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Lacklan · (04-14-2023)

THE STA RANCH
Outskirts of “Lacklanland,” Maine

“OH…EM…GEE…it’s been, like, two and three-quarters…er…five-sixths?”

Mary Vaughn grimaced as she looked towards the dark spire in the distance. She’d been doing that a lot lately. She was filled with a complex mixture of emotions since she and the Ranch unceremoniously touched down in Maine nearly a month prior, but she had good cause. Beside her, blithely unaware of her discomfort, her daughter Angelica sat in the other chair on the porch of the ranch house, her phone in her lap, her fingers extended as she calculated.

“Whatevs…THREE minutes! Why hasn’t Sar-Sar Digital Pigeon’d me back?!”

Mary took in a deep breath as she listened to Angie and kept her eyes on that distant spire. She had tried her best…sorta…to accept that Sarah Lacklan, the Demon Child herself, was such a significant part of their lives, and be nice about it, but she sometimes had trouble keeping in her displeasure. It took many deep breaths and barely-contained grimaces.

“Grrr….she hasn’t ‘liked’ a single pic I’ve sent from the new Kitty Cafe…nabs a one! It’s not open yet, obs, but we totes cut the ribbon today.”

Mary’s eyes narrowed a bit as she kept her gaze on the spire.

“She’s busy, sweetie. She remembered her paperwork this week, remember?”

Mary allowed herself a small smile as Angie fell into quiet grumbles. She knew that the half-sisters of Jean-Paul…

…Jean-Paul…

…would rub off on each other, but she really had hoped that Sarah’s punctuality would have had SOME effect on Angie by now!

“grumble grumble…we’ll be on the card next week…tobvs…”

She gave her head a small shake as she continued to look at the spire. Selena’s Spire. The current abode of the matriarch of the family…and her sister-wife, she supposed…Aveline, it was named after another sister-wife of hers, Sarah’s mother, who she herself thought of as Pierce, The Oracle. It had been erected after Mary had left with Richard, fearful of the vision the woman had had about the babe she was in a late pregnancy with. A vision that she didn’t understand at the time, but made sense before she knew it:

“....she will be...demon…skin of the moon...eyes of blood...she will be...demon…”

“Finally! Wait…nabs…this is from someone else. OMG WOWSERS!”

Mary tore her eyes from the Spire, and painful memories, and looked at Angie.

“Sweetie?”

Angie looked up with excitement in her eyes.

“A kid from Kenz and Sar-Sar’s charity group wants to do an in-person meeter greeter! This says she raised a bunch of money and won a prize…and we’re the prize!”

“That’s…great…sweetie.”

Mary was overall happy that Kenzi’s general influence over the Demon Child meant positive things like their Ga(y)la Foundation, but she thought there were probably better ways to raise funds for cancer and child hunger than throwing expensive parties and charging thousands of dollars per plate.

“Okies, no messing around this time. Sar-Sar HAS to know.”

Angie rolled her neck, stretched out her fingers, and proceeded to break the Lacklanland Texting Society’s record for texts-per-minute.

PAYCOM CENTER
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

It's been a long time since you've seen her
Could have been three years or more.

VAUGHNEMOUS!

Muffled sounds. Can’t hear. Just a dull fluff.

Will she be waiting when we dock, boys
Or like the others will she be gone?

“Sar?!”

Hands shaking. Heart racing. Fear gripping.

It's one more pull boys, that'll do boys
Soon we'll draw alongside.

“SELENA!”

The Hooded Man

He’s here

The HOODED Man

HE’S HERE
HE’S HERE HE’S HERE HE’S HERE HE’S

Hoist her upwards, swing her inboard
For the journey's nearly done.

SLAP!

Sarah can barely feel Kenzi’s hand slap across her face. Hard enough to leave a red mark across her pale skin, but not hard enough to take her out of her episode. Sarah’s eyes were sunken, her skin sweaty, her throat restricted, her breaths shallow. Her face stared up at the monitor in her lockerroom, eyes locked onto the image of the Hooded Man on XWF television. The man who stalked her, her invaded her privacy, who threatened her life, who set fire to their neighbors, who

Who is

Who is the

Is he Jacob?

JacobJacobJacobJacobJacobJacob

PUNCH!

Sarah groans as she falls backward, her panic attack receding as the pain in her forehead spreads out from the impact of Kenzi’s Supergirl punch. Touching her forehead with her gloved hand, she could feel blood beginning to ooze, the laceration she received in her match with Charlie opening wide again, the petroleum jelly no longer able to stem the flow. Her eyes were both glazed and alert as she looked up at the fearful and apologetic Kenzi.

“Baby, I’m sorry. But you were REALLY zoned out there! It was almost like when you were Gone.”

Gone

The word was heavy in the air, a word which meant more to them than others would realize. A word from a time when she was hurt, from a time when Jacob-

JACOB

THE HOODED

“What the?”

Sarah’s eyes snap back to the monitor where she sees a sight that is hard to compute.

Dolly Waters wearing a BoB shirt.

“I told her to LEAVE the flotsam…not build a SHIP out of them!”

She stomps her heeled boots as Dolly, with the aid of the members of BoB, clear the ring of Hooded-

HOODED MAN

JACOB

“VAUGHEMOUS!”

The repeated text from her SWEET Windows Phone thankfully startles her before she could find herself in another panicked or fugue state. A glance at the details brings a smile to her face.

Hugs are Surely the Ultimate

Not amongst the rabble, Sister

Hair Sisters Ultimatum?

I…wut?

Humbolt State University?

Well, that can’t be worse than your loser community college

Hey! At least I GO to college!

