How strange it is, to be here again after so long, but I am quite excited. Nothing Is True was my first, legitimately epic-length story, but it was hollow sometimes. So much content got cut so I could update it faster. Entire plot-lines were eradicated for the sake of speed, and I never stopped regretting that. Well, now I'm going to fix it!

For those of you that are new here, this is a rewrite of my old flagship story, Nothing Is True (Save For The Blood We've Shed). An Assassin's Creed and The 100 crossover, though The 100 is slightly AU…or it was at the time I started, at the End of Season Two. With how bizarre current 100 canon has apparently gotten (fucking body-snatchers? Colony planets? And I'm expected to still believe the early canon stuff showing the Ark was made from current space station technology? Absurd!) it is now very AU, but quite frankly I think that makes it better than canon. Which felt like it was trying to add in as many sci-fi clichés as possible on the principle of 'throw enough shit at the wall and some will stick'.

Anyway, you can expect my usual polygamy. You can expect Empire Building, Political Intrigue, Warfare, Smut, Fluff, and whatever else I have happen. Read and review, you know the score. Please also consider supporting me in other ways. QQ and have a link, so A03 people have to head there.

Right, lets get cracking then!

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Nothing Is True (Save For The Blood We've Shed)

Chapter One

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The United Ark of Earth. A conglomeration of space stations and satellites. Just over a mile of rotating metals and glass, held together for nearly a century by the hopes and creative engineering on the part of its inhabitants. Those lucky and chosen few, the vanguard of Mankind's expansion into the dangerous unknown that was space…now the only remaining members of Humanity after nuclear fire scoured The Earth during its Final War. It was really rather remarkable that the combatants had refused to turn their weapons on those living in orbit. Perhaps they had known that Earth was doomed, and agreed that their race should live on, no matter how small the population. Perhaps sanity had prevailed, in those final days, rather than bitter and cruel nihilism. Even if that were true, it was a nothing short of a miracle that the thousands of detonations had not caused collateral damage to the orbital stations, and it was downright providential that no man-made or extra-orbital debris had destroyed The Ark since.

It could be a harsh and unforgiving place, this last bastion of Man, even cruel at times. The freedoms of the Old World were lost for the most part, leaving only Control and Order in their wake. No longer could people eat and drink as they saw fit, no longer could one refuse to have a job or refuse to carry it out, no longer were misdemeanors punished with a slap on the wrist. All crime, no matter how minor or insignificant, was punishable by summary execution through airlock expulsion. Appallingly cruel, and while it was intended to impose order through sheer terror, it was only marginally successful. In any other place, under any other circumstance, rebellion would have been inevitable and swift. It was only the marginal decency of the Council which instituted the law, in restricting it only to legal adults, that had prevented such a result. Those under the age of eighteen were, instead, imprisoned until they reached their majority…at which point they were given a less-than-fair trial and generally suffered execution regardless. For those awaiting that fateful day, those 'misguided youths' that required a 'firm hand and rehabilitation, there was The Skybox. A former storage module turned prison, one that oddly acted more freely with the prisoners than the juvenile halls of Old. Instead of constant confinement to cells, they were allowed free reign of the module during the 'day', allowing them to socialize and form companionship-groups.

The Council, formed from the Heads of The Arks primary departments (Security, Maintenance, Medical, Agriculture, Water Reclamation, and Science) and the current Chancellor, held total control over the station and its' inhabitants. They decided everything that happened, with only the thinnest and most laughable veneers of democratic process in both their ascensions to power and the actions they took as a group. Unsurprisingly, the body as a whole was not terribly popular with the populace at large, though there were naturally exceptions to be had. Exceptions that just so happened to be a married couple, the Heads of Medical and Maintenance: Abigail and Jake Griffin. They were well-known for their kindness and more 'down-to-Earth' natures, getting amongst the people and helping them without question or aloofness. Whether it was by spending extra hours fixing semi-functional 'luxury items' like televisions and showers, or by donating extra rations of their own to the needy, they were forever solidifying their places in the hearts and minds of the people.

