//------------------------------// // On Pranks and Friendships // Story: MLP: The School Years // by Aether_Ouranos //------------------------------// MLP: The School Years Part III: On Pranks and Friendships “Dashhhhh! Oh Daaasshhhhhh! Dash where are you? I need your help with something!” Dash sat bolt upright in the common room, where she had been lounging and avoiding homework. The voice belonged to Penelope, and while she was usually loud and boisterous, whenever she shouted like that trouble normally followed, and Dash wanted no part in it. Dash quickly left the common room and ran to her room, locking the door behind her. “Dash! Just the person I wanted to see!” came Penelope’s voice from behind her. Dash jumped and spun around to see Penelope sitting on her bed. “How…Where…But…” Dash stammered. “How did you get in here?” “I just walked in the door silly! I thought that you were in here, so I checked but you weren’t and then you just walked in so I guess I don’t have to look for you anymore!” Penelope smiled broadly. “It’s a good thing I found you too! I need your help with something super important!” Dash sighed, “What is it? I know that you aren’t going to leave me alone until I agree to help you.” “Come with me! This is going to be really fun; I know that you’ll love it!” Penelope grabbed Dash’s hand and pulled her out of the room, leading her somewhere. That somewhere turned out to be the school’s library. Dash made to walk inside, but Penelope stopped her. “No! You’ll blow our cover!” “Are you going to explain to me what we’re doing? This is kinda weird even for you.” “Just wait, and when I say, jump out and shout Boo!!” Penelope giggled, “It’s going to be sooo great!” They sat outside of the library; Penelope in eager anticipation, Dash in obvious boredom. She was just about to ask Penelope what they were doing again, when Penelope suddenly stood and motioned Dash to follow her lead. The door to the library opened and Spike walked out, carrying a large pile of books. Penelope jumped out and shouted loudly, “Boo!” followed closely by Dash. Spike dropped the books he was carrying and let out a high pitched scream, then immediately began to hiccup. Penelope and Dash looked at each other, then began to laugh uncontrollably. “Hey…” said Spike in between his hiccups. “That (hic) wasn’t very (hic) nice.” “Oh,” said Penelope, stopping laughing. “Are you alright? You aren’t hurt are you?” “No, (hic) I’m fine. It’s just (hic) annoying.” He looked down at the pile of books around his feet. “I guess (hic) I’d better start picking (hic) all these up. Tori’ll (hic) be made if I don’t (hic) get all of these to her soon.” “Well, if you’re okay…” Penelope dissolved into laughter again, and soon Dash was laughing too. Even Spike was laughing between his hiccups, “I guess that (hic) was pretty funny.” He finished picking up the books and walked away, still chuckling and hiccupping. Dash turned to Penelope. “I had no idea that you were into practical jokes Penelope. That was pretty funny.” She looked mischievously at Penelope. “Do you have any other ideas on who we can prank?” Penelope grinned broadly, “Oh don’t worry, I have plenty more planned out where that came from.” * * * Tori sat in the common room of the dorm, curled up in one of the chairs and making notes in her journal about a book she was reading. It sure was different living in a dorm than living on her own in an apartment or with her parents. Yawning, she put her pen and notebook aside and stood, stretching. Maybe she had better take a break from working, after all, it was the weekend. She walked over to the window to check the weather, maybe she could work outside if it was nice enough. Sadly, it was cloudy outside, so sticking in the common room was the order for the day. She sat back down in her chair and picked up her pen to jot down a few notes she had thought of. As she began writing, a noise made her glance up from her writing. Was that giggling? Paying it no mind, Tori turned back to her writing, only to find that what she wrote down had disappeared. Stunned, Tori tried writing something else, only to watch it disappear before her very eyes. Examining the pen, Tori noticed that it had been switched out for one marked “Invisible Ink Pen”. Penelope and Dash burst out from around the corner, laughing. “Good one girls,” said Tori, laughing along with them. “I wasn’t expecting something like that. Now can I have my real pen back? I need to get some work done.” Handing back the pen, Dash turned to Penelope. “Who are we going to get next?” * * * Rachel sat in her shop, bored out of her mind. There hadn’t been a customer all day and she was still stumped on her latest dress design. Her little sister was out with friends, so she couldn’t even try and teach her how to sew or design. Why couldn’t