Victory Road!

<sub>[It's the nineteenth, and the sun's not even up yet.]

[Not that that's particularly mattered to the network at large, considering both pleas for help and thoughtful rumination on how to get rid of the disguised ghosts have been zipping back and forth across cyperspace like busy little Combees nonstop. It's hard for anybody to sleep when a dead person has been standing awkwardly at the foot of your bed for several nights straight, so it's safe to say that nighttime posting's picked up quite a lot.]

[But it's that dark, gray-blue hour before dawn and most of the ghosts, by now, are gone. Nobody in their right mind is probably up right now to check what haunted nightowls are hollering into the void.]

[WHICH MEANS, IT'S TOTALLY THE PERFECT TIME FOR SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN STRAIGHT-UP AVOIDING EVERYBODY FOR THE WHOLE WEEK TO POST A VIDEO!]

[A darkened hotel room is the setting, and Heather Mason is the subject. The harsh blue-white glow of a 'Gear screen is hardly a flattering light-source, and the glaring shadows cast under her eyes make it obvious she hasn't been doing much sleeping. But well, this video ain't no makeup tutorial, so she doesn't care a whole lot about the fact that she's kind of a mess.]

[Once she's sure the 'Gear is on, she sets it down on some surface where it can show both her and a portion of the rest of the room, which houses three other figures: two little fox Pokemon on the bed, a Vulpix and an Eevee (who anyone that did much chatting with Heather during the festival will recognize as Cheryl), and an alarming specter by the curtains; A gaunt, severe woman in a plain dark dress, with hair so pale that it almost glows as it spills over her shoulders.]

[It's time to begin.]

[Heather gives the camera a tight smile, raising her hand in a stiff, to-the-point greeting.]</sub>

Heeeey, everybody.

Heather here. I honestly don't post a whole lot these days, sooo for those of you who don't already know me... I guess you're about to get one of the most awkward first impressions ever. Congratulations.

Anyway, I've been, uh. Spending some time with my ghost buddy here... _{[A clear nod, indicating the frankly spooky woman behind her.]} ... and we've been having a great time. Lots of screaming and crying on my part, for one thing, always fun, and there was definitely at least one broken appliance I'm gonna have to pay for when I check out of this room. And hey-- you wanna know the part that makes this a real good ghost story? That woman behind me-- she's a murderer. A genuine, bona fide killer. And my dad, the best person to ever enter my life, before or since, was one of her victims. Maybe her first. The last? Was gonna be me.

Crazy, right? Right out of a slasher flick, me and her. What a pair.

But I'm not actually taping myself right now to talk about that.

The reason I'm posting this is kind of... no, really self-indulgent, and it's probably not even going to be interesting to seventy-five percent of you, but... I don't know. Maybe someone out there needs to hear it.

So, here goes.

_{[She clears her throat, drumming a fist on her collarbone briefly.]}

Anyone who knows me, knows I've got one hell of a temper. Always been that way, always will be. We're talking, one day I'll be lowered into my grave and a thousand years later archaeologists will dig me up and open the coffin and immediately get punched in the nose by my skeleton. I'm not ashamed of that. My anger's what keeps me going, sometimes.

_{[Her tone is light, almost jovial... but then it goes serious in the blink of an eye.]}

But only one or two of you were around when the woman behind me came to Johto, for real, in the flesh. For the rest of you, I won't be cryptic about it.

I hunted her down.

( Cut for non-graphic discussion of child abuse (and also tl;dr!) )

_{[Another pause, another heavy swipe across the eyes.]}

Okay, okay... I've been just... barfing words at nobody for like twenty minutes, this's just getting embarrassing now.

If anyone's even made it this far without being like 'holy shit, this chick is a basket case' and changing to someone else's channel, you deserve a trophy or something.

I'll just finish by saying, if anyone out there... if any of you were in a bad place as a kid, if any of you had to get out for your own good... it wasn't your fault, okay?

Even if there were others who weren't as lucky, who you couldn't take with you because literally all you could do was run.

And if you were one of the ones who couldn't, and... and you still have a hard time, letting go of it all, or even believing that the people who did all those things to you were wrong?

That's not your fault, either.

_{[Throughout her talk, the sky through the window's been lightening behind her, and a tiny sliver of sun is just starting to poke out over the dark rooftops beyond. Heather doesn't notice. Her smile is strained, but she doesn't let it break.]}



Please believe that. Please.

It's not your fault.

<sub>[The white glow of the encroaching sunrise fades out most of the scene there-- but in the final frames of the broadcast, the ghost of Claudia Wolf visibly fades out, and the little Eevee's silhouette in the background takes on the color of the sun and begins to grow.]

[The feed ends there.]</sub>


[OOC: For CR still in Ecruteak who know which inn room Heather is in, they can find her snuggling her Brand New Espeon(tm)! and being really weird and emotional about childhood friends. Also, THIS GOT REALLY LONG I'M SO SORRY.]