NTWF Mafia II: The Idyllic Village of Wafflenet

[Robyn]

"And so, we pass onto you the items willed to you as next of kin, albeit two years late. Sorry about that. Enclosed you will find the following possessions: a Canon GL2 camcorder with tapes, an antique typewriter, and a single knife.

You may take solace in the fact that her existence on the next plane has been insofar peaceful, and she is soon getting--"

The recipient slid the letter across the table, not caring to read any more.

She hefted the box onto the table, and upon opening, found that its contents were indeed what the letter had described.

"What," muttered Dove Byrd, cousin to the long-past deceased Robyn Byrd, "am I going to do with all of this junk?"

It was no surprise to Dove that dear cousin Robyn had met her end in such an untimely (and brutal!) manner. Those pursuing a career such as she had, sticking their noses into places where they just didn't belong, well. They simply reaped what they sowed, in most cases. Dove had never approved of Robyn's meddling, and Robyn hadn't much cared for Dove's attitude towards her chosen profession either. Robyn had dabbled, of course, but never to the glorious extents that Dove did.

Dove was a cosplayer. A professional cosplayer, though she didn't expect the citizens of Wafflenet to understand. How could they? They were beneath it. The fickle art of costuming combined with the precise art of character acting... what could she say? With her stunning looks and theatrical flair, she was born for the job. She felt that she was not as destined for her second job moonlighting as a sarsparilla bar waitress, but she needed the cash to fuel her true passion.

She sighed. If only Robyn had pursued such a noble calling! She looked so similar to Dove; the two could have passed as twins.

But there was no dwelling on what could have been. Dove distastefully put on her street clothes (which were still quite rife with Japanese animation memorabilia), passed by her hutch of messenger doves on the way out (such beautiful creatures, if not a little poorly trained), and headed into town (unusually crowded for this time of day).

Never one to be out of the loop, Dove adjusted her cat-eared hat and elbowed her way towards the center of the group, only to recoil at the sight of Stal's mangled corpse.

"Oh, what's happened here?" she cried.

Studying him further, she wrinkled her nose. "Could he not have chosen a better dying pose? Amateur hour, I swear."

[Chao]

Kay O'Hara (Kay O for short) was both native and not to Wafflnet. She had grown up in this small town, had gone to the local highschool, had even graduated from it. But then she had left. Well, not immediately after school. After school she had tried out what life as school librarian was like.
Kay O simply loved books and consequently believed that everyone else, including and especially kids, loved books as well. And that by becoming the school librarian she'd become loved by default. That people would finally notice her. For Kay O had spent all of her life in Wafflenet as the typical unnoticed child and later unnoticed teenager. The one who was picked last in physical education class for a team and then only because the teacher reminded her classmates that she was still left. Not that Kay O didn't have friends. To be sure, most of them were imaginary, but she did have one real friend, her best friend. But even a best friend will have enough instinct of self preservation to be happy to be picked for a team without the teacher's prompt and not become the annoying nerd by taking over the teacher's job of prompting.
By the end of the first year as the regular librarian's aid, Kay O realized that this was not getting her anywhere. So instead she decided to go to college and persue a degree in pharmacy. Here she was much more successful. She even landed a job with one of the international pharmaceutical companies after graduating. But Kay O had hated life in the city. She had hated the idea of living in an apartment complex and knowing her neighbours only as name plates on mail boxes. Of not being allowed to keep a cat in her apartment because the landlord was against it. Not that she wanted a cat. Kay O was allergic to cats. Instead she had an orchid. Or rather an orchid collection of no less than twenty different orchids. So when she had learned that Mr. Koslovski, the local owner of the pharmacy in Wafflenet, wanted to retire and move to Florida, she had not hesitated. She had packed her orchids and moved back to Wafflenet, taking over the pharmacy. That had been over three years ago. And really, it was not so bad if people still called her Mr. Koslovski, having totally forgotten about the owner change of the pharmacy. At least here she knew her neighbours. Or so she thought... till the day Stal the Travelling Salesman turned up dead. Murdered.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and Kay O was humming happily as she opened the backdoor of the pharmacy. She inhaled deeply the lingering scent of all those lovely chemicals she could turn into medicine by the turn of the pestle in the mortar. She loved her job. She loved her morning routine of brewing herself a nice strong cup of tea and then looking over the prescriptions she had to ready for pick-up that day. But something was different that day...
It took Kay O a moment to realize that the difference was the crowd gathering some way down the street at the entrance of an alleyway. Abandoning her tea, Kay O decided to join the crowd. People might overlook her, but this did not mean she could overlook people or local happenings like a crowd. Because crowds meant something had happened. And something having happened meant it was sure to be talked about. And not being able to participate in these talks would make her even more of an outsider than she was anyway.
Nodding politely to the arrogant city chick with her ridiculous dog, she pushed her way through the crowed and was arrested by the sight of a murdered Stal. Having grown up in this town she had of course known him (as in having seen him several times a year for most of her life). She had even owned one of his dolls... courtesy of her mother who had bought one for Kay O's sixth birthday in the hopes that her daughter owning one of the dolls would get Kay O more accepted among the other girls and get her invited to play dates. Well... obviously this had not worked. And luckily Mom and Dad had now moved to Alaska, so Kay O was safe from further desastrous attempt of her well-meaning family to boost her popularity.

