Hybrids: No Longer Human (The Story Thread)

Many years ago, scientists had gathered together 500 small children and experimented on them, turning them into animal human hybrids. For most, they kept them separate, but as a sort of experiment to see how well the hybrids could work together, they stuck a couple in one big room together to see how they would react.

Most kept their distance, still too shocked over their changed bodies to really do anything, however three certain three year olds were the odd ones of the group and banded together instead of staying apart.

W2 watched as the other little kids walked around, avoiding contact with any of the others. The poor little boy though couldn’t understand why. He didn’t remember anything before a few days ago when he had woken up and been told that his name was W2, he hadn’t dared question it.

However what the penguin hybrid didn’t understand was why everyone kept away from each other. He decided to change that and approached the first little boy he saw, a three year old that stood a little taller than him, with fluffy brown fur and a long black tail.

“Hi,” he greeted with a smile and the boy looked at him in confusion before asking something in a different language, one W2 certainly didn’t understand.

W2 thought for a minute, making a face. “Fiddlesticks, you don’t understand me do you?” He asked. Now although W2 didn’t remember anything, he had found himself saying that word a lot, he didn’t know what it meant but it was oddly comforting to say.

He paused before putting his hand on his chest. “W2,” he introduced himself and the little boy seemed to get the idea and pointed to his own chest.

“W1.”

W2 smiled and hugged the other boy. “It’s nice to meet you W1,” he said and although W1 was a little confused at first, he soon discovered that he liked the hug and returned it. Maybe sticking around this other kid wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

The two Ws stuck together after that, and W1 was quite content to simply follow after the other, finding comfort staying by him, however W2 couldn’t quite help but notice another little boy, this one with furry black hair, cat ears, and a long furry black and white tail sitting all alone in the corner, a look of fear on his face.

W2 couldn’t just leave the boy like that and walked over, W1 right at his heels as they approached the third boy.

“Are you alright?” W2 asked with a tilt of his head as he looked at the other boy.

He was quiet for a minute before shaking his head and burying his face into his knees. “Leave me awone,” he said defensively. W1 didn’t understand him, but he knew when someone was getting defensive and was more than happy to leave.

W2 was not.

Instead the little penguin chick sat down beside him. “It okay really, we won’t hurt you. We wanna help,” he explained and gestured to himself. “I’m W2, that’s W1,” he introduced himself and the lemur boy.

The cat boy was quiet for a minute before looking up at them. “I W3,” he introduced quietly and W2 smiled at him.

“We all Ws!” He said happily and W3 laughed slightly, he was actually right, it was kind of funny. “Why were you crying W3?” W2 asked with a tilt of his head.

W3 looked down again. “They tol’ me I got adopted…but it was no nice home like they pwomised, they stuck me with needles, it was no fun,” he explained and sniffed. “N-now I gots this tail thing and ears and still no family.”

W2 looked at him for a second before pulling him into a hug. “We don't have a family either,” he explained before an idea came to mind. “Hey, what if we made a family?” He suggested and W3 looked at him with wide eyes.

“How you do that?”

The penguin hybrid thought for a minute before pulling both W1 and W3 into a group hug. “We can be a family!…We can be brothers!” He said with a smile.

W1 didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he liked the hugs and he liked W2 and W3 wasn’t bad, so he was quite content to stay like that.

W3 was a little stiff before relaxing into the hug and giving a small smile. “Bwothers.”

A few years passed and the three only grew closer and closer. The scientists had quickly discovered that they worked so much better together and let the three stay together. Especially since they could use this bond to turn them into the perfect little hybrids should they need to.

By now the boys were all seven and had all but forgotten about their old lives. W1 still sometimes mumbled Russian in his sleep, and W3 seemed to still know what had happened to him, but W2 had no memories from before the labs, and that worked out fine.

They had even chosen names for themselves, of course the names they chose had simply been names they had heard the scientists had said, maybe even just briefly.

Now at least to each other, they weren’t W1, W2, and W3, but rather: Nikolas, Kaiyo, and Tyler, brothers through and through.

“How are the brothers doing?” Asked a scientist as he walked over to a person watching the three on them through a screen.

She glanced over at the other scientist. “Fine, W1 did the best with the training though. He has a knack for fighting, we should use that,” she informed and the other nodded along.

“”We will, but not until we know they’re loyal to us. I would also like to use W2 for some more scientific purposes, he is far too curious to let that rot,” he explained as he looked at the screen.

The girl looked at him before glancing back at the screen. “What of the third? If we give the other two a use, he should have one as well, right?”

He nodded. “Oh believe me, he will have a use. Have you seen the way he talks and moves? He’s a troublemaker sure, but he’s also a natural leader. He has a purpose too,” he explained and his fellow scientist frowned slightly.

“They might need something to make them loyal to us no matter what, do you have anything in mind?”

He chuckled and gave a nod as the door opened to the cage on the screen and a scientist walked in holding a small bundle. “Oh believe me, I think we have just the thing.”

Meanwhile inside the shared cage, the three seven year olds looked with curious eyes as someone brought in a sleeping bundle and placed it down before heading back out, not even saying a word.

“What d’ya suppose it is?” Tyler asked as he peaked over at the bundle of blankets with a curious look in his light green cat like eyes.

Nikolas shrugged as he walked over to it and picked it up. “It is a small child,” he said and held it upside down. “What do you do with small children?”

“Not that!” Kaiyo squeaked out and reached for the small child and took him from Nikolas, holding it close to him. “I’m pretty sure you hold them like this,” he explained and rocked the child back and forth.

Nikolas and Tyler looked at their brother curiously. “How d’ya know that?” Tyler asked with a tilt of his head, letting his furry, long black hair fall to the side.

Kaiyo shrugged. “I dunno, it just seems like the type of thing you would do,” he explained and sat down with the child. “He looks pretty young, maybe only two years old, I wonder why the scientists gave him to us…”

The lemur hybrid sat down on one side of Kaiyo while Tyler sat down on the other side. “Maybe they didn’t want him,” Tyler suggested and Nikolas nodded along in agreement to his brother.

Kaiyo frowned. “The poor thing, we should adopt him then, he can be our younger brother,” he suggested and gently moved some of the blankets out of the way to let the little kid’s large red squirrel ears poke out.

Nikolas thought for a minute before agreeing. “What do you think his number is?” He asked with a tilt of his head and Kaiyo shrugged as Tyler answered.

“It doesn’t matter, we’re givin’ him a name! I vote we call him something wicked cool like Maverick, or Jack, or Zander, or, or, or what if we called him Killerexplosion?” He asked excitedly and both Nikolas and Kaiyo sent him a look and he let his shoulders sag. “Or maybe not.”

Nikolas looked down at the sleeping bundle. “What if we called him after us?” He asked and Tyler raised an eyebrow.

“I dunno, Nikaler doesn’t seem like the best name for anyone, neither does Kaiylas either, or Tykoyo.”

Kaiyo ignored them as he looked down at the small hybrid. “What about Norman?” He asked and Tyler and Nikolas looked at him for a minute before Tyler snorted.

The cat hybrid looked at Kaiyo in disbelief. “What kinda dorky name is Norman?” He asked and Kaiyo glared at him.

“I like it, and I think he does too,” he said and gestured his head down to where the little boy was smiling. He sure was little for his age…

Nikolas agreed with Kaiyo and the two looked expectingly at their brother, who caved and nodded as he looked down at the little red squirrel hybrid.

“Welcome to the family Norman.”

Chapter One: Kuro's Chapter
Kuro let out a small breath as he walked over to Hannah, a fellow worker there at Wings. He gave a smile as he waved. "Hi, Hannah," he greeted and she waved back.

"Oh hey Kuro, what can I help you with?"

Kuro paused, momentarily forgetting why he had come over before he remembered. "Lukas wanted me to tell you that Muse needs help in the hospital wing again," he explained with a sheepish smile.

Hannah nodded along. "Alright, thanks Kuro," she said and walked off, leaving the poor boy standing there, shuffling his feet as he hadn't noticed she had left yet.

He looked at the floor. "It's no problem, really. You know I think it's really nice of you to-" he paused as he looked up and realized the girl had left. "Oh...alright then."

"You're pathetic."

Kuro turned around to see an all too familiar fifteen year old boy with curly ginger hair and a face covered in freckles. "Ezra, how long have you been standing there?" He asked a little sheepishly as his friend walked over.

Ezra sent him a look. "Long enough. You know you don't have to be me to realize just how pathetically in love you are with Muse's assistant," he stated with an impossible to read expression. Kuro had to huff a bit at that.

He had known Ezra for fifteen years and still he managed to embarrass him. You would think he would have built up a tolerance for it. Ezra hadn't meant to be his friend really, after all Kuro was closer in age to his older sister. Yet somehow he had found himself befriending the little prince of the facility. Which was probably a good thing though, because otherwise Ezra would have literally no friends.

No one really liked him.

In a sense, Kuro could understand why....he was rude, pompous, privileged, manipulative, a know it all, acted like he was better than everyone else, and could see right through you without a second glance. However Kuro liked to think the boy had a sweet side that he tried to hide. Yet Kuro had seen it. Ezra had shown it to him and only him and Kuro had to admit, that despite himself, he enjoyed knowing that he was the one person Ezra liked.

He folded his arms as he looked over at the smaller boy. "Well uh...I bet you've been just as pathetic...and it's not love...it's just a small crush," he explained. Kuro had a strong belief that love took time. He didn't know if he would ever be in love with someone, but he figured he would know when he was.

Ezra paused and seemed to redden slightly before returning back to his normal composure. If anyone else had been there they wouldn't have even noticed the slip up, but Kuro had known Ezra enough to know when he messed up slightly. "No, I can't say I've ever been as pathetic as you," he told him simply as they began to walk. "However I promise that if I ever fall into the pit of pathetically sad hopelessness known as love, I'll let you know."

Kuro smiled slightly as he looked at his friend who still had yet to grow. "Alright Ezzy, I'll hold you to that," he stated and Ezra rolled his eyes at the nickname. Kuro's smile only grew. They both had nicknames for each other that if anyone else called them it, it just wouldn't be right. Kuro had fondly nicknamed Ezra "Ezzy" and to this day was still the only person who got away with it.

Ezra's nicknames for Kuro varied. He had been called "Roo" "Ro" "Roo-Roo" "Kuku" and "Puppy" which had a rather long story to it. However the most common one was simply "Roo" which Kuro was glad, because some of the nicknames were just a bit embarrassing.

"Anyways, I'm glad I found you. Mom wants to head into the city after lunch and I thought you would like to come, you could say hi to your mom again," Ezra explained as they made it to the kitchen and instantly both of them got to making lunch together.

Kuro beamed happily. "That would be great! I have some things I need to drop off there anyways, did your mom say why she wanted to go to the city?" He questioned as he got the stuff out for grilled cheese sandwiches.

Ezra gave a slight pause again before continuing. "School starts up again in a few weeks, and despite my insistent suggestions that she homeschool me, my mother once again has decided not to listen and is sending me off to some new private school."

Kuro sent him an apologetic look. He knew how much Ezra truly hated school. He had hated it ever since he had to go. Every school year was worse than the last and instead of simply pulling him out and homeschooling him, Hazel just kept getting him transferred to a new school every year. Hoping that would help the situation.

"Sorry Ezzy, maybe I could have my mom talk to her," he suggested with a smile. His mother had been best friends with Hazel for longer than Kuro could remember, and although he hadn't been homeschooled, he knew it was what would be best for Ezra. For him, school had been easy. But when you graduate high school at the age of fifteen and immediately go off to college for three years before graduating from there, you usually didn't have to deal with the bullies that Ezra had.

The teen simply shook his head. "No, don't worry about it. I can put up with another horrible year stuffed in a he-er, heck hole full of idiotic, mean, brutish zombies," he stated with a slight glare.

Kuro walked over to his friend, who was cooking the sandwiches and he quickly rested his head atop of his. "Well if it counts, you will always have me to rant too about these 'idiotic, mean, brutish zombies' right?" He asked.

Ezra paused before agreeing. "Yeah, I doubt I'll ever shake you off Roo-Roo, now get off me, I have sandwiches to make," he stated and pushed Kuro away.

Kuro laughed as he moved out of the way. Yeah, most people couldn't stand the person known as Ezra Winn, but to Kuro, he was and would always be, his best friend.

-

After lunch the two met up in the front where Hazel, Lukas, and some other guy were. Kuro tilted his head as he looked at the stranger. He was tall, that was the first thing he noticed. Along with that the guy just sent off an intimidating aura. Though his scowl and gun did help with that.

He had dark brown hair and a bit of scruff, along with a scar running down the side of his face. Honestly he looked like the type of guy you avoided at all costs, however Kuro couldn't help but greet him.

So as Ezra talked to his mother and basically uncle about the newcomer, Kuro instead decided to say hello as he walked over to the tall stranger and gave a slight wave. "Hello, I'm Kuro," he introduced with a smile.

The stranger seemed a bit surprised that Kuro even spoke to him, but gave a nod back. "I am Nikolai Volkov," he introduced in a strong Russian accent, it was clear he didn't speak English very often.

Kuro nodded along. "Well it's nice to meet you Nikolai! Are you a new worker? I work here as well, as a genetic scientist," he explained and glanced over at Ezra. "The guy over there is my best friend and son of Doctor Winn's. His name is Ezra," he explained and Nikolai gave a nod

"Doctor Winn had told me of vis...son," he responded before turning his attention back to Kuro. "I am not an official worker, but you vwill be seeing me....frequently for zee next few days," he explained. "Doctor Winn has hired me for the time being."

Kuro couldn't help but wonder what exactly Hazel had hired the guy to do, but he figured Ezra would find out and he could question his friend later. "Will you come with us to the city? We don't go there often since the facility is a little ways off from it, but it is nice to go back every now and then," he explained with a smile.

Nikolai gave a nod. "Da, I come with you all."

-

Kuro looked around at the large store. He felt bad for Ezra, getting dragged into back to school shopping, it wasn’t fun. However he had to feel a bit bad for Lukas, Nikolai, and himself too considering they got dragged along with him.

Clothe shopping was first on the list, then they were going to stop by his parent’s house, and after that they were doing some other shopping while Lukas and Nikolai got food…or something like that. It’s what Kuro had been told.

However well…waiting for Ezra to finish arguing with Hazel and just try the clothes on got boring fast. So Kuro had taken to counting all the unhappy shoppers while he waited. So far he was at twenty two…but right then a certain shopper caught his eye.

It was a boy who looked to be around his own age. He had naturally tan skin, dark fluffy black hair that fell down to his chin, and a few scars. However what really stood out to Kuro was the fact that this shopper wasn’t shopping, he was stealing.

Kuro got up, he should find a worker and tell them… “Hey Lukas, I’m going to go find a worker, okay?” He asked and the guy nodded along absentmindedly as he was in a deep discussion with Nikolai about the usage of poisons…Kuro didn’t want to know.

He walked off, making sure to keep an eye on the thief as he looked around for a worker. It was the right thing to do, he also seemed to be a pretty good thief considering no one else had noticed. Kuro was certain he only noticed himself thanks to spending so much time with Ezra, who would have known in an instance.

However as Kuro got lost in thought, he hadn’t realized the thief slipping out of sight and then the next thing he knew, someone was dragging him into a dressing room. “Why hello there stalker, mind telling me why you were watching me?”

Kuro gasped in surprise as he got dragged into a dressing room and came face to face with the thief…who was far to close to comfort. “You were stealing…I was going to tell a worker…you aren’t going to kill me now, are you?” He asked with wide eyes.

The thief held his gaze for a minute before letting his wrist go. “So long as you don’t tell,” he answered with a wink. “I must admit, I’m impressed you even saw that, I’m good, usually don’t get caught. So let’s make a little deal, you don’t tell anyone and I’ll let you go,” he stated casually.

Kuro gulped. “What if I refuse?”

The thief smirked and once again got far too close for comfort. “You’ll find yourself tied up in a closet, by the time you can get out, I’ll be long gone,” he explained before pulling back a bit. “So, we got ourselves a deal then?”

Kuro wasted no time nodding along. While he believed in doing the right thing, he preferred to keep himself out of harms way while doing so.

“Perfect,” the thief said and leaned back. “The name’s Xavier by the way, and who might the little stalker be?” He asked with a tilt of his head.

Kuro gave a sheepish smile. “I’m Kuro…Kuro Frost,” he introduced, getting a better hold of himself as he looked Xavier over, he seemed like the type of guy you wouldn’t want to mess with…unless you were someone like Nikolai, Kuro had a feeling the Russian could take anyone on.

Xavier nodded along. “Well Frosty, this has been fun, but I got other places to be, who knows maybe we’ll run into each other again,” he said with a playful wink as he moved to leave the dressing room when screaming started from outside and he settled for peaking outside instead.

Kuro heard the screaming and gulped as he wondered what was going on, however soon after, Xavier closed the door again and turned to face Kuro, a suddenly very serious expression on his face. “Well, considering there are people out there with animal ears and tails taking hostages, I’d say we’ll be in here a bit longer.”

Kuro’s eyes widened in surprise. “But, Ezra’s out there!” He said, pushing away his own fear as he made to get out, he had to find his friend. However Xavier clutched his wrist and pulled him back.

“Well then let’s hope your friend can take care of himself for awhile, because unless you have a plan, we’re staying in here,” he explained and Kuro paused…he might actually just have a plan.

Chapter Two: Ezra's Chapter
“Mother I’m begging you, don't make me try on anymore clothes, who even needs three ‘cool jackets’ to make an impression on the cool crowd?” Ezra questioned with a raised brow.

Hazel sent him a look. “You keep complaining that people don't like you at the schools, I’m just trying to help,” she explained and continued before her son could talk. “No, I'm not homeschooling you, you know how little time I have to spare anyways, I had to clear my schedule just for today,” she explained.

Ezra huffed a bit as he grabbed the pile of clothes and entered the dressing room. She just didn’t get it. People didn’t like him. He was smarter than them, and saw right through all their fake behavior. He was a threat to them and when that happened, guess who ended up with his head in the toilet because he was far to small and weak to fight them off?

Ugh, the only person who actually seemed to understand was Kuro. He was used to people disliking him, Ezra was well aware that no one at the labs but his mother, Lukas, and Kuro liked him there. However the difference was that he owned the labs, they had to listen to him. However at school, he was just another kid….a kid who far too often found himself shoved in some jerk’s locker.

The jokes that gingers had no souls never ended for him. At this point, Ezra was thinking of just ditching school everyday and just dealing with the consequences later.

He finished trying on the clothes and walked back out of the room, realizing that Kuro had walked off. “Where’d Kuro go?” He questioned as he handed the pile of clothes over to his mother.

Hazel shrugged. “Lukas said he went to go find a worker, he’ll be back soon,” she said and looked at the clothes. “So, is that a yes to these?” She questioned.

“Sure mom, I really don't care,” Ezra said and she took that as a go ahead to buy the clothes. Ezra would have gave a snarky remark to her if right then people burst through the front doors, each holding guns of different kinds.

However Ezra couldn't quite help but notice that it wasn’t just anyone who entered the store, they were hybrids. Freely letting their animal parts show, however they hid their faces behind animal face masks.

“Alright everyone, get on the ground and no one gets hurt,” the one with a fox mask said as the hybrids took to searching the store. “Wolf here is gonna get the money, Eagle is gonna make sure none of you call for help, and Cobra is going to find the person, or rather people that we’re looking for,” the hybrid explained.

