Nero and Fabian lay in wait behind the main doors of the city's prison, hoping that the guard's shift would end at some point, which would give them a brief window of time that they could use to escape. For ten minutes, they sat in silence, patiently waiting for this Nosepass to clock out.

Or, at least, Nero had been patient. Fabian, on the other hand, was fidgeting with practically every single part of his body that could move; he was twiddling his thumbs, tapping his feet, and flicking his tail so fervently that Nero was starting to wonder if Fabian was having a seizure. "Yeah, right. As if I could be so lucky." Nero shot Fabian a glare. "Stop fidgeting," he whispered.

"I'm not trying to!" Fabian retorted. "And why do you even care?"

"I'm trying to focus on the guard outside, and your constant movement is distracting me," Nero said. As he understood it, his power allowed him to perceive the position of everything around him. Therefore, whenever something's position changed, his new sense heavily focused on it, in exactly the same way that one's eye would find itself drawn to a splotch of neon pink paint on a white canvas.

Fabian rolled his eyes. "Just stop sensing the spot I'm at!"

That wasn't how it worked, and if Fabian had a drop of intelligence in that exceedingly empty brain of his, he'd have figured that out already. "How about you just stop flopping around like a beached Magikarp?" Nero spat.

"Oh yeah?" Fabian asked. "You wanna see flailing?" He began jumping in place and flailing his arms around, creating as much movement as possible and drowning out everything in their surroundings.

"This guy is living proof that Uxie is dead." Nero scowled. "You should keep that up. It makes you look almost as stupid as you really are."

"I'm not stupid," Fabian snarled. "Why are you such an asshole?"

"I'm the asshole? Me? Not the one jumping around like a crazy person-"

"I'm not crazy!" Fabian screamed at the top of his lungs, so forcefully that a few drops of his saliva landed on Nero's face.

Nero narrowed his eyes at him and wiped the spit off his face with his seafoam green scarf that he recovered from the contraband box. "Gross."

Fabian bashfully rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh- uh, s-sorry, my bad. Just, don't call me that again. Please."

"I've never seen him get riled up so quickly." Nero decided to take a mental note of this little outburst. If he ever needed Fabian to see red, he knew just how to make it happen.

"G-Guys?"

Nero and Fabian both turned to stare at the doors, which were now open. That anxious Archen woman from before stood outside, the few of her feathers that weren't obscured by bandages charred black so thoroughly that Nero nearly didn't recognize her. The Nosepass guard was collapsed on the ground beside her, unconscious. "Hm. I overestimated that guard, didn't I?"

"Oh, it's you," Nero said. He assumed that she was dead, so he stopped allowing her name to take up space in his brain. "Sorry, what was your name, again-"

"Sofia, you're alive!" Fabian cheered, bounding towards her and pulling her into an unenviable Bewear hug. "I knew it!"

After finally being released, Sofia got a good look at Fabian's shoulder and gasped. "Oh my… What happened to you?"

Fabian glanced to the side for a moment and shrugged. "I sprained my shoulder."

"Th-That's a hole!" she squawked, flapping her wings in distress. "There's a hole in your shoulder!"

Fabian stuck his finger through the hole until it went out the other side. "Woah, that's cool!" He chuckled to himself. "Hey, that's kinda funny! I was impaled by an icicle, so it's sorta like I made a pun-"

After burying her face in her wings, Sofia turned her attention to Nero. "O-Okay, how about-" her eyes widened. "Y-You- You're- How are you even walking? What in the world happened to you?"

Nero sighed dramatically, more than ready to regale her the sordid details of his tale of woe. "Quincy came in here and ruined my fur cut! I'm utterly terrified! What if my underbelly grows in patchy for the rest of my life? How could I ever be seen in public again?"

Sofia began to weep silently upon hearing the devastating news, presumably sharing in Nero's misery.

"On an unrelated note," Nero continued. "Do you happen to have any bandages? I recently sprained my underbelly, and I'm concerned that my leaking blood will lead our enemies toward us if I leave it unaddressed."

An unfamiliar Goodra lumbered into the prison building with a first-aid kit. "Evenin', the name's Kate, I'm a medic. Pleasure to meetcha!"

She outstretched her slimy hand to shake Nero's paw, and he swatted it away. "Please don't touch me, my fur is gross enough right now as is," he said.

