Degenerieren
To put it frankly and simply, it was nasty. Emilee didn't really put much thought into blood, guts and broken bones, since it was an occurrence she was exposed to all too frequently. The human and replika bodies weren't meant to withstand the power bioresonance could conjure on their own after all, so bone spurs and torn flesh was just another weekday. Still, the state that the barely alive kolibri unit was in made her pause. There was…nothing left of her, to say the least, only her mechanical skeleton and blood-soaked uniform.
"I-I don't even…" Suzuya stammered, unable to command her shivering muscles from behind where Emilee knelt. "I don't even know where I'd begin."
The rest of the replika units they found stashed in the outpost's deepest basement weren't in much better shape, either beaten to death probably by a P-SEC bouncer or because of being infected by whatever the kolibri was perpetuating. The few that were relatively unscathed had been flushed out of the ducts one by one, and once Gilroy's 30 minutes were up, whatever operation the Storch had been running had ended as they scraped through the outpost floor by floor. What they found was mostly inconsequential; a few floppy disks containing correspondence between branches, as well as communications between Nation AEON spokespeople and the Storch. While none of them ruled out that P-SEC was in bed with their enemy, they couldn't rule this out as merely another rogue faction that turned to piracy.
P-SEC had never been known for "company unity".
Emilee rested her hand gently on the kolibri's skull, much to Suzuya's displeasure, and felt the hoarse desperation of oxidant flowing through what vessels hadn't been burst. Despite it all, the replika did not whimper nor cry…it merely stared towards an object unseen by all those who witnessed her.
"You know I'm going to have to order you into quarantine, right?" Suzuya reminded her from the safety of her e-suit. "Why didn't you just listen to me?"
Emilee pulled her hand away. "The soldiers were experiencing its effects before we even landed on Lager. This isn't a disease of natural conscience."
"That doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful, Emi. Something is very wrong about this place."
"Stop worrying," she turned, flashing her a smirk. "You're with me."
"It's not us that I'm worried about. I don't have the resources to treat a company-wide pandemic, especially one I don't understand."
Emilee sighed. "I'll figure it out."
She felt the presence of three armed men enter the basement, and the glow of their head-mounted flashlights nearly blinded her as they approached.
"Report, Special Unit," Gilroy commanded, his armor riddled with splotches of blood and oxidant, certainly more than his two rear guards.
Emilee took her time pulling in one last visual survey of the room before rising to her feet and snapping her fingers, prompting their lights to dim and her vision to clear. Gilroy's weapon had expended multiple clips, and through his visor she saw the face of the man on Vineta, fresh with the smell of ocean and fried electronics.
"You're in the shit now, kid," he'd said, taking a seat beside her at the edge of a former balcony…now a mere beachhead overlooking drowned skyscrapers and freeway ramps. "Nobody's forcing you to stay."
Emilee clasped her scabbed, bloodied fingers into fists repeatedly, each time confirming that her body still followed her commands.
"I lost control, Eric," she recounted, unable to wipe away the tears that dripped from her lashes with each word. "And I don't even remember what happened."
He scratched against his stubbled chin with the only good arm he had left, and then adjusted the strap keeping the other from falling out of place. "Sure but…you also saved us in there. You did what you had to do."
"But I didn't do anything. I just screamed…and it was like the whole world died around me," she recounted, instinctually covering her ears in the process. "W-what if I do that when I'm surrounded by friends? What if I become the monster they say I am?"
"Monsters aren't born, kid," he soothed. "They only exist in the eyes of those who choose to see them. Whether you allow them to justify that belief isn't always your choice."
She sniveled. "You're just saying that."
He'd turned to her at that moment, and still to this day, she couldn't remember what he had said in response.
"Dead reps," she reported, gesturing towards the bodies strewn across the room. "Besides this one."
Gilroy flashed a look towards the kolibri and then back to her. "Why haven't you killed her yet?"
Suzuya stepped forward. "Sir—"
"Because I think she's behind the infection," Emilee cut her off, mentally suggesting that she trust her.
"All the more reason to put her down now," he gestured with his rifle and a flick of his head towards the others. "Dutch, do the honors."
"Hey!" Emilee raised her voice, stepping between the body and the soldier. "I said I wasn't finished."
"Step aside, bio-freak, or I'll do it for you," they grumbled from behind their darkened visor.
