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I want to take a moment to apologize to you all, my faithful readers and reviewers.

I have decided to discontinue Bitter.

I know I left you all hanging for, what, three years? I feel horrible! I am actually ready to write now, but I look back at this story and see how poorly written it is. It wouldn't match my writing style at all anymore.

If I ever was to continue Bitter again, I'd have to start over from scratch, which I don't plan to do. I lost all my notes and outlines and most of the informational IZ sites have closed down, which leaves me at the mercy of numerous plot holes that I don't want to bother with anymore.

I suppose now that Bitter is forever gone, I can tell you how it ends. It's the least I can do. ;.;

How the story goes:

Mara, Det and Viggs escape. They reform a resistance team consisting of Mara, Det, Viggs, Rün and Spleenk. This time their base is on Irk, which is very dangerous but they do it anyway. Stuff happens. Mara and Det fall in love. Impending Doom 1 is launched. In Zim's stupidity, Det and Viggs are killed. All Mara has left of Det is his pak.

Things are chaotic. Their team splits up again after Viggs and Det's death. More stuff happens. Mara decides on a whim to join the bounty hunting career under the alias "Idony" (her middle name) to help track down Crystal. Ever since Det's death, Mara slowly becomes more and more bitter and resentful of everything. To dull the pain of all her losses, she loses herself in her bounty hunting and becomes notorious and feared as a lethal huntress.

Meanwhile, Miss Bitters keeps finding clues to her past that match up with her visions. It becomes more and more apparent that the principal and Ms. Noogie know more about her past than she thought. She constantly finds notes with clues hidden around her house in old dusty places (under floorboards, in old travel bags, in the pockets of old clothes).

She decides to look for more information on the principal, starting with Zecharia Sitchin and his theories. According to Sitchin, humans were created by aliens called the Annunaki, who come from a distant planet known as Nibiru, or to scientists as "Planet X". It explains a lot of questions about the human race being so intertwined with the cultures of the intergalactic society.

Miss Bitters' visions seem to skip time and show Mara aging from child to teen, still lost in her world of hunting and killing. Something snaps Mara out of it one day when she encounters 416. She gets her revenge and kills him, not realizing that he may have known about Crystal's whereabouts until it was too late.

More stuff happens (unplanned). Mara spends years searching the galaxy for Crystal, but it's as if she never existed. Rün meets up with Mara and they spend time together, becoming close friends. One day Mara finds a clue that Crystal may be on Earth. Together, she and Rün return to Earth.

The first place Mara goes is the old orphanage. It's an abandoned building in the forest now. She hides Det's pak in the shed for safe keeping. At this point, present-day Miss Bitters realizes one of the note's clues meant for her to find Det's pak in the shed, so she drives out and finds it, confirming that all of her visions had been truth all along. She brings it home with her, immediately going to sleep in hopes of finding out more about what happened through her visions.

It somehow turns out that Mara and Rün get captured and brought to Area 51 by none other than the principal, Dimitri Sitchin. Deep underground Area 51 is a lab that contains those huge test tube things with aliens inside them, suspended in time. The most surprising sight to Mara is rows upon rows of Irken bodies in the tubes. Ten of which are genetic copies of Det.

The story unfolds that Det and his old resistance partner Grey were the aliens who crashed in Roswell. They were brought to Area 51 and experimented on. Grey died and Det escaped. This is why Det knew about Earth and humans and why he had such a grudge against Mara in the beginning. The scientists used the information and genetic tissue they had already taken from Det and made clones of him after he escaped. The clones were failures because without paks, they were lifeless shells.

They suspend Rün in a tube. Dimitri tries to bargain with Mara. He would tell her where to find Crystal, but she'd have to hand over Det's pak first. She doesn't believe they know anything about Crystal and refuses, not willing to give up her last piece of Det for possibly false information.

Up until Dimitri tells her that they have Crystal captured there in Area 51, suspended in a tube. They revive Crystal and let her and Mara be reunited. Dimitri tells her that he'll release Crystal in exchange for Det's pak. Mara is willing to incline, but Crystal tells her not to believe him. Dimitri Sitchin is out to find the secret of immortality through Irken intelligence and is willing to use dirty tricks to find Det's pak. Crystal knew Dimitri would make the deal but never let her and Mara go.

Miss Bitters wakes up and immediately hides Det's pak under the floorboards. She doesn't know what happened next in her past, but she could guess that Crystal and Rün were still hostages at Area 51. She confronts Zim and asks for his help. He refuses but she bribes him with information on Earth's weaknesses, and eventually he agrees. Bitters takes Det's pak and she and Zim take the voot to Area 51.

This is where the story gets blurry, because I never finished my notes this far. I know that they break in to Area 51 with Zim's super awesome alien technology and find Rün. Miss Bitters gets knocked out and has the last vision. It entails Mara refusing Dimirtri's deal, and Dimitri somehow wiping Mara's mind of all memories pertaining to aliens, replacing it all with false memories of a normal life. He also added bad memories to her false lifetime to explain why her personality is so bitter. Every 10 years, she would begin to gain her real memories back and Dimitri would let it happen, hoping that she'd reveal the whereabouts of Det's pak, but every time something always went wrong and he'd have to wipe her mind again.

But this time things went differently, all because of Zim's presence in her classroom. Because of Zim, her memories returned faster and more detailed than ever before, catching Dimitri off guard.

Now that all the visions are over and Miss Bitters remembers everything completely, she is able to act without confusion. She and the newly-revived Rün set out to find Crystal. First they find Det's clones and Rün has an idea. They break one of the clones out and take it with them. Mara reattaches Det's old pak to the clone body and he is revived. Det lives!

But of course there is no romantic kissy scene because Miss Bitters is so old and that would be gross. It is a tearful reunion of hugs and unspoken words. Zim is confused, but that's okay. The four of them fight lab and military people and find Crystal. They revive her. Everyone is together again.

Dimitri, Noogie and all their military and scientist henchmen corner our heroes. There is a huge fight. They hold out and almost escape, but things go wrong. Rün is shot and dies. They are recaptured. Crystal is put back in the suspension tubes, Det's pak is destroyed on accident in crossfire, but he is able to tell Mara he loves her before he dies. Zim escapes. Miss Bitters' world goes black.

She wakes up the next morning back in her home, no memories of anything that happened. Her mind had been wiped.

The End.

Yeah, not a happy ending. There are other things that happen but like I said, I lost all my notes and outlines. One thing you might find interesting is that Merg is Vortian prisoner 777.

Again, I apologize to you all. Bitter is officially dead.

But I thank every one of you for your reviews and support. You were all a great inspiration to me and I appreciate it so much.

Who knows, maybe someday I'll rewrite Bitter from scratch. It's very, very unlikely, but no one can predict the future, eh? ;)

- Ailea