Hard Enough - Chapter 326 - Slow progress is still progress

“It’s not fair!” whined the Champion of Sinnoh as the video feed I was getting from her glitched out into static. It resolved itself quickly enough to show Cynthia pouting at me. 

I had to hold back a smile. Thanks to a series of temporary buoys placed across the ocean, we'd established actual contact with the nation. A supposed more permanent option was still being mapped out, with companies from both sides bidding for the rights to run the cable. 

With Hoenn also having to have their say the entire process was a mess with cultural expectations and employment deals, which was crazy considering they still had to map out where things would take place.

It was an issue I was more than happy to declare, wasn’t my issue. The League was created for this reason and they could handle it. 

“Well I’m not sure fairness would be the word to use,” I offered with a small ‘what can you do’ shrug. 

Cynthia flapped her arms about petulantly. “I could have stuck around in Indigo! I could have spent time exploring ruins! Old shrines! Soak in the culture of Kanto and Johto! Oh it would have been glorious and then when you discovered that Lucario locked away I would have had the perfect being to discuss history with!” 

All I could offer the despondent Champion was some cold hard logic. “Yeeeeeah, no way they would have just let you stick around that long. People would have dragged you into the diplomatic talks or something like that.” 

“Shhh, don’t ruin my fan—” her feed cut out for a second and then resumed, “— it is what motivates me to get through my days!”

“Sorry, lost you for a second there, but I think I got your point. Don’t worry Lucario isn’t going anywhere. He’s perfectly content taking up a position in the royal court with Queen Ilene.”

Cynthia sighed. “Oh, Rota sounds like a wonderful place. I will have to get time off and go there.” 

I chuckled. “Yeah, there’s a lot there to like,” I replied knowing she’d go nuts when people spread the news regarding the Time Flowers.That information was still being kept within certain academic circles and not shared, however. 

I had a sudden image of Cynthia encountering Mewtwo and proceeding to hound him with questions. That was slightly more possible and Cynthia would be one to follow any lead. 

“Rota is a beautiful nation that holds true to itself. It was like stepping into another time of our world with the joust and the castle,” I regaled, telling her all about the various landmarks that Sabrina and I had investigated. I recommended a few things for enjoyment like the markets and the smithies, but also mentioned the cathedrals, the castle, the bridge that spanned from the town to the castle. All were worth their own visits.

Cynthia listened with a wistful expression.

Rota was going to be front and centre of a lot of people soon. 

I was expecting a lot of calls in the coming month from various universities about my experiences with there being a proper expedition to be planned within the year.  

Again, not my issue to handle. I could handball it to another to build off of. Sabrina and I had merely acted as trailblazers showing people that there was more to Rota than being a small nation with a big tree deep in their woods.

Rota was going to get a lot of attention but the Queens were ready for that, and I suspected they were even going to welcome the scrutiny. 

The news of Lucario however had been spread through public news channels which resulted in a lot of shock. 

Lucario was something of a historic hero and being held up as a symbol of Rota.

“He will be able to offer you a lot I expect, but he might also be very sick of answering such questions by then so it might not be such a good idea.”

Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. “So I’ll need to approach it from another angle, is what you’re saying?”

I huffed. “Maybe. You could just ask for a spar. Fighting and beating him might result in him becoming your friend no?” I joked. 

Rather than scoffing or rejecting the suggestion Cynthia rubbed her chin. “I have noticed that sometimes that does seem like the best answer when people are being particularly obstinate even when I wasn’t established as Champion of Sinnoh.” 

“Fighting leads to friendship,” she murmured, “I’ll have to remember that.”

There was a long moment where I wondered if I hadn’t made yet another tactical error. It was meant as a pithy remark but yet Cynthia was taking it seriously. “I mostly meant that as a joke.”

“Hmmm, by your own reckoning then there is a grain of truth to it no?” 

My lips pursed together. “Somewhat,” I replied. I was feeling very uncomfortable. Quick! Time to distract her! “When do you think you would be able to make it to Rota?” I asked, changing the subject. 

Rather than perking up Cynthia outright slumped into herself. “I don’t think I will get to do it for months… If not a full year!” She flapped her hand. “The officials are telling me there’s a whole… thing about me just sauntering around foreign nations. It apparently isn’t befitting of a Regional Champion.”

