Hey! There's new Paranatural merch available in the Hivemill store! There's a lovely Camp Lakeside shirt, a mug with a pretty illustration of the club at sunset, and a print with cute drawings of all the spectral students and that other guy! The print was designed as stickers originally, but there was a bump in the road with getting those ready, so it's available as a print for now! It should be available as stickers in a little bit (a few weeks or so), too, so keep an eye out! If you're interested in any of these things, please pick 'em up! I've been working hard on them and the support would be HUGELY appreciated. Thank you thank you thank you! :)

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[Transcript]

        Gage hit her at full force. This was largely for the best, however, as piercing him with just her pinky would have been difficult without at least a little input on his part. He let out a batlike shriek as both him and his prey burst through the door to the arcade, rolling across the floor like teenaged tumbleweed.

        “OW!! RRRGGH, that HURT, you little imp freak!” Gage had ended up on top of Penny in the struggle, clutching what had been the third largest hole he’d ever had put in him before it started rapidly regenerating.

        Penny kicked him in the face. She took off running as he staggered backwards.

        “I got him, I got him!” Penny shouted as she fled. “What now Phantomime?! How’s this glove work, huh?? Can I bind him to a contract written in his blood or something?!”

        Her spirit answered faintly as a second set of thoughts. Er... I’m afraid not, darling. If you could trick him into pinky swearing with you while you wore it, then—well, you couldn’t ENFORCE the terms, but you would learn when they were broken...

        Penny’s lament echoed about the inside of her mask. “It really IS a dud!!” she whined, and threw herself into a full retreat.

        Gage shook off the pain, let out a furious snarl, and lunged to pursue her... but Paige caught him by the shirt and yanked him back

        “Quit it!” she hissed, meeting his wild eyes with defiance when he whirled to turn his wrath in her direction. “Don’t make a scene.” The fight had already started turning heads, which followed Penny as she sprinted towards the arcade’s exit. “You want this getting back to Davy?!”

        “It just DID!!” Gage growled, thrusting out his hand in the direction of his quarry. Paige roughly pulled his hood over his head to shield him as a sliver of sunlight from the door Penny had just thrown open made him flinch and start to sizzle. Another tug forced him back into the darkness of the backrooms. Paige stepped in after him, and both doors slammed shut at the same time, closing the question of Penny’s escape with resonant finality.

        “You think a vampire attack in broad daylight wouldn’t get his attention faster?! Think, Gage!” Paige jabbed Gage’s forehead with one finger, and he staggered backwards, knocked off balance. “You’re all hopeless. And you’re gonna drop this, got it?!” Her eyes flashed from a seething Gage, to a silent, staring Youth Culture, to a defeated Ritz groping about in the dark for bugs suck on. They were going to ruin everything. She was doing this for them, and yet... and yet...!

        Paige’s eyes snapped back to Gage. He’d twitched. Noticed something. An object on the floor. She pinned it with her foot before he could even think to make a move for it. Keeping him at bay with a murderous glare, she bent to pick it up.

        Paige slowly sighed a breathless sigh as she looked down at it. She had everything she needed. All she had to do was get through tonight’s meeting, to leave with Ritz nowhere near Davy’s radar. Then she could track them down herself—the loose end spectral witness that had stumbled on their scheming. A Mayview Academy alum, moonlighting as a mascot, that knew Ritz well... and had just left behind the truth of their identity.

        “Hey,” chirped Peter Puckett, setting a pile of arcade prizes down on the hood of his truck. “Have you two seen my wallet anywhere?” Big slappy dad hands beat a searching rhythm all around his pants, to no avail.

        Zoey shrugged, still awash in the horrors she’d endured within the tubes.

        “Nope,” said Max, watching with mild curiosity as J.J. Junior ran at full speed into the bushes on the side of the strip mall parking lot.