"Aw, my bad!" she said. She opened up her kit and slid on some latex medical gloves and produced some bandages. "Alright, just sit up and let me-"

Nero telepathically knocked the roll of bandages out of Kate's hands and picked it up in his maw. "I'll do it myself, thank you very much." There wasn't a person alive he trusted enough to let them get close enough to him to apply bandages, and he certainly wasn't going to make an exception for a complete stranger.

Kate stared at him quizzically. "But, you're a four-legger. How are you gonna-"

Ignoring her, Nero wedged the roll horizontally in between the door and the wall and, after pushing in the door stop as far as it would go, held the end of the bandage with his maw. From there, he rolled over on the ground a few times, meticulously keeping it at a certain angle such that his entire body would slowly be wrapped up. When he was satisfied, he ripped the roll off of him and passed it back to Kate.

Sofia blinked a couple times. "That's… fun, I guess. But isn't that a little unsanitary? What if those injuries get infected?"

"Worry not, they almost certainly already have been," Nero said. "Those prison floors are probably even filthier than this medic's hands."

"Alrighty," Kate said, ignoring the remark. "Mr. Vanadis, you're up-"

"Nope," Fabian said, nonchalantly stretching his legs. "I hate bandages."

"Y-You're bleeding!" Sofia exclaimed. "A lot! A-And, what do you mean you hate bandages?"

Fabian crossed his arms. "They rub on my scales weird and it makes me wanna rip my tail off. I'm not doing it."

As much as Nero really wanted to see that, he didn't want to waste any more time. "You heard the man, Sofia. Besides, it's just a sprain, there's really no need to bandage it."

"It's not a-! That's not how-" Sofia protested.

Kate shrugged. "I guess I can't force you. Lemme know if you change your mind, though!"

Fabian and Nero marched on towards the ramp leading upward, with Sofia and Kate tailing behind. "W-Wait, where are you guys going?" Sofia asked.

"Looking for Quincy," Nero said. "We can't exactly murder him by sitting around down here, can we?"

Sofia gasped. "But, we're all way too injured! He'd kill us! Besides, The Melker Motors guys are already headed for the Mayor's Office! Shouldn't we just let them handle it?"

"So Quincy's in the Mayor's Office," Nero noted. "Then our destination is set."

"B-But, I told you, the Melker Motors guys-"

Nero scoffed. "Melker's the only one among them whose name is even worth remembering. I wouldn't even trust the rest of them to use the bathroom without messing it up."

"You've never even met any of them!" Fabian yelled.

"If you could beat three of them by yourself, then you'll have to forgive me for my lack of confidence in them." That earned him a scowl from Fabian. "And besides, even if they stood a chance, I'm not doing this to allow Quincy to die, I'm doing it to watch him die."

Fabian opened his mouth to speak, but he cut himself off before he could say anything. "Sofia, look out!"

Sofia quickly looked around. "L-Look out for what?"

"Y-You're gonna get hit by some lightning!" Fabian shouted. "It was too fast, I didn't see how it happens!"

Shutting his eyes, Nero scanned the area around him to figure out whatever Fabian was referring to. "A Togedemaru is approaching from an alleyway right behind you. He's got a ton of broken bones, so it shouldn't take more than a hit to beat him." Sofia stared at Nero blankly, apparently unable to figure out the obvious next step. "Well?" Nero asked.

"I- Huh?"

"You're a ranged fighter, aren't you? Hit him with a ranged attack before he kills you!"

"Oh! R-Right, sorry!" She flicked a wing and let an Air Cutter loose in the direction of the alleyway. A scream rang out, indicating her success.

Fabian nudged Sofia. "Hey, how do you know Air Cutter?" he asked. "Archens can't usually learn that move."

"How'd you know that?" Kate asked. "I thought Archens went extinct a thousand years ago."

Sofia's beak hung open. "H-How do you know about-"

"Yeah, but I've read all the encyclopedias they had from that era!" Fabian said, cutting her off. None of them list Air Cutter as a move that Archens could-"

Nero, not at all interested in sitting around for Fabian's biology lesson, decided to take matters into his own paws. He zigzagged his way down the alleyway until he saw the Togedemaru, battered and bruised on the ground with a large gash along his face. He could've sworn that he'd met him before, but he couldn't quite recall where. "Good evening, my name is Nero Moreno. I take it you were the one attempting to murder my traveling companion?"