“Wow, fire that guy,” I stated with zero hesitation. 

Cynthia snorted. “Heh! In that regard I rather envy your own Champion. Lance has a lot more control over himself despite being dragged into leading a nation. I don’t get as much say in firing employees of the League.”

“Booo! What’s the use in being Champion if you’re not calling the shots?” I said. 

“Money, sponsorship deals, supported living arrangements, access to restricted areas within the Trinity nations, access to black sites, and research articles,” Cynthia declared, ticking off the benefits.

“What was that second last one?” I asked. “Black sites?” those had never been in any of the media I was aware of. 

Cynthia stiffened. “Riiiiiight… sooooo Rota!” she declared forcefully, very obviously not wanting to talk about what sounded like something that shouldn’t have been mentioned. 

I had so many questions but it was obvious to me that she wasn’t going to answer them, that or getting answers would probably not be a good idea.

The term black sites conjured up imagery of research or danger that most people shouldn’t be aware of.

I let the issue drop, wondering why Cynthia had even mentioned it.

No, stop, don’t think about it! It didn’t involve me!

“Yeah, Rota!” I gushed, watching as Cynthia breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re going to have to find a way for you to attend I think… hmmm.” I tilted my head before recalling the issue of the guest list. “Would you like to attend my Wedding? I like to—”

Cynthia screamed. “YES! I LOVE WEDDINGS!” she began to bounce around so much that the image dropped until the connection dropped out. 

Huh, that might have been super effective. Whoops? Cynthia quickly called me back, looking much more composed but still vibrating notably. “You weren’t joking right?” the words raced out of her mouth along with a hint of anxiety and I shook my head.

“Nope. I think it would be great if you could attend.” I made sure to nod seriously. “I think it will take at least a couple of days though.” 

Cynthia coughed. “Aweekaleast!” 

Cynthia and I shared a look as I understood her meaning. I nodded. “Oh, did I say a few days, I meant a week at least. It’s going to be a multi day event,” I stated with a serious air. 

Cynthia nodded back at me, just as serious even as the vibrations grew. 

I chuckled. With that we’d have Gym Leaders, and at least two Champions in attendance. That was certainly a good addition to the who’s who of our guest list. 

“I’ll make sure to send an invite for Cynthia and her team, plus one.”

Cynthia blanched. “No! Don’t do that to me! If people learn I have a plus one invite they will demand that I get a date! I’ll have so many people trying to sneak confession letters, and offers for coffee.” she shuddered. “No, don’t do that to me Brock!”

“Oh… sure thing?” I replied. That… was not the reaction I’d expected from that. Sinnoh dating acne sounded a touch intense. 

Cynthia hummed. “Will you be inviting Diantha as well?”

I grimaced. “She seemed nice enough but… we didn’t click let’s say.” 

“She’ll be despondent but alas not everyone can be friends.” 

With what little I could add to that I merely nodded along. “Speaking of people I would like to ‘click with’ is there any chance I could talk with a Sinnoh Rock specialist?” 

“Hmmmm we don’t actually have a Rock Specialist pokemon trainer… not among our elite or Gym Leaders right now. The closest we have is Byron who runs the Canalave Gym…” Cyntha tilted her head. “Well actually there is also this one guy called.. Well no one’s actually sure of his name. They refer to him as the Underground man. He’s something of an urban legend.”

This drew a raised eyebrow from me. Byron, and not Roark? Was this another situation of Roark not having established himself yet? And the underground man? Wasn’t he thought to be a relative of the other two men?

Cynthia continued, “He has this gimmick where he will lead people to veins of precious minerals, rocks, or gems and then work with them. Then he feeds the people and sets them up for another day’s work promising a bigger haul only to make off with everything dug up bar one precious item.”  

A laugh escaped me. 

Hadn’t that been what happened to Team Rocket in the anime? I vaguely remembered something about that. It was notable due to being one of the only ‘side quests’ where they didn’t come out massively ahead.

“Right well I think I’ll stick with the non con artist, thank you,” I replied. 

Cynthia waved her hand. “No, he only does that to those that wouldn’t have noticed the veins in the first place. Actual miners don’t get confronted by him. In my opinion it’s his way of encouraging people to pick up geological knowledge and motivate them to learn.”

“By cheating them of their earnings?” I pointed out.

