• Published 19th May 2016
  • 3,181 Views, 159 Comments

Nymphetamine: The Heart's Price - Architect Ironturtle



Princess Cadance decided she had to experience love with every species on the planet before she could truly become the Princess of Love. It's too bad for her the spell she used to get that experience had some unpleasant side effects...

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8: Dupes and Barfs

Previously, on Nymphetamine: The Heart's Price

"Boo Hoo, my heart is broken, I will be an evil bug now." Alexander Fleming the 2nd has fallen under a terrible enchantment cast by the Royal Princess Cadance. This spell forced him to love her for months on end to the dismissal of all else, and when lifted cursed him with the appearance of a changeling. Now Queen Chrysalis, the last living pony who shares his affliction, has joined forces with him in an attempt to prevent what happened to them from befalling anyone or pony else.

Having made good on their escape from the law, Alex and Chrysalis have decided to set up shop in a haunted warehouse to prepare for the arrival of the remaining changeling swarm. However, before that can happen they must chase away the gangs using it as an arena...

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Dancing Lights shifted her blades into a defensive formation and lowered herself into a balanced stance. Her hoof scrapped up a small cloud of dust when she tapped it against the floor, making her light grey coat even grayer than it already was. Her opponent, Big Thoughts, growled and slammed his shield into the ground in response, the crack of steel on concrete echoing around the empty warehouse. She couldn't see her crew like this, not without taking her eyes off her opponent, but Dancing could feel them slowly backing away behind her, leaving her and Mr. Big to their battle.

"To first blood, knockout, or death?" Big Thoughts asked her. He wasn't shouting, but his voice filled the building all the same, a deep rumble that was almost too low to understand.

"Knockout," Dancing replied, and received a nod of respect in return, the great ape's smile wrinkling his face and putting his scars in sharper relief. That choice put the battle in her opponent's favor, but also gained her honor she could use to bargain with them down the line. The city block this duel was contesting wasn't particularly valuable to her, but it was still her territory. Nobody stole from her without a fight.

"On three," she told him, and set her daggers spinning. One by one, they stopped moving, and when the third dagger swung back into position all three darted forward, hoping to end the fight before it even began.

It worked, sort of. Big Thoughts ducked behind his shield as he charged, but just as she prepared to loop the daggers around to strike at him from behind, the building flickered. Not the walls, or the floor, but everything at once. Reality itself stuttered like a bad illusion, with parts of it vanishing entirely for a moment, leaving only empty voids behind them. Other sections turned into patches of black and white fuzz that crackled with electrical white noise. Finally, though it was so faint Dancing barely felt it, gravity tilted off center towards the bay.

Dancing Lights pulled her daggers back to her, looked around quickly, then glared at her opponent, "Ok, what the buck you stupid ape?" she shouted, "What are you trying to pull?"

"I'm not doing this," Big Thoughts protested, then pointed at her with his mace, "If anything, it's your work. You're the unicorn here."

Dancing opened her mouth to retort, but cut herself off when a black mist seeped out of the ground and coiled into a lump up against the wall, the flickering and crackle getting worse the more the darkness solidified. The thing twitched, and the entire upper floor of the warehouse jumped sideways. It didn't move, and the roof stayed in place, but in the space between blinks most of the walkways had shifted 20 feet inland, leaving more gaping voids in the holes between them and the rest of the building. A shriek made her spin around, just in time to see one of her followers swallowed up by a patch of the fuzz. One moment there, the next gone, like he'd never existed. The others skittered away nervously, bunching up and trying to keep an eye on every distortion at once.

Finally, at the top of that shadowy pile, a pony's face materialized out of the smoke, if it could be called that at all. Too pale, furless, with cracks running up and down the skin and the right half partially melted, along with a horn that seemed cleaved down the middle. The thing grinned, the cracks widening around the stretched skin, then laughed, a distorted, chittering mockery of what laughter was supposed to be that set Dancing Lights' teeth on edge.

Frankly, she'd had enough. She snarled, sending her daggers soaring towards the intruder, intent on snuffing out its life before it could interfere any further. They struck home, each sinking into the thing's chest, but it didn't even flinch. The monster ate them, just swallowed up her most prized possessions without even noticing they were there. It laughed again, and this time Dancing would have sworn it was mocking her, and the flickering got worse, with entire chunks of the floor, previously untouched, just disappearing into the pockets of black and chaos.