anything interesting happen today? As if to answer her call, a knock came at the door. Rachel snapped her head up and out of custom said, “Hello and welcome to the Carousel Boutique. How may I…” Rachel trailed off as she realized that there was no one in the store. She curiously opened the door and looked around. There was no one out there, but there were a bouquet of flowers sitting on the doorstep. Sitting on the flowers was a small card saying, “To Rachel.” “Well this is an unexpected surprise.” Rachel delicately smelled the flowers and smiled. There was nothing like the smell of freshly cut flowers. She took another smell and then rocked forward with a massive sneeze. Another followed, then another and another. It was then that she noticed a fine powder over the flowers, and the laughter coming from behind a tree. Rachel sneezed again and saw Penelope and Dash fall out from behind the tree in fits of giggles. Clearing her nose, Rachel walked over to them. “Are you two responsible for this?” “Run!” shouted Penelope, between fits of giggles. She and Dash sprinted off, leaving Rachel standing by the tree with the bouquet of flowers. She shook her head and smiled, sneezing again as she did. Those two can sure cause trouble, she thought. At least it’s all harmless fun. * * * AJ wiped her brow and repositioned her hat on her head. Even though it wasn’t fully sunny outside, it was still quite hot. The main harvest wasn’t for another couple of weeks, but AJ liked to get a head start on things, as to lighten the load when the main harvest rolled around. She put down her basket that she was using to pick up the apples that had already fallen and walked over to the barn to grab a bottle of water. Out of the corner of her eye, AJ thought she saw two people whiz around the corner out of the barn. Paying it no mind, she reached for a bottle of water and suddenly found herself drenched with water. “What in tarnation?” It was then that she noticed the string attached to the water bottle, which in turn was attached to a bucket that was lying on its side in the rafters. Obviously it was a simple little booby trap designed to pour water on the first person to pick up the water. From around the corner, AJ heard laughing. Going to investigate, still dripping water, AJ found Dash and Penelope collapsed on a bale of hay in hysterics. “Was this your doin’?” AJ didn’t sound angry, and was actually quite amused by the prank. At least it cooled her off. “We got her!” said Dash, hi-fiving Penelope. “Now see here, missy. Ah ain’t going to be th’ only one affected by this here prank.” AJ began to uncap the water bottle and Dash’s eyes got big. She scrambled off the hay bale and sprinted off, leaving Penelope still laughing on the hay. “Dash? Where’d you go? Why’d you run off like that?” Penelope looked up to see AJ standing over her with the open water bottle. “Sorry sugarcube, but business is business.” With that, AJ turned the water bottle over Penelope’s head, flattening her poufy tangle of hair and soaking her. Penelope was quiet for a moment, then began laughing again. AJ laughed along with her, smiling broadly, “You sure got a knack for prankin’, glad t’ see that you can handle them as well as you can dish them out.” Dash poked her head back around the corner of the barn, “Is it safe? Did she use up all the water?” Her answer came as a splash of water to her face. “I’ll take that as a no.” * * * Phoebe sat by the edge of the pond, admiring the beauty of her surroundings. The sun had just started to come out from behind the clouds and it was casting the most marvelous shadows. There were even some ducks swimming around merrily, today was turning out to be such a nice day. She hummed to herself as she tore some pieces of bread up to feed to the ducks. From across the pond, Dash motioned Penelope over to her. “Okay, wait till you see this one. It’s going to scare Phoebe so bad.” “You can’t prank Phoebe!” said Penelope. Dash looked at her, “Why not? We’ve gotten everyone else.” “Phoebe’s too emotional to handle a prank. We really don’t want to upset her or hurt her feelings. I’d feel bad.” Dash sighed, “Fine. Who else can we get? We’ve gotten all of our friends, minus Phoebe.” She thought for a second. “We need to get someone tough, the toughest in the town.” Penelope nodded and began giggling again. “Oh don’t worry, I have someone in mind.” “Are they tough?” Penelope nodded again, “Oh, they’re the toughest in all town. In fact, I think that I see them right now.” “Oooo, where?” asked Dash excitedly. Penelope held up a pair of binoculars and pointed off into the distance. Dash pressed them up to her face and looked intently, but didn’t see anyone. “Are you sure that they’re there? I can’t see anything.” She lowered the binoculars and frowned at Penelope. “Where are they?” Penelope