“Yes! Rather ingenious all told. We’ve had a lot more interest at the College and University levels for those lessons in the last decade.” 

Huh, so there was an inkling of truth to Cynthia’s hypothesis. 

“Well that’s good news for those institutions I suppose.” I checked the time and sighed. “I’m going to have to leave it here. I’ll send through that invite for you and your team and go from there.”

Cynthia offered a small bow in thanks and then signed off. I forwarded a quick email to the League mentioning that when we started accepting visitors from the Trinity nations to be mindful of an Underground Man and the story attached to him.

If he was well known in Sinnoh it stood to reason that he sought out other nations or locations to avoid too much scrutiny. Indigo, or Hoenn would by that rationale be prime targets. 

I also sent off a quick email introducing myself to Byron along with what I would like to discuss. Opening a dialogue with another Rock specialist was the main point I hammered and he should hopefully forward my information towards Roark. 

Roark would be an important link with his interest in fossil type pokemon.

With that done I marched outside with a rather daunting list of pokemon that I needed to give attention to. 

On the list were Shieldon, Cranidos, Anorith, Armaldo, Tirtouga, Archen, Glimmet, Aerodactyl, Omantye, Golbat, Gible, Ursaring, and the three Larvitar.  

Then there were the regular Gym pokemon that needed to be cycled through, or in my case inspected and moved along with either Gym tier matches or passed on to trainers that had expressed an interest in purchasing from us. 

Said interest had only grown with the knowledge of some of the rare pokemon we had.

I also had my elite pokemon to put through their paces but that always fell into place in the mornings. Serious training happened near lunchtime with rest being assigned for the other periods of the day leading into a final training session in the afternoons. 

Oh, and to cap all of that off I needed to run some special training for Regirock. 

I had a general idea of its moves, its speed, and its power already from fighting it. That had only grown further when I’d worked with Oak and scanned it thoroughly with Dexter. 

Hyper Beam, Lock-On, Zap Cannon, Stealth Rock, Stone Edge, Bulldoze, Earthquake and finally, Sandblast were all potent moves. Sandblast had actually been something that both did and didn’t surprise me. 

It had demonstrated a destructively powerful attack that involved a wave of sand launched against a foe, it was surprising because that specific move was something I only associated with as a G-max Sandblast which was supposed to be similar to Sand Tomb albeit much more damaging with no binding that I had seen. 

Was that because we’d dodged it or something else was at play? 

It also surprised me that it knew eight moves.

Was this yet another indication of it being a Legendary pokemon? Or had age allowed it to learn more moves than a typical ‘wild’ pokemon would know?

The training we’d been able to perform over the last two days that I’d been home was simple things. Giving orders like stepping forward, stepping back, perform x or y moves.

The biggest issue that I’d been able to identify so far was its speed in responding to my commands. It always took a second or two to process the orders before moving which was far too slow. If it was instinctive responses like it had demonstrated in our fight it might have been better but having me there giving it orders had changed things. 

o make it faster in its responses. It was a lumbering giant at the moment. 

One doesn’t leave a Legendary pokemon to go fallow after all. 

I needed to see what it could do when I put it through its paces and see how I would use it. It had power, and durability, I knew that much but I needed to quantify it if more for myself than Regirock. 

I marched out to the reserve, training plans in mind for my various pokemon. 

The issue I felt was… that I now had too many to work with. My Elite Team could maintain a fairly high standard on their own but I needed to be involved with them for the midday and afternoon training sessions to see them at their best. 

This didn’t surprise me, as it was classical training principles I’d understood from my previous life. Training loads and amounts were important. It needed to vary and be altered for the best results. 

Where things changed was that pokemon had aura and that allowed them a longer period of rest or no training before they started to regress. 

My pokemon could probably go for months on end without a tough fight and still maintain their current level.

Sadly, I knew that around the corner there was going to be a fight potentially involving not one or two, but rather four Legendary pokemon with the Shamouti festival. 

For that purpose I was honing my pokemon and continuing to build them up despite my plans to not attend the Ace finals tournament. 

The training I was doing right now wouldn’t have lent itself well towards the tournament anyway, as everything for this involved running old army drills where my pokemon would defend or attack while in teams.

I walked out and nodded towards Don, Zephyr, Golbat, Quirina, and Selene were all waiting at the top of the plateau. 