"Okay, will definitely have to stock up on headache powders and stomach soothers." Kay O muttered to herself at the sight of Stal. Perhaps it sounded heartless and perhaps this was one of the reasons why some of the townsfolk thought her changed since her stint in the city, but it was true... a murder in town was bound to give people headaches and queasy stomachs and it would not do for the local pharamcy to run out of remedies for these ailments.

[Fraze]

Antimony Parsimony Alimony, the owner of Waffles no Nets, left her small home near the restaurant and walked briskly toward it.

It had been a quiet few months, he thought, with only the appearance of Salesman Stal to interrupt the pleasant pastoral monotony.

Antimony--or Mony for short--had inherited the restaurant from her father, Testimony Hegemony Alimony. He had long given up trying to understand the family's naming fetish, partially because the English language quickly ran out of -mony words. She arrived at the diner and strolled in purposefully, taking note of the number, distribution, and identities of the patrons; which workers were currently there and how hard they were working; what was being ordered; and how many things seemed to be burning and/or broken. Thankfully, not too many things fell into the last two categories.

Mony's gender was a source of much confusion. He didn't know why, since it should have been obvious, but half of the time people called her "him," and half of the time they called him "her." She had stopped being frustrated about it some years ago, and learned simply to accept it.

The odd thing was, though, that it seemed to have an area effect. People in his vicinity would begin to get uncertain about their own genders, and those of the people around them. Since Mony was frequently in Waffles no Nets, she began handing out color-coded badges at the door. He used pink for men and blue for women--since if your superpower is making people confused about their genders, you should at least have some fun with it.

Mony made her way into the kitchen, just in time to see Mick Angelo dash back out of it without any explanation. He idly followed, and observed the growing crowd around the former salesman.

Mobs weren't a very good thing, especially in a place where most people hadn't had any practice with them. Somebody would throw a punch, then somebody else would draw a knife, and eventually there would be a pile of bodies.

With the voice of a trained yodeler¹, Mony called above the noise of the crowd: "From now until 3 PM today, all waffles will be at half price!"

After getting one more craning look at the victim, she turned on his heel and returned to the restaurant to whip up some fresh batter.


¹Mony had a wide variety of interests.

[Avery]

As more and more people gathered around the body, Britknee wondered what was going to happen with it. She had never done good around dead things, which was partially why she kept dairy cows instead of any meat animals-- and even still, the cows scared the bejeebus out of her. As she studied the crowd around her, she realized just how dang weird these country bumpkins were! What had she done to deserve ending up in such a strange place!? It was like Alice in Wonderland, but without the delightful tea party.