pointed at the water of the pond, “Just look there.” Dash, confused, looked where Penelope was pointing and saw her own reflection with a slight addition; a black ring around her eye where she had pressed the binoculars. Penelope was holding back giggles, “I told you that I got the toughest person in the town.” “Yea…I guess you did.” She held out her hand for Penelope to hi-five, but pulled it away at the last second. Penelope tried again to hi-five and missed again. She caught Dash’s eye and saw that she was trying to hold back laughter herself. They both collapsed on the ground, hardly breathing between the peals of laughter. Once they had both calmed down a bit, Penelope asked Dash, “What were you planning to do to Phoebe anyways? I mean, we could get someone else with it one day, just not Phoebe.” “Oh yea…You know those fake ducks that they use for hunting? I hid a speaker in one so that I could scare her when she tried to feed it. I was going to say something like, ‘I don’t like bread’ and see if she jumped.” Dash began laughing again and soon Penelope rejoined her. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, Phoebe knelt staring intently at a duck that hadn’t moved for the entire time she had been there. * * * The next morning, Penelope skipped merrily over to Dash’s room and knocked loudly. “Oh Dashie! I’ve got a lot of new fun ideas that we can prank people with!” The door opened and Penelope was about to step in when she was suddenly stopped by someone holding out their arm. To Penelope’s surprise, the arm did not belong to Dash, instead belonging to a severe looking girl with short cut blonde hair and wearing a white tank top and pajama bottoms. The girl rubbed her eyes and glared at Penelope. “You’d better have a good reason for waking me up, pinkie.” “Oh hello! My name isn’t Pinkie, but you can call me that if you want to! I mean, I do wear a lot of pink all the time, cause that’s my favorite color. I think that your favorite color is white, but you can’t choose that color because that’s Rachel’s favorite, but I don’t think that she’d mind sharing. My name’s Penelope and I like to bake things and party and just generally have a great and wonderful time! What’s your name?” The girl blinked, taken aback by the sudden torrent of noise coming from Penelope. She looked back into Dash’s room and called out, “Dash! I think one of your annoying friends wants to say something to you.” Dash walked up to the door, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Seeing Penelope standing at the door, Dash brightened up. “Oh hey Penelope, what’s up? Have you met my friend…well, more than my friend…” She put her arm around the girl’s waist. “This is Gilda, she and I have known each other since forever. I hadn’t seen her since before I moved here, so I invited her to stay for the weekend.” “That’s cool! I can’t wait to have fun with you both!” Penelope reached for her bag, “Dash, I have some really cool stuff I want to show you!” “Can it wait just a second? Let me get dressed and I’ll be right with you.” Dash retreated back into her room leaving Gilda standing in the doorway. Gilda glanced after Dash, then turned to Penelope. “Listen here. Dash is my girlfriend, and I don’t want anyone else trying to steal her away from me. You seem to be a bit too friendly with her and I don’t like that. So buzz off, y’hear?” Gilda turned and slammed the door in Penelope’s face. A few minutes later, Dash and Gilda walked out of the room, chatting and catching up. Penelope sprung up from where she had been sitting in the common room. “Oooo! Are you ready to hang out now? I’ve got a lot of fun things planned out for today! Just wait until you hear all the awesome pranks that I’ve planned!” Gilda glanced at Dash, who grinned sheepishly at Penelope. “Sorry Penny, I’ve promised Gilda that’d I go for a nice, long run with her. After all, we haven’t been running together since forever ago. I’ll hang out with you afterwards, promise.” Dash began to walk out of the room with Gilda following her when Penelope had an idea. “Wait! I can just watch you both run! I really find it amazing how you guys can just run forever, plus I love to watch it when you all go really fast!” She smiled at Dash and Gilda. “Hey Dash,” said Gilda. “Why don’t you go on ahead? I think I forgot something in your room that I need to grab.” Dash nodded and walked out of the room, leaving Gilda and Penelope alone. As soon as the door closed behind Dash, Gilda turned to Penelope, “Listen here. I thought that I made it perfectly clear that I don’t want you ‘hanging out’ with me and Dash. After all, Dash has me now, so why would she need to spend time with you?” “Because we’re friends! And friends hang out with each other all the time and any friend of Dash’s is a friend of mine, so therefore we’ve gotta