So I started to write the Return of Doctor Mysterio in like, October ish, but I couldn't figure out how to make the cold open "fit" properly. So I decided to write it into a side story. This is that side story
From one point of view, this story is an epilogue. Not this point of view. From this point of view, it's a prologue. The point of view where it's an epilogue is a point of view you are likely to be familiar with. But it's not the one we are following.
The star of this story is a little boy named Grant. If there was someone else you might've been expecting she's not here and won't be for a while. She's otherwise occupied. She's also the one from whose point of view this is an epilogue.
Grant is fast asleep (he has this in common with someone else).
What he is dreaming about doesn't really matter as much as the fact that he's eight, loves superheroes, and always gets colds on Christmas do.
These three facts are very important as they are the reasons his life is about to change forever.
There is a man in front of his window outside. And to the left of his window and to the right of his window. It's the same man. He has curly grey hair and angry eyebrows and he is dangling by his leg and swinging back and forth and shouting for the child. This is what woke the child up.
This man is the Doctor.
The exact series of events that led to him dangling by his leg several stories in the air aren't particularly important and probably wouldn't have happened if his friend was there to stop him, but, as stated before, she is asleep.
"Hey!" shouts the man.
The boy gets out of bed, flashes a light in the man's eyes by accident, and then opens the window.
"Hello!" the man says cheerfully.
"What are you doing?" Grant asks cautiously. The man is dressed a bit like a stage magician.
"I was setting a trap."
"A trap?"
"On your roof."
"What happened?"
"I tried it out."
"How?"
"Accidentally. And if she finds she won't be happy."
"Who?"
The man stopped swinging. "Close friend of mine. She normally keeps me from doing stuff like this."
The boy stared at the odd man. "Why didn't she this time?"
"She doesn't know I'm doing this."
"Why not?"
"I didn't want to wake her up."
Grant sneezes.
It's Christmas. He always gets colds on Christmas.
"Bless you." says the man.
"Thanks." Grant replies. He was raised to be a polite young man.
"What's your name?"
"Grant!"
"Hello, Grant." the man smiles, "What floor is this?"
"Sixty!" Grant answers.
The man's smile falls. He glances downward. He mumbles something under his breath about how if the fall doesn't kill him, "she" might. Grant figures that "she" might be the one who's sleeping.
"Would it alright if I came in?" the man asks.
"I'll have to ask my mom." Grant replies.
He shuts the window and turns around to leave.
Grant is not especially cruel, he's just eight.
Slamming the window on a man dangling by his legs by a fraying rope is something that a much older Grant will remember doing and wince.
There's a handful of things that Grant will do this evening that he will think about when he's older nonstop and wince.
Grant leaves his bedroom and runs across the hall to where his mother is fast asleep. A key detail is that the boy's father is at the corner store buying batteries. Because after putting gifts under the tree, she and her husband had realized that there wasn't a single double-A in the house.
"Mom, wake up.!"
Grant's mother, who had only just gotten into bed fifteen minutes or so ago after putting gifts under the tree for her son, groaned lightly.
"Hmm?"
"There's an old guy hanging out the window! He's asking to come in."
"Hmm? Oh. It must be Santa Claus. You can let him in."
Important things to note about Grant's mother:
She is incredibly tired. It's Christmas Time. And she lives on the 60th floor of an apartment building.
The Christmas season is very tiring for mothers who work full-time and have eight-year-old sons in New York.
She's barely awake and her best guess is that her husband has gotten home sooner than she thought she was going to and is playing Santa. She's unlikely to remember most of this conversation when she wakes up.
Grant, having been given permission by his mother, rushes back to his bedroom. He opens the window and stares at the man.
"Mom says you can come in," he says with a smile and a nod to the man. He's probably not Santa, but something tells Grant that he can trust him.
The man has that sort of effect on children.
"You're expected." He turns around to leave just as the cable holding the man finally breaks and sends the man plummeting.
Fortunately, "Santa" does not plummet to his death. He catches himself on the window sill, pulls himself into the room, and collapses to the floor.
Grant returns from the kitchen with a cup of milk and a plate of cookies.
Again, Grant isn't cruel or callous. He's simply eight. And perhaps he ignored Santa hanging out of a window after opening it, but it was only to retrieve milk and cookies for him.
Surely that evens things out enough to stay on the nice list.