Which is why the oft-feared revolt had very nearly occurred when the Chancellor, supposed best-friend of Jake, had floated him with neither notice or announced cause. It was traditional for the accused to have a chance to present evidence to their innocence of a crime, though admittedly given the size-to-population ratio of the station and the fact that making false accusations meant your own painful death, it was rarely anything other than a formality. The fact that not even that much had been given to the man, and the fact that his daughter had been placed in 'quarantine' and confined to quarters without explanation on the same day, convinced the citizenry that Thelonius Jaha was making a powerplay. Seeking to remove his biggest obstacle so that he could make a grab for true, absolute power.

Admittedly, they weren't wrong that Jake Griffin had been a threat to Jaha's power, it was just that the Africa-American man's goals and purposes were not quite what they believed. He had tried to spin things, of course, proclaiming after the fact that the Head of Maintenance, the man whose entire purpose was to keep The Ark and its people alive, had planned to place everything in imminent and fatal jeopardy! It was absurd, almost to the point of hilarity, and it was insulting as well. Did the man really think that they would fall for that? Still, they had settled down quickly enough, too used to the status quo and to fearful of endangering their own loved ones for doing anything that could be labeled as seditious.

Then Jaha had to pour lighter-fluid onto the smoldering goals of their discontent by having Clarke Griffin thrown into The Skybox without notice. Despite how impossible it was to keep a secret on The Ark, it seemed that no one knew anyone that could name the crime she committed or could claim to have witnessed it. Remarkably suspicious, that, and the beliefs of dictatorial conspiracy were renewed once more. The young blonde was beautiful, charismatic, kind, and had an ironclad sense of what was right and what was wrong. Obviously, her morals, instilled in her by her deceased father, had made her a threat! It was only the heartfelt reassurance of one Abigail Griffin, supported by the newly promoted and widely liked Jacopo Sinclair, that Chancellor Jaha had followed the law to the letter and had no intention of taking supreme power that settled the citizens…but the anger and suspicion lingered still beneath the surface.

It was all of this and more that caused one Marcus Kane, Head of Security, to be rather less than comfortable with what he was about to do. As he walked into the Skybox, nodding in greeting to the guards at the separation door, he reflected on just how much his home in general and the Skybox in particular had changed in the months since Clarke had taken up residency within…since it had fallen under her sway.

Rather than embrace delinquency and laze about in a haze of bitterness like the rest of the kids seemed inclined to, she had made every effort to keep in good physical shape and practice various skills such as martial arts. It had not taken very long for others to begin emulating her, both with and without her cajoling, and as the group grew so did the breadth of subjects upon which she instructed them. Philosophy, logic and rhetoric, history and science….she educated them as best she could, using honeyed words and thinly veiled threats to procure the supplies she needed to do so from The Council., assuring them she was ensuring that 'the inhabitants of The Skybox will be properly prepared for rejoining society as wise and productive adults.'

There were some, on both sides of the door, who objected of course. Those that wanted things to stay as they were, and those who greatly disliked and distrusted Clarke's growing influence over so many members of the next generation. Fortunately for everyone's peace of mind (and body), such people were a small if vocal minority. Most people tended to think that teaching teens how to be adults, thinkin things through, and understand the nature of consequence was something to be supported and praised whole-heartedly. He just hoped it didn't blow up in everyone's faces, because this whole damn situation was a powder-keg with a lit match next to the fuse.

"Marshall Kane." The two delinquent 'guards' on the far side of the door, both girls a little younger than Clarke, greeted him with curtly polite nods as he crossed the threshold. "Clarke is waiting for you. Bree will show you the way."

Kane nodded in acceptance to the slim dirty blonde, following at her heels as she turned and started to walk. While he hardly needed a guide to find what some people might call his protégé, and certainly didn't need a guide to get around the prison whose layout and population he oversaw, it was a matter of diplomacy. Clarke ruled the Skybox, now, and in teaching her followers discipline she had them doing many things one might consider bizarre or presumptuous of prisoners. Then again, Clarke had always considered true imprisonment to be a matter of the mind. A surrender, an abandonment of pride and self-respect for nihilism and fleeting selfishness. Things she had worked very hard indeed to purge from the other teens, Bree being a prominent example of success. She had been 'boxed' for breaking into the Medical Wing and utilizing the precious supplies within for recreational use, a wild child that had cared for no one and nothing beyond having as much fun as she could by whatever means she wanted. Now she was one of the most rehabilitated prisoners, a model teen and inmate.