hang out!” Gilda blinked, “Okay, look. You can’t hang out with us. Period. Now scram before I get mad at you.” She walked out of the door after Dash, leaving Penelope standing alone in the common room clutching her bag. As the door closed, Tori walked into the room, still dressed in her pajamas. “Oh hey Penelope, what’s up?” Penelope threw herself onto one of the chairs, sulking. “Have you seen Dash’s friend Gilda?” “Yes, we met last night. She seemed like a nice enough person. I think that she and Dash make a cute couple.” Tori stopped and thought for a moment. “Wait…if Dash was already dating someone…why did she try and hit on me? I guess I can ask her later, but I don’t want to seem awkward or rude.” Tori trailed off as she caught the look on Penelope’s face. “What’s wrong? You don’t seem like yourself today, are you okay?” “It’s just that Gilda’s acting like such a meanie! She told me not to hang out with Dash and her because Dash doesn’t need to hang out with me because she’s here and that means that I can’t hang out with them. It’s just not fair!” Tori smiled knowingly, “Oh come now. You’re just overreacting. I’m sure that Gilda just wants to spend some time alone with Dash to catch up. I think that you’re jealous that someone else is hogging Dash from you. The best thing that you could do right now is try and improve Gilda’s attitude and make her want to spend time with you and Dash at the same time.” She glanced at her watch and started, “Oh dear, I’m almost late! I promised Spike that I’d meet him at the library to help him out with some of his schoolwork! I’ll talk with you later, promise!” Penelope sighed. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear at all, but it was good advice. Maybe she really was jealous of Gilda for getting to spend time with Dash alone. Granted, she was Dash’s girlfriend and should be allowed to spend as much time as she wanted with her, but it wasn’t nice to just blow people off the way that she did. Maybe some time to think the situation over a nice milkshake was in order. * * * Penelope sat outside the Sugarcube Corner, sipping a chocolate milkshake that she made herself. It was about noon and foot traffic around the square outside of the shop had begun to pick up. Penelope noticed Dash and Gilda run up to the square, both out of breath. “That was really fun!” she heard Dash say. “I haven’t been pushed like that in ages!” “That’s because your wimpy team doesn’t challenge you enough. When are you going to come back to the Speedsters, where you won’t automatically be the best?” “There are too many rules there. Plus, I can’t just leave all my friends on the team.” Dash looked around the square, “Hey, do you mind just chilling here for a bit? I’ve been needing to run some errands and since we’re in town now’s the perfect time to do them.” “Yea, sure. I guess I’ll find something to do. Hurry back tho’, I’m going to get bored easily.” Dash ran off and Gilda looked around, already looking bored. She noticed a produce stand with a few people standing around it and walked over, standing behind the crowd. Without warning, Gilda screamed “SNAKE!” The effect was immediate, sending everyone around the cart scattering in panic and fear. Penelope glanced up over her milkshake, but didn’t see any snake. Gilda had just pulled a trick on them, and a pretty nasty one at that. No, no…she thought. I can’t judge her like that. Remember what Tori said, I’m still just feeling jealous. Penelope noticed Gilda eyeing an apple sitting on the top of the cart. She watched as Gilda glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then swiped the apple off the cart. Gilda was stealing! No! No judging. She might pay for it later. Gilda walked along the square, munching on the apple she had taken and laughing to herself. She didn’t notice Phoebe, who was walking along the same path watching a bird or something up in the sky. The two collided and fell to the ground, Gilda dropping her apple in the dirt. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going, huh?!” “Oh…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bump into you like that. Are you okay?” Gilda scowled at Phoebe. “You made me drop my food! Now I’m going to be hungry thanks to you!” “Oh my, I didn’t mean for anything like that to happen. I’ll get you a new one…if that’s what you want. I’m so sorry…” “’I’m so sorry’” mocked Gilda, imitating Phoebe’s shy tone of voice. “Instead of trembling why don’t you just get out of the way next time and save me the trouble of yelling at you?!” “Well…I…um…I…” “’I…I…’ You’re so pathetic! I don’t know why Dash even hangs out with losers like you!” Tears began to well up in Phoebe’s eyes. Gilda laughed, “Oh, is the little baby going to cry now? Does the little baby want to run home to mommy?” Phoebe burst into tears and ran