Ezra got a bad feeling about this, of course Lukas and Nikolai could probably fight off some of them, but that was a lot of hybrids, Ezra highly doubted even with their combined strengths that they could take on all…thirteen hybrids.

As the one with the fox mask, which Ezra could only assume meant he was “Fox” spoke, he began to pace back in worth as the other hybrids searched the store. “Now, thanks to Human, we know that someone here is the same person who keeps taking our herd. So, anyone here by the name of Doctor Hazel Winn? Or hey, we’d even take her son, Ezra Winn.”

Well crap.

Right then, someone grabbed his arm. He hadn’t even been aware that he had walked off from his mother, sorta uncle, and the assassin. Yet he had, and now…he got the feeling he was in trouble.

“Fox, I think I found the kid!”

Fox turned his masked face to look at Ezra, the big black cartoon fox eyes staring back at him. “I believe you’re right Elk, this looks just like the picture Human gave us,” he stated and "Elk” pushed him forward. “Well it seems your mother is no where to be seen, but don’t worry little Winn, killing you will be a good incentive for the good doctor to talk.”

With that Cobra and Elk held him in place and Fox pointed his gun at Ezra’s head.

Ezra got the feeling that this wouldn’t end well for him.

“Shooting me would be extremely stupid,” Ezra stated, he didn’t know where the heck everyone else was, but he was here and he didn’t want to die, so he was going to talk his way out of this. “Maybe I have the information you need, I’m just as valuable as my mother, besides what would killing me achieve? Angering my mother? Believe me, that is not something you want to do,” Ezra explained.

Fox paused as he thought it over, he turned his head to Cobra and Elk. “What do you think?” He asked and they nodded. Fox turned his attention back to Ezra. “Alright, keep talking.”

Ezra did just that. “In fact, I’m probably even more valuable than my mother, she may be the head of the operation, but I’m the neck, who do you think really controls everything?” Sorry Hazel, but Ezra needed to get them off his back, so if that meant throwing his mother under the bus a bit, then so be it.

The hybrids seemed to consider this, and it was in those few seconds that followed: many things happened at the same time.

One was Kuro literally charging out of his hiding spot to tackle Fox down in a sudden burst of bravery.

Two was this other guy followed Kuro out, dragging a knocked out hybrid behind him and holding a gun of his own, pointing it at the hybrids.

Three, someone screamed and tried to run away while sirens could be heard in the distance, clearly Eagle had not done a very good job at making sure no one tried to run away or call the police.

Four, Lukas and Nikolai had gotten out of their own hiding places and got to attacking the hybrids…Nikolai doing a good job of violently taking them down.

Then finally, the last thing that happened was Hazel calmly walking over in the chaos to get to her son, who had been freed from Elk and Cobra’s grasps after the chaos began.

And all that happened within just a few short seconds.

-

After that, Hazel talked to the police to inform them what happened and they took it from there. However twelve out of thirteen of the hybrids had gotten away, only the one the guy with Kuro had taken out had not.

What happened to that one? Well, Hazel had Lukas take it back to the labs before the people even realized what was going on.

“So, who are you again?” Ezra asked as he looked up at the guy who had followed Kuro out, he seemed like a rather arrogant fellow, Ezra could already tell that he didn't like him.

“The name’s Xavier, and I’m gonna guess you’re the friend Frosty talked about, Ezra right?” He asked and Ezra nodded along. “Right well you can thank us for those creeps not killing you,” he said and was followed by silence. “Anytime kid, I’m all ears waiting for that thank you.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Please, I had everything under control, they had moved passed killing me before you involved yourself,” he stated plainly. “So try begging for attention from somewhere else street rat,” oh it was quite obvious to Ezra that this Xavier was nothing of importance.

Probably lived his whole life on the streets, steals to survive, didn’t trust people and preferred playing with their emotions. Ezra would have to keep him away from Kuro, he didn’t need anyone toying with him.

Kuro walked over, he had walked off to call his mother and let her know what happened. However after the call, he had made his way back over to the two and quickly enveloped Ezra in a hug from behind. “I’m glad you’re okay Ezzy,” he said with a smile on his face.

Ezra allowed the hug. “Well, you did have a little something to do with that, after all you tackled the guy who wanted to kill me, which was very brave. Thank you,” he said and Xavier sent him a look of disbelief. Ezra simply smiled innocently at the taller boy.

“Well yeah, I couldn’t let him kill you, tackling him seemed like a good idea at the time…didn’t feel all that great when he attacked back, but then Nikolai came and scared him off, so it was definitely worth it,” Kuro explained, making no move to stop the hug.

Right then Hazel walked over. “Alright, so I’m needed back at the lab, we’ve had…a difficulty,” she explained and Ezra got the idea that this difficulty was hybrid related. “So why don’t you guys go to Kiana’s house and stay there for the night?” She questioned. “Nikolai will accompany you of course.”

Of course his mother would make sure the assassin stayed with them…probably for protection or something along those lines. “Sure mom, as long as Kiana is okay with it,” Ezra agreed and Hazel nodded along.

“Don’t worry, I already checked with her, she would love to have you stay over, so I do need to take the car, will you guys be okay taking a cab to her house? I’ve already called for one,” Hazel explained and Ezra wanted to roll his eyes.

They were old enough to ride a cab. Honestly his mother was far too protective and doting for her own good. “We’ll be fine,” he assured and Hazel nodded to him before she headed off.

Kuro beamed. “Wow a sleep over at my parents house, this will be great! Xavier you should come too! I’ll tell my mom that you’re one of my friends and I’m sure she’ll be alright with it, before I moved out, Ezzy and I would have sleep overs all the time,” he explained.

Great now he was inviting street rats, it was bad enough that the assassin had to come along. Ezra for one would have been fine with it jus being him and Kuro. He sent a warning glare over at Xavier, hoping the guy got the idea and backed off.

However Xavier only smirked. “Sounds good to me Frosty, I’m in,” he said and sent Ezra a teasing grin. Which Ezra happily returned with a death glare.

However Kuro didn’t seem to notice and simple beamed happily. “Group sleepover, this will be great!” He said happily, however Ezra wasn’t so sure. By the looks of it, neither was Nikolai.

Chapter Three: Nikolai's Chapter
Nikolai looked around the room curiously. So this was what normal houses looked like…it was strange, he had never been invited in as a guest. He had gone in normal houses before, but he had never been able to really pay attention to what it looked like, after all he was there to kill someone.

When Doctor Winn had hired him, he had been told that one of their hybrids had gotten out, that this certain hybrid had extremely valuable information on her and that it was of utmost importance that she never got the chance to share the information.

Nikolai didn’t exactly know what hybrids truly were other than animal people, and he had no idea what information this one had. However he didn’t need to know those things to know he was supposed to find this girl and kill her before she could talk. It really shouldn’t be all that hard.

However then the doctor gave him a new job as well, one that he wasn’t so sure about. Now not only was he supposed to find the hybrid, but he was also supposed to protect the Winn boy, at least for now anyways.

He didn’t mind it too much, however…he got the feeling that the Winn boy did not like him, and he still had yet to decide if this Xavier was a threat or not. He didn’t seem to pose a threat at the moment, but you could never be sure.

Nikolai did decide though, that he liked the other boy. Kuro was his name. He was friendly, despite being friends with the teenager. Nikolai had to wonder if that was how friends acted, the way Kuro and Ezra acted. They were friends, correct?

He had taken to observing the pair as they got everything ready for the impromptu sleepover. Xavier was there too, but Nikolai focused more on the friends, to better understand how these friendships worked.

Apparently cute nicknames and a lot of hugs were normal. He had not thought it would be, but then again…what did he even know about friendships?

He watched from the sidelines as they picked a movie to watch because as Kuro said: “It’s not a proper sleepover unless you have a disney movie playing.” Nikolai didn't understand. Didn’t a sleepover just mean people were sleeping over at your house?

However apparently that was not all it was. For this sleepover had The Muppets Movie, popcorn, snack food, and cuddling on the couch. Literally that was what they were doing, they were sitting down in front of the television set, watching the movie while snacking on red licorice, wrapped up in a shared blanket, cuddling as they watched the movie.

Xavier had taken the popcorn bowl and sat himself down on the chair by the couch, he seemed to smirk a lot, and Nikolai got the idea that he was an observer too.

If friendships required so much touching, Nikolai decided that he was quite contend without friends…although, he had never had positive physical contact before, maybe it was nice.

“Nikolai, aren’t you going to watch with us?” Kuro called over, pulling Nikolai out of his thoughts as he looked over at the other.

He supposed he should join them and sent them a nod as he made his way over. “Da, I will watch the puppet movie,” he agreed and sat himself down on the chair next to Xavier’s. He glanced over at Kuro and Ezra. Sleepovers called for cuddling, yes? Was he supposed to have a snuggle buddy too? He doubted Xavier would want to cuddle, and frankly he didn’t think he knew the other enough to do that.

Yet still…the other two made cuddling seem so fun, and like such a needed sleepover activity…He wished he had someone to cuddle with.

Nikolai glanced over at Xavier, who was giving him a look, clearly he had suspected what Nikolai was thinking and the thief shook his head.

“Don’t even think about it Volky.”

Well, guess that answered that question. There would be no cuddling for Nikolai tonight, so instead he just reached for some snacks and turned his attention to watch the movie.

-

The next morning, Nikolai was a bit surprised to see that he was the second one awake, he usually was the first to wake up. However Xavier was already up and talking to the parents. Keith and Kiana, if Nikolai remembered correctly.

They had agreed to give the boys the main floor and had kept to upstairs the previous night, however it seemed they were back and both looked ready for work.

Nikolai loked back over at the chair he had fallen asleep in, he did take notice that Ezra and Kuro were both still asleep, snuggled up on the couch with the blanket wrapped around them.

Friends…the more Nikolai observed the more he just wasn’t sure he wanted them. They looked so touchy touchy. He had a large personal bubble and although he had never experienced positive physical contact, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to have friends.

Besides, it was so much easier to behead people than befriend them.

He shook his head lightly before making his way over to the kitchen, where Xavier was talking to Keith and Kiana.

“So, thanks again for letting me stay the night, don’t worry, I’ll make sure the sleepyheads get to the facility today,” Xavier told them and Kiana gave a nod.

“Thank you, I don't want Hazel to worry about Ezra for too long, so the sooner you can get back the better. It’s nice to meet another worker there,” she said before spotting Nikolai and waving. “Good morning Nikolai, I take it Kuro and Ezra are still asleep?” She asked.

Nikolai gave a nod. “Da, they are on the couch,” he explained and glanced back over to the couch, he wondered if they would wake up soon or if they would have to wake them up.

Soon both the parents left, leaving Nikolai alone with Xavier as they both just sort of stood there. The Frost family had been kind enough to supply them both with some of Keith’s pajamas yet they still didn’t fit all that great on either of them.

“So, what’s your story?” Xavier asked, breaking the silence as he sat down at the table and put his feet up.

Nikolai simply shrugged as he sat down across from the thief. “I work for Doctor Winn, at least I do for now,” he explained simply and looked at the boy. “What of you? What ees you’re story?”

Xavier rested his hands behind his head, looking rather comfortable. “Street rat was the word Prissy pants used, so we’ll go with that,” he explained and Nikolai looked at him in confusion. Rat? But Xavier was a person, a human…oh it was probably another weird english phrase.

“I see, and you met Kuro yesterday, da?” He asked and Xavier nodded in confirmation. “But you two are not…friends?” He figured he should probably ask, just in case it was only him that was out of the loop as far as the whole friendships went.

Xavier shook his head. “Nah, though he seems like a nice enough guy, you should have heard him come up with the stupidest of plans yesterday, note to self, never let Frosty plan anything,” he said casually. “Eventually I figured it would be better if I just told him what to do so he didn’t get himself killed trying to save the brat. Of course when he saw his little friend at gun point, he freaked out and charged at the guy, that had not been part of the plan,” he explained.

Nikolai looked back over at the couch. “Saving each other despite risking your own life, eet ees what friends do, da?” He found himself oddly curious about theses friends…people were supposed to have them, right?

The street rat shrugged. “I guess, never really had someone I cared enough about to risk my own life, but at the least, I would hope friends wouldn’t throw caution to the wind just to save someone…wait, you think they’re friends?” Xavier asked.

Well that was a stupid question, Kuro had already told Nikolai that the two were friends. What else did Xavier think they were? Enemies did not snuggle. Nikolai at least knew that much. He had plenty of enemies.

“Da, Kuro told me himself vat Ezra was his best friend,” he answered all the same.

Xavier sort of just looked at Nikolai with a blank expression for awhile before shaking his head. “Sure, sure, we’ll call it that. Wow, I thought for sure they were an item, I mean they’re clearly crazy about each other-“ he got cut off before Nikolai could even ask what he meant by that as the two people in question walked over.

“Morning Xavier, Nikolai, I didn’t think you two would have beat us up,” Kuro said brightly as he moved into the kitchen and pulled out cereal while Ezra glared at them, grunting slightly as he got the coffee out and started to make it.

Nikolai shook his head. “I have always risen with zee sun, eef eet ees up, so am I,” he explained, sometimes he didn’t even go to sleep, but he made sure to always be up with the sun rise.

Xavier agreed. “I’m more of surprised you two managed to sleep despite all the commotion going on in the other room, you must’ve been rather comfortable,” he said with a smirk that neither seemed to catch.

Kuro shrugged as he poured four bowls of cereal for them. “The couch is pretty comfortable, anyways, I hope you’re all alright with cereal for breakfast, we should probably get back to the facility as soon as possible to see if that problem was taken care of,” he explained as he placed the bowls of cereal down.

“Spasiba Kuro,” Nikolai thanked before he began to eat the cereal.

“Dobro pozhalovat’ Nikolai,” Kuro responded easily as he sat down to eat his own cereal.

This made Nikolai pause, apparently Kuro was full of surprises, like how he spoke Russian, he had not expected that. “You speak Russian?” He asked for conformation and Kuro gave a sheepish nod.

“I know a little bit of it…”

Right then Ezra walked over, holding a rather large cup of coffee. “Roo’s being modest, he is fluent in ten different languages. He just doesn’t mention it much,” he explained and sat down next to Kuro.

Kuro looked a little embarrassed as he scratched the back of his head. “It isn’t really anything impressive…I just want to be able to talk to people from other countries and let them talk in their own language, to make them feel more comfortable. Besides…they’re all really fun to learn,” he explained sheepishly.

Xavier looked at him with a blank stare. “Wow…that’s a lot of languages,” he said and Nikolai had to wonder if he didn’t know what else to sat. So, he decided to take control of the situation.

“We should get ready to go, we did want to go to zee lab, da?”

Chapter Four: Xavier's Chapter
It wasn’t long until they got to this “Lab facility” they all talked about. Boy did Xavier feel out of the loop. He didn’t mind really, wasn’t a big fan of other or whatever they did at Wings. Frankly, he was only still around because he was curious.

He had a few questions he would definitely like answered. Like what the heck hybrids were, why they were after the kid…other than, you know, him being annoying. He also had other questions, for instance: How were Frosty and Prissy Pants really so dense? It was seriously getting painful to watch.

The matchmaker in him was going to go crazy. That’s it, he would just have to stick around long enough to get the two together. Good plan, otherwise it would drive him crazy. He had set people up before and it always ended up great.

Well…except for one, but those two caused the problems, with more time and if he actually cared enough, Xavier could have fixed it.

“Well Xavier, welcome to the Wings main laboratory facility…we have more scattered all around the world, but this is the main one,” Kuro explained as they walked in. Xavier made sure to take the entire place in, memorizing the layout as they went.

Why did he do this? Because Xavier did this with every building he entered. What if he needed an easy escape? What if someone recognized him from…that? There were so many reasons to memorize the layout of the place, honestly Xavier thought more people should do it.

“Swanky,” he said, figuring he might as well add some commentary, which of course earned a roll of his eyes from Ezra. Heh, annoying the brat was way too fun.

As they walked on, Xavier slowed his step to walk beside Nikolai, or as he had decided to call him: Hot-n-Cold, why? Because dang he was hot, but also he was from Russia and that place was cold. Besides, he couldn’t just call him “Hot” in his head. “So, you’re from here too, right? So you know the facility pretty good?”

Nikolai shook his head. “Nyet, I only arrived yesterday, and I had not gotten zee tour,” he explained simply, looking over at the two in front of them. If Xavier didn’t know better, he would say the poor guy was curious about them.

Xavier glanced over at Ezra and Kuro, who were debating over alternate universes…how terribly boring. “So uh, you seem pretty interested in those two? Wanna share the cheese?” He asked and in return the Russian gave him a rather confused look.

“….Cheese?”

Right, most people didn’t get his sayings. Real shame because he was a flipping genius. “Why you keep looking at them?” He clarified, gesturing his head over at the younger ones. He knew Kuro had to be around his own age, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t younger…maybe closer to eighteen than twenty.

A look of understanding crossed Nikolai’s face. “Oh, eet ees research,” he explained and Xavier couldn’t help but give him a look. “…I do not have friends.” Oh wow, big shocker there Hot-n-Cold. “However I would like some…so I am hoping to learn what friends do by watching them.”

Oh the poor guy didn’t even realize that that was not how friends acted….Now Xavier just had to decide wether to let him know, or sit back and laugh as Nikolai attempted to befriend people using the research he got from those two.

Xavier decided to let this play out without intervention for now and simply gave a nod as he stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Oh yeah, that should help,” he stated sarcastically, although he doubted Nikolai here understood any sarcasm.

Nothing in the brain besides violence, awkwardness, and research. Shame too, because a good brain would only throw the whole attractiveness over the top.

“Good, you three are back…as well as a guest.”

Xavier swerved his head around too see Ezra’s mother walk over, she looked a bit frazzled, like she hadn’t slept at all last night. Heh, Xavier had to wonder how she would react knowing her son slept just fine, just not alone. Heh, heh.

Right, he should introduce himself. Instantly he made his way to the front of the group and gave a little bow, just for show. “The name’s Xavier Theodore Cinderz, happy to meet your acquaintance…again, we actually met before-it was just yesterday,” he explained.

The woman didn’t look that impressed. “Right the thief who helped take out the hybrids…why are you still around?” She questioned and Xavier was a little taken back from her rude behavior.

Well, it seemed the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. “Well Ma’am, I went with Kuro, Ezra, and Nikolai to the Frost resident per Kuro’s request and I’m here at the these wonderful labs because I would like to look for a job,” he explained, working on the charm.

“It doesn’t work that way street rat. I have to actually have a reason for hiring someone, and I know you’re lying about that job thing. Really shouldn’t there be better things to do with your time than matchmaking?” The woman asked and Xavier blinked…how did she even know that?

…Did Prissy pants’ mother read minds?

Xavier had seen plenty of weird things in this world, so he wouldn’t put it passed that the crazy lady could read minds…He’d believe it.

The woman turned her attention to the other three. “Nikolai, Lukas wants to see you in his office, I’ll show you there,” she explained before turning to the other two. “Ezra, Kuro, why don’t you…introduce your new friend to some of the other workers, I’ll talk to both of you later,” she explained before briskly walking away.

Wow, introduce the street rat to lab workers, what an absolutely needed and exciting task…gee could she have hid that she was too busy for them a bit better? That was the lamest dismissal he had ever heard, and he had heard some truly pathetic dismissals.

Ezra seemed rather cool about it though. Did that guy only know annoyance and nothing as emotions? Maybe he was secretly a robot. That was another thing Xavier wouldn’t put passed this place.