I clapped my hands to gather everyone’s attention. “Alright everyone we’re running some drills like normal in readiness for a dangerous scenario which we have been finding ourselves running into all too often.”

That earned a chuckle from Bertha and a nod from Titan but I just shrugged my hands in a ‘what can you do’ gesture. “Such is the price sometimes of being strong like I know all of you are. It’s because of our strength that we get to stand in the face of storms and weather them where weaker beings would crumble!” I shouted making sure to look into several of my pokemon’s eyes and let them know I was talking about them when I talked about strength. 

They stood a bit taller at that. 

I gestured to the pokemon waiting atop the plateau. “I have assigned a few pokemon to act as the aggressors in the upcoming match.” 

Don chose that moment to squawk and announce himself by reminding everyone how weak they were. 

I rolled my eyes, more than used to his trash talking. 

The bond that I’d established with most of my Elite pokemon actually meant that when working with me, Don was on a shorter leash. In the past his snide comments or mutterings would have been lost to me as background noise. Now if he tried to get the last word in or pull something petty I knew what he meant which had resulted in more timeouts and more of him being brought into line. 

It had resulted in him being more focussed during fights, but it had also seen him shift his target to others. 

Then again Don was a bit of an asshole so I wasn’t surprised. 

I waved a hand. “Those five will now be going through a boosting routine for themselves.” I then coughed and waved a hand as Chansey sauntered into the training grounds. “Chansey is also here to further boost them with an occasional Helping Hand so don’t expect them to hit like they usually will. Those five are going to be acting similar to the Legendary bird pokemon.”

I once again glanced around, locking eyes with my pokemon. ”We’re going to train hard now so we can handle tough situations later.” 

This earned firm nods from everyone and a thumbs up from Sanchez and Link.

I smirked. “Alright, to make things a little tougher I am going to add some props,” I said as I drew out several life sized mannequins. 

I’d donned them in various clothes that we were likely to see at the festival along with one special case. 

Bertha perked up and her tail began to whip back and forth as I stood the magical girl mannequin up next to her. Then I demonstrated how I could make her pose thanks to the flexible joints. 

I’d been planning this for a while now. Since before departing for Hoenn even. I’d gotten the mannequin a few days ago and while it was of average height for a young woman it may as well have been a toy to Bertha. 

Bertha swooned over it and I chuckled. “Yeah yeah, you’re welcome I thought you’d like it. Monique gave me a few odd looks when I commissioned these clothing pieces.”   

There was still some lingering doubt as to if she believed me when I’d said that the clothes were for a life-sized doll and not some other dubious purpose. Then again, with what some people got up to with dolls in my previous life…

Especially those Vaporeon dolls…

A cough and a shake of my head brought me back to the here and now. I gestured up at Don. “You realise he’s going to be targeting that doll a lot more than others right?” 

Bertha’s head snapped up towards a leering Don and she clenched her fist, “He shall not harm the Magical girl!” she declared grandly.

I nodded. “That’s the spirit!” I called before waving for my flyers and floaters to rise up and begin their boosting sequences. 

The attacking side got a minute’s head start before making a move myself. 

I’d rolled a dice before entering the training ground and today’s training session was set to start with us being able to see our opponents coming. When the dice landed on the ‘ambush’ side of the die I gave secret orders for the attackers side to start whenever they wanted. 

Today however we had a bit of lead time, albeit as much as we could get from them being three hundred metres away. 

Then with a slash of my hand the ‘fight’ started with the ten pokemon I had as part of this exercise all boosting up or shifting into defensive positions. 

“Get the civilians into safety!” I called as they were doing this and the few pokemon I had that couldn’t boost their abilities hurried to do just that. 

I heard more than a few crunching, cracking noises that drew a grimace from me. My pokemon hadn’t been gentle in pulling the mannequins into safe spaces. That would be another thing we’d need to touch on later. 

For now I focussed on the incoming attacks that the ‘Legendary pokemon’ were unleashing upon us. 

It was rather annoying that most of the best options available to me for intercepting some of the attacks weren’t viable with Selene being on the attacking side but we made do. 

“Get Rocks into the air with Rock throw!” I barked while urging Sanchez and Titan to go on the offensive. 

Bertha buzzed in the background, acting as a deterrent should any come too close. I knew none of my pokemon were going to be dumb enough to divebomb her though. Well actually, I could think of one who might still try it…  

Don launched powerful gusts of wind at the various ‘civilians’ we’d set up to protect. 