As he followed her along the tier where Clarke lived, he looked down into the communal area that dominated the detention block's center. From this vantage point, it was easy to see a group of teen practicing what looked like meditation under the watchful eyes of one Zoe Munroe, one of those that could quite accurately be called a lieutenant of Clarke.

"Marshal Kane to see you, Clarke." Bree announced as they approached Cell 1066, the most central and furthest-from-the-door cell in the entire complex, waving the man in question up to where the room's inhabitants could see him.

"Ah, good. I've been expecting you, Marshall." Clarke greeted him warmly, looking up from her discussion with another girl, one who was vaguely familiar to him. "Harper, why don't you go. Sparring will be starting soon, and I want you there to help Zoe. Remind her to keep a close eye on the more volatile students and reprimand them as needed. The last thing we need are injuries because people get egotistical."

"Of course, Clark." The response was instant and respectful, and Kane exchanged nods with Harper as she passed him on her way to carry out her instructions.

"I see that the Cult of Clarke is still going strong." He quipped once they were alone, and those bright blue rolled skyward with a sigh of long-suffering as her somewhat regal bearing faded, leaving only the girl he had watched grow up.

"Hardly a Cult, Marcus. They were lost and angry at the world, so I gave them a purpose. A purpose that has helped to shape them into people that can survive the Council's idiotic capriciousness. Their gratitude and respect are heartwarming and flattering, but quite unnecessary." she dismissed the idea easily, apparently unaware of how much like a charismatic cult leader she actually sounded. She was silent for a moment, long enough he wondered if he was supposed to respond somehow, before she met his eyes again. "So, I take it that you're here to tell me you've all stopped dithering and decided to accept my proposal?"

"Clarke…" now it was Kane's turn to sigh, giving her a vaguely chastising look that had absolutely no impact whatsoever on its target. Not that she didn't have a point, because God knew that swift and decisive action wasn't exactly a specialty of The Council when executing someone wasn't involved. "Yes, they have, without any caveats or changes of their own. You will go planetside alone with basic supplies, Octavia gets to stay out of prison, and any executions will be stayed until the six-month mark passes. After that…after that, we won't have a choice but to assume the ground isn't survivable yet and…take steps."

"Even if the ground isn't perfect yet, its better than waiting around up here to die or watch people get murdered in cold blood because The Council lacks the courage to act boldly." She responded, rising to her feet and gazing at the intricate artwork with which she had painstakingly detailed the walls of her cell. "If they won't do what is necessary to save our people, I will."

"The Council cannot afford to act recklessly, Clarke. We're all that is left. If we 'act boldly' and get it wrong, there won't be a human race to save." Kane reminded her, and she spun to face him with burning eyes and a fierce scowl, one hand flicking in a contemptuous discarding motion.

"Waiting another year or more before sending a third of the next generation down on a single ship…that is reckless. Had I not taken the initiative, the Council would have done nothing until it was already to late for anything other than a single, forlorn hope. A single cast of the die." She lectured him heatedly, gesturing broadly to indicate the Ark as a whole. "We are meant for more than this, Marcus! Meant for more than simply wasting away in the sky, the sad remnants of a forgotten era! We will reclaim our home, and if that means I must be our vanguard, then by God I will be exactly that!"

Not for the first time, Marcus reflected on just why Clarke Griffin was an utter nightmare for The Council and Security. A speech like that, filled to the bring with earnest honesty and passion, could sway all but the most cold-hearted and fanatical. It was obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen that she believed what she was saying with every ounce of her soul, and that sincerity added a degree of power to her words that could not be underestimated.

"I hope that you're right, Clarke. I hope that you're ready, that the mechanics did a good job, that you find shelter before a bad storm starts. I hope for a lot of things, Clarke. A lot of things." He sighed, suddenly feeling quite tired. It was utterly unsuitable to his image of the iron-hearted dispenser of Law and Order, of course, but he was positive that none of the prisoners would dare eavesdrop on this of all rooms and conversations.

"You worry too much. I can kick the ass of any two people on this station simultaneously, I'll have good equipment, and I'll have all the surviving records on bunkers and supply caches. Not to mention a cause and my own pigheadedness."