“Come on then Street rat, it’s time we introduced you to people…we’ll check the kitchen first,” Ezra decided before stalking off, see there was the annoyance again. Ha, Xavier would have to see if he could stick around just to annoy the brat.

Kuro glanced back over at him. “Sorry about him, he…well he’s Ezra, I guess you could say he doesn’t really like people,” he explained with a small smile. “Don’t dismiss him too quickly though, he’s actually a really good guy.”

Somehow Xavier doubted that, but hey, who was he to judge?

“Sure Frosty, whatever you say, now did he say we were going to the kitchen? What is that the watering hole here? Or does the guy just like food?” He asked as they started off after Ezra.

Kuro smiled, shaking his head slightly as his light brown eyes stared right over at Xavier’s light green. “Both,” he explained with a slight chuckle. “Come on, we should catch up to him,” he stated before taking off after his friend.

Xavier followed after, he had to admit…he was slightly curious to meet other workers here. Were they all just as crazy as the ones he had already met?

Heh, maybe this place was secretly a mental hospital.

He wouldn’t put it passed this place.

-

“So Ezra, I was wondering-“

“Jasmine, I hope you realize that I have literally no interest in seeing your new pet fish, so please, stop asking.”

“Oh…okay, maybe later then!”

Well that certainly was an interesting conversation to walk in on. Xavier had quickly followed after Kuro and the two made it to the kitchen just in time to see Ezra finish up a conversation with a pretty girl, she had those big doe eyes and the long brown hair, give her a few years and she’d be really attractive, however at the moment she looked no older than Ezra.

Who Xavier was still having a hard time digesting that the little guy was fifteen and not…twelve or younger.

Kuro for the first time Xavier had known him, openly scowled as Jasmine walked out of the room. “He doesn’t even like fish, stop asking,” Kuro muttered as Jasmine walked out of eyesight.

Xavier so wanted to laugh and possible hit Kuro for being so dense. This was good though, apparently there was some appeal to Ezra, as that poor girl seemed to like him a little too much for Kuro’s liking. Oh this was like he walked into a romantic comedy.

“So, since Doe eyes left, who’re you gonna introduce now?” Xavier asked as he walked over to Ezra, who had gotten the bread out to make a sandwich.

He shrugged. “Someone will wander in here eventually, there’s no rush,” he stated simply and looked over at Kuro. “You want a sandwich?” He asked and Kuro nodded.

“Sure, here I’ll help you make them,” he said and went over to help make the sandwiches.

Huh, guess no one cared if he wanted a sandwich. Rude much. “Hey can I get out of those sandwiches too?” Xavier called out and Ezra rolled his eyes as Kuro nodded along.

Right then some blonde chick walked in, she had been looking down at some notes she had with her before walking in and literally running into Xavier.

Why didn’t he move?

She was hot, he didn’t mind.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see where I was going,” the girl apologized and Xavier shrugged it off as nothing. “…Are you new?” The girl questioned, looking up at Xavier with a curious look in her pale blue eyes.

However before he could answer, Kuro had called over to her. “Hey Hannah! …Did you want a sandwich? Ezzy and I can make another,” he offered despite Ezra’s roll of his eyes. He should be careful, he might roll back to far one time and his head could go with him.

Hannah, as the girl was called, thought for a minute before nodded. “Sure Kuro,” she said and sat down at the table.

Xavier hung back as he looked a the situation playing out in front of him.

So what he got from this was that Kuro liked Hannah.

Hannah did not like Kuro, if anything she seemed more interesting in Xavier himself. Heh win.

Speaking of win, the Winn boy clearly had a little fangirl himself in that Jasmine person.

Then to top it all off, Kuro and Ezra liked each other but were clearly both far too dense to see it.

Oh yeah, Xavier had totally walked in on a romantic comedy/drama, he was going to have so much fun with all this.

Chapter Five: Kuro's Chapter
The rest of the day had gone by rather simple. They had met back up with the others and then Kuro had to actually go do some work for awhile, which had originally left Xavier with Ezra until Hannah came and dragged him away.

Apparently Nikolai had work to do too, which meant he had left for the day and would be back by night. Kuro was still a bit curious about well…a lot of things, like what the difficulty had been, why hybrids attacked his Ezra. Didn’t they know that what they did, it was to help hybrids?

Oh and then there was the fact that Xavier kept switching between smirking and looking like he was in pain around him and Ezra. He was a bit curious about that too. As well as what exactly Nikolai did…He knew he was left out with a lot of the things that happened there at the labs.

But he also knew he didn’t know what was going on for a good reason. He probably wouldn’t like it if he knew everything that went on, and Kuro for one, was quite content not knowing. He’d rather still like his work. Thank you very much.

As Kuro finished his work for the day, he waved to his fellow scientist, Robert. The boy had been the son of two other scientists so it was pretty reasonable to see him there. Kuro liked to think of the boy as a friend, although personally he liked to think of everyone at the labs as a friend.

…Just not Jasmine, and that was because she was an idiot.

Kuro walked on out of the work space, stretching as he placed his hands above his head, well there now he could say he got actual work done that day, now he just had to see if Ezra was done with his own work, and they could hang out.

He was hoping to get some answers from his friend, surely he could help answer some of them, like what exactly Nikolai did, or if Ezra still wanted to watch that new movie he had rented…it was a horror movie, but Kuro was excited for it.

However he had to pause as he saw another worker…Champ right? Yeah that was his name, the poor guy seemed to be a bit frustrated by the job Hazel had given him for the day. Kuro smiled, well he had a bit of time before he had to meet Ezra, why not help out another fellow worker?

-

After helping Champ out, Kuro once again resumed his search for Ezra, he knew his friend had his own work to do, which usually consisted of things Kuro didn’t know or want to know about. However they both got off at the same time, so it usually worked out nicely.

Kuro turned a corner and saw Jasmine, who waved over to him with that all too happy smile as she made her way over. “Hi Kuro! Have you seen Ezra at all?” She asked innocently.

He frowned. He didn’t like Jasmine, she was clingy, pushy, overly cheerful, and had to be hiding something. She acted all kind and happy, but Kuro didn’t believe any of it for a second. No one was that perky.

Plus she was always annoying Ezra, hanging out around him and asking about her stupid fish. Honestly, couldn’t she see that Ezra didn't care? As his best friend, it was Kuro’s job to keep little perky girls away.

“No, can’t say that I have, sorry,” Kuro said flatly, folding his arms as he looked at the girl and maybe if he even had seen his friend, he still wouldn’t have told her. Best to keep her away anyways, seriously, didn’t she actually have any real friends?

Jasmine frowned at that, looking rather disappointed, though Kuro didn’t exactly care about her or her feelings…of course he would still be polite, that was the right thing to do, even if the girl was an annoying idiot and nothing more. “Oh, well…if you see him, tell him that I’m looking for him,” she told the scientist.

“Will do Jasmine, now if you excuse me, I have other things to attend to,” Kuro told her with a small nod of his head before he started off, leaving the girl alone. He’d tell Ezra alright, and he already knew that the short redhead would likely just be relieved that he didn’t have to talk to her.

Anyways, he continued on, making his way to the kitchen since that was usually a safe place to meet up with Ezra, his friend sure did seem to like his food. He could pack away a lot and yet…he was still so small, it was a marvel and Kuro wasn’t entirely sure how that worked out for him, but it did….lucky guy, Kuro was like the rest of humanity and couldn’t just eat whatever he wanted.

It wasn’t long before he made it to the kitchen, however Ezra was no where to be seen. He must still be working…well, Kuro could wait. So he sat down at the table and tapped his finger against it impatiently, he had never really been all that fond of waiting, you see.

It seemed like hours passed by within those short few minute, however it was long enough for Kuro to decide he could go find Ezra at his little office, so he got back up and left the kitchen just as a few other workers entered, he smiled politely to them before leaving.

The black haired man continued on until he neared the office and paused as he heard Ezra talking to someone, and even though he knew he shouldn't eavesdrop and of course the redhead would figure out that he had listened in later, but…he just couldn't resist and ended up pressing himself against the wall in the hallway, creeping as close as he could without being seen to hear what they were talking about.

“So let me get this straight Augustus, you think there’s a problem outside?” Ezra asked in that bored, dry tone that Kuro was so used too. Clearly the teenager was annoyed, and…possibly not believing what the worker had to say.

The other one there gave a small sound of confirmation. “That’s right, and I can’t find Hazel, so I need you to come see it, it…it looks like some sort of hybrid got out…sir,” Augustus said, his hispanic accent sounding quite clear.

There was a pause, and Kuro assumed that Ezra was thinking it over, before he let out a small sigh of defeat. “Fine, show me,” he ordered and Kuro stayed where he was for only a few moments as the sound of footsteps began to fade and he peered over the corner of the hallway to spot the two walking off.

He frowned slightly. “What did he mean, a hybrid got out?…We don’t have any hybrids here, and when we do…it’s completely their choice, so…why would one get out?” He mused quietly to himself, brows furrowed before he decided maybe he should follow. After all, he was content to stay like he was for the most part, but that was because things usually peek his interest.

This though…this did.

So Kuro ended up following after the two, stopping right by the backdoor that lead out to the side of the building…next to the forest in between the facility and the city. He slowly opened to make sure it didn't make a sound and poked his head out to observe.

Ezra was crouched down, looking over some staggering footprints that didn’t exactly look human but were also far too big to belong to a stray animal around here…possibly a messed up hybrid’s tracks.

His back was facing Kuro so he couldn’t see his face, however as the short teenager stood up, and turned to looked over at Augustus, Kuro could get a bit of a better look at his Ezra’s freckled face.

“You’re right Augustus, these do belong to a hybrid…Just not to any we have here,” Ezra said coldly, hand reaching to grab something that Kuro couldn’t see. “These tracks were made to look like something escaped, and you, despite being a good liar, aren’t good enough,” he continued and then Augustus seemed to reach for something as well.

He pulled out his phone and quickly pressed a button on it before sliding it back into his pocket, seeming completely calm with everything. “Hmm, you are smart, I was hoping Ezra, but I’m afraid being smart isn’t going to help you in this situation,” he said and pulled out…a gun.

Kuro's eyes widened in surprise, however what shocked him even more was that right after, Ezra had pulled out a gun of his own and now they were having one of those standoffs…like the cowboys do in movies.

Kuro was too shocked to do anything and wasn’t able to see the figure that was approaching Ezra from behind, and the teen was too distracted by Augustus to notice him either until it was too late, and someone had tasered him from behind, making him topple over.

His eyes widened and he quickly, without putting all that much thought into it, charged out after his friend. “Ezra!” He shouted and Augustus turned to look at him while his hybrid companion made off with Ezra.

“Oh great, another one,” was the last thing that Kuro heard, as after that, Augustus had made his way over and knocked Kuro out, leaving him outside, just in front of the door before leaving with the hybrid…and Ezra.

Chapter Six: Ezra's Chapter
Ezra fluttered open his eyes and instantly felt the ropes around his waist and wrists, and it wasn’t long before everything came back to him…Augustus was the human spy for that group of hybrids, ugh he should have known…sure he hardly ever talked to the guy, but still, he should have known.

Once he came to terms with what happened, he chose to start figuring out where he was. It was some sort of clearing…a rather large one at that, likely in a forest…though he doubted the one by Wings, no one would be that stupid to place him so close to home. He was tied up against a tree and there was a camp set up.

The camp wasn’t crowded, though judging by the amount of sleeping bags lying about, he assumed that this was not near the amount of people who actually lived in this filth.

Which was another thing, Ezra wasn’t just tied up in any old camp, he was tied up to a sticky tree, in a filthy camp, full of hybrids.

Oh joy.

Right then, the hybrid who he assumed was keeping guard of him, noticed he was awake and turned to look at him. It seemed to be a boy right around Ezra’s age, he had dark skin, red eyes, and long, fluffy white rabbit ears to match his fluffy white rabbit tail. His hair, which was wild and curly, was a mix of the dark brown that was clearly his natural color, and fluffy white angora rabbit fur.

“Hey, you’re up,” he commented and Ezra sent him a look.

“You’re very observant,” he snarked at the boy, who glared, ears flattened down. Clearly he was not enjoying Ezra’s quips, even just the first one. Well he better get used to them because Ezra had a whole lot more.

“Hey, I am plenty observant, more observant than you, considering I haven’t gotten caught, princess,” the rabbit snapped at him rudely, pointing what Ezra believed to be a spear at him, and he was less than amused.

Ezra raised his brow, giving the rabbit a look. “Hmm yes, I’ll give you that. Though perhaps you simply haven’t been captured because everyone knows that no one would care enough to come rescue you, I highly doubt you would even qualify for a ransom. See, important people don’t have time to spend on people like you and that: Fluffy, is why no one has bothered to capture the likes of you,” he explained before giving an all too innocent smile.

The rabbit sent him a glare. “Why I oughta-“ he was cut off as another teenage hybrid walked over, this one looked to be a year or so older than Ezra, and he was far taller, with brown hair falling into his eyes and a warm smile on his face…along with an outrageously long tail.

“Dax! That’s enough,” the new hybrid said as he made his way over. “I’ll take over watching the prisoner, you should go see what Violet is doing,” he instructed and Dax huffed, looked like he was about to argue, before deciding against it.

He sent Ezra a look and pointed at his eyes before pointing at the human. “I’m watching you, princess,” he warmed before he walked off and Ezra could only smirk, he did enjoy ticking people off.

Once the rabbit had left, the new hybrid looked over at Ezra and smiled warmly, sitting down beside him as he started to tug on the grass. “Sorry about Dax, he…well I think he feels like he has to show how tough he is, because he isn’t a very frightening hybrid, I mean…I’m not afraid of angora rabbits, are you?” He questioned, looking over at Ezra.

“No, and I hate to say this, but I’m not afraid of little monkeys with long tails either,” he quipped, figuring this hybrid must be some sort of monkey, as that was what he looked most like.

He shook his head. “Neither am I,” he said with a smile. “By the way, my name is Kenneth, I’m a marmoset hybrid,” he introduced and held out his hand for Ezra to shake and the human gave him a deadpanned look before Kenneth seemed to realize that Ezra was tied up and he couldn’t shake his hand and ended up just moving it close to him again. “Oh right…sorry. Anyways, you’re Ezra Winn, right?” He asked.

Ezra nodded. “Well it would be dumb if I was anyone else, it would mean you kidnapped the wrong person,” he stated and Kenneth gave a small chuckle.

“I guess so.”

What, was it like impossible to tick this guy off? What was the fun in that? Ezra sighed and tried to wiggle about in the ropes in hopes of getting comfortable, however he couldn't seem to do that and just gave up. “So, when do I get to meet your leader? I assume you have one, otherwise this is going to be quite the interesting kidnapping.”

Kenneth glanced up from his pile of torn up grass to look over at Ezra. “Well, he’s out right now…but once he and the others get back, then I’m sure he will want to meet you,” he reassured the human. “In the meantime…I could introduce you to the hybrids here,” he suggested.

Ezra wanted to refuse, however he didn’t and instead just nodded along. It was a good idea to get to know his enemies, maybe he could find out a few weaknesses and try to escape some how.

“Great!” Kenneth exclaimed brightly as he stood up. “Guys! Come meet Ezra!…You know, our prisoner!” He called out to the seven other hybrids there and they began to shuffle over. Kenneth figured he might as well introduce everyone and got to work.

“Alright Ezra, lets start over there with the sisters!” He suggested before pointing over to the four girls, the first had short brown hair, brown eyes, and a monkey tail with two monkey ears, she-along with the next two, all looked to be about ten years old. “That’s Zoey, she’s a dusky leaf monkey hybrid,” he introduced and the girl sent him an unsure look.

Kenneth quickly continued on, pointing to the next girl, who had long blonde hair that was mixed with what seemed to be feathers of some sort, and then she also had a lizard’s tail. “That one’s Mya, she’s an atlantic puffin hybrid combined with a monitor lizard, cool right?” He asked with a glance over to Ezra, who simply forced a smile.

“Then we have Fiona,” Kenneth went on as he pointed to the next girl, who had olive toned skin, long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, and cat like ears and a tail. “She’s a sand cat hybrid,” Kenneth added and Fiona gave a bright grin.

“Last we have Rosie, who uh…is a lot younger than the rest of us…she wasn’t really supposed to happen, but here she is,” Kenneth stated, gesturing over to the five year old Japanese girl who had short black hair and big brown eyes. “She’s a chipmunk hybrid, by the way,” Kenneth included.

Then he zipped quickly over to the next set, getting ready to introduce them. “This here is Paige, she’s a snowy owl hybrid,” Kenneth introduced, gesturing over to a dark skinned girl who did not look amused. She had curly dark brown hair that had a few stray white feathers in it, and then a pair of large, white, owl wings.

Kenneth then focused on the wolf girl who looked mostly just annoyed at everyone there. “That’s Violet, she’s a Northern rocky mountain wolf hybrid,” he introduced the blonde haired girl before he finally finished by pointing over to Dax. “Then of course…you already know Dax,” he said and the rabbit sent him a glare…which of course Ezra responded with a cheeky, fake smile.

“I’m assuming that’s everyone I get to meet for now,” Ezra said, looking them all over, of course he was curious to know who their leader was, as he had quite a few questions that he would like answered, however for now he held back.

Kenneth nodded his head. “Yeah that’s everyone,” he said and Ezra watched as they all started to shuffle off again, those “sisters” that Kenneth mentioned had started off towards one of the few tents that were set up, while Violet made her way back to the fireplace, cleaning it out while the other two, Dax and Paige, started over.

Ezra watched as they came over and tilted his head, honestly a bit curious now. These two…well despite being two different hybrids, they looked quite similar. How interesting. “Hello there Fluffy, back so soon?” Ezra asked with a smile. “Missed me?” He questioned sarcastically.

Dax sent him a glare. “About as much as I miss my old cell Princess,” he snapped before focusing on Kenneth, who had gone back to plucking the grass from its place. “Paige said it’s your turn for dinner, you can’t get out of that just because you offered to guard this guy,” he reminded.

Paige nodded, folding her arms. “I’ve cooked for you for the last five times its been your turn, you are not getting out of this one Ken,” she told him stubbornly and Kenneth frowned.

“But…what about Ezra? Someone had to watch him, and I don’t trust Dax not to hurt him, and you’re supposed to go on patrol,” Kenneth reminded and Dax rolled his red eyes.

“I won’t hurt him, just go cook dinner, I for one refuse to eat anymore burnt food,” he explained and sent Paige an annoyed look. “For all we know, she could poison us all with her horrible cooking if we let her do it again,” he stated.

Paige huffed in annoyance. “Maybe I’ll just poison yours, it’ll do all of us a favor,” she snapped and it really wasn’t long before the two were in some sort of heated argument that Ezra really had no concern over, in fact he mostly just tuned it out and instead focused on observing his surroundings for any clues to where he was.

Kenneth leaned over to him. “If you can’t tell, they don’t like each other very much…but Dax doesn’t really like anyone,” he explained before he got up, letting out a loud sigh. “I hate cooking,” he mumbled under his breath before facing the squabbling hybrids. “Okay, I’ll go cook. Paige you should leave now, and Dax, you can stay here with Ezra,” he instructed, walking between them as he made his way over to the campfire where Violet was.

The two stared angrily at each other before Paige flapped her wings and took to the sky, leaving just Dax with Ezra and of course Ezra intended to annoy the rabbit even more.

“So…you must be fun at parties.”

“Shut it Princess, just because I have to watch your sorry a--, doesn’t mean we have to talk.”