Over her shoulder, she heard someone mutter disdainfully, "Could he not have chosen a better dying pose? Amateur hour, I swear."

Brit turned towards the person, mouth agape. "Oh-my-gawsh!" she shrieked. "Show a little respect, why don't you?"

Speaking of respect, not much was being shown. No one had even had the decency to cover the poor dead guy's body. Gosh, these country bumpkins were uncivilized! Looking around, Brit spied a sheet fluttering on a laundry line across the street, in front of a private apartment. With meaning in her steps, she marched across and yanked it down, then strode back over to Stal's body.

"Like, out of my way!" she demanded. "I'm going to cover this guy's like, corpse!"

[Terra]

"Woah, calm down, lady - nothing's gonna get done by shouting."

Blaze looked around, startled, but managed to keep from yelling in shock this time.

It was one of those guys who worked at the diner. He was smiling shakily at her, and she nervously tried to return the smile.

"Looks like that sales guy who's been selling coats and dolls is down there. I'm sure somebody'll tell us what's going on...any minute now..."

“What sales guy?” said Blaze. He must have been someone who arrived while she was on the farm with her wolves, as she usually was. “What’s he doing?”

Then the weird teenage girl who had spoken to her before began to whisper loudly.

"I think," she whispered in a dramatic stage whisper, "that guy is like, dead, see?"

Blaze stared at the girl, horrified.

A number of thoughts started swirling out of her head at once, stopping her from speaking as her brain attempted to figure out how to respond to this information.

The one that came out was, “Well, it’s not MY fault that I’m NOT AS TALL AS YOU!”

This was always a problem in crowd situations - due to Blaze’s small stature, she could never see above everyone’s heads, unless they were first graders or something. She was rather insecure about it. It was part of the reason she avoided crowds.

Well, apart from the fact that crowds usually consisted of people, and she wasn’t always on the best terms with people.

Then she said, “Wait, he’s DEAD?”

She ran her fingers through her short red hair. “Oh, no, oh, no...”

Her mind was thrown into a sudden conflict as she tried to decide whether to run or stay. On the one hand, if there was a MURDERER in town, she’d surely be safer at home with her wolves to protect her! On the other hand, if there was a MURDERER in town, surely it’d be best to figure out who it WAS so they wouldn’t MURDER AGAIN, wasn’t it?

However, she was soon distracted by the disrespectful comments being made all around her. Some girl with a bunch of Japanese animation-looking stuff on her clothes was sneering about dying poses like she was some kind of expert on the subject, the owner of the diner was announcing discounted waffles, the weird teenage girl was going to throw a bedsheet on the corpse -

Wait, that last one wasn’t disrespectful at all.

Still, she simply couldn’t handle it anymore -

“STOP TALKING,” she shrieked. “OR I SWEAR FOR THE LOVE OF GENETICALLY-MODIFIED CUCUMBERS I WILL TAKE YOUR PROCESSED WAFFLES” - she glared at the owner of the diner - “AND MAKE THEM MAKE YOU” - she pointed at the Japanese-animation girl - “A DYING POSE AND SEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT, HUH.”

That insult probably didn’t make sense. Whatever.

[Jayeee]

There were so many people talking and shouting at once that THE PYTHON couldn't even hear the thoughts in his head. He was trying to adjust his eyes so that he could look into the reflection of his sunglasses to make sure that his hair was properly positioned. He gave up on this pursuit after a few minutes and instead focused his attention back of the crowd, of which he was still standing at the back.

And then it hit him like the flash of a camera he was so used to seeing: the crowd could only mean one thing. Obviously they were all gathered there for him. THE PYTHON wasn't sure that an alleyway was an appropriate place to hold a meeting with his fans, but what more could he expect from a town like Wafflenet? He could even see his siblings in the group of people. Of course they were there, they all loved THE PYTHON, he was sure of that. He was loved by everyone, of course. Except those feminists, but they'd be burnt at the stake eventually, so he didn't worry about them.

