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Open House: A Diaperfur Identity Adventure

Level Four, Episodes 15-17 (Sequel Screen!)

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Episodic diaperfur adventure, continues the prior parts of Open House. See links at the top of the page.

If you haven't read them, check them out first.

*Special note: * This part deals with some more mature themes in places and ends with a cliffhanger. If you're easily upset by darker content, you've been warned, may want to wait until more is posted before reading.

Author's Note: This is a diaperfur story for readers 18 and over only; if you're under--do your homework! It involves furs in diapers who are not (chronologically) babies, and furs in dresses who are not (biologically) girls, often doing things of a sexual nature. The story is fantasy and emphatically not a representation or recommendation to do anything in real life. Individual characters express their own views, not mine. It is part of the Pink and Blue series, which includes a lot of characters, so if you have not read _any_prior stories in the series, this is probably not the place to start.

_Rapid recap: _After weeks of preparation on both sides, the ultimate clash between the fraternity of boyish AB/DL diaperfurs, Baby Blue, and their enemy Pink team's sissifying Academy for Special Boys is underway! With both teams throwing their ultimate parties at the same time, the boys' leader Roger has revealed the secret tunnels he dug to his sissifying sister's party site -- not to launch an attack, but to lure cubby furs away from her Open House to a massive surprise bash that represents the combined effort of all his boys! When we left our heroes it looks like Baby Blue has won the battle for control of the city's age-playing scene and totally upstaged their sissy opponents! What could possibly go wrong?

Hmm. . . . Where have I heard that before?

Character Reviews:

Baby Blue Boys:

Roger , the leader of Baby Blue and similar boys' clubs that preceded it, is a good-hearted Labrador retriever who doesn't always see eye to eye with his sister and neighbor, the leopardess Calliope, leader of the enemy sissy faction. _Outside the lifestyle:_Roger owns a comics and hobby store that has been expanding thanks in part to the many customers he's gained by long leadership in the city's age-playing scene; his secret network of friends furnished supplies to make Baby Blue's counteroffensive party a huge event.

Rian , his sidekick, is a diaper-loving wolf and ardent collector of cub gear, dating the sissy princess fox Serafina across enemy lines. He's the chief recruiter and event organizer behind the rapid expansion of Baby Blue. _Outside the lifestyle:_Rian is the black sheep son of a wealthy family and has an icy relationship with his father, though he broke the ice with him after a long silence now that his girlfriend's show needs help.

Dex , a sensitive raccoon martial artist left incontinent by a crippling tournament injury, is Baby Blue's combat specialist. He's dating Baby Blue's engineering genius, the bunny Twitchy, but he'd secretly rather be with his best friend Rian. Outside the lifestyle: Dex has always been a committed environmentalist and Twitchy's maneuvering landed him an invitation to work as the student assistant of one his high-school heroes, a globetrotting ferret activist.

Twitchy , Baby Blue's chief engineer, has been bad lately. His underpawed maneuvering landed his boyfriend Dex a dream job, but he may not have gotten away with his scheme as cleanly as he thinks. He seems a little different since Dex pulled him out of a lab fire he accidentally started. _Outside the lifestyle:_Twitchy is a kid who pulled himself up from a bad, rabbit and rodent-only neighborhood and landed a scholarship that sent him to college early. But none of his Baby Blue friends, including his boyfriend, know how early; the bunny just turned eighteen.

Jax and Ace , ex-Boy Scouts, are the team's wilderness and recon leaders. They're also the team's resident blue-on-blue couple, and they've been concerned about Dex and Twitchy's troubled relationship. Jax was on Twitchy's tail after the rabbit's plan to stage a lab accident so Dex could have a heroic moment went awry and Dex wound up saving him for real. Rian listened to Jax's unproven theories and ordered him to stop with the meddling.

Pink Team (Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys):

Calliope , leopardess headmistress of the sissy academy, is Roger's sister and rival. She's intensely protective of her sissies and always has their best interests at heart, but in true feline fashion, once she's decided what's best for you, she isn't necessarily going to consult with you about it.

Cassandra the Newfoundland is Calliope's trusted second-in-command and the brawn of the Pink faction. The sissy Newfoundland was handling security for the Open House. She teaches home economics at the sissy academy, and is exceedingly protective of Calliope.

Serafina , a sissy fox princess who defected from Roger's side to the pink team long ago, is in love with and dating the boy's second-in-command Rian, although being on opposite sides of the battle of the AB bands, the two haven't spoken for days. Teaches sex education and girls' culture at the sissy academy. _Outside the lifestyle:_Serry is starring in a local Shakespeare festival but being outed as a transgendered sissy fox has cost the festival one of its sponsors. She thinks Rian doesn't know but in fact he's been embarrassed to talk to her until he's done something to help.

Shelley , jaded ex-Girl Scout and mercenary female squirrel dominatrix, was brought in as a consultant to help with the academy's Open House; she runs BDSM abduction scenarios for wealthy dungeon clients and at various fetish events, and claims to have developed chemical aids to sissification, hormone repressants that can simulate the effects of chemical castration. She's a bit hardcore for the AB/DL crowd, but she seems to know Callie--and Jax--somehow. Lin Lin doesn't like her.

Lin Lin , a petite bossy panda, is the girls' team's resident hard-liner, a post-op transsexual who's athletic, smart, multi-talented, and resolutely girly. She's unhappy about being pushed to the sidelines and about Shelley's presence. Teaches physical education and handles routine discipline at the sissy academy. Only a few furs know the about the panda's sex change, including a boy's team member she once found an unlikely, and surprisingly sympathetic, mission partner. Since she and he parted, though, she seems to have a special grudge against him.

Remember the big guns now? Good. Then . . . let's play!

Level Four: Sequel Screen!

Episodes 15-17 (3 episodes)

Episode 15: Best of Both Worlds!

Episode 16: Collision Course!

Episode 17: Unraveling!

Episode 15: Best of Both Worlds!

"Welcome," said Rian gleefully, clapping a paw on a refugee sissy bear's shoulder, "First, let's clean off the tunnel dirt with a trip down the waterslide!"

"But my dress....," the bear said, sounding worried. "I can't get it wet, I need to--"

Rian rolled his eyes as he clapped a paw around the sissy's shoulder and led her off. "Still thinking like a girl, huh? Okay, okay, we'll send you in a swim diaper and nothing else. Let's hope the waterslide washes off some of the cooties so you can start thinking clearly, and remember that clothes are made_for _playing in. Then, I'll help you into something more appropriate."

All evening long, the Baby Blue boys had watched the crowds in their playsite swell little by little as furs popped out of the escape tunnels that Roger had dug to his sister's feminizing Academy for Special Boys. Hours earlier Baby Blue Leader's had revealed his secret attack plan in a message to the enemy team: announcing that Baby Blue was throwing the ultimate baby boys' age-playing party, at the same time as the sissy school's Open House, and that tunnels under the academy led directly to it! And at the center of the amusement-park-like, age-players-only party site that Baby Blue had pulled together for the weekend on an abandoned campground stood a changing tent stocked with the boys' first bulk shipments of adult diapers from around the world.

In that changing tent were several standing plastic wardrobes that Rian had filled with cubby accoutrements, many his own, many Roger's, many donations from Roger's older age-playing friends, and many group property, in various sizes, but all boyish in theme--sailor suits, G.I. Joe pajamas, rocket ship and plant tee-shirts, and the like. He had been redressing sissies who asked for amnesty, or occasionally surprising overly grown-up looking furs who came into the changing tent by also fitting them into cubby outfits when he could find ones that fit them. Of course, the little babies never had a say about what they would leave wearing, and there was at least one pouty mink marching around the playsite muttering to himself and looking extremely unhappy to be in a sailor suit, since he was afraid of swimming.

That's not to say, though, that there wasn't movement in the other direction through the tunnels, too. Baby Blue's sentries were instructed to studiously look the other way when furs slipped back into the tunnels, and occasionally boys who had the opportunity to pop into the sissy academy for an hour or two slipped on pink shirts or dresses and pretended to be sissy team members returning through the tunnels. While Rian was un-sissying the bear, the trailblazing ex-Boy Scout Ace, in another section of the campground, looked over his shoulder critically to see a hedgehog in a purple shirt with a pair of headphones around his neck, brushing dirt off himself, rejoin the tail end of the group he was leading on an imaginary safari. "Jason," the lynx said severely, "where were you?"