-

So for the next few hours, Ezra either sat in uncomfortable silence, or tried his best to get on Dax’s bad side, which was really, really easy to do, plus if he had to be in this situation until he either got out, was found, or died or something, he was determined to make the best of it.

He was gearing up to poke fun at the angora rabbit again when suddenly a lot of ears perked up and the hybrids there turned their attention to a small pathway as a group of hybrids entered, single file before filling up the camp.

Ezra couldn’t help but get a little excited, this meant he was going to see the leader soon, and then…then he could work on a way out of here, it would be perfect, all he had to do now was wait.

There were many different types of hybrids that entered, a few dogs, a few birds, a snake, a fox, an elk, some sort of red squirrel, and quite a few more, honestly it was a mystery how they had all banded together like this, oh if his mother knew about this, she would surely be pleased…over joyed even.

Once everyone had entered, Dax quickly hopped over to the two dogs that had entered, one was clearly a Komondor hybrid, while the other…looked more like a pug. The three talked for a bit before the pug hybrid looked over at him and started over.

Their fearless leader…was a pug, not what Ezra personally would have expected.

“Ezra Winn, I’m Ryder, and I think it’s time you and I had a little talk,” the man said as he approached and Ezra grinned slyly.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Part one: Introduction

Chess is such an interesting game. It’s as much about wit as it is about chance. I’ve grown up playing it my entire life, though not always in the way you might expect. See I play chess with real people.

Chess games are going on all around us, though very rarely does a new challenger arise for me, no I’m far too good. No one wants to play against me, not when they know they would loose.

My name is Hazel Solstice Winn, and this is the story of my games of chess. This is how I learned to play, and how I became the best.

I don’t remember much about my childhood, though I know it was full of games of chess. Well that and needles. So many needles. I don’t exactly remember much more about those needles, but I know that they hurt, and that they changed me.

The furthest steady flow of memories I have are from when I was seven. See I grew up in a place not like your comfortable homes. I grew up in a small little apartment where I would go after accompanying my parents: Elijah and Suzanne Winn.

They weren’t your average parents…No, we had no holidays, no birthdays, no family dinners. None of the sort. Instead we had training exercises, we had needles, we had experiments.

To them I was not their child. I was their lab rat.

I always wondered why I never had siblings…It was because none of them survived. I was the strongest, I was perfect. Though apart of me had always wondered why my parents were so…crazy, abusive even.

They were…married to science, I should say. They wanted results and of course what better way to get results than to have constant supervision over the experiment?

Anyways, I was also seven years old when I first discovered the game of chess, and that I was far from normal, I wasn’t like the other kids, I was a brown feathered penguin in a rookery of black ones.

But, more on that later, let’s focus on Chess for now.

I was wandering around our shabby little apartment, waiting for my parents to get back from work…sometimes they didn’t bring me with them, instead they left me alone, said that I was not important today, and therefore, I was not allowed to come.

Which was fine by me, I never liked the lab that they took me too, every now and then screams would echo from the facility…No seven year old in their right mind likes to hear the screams of others.

The chess board was left on the table, set up with your classic white against black…good against evil if you think about it, horrible really…since nothing is ever perfectly good or perfectly evil. There will always be a dull grayness. It’s just how you look at it which makes it appear white or black.

I had sat myself down at the table, looking over the pieces with interest. There had been a king, a queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight perfectly disposal pawns. It seemed like the perfect set up.

Of course later that day my father had been very cross with me for touching his set of chess. Apparently he had left them out to study later, as both my parents had been avid players of the game ever since their marriage.

However despite being angry, my father was also…almost proud that I had taken a liking to the game, and it soon became a large part of my childhood.

Oh I would play many games against my father, my mother, their friend from the lab: Adam Axleson, and even my schoolmates when we were allowed to play.

Of course my schoolmates were all idiots, they could never play right, and soon they stopped wanting to play all together, even went as far as to call me a freak. I admit I was quite weird as a child, but calling me a freak was uncalled for.

However, one little girl, right around my age, she wanted to play. Her name was Kiana Nami, her family had moved from Japan just that year and she quickly became my best friend.

She was such a vibrant soul, so very curious and clever. However she and I had never been able to see quite eye to eye on a few things. For instance while she desired order and peace, I personally preferred order and chaos.

It was so fun to look at chaos and know that you created that, and you control it.

As we grew older, we only grew closer. I kept her out of my parents work however, for I knew how dangerous it was and I didn’t want her to have any part of it. However as we aged, I continued to know something different about me from her.

I had picked up a knack, you see I could easily figure out when people were lying to me, not only that but I could easily lie to them without them even knowing. Oh it was so much fun…I could get away with anything.

Except when I was with my parents, they knew…they always did, and for every time I lied they made me pay…they had to teach me a lesson. Which usually involved more needles.

I hated those needles and I hated them. I don’t recall quite when but there came a point where I was done putting up with them, and instead of fearing them, I decided to take them on, engage them in a game of chess.

Though this one would not be with the board game, no this one would be with us.

I was determined to beat them, even if I had to work tirelessly to manipulate and lie to them as they had to me. It was worth it so long as I won.

So I suppose this is the story of how I went from a pawn to a player, how a brown feathered penguin gained her wings…This is the story of how I became the Chess Queen.

Samantha and Anthony Part 1 - Ants In My Pants
(told from Anthony's point of view first)
Have you ever just had that darn scratch you just can't itch? Isn't it annoying, just when the source of the annoyance is right there, right on you, and you can't even stop it? Well, welcome to my life. I can barely sleep at night, something is always bothering me. Like there's this little tiny bug that just won't stop biting me. I can feel it as it moves, and no matter how much I claw, pick, scratch at it, it doesn't stop. It's likke a cockroache- able to survive a few days without its head, because I know there is no way it could still be alive after everything I have tried. Or maybe it's just a normal scratch. Or maybe it's a mosquito. One day, my questions were over; I had no more questions. Because the answer was walking right in front of me.
What walks on you, but you can barely feel it?
Kicks, but no pain?
Talks, but no sound?
Walks - less than a mile per hour?
Not a very quiet, weak, and slow human, a tiny human. Maybe there's billions of other answers, but in my case, that was what had been bothering me. I saw it one day, I saw her. No taller than an inch, it was walking in front of me. I screamed, I tried to kill it, but ants are extraordinary. They are tiny, easy to squash, but they can do amazing things. This one was just as amzing as one. She was quick enough to dodge it, like people often tried to kill her. She was the ant, I was the cat. You'd expect me to be better, but I wasn't. Instead, here I was, trashing and screaming, and she was dodging it like it was nothing, I was outmatched by an ant. Eventually I gave up, and simply scooted as far away as I could form the tiny hybrid. I didn't know why I was so afraid, I just was. Well, she was here, and now I just needed to get used to her...
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A few days later:
Ok, I admit it, I now regeret ever trying to kill her. She was actually really fun (though don't mention her weakness of being small or she will kill you- or at least she will try),well as fun as a tiny person could get. I'm glad she doesn't
ever beat herself up abut how tiny she is. Instead, she often trys to prove to others that she can do independent things, but she fails often, but I'm always there to catch her fall. However, I have one question: How did she get here?

So, welcome to my story, where I'll explain basically my whole life up until just about the present day. You can call me whatever you wish, though most call me thief, freak and so on, depending on your experience with me. Of course, all that being said my real name is Chase. It's a rather fitting name for what I do huh? Anyway, how about we actually get the the start of the story.

Lets start where most stories do shall we? A childhood. When I was born, our parents were extremely poor and my father, like me, went to stealing food and supplies for my mum and now two children. Things were about the same for multiple years while I grew up. Of course, eventually dad had robbed the wrong person, and it came back to bite us. He eventually found where we lived, a small area in a hole above the sewer, and came back...armed. I hid while my parents were fighting him, but of course he had killed everyone except me, because he couldn't find me. That was when I was six, and from then on I'd been following in my fathers footsteps. I do apologize this wasn't very long, but there'll be more in my next part. Anyway, that'll wrap it up for my quick introduction, bye.

Here I am, back with the second part to my story of life. My lack of activity to this is due to my life at the moment, much better then it used to be, just as you're about to find out. Though how difficult this is to write, and hopefully how difficult it is to read if I did this correctly, I hope for you to think of this as a story of resourcefulness and hope. From my experience, hope is the driving force of success and in my case, survival. If you think you'll fail, you will and vice versa. Well, before I bore you with my quotes and lectures of hope, let us begin.

Now, not long after my family were killed, about a month later actually, I decided that I would move away from the city, to a new place that hopefully would bring me better luck, or a different life. Honestly I had no idea what I was looking for in this move, but I did it anyway. Of course I was only six so my mind wasn't exactly wise enough to make any good decisions, though I was sharper then a homed person, and like I said earlier I had hope that I would succeed, so I did. It wasn't easy mind you, and I had to work hard to get here. My first move in this was figuring out how to get there in the first place. I decided to drive as it was quick and easy to learn, in my mind of course. Then again, I didn't have a car did I? Well take things one at a time I say. First stop, the library, as it was the only place I can get to use the internet. I'll save you the reading, and skip that part as it is rather boring. Next, the gear so no one can detect me on cameras and eyewitnesses. I decided most of the stuff I needed I could find at any cheap clothing store, provided it has changing rooms. Quickly I sourced one and went there. I remember every detail of that, and I was in and out in a matter of a few minutes with a black hoodie, black jeans and black shoes. The next part was actually surprisingly easy. I just waited at a gas gas station for about half an hour for a car to arrive and the person to leave it unlocked while they go inside to pay. When that happened, I was immediately in the car and leaving. I ‘m sorry that I can’t continue, but it’s starting to get late, and I now have people to cook for, so I need to go, I’ll continue this later.

Part One:
Alistair, or as the scientist called him: X8, was roughly shoved back into his cell after they had finished testing his skills, the velveteen lop rabbit hybrid glared at them but didn’t say anything because he knew that wouldn’t go down well. He sighed and dusted off his hands. “I’ll show them sometime…they can’t keep pushing me around forever…” he muttered under his breath.

“Hey there bunny boy, how’d testing go?”

The rabbit looked over into the cell next to him and smiled slightly as he saw the familiar face of the black tailed jackrabbit: Abrial, or X7, whatever you wanted to call her. “Fine, though I wish they wouldn’t be so rough,” Alistair confessed as he went to sit at the edge of his cell, right next to the wall that divided up his cell from her’s.

Abrial smirked. “Well, don’t worry, we’ll show them sometime, get out of here and show off what good protectors we are, right?” She asked and Alistair brought a hand up to tug on one of his large, floppy, white and tan lop ears.

“Yeah…except, your name means protected, at least that’s what you told me when we met,” he said with a slight smile. Alistair remembered a lot, and so it came to no surprise when he remembered the first time he had met the sister like figure of his, she had told him that her name was Abrial, for protected, she had also mentioned how she had had a brother named Alistair, which meant guardian.

Alistair had easily adopted the title and the name a bit later.

Abrial rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay, whatever,” she said and got up, looking over at Alistair from her cell. “Hey, wanna do the hand shake?” She asked and Alistair raised his brow.

“Why? Are you bored again? I am…it’s so boring when you don't have something to do…okay,” he finally agreed and got up, facing the wall as he put his hands, spread out on the see-through wall, Abrial copying his movements.

He moved one hand away and she moved the other one away.

“You know, I bet this looks sort of silly, and we don’t even touch, just the wall,” Alistair pointed out with a small chuckle as Abrial made a face from her cell and Alistair stuck his tongue out.

Abrial giggled and took a step back. “Yeah, but when we get out of here, then we can actually shake hands, I’ll walk up to you and stretch my hand out for you to shake like professionals do, then we can reintroduce ourselves to each other. I’ll be all like ‘Hello sir, my name is Abrial Vecktombordra, it’s a pleasure to meet you,’ and then you’ll shake my hand and…” She trailed off and glanced over at Alistair for him to continue.

He smiled and stretched his own hand out, pretending to shake someone else’s. “Then I’ll say: ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you Abrial, my name is Alistair Vecktombordra, and can I just say that you look a lot like my sister, brown hair, brown eyes, long hare ears…” He said with a grin.

“And you look a lot like my brother, black hair, nice complexion, expressive green eyes, and those adorable spotted lop ears,” Abrial continued, looking over at Alistair as he huffed slightly.

“I’m not adorable, I’m supposed to be fierce,” he tried to growl, but rabbits don't growl. “Feared…strong, brave, a guardian, and those aren’t adorable,” Alistair explained stubbornly and Abrial laughed at that.

“Whatever you say Alistair…we will get out though, right?” She asked, letting her shoulders droop slightly as she looked a bit more worn out than before, this side of her did tend to slip out on occasion.

Alistair sent her a reassuring smile, he knew the seventeen year old was tired of this place just as much as he was, and she had been here two whole years longer than him, with him only being fifteen years old, and both arriving when they were two. “Don’t worry Abrial, we’ll get out of here, I promise that we will, one way or another, we’ll get out,” he told her.

Abrial smiled over at him. “I’ll hold you to that Alistair, don't let me down,” she warned lightly and Alistair gave a bright. determined smile.

“I don’t plan too.”

-

It was a few days later when that dream of escaping became a reality.

It started out as any other day, but then, some time in the evening, one of the scientists approached Alistair’s cell with a syringe in hand as he unlocked the cell and walked in. “Good evening X8, I would like to test something on you,” he explained.

Alistair looked at the syringe with slight concern, however…the tests usually were for the best as the scientists had told him countless times, so the rabbit figured that this would be no different, he glanced over at Abrial to see her watching intently, before he turned back to the scientist and gave a nod. “Okay…what test this time?” He asked.

The scientist walked over to him without responding. “Nothing to worry about, I assure you,” he told him plainly before gesturing for the rabbit to pass over his arm and Alistair did as he was told, the scientist looked for a pulse…and then, he stabbed the syringe into X8, injecting the fluid into his body.

Alistair let out a small cry of pain and waited for it to be over before he tugged his arm back, “What was that? Isn’t that what you did before…when you made me this? What did you do?” He asked in panic, clutching the area he had been poked with.

The scientist didn't answer, instead he simply walked back out of the cell. “You’ll see, and if it fails…well then you’ll die,” he replied simply and started to walk away.

Alistair’s eyes widened with fear. “Die? Wait! What did you do to me?” He asked, voice hitching slightly as he watched the scientist leave before turning to look over at Abrial, worry in his eyes, which easily mirrored in her own.

They were both silent for a few minutes, just stood there in their respectable cells, staring at each other as if waiting for something to happen, then finally the jackrabbit broke the silence. “A-are you okay?” she asked.

Alistair nodded, still a bit shaky with worry. “I-I’m okay, so far it doesn’t feel like they did anyth-aaaa,” he let out a cry of pain as he started to fall back.

Abrial’s eyes widened. “Alistair!” She called out and banged on the cell wall, nothing that she could do but watch him shrivel up in pain until he was curled up in the corner closest to her, whimpering softly.

“Abrial…it hurts, it really hurts,” Alistair confessed as he looked up, over at her, clutching his sides as he tried to get used to the pain but it just kept getting worse. His ears hurt, his mouth hurt, his tail hurt, his everything else hurt…what had they done to him?

The jackrabbit twitched her ears nervously. “Okay…it’s going to be okay Alistair, it’s going to be okay…we…we’re going to get out of here, okay? We’re gonna get out of here tonight, and you’re going to be okay…we’ll do our hand shake…I promise that everything will be just fine,” she told him soothingly.

Alistair nodded. “Okay…Okay Abrial-aaah, oh it hurts so bad,” he said, shaking his head.

Abrial looked at him for a second before closing her eyes and looking away. She had hear stories of other hybrids escaping…it…it couldn’t be too hard, and she was determined to get him out of here, no matter what it cost.

-

So, Abrial did as she had promised, and in an hour or so, a scientist came to take her for some further testing and thats when she fought back, hitting and kicking until the scientist lay unconscious in her cell. She took a breath and grabbed his keycard, getting up and walking out of her cell, locking the scientist in it before she unlocked Alistair’s cell and ran over to him.

“Alistair…it’s okay, I’m here now…let’s go,” she said and helped him get up, draping one of his arms over her shoulder so he could lean on her.

“Abrial?” He questioned weakly. “You…you hurt one of the scientists…” He realized as he saw the scientist in her cell and Abrial nodded as she lead him out of his cell.

“I did, but that isn’t important, we need to get out…they probably already know what happened, we don't have a lot of time,” she explained as she continued to lead him out, making sure to hide from any scientists that they might have passed.

However they knew, of course they knew that the two lagomorphs were escaping and it wasn’t going to be quite so easy to get out, not in a long-shot.

The two snuck down the hallways, glad that since it was getting later, most of the scientists had gone home, only a few remained, well them and the security…which of course were the real problems.

They snuck past a few floors without much trouble, they may have some time if the scientists or whoever else hadn't checked the footage yet. However as they made it to the bottom of the stairs on the bottom floor, Alistair collapsed.

Abrial shook her head as she knelt down beside him. “No…Alistair wake up, we have to go,” she explained in a hushed whisper as she brought him back to his feet. She glanced over at the many hybrids in their cells and just prayed that they wouldn’t give them away.

“Come on, it’s not much further,” she assured the rabbit who seemed to be falling in and out of consciousness from the pain he was going through.

“Hey…aren’t those two hybrids?”

Abrial froze as she heard the voice of a security guard, they had been caught.

“Yeah, hybrids out of their cells-well don’t just stand there! Get them!”

Abrial looked over at Alistair and patted his cheek to wake him up. “Alistair, we have to go, can you run?” She asked and he mumble out an answer. “…I’ll take that as a no,” Abrial said and heaved him up a bit more before she tried to run towards the exit, with Alistair draped over her shoulders, leaning heavily on her for support, however he was waking up a bit more and tried to help run but overall he was pretty useless.

Finally they made it to the exit and Abrial could already tell that both of them were not going to get away. She pushed the doors open and leaned against them to block the door, she took Alistair off and looked at him. “Alistair, you run, I’m going to stay here and distract them,” she explained.

Alistair shook his head, coherent enough to get the idea. “No, Abrial…I’m the-the guardian, I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around…” He trailed off and focused on keeping his balance.

Abrial sighed and pulled him into a hug, it felt good to finally hug him. “Let me protect you, just this once. You run, and I’l catch up…and-and when we meet up again, we’ll do our handshake and everything will be okay,” she whispered into his ear before pulling back. “Now run,” she ordered, voice firm.

The changing rabbit hesitated for a second before he nodded and turned to run, not thinking clearly, in pain, and putting his faith in Abrial that she would escape too, and he didn't turn back, instead he just ran, stumbling from the fierce pain as he got further and further away.

As for Abrial…well, she did what she said she would do, she distracted the security guards so that Alistair could get away, she got him out of the labs, and she did it, fully knowing that she wasn’t going to make it out, but it was like she already knew. She would get Alistair out of there.

No matter the cost.

-

Alistair had ran until he finally made it to a city, his vision was blurry, his steps clumsy, mind foggy, and he was in so much pain it was hard to even keep walking, he felt sick to his stomach and felt like his entire insides and outsides were changing.

The rabbit leaned against a building for support as he tried to blink away the blurriness, yet he couldn’t, in fact everything was…everything was going dark, and he could only take a few more steps before he collapsed into a pile of garbage bags, falling into unconsciousness as everything faded to black.

“Hey, he’s waking up.”

“About time, what took him so long?”

