THE EIGHTFOLD PLUSH IS AVAILABLE NOW! If you already pledged during the petition stage, you're good to go! Your order went through, and you should have been charged when the campaign launched! If you missed pledging back then, you can get an Eightfold plush RIGHT NOW! The plush will be on sale for a limited time only, until the end of the month, so make sure to grab one while you can!

Once the campaign is complete, the plush will go into production and ship out to you guys in March! I will be counting the days, as I'm sure YOU will be TOO!

It's still so bizarre to have a tangible version of a character I drew forever ago right in front of me (I was sent an Eightfold to approve/take funny photos of, so I can attest to its quality! I'm in awe). If you're looking for a way to support me and Paranatural, picking up a plush is a great way to do it! The success it's had already is a HUGE boon and surprise for me. Look forward to more stuff like this in the future!

If you can't afford a plush right now or don't want to grab one, spreading the word about it is another great way to help me out! And, as always, you can support Paranatural on Ko-fi and Patreon! Thank you THANK you for reading and supporting my work! ONE PAGE LEFT IN THE CHAPTER, TOO, LET'S NOT FORGET...!

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[Transcript]

        The flambé of Davy Jones was far from the first casualty in the ballroom, and hardly the start of its ongoing chaos.

        As a flood of catastrophic unreality had reshaped the town beneath its sleeping citizens, morning had arrived much earlier than scheduled, beckoned by a well-timed backstage camera flash... and, perhaps, a wish-fueled will inclined to seize the snapshot it had offered. For the briefest of moments, there was a light in the dark archipelago’s sky—hope for the residents caught unawares by the PTA’s plans to transform it. Others, however, would surely have preferred more clouds than one with silver lining: a third of Davy’s donor base had burned to ash beneath the ballroom’s skylight.

        “FLEE, MY FUNNY CULTISTS!” came Razor Rex’s awful screech, seemingly from nowhere. “BETRAYAL! SABOTAGE! THE PHANTOM THREAT AUTHORITY IS SHATTERED! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, FOR DEATH YET LIVES! AWAIT MY SACRED ORDERS IN THE GROUP CHAT!”

        Paige was pressed against the wall, spared only by her brooding retreat to the dance floor’s shadowy border. The Mandrake scanned the carnage and confusion with vague, nihilistic relish. Agent Savage chewed her lip; she wasn’t getting paid enough to deal with a disaster like this. Brother Hog just hung his head. Though light remained in ?ayview, it did not belong to him. Not anymore.

        No one was more shocked than Sister Cat, however, who was staring straight ahead in dumbstruck silence. The alarm that woke her up to go to work was chirping out its tinny jingle in her pocket, though she was sure she’d turned it off for both the weekend and the Halloween apocalypse. The din was briefly broken by the chime of incoming texts. Six unread messages from her mother were demanding to know why she’d skipped Microwave Dinner Night. Two of them were the same blurry video of her dad watching soup spin as it reheated, his face a blank expression that her mom described as “heartbreak.”

        Sister Cat grit teeth that had ceased to feel like fangs. Memories of her mundane life were settling back where they’d once been, replayed before a slightly different backdrop. The sun had risen... and she was still Rose Baxter.

        Betrayal? Sabotage? Someone was to blame for this. Someone was going to pay for this. She’d drag them to the goddess like a dead rat to her doorstep!

        “C-c’mon!” squeaked Sophie Sybil as she scurried down an opulent Academy hallway. “We’re goners if we get caught here!”

        The Hijacks were loping along as best they could, but the weight of failure (their own and the one they were puppeting) made keeping up with Sophie an endeavor.

        “Darn it, darn it! I’m no hero! I’m not even an antihero! I’m nothing but a loser!” sobbed the mayor. “Cody was counting on us, but... but we couldn’t help him at all!”

        “We?” the mayor sneered back. “You’re the one whose knees were shaking, fright brain!”

        “B-but... I’ve only got control of ONE knee...”

        “HMPH! MINE was shaking for PHYSIOLOGICAL REASONS: trying to coordinate with an unstable crybaby like YOU!” his left half snapped. “From now on, we do things MY way! The logical way!” Hijack glared at his counterpart, causing the mayor to go cross-eyed. “That Dave guy messed up the town or something! The Witch is loose! With laser vision! Cody can’t keep us locked up anymore—the smartest thing to do is GO TELL MOM!”