She snorted. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."
Gilroy sighed. "Colt."
The other stepped forward, shoving aside Suzuya and raising his barrel, only for their entire world to devolve into an endless shriek of mental agony. Emilee felt her eardrums rupture, her hair twist itself in needles, her organs fold into themselves until she was vomiting them out in a horrific mesh of flesh and blood. She tried to scream, but that only tore her throat into ribbons as her bones cracked, splintered and dissolved until everything that she was had been reduced to ashes.
That is, that's what would have happened, had her mind gone along with it. Instead, she and the kolibri found themselves on a beach surrounded by torn, blasted cliffs and unsettling rock formations, all unfamiliar within the familiar. She'd never been here before…and yet she had…many times.
Pressing her hands against her breast and midriff, she felt the tangibility of her body, and a sigh escaped her lips in a cold fog.
There was that smell of saltwater again.
"You smell like the others," the kolibri said, her eyes fixed towards an unrecognizable island off in the horizon.
Emilee rolled her eyes. "I don't know why all you rats say that."
The replika sniffed twice. "Just like—"
"The commander, yes I know."
"—her."
Emilee blinked, surprised. "Fraternization?"
"Is this funny to you?" she asked, the stillness of her head far too perfect to be natural. "Do you take pleasure in my suffering?"
"I just saved your wretched life, you little shit. Pray I don't change my mind about that."
"You don't understand," the girl whimpered, ducking her head behind her knees. "I was supposed to die. She was supposed to kill me."
Emilee frowned. "Who was supposed to kill you?"
The kolibri was held together by tight threads that pulled at her limbs and muscles with each movement…as if she were a puppet. She'd seen it used before when Falke units engaged their battle melds to command legions of stars, but this was something far more sophisticated, and it wasn't supposed to work on bioresonant replikas, who merely required the mind bond with their respective commander.
If Emilee wasn't pulling the strings…then who was?
"I don't…I don't remember," she finally answered her question. "It…it's been so long…so long."
Emilee squinted, taking another mental picture of their surroundings. "Where do you think we are right now?"
She sniveled. "I don't know."
"Take a guess."
"I don't know! None of us are here by choice!"
"Speak for yourself," Emilee retorted, projecting her form to the other side of the kolibri, and ran her fingers through the flowing threads. "Because I have a feeling that whoever did bring me here—"
Jiang, Emilee
Type: Gestalt Dreamwalker
Homeworld: [UNKNOWN]
Threat: EXTREME
"—isn't far…" she trailed off as the threads slackened, and one by one released their hold upon the kolibri's form, leaving it to collapse into the sand as slack-jawed as she had found it.
Emilee didn't understand. Was there something she'd missed?
"Thank you."
In an instant she was behind the new visitor, pulling them into a near-fatal chokehold while a flowing wave of snow-white hair separated the two of them. She grunted, only to sense another presence behind her and engage in the same maneuver. Another presence. Same maneuver. Centuries could have passed with how many times she did it, and yet nothing changed.
On her final attempt, she instead flipped the woman around and caught a mental glimpse of their face. Red eyes. White hair. Soft features. Slightly shorter.
A freight train into her chest.
The metal against her back was the worst part. She had mere seconds to save herself from becoming flattened mincemeat, which should have been plenty, but the ringing in her head was so violent that she could only feel her adrenaline instead of her thoughts. Nearly lashing out in defense, she stopped herself at the last moment, knowing that the last time she had done that…the smell of saltwater was potent.
Amongst her throbbing agony all throughout her body, she felt boots pounding against the floor, followed by a blinding light straight into her gaze. Someone shouted, but it was nothing more than a distant echo, followed by the loud BANG of a gunshot.
"K-k-kill her. Kill-her-kill-her-kill-her-KILL HER!"
"…milee! Emilee! What happened?!"
She wheezed. Gilroy…again.
"KILL THE RAT! KILL HER!" she commanded, pouring every ounce of mental strength she had into the order.
"She's dead! Dutch got her. You're alright," he eased. "Hasegawa!"
How could he lie to her? She could still feel the kolibri's mind perpetuating its song. Emilee had to kill her. She had to kill her now.
But her mind was too muddled by whatever she'd been hit with, and without her bioresonance, she wasn't nearly strong enough to overpower Gilroy. Did that mean that the kolibri's song was nothing more than part of the noise? Was he actually telling the truth?