Though she sounded firm and confident, there was nonetheless a hint of vulnerability within her eyes. A fear of the unknown, yes, but more than that it was a fear of failure and the knowledge of what such a failure would mean for her people.

"Very true. No one has ever accused you of giving up easily, being easy to manipulate, or to control." He agreed, which was technically true even if it was a massive understatement. Clarke did what Clarke thought was right, nothing more or less. "Given the circumstances, The Council wants you to leave as soon as possible. Two days from now."

"Good, no point in wasting any more time. Inform the Council that I'll be ready, and remind them that trying to keep my mission a secret is an exercise in futility. Word will get out that I am no longer on the station, and it would probably be wiser to tell people the truth rather than let them believe that you've floated me two years early without a trial. Otherwise, you might find yourself with just a little bit of a problem."

"I'll make sure to pass that along, I promise."

Both of them knew that her words would be ignored, of course, that The Council would avoid doing anything that might give the appearance of obedience or submission to her will. Petty, perhaps, but they couldn't allow it regardless of how right she might be. They couldn't afford to appear as if their hold on power was loose, not with things on the Ark so tense as they currently were. Quite honestly, Marcus was sure that the majority of The Council had only agreed to this venture of Clarke's because it gave them the opportunity to separate her from her supporters. Besides, they were positive that they could keep the mission secret for the requisite six months, it wasn't as if daily visits occurred for the prisoners!

"Go, Marcus. If I am leaving so soon, there are preparations to be made. After all, it wouldn't do for all of my hard work here to be undone by my departure. Bree will escort you back to the hatch." She said finally, glancing past him to where Bree had doubtlessly appeared at the use of her name. As he turned and started to walk away, her voice reached out to stop him. "I'm going to hold The Council to their promises, Marshall Kane. All of The Council."

Being dismissed and politely threatened by someone who was nominally his helpless prisoner was a fairly bizarre experience, but then Clarke had never really conformed to the expected norms of the Ark. She was too much like her father for that. Shaking his head in affectionate and bemused amusement, he bid farewell to the Prison Station and entered the Ark proper, checking his watch. He was due to meet his fellow Councilors in half an hour, which meant he had just enough time to take the walk to Alpha Station at a leisurely stroll. Which was good, given that he had to decide how best to inform them about the contents of his freshly finished conversation with Clarke.

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Thelonius Jaha, Chancellor of The Ark, gritted his teeth as Marcus finished speaking. Once again, the girl who was both a daughter to him and a massive thorne in his side was causing a volatile mixture of emotions within his heart. She was brave, kind, and constantly refused to accept that some things just were. That some things were how the world worked, how the world needed to work, and that she really ought to stop rocking the goddamn boat. Clearly, the death of her father and her subsequent imprisonment had done little to bring her to heel.

…Well, that had sounded remarkably villainous and evil, even (or perhaps especially) within the safety of his own mind. He loved Clarke almost as much as he loved his own son, and he had long considered Jake and Abby to be the siblings he had never had, but he could never allow the Ark and its people to be placed in danger. Perhaps Jake had been right, perhaps the people banding together to find a solution would save everyone. After all, to save the Ark was to save themselves, and humans were remarkably smart and determined when it came to saving their own hides, and it wasn't as if group effort had never led to breakthroughs of incredible proportions

The fact that they often placed themselves in the position where they had to work together to save their own skins, and that many of the most successful group efforts in human history generally involved finding better ways to kill each other, was neither here nor there.

Jaha had instead considered it far more likely that the ordered society which was required to survive in space would have collapsed into anarchy and barbarism if the truth had been revealed. Attempts to claim the Exodus Ships for themselves, to crash the Ark into Earth, perhaps taking it upon themselves to lighten the load on the environmental systems. In such a chaos, born of fear and fury, the fates of The Council would likely be the stuff of nightmares, though of course self-preservation was only a small factor in their decision-making process.

It was a burden of monolithic proportions, preserving what little of the human race remained. He couldn't permit or ignore anything that might even peripherally endanger that mission, and unfortunately Jake Griffin had done so in more than one way. Above and beyond his naïve trust in the good nature of people. His heritage and the ideals that it held sacred were a plague upon mankind, one that had played a great part in the downfall of their race and the destruction of their homeworld.