"Enough of this," Big Thoughts roared, slamming a fist against his chest, "I will end you!"

He leapt onto the creature, bringing his mace down on its head in a blow that would have turned Dancing Lights into paste. The monster dissolved, and Dancing almost allowed herself to believe Big Thoughts had gotten it, until it reformed a half step to the left of where the mace had come down. It didn't seem any more phased than her attack had made it, and this time, it retaliated. The shadows that made up its lump of a body suddenly lashed out, turning into a spear that ran him through. Big Thoughts let out a choked gurgle and tried to strike the abomination again, but the mace flew through its body like it wasn't even there. All he got was another puncture wound, more cracks in the world, and insane, distorted laughter for his trouble.

"Run for it!" Dancing Lights didn't know which member of her crew had said that, and she didn't care. She wheeled about and burst into a gallop, following her fleeing crew around the growing chasms in the floor, out the nearest door that hadn't vanished completely, and into the night. When she dared to look behind her, all she could she was darkness, a black so deep it looked like Celestia had cut out that piece of the world with a pair of scissors. Whatever happened next, she didn't envy Big Thoughts, though she cursed the entity for stealing her best set of daggers.

Meanwhile, in a distant corner of the warehouse, a transparent unicorn took in the madness and realized she needed to step up her game.

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Chrysalis sighed, and released the illusion Alex had asked her to conjure. While she was the one who thought to use the story of the ghost to scare them off, Alex had come up with the execution. That had been one of the most complex images she'd ever tried to maintain, but she couldn't argue with the results. It was just not right, in a way she didn't even have the words for.

"Trust me," Alex had said with a incessant grin, "By the time I'm done they'll think reality itself is coming apart at the seams."

How in Tartarus had he even come up with this? Was it a common thing back home for him? If so, then how were his people still alive!?

Looking down from her perch on the uppermost balcony, she watched Alex pull his sword out of the Gorilla's torso, then take his head off with one clean swipe. He cleaned the blade in the ape's fur, his form shaking slightly in the gloom, then sheathed it, before turning his shield around and pulling out the daggers embedded in its face. She watched him pocket the weapons after looking them over, took one last look around to make sure they were alone, then dropped down to join him.

As she got closer, she realized he was laughing, a low chuckle that got steadily louder until it filled the entire building and sent shivers down her spine. The taste of lightly spoiled fruit he was emitting didn't help either, causing to Chrysalis realize something extremely important. Alex was not fully stable, probably even before Cadance and she had shown up. No one who hadn't broken something inside them liked fighting that much, and again she wondered whether teaming up with him was the best idea.

"Whoo!" Alex said, releasing some of his energy with a gust of expelled air, "That was perfect! I don't think anyone's coming back here anytime soon. I'll admit, I wasn't expecting you to do such a good job when you'd never seen static or computer glitches before, but that," He laughed again, a much lighter sound that removed the spoiled overtures from his emotions, "That was something else."

Then he turned around and smiled at her, a wild, happy grin that contrasted sharply with his usual wry smirk, and reached out to ruffle her mane. He'd never initiated physical contact with her before, and she had to admit, his fingers felt heavenly where they rubbed against her scalp, and she let out a small trill of contentment before she could stop herself. All of a sudden she understood why ponies would take primate lovers, and agreed wholeheartedly. A steady rumble emanated from her chest, and with a start she realized she was purring. Alex let out a surprised laugh, scratched behind her ears a little (her legs almost buckled from the sensation), and withdrew his hand.

"Right," he said while was Chrysalis shaking her head clear, "I'll go find somewhere quiet to stash this guy. Shouldn't be that hard to track down a stray corner or patch of dirt no one ever looks at. Can you get the trailer inside without me?"

Chrysalis nodded, then replied, "Of course. It should not be a problem. Please finish your work quickly though. We must prepare for tomorrow morning."

Alex's brow furrowed as he let out a faint taste of airy butter, "Why? What happens tomorrow?"

"My subjects arrive," Chryalis told him, "Did you forget that quickly?"