off, with Gilda laughing at her as she did so. “That does it,” said Penelope to herself. “It looks like I’m going to have to handle things my own way. Penelope Style!” * * * Gilda and Dash both stood outside of Sugarcube Corner, where they had been called by Penelope. “What’s this all about? Why did that annoying girl call us here?” “If I know Penelope, I have a very good guess as to what’s in store.” said Dash, smiling. She grabbed Gilda’s hand and pulled her through the door, “Come on! I’ll bet that you’re going to love it.” Inside the shop was decorated with all manner of party supplies; balloons, cake, presents, even pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. “You made it!!” shouted Penelope, grinning from ear to ear. “I was unsure of what to do for a while, but I finally came to the decision to throw you a giant welcome party!” She held out her hand for Gilda to shake. “So…this party’s for me? That’s kinda cool.” She reached out and grabbed Penelope’s hand and screamed as an electric shock ran up her arm. Penelope giggled and flashed the joy buzzer she had been hiding in her hand. Dash laughed, “The old joy buzzer trick. Very well done Penny…I wouldn’t have thought of that one myself.” Dash motioned for Gilda to follow her, “C’mon Gilda, I need to introduce you to the rest of my friends.” Gilda rubbed her hand and glared at Penelope. “Don’t think that I don’t know what you’re up to.” “Well that’s good! This wasn’t supposed to be a surprise party or anything!” “That’s not what I mean. I’m keeping an eye on you.” Gilda turned and walked over to Dash, putting her arm around her and leading her away from Penelope. “Umm…Penelope?” Penelope turned to see Phoebe standing behind her. “I know you’re just trying to be nice, but was all this really necessary?” “Don’t you worry your silly little head off Phoebe. Just let your Auntie Penelope take care of things.” Penelope strode off to join the festivities. “But I’m a year older than you…” Phoebe said to no one in particular. Meanwhile, Penelope was gearing up to make an announcement to everyone in the room. “Attention everyone! This is Dash’s very dear friend Gilda, who’s in town for the weekend to visit. Let’s all give her a huge welcome and make this the best welcome party that she’s had!” She noticed Gilda eyeing the treats and confectionaries and bounced over to her. “Help yourself, everything here is set out for you. It is your party after all!” “Well then…Don’t mind if I do.” Gilda grabbed a few sweets from a jar. “Vanilla lemon drops, my favorite.” She popped them into her mouth and immediately gagged. “H-H-HOT!!” “Gilda, the punch!” said Dash, trying to contain laughter. Gilda rushed over to the punch bowl and grabbed a glass, guzzling down the drink quickly. Or at least, she tried to until she realized that it was all dribbling down her front. “What do ya know? Someone replaced the lemon drops with spicy jawbreakers and put the punch in a dribble glass.” said Penelope, observing the scene. Dash burst out laughing, “Priceless! That really is a priceless joke right there!” Gilda wasn’t amused, and was visibly starting to get angry. Penelope, noticing this, hopped over to the cake and lit the candles, “Hey Gilda, wanna blow out the candles? Then we can all enjoy the cake!” Everyone gathered around the cake to watch as Gilda blew out the candles. She took a deep breath and knocked out all the candles in one shot. Gilda smugly smiled and acted like it was nothing, then looked surprised as the candles burst into life again. Frowning, she blew them all out again only to have them spark back to life. This happened a couple more times until Gilda was gasping for breath, winded. Penelope looked at the candles, “Re-lighting birthday candles, huh. Wonder who could have done that?” “Yeah…” said Gilda, grumpily. Her voice was ripe with irritation. “I wonder who could have done that.” “C’mon Gee…You aren’t down over a few little pranks, are you?” Dash clapped her on the shoulder. “Let’s get some cake, shall we?” “Who’s up for some party games?” shouted Penelope, holding onto a blindfold and a felt tail meant for pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. “I think that we should let Gilda go first, seeing as it is her party after all.” Gilda, trying to regain her cool, sauntered over to where Penelope stood and grabbed the felt tail from her. She was about to start walking over to the poster they were supposed to be pinning the tail on when Penelope slipped the blindfold over her head and began spinning her around in circles. “Hey! What are you doing? Get off me!” Penelope stopped spinning Gilda. “But this is how you play, silly! Now just walk straight ahead, the poster’s right there!” “Now just walk straight ahead,” said Gilda, mockingly. “This is probably another prank, isn’t it? I’ll show