Bertha intercepted the attacks and growled lowly. “Not today evil scum!” she roared defiantly. 

Sanchez countered and filled the air with Thunder only for Zephyr to intercept the attack with Protect, blocking any others from taking a hit. 

Golbat rained down poison upon us and sections of the ground became untouchable as she flitted back and forth. 

Selene and Quirina launched psychic attacks together, trying to trip people up while also blasting gouts of flame at us. 

My water pokemon were up to the task of negating the fire and Knight and Titan sent out Dark Pulses to deny the psychic pokemon use of the ground around us. 

I kept my head on a swivel as Don began to circle, going faster and faster as Zephyr established a Tailwind around us. 

We led our shots and Don was forced to dodge hard, tucking his wings until he was low to the ground, sweeping in to assault us. 

Then Bertha struck, leaping over us with her fist raised. “Got you! Magical Giiiiiiir—” Golbat intercepted the strike with a speedy Protect and Don smirked as he opened his maw and a Hyper Beam began to build up. 

I snapped my hand in his direction and no less than five powerful attacks launched to blow him out of the sky. 

Golbat, who emerged from the Protect dodged back into the whirling cyclone now with there only being four that we needed to watch out for as Don was now out of the fight. 

From there we clinically broke things down, plucking the rest of the attacking team out of the sky.

When we were done the field around us was a churned up mess with it being torn up from flying, rock, ground, electric, water and fighting type attacks that had been launched.

Chansey was walking among us, happy to be healing up the various injuries although she kept shooting Bertha reproachful looks for some reason. 

Link bobbed along next to me as I inspected the state that the Mannequins had been left in. 

“Hmmm we’ll need to make sure we’re more gentle with people when handling situations like this.” I gestured towards the broken limbs and Knight dropped his head sheepishly. I waved it off. “You’re used to handling stronger beings. Humans can be quite soft, especially young ones. Now, I’d like to assume that most people will follow our directions and stay safe but some might just act contrary so there is always going to be a chance of someone getting hurt. We’ll work to minimize it, but for all intents and purposes I think that was handled well. In an ideal situation we’ll have Sabrina or someone else to help out as well so things will be easier again but in case they’re indisposed we will have other options.”

My pokemon all accepted this and I worked my way through them using potions to get them back to full health and energy. I checked my watch and hummed. “We should have enough time to run this drill one more time. Let’s swap places for some pokemon and go from there. 

I rolled another dice and saw that the drill would remain much the same but I held off from announcing that. 

Titan swept around the training field, talking with each pokemon that would be part of the defending team. 

As my starter he was naturally going to always be part of my roster when I fought a powerful pokemon so we trained like he would be there.

I watched him interact with the others, noting that there was a certain deference to him that hadn’t been as pronounced. He’d had everyone’s respect before but now it almost seemed like they straightened up more when he looked their way.

Was this a result of him defeating a Legendary pokemon by himself? 

Interesting. 

It wasn’t that they were holding him apart, but rather that his words had more weight to them now. Titan looked up and met my gaze. With a soft growl he let me know that the team was ready. 

I glanced around and hummed. “We’re going to change up the composition slightly. “Hypnotoad, Knight and… Link step out for me please?” I gestured over to where other Elites were watching the training session and the three pokemon I’d singled out trotted over.

The waiting pokemon perked up as they realised that a spot had been freed up. “Gawain, Tide, both of you and… Regirock, come over here we need to test you out,” I said, glancing to the silent sentinel who’d we’d had watching on for a while now. 

This was going to be the first group training session we would perform and everyone stiffened as Regirock lumbered forward. 

I watched him move, noting how slow he currently was. That being said I also knew that with but a sweep of his arms or a stomp of his legs the field would be vastly different. 

I shared a look with Titan and he nodded. 

There had been a rather interesting development that titan had informed me of and I was going to tap into that to get the most out of Regirock.

“Seeing as some of the mannequins need to be repaired—” my words caused Knight to duck his head again while others rubbed the back of their heads in a manner I found disconcertingly familiar for some reason, “—we’ll replace them.” 

With that said I put a few of the adult sized mannequins away and replaced them. For the most part they were all the same, except that two of them were child sized. I’d donned them in my siblings’ worn hand me downs and instantly I had all my pokemon noticing the smaller forms.