Alistair heard voices…and, as he began to wake up, all his senses came back to him, not only was he hearing voices but he was smelling a lot of fox in the air, and…what was going on with his mouth? He would run his tongue along his teeth and some were…sharp. Not to mention his smell was definitely better.

He slowly opened his eyes to find about five fox hybrids hovering around him.

Naturally, he panicked.

He jumped into a sitting position, heart pounding in his chest. “Who-who are you people?” He asked, startled from all of this and instantly went to pet his ears…only to find they weren’t there…where were they? He twitched and…

They were standing upright on his head. Why were they doing that? They weren’t supposed to do that, he forced them down and jumped when he saw the color change, why were they black and gray? His ears were supposed to be brown…and white.

If that wasn’t enough, he felt his tail move and watched as the now long, fluffy, gray and black appendage wiggled it’s tip in front of him.

Alistair screamed and fell out of the bed he was in.

“…We picked up a weirdo, this is the last time we pick up random hybrids from dumpsters,” one of the foxes said, and Alistair suddenly became very aware of the people watching him, so he quickly up from the ground and onto his knees to get a better look at them.

There were three guys and two girls, the first guy had darker skin, black hair that was recently cut, and huge ears. The next guy was sort of small, with tan skin, side swept light brown hair, and smaller ears. The last guy was likely around his age, he had dark brown hair, sun kissed skin, and a warm smile on his face.

The girls were a bit different, the first was tall, with long brown hair pulled into a ponytail, pale skin, and gray and white ears, then finally the last girl(who was clinging onto the first girl happily) was short, skinny, and pretty. Her hair was blonde and pink and up in a pretty bun, and her ears were almost as big as the first guy’s.

Alistair looked them all over carefully, with them all looking at him in return. He was starting to feel especially nervous and gave an all too sheepish smile. “Hi.”

The five shared a look before finally, the man with the warm smile walked over and held out his hand to help him up. “Hello, good to see you’re finally up,” he explained and Alistair looked at his hand curiously, a bit confused at first what he was supposed to do.

He looked up at the other teen with a shake of his head, and he only laughed in return. “It’s my hand, grab it and I’ll help you get up,” he explained in a rather nice accent. Alistair couldn’t place where it was from, but it was very nice.

Even though he was still a bit uncertain, he reached up and took the other’s hand, realizing this was the first time he had ever had real physical contact. He was quickly helped to his feet and the teen sent him another smile as he brought his hand back to his side.

“I’m Vincent Swift but you can call me Vinny, a South American gray fox hybrid, if you were wondering,” he explained and Alistair couldn’t really help but be memorized by that accent. He decided that he could listen to Vincent speak all day.

After realizing he had yet to introduce himself, Alistair quickly shook himself out of his mini trance and smiled uncertainly at Vinny. “I’m Alistair Vecktombordra…but uh…I just go by Alistair, I’m a velveteen lop rabbit hybrid,” he explained with a smile.

Finally one of the other’s spoke up, as the shorter girl detached herself from the other and walked over, examine him with curious brown eyes. “Mmm, sorry sweetie, but I don’t think that’s all you are, there’s rabbit in you, no doubt. But honey, you’re part fox too,” she explained.

“I suspect he might be a silver fox, based off of his colorings…” The other girl had started to talk but Alistair had stopped listening as a large wave of realization washed over him. Fox…dumpster…escaping the labs…Abrial…the scientist…he injected him with something.

Wait, Abrail.

Oh no, what happened to her?

Alistair couldn’t help it, he started to hyperventilate, everything around him seemed to spin and he for sure lost his balance. He toppled back over, unaware that Vinny had been there to catch him, and things were already going black once again.

“Oh crap, Cupid what did you do to him?”

“I don’t know! I just told him he was clearly part fox, I didn’t know he would have a panic attack!”

“Well maybe next time you should be a bit more sensitive, he clearly came from the labs…”

Their voices all started to fade and once again, Alistair blacked out.

-

This time he woke up far more peacefully, it was much later, he was fairly certain of that as Alistair propped himself up and looked around the dark room, hands playing with the covers on the bed.

He needed to go over what he knew.

The scientists added another animal, now he was a rabbit…fox…person. With the help of Abrial, he escaped the labs but she…she didn’t. He had been found by a groups of fox hybrids, and one of them had a really nice accent.

Yep, that was about all he knew now.

Sadly, Alistair did not have much time to think, as the door quietly creaked open and Vinny from earlier walked in, he smiled over at Alistair and flipped on the light. “Hey, glad to see you’re awake, gave us all quite a fright,” he explained and walked over with the tray he had brought in.

“Cupid was kind enough to get you something to eat, thought you might be hungry after all of that, you must have been through a lot,” he said and set the tray down in front of Alistair.

Alistair gave a grateful smile. “Thank you Vinny, but I don’t think I could handle any food right now, I’m actually a little nauseous,” he confessed, reaching up to tug one of his odd changed ears down to pet.

Vinny nodded and moved the tray over to a desk. “Well, if you’re up to it, I think the others would love to meet you, perhaps we could all do some explaining,” he suggested and Alistair didn’t give it much though as he agreed and carefully got out of the bed, making sure he didn’t fall over this time.

Once he had stabilized himself, he looked over at Vinny and sent him a nod before following the other fox hybrid out of the room.

He followed him down a hallway and into the main room, there was a living room with a dining room and a kitchen all within the same space, and the other four hybrids were all huddled around the table when Vinny cleared his throat to get their attention.

“Look who woke up,” he started and the other four turned to look at him and Alistair honestly felt just a little like he was getting judged all over again.

The silence seemed to dangle in the air for far too long before finally the girl from before spoke up. “Well look at you, up and about!” She said cheerfully and walked over to him. “I’m Cupid, sorry about the scare earlier honey, I didn’t know you’d pass out…”

“Cupid-“

The fennec fox hybrid looked over at the other girl with an innocent smile. “What? I’m being more sensitive!” She complained before turning back to Alistair and gripping him by the shoulders. “I am being more sensitive sweetie, aren’t I?” She asked.

Alistair gave a nervous smile. “A-absolutely,” he got out and Cupid grinned at him.

“Oh you’re so cute, I could just die,” she said and Alistair’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t do that-“

He was cut off by Cupid again, who practically melted and cooed at him happily before swerving to face one of the other hybrids, the one with the ginormous ears. “Knoxy, can’t we keep him? He’s so young and innocent, I just wanna squeeze him until he pops,” she explained and Alistair was about to tell her to please not do that either when the hybrid in question spoke up.

“Cupid, we don’t even know his story-“

At that point the other girl cut “Knoxy” off. “Knox, he’s from the labs. I’m guessing he’s only recently left it. He’s fox so despite the rabbit, we’d still be true to our theme, and…he’s gonna need some help until he gets adjusted to everything, let him stay,” she ordered, leaving no room for debate.

Knox stared at her before he finally caved and bowed his head. “Fine, he can stay,” he agreed and looked over at Alistair, who was honestly having a hard time wrapping his head around everything. “Alright listen kid, my name is Knox, I’m a bat eared fox hybrid, and these four are my team, you’re in the real world now, and you’re going to need someone to help you through it, so, what I’m trying to say, is…Welcome to the group.”

Mornings were times for sleep. Especially summer mornings full of a list of nothing to do that day. These were the days you were supposed to sleep in and enjoy yourself.

At least, that's what they were supposed to be.

"Cupid...Cupid....Cuuuuuuupid," Alistair gently prodded at her as the fox hybrid mumbled out something incoherent. "Cupid wake up, Knox wants to go surfing...whatever that is, and he told me to wake you up, everyone's already up!" He exclaimed and the fennec fox opened her brown eyes to stare at the younger hybrid.

Alistair had been with them for about two weeks now and Cupid had already decided to adopt him as some sort of baby brother slash pet, he got along great with everyone and was already coming to terms with the whole fox thing. He had even nicknamed them the fox gang since everyone was at least part fox.

The only problem was that he always woke up at seven, there were no exceptions, he always woke up at seven, and he needed someone watching over him or else he would get in some sort of unintentional trouble. So they all usually kept turns waking up at seven or slightly before as well.

Which was usually followed by them all having to wake up so they could do something. As soon as school started up, they were sending that kid to school, along with Vinny and Flint, no exceptions there either.

"I'm up honey, just...give me a second to accept it, go make sure Knox and Maia know what they're doing, taking us all to the beach," she ordered as she slowly sat up and Alistair nodded happily before he tumbled out of the bed and back out to the others.

Ugh, that boy was going to be the death of her, she could feel it.

-

Alistair waited impatiently for Maia to stop spraying him with the sunscreen. They were actually at the beach, in a more secluded area away from most people. They couldn't hide their ears or colorful tails, like they apparently were supposed to, but Maia had said just to call it the newest fashion in Japan and then rave about how real they looked.

Knox was going to teach them how to surf, and he even had enough boards for everyone, Alistair was actually really excited for all of this. It was all so new, and as much as he hated to admit it, he had started to block out all thoughts and memories of Abrial, those were painful and he would rather focus on the now with the fox gang.

"Okay you're done, but you have to wait a few minutes before you get in the water," Maia explained as she finished spraying him down and moved on to the next person.

Alistair grinned happily and looked longingly at the water. Flint had been teaching him to swim in the local pool when it was closed...Alistair was just assuming that was something people did, and plus sometimes some of the testing at the labs would include swimming, so he had to know how. Though he wasn't all that great at it.

"Excited?"

Alistair paused and turned around to see Vinny with a playful smirk on his face. "First time out at the beach then, is it?" He asked in that smooth accent of his and Alistair nodded, still just a tiny bit memorized.

Vinny chuckled and looked over to the water. "I'm excited too, it's not often that I've gotten to go to a beach like this, though I actually already know how to surf, maybe I can give you some pointers when you learn," he suggested and Alistair smiled.

"I'd like that."

Right then Knox came over to them, smiling. "Alright you three, lets hit the waves while we have some, we had to travel quite awhile for this, I'm not about to let it go to waste, grab a board and lets go, don't worry, I'll make sure to focus on teaching too," he promised and had already started to the water.

Alistair walked over to where they had placed the surfboards and picked one out that looked interesting, a nice purple and blue one. He really enjoyed the colors...maybe he could ask about changing his tail to the colors, like how the others had fun colored tails.

"Hurry up Al!" Flint hollered out to him and Alistair had to take his focus away from the surfboard and how the sand squished between his toes, he had already decided that he liked the sand, it was squishy and warm.

"Coming Flint!" Alistair yelled back, grabbing his surfboard and holding it close as he started over to the water where the others were. Glad to have a family.

-

The day at the beach had been really fun, they had surfed and built sand castles, played volleyball, and just when Alistair thought it couldn't get any better than this, Vinny and Cupid came back over with some sort of...swirly white thing placed in a brown upside down triangle.

As he was handed his, Alistair sniffed it before looking over at Vinny. "What is it?" He asked and Vinny raised his brow, sometimes it was easy to forget how truly little Alistair actually knew.

"It's called ice cream, try it, its good," Vinny explained, sitting down on his towel next to Alistair's to enjoy his own treat.

"Ice cream...." Alistair repeated slowly and watched Vinny to get an idea of how he was supposed to eat it before bringing it closer to his mouth and taking a cautious lick.

Now, later on in life Alistair would surely experience many great things, but nothing would ever compare to the amazement that surged through him as he tried ice cream for the first time. It was as if explosions had gone off in his head, nothing would ever quite compare to the first time he tried ice cream.

Vinny watched him for a few seconds before letting out a few chuckles. "Well, what do you think?" He asked with a tilt of his head, waiting to hear Alistair's response on his he felt about the frozen dessert.

"This is the best thing I have ever had in my entire life, is this what Cupid meant when she was talking about soulmates?" Alistair asked, still in utter awe at the ice cream in his hand, and needless to say, he ate it very fast after that.

Vinny chuckled again and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Be careful, you'll give yourself a brain freeze at this rate," he informed and Alistair didn't seem to hear him, or at least if he did, he wasn't paying attention to him. Vinny shook his head and turned back to look over at the others, Knox was falling asleep on his towel, Cupid and Maia were sharing a cone, and Flint was biting his-weirdo. "Looks like we've all been replaced," he joked, gesturing his head over to Alistair.

Cupid giggled. "Maybe you have Vin-Vin, but I'm irreplaceable, even by ice cream," she said happily and looked over at the rabbit hybrid. "You should slow down though hon, you'll give yourself a brain freeze."

Alistair wasn't listening...though he did have to stop eating as his brain began to hurt and he let out an upset animal like noise. "My brain hurts..."

Vinny could only laugh. "Well, we did try to warn you, you just refused to listen to reason."

-

It was late by the time they all got back home, and it took even longer for everyone to get all cleaned up and ready for bed, even if it would still be awhile until they all fell asleep. Knox was planning something with Maia in the kitchen, Flint was working on a puzzle, Vinny had already turned in for the night, and Cupid and Alistair were on the couch as Cupid brushed Alistair's ears, why? She wanted to and Alistair really couldn't refuse.

"So if ice cream...can't be a soulmate, well then what can?" Alistair asked as he focused on memorizing the alphabet. He really had left the labs knowing next to nothing and the fox gang had taken it upon themselves to teach him everything they knew.

It was lucky he caught on to things so fast because they had given him a lot to learn, like how to read and write, speak French and Spanish, pick locks(which he had actually picked up extremely fast, already getting better at it than the others) and also how to sing and do what Cupid called "a box step" dance. He wasn't all that great at any of it yet, since it had only been two weeks, but he was learning.

Cupid gave a small laugh. "A soulmate is a person, Alistair. They're someone you feel connected to on a different level, they're that person who you love more than anything else, and you are always there for them. A soulmate is the person who will forgive you and all your mistakes, and in return you forgive them of all of theirs and both try to do better," she explained with a smile as she cast a glance over to the kitchen. "When you're with your soulmate, you just...know."

"Oh, so you mean someone like a second rabbit!" Alistair piped in in realization, sounding far too happy to have made the connection.

Cupid looked at him curiously. "A second rabbit? Ali I'm going to need an explanation behind that, especially if you're going to compare it to a soulmate," she said, sounding a tad bit offended at the comparison so far.

Alistair nodded, which disturbed the rhythm of the brush before letting his head stiffen again. "Rabbits bond with each other, making an inseparable bond, where you can't even be away from your other rabbit without hurting, A-someone used to tell me about them, said finding a second rabbit would be good for me, you know, rabbits are naturally social creatures. I don't think I'd do good on my own..." he confessed with a small shrug of his shoulders.

Cupid smiled warmly as he spoke. "I guess in a way, a soulmate is a lot like a second rabbit," she agreed as she finished brushing his ears and hair. "Alright, hop on off to bed, you're probably tired and I have to talk to Knox and Maia about work," she explained, getting off the couch and sending Alistair on his way.

The rabbit didn't object and instead gave her a hug goodnight before he walked down the hall and into his room...which he actually shared with Vinny, the other fox hybrid was already asleep, so Alistair had to be quiet as he made his way over to his bed and snuggled in, looking up at the ceiling and letting the silence fill the room before finally dosing off.

Vinny was honestly beginning to hate himself, just a little.

Now before we continue, let me explain something real quick. This is Alistair’s backstory, no doubt about it, however this certain chapter focuses more on Vinny, because sometimes you need to hear the villain’s side of the story as well…oops spoilers, nothing you all probably hadn’t figured out yet anyways. okay back to the story.

Why was Vinny sort of hating himself right now? It could all be brought back to that stupidly adorable rabbit hybrid: Alistair.

Vinny had a job to do, he had to gather intel and all of that fun stuff. however do you know how hard it is to do that when not only do you find yourself unable to get the information you want from who you want, but you constantly get distracted by that person?

It was infuriating.

They were at the park, it was a hot summer day and Cupid had found a way to hide their ears and tails better, they all looked human. Vinny was waiting on a bench, licking at his ice cream cone as he watched the others move about. Knox was talking to Maia, both looked fairly serious, probably planning a heist or something. Cupid was insisting Flint played frisbee with her for some reason and Alistair…

Alistair had somehow found himself talking to a girl around their age with a dog. Which admittedly was what Vinny was paying more attention to. The rabbit hybrid was talking to the girl while betting her dog with an all too happy smile.

Why was he so polite? Vinny didn’t understand it. Alistair was so…nice, it was annoying because it made it that much harder to be annoyed at him, which he was because he wasn’t…it made sense in his head. He really didn’t care too much for the conversation he was having either, though after a bit more of watching, he was really beginning to care.

Alistair had stood up after petting the dog, said something that probably wasn’t funny because Alistair wasn’t funny, and then the girl gave a fake laugh-he could tell, don’t ask how, he just could, and gently pushed his shoulder, hand lingering too long for Vinny’s liking.

No. He was shutting that down, no stupid dog girl was going to come and ruin everything he had been working for, this last month. So he got up and started over, reaching soon enough and he quickly handed his cone to Alistair. “Here, I can’t finish it,” he explained and placed an arm over his shoulder, eyes staring at the girl.

Alistair smiled over at him. “Oh, hi Vinny, this is Rebeca and her dog: Hero,” he introduced and the girl looked over at Vinny, and although Alistair was clearly oblivious to it, they were definitely having a stare down, and finally the girl caved, shaking her head slightly.

“It was nice talking to you, Alistair, but I should probably go,” she said, giving a small smile to Alistair before she started off, Vinny just caught the last bit of her muttering as she left. “Geez, didn’t mean to touch your guy…”

He wasn’t sure if Alistair heard, but he had, and a part of him was really beginning to like that idea. His. His rabbit…Of course, he was only doing any of this for work…yeah, it wasn’t like he actually liked the rabbit or anything as stupid as that. This was strictly business, he couldn’t let some random girl come in and ruin everything.

Yeah…Strictly business.

-

After the park, they had all ended up going back to watch a movie. Vinny was watching from the couch as Cupid put on some stupid movie…Seven brides for seven brothers, it was old, annoying, and a musical to top it all off. Vinny hated it.

But he didn’t.

Alistair had watched Cupid put the disc in with nothing short of awe-this was the first movie the poor thing had seen, Vinny couldn’t help but pity him a little bit, and then the rabbit hybrid hopped over to the couch and sat down next to him, no closer than he usually did, but that was already pretty close.

Vinny didn’t mind, the poor thing had been neglected of any sort of comfort his whole life, and he could use it to his advantage if he wanted to. “Have you seen this movie before?” Alistair asked, bringing those insufferable expressive green eyes over to look at him. He felt his heart rate speed up slightly and remembered why he hated himself.

“No, though I’m sure this won’t be the last time we watch it, since Cupid seems to like it,” Vinny said, carefully moving his arm up to pull Alistair closer, he had to get him used to this stuff, so he was easier to manipulate anyways.

Alistair was quick to comply and smiled over at him. “I bet it’s good, it looks good. Though…I’ve never really seen a movie before, so I wouldn’t know,” he explained before finally tearing his gaze away from Vinny-thank heaven, and back to the screen as some old cheesy music started to play and Vinny could already tell that he was going to hate this.

Then, to top it all off, Maia joined them with a bowl of some flavored chips, she passed them to Cupid, sitting down next to her, and the girl ate some and then passed it over to Flint, or was sitting awkwardly in the middle of the couch, with a pair of snuggle buddies on either side of him.

The cape fox took a few for himself and then passed it to Alistair.

Then, just when Vinny thought he couldn’t hate himself anymore than he already did, he was proven wrong.