"Y-You…" the Togedemaru moaned. "You're the one who killed the mayor, aren't you?! You son of a-"

Nero dug into the bag of contraband he looted from the prison and produced a small dagger, which he lightly pressed against the space in between the Togedemaru's eyes. "Let's try to stay calm. You'll note that I've, at the present moment, chosen not to murder you. You're no doubt aware of my lineage, so I'm sure you understand that this choice of mine isn't one to take for granted. What did you say your name was, again?"

The Togedemaru growled at him. "M-Murderer! You- You're-" Nero applied just a bit of pressure on the dagger in order to draw blood, and the Togedemaru stopped complaining. "T-Tec. It's Tec."

"Right, I was going to purchase an automobile from you!" Nero said. "Doesn't that feel like a lifetime ago?" Nero could sense that Tec was biting his tongue, and he couldn't help but laugh at the fact. "Regardless, you accused me of being a murderer, yes?" Tec nodded slowly. "Well, you'd be right in the general sense, but if you're upset at me because of the Mayor's death, I can personally confirm that I had nothing to do with his murder."

Tec squirmed around a bit. "That's- You're lying!"

"What reason would I have to lie about that to you? There's nothing you could do to hurt me, and you don't have anything to offer me. And if you couldn't tell from the knife in your forehead, I'm not all that interested in maintaining a friendly appearance."

Suddenly, Fabian sprinted up to them, with Sofia following close behind. "Nero, what are you doing?"

"Just gathering some intelligence," Nero innocently replied. "As I was saying, it would be utterly impossible for me to care less about what you think of me. In fact, if I was even remotely involved, I'd be gloating about it right now."

"Yeah, he would," Fabian confirmed.

Tec trembled so much that he slightly cut himself on the dagger. "B-But… No, it had to be you three! The only other person… I know she wouldn't go that far!"

Nero tilted his head. "She? I was under the impression that the Vice Guildmaster was responsible." Tec clammed up, and Nero rolled his eyes. "Are we still not past this yet?" he asked.

"I-Is… uh, is it… Lydia?" Sofia put forward. "Who you're talking about, I mean."

That was the Froslass, Nero was pretty sure. "That would track. After all, we heard her voice on the loudspeaker, so we know for a fact that she was there."

"N-No, stop it!" Tec yelled. "Don't talk about her like that! I know she… she…"

Nothing got on Nero's nerves quite like people who were stupid enough to place that much misguided trust in someone. "Do you not find it even remotely strange, how Lydia found herself ambushing Melker mere moments after personally bearing witness to her beloved mayor's corpse? How her first thought wasn't to take shelter or attempt to ascertain the safety of you and your co-workers? How she was able to announce with such certainty that I, Fabian, and Toño were responsible for the crime? None of that sounds even a little bit off to you?"

"I…" Tec turned away gloomily. "Things were… tough," he finally said, his voice cracking. "We haven't had a single bill paid on time since Melker's started cracking down on competition, and that was years ago. All of us made jokes about it, but to be honest, none of us were able to eat every night."

Fabian frowned. "Wait, but monopolies are against the law here, right? Why didn't you just go to the Guilds?"

"You think we never tried that?" Tec asked. "Sure, there are antitrusts, but the one who gets the final say is always the Guildmaster, and as long as you're bringing in tax bucks, you could skin the fur off of every poor person in the world and he'd still look the other way."

"B-But…" Fabian began to retort. "But, that's not fair!"

Looking away from everyone else, Tec sighed. "She and Caddock reached out to the Guildmaster every other week for years, and they struck out every time. She got pretty close a year ago, when Quincy reached out to her on his own, but his demands were… Well, they were pure evil. B-But, we talked her out of it! She said she wouldn't even think about taking him up!"

"She lied to you, obviously," Nero said. "She wanted all the wealth Quincy had to offer her, and she wanted you to continue blindly supporting her. Obviously, they hatched the details of their scheme a year ago without your knowledge and have been patiently waiting for us to fall into their trap ever since."

"Y-You're wrong!" Sofia suddenly blurted out. Nero stared at her confusedly and she cleared her throat. "Umm, I mean- I don't think that works, chronologically. I mean, you two only became Successors a week ago. There's no way they could've planned for it, right? I don't see why Quincy wouldn't be satisfied with just getting his claws on Toño a year ago. M-Maybe she really did decline him at the time?"