Regirock paused, its eyes blinking rapidly before it stomped over to the pair of mannequins where it stood. 

“Uhmmm Regirock, we’re going to need to start together for this exercise.”

A soft beep that felt like a denial was all I got in response. 

I tilted my head and considered Regirock. “Are you protecting them because you know they are going to come into danger? Or is there another reason?” 

Regirock bobbed slightly forwards in a manner like a nod. 

I shared a look with Titan. That… was a very interesting take. I chewed on my lip in thought. On the one hand it wasn’t how a normal situation would play out as we might not have any warning things were going south until they did. 

That being said, we were going to know some of the time…

Also, this was early days for Regirock, and this show of protectiveness should be nurtured rather than admonished. 

“Very well, you start there but we’ll need to get them to safety once the drill starts.”

Regirock’s eyes gleamed. 

From there the exercise started in much the same manner.

The attacking force boosted themselves having had enough time to recover since the first exercise and now and when it was time to attack they turned as one and swept towards us. 

“Begin boosting—” I shouted as I began to relay the various orders. Don and Zephyr were coming in at slightly different angles than from last time and the Psychic pair were dragging large boulders in their wake to bomb us. 

Good they’d changed things up to keep it from getting stale. 

I was halfway through giving the orders when Regirock’s eyes gleamed and I had a frisson of fear race down my spine as Regiock turned. 

It swept one arm through the ground and a mighty arc and a wave of dust and sand erupted into the sky causing everyone to flinch.

I screamed an order out loud and through the bond. 

My pokemon responded instantly with Protects forming up and denying the powerful attack from impacting. 

I licked my lips as Sandblast fell away and revealed all of my pokemon, thoroughly shaken at the abrupt attack.

All of them were staring at Regirock in shock. 

Titan chuffed a laugh and I could only shake my head. “Yes, you’re right. That is one way to deal with a threat to children,” I replied. 

Titan laughed harder. 

I rubbed my chin. Regirock was old and very simple in its mindset, but simple didn’t mean stupid. It had detected the threat and acted. 

“Well I think I’m going to have to have Regirock as part of my Shamouti festival team,” I declared honestly.” 

That earned a round of nods from the rest of my pokemon. 

Link went as far as to cheer loudly before falling onto his knees and pretending to froth as he said something about how cool Regirock was. 

I chuckled only for a rock from Bertha to smack Link in the side of the head. 

I turned on her with a scowl. “Bertha, what was that?” I barked. 

Bertha recoiled only to shift and mumble something that had my frown deepen. “No I have no idea how ‘sisters before misters’ is the answer in this situation!” I snapped. 

Titan snorted and moved so he could nudge me. I glanced to the side and found Link being ‘cared for’ by Chansey. 

She had him wrapped up tighter than a Bind and looked especially pleased with herself. 

I facepalmed. Then I gave Bertha a very flat look. I would need to make this clear to her to stop her. The trick was making sure she understood it perfectly.  “Violence… is not how romance develops. Only Dark Magical girls that!” Bertha recoiled like I’d expected. “No one heroic does that.”

Bertha slumped at my words while Titan laughed. 

I didn’t have the energy to dedicate to this so I waved a finger at her. “Don’t do that again, even by accident.” 

She nodded contritely.

I turned back to find that the ‘attacking’ group had all retreated to the plateau. Huh, Reirock’s single attack had intimidated them that bad?

Worth noting.

“Alright, training exercise is over, rest up for this afternoon!” I announced, which drew a cheer from everyone, especially the attacking group.

Regirock got a long thoughtful look from me as he continued to hover over the child mannequins until I stored them away. 

“Hmmm, we’re going to have to do some training, I think. Maybe test out how you go in a one-on-one battle,” I decided. 

The trick would be finding someone who would be interested in fighting him. Hmmm, that shouldn’t be too hard around here. 

That being said I did already need to talk to someone specific about a few things. 

And it was always a good idea to knock a few flying types out of the sky with one rock where possible.

Time to go tell Flint I was proud of how he’d held up while I was away. 

His reward? I’d let him get trounced by Regirock.

If I played this right, he might even thank me for the opportunity. 

A dark part of me rather enjoyed that idea. 

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A.N Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support! 

It also goes to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter.