#necrokitty

"Finally!” Sullivan yelled, “What took you so long?” “You can’t rush love, mi amigo…” The cat said, holding two tickets. Sullivan and Hilda looked at each other, preferring not to ask any more questions and just took the tickets. “Two tickets…So you’re not coming?” the salamander asked. “I will accompany you, my friend, but I don’t need one to get in,” he assured with a wink. They arrived at the hive and got in the line for the visitors. When they arrived at the door, a very slim male bee asked to see their tickets. Sullivan and Hilda showed theirs. The bee turned to Carlos who smiled charmingly at the bee. “I’m here for Beatrice,” the cat informed him. The bee narrowed his eyes. “…There’s 235 Beatrice’s in this hive, sir…” “I’m here for THE Beatrice,” Carlos repeated. The bee opened his eyes wide. “THE Beatrice?” Carlos nodded, smiling even more. “…A moment, please.” He stepped behind the reception desk and made a phone call. The three saw the look of surprise in the receptionist’s face. He hung up the phone wordlessly before returning to the group. “..eh… Mr. Buenaventura?” “At your service.” The cat tipped his hat. “.. She’s asked for you to wait for her at the Main Hall,” he said, still looking at the cat, skeptical. “Muchas gracias!” Carlos waved and walked, whistling happily next to the other two, who were as surprised as the receptionist. They entered the hive and quickly followed the group of tourists before finally arriving in a circular hall as tall as several stories of the hive. There was buzzing sounds and movement everywhere they looked. The visitors group gathered in the center and four guards accompanied them. A very small female bee greeted the tourists and started explaining the history of the hive. Sullivan and Hilda tried to remain behind the group and be as discreet as possible as they tried to figure out where the prison was. After the speech was over, the guide asked the group to move forward to a corridor that would take them to the honey factory. “Vaya! That was surprisingly interesting,” Carlos said, happy to have learnt something new. “Say, how much do we owe you for the tickets?” Sullivan asked, grateful. “Your friendship!” Carlos replied patting him in the back. “I would do anything to help love soar. Now you two go ahead and save your loved ones, and live your happily ever after!” Sullivan’s eyes brightened. “Thank you, Carlos! I will never forget this!” He shook his hand. Hilda rolled her eyes. “Happily ever after…pff…” She mumbled, crossing her arms and blushing slightly. “Carlos!” A female voice called from behind the hispanic cat. The cat turned around to see an impressive bee fluttering toward him. “Oh! There you are my beautiful sunshine!” He greeted the large female bee guard wearing her uniform. “Sorry I made you wait.” “No need to apologize, it was actually very instructive,” he explained, gesturing to the tour group. The bee looked at her wrist watch. “I only have an hour before I need to go back to work…” “Then let us not waste time!” He offered her his arm and walked towards the mess hall. Carlos turned and shot a wink at Hilda and Sullivan before disappearing into the crowd. “Hey! Keep up or you’ll be kicked out” One of the guards flanking the tour group yelled at Sullivan and Hilda, forcing them to return back to the group.

____

Amber bounded through a beautiful field full of catnip. She wasn’t sure how she arrived here but it was a welcome respite from her ordeal in the hive. The wonderful sun felt warm on her fuzzy body and she couldn’t help but rejoice in this new experience. She pounced and leapt and napped. This was the best day ever! She thought it couldn’t get any better when a dark shadow rose over from behind. She turned around to see a very monstrous looking Cagney. “I’m gonna to eat you!” He roared. Her eyes went wide. “No! No! Don’t eat me!” She tried to run away but found she couldn’t move. She looked down to see the field was turning to mud under her feet. She tried to run faster only for his large gnarled hands to seize her. She waved her paws pathetically. “Wait, wait! I’m not very tasty! I’m all fur!” “You’ll be a delicious pussy!” He growled as he lifted her up in the air above his face. She almost groaned at the pun…until she realized it wasn’t a pun. The flicking of his tongue between her legs made her tail shoot straight up. “Wait, wait!” Amber shrieked, pushing down her suddenly way too short skirt.

He continued to lash at her entrance and she bucked and squirmed helplessly. “Ooh, uh wait? No, a little to the right. Yeah, ah!” Amber mewled starting to enjoy the attention. She threw her head back and felt something sharp poke her. Amber woke up with a startled gasp, looking around wildly. When she realized she wasn’t being stabbed, she sighed. “Just a dream. Just a really messed up dream!” She exhaled, trying to shift only to find herself unable to do so. She looked down to see a pair of green, leafy limbs wrapped around her body, holding her snuggly. She glanced behind her to see Cagney dead asleep to the world, snoring. Was he…cuddling her? That was kinda cute? He was mumbling something about a blimp and rubbing his petals into her back, every now and then poking her with a thorn. That thorn part was less cute. She remained where she, scrunching her nose as she couldn’t remember why they were here together. There was a knock at the door and Amber jerked fully awake as Cagney groaned. Holy crap, how could she forget? They were in the hive. Queen Rumor’s hive, to be precise. And it was quickly becoming a dangerous place to be for anything non-insect. 

Although Cagney would probably disagree with that statement, she remembered, spotting the bandanna around his neck. It was imbued with some form of magic curse that turned this flower into a mindless vegetable, subservient to the crazy Queen. The Queen would be most displeased to find the feline here within Cagney’s quarters and Amber did not want to stick around to find out what punishment would lie in store for her. “Gotta go, stay safe, Cagney,” Amber whispered, wriggling out of his grip as the door started to unlock. She climbed up the wall into the rafters just as the door opened. Cagney felt around and blinked unsuredly. “Amber?” He asked. The cat was gone.

Rumor opened the door slowly, holding the scepter tightly in her hand “..Sorry for waking you up,” she spoke coldly, glancing at the salted water and locking the door behind her. “Just came here to check on you.” She pointed her scepter at the water and turned it back to dirt.

Cagney brightened considerably at seeing the bee. “Good morning, Rumor…it’s morning, right?” He stood up, still hesitant eyeing what used to be the salt water. “Listen, I kinda want to apologize for what happened yesterday. When I’m in that form, I don’t have the best control and it just really wrecks my ability to think.”

Rumor’s heart melted at the carnation’s apology, but she kept her cool facade. “You’ve turned into that before?” She asked, a bit relieved that it wasn’t her bandanna's doing.

He nodded. “Yeah, one of the ‘perks’ when I traded my soul to look like this,” he gestured to his body. “It’s kind of my body’s way to defend myself if things get really bad…or if I get really angry.” He stretched. “Still wasn’t strong enough to stop Cuphead and Mugman when they collected our contracts,” he chuckled.

The Queen’s look softened. “Why where you angry before? Was it something I said?” She played the scene again in her head, blushing heavily.

He hesitated. “I don’t think it was anything you did. Maybe I was just anxious about becoming a royal gardener. I mean, do I have to make public appearances and stuff?” He asked.

“That’s what’s bugging you?” She smiled sweetly, getting close to him and taking his hands. “You just have to keep doing what you’ve been doing in your own garden. Except, in here… with me…” She got closer to his face, encouraging the plant to kiss her.

The carnation perked up at the touch of the bee and nuzzled her with his petals. “You’re a doll, Rumor,” he sighed happily. He eyed the spot on the bed that had been occupied just a few minutes before and brightened even more. “By the way, I really want to thank you for sending in your special service guard last night.”

Rumor’s soft look disappeared. “what are you talking about?”

Cagney nodded, not noticing the change. “Ya know, Amber. The cat I was fighting with? She came in and told me all about how you recruited her for the special guard thing ya had and how she was here to protect me.” “And I gotta admit, I never petted a cat before, but she was pretty soft. Definitely helped relieve some of my stress!” He exclaimed with a chuckle, “I don’t even know when we fell asleep but it was probably one of the best sleep I’ve had in a while! It was like holding a warm teddy bear. With teeth.” The carnation showed Rumor his hand where the cat had bit him. “She bites pretty hard if you touch the wrong spot. Gotta make sure to stroke correctly.” He pressed a kiss to Rumor’s cheek. “So, what’s the plan for today?” He asked cheerfully. He paused at the expression on her face. “Something I said?” 

____

The Queen Bee stormed out of the room. “Guards! GUARDS!” She screeched loudly and almost instantly a couple of guards, armed with spears, appeared on the corridor. “Yes, my Queen!?” They both answered. “Seal the hive. Nobody gets in or out! Look for the small cat we caught the other day at the docks with Cagney, and bring me the responsible bee of the prisoner transfer to the camp!” The guards nodded and immediately flew to carry her orders. An alarm blared and the hive became a buzz with commotion with windows and gates quickly being sealed. 

Cagney followed Rumor out, looking really confused. “But she was wearing one of these?” He pointed out, gesturing to his bandanna. He doubted Rumor could hear him.

Rumor turned to Cagney, even more confused and angry. “What? What did she tell you? What did you do in there?” Jealousy started to sting her heart. “My Q-queen!” Beatrice, the giant female bee guard, flew towards them, exhausted. “I-I’m sorry - I was-!” “Silence! Escort Cagney to my chambers. Nobody but me goes in or out!” Rumor yelled at the tired bee who nodded and made a sign for Cagney to follow her. “We’ll talk later” Rumor said to Cagney before flying down the corridor, leaving him alone with the bee.

____

“And that’s how we manufacture the delicious honey we all enjoy!” The small female guide announced, holding a jar of Rumor’s honey. “Are there any questions?”  

Hilda and Sullivan seemed a bit traumatized by what they had seen but at the question of the tour guide, they quickly snapped out of it. “This is a waste of time,” Sullivan loudly murmured to Hilda. “We got to find a way to get out of the group!” As if an answer to his prayers, an alarm suddenly blared loudly throughout the hive. “Attention please! A fugitive has escaped. For your safety, please remain indoors and cooperate with the guards!” The bees started to fly in an organised fashion to their homes and places to shelter themselves. The tourist group though, started screaming and running to the nearest exits. The guards were trying to keep them together but they were too many to control. Hilda smiled, grabbed Sullivan’s hand and ran away from the group, back towards the main hall.

____

Cagney allowed the large guard bee to lead him away as Rumor flew off. He couldn’t help but notice the fur on her uniform. “I think you got some fur on your pants…and your chest,” he pointed out, realizing midway through his observation that this was probably not the time to be pointing this out to the clearly stressed out but yet simultaneously relaxed looking bee. He cleared his throat and changed the topic. “So, eh, any chance I could go looking for the intruder too?” He asked hopefully. 

Beatrice immediately cleaned the fur from her uniform and cleared her throat, ignoring her red cheeks. “You heard the Queen. No one in, no one out” They reached Rumor’s office and the guard opened the door for Cagney, signaling him to enter. “I’ll be guarding the door." 

Cagney entered the room only to hear it lock behind him. He turned around and tugged on the door knob uselessly. "I’m getting really sick of being the damsel in distress around here,” he grumbled. He looked around his surroundings, trying to see if there were another exit. 

The big window that allowed the light to come in, was now sealed shut. The only light came from several small lamps hung around the room. The lamps illuminated the walls in Rumor’s chambers revealing them to be covered by books, perfectly arranged on the shelves. A few books were laid on the ground opened and stacked. 

With no easy exit, and nothing else better to do, Cagney flopped himself down on Rumor’s bed and began to play with his petals. “Ugh, hopefully Rumor fixes things up so I can get out of here.” He hummed to himself, “Maybe I could make friends with some friendly woodland creatures or sing a song or…” He jerked back up. “Oh my God, I AM turning into a damsel!” He spotted Rumor’s patch of garden and gave a slight smile. “Well, at least that’s something.” He rooted himself within the dirt and started to strengthen himself, especially since he was still feeling pretty sapped from the salt water. 

____

Having escaped the tour group, Hilda and Sullivan now looked around, trying to find a sign or some indication of where the prison cells were. Although there were thankfully no guards in sight, there was also nothing else but hundreds of bees flying in perfect lines to their shelters. “Arg! How can they live without any signs?!” Sullivan groaned in desperation. “Let’s just think for a second!” Hilda exclaimed. She paused and thought. “If you build a prison here, where would you put it?” Sullivan seemed to be thinking but before he could come up with an answer, Hilda spoke again. “Underground! No windows, only the doors you build, it’s perfect to lock up people!” She exclaimed. They found a set of stairs going down and they ran towards it. “I can’t help but be nervous that you were able to think of this so quickly!” Sullivan admitted as they descended, “and so enthusiastically…” he couldn’t help but add.

____

Amber ran like hell through the halls, using all four paws to propel her tiny furry body like a speeding bullet, whizzing past confused bees and tourists alike. Looks like Cagney had blabbed and very soon she wouldn’t have an exit. And without an exit, then it was only a matter of time before the guards found her. Then she might actually end up wearing a real piece of jewelry instead of the fake one she currently sported. One that turned her brain to mush. She scurried along the top part of the main hall but paused at the sound of a familiar voice.

Amber knew that voice. That was Sully! She saw him and an unfamiliar looking woman running toward the set of stairs leading into the dungeon and she nimbly leapt down behind them. “Hi, Sully! Looking for me?” She called out, striking a pretty pose.

Sullivan turned to the voice behind him and his eyes brightened at the sight of his beloved feline. “Amber!” He hugged her tightly. “I was SO worried about you! What did they do to you? Did they hurt you?” He asked, turning her around to look for wounds.

Amber allowed Sully to check her for wounds. “Aw, I’m okay! Nothing I can’t handle." 

Hilda looked around, hoping to see her friend any second now. "Where’s Cagney?” Amber looked at the woman and realized who she was. “Oh….you’re Hilda, aren’t you?”

Hilda lowered her sunglasses to have a better look at the cat. “Have we met?”

“Officially? No. From what Cagney told me or, uh tried to tell me when he could,” Amber admitted, “I figured you had to be her." 

She glanced aside and pulled them into a side hallway as a patrol buzzed by. She glanced at Sullivan. "This place is a looney bin, Sully. You shouldn’t have come, although it’s awfully romantic that you have,” she purred.

The salamander blushed. “Gee, well, of course I had to come. They took you without even hearing you out! It was all a misunderstanding.” He paused, looking at the patrol fly by. “Yeah, yeah, get a room!” Hilda snapped at them. “Where’s Cagney?” She hesitated. “…And what exactly did he say about me?” She asked, her curiosity stronger than her survival instinct.

Amber would have to break the news to Sully eventually. Especially considering there were nearly a 100 eye witnesses placing her at the scene of the crime, it was only a matter of time before he found out. But now was not the time. She turned to Hilda. “Well, last I saw, he was locked in his room. And do you wanna know what he said before or after he got brainwashed?” She asked, smoothing down her fur.

Hilda raised an eyebrow. “His room? Since when does he-brainwashed!? What are you talking about!?”

The cat groaned. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here. After we got arrested and tossed in jail, the Queen talked to Cagney and he must have pissed her off something royal-” she hated herself for the accidental pun- “Because the next morning, they came down to the prison talking about taking us to reprogramming camps or something like that.” She shuddered. “A lot of the bees are acting really weird, more weird than normal after they all went to this reprogramming thing so I busted us out. We were doing pretty well until we ended up in the Queen’s office and uh…Cagney couldn’t hide in time.”

Amber motioned for them to duck down with her behind a cleaning trolley. “It was the Queen and some scary ant lady. And guards. Lots of guards. She scampered down another hallway. "He and Rumor started yelling at each other until she made him put on this stupid cloth and the next thing I know he’s acting just as weird as those bees, going all gaga for the queen!”

Sullivan noticed the cloth on Amber’s neck. Before she could speak any further, he grabbed the feline and pinned her facing against the wall. Hilda nearly jumped in surprise. “What are you doing!? Has everyone gone insane today?!” She exclaimed, yanking off her glasses. “I’m so sorry!” The amphibian apologized profusely as he carefully removed the bandanna. “How do you feel now?” he asked once it was removed from Amber’s neck,  “Are you still mind controlled?” Hilda facepalmed herself.

Amber turned bright red, feeling the salamander press into her from behind. “Sully, trust me I’d love to but now is not the time-oh!” She chuckled. “Oh, that’s just a cleaning rag I swiped from one of the janitorial trolleys! Fooled old grumpy petals last night into letting me crash the night with him so I didn’t get caught.”

Sullivan released Amber. “Oh boy! I-I-I’m so sorry!” He blushed and felt horrible for being so bold with her. 

Amber’s face turned serious. “No, the real one doesn’t come off.  And that’s a big problem. It’s messing with his mind. Every minute he’s starting to forget stuff. He’s having trouble remembering why he came here! He can’t even say your name anymore!”

Hilda felt a slightly jealous at twinge the mention of the cat sleeping with Cagney, but the thought quickly stepped away at the idea of her dumb weed forgetting completely about  her. She shook away her thoughts, focusing on their situation and how dangerous it had quickly become. She paid more attention to the bees around them and noticed that the worker ones had a bracelet, while the higher ranking bees had bandannas around their necks. “The cloth must be more powerful than the bracelets,” Hilda concluded, talking more for herself than for them. She pulled off for her own cloth on her head and tied it around her neck. “Sullivan, wear the cat’s cloth! We’ll pretend we are brainwashed that we found the fugitive and we are on our way to deliver her to Rumor."  She turned to Amber. "You think you can take us to Cagney?”

Amber nodded. “Yeah, I last saw him locked into the room. But there’s a good chance Rumor moved him to hers when the alarm went off.” Amber scratched her ears. “Which one do you want me to take you to?”

Hilda sighed, starting to get anxious. “I guess the best option is going to Rumor’s directly. That way if he isn’t there she might tell us where he is.” Sullivan nodded as he tied the fabric around his neck.

Amber nodded once more. “Okay, then hold onto me like you’re taking me prisoner and I’ll whisper directions to you." 

Hilda, Sully and Amber traveled through the hive, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, which was rather hard to do when you were a human, a lizard and a cat in a hive full of bees. However, Hilda had that natural 'approach me and die’ look to her that deterred most bees from asking any questions and they were able to make it to Rumor’s door soon enough. As they neared the door - and the large bee guarding it - Amber’s fur suddenly went on end and she hissed.

"HALT!” The guard shouted. “ What’s going on here?” She demanded, extending her arm signaling them to stop. They obeyed but Sullivan couldn’t help but tremble, nervous at the sight of the imposing figure. 

“We are taking the fugitive to Rumor” Hilda said, keeping her cool. Beatrice eyed them skeptically before looking at their bandannas. “Rumor is not here. Who gave you the order?” She growled. Hilda gulped but remained still. “Beatrice,” she said, knowing that there where more than 200 Beatrices living in the hive. “Beatrice who?” The bee started to reach to her gun. Hilda was about to reply 'Smith’ when Carlos appeared from another hallway. “Ah! Ahí estás, my sunshine! You left me wanting more,” he smiled charmingly, leaning against the door and waving a pair of handcuffs, one side still attached to his wrist. The large bee looked at him, surprised, and then reddened. “H-how…?” “I told you I was full of surprises,” he purred. He noticed the group and gave them a smile. “Is this the fugitive I keep hearing about?” “Y-yeah,” Beatrice admitted, “But, uh, I’m not sure~” “Great! Then YOU can turn off the alarm and WE can finish what we started.” He shook the cuffs, smiling mischievously. Beatrice was really tired of guarding the door. She took one more look at the group, trying to figure out if they were really brainwashed. “Who did you say gave you the order?” “Uhh..” Hilda was caught by surprise, but Sullivan quickly intervened. “Beatrice! You know… the one with the…” He did a gesture with his opened hand circling his face. The guard opened her eyes widely. “Oh! Beatrice Smith?” Hilda grunted. “I thought she had to leave because of the wax incident.” The bee mimicked the same gesture around her face. “Y-yeah, uh… ” “The fugitive hid in her home,” Hilda intervened, noticing Sullivan was running out of material. Carlos signaled Beatrice to get lower and whispered something in her ear. The group saw the bee blushing and they both started giggling. It was comical to see the large, tall bee being all cute with the smaller skinny cat. “Fine! Fine. You can leave the prisoner here.” She unlocked the door. “I’ll go call Rumor."  Beatrice flew away through the corridor. When she was out of the way, Carlos applauded the trio. "Bravo! Bravísimo! Honestly, I never thought you were going to make it”

Amber cautiously watched Carlos. “What’s he doing here? Who is this?” She asked Sully as Hilda strode towards the door and fiddled with it

“He’s a friend, he helped us get in the hive,” Sullivan answered Amber, letting her go when the bee left. Carlos made a small bow and smiled charmingly.

Amber stuck close to Sully. “If you say so,” she acquiesced. Hilda opened the door with a shove, eager to see her friend again. “Cagney! Cagney?” She called out looking around the office and noticing the Queen’s chambers door open. Cagney’s head jerked toward the office at the familiar voice. “Hi-hello?” He tried, peeking out..

“Cagney!” Hilda smiled and ran towards him to give him a hug. “What are you doing in here?”

Cagney saw the slender woman running toward him and instinctively put out his hands to stop her from touching him. “Woah! Lady, ya can’t just run at a guy like that!” He cocked his head. “And how do you know my name? Have we met?”

Hilda stopped and looked at him, surprised, not really certain if he was joking or not. “How do I know your name? It’s me! Hilda!” She waited for his reaction. “Hilda Berg? The sky witch? Your best friend?”

Amber heard the shouting coming from the bed chambers and face palmed. “Oh shoot, it doesn’t sound like he remembers. Give me your bandanna, Sully.”

Sullivan gave Amber the fabric, wondering what she was planning to do. Cagney twitched at the name but he didn’t know why. His throat started to itch but he ignored it to keep looking at the woman. “Best friend?” He echoed before shaking his head. “Nah, Rumor and me are besties. You sure you don’t have your flowers messed up?” He asked, uprooting himself slightly.

“Wha…?” Hilda felt a knot starting to form in her throat. “I’M your bestie!” Tauros was starting to take room in the woman’s head. “You only like her because she’s a bee!”

Cagney scoffed. “Uh, no! She’s actually a very intelligent bee. And nice…when you know, she’s not turning dirt into salt water,” he admitted with a chuckle. Amber scampered in, wearing her bandanna. “Hi, Cagney!” Cagney looked past Hilda to see Amber. “Hey. Did you know Rumor’s looking for you?” His eyes hardened. “And did you also know she also says you’re lying about being a secret guard?” Amber pshawed. “Whhhattt? No way! If I was lying, why would I be here? Wouldn’t I be running away?” He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you run away this morning?” Amber paused. Shoot. He had a point. She broke into a wide smile. “Seems like you’re having a really stressful day so far!” “You can say that again. Rumor’s furious, this broad says I’m her friend,” Cagney jutted a thumb at a disbelieving Hilda, “And no one’s explaining anything.” Amber crept a little closer. “Would you like to pet the kitty?” She offered. The carnation’s eyes lit up. “Really?” “You can even pet the belly!” Amber insisted. “That would be great!” “Excellent, just reach down, yes that’s it, rub the belly,” Amber coaxed as Cagney reached down to pet her. Just as he was about to touch her belly, she latched on, nails out and sank her teeth into his hand. He swore and ripped Amber off of his arm. “Goddammit, Amber! That fucking hurt!” He turned toward Hilda and demanded, “Hilda, what the hell?! Did you know she was going to do that?!”

Sullivan looked unbelieving what Amber was doing, and Carlos laughed at the trick, for it reminded him of the many times it helped him get out from a sticky situation. 

Hilda smiled at him. “You DO remember me, you dumb dandelion!” She couldn’t help but hug him tightly.

The carnation felt like a ton of bricks hit him as the memory of who Hilda was came back heavy and strong. “Hilda?!” He wrapped his leaves around her tightly and returned the hug. “Aw man, I’m so happy to see you!”

The cat and the amphibian looked surprised as the Carnation seemed to recover his memory.

“Cagney we gotta get out of here!” The witch grabbed his hand pulling him to the door. “And take that bandanna off!” She managed to keep her voice steady, terrified her friend would forget her again.

The carnation couldn’t help but snuggle her hand, blowing off the tightness in his throat. “You can say that again. All I did was come here to ask Rumor for help but… Rumor!” He suddenly remembered where they were and he stopped snuggling her. “Hilda, Rumor’s nuts!” He insisted.

“And you just noticed now?” Hilda chuckled. “You can tell me all about it later! C'mon!” She pressed on.

Cagney stopped following Hilda. “I’m serious. She’s never been acted like this before.” He pulled away from her and grimaced. “Something’s really wrong and I can’t figure out why because I can’t think straight! And every time I try to think about it, it just hurts more, Hilda!” He grabbed his head with both hands. “Why does it hurt so much to try to say your name!? Or even think about you?!”

“Cagney!” Hilda drew close to him, not sure what to do. It was painful to see him like this. It reminded of her when she found out about the constellations living in her head.

Amber hesitantly eyed Cagney as he looked almost frantic. She psst the other cat, trying to get his attention.

Carlos ear twitched and looked at Amber curious.

Amber pointed to her neck and made a pulling motion toward Cagney, hoping the other cat would get the hint as the carnation proceeded to become more panicked by the second.

Carlos nodded at Amber and discreetly came closer to the carnation as he struggled with his thoughts. He got in position and waited for Amber’s signal.

“Cagney,” Hilda said softly, noticing the cats moving closer. “I know what it is to have a mess in your head. Just, uh, think about something that made you very happy. Like, eh, the first day of spring? Or uh…” She was getting really nervous as he started gasping. “I don’t know! Mineral water? Focus on that!”

“Mineral water?? Are you kidding me right now?” He gaped at her, “What kind of stupid idea is that?” His eyes widened as the bandanna tightened and he fell to his knees, choking.  One of his arms reached back toward the soil in the room. “Now, now, now! Before he touches the dirt!” Amber yelled pouncing on the carnation with Carlos, trying to rip off his bandanna. The carnation plunged his hands in the soil and immediately started changing form with a snarl. He flung the cats off and turned on Hilda with a glare. “You’re just using me, just like she said you would. Just like you always do!” He sneered.

Hilda stepped back frightened. Her heart broke to see the hatred in his best friend’s eyes… again! “Cagney, what are you saying?” She felt Tauros wanting to take control in her mind. 

He tried to continue speaking but any further speech Cagney had been capable of vanished as he continued to warp into his monstrous form. Carlos shook his head and saw the flower growing bigger. “I think it’s time to leave now!” He suggested, hopping to his feet. Sullivan immediately came to aid Amber. “You ok? Where does it hurt? ” He worriedly asked.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Amber groaned. She unsteadily got to her feet with Sullivan’s help and turned to see the carnation approaching a scared Hilda, the bandanna still snugly around his neck. She looked around for something but saw nothing she could chuck at him. “Kick his ass!” She finally shouted at the woman. The carnation turned away from Hilda at the sound of her voice, sharp teeth exposed.

“You ALWAYS have to ruin EVERYTHING!” The group turned to see Rumor screaming as she barged through the door, glaring daggers at Hilda. Beatrice and a bunch of other guards accompanied the queen and took positions surrounding the intruders. 

Sullivan stood between the nearest guards and Amber, extending his arms to protect more with his body. Carlos, used to these kinds of situations, remained calm and discreetly tried to approach Beatrice. “Rumor! What did you do to him!?” Hilda shouted pointing at the monstrous carnation. “I opened his eyes, Hilda! You can no longer control him, you manipulative witch! He’s FREE!” Rumor shouted, waving her scepter and throwing a strange purple sphere towards her. Hilda dove behind Rumor’s desk, barely managing to dodge it in time. The sphere exploded just inches where she was standing before, leaving a burnt mark on the floor. She popped her head out from under the desk. “You fucking crazy BEEch!” She shouted, surprised that she would blast her without a second thought. She knew they weren’t good friends, but they never fought this serious before. “Seriously!? Bee puns? Now?” Rumor answered angrily and, very bothered by it, threw another sphere, destroying her own desk. “Jesus Christ, Rumor! Did you brainwash yourself too?!” Another blast from the queen’s scepter forced her to jump near Cagney. “Snap out of it, Cagney! Do something” The meteorologist pleaded with the huge flower. “Oh! Good idea!” Rumor chuckled maliciously, flying in the air and waving her scepter, pointing to the ground. "Do something, Cagney. Get rid of the intruders!” A bright blast turned the floor into dirt. All the bees started to fly in place, avoiding contact with the ground.

 "Oh shit.“ 

That was all Amber managed to get out before large green tendrils shot out from the newly formed ground and seized Hilda, Sully, Amber and Carlos, hoisting them into the air. The intruders struggled to free themselves, trying to unwrap the vines around them with minimal success. Cagney chuckled darkly and looked toward Rumor, as if waiting for her next order.

Hilda had a déjà vu feeling. She couldn’t hear the constellation’s voices but she could definitely feel their panic. All except Tauros. He filled the woman’s body with enough anger and adrenaline to keep struggling. "So we’re doing this again, you overgrown weed!?” Hilda was so scared that she allowed Tauros to take over. “Well, this time I’m not holding back!” But when she was about to turn she realized nothing was happening. She looked down at herself. “What the-?!” “Hahaha!” Rumor laughed. “What’s the matter, witch? No sky to drain power from?” She delighted herself to see the woman powerless between her lover’s grasp. She flew closer to Cagney and sweetly stroked his petals. “We do make a great team! Right, Cagney?” She gently kissed him making sure Hilda was watching. 

The witch’s heart broke into pieces and her eyes started to get glassy. “You… fucking… is all this just to get at me somehow!? IT’S NOT MY FAULT HE DOESN’T LOVE YOU! You-you-” “Oh! But he DOES love me, Hilda. He ALWAYS did. But you kept luring him away from me! For your own benefit! Always taking advantage of his kind heart” She turned to the flower. “But now he sees the truth, what you really are. And what I really am…” She almost whisper tenderly to the carnation, stroking gently his petals.

Cagney leaned into Rumor’s touches, the bee knowing exactly where to touch on the monstrous flower’s petals to entice him further. At the sound of Hilda shouting, he turned toward the distraught woman and paused briefly, something flickering in the back of his mind at how upset she was. His vines loosened ever so slightly on the prisoners. 

“Alright, screw this,” Amber finally growled, freeing her front paws. She grabbed the vine wrapped her chest and bit down on it as hard as she could, drawing sap. Cagney roared and smashed the cat through the honeycomb wall leading to the next room. He lurched himself blindly toward the new opening of the wall. Rumor attempted to hold him still but this only led to him shaking himself wildly, knocking the gloating Queen out of the air and into her flying soldiers. The scepter flew out of the bee’s hands and clattered to the floor, shooting out a stray purple laser. It narrowly missed Hilda’s head, instead searing and blasting a large portion of the ceiling clean off. Large chunks of roof like honeycomb crashed down on everyone in the room, pinning some of the vines down and scattering the soldiers. The carnation could see nothing but red even with the sun now shining down on them. He whirled on everyone else left and opened his mouth, revealing very large sharp teeth. More appendages sprouted up and restrained both bee and mammal alike now.

“Amber!” Sullivan shouted, struggling to get out of the flower’s tendrils. He bit and scratched, but his tiny fangs and claws barely sunk into the monstrous carnation’s skin, and only made him tighten his grip, making it more difficult for the amphibian to breath. Carlos, feeling the loosened grip and taking advantage of the chaos, decided to follow Amber’s way and bit the vine as hard as he could before being thrown against the wall near the entrance door. Hilda’s eyes widened at the view of the sky and felt the constellations getting stronger. Her eyes and bracelets shone brightly and a thick mist started to cover her body and the rest of the room. “Let’s put an end to this!” The witch’s voice resonated like a thunder within the walls of the hive.

The carnation heard the loud boom of a voice and shot spiked vines toward the cloud of mist that billowed from where Hilda had been, leaving the rest of his captives trapped on the ground. The vines grabbed nothing but air as they attempted to seize where Hilda had been.

From the thick fog, a bull charged forward,  avoiding the thorny vines, and headbutted the carnation. He recoiled after the impact, cackling, happy to finally be able to strike a blow. Rumor shook her head and looked at the transformed Hilda with horror. “Cagney! Stop her! Get her away from the sky!” She yelled, searching for her scepter.

Cagney reeled back from the impact, shaking his head as he saw stars. He looked around, slightly confused, but upon Rumor’s order, hardened his expression and attacked Hilda. He coughed and hacked up dandelions toward the rampaging bull, trying to knock her out of the air, flaring his petals angrily when he continued to miss.

Taurus kept avoiding the tumultuous dandelions with quick turns and swirls. “Hahaha! Looks like the bigger you are, the dumber you get! You’ll never hit me with those! But I bet I can hit YOU!” Taurus did a swirl, creating a strong draft that flipped the dandelions back toward Cagney. A few of the dandelions hit some of the guard bees as well as Sullivan, who started to feel dizzy and confused. Carlos withdrew a knife from his coat and started hacking his way toward the scepter, dipping and ducking under dandelions. Rumor buzzed her wings rapidly, creating a draft to shoo dandelions away but still found herself struggling to completely get out of the tendril’s grasp.

A couple dandelions hit Cagney right in the kisser and he grew very disoriented, inadvertently releasing whatever captives he had retained. “Stop moving!” He yelled, his voice strained, even as he rocked back and forth, trying to keep his balance. He winced as something cut him again and took a wild swing in the direction of the attack.

Carlos got hit by the swing of the vine, knocking him against Rumor making both to fall down.“Ouch! Perdone, señorita!” Carlos apologized only to be pushed by the angry Queen. Taurus groaned.“Oh! NOW you remember me!” Noticing the flower’s confusion, Hilda saw her chance to get the bandana and flew quickly around Cagney’s head. To make sure the flower would stay disoriented, she flew in circles several times to confuse him even more. With each turn she drew closer and closer. “Don’t worry, Cags! I’ll get you out of this!”. “What are you doing!?” The queen shouted at her guards. “Get her! Don’t let her get close to Cagney!” Most of the bees were still disoriented.  They tried, without success, to chase the fast cloud turning in circles, confusing them even more.

“Beat this!” Cagney snapped, plunging his hands back into the soil. Large vines shot up from all around, effectively surrounding and closing around him until it was almost a cactus like cocoon. He continued to cackle from inside his makeshift fort.

“Oh! You bastard,” Taurus groaned but his mouth turned into a twisted grin. “Let’s put you to the test. How much can you take?” The mist grew thicker again around Hilda’s body and turned into a giggling Gemini. “Fair warning!” They spoke in unison towards everybody. “Get out while you still can!” And with a sinister laughter, Gemini created a golden sphere that started shooting projectiles in all directions, most of them hitting Cagney’s cocoon, leaving some significant burnt marks.

Sullivan was still disoriented, but at the warning he started calling out for Amber. 

Amber stirred awake in the next room at the sound of her name. She limped back over to the hole she was flung through and peeked inside. Her eyes widened at the chaos as projectiles, vines and bees flew in all directions. 

She spotted a disoriented Sullivan and grabbed him by his shirt before dragging him back through the hole. She waved her paw in front of his face. “Hey? You okay? What’s wrong?” She worriedly asked, not liking how confused he look. She continued to snap fingers at Sullivan, growing increasingly worried when he didn’t respond. “Hey! You in there or not?!”

Sullivan started to recover. “A-Amber? You ok!?” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “You gotta get out of here!” He looked around trying to find a way out.

Amber nodded along with Sullivan. She looked around the room they had been launched into and scowled when she realized there were no other exits. That crazy bee really did have everything sealed off. 

“Ay! Otra vez no!” Carlos lamented, helping a confused Beatrice to dodge some projectiles. Rumor was livid, having been the painful recipient of quite a few golden shots. She clenched her fist, seeing red. “Kill her! KILL HER!” She ordered finally reaching for her scepter. “YOU WON’T TAKE HIM AWAY FROM ME AGAIN!" 

The least disoriented bees started to wonder about their queen’s sanity. The way she was yelling orders, not caring for their safety was unlike the monarch. Even Beatrice, one of her most loyal bees was starting to have her doubts about whether or not she should follow the orders.

When the last of Hilda’s projectiles finished firing, the cactus cocoon crumbled, revealing a large hole. Before Gemini could react, Cagney emerged from the dirt behind them and seized the women with his hands. He was fairly beaten up, the fiery ball of death having done its job well and damaging everything - including all the plant material that was part of him. He stared at Gemini, a confused but still upset expression on his face. "Turn back into Hilda,” he finally panted.

Gemini struggled in the flower’s grip and the mist surrounded them. Cagney felt how the delicate figures merged into one and suddenly he had to tighten his grip to the feeling of something trying to burst out of his hands. The mist cleared and in front of the flower was Sagittarius trying to push the carnation’s hands apart with his powerful hooves. “Transform back to Hilda? So you can squish us again!?” The constellation glared at the flower, showing more fear than confidence. Sagittarius was still Hilda, and he didn’t want to hurt their dearest friend. Gemini had already done enough damage. “M-my queen… it’s dangerous here! We have to take you to safety!” Beatrice managed to say to Rumor, as Carlos held her up by her arm. Rumor didn’t listen to her guard, instead watching Cagney’s movements intently, waiting for the moment he would crush the witch and putting an end to all this. Beatrice and some other bees trembled noticing the craziness on their beloved queen’s eyes. Sagittarius was incredibly strong but Cagney was determined not to release his grip. “I don’t want to let go!” He growled, and he wasn’t talking about the constellation. Memories were starting to come back and it was a struggle to hold on to them. He wasn’t sure if he was going to pass out first. He looked desperately at Sagittarius. “Hilda! Please! I don’t want to let go of you again!” Sagittarius saw the despair in Cagney’s eyes and felt his heart quiver. The mist started to cover the constellation, revealing a very worried Hilda trapped in his monstrous hands. “Cagney?” She almost whispered, tired of the struggling and fighting. She looked deep into his eyes, hoping to find her best friend again. Her eyes were glassy and it was getting really hard to hold her tears.

Cagney looked at Hilda, immediate relief seizing him at seeing her alive and…uh, not exactly well, but in good enough condition. He saw how worried she was and he could only imagine what she had to get through to even get here. He clasped her to his chest and enveloped her in the biggest hug he could. “I am so happy to see you,” he exclaimed, trying not to crush her in his excitement. He nestled his petals against her even as the bandanna began to tighten. “Hilda, please don’t let me forget you,” he choked.

Hilda returned the hug as hard as she could, a couple of tears escaping through her cheeks, when she noticed the bandanna. She immediately grabbed it and looked for the knot. Rumor couldn’t believe her eyes. “What are you doing!? CRUSH HER!” “NO! Cagney, please!” The witch tried to whisper calmly but it was hard to talk with a knot in her own throat.

“CRUSH HER!” The queen repeated. “Cagney! Hold it! I almost… got… it… ” Hilda said going as fast as she could.

Cagney felt himself dipping back under Rumor’s influence and he panicked at the loss of control. Hilda was starting to fade into a target again and it was only another second or so before he made do on the order to crush her. He needed to get hurt again. He spotted one of his sharp spiky plants still erect, with a particularly long thorn protruding from the side. It was within reach. He winced preemptively as he seized it, continuing to hold Hilda to him with his other hand. “This is going to hurt,” he chuckled before he thrust the thorn sharply inwards, stabbing himself in the stem. His grip weakened on Hilda and he continued to chuckle, shooting Rumor a dirty look even as he felt himself bleed sap.

Hilda, noticing the loosen grip, saw her friend stabbing himself. “Shit, Cagney!” She finally untied the bandanna and she held it tightly in her hand. “I GOT IT!” She shouted, happily waving the fabric, victorious. “Cagney, I got it!” She hugged him again. “No…” Rumor whispered. Her eyes narrowed and her fingers tightened on the scepter within her grasp. “WHY DO YOU ALWAYS RUIN EVERYTHING!” She screeched, launching herself into the air. 

Rumor flew in dangerous zig zags before aiming the scepter at the embracing couple. A dark smile formed on her lips as she instead flipped the scepter downwards and blasted the ground, obliterating the entire floor of her office. With the exception of Carlos who held onto a levitating Beatrice for dear life, everything that had been on the office floor, furniture and folks alike, plummeted downwards into the depths of the hive.

The moment Hilda had pulled that bandanna off his neck, there was a second of clarity and nothing else. The next second, Cagney was hit with an intense pain from his self inflicted stab wound and a deluge of memories about Hilda, both good and bad. It was so staggering, he swore he was falling backwards into darkness just from the sensation of it all.

Well, until he realized they really WERE falling. Not that he could do much about it. Without the dirt around his roots, he had no powers to stop them from the fall. Seeing Hilda’s face near his and realizing that the memory of her wasn’t going away did make him smile. “Thank you, ya dumb blimp,” he chuckled, returning the hug once more. 

The action made him wince. The lack of dirt also meant he lacked any ability to heal. “Man, I really wish I hadn’t stabbed myself so hard,” he finally managed still laughing, even as he felt like passing out.

Hilda was still hugging the carnation. She was so happy to hear his insult she didn’t realize they were falling until they hit the bottom floor, Cagney’s body breaking their fall. The plant’s grip slackened on her with the impact and she was aware he wasn’t moving much. “Cagney! Shit! You ok!?” She reached down to check for wounds only to be stopped something violently yanked her off of him.

Hilda struggled to pull herself free and looked up to see Rumor had been the one to grab her, making sure to bruise her skin with tightness that the bee held her. Before the sky witch had a chance to fight back. Rumor flew up as fast as she could and threw Hilda against the wall with all her strength. Cagney definitely did not feel so good either. One minute, Hilda was holding onto him and the next he was hitting the ground and she was getting dragged off. “Ugh, wait come back…” He groaned quietly.

____

Amber walked back over to the hole in the wall and blinked in surprise. The floor was completely gone!! And everyone was in the process of tumbling down the new large hole. Which was probably the only way out. She grimaced and turned toward the salamander. 

“Hey, how good of a climber are you?”

Sullivan nodded and got to the door to climb down. His amphibious body was perfect for latching onto the sticky huge wall. He secured his grip before looking up at Amber. “You need help going down? You can hold onto my back.”

Amber nodded. “Yes please.” She carefully climbed onto Sullivan’s back and held on tightly as the salamander quickly scaled the wall. She glanced below to see the Queen bee tossing Hilda like a rag doll and winced. 

____

For a few seconds, Hilda saw more stars than what she was used to. When she recovered, she was on the floor next to a few drops of blood. She reached for her head with a shaky hand and realized that it was her blood when the crimson liquid decorated her fingers. 

Her eyes glinted with a combination of anger and pain. “Fuck is WRONG WITH YOU, RUMOR!?” She managed to stand up, her bracelets and eyes shining very brightly as Rumor descended upon her in her bomber jet form. “Since when do you want to kill me?!” She quickly turned into a blimp and rocketed up in the air just as Rumor launched towards her, missing her and hitting the wall with her face. “This!” Rumor spat, recovering from the hit. “This time, I WON’T LET YOU WIN!” She charged again against the confused blimp. The bees tried to recall their queen back to her senses, but the royal bee wouldn’t listen. Carlos had been watching the fight from the side but upon seeing Cagney on the ground barely moving, signaled Beatrice to take him down to the ground. “Petals! Petals, groan twice if you’re still conscious” He asked, surprisingly worried. He barely knew the guy, but seeing how he hugged the crazy moon lady, it melted his heart. Plus, he was losing a lot of sap at an alarming rate and that couldn’t be good for a plant. Sullivan and Amber arrived shortly afterwards to the ground floor. 

Amber spotted Cagney and bit her lip. “…uh, Sully. The flower doesn’t look so good.”

The amphibian carefully let Amber get down from his back and saw the flower’s bleeding wound. “Oh boy…”

Amber scampered over to the carnation. “Hey! Hey! Wake up!” She yelled but the carnation only groaned again and waved weakly at her. 

“Does anyone know any first aid?”

“I do!” Sullivan and Carlos answered at the same time as Beatrice left Carlos on the ground and looked at her queen, terribly worried. “We have to remove the thorn,” suggested Sullivan. “Not before making sure we have something to stop the bleeding,” Carlos added, looking closely at the stab wound.

Amber pulled off the yellow bandanna off her neck. “What about this? Can we use this?” She asked hopefully.

“That might work!” Carlos said to Amber with a smile.

“I’ll call for reinforcements!” Beatrice flew quickly out of the room and made a signal to the other confused bees to tend to the other wounded bees.

____

Hilda had never seen such a furious Rumor in her life. She kept avoiding the plane’s charges, hoping that Rumor would come to her senses once she figured out she was destroying her own hive, only to realise the queen didn’t care what she charged to. Everyone was in danger. Hilda looked to the hole in the roof and flew quickly in front of it. Perhaps, if she could lure Rumor out in the open, she would have a chance to knock her outside without hurting anyone. “Rumor! C'mon! I know we had our differences but brainwashing!? Aren’t you taking it a bit too far?” “Ha! You’re the one to talk!” Rumor yelled. “You’ve been controlling him ever since you met him!” “Stop saying that!” Hilda was getting tired of hearing that. Or maybe it was exhaustion from transforming so much. “Cags and I have been friends since before we met you! It’s not my fault you don’t have friends, only these-these brainwashed  zomBEES!” She chuckled. “DAMN YOU, HILDA!” Rumor shouted, charging towards her again, but this time, with saws on her wings.

Hilda waited until the last second to dive out of Rumor’s way, an error she paid dearly for by getting slashed on her leg, making it really painful to pedal. Rumor flew through the hole, making it bigger with her deadly wings. So manic was she that she acted in a bloodlust, hardly aware of the pieces of ceiling that tumbled down…nor the falling scepter that had slipped from her grasp during her transformation.

____

“Ok, then, listen up,” Sullivan signed Carlos and Amber to get closer as Beatrice left. “Carlos and I will take the thorn out. As soon as it’s out, Amber will tie the bandanna and put pressure on it."  

"C'mon Petals! Don’t fall asleep now!” Carlos said, getting ready to pull the thorn. “His name is Cagney,” Sullivan corrected him. “Petals is easier to remember”. Sullivan rolled his eyes. “Ready, Amber?”

Amber nodded. “Ready!” On that, Sully and Carlos pulled the thorn with a yell. She immediately dove on the wound, bandanna on hand and applied as much pressure as she could. She smiled but then looked at Sully. “Uh….now what?”

Cagney gasped in pain at the thorn’s removal. “Shit,” he muttered, “now I know how Hilda felt.” He listlessly looked around for the woman only not to find her. The sounds of explosions and destruction clued him into the fact that she was probably up in the air. He tried to focus on her but his vision was hazy. She looked like she was moving slower somehow. Which didn’t seem right. The crash of honeycombs smashing near him didn’t really get his attention until the clank of something metallic followed it. He looked over to see Rumor’s scepter sticking out of a honeycomb and his mind started racing. He remembered all this craziness started as soon as Rumor pulled out that dang scepter. Which didn’t make sense. She always had a scepter. But this one looked different from what he recalled. Almost dull and warped. Whatever the change, he had to get it. He reached pathetically for it, just out of his fingers’ reach.

“Now we should find a way to disinfect and stitch the site,” Sullivan explained, looking for something they could use, unaware of Cagney’s attempts.

“Say no more!” Carlos opened his jacket and pulled out a flask, a needle and a thread. Sullivan looked at him strangely. “You just walk around with that all day?” “Of course!” The Hispanic cat replied, gesturing for Amber to remove the bandanna and spilling the alcohol over the wound. 

The splash of alcohol on Cagney’s wound burned like hell, forcing him to jerk upwards with a girly scream before Amber could slam him back down with a surprising amount of strength from such a small feline. “Ow! What the hell?!”

Carlos continued. “Mi abuelita used to tell me: 'Carlitos, it’s a very big world out there, and you’re a very clumsy boy! Always take a first aid kit with you’ ” He spilled some on the needle and thread. “Ok Petals! Not gonna lie to you, this is going to hurt… I think. I’ve never had to stitch a tree before…" 

____

Hilda wasn’t sure how much blood she was losing from her leg wound but it had to be a lot. She knew she couldn’t keep up pedaling for long and she rested on the roof of the hive, turning back to herself. She struggled to stand, but she managed to stay still as Rumor did a U turn in the air and back headed towards her again. 

"CAGNEY IS MINE!!!” Rumor shouted, completely mad, her eyes full of hate, and her grin twisted with anger. Hilda was very angry herself, her bracelets and eyes glowing like a fire. “You’re gonna have to kill me to get to him!” Her voice was distorted with the voices of the twelve constellations. She lifted her arms and thick clouds covered her entirely in a magnificent spiral.

Rumor couldn’t see anymore and, although she was very angry, knew better than to fly through the sky witch’s cloud. She halted just outside of it as clicking and tinkling sounds emerged from within. The mist parted as Hilda emerged in crimson moon form, a malicious grin upon her lunar face. “Let’s put an end to this!” Rumor didn’t waste a second and fired missiles as Hilda did the same. The aftershocks of the projectiles exploding in the air produced some twisted fireworks visible from the other isles.

“Cagney would be so much happier if he never met you!” Rumor shouted as she sliced the moon’s cheek. “You keep using him to boost your weak, pathetic ego!” She jabbed again, inflicting another wound.  “What is wrong with you, Rumor?! You’ve never been this crazy for him! Or anybody!” Hilda argued, hoping an appeal to reason would slow her down. “I found a good friend, Hilda. She warned me about you. She showed me what you really are!” The plane charged again but this time Hilda was ready for her, deflecting the attack. The counterattack infuriated Rumor and she instinctively reached for her scepter only to realize she didn’t have it.  “W-what? W-where is it!?” She started to panic, a moment that Hilda took advantage of to launch one last attack: throwing missiles, stars, and even herself towards the confused plane.

____

“Can’t you let me just die or something?!” Cagney whined as Carlos haphazardly stabbed him against with the alcoholic needle.  “No! You need to stay alive, you petal for brains!” “The only one who’s allowed to call me that is…Hilda!” The carnation looked up to see Hilda in her moon phase. That was her last resort attack which meant she must be really faltering now. He looked around for and spotted the scepter again. It must be connected to all this. He had to get it. He tried to reach for it only to recoil in pain with another jab of the needle. 

“You call that stitching?” Sullivan shook his head seeing the poorly attended wound. “As long as it holds, mi amigo”. “It’s not going to hold! Argh! Gimme that!” The salamander took the needle from Carlos and begun stitching gently, doing a better job than the Hispanic cat. “Help Amber hold Cagney down,” Sullivan ordered. Carlos obeyed and held the flower’s stem down to the ground.

Cagney struggled against their help. “No, I gotta do somethin! Hilda ain’t gonna last much longer!” The flower reached for the fallen scepter one last time, this time grasping the base of it and dragging it to himself. He panted and collapsed again, holding the dumb metal rod to his chest.

“Hey!” Carlos exclaimed, noticing the scepter. “How did you get that?”

The whole world spun for the carnation but he finally managed to stand up, shoving off Carlos and Amber’s attempts to lay him back down. He waved the scepter. “Hey, Rumor!” He yelled, attempting to get the attention of the Queen Bee.

Hilda and Rumor looked fairly war torn, having taken some serious damage from their special attacks. Despite their exhaustion, they still glared at each other, neither women determined to give up the fight. They were about to charge into each other again when Cagney’s voice from below drew their attention and they looked down. “Cagney?” Rumor called back sweetly, glad to hear her beloved call out her name and not that of the witch’s.

Cagney smiled weakly. “I’ve been thinking about us and, ya know what?” He held out the scepter toward her. “I think we should take a break!” And with that, he slammed the scepter into the ground, shattering it into hundreds of pieces.

“NO!” Rumor screamed, transforming back into her royal self. She rapidly landed and attempted to scoop up the pieces of what remained of her scepter.  “What have you done!? What have… you…you…?"  

Her voice died in her throat. Her mind flooded with blocked and distorted memories that the scepter had prevented from her remembering. The queen felt like everything was swirling around her as flashes of memories kept popping in her mind confusing her. Hilda turned back into herself and cast a cloud with what little energy she had left. She slowly levitated back into the hive, putting pressure on her leg wound before she landed close to carnation. Sullivan, Carlos and Amber didn’t dare move a muscle, expecting the Queen bee to burst angrily any minute.

Finally, Rumor took a shaky breath and looked up to see the two island bosses. "Hilda? C-cagney…?” She asked softly, uncertain if she was hallucinating, looking more like herself again. 

“Hey, Rumor,” Cagney painfully managed, “Glad to see you being you.” He made a motion to step forward only to wince and clutch the side of his stem. Hilda approached him and he pulled away his leafy hand to reveal it was now coated in thick sap. Her eyes darted down to see the wound now free flowing, the sutures having popped during his exertion.

He looked down at himself before back up at Hilda with a strained pale smile “…I’m just gonna stop standing now, ok, Hilds?” And with that, his legs crumpled from underneath him, passing out without another word.

———————————————————————————

Spike roared with laughter. “Beppi’s just a balloon with legs, you babies.” The children and Goopy stopped at another branching path. This time it went two different ways. “Huh, looks like a fork in the road,” Goopy mused. He turned to the kids. “Alright, stay here, kids. I’m going to check one of the paths.” He started toward one of the paths before turning back to look at the children. “Don’t move, got it?” The children nodded and he nodded. The ball hopped down one of the paths and was soon out of sight. The children waited a minute before Spike started heading for the other path. Hannah hopped up. “Mr. Le Grande said we were supposed to stay put!” The little rabbit protested. Spike snorted. “That’s BORING. Come on, Mina! You and me right now go down the other way and see who really is a scaredy-cat here.” Harvey looked at Mina. “Don’t do it, Mina.” Spike laughed again. “Too scared to come huh? I didn’t know those bat wings were chicken wings. Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!” He taunted, flapping his arms.

Mina glowered angrily at Spike. If there was one thing she hated most in the world, besides broccoli, it was being called chicken. “I’ll show YOU chicken wings!” She started walking the path, turning back toward Harvey and Hanna. “You stay here!” she ordered to the bunnies, “if we find the exit, we’ll yell!”

Harvey watched his friend leave with Spike and groaned. “Oh gee, I was really hoping we could go play some games after this.”

Hannah hopped up and down. “Don’t feel too bad. Just think about what you wanna do for my birthday next week!” She suggested with a giggle. Harvey stopped feeling bad for himself. Oh yeah. Hannah’s birthday was coming up. He had just enough money to buy her the sewing needles too! It helped that Mina had stood up to Spike and not let him take his lunch money. He relaxed at that and looked over at his sister. “Oh yeah! You think mom is gonna make you a carrot cake?” “I want a blueberry cake!” “You better tell mom that now because I think she’s making you a carrot cake.” “Ah! No, I want blueberries!” Hannah walked over to the mirrors and started making faces in them. “Hey, I can make my face all squishy in these!” She started giggling. Harvey walked over to his sister and look in the mirror as well. “Hey, you’re right!” The two bunnies started making faces to their reflections together, unaware of the dark figure creeping up behind in the mirrors.

— Sullivan walked next to Amber, looking everywhere, hoping nothing else would try to attack them. The bear was terrifying enough without some other monster trying to get them. He wondered if this was a good moment to ask about her lockpicking abilities. He didn’t wanted to think about it, but maybe Porkrind was right about her… Was she the thief? He cleared his throat, trying to think of a way to casually bring up the topic. “T-thank you for breaking my fall… that was pretty impressive,” he added, watching her hopefully.

Amber realized she might blow her cover if she wasn’t careful. “Oh yeah! When you do interior work for some of those older houses, sometimes the floor just gives out, you know?” She tried with a silly giggle.

She gave him a gentle nudge. “But hey, thanks for trying to not let me hit the ground like a pancake, that was really nice of you. Maybe after this, we could do something more fun,” she suggested with a wink. Even fearful adrenaline was adrenaline and there were quite a few adult ways she’d like to use it up.

Every doubt Sullivan had about Amber banished from his mind as she winked at him. She was so lovely! He couldn’t help but turn really red at the idea she suggested. He felt the butterflies in his tummy again and couldn’t say another word without turning into mumbling nonsense.

Amber continued to walk when she suddenly felt her fur stand on end. She looked around, her face contorted in concern. “I have a really bad feeling about this.” She continued walking but let out a small, scared squeak as she spotted something in the mirror next to her. It was a thick, closed, wet burlap sack. Before she could stop herself, she instinctively hissed at it and clung closer to Sullivan. She didn’t like that sack.  

Sullivan was startled by her change in demeanor and looked to see she was indeed hissing at something. “What! What is-?” He looked at the reflection in the mirror as Amber clutched deeper on his arm. “I-it’s just a sack!” He exclaimed, try to assuage the irritated feline.  

“These magic mirrors are a bit busted if they think a bag can scare us,” he chuckled nervously, trying to lighten up the mood.

“Bags like that are bad news. That’s why I only use nylon bags,” she spat angrily, looking at the bag very distrustfully. She resisted the urge to scratch at the bag and instead continued to growl under her breath.

— Grim waited until the others walked down their respective paths and started walking the last one with Bon Bon.

“I-I hope they’ll be ok,” he sighed, looking at his deformed reflections in the mirrors. “B-beppi really overdid it with t-this ride!”

And that might work in his favor, he thought. Bon Bon might ask him to have a sleepover after all and he would be able to recover that stupid letter he drunkenly wrote.

The Baroness walked alongside the dragon, silently fuming to herself about what she’d do to Beppi if she got her hands on him. First, she’d strap him to a table with licorice and cut off each of his limbs with a candy corn saw. And then she would remove his head and put him in her trophy room with his mouth sewed up so he couldn’t make any more dumb jokes. She realized Grim was speaking. “I’m sure everyone will be okay, a bit spooked probably.” They continued to walk by warped mirrors and the Baroness glanced in a few of them. “I failed to see how my own reflection is supposed to scare me though.” She walked by one mirror, glanced in it, only to stop and look again.

Grim sighed hoping the Baroness was right and they will all be ok. He couldn’t help but look at his reflection in the mirrors around them only to freeze in fear.

Bon Bon stared at the mirror in disbelief. It was another dragon. A rather scary looking one with fire and teeth. It almost looked like it was moving. She scoffed at it, even as she thought she could hear the mirror growl. So that was Beppi’s game? Magic mirrors. It only made sense if he got them from Djimmi. She’d have to pay a personal visit to the genie tomorrow about selling anything to Beppi. She could hear someone childishly giggling and turned to see Beppi hopping up and down in one of the mirrors. “You really think I’m scared of a dragon?” She tsked. “Oh, not YOU!” The clown cackled. “Then who-?” She stopped as she heard some quiet whining. She turned to Grim to see the dragon very worried indeed. “Grim?”

Grim tried to hold himself but the vision of the terrifying dragon was just a painful reminder of what HE was supposed to be…and what he still could become. “N-n-no…” he muttered to himself. “You’re n-not real… I’M NOT LIKE YOU!” He roared fearfully. He broke the mirror with a quick devastating whip of his tail, sending shards of crystal glass everywhere.

– Spike and MIna walked down the empty rows of mirrors. He glanced at the bat. He had to admit. He was slightly impressed that the girl still wanted to do this. But she was a girl. And girls cried just as much as little boy bunnies. He looked over at the mirrors on the side and his hackles raised slightly. With the distorted images on the mirror, he almost looked like his dad. A fact that did not make the bulldog pup very happy at all. His attention was taken away by the appearance of a very large mirror at the end of the hallway. “Last chance to go back,” he teased, pointing to the mirror up ahead.  

The little bat smirked at the pup and passed by him, walking towards the mirror. “Ha! You’re dealing with a bat here! I’m part of the spooky folk!” She said with her head held high. She looked the huge mirror up and down bravely.

Spike looked at the mirror and his smile dropped as something large materialized in front of him. He didn’t quite see it until the image brightened and his jaw dropped open in shock.

—-

Goopy sighed in disappointment as his journey came to a dead end. “Shucks, and I was real hopeful about this one,” he grunted. He was about to turn around but stopped. It looked a bit too suspicious to be just a dead end. He stuck his hand through the walled off way only for the wall to give way like a curtain, revealing the exit. He grinned. “Well, Goops, looks like you did it again. Better go back and collect everyone before someone gets really spooked!” He congratulated himself, turning around. A little girl’s scream made him stop before he barreled down the path. Crud, Hannah must have gotten spooked. He better go check this out.

–

Harvey’s ears perked up and he turned around at the sound of an unfamiliar noise. “Hello, is someone there?” He called out. There was nothing there, just the empty mirrors looking back at him.

He shrugged and turned back to continue making faces with his sister only to see a monstrous looking figure in the mirror in front of them. He squeaked in alarm and pulled Hannah back away from the surface. The figure looked just like Spike. A scary, spooky form of Spike. The deformed dog laughed and laughed as his reflection spread across all the mirrors surrounding the rabbits. “G-Go away!” Harvey yelled at the laughing dog reflection. Hannah clung to him, burying her face into his side. The figure seemed to get even bigger and Harvey shakily reached into his coat, pulling out the training wand. “I’m warning you! I’ll make you go away!” He ordered. A really loud roar sent the rabbit into fumbling and muttering over the chant before dropping the wand, but the spell had been cast. A yellow bunny skull shot forward and connected with the mirrors before sinking into the reflection like a puddle of water. The figure looked really confused before it completely vanished, leaving the rabbits alone. Harvey let out a shaky weak chuckle. “Oh, oh that actually worked.” “Harvey!” A familiar voice yelled “Agh!” The little bunny nearly jumped 10 feet in the air before turning around to see Goopy rapidly approached them. “Mr. Le Grande?” “Is everyone alright? I heard Hannah screaming!” Goopy explained, kneeling down to check on the little rabbit Hannah unhurried her face from her brother’s overalls. “I wasn’t screaming,” she answered the adult. Goopy’s brow furrowed.  “Well, if you weren’t screaming, then who-?” A high pitched scream broke out again and now everyone jumped and ran toward the noise.

– Spike covered his mouth in horror at his second scream. He didn’t dare look at Mina, instead keeping his eyes staring at the figure in the mirror. “This-this looks just like my dad,” he finally managed, looking up at a scary bull dog in the reflection. His eyes remained wide and glassy still. “My aunt says I can come live with her but, my dad, he’s just tough on me to make me strong,” Spike tried to explain, not daring to look away from the reflection. Mina understood now. His father! Spike’s father was the reason he had turned into a bully. 

The bulldog was shaking now. “Please tell me you see it too?”

“Spike! It’s ok! It’s not real!” She tried to calm him down, hugging him with her wings, protecting him from the view of the mirrors.

“Pa is gonna be real mad at me that I screamed,” the bulldog whimpered.

“Look at me! He can’t hurt you!” She looked at his glassy eyes. “We’re gonna go back. Don’t look at the mirrors! Focus on me.”

Spike nodded quickly at the bat’s instructions and swallowed hard, his eyes threatening to tear up again, but he seemed to understand.

Mina slowly uncovered him and holding his hand they walked the path they came from. They had only walked a few feet away before a heavy thump sent Mina’s ears rigid.

Spike blinked and nervously glanced behind them and stopped dead in his tracks. The warped looking dog was stepping out of the mirror with a snarl. The pup couldn’t run - he was frozen to the spot.

“You’ve been a bad dog,” the big dog growled, reaching two gruff paws out towards the terrified children, “And you know what we do with bad dogs…”

– Sullivan paused in his observation of Amber as he could hear the screams of the other group members break out from the other parts of the maze. This was even more of a reason to get going! The faster they found the exit, the sooner they could get out of here and bring help.

“Let’s just keep going,” Sullivan finally stated, determined to keep walking past the mirror. He took a few steps in front of Amber to check the way, hoping to see nothing but their reflections from this point on. Amber looked like she was about to say something to his request only for her voice to die in her throat as the bag fell out of the mirror and slumped to the ground. This was just supposed to be a reflection! She remained rooted to the spot, hoping the bag would just stay there, even though she swore she could feel cold water up to her neck. The bag flopped to the ground before slowly slithering toward the salamander, who hadn’t seen it fall from the mirror. Its hole opened up to as if to eat Sullivan and Amber snapped out of her dark memory. She pulled out her gold claws and viciously attacked the bag, tearing into it with her clearly illegal weapons. It tried to roll away but she wasn’t having it, fur flying everywhere as she continued to attack the snake like bag.

The salamander heard the noise of cloth being torn apart and turned his head to see what the heck was going on. He froze when he saw the snake like movements of the once inanimated sac. Of all the creatures in this world, it had to be a snake, twisting around as his beloved Amber attacked it fiercely with her claws and… were those knives?!

“A-Amber!” He manage to yell and run towards her. He grabbed her paw and pulled her off of the terrifying creature. “We’re going back!!!” He shouted, tugging her in the direction from whence they came.

She was swearing an awful lot. She might not be a sailor but she certainly had the mouth of one. Amber threw one last knife at the ruined bag before allowing Sullivan to drag her toward where they came from.

—-

“I told those two to stay put!”

Goopy was very disappointed, but honestly not that surprised that Mina and Spike had charged off into the unknown. Those two were full of plucky energy, just like he was when he was just a small slime. But still, he was already planning on what he was going to say when he found the two small mammals. He led Harvey and Hannah down the path the other two had taken only to stop short. In front of Spike and Mina was a giant unfamiliar dog he had never seen before. It didn’t look friendly either. “Mina! Spike! Duck!” He hollered, winding up his fist.

Mina fearfully held onto Spike, not sure what to do, until the familiar voice of Goopy brought her back. She pulled her friend down to the ground with her.

And not a moment too soon. The second the children dropped to the ground, Goopy sent a fist flying, colliding with the dog monster, sending it stumbling back and falling into the mirror. Another quick punch shattered the mirror into pieces, leaving the group alone. “Is everyone okay?” Goopy wearily asked, completely forgetting whatever disciplinary speech he had prepared as he surveyed the children.

Hannah punched the glass just for good measure only to draw her little paw back with an “ow.”

“Mina! Are you okay?” Harvey asked, darting to his friend’s side. “What happened?”

The little bat tried to talk but she could only mumble nonsense as she was still scared.

“I’m gonna take this as a yes.” Goopy knelt down. “C'mon, we need to head back. We can catch up later.”

The little bat nodded and helped Spike back to his feet. The two followed Goopy, still shaky from the experience. –

Bon Bon waved her arms. “Grim! Stop!” But the dragon was panicked and continued to smash. He wasn’t listening to her! And there was no way she could, nor would she really want to, take down her much more physically impressive friend.

She saw Beppi laughing within his mirror and reached in to punch the glass…only for her hand to slide through the mirror and actually grab the clown by the shirt. He looked equally surprised by this development. “Uh, wait a second-?” The Baroness grinned darkly. She pulled him out and pinned him to the ground. “Stop the mirrors,” she demanded.

“You’re so forward!” Beppi chuckled, fanning himself.

Only once all but one of the mirrors were destroyed did Grim finally settle down. He panted sharply, trying to recover his wits. He spotted Beppi on the floor with Bon Bon on top of him, and his anger stirred back up again. His eyes started turning black and white and smoke came out from his nostrils. “You…” he growled. Beppi waved at Grim. “Hey buddy, having a good date so far?” He asked pleasantly, either unaware of the danger or entirely dismissive of it. Bon Bon lifted Beppi to his feet and nearly shoved him into the only intact mirror behind him, the nozzle of her candy cane shotgun jammed against his chest. “You think this is really funny, huh, Chuckles?” Beppi shrugged. “I think it’s pretty hysterical to be honest. Plus, you two should be totally thanking me! Can’t get anymore cozy than being trapped in a maze, am I right?” “Thanking you?! Grim is freaked out!” Bon Bon growled. “Imagine how I feel? Totally didn’t see that coming you getting me through the mirror!” He exclaimed. He leaned in toward her. “How’d you do the magic trick? That’s super cool!” Beppi marveled, holding onto her arm. “I have no idea what you’re talking about! But you better put a stop to this right now!”

Grim’s mouth lit up with a spark as he saw nothing but red. He  took a deep breath, about to release a powerful flame.

Bon Bon could feel the heat behind her and quickly turned around, alarmed to see Grim aiming for them. She held out a hand once more. “Grim, wait! We can’t set the place on fire! They’re still kids here!” She yelled at him. Beppi giggled. “Looks like he really has the HOTS for you!” Bon Bon turned on Beppi once more and now the nozzle of her gun was under his chin. “One more joke, Beppi and I’ll-I’ll…” Her eyes widened as she looked behind the clown. Beppi grasped the gun and peeked inside before looking at the pale Baroness. “What’s wrong, sugar? Something on my face?” He started to laugh only to stop when a claw reached out from the mirror behind him and wrapped around his waist. He looked down. “Huh. This wasn’t the plan at ahhhh!” He was yanked into the mirror with a squeal and the Baroness felt herself jerked toward it as well, too surprised to let go of her candy cane gun.

Grim’s flames barely licked the mirror before he could swallow them back in shocked surprise as Beppi and Bon Bon were dragged into the mirror. He charged the shimmering surface angrily. “Bring her back!” He yelled, puffing out his chest. “I will turn your entire carnival into ashes! WITH YOU IN IT!”

He had barely managed a scratch before something massive and reptilian shot from it, knocking down an angry, surprised Grim.

It was the dragon from the mirror, now even more bedazzled and luminous than before! The magic of the mirror must have influenced its appearance. Yet, despite its glittering exterior, the dragon retained its ferocity, spinning and swinging around wildly, growling and snapping at everything. Another spin revealed its two captives, Bon Bon and Beppi, held tightly in its massive paws. “Let us go!” Bon Bon growled, kicking out at the air but the dragon didn’t listen. It continued striking its tail around, smashing the mirrors. “Oh, come on! Those are expensive!” Beppi complained, even as the dragon started to open its wings. Before anyone could say anything else, the mirror dragon gave one flap, before jetting down the hallway, back toward the center of the maze.

Grim finally snapped out of it as he heard Bon Bon’s yelled echo down the hall where the mirror dragon took off. “Bon Bon!” was the only thing he had time to say before the crystallized creature was out of sight, and with it, the Baroness. He frowned and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke before gathering the courage to flap his wings and follow the dragon as fast as his wings could carry him.

–

Goopy hadn’t really wanted to run toward danger, or rather bounce to it. But it sounded like Grim was in trouble and the last thing the goop needed was to have to carry a massive lizard out. He hopped back to the start of the path and motioned everyone down just as Sullivan and Amber hurried onto the clearing. “Hey, old sport! Attacking any reflections lately?” He asked of the salamander with a grin.

Sullivan gaped at him. “You too?” He pointed behind them. “We ran into a crazy snake-sack down that path. How do we get out of here!?” He hold his head in disbelief. “You guys are okay, right?” He asked, turning to the children. Mina was still a bit shocked for what just happened but she managed to nod, still clutching Spike’s hand.

Hannah crept over to Harvey. “Did we do this?” She whispered, worried that Harvey’s spell had done more than they had anticipated… “I-I don’t know!”  Harvey bit his lip. “I didn’t mean to! I just was trying to make it go away!” He whispered back.

The other members of the party were unaware of the quiet exchange. Another loud howl from Grim did get their attention.

“Sounds like Grim is in trouble,” Sullivan shakily spoke, looking worriedly toward the third path that now had smoke practically billowing the entire hallway. A draconian silhouette started push through the smoke.

The salamander sighed in relief. “Oh! Here they come! Grim! What’s going oOAAH!!” He screamed at the sight of an unfamiliar dragon barreling toward them.

The group flattened themselves as the terrifying shiny dragon thundered over them, carrying something yelling within its claws.

Amber was one of this first to lift her head back up from where they all flattened themselves on the ground. “Hey, was it just me, or was that dragon carrying the princess and the clown just now?” “I think so?” Spike finally managed. Goopy looked back toward the smokey path only for his eyes to widen. “Duck!” This time everyone hit the deck once more as now Grim roared over them as he pursued the dragon.  Everyone looked at each other once more and chased after the two. There was a loud crash as the crystal dragon broke through a wall, followed shortly by Grim and the rest of the maze runners.

—-

There was lots of excited shouting and yelling in the carnival. Families and couples still walked and ran around, enjoying the delicious fried goods and circus games. It had been a stellar opening to be sure and there was still some time before the circus ended for the night.

The line for the haunted mansion was still pretty long. As the next group hesitantly started to walk in, they couldn’t help but stop at the sound of loud roaring and banging. The people in line looked at the mansion curiously only to see a large crystal dragon break through the wall and blitzed into the carnival. There was a quiet moment before the line members grew excited. “The haunted mansion looks way scarier this year!” One line goer noted as he watched the dragon charge away. “Definitely better than the bed sheets!” Another one agreed, now even more eager to enter the haunted attraction. The mirror dragon spun and thundered through the crowds, much to the unexpected delight and surprise of the islanders at “one of the most realistic attractions yet!” A massive flap of its wings sent the dragon to the top of the ferris wheel. It dug its back nails into the metal frame, grinding the ride to a shaky halt. The people still on the ride looked up, confused by the new development. Was this part of the ride? They didn’t remember this from last year.

Grim had dashed through the now open hole, followed closely by Goopy, Harvey, Hannah, Mina, Spike, Sullivan and Amber. The group looked around. Mina stood near her friends trying to make sense of what was going on and happy to finally make it out. Amber pointed to the top of the ferris wheel. “Look! Up there! That dragon thing got both of them…uh, that’s them, right?”   “I think so!” Sullivan realized, alarmed that Amber’s observation earlier was correct. “W-what do we do? What CAN we do?” Mina turned to Harvey, remembering that her friend’s father was a magician. “You think your dad can make it disappear?” Harvey squinted his eyes and looked up. “He-he won’t be here for at least another hour or so!” He explained. He pulled his ears worriedly. “Oh man, this is all my fault!” “Don’t say that, Harvey!” Hannah insisted. “You were just trying to be a good brother!” Spike looked over at the rabbits. “Whaddya talking about? Why is it his fault?” Harvey looked abashed. “I-I tried to use my wand to make it disappear and I just made it come out of the mirror instead…” Goopy, Sullivan and Amber were trying to brainstorm, once again oblivious to the children’s’ conversation. “I don’t think Grim is going to be able to listen to anyone while he’s like this!” Goopy pointed out. “We gotta get him to calm down otherwise he might just set fire to the ferris wheel!” Amber noted, watching the green dragon warily who circled around the ride dangerously, “Sully, got any ideas on how to stop Grim?” A high pitched scream broke out from on top of the ferris wheel and Amber bit her lip.“Oh man, I can hear Bon Bon screaming. She must be real scared,” Amber groaned, looking up. Goopy grimaced. “That-that was not the Baroness…” – “Shut up, Beppi!” The Baroness yelled, attempting to kick the shrieking clown but she was too far away to successfully do anything to him. “There’s so much I wanted to do! Drive a real car. Made of rubber and float it across the lake! Have my first kiss with a meringue pie and not just a lemon pie! Blast myself out of the cannon!” Beppi wailed. The Baroness rolled her eyes. “Will you just-?” She let out a startled shriek of her own as the dragon abruptly dropped her. It was only her quick reflexes that led her to grabbing the metal bar next to it attached to the ferris wheel. She tried to pull herself up but she was fatigued and only able to wrap her arms around it tightly. “Shit, shit, shit!” She openly swore now. The mirror dragon stomped up and down, shaking the entire ride and Bon Bon held on for dear life as Beppi continued to lament his missed opportunities.

Grim circled the ferris wheel, his eyes narrowed with anger. Everytime he tried to get closer to rescue Bon Bon, the mirror dragon took a swipe at him jostling and shaking the ferris wheel even more - loosening the Baroness’ precarious grip.

After a third attempt that brought him too close, the dragon managed a snap at his neck. At the frustrated cry of pain, Grim’s other two heads sprouted forth from his shoulders.  "No more games!“ He shouted. All three heads spat fire towards the dragon, avoiding the Baroness, and with any luck, toasting the clown as well.

The mirror dragon rocked the ferris wheel back and forth and with each movement, the attraction became more unsteady. The Baroness was furious when the dragon bit Grim and she landed a good hit on one of its paws. Unfortunately, that only angered the dragon and before she could react, the mirror dragon gave one good stomp on the ferris wheel and she lost her grip. She managed to grab the spoke of the ferris wheel a few feet below the angry dragon with two hands but it was slipping fast between her fingers.

“AH!” She yelled, realizing her situation was quickly looking grim, and not the way she would have liked.

—

“We’re running out of time,” Goopy realized, watching the Baroness slipping.

“How the hell are we going to calm down Grim?” Amber asked.

“Eeeehhh…. ” The salamander looked around, trying to find ideas. The only thing he knew that could calm the dragon was Bon Bon herself. But with her in danger, it was only a matter of time before Grim became frustrated enough to miss and really do some damage. “W-what if…evacuate the carnival? Maybe call the fire department!” He exclaimed as he watched a fireball bounce of one of the rails.

Mina scratched her chin before snapping her fingers. “I know what we can do!!” She yelled to her friends.

She hit the palm of her hand with her fist “If we can distract the bad dragon, we can give a chance to our dragon to rescue the princess and Harvey can send that dragon back to the mirror!” She turned eagerly toward her friends. “Spike, how good are you with a slingshot?”

Spike grinned maliciously. “I’ve hit a couple nerds off a tree before in front of their moms!” He bragged before clearing his throat. “Uh, yeah I’m good with it. You got your magic stick, rabbit?”

Harvey patted down his jacket. “I-I don’t have the wand!” He realized, “I must have dropped it in the maze!” He started to panic but Hannah thrust something else in his hand. He looked to see it was a churro. “Hannah, now is not the time to eat!”

Hannah shook her head. “No! Maybe you can use something that’s like the wand!” She insisted, pushing the churro back to his hand. “It’s sparkly, right?”

“I think that’s just the sugar-?” Harvey tried to explain but Spike give him a push.

“Just go with it.” He turned to Mina. “Alright, whaddya want us to do?”

The little bat couldn’t help but chuckle at the idea of making magic with a churro, but it was worth a try.

Mina dropped to her knees and began to draw on the ground. “Ok! Here’s the plan: Spike and I will go get slingshots and fire crackers and throw them at the bad dragon every time he tries to hurt anyone! While we distract him, Hannah and Harvey, you’ll get up the wheel and use your ‘wand’ to make him freeze or, just get rid of him!”

She heard Grim’s terrifying growl and realized they didn’t had much time. “GO!!!” She yelled, already running with Spike to gather what they needed.

Harvey made one step toward the ferris wheel only to stop. “How are we gonna get close enough? None of us can fly,” Harvey realized.

“And we can’t climb too good!” Hannah added.

Hannah, pointed to the cat. “Can we ask her to climb?”

“Worth a shot.”

–

Another slam of the crystal dragon’s tail against the metal structure sent the Baroness’ grip to just one hand. “Grim! Help” She desperately called out to her friend, knowing she couldn’t hold out much longer.

“Bon Bon!” All Grim’s heads yelled and the green dragon dove towards the baroness. The mirror dragon attempted another strike at Grim, but this time, he was ready for it. Right before the crystal claw could make contact, Grim did a last minute flip and pushed the mirror dragon backwards making him lose its balance, freeing the path towards BonBon.

He passed one of his heads through the metal bars and reached BonBon as she finally lost her grip. She fell onto Grim’s head and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. The other two heads kept an eye on the mirror dragon who had recovered his stand, ready to keep fighting.

Bon Bon tapped Grim. “The wheel won’t take both of your weights, we need to get down!” She ordered, pointing to the ground. She glanced over at Beppi who was still being rather dramatic about the whole thing. “I’ll deal with Beppi later,” she assured Grim.

Grim nodded, just happy to see the Baroness was safe. He withdrew himself from the wheel and  quickly descended towards the ground. The other heads approached Bon Bon.

“Oh thank God you’re ok!”

“It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

“You’re so strong!”

“Sorry it took me so long…”

– “You want me to what?” Amber stared at the children. “Harvey made him come out of the mirror with magic,” Hannah explained, “So we need to magic him back into the mirror!” Amber groaned. “Fine, fine. But I can’t take both of you. I can only take one.” Hannah was about to step forward but Harvey pushed her back. “I’m going, okay?” “Harvey!” “No buts.” Hannah pouted as Harvey approached Amber. “I’m ready.” Amber eyed Sullivan. “Gimme just a sec.” She strode over to the salamander and pulled him close to her. “Sully, I just wanna say you are the nicest possible serial killer I ever went out with.”

Before Sullivan could say anything, she pulled him into a passionate smooch hard enough to make Harvey shut his eyes before letting go of the amphibian. She pulled the clawed knife out of her pocket and sliced her skirt up to the thigh, allowing her more free movement of her legs. She gave a final wink to Sullivan before Harvey leapt onto her back and she proceeded to climb the ferris wheel. Goopy watched her go. “What did you say she was? An interior designer?” He asked, a bit gobsmacked.

Sullivan’s eyes widen and stood there like a statue with a silly smile for a few moments before her words clicked in. “Wait… did she called me a serial killer?”.

–

Mina and Spike dumped their haul on the ground and started putting it together, They had quickly amassed quite an arsenal: a couple of slingshots, some big firecrackers, some matches she had hidden within the folds her dress…definitely things that children shouldn’t be playing with. Which just made it all the more exciting.

“The princess is safe!” Mina exclaimed happily, “So all we gotta do is distract that bad dragon!”

Spike dumped the firecrackers at Mina’s and his feet. “Aw, I really wanna hit the clown,” he grumbled but notched up his slingshot with a lit firecracker.

Mina chuckled at Spike. “Resist the temptation” and threw firecrackers near the mirror dragon hoping to distract him.

– The cristal dragon hadn’t noticed Amber nor Harvey yet, but that didn’t mean anyone else was safe either. As soon as they realized that, the dragon reached down to paw at a couple in one of the carts to the side only to stop at the sound of some musical humming. It swiveled its head to see the clown humming to himself while applying lipstick. Beppi puckered his lips in his mirrored reflection of himself on the dragon. “If I’m going to play the damsel, I just HAVE to do things correctly, wouldn’t you agree?” He glanced down and squealed. “It seems my knight in shining armor is fast approaching too!” The dragon looked down to see Amber and Harvey closing in and growled. “Oops,” Beppi realized. The dragon reached down with its free hand to swat a struggling Amber when something detonated to the side of it. The dragon jerked up at the noise and looked around wildly only to hear something crackle to its other side. Spike and Mina continued to shoot the firecrackers as Amber and Harvey maintained their climb, successfully distracting the dragon. Spike whistled as Mina nearly landed a shot on its wing. “You’re pretty good at this,” Spike whistled, “maybe we can go toss crabapples at Mrs. White’s house next!” He laughed.

“Yeah, let’s put a pin on that!” Mina said to Spike, throwing another firecracker that nearly hit Beppi. She winced. “Oops, I gotta be careful!” – Amber’s eyes darted back and forth as she leapt side to side, quickly clamoring up the ride. “You got your magic wand ready?” She called as they got close. Harvey nodded and pulled out his churro. “Yeah.” “Is that a churro?!” Amber shrieked. “I couldn’t find the wand!” “Oh my God, we’re going to die…” the cat groaned quietly. “What?!” Harvey shrieked. “I mean, uh concentrate real hard, okay, Harvey? And maybe pray too just to be safe.” Harvey just hoped Goopy was watching Hannah. – Goopy had no idea where Hannah had gone. “Sullivan, did you see the little bunny? Sullivan?” He waved a mitt in front of the salamander’s face. Sullivan snapped out of it and looked at Goopy, a bit confused. “What? The kids? Amber?” He saw the dragon and the Baroness approaching “Oh! The Baroness is safe!” He paused, realizing the dragon only had one passenger. “What about Beppi?” Grim’s heads exhaled heavily toward the salamander, releasing some smoke, a warning that Sullivan quickly understood. Grim knew he shouldn’t leave Beppi but he was sore and tired and the last thing he wanted was for some lizard to tell him he had to go rescue him when he was the one who got them into this mess. He could only painfully flop on his belly and take joy in the fact that the Baroness stroked each of his heads. The sound of firecrackers got their attention and the adults saw Mina and Spike throwing firecrackers at the crystal dragon. “Well that’s a good idea!” Sullivan exclaimed, more than happy to get away from the sore dragon. He hurried towards Mina and Spike and joined them, throwing with much more accuracy at the crystal creature.

–

Beppi was starting to pout. “C'mon! Hurry up and save me already!” He whined to Amber and Harvey.

“I’ll give you something to save,” Amber growled under her breath as she neared the top. Now with more people throwing explosives, the dragon was certainly distracted…but so was Amber. A near crackle made her miss a particular beam and she really had to scramble to prevent her and Harvey from plummeting. Amber turned around as she reached the top. “Hey! Be careful down there, you almost hit us!” “Amber, watch out!” Harvey squeaked. The cat looked too late and had just enough time to push Harvey to the top before she was hit by the dragon. The cat landed with a thud on top of one of the suspended carts, dazed and not moving. The dragon advanced on the fallen cat now as Beppi started to boo the dragon. Harvey jumped in front of Amber, swallowed and held out the churro. “S-stay back! I’m warning you!” Harvey tried to bravely yell.

Beppi peered at the “wand.” “A churro? That’s a sweet way to beat a dragon!” He exclaimed.

The dragon edged closer, the firecrackers detonating harmlessly around it. Harvey planted his feet down and aimed the churro wand at the intimidating dragon. “It’s t-time to go back to your mirror!” The dragon roared and charged and Harvey yelled the magic words. A massive puff of brown and gold sparkles shot toward the charging dragon and hit it square in the chest. The dragon stopped and struggled to fly away, dropping Beppi next to Harvey in the process. It made it only about 30 feet in the air before the mirrored dragon shone a bright light and exploded into a fantastic display of colored sparks and smoke. The occupants on the ferris wheel were quiet for a moment before they burst out into deafening  applause. Harvey swore he could hear them remark on ‘one of the best fireworks displays ever,’ as he looked down at the churro in his paws. “I can’t believe that worked,” he breathlessly gasped. Beppi plopped himself next to Harvey with a manic grin. "Say! That was a lot of fun! How about you come back tomorrow night and explode more mirrors for me? The crowd will love it!” –

“I can’t believe that worked,” Spike gaped as he stood next to Mina, staring up at the night sky as the rainbow sparkles fell down like colorful snow.

Goopy whistled. “This has been one of the best nights I’ve spent at the carnival,” he admitted. He slapped Sullivan on the back. “Good job on those throws, old sport!” “A night like this must cost a fortune,” a gruff voice spoke up behind Goopy and Sullivan. The two turned to see Porkrind standing there, hoofs on his hips. He looked up and his eye narrowed, recognizing the thief as she started to stir.

Sullivan smiled at the view of his pall Porkrind but remembered why he was mad at him and decided to face him so he wouldn’t get to her.

Mina ran toward the ferris wheel and cupped her paws to yell up at her friend. “Harvey! You did it!” She gave him a thumbs up.

Harvey could hear Mina shouting at him and he looked down to see her giving him a thumbs up. He smiled widely at her. He looked toward Amber who was pushing herself back to her feet. “Amber, are you okay?” She groaned and stood up unsteadily. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay…Just…uh,” She glanced down to see Sullivan…and Porkrind. She swore. “Hey, Harvey, you can get down from here, right?” “What? I don’t-I can’t-!” She smiled and waved. “Great! I’ll catch you later!” She waved once more at Sullivan before dashing across the ferris wheel, leaping onto another attraction and disappearing into the crowd.

Sullivan waved sadly at Amber and watched her run away. He sighed and put his hands on his pockets. “Next time I’ll take her for a simple walk on the park….”

Unfortunately, her fast departure had left poor Harvey and Beppi stranded up on top of the ferris wheel. Beppi walked her go before plucking the churro from the rabbit. “Thanks for the snack, kiddo. Sorry about your ride!” He sympathetically spoke, his mouth full of magical churro.

Harvey looked down and swallowed. “Aww man. I don’t want to climb down.” Beppi patted him on the back. “Here, hold my hand, I’ll get us down.” Harvey reluctantly held the clown’s hand and Beppi…removed his head and inflated it, string and all into a giant balloon. The rabbit just stared weirdly at him as they started to slowly float down. —

Bon Bon was oblivious to the sounds of applause and instead continued to soothe an exhausted Grim. She wasn’t sure how conscious the dragon really was but there was no way she was letting the poor guy try to sleep this off alone in his own tower. He needed to be watched and she was already calling in the arrangements to have the spare bedroom made up so he could rest easy, without some clown knocking on his door.

Grim shook his heads until there was only the main one left. He was really tired but he managed to stand up. He looked at BonBon. “I’m s-s-sorry it took me so long… you could have~"  The words died in his throat as he looked away.

Bon Bon shushed the dragon. "You were very brave, Grim, just rest. Is it alright if I have you stay at my place tonight? I just want to make sure you’re okay?” She quickly added, hoping no one overhearing her would get the wrong idea.’

The dragon smiled at the baroness. “I would love t-to sleep over… thanks” he said shyly turning slightly red. He was glad, after all they’ve been through he would be able to recover the stupid letter. For a moment he wondered how Cagney’s notreallyadate-date was going, only for his mind to go blank as the noble woman led him away, continuing to stroke his ears just the way he liked it.

–

Goopy, Spike and Mina met Harvey and Beppi on the ground. “That was great!” Goopy exclaimed, “A real group effort for sure!” Spike laughed and grabbed Mina and Harvey into a rough smacking hug. “You dorks are lame, but I had fun tonight. We should do this again. Especially the fire crackers!”

Harvey was just glad he wasn’t getting beaten up. He looked around. “Hey, wait, has anyone seen Hannah?” Mina hugged back, happy her plan had worked, although it really got out of hand. She looked around and found Hannah wandering towards them. “There she is!” She pointed “Hannah! Over here!”. “Hannah!” Harvey exclaimed happily as his sister bounded up to him. He swept her into a big hug. Hannah waved at Mina as she was smushed. “Thanks for saving my brother!” She exclaimed happily. He let go of her and she bounced up and down. “You were so cool!! Do you still have that churro?” Harvey shook his head. “No, I lost it too,” he admitted sadly, “Just like I dropped dad’s wand.” Spike gaped at him. “Aw man, I always wanted to eat a magic churro!” Hannah reached into her coat and pulled out the wand. “Don’t worry! I picked it up in the maze!” She reassured proudly, holding it aloft. Harvey broke into a relieved smile. “Really?! You’re the best, Hannah. You should probably give it to me for safety.” “Awww, okay,” Hannah pouted, handing over the wand to her brother. Harvey didn’t remember the wand being this hot before but he put it into his chest, just happy to get it back. Goopy gathered the kids together. “Alright, let’s get all of you monsters home. I’m sure your parents are going to have a lot of questions.”

Harvey didn’t even know how he was going to broach that topic with his parents. No doubt they were already really worried that they hadn’t heard anything from them yet…

—

Mrs. Hare sprawled out on the bed, blissfully exhausted next to her husband. “Whoof!” She exclaimed, “That was amazing, Hopus, amazing!” She pulled the rabbit against her and pressed butterfly kisses along his neck. Hopus hugged his wife. “Yes, sooo good,” he yawned happily. Mrs. Hare ran a paw along his chest. “You know, the kids won’t be home for another 30 minutes. If you want, we have time for one more. You could even wear the bow tie if you wanted.” Hopus chuckled. “Might not be able to handle the bow tie right now. Remember, last time we did it, that’s how we got Harvey.” Mrs. Hare blinked in confusion. “Harvey? That wasn’t Harvey.” “Really? Who was it then?” “It was…”

–

“Hannah!”  

The little rabbit blinked at her name and looked back as she waved goodbye to Sullivan. “Yeah?”

“Come on! I’ll give you a piggyback ride home!” Harvey offered, his ankle feeling a lot better. She jumped on her brother’s back with such a happy squeal that the kids couldn’t help but laugh as they began the trek home.

Hannah went to wrap her arms around her brother’s neck only to realize her fur had all been mussed up from their adventure. She brushed out her fur, pausing only once more to finishing straightening out the bright red bow on her head before burying her head into his back with a happy trill.

———–

As if on cue, something growled behind the locked door. The group exchanged concerned glances and started to walk through the room toward the hallway.

Mina couldn’t help but look at her surroundings as they walked. It seemed pretty eerie so far. Every piece of furniture and spooky decoration were covered in dust and spider webs. and a very soft greenish light gave the place a very disturbing feel to it. Maybe this mansion would save this scary contest afterall.

“Please keep all arms and legs to yourself or you might just lose them!” Beppi’s voice called after them. Bon Bon muttered a colorful swear under her breath that nearly made Grim blush.

As they reached the hallway, a poorly disguised fake ghost dropped from above, the sheet not even full covering the plastic dummy. Harvey still stifled a small squeak. Spike scoffed and pushed the ghost out of the way. “He’s gonna have to do better than that if he wants to scare us.”

Mina actually heard the mechanism of the ghost before it got deployed. She sighed, disappointed. “I guess we’ll have to find another challenge… maybe the last one to die from boredom wins?” She smiled at Spike, hoping he would smile back. Goopy had to agree. This might have worked when they were babies, but when even Hannah started giggling, it definitely seemed a little subpar per the clown.

“Hey! What do you know? same sheet!” Sullivan pointed out to Amber. “Aw, brings so many memories….”

The Baroness still seemed skeptical. “Beppi’s a moron, but he’s a clever moron. Be careful, Grim.”

Grim nodded at the Baroness. He drew closer to her, keeping an eye out behind them.

The group moved forward until they came to the beginning of the hallway. They started to walk down the hall only for Harvey and Mina to stop. “Do you hear that?” There was a new noise. Something clunking and banging loudly. The group looked around curiously “Did anyone hear that?” Harvey asked again. Goopy shrugged. “Maybe they’re locking the big door again?” The banging grew louder and now there was a deep guttural groaning to it. They started nervously glancing around. Even the Baroness was on edge. “I’m sure it’s just Beppi shaking a piece of metal outside the window or something.” Hannah turned around and pointed. “Look! Eyes!”

“Eyes? What are you dumb? What do you mean eyes?” Spike laughed, turning around. Levitating in front of them were a pair of large, red, menacing eyes. And teeth. Very sharp teeth.

Amber stared in disbelief. “What the he-?” The teeth opened and the loudest, deepest roar bellowed out, along with a very thick trail of smoke. The Baroness spotted the flicker of flame within the spectral mouth and her eyes widened. “Move, move, move!” She ordered, pushing the group forward through the hall.

Everybody obeyed immediately and started running.

“I don’t remember this part!” Sullivan yelled, holding Amber’s hand. The sight of the ferocious fangs awoke in Grim very vivid memories of his childhood in his homeland.  The other dragons were, most of the time, extremely violent, and he never had the courage to fight back.  He tried to convince himself this was just a ride and that Beppi wouldn’t hurt them… would he? Mina looked around frantically to try to find a door or passage to get out of the hall. “There! A door!” Mina pointed out and ran towards a large wooden door with scratches on it.

Harvey was the quickest and reached the door Mina pointed to. He tried to jiggle the handle but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked!” Goopy wound up an arm, “Here, I’ll punch it down!” The Baroness caught his arm. “No! It’ll just keep chasing us!” She argued, “We need to find a key or something.” Amber’s mind raced. She could jimmy open that door in a second but doing so would probably lead to a lot more questions and could just blow her cover. But that weird mechanical monster was getting real close. She glanced toward Sullivan and saw he looked absolutely spooked.  She sighed. She didn’t want the salamander to be squashed. “Move,” she commanded and grabbed the handle. She inserted a claw in and very quickly lock-picked the door. It swung open with a creak. “Door’s open! Let’s go!” The group dashed in and the cat turned and locked the door behind them, just in time to see the fire really shoot out from the ghostly mouth. It was pitch black in the room and everyone panted with exertion. “That was really scary,” Hannah squeaked. She looked around in the darkness and squinted her eyes. “Harvey? Where are you?” Harvey felt around until he found his sister and grabbed her paw. Only to realize he had grabbed Amber’s paw. He reached around and found Hannah this time. He looked hopefully in the direction of the salamander. “I thought you said they were bed sheets?” Spike wasn’t laughing anymore. This was no longer funny. “Bed sheets my butt. Is that clown tryin’ to kill us or something?” He asked, trying to keep the shaking out of his voice. The Baroness cleared her throat. “It seems Beppi has upped his game a bit. Can anyone see anything?”

“I-I can see a bit,” Mina shyly admitted. Her feline eyes allowed her to see some shapes, but nothing really precise. She tried to use the echolocation but she wasn’t very good at it. She managed to find Harvey and hold on to him to be safe. “I c-c-can make a bit of fire.” Grim offered “Won’t last long b-but will help us see a little.” He took a deep breath and bleu very softly to make a small flame come out of his mouth he managed to keep the flame for a minute, enough time for the group to have a glimpse of their surroundings.

They all gasped at what looked like disfigured animal heads all over the walls of the room. Mina understood now what were the big shapes she was able to see in the darkness. “We’re in a trophy room!”

Amber had been stewing in silent relief when no one immediately noticed how quickly she jimmied the lock. She looked around, able to see her surroundings a bit better than most due to being a cat but she was glad when the dragon offered to light the way. She was not, however, glad to see the animal heads and clung to Sullivan instinctively, accidentally digging her claws into him.

Sullivan let out a startled shriek in his throat at the pain of Amber’s claws on his skin. “P-please, tell me that’s you, Amber…” he asked scared not daring to move.

“Sorry,” she apologized, loosening her grip.

Grim turned his head toward the center of the room and gave a frightened squeaked as his light illuminated something large and hairy in the middle room. He shut his claws over his mouth, accidentally snuffing out the flame.

Everyone was quiet again. “Was that a bear?!” Harvey finally asked.

“I’m g-g-gonna light up again. T-try to find a way out.” Everybody answered with a soft ok and the dragon took another deep breath before releasing the small fire.

Sure enough, it was a bear in front of them, posed on its hind legs. Hannah looked up at the bear. “I don’t think he needs a quilt,” she decided, keeping her distance.

Spike scoffed and shook his head. “It’s just a big teddy bear. I bet the rest of the stuff in here are fake too.”

“Spike’s right!” Mina said with renewed confidence, looking around. “If you think of it, these ARE just plushies!” She hoped her little commentary might help keep people calm. She looked closer at the animal heads only to see how disfigured and twisted the heads really were. She bit her lip. “Just, really scary looking plushies.”

Grim didn’t feel very calmed. He looked away from the animal heads, and illuminated the bear again. He blinked in confusion. If he didn’t know any better, it almost looked its head was moving. But that was impossible- 

The bear’s eyes shot open, revealing blood injected eyes. Before the group could react, the creature dislocated his jaw with a fierce throaty growl and charged them, waving its large bear paws. Everyone screamed but before the bear-like creature could reach them, the floor underneath them opened, sending the group falling down a large hole.

The bear stopped growling and looked down the hole. It let out a low whistle and pulled its head off, revealing Beppi. “Huh, maybe I should have made the drop a little bit shorter,” he considered. He shrugged. “Oh well. Learn from our mistakes.” He pulled a lever to the side of him and the trapdoor closed. “Time for the final part.”

….

Grim tried to flap his wings as the guests all plummeted down. However, the hole was too narrow, and his claws kept slipping from the walls, creating some sparks in the darkness. He hoped he wouldn’t crash anybody in his landing. Sullivan held on tightly on Amber and tried to position himself under her so he would hit the floor before her.

Amber grabbed Sullivan tightly and flipped the desperate salamander so she held him on the side. She dug her nails into the wall, slowing their descent long enough to finally allow them to drop, landing on all four of her paws, Sullivan now holding onto her waist.

The Baroness managed to slow her fall somewhat by digging her cane into the wall but even then she could only hold out for so long before she fell down to the ground, hoping something might break her fall.

Harvey grabbed his little sister and tucked her into his arms. He nearly hit the ground but Goopy managed to catch the little rabbits, cushioning their fall with his elastic body. Still the impact led to Harvey crying out in pain, most likely spraining his ankle in the process.

Goopy managed to cushion Spike as well who leaped out of his arms and hit the ground with a tuck and a roll. It didn’t hurt that much. He had worse. Still it definitely rocked him a bit and it took him a few more seconds to recover. He looked over at Harvey. “Hey, you okay, bunny?” He called.

During his fall, Grim saw the shape of BonBon trying to slow her fall with her candy cane without much result. He couldn’t let her get hurt! The dragon maneuvered to grab her with his long tail and helped her get on to his back just in time for impact.

Mina flapped her wings but she was too scared to really control what she was doing, and she only managed to reduce her falling speed. Thankfully, Goopy managed to catch the slower falling Mina and place her down on the ground. She turned to say thanks but looked up to see Grim fast approaching.

“Dragon!!!” Mina shouted to warn everyone to move. The rest of the group leapt out of the way just in time. With a heavy thud, Grim landed painfully on all fours. He winced. He didn’t break or twist anything but the impact still hurt him. The Baroness clung to his neck. “Everyone ok?  Bon Bon?” The dragon worriedly asked. “I’m ok!” Mina answered quickly, followed by Sullivan who was still surprised by Amber’s quick reaction. He had a lot to ask her if get out of here alive.

The Baroness slid off of Grim. “I’m going to kill that inflatable idiot!” She snapped angrily. Goopy smirked. “Guess Bon Bon’s okay. How about you little monsters?” He asked. Harvey and Hannah nodded in the dimness. “Harvey hurt his ankle,” Hannah spoke up. Le Grande quickly squatted down and looked at the bunny’s feet. “I think I wanna go home now,” Harvey gulped as Goopy checked out his foot. “This is nothing,” Spike scoffed, “I have way scarier things to worry about than a bear and a hole!” The room lit up with a flicker and everyone looked around only to blink in surprise. They were in a maze of mirrors. Long, short, straight and warped mirrors of all different types branched out endlessly. Even Grim couldn’t see above them. The Baroness looked at her distorted image in the reflection of one of them and coughed. “This is just getting ridiculous.” She cupped her hands together and called out to the ceiling. “Alright, Beppi, this is officially the stupidest trick you ever pulled!” She yelled. There was a loud giggle that echoed through the room. “Awww, that’s awfully SWEET of you to say, Bon Bon!” Beppi’s voice broke out. “Are you not having fun? I was hoping you wouldn’t reach this room just yet but I didn’t count on one of you being able to lockpick!” He admitted with a laugh. Amber kept her head down as the Baroness responded. “Fun?! You’re a lunatic!” Spike growled. “Just let us go, you dumb balloon!” “Such harsh language! And here I thought you were all having a little competition to see who gets scared last!” Beppi chastised. The Baroness pulled out her cane and cocked it. “Enough games or I start blasting mirrors.” “That’s 7 years bad luck-” the Baroness shot a small mirror, cracking it. She aimed at another one. “Hey! Those weren’t cheap, you know! Had to get them special ordered from Djimmi!” He argued.

“Good. Then I know who to go after next when we’re done here,” the Baroness declared, aiming at another mirror.

“Wait! Wait! Fine! You convinced me!” Beppi called out. There was some silence before he spoke up again. “Okay, I’ll let you out.” “Finally,” Amber muttered. “However! You’ll need to get through my mirrors first!” Beppi continued. The room lit up a bit more revealing three paths. “The last one to scream, wins. But if you all scream, then I win!” Beppi declared, “Tick, tock though! If you take too long, the park will close and you will have to spend the night here, so goooooddddd luck!” His laughter faded away, leaving the group alone again. Harvey’s ears drooped. “I don’t wanna spend the night here. Mom would get pissed. And she might be scarier than the clown.” Goopy patted him. “We’ll all stay together, not to worry.” The Baroness shook her head. “We can’t afford to do that. Beppi’s right, if we can’t find out our way before the park closes, there’s going to be a lot of broken glass to clean next morning.” Amber huffed. “Ya mean, you want us to split up?” “Yes, unfortunately, there’s no other way.” Bon Bon pointed to the paths. “Grim and I will go down this one, Amber and Sullivan will go down the middle one, and Goopy and the children will go down the last one. Does this work for everyone?”

Everyone agreed with the Baroness and started walking their respective paths. –

(Elsewhere on the first isle)

The fresh wind on her face helped Hilda to relax and clear her mind from all that just happened. She hoped the owner of the bar wouldn’t come knocking at her door tomorrow asking for money. She already had a big expense coming up with the glass dome. She focused on Cagney’s presence behind her. Even though there was enough space in the cloud for both of them to sit comfortably, he always pressed right into her and held her tightly, scared of falling. Lost in her thoughts, she almost passed the observatory having to do a last minute maneuver to turn her cloud and descend. The flower groaned uncomfortably at the quick u turn. “Sorry ‘bout that!” She apologized once they reached the ground in front of her door. “And sorry about this!” Without any other warning, she made the cloud disappear, sending Cagney falling to the ground with a thud.

Cagney hit the ground with a swear and a name call. “You awful sky witch,” he groaned, climbing to his feet.

She chuckled while looking for her keys.

“You’re lucky you didn’t tear my shirt, you…you!” The jingle of keys clued him into the fact that they were at Hilda’s observatory and he stopped thinking of other insults he could call her. Holy shit. He had made it to her home. And it sounded like he might be spending the night. How did this even work? And, more importantly, what were they going to do next he wondered, eyeing her figure somewhat lasciviously from behind as she struggled with the door.

She opened the door wide open and headed to the bathroom. “Sit down,” she ordered, pointing at the couch in the living room.

He was a bit caught off by the order, but did as the woman asked. Soon he was sitting on the couch, twiddling his thumbs, and still very drunk.

A couple of minutes later, she came back with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some cloth and bandages. She stood in front of the flower. “Let’s see the damage,” she said, giving the bottle a little shake. She smiled, knowing this was going to sting him.

Cagney did not like the way that she was smiling at him, especially when he spotted that bottle. “Ah, come on Hilda, it’s not that bad,” he tried to protest, scooting away from her on the couch. “I’ll be fine. See?” He tried to demonstrate his point by rubbing the spot, only to pull his hand away with some sap on it. “Oh…” Maybe he wasn’t as okay as he thought.

“Yeaah…” She gently pulled a petal to make him lower his head and poured some of the disinfectant over the cloth. “I can’t believe he hit you with a bottle… fucking Carl…” She gave him a funny look. “And I can’t believe you didn’t bury him alive.”

That would be just what he needed. Yet another reason for people to call him the Monstrous Carnation. Instead, he cleared his throat and just mumbled, “too many witnesses.” He winced, already expecting the pain of the alcohol any second now.

Hilda smiled and softly cleaned the wound with the cloth. It had a few cuts, not very deep thankfully. She noticed a couple of shards and whistled. “Damn! He hit you pretty hard! You got shards and everything!” She drew closer to better reach the shards and plucked them out carefully. “There!” she left them on the coffee table in front of them and gently kept rubbing the cloth on the wound.

“Thanks, Hilds.” The cloth stung against the wound, but Cagney didn’t mind it as much. He liked having Hilda this close to him, even if it did hurt like hell. He resisted the urge to wrap a hand around her waist. Hilda couldn’t help but admit that she was finding it hard to concentrate. She was pretty tipsy and being so close to the warm carnation didn’t help either.

She was exasperated by the cliché of their situation: the maiden healing the knight’s wound; the nurse and the fallen soldier… the sky witch and the delicate flower… Oh! She did like that. She grinned devilishly as much more graphic situations started to picture in her mind, turning her cheeks redder.

After a minute or so of silence, Cagney finally realized that technically, she was also part of the bar brawl that they had, even though she had been transformed at the time. “What about you? Did you get hit anywhere?”

Cagney’s voice brought her back abruptly.

“What? Hit?” She took a moment to process what he asked. “I don’t think so.” She inspected her arms for splinters. Except for the thorn on her chest, she couldn’t see anything. She turned her back to him. “You see anything?”

Cagney checked her briefly, brushing his leaves over her skin carefully before scoffing. There were a few shallow marks. “How the hell did you get out without so much as a scratch?” He might be drunk but he thought he had seen her injured. “I could have sworn I saw you holding your ribs or something,” he wondered, “turn around.”  

Hilda turned to face him and she irritably crossed her arms. “Yeah, but that’s YOUR fault, actually. Your last ‘hug’ left me with big, colorful bruises!” She waved her hands to indicate the surface of the bruises on her chest. “ And a tiny, little, VERY ANNOYING and PAINFUL thorn in a rather SENSITIVE spot.” This time she pointed at her wounded breast. “So, yeah, want to say anything else, Cags?”

Cagney blanched slightly. She had mentioned something about that at the beginning of their “date.” And he knew from having plucked most of them out that he indeed put some rather nasty ones in her. He could only imagine how irritating it was to have one still in her. “Uh, I can take it out if you want? Where is it exactly? On your shoulder or something?” He offered, gesturing to her shoulder. Shoulders were sensitive right?

“My boob, Cagney. Right on my nipple!” She put her hands on her hips looking at him in defiance. An evil thought came to her mind, probably instigated by Scorpio. There was no way he’d actually try pull out that thorn, but she could have so much fun daring him to do so! She smirked. “Do you still want to get it for me?” She said in a much more seductive tone.

He turned completely red in the face at her question. He nailed her in the breast?! Crap, no wonder she was pissed. Well, other than besides the destroyed dome…and the ruined birthday party…and the near attempt on her life…okay maybe there were a couple of reasons she would be pissed. But this was one he could theoretically fix. Theoretically. He wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. “Yeah, I probably can…do you want me to try?” He readied himself, fairly certain he was going to get slapped for the question.

Oh! There it was! Red really did suit him well. ‘Lets see how far he can go’ , the sky witch thought, grinning at the flower.

“If you dare!”  She was certain he was bluffing. She let her arms drop and rest on her hips, appearing confidently cool despite the fact that she was actually kind of impatient for his next move.

Cagney had dreams where he was touching Hilda, running his leaves along her body in a meadow and just enjoying the feeling of skin against stem…He never had a dream start like this. He pinched himself just to be sure but when he didn’t wake up in his field, realized that this was really happening. Unless…unless Hilda was messing with him. He grinned. There was no way she’d let him ACTUALLY touch her. He crossed his arms, a lot more drunkenly confident now about this situation. “Heh, alright, well, take off your dress then,” he chuckled, “Can’t get a thorn out if I can’t see it.” The room really needed to stop spinning.

Seeing him confident all of the sudden almost made her doubt herself, but years of growing up with him made her realized he was on to her, and they just started another one of their daring games. She was pretty good at those. Cagney would always break at some point and she got to bug him about it for ever after….Although, her last dare backfired and ended with him enjoying a pretty good dance with Isabella. Still, she was confident she would make him crack the second he’d have to touch her. She grabbed the zipper from the side of her dress and slowly unzipped it down to her hips. She slid one arm out of the dress, then the other one, very slowly and sensually, caressing her skin and releasing soft moans whenever it felt appropriate. Her bruised chest was only covered now by her lovely reddish bra, and her hips remained hidden by the dress. She wasn’t going to strip it all off for him. That would be too much…wouldn’t it? Even after he kissed her? Yeah, it probably would. The witch felt like it was getting really hot in her living room and her body was starting to really warm up, coloring her rosy cheeks. She pointed at her bra. “I’m not gonna make this easy for you,” she spoke, indicating that she was not going to completely disrobe. At least, not on her own.

Cagney stared at the sight of Hilda incredulously. “Holy crap, I just thought you were going to just pull the dress out a bit!” Cagney exclaimed, definitely staring at her now half naked body.

Hilda blushed, embarrassed, realizing he had a point. She could have just pulled down her dress a bit and it would have had the same effect on him. But she was a stubborn woman, so she acted as if this was exactly what she wanted to do. “So you won’t take out the thorn then?” She smirked, slowly pulling her dress back on.

“Eh, I didn’t say that!” Cagney quickly spoke up, his leaf reaching out to stop her from further pulling her dress back on. He realized he had nearly yanked her dress down even further and let go. He turned her around to see the clasp on the bra, glad to not have her see how stunned he still was. He fiddled with it for a bit, growing progressively irritated with each unsuccessful attempt.

She resisted the urge to grumpily snap at the clumsy way he was handling her. He couldn’t take off a bra? Seriously? “How much do you like this bra?” He finally asked, his arm quietly sprouting small thorns.

“Ha! Yeah! Go ahead! Tear it off, I’ll just include it on you tab,” she sarcastically answered, waving a hand over her shoulder.

Cagney brightened. “Great!” He sliced it off in one motion before he realized she was being sarcastic. He froze. “Wait, were you being serious or not about that?”

She held her ripped bra on, crossing her arms over her chest. She look  at Cagney in angry bewilderment. “I was being sarcastic!”

“Oh….uh, sorry about that,” Cagney apologized, trying to avoid Hilda’s glare. Her back was awfully slim, he noted. It was rather pretty but he was definitely interested in what she had in the front.

She frowned. “It was brand new too! I just bought it for our dat~ outing…meeting.” She cleared her throat and continued to shoot him a dirty look. This was becoming a slippery slope and Cagney gestured to her, hoping she’d stop looking at him like that. “So, thorn?” He managed, his voice nearly cracking. “How do you want to do this? Are you going to turn around or do you want me to do it from behind?”

Hilda kept holding her bra with her arms. This was starting to get weird. But she really wanted that thorn out. She thought about what he just said, confused. “From behind? And how exactly are you gonna see the thorn, you pea brain?” She tried to recover her usual witty tone, hoping to relax the tension that was building up between them.

She was really not backing down at all. Cagney threw his hands in the air. “Well then I guess you need to just turn around already, air head!” He finally snapped, spinning the woman to face him. She looked somewhat surprised by the action and he tried to keep cool even though she felt very warm to his leaves. He swallowed and looked away, trying not to stare at Hilda’s bare covering. “So, uh which one?”

Facing him made her blush even more and she tightened her arms over her chest. She pressed a little too hard on the wounded breast, making her wince. She sighed. “Ok. It’s the right one,” she started explaining, looking down at her still covered breasts, “the thorn is stuck right on the nipple. It’s a bit hard to see but you’ll be able to…” she cleared her throat again “feel it.” She stood there, not daring to uncover herself, looking as red as a tomato. This wasn’t right, HE was supposed to be the one getting all embarrassed, not her. This was the first time he would see her fully grown body, well, half body. And it was all bruised and wounded. Ugh! What an awful sight it’d be. Her confidence started to turn into doubt and fear. Would this ruin their friendship? Granted, he did kiss her, but seeing her like this now could scare him away.

Cagney had grown up with Hilda. He had seen her in bathing suits and some dresses. He was freaking out internally for nothing. At least that’s what he told himself. He finally turned his head back to her and his thorns sprouted out in surprise. Bathing suits be damned, even in her flustered state, she was very, very attractive and he could feel his chest beat wildly. He opened his mouth to say something, only managing a “You look…” only to realize what he had just done to his own clothes. “Oh shit, shit! These aren’t my clothes!” He exclaimed, retracting his thorns and pulling off the shirt. But the damage had been done. The shirt was covered in lots of holes now. So were the pants. He tried to pull the pants off too but was not too successful. Instead, he fell off the couch and landed on his back. “Help,” he whined, “I’m stuck in the dumb pants.”

He tried unsuccessfully to pull at least the shirt off the rest of the way but that just led to getting his long arms stuck in the sleeves. And with no access to the dirt, there was no way to shrink himself out of this. He had successfully managed to pin back his own arms. A toddler was more adept at dressing than he was.

“Oh my gosh, Cagney!” Hilda couldn’t hold back her laughter.

He glared up at Hilda. “Don’t you dare laugh!” He tried to regain some of that confidence but it was hard to do that when he was feeling like some tied up turtle.

“Hold on a sec,” Hilda giggled turning her back on him and let the bra slide off her as it was now useless. She pulled back her dress without zipping it, just to stay covered before turning back to help her dumb friend. She reached down to his pants. “Stop wiggling, you giant baby! You just gonna make the holes bigger.” Cagney didn’t listen and after hearing another tear, she rolled her eyes. She sat on his lap to prevent him from moving and gently started to remove his belt. “I can’t believe you can buckle a belt but you can’t unhook a bra,” she snorted.

Cagney was forced to stop moving when Hilda actually sat on him. That wasn’t too out of the ordinary - sometimes they could really go at it when they were sparring and once Tauros had managed to physically pin him for nearly an hour. The thought of her turning into Tauros if he actually did stab her again did get him to withdraw his thorns but not his sass.

“Yeah, get all the laughs now because you’re not going to get another chance when I’m up…” He warned her with a smirk as she started unbuckling his belt. He didn’t realize he had to unbuckle his belt to get these pants off and was rather relieved when she started to do it for him, unaware of how red she was looking.

She realized the position she was in: Sitting on him, him blushing under her, her hands so close to his privates (or at least she thought that’s where they were). In her altered state, she couldn’t help but find this was very arousing. Her lingering doubts were disappearing as the thoughts she had earlier at the shower snuck up on her. She looked at him but this time with more confidence. She still felt heated but now it radiated from her thighs and not her face. “To bad for the clothes. They really look good on you,” she mused. She took her time with the belt, every now and then letting her hand “accidentally” brush against his pants covered stem. She was very much enjoying this delightfully empowering position.

Cagney rolled his eyes and went to make another comment about how dumb clothes really were when he realized Hilda looked a lot more of herself. He couldn’t figure it out…. …Until he felt her soft hands brush against his lower stem and he suppressed a squeak as that sent shivers through his entire body. Dammit, she looked so hot like this, just how nonchalantly she was removing his clothes, her fingers accidentally rubbing through the fabric of his wrecked pants, lasting a little bit longer with each accidental stroke. It was accidental, right? She said she wanted to return to being friends. And she hadn’t expressed any desire to do anything physical with him. But the mischievous looks she kept shooting his way as she continued stroking this very sensitive spot made him squirm underneath her. "Ye-yeah. Had to get them fitted first. They were originally Grim’s. I guess they don’t make clothes for plants that much!” He tried to also nonchalantly answer, even as he felt his stem press into her touches. He didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing his hands weren’t free otherwise who knows what trouble he’d really get into.

She smirked at the shivering flower and finished unbuttoning his pants. “Looks like you’re trapped in that shirt, huh?” She observed, not paying attention to what he said about the clothes.

She slowly slid up his body, sitting right on the sensitive spot of the carnation. She rubbed her crotch softly against his. “I wonder just how you’re gonna get that thorn out now,” she spoke lowly. She ran a finger over her wounded breast, hoping to make him shiver and maybe, even try to kiss her again. In this position, she didn’t feel nearly as shy as before. She felt she had things under control and that reassured her. Also, alcohol seemed to be catching up so that help with her prior inhibitions.

Cagney’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates as she now definitely NOT accidentally rubbed herself against him. Holy cow, holy cow. It was taking everything he had to keep it together and not let his, uh, intimate part slide out. He tried to think of something clever to say only for his words to die in his throat as she ran her fingers along her now covered breasts. He barely registered her question. “Thorn?” He echoed before remembering there was a thorn and that’s why she had taken off her dress and why he even tried to remove his own clothes. He struggled with his hands but damn, that fabric, although torn, was still fairly sturdy. There was no way he was going to be able to remove that thorn like this. Well, technically he had one hand free. But that was a tongue and the thought of running his tongue along her breast nearly drove him over the edge. Wait, didn’t Hilda say at the bar that she wanted to return to being friends? He definitely remembered that line and took that chance to kiss her, knowing that was probably his last opportunity to do so if they were indeed to return to a platonic relationship. He must still be reading the situation wrong, but he was very quickly understanding that might not be the case. No, he needed to get everything together mentally and ask what was going on and then maybe he could, could… His erection finally slipped out and pressed back against Hilda and he died inside at the horror of it.

The woman released a surprised moan at the pressure between her legs. She looked down to find the big phallic silhouette marked against the fabric of his pants.  She bit her lip and looked at Cagney with predatory eyes. “Didn’t you put enough thorns inside me already, Cags?” That was definitely the alcohol talking… or Scorpio. Either way, she chuckled and rubbed herself harder against him, softly caressing his chest to let him know she wanted this.   “So…You want to do another thing before going back to friends?”

———–

Mrs. Hare ground her incisors together. “Did he now? Who does that weed think he is?! I swear if I ever see him again, I'll give him a piece of my mind, alright!”

“Mom, it's okay.”

“Heather! Go get the weed killer from the garden!”

“You mean the gardening hoe!”

“Don't sass me, girl, and just give it to me.”

“Mom! Really! It's okay. Okay? I'm okay. Please don't try to attack him.” His mom could be a very passionate rabbit when the situation called for it and he was fairly certain she would passionately lose to Cagney very quickly if he allowed the situation to continue.

She huffed and placed the hoe in the kitchen. “He's lucky your father is not home. Your father knows people, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harvey sighed. He thought about the situation. “Do you think we could have carrot cake tonight? I think carrot cake would really make me feel a lot better.” He asked hopefully. This day could still be turned around.

Mrs. Hare softened. “Oh course, my little dust bunny. Now go get washed up, okay?”

Harvey smiled, feeling better. “Thanks, mom.”

---

The bats reached their home. Isabella landed carefully and helped Mina get off her back.

"Now you get your little trouble making tushie to the shower, and you better have your nails clipped when you get out of there!".

"Yes mama...". She noticed she was still angry so she limped her way to the bathroom.

Isabella sat in the kitchen table, still agitated. When she heard the door of the bathroom close she released her pain in the shape of silent tears. She hated Italy, she hated italians, she hated everything that reminded her of that country.

After a few minutes, Isabella calmed herself down and decided to check on her girl.

After the day she had, Mina thought she deserved a bath instead of a shower. While the bathtub was filling up she looked at the clipper, then her nails, then the clipper again. She decided too keep her claws since they have proven to be very useful when in trouble and hid the clipper behind the toilet seat with a smirk.

The little b-cat got inside the bathtub and layed as she relaxed. She started thinking of her notebook. All that research and discoveries lost forever! Her eyes started to fill with tears.

She looked at her big bruise in her leg. The pain was starting to go away but the purple mark was still very noticeable. For once, she was glad her mum couldn't see, or she would have definitely beat up an apology out of the flower.

Isabella walked in after knocking at the door. "How are we doing here?" She said cheerfully.

"Good" Mina replied wiping her eyes and hiding her bruised leg as a reflex. She was glad to hear the lighter tone in her mother's voice.

Isabella sat at the border of the bathtub. "So you were defending your new friend from a bully?" The bat said keeping her friendly tone.

"Yeah" Mina nodded "Spike and his stupid friend Todd! Yesterday he wanted to steal Harvey's money, and today he wanted my adventure journal! And now its lost forever!" She couldn't hold her tears anymore and cried.

Isabella's heart melted again. She tenderly rubbed her daughter's back to try to comfort her. "Oh! Don't cry 'dulceata'. I'll go tomorrow and take it back from Mr Flower" She smiled at her.

"You think he'll give it back?" The little girl wiped her tears and her eyes filled with hope.

"If not I'll have to show him what a BECH I can be!" Isabella lifted a closed fist in the air. Mina chuckled, she understood the play on words, they were the Bechstains and kids at other schools already  pointed out the similarity of pronunciation with the B-word insult. "Nobody steals from my 'înger' and lives to tell it.”

Mina admired her mother's determination, but after seeing what the flower could do she wasn't sure she could take him down. Still, she felt better knowing she might have her journal back. She hugged her mum spilling water everywhere.

"Oh! Mina!... " the mother complained but returned the hug with a smile. Suddenly, the woman remembered the smell that made her nose itch. She had smelled it before in some clubs she used to sing for with her band. "Dandelion!"

Mina cocked her head in surprise "What?".

"What?... nothing.... let me see those claws," The bat said nervously.

---

"Ok, fuck this!" Hilda muttered angry frustrated that no matter how many times she broomed there was still shards of glass coming out. She was tired and in pain. She wondered if Cagney might have busted a rib or something. She still couldn't believe what he did. Where did all that hate came from?

She looked at the now open ceiling and pulled the switch to see if the white sheet was still working.

It was a bad idea.

The second the sheet moved a new rain of sharp shards fell into room covering it again. Hilda sighed and decided to go have a raspberry tea.

She took a few sips of her tea and breathed deeply. Her entire chest was sore. She had pretty big bruises circling her upper body.

'You know, I changed my mind' Taurus spoke 'lets go to this Friday and KILL HIM'.

Hilda hold her head between her hands with a exasperated sigh. She wondered if she overreacted by telling him to leave his own surprise birthday, but... he almost killed her! THAT was overreacting. She just couldn't believe how things escalated so quickly.

This remind it her she had to fill the damn hole he made outside her home, there wasn't much she could do for the tree though.

And what about the dome? She will have to talk with Grimm and Djimmi again to make it as perfect as she wanted it. But who would pay for it? She spent most of her savings keeping this place from crumbling.

'Cagney broke it... shouldn't he be the one to pay for it?'  Sagittarius carefully said in Hilda's mind.

The woman rolled her eyes at the idea. She could almost hear the giant weed laughing at her face. Plus, he probably didn't even had that kind of money. How much can you make selling flowers?

The soreness was driving her mad. She lifted her shirt to check on her bruises again. Her pale skin was covered with all kinds of purple and blue shades, with an occasional red line. Some of the smaller thorns got stuck deep on her skin. She tried to take them off only to hurt herself even more. After a few tries she gave up and looked at the time. She should get moving if she wanted to put up the stars in time... but she really didn't feel like it tonight.

---

Amber was very perceptive. Or at least, she liked to believe she was. Which was she was somewhat irritated to learn that she had just missed a huge brawl earlier that day. Brawls led to distractions. Distractions led to open pockets. And opened pockets led to a happy Amber.

She finished applying her gloves and stretched. She wondered who had been stupid enough to actually trespass in the carnation's field. Even she wasn't stupid enough to do that. Trying to get the sneak on something that just had to stick its hand in the ground and it could kill you? Yeah, no thanks.

It was bad enough she had encountered him at the observatory. What the heck had he been doing there anyway? If she had to have guessed, it might have been a date but there was no way that could have been the case.

She sighed at the missed opportunity and eyed her next target, the Clip Joint Calamity. There was going to be a brawl tonight. And liquor. Between the both of those, she could look forward to a very satisfying night indeed.

--

Harvey felt much better after a shower and a change of clothes. Dinner helped him perk up a bit. And the smell of dessert in the oven did make him feel pretty swell. But he was very worried for Mina. Her mom looked really really mad. He only hoped that he would get to see her tomorrow. And apologize for not being a really brave bunny.

He sat at the dinner table and squared his little furry fists together. Starting today, he was going to be a braver bunny. A bunny who knew how to kick with the best of them. So bullies like Spike and Todd wouldn't pick on kids like Harvey and Mina. He'd be the bravest and most courageous bunny the isle had ever seen.

There was a knock at the door and his mom called out, "Just a minute!"

Harvey stood up, chin up. Why not start being brave now. "Don't worry, mom. I got it," he declared, waltzing over to the front door.

"Thank you, Harvey. Can't imagine who it would be. The sun's just setting at this point. A little late for visitors," Mrs. Hare mused as Harvey reached the door.

Harvey pulled open the door with a, "Good evening can I-?" And stopped dead in his tracks. Staring down at him with a sharp scowl was Cagney Carnation.

"Hey, listen-."

Harvey managed a choked yelp and slammed the door shut. Mrs. Hare looked over irritated. "Harvey Hare, don't you go slamming doors around here! The frames can't take that much force these days!"

The little rabbit swallowed as there was a harder knock on the door. Mrs. Hare washed her paws. "I'll be right there."

"No," Harvey realized, "I got it, sorry! Just, uh, stay there mom. Is the cake burning?"

"I should hope not!" She gasped, turning her attention back to the stove.

Harvey cracked open the door and looked up worriedly at the carnation. "Y-you better leave or I'm gonna-gonna," he struggled.

Cagney realized the boy was probably going to need some encouragement.  "Get out here before I drag you out," he grumbled.

Harvey's eyes widened, not wanting a repeat of this afternoon. He quickly walked outside, leaving the door ajar in case he need a quick escape. Cagney loomed over him, something tucked under his arms.

Harvey pressed his paws. "I'm really, really, really sorry we went into your field."

"Okay, good to hear. Now-"

"Please don't feed me to the piranha plants."

"Oh for God's sake, I'm not gonna feed you to the piranha plants," he rolled his eyes.

"You promise?" Harvey asked.

"Just, shut up a second. And don't cry. I'm here to apologize." The words were like lead coming off his tongue but he managed to spit it out.

Harvey rubbed his ears, confused. "Huh, what did you say?" There was no way he could have heard that correctly.

"Harvey, who's at the door?" Mrs. Hare pushed open the door and her smile froze. She glared up at Cagney. "YOU! You stay right there!" She demanded, dashing back inside.

Cagney blinked and glanced at Harvey. "Uh, what?"

Harvey swallowed, realizing that he was not about to get fed to carnivorous plants. "She's getting weed killer."

The carnation's eyes widened. "Woah, woah, wait, wait a minute there!"

Mrs. Hare busted open the door, brandishing her hoe. "I've got my weed killer, you dirty dandelion!" She snapped.

The flower stared at her. "That's a hoe."

"Don't you sass me! Now why are you here bothering my son?" She demanded.

"I'm trying to apologize!" Cagney spat out.

She stopped brandishing the garden utensil. "Eh, what?"

"I'm apologizing, okay?"

"Really?" She asked.

"Yeah."

Mrs. Hare had a funny expression on her face, as if she didn't quite understand. "I uh, oh. Huh. Okay then. Thank you."

Harvey noted the carnation looking irritated still. "Mom, the timer went off for the cake."

"It did? Huh. Okay, just, hold this just to be safe," she instructed, handing the hoe to Harvey. She shot Cagney a quizzical look. "Well, color me surprised. If you start acting nice like this, I might know a daisy or two looking for a date to the dance coming up."

He stuck out his tongue. "Hell, no."

She laughed and walked back inside, leaving a calmer Harvey. The rabbit still wasn't quite sure. "You're apologizing to me?"

"Yeah. Sorry for nearly killing your friend and banging you up a bit. I thought you were someone else."

Harvey scratched his head with the hoe. "Oh, Uh, well, thanks. I appreciate that. I'll stay out of your field." He brightened up and pointed at the carnation. "But uh, you should say sorry to Mina!" He pointed out, a burst of courage in his chest. The carnation fixed him with a disbelieving look and Harvey faltered. "Please? She was really upset."

The flower sighed. "Yeah, I was going to. Do you know where she lives?" Harvey hesitated and Cagney threw his hands out. "I'm not going to do anything bad. I'm just going to apologize, got it?"

The rabbit nodded slowly. "Okay, she lives by Chip. Near the observatory."

Cagney hissed quietly to himself. That was a bit too close to Hilda than he would have liked. But he had already come this far. And chances were, she was already out and about. "Alright, thanks kid, appreciate that."

Harvey nodded and was about to go back inside when he stopped. "You better be nice to her or I'm gonna hit you with this hoe," he blurted out. Cagney chuckled.

"Well, well, looks like the bunny has a backbone.  I'll keep that in mind. Don't let your mom blab to too many residents, please."

----

It was dark out and Cagney had some difficulty finding his way above ground but he soon came across the home of the bats. It wasn't much to look at, but to be fair, he slept on dirt under a tree three quarters of the year, so a house was a house.

He saw the observatory and his stomach clenched. The dome was broken. There needed to be a new one but the cost alone was for this piece of astronomy equipment was, well, astronomical. Even if he was on speaking terms with Hilda, he barely had anything to his name. Still, that's not why he was here. He was here to see the bats.

He knocked on the door and flexed his feet. It still felt weird to be walking around uprooted. He never quite got used to the feeling. It was a bit unsettling sometimes. He waited for someone to answer the door.

"I'll get it mama" Mina stood up from the table and opened the door. Her eyes widened and immediately closed it back.

" Mina! What are you doing?"

"Run! He's come to finish me off!" Mina hold the door.

Cagney swore under his breath something along the lines of "for fucks sake" before knocking it again.

"Oh c'mon Mina..." Isabella opened the door this time, ignoring her child begging her not to, and crossed her arms. She stood there serious, pointing her ears at Cagney and discretely delighting herself with the scent of carnation.

--

Hilda stared at her empty cup for a while now. She was feeling bad for not putting on any stars. After a few minutes she stood up, packed some stars muttering colorful insults for a plant and went out to cast a cloud.

She started to gain some altitude when she notice a familiar figure on the neighbors house. She immediately casted more clouds to hide herself.

"What the hell he's doing there?" She whispered to herself, and discreetly moved her clouds closer across the sky.

Cagney found himself facing Mina's mother and had to resist the urge to let his thorns out. The woman was blind for fuck's sake, it's not like she could see how uncomfortable he was being there.

He swallowed and began carefully. "So, hi, listen, I'm here to...apologize," he managed. The word still felt like lead in his mouth. It was an awful word. He glanced at Mina who definitely was eyeing with some pretty righteous suspicion.

Isabella smiled enjoying how uncomfortable this was for him.

"Mina" she called her daughter who came out cautiously "Do you accept his apology?".

Mina was uncomfortable with the situation as well. "Eh... y-yeah? Thank you Mr Carnation".

---

Hilda was sorry she couldn't get any closer, but at least she managed to get a good view.

---

"Don't mention it. Seriously, DON'T mention it," he emphasized, "I'm really sorry about this all. But so help you if this gets around that I'm going around apologizing then I'm going to have bigger problems to deal with."

He hesitated. "And, uh, I think this is yours." He held out her notebook to her, "That's a pretty good drawing of Venus," he admitted.

"My adventure journal!" Mina opened her eyes widely holding the need to cry of happiness and took her precious notebook like she was holding a treasure. "Oh!" She hugged his leg "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

Isabella was pleasantly surprised and smiled sincerely. "That is very nice of you, Mr Carnation. And here I was thinking we were up to a bad start" her smile turning more charming.

Cagney resisted the instinct for his thorns to pop out at the sudden contact and froze briefly before realizing that this was a hug and not an attack at his legs. He carefully brought a hand down, tempted to pry her off but just kind of patted her head. "Yeah, yeah, don't mention it. I'd kinda be upset too if I lost something like that."

He glanced at her mother. "So, uh, are you and I cool, Miss, uh...?"

"Isabella Bechstein" she stretched her arm to offer a handshake. "And... we will be ok after I talk to you for a minute. Mina, please go to your room. I need to talk to Mr Carnation".

Mina nodded "Good night, Mr Carnation!" and she hopped happily to her room. There was a sound of a door closing.

---

Hilda's eyes widened incredulously. Was... a kid hugging Cagney? Why would any kid hug Cagney?

'Because he is charming as hell!?' Gemini replied giggling.

"Oh! Shut up!" Hilda tried to control her emotions even though she agreed. That damn dandelion can be a real gentlemen if he wanted to... like that time at the---she shook her head to prevent any more thoughts to run wild in her head and focus on what was going on.

Hilda was watching even more carefully now.

'What is going on?' Sagitarius slowly spoke.

'Argh! Can't we get closer?' Gemini complained.

"Shhhh!" The woman was starting to lose her patience.

---

Cagney brushed his petals back and shook her hand. "Fair enough. Cagney is fine, by the way. Mr. Carnation was my dad," he explained.

"Wait, shhh" the woman stood in front of him quiet shaking her hears towards the door. After a few seconds the ears stopped abruptly and she turned towards the door.

"I said, to your room, Mina!".

"No way!" Mina's voice sounded from the stop of the stairs "How did you know!? I was super quiet!" This time she slammed the door from the other side.

Isabella smiled proud of herself.

"Sorry about that. What were we... ah! Yeah, I'll call you Cagney then" her tone was really enticing. "So... there is no easy way to say this... so I'll just go ahead" she lowered her voice and got close to him. "Are you a junky?" She asked, back to being angry.

---

'Maybe she's an old friend?' Sagittarius carefully asked.

"What? She just moved in! Plus I've been with Cagney since... forever! I think I would know if he had a bat friend..."

'I guess...'

'They do look awfully friendly though.... ' Taurus stepped in 'look! She's getting closer to him!'

Everybody stared in silence.

---

Cagney's eyes nearly fell out of his head. "WHAT?! Definitely not!  I do not-why are you-?" He stopped talking, realizing what exactly she was referring to. He whistled. "Okay, for being blind, you're pretty perceptive. So, listen."

He got a little bit closer to her, so as not to be overheard by a potential eavesdropper in the form a tiny bat. "I uh, accidentally hit myself with my own dandelions. How familiar are you with dandelions?" He was hoping further instruction wasn't going to be necessary but it probably was judging by her face. Still he waited to see if this was the case, already putting together an explanation in his head.

Isabella had a good idea what dandelions did, but admitting it might not be so good for her reputation if she was planning on staying here a while.

"I know enough to prevent my kid to get close to it... what does it do exactly?" She played dumb.

Hilda was getting livid. Now Cagney was getting close!

"You ever blow on a dandelion and can't help but feel a little bit dizzy afterwards? Yeah, multiply that by a 100 and that's what I can do." He groaned.  "It's a self defense thing. They're not fast, but if someone runs into one, it creates a sense of motion sickness, dysphoria and a lot of confusion."

"I was trying to make some up when Mina's book landed nearby and scared the shit out of me...and I took one right in the kisser." He hung his head low at that. "It's really embarrassing..."

"Got to admit, it probably didn't help the fact that I have got pretty much no sleep last night after my friend's home got broken into while I was over. And your kid really looked like the cat who who did it."

He held out his hands. "I started putting two and two together when she didn't sound the same and she had wings...but then her rabbit friend started throwing stuff and then everything kind of went to shit."

Isabella listened attentively and cocked her head. "Y... you... make those..."

She was a bit confused, but it sure it was good to now that this fella can manufacture them. "And that's terrible, about your friend's house" her voice turning sweet again. "Does she live far from here? It’s not like I have a treasure in there" she pointed at her house "but I wouldn't want my little 'înger' getting hurt."

Hilda's cloud was getting grayer.

Cagney hesitated. "Yeah, she runs the observatory. Well ran it. I'm not sure she's going to be able to open anything more than some exhibits and minor stargazing for a bit. A couple things got a bit wrecked last night. " Like a friendship and possible relationship he wanted to add but kept that to himself.

He realized she called the little bat something else. "Wait, I thought her name was Mina?"

Isabella laughed "Her name is Mina, înger means angel in romanian. I'm romanian. And no. I'm not related to Dracula" she smiled. "It’s really too bad about the observatory... I'll try to pass by tomorrow see if I can help somehow." She open her mouth hesitantly and finally decided to speak. "Say... eh... this is going to be too forward but, if it's not too much trouble, perhaps you could show me around whenever you have free time? I would like to meet new people but it's kinda hard when you can't... well, see them". She hated to admit she had limitations.

Unless she had ability to blow glass with her wings, there probably wasn't much she'd be able to do about the observatory.

Huh. Romanian. Explained the accent. Cagney thought about asking why the heck they'd come to a place like this if they were from some other place like that but decided against it. People had their reasons and as long as it didn't lead to too many weird people showing up, he was fine to leave well enough alone. He was, however, caught off guard by her request.

"I am probably the worst person to ask, but considering you haven't come at me with a gardening hoe, I wouldn't mind showing you around," he agreed. At the very least, he could weed out the individuals that would try to mess with a blind woman. "I've got a free day tomorrow if you've got time? Not sure how settled in you are yet."

"Splendid!" She joined her hands cheerly. "I can make some time in the morning."

The sky was almost covered with dark clouds and sounds of menacing thunders were getting louder.

Cagney nodded, a slightly genuine smile on his face. "Mornings are good for me. I'll come pick you around 9?" He paused, "We may have to take a few breaks just cause I'm not the best at walking long distance without putting my feet in some soil. Will that be alright?"

He didn't know why he would check with her on that. It's not like he wasn't going to do it but there was something a bit attractive about her that made him extend the question. Maybe it was her looks. Or the fact that she was stubborn. Or the fact that he's pretty sure she swore him out earlier and that was always kind of fun.

The woman showed a delightfully charming smile at the flower. She was starting to find him interesting. "There is no problem in stopping now and then, " she said with her enticing voice "I'm not much of a walker either" she spread her wings in a innocently seductive pose to show she was more of a flyer. A huge thunder filled the sky.

Cagney looked at her elegant figure and felt himself swallow a bit harder than he intended. "Ah ha, yeah, wings. Those are nice. Er, flying. Flying must be nice." What was with him and girls that could fly? It was beginning to become a pattern, he realized, catching a glimpse of her curves.

The sound of thunder in the sky brought him back to reality.  He didn't remember there being any storm in the forecast. Then again, he hadn't really consulted the forecast since it was connected to Hilda. And the last thing he wanted was to be caught in the rain trying to find his way back home in the dark. "Well, it was a surprisingly nice to meet you and your daughter. I'll see you tomorrow morning then?"

"Tomorrow morning it is" the bat said with a caramel voice. She was about to turn around "oh! I forgot to thank you for bringing back Mina's notebook" she got close to him but she realised, thanks to her echolocation, that she wouldn't reach  the flower's face. "Hm... would you mind lowering for me?"she smiled and tried to keep that sweet tone.

He raised an eyebrow at her but shrugged and leaned down, figuring she was going to tell him something she didn't want her daughter to overhear. "Sure, what'd you-?"

Isabella softly kissed Cagney's cheek. "Good night" she whispered.

A huge lightning illuminated the scene followed by a terrifying thunder. "Dumnezeule! You be okay walking home under the storm?" She asked, worried.

Cagney felt himself completely heat up at the unexpected kiss and his mind went blank. He stood there a bit slack jawed until her words registered. He quickly shook his head to clear his thoughts.

"I uh storm. Yeah, no I'll be fine. Don't worry. I'll go by underground worst case. You have a good night, Isabella." The carnation backed up only to trip over his own feet. He got back up quickly. "I'm okay!" He assured her before taking off back to his home as his entire plant body still tingled from the small gesture.

He hadn't been kissed by a non flower in uh forever? And her lips had been so soft against his face that he was surprised he kept it together. Maybe that was a Romanian thing. A guy could get in a lot of trouble living with women like that.

Hell, he should apologize more often if that was a possible result. It was handy that Isabella was available tomorrow. Cagney was fairly sure he had something planned for Friday.

He stopped dead in his tracks. "Hilda," he realized out loud. He had actually managed to work up the courage to ask her out. Sorta. He chickened out and didn't specify it was a date persay, but it was definitely different than their normal types of hangouts so she had to have known something was up. He even put a reminder note on the flower he brought for her. Which he was pretty sure she had probably smashed in her anger.

Their date was Friday. "There was no way in hell she'd go. She probably wouldn't even remember and if she did, there's no way she would go," he told himself with an irritated sigh. Would he go? He didn't know. Maybe? Just to prove himself right that she wouldn't show.

He kept walking. Well, just as well Hilda was nowhere around. The last thing he needed was for her to be lurking around, listening in and getting the wrong idea about things. He still wanted to never see her again...right?

Isabella chuckled at Cagney and heard him leaving. She stood there a few more minutes delighting herself with the carnation's aroma that was still in the air and enjoying the noisy rain. She loved the rain. It felt good to hear the thunders over her head filling the emptiness.

---

Finally it started to downpour. Hilda was holding her head trying to keep the constellations in control.

'Let me have him! Let me have him!'

'He doesn't love us anymore!' Gemini started crying.

'I-it's probably not what it looks like...' Sagittarius tried to comfort the others 'maybe they did know each other?'

Hilda went back to her observatory seeing red.

"Unbelievable! That... that damn weed piece of... cutted grass-I can't even think of a good insult!" She went directly to her room and let herself fall on the bed. "...ooh... I know! I'll go this Friday, alright, but... with a 'friend'. I'll give him a reason to not want to see me again!".

Gemini stopped crying abruptly  ´oh! Who we gonna pick?!' They said cheerfully.

'I don't think this is a good idea guys... and may I remind us, we did tried to poke his eyes out' Sagittarius tried to reason with them.

'After he snapped a Goddamn tree in front of us!' Taurus immediately replied getting agitated.

–

Mina kissed her mother goodbye and took the road to school. At the observatory she saw the broken tree and a strange hole on the floor. This caught her attention! She immediately got close to the tree, mentally analyzing the cracks and shards. Same with the hole. She looked carefully at the way it was digged, there were no claw marks… so she ruled out mole-people. No, this was something else… something… that smelled like flowers. She looked up to the sky, maybe the answer was out there…

She realized she was going to be late if she lingered any longer, so she decided to come back later, maybe with Harvey, and take notes in her adventure journal. And so, she went to school happy and excited for her new discovery.

Mina got in class right when the bell started ringing. She had to run all the way from home and she was out of breath. She took her seat and looked around to see if Harvey was around yet.

Harvey made one last final sprint as the bell rang into the classroom and faceplanted with his desk.

The other school children started to giggle as the teacher shook her head and muttered under her breath. Harvey looked up, rubbing his forehead only to spot Mina and wave excitedly.

Mina got worried for Harvey and was about to go check on him when he waved at her showing he was ok. She smiled and waved back. The lessons of the day begun.

Unbeknownst to Harvey and Mina, Spike was already glaring at them both and plotting his revenge for detention the other day. His dad had tanned him good for showing up late to dinner so he was going to make sure he would return the favor.

–

Cagney did not sleep well. He kept jerking awake, sometimes mid transformation. He didn’t like the dreams he was having. They weren’t pleasant but exhaustion kept forcing him to try to sleep again, even as the sun was already up.

They were dreams of happier times between him and his former friend only for them to be tarnished quickly by his anger. Even a memory of a picnic turned to hearing his friend scream.

He tiredly opened his eyes. “I shoulda just let Tauros gore me,” he grumbled to himself. It probably would have hurt less to have two gaping hole chests in his chest than a big emotional one in his heart.

What was his plan if she did try to stop by? She wouldn’t. But what if? Would he violently throw her out? Or just burrow again. There was nothing the woman could do when he was underground. Not that she would want anything to do with him again.

Cagney decided burrowing was his best option. He was stubborn and if he said he never wanted to see her again and then he went to see her, she’d think she could just walk all over him. That she could accuse him of lying whenever she pleased without listening to him. If she had only give him a few minutes, he might have remembered that he caught the small spyglass and shown her the claw marks on the sheets covering the walls.

He tried to make his heart cold and it wasn’t quite working. Maybe with time. Time didn’t heal all wounds, but it certainly made them hurt a bit less. He wondered how long it would take to completely get over a 20 year friendship.

–

Hilda barely slept a couple of hours. She had spent the entire night turning in her bed, playing the night events over and over in her mind. That stare… She shivered. Since she couldn’t sleep she decided to start her day, there was a lot to be done anyway.

First she took a shower, hoping that might relax her a bit. She dressed up, and got down the stairs to the kitchen that still smelled like burn so she left the windows open. She skipped breakfast and went directly to the projection room. She grabbed a broom and a trash can from a closet and started sweeping lost in her thoughts.

HIlda kept swiping around until she stumble on the pieces of the big pot. She delightet herself remembering Cagney´s face when he saw the smaller pot inside. She really touched a sensitive fiber there. Her vision started to blur. She realised she was crying again. She immediately wiped her tears and she dropped the broom angrily.

“Stupid Cagney! That damn weed almost fucking killed me! ” She tried to change her sadness in anger again, but this time, it only resulted in more tears running through her cheeks. She cover her face weeping silently and slowly crouched hiding her face between her knees.

She hated herself when she succumbed to weakness like this. After a few minutes, she started to pick up the pieces of pot thinking she might be able to glue it.

She remembered Cagney’s comment about a failed art project and a shy smile showed in her sad face. He would definitely made fun of her if she tried to put this together. He would make a witty comment, and she would have a comeback, and they would forget about it with a laugh.

A stronger memory came back to her, terribly aching her heart: the time she got tricked by a certain someone, pretending to be someone else, made her fall for him so he would get her soul contract. She remember how Cagney fought for her, how he held her tight… He prevented her from losing her mind completely…

And last night… the way he looked at her… did he really mean it?

Near one of the pieces she found her old spyglass. She looked at it surprised, did they knocked out something when they storm off? She nearly gathered all the pieces of the pot when she found the statue.

Something was wrong here. She went back to the exposition room where those items belonged, nothing else was missing and everything was in order.

Her heart froze at the view of the purple flower next to the poppy.

Hilda put the things in place and got closer to check the plant. It was really pretty and … it had a note!

Her hand shook a little when she reached for it. It said : ‘Leaving a note to REMIND YOU we got reservations for friday. Also, try not to kill this one’.

“Oh… no… ” she felt the weight of guilt on her shoulders.

‘We’re definitely not going!’ Tauros voice echoed inside the woman’s head.

'What?!’ Gemini joined in. “We’ve planned this like a week ago!”

'Yeah! And it cost us a heated argument just to decide a place we both liked to go’ Sagittarius decided to join.

“C'mon you guys! You really think after what he said to me… after the way he looked at me! He would still go our date?” Hilda talked to herself.

'Oh! So it IS a date’ Gemini giggled.

“W-what? No… I mean… appointment? Rendez-vous-OH! Whatever! Point is, he is NOT gonna go!

And neither am I!” She threw the paper at the projection room.

Hilda stood in place a few minutes until she silenced the voices in her head. She took a deep breath and walked back to the projection room. She got discouraged at the sight of the huge mess and leaned on the wall.

She took some time to analyse the damage. There were shards everywhere! On the blankets, the pillows, the chairs… that dome was gonna cost a lot to rep-why there’s a hole on the wall?

Hilda frown and got coser, it was the vent! Why it was open? Her heart skipped a beat. Cagney was telling the truth? Somebody was stupid enough to break in? And she yelled at him. Her guilt was getting heavier by the second until she remember he almost choked her to death…

She held her head confused and sat on one of the chairs just to stand up right away at the feeling of sharp crystal in her rear. If she ever get her hand on the thief…

–

During lunch time Mina told Harvey about her discovery this morning.

“And, I’m telling you, that is NOT a mole people hole! It was way too big and no claw markings! Plus it smelled very good.”

Harvey scratched his ears. “Huh. I mean I’ve seen a few larger holes than normal but a really big hole? And a nice smelling one at that? Doesn’t ring any bells. The only nice smelling hole I’ve ever seen is the time my mom dropped an open bottle of perfume down a hole by accident.” The rabbit wrinkled his nose. “That wasn’t exactly a nice smelling hole though either. Did you wanna go check it out after school? What did the hole smell like?”

“We are definitely going to check it out! The hole smelled like flowers! And there was a broken tree near that too! My suspicion is…” she whispered to Harvey “Aliens! From Venus! I hope you remembered to bring my adventure journal, because this is a major discovery!”

Todd, the mosquito kid who was in detention yesterday with Spike heard them talking. With a grin he sat on Spike’s table.

“I know how you can get back to them!”

Spike eyed the mosquito classmate. “Lay it on me, bloodsucker. I’m itchin’ for it.”

“I heard them talking about a journal. It seems very precious to that new kid”. Todd smiled “it would be a shame if something happen to it.”

Spike rubbed his hands together. “It would, huh? Let’s say we visit the dorky duo on their way home, huh?”

The mosquito nodded at his friend with a grin.

–

Hannah waited patiently for the chance to talk to her cousin and the opportunity finally presented itself when her mother left the house for a few minutes to get a some things. She hopped over to her cousin and motioned him over. “Hey, Henry. I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you meet the big flower?” She asked twirling the red ribbon in her hair

“Yeah.”

“Was he as grumpy as Harvey says?”

“He was very grumpy. He yelled at me and threw me out and threw stuff at me.” Hannah’s face fell at that. She was really hoping her older brother had been exaggerating.

“Ah.”

Henry scratched his head. “It was weird though.”

“What?”

“He was really angry and stuff, but he asked me if I was okay.”

“Really?” Hannah asked, her face lighting up again.

“Yeah. And THEN he threw me out.”

Hannah wiggled happily. “Will you go with me to see him?”

“Heck no!”

“Darn.” Hannah thought of something else. “Do you think he needs a quilt?”

Henry thought about it. He didn’t remember seeing any bedding of any kind while in the pile of lost school supplies. “Maybe. I didn’t see if he had any.”

“Yay!” Hannah jumped happily. “I’ll get started.”

Henry shook his head as his cousin ran away to her room. This whole family was weird.  

–

After what it seemed like the longest day of her life, Mina rushed Harvey to go faster. She really wanted to investigate and explore the hole.

Harvey was moving as fast as his floppy feet could carry him. He never had to be rushed before unless someone was chasing him. Usually he was the faster one.

But Mina’s excitement was contagious and even he found himself eager to leave school and go check it out, even as something was gnawing at him inside that the hole was bad news bears.

As they were passing near the flower field Todd and Spike blocked their way.

The little mosquito grinned maliciously and stood behind Spike with his arms crossed. Mina immediately stood in front of Harvey.

“What do you want, Spike?!”

—

It had taken the whole day, but Cagney had finally sorted his thoughts. Or at least enough to lapse into a restless sleep once more. He had not wanted to be gored, sure, but had his reaction really that extreme? He had been exhausted, high off panicked adrenaline (nearly getting crushed by a massive ton of glass could do that to a fellow) and then kicked out and caked and nearly gored.

Maybe he could be slightly justified in a  counterattack and he could have just smacked her into a wall. That wasn’t much better but it was better than choking her. Could he really not have stood to hear her berate him anymore last night that it warranted suffocation? Well, he definitely got exactly that and she didn’t say another word to him.

And most likely she wouldn’t again.

He craved silence at the moment and stirred irritably in his sleep, almost aware of a loud commotion by his fence.

–

Spike grinned and chewed his lip. “I want your notebook, Mina. Now give it to me before I make you both sorry you crossed me yesterday!” He barked.

Mina looked at him surprised. How did he knew about her notebook?

“What notebook, you… you idiot!?” She was brave, but not very good in dealing with conflicts.

The shouting was starting to attract the other students heading home from school. They started to gather round, to see what would happen next. There was a general murmur of “What notebook? Like her homework notebook?’ someone asked.

Harvey winced and his ears drooped. Oh man, he’d normally high tail it out of here, not wanting to get beaten up in front of the entire class. Again.  However, Mina was standing her ground, albeit not that effectively. And he didn’t want to lose a friend this quickly. So he remained frozen, holding onto their backpacks instead.

Spike barked loudly again. “We overheard you at lunch going on and on about your special little notebook. So hand it over!”

Mina noticed the kids gathering around them. Second day and she was already in a fight… normally it takes a week or two… and the notebook, her precious adventure journal… she should have been more careful when she talked about it.

“Go away Spike, before you get hurt! ” she showed her tiny claws hoping it would discourage the little puppy.

Kids around gathered even closer when they realised there might be some blood.

–

Cagney was growing increasingly irritated. He just wanted silence now but there was a buzzing noise now. He opened his tired eyes to see a bee nearby.

Normally, he wouldn’t mind the bees, but today was an exception. “Hey, buzz off will you for a bit. I’m trying to get some sleep,” he complained.

“No can do, bud. We’re way behind schedule as it is.”

“Ugh.” Cagney wasn’t in the mood to argue and throwing out a bee was never a good idea (stingers hurt) But another idea came into his head. He could hit the pest with a dandelion and when he was disoriented, plop him outside and send him on his way. It was a bit harder to cough up dandelions in his regular form but there was no way he was going to transform back into his monstrous form. He had done enough damage with that, thank you very much. So he started hacking and coughing in an attempt to pull them out.

The bee gave Cagney an odd look. “You need a glass of water, bud?”

“No, hchh, hchh, I’ll be done soon,” Cagney couldn’t help but chuckle at the confused bee.

–

Spike smirked. “Ooh, look, this bat’s got claws. Cute. Well I got these,” he opened his mouth, showing off his canine teeth.

When Mina still didn’t back down, he barked. “Todd! Pull Harvey’s ears!”

Harvey squealed at that, drawing everyone’s attention and pulling his ears down. “Leave us alone!”

With the kids distracted, Spike charged Mina.

Mina opened her eyes wide at the look of Spike’s fangs, she didn’t think of that…

Todd obeyed with an evil smile on his face and attacked Harvey.

Mina wanted to go and stop him, but Spike charged on her making her lose her balance and fall on her back facing him. She tried to find a part of his body where she could sink her claws.

Kids around started yelling, encouraging them to keep fighting.

Harvey swatted and tried to desperately kick at the mosquito before seeing Spike push Mina down! He gave one more final swat before running to her aid, trying to push Spike off the B-cat.

Spike winced as Mina scratched at him but with his thick bulldog skin, it wasn’t as effective as she would have liked. He gave her another good shove to the ground before yanking away her backpack from a distracted Harvey.

“Todd! Keep em busy!” He yelled sticking his hand to grab the notebook.

The other children were really cheering and yelling now. This was really exciting now. Most people just gave up to Spike but this was really different even if Mina and Harvey were losing.

–

Cagney was about to chuck a wad of dandelion at the bee when the insect jumped backwards in surprise. “Who’s doing all that yelling?!”

The flower didn’t anticipate that and reared back to avoid the stinger, only for his head to hit the bench of his tree. He coughed and breathed in the dandelion attack instead.

The bee fluttered over to Cagney as the carnation choked and coughed. “Hey, hey bud, you okay there?” The bee asked in concern, reaching out to shake the flower.

He stopped as Cagney unsteadily jerked toward him, revealing his pupils dilating manic under the effect of the dandelions.

–

Todd quickly pushed Mina as she was about to tackle Spike making her fall on a very muddy zone making it difficult for her to get back on her feet.

He turned to Harvey, pointing his stinger at him.

“You better not move, Dumbo! Or this time I’ll drain you!”

Harvey froze at Todd’s threat, not sure if he could actually do it, but not wanting to risk it if he could.  He looked toward Mina worriedly.

Spike gave a triumphant shout and pulled out the notebook. He waved it in front of them both with a sneer. “Awww. So cute!” He laughed. He grabbed one of the pages and started to pull.

“NO!” Mina yelled when he started to pull the pages from her journal.

Harvey thought fast. He pointed behind Spike. “Hi, Mrs. White!” He yelled.

Spike immediately stopped pulling the page and looked around wildly. “Where? Where?”

Todd also looked back to see if Miss White was there.

When Harvey cleverly distracted Spike, she waved her wings with all her strength, release herself from the mud and was about to tackle Spike with her claws fully out.

“Ain’t no teacher here,” Spike realized, turning. He saw very very angry Mina lunging at him and panicked. He looked at the field, look at the notebook, look at the field, one last look at Mina and then chucked the notebook over the fence.

Harvey gasped. “Not the field!”

There were equal gasps and yells from the other kids as the notebook sailed over the fence and deep within the field.

Mina stopped looking with wide eyes at her notebook landing on the other side of the fence spreading some pages on the way.

She gave a furious look at Spike, her eyes filling with tears and her body shaking with anger. Then, she slowly walked towards the fence.

Harvey grabbed Mina’s arm. “Wait, wait, Mina! Don’t go in there, it’s not safe! We-we can go get my mom or something later just-!”

Mina was too angry, she just wanted to get her notebook and go home. When Harvey grabbed her arm she hissed at him. She cleaned a tear from her dirty cheek and climbed the bench with the agility of a cat.

She didn’t even looked around to see if there was somebody watching. She simply let herself down with the help of her wings.

Harvey stood there, every cotton fuzz ball on him standing on end. He swallowed and turned toward another student. “Can you go get an adult please? My mom or uh, someone?” And with that he jumped over the fence as well, trying not to freak as he did.

Two of the other children ran down the road. Looking for an adult.

–

Something landed with a loud flap near the bee and Cagney let a wild swing toward it, hitting a patch of clover instead with a dulled thud. The bee saw how hard he demolished that patch of clover and paled.

“Say, bud, I think I’m going to just head home. I’ll come back later.” The bee buzzed off quickly leaving a very disoriented carnation.

Cagney was really disoriented. This had to have been one of the stupider things he had done to himself. He laid still, seeing if that would make the world stop spinning but not by much. Unaware of the notebook that lay near him.

–

The two kids ran as fast as they could to the observatory and knocked at the door. Hilda was in no mood for visitors today, she had too much in her mind right now, so she decided to ignore it.

After a couple of minutes the kids started to lose patience and run to the next house.

They had more luck here, an adult was already outside the house gathering some berries from the nearby bushes.

“Help! Help please!” The kids yelled.

Isabella turned her hears at the direction of the sound. “Kids? W-what’s wrong?” She answered worried.

The kids were a bit out of breath but they managed to speak.

“Please, lady! Hhh you gotta help!”. Said one of the kids.

“The hhh the field hhh flower!” Continued the other one.

She heard 'help’ and 'flower field’’  and she immediately understood where she was needed. She just hoped Mina wasn’t involved. She dropped her basket with the berries and took flight following the strong smell of Cagney’s flower field.

–

Everybody looked in silence, almost as if they were holding their breath. Suddenly, they heard a thud nearby and they all gasped in surprise taking a step back, but they couldn’t see the carnation.

Todd, feeling that this wasn’t going to end well, got closer to Spike and whisper, “We should get outta’ here” and discreetly stepped away from the fence.

Spike did not move yet. “Nuthin happened yet,” he grumbled, “don’t be a chicken.”

Todd stopped walking away but he still kept his distance.

–

Mina stood still at the sound and tried to scan with her little bat ears the origin of the itm but her little heart was beating so fast it was almost the only thing she could hear.

Harvey tugged on Mina’s arm, drawing her attention and pressed a finger to his lips, giving her a scared, reassuring smile. The little rabbit pointed in the direction of a big tree. “I think I saw it go that way but we have to be really really quiet.”

The fact that the Carnation wasn’t already yelling might be a good thing. Maybe he was asleep. In which case they might be able to grab the notebook and leave. The two crept closer, Harvey still holding Mina’s backpack.

Mina looked at Harvey surprised and she showed a grateful smile. She felt very bad for hissing him before. She looked at the direction he was pointing at and nodded. She got on all fours and walked as discreetly as possible trying to keep her body hidden through the flowers.

Harvey spotted Cagney and prevented Mina from moving any closer. The flower was…asleep? Harvey wouldn’t have believed it, but yet there he was, lying down on the meadowy grass, not moving, facing away from them.

He sighed in relief but his ears drooped worriedly as they spotted the notebook. It was dangerously close to the carnation. He could see the b-cat’s eyes light up at it and he shushed her before she could shout in excitement.

“That’s Cagney. It looks like he is asleep…which is really lucky,” Harvey admitted. He was never asleep this late in the day. If someone was careful, they could probably get the book. He motioned Mina close and looked at his friend. She was awfully scuffed up from her brawl with Spike. Even her wings looked a little battered.

They wouldn’t have been in this mess it hadn’t been for him. He swallowed and pressed her backpack into her hands. “Stay here, I’m going to go get it. It’s my fault that it was even brought to school in the first place,” Harvey explained.

Mina gave Harvey an skeptic look and denied, moving her head. If the flower woke up she new she would be able to avoid it with her cat reflexes, she wasn’t so sure if Harvey would be able to move as fast. She really didn’t want him to get hurt…

She put on the backpack and pointed Harvey towards the bench to indicate him to leave.

Harvey was secretly grateful when Mina declined his offer. The carnation kind of spooked him a lot. He crept away just out of immediate reach of the plant and made a binocular hand gesture with his hands, hoping that would indicate to her that he was going to watch from a safer distance.

Mina nodded and smiled at him. She then turned to the carnation and walked closer very slowly trying to reach her journal with her arm. She realised she was shaking.

Harvey watched his friend creep closer and sighed. They were really lucky he was asleep. A little too lucky, Harvey realized, his attention flickering over to the flower. How could the carnation be asleep when the sun was out? There was no way they would could be this lucky. Unless…

Cagney wasn’t actually asleep.

Harvey’s eyes widened as he realized the carnation had moved slowly and maybe it wasn’t as noticeable if you were up close and could only see a part of him, but from where Harvey was, he could see the whole stem was twitching.

The rabbit suppressed the urge to shout. He had to warn Mina. He waved frantically at the bat who had his back toward him.

The little girl was too focused in not making a sound, she didn’t noticed Harvey trying to get her attention.

Finally she grabbed the notebook and picked it up as delicately as she could to prevent making any noise with the pages. It was really hard with a shaky hand. A few of the pages fell down making very little noise. Mina grinned her teeth and looked at the flower without daring to move.

–

Cagney’s eyes shot open at the small sound. God, he’s not sure if that was a real sound or not. In this state, he could probably hear colors. He should probably start with just standing and if he could manage that then maybe he was actually hearing real things.

–

Harvey hopped up and down now, watching the flower starting to rise up from his base, waving his hands frantically.

Mina bit her lip and quickly started to pick up the pages and putting them back inside the notebook. She turned around towards Harvey and this time she saw him jumping frantically. She thought he was just happy the she recover her journal and smiled at him holding the notebook triumphantly in the air.

–

Cagney’s head swiveled around as he rose to his full height. His eyes locked on a figure in front of him. One that wasn’t there before. He tried to focus on it but he couldn’t exactly see what it was. It was small, kind of dark. It didn’t ring any bells.

Until he spotted the pointed, cat like ears. And a tail. His eyes narrowed as his mind started to put two and two together. This looked just like the cat burglar from last night. Had she really been stupid enough to try to steal from him in his own garden. It even looked like she had a bag or something.

–

Harvey watched Cagney loom over Mina and his eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. He pointed and shook his head frantically back and forth, trying to get her to come to him. He didn’t think her vision was the best but she had to at least see that he was freaking out, right?

The little bat paled. Now she understood what Harvey was trying to say. She repressed the need to look back holding her notebook tightly against her chest.

She swore to herself again. She couldn’t go back out the way she came which meant she had to go forward. She looked up at the now partially open dome and noticed a couple rafters. If she could just climb up there, she could sneak out through the hole between the glass and the dome shield. Then she’d be scott free.

She got to work on unscrewing the vent, as silent as a mouse.

–

Hilda admired the look on his face, her plan worked perfectly! He wasn’t angry anymore and now their friendship was strengthened thanks to her little pot-cup-thingy. “ Yeah, you’re a big grumpy dandelion now.” Her eyes passed to his hands who were carefully handling the present. Her thoughts were starting to mix again… the distant giggle of Gemini reverberated in her head. She stopped staring at Cagney and tried to focus on the stars. Venus was starting to be more visible shining with a golden light. “Hey, we can almost see Venus.”

She laid down comfortably between some pillows.

He watched  Hilda adjust herself on the blankets and pillows before realizing he had been insulted. “Hey,” he protested. “Well, I might be a big grumpy dandelion but you’re a…”

A determined sky witch.

A fiercely intelligent woman.

A beautiful sylph of the sky.

None-none of those were insults. Shit. He yawned instead, thankfully for real, allowing him to leave the rest of that insult to disappear into the air.

He cleared his throat. He should really ask about sleeping arrangements. Would it be weird if he asked about sleeping arrangements? It would probably be weird. Why was this weird now? Was it weird because she had given him some very thoughtful gifts without too much sass? That she set up this whole room as an apology? That they were under the stars? They had fallen asleep under the stars in the field before but never inside. With a bed. And privacy.

Maybe he should just try to lie down near her. Not next to her. Just near her. The thought of lying down next to her made his petals curl slightly. But then again, what if he lied down and she gave him a weird look. Oh, that would be even worse. Maybe he should just bite the bullet and ask.

“Uh, so, uh, there’s no dirt in the pot, so did you want me to uh…you know?”

Hilda chuckled when Cagney finished his insult with a yawn. After his question she blushed and looked at him confused.  “Did I wanted you to what?… Oh!” She finally understood that Cagney was asking for a sleepover and not for what she was imagining “You can totally stay here tonight, I mean, bed is pretty much made” She laughed nervously. What was wrong with her today?

Crap. It didn’t look Hilda had actually planned for him to sleep here at all. But…she did just say he could. That was good, right? “I don’t have to if you don’t want.” He tried to phrase it differently, “Don’t get me wrong, I want to sleep with you, but if you weren’t planning on it-” He stopped midspeech. “I mean, not sleep with you like that, not saying you’re not attractive or whatever and I wouldn’t not do it, just, I. Wouldn’t. Mind. Sleeping. Next. To. You,” he punctuated those last words, hoping it would make sense.

The constellations in her head got all riled up at the prospect of sleeping with Cagney in a ‘mature’ way. Hilda kept them under control and decided it was time to cut down the weird tension that was obviously building up for some reason. She seriously started to consider she might have gone a bit overboard with her surprise.

She frowned at the plant with a smirk in her face.

“Jeez Cags… How about you shut your fly trap and lay down already!” She patted the floor next to her. “We’re gonna miss Venus.”

–

They didn’t make vent grates like they used to. Amber finally managed to finish unscrewing the last panel before she quietly removed the cover and tucked it behind her. It looked like there was cloth on the walls. She could climb that easy. She started to sharpen her claws and readjust the two stolen goods in her bag that threatened to spill out.

–

“Alright, alright. I’m lying down already, ya stubborn blimp,” he managed. Cagney carefully laid down next to her, initially making sure his foliage wasn’t touching her. But he had to adjust himself quite a few times and by the time he got comfortable, he was definitely touching her. Not too much, but he was aware that his leaves were definitely against several parts of her body.

He gave up trying to readjust himself further. He was the only one making this weird. He relaxed as he looked up at the stars. It really was quite nice here.  “So, Venus. Goddess of love. Big yellow planet? Tell me science stuff about it.”

Hilda’s smile widened while the giant flower tried over and over to accommodate next to her.

“Well…Venus is also known as the Earth’s sister planet. They have almost the same diameter and Venus  mass is—OH MY FUCKING GOD!” She stood up and stumbled over Cagney when she wanted to reach the door.

He was just thinking about how nice she would feel if he was able to press into her a little bit more but at the sound of her explanation suddenly turning into a shriek, his heart stopped in his chest.

Cagney’s eyes widened. “What?! What did I do?!” He called after her.

–

Amber nearly lost her grip at the woman suddenly screaming and only the fact that she had the rest of her paws latched onto the canvas along the walls prevented her from falling and exposing herself. This was getting risky.

–

Hilda run through the door cursing loudly and made her way to the kitchen.

A black cloud greeted her when she opened the door.

“Oh! Shitshitshit!” She turned off the oven and opened a window. She grabbed a piece of cloth and took out her coal looking cupcakes. She stared at them sadly “Fuck.”

–

Cagney watched Hilda leave the room before he buried his face in his hands. “Get it together, ya dumb weed,” he argued with himself. “This is literally something you’ve been wanting to do your whole life. Don’t blow it.” He pulled his fingers off his face and stared up at the sky only to blink in confusion. It looked like there was something hanging from the wall. He peered at it closer. “What the hell is that? Is that a person?” He cupped his hands. “Hey!”

The shout startled Amber enough for that she missed the next notch to cling to it and slipped from her canvas perch. She fell but quickly readjusted herself so she could land on all fours and landed nimbly. She looked up to see herself face to face with a very confused large flower. Her satchel popped open with the impact and out fell the weird spaceman thing she had picked up. It skidded across the ground until it landed near a large flower pot. “Oh shit.”

Cagney’s eyes followed the object and he recognized it as one of Hilda’s displays. His eyes narrowed as they went back to the cat. “Thought you could just come in and steal from Hilda, huh?”

The cat hesitated. “Yes?” She squeaked and darted to the side, barely dodging a large swing of his limbs. Cagney attempted to dig his roots into the ground to grab her only to wince as the roots collided with the wood floor. Right. He was indoors. No access to the soil here.

Didn’t mean he didn’t have a trick up his stem. And by trick, he meant acorn seeds.

Amber breathed a sigh of relief from behind her cover of the big pot. She spotted the heavy metal thing near something equally small and tried to go around to grab it, only for her to dart back to her hiding spot - barely missed by a rocketing acorn seed. She felt the pot shake with the force of wind of the projectile and realized if that hit her, it would be game over. She stuck a paw out blindly and grabbed the item and shoved it in her satchel without another look. She eyed the wall. If she made a mad dash for the wall.

But there’s no way she’d make it to the wall. She could hear the flower approaching and suddenly decided on a distraction. Before he could nab her, she pushed the pot roughly, sending it shaking back and forth dangerously.

Cagney’s eyes widened as the big pot nearly tipped over and quickly reached out to cushion its fall before it could hit the hard floor. He breathed a sigh of relief but looked up, furious and another acorn in hand.

Amber was so close to the gap between the glass and the dome. She spotted the carnation taking aim and realized her treasures weren’t going to be much if she was in jail. And one treasure was better than none! She reached into her satchel and chucked the telescope at him. He dropped the acorn and managed to catch the relic before it could smash to the ground. She just reached the edge when her back paw became tangled within the canvas cloth, leaving her dangling right below the dome’s glass lens. Amber struggled with a desperate whine, like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

–

Hilda decided to improvise. She made a cake-like sandwich with a layers of bread and raspberry jam and lit a used birthday candle before walking back to the projection room.

“Haaappy biirthdaaay tooo–” she stopped at the door of the room at the sight of Cagney aiming at her glass dome.

“What the…?” Her eyes widened.

Cagney grinned evilly and placed the telescope down. “Looks like you ran out of lives, cat,” he chuckled quietly. And with that he chucked the acorn as hard as he could at the cat. However, with one last panicked pull, the cat pulled free and slipped through the crack and out of the observatory. Cagney’s eyes widened as his acorn now shot toward the glass. “No, no no no no! SHIT!” He gasped, staring up at the glass.

The acorn slammed into the glass and fell to the ground. For a moment, nothing happened and Cagney breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh man, that was cl-.” A loud crack spread out from the impact spot of the acorn. Cagney cringed but when nothing more happened, he relaxed and looked up. “Well at least the glass is still up there.”

The glass fully schismed and shattered, sending large pieces thundering down toward him. He managed a leap to safety just as the large chunks of glass came crashing down, obliterating the large pot with one final, horrifying smash.

Hilda couldn’t believe her eyes. Did Cagney just destroy her glass dome? She stood there with wide eyes and her jaw dropped holding the sandwich-cake like an idiot.

“What. The. FUCK!?” That last word sounded like a thunder. The woman’s eyes lightly starting to glow.

Cagney didn’t even have to look to know how angry Hilda suddenly was. He could feel it. He turned toward her frantically. There was a legitimate chance of her murdering him. “Hilda! I know this looks bad but I can explain!!!”

He pointed up. “There was this cat and it had some of your stuff and it was running away and I tried to hit it but it moved last second and…I…” He looked up. The cat was not there. He paled.

Hilda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She looked at him very serious.

“Get out.” She said controlling the urge of turning into Taurus and run him over.

Cagney gaped at her before narrowing his eyes. “Are you serious right now?”

Taurus was getting stronger in her mind.

“GET OUT!” She shouted with another thunder sound.

Cagney realized she was serious. Deadly serious. He bristled angrily and stomped toward the entrance. If she said one more word, he was going to say exactly what he thought of all of this.

As the carnation passed by her Hilda looked at her plate, still frowning. All the work she put on this… ruined at a catastrophic level! How she was going to pay for a new dome? She grinded her teeth blinded by rage.

“ Hey Cagney!” She called him out.

That did it. He turned around, teeth sharp. “What?!”

Hilda threw the sandwich-cake right to his face.

“Happy birthday! ” She yelled, eyes glowing vividly.

Cagney saw red and it wasn’t from Hilda. He wiped the cake from his face and decided this was it. His roots desperately sought soil now and he had just barely touched them to the dirt at the front door when they practically drilled down into the Earth.

He turned around, sharp thorns covering his entire stem and arms, and loomed over Hilda. His manic eyes looked down at her with such loathing and contempt that it was almost poisonous.

“Happy Birthday, huh?” He snarled, his voice deep and warped, “You stupid, selfish husk of weather balloon. I should crush your traitorous little body in my coils.”

He emphasized that point by wrapping around  nearby tree and splitting it in half with a fierce squeeze. But that didn’t make him feel any better. It just made him feel angrier. “I can’t believe I even considered you a friend, much less anything more, you psychotic witch.”

The hateful language flowed freely now. There was no censor in this form. “If you didn’t believe me about the burglary, then believe this.” He leaned down so he could look her dead in the eyes. “I never want to see you again.”

Even full of rage, she stepped back at the view of Cagney turning into his monstrous form. Her rage immediately vanished as he crushed a tree with his vines. ´Holy shit´ said all the voices in her head -including hers-. She´ve never seen Cagney this angry before. Maybe she overreacted a little.

Cagney was getting closer and closer to her, she kept backing up until she felt the a wall on her back. That stare he gave to her, accompanied by those words make her freeze. Did he really just say that? The pain she felt was way too strong to bear it. So she turned it into hate.

Was he seriously giving her shit after breaking her dome? Inventing a stupid excuse for his clumsiness. After the lovely night she organised just for him!? ´Fuck this´ Taurus took over her mind… and body. Her eyes lighted strongly turning into stars, her body changed to a cloudy mist and in a few seconds she was Taurus.

“Then let me poke your eyes out!” She thrust angry towards him lowering her head and aiming for his stem.

Cagney knew two things about Taurus. One, the constellation was incredibly powerful and you had to be exceedingly careful about how you approached it. And two, its blind rage could make it a very easy target.

As soon as the bull was in striking range, a flurry of vines broke from the ground and wrapped around the charging constellation, suspending it in air. Cagney grit his teeth and smiled maliciously as he began to squeeze, feeling the air forced out of the creature of the sky. He almost continued but stop at the pained cry.

He remembered Hilda, and all the nice things she had ever done. How much it meant that she smiled and talked with him. That he enjoyed their time together even after gambling his soul. Is this how it really was going to end?

He sighed, despite every monstrous plant fiber urging him to finish the job, and released her, letting the semi conscious constellation drop to the ground with a thud.

“Bye, Hilda,” he managed to grit through his teeth before submerging underground.

Taurus turned back to a coughing Hilda trying to recover some air. She stared at the hole on the ground for a few seconds and rolled on her back. Softly, she lifted a shaky hand and rubbed her aching ribs.

Venus was shining beautifully, it felt like it was mocking her.  After seeing her friend like this, the broken dome didn’t seem like a big deal at all. Her eyes filled with tears but she was to stubborn to let them go. She gulp like trying to swallow her guilt and wiped her eyes.

She laid there a few minutes before painfully standing up and  and going home. She will have to think something very big for her friend to forgive her.

–

Cagney resubmerged in his field and collapsed to the ground with a bitter, pained howl. He gnashed his teeth, angry regret hitting him instantly. He wanted nothing more to go back, to check on her but there was no going back from that.

He broke the dome. The DOME. To stop some two bit criminal from taking things that yeah Hilda would have liked to keep, but ultimately would have rather lost. Anything but the dome. To even get it built had been a massive undertaking, having to carefully plan with Djimmi and Grim to even get the specs, heat and sand together. She stayed up for weeks to get it so she could share her love of space.

But to then turn on her. Because she kicked him out and threw cake at him? Because she didn’t believe him which he had to admit would sound like a rather flimsy reason if he hadn’t been there himself? Turning on her was unforgivable. There was absolutely no going back from that. He looked up and saw Venus. He sniffled. “That really is pretty,” his warped voice admitted. He clung to his tree for support, feeling wretched and now, truly alone. He swallowed the bile in his throat and continued to watch the sky until exhaustion mercifully took him.

–

Amber didn’t stop running until she was safely within the reaches of her own home. She panted heavily. She needed a shower and a drink after all of this. She placed her satchel on the table and stopped as it made an odd clunking noise. She turned around and open the satchel before reaching in to pull out her spaceman.

Except it wasn’t a spaceman. Instead she was holding a small clay pot. Crap. She must have grabbed this by mistake. It was definitely homemade judging by the imperfections and lack of holes. And it was worth literally nothing. Amber considered tossing it but decided against it, instead putting it in her kitchen and putting some apples in it. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do with it, but for now, it looked like it was happy enough to hold the apples.