"What a ridiculous theory. Why would Lydia, if given the chance to throw some stranger she hardly knew under the bus in exchange for a lifetime of guaranteed wealth and security, not immediately take it?" He had to admit that there were flaws in his explanation, but Sofia's was just too absurd to even consider.

"Hey, Tec," Fabian said, his expression deathly solemn. "I'm sorry for beating your boss up. Also, I think she's a terrible person."

"Shut the hell up!" Tec yelled. "She didn't have a choice! This only happened because your Guild is corrupt!"

Fabian nodded. "Yeah, that's why I'm sorry. Even if she sucks, fighting her wasn't going to solve anything, and I only did it 'cause I wanted to get back at her. You don't have to worry anymore, I'll make it all up to you. For beating her up, and for what the Guilds did to bring her to this point."

Tec narrowed his eyes at him. "How are you ever going to do that?"

Cracking his knuckles, Fabian stared at the Mayoral Office Building, almost two kilometers above. "I'm gonna bash Quincy's beak in."

All it took was the sight of Quincy's callous smirk to make Toño's blood boil. He was the man who ruined his life and toyed with the people he cared about most, and he was just standing there, smiling. Toño couldn't contain himself; he could barely even think. "I'll kill you," he snarled, firing off the largest Electro Ball he ever had in his life.

Without blinking an eye, Quincy took off and the Electro Ball crashed into the wall behind him. The ceiling, being as high as it was, gave Quincy ample room to fly around in. "Sure about that?" Quincy asked. "Because that little jolt wouldn't have bothered me, even if you could hit me! I should thank you for coming all this way and saving me another flight, though! You're the only murderer I've still gotta catch!"

Hunter aimed her bone towards Quincy and blue flames swirled down it. But then, before Toño could even blink, Quincy vanished, and dozens of orange blurs sped at her from different angles. She collapsed to the ground, bleeding from dozens of cuts.

"Wh-What the hell was that?" Fitz shouted. "Toño, get cover, now! We gotta figure out whatever the hell that was!"

"You kids really are worthless without your boss, aren't you?" Quincy jeered. "Have you really never seen Acrobatics before? It's not even an especially rare move!"

"That couldn't have just been Acrobatics!" Toño thought. "He was going faster than I could see!" Toño gritted his teeth, ducked behind a potted plant, and scanned his surroundings. There was a stairwell on the opposite side of the room leading to the only other door in the room. If he could just get there, he could set the record straight for everyone to hear. "How are you doing this?" he demanded. "You aren't normally that fast!"

"Ability Manipulation," Quincy said plainly. "Let me guess, you've never heard of it!"

Although Fitz nodded in understanding, Toño was completely clueless. He knew what Abilities were in the context of battling, but whatever it meant to 'manipulate' them, it was beyond him. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

As a crazed smile grew on his face, Quincy spread out his wings as if to bask in his glory. "It's the pinnacle of what a fighter can be! A divine gift, the power to overcome what it means to be a mere Pokémon! Even I could never explain something so innately transcendent to someone as lacking in potential as you!"

"You're insane!" Toño spat. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Fitz sneaking towards the stairwell. "He's doing it! As long as I can keep Quincy distracted for a bit longer-"

Quincy vanished for a moment, and Fitz fell to the ground, screaming in pain. Unlike Hunter, he was still conscious, but judging from his mortifying wailing, that might've been a bad thing. "Sit still, I'm talking," he commanded.

"T-Toño…" Fitz muttered. "G-Get to… Get to the stairs!"

"B-But, he'd just-"

"J-Just… Trust me! Do it!"

Toño stared at him for a moment, then nodded. He didn't know what Fitz was thinking, but he trusted him with his life. Toño just needed to find a way to hold Quincy still long enough to get there. "Maybe a Thunder Wave will do the trick? He's so big that it wouldn't hold him still for more than a second, but maybe that's all I need!"

Quincy approached Toño slowly. "I see your cheeks sparking, kid. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not scared of anything you have to throw at me? You think your Type advantage matters here?"