The Sacred Brotherhood of Assassins. The Hashashin. The Hidden Ones. The Watchers In The Dark. Many names, many iterations, and countless fanatics willing to die for the sake of their precious 'free will'. How had that ended for the Old World, hmm? Rampant laziness, narcissism, and a sense of self-righteous entitlement that had let society spiral into vicious decay that had been followed by even more vicious war.

It was the Order to which his family belonged that had preserved man. Like their ancient rivals, they had gone by many names. The Children of Cain. The Cult of Kosmos. The Order of the Ancients. The Knights Templar. An organization that believed utopia and peace would not be achieved through tolerance and mutual understanding. Humanity was too prone to corruption and childish stupidity to chart their own course, and so those who were wiser would guide and control their course until they reached the pinnacle of evolution.

Oh, his Order had certainly gone too far in the past, even with the necessity of their righteous cause, he was willing to admit that much. Ethnic cleansing, for example, was hardly an acceptable tactic for creating a utopia of equality. Promoting genocide could hardly bring about peace and enlightenment, after all, and he was ashamed to admit that his forebearers had committed such crimes more than once. Still, it was better than the alternative.

"Well, if one thing is at all clear, it's that Clarke isn't having any second thoughts about her proposal." Sinclair finally mused, voice tinged with vague amusement.

"My daughter takes oaths very seriously. When it was agreed Octavia would go free and we would let Clarke scout the ground, it became an inevitable truth as far as she is concerned." Abby proclaimed with bitter pride, and Jaha couldn't help but nod in begrudging agreement.

"I dislike the idea of giving her so many supplies. If this turns out to be a fool's errand, valuable tools and resources will have been lost for nothing." Pike, the hard-bitten teacher of Earth Skills and the Director of Agriculture, grunted with a frown of displeasure. Like his friend Marcus, he placed the security and survival of the Ark above everything else, though he went so far as to include manners and diplomacy in 'everything else'.

"The equipment we're giving Clarke is quite insubstantial, all things considered, and without it informing us about conditions on the ground will be totally impossible." Marcus pointed out, receiving a dissatisfied grunt in response, which was probably the best that he could hope for.

"The decision has already been made, there isn't any point to rehash it all again here. Is there anything else to discuss?" Jaha looked around the table, each person shaking their head in turn. Nodding, he adjourned the meeting and departed with unusual alacrity, leaving his subordinates to their own devices as he began the short walk to his lonely quarters. With his wife dead more than five years past, and his son refusing to acknowledge his existence or do anything other than sleep there, he had little in the way of pleasant company. Nor did he really want to find any, at least not of a romantic sort. He would remain forever loyal to his beloved, which was probably one of the few things his son actually liked about him these days…

Loyalty. A word and concept that nearly everyone on The Ark would say he was utterly incapable of, and he honestly couldn't disagree. The weight of Jake's gaze before the airlock opened was crushing, but it had been a gaze of solemn understanding and forgiveness instead of condemnation. That had made it all the more agonizing, in the end. Had made the nightmares worse, had made his conscience torture him all the more for murdering a man who would have listened to him if he had begged patience.

Seventy-two more hours until Clarke would be on the ground, and though her feared her family's ideals could return once the rest of the Ark followed her to the ground (surely, after a century, their homeworld would at least be capable of keeping them alive long enough to reach bunkers they could inhabit!), but he had faith that wisdom would prevail. Some loosening of the current laws would be expected, of course, and he would do so with little objection. Cruel totalianarism had nevcer in history brought long-term order, but instead ended always in worse chaos and destruction than that which had cause the totalitarianism to come to power in the first place. Besides, the goodwill he would garner by doing such a thing would buy him plenty of latitude, latitude enough to accomplish his goals at last.

As he lay down to sleep that night, he reflected once again that it was a damn good thing the Griffon's were so staunchly moral. Otherwise, he might never have awoken some dark night, but found himself bathing in Hellfire instead.

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Amusingly enough, another man slept soundly despite having received the same sort of visit that Jaha so rightly feared from young Clarke. Nearly three weeks after he had put her on house arrest for coming very close indeed to achieving what her father had attempted, as a matter of fact. Thorough meticulous and methodical memorization of patrol schedules and command center shifts, she had managed to provide herself with a window of opportunity nearly four minutes wide! If he hadn't remembered he needed to adjust the feed for one of the few still-functioning security cameras and chanced upon her, she would have succeeded in broadcasting her father's message to the entire station.