Could she even trust her senses anymore?
The woman had thanked her, but Emilee couldn't imagine what the hell for. Her photographic memory had burned their face into her brain, but she knew that the longer she took to make it tangible, the more her mind would exercise its liberties on that image. After all, with how unreliable it was, she wasn't even sure if it would last.
Frustration ignited within her chest like an engine. Whether she understood what had just happened to her or not, there was no way she was going to let that bitch win. No fucking way.
It was only then that she realized the frivolity of her earlier frantic thoughts. She didn't need to kill the kolibri now, as of course, time meant nothing to her. While her body was sluggish and slow, her mind was not subject to such weakness, and wasn't bound by the piercing agony that radiated from her spine. All she needed was to focus. Just…focus.
For fuck sake, how could she focus with all this noise? It was being projected from every artifice she could imagine, enacting its will upon every object within its reach…but above all its attention was placed squarely on her mind. It was deafening, seeming to mimic the sound of taught steel cables blowing in a harsh wind.
She couldn't focus, not until the rat was dead, but as she looked towards its body, it was as motionless as Gilroy had promised.
Suzuya was in her face now, and by the Empress had she not realized how badly she wanted to see it.
"Help me, Su," she begged as she held her hands tightly over her ears. "My god fucking help me, please!"
Her friend's voice was muffled against the endless noise, but the embrace she gave her was the anchor into reality that she'd desperately needed. "You have to tell me what happened. Just stay calm. One thing at a time."
What happened? She…she couldn't remember. Not anymore. It was too loud. Way too loud.
"I don't know," was all she said. "White…hair."
Suzuya shook her head, and instead tended to the physical malice she was trained for. "I can't understand you. Can't you remember?"
Remember our promise?
You don't belong here.
Remember our promise?
GET OUT
REMEMBER OUR PROMISE
REMEMBER
REMEMBER
REMEMBER
Emilee felt the bones in her skull strain under her mounting pressure, both from without and within, until the agony became too much to bear.
"Kill me…" she begged and began to frantically pound her forehead against the metal floor. "Kill me! Kill me! KILL ME!"
A needle slipped into her neck, and the universe finally, mercifully, fell silent.
"None of us are here by choice."
The spit that erupted from Jones' mouth as he scoffed was enough to splash against Jeremy's otherwise spotless uniform. "Shut the fuck up, Yu."
"Yes, nobody wants to hear you bitch," Freese concurred, her leg dangling over the edge of their newly claimed combat information center war table, her rifle held over her shoulder in such a manner that emulated practically every draft propaganda poster back home. "These P-SEC jockeys weren't even worth our time of day, let alone on this blasted, shithole rock."
"You really still think they're P-SEC? With all the reps we've seen?" Omar asked, much less flippant than his two counterparts. "This is some false flag bullshit."
Jones scoffed even louder. "If this is a false flag, they sure as hell did a shit job making it look like we took out anything more than disposable trash. If anything, we did them a fucking favor putting down a bunch of defunct rep defectors."
"Should've given me a crack at the storch," Freese winked, revealing and twirling a switchblade between her fingers. "Would've had her singing her little song in minutes."
Omar scrunched his nose as his fist threatened to crush his foregrip. "Should've just put a bullet in her head."
"Prejudice and torture?" Jones clicked his teeth. "Very messy, friends."
"Every girl has her vice," Freese shrugged, setting aside her rifle to properly display her dexterity with the blade. It was only out of the corner of his eye did Jeremy catch it glinting towards his neck, allowing him to duck away just in time. "And every boy his obsession."
Jeremy looked down at the bridge of the knife, thinking of the dozens of ways he could get out of his position, but instead held up one of the photos in his deck. "This eule was pretty convinced she'd been captured by the time the storch shot her."
"Yikes!" Jones winced at the image. "That's one way to get a new breathing hole."
"The only rep you can trust is a dead one," Omar stood by his point, kicking aside a long dead corpse of a eule at his feet. "Could've been programmed to spout that lie anyway."
"That's not how reps work," Jeremy argued. "Nothing that specific anyway, not without a Falke nearby, which Emi – which the Dreamwalker confirmed wasn't here."
Freese leaned her head against her fist, flipping the knife in her free hand. "You really think we can trust someone who thinks we're nothing more than cannon fodder?"