"No," Alex countered, shoving his shield under the body as a makeshift stretcher, "I just don't see why we'd need to prepare for them."

Chrysalis's eye twitched. "They will have spent the better part of a day traveling under their own power, Alex," she bit out, "They will be hungry and exhausted. We must provide shelter, rest, and nourishment. Furthermore, their provisions are sparse. We will have to gather most of what they need before they arrive, lest somelings go to bed hungry or on the floor. More importantly, us greater Changelings have far more stamina then they do, and unlike myself they won't have the strength needed to scrounge after making such a journey."

Alex stopped short. "Oh," he said, "I see." He adjusted the gorilla's weight, then asked, "And when was the last time you rested?"

"Since I woke from stasis two days ago?" Chrysalis told him, "Not at all." She let out a jaw cracking yawn, and continued, "But my subjects come first. I will rest when all is made ready for them."

"Huh." Alex didn't reply beyond that, just nodded thoughtfully as he dragged the corpse into the shadows. He returned a while later dusting his hands as Chrysalis finished closing one of the loading doors, his trailer already inside and unhitched.

"Thank you Chrysalis, " he told, then took a breath, "I'll handle getting the supplies out there. I know this city better than you do, and you could use the rest. I've got more left in the tank."

Chrysalis started. From how he acted, she'd been expecting him to put his hooves up the moment he got back, so this took her somewhat off guard. "But what if you need my magic?" She countered, "You can't cast anything by yourself yet."

"It's after midnight," Alex said with a dismissive hand wave, "Even Equestria's biggest cities are pretty quiet by now, and we've already given the cops the slip. Besides, you look like you're about to fall over, especially after that last spell."

Chrysalis's vision went blurry, and when she came to she discovered she was now sitting down. "Perhaps you are right," she admitted, "I shall take a quick nap and see about turning this place into a halfway decent hive. Are you sure you will be all right out there?"

"Sure enough," Alex said with a grin, "I've got my gear, and we're right next to restaurant row. I'll be able to drag anything I find back here without too much trouble, though I might need your help with hauling the water in after your nap. But before you pass out, watch this."

His grin turned mischievous as he moved over to the trailer hitch and started messing with it. After carefully leveling the trailer and checking for damage, he firmly grasped the winch he'd used to fold the contraption up, and pushed a button. With a series of clicks and clanks the entire tent unfolded itself before her eyes, going from fully packed to fully open in the span of about 10 seconds.

Chrysalis blinked, then used some of her remaining faculties to smile and stomp her hooves in applause. Alex bowed, gestured towards the entrance in invitation, then spun on his heel and marched straight for the nearest exit, "Get some sleep your majesty," he called over his shoulder with the tang of an anticipated thrill in his voice, "I've got this."

Chrysalis, with a wobble that almost put her on the floor, nodded in thanks, then staggered up the stairs, into the tent, onto the nearest soft surface, and passed out.

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Alex was doing what he did best at night, which was lurking in a dark alley and glaring at a problem he was trying to solve. Usually said problem was the alleviation of the utter boredom of guard duty, but in this case the issue was a bit more concrete. You see, Equestrian Restaurants had a policy with no earthly counterpart called The Beggar's Table. The idea was, every evening after closing, any food left over or expired, instead of being thrown out right away, was placed on a table outside at the back of the building. All the food on that table was free and up for grabs, although if you got sick from it the restaurant was legally not at fault. Whatever was left over the following morning would go into the trash before opening.

The initial post dinner rush of the homeless, stingy, and desperate had come and gone hours ago, leaving behind only the least appealing of foods. This wasn't a big problem, since the changeling's lack of taste meant that they'd happily eat anything that wasn't rotten, but Alex was beginning to realize he'd overlooked something important: he didn't actually have a way to haul all this food back to base. Anyone he tried to hire would run screaming at the sight of him, not even a professional weight lifter was strong enough to pick up enough food to feed hundreds of people, let alone carry it for miles at any reasonable speed, and he hadn't brought a cart with him (not that he owned one).

Alex panned his eyes over the street while his mind worked, slowly but steadily coming to a conclusion: he needed a cart, and a disguise. The latter could be found back at his trailer, but the former would be a bit more tricky. Unless... Alex stepped out of the alley and moved east at a steady walk, sticking to the shadows where he could and keeping an eye out for any passerby to avoid. If he remembered correctly, he might be able to find something a few blocks down the road and-Ahhah!