"Noooowhere," said the hedgehog, reaching up to flick off a daffodil perched behind his ear.

The malamute Byron, the boys' team's swimmer and lifeguard and one of the trio who had delivered Roger's message to the academy, on a break from lifeguard duty at the waterslide, hopped up on to an empty stool at the counter in front of an old-fashioned soda fountain set up near the center of the playsite. The big dog looked over the cubs around him. "Next round's on me, cubbies!" the malamute said. "Drink up!"

Kyle, the Dalmatian bartending for the night, who was mixing sodas and syrups together more or less at random to create cubby concoctions for his customers, frowned at him. "Everything's free."

"Good, then it fits my budget," the malamute said, tussling the headfur of a raccoon cub scout already seated in the stool next to his. "Surprise me, put whatever you want into it."

Kyle grinned and began mixing sodas, his back to the customer. Then he handed a glass mug to the malamute. Byron frowned into it for a moment. "It looks weird," he said cautiously. "You taste it first."

"I'm, umm, allergic," the Dalmatian lied.

"You're allergic to soda?" Byron asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "I don't think that's possible. And I'm pretty sure I've seen you drinking soda."

"I'm only allergic to diet soda," the Dalmatian tried. "And I think I got some in there."

"Is there a jukebox?" the cub scout interrupted. "I wanna hear music."

The malamute smiled slyly. "Kyle's got an iPod," he suggested. "He could plug that into a speaker."

The Dalmatian fidgeted; his apron shifting out of place as he did. Underneath it, he was wearing both the collar Twitchy had surprised him with on the way, that said he had to be pointed home because he couldn't tell directions, and the white on-black version of a play shirt from Rian, that announced he had just learned his ABCs. The wolf had given it to Kyle before overwriting his existing playlist with versions of the alphabet song. "Noooo I can't," he said, blushing. "I mean, you wouldn't want me to. My taste in music is a bit eclectic. I'm not so in touch with the top 40."

Byron grinned. "I heard from a wolfy your listening is more like the top 26," the black dog said pointedly, and added over his shoulder to the cub scout, "Kyle can't spell."

The Dalmatian pouted. "I can too," he said. "It's just some words are hard."

"Like cat?" asked Byron, leaning forward and resting both elbows on the counter, producing from his shirt pocket a piece of ruled school paper Rian had handed him with Kyle's name printed in a childish scrawl on the top, with the wolf's red pen corrections on it.

"It sooounds like a k," the spotted dog protested.

"Can you spell _my_name?" asked the coon scout nicknamed Kit, hoping to get in on the conversation. "It might be easy enough."

Kyle looked around shiftily and cast a sneaky glance out of the side of his eyes down at Kit Raccoon's still exposed, labelled diaper. "Yooooour name goooooes, B," he said slowly, "A-B-Y."

"Hey no fair," whined the raccoon, covering the stencil print on the front of his diaper with one paw. "You cheated!"

"What do you think of Project B & K," asked Rian resting a paw on Twitchy's shoulder as the two, both on break, retrieved a bucket of warm, buttery popcorn to share from the snack counter and walked by the soda booth in an exploratory loop around the playsite. "Cute together, right? Black on white," he gestured to Kyle the Dalmatian, "White on black," and to Byron the malamute. "One can't spell. One can't count. They can help each other with _those_things. Between them they might be able to get through a whole activity book! They'll be changing each other at least before the night's through."

Twitchy flicked an ear. "I know K," he said, half-smiling. "He's not making it home in the post-party crash. He doesn't have a ride and that collar has him totally aroused and distracted even trying to give directions anywhere, something he already has trouble with. He'll either be sleeping here or he'll have to seize the first option that presents itself."

"But did you give Kyle the stuff?" the wolf asked.

Twitchy held a finger up to his muzzle. "Don't talk so loud," he warned.

The two moved on toward Dex's combat area, hoping to catch him after the current round of combat simulations wrapped up.

Back in the academy, Calliope's girls-take-the-lead Sadie Hawkins dance, to which the submissive sissies invited those partners who had understood their desires and limits best over several days of couples screening, had begun to move outside. The sissies and their partners still in attendance were greeted by rains of flowers and fairy powder as catapults near the academy woods launched loose bundles of them that came apart in midair. Boys wearing their dresses outside for the first time felt a little tingle as they stepped on the soft dirt. "Furs could see, daddy!" said one of them, a slight cougar, giggling, blushing, and shaking like a leaf as he clung to his taller partner's arm.

"Well, then, sweety," said the tiger he was latched on to, patting his head, "just keep doing your best to act like a real girl, that way no one will find it strange, will they? We took care of things so you wouldn't have to use the men's room anywhere, remember? And you're so pretty right now that would be the only real giveaway." His cub nodded carefully, wiggling his diapered bottom, and seemed to relax as his partner kissed him on the forehead.

The event was going well, but there was no denying the ranks of the pink faction had noticeably thinned over the last few hours. Calliope insisted that any furs who snuck off would be back before long. The panda and girls' team combat expert Lin Lin wasn't so sure, and she started as she felt a huge paw on her shoulder.

"You were right, Lin Lin," whispered Cassie the Newfoundland, the school's second-in-command, glumly, "I should have been more worried. This is very, very bad. I knew Roger's moves would be difficult to predict and ultimately we would just have to weather his attack. But I've never seen the mistress' brother like _that_before. He's played every chip he has this time. Even some of the safe furs--"

The dog turned to grab the arm of a cross fox trying to slip by her and surreptitiously rejoin the group. "Swifty Fox," Cassandra said mournfully, her huge brown eyes glimmering from beneath her bonnet, "where were you?"

"Noooooowhere," answered the fox meekly, dropping the pale blue stick of cotton candy he had been holding behind his back onto the ground. Seeing he was caught, he improvised, "Okay, just . . . reconnoitering. Making sure the enemy wouldn't launch an attack. But as soon as I saw their deployments weren't in an attack formation I didn't do anything else I came right baaa--"

The dog frowned glumly and looked down at the safety pin caught in Swifty's skirt. "Are you wearing one of their novelty diapers?" she asked, sounding depressed.

"I dunno," the fox said, his ears drooping, deciding to play cubby. "What's novelly mean?"

"Just run along," said Cassandra, releasing him. "I'm glad you came back to us."

The cross fox kissed her huge paw lightly, and scampered off in search of his caretaker.

"This is a special place, Lin Lin," the Newfoundland said, obviously distressed, "I know you_understand. But we need to maintain a certain minimum enrollment to keep it open. It's not just for sissies in sub/dom relationships. The headmistress can help anyone accept his feminine side and get comfortable with girliness here. _Anyone. We have to show the town that. And that we're still needed. I know I've lectured you about equilibrium in the past. But this time things are different. The balance has just shifted too far in the boys' direction, and the seesaw might not tilt back. We may need to do something drastic."

"Isn't this," snapped the panda, "when your mysterious backup plan kicks in?"

"Oh yes," said the Newfoundland, brightening. "My mysterious backup plan! _That_still might work."

Lin Lin rolled her eyes when the dog didn't say anything further. "Do you need help implementing it, maybe?" she suggested.

The dog patted her head. "Shelley can help with that," she reassured the panda, who looked up at her curiously. "Why don't the three of us have some cookies in private?"

Back at the main operation site, Rian put a paw around the rabbit's shoulder as they walked through the playing crowd together, alternately taking pawfuls of popcorn from the bucket held between them.

"You looked like such a baby wiggling your bottom for half the town on that video screen," Twitchy remarked.

"I'm second-in-charge here," Rian protested. "Way bigger than most of you."

"I think wearing _those_special-order baby diapers," the rabbit taunted, poking at the exposed thick leg gathers, which seemed to have twice the bulk as the rest of the already fairly thick foreign diaper, "makes you into a total baby."

Rian whimpered and shifted a little, responding immediately to the suggestion and feeling as though he'd dropped a foot. "Better hope not," he pouted, "cuz ya promised you'd take my next messy change, Twith, 'member?"

"Uh huh," admitted the white rabbit, and patted his regressing friend on the head. "I do remember that."

The wolf looked up bashfully at the playmate who had been so distant in recent months. "Hey, Twitch," he said, a little more seriously, "I don't know if I've, maybe, left you out of anything I should have let you in on. We've all been under a lot of stress lately. You more than most of us I realize. I know that school is a bigger deal for you than for the rest of us. But, ummmmmmmmmm--" The wolf stuck two buttery fingers in his mouth and nursed on them, looking all around the playsite gleefully as though he'd entirely forgotten he was in the middle of a sentence.

"But ummmmmmmm?" Twitchy asked after a minute, prompting him.

Rian fidgeted and wriggled his bottom more and more as he withdrew his fingers long enough to suggest, "But ummmmm, if you wanna spank my l'il bottom during that change--or, in fact, any time tonight--"

"You are such an idiot, Rian," the rabbit said fondly, his paw feeling the bulk on Rian's rear, and tugging at the thick leg gathers experimentally, "but brace yourself waddle-wolf because that is totally happening more than once."

By the time the two had made a second circuit of the playsite, Byron the malamute was on his back on the ground, both legs in the air. He was tugging at his shoelaces while the slight cub scout sitting on one of the high stools attempted to demonstrate something to him with one removed sneaker of his own, but it appeared he wasn't having much luck. Kyle shook his head as he leaned on both elbows on the counter and watched the two of them, not realizing that his apron had shifted to the side and both his collar and part of the message on his tee shirt were exposed. The malamute's soda remained, untouched, on the counter.

"Rian, you were wrooong!" Byron yelled out, tugging at his hanging shoelaces as he flopped around, "Look what I can do!"

"He means can't do!" called out Kyle, sighing.

"Can _almost_do!" the malamute on his back, struggling with his shoelaces, called out to the passing pair, correcting himself. "I've almost got it! Kit's been teaching me for fifteen minutes!"

"He means forty-five minutes!" called out the Dalmatian bartender, burying his head in his forepaws.

Twitchy and Rian grinned at each other but pretended not to hear and kept moving.

In the wooded groves around the academy, Calliope watched as sissies who had moved outside, approaching their partners shyly, curtsied to their chosen tops and made another round of invitations, pulling their partners behind the trees and kissing, kneeling, or lifting their skirts; some had switched partners even during the dance itself. Their numbers were smaller than she had hoped.

"They'll be back," she muttered to herself, flicking open one of her silkscreen fans and waving it gently, shaking her head. "After all, if they passed the tests, they belong here. There's no cause for alarm. Still," she sighed, "how did this happen? My goofball brother got the drop on me."

The leopardess smiled and looked up as a white canine in a sleeveless top hopped out from behind one of the trees, a panicked glint in his eyes, offering a welcome distraction. He hadn't realized until too late his hiding spot was about to be tumbled into by an eager couple in the throes of what was soon to be more than making out.

"I'm only here for fifteen minutes!" Ryo, whose shirt was still dirty from crawling through the tunnel, yipped insistently as the feline headmistress's gaze lighted on him, his paw resting on a foam sword tucked into his belt. "I only came to see for myself how icky all of you pink sissy types are. Then I'm leaving."

The leopardess smiled sweetly at the boy team combat trainee. "As you wish," Calliope said to the white dog gently, flicking her fan open and gesturing toward a moss-covered rock, "but you'll surely be more comfortable for that short time, dear, if you sit down."

Since each sissy had had the right to give out multiple invitations, this was a rare gathering where there were a few more tops than bottoms, and the handful of caretakers on the sidelines back inside the auditorium, where there were still furs dancing, looked nervous about having been left out. A golden retriever padded over to one of them shyly and took both him and his neighbor by the paw. "Come on," she whispered, "I can take two of you."

It was break time in Dex's combat zone. Dex's uniform was only slightly worse for the wear from several rounds of four-legged fighting -- in truth his cloth diapers, whose warm bulk pressed close against skin where his fur had been trimmed back, had taken most of the damage. The raccoon stood up and hopped down from the jungle gym to let one of his combat lieutenants take his post, taking up the backpack that contained his changing supplies, among other things.

The coon found what he wanted quickly, adjacent to a small group of furs clustered around a tracking hound. He slipped one arm out from the strap of his backpack and let it slide down to hang on one shoulder, biting his lip consideringly. He saw the cubby crowd around the ball pit, and he had had about enough of well-intentioned but incompetent helpers messing around with his changing kit and fighting over who got to use which supplies when changing him in the last several hours.

"Now, now, try to be orderly and stay in line," Jax, the tracking hound in the Boy Scout uniform who ordinarily led the boys' woodland patrols, was saying. "Ace and I can only take three cubs canoeing at a time! I'll go with the next three as soon as he comes back with the boat."

"Whhhhhy's it taking so long for Ace to come back?" whined a short beaver in line. "And whhhhhy did the boat come back empty last time? Is it true that you're going to put us in arm floaties and toss us into the water down the river to dog-paddle into a secret swimming hole?"

Jax's eyes narrowed. "Who told you that?" the tracking hound asked harshly. "Cuz whoever did is in for a spanking."

"Jax!" Dex exclaimed, cutting around the cubs to clap a paw on his friend's shoulder. The coon pointed at the adjacent station. His eyes were twinkling. "I'm so going swimming in the ball pit before I clock back in! I haven't seen one of those in forever. Watch my stuff? I know _you_won't lose it."

The tracking hound grinned at him and accepted the coon's backpack as he held it out. It wasn't often he saw Dex so unabashedly happy that his tail was flicking. "Go to it, sir," the Boy Scout said, saluting him.

Dex darted off, clambered up a tree and into a low-hanging tree branch, and, from it, dropped foot-first into the ball pit a few feet below, giggling as he landed and sent up a virtual splash of balls, startling some of the cubs around him.

In the small teacher's lounge near the auditorium back at the academy, Cassie was speaking in hushed tones to the two furs who had stolen away from the dance with her. "It won't be easy," said the Newfoundland, "but based on these extraordinarily," her gaze flickered up to Lin Lin, and back down to the briefing materials, "detailed old mission notes, I believe you're looking at the boys' team's weakest link. A soft spot right at its center. Our best chance, maybe our last chance right now, is to hit it hard and hit it fast. In the dead of the night tonight, when they'll all be tired out and asleep. Tomorrow those cocky boys will wake up and see what the academy can do for a fur in just one night. As soon as Shelley checks the accommodations, the two of you can move out."

"So let me summarize what you're saying," said the panda, looking up from the small table around which she, the mercenary squirrel brought in to crush any boy team opponents in the event of an attack, and the Newfoundland had privately huddled.

The panda looked down at the pictures the Newfoundland had put on the table, her eyes flickering from them, to the squirrel, to the big dog, and back to the pictures, chewing her lip thoughtfully, running through likely scenarios. Eventually she delivered her summary, an arch edge coming back into her voice, "There will be fighting after all."

Next time: Collision Course! The sissy team prepares a mysterious last-ditch attack and Jax takes (or doesn't take) a fateful message.

Episode 16: Collision Course!

Byron had officially given up on trying to tie his shoes. In a can-do-cub-scout spirit, the team's star cadet had suggested they try reverse-engineering the process.

Thus he had tied the malamute's shoes, and he had set the big dog back on his back on trying to _untie_them, and memorize the steps in reverse order, thinking it might get him at the very least to a starting point. Kyle had demanded they relocate to _behind_the counter instead of out in front, for fear the malamute might end up blocking traffic to and from the soda booth for hours.

Shortly after that, the crackerjack scout, finally realizing he could easily end up spending all night tutoring the life-guard without producing any result, had made an excuse and moved on to participate in some of the other attractions before he missed out on them.

"I can't watch this any more," said Kyle the Dalmatian taking off his apron and setting it on the counter to indicate he was on break. Turning to face the malamute behind him, Kyle got down on his knees, letting the bigger dog's footpaws rest on his shoulders. "Knot tying is the only cub scout badge I ever got, you know!" He reached out with one paw and felt at the front of the malamute's crotch, experimentally. "So let's take care of those three knots you're flopping around and struggling with."

"I have _two_shoes!!" the big dog whined. "There are _twoooo_knots to untie!"

"Right, I almost forgot your other problem," said Kyle, rolling his eyes, as he squeezed the malamute's well-padded crotch through his jeans experimentally. "You can't count."

Rian wandered over to the assembled group of boys waiting with Jax for the canoe, standing on his tiptoes and eying them curiously, then shook his head.

"Wait," said Jax, slipping around them and catching the worried-looking wolf's paw, "what's wrong?"

"Oh," Rian said distractedly, sending up a cloud of talcum as he tugged at his fresh German printed diaper, which was covered with colorful babyish animal cookie shapes all slightly askew, "just looking around to see if Twitchy came back yet." He pointed to the rabbit's station, and Jax stared after his finger, to see a put upon Doberman running back and forth between his go-cart track, the science tables, and the robot arenas, where cubs were battling each other. "Diesel said he scampered off to take a call on his cell phone, then said he'd be back in like half an hour before he took off."

"Took off?" asked Jax sharply, instantly alert. "He took off in the middle of our big event? Where? What for? Who's manning his station? Squeak?"

"That's the weirdish thing," Rian admitted, "Squeak is missing, too. And Kyle is kind of -- indisposed. The Doberman is doing as much of the engineering stuff as he can. Jax, don't look at me like that--" the distracted wolf added harshly, as though suddenly recalling who he was talking to. "I'm sure it's nothing bad. I think he mightbe getting something ready to show Dex later on this weekend. His big surprise. You haven't seen Twitchy just these last few hours. He got so into my little matchmaking project at the last minute he practically took it over and just walking around the playsite he seemed so -- I don't know -- like a new recruit again, like he wanted to hug everybody. He and Dex are supposed to be going off together when we hit the graveyard shift for some post-party thing. That's why I'm not going to pester Dex about this." He looked down at his footpaws. "_I_couldn't be the one to spoil his surprise for Dex, you see. That wouldn't be fair. I feel like Twitch and I just got on the same wavelength about that stuff again."

Jax looked flummoxed and obviously unsatisfied by what seemed to him like an optimistic explanation. The dog shook his head and started to say something, but he had no sooner opened and closed his muzzle than Rian shuffled on, looking a little worried, but his concern obviously muted by a regressive party daze, to check the next section. The tracking hound raised his eyes to the sky and shook his muzzle.

"I'm working up a sweat here," Kyle admitted as he pawed the crotch of the malamute flopping around on the ground through his thick diaper, his jeans having been pulled down to his knees. "Now I see why Rian takes his time playing with you. There is a _lot_down there to work with, big dog." He looked down at the malamute's straining diaper admiringly and, without thinking, he reached for the nearest glass and took a long swig of it.

Byron giggled from his position flopping around on the ground. "Let me guess, you're ticklish, too?" the Dalmatian asked.

"Noooo. Just hoping you don't have an allergic reaction," the malamute, who was leaking pre-cum, said, sticking his tongue out.

Kyle's eyes widened as he looked down at the half-empty mug in his paw. He shifted around on the ground, suddenly very squirmy. "Oh, dear," the Dalmatian said. "I drank your_soda. This may get complicated. I don't know exactly how quick it will affect _me--"

Byron broke into a wide grin and played his card, revealing what he'd cottoned to days ago when his lunch bags suddenly began appearing with a 'B' scrawled on them, "'Cuz you're not the one who's been eating cupcakes spiked with laxatives slipped into his lunch bags?"

The Dalmatian fidgeted and blushed. "I was trying to help you out," he confessed. "You've been always nice to me, and it seems like you've been working such long hours lately, annnnnd I did see that thing in the newsletter, about how you have to use your diapers in one-two-three order, so I thought, you'd be able to do more of -- if you did more of -- and since we've been hanging out at the parties I _want_you to have a lot of #3 time for some reason -- it felt really important to me -- and #2 has to be the hard one to get done. I would think." He blushed. "I kind of think what I put in that soda . . . is going to be stronger than what I've been slipping you. It came from higher up the food chain. Do you think Rian and Twitchy knew we were already circling around each other? Or do you think it's a coincidence?"

The malamute's eyes widened as he looked down at his crotch, having just been reminded of something important. "One-two-three order, rats!" the oversized, burly puppy exclaimed, and held up one paw, pawing at the mug the Dalmatian was holding, which was just out of his reach. "Rian's been wandering around checking on stations for some reason. Give me the rest of that _fast_and let's _hope_it's stronger! We don't have much time. Who knows what rules he'll come up with next if he thinks I'm ignoring the big one."

"Oh, if you're going to be such a stickler," said Kyle setting the mug down and undoing his snap and fly. "We know laxatives work pretty fast on you. So we better take care of number one first." The malamute's feet were still perched on Kyle's shoulders. The Dalmatian undid the top tape on either side of his own crinkly Secure X-Plus diaper and folded down the front just enough to let his own small shaft poke out from over the waistband it, and, biting his tongue, he aimed his small weapon with one paw.

"I caaaaan do that myyyself, thank you," said the malamute whining. "I don't need help with everything. Besides the way you're aiming it's going to spray all over my tummy and--"

"Quiet, puppy," said Kyle, using his other paw to pull the front of Byron's diaper out and down, his eyes widening a little hungrily as they beheld the full length of the malamute's erect shaft inside, "you won't have to switch gears this way and trust you me, in _this_area my measurements are hard to beat. There'll be spray all right, but your diaper will get soggy enough for it to look convincing."

Byron grinned up at him sappily as he felt the first warm trickle hit his tummy, seep into his fur, and spread downward, in drops. Kyle was as good as his word. The stream just kept coming, for 10, 20, 30, 45 seconds before it slowed. Before long, Byron's fur felt slick from the bellybutton down, the warm wet feeling was trickling around his hindquarters, and right to the edges of his tailhole. Most important, the front of his diaper was in fact turning suitably yellow, enough to fool all but the most experienced forensic inspector about the source of the wetting, and his own cock hadn't slackened a bit from its swelling toward full-on release. Far from it, the malamute was grinding against his diaper and yearning for Kyle's paw, though at no point did it occur to the puppy that he could reach into his diaper and do the job himself. "Wow, Kyle, it worked," he said, blushing and feeling quite puppyish as he wriggled on the ground. "It totally looks like I soaked my own diaper 'steada you doing it. Twitchy is wrong; you're really, _really_smart."

The Dalmatian eyed the soda mug on the floor warily and tugged at his collar, gulping. "We'll see if I can keep it up," he warned, recalling the chalky laxative powder he'd swallowed only a few minutes ago. "The truth is, By, I've, uh, never done what's about to happen to me in a diaper before."

"Oooh," said the malamute, rubbing his forepaws together, "Kyle, you're about to feel littler than what just poked out over the front of your diaper. You better give me the rest of that soda quick before you spill it!" He stuck out his tongue as he grabbed for it and added. "Meet you on the other side of adulthood soon, Mr. Smartypants!"

It had become obvious to furs waiting on the other side of the soda counter that it wasn't going to be staffed again any time soon, and the floundering overgrown puppies were so absorbed in each other that they hardly noticed the grinning furs stepping around the counter to mix their own drinks, some of whom studiously averted their eyes, and some of whom watched intently and with evident enjoyment for several minutes before leaving. By tomorrow the entire team would know about their tryst -- but, like most puppies, the two diaperdogs were hardly conscious of that at the moment -- and, besides, what was a little (or a lot of) regression among friends?

The boys waiting around Jax had moved on to sit at the edge of the water while Jax talked with Rian, who shuffled off to his next stop, leaving the black-and-brown dog chewing his lip pensively. The tracking hound was just about to head back to his boys when he heard a phone ringing nearby. He thought he recognized that ringtone -- it was inside Dex's bag. The dog looked at the bag he'd taken to watch while his coon friend was in the ball pit, and bit his lip. He couldn't.

No. He could. He had to. Rian was being way too trusting. Besides, he hadn't seen the accident site. He hadn't smelled the obvious (at least, to a tracking hound's nose) cleaning fluid. And he hadn't seen that Twitchy, who had seemed so paranoid right before the accident, had made a cryptic deadline marker on his calendar for that very day. He squeezed his eyes shut, dropped Dex's backpack, and zipped open the front compartment. This was the kind of opening his boyfriend would never understand, but that he could work with. If it seemed like he had to. The hound dog picked up his friend's phone, noted the caller ID, steeled himself, and flipped it open.

"Hello," Jax said into the speaker cautiously.

"Hey," said a harried voice on the other side, "De -- wait a minute --" There was a momentary, confused pause. "Jax? Is that you? Where's Dex?"

"Ohhh," said the tracking hound slowly, in feigned surprise, "this is _Dex's_phone. Of course. He must have dropped it in all the commotion earlier on. Some of our cub scouts got sugared up and ran all over his combat zone. I'm picking up after them now. I just heard this ringing in one of their muddled-up supply kits and pulled it out."

"Whatever," said Twitchy, who clearly wasn't listening to him, quickly. "Can you just give the phone to Dex?"

Jax raised his gaze slowly to the ball pit about fifty feet away from him, where the coon was gleefully sprawled out on his back in a sea of plastic spheres as an admiring hero worshipper nuzzled his tummy.

"I don't know where he is right this minute," Jax lied. "Things are kind of crazy here. Where are you, Twitchy?"

"Okay, okay," said the rabbit, slowing down, and took a deep breath. "I just got to campus. I found out a lab partner left me in the lurch at the worst possible time, he was supposed to turn in our group project today, and he didn't do his part of it and sat on everyone else's. I want to fix things up quickly and get out of here, but now that I'm here -- this is more of a mess than I thought. I don't know if I'll be back tonight."

Not back all night? "Gosh," said Jax slowly, "that lab partner sounds like a real jerk. Especially after what you've been through lately. I hope you can finish up fast. Should I have Dex call you?"

The rabbit said, "Yes -- Actually, no -- look, I'm about to turn my phone off for a while. While I'm in the lab. I'm still hoping to get free quick. But, just in case, can you tell Dex, umm, look, he and I planned to head up to my place after the party -- but that's kind of up in the air. I don't know if it will still happen. I'll be back for Dex when I can, but -- he shouldn't, you know, wait on me."

"Well, you don't need to come back here just to go back across town again, if he doesn't hear from you, shouldn't Dex just head over to your campus when he's ready to leave the party," Jax suggested, genuinely trying to be helpful, and starting to take a step in the coon's direction, "and pull you away from whatever you're doing?"

"No," the rabbit snapped too quickly. "He should _not_come to my campus right now -- I mean, he shouldn't have to go out of his way like that, he should enjoy the party. Tell him not to worry, just stay and have fun there until the very end, chill with Rian and Roger or whoever. Don't tell him to come here. He should stay there. Have fun. That's what he should do. Dex should have the biggest and bestest blast he can. He absolutely shouldn't cut it short on my account. I am thinking hard about Dex doing exactly that right now. It will make this work stuff go a lot faster. You can tell him that."

"Is everything okay, Twitch?" Jax asked, offering the nervous-sounding bunny a last chance to change his mind about this conversation. "Do you need help?"

"No, no," said Twitchy's voice at the other end. "Sorry if I sound kind of agitated, Jax. I didn't mean to take it out on you. Everything is fine, I'm just peeved about having to leave the party. I have to do this myself though. Give Dex my message, okay?"

The tracking hound raised a paw to his forehead and looked up at the sky, shaking his muzzle slowly as he settled on what he would do next. "I'll tell him, Twitch," he said. "Don't worry. Good luck with your lab work. I'm sorry that you're so stressed. We all miss you here." The tracking hound added, right before hanging up, "Be more careful this time."

The tracking hound turned the cell phone over in his paw and thumbed down the menu. He wasn't too good with technology, but he thought he could manage this --messages -- no, that's not what he wanted, his eyes flickered over the most recent message and he paged away from it quickly -- he wanted calls -- missed calls -- select -- erase -- yes. He closed the phone, took a long breath and replaced it where he had found it, in Dex's bag.

Across town, standing outside a darkened campus newspaper building, Twitchy, who had put on a pale blue windbreaker before heading off into the cool summer night, replaced the phone he had turned off in an inside pocket in the lining of the jacket, where it couldn't be reached by anyone nosy, and zipped it shut, steadying himself for a moment. The rabbit's large ears flicked as he heard a pawstep behind him. His companion had come back sooner than he thought. As Twitch suspected, he probably hadn't really forgotten his own cell phone. But he wouldn't have heard the conversation before Twitch heard him coming back. A rabbit's ears, after all, were sharper even than a collie's.

"All right, all right, I found a payphone so I could call my editor for the building code," said the herding dog reporter on Dex's trail cheerily, as he stepped by Twitchy and punched a series of numbers into an electric lock on the door.

Blaze was holding a pair of coffee cups in a styrofoam holder in his left paw. "Picked up some drinks for us for the trouble. Carrot-flavored latte, right? Jeez, Twitch, I didn't know you were so possessive about your stuff. Not like it costs any money to let someone make a five minute call on your phone these days."

When the light next to the panel turned green, he opened the door with one paw and held it for the bunny, adding with a chuckle, as though the collie were saying something absurd that had just popped into his head, "I mean I wasn't gonna look through your contacts or anything." The collie laughed. "You know," he said, as the rabbit stepped inside cautiously, "I had a feeling when I said I hoped my next story wouldn't affect your academic record, you'd run right over here to answer my questions about this friend of yours. Guess I have a pretty good read on you, Twitchy."

Back at the playsite, Dex, stepped out of the ball pit, his back to Jax and his scouts, stood and stretched, and cast a glance in the direction of Twitchy's station.

Jax watched as the coon scratched his head when he noticed the Doberman standing in Twitchy's assigned place, bustling around with a roll of paper towels in his paw as science fair volcanoes erupted and spilled over tables to his left and right.

"Well," Jax said to himself, wiping his paws against each other, "my work is done. _Now_I'll leave things alone. Whatever happens next is entirely up to you two. Fair enough, Rian?"

The tracking hound jumped into the air as he felt a paw on his shoulder, then relaxed as he felt the lynx's warm breath on his ear and paw on his shoulder. "Ace," he said, smiling up at his boyfriend. "You don't know how lucky I feel to be with you right now. You could never lie to anyone."

"Puppy?" the trailblazing lynx asked, quizzically. "Hello? I'm back. Why are you standing over here distracted when you should be boarding the next load of boys? You just jumped like I caught your paw in the cookie jar. Whaaaat did you do?"

"I hope and pray," said Jax, taking a long breath, "that I didn't do anything."

"Thanks for watching my stuff, Jax," said Dex as he stepped up and retrieved the bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and mock-punching Jax's. "Can always trust a Boy Scout to keep an eye on things for you. Now if I could just find Twitchy."

"Rian's looking for him too," said Jax. "You might see if he or the Doberman knows anything. I think he might have had to run back to his dorm to grab some last-minute homework thing."

"Huh," said the coon in the karate uniform, frowning. "I can't believe this. I thought we cured that workaholism problem. I even laid down the law for him about all-nighters and bedtimes and I thought it took. Well, he and I were going to meet up and head to his campus at some still-to-be-determined ungodly hour. There's no point in him making an extra trip. I'll give him a ring, but if it looks like he's stuck up there," the coon looked at his watch. "Maybe I'll surprise him."

Inside the academy, Lin Lin was wringing out a repurposed baby cloth diaper and treating it with a small vial of sweet-smelling liquid when Shelley rejoined her outside a small bondage cell and dressing chamber adjacent to an indoor garden. "This is not what I expected to find in Level 5. I can't believe Cassie already set this place up," the panda said, sounding annoyed, "and no one told me about it."

"Peaches," said the squirrel sympathetically, "now you know why I don't pay attention to people, it saves me unnecessary worrying about whether they're keeping me in the loop or not. Ultimately you have ta roll with the punches anyway. And trust me, keeping furs in the loop has never been a Callie specialty, I can see _that_hasn't changed much. What, pray tell, are you doing?" The squirrel raised a paw to her nose. "Is that chloroform? Not even I do kidnapping quite _that_realistic. We're just talking about some diaperkid here. Is that really necessary?"

Lin Lin looked up over her shoulder at the squirrel. "I don't know yet," she said coolly. "He sometimes brings his A game and sometimes keeps one paw tied behind his back. It's really all over the place with him. So. . ." She scanned the squirrel up and down, as though weighing her, and then turned back and closed the vial. "Better safe than sorry."

Shelley laughed. "I was wrong about you, oreo," she said, sounding friendly for the first time, before turning back to the greenhouse to check on some of the traps she had rigged near its exits. "You _are_dangerous."

Next time: Unraveling! When Dex and Twitchy surprise each other, secrets start to come out . . .

Episode 17: Unraveling!

By half past midnight, most of the boys at the playsite had headed home or settled in to slumber in whatever cozy spots they could find -- a development Roger and Rian, who planned to be awake and asleep in shifts, welcomed. The Labrador was awake now, and he was doing a quick headcount. It looked so far like, Ace and Jax had slipped off, probably together, sometime after it became too dark for cub scout activities; Dex and Twitchy were gone, so he assumed they were together, too. He was, in fact almost right -- they were about to be.

"Why's my door open? Am I really so out of it I forgot to lock it? Okay, think. First, call Dex--" the stunned-looking, drained rabbit, his ears flat and the goggles on his forehead more askew than usual, was muttering to himself as his dorm room door swung open at his first touch of the knob. He blinked, taken aback, and steadied himself with one paw against the doorframe. "Dex?" he asked, a worried note in his voice. "How did you get in? What are you -- ?"

"The door was open," said the coon, still in his karate uniform, the top of it covered by a light fleece jacket that he had mostly unzipped. He was sitting on Twitchy's bed, looking distracted, as he turned his attention to the entrance and slowly stood up, "So I thought you'd be back any minute. That was maybe half an hour ago. What's going on? Are you all right?"

The question was genuine, but he sounded distant. Twitchy hardly noticed, though. He rushed over to his boyfriend and was about to wrap his arms around him when the coon held up one open paw. "No cuddling," he said calmly. "We need to talk. Why did you run up here? Why didn't you at least call me or--?"

Twitchy frowned, interrupting him, "But I did call. You must have took off without getting the message . . . Oh, Dex, I didn't want you to leave the party. I didn't want to worry you or Rian about anything. Or let one of you try to stop me." The bunny fell back into his wheeled chair, with a soft whump, and let it slide back from his desk as he looked up at the coon longingly. "And there's nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart. You aren't going to be humiliated, or embarrassed. No one's going to touch you or the group. Don't worry about anything. And don't worry about me. I'll figure out something to do. Can't we just go to bed? There'll be enough to go over tomorrow. You'll see. You can come here. That's the important thing. Your life is going to be whatever you want it to be from now on. I took care of everything, Dex. I'll always take care of things for you." The rabbit sniffled. "There's not one thing left that could-- Hey," he frowned, looking at the papers on his desk next to the rolled-up nursery sketch a little nervously. Some of the papers around it had definitely been displaced. Already the floor plan seemed like something from weeks, not days, ago. He reached out and rested a paw on it like a lifeline. "I, uh, hope you didn't peek at all this stuff. There are some surprises up there."

"I'll say," the coon remarked cryptically, walking slowly to the other side of the room, and letting his back rest against the door. Twitchy tilted his head in confusion as he saw a postcard in the raccoon's right paw.

"What's that, Dex?" he asked worriedly, his ear flicking. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

"Yeah," Dex said, flinging the preprinted postcard with names and dates listed on it gently at him. "This fell off your desk. Don't forget to renew your driver's license. And belatedly," he added, pressing the door shut behind him, "happy eighteenth birthday. Thanks for inviting me."

"Oh," said the rabbit, slumping even lower, and breathing a long, despairing sigh, "that. That hardly seems important now that--"

The coon shook his head, looking perplexed, and sounding like he was still several steps behind in processing what was happening. "It's true? When you joined Baby Blue, you said -- "

"I'm a rising sophomore in college," repeated Twitchy blankly. "I don't know if I ever _lied_exactly, I was going to clarify just as soon as--"

Dex shook his head and interrupted him. "You _did_say that. Is that all we asked? At your initiation, Rian -- We almost--" The coon shuddered, involuntarily. "Didn't lie exactly? If I asked Rian and Roger if they knew you were a minor when you joined our group, what would they say to me? 'Maybe'? 'We don't remember'?"

Twitchy slumped lower in his chair and tapped his feet nervously. "They would say no," he admitted. "But, Dex, you're all so important to me, you're like the first real friends I've ever had. The initiation took me by surprise, too. I couldn't say, if you and the boys don't know, none of you could get in trouble besides me, and look, if the ages are close, in this state it's not even a--"

Dex cut him off abruptly, raising his voice slightly for the first time. "What are you now, a lawyer?" he snapped. "Listen to yourself. No one would get in trouble besides you? Do you really believe that? How could you decide something like this? You wouldn't be the one to get in real trouble, do you understand that? It would always be the rest of us. And no, before you try to say anything, trouble with Mom and Dad is not 'real trouble.' You could have put the entire group you say you care about in jeopardy if anything more serious, or more public, had happened. You could have ruined this whole world you were so happy to find by not being honest with us. You could have -- oh no -- " The coon looked down at his own shaking paws, as though he were still getting caught up to the present. "This is why you put me off for so long. You let me think it was my fault." He raised his eyes, slowly, to meet the rabbit's, and took a long breath, steadying himself. "I almost -- oh no -- I begged to do things with you. I was desperate. You took care of me when I felt so small. You changed my diapers. I remember -- more and more since I got control of things -- I remember seeing you out of a haze on the gym platform, looking heroic -- I remember thinking you cared about our team as much as Rian and Roger did -- a fur could trust you."

"Listen, Dex, it's okay," Twitchy said, standing up cautiously and approaching the coon, doing his best to sound soothing, as he extended his paws to hug him, "I don't blame you for being angry. I feel really, really low right now. But I'm still the same fur that you know. See, I can take care of my kitten just the same. It's not like someone totally changes the instant they turn--"

"I'm _not_angry! I don't get angry!" Dex shouted, cutting him off and deflecting one of his outstretched paws, flicking the rabbit's arm far more forcefully than he realized and sending him staggering backwards. The rabbit lost his balance, tumbled into his desk, and caught it with both paws, steadying himself, but some damage was done -- his computer monitor, upset by the impact, teetered, and crashed to the floor with a loud, fast crunch, next to his large feet. Its cracked screen faced Dex, looming accusingly for a moment in his field of vision.

Twitchy gulped. "Calm down, Dex," he said, seeing a panicked glint enter the coon's eye as he looked down at the monitor. "It's okay, I can fix it," he probed the monitor with his foot and frowned at its cracked surface and casing sadly, concluding, "oooor, get a new one. It's okay. You can be angry for a little while," he flattened his ears. "You're right. I should have told you. It's okay if you need to yell at me."

Dex had squeezed his eyes shut. What was going on? Of course. He wasn't regressing involuntarily any more. He'd learned to do that to keep these sorts of emotions at bay, but now he was feeling them in full, adult force. "Are you okay? I almost hurt you," he whimpered, his eyes shut. "I'm sorry. Oh, god. I just have a feeling I don't even want to know what else you might have lied to me about. I have to leave. If I stay here and we keep talking and you tell me more I might hurt you. I'll pay for that computer piece."

"Umm, Dex," said Twitchy, frowning as he steadied himself, "I'm okay. Don't worry about it. I understand." He started to approach the raccoon, but Dex held up one forepaw warningly, opening one eye and watching his own paw as though he weren't sure what it would do.

"I thought I was a good person," the incontinent raccoon said vaguely. It was unclear who he was talking to. "I said in the hospital when they wouldn't tell me anything right away that no matter what I can still be a good person. I remember I kept myself from doing--" The coon shook his head. "Oh god. What am I? I was never good enough for my best friend no matter how hard I tried. I begged a minor to have sex with me, more than once, like a -- like a housepet, or a--I worried I was too tight--and I wouldn't be able to please you either. I pretended it was yours and I licked up my--your pretend--" he shuddered and shook his head, "a _teenager's_pretend mess--and _I'd_looked down on that fox for being easy. Meanwhile I'm so desperate I'm hitting up kits. No wonder Rian didn't want me touching him. What kind of a fur am I? I had an argument with my boyfriend, and I hit him. I smashed his stuff. I didn't turn the right things off, did I? I didn't know then how bad this whole part would be. I need to go."

"Dex," said Twitchy, cautiously, pulling out all the stops to reassure him, "stop this. Stop this weird depressive junk. Come back, hon. Snap out of it. There's nothing wrong with you. You can be angry. Yell if you want to. It's okay. This--" he poked the computer monitor with one of his large feet--"is water under the bridge already. Okay? You're plenty good enough. You did amazing things to rescue me. Twice. You don't even stop to think about yourself when you see furs are in trouble. That's the real you, Dex. You're the best fur I know. You regress because you're special. Your heart is pure like a tiny cub's. You don't have a handicap, you know what your real problem is, hon, you're too good for potty training, too innocent, too perfect, to wear anything but diapers," he suggested, gently. "I never deserved you. I didn't even," he sniffled as he confessed, "I didn't even love you when we started dating, I mean not the way that I love you now. Get some fresh air. Take as long as you want. I'll wait for you. You can come back here and be safe. I'll always have a special place ready for you. We'll--"

The raccoon had opened the door halfway with one paw, as he still held the other up in warning, but he steadied his voice enough to say, as he stepped outside, "There's no 'we,' Twitch. I'm sorry. Make other plans. I'm going to go take care of some things. Don't follow me. I don't want to hurt you, big br--I mean, I don't want to hurt you," he took a long breath as he dropped the pet name, "Twitchy. You'll get back anything I have of yours. We'll talk about it and about what to tell the team when I'm calmer. I don't know if I can face any of them right now."

Then the raccoon was gone. Twitchy shook his head and collapsed into his chair, opening and closing his muzzle wordlessly, staring at the black backpack that was leaning against one of his bedposts. "Dex!" he called out. "You forgot your things!" There was no answer. Should he run after him? He was a little afraid to. "Come back, Dex," he called, feebly, a whimper in his voice. When nothing happened he slumped further into his seat, pawed through the papers on his desk and noted a half-open drawer, voicing questions he didn't even care about at the moment to take his mind off things while he gathered his strength. "Why was my door open anyway?" he asked the air. "If that nosy collie's been through my stuff," he sighed, "then what did he even want me for?"

***********************************

"Two thirty a.m.," Cassie told the two girls. "That's when you two will move out. Everything should be quiet there by then. He ought to be there with the other leaders. But just in case there's a problem, you still have the list of secondary candidates."

Shelley glanced at the printout on the conference table, her bored eyes flickering, for once, with curiosity. "Well, hello, doggie," she said, tapping it with a paw. "You already think like a girl, don't you? I could have told them that. Gone shopping for shoes or meddled in anyone's relationship lately?"

Lin Lin rolled her eyes -- and stifled a yawn. Cassie patted her head sympathetically. "Why don't you both take a nap, so you'll have some sleep tonight. I'll even tuck you in."

Shelley raised an eyebrow. "No thanks," the athletic squirrel said, rising and stretching. "I'll do some yoga to wind down."

Lin Lin, suddenly feeling quite tired as the fatigue of the day caught up with her at once, let the Newfoundland take her by the paw and lead her through the academy corridors, back to the small academy bedroom where she'd been sleeping the past several weeks, as recruiting and preparation for the Open House took up all her time. "We never would be in this kind of a fix," she repeated, tiredly, "if you hadn't sidelined me and taken me off security. Why did you do that?"

"Sidelined?" asked the big dog. "Lin Lin," she patted the panda's head, "I gave you the most important assignment. I wanted you to have time in between recruiting to write our mission statement. I want it to come from our community, I don't want it to be something the mistress and I just hand out from the top down. We still don't have one, and to be honest, no one else's notes have been very good. I had some hope for Serry, but it's obvious she's distracted. A certain person's name kept showing up in doodles in the margins. And Shelley's--" the giant dog shuddered. "Umm, let's not talk about Shelley's mission statement. I read the letter you wrote about Serafina when I signed your petition, Lin Lin. It was . . . impassioned. And you're always trying to keep the boys from crashing in here. It's obvious you care a lot about this place. I thought you were the right person."

Lin Lin rolled her eyes. "That was a dumb assignment," she said poutily as they approached her door. "I thought you were getting over that business book nonsense and I was just waiting for you to forget about it. I didn't write anything."

"But," the Newfoundland asked gently as the small panda opened it, "you must have thought about it? You're not the type who can blow off anything completely. There's a reason you were the first one to ask Callie for a job at the academy."

The panda yawned, squeakily, and stifled it with one paw. "I don't like how uppity and self-righteous those boys are, and how they look down on the sissies here," she said. "Just because their sexual orientation is . . ." she tugged at her sweatpants and adjusted the unused diaper under them, letting it press against where she was, now, but hadn't always been, a real girl. "Weird. I came here because I wanted to see furs in a safe space accepting themselves already." She yawned. "So those posers should just accept themselves already. If the girls chose to be here they know what they're in for and they should embrace it or go, not wallow around confused about who they are and let any boy on the street make them feel like they should be ashamed of themselves. It makes me angry seeing furs hate themselves. Those ones will have enough to worry about dealing with me. _That_will get their mind off their guilt hang-ups. I don't think any of that is mission statement material."

Cassie patted her head with one huge paw. "It's a bit rough, but . . . maybe we can salvage something. I'll talk about it with the headmistress tomorrow. Are you sure you're up to this mission, Lin Lin? I can take you off it if you have any doubts. Any doubts at all. Level 5 is not for the faint of heart. You've seen what's in there now."

The panda's eyes narrowed and took on a steely, if sleepy glint. "Of course I'm up for it," she snapped. "I'm itching to actually get my paws dirty and do something again. And it's not like your target's just going to show up here on his own. You're not sending that squirrel out alone so she can screw everything up. You've already made a big enough mess of everything. I insist on going with her for this pick-up operation. If you don't send me on this one I might just walk out of here and not come back."

The Newfoundland nodded. "All right. Play it your way. Just remember, this might be our best chance to save the academy. And as I said once, we only know about it," Cassie smiled gently, "because of you."

**************************************

Rian woke up with a start and a crinkle to a knock on the door of his cramped apartment. He'd only run back to get more of his own changing supplies, since he found he had been going through them at the party at a quite alarming rate, but had fallen asleep, face-down, on his bed, when he had trying to reach under it. He didn't know how long he had been out.

"Serry?" he called vaguely, stumbling to his feet. "Oh, Rog -- I'm coming right back! I'm sorry! I--" He froze as he swung the door open to see the nervous bunny standing there, his head lowered and his paws knitted behind his back.

"How's Dex?" Twitchy asked at once, sounding distraught. "You don't have to let me see him, just-- tell me how he's doing? I'm worried sick. You didn't answer your phone, and Kyle said you left the party site and didn't come back, so he must--" The rabbit stood on his toes and looked over the shoulder of the sleepy wolf, who was wearing the top of a sailor suit over a pair of jeans, and frowned.

Rian shook his head, and raised a paw, indicating Twitchy should wait until he finished yawning. Finally, he, finished, squeakily, and said, "I'm going right back there now, I haven't heard from Dex all night. I thought you two went off together." He eyed the bunny suspiciously. "Did you ditch him to do homework? On a Friday night? After he left the party and went up to your campus? That's really pathetic, Twitchy. I don't blame him if he's upset."

The rabbit looked alarmed, and his eyes darted around the room for a minute. Was Dex hiding inside and Rian was just playing dumb to get rid of him? He didn't see any signs. "If he didn't go to you," the rabbit said, thinking aloud, "where did he go?"

Rian, more awake by the second, was beginning to look worried. "What happened?" he asked sharply.