"What makes you think that?" Jeremy asked.
Freese pondered for a moment, before wincing. "Woman's intuition."
"The Commander doesn't trust her, teacher's pet," Jones answered for him. "You sure she's not messing with your noggin, new guy?"
Jeremy shrugged indifferently. "Guess I'll never know."
"Grace-damned cuckhold," Omar spat under his breath.
"Hey-hey!" Jones pointed. "You keep that potty mouth going and the principal's gonna be pissed."
"It's not a joke you fuckin baboon!"
"Boys please, let's avoid the blood rage thing that killed these poor cretins," Freese suggested, stepping down from her seat atop the table…and abruptly pinching her nose in revulsion. "Speaking of which, what is that rancid smell?"
Jeremy was looking for an excuse to get out of explaining to his fellow soldiers why he believed Emilee's story…because they certainly had a point. While it was true that she was able to find the kolibri unit that had perpetuated whatever mental signal was driving the troops mad, she'd been extremely vague when it came to answering his questions.
Believe me buddy, you wouldn't know the difference if I wanted it.
If it was true that a Dreamwalker was powerful enough to reshape everyone's perception of reality at once, then why would anyone trust what they see, especially if they didn't trust her to begin with.
Why did he trust her?
Perhaps Freese was right. Maybe it was his obsession with the deck in his hand, filled with a plethora of the best images he'd ever captured…but did it even matter?
The smell she had pointed out kept his mind from being able to continue down the line of thought, its vile concoction of rotting innards nearly drawing vomit from his throat.
"Maybe it's the dead things, dumbass," Omar answered, still plugging his nose along with the rest of them.
"If it's dead, it's got to be the most unkempt bastard in the universe. Empress protect – fuck me that's bad," Jones protested, his boots against the floor growing into a pounding with each step he took to locate the source. "Take a look—"
The universe screamed, and for a moment, Jeremy was sure he'd never hear anything else again. Seconds, minutes or centuries passed before it finally stopped, his instincts kicked into overdrive as muscle memory drove his hand to open, closing around the trigger grip of his rifle, and dive behind the closest outcropping he could find…which was nothing in the open CIC.
His ears…no, his mind…was still ringing, but he heard Omar scream in surprise, followed by the loud bang of two shots being fired, and the spine-tingling death throe cry of an abomination.
"The fucking bitch moved!" Omar shouted, pointing towards the dead eule who now had fresh holes in her brain.
"Shut up!" Jones ordered from the other side of the room, holding his rifle as steady as possible. "What the fuck was that?!"
"Mental flashbang," Freese recognized, who turned out to be right beside Jeremy without his notice, holding her blade with a white-knuckled grip and wild eyes. "I thought your bio-freak said there was no Falke!"
"How am I supposed to know any better?!" Jeremy protested, but an audible shriek interrupted her response as the eule on their side of the room dove for his throat with boney hands and a skull shaped manic glare. Every layer of synthetic skin had peeled itself clean, leaving only sagged bits still hanging from her skeletal figure, and a menacing face that he'd only seen in his worst nightmares. It was atop him before he could react, wrapping its fingers around his neck as its gnarled teeth rushed in for a bite, but Freese pulled it into a strong headlock, and proceeded to jam her blade deep into its jugular. Rotten oxidant spewed from its neck, adding to the horrific smell that he'd unmercifully not yet grown numb to, and its rabid thrashes against the certain death wound spoke of something that was beyond the final enemy's grasp.
"Put em down!" Jones commanded, unleashing a fully automatic hellfire from his rifle, the bullets pounding into their targets with brutal ferocity. Jeremy hardly had time to collect himself before Freese was engaged in another hand-to-hand with a new monstrosity; her adeptness with a knife and agility with her body far beyond what he had expected from just another soldier.
By the time Jeremy could wrap his hands around his rifle, the shooting stopped, and the smell had only elevated in its putrid presence.
"We need to move!" Jones shouted. "Get the commander on radio!"
"Since when could they come back from the dead?" Omar gasped; his voice still trodden with the shivers of fresh combat as he fiddled with the comms. "Secondary subroutines?"
"Who gives a fuck?" Freese grimaced, holding her wrist where a plain indent of a metal hand now remained on her uniform. "Squad leader said put em down."