He had jumped at shadows and the smallest of noises for those three weeks, convinced that (despite his perpetrations, which included round-the-clock guards outside his door) he would wake up one night with a Columbian Necktie, courtesy of a very smart, cunning, and angry blonde teenager. He had been partially correct, in that he had in fact awakened one night to a distinctly unnerving sight…

His eyes flew open, mind racing with adrenaline as he tried to evaluate how his environment had changed, something he was positive had happened. After a moment of searching, his eyes fell upon a shadowed female figure sitting at his small work table, casually toying with the long, dark form of a combat knife.

"Good morning, Marshal Kane, and I mean that in the most literal sense of course. Its only half past two at the moment." A terrifyingly familiar voice greeted him softly, and he shot upright in bed to stare wide-eyed at Clarke Griffin. "Terribly sorry to disrupt your sleep, but I just couldn't stay away any longer."

"How the hell did you get in here?!" he snarled, weighing whether shouting for help would push her to violence. "What happened to my guards? I would have heard you fighting your way past them."

"Oh, they weren't to hard to handle, I'm afraid. A few sparks, a bit of a zapping sound, and a bang was all it took for them to abandon their post. By the time they figure out that it was a small electrical fire that did no damage beyond cosmetics and come back, they'll have been gone for a good fifteen minutes. More than enough time for us to finish here and for me to be gone." She waved the blade around airily, her tone verging on dismissive, and he swallowed a rather large lump in his throat as he eyes followed its movement.

"You planning on killing me, Clarke? Getting some revenge for your father?" he was quite proud that his voice didn't waver in the least. If she meant to kill him, he wasn't going to die blubbering like a coward!

"No, of course not. What do you take me for, and what would my father think of me, if I murdered you for carrying out your duty? You're not some dictatorial maniac killing people on a whim, Marshall. You're trying to keep Humanity alive, and I think you would change your methods in an instant if you had other options." Her voice was sharp, a stern rebuke, and he felt himself nearly sag against his pillows in relief, though he tensed again when she continued. "No, I'm here to make some ultimatums, ultimatums that involve me going to Earth as a scout as early as possible, rather than in two years with the Skybox kids.

He gave her an incredulous look at that statement. The idea of stealthily repairing a dropship over that period of time and using the 'expendable' Skybox kids as scouts to discover if Earth was safe had only just been approved, and the initial repairs begun. Hell, they hadn't even decided which Exodus ship to use yet! Surely her mother hadn't told her?!

"Please, don't give me that sort of a look. It was perfectly obvious what you were going to do. If my Dad couldn't fix the failing systems, they can't be fixed. The only place we can go with what we have is Earth, and you lot would never even dream of sending anyone 'useful' down. Ergo, The Delinquents. Whispers of a search for a repairable Exodus ship, to be brought online slowly over the course of the next two years, filled in the rest quite nicely." She had scoffed at him, sounding terribly amused as she answered the questions he hadn't actually voiced. Evidently the chosen members of Maintenance and Science hadn't been as discrete as The Council would have hoped, though at least it required someone of notable cleverness to put all the pieces together.

"What about your mother and the rest of The Council? They want you under control." He pointed out, and she smirked confidently at him as she rose to her feet fluidly.

"The Council wants me out of sight so that I can't cause them any grief…or at least less of it, at any rate. You leave my mom to me and help get the rest of them onboard." She told him, padding silently towards his door.

"Why are you doing this, Clarke? It is as good as a death sentence. We know barely anything about conditions on the ground…"

She stopped in the doorway, and he feared for a moment that he had roused her ire, but she merely gave him a sad smile over her shoulder and left, a final pair of sentences handing behind her as the door shut and his guards returned, oblivious.

"Its what my father would have done. After all, death is a small price to pay to save my people."

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So, yeah. Started the rewrite officially! This won't be a huge priority, because Seraphim is the only story of mine that people (person, really) is financially supporting, but I am sure you all know how to change that if you are so inclined. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed Mk. II of Chapter One, and I promise it will only get bigger from here!