you, I’m going the other way.” Gilda turned amid Penelope’s protests and forged on in the opposite direction of the poster. Because she had the blindfold on, she didn’t notice a small patch of wet floor from where someone had spilled a drink. She stepped on it and slipped, falling to the floor with a crash. “Uhhh…Gilda?” Penelope pointed at the felt tail sticking to Gilda’s nose. “I think you pinned the tail on the wrong end.” Everyone laughed except for Gilda, who tore off the blindfold and got to her feet, angrily. “So this is your idea of a good time?! I’ve never been to a lamer party before, especially with a group of people as lame as you are! But Penelope, you are the Queen Lame-o with your weak little party pranks! Do you really think that you can just make me lose my cool with pranks as lame as that? Dash and I are ten times cooler that all of you put together.” She turned to the door, motioning Dash to follow her. “Come on Dash, we’re blowing this pathetic party.” Gilda noticed that Dash hadn’t moved and was standing with her arms crossed. “I said let’s go! We’re leaving.” Dash frowned at Gilda, “You know what Gee? I was the one who set up all of these party pranks, not Penelope. I guess that makes me Queen Lame-o.” “Come on Dash, you’re kidding me, right?” Dash shook her head. “They weren’t all aimed at you, of course. It was just sheer dumb luck that you managed to set all of them off.” “No way! This was all a set-up by that annoying Penelope! She was trying to trip me up, trying to make a fool out of me!” “Who, me? I just threw this party to try and cheer you up is all, I had no idea that Dash set up so many pranks!” Dash walked up to Gilda. “You know what, you really didn’t need anyone to make a fool out of you. You did a wonderful job of that on your own. This really isn’t how I expected one of my old friends, my girlfriend specifically, to treat all of my new friends.” Gilda tried to say something, but Dash cut her off. “Listen, these guys are my friends, and if they aren’t cool enough for you to hang out with, then I think that you should go find some new cool friends somewhere else.” Gilda was silent for a moment, then turned on Dash. “Yeah? Well, consider us through! You’re such a flip-flop; cool one moment then lame the next! I can’t believe that I even considered dating a loser like you! We’re over Dash, and unless you feel like ditching your lame friends over there and coming with me then I don’t ever want to see you again.” “Well I guess this is goodbye then.” Dash walked over to her friends, who were standing slack jawed at the exchange between the two. Gilda looked at Dash, then let out a frustrated noise and stormed out of the bakery. After the door had closed behind her, Dash spoke up, “I’m sorry everyone, I didn’t mean for things to happen like this. Sorry for ruining the party.” “It’s not your fault Dash,” said Tori, putting her hand on Dash’s shoulder. “You didn’t know that Gilda was going to react like that. Are you going to be okay?” “Yea…of course I will. I mean, I have all of you to talk to after all, and who could ask for more?” The group all cheered and the party started back up in full swing. Everyone was having a blast, except for Dash, who was wrapped up in the events that just took place and what it meant for her. Did she do the right thing by breaking up with Gilda? Sighing, Dash excused herself from the party and began the long walk back to the dorm. Where was she going to go from here? Author’s Note Alrighty then…got Part III out of the way in record time! Hope it’s as good as the other two. Anyways, down to more serious matters, i.e. Part IV. This one might take me a bit longer than this one did because I don’t have an episode to base it off of, not saying that I need one but still… This next Part will be entitled Rain on the Farm, so you can guess what that’ll be about. Things I can say will happen in the next two or three parts: -The Great and Powerful Twixie will be showing up as a transfer student, meaning that she might be a recurring character. -The CMC will show up, just not entitled as such. For naming purposes, AppleBloom=Annabelle, Sweetie Belle=Serenity, and Chicken Scootaloo=Summer. Also: I am taking requests for OC’s to show up, nothing too big, mostly background ponies, but as pointed out by the comments, this is lacking in males, so if anyone wants to suggest a pony to show up (that’s not Doctor Whooves…trust me, I’ve tried), then just leave a comment with a link to a bio or just post the bio altogether. Anyways, now that that’s all out of the way, I hope that y’all have a fun time…wait…I can’t say have a fun time reading this. Uhhh…look! A distraction! -Æther ((Edit: I'm sorry if you didn't like this part, but it was needed for plot points later...I promise. Please don't hate me because of this.))