Jeremy still had the eule's vicious eyes seared into his brain, and the fact that they were still looking up at him from the newly dropped body wasn't helping him return to baseline. The hate he'd felt in their grip was nothing like any enemy had ever shown him, even in the soggy trenches of Vineta. All this time they'd been told that replikas feel nothing, but that couldn't be possible after what this…thing had just imposed upon him.
The rage was just so…desperate…as if he'd scorned them so absolutely that his death would only suffice as justice, even beyond their own.
Kill the rat.
Omar roared in frustration. "Radio's beyond fucked! Won't even static."
KILL THE RAT!
"The kolibri…" Jeremy trailed off. "The rat."
"Your bio-freak was supposed to kill that thing! Isn't that what she's good for?" Omar pointed towards him accusingly, his brow stiff into its slanted rage.
Jones seized his arm before he could approach. "Hey, lock it down!"
"I didn't pledge my loyalty to the Empress just to be tormented by some witch!"
KILL ME!
I'll keep my promise.
"What's the matter with you?"
Emilee's gaze was before him, her firm hands holding him steady in the middle of a collapsed tent of bent steel and crumbled cement.
"Did you even hear what I said?"
You need to promise me something, entourage.
"If I start getting out of hand—"
Out of hand.
"I can't trust her to do it."
Suzuya can't do it.
"Put a fuckin bullet in my brain."
I want you to kill me.
"Promise me."
Promise me.
"I will."
Why?
I don't even know you.
"I wish I could understand you."
…
…
No, you don't.
"Dammit, stay with me," Emilee pressed her forehead against his, and the disarray of wayward thoughts slowly converged into a single, readable thread. "You've made it farther than most."
He felt the heat of his heart rise as her soft breath brushed his lips. Her mind was so violently overpowering, but for once he felt it open itself to him, lifting his senses instead of dominating them.
"There's someone else here."
Jeremy frowned. "Who?"
"Wrong question," she chastised him. "You can't think like that. One person means nothing here. One can be many, and many can be one. It's not possible for me to explain properly. It's like describing color to a person without eyes."
He grimaced, frustrated. "Why did you bring me here?"
"I already told you—oh…right," she hesitated. "I have no one else to turn to. There's something out there…in the cosmos. They can see me, but only now can I see them."
I won't be their puppet.
I won't march in their parade.
"Stay with me!" Emilee pressed her head hard enough for pain to wrap around his skull. "Just a few more seconds."
"What is it? Who are they?"
"It doesn't matter. I just need someone else to know. Someone else who can carry on if I fail."
"Fail…if you fail at what? Emilee, I don't understand you!"
"Then let me make it simple for you," she angled her face so all he could see was her eyes straight back into her own. "If I fail. If I become someone else…put a fuckin bullet in my head. I won't do it. I won't be what they want me to be."
You can't.
"Promise me."
You can't promise her!
"It's your job to protect the Empire! Kill me to save it!"
SHE PROMISED TO KILL ME, AND SHE LEFT ME HERE TO ROT!
"You don't even know me…"
TO SUFFER!
"You know your duty."
All alone…
"I…"
Don't say it.
"I prom—"
A hand silenced his answer, and Emilee was gone.
A white-haired girl dominated his vision. "You'll thank me later."
Whatever happened next was far beyond his comprehension; a technicolor barrage of sensory information warped into a whirlpool of emotion and raw, unfiltered power.
I wish you could understand me.
"I wish you'd shut your fuckin mouth!" Jones bellowed, showering Omar's cheeks with saliva as he shook him in his grip. "You wanna express your feelings back on the ship, be my guest, but not while we got zombie reps trying to kill us!"
"This is normal," Freese appeared beside him, getting a jolt as a reward. "You're looking a little lost, polaroid. That rep really got to you?"
"Emilee just tried to speak to me," Jeremy admitted, really without thinking as to why.
Freese studied him for a moment, and the longer she looked, the deeper her frown became. "At first I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now I'm starting to think you need to spend some time with the Providence."
Jeremy shook his head. "No…it was like she was desperate for something…like she was losing a fight to something we can't see."
"Hm," Freese mused. "Fantastic. Even our gods are losing their minds."
"She wasn't insane. I know it."
Freese sighed, just as Jones and Omar seemed to be simmering down. "You'll never know, you poor boy."