"Sorry, did you say I was expected?" Santa? repeated.
"Yeah." Grant nods.
"Who did you say I was?" the man asked.
"I told her I saw an old guy at the window." Grant sneezes again.
Grant watches the man's eyes move past him to the small Christmas tree on his dresser.
"Ho-ho-ho-ho. Merry Christmas, Grant!" The man takes a bite of one of the cookies.
"I'll be right back," Grant whispers.
By then, Grant's father has returned with the batteries and has joined his wife in bed. Grant peaks in, and finding them both fast asleep, rushes back to his bedroom where he finds the man, with a cookie in one hand, and one of his Superman comics in the other.
In most circumstances, a person would be furious to find someone touching one of their precious comics with crumb-covered hands, but in this case, the person in question is eight, so he doesn't care that much.
What he does care about, is the fact that as soon as he enters the room, he is shushed.
"Mom and Dad are asleep now. I can get you back on the roof. I know the way."
The man shushes him again. He's flipping through the pages of his comic book intently.
"What are you doing?"
"Take a look at that picture." He holds out the comic book.
"Okay?" It's just a panel of Clark Kent talking with Mrs. Olsen. It's one of Grant's newer comics. He's only read it twice. So it's possible that the man has noticed a cool Easter egg that he hadn't.
"Now this one." The man flips to another panel. This one with Superman front and center. "Take a good, long look. It takes a moment to see it."
"See what?"
"Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same person."
Grant is eight years old. That's practically ten which means he's a big kid. Grown-ups don't really seem to get that. So sometimes they state the obvious to him, because they think that it's something new and exciting and they're trying to be nice.
Grant finds that incredibly annoying, and he's fairly certain that the adults know that it's annoying but they do it anyway.
The point is that Grant knows how grow-ups sound when they're pretending not to know things for his benefit. This man doesn't sound like that. He sounds like he thinks that he's discovered something new.
"Are you serious?" is all Grant can bring himself to say.
"Yeah. Look, I drew specs on Superman."
Again, if Grant wasn't both eight years old and distracted he would be furious at the vandalism of his comic.
"Everyone knows they're the same person."
The man stares at him, and then back at the comic and then back at him and then back at the comic and he stares at the comic for a moment, before finally saying:
"Well, Lois Lane doesn't, and she's a reporter."
Grant continues to stare at the man, not saying anything, until the man sighs and drops the comic book, and beckons Grant to follow him.
Which he, of course, does.
"Oh! Spider-Man!" the man remarks. Grant hadn't realized that he'd taken another comic with him. But he's flipping through it and nodding thoughtfully.
"You know who Spider-Man is?"
"Of course, I know who Spider-Man is! My friend loves Spider-Man, which is funny because she hates Spider-Spiders. Both radioactive and not."
Grant hums noncommittally as they reach the 61st floor. The man mentions his friends a lot. One more floor from the roof. He wonders if this friend is the same as the "she" or if he has a bunch of different friends.
"You know in real life, if you got bit by a radioactive spider, you'd get radiation poisoning. No sticking to walls or super strength. Just vomiting, hair loss, and death? Fat lot of use."
Grant pushes open the door to the roof. Technically, it's supposed to remain locked, and he's technically not allowed up there.
But the door is unlocked and his parents are asleep. There's a blue box on the roof on the other side of the stairs. Grant doesn't think he's ever seen that before.
The man takes Grant up a small flight of stairs to something that looks sort of like what a robot who'd only heard a tree vaguely described to it once might think a Christmas Tree looks like.
"Hey! What do you think?" the man asks him.
"That looks-"
"I know" "Cheap"
"Oh, shut up!" Grant coughs again and the old man looks at him in concern. He's always had a soft spot for children. "Got a cold there, Grant?"
"I always get a cold on Christmas."
Grant has sneezed enough in front of enough people this time of year that it's more automatic response than anything.
"Me too." the man replies, "Or an invasion"
The man is odd.
He reaches into his coat and retrieves a plastic cup of water. It's full, and when Grant takes it, it's neither cold nor warm.
"Where did you get that from?" Grant asks.
"My pocket."
"How do you keep a glass of water in your pocket?"
"Skills." the man replies. He turns back to look at the pile of junk on the rooftop. "Now hush, I've got a lot of work to do. Take this"
The man reaches into his pocket and retrieves a glowing red and black thing. It's about the size of a die, with twenty triangular sides. It's slightly warm in his hand, but Grant wonders if that's just because of whatever pocket it's been inside of.