With this revelation in mind, THE PYTHON pushed his way forward, making sure to give an extra nudge to all of the women that he passed – because that was the only way to put them in their place after all – and turned around when he'd reached the middle, oblivious to the dead salesman that lay just behind him. He gave a puzzled glance at Britknee, holding a sheet next to him. He'd crossed her off his marriage list immediately. A woman, thinking she could own a farm. Terrifying. He assumed that the sheet was some kind of flag she was waving in order to show her appreciation of his presence.

“THE PYTHON is honoured,” he shouted, giving a quick wave to his adoring fans. “To think that so many of you have come to visit THE PYTHON today is totally awesome.” He stopped to look around. “And some of you have even let your wives out of the house, pretty dangerous livin'! Although by the looks of things, you should try buying a leash!” He chuckled; THE PYTHON never grew tired of his words of wisdom. If he was teaching women how to behave, then his job was always worth it.

“Now, how about THE PYTHON gives you one of his famous poses.” He placed one hand on his hips and pointed the other towards the crowd. “I call that one, 'WE NEED YOU... to learn how to properly use a frying pan!' Just for the little ladies out there.”

THE PYTHON reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of papers. “THE PYTHON had these autographs made up especially for you. Of course, what with THE PYTHON being a man and all, writing isn't really THE PYTHON's thing, so THE PYTHON got some woman to stamp them all with THE PYTHON's name instead.” He moved through the crowd and handed them out, making sure to throw a few extras at the woman with the mandolin, the red-headed lady who kept screaming incomprehensible nonsense, and the one with the handful of records, before finally noticing the salesman dead on the floor.

THE PYTHON was confused. “Dude, did he faint because of THE PYTHON?” He casually placed an autograph sheet into the man's pocket. “Wait a second, there's blood here.” He narrowed his eyes and looked around the crime scene. “Why the hell would a man have dolls? THE PYTHON used to rips the heads off of Barbies and eat them for breakfast. Along with raw eggs.” He glanced back at the crowd and winked. “Muscle tip for you guys.”

“Oh, bros, it looks like this dawg was shot in the forehead. Intense! Didn't he do any forehead crunches? THE PYTHON's noggin could've stopped that bullet right in its tracks.”

He finally stood up straight and turned back to face the crowd, looking at them expectantly. “Well, isn't anybody going to do something about this? It's kinda ruining THE PYTHON's meet-n-greet session.”

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

An arrow whizzed above a rat, apparently its intended target. The rat scurried deeper into the grass, completely burying itself in the long yellow stalks.

Some distance away, a female cursed her luck and aiming skills. The bow she was using wasn't designed for ponies.

Fluffle looked up to see the sun just overhead. It was time to come in, time to go back to work, time to make people happy with her confections.

The latter, of course, was a joke.

While it was true that Fluffle's hooves made for good pounding and therefore excellent flatbread, her cookies tended to be a bit TOO flat, and her cupcakes--too sweet, as though they were supposed to cover something. Fluffle thought that lemon paste and tons of sugar went well together, for the cupcakes always tasted fine to her.

As a pony, she didn't mind living in a human town. She enjoyed talking to the cows, and donated her fur semiannually. This calm, quiet town was simply perfect for her.

Fluffle passed a crowd. There was probably a breakdancer or something. She kept walking: work was her priority!~

She washed her hooves, hung her bow and arrows, and trotted over behind THE FLUFFY BAKERY's counter.

After two hours, Fluffle frowned. Something was definitely wrong. That lady always wanted her muffins and flatbread. She hadn't come yet. As a matter of fact, business was at a complete standstill!

Fuming, Fluffle cantered out of the bakery, and toward the crowd, her mind loaded with angry questions as to why a breakdancer was so much more important than muffins.

Her questions died down as her eyes fell on the covered corpse.