Alistair had taken the bowl, gone to get a chip, and then, his nose crinkled up, there was a pause and then…he sneezed. Usually sneezing wasn’t a problem, you know when it was plain old boring human sneezing. But when it was a rabbit sneeze.

It became a bit more of a problem.

Oh and it didn’t stop there, he sneezed again and again, pawing at his nose, bowl sitting in his lap, his ears would flop in whichever direction with each disgustingly adorable sneeze, and all Vinny could do was watch. it wasn’t fair. He should not be allowed to be so cute, it had to be illegal.

By the time he had sneezed for a good while, with no guarantee it would stop, Vinny just couldn’t take it anymore, he got up, grabbed the bowl and took it away from him. “What’s in this, Maia?” He asked, sending an annoyed look over at the girl, who didn’t care too much for it.

“It’s just corn chips, flavored with cheese and cayenne peppers,” she explained and despite the still constant sneezing. Alistair reached up to snag one from the bowl, he was clearly curious what it tasted like, and after sniffing it, sneezing again, and debating for a second, he ate it.

Vinny took the bowl to the table after that, he shot a glance back over to see Cupid helping Alistair with something, turns out he was likely allergic to the peppers on it. He sighed and walked towards the door, where Knox was, as he ha just come in from getting the mail.

“Hey, where’re you going, I thought we were watching a movie,” Knox said as Vinny pushed his way passed the leader.

“I need to go kick a puppy, I’ll be back later.”

Now he didn’t actually end up kicking a puppy, but he couldn’t stay in that room any longer, not with those stupid sneezes.

He ended up taking a walk around the block, he was about half way through when his phone went off and he brought it up to his ear…which he had hidden under neath a hoodie. “Yes?” He answered in a less than pleased tone, and then regretted it right after once he realized who was calling.

“Is that any way to talk to your father, Vincent?”

The fox hybrid paused, holding his breath before letting it out in a huff of breath. “No, sorry. I’m assuming you’re calling about the labs?” He questioned as he turned a corner to walk down an alleyway for a bit more privacy. Feeling particularly antsy.

“That’s correct, we need that information Vincent, remember the only reason you’re here in the first place is because of that vile we got our hands on,” his father reminded and Vinny held back giving a remark how they didn’t know what it was at the time, when they stole it from the later killed scientist.

It could have killed him for all they knew, and yet they still risked giving it to him and since then had been piecing together more and more about the labs, after getting information about some possible escaped hybrids, they had sent him out to befriend them and find out as much as possible, they had to know if this was something the WPA should get into.

“I know father…I’ve found a target, he’ll crack soon enough…the others aren’t as willing to share what they know…I just…I need more time,” Vinny tried to explain however the man on the phone didn’t exactly seem to care.

He scoffed, and Vinny looked down at the ground, feeling more anxious by the minute. “You’ve had a month, if you don’t get anything soon, we’re going to have to take some more drastic methods, don’t forget that this is your last chance, either get the information or deal with the consequences.”

Just like that, the call ended and Vinny held his phone out, staring down at the concrete ground. He couldn’t let him down, not again. It was then that his gaze hardened. Sorry Alistair, no matter how adorable you are, he needed the information, and he planned on getting it one way or another.

Alistair was wasn't sure why he nor Vinny was allowed to accompany the others, but they had to stay home this time. He also found it a bit weird by how they were dressed, all black, decoratively colored masks, and ears and tails hanging out freely. He was just assuming it was new fashion statement and went with it. "Alright, we'll be gone for a few hours, you two sure you'll be alright?" Knox asked as he hung by the door with the other three close by.

"Of course Knox, we're not kids you know-" Vinny started off but then was pretty much cut off by Alistair, as the rabbit tumbled off the couch-over the back of the couch, to run over to the others with the sort of grace that only Alistair could have...so very little, he tripped over his tail more than a few times.

"Wait! You guys can't go yet," he said and they looked at him curiously before one by one, Alistair gave them each a goodbye hug, since it was very important to him, for some reason, to hug them all goodbye, and hug them again when they got back, honestly by now they really should have just gotten used to it by now.

Vinny sighed and rolled his eyes. "Let me rephrase that. I'm not a kid, wether Alistair is fifteen or five is still plenty debatable," he added and Alistair sent him an unamused look from where he was, hugging Cupid tightly, and the girl patted his head gently, despite him being taller than her and sent Vinny an equally unamused look.

"Don't be so mean Vin-vin, I personally think it's adorable that Allie Ballie likes to give hugs," Cupid explained and instantly the rabbit pulled back and crinkled his nose up in mild disgust, instantly shaking his head at the very thought.

"I am not adorable," he objected stubbornly and by then, Maia and Flint had left, with Knox hanging in the doorway as he waited for Cupid to hurry up.

Cupid simply cooed lightly at him at patted his head again. "Whatever you say hon, okay now I really need to go. Don't worry though, I'll be back tonight and then tomorrow, we can go get ice cream for breakfast," she told him quietly and the rabbit hybrid grinned over at her, ears perking up considerably at that. Then, just like that, Cupid was gone, leaving just Vinny and Alistair in the room.

Alistair stayed to look at the door for a few seconds before he looked back over to Vinny. "So, what should we do?" He questioned, starting back over as he leaned against the back of the couch, elbows resting on it as his long, recently dyed purple and blue tail, swayed pleasantly behind him.

Vinny glanced up at him and rolled his eyes. "g-- man, must you always be entertained?" He questioned and looked away from him, making Alistair frown. Did he...did he do something wrong? He hadn't thought so, but...but it was possible. Actually for days now, Vinny had been in a bad mood, it was really discouraging because Alistair always felt like he did something wrong and that's why Vinny wasn't happy, and so he would try to change it around a bit, but no matter what he did, Vinny was always somehow, in someway, annoyed at him.

Luckily it seemed like Vinny got the idea that Alistair was beginning to feel a little upset himself and let out a sigh. "Come here," he ordered and Alistair obediently hopped over the couch and plopped down on the other side, close to Vinny. "You want something to do, right?" He questioned, looking over at Alistair with those dark brown eyes of his and all the rabbit hybrid could think to do was nod. "Well then, let's talk about our pasts. I'll ask you a question, you'll answer it, and then you may ask me a question. Sound fair?" He questioned and Alistair fidgeted uncomfortably, however before he could think to refuse, Vinny had started to speak again.

"You came from the labs, right? Right before we met you, how did you escape?"

Alistair frowned and looked down as those memories began to resurface and his ears instantly dropped down to either side of his head as he subconsciously brought a hand up to stroke the long ears. "I...I don't think I like this game, m-maybe we should play something else..." He suggested and Vinny simply laughed in response.

"Of course not. Now Alistair, answer the question. How did you escape the labs?" Vinny asked, reaching out to snatch Alistair's other hand, gently beginning to massage the wrist with his thumb, in hopes of easing Alistair into talking more openly about his experience there in the labs.

However he still didn't want to answer and instead had started to fall quiet instead, not daring to meet Vinny's gaze, and needless to say, the fox hybrid was beginning to get annoyed and pressed further into his wrist with his thumb, beginning to put far more pressure than needed on it. "Alistair..." he started warningly, bringing the claw for this thumb out as it dug into Alistair's wrist, a small stream of blood beginning to spill from the puncture. "How did you escape?"

Alistair winced from the pain and tried to pull his wrist free. "V-Vinny, you're hurting me..." he said, beginning to feel something close to panic flop around in his stomach as he tried to pull free of the other fox boy, who simply wouldn't budge. "A-ahh...Vinny."

Vinny looked him square in the eyes, panicking green met his brown, with something new hidden behind those eyes. "Then answer the question and I promise, I'll let you go," Vinny promised and Alistair was beginning to think he had no choice, he didn't want Vinny to keep hurting him.

"I had help, there was a girl in the cell next to mine, a hare hybrid...she took out a scientist and got me out, if it wasn't for her, I would never have gotten away," Alistair said quickly and just like that Vinny let go of his wrist and Alistair pulled it back to his chest, cradling the injured wrist with his other hand as he watched the trickle of blood.

Vinny gave him an all too warm smile and reached over to pull him into a hug, moving to whisper into his ear. "See? That wasn't so hard now, was it?" He questioned softly before he pulled away and stood up, glancing back at Alistair. "You should clean that up before the others get back...and I'd keep this to yourself, wouldn't want to worry the others now, would we?" He asked in that smooth accent of his before he slipped away into the hallway, leaving Alistair alone.

He watched Vinny leave before he gaze returned to his wrist. Vinny had...Vinny had hurt him. He had made him bleed, and now, now he didn't want Alistair to tell the others?...He...he shouldn't tell the others though, they would worry, they would be displeased...So maybe, maybe Vinny was right and Alistair would just have to keep this to himself from now on.

-

Over the course of the next few weeks, things got worse and worse, so bad that it came to the point where Alistair dreaded being alone with Vinny, he had been given a few more scars and anytime Alistair refused to answer a touchy question about the labs, Vinny would continue to hurt him until he answered. Though Alistair did a good job of cleaning up any of the injuries he got, he hid them from the others quite well.

It was funny, despite everything, like Alistair's new timidness, or his flinches when he was touched, or Vinny's arrogance growing, it seemed that no one noticed any change and things otherwise continued on normally, well up until things got really bad.

Once again, the others were gone, leaving just Alistair alone with Vinny, which meant it was questioning time, Alistair had elected to hide in his room...but the problem with that was that Vinny shared a room with him, there really was no escaping the fox hybrid, currently Alistair was watching as Vinny moved around in their room, idly playing with his stuff while Alistair anxiously played with his blanket edges.

"So, Alistiar, where exactly is the labs?"

Alistair gulped, he knew a question was coming, so far he had been able to answer them all, however...he didn't know the answer to this one, and he was hesitant to know how Vinny would respond to that. "I don't know."

"Don't lie Alistair, where are the labs?"

"I don't know."

Vinny swerved to glare at him, slowly beginning to move closer. "You have to know, I need to know, so how about we just make this easier and you tell me instead of this silly little game of 'I don't know' hmm?" He questioned with a frown as he moved to situate himself onto the bed beside Alistair, who had wound up pressed up against the wall.

He dared looking at Vinny, keeping a steady look on his face. "I. Don't. Know," Alistair told him, voice shaky. He didn't know where it was, it was just...the labs, all he did there was stay in his cell, and then when he got the chance, he ran, he didn't look back, he didn't try to figure out where it was, where he was, or anything like that. He just ran.

Vinny let out an all too unpleased growl and swiped his claws at him, getting Alistair in the neck. "That's not good enough Alistair, you need to tell me where the labs are, The others won't even get close to telling me about them, I'm going to need you to be a bit more lenient," he explained and roughly shoved Alistair further against the wall, and when it looked like he would come at him again, Alistair lashed out as well, and actually managed to nick him.

Vinny paused, confusion eminent on his face as he moved a hand up to wipe at the blood, it was deep...might even leave a scar. Oh by now he was furious. Vinny glared at him, moving to pin him down and leaned in real close, tracing his finger along his neck, beginning to lightly tear at the skin with his claws to make it bleed. "Don't you ever think of doing that again, you can't fight back, and if you try again, I'll show you exactly how dangerous I can be, understood?" He asked, rather darkly.

Alistair was going to reply, but then the door to the house opened and they both froze, the others were back early. Vinny growled and pushed himself off Alistair. "I'll go see why they're back, you should probably stay here and make sure to clean yourself up," he muttered, walking out and slamming the door behind him. Surely he would come up with an excuse for his own injury as well.

Meanwhile Alistair just pushed himself back into the corner of his bed, curling up as he brought his knees up and buried his face into them, hugging his legs close as he tried to stop himself from crying. He couldn't...he couldn't do this anymore, he was supposed to be the guardian, he wasn't supposed to need protecting. But Vinny...Vinny clearly wasn't going to stop, and his neck was bleeding, Alistair couldn't keep this up.

It was then that he came to a split second decision, one he truly hoped he wouldn't regret later.

He was going to tell the others.

-

Flint was out with Vinny, apparently he got to leave for work sometimes with them too, it was the perfect time to get the others alone. Alistair took a breath as he looked at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, he wasn't very strong...and without his shirt on it was a lot easier to see the scars, and a little bit of flab that Alistair needed to get rid of. He was honestly extremely self conscious about his weight, being a bit more on the chubby side since meeting the fox gang, he could do to loose a few pounds.

He shook his head, now was not the time to worry about his weight, he instead reached over and slid the comfortable turtleneck sweater back over his head and exhaled as he turned away and reached for the doorknob. Just get it over with, confess to being useless, to being a bother, to needing protecting and get the help you need.

He opened the door and walked out, entering the main area where the other three were. Knox was playing darts in the corner, Maia was on her computer, and Cupid was pawing for attention from the other girl. Alistair cleared hid throat to get them to notice him. Cupid was the first to react as she ditched Maia for now and sat up straight. "Hey there Allie, you look a little...hmm, sad, what's up?" She asked with a tilt of her head.

Alistair further entered the room, tugging at the ends of the shirt. "I...Well I have something that I really should tell you...I just, didn't want to displease you guys before but I can't keep it hidden anymore, I need to come out with it-"

"Oh my g--, are you gay? Don't worry sweetie, we of course still accept you, we speculate that Knox is the only straight one here anyways-" Cupid started and Alistair quickly cut her off there.

"What? No! I mean for a time there I thought I was...But that's not really the point here, that's not what I wanted to say," Alistair said quickly and Cupid frowned slightly, too bad, she was sure she could set him up with a number of handsome men. "I uh...well for a few weeks now, whenever you all leave for work, Vinny will ask me these questions about the labs...and I don't always wanna answer them because they're kinda touchy...but if I don't, he hurts me," Alistair explained, looking down and refusing to make eye contact with any of them.

Cupid was up from the couch in an instance, and right by him, she put her hands on his arms and he flinched away. "Hurts you how?" Cupid asked, suddenly far more serious than Alistair had ever seen her before, and Alistair was beginning to wonder if he was somehow in trouble. However he decided against that being the case and took a step back to show them his injuries, taking off the wrist bands to show the scars there, and removing the turtleneck sweater so they could see any on his arms, neck, or elsewhere.

"Like this..." Alistair explained quietly, looking down at the floor. "He's been doing it for a month or so now...the ones on the neck are the newest...It's why I've been wearing the turtlenecks," he confessed, feeling extremely self conscious about all of this.

Cupid held in a small gasp as she looked at them all, Maia and Knox walking over to as well and Alistair began to feel really uncomfortable again. "He's been doing this to you?" Cupid asked and Alistair mumbled out an affirmative answer and Cupid looked over at Knox and Maia, gaze hardening, the three shared a look before Cupid focused on Alistair again. "Thank you for telling us, Alistair. Why don't you get yourself something to eat and head back to your room? I think we have some things to discuss," she started and Alistair put his shirt back on, beginning to head out. "Oh and Allie, don't worry, you will never have to worry about Vincent hurting you again," Cupid added fiercely.

Alistair wasn't so sure of that, but he was more than willing to believe it as he got himself some snacks and went back to his room, hoping he made the right choice in telling them.

-

Alistair hadn't seen Vinny since telling the others, and that had been over two days ago. He assumed they kicked him out, but he really wasn't sure, though he was already starting to feel a bit better, like he could breath again. It was late, Knox, Maia, and Flint were out working, with Cupid being the one to stay with him this time, and she had a friend over, they were in her and Maia's room, wrestling or something, Alistair really wasn't sure.

He currently had himself a bowl of ice cream and a book in hands, he was going to go sit in his room for awhile, reading the book and eating ice cream for the night, it was a pretty peaceful way to spend his nights, and Alistair's personal favorite. The weather outside was stormy as well, but Alistair had almost always actually liked the rain, it meant cozy days and no need to go outside.

The fox hybrid opened the door and walked in, closing it behind him as he went and sat down on his bed, getting plenty comfortable as he brought the spoon up to his mouth and happily ate his ice cream, though for some reason his stomach kept turning in uncomfortable ways, as if he shouldn't be so at peace with himself right then.

He didn't discover why until later that night. He was about half way through his book, when there was a rather loud boom of thunder and the rabbit hybrid jumped slightly, a little shocked to be brought out of his book so suddenly like that, Alistair looked around for a few seconds before he shook his head. "It's just a storm Alistair..." he told himself as he tried to focus back on his book, unaware of the person picking the lock to the apartment.

A few more minutes passed and then there was a ver quiet knock on his door and instantly his ears zeroed down to the direction of the door, he slid his bookmark in, saving his spot in his book as he went to go answer, figuring it was probably Cupid, coming to check up on him. Except when he answered the door, it was not Cupid.

It was Vinny.

Alistair blinked, surprised to see the fox hybrid, drenched from the rain, and an all too crazed look in his eyes as he gave a smile and forced himself inside the room before Alistair could shut the door on him. "Hello Alistair, miss me?" He asked and walked further inside, instantly clasping a hand over his mouth before Alistair could scream for help or something like that. "You told them...and doing that, you made my life a living h---," Vinny snapped making sure to keep relatively quiet as he started to push Alistair back as he walked in.

"I got kicked out of your stupid little group, and I didn't get the information I needed either. Father was so displeased, not like you would understand anything about that. All you understand is the f------ happiness in the world. Well news flash bunny, the world is not all happiness and rainbows outside of the labs, and now I'm going to show you exactly why you shouldn't have crossed me, you stupid, stupid bunny," Vinny snarled out.

Alistair gulped, struggling to free himself before Vinny could hurt him again, however he was already pinned to the wall, hand clasped over his mouth, and Vinny looking like he had nothing else to loose.

Suddenly Alistair got the idea that he was in a very bad position.

-

Cupid had been asleep, cozy in her bed, since her "friend" had gone home an hour or so ago, however she was very abruptly awoken by the sound of a muffled scream and a crash. The fennec fox hybrid was up in an instance and jumped out of her bed, throwing on random clothes as she left and began to head to Alistair's room to check on him when she noticed the front door was open, and then an all too familiar scent wafted over to her, dread pricking from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

Vinny.

In no time at all, she picked up the speed and rushed to Alistair's room, swinging the door open with a surprising about of strength, and what was there to greet her was a clearly angry, possibly crazed, bloodied Vinny, though Cupid had serious doubts that the blood was his own. He stood there, towering over a cowering Alistair, who was curled up on the ground, bloodied, shaking, and trying to hide behind his tail and ears.

Vinny slowly turned to look over at Cupid, it was needless to say that she was definitely upset.

The two fought, it was already clearly going much better than any of Alistair's miserable attempts at fighting back, however as the fight went on it began eminently clear that Cupid would win this, and towards the end she dragged him out, leaving Alistair alone.

He curled up further into a ball, shaking his head and whole body shivering as he tried to stop himself from letting out chocked sobs. He couldn't cry, he was supposed to be the protector, the guardian, the hero...He was supposed to be brave, strong, fierce, not...not scared and weak and afraid. But that's exactly what he was. Vinny had...he had hurt him, touched him, spoken to him, he had hurt him in many more ways than one.

And no matter how hard Alistair tried to forget it all, he couldn't and everything kept repeatedly playing in his mind, causing him to shake more and pray he forgot, hope it all went away, wish none of it had ever happened to begin with.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Cupid returned and instantly fell down to her knees in front of Alistair, a look of pity, anger towards Vinny, and guilt in her eyes as she moved to try and pull him into a hug "Oh Alistair...I'm so sorry that I wasn't there earlier, that I didn't know..." She said, however as soon as she moved to touch him, Alistair reacted badly and pushed himself back, shaking his head vigorously.