        A whimper from his right half was all the permission Hijack needed. He dragged his blubbering brother from the body they were sharing, and Mayor Spender collapsed to the floor in a heap.

        “M-Mr. Mayor!” Sophie Sybil gasped, stumbling to a stop. She rushed to his side, unable to see the spirits that had left him. “C’mon, get up! Don’t collapse before the PTA does! We’re destined for the front page, not way back in the obituaries!”

        “...Bwuh?” came Mayor Spender’s bleary answer. He blinked at Sophie. Hadn’t he been in the bathroom? But then... then Davy’s son—

        “BETRAYAL! SABOTAGE!” A distant voice rang through the hallway.

        “SOMEONE’S ARGUABLY KILLED ALL THE GUARDS!” another added. “IT’S HARD TO SAY WITH SKELETONS AND ZOMBIES BUT THEY’RE DEFINITELY DEAD NOW!”

        “SPIES! INTRUDERS! SEARCH THE ACADEMY!”

        The mayor’s eyes went wide. He looked up at Sophie, noted her fear, haphazardly leapt to the correct conclusion, and began to wail a booming, panicked “HEEEEELLLLPPP!”

        Hijack’s right tentacle went suddenly taut, tugging his logical half to a stop.

        “Forget it!” hissed Hijack Left. “She... she’s on her own! Think of the greater good! The Doc needs to know all the stuff we’ve dug up!”

        Right Hijack clenched his teeth, shut his eye... and wriggled free, abandoning his chance to reunite with his creator.

        “Why, you...!” LB fumed, but soon followed suit—without a pause, it seemed, to calmly weigh the pros and cons.

        Both Hijacks dove back into Mayor Spender’s body. Both of his hands rushed to cover his mouth, clapping like cymbals in front of his face, before both spirits realized they could simply just stop screaming.

        “S-sorry! I’m sorry!” Mayor Hijack stammered at a startled Sophie. “That was the real mayor, n-not me! I... I just lost control for a second!”

        “HUH?? Wait, th-then... my cover’s, like, totally blown!”

        “No! Not... not while I’m still in charge!” Mayor Hijack insisted. He balled his borrowed fist, steeling his shaky resolve. “Listen! Loop in every newsroom in ?ayview and beyond if you want to, but you gotta make sure you show the whole scoop to a cool scientist lady named Mina Zarei! Got it?! She’s the key to solving all of this!”

        “...Huh?!” Sophie blinked. As in the Mina Zarei that she and Rose had bullied all through middle school? As in the Mina Zarei that Rose had secretly dated back in high school?? Junior Prom Incident Mina Zarei? Perennial DIY therapy topic Mina Zarei?? Foundational first toxic teenage relationship Mina Zarei?!

        “Go! Get outta here!” Mayor Hijack whirled towards the sound of approaching footsteps. “If the PTA’s splintered, we can win if we all work together! What could make a greater good than that?!” He thumped his chest. “Everybody has a part to play! If mine isn’t the hero or the villain or some cool thing in-between—! If you’re the only person I can help—! What little good that I can do... I’m gonna do it!”

        “M-Mr. Mayor...!” sparkled Sophie.

        She didn’t care for politicians, for the most part, out of principle... but there was something about his platitudes and nebulous bravado, like you could get a beer with him, or trust that his dog’s social media account was run by the actual dog and not a joyless unpaid intern. Perhaps she WOULD vote for him after all, even if he WAS some kind of pernicious and fraudulent puppetmaster.

        “I’ll... I’ll be in touch!”

        Sophie disappeared around the corner just as a gaggle of Davy’s police stumbled onto the scene.

        “Mr. Mayor?! Sir, what are you DOING back here?!”

        “MY JOB!” boomed Mayor Hijack from one corner of his mouth, and “YOUR JOB!” from the other simultaneously. The doublespeak cowed the crowd with contradiction, a technique ripped straight from Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was immediately clear that the lobotomized homunculus had a bright and/or dark and dystopian future in politics. “Lax security! Poor response time! I was RIGHT to call for help—but it’s not me who needs it! It’s the AMERICAN TAXPAYER!” He jabbed a finger at the cops. “BRING MY CAR AROUND! I have budgets to slash, you good-for-nothing PARASITES!”

        Sweat-drenched salutes slapped in sequence against several clammy foreheads, and Mayor Hijack grinned a nervous grin. Though he, too, was a parasite... he, at least, could still be good for something.

        Bayview was in better hands with Hijack’s pulling the strings.