With a deep breath, Toño sprang past Quincy and brushed his paw against the tip of his wing, just barely making a connection for the stream of electricity to course through. He sprinted for the stairs as fast as he could. "Fitz, this better be-"

Only four steps up, Toño tripped over himself. He had no time to find his footing, as Quincy already shook off the paralysis completely. "You think you're real clever, don't you?" he asked. "Oh well, I guess all three of you are gluttons for punishment."

He vanished once again, and Toño was frozen with terror.

A second passed, but nothing happened.

"Where did he…?"

Toño slowly craned his neck down. Quincy was on the ground, several tiny stones jabbed into his wings. "Stealth Rock…?" Toño muttered to himself. Fitz sprang up to his feet and kicked Quincy in the beak. "Wha- You're okay?!"

"Get moving!" Fitz shouted. "I'll hold him back as long as you need, so you don't gotta worry about me! Just go!"

Toño couldn't believe his eyes. Fitz wasn't trying to climb up the stairs, he was just setting a trap for Quincy! Fighting back tears, Toño got back up to his feet and scaled the stairs. "Fitz, you've got this!" he shouted.

"You know it!" Fitz flashed a cocky grin. "Oh, and don't be scared to take your time with it! I can do this all day!"

The march up the city wasn't too eventful, and if anything, it was good for Fabian. He was able to practice moving around with his injured shoulder, and he was getting so good at it that even Sofia looked convinced that he was feeling fine. Kate kept pestering him about putting on the bandages, but when they saw the horrifying state that Melker was in, she elected to stay by his side and tend to his wounds. They were only a floor away from the very top when something noteworthy happened.

The brief screech of the city loudspeakers signifying another incoming broadcast sent a shiver down Fabian's spine. "Do you think that's the Melker Motors guys?" he wondered aloud.

"I doubt it," Nero said. "If Quincy actually let those irrelevant nitwits slip past him, then I'll die of second-hand embarrassment."

"This is Toño! Toño Navarro Cuesta-" the familiar voice was interrupted by the sound of a harsh crash. "I'm not the one who killed Mayor Caddock! All of this was a setup!"

Sofia gasped. "They really made it!"

"The Mayor was killed by Madame Lydia, and she was acting under Vice Guildmaster Quincy's direct orders! He framed us, and as soon as he got us out of the picture, he was gonna steal Caddock's seat and funnel the city profits into his wallet!"

There wasn't a single Pokémon on the floor above who wasn't screaming something or other.

"Madame Lydia would never! Quit trying to cover your own ass!" someone shouted.

"I knew it! Quincy's pure evil!" called out another.

"N-No way! The Vice Guildmaster's supposed to keep us safe! He wouldn't kill our mayor like that!"

"I'll prove it! The three of us who were accused were a Pachirisu, a Croconaw, and a Zigzagoon, yeah?" It was hard to see without squinting, but in the distance, something ice-blue plummeted from the top of the Mayoral Office Building.

Nero burst into laughter, and Fabian whipped his head towards him. "What? What are you laughing for? What was that thing?"

"You know, I think I might end up liking this Toño character," Nero said with a smirk. "I'm not sure if even I would be able to go through with something so macabre. It's a bold choice, that's for sure."

Before Fabian could ask Nero what he meant by that, the entire crowd started screaming again, but this time, they were almost exclusively shrieking and wailing incoherently. Fabian could only make out one sentence out of the crowd.

"Sweet Arceus, is that Caddock's body?!"

"Look at him! You tell me, do those wounds look like something any of us could've made?"

A couple of people loudly expressed their disdain towards Quincy once again, but as a whole, the crowd was much more hesitant to say anything at all. It was a severe crime to speak up against a Vice Guildmaster, after all.

"If Quincy's willing to kill our mayor for the sake of getting more power, imagine what he'd do to you! If he takes over this city, your life will be-"

A booming noise from the speakers loud enough to make them shake erupted, forcing Fabian to clutch his head. Deafening silence echoed for seconds after, until a new voice began to speak.

"This is Vice Guildmaster Quincy, I'm very sorry about that. Toño is safely in our hands, along with his accomplices, Fabian and Nero. As soon as he's properly locked up, this lockdown can come to an end. Rest assured that they will pay for their heinous crime against your beloved mayor, and thank you for your cooperation."

Fabian winced. "What happened to Toño?! Is he alright?!"