"Don't touch me!" He snarled out in panic, looking at Cupid warily. Admittedly, it hurt.

Cupid then tried again. "I would never hurt you like he did, Allie, ever," she tried to reassure but once again, Alistair flinched away from her touch, almost having a sort of feral look to him as he pushed himself away from her.

"I said don't touch me!" Alistair snapped again, and then his barriers started to fall as he looked at her with big, watery, expressive green eyes. "P-please don't touch me, don't touch me..." He begged and Cupid's face shifted from a look of hurt to one of pity, worry, anger, sadness, and guilt.

"O-okay, I won't touch you Alistair, I promise that I won't touch you," she said and Alistair nodded shakily, seeming pleased with that answer, however Cupid could only look at him with an utterly pained look on her face, as she whispered just barely loud enough for him to hear. "Oh Alistair, what did he do to you?"

There was no answer, Alistair doubted he would ever be able to go into full detail about what happened that night. But one thing in certain, was for sure.

Vinny had broken Alistair.

Alistair let out a small sigh as he got up from the couch, abandoning the cartoon about the bear and the piglet behind. He couldn’t focus on it with all that yelling anyways.

“Oh, believe me Cupid, I know very well what you’ve been doing and it’s a new low, even for you!”

“If you would just let me explain! You’re so infuriating!”

“Ha! Soulmates, sure means something to you, doesn’t it?”

The rabbit hybrid ignored the arguing as he grabbed his long, furry, warm coat and draped it over his shoulders, buttoning it up as he sent a glance over to Knox, who had earplugs in and was reading the newspaper. He waved to get his attention as he pulled his ears back into the back of the coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck to cover them up and then pointed to door to let him know that he was leaving, and then walked out.

It was a rather chilly October day, two months since…since Vinny had left, Flint was off at school since he had to go, Alistair would be with him, but he hadn’t been doing very well lately and the others had thought it best to keep him out of the school system at least until the next semester.

He took a long inhale as he closed the door behind him and shivered as the wind whistled by, trying to burrow further into his coat for warmth. This was his first fall outside the labs and needless to say, he hated it. He hated anything cold.

Except for ice cream.

Though, he hadn’t been eating much of that lately. In fact, Alistair had been doing very little of what he usually liked to do. Less reading, less writing, less food, and absolutely no physical contact, not even anything close. The others had quickly realized they had to keep his distance from him at this point.

However what they didn't know was that Alistair had been doing a lot more of other things. Like, exercising, it cleared his mind…or cleaning, that had also become relaxing, and then of course…self defense.

A few weeks ago Alistair had found a place that offered self defense classes, he would go and take them in return for work, so he often cleaned up after. Most people there thought it was weird that he never took off the coat or scarf…but he had to cover up he was a hybrid somehow, and the whole Japan thing was sort of a bit pointless. Though, his hair covered quite a bit of it, as it had grown rather long lately, but still.

He took the bus to get there, which wasn’t preferable…too many people, but he managed to keep his space and it wasn’t long until he got there.

Alistair entered the building, knowing it wasn’t time for the class but he was hoping to talk to the instructor a bit before. she should be here, ending another class anyways. So with that he peered into the room to see the instructor there, alone, the class must have ended.

He knocked, which got her attention fairly quickly.

“Oh, Alistair. Why’re you here?” She asked, pushing herself off the wall and brushing her hand over her forehead, getting rid of some lingering sweat.

He gave a small sheepish smile. “I uh, I was wondering if I could take a few more classes…My home life isn’t…well it isn’t ideal right now, and I’d rather not spend more time there, if that’s okay…Ms. Adams,” he admitted in a small voice as he entered the room.

The instructor folded her arms, looking him over for a few seconds. “You know, you can call me Billy, everyone else does, as for some extra classes…why kid? You’re doing fine with just the ones you have, you come here pretty often, I’m sure there’s other things you could do right?” She asked and Alistair looked down at his feet.

“Well, yes. But Ms-sorry, Billy…I need to do this, I need to get better. It’s for personal reasons, but let’s just say I don’t want to need protecting anymore. Please? I’ll try to pay too…I have some money that Knox gave me, I just-“ Alistair started to ramble but was quickly cut off by Billy.

“I have a counter offer. How about, we schedule a time for you to come more often with just me, some personal one on one training here, no charge,” Billy offered and Alistair blinked in surprise, that offer seemed too good to be true. “You look like you could use some time with someone, to talk, train, whatever else. However I do have one condition. You gotta dress appropriately for it, no more coat and scarf, okay?” She questioned.

Alistair frowned and looked down. “I would love that..but I can’t, see I uh…I don’t look normal, not really, and I need the coat and scarf to hide it..” He explained weakly and Billy raised brow at him.

“Do you honestly think I care what you look like? I just think it would be a lot easier for you if you didn’t have all that extra baggage,” Billy told him and held her hand out expectingly. “Now, cough ‘em up, we’re ditching those things right now, or else you can just walk out and never come back,” she told him and Alistair fidgeted nervously.

He wasn’t supposed to though…But, Billy was nice, she was trustworthy, right? He-he could possibly risk it. Besides, he needed this, he needed these lessons, and he had nowhere else to go. So, with a heavy sigh, Alistair removed his scarf and placed it in her hand, and then took off his coat and danged it over his arm, bunny ears popping up and tail revealing itself.

Billy blinked.

“Okay I’ll be honest with you, when you said you looked weird I thought you just had some weird birthmark or something. I was not expecting this.”

-

Luckily, Billy didn’t freak out, or tell anyone. She just told him that she didn’t want to know anything about it and said to get to work.

Alistair was more than happy to comply with that. So for the next couple of months, Alistair would find time to sneak out and visit Billy, she taught him a lot, and specifically told him to take any feelings out on the punching bag. He really enjoyed that part.

Exercising was nice, cleaning was relaxing, food and books were a comfort. But fighting? There was something exhilarating about it. He sparred with Billy pretty often too, but this was different from normal physical contact, this was fighting, this was defending himself, it was incredible.

So he spent the next four months doing that, and it showed. Of course he still wore the big, comfortable clothing so it wasn’t really like anyone could tell. Then around his sixteenth birthday, they decided to stick him back in school. It was really a bad time, but honestly the other three needed somewhere to put him, and he was finally acting a bit…normal.

However Alistair honestly hated school with a passion.

The teachers were bossy and rude, they had no care for you or your personal needs, the food was disgusting, the place was filthy, and don't even get him started on the kids. He was shocked to learn just how much he truly despised teenagers.

Turns out, he only lasted about a week in school anyways, and it was all thanks to this guy named Zayden.

“That girl was definitely flirting with you, maybe you should, I dunno, go for it?” Flint suggested as he walked towards Alistair’s locker with the combined hybrid. Cupid had truly done an amazing job of finding ways to hide their ears and tails.

Alistair shook his head. “No, I have better things to do with my time than pay any sort of attention to some girl. Besides…relationships are gross, you’ve seen the swine otherwise known as human teenagers here, no one has any concern for PDA, they should all learn to keep it in the-“ he got cut off by Flint, who sort of just burst out laughing right there.

“Oh, wow, you are one cynical man now Ali. It’s sort of amusing, oh you called them swine-I think I’m going to really enjoy you coming to school with me,” Flint told him with a cheeky grin on his face.

Alistair opened his mouth to reply, when his attention was dragged away, towards the lockers were some random guy was shoving someone else in one. He crinkled his nose up in disgust, how rude. He was pretty sure shoving people in lockers was wrong, and it just wasn’t nice.

He huffed slightly and handed his books to Flint. “Here, hold these,” he ordered before walking over to the two people, with Flint just staring in dismay, he couldn’t seriously be stupid enough to actually challenge someone here, right?

Turns out, he could be.

“Excuse me sir, but I don’t think it’s polite to shove people in lockers. Do you?” Alistair asked, clasping his hands behind his back as he looked at the brown haired boy with a polite smile, and the guy turned to look at him.

“…Who are you?”

Alistair stretched out his hand. “Alistair Vecktombordra, I’m new here. Anyways that really isn't important. What is important is that poor guy in the locker. You know, bullying is wrong,” he said as if talking to a small child.

The guy didn’t take well to that. “Who do you think you are? Look, I get that you’re new, but you don’t understand how things work here, do you? I'm Zayden, I’m one of the people who run this school, and I get to do whatever I want, to whoever I want. So go back to your weird little friend and carry on with your day, okay?” He asked and Alistair frowned, putting a hand on the locker in front of Zayden to block his exit.

“You know, I really don’t think that’s how it works. See, that attitude is going to land you getting hit someday, how about we don't make that day today, and you just, I don’t know, agree to be good?” Alistair suggested and Zayden sneered.

“Tough guy, eh? Fine, how about this. Today at lunch, meet me outside the school, we’ll fight it out. If you win, I’ll leave the kid alone and we’ll forget this happened. If I win though, well…heh, let’s just say I hope you like lockers.” With that, Zayden ducked under his arm and walked off, leaving the kid in the locker alone, if anything else.

Alistair glared at him for a few seconds. He did not like that kid, after that he turned to the boy in the locker, who had just gotten out and reached down to pick his glasses up from the floor. “You okay?” He asked, looking over at the surprisingly tall boy.

“Fine…But you uh…you shouldn’t have done that, I’m not worth it, believe me…” The boy said in a shy, quiet voice as he fiddled with his glasses, then putting them on.

Alistair offered him a small smile. “I don’t believe that. Besides, I’m supposed to be the guardian, the protector. It’s my job,” he added and the boy finally looked up at him, rather unsure, however he offered his own smile.

“What did you say you’re name was?” He asked tentatively.

“Alistair, Alistair Vecktombordra,” the rabbit hybrid introduced proudly and the boy nodded slowly, pushing his lightly cracked glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“I’m Thaddeus. Thaddeus Ivy.”

-

Flint hurried after Alistair, looking at him, clearly distressed. “Al, Ali buddy, you do not have to do this, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove but you don’t have to. It’s okay being soft you know, so what if you’re a little pudgy and soft, and maybe you can’t really fight, you don’t have to, and you certainly don’t have to fight some guy-“ he said, trying to convince his friend to back out as he started outside.

Alistair, in turn, sent him a glare. “I’m not pudgy, thank you very much. Also, I’m not doing this to prove to you or anyone else that I’m not soft, I’m doing this because I refuse to sit back and let people get hurt when I’m supposed to protect them. I’m the guardian, and-“ he cut himself off there. Because Flint didn’t need to know that he felt useless otherwise.

“You can’t stop me from doing this. Besides, someone needs to teach him a lesson,” Alistair added and then quickened his step, walking outside to see Zayden already waiting for him, a small crowd of people gathering to watch. Alright, time to get this done and over with.

Zayden spotted him and smirked. “Tough guy, you showed up. I thought for sure you would have chickened out, well let’s get this over with, I’ve still got a lunch that I’d like to finish,” he said, waving him over.

Alistair took a breath and started over, with Flint following to join the crowd, muttering things quietly in Spanish. This wouldn’t end well, he could tell.

“So let me get this straight, we fight, and you’ll quit bullying people?” Alistair asked as he approached, folding his arms. He was having a bit of trouble though, because Zayden looked a little like Vinny and all he could really picture was that horrible fox hybrid, it was hard not to just punch the guy.

“Only if you win,” Zayden added and Alistair almost smirked.

“Believe me, I plan to.”

With that, Zayden gave an over confident smirk of his own, lunged at Alistair, and the fight started.

Zayden aimed a punch, and Flint surely expected poor innocent Alistair to get pummeled. But that didn’t happen. Instead Alistair dodged down and then punched him in the stomach, making Zayden stumble back.

Lucky shot?

Not quite. After that, Zayden tried to recover and hit Alistair again, only for the rabbit to dodge with expert speed…to be fair though, he was a hybrid, and Alistair then proceed to trip him, making Zayden loose his balance for a few seconds before he stabilized himself and let out an angry grunt. He should not be loosing.

He got ready and then charged at Alistair, who unfortunately got hit that time and fell to the ground, he blinked, trying to shake away the shock, and then when he looked up he just say Zayden there, laughing over him, brown hair, brown eyes, arrogant little smirk, and it reminded him all too much of Vinny.

Suddenly it was like he was filled with some sort of emotion he hadn’t felt before, his stomach was boiling, heat rushing to his head, though not from embarrassment or anything of the sort. He glared and got back up, not bothering to brush the dirt and snow off him as he let out a sort of battle cry and flung himself at the bully.

He managed to tackle him to the ground and well, he punched him, and then again, though it wasn’t like he saw it as Zayden, but rather as Vinny. He still wasn’t sure what that feeling was, but later he would learn that it was best described as rage.

-

“Expelled?”

Cupid looked at Alistair in exasperation, currently, Knox, Cupid, and Maia were all seated on the couch, with Alistair sitting on the chair across from them, hands in his lap. He felt like he was getting a sort of triple parent lecture.

“Aren’t they supposed to give you three strikes before they expel you?” The fennec fox questioned, leaning back and mumbling to herself.

Alistair shrugged, refusing to make eye contact with any of them there. “Well, I guess there’s a difference between normal fighting and…breaking someone’s nose,” he explained, not sounding at all remorseful for his actions, and he wasn’t. Except for maybe now, with this lecture.

That’s when Flint entered, a grin on his face. “Oh yeah, you should have seen it guys. Alistair was all like: ‘Bam, bang, boom, Ima punch ya in the face,’ it was awesome!” Flint said and the three older foxes sent him a look. “…Right, but uh, bad too. Bad Alistair, fighting is bad…Well I think I’m gonna go back to my room now.”

Once Flint left, Knox focused on Alistair again. “What you did was wrong, I didn’t even know you could fight. Since when can you do that? You know, it doesn’t matter. I don't want you getting into anymore fights. Which shouldn’t be a problem considering you got expelled,” he grumbled.

Alistair frowned. “No, I did what was right. That guy was being a bully, if you ask me, he had it coming for him. I know I went over board but he-…But he deserved it,” he said stubbornly. “I’m supposed to be the protector, the guardian, and that’s what I did. You should all just be happy that I don’t need your protection anymore, I’m not weak, I’m not helpless, and I know the world isn’t all happiness and rainbows,” he said, standing up.

“Maybe what I did was wrong, but have you even stopped to think that maybe it was right? Justice, that’s what it was, I don’t want to need protecting anymore, I-I need to defend myself and others too, and that’s what I did,” Alistair said before he walked off, done with the conversation.

Knox sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Guess he’s still not over that Vinny thing…Maybe, maybe we should work with him more…maybe we could even take him with us on heists, give him a job…” He mused.

“Knox, he’s far too good to want to steal,” Cupid interrupted. “He’s clearly still going through things, taking it out in a different way. Just…give him time,” she pleaded and Knox looked right over at her.

“How much time? Cupid we can’t have a broken rabbit here. If he doesn’t get over this soon, we will have to take some more drastic measures. Alistair needs to be fixed, and he needs to be fixed soon, I vote we take him with us. Put him to use, I think it’ll be good for him,” Knox said and Cupid let out a small sigh as she looked down, inhaling sharply.

“I hope you’re right.”

Crossover preview:

"So we're stuck here? There's no way back? Kia that isn't the answer we were hoping for," Taylor informed as she looked over at the other girl, Kia looked sort of stressed out, though Taylor..or Ty, could totally understand why. It isn't every day you wake up in a different dimension with a tail, living someone else's lives.

Kia was about to respond when the door to the small apartment they had awoken up in a few days prior, was swung open and a very small squirrel girl entered, looking flustered, annoyed, and shocked.

"I'm a lesbian!"

Ty smiled innocently. "And we love and support you anyways, I'm proud of you for coming out of the closet...or in the door in this case, heh," she chuckled and flipped some of her long black hair out of her way.

Noranne glared at her. "I'm not a lesbian, I just am here...apparently, I like guys, but apparently here, that isn't something I do," she explained and stalked on over to join the other two, arms folded. "I was at school like I was supposed to, and this snow leopard girl was there for a change and she kissed me, I don't want to be a lesbian here...I already have to go through puberty again! This sucks."

Kia sent her a small smile. "We all are five years younger here, and I can promise you that Nika is not happy that she can't legally drink anymore," she explained, sadly Nika couldn't be with them at the moment since she had taken the four boys they had to watch to the park...

Ty looked over at Nora and smirked. "So, what happened after? Did you kiss back?"

The squirrel girl was quiet for a minute before shaking her head. "...I slapped her...pretty sure I hurt her feelings...because then Theadora had to ask if I was alright because usually I don't slap my girlfriend away...Ivie looked surprised yet happy...I came back right after that, technically I should still be at school," she explained.

Ty burst out laughing. "Ha nice, I mean not for the poor girl, but that was totally worth hearing...hey Ki-Kia you okay? You look sorta spacey..." Ty explained as she looked over at the chameleon girl.

Kia shook herself out of her thoughts. "Huh? Oh I was just thinking...if we're here...living someone else's lives...well then doesn't that mean whoever should be here...switched with us?" She asked.

Ty thought about it for a minute before nodding. "Makes sense...wonder how they're handling our lives...hopefully better than we're handling theirs...." she said and trailed off.

15 years old and way in over his head. That was the best description for the squirrel hybrid, who at this very moment…was about to get punched.

What exactly had he done to deserve a punch in the face?…Well if we’re being real here, a lot of things. But specifically? He ticked off a bully. not the usual, no Zayden was elsewhere, this was a different bully who Norman had gotten on the black list of.

Norman quickly dodged out of the way of the fist that was about to make impact with his face, his feet danced along the cleaned floors, movements swift and elegant for someone in the middle of a fight he couldn’t win in a long shot. See, he really couldn’t fight.

The guy grumbled out a response and aimed another hit, which Norman avoided again. “Wow…dumb and slow, it’s no wonder you’re failing all your classes,” he snarked, moving out of the way of the hulking bully.

Yeah…he really did deserve any injuries he received from this.

He was about to give another sassy remark when a fist collided with his face, sending the small squirrel flying into the lockers, back crashing into them and he let out a wince, sliding down to the floor as he moved his fist up to wipe the blood away from his mouth.

Yikes…hopefully this healed up before he saw his brothers later.

The bully stalked over to him, glaring smugly as he folded his large arms, absolutely towering over Norman. “How’s that for slow Notman?” He asked, clearly pleased with his witty nickname for the boy. Oh yes sir, how clever.

Norman gave him an indifferent look as he forced himself back to his feet. “Lucky blow, but your comebacks could really use some spice, while you’re at it, get a personality too,” he said, a smirk on his face, and knowing the results of this would likely get him punched again, he quickly sidestepped to the left, which then made the bully’s hand clash with the lockers instead of him.

“This has been fun Jack, but I’ve got actual important things to do, see ya around,” he said, starting to walk backwards, giving the man a two finger salute before twirling on his feet to face the right direction.

In which he instantly slammed right into another body and took a small step back to look up at two of Jack’s friends, and neither of them looked happy.

Three against one?

Crap.

-

Kai was, of course, at the theater, what exactly was the combined performer up to? Well, training mostly. He had some things that he wanted to add into the show and he had to practice them a lot before even considering adding them in.

He took a breath, focusing on his breathing as he stared down the rings laid out in front of him, and then, he charged, shooting himself through the first hoop as he curled himself into a ball, exhilaration rushing through him as he stretched out his legs and landed on the ground on the other side of the ring.

After stabilizing himself, Kai couldn’t help but smile as he glanced back over at the metal hoop as it swung very slowly in the air. He let out a breath, a number of loose chuckles escaping him, body rumbling along with it. He had done it, that was officially going on the list of things to include into his performance.