You SHOULD be going to Daddy’s Alma Mater!

I made a COMMITMENT, Sar!

I’ll commit YOU!

Oh, like when Bordy committed Richard??

……………

…………………….

………………………..

Heroine of Superness Unlimited?

NO! It’s Heel Shit Up!

LANGUAGE!

YOU AREN’T MY MOTHER!

…thank Baby Jesus…

What?

Hmm?

N-E-Ways, that’s the name of the team, Angelica. The Baby Birds demanded it, so we fulfilled their wishes!

I’m not the only one who doesn’t like it…

Not everyone appreciates the most meta of humor, but it is what it is. And it’s a better name than the Brotherhood of Insert Randomly Changing B-Word HERE. That’s just lame.

Hey, I like their name! Now. Being a buddy is super duper. Hey, stop rolling your eyes. I SAID-

Okay, okay! Listen, I appreciate that YOU appreciate not just their name, but their…apparent…desire to change their dastardly-

Bastardly?

-ways and be the buddies of the world, but I, for one, don’t buy it.

Why not, Sis? They’ve been doing SO MUCH stuff lately, like pet puppies and kitties. And no one who pets kitties can be a bad guy, obvs. They’re too fluffy!

Mo’ like they have spent SO MUCH time being godawful people that, even WITH all the kitties of the world, they will forever have red in their ledger.

They’re business owners? Good for them! Small businesses…UNITE!

What? No. I mean metaphorical ledgers.

????

Honestly, I’ll never know how you can make your face axly look like a literal question mark.

????????

STOP THAT

????????????????

N-E-WAYS! My POINT is that as much as peeps like the Bobster and TK go around and TRY to be better people, it's never going to amount to anything worthwhile. Because while their ship may well cut through the waters of this business with ease, they'll eternally be slowed by the netted haul of rotted flotsam that is Charlie.

What's with all the sea imagery from you lately, anyway? It's been, like, a folded bajillion.

I figure if we're going to be in Maine a lot going forward, we might as well get back to our roots. I loaded up my fave Sea Shanty playlist to your SarTunes account.

You had me at rum, tee bee haitch.

Hellermen #FTW!

But, I don't know if I can really say 'roots,' for me.

Oh pish posh, your roots are here.

I'm from Canda, Sis.

BY WAY OF MAINE, TYSM. But whatevs, my POINT is that whatever voyage BoB is heading down, whatever sojourn they may be embarking upon, they will not be able to reach the shores of greatness...even WITH their newest mate in Dolly.

Ugh.

She's literally your niece, I would like for you to be kind.

Nabs the truth, Sar.

I literally carried her in my womb and birthed her as a beautiful baby girl.

You can't have kids, Sis.

LITERALLY FROM MY WOMB. And while she has continued to be one of the very BEST this business has to offer-

Wonder what Isiah has to say about that?

-she has found herself continually floating along a coast with rocks sharp enough to tear an irreparable hole in her hold. It seems that, no matter the amount of love and affection I shower her with, no matter the lessons I offer her, she still finds herself surrounded by hoodlum layabouts as friends.

What's wrong with Bobby? He looks like a big ol' teddy bear to me. Just wanna squeeze him!

Oh, Bobby's fine. At least, when he's got his head in the game. But I'm not holding my breath that the GOOD Bobby will show up next week.

Good Bobby?

Yeah...I LIKE him...I DO...but only when the GOOD version of him shows up. You never know WHICH one you're going to get. Is he going to be serious, introspective, and witty? Is he going to be the Bobby who has been the Ultimate champ TWICE now? Or is it going to be the Bobby that's flying through time and space faster than Omega snorting a line of crushed-up Flynn promotional videos with an Alias chaser?

wut

I'll put it this way: Bobby is either one of the BEST...or he's one of the WORST. And I have a feeling that, even WITH my dear daughter Dolly by his side to keep him sane, after dropping the belt and following it up by losing to someone he thought was so below him in Kido? He's going to be out of his MIND. And instead of getting quality match preparation, instead of getting the KING that is Bobby, we're going to get dumb shit followed by an exasperated Dolly who will just take some pot-shots at you for a match you were never scheduled to compete in.

....sigh....

Look, there's the kid that's here to see me!

Us.

That's what I meant. Oh, I can't wait to see the light shine in her eyes when she sees me, the object of her obsession.

Us. Sees us, Sar.

Literally what I said. I wonder what got her involved Kenzi and my's foundation, anyway? I mean, the MAIN reason we started it was to fund cancer research...having BOTH of my parents die from a form of cancer will do that...but there's also the Child Hunger Division, as well as the Homes for those Experiencing Homelessness that came from that fire to our neighbors a few years ago.

....I have a charity too, you know....

And I'm sure it does wonderful things for kitties. Hmmm...I wonder what she'll want to do with me-

Us

-first? Will she want to watch my-

Our

-matches? Get some advice from me-

Us

-about her clothes? Oh! Maybe she needs some expert shoe advice? I-

We

-AM, like, the BEST Shoe Expert in town!

Axly, the Lacklanland Cobbler Society has given ME the award this month, and-

Shhhh! Here she comes! HIIIIII-iiiiiii! This is-

OMG ANGIE THIS IS MY DREAM

...............

OOF! Wow, that hug of yours is SUPES tight, kiddo!

...........................

THIS IS THE MOMENT I'VE WAITED MY WHOLE LIFE FOR LOVE YOU SO MUCH

..........................................but it's MY foundation!!!!

Obvs, Sis! C'man, kiddo, let's go get ice cream.

MY FAVORITE THANK YOU VERY MUCH

........................................................it's 'thank you so much," tysm..........

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