She recognized the silhouette instantly--the annoying man who always sold her the tastiest dolls!

Fluffle lay down, legs too weak to stand. The last thing she had said to him was, "PBBLBLT," and she wasn't sure he understood her thanks! How would she ever thank him for the lovely meals now?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the voices around her.

"Okay, will definitely have to stock up on headache powders and stomach soothers." That made sense, Fluffle thought. People who wanted to eat lots of cupcakes to cheer themselves up had to rest and recover after indulging at THE FLUFFY BAKERY.

“STOP TALKING, OR I SWEAR FOR THE LOVE OF GENETICALLY-MODIFIED CUCUMBERS I WILL TAKE YOUR PROCESSED WAFFLE AND MAKE THEM MAKE YOU A DYING POSE AND SEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT, HUH.”

Fluffle sniffled. That Blaze had such a way with words.


And then there was the word that kept popping up. Murder.[/i]


Fluffle looked up and searched the sky.



"I don't see any crows anywhere!"



Her confusion was at once whetted by an obnoxious man's “Oh, bros, it looks like this dawg was shot in the forehead."

Fluffle gazed up at him, her normally large pony eyes becoming gigantic, filling up nearly half of her face.

"Pbbblt?" she questioned, in the most respectful way she knew how.

[Celestial]

Diana turned around as her arm was grabbed to find herself staring at the local conspiracy nut...Tracy, her name was.

"If you can't trust your fellow humans--who can you trust?"

"The esteemed historian Shafte said that you must always trust the sources but of course, he has recieved criticism for that statement due to him not acknowledging that sources themselves depend on context and are written by people, therefore they are falliable. Personally, I believe that we can trust sources as they inform us greatly of the minds of the people who wrote them if we are willing to read between the lines," Diana stated and coughed. "But to go back to your topic, you can trust your fellow human beings if they have the sources to back them up and probably if they have been sufficiently peer-reviewed."

Once she had given a satisfying answer, Diana quietly moved away from the angry girl with the enormous backpack, not wanting to get into a fight and knowing that angry people were usually ones to avoid, only to be pushed aside by some idiot. However, Diana was a professional. She made sure to keep a good hold of the records. After all, they were to be the foundation of her life's work.

I like, require your attention! That guy there? He is like, so totally murdered! But don't worry, I'm from the City and things like that happen all the time! I'm sure the murderer is like, totally gone already!" cried the airheaded girl with the strawberries and the poodle. Was she stupid? Well, she was a commoner with no academic background but there was always more to it than that. However, before she could counter such a statement, the girl covered the man's body with a sheet. Not a completely hopeless case. She had seen students at the university show less initiative.

Then another idiot, one who looked so much like the frat boys that she had the great misfortune to teach sometimes, stepped forward and began posing while shouting rudely and making incredibly sexist, awful remarks. Diana was just thankful that her field of study was not gender, otherwise she would have a few choice words to say to this man. She would have said that the way he spoke was very medieval, if it was not for the fact that the middle ages were not as sexist as the general public assumed, as was proven in the masterful thesis The Middle Ages and Women: Gender roles, Society and Religion in the middle of the Medieval Period. Diana caught the handful of cards thrown at her and read them, frowning as she did so.

"Excuse me, but I must first ask you to provide a source for this claim of your head being able to stop bullets and secondly to show some decorum to the dead man. He was a valuable member of the working class who slaved under capitalism. Not a great man but history does not need great men, it needs poor men like him who will make no impact but still lived in it anyway," she said to him and looked over at the salesman. To her horror, she felt nauseous. Sure, she had seen corpses in photographs before and read descriptions of things that would make the average person's stomach turn as part of her job but this was different, this was a real person who was murdered. Now, she considered herself to be in touch with the people of the past, especially those who were working-class, but they never seemed all real. This guy was.

