[October 5th, the dead of night]

_{[Wrath had not run so far and so long since before he had become a human.]

[But he can barely feel his lungs burning, or his muscles screaming.]

[They could not be further from his mind.]

[About as far as the suburbs he'd spent the last two months under is from the patch of downtown Goldenrod that the HQ lay in, actually.]

[Maybe Ralph is awake to hear the familiar-but-long-absent pitter-patter of tiny bare feet coming down the hall or maybe he's not, but either way his door will fly open five seconds later, its threshold filled with a small, wild-haired silhouette. Its chest is heaving.]}