make out Pacifica running around and guiding the still-savable zombies to a spot where they wouldn't eat any of them.
Stan finally noticed what his great-niece and nephew were doing and went over to investigate, Vic trailing him as he wiped spare zombie goo off his guitar. Hopefully none of it went inside, he thought with a grimace.
"What're you two . . . what? Where . . . where'd you get that?" Stan asked the twins, who looked up at him, then at each other, nodded, and looked back up.
"Grunkle Stan . . . we haven't been completely honest with you," Dipper said, closing the book and showing it to Stan. Vic very carefully watched his eyes. There was something . . . weird about his reaction. "I found this book in the woods at the beginning of summer, and it's got all kinds of crazy stuff. It's how we knew to use the music to defeat the zombies."
There was definitely something weird about Stan's reaction. He could see it slightly in his wide eyes, in his body language.
"We don't know what it means, or who wrote it, but . . . well . . . you should probably know. You did just help us take down the zombies."
They were quiet for a moment, until Stan eventually said, "Thanks for telling me, kid, though I don't appreciate you hiding it. This town is crazy, so you need to be careful. I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt on my watch. I'll let you hold on to that spooky Journal, but only as long as you use it for self-defense, and not go looking for trouble."
". . . okay, as long as you promise me that you don't have any other bombshell secrets about this town."
"Promise."
"Promise," Dipper said, but Vic, standing next to him, could see the crossed fingers . . . and could hear the same sound effect twice. Stan lied, too. He'd have to be careful about that.
Pacifica ran back over, pointing towards the horde of recognizable zombies that she'd kept together by literally pouring a circle of salt. "I collected all the zombies, now turn them back, or whatever."
"Uhhh . . ." Can we even do that?
Dipper flipped through the pages in the Journal, quickly answering his unspoken questions. "There's a page in here about curing zombification, but it's gonna take a lot of formaldehyde. And cinnamon, apparently."
"Thank goodness." If they were permanently dead . . .
After curing all of the people, an unfortunately lengthy and messy process, they just . . . sorta . . . wandered away, and it was fine, just like that. Vic, meanwhile, was scrubbing at his guitar with a wet paper towel, trying to get the green goop out of the wood. A shadow fell over him, and just from the ridiculousness that the hat added to the silhouette, he didn't need to look up to know it was Dipper.
"What do you want?" he mumbled, pointedly looking at the floor between the other boy's shoes.
"I . . . I wanted to apologize. I—I got us into a lot of trouble by accident, and—"
"At this point, Dipper, it's gonna take more than an apology," Vic cut in. "You specifically went against my wishes and invaded my privacy, and now you've endangered so many more people. Even if it was on accident, that's not okay."
Dipper awkwardly rubbed his arm. "That's . . . that's fair."
"Same applies to Mabel, if you wanna tell her too. She's probably around the corner or something, right?"
"Nah. Not this time. I . . . sorry. I'll leave you alone."
The boy slouched off, and Vic watched him leave, something twisting in his chest. Maybe he'd been too harsh, but he needed to learn his lesson. It would be morally wrong for him to just let him off with a warning.
So why did it feel so bad?
Still not abandoned, believe it or not. I figured out that the slowness of my computer was due to a backlog of updates, and writing has gotten significantly easier now that it doesn't take half a billion years to get to the page.
Not . . . completely happy with how this turned out, but it does what it needs to.
As always, I'd love seeing your comments, critiques, whatever, and hang in tight. I won't say it's coming soon, since knowing me it probably isn't, but more chapters will be coming.
Eventually.
Bye! ~RTW