As soon as things here were sorted and the man's body was taken away, Diana was going to go to the diner. She needed cheap coffee and a cigarette as she looked over the records. That always helped her feel better. Well, that and the thought of all the accolades she would get from the academy for her book. But only the academy. Diana shuddered at the thought of it being read by...the general public. Or worse, becoming a bestseller.

[Gelquie]

After a moment, Julie finally took a deep breath and examined the rest of the townsfolk that had gathered, as well as listened in. Throughout the crowd, there were whispers of murder of coming in. Murder... Stal wasn't popular, but why would anyone want him dead for that? It reminded her of all the troubles she had heard about in the cities. And now the trouble was coming here? Now she was starting to get worried.

She scanned the crowd, watching everyone's different reactions to the death. Most of them seemed to be scared in some way as well. Some others... She couldn't understand what they were thinking. Someone had DIED, and there were people talking about death poses or sales at a shop? She couldn't understand how people could be so insensitive at a time like this.

She was most perplexed, however, at the sight of THE PYTHON entering the middle, not even seeming to notice the dead body. She stared blankly at the "signed" cards thrown at her. Then she shook her head and looked up.

"This... this is serious!" she said aloud. "We... we've known this man for years, and now he's just... suddenly gone. We... we should at least give him a proper goodbye."

Julie took a few steps forward, ignoring the cards that lay strewn before her feet, before stopping and staring at the crowd, not wanting to look down at the dead man. She then began strumming her mandolin, producing a solemn tune.

((No lyrics because writer's block. ^^; I'll be better about it in future posts. *Goes back to studying for finals.*))

[Dan]

Don Dan watched the scene unfold with barely contained dread. With each passing moment more people joined the crowd, and the tension was palpable. While no one had begun pointing fingers just yet, he knew it was only a matter of time. And he needed to be well out of people's consciousness when it came to that time if only because his name made him the easiest person to look to first. But he knew too that any steps he might take to remove himself from the crowd in order to avoid their judgmental glares would only incur those suspicions in the first place. So he remained where he stood, rooted to the spot, hanging on each and every word the others said, flinching anytime someone whispered murder.

And despite all this, he couldn't help but feel like no one knew what to do next. In fact, he realized with a small jolt, everyone seemed to be rooted to the spot. It was times like this he couldn't help but feel like it was a poor decision on the citizens of Wafflenet's part to approve the budget cuts that eliminated the only police department/firehouse/courthouse/jail/city hall this town had. An astonishing lack of foresight, he realized now, but nothing to be done about that now.

Suddenly, someone did make a move, but it was entirely the wrong person to do so. As his buffoon of a brother-in-law shoved his way to the front of the crowd, he spotted a familiar face being jostled around: his wife Ginz, wearing an expression of concern and dismay. As their eyes locked he quietly gestured to her so that she would join him at his side. He didn't think he could bring himself to move nearer to her, but he wished for nothing more at that moment than her company.

She politely sidestepped the unintelligible pony who had recently approached the crowd and made her way to her husband's side. Don Dan smiled weakly at his wife as she grasped his hand firmly and searched his eyes in that way only she knew how.

"I'm so glad you're here," he whispered faintly to her. "No one seems capable of doing anything about this right now, but I'm scared, Ginz. I can't go through this again!"

[Tiger]

"I think that guy is like, dead, see?"

Mick bit his lip, his suspicions confirmed. He didn't have much time to absorb the news - the crazy shouting lady was going off on them again. Mick couldn't entirely blame her impatience with the people around them - and even he felt more annoyed than shocked when some muscle-bound guy pushed to the front and acting like he was on a stage. His referring to himself in the third person and using all capital letters was just too much.

He'd heard 'Mony shout about free waffles - Mick had no idea where she had come from, or why he thought anyone would want waffles at a time like this. But the dinner didn't have any dead bodies in it, and that was a plus. "Hey, uh...Blaze, yeah? Blaze, let's just...get into the diner. Maybe not a good time for waffles, but, has to be better than being out on the street."

And better than you going into hysterics, he thought.