The crowd continued to remain utterly silent, until one young child piped up. "Why is the mayor's body frozen over if those three guys killed him?"

"There will be no further questions at this-"

Someone else followed. "Are you really planning on taking Caddock's place?"

"How did you even get in here before the lockdown? Did you know that Caddock was gonna die?"

"What about the blackmail rumors? Are any of those true?"

"I said, no more questions!"

It was no use. That last thing he said was drowned out by the snowballing cacophony of questions to the point where it was barely audible.

"I think we finally just got a lucky break," Nero said.

"What do you mean?" Sofia asked. "The crowd's riled up now, but it's not like they're getting violent. All Quincy has to do is keep his beak shut and let it all fizzle out."

"That would be the wisest course of action, but, let's face it, 'wise' is the last word I'd use to describe Quincy," Nero said. He glanced down at the blood dripping from the countless gashes along his underside and grinned. "A fool and his pride are inseparable, as they say. I give him three seconds before-"

"SHUT THE HELL UP, ALL OF YOU!" Quincy roared, the force of the sound knocking a few loudspeakers down. "Who do any of you think you are? What does it matter, what really happened? I'm the Vice Guildmaster, and I say that those three criminals are the ones who killed Caddock, and whatever I say is the truth! I was chosen by Arceus Himself! Caddock was nothing! He should be glad he got to die for me! All of you, sit down, shut up, and stay quiet!"

Out of everything, "Chosen by Arceus" was the one line in particular that stuck out to Fabian. In a way, it was true. There were probably millions of people who were infinitely more caring, noble, and brave than Quincy could dream of being, with only a fraction of the opportunity for success he got. The more he thought about Toño, and Lydia, and his mom, and the countless Pokémon whose names he'd never know because they were never given the chance to live how they wanted to, the more Fabian's blood boiled.

"F-Fabian?" Sofia asked. "Are you… feeling okay?"

Fabian's fists were clenched so tight that he was shaking. He couldn't even begin to believe how much Nero's point about the Guilds' relationship with Quincy was right. Everyone was saying the awful nonsense Quincy spouted, if not as plainly as he did. "You aren't special," he muttered. He kept on repeating the phrase until he was practically running out of breath.

Sofia stared at him like he was a crazy person. "S-Sorry, I don't understand-"

He cupped his hands around his mouth, took a deep breath, and screamed. "You aren't special!" he bellowed at the Mayoral Office building, as loud as he physically could.

The entire scene dropped dead quiet, except, of course, for the one person who was physically incapable of shutting up. "Wha- Is that Fabian?!"

"Nobody gets to fly around and do whatever the hell they want to people! I don't care what badge the Head Guildmaster gave you, you aren't any better than anyone else!"

"Do you ever pay attention? Arceus built this world for people like me– and for people who were like you before you squandered it all! That's how things were meant to be! That's what the Guilds are for!"

"Then I'll tear the Guilds down!" Fabian shouted. He had no idea what he was even saying, but he felt it more than anything he had ever felt before in his life. "Brick by brick, if I have to! And I'm starting with you!"

There was no response. The loudspeakers clicked off, and Fabian's heart rate slowly relaxed.

Sofia and Nero were both staring at him, and Fabian had no idea what their looks meant. "Wh-What was that?" Sofia asked.

Fabian cleared his throat. "Sorry for giving us away, and for yelling so loud. I just-"

"Well said." Nero turned away from Fabian and towards the office building, the corner of his smirk only barely visible. "I only hope that you intend to back those words up."

"I- I agree, but, wow, I really didn't expect that from you," Sofia said.

Fabian grinned. "I… Thanks."

It wasn't surprising, how often they all argued and disagreed. After all, they each couldn't possibly have come from more different walks of life. And yet, in that moment, the three of them were on exactly the same page. And as the three wounded outcasts marched towards the office building, each with equally determined expressions, the crowd of silent citizens parted to make way for them.

There wasn't a single trait that the three of them shared, and there was no doubt that they'd go right back to arguing as soon as this was over, but for the very first time since they met, all three of them had a common goal.

It was time to rip that smile off Quincy's face, once and for all.

AN: Sorry for the late chapter, school's starting up and I've been struggling to fit in as much writing time as I'm used to. Thankfully, this should be the last delay until the end of this first story arc, which should be coming up very soon.