Almost on cue, the radio static flared to life, and a signal came through loud and clear. "Vergeltung, this is Commander Gilroy. We evac in ten minutes. All teams return to the surface immediately."
"Enough bickering!" Jones pushed himself to the front of the CIC, and Jeremy felt his drilled muscle memory kick in, numbing himself from all the external distractions that clouded his mind. "Bring up the back, Freese! Through the hallway!"
With well-oiled discipline, their boot pounded out of the CIC and through the cramped, dreary hallway. Immediately Jeremy felt his senses sharpen, the barrel of his gun pointed true towards each pinpoint his eyes identified. He expected to be immediately confronted with reanimated P-SEC bodies, but he was left unsatisfied, much to his surprise.
In fact…he was more unsettled by the fact that there were no bodies along the way.
"Could've sworn I blasted 'bout seven mercs on the way here," Omar vocalized, continuing to follow Jones' lead. "Someone drag them off?"
Perhaps they'd never know. Ten minutes passed and the four of them were seated in the landing craft without spotting a single body…or an undead rep.
The signs were all wrong. A continuous beep of a healthy heart; an entire life support apparatus that looked as if it could keep a whole other person alive. In all her years of saving lives and pulling soldiers out of the jaws of death itself, rarely did Suzuya feel outmatched. Emilee had always challenged her, which was why she had agreed to stay so close…and was why she'd chosen to befriend the terrifying, mute loner that no one else would dare approach as a child.
This was beyond her abilities…and Gilroy knew it.
"She's not waking up," he stated, not even bothering to give her a chance to let him know she'd failed.
All she could do was snort. "We have to take her to Buyan."
"So she can infect everyone else?"
"So we can discover what's wrong with her!" she corrected. "The longer we wait, I worry the worse she'll get."
His silence was unexpected, and as she turned to meet his gaze, it was still fixed on Emilee's unresponsive body.
"Don't tell me you're going to space her—"
"Don't be ridiculous, Providence," he chafed, unleashing a deep sigh. "I didn't say no, but my men and I have a mission to complete. We can't leave the Vineta Ring, not with the Nation sparking up so many skirmishes."
"Be honest with yourself Commander…" she almost pleaded. "If you run into another Falke…what chance do you have without her?"
"We'll manage."
"She pulled the spear from your chest!"
"I remember—"
"You wouldn't even be alive—"
"I know!" he shouted, his voice commanding a silence that not even her beating heart and surfacing tears could force her lips to violate. "You weren't even there. Don't you dare try to leverage that against me."
Suzuya's lips fluttered as a desperate rage sparked within her chest, but she stifled it quickly, recognizing that violence wasn't going to save Emilee. It never was.
"I can't just think like an academy student, Providence! I have to face the reality that Emilee is unstable, unreliable and dangerous. No matter what you think I may or may not owe her, I must protect my men first and foremost. I can't do that while she's here. I can't.
"If you want to take her to Buyan, I'm sure the Admiral will give you clearance, but this is where we depart," he declared, reaching for his weapon and making towards the door.
"You'll regret this," Suzuya promised, but with no malice…only pity. "No matter how many battles you fight, it won't be enough."
Gilroy hesitated a moment, long enough to give her hope he'd change his mind, but she heard the door slide open. "I wouldn't be so sure."
The door shut, and just as always, Suzuya and Emilee were alone once more. The providence grasped her friend's hand, no matter how limp or cold, and pressed as hard as she could.
"I'll keep my promise…"
"I wish you hadn't said that."
Breath rushed into her lungs like a hurricane, sucking in enough sand to immediately force it out again in a horrific bombardment of coughing fits. The moist clumps were red like bricks of adobe, and after what felt like minutes of coughing, she had a whole mound before her.
"So…" she gasped, taking in her first, unabated breath. "Looks like I made it to Hell."
"Interesting time for a chance at levity."
"And the Devil's like my mom…wow," she looked up, and then felt her tongue catch in her throat. The shining red armor…the legs that looked too long to be human…and the battle axe she would never forget.
"Empress?"
Okay, yeah. It's been awhile. I've been doing some adulting. Touching some grass, you get the picture. I'd like to get back into writing here and there and for some reason I really wanted to keep this story going. Apologies if I missed some plot points…it's been awhile and I've had some new thoughts regarding this story's direction. Eh, whatever. This is just casual anyway. Hope you enjoyed!