[Gav]

Birch grumbled as the commotion got louder, showing no sign of stopping. The good doctor had been looking forward to a good day's rest from a busy day of doctoring, but whatever new rumour or gossip had apparently been spreading like wildfire in the little town. It was the way of the world, really. People were so preoccupied with some escape from their lives that they'd cling to anything they find.

Despite his early morning grouchiness (caused by a lack of coffee mostly), he stopped by the crowd on his grocery run. Chuckling slightly at the irony of his own curiousity, he couldn't see whatever it was that they were looking at, but the muttering allowed him to catch a few words. "...this man... "PROCESSED WAFFLES" "...corpse!"

Corpse? That was interesting. He had never any interest in embalmy, but his first thought was some drunkard who had tripped over himself, apparently while trying to make waffles or something. He couldn't imagine why, when there were a million waffle houses in Wafflenet.

He corrected himself. It was almost interesting, but not enough to risk getting entangled in whatever hubbub this was. He started to withdraw from the fuss and buss. Whatever it was, it would probably die down in a few days after some new rumour of someone's wife sleeping with a passing bard started up.

[Ginz ❤]

Ginz cringed as she saw her brother pushed his way to the center of the crowd and started talking nonsense. She wasn't sure why she kept inviting Melvin to come over to visit every year. Maybe deep down she hoped he would change. Maybe one day Melvin would marry a nice girl, and she would make him change his mind about women. One day, Melvin would become a true gentleman, she was certain of it.

After some searching, Ginz finally spotted Dan amidst the crowd, not too far away from her. She met his gaze, and he gestured for her to join him. Letting out a small sigh of relief, she started making her way to where her husband stood. It wasn't as easy as it seemed, she had to dodge a few people to get around. Ginz spotted Fluffle among the crowd and she gave the pony a half-apologetic smile as she passed her by. She bought muffins and flatbread from The Fluffy Bakery every morning, but in light of the circumstances, she hadn't been able to stop by that day. 

Once she was by Dan's side, she took his hand and looked into his eyes. "I'm so glad you're here," he whispered faintly to her. "No one seems capable of doing anything about this right now, but I'm scared, Ginz. I can't go through this again!"

Ginz's heart broke hearing that. "No. You won't have to," Ginz whispered back. "Not if I can help it." She didn't know what else to say. She didn't have an actual plan or anything. She just couldn't let Dan fall into despair.

"How about some breakfast?" She offered, trying to take both their minds off the nasty happenings. "We could go to Waffles No Nets, or Penny's Coffee Shop, though I don't know what she might be serving today."

There was no use dwelling in them if there was nothing they could do. Hopefully that incident would be forgotten soon. There was no reason for anything else to happen, right?

[Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff)]

Fluffle frowned. The crowd was dwindling, and many of them were going to that other waffle diner, something or other. She sighed. It wasn't as though THE FLUFFY BAKERY was doing that well. Ginz was pretty much the only person keeping it going, as well as victims of dares or desperately hungry citizens.

She stared at Stal. He was a nuisance, driving her crazy when she was trying to hunt, but his dolls were fairly tasty, especially the one of THE PYTHON. That one tasted sweeter than most, but had a waxy feel to it, like a crayon.

Fluffle looked at her shop. Then back to Stal. Then back to her shop. Then back to Stal. Stal did not turn into diamonds. Boy, was that advertisement misleading!

She couldn't just leave him there. Not forever, anyway.

Fluffle grabbed a shovel in her mouth, trotted to a high hill, and tried very hard not to get splinters in her mouth as she dug.

These shovels weren't built for ponies, either.

[Benedict Arnold]

A letter appears in several mailboxes

OMG *squeals*
I mean seriously

you mafia guys are like

SO COOL.

I want to, I don't know, send each of you ice cream or a puppy or something because of how awesome you are XD

I'll support you all the way, just don't kill me, OK? Or if you do, just make it a really cool death or something.

Love,

<3Your Biggest Fan<3