"Who are you?" Grant asked.
"The Doctor," the Doctor answered.
Grant looks down at the small red and black thing and the glass of water. And he thinks that he understands some things, but not everything. So he asks more questions.
"Yeah, but who are you?" The Doctor isn't a name.
"Which one, though?" Grant asks, "There's lots of doctors."
Mysterious doctors are like billionaire geniuses with cool tech or immortal psychics with super strength. They're everywhere in comics and stories. "The Doctor" could mean anyone.
"The one. I'm the main one." the Doctor walks around to stares down at him, "The original. I started it. They're all based on me. Now everyone who wants to sound clever calls themselves Doctor. Bandwagon!"
The Doctor walks back to his machine and well, he IS a Doctor. And he gave him something and a glass of water. He assumes that it's something for his cold. He puts the twenty-sided thing in his mouth and washes it down with a gulp of water.
In his defense, he is eight.
Every day, adults everywhere make questionable decisions with utmost confidence based on a seemingly sound sense of internal logic. Adults are just old children.
"In a comic book, you know what you'd be called?" Grant replies, "Doctor Mysterio."
The man's eyes lit up.
"Oh, I like that! Doctor Mysterio! I wonder if I could get her to call me that. Doctor Mysterio! I'll have that." Doctor Mysterio goes back to working on his machine, "Nearly ready."
"What is it?" Grant asks.
"Well, in terms that you would understand?" Doctor Mysterio walks around the machine and waves his hands back and forth. "Sorry, there aren't any. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a time-distortion equaliser thingy."
"A what?"
"Well, there's been a lot of localised disruption here in New York, so, er, my fault, actually. Hopefully, this will make it all calm down"
Grant stares at Doctor Mysterio blankly for a moment.
"I don't understand." Doctor Mysterio is using a lot of sci-fi words that he sort of knows, but their meanings change from comic to comic.
"Do you know what a lightning conductor is?"
"Yeah?"
Grant thinks he understands now. That machine directs all of the time distortion in one place. He wonders if it's a good idea to have that sort of thing on the roof of an apartment building full of people.
"Well, it's not like that." Doctor Mysterio says just as quickly.
Grant frowns.
"I thought you were setting a trap."
"I was, to protect this," he gestures to his machine, "I don't want anyone turning it off, or stealing it for a Christmas tree."
"But it looks like a Christmas tree."
"Of course it does, it's science. Do you want to turn the lights on?"
Grant smiles.
"Can I?"
"Go on. It's Christmas Day." He rushes around the side of the machine with Grant following closely after him. He sets down the glass of water. Doctor Mysterio hands him a wire and shows him where to plug it in.
The man has a way with children.
He flicks a few switches and presses a few buttons. Doctor Mysterio leans down so his head is level with his as he watches his machines make sci-fi beeps and boops which to Grant, sounds as scientific as it gets. However-
"Nothing's happening."
"Yeah, because now we get to the cool bit. Come here. Do you see that little door there?" Grant points to a large panel. It's a circular metal ring with six braids of red wire going from it. "Pop it open. Now we turn on the lights. Pop the gemstone right in there." He points to a purple circle in the middle and Grant freezes.
"What gemstone?"
He's only been handed the oddly shaped medicine and the water.
"The gemstone that I gave you. Pop it right in there"
Grant stares at the hole in silence before he whispers "That was a gemstone?"
"Well, it's more than just a gemstone, it's also like a kind of on-board computer. Come here." Doctor Mysterio walks away from the machine. He crouches down to be eye level with him and points upward, "Can you see, can you see that little yellow star at the end of that curve? It comes from near there." The man stands back up and begins to gesture with his hands, "Formed in the heart of a red hole and stabilised in pure dwarf star crystal. The gemstone is intuitive. It knows what you want and draws energy from the nearest star to make it happen. There's only four of them left in the universe. The Apocalypse Monks of the Andorax called this one the Hazandra, the Ghost of Love and Wishes. Okay, then, pop it in."
Grant has good parents who have done their best to temper their language when they know he can hear them, but despite this, Grant is a child who attends school with other children and therefore has heard many words that he knows enough to know he shouldn't repeat.
He is not repeating them, he is most certainly thinking some of them.
"I thought it was medicine," he says quietly.
"What?" Doctor Mysterio says slowly.
"It looked like medicine." Grant replies simply.
"What have you done with it?" Doctor Mysterio takes a step closer to him. He doesn't sound angry at him. But he still takes a step back.
"Well, you gave me medicine and a glass of water, and you said you were a doctor." Doctor Mysterio pulls at his jacket and stares at him for a moment. "I thought it was for my cough."
"Oh," he says. It sounds more like Doctor Mysterio is talking to himself than to Grant. "Oh no. Surely this counts as an emergency. This HAS to be an emergency." The man starts to walk away from him and towards the blue box. He turns around to look back at him.
"Stay put. Don't move, don't touch anything! I'll be right back!-" Then Doctor Mysterio stops walks some more, stops again, turns back around, and begins walking towards him quickly. "No no, if she finds out I left a child in the cold while I ran in the TARDIS she will be very cross."
Grant follows after him. Doctor Mysterio quickly walks over to the blue box from before. He reaches into his pocket, and retrieves a small piece of metal, and pushes open the door.
"Who'll be cross you you?" Grant asks. But he thinks he knows.
"My friend. The one I told you about earlier. Now, come in, come in,"
Grant follows after the man and stops. He stares around the room in shock.
Inside of the box is like something out of a comic book. It's a ginormous room with books lining shelves along the side and steps leading down into a huge control console with a glowing orange thing in the middle.
Doctor Mysterio pats him on the shoulder.
"It's bigger on the inside!" he exclaims.
"Yes. Right. It is isn't. You, stay put. Don't touch anything. I'll be right back."
Doctor Mysterio runs off through a corridor like his pants are on fire and then he's gone, leaving Grant alone in this odd room. It's a spaceship. It has to be be. Grant knows this in the way that children always know everything about things like this.
Grant isn't waiting in the room for very long when he starts to get bored. But he's been told not to leave and he's already apparently eaten something he shouldn't have, and so he stands and listens. He hears Doctor Mysterio's voice before he sees him and he hears an unfamiliar woman's voice as well.
"-but see I figured it would be quick. And I didn't want to wake you up for something-" says Doctor Mysterio.
"What did you do?"
The woman who replies to him sounds amused and like she just woke up.
"Well, I was in New York. And I was working on a device to undo the paradox that's been in New York City ever since the incident with…Well, you remember or know already. So I-"
He hears a loud sigh.
"Doctor…"
"That is who I am."
"Did you accidentally feed a small child a magic rock?" The words are put in the order of a question, but Grant knows too well that tone of voice and it's not.
"Magic?" Grant exclaims.
The voices stop for a moment. And then Grant hears the sound of rapid footsteps.
Just behind Doctor Mysterio is a woman. Presumably, the friend.
She's shorter than the Doctor, her head barely reaches his shoulders. Her hair is dark brown with uneven patches of a lighter brown. It looks messy like she just woke up and frantically tried to comb through it with her fingers and patches of skin around her neck are lighter than the rest of her. She's dressed in an oversized t-shirt that's only just barely remaining on her shoulders, a pair of fuzzy pajama pants, and mismatched socks.
She looks like she just got out of bed. She looks at him for a moment and then she sighs, closes her eyes, and pinches the bridge of her nose.
Grant sneezes.
The woman pats the sides of her pockets and then she seems to realize that her pants don't have any pockets and she rummages inside of her bag instead until she pulls out a small package of tissues.
"Here you go kiddo," she says carefully.
"Thank you," he says, and he blows his nose. He doesn't comment on the fact that her bag doesn't look deep enough for her to be able to reach up to her shoulder the way she did. If the blue box is bigger on the inside, it only makes sense something like a bag could as well. He wonders if Doctor Mysterio's pockets are the same. And if that's why he could hold a full glass of water inside.
"You feeling alright?" The woman asks him. The voice she uses when talking to him is softer than the voice she used to talk to Doctor Mysterio. "Other than that Christmastime cold of yours I mean"
"How did you know I get colds on Christmas?"
"I know lots of things," she says with a wink.
Grant nods. It makes sense that Doctor Mysterio has a friend who "Just knows things". He IS a Mysterious Doctor after all.
For a moment the woman seems like she's crouching down to his level, and then he realizes that it's not her that's gone down. It's him that's gone up. His feet aren't on the ground.
"A little lightheaded?" she pats a hand on his shoulder and gently pushes him down. He feels like a balloon. His feet touch the ground. But the moment she lets go, he starts to float back up again.
"A little light-bodied?" she says, pushing him back down. Her hand doesn't leave his shoulder this time.
"Marion, this is serious." Doctor Mysterio insists. "He-"
"Swallowed your magic D20 because he thought it was a pill for his cold. I know."
"Marion! The Ghost of Love and Wishes is not magic and it's not a D20."
"It's basically magic. And all icosahedrons are D20s in my heart," she replies. "I'm going to let go of your shoulder now?"
She does, and he's hovering a foot or so off the ground. Just about eye level with Doctor Mysterio and he keeps going.
"Grant," asks Marion, "Do you think you can calm down a bit for me?"
Grant wonders if his name was something Doctor Mysterio told her, or if it's another thing that she just knows.
"What happens if I can't!" Grant asks, as he floats higher and higher. His back is pressed against the ceiling of the ship.
Marion and Doctor Mysterio stare up at him. Doctor Mysterio seems worried. Marion seems calm.
"Well, could be worse."
"Marion he's on the ceiling."
"Exactly. There's a ceiling."
"As opposed to what?"
"There not being a ceiling because he's outside and flying through the skies of New York" Marion craned her head back to look at him. "Grant, see if you can pull yourself over to one of those ledges over there. By the bookshelf. There should be a couch over there that you can fall on safely."
"How!"
"Just kind of push off? Or maybe just think about moving? I don't know, I can't fly. You should be able to figure it out. They're your powers. The Ghost of Love and Wishes didn't just give you a random skillset and call it a day. You've read comic books. How do you think your powers work?"
He figures that she knows what she's talking about and probably a lot more than that. So he listens, and he pushes himself towards where she pointed and after a bit of pushing, against the ceiling, he stops needing to do it. He knew what it felt like to move through the air, and then he didn't have to push himself to do it. He just could.
"There you go!" Marion cheers. "You picked it up quick."
Grant feels calm, and so it is of course, at that moment, that he falls. Luckily the couch is there. He wonders if she knew that he would fall in here eventually and had put it there just for him.
The woman runs up the stairs. "Sh-" she cuts herself off. "Shoot are you alright?"
Within, moments, Doctor Mysterio and Marion are sitting on either side of him on the couch.
"Am I a superhero now?" Grant asks in lieu of an answer.
"Well, once the gemstone is gone from inside you, you'll be back to normal. It will pass."
"Keywords being, once the gemstone is gone from inside him."
"Marion, what are you saying?" Doctor Mysterio asks, "Why are you saying it like that."
He's speaking in a harsh whisper that he's not sure if he's supposed to hear, but he does anyway.
"Saying it like what?" Marion doesn't even bother to whisper back.
"Like it's not going to pass."
"Because it's not?"
"What do you mean it's not!"
"I mean it's not. I think he metabolized it or absorbed it or something. I don't know. You're the one who understands the sciency stuff. Half the science I grew up with became useless when I met you. I don't know squat. The superpowers aren't going to go away."
"Superpowers!" Grant exclaims.
"I didn't give him superpowers! I gave him the stone. I didn't expect him to swallow it! Look at him! He's what- thirty-six? He should know better!"
"Thirty-" Marion looks amused and exasperated."Doctor, how old do you think I am?"
"I'm not sure that that's fair to ask. You've looked the same for the thousands of years that I've known you."
Grant wonders if she has the kind of super strength where she could carry both him and Doctor Mysterio with little to no effort or the kind of super strength where she could throw a car and punch through a brick wall.
"Ok." Marions says slowly, "How old do I look."
Doctor Mysterio stares intently at the woman.
"Sevently-four!" He sounds confident. Grant doesn't know why. Grant's grandparents were in their 60s. Marion didn't look older than them at all. If anything, she looked like his older cousins who watched him during the summer when his parents weren't home.
"Too low?" Doctor Mysterio asks.
She just stares at him.
"Too high?"
"The trouble with you is that I can't tell if you're joking or not."
"Was I at least close?"
"Well, at least you didn't hit triple digits. And Grant's eight. Not thirty-six."
"Eight whole years and he doesn't know any better than to put things he shouldn't in his mouth! Honestly!"
"He's literally right here."