Picking up the pace to a light jog for the last few hundred feet, Alex came to a stop in front of the first, and currently only, modern grocery supermarket in the city. Feast Gryphon was the name plastered over the entrance, right next to a green silhouette of the creature in the question, beneath which were the currently closed and locked front doors. It mostly sold to the upper crust who didn't want to rub knees in the local farmers' markets, but it was doing good business and viable to expand over the coming years. If Alex was a bit faster and more daring, he might have been willing to brave the state of the art magic security to raid the place for enough food to last even the coming small army for days, but he didn't want to push his luck.

Instead, he wandered into the parking lot (small by human standards, since most of the shopping traffic carried their stuff home on hoof, save for a few valets), looking for the inevitable. Because even if most ponies were better people than most humans, you could always find a lazy outlier who wouldn't even bother to-Alex smiled and quickened his pace as he spotted the prize he was after-return their shopping cart. It was slung low to the ground and made entirely of wood and steel with nary a hint of plastic, with a handle meant more for biting than grasping, and about half the size of a cart Alex might have found in a grocery store back home, but it was still pretty much exactly what he needed.

After quickly checking to make sure it would still function if he took it off the grounds, Alex turned around and headed back to base, leaving the cart in a slightly harder to find nearby alley. Between the local homeless population being a lot sparser here and shopping carts not having yet caught on for convenient storage of possessions, Alex being bipedal and pushing one of those things around in the dead of night would be far too conspicuous. No, if he wanted to pull this off, he was going to have to get creative.

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The next thing Chrysalis felt was a mix of strong emotions. Determination, frustration, annoyance, satisfaction. What in Bellum's name was Alex doing out there? She rolled off the sofa and landed on her hooves, stretching like a cat and cracking her neck before it could settle into a crick and bug her for the rest of the day. After fluttering her wings a bit to keep them from getting stiff, she trotted over to the tent's door flap and stuck her head out.

Alex was... dressed in enough toilet paper to look like a shambling ghost and pushing a cart loaded to the brim with random bits of food. It had gotten stuck on a crack in the floor and he was quietly cursing to himself as he nudged it this way and that, trying to knock it loose without knocking it over. Chrysalis rolled her eyes and lit her horn, pulling the cart up just enough for Alex to get it moving again.

Alex started and whipped around to face her with a tang of alarm, but the tension bled out of him a second later as he recognized her. "Hey Chrysalis," he told her as he pushed the cart back into motion, "Did you have a good nap?"

Chrysalis nodded slowly, and asked, "What in the name of crystal's donkey are you wearing?"

"A disguise," Alex snorted, and gave the cart a final shove that sent it gliding neatly to a stop next to the table-no, that's a desk- he must have found somewhere in the building and dragged next to their trailer, "Obviously."

"As what, a suicidal ghost?" Chrysalis shot back lightly, letting a hint of of a smile into her voice.

Alex stopped and stared off into the middle distance, "You know, you're the second person who's called me that tonight, and given the first was high on Shattered Dreams that's saying something. How about you help me make a costume next time?"

"If it means you'll stop wearing that eyesore, with pleasure," Chrysalis laughed lightly and walked down the stairs, then reared up onto her hind legs to inspect the food. It was, in a word, disgusting. Bruised and/or moldy fruit, half eaten hay burgers, overcooked pasta, and more created a medley of failed and discarded mealtimes that would have had Chrysalis gagging if her sense of smell wasn't drowned out by Alex's amusement.

"No, your majesty," Alex said with a mock bow, stinking of fresh baked bread, "There wasn't anything better out there, and frankly I'm shocked I managed to get as much as I did. It still probably isn't enough, not for hundreds, but it's edible, mostly. Plus, we can't taste how bad it is."

"Very true," Chrysalis replied as she struggled to keep her nose unscrunched, "If this were all we were serving our subjects. Could you please bring out your largest cauldrons?"