Though his own excitement was soon cut off by the sound of giggling and laughing, tiny hands clapping together as a small four year old rocked back and forth in her seat. “Again!”

Kai smiled warmly over at the girl as he hopped off the stage. “Did you like that Olive? It was pretty cool, wasn’t it?” He asked and she nodded happily, sending him a bright smile with those small baby teeth of her’s, clear admiration shown in her deep brown eyes.

“Yeah! It was…cool!” She agreed and Kai let out a light chuckle as he brought a lightly scaled hand out to pat her on the head, messing up her black hair. He was in charge of watching her for the day, as Nikolas had to take the other three to a dentist appointment later and it was just easier for Olive to stay with Kai.

“Well Olly, I’ll do it a few more times, and then after, how about we go get a treat, I’ll even let you get a cookie,” Kai suggested, already making his way back to the stage, smiling with a small shake of his head as he heard the girl let out another chorus of happy laughter in agreement to what he had said.

With that, Kai flipped back up onto the stage, landing on his feet again as he started back to his original place to try again, and he already got the feeling that it was going to go well. This, this was what he was meant to do.

-

Ty had a bit of trouble keeping his sunglasses on…considering they weren’t made for hybrid ears, but he made it work and turned around, pointing finger guns over at his companions, who in turn either laughed or rolled their eyes.

It was time for a club meeting. What club you ask? The “Still Cool Club” or SCC for short, for the people who still felt cool, despite taking on a more motherly position in life. It was just a chance for people to get together and enjoy their company while allowing themselves to be cool.

There were only three members right now, Ty, and then two girls, but they could get more later.

Currently the three of them were out and about in the city since Ty had the day off from work and they had yet to figure out what they could actually do…So Ty suggested making themselves look cool.

Cupid said they were trying to hard, but it was still fun.

“Hey, don’t laugh at the glasses, they're cool,” Ty said pointedly as he looked over at Amari, who in return, gave a sheepish smile. Lately Ty had been feeling very low on the cool scale, and that was just sad because this cat used to be at the top of the cool list. He was a cool cat…So these meetings were very important for him.

“It’s not the glasses, sweetie. It’s just that you’re a dork,” Cupid added from where she was, looking them over with a shake of her head. “You’re trying to hard dear, relax a bit, you can’t try to be cool, it just comes naturally,” she instructed, brushing some of her long blonde and pink hair out of her face.

Amari looked over at Ty and nodded. “She has a point Ty, there is something called trying too hard. But…the jackets and the glasses do make me feel cooler,” the newt confessed as she looked down at the black leather jacket she was wearing.

Ty nodded along with a smirk on his face. “Right? I feel like I could be part of a cool fifties gang…or maybe a spy…yeah I could totally be a spy in this, anyone else getting the spy feel from all of this?” He asked, taking time to pose for his companions.

When that happened a piece of popcorn was thrown at his head and he was booed at. “Boo, you’re such a dork,” Cupid said with a roll of her brown eyes.

-


“So, are ya actually gonna buy anything, or are ya just gonna sit there an’ wait for me ta get off?”

Nikolas snapped out of his thoughts and looked over at the hybrid girl who had spoke, giving her a bit of a sheepish smile in response. “Oh…Yes, I should order something,” he agreed, looking back over at the big menu in the front as Juno waited for him to say something.

“How about a thing of cupcakes, I can bring them home for my brothers and sisters,” he explained with a smile as he looked back over at the African wild dog hybrid, who smiled at him in return.

“Coming right up,” she said before walking into the back, she came back a little bit later with a box of cupcakes, which Nikolas quickly paid for since he still did have to pay, he waited a few more minutes before finally his fiancee was on her break and she made her way over to the table with two brownies.

She placed one down in front of him before taking the seat next to him. “Thanks for stoppin’ by Monkey, it get’s pretty lonely here,” Juno explained, wasting no time eating her brownie, and Nikolas waited until she was done before passing over his own to her.

She gave him a pointed look. “You are eating for many, I don’t need a brownie, eat it please,” he instructed and the girl rolled her eyes before accepting the brownie and starting on that one as well.

Meanwhile Nikolas looked at her with a smile. “How are the pups?” He asked and Juno gave a weary look down at her stomach. She wasn’t showing yet, but it had only been a week since she found out. They were sort of just assuming there would be a lot since both lemurs and especially wild dogs produced rather large litters.

“Well, I think they’re good…bit hard ta tell…they’re so small still,” Juno explained after finishing off her dessert as her eyes trailed back up to meet Nikolas’ gaze. “It’s still weird, we’re gonna be parents…I’ve never been a parent before,” she said, looking back down.

Nikolas gave her a reassuring smile. “We’re going to be amazing at it, trust me,” he instructed and Juno looked up at him, giving a small, warm, smile.

“Alright Monkey, I trust you.”

-

Life for the brothers was going quite well at the time, but of course things never stay like that. It’s important to realize that, because they don’t get a happy ending…For you see, when they all went to sleep that night, they woke up with a world turned completely upside down.

"I don't know Bunny, I just don't think he's robber material" Aslin stated simply as she looked over at Bunny, arms folded.
Bunny sighed,"And why is that? That's what you say about everyone-"
"And I was correct about Harry, wasn't I?"
"Do not bring Harry into this" Bunny said firmly.
There was a small sound from inside the closet beside Bunny and Aslin. Aslin sighed as she walked over to the closet, before opening the door as Blaze tumbled out.
"You see, that's why. He can't even spy on us, much less rob from anyone" Aslin said.
"I am the leader of this group, I make the decisions, got it?" Bunny snapped at Aslin as she walked over to Blaze, snapping at him too,"And you! You can't just eavesdrop on us!"
Blaze said in defence as he awkwardly got up,"You guys were talking about me! I think I should know about it if its about me!"
Bunny sighed, turning around,”Blaze, what we’re talking about is between me and Aslin. I know we-Aslin shouldn’t be talking about you rudely and that’s not polite, but you can’t just eavesdrop on us either. Blaze, you don’t know the half of what this discussion between me and Aslin is about. Our last recruit, who isn’t here anymore, he messed up, big time.”
Blaze raised an eyebrow,”Why, what did he do?”
Bunny shook her head,”I’ll tell you later, I need some time alone right now” she said, with that walking out of the room
Blaze looked at Aslin, a question in his eyes.”What was-“
Aslin interrupted,”Don’t ask” Aslin too walked out of th room.

Blaze knocked on Bunny's door before walking in. He padded over to Bunny, who was sitting on her bed, reading. She hadn't looked up at Blaze yet. Blaze sat down next to her.
"Bunny, it's been a few days, and you said that you would tell me who Harry is" he started
Bunny looked up at Blaze with a sigh, closing her book.
"Ok, so you know how Harry was our latest recruit, besides you?" She asked, and Blaze nodded.She continued,"Well,he was really great at robbing stuff. Never failed, almost. But then, he...changed. He kept going on about how robbing was wrong and stuff. One day, he managed to sneak out, and he didn't come back for a few months. So, boss asked me to go and find him, and ask him to come back. If he said no...I was to kill him" Bunny looked down at her feet.
Blaze looked at Bunny
"...and, did you?"
The truth was, Bunny didn't kill Harry. But, she didn't trust anyone with her secrets, so she nodded. Blaze gave her a sympathetic look
"Were you guys close?"
"Very" they were closer than close
Blaze found it hard to imagine Bunny kill someone. She was...pretty tiny. Well, she was snappy and harsh at times, true. But, she was sorta soft on the inside. He didn't know much about her past, but she seemed to have a lot of backstory. Lots of things touched her past, and she was rather emotional
Bunny got up off of the bed.
"Anyways, time to leave, boss wants us to rob" she explained, walking out of the room. Blaze have a nod and followed after her.

Scorpius woke up Lily, causing her to jump off of the bed.
Scorpius looked down at her,"Are you ok?"
Lily said,"You scared me!"
"So apparently waking someone up is scary?"
Lily rolled her eyes, suddenly feeling very happy
"Happy Birthday!" They said to each other at the same time. Two years ago they had learned what a birthday was, and ever since they had marked that day their birthday.

---later that afternoon---
Scorpius and Lily were playing outside on bicycles, along with Scorpius' two best friends: Aiden and Andrew. They were all racing each other, but the fun ended when they passed Devin and his friends. They were real meanies, and they had always ruined Scorpius' birthday every year. Devin smirked as he kicked Scorpius off of his cycle, causing Scorpius to crash into the others. He cried as he looked up.

Devin and his friends were laughing like crazy. "That's what you get for being a freak!" Devin yelled.

Scorpius looked at Lily, and his heart skipped a beat. He saw his stinger in Lily's chest! Scorpius yanked his tail out of Lily, No! He felt his sister's heart beat, there was none. He cried at what he had done... No, what they had done. He glared at the trio, who had not yet realized what they had done. Scorpius wiped the blood of off his nose and lips as he charged at Devin. He grasped Devin neck, choking him, as the other two ran away.

He growled,"You're gonna pay for what you did to my SISTER!"
He threw Devin onto the road, where a car bumped into Devin and sent Devin flying onto the sidewalk, where blood splattered around. The people in the car came out and yelled at Scorpius, who began to panick and cry as more people came. Scorpius looked helplessly to his two friends, who were backing away.

"I don't know you anymore" Aiden whimpered as he ran away. Scorpius ran away, crying and confused, not knowing what he had done

M7 sat at the back of his cell quietly, counting to himself as he passed the time, his fingers pressed in his ears to block out the sounds of the cells. He had his small wings wrapped around him as so he didn't have to look around him at everyone else. Suddenly he felt the ground vibrate slightly and he unwrapped himself to look at the cell next to him. His only friend, M6, or Astrid as he had named her was in that cell, but she was taken by the scientists about two hours ago and hadn't returned yet. Until now.

She was thrown into her cell by one of the scientists and stumbled down, landing on her side with a groan of pain. She looked exhausted, scratched and bruised.

Mason, which was what Astrid had names him back, scrambled over to the glass wall of the cell and pressed his hands up to it as he looked through to his dingo friend. No, sister. They had decided to adopt each other as siblings, seeing as they had known each other from the first day he could remember when she arrived. "Astrid? Are you okay?" He asked with a frown.

She stayed still, laying on her back, but she was still breathing. It was quick and shallow, but in this place that was normal for them. It took a few moments before she pushed herself into a sitting position, her arms shaking as they held her. She could just muster enough energy to pull herself over to the glass where Mason was before she collapsed onto her back again there.

Mason's eyes widened and he shrunk down until he was lying on his belly, look at her at her head height now.

She looked back and frowned.

"Are you okay Astrid, it's been ages." He asked her.

She nodded. "I'm fine, but I can't move properly, I'm too tired. We need to get out of here."

Kai and Norman were, well, making cookies. Why? Well you see, Norman was bored, and Kai had the day off, so Kai suggested they do something together since they so rarely did, and that lead to them baking cookies together, however it wasn’t going that great.

“No, Norman, stop! That’s too much milk, see it says so right here in the instructions-“

“I know how to bake some d—- cookies Kai, and they taste better this way, trust me!”

“Langauge Norman!”

Ty laughed from his spot over on their couch, watching some British tv show, which they all usually watched together, but he was bored. He looked over at them, resting his arms on the top of the couch, an all too amused expression on his face. “You two do know we have cookie dough, right?” He asked and they both paused.

Kai brushed his hands together and slyly started to make his way to the freezer. “In that case, we hardly need to make it on our own…” He trailed off and Norman instantly sent him a glare, making the combined hybrid retreat back to the counter.

“You leave that cookie dough in there Kai, we already started with this batch of cookies and we’re going to make them, I’m the cook here, I know what I’m doing, so just trust me on this,” he ordered and then before Kai could respond, there was a large flash of light and the room shook.

When they all could finally see again, the three brothers discovered there to be four girls-hybrids at that, passed out on the floor by the living room.

They all looked rather surprised.

“Er…Anyone know what’s going on?” Ty asked as he looked up from the girls over to Kai and Norman, who looked over at him and Simultaneously shook their heads. Ty let out a sharp breath. “Right…someone should probably go get Niko.”

-

Soon all four brothers found themselves standing around their living room, looking down at the four girls with clearly confused expressions on their faces.

That’s when one of them started to stir and the four guys backed away as the girl got up, she sat there, holding her head for a few moments and muttering to herself quietly. “That was not a fun landing…” She said before standing up on wobbly feet.

This girl clearly had some Asian decent, she was relatively short, only standing at 5”3, she was sort of scrawny, with black feathers for hair that were pulled back in a poorly tamed ponytail. She was quiet for a moment, studying the four males in front of her.

“Animal…people, well that’s…that’s new…” She said.

The brothers glanced at each other, wondering who should go talk to her, maybe get some answers, because otherwise this was only going to become even more awkward, awkward silence.

Finally Kai cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Ma’am, my name is Kai and-“ he started only to be instantly cut off by the girl as she let out a gasp.

“Kai! You look different…it’s probably those feathers for hair, and the uh tail…How’d that even happen? Oh man wait until I tell Nika that we just ended up here again, she will be so thrilled to know my invention did work,” she rambled and Kai blinked.

“…I’m sorry, but do we know each other?”

She paused and looked at him in confusion before something seemed to click and she let out a long, exaggerated “Oh” of understanding. “Different dimension from before, got it. Um, here, clearly I have a lot of explaining to do,” she started and they all nodded. “But before I do that, do you mind if I wake up my team?” She asked, gesturing a hand to the three other sleeping girls.

Kai glanced back at the other three, they all seemed to have some sort of silent conversation that lasted for a good minute or two before finally Kai turned back to the girl. “Sure, but once they’re up, perhaps we should all explain ourselves?” He suggested and she murmured in agreement while gently waking up the other three.

Soon all the girls had woken up, they all had a bit of a panic attack at their new hybrid bodies but got over it soon enough, and after a bit of explaining from the first girl, they all seemed to calm down a little.

The tallest girl had dark brown hair that rested in a side braid, she had dark brown eyes and rather pale skin, a long slim black tail, white fluffy ears, as well as some white fur hanging down from the ears, and she did not look like she trusted them in the slightest. She, much like the other two girls, had on a watermelon colored beret. The only one that didn’t was the first girl, who instead had a ribbon tying her hair back in the same color.

The next girl was also pretty tall, she had naturally tan skin and long black hair which was straight and loose, going all the way down to her hips, she had light green cat like eyes, and two fluffy black and white ears to go along, as well as a long furred black tail with a white tip.

Then finally the last girl, so short she couldn’t even be 5”0, had pale skin covered in an extremely large amount of freckles, she had dark green eyes, and curly red hair that fell down to her shoulders in tight ringlets. She had two furry squirrel ears and a long tail to match.

It was almost as if they were looking at themselves, it was weird.

“Alright, now to get to that explaining stuff,” said the first girl as she looked between her team and the brothers. “First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Kia, and we come from a different dimension.”

Norman blinked at seemed to be processing all of this. “You’re from…a different dimension,” he repeated skeptically. Seemed a bit far fetched. Though…they did look an awful lot like girl versions of well, them. Plus, the light and…well maybe they were.

Kia nodded as she brought a hand up to play with her hair…er feathers. “Yeah…See it all started when I made this invention, well more like fixing it, cause it had broken…But that’s another story, but the point is that it was supposed to send us to this dimension where our gender bent counterparts lived, but not you guys, different versions of you four, people we have already met,” she explained quickly, gesturing her hands about frantically. “But I guess it sent us here instead…oh well, Kai and I can make a new invention to send us back in no time-“ at that she was cut off.

“Wait what?” Kai interrupted. “Kia was it? I’m…I’m pretty sure I can’t do anything like that. I haven’t invented anything for years and I certainly can’t help make some sort of dimension traveling portal…” He said and Kia looked at him in disbelief.

“You…you don’t…you can’t…but aren’t you a scientist? An Inventor?”

Kai shook his head. “No, sorry, I’m actually a performer…” He explained, almost sheepishly, he suddenly felt like he had to live up to this girl’s expectations and he doubted she liked the idea of him being a performer.

Kia blinked and stumbled a bit. “Wow, that’s a bit too take it. Okay…Okay yeah that’s fine, I’ll just have to work on it myself, though it might take longer and I’ll need to actually find the parts for it since I doubt you have anything I could use lying around, but no, this is fine…” She said quietly and the cat girl patted her back lightly.

Norman looked at the four girls with a calculating look in his eyes. “Okay, I believe you, this isn’t the first crazy thing that’s happened to us before…But before we work anything else out, maybe some introductions are in order…” He suggested, since they still didn’t know exactly who they were.

The girl cat hybrid snapped her fingers. “That’s an excellent idea Norman-I mean we already know your names, unless any of you have a different name in this world, which I seriously doubt, but all the same we should introduce ourselves,” she agreed and looked over to the brunette, figuring she could start.

She was still looking at them a little suspiciously, but gave a curt nod. “Of course. I am Nika, this ees my team, Kia, who already introduced herself,” she paused to gesture over to Kia, who still seemed a bit surprised to hear that her counterpart was not a scientist here. “Ty,” she the gestured to the cat girl, who smirked. “And lastly, Nora,” she finished by introducing the short girl, who beamed and waved.

After the introductions had been all done and finished, Nika looked over at Nikolas. “I know eet is a bit short notice, but until we can get back, ees there anyway we could stay with you four? We do not have place to go otherwise,” she explained, Russian accent rather thick.

Nikolas nodded slowly. “Yes, you can stay…” He paused to look over at his brothers to see what they thought about it and they all nodded in agreement. “We only have so many rooms though, and Boston has already taken the couch. So maybe you can all bunk with one of us,” he suggested.

The four girls looked at each other before nodding. “Da, that will work fine,” Nika said and then was interrupted by Kia.

“For the time being, perhaps it would also be a good idea for us to stick close by our counterparts, get to know each other,” the penguin girl suggested as she looked around at the others.

Norman was studying Nora quietly, no doubt she was doing the same thing. “Fine, Kai can finish the cookies on his own, I’m going out, you’re welcome to come Nora,” he added as he started towards the door, and once Nora got approval from her teammates, she quickly followed after him.

Kai watched them go before he turned to Kia and offered her an unsure smile. He also couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t appear to have any of the chameleon that he had. “Well I guess that means I’m left to finish baking cookies, would you care to join me?” He asked.

Kia shrugged. “The sooner I get working on a way back, the better, but I suppose I have some time to help,” she agreed and Kai quickly lead her into the kitchen.

Ty glanced over at Ty, oh this was going to end up so confusing. “Well I’ve got to go pick up Boston from his friend’s house, you wanna come?” He asked her, then as an after thought, he quickly added “Also maybe while we’re both here, we should go by our full names. I’m Tyler,” he reintroduced himself.

Ty…er the girl one, nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah sure, who’s this Boston guy anyways? Also, I’m Taylor,” she added as she began to follow him to the door and Tyler had to pause, wait…she couldn’t guess who Boston was?

“Yeah well uh, he’s…he’s my kid.”

“Wait what?” She asked in shock as they walked out the door, that would certainly be quite a bit of explaining on his part.

Soon it was just Nikolas and Nika, who stood there in complete and utter silence until finally Nikolas couldn’t take it anymore and cleared his throat. “Is there something that you want to do?” He asked, glancing over at the girl unsurely.

Nika was silent for for a moment or two before she gave an aloof shrug, clearly not too keen on doing anything, in fact it didn't even look like she wanted to be there. “I’m fine,” she replied rather simply.