Grant feels himself leave the seat and hand on either side of his shoulder keeping him in place. He knows how to get back down though. At least, he's pretty sure that he does. He takes a deep breath in and a deep breath out and then he slowly floats back down where he's supposed to be.
"See!" Marion encourages, "You'll get control of your powers after a while. You just need practice."
"Practice!" Doctor Mysterio scoffs. "He's not going to need practice. Grant promise me one thing. For as long as you have these powers, you will never, ever use them."
"Doctor, that's not fair. And it's not going to work. He's not going to listen."
"Marion-"
"Doctor." Marion stares a the man. There's something in her expression. Grant doesn't know what it is, but he does know that it's there. "He's not going to listen," she says firmly. She says it like she knows she's correct. "He's going to end up using his powers. All telling him not to use them is going to do is make him feel guilty when he does use them. And he's going to feel guilty when he doesn't and something happens that he had the chance to prevent but didn't. There's not- that's not a very good feeling."
"Marion you can't be encouraging him!"
"Well, it's not like he's going to turn into a supervillian."
"Marion!"
Marion seems to not be paying attention to Doctor Mysterio. She's looking at him with a mischievous smile on her face. "Grant, you aren't going to become evil are you?"
"No!" Of course, he's not going to be a villain. He doesn't want to be one of the bad guys.
"Good. Keep that energy. You seem like a pretty good kid. I'd hate to have to stop you."
"Marion! Surely you don't expect a child to run around stopping crime."
"What?" Marion froze. "Of course not. Did it sound like I did? I think it sounded like I did. Grant. Don't do that." It's a sudden change in her tone.
"But you said I should use my powers" Did she change her mind?
"I meant when you're older. An adult. I mean it's one thing if you see something happening in front of you, but don't start actively searching and going on patrols while you've still got math homework to worry about. Be a kid."
"A kid who can levitate," Grant says slowly.
Marion nods at him. "A kid who doesn't need a chair to reach the top shelf."
"Of course, that would be the first thing you think of"
"Shut." Marion pokes Doctor Mysterio in the side. "And I don't need to worry about reaching high shelves because Honey loves me and puts things where I need them."
Grant wonders if "Honey" is the name of the billionaire genius. Maybe she's the one who built this spaceship.
"I'm serious though Grant." Marion breaks him out of his musings, "All of the kids in your comics have a team or something. You don't have that right now."
"Right now? Does that mean there'll be more kids with powers?"
"There better not be!" "Hopefully not!" Marion and Doctor Mysterio say at the same time.
"Wait until you're older to be a hero."
"Just don't be a hero at all." says Doctor Mysterio, "Just keep a low profile, and don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong!"
"Are you telling him not to interfere?" the tone in Marion's voice tells him that she finds something about that statement funny.
"It's not the same."
"No. Of course not." Marion replies in a tone he's heard from his aunt mocking his dad.
"Listen, Grant. Be a kid. Enjoy being a kid. Don't rush into danger because you're a kid, and right now, your job is to be a kid. Don't worry about being a hero until you're an adult."
"But what am I supposed to do now?" Grant asks.
"Now?" says Marion. She stands up. She rummages through her bag and retrieves a rectangular device about the size of her palm. She taps something on the side and he can see a light shine on her face for a moment, before she taps the button again, the light disappears, and she slides it back into her bag. "Well now, you've got to go back to bed. It's 1:30 am and you've got to be up bright and early!"
"What for?"
"It's Christmas. And you've got to wake up bright and early tomorrow to open your gifts." She gestures with the side her her head. "Come on, up you get!"
And so Marion and Doctor Mysterio usher him out of the blue box and down the stairs and back to the sixtieth floor and into bed.
When he wakes up and sneaks up to the roof a little bit after the sun rises and a little bit before waking his parents up to see what's under the tree, the not-tree is gone and so is the blue box, and all that remains to prove that he hadn't just dreamt it all is an open comic book with glasses scribbled in ballpoint pen and the way his feet keep leaving the ground when he's not paying attention.
From a certain point of view, this is a story that takes place after another story has been completed. A neat epilogue to tie up loose ends. But, like I told you. This isn't that point of view. From this point of view, it's a prologue. And the story of the Ghost has only just begun!
The next chapter of the main fic will be out March 13th as scheduled. As always, the release date for the next side story is as pretty much a mystery to everyone including me until about five minutes before I post something on tumblr.