Alex blinked in confusion, but did as she asked, disappearing into the trailer and returning a few seconds later with a big stewpot and a stack of nested bowls. Chrysalis smiled at him in thanks, then laid them out in a row and stuck her head into the smaller bowl on the far left. She gagged once, twice, then vomited a stream of hot pink liquid that smelled like fresh meat and quickly filled the bowl and it's neighbor almost to the brim.

Chrysalis straightened up, wiped her mouth, waited for the spots to fade from her eyes, then turned to grin at Alex, who was staring at her in horrified fascination and already halfway to turning around and running for his life. Introducing a fresh changeling to this particular aspect of their biology had always been entertaining, at least that's what her teachers had told her. Now, she had proof their heads weren't full of snow. She stepped back, gestured to the bowls with a hoof still dripping with fresh lust honey, and said, "Your turn," with as much smug as she could possibly pack into just two words.

"Uuuuuuuuhhhh..." Alex retorted eloquently, "What the fuck?"

"'The fuck,' as you put it," Chrysalis stated primly, wiping her hoof on the concrete, "Is how we're going to feed everyone. Gag yourself like you normally would to expel bile and concentrated emotional nectar comes out instead. Don't worry, It's perfectly safe to eat."

Alex stared at her for a few more seconds, then slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose, wincing as his claws poked his left eye. "...We're like goddamned honeybees, aren't we?" Alex muttered, shifting his weight back to face her fully while letting off a waft of stale resignation, "Ok, how do I do this?"

"It's simple," Chrysalis explained, raising one hoof in a lecturing pose, "Simpler than feeding, in fact. Focus on the emotion you want to share, and gag. You'll cough it up until you're out. Next comes a mix of everything else in your stomach until you either choose to stop or pick another emotion."

Alex sighed before trudging over to the line of bowls and bending over. "Right, let's get this over with," He grumbled, then made one of the most horrendous dry gargle noises Chrysalis had ever encountered, before it was swiftly cut off by a series of choked grunts. The stream of nectar he unleashed filled not only the bowl he was aiming at, but the other empty bowls in line as well as the stewpot on the end before it cut off. Alex straightened, then staggered, leaning against the side of trailer while he regained his balance. "Ugh, it's like getting a coffee crash and blood loss at the same time. Who came up with this?"

"I did," Chrysalis's ears drooped, releasing a wave of something faintly salty, "Not all of us were lucky or skilled enough to get a chance to feed in those early days. In the end, I had to figure out how to share my spoils without losing it as ambient magic. It's not pleasant, yet it works. Which reminds me," Her horn lit and her gaze unfocused, staring off into the middle distance, "Sergeant, how goes the flight?"

Alex winced when her voice resonated inside his skull in addition to his ears, then jumped as a voice he'd never heard before answered her from the same spot in his brain.

"It goes well, your majesty. We should arrive a few hours after sunrise." The voice was a low tenor, with crisp, clear diction and a tone that didn't so much imply seriousness as swagger into the room and proclaim to all who would listen that this dude would take no shit from nobody without a damn good reason.

"Excellent, Sergeant Shifter, well done," Chrysalis's tone was cool and collected, though buoyed by an underlying sense of warm affection, "I-excuse me, we- have successfully found a new hive to shelter in and enough food to fill everypony's belllies, if only once. Before we relax and wait for your landing, is there anything else you need? Any supplies that didn't survive the ages?"

"Just one thing, your majesty," Shifter replied, "A couple of our blankets and sleeping mats must have gotten wet a century or two back, they turned the dust the moment we picked them up. We need as many replacements as you can gather."

"I'll see it done Sergeant. Silent travels," Chrysalis told him with a smile.

"And unseen feasts," He replied, before Chrysalis's horn went dead and the connection dropped. She blinked, and shook herself, before glancing up at the increasing light coming through the half broken windows lining the ceiling. "Well then. What say you we go get some fabric?"

Alex blinked as well, then yawned, stretched, and noisily blew air through his lips while shaking his arms and legs and making his wings twitch under his armor. "Honestly, I'd love nothing more than to pass out right now, but I can keep going for a few more hours until we're done. If we check around the shipping companies I bet there'll be a stack of moving blankets we could lift. They're crap, but they're everywhere. Can we go feed again while we're at it, I'm still feeling the drain."

"I was about to suggest the same thing," Chrysalis told him with a whiff of fresh bread, then spun around and faced the doorway with a wide smile, "Onward, to victory and spoils!"

Author's Note:

It's been... seriously, over three years!? Sheesh. Still, I'm back, and so is this story, at least for the moment. I also went back and did a little editing for logical consistency. Nothing major, but if Chrysalis running away from the hospital fight struck you as odd before, it's fixed now.

I hope you appreciated the synopsis I put at the start of the chapter. I've thought for a long time that stories with irregular updates should have something like this to remind the readers which universe they're looking into and keep them from getting confused. All future chapters will have something similar at their heads.

Now, concerning finishing the job... Having come back and blown the dust off, this turned out to be much better written than I remembered, so I do intend to finish it. That said, a lot of the background is pretty barebones right now, and I've got other projects (not writing related) clamoring for my attention. I should probably make a schedule of some kind...

Anyway, we're almost at the end of the first arc now, minus one more chapter and a short epilogue. After that we'll move into arc two, Nymphetamine: The Heart's Place, which focuses on the Changelings getting established and butting up against the local authorities and criminal organizations. I have become an avid reader of Worm fanfics in the interitem, so you can expect some of the more compatible and grounded cape and gang politics to worm (lol) their way in here somewhere.

After that comes The Heart's Choice, focused on legal reform for Equestria and concluding Alex's character arc, and The Heart's Fate, where we finally return to the Crystal Empire to finish Chrysalis's arc and bring the story to a close, with each arc being roughly the same length as the first. If all goes well this will get wrapped up without breaking 250k words. The last thing I want is for this to turn into one of those million word doorstops that never gets finished.

Speaking of Alex, I finally figured out a good character flaw for him, one that is a real flaw and not a strength pretending to be a weakness, will clash constantly with his Changeling status, and is consistent with how he's been portrayed up to this point. In a word, Alex is bloodthirsty. He's a weekend warrior who got a taste of real life-or-death fighting and decided he rather liked it. He's not a sadist, he doesn't get pleasure from hurting or killing others, he just loves combat way too much for his own good, and tends towards violence when faced with multiple ways to solve a problem. The only thing keeping him from being a constant menace to society is his iron self control, as shown throughout the story. Hopefully I've done a good job of showing how this can cause problems in the future.

Chrysalis, meanwhile, is more on the murderous side. Alex would kill you while his blood is up and standing face to face, while Chrysalis would do it with a knife between your ribs in the dead of night but doesn't care for active combat. Assassin versus warrior, in other words. It should come as no surprise then that Shining Armor is the only truly good person in the entire story.

That said, I'd like your opinion on something: should I split this into multiple stories? It's a single overarching plot with four distinct segments, and I feel it would work either way, so which would you rather have? A four story series, or a single story with four parts?

Comments ( 11 )

Holy hives below! I would not have guessed that as a Christmas gift, I would see this get updated! Woot!

Princess Cadance, in an attempt to better understand love in all its forms, has decided she needs to sleep with every species in Equestria, no exceptions.

Even timberwolves? How does that even work?

YES IT IS ALIVE!
Maybe retaking Constantinople will be possible!

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They have the stick, seƱor.

It lives!

Sharing food this way sure seems dignified. "Blaaaaargh!"

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With a high risk of splinters.

I love this story and boy am I excited to see a new chapter! Very riveting.

I would love to have it as a single long tale, but that's me.

My god, it's back, and from the abyss that is worm fanfiction, I'm impressed you managed to pull yourself away from that stuff, because I haven't.

I've enjoyed writing fanfiction, but I don't have the drive anymore.
Glad I got to read this again, truly one of my favourite interpretations for changelings.

Omai! We'll admit it took a moment to unarchive our recollection of this fic. Glad you're back!
They make for a good pair, bouncing off each other like good mates should.
Re-establishing a base is definitely challenging. We will definitely see Dancing owner...
Question is, how quickly can they set up fronts to get at least some resources legitimately?
You can split the arcs into different story entries if they're major like that. Or keep it all one, doesn't really matter.
Keep going! ;)

Aww, reading all the chapters again didn't make a new one appear magically. :<

If your still knocking keep it as one story no point on making several of it is one large plot thread between them

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