The bunny steadied himself against the doorframe with one paw. "We had a fight," the bunny said simply. "It was bad. Then he took off. He forgot his backpack with his phone and his changing kit in it. He never does that. He said he'd be back when he was calmer."

Rian's eyes narrowed. "Calmer? When is _Dex_not calm?" He eyed the bunny. "What was this fight about?" he asked directly. His tone, while not hostile, indicated that he wouldn't be happy with a less than straightforward answer.

The rabbit gulped. "I'll tell you on the way," he said. "Let's head to the next place he'd go."

**************************************

There were still a few sissies outside, who had fallen asleep in their arms of their chosen partners, and tossed and turned lazily, occasionally waking up to continue their woodland make-out sessions until they flopped back to sleep, slumbering across their caretakers' chests. They cuddled close together on the soft moss to keep warm as the summer night cooled. The leopardess had stayed outside to watch over them, and to watch over the boys' team trainee who was rooted to the rock he had sat on while a sissy fox cadet without a partner nuzzled his face and rested her paws on his shoulders. Serry and most of the others who'd stayed overnight had decamped to one of the many sleepover bedchambers specially prepared for the Open House, where the girls would find several small canopy beds covered with dolls, plushies, and pony toys, on which the little princesses could consummate their new partnerships feeling maximally feminine. Many of the sissy students would feel cock inside something other than their muzzle for the first time that night, and would know afterwards that they were really, and forever, meant to be darling little girls.

"I think it's been more than fifteen minutes," Ryo said hesitantly, judging the passage of time predominantly by the state of his soggy diaper. "I really ought to be going." He made no motion to rise.

Calliope smiled at him sweetly. "Poor dear, you're so tired. Did they work you too hard over there? Why don't you come inside and have a cup of tea?" the leopardess suggested. "You can go back in the morning if you wish. Brianna will help undress -- and, if necessary, re-dress -- you for the night."

He rose to his feet and staggered toward her, the sissy fox whispering in the white dog's ear. "You're so brave, Ryo," she was saying. "Tell me more about your adventures with Mr. Rian and the boys across the river." She giggled. "You can act them out with dollies for me."

The dog shuddered, but stumbled along in the direction she was tugging him. "Don't like dollies," he muttered, sticking his tongue out feebly.

The little sissy fox student giggled coquettishly and nuzzled at his nose. "That's because you haven't seen my _collection yet, silly," she said. "I just know you're gonna love them. They all want to meet _you. And once you've seen them you just won't be able to hurt their feelings by ignoring them, will you? No, you're too nice to do that, aren't you?"

The leopardess approached the front door of the academy, laid a paw on it, and found it didn't budge. "Locked?" she said, sounding mildly perturbed as she reached into her dressing gown and fiddled with one of several keyrings. She shook her head as she tried one in the door. "All right," she keyed in a series of numbers on a small keypad next to it. "I can't believe you turned the security system on, Cassie." The keypad flashed red.

Calliope shook her head. The dazed couple behind her was pretty distracted, but the dog combat trainee managed to ask, "What's going on, mistre-- I mean," he cleared his throat, "Call-- I mean, icky pink leader enemy furson that I totally don't like?"

"I'm afraid I know," Calliope said cautiously. "Only one other fur had the master code to this building. She's counting on being able to use those tunnels, she must have seen it as an opportunity to lock me out and manage the failsafe herself." The feline shook her head. Her cell phone, she recalled, had been left inside. She hadn't wanted to be interrupted during the dance. "Cassie," she queried, "what do you think you're doing?"

**************************************

"I can drive," suggested Twitchy from the passenger seat, "you're half asleep."

Rian snorted as he kept his eyes on the road. Somewhat to the rabbit's surprise, from the instant Rian realized the situation might be serious, the cubby wolf, although still wearing his diapers, had instantly clicked into an entirely grown-up demeanor. "Oh, did you get a learner's permit?" Rian asked sarcastically.

Twitchy frowned and shifted in the seat uncomfortably. He'd been listening to those kind of insults silently since he told Rian, shamefaced, the truth about his fight with Dex and what the coon had uncovered. Now he made an attempt to change the subject. "How did you get the keys to someone else's car?" he asked as he looked around the interior of the unfamiliar vehicle. "Did you paw them out of him? How many of the furs at that party have you played with?"

"None of your business," snapped Rian as he made a turn. "You're in no position to lecture anybody, bunny boy. Not after what you almost did to Dex. And to me, _I _pawed you." He shook his right paw, which he had removed from the steering wheel, and eyed it as though it had germs on it.

The rabbit rolled his eyes. "You used your foot," he reminded him.

"Ewwww," whined Rian, and shook one of his feet under the dashboard, again as though he were ridding of it imaginary germs. "I'm only not yelling at you right now because we need to find Dex," he added. "As soon as we know he's okay you are so getting yelled at. I have not decided what I'm going to do about you after that."

"Listen, I know you're mad," Twitchy said calmly, "but I'd do anything for Dex, Rian. And," he gulped, "for all you boys. You have to believe me. He deserves a better hand than he was dealt. Well, I know a thing or two about that. More than you would. I wanted to lift Dex out of this depressive funk for good and get him to a better place--"

"Yeah," Rian said, shaking his head in disbelief, "like jail."

Twitch crossed his arms, looking a little indignant for the first time; he had weathered a long series of aspersions without protest as the two started out. "You're the expert," he snapped. "When I started tutoring Dex he would get his statistics homework in like fifteen minutes if he actually sat down and focused on it. Before that he trudged back to that little cell he calls an apartment when the group broke up or when he left the dojo and what do you think he did?"

Rian frowned. "I don't know what you're talking about. I've done everything in the world for Dex. He was so depressed he was practically catatonic the first time I met him. He's come a tremendous way. And . . . he's like a brother to me, I don't just mean in role-play. I have a picture of us next to pictures of me and Rog and me and Serry in my wallet. I've told him things only he and Rog know. I planned that whole party to make him feel more comfortable. I've done weekend-long scenes entirely about him. I make nightly--" he frowned. In fact, he hadn't been making nightly tuck-in calls to Dex since he'd started dating. When _was_the last time he had made one? Offhand, he couldn't remember. "I mean," he fudged, "periodic tuck-in calls before he goes to bed to take his mind off doing laundry. He's coming with me to my -- well, never _you_mind that. Everyone knows that I've been--"

"Here it comes, at last," the rabbit said huffily, "the dark side of Rian. Me, me, I've done this, and I've done that, I'm so generous, look at what a good friend I am, I'm not gonna do something for you in private, no, I'm gonna set off fireworks in front of fifty furs so they can see what I_did. I can't ever _really_get out of the way and let things be about _you. I _need_to be the hero, I can't just stand back and loosen my grip and be happy for you, not me."

The wolf snorted derisively as they came to rest at a stoplight. "I've done a tremendous amount for you, too, Twitch. You couldn't go outside in a diaper without looking like you'd heard a gunshot once. You're like a little brother -- well, were, I don't even know if you're my friend right now."

"I'm not your friend who sucks up to you and tells you that you're right all the time any more, Rian, you have enough of those," Twitchy snapped, "but I'm still your friend. Whether you reciprocate after tonight is up to you. I got into this to clean up _your_mess, at the start. Before me I'm positive Dex would lock himself in that room and stick a paw in his diaper and it'd be a whole weekend of, 'Oh, Rian, take me, buddy, I'd walk through fire for you cuz you made my crappy life tolerable for fifteen minutes.' _That's_why he couldn't focus to get his homework done. He says your name in his sleep, for goodness' sake. You idiot," said Twitchy, slumping back into his seat and letting out a long sigh, as though he were giving up a terrible secret, "Dex loves you."

"What do you know?" snapped Rian as the light changed and he resumed driving, "I can't believe you're making soapbox speeches to me right now. You really are a teenager, aren't you? I've known Dex longer than you have. His life was never as terrible as you're making it sound. You have always made too big a deal of his incontinence. That just makes him think about it more. You even use the h-word. Of course Dex loves me. I love him right back. Just like a--"

"_Not _like a brother," Twitchy guessed, forestalling him.

Rian changed his tack. "And I'm proud of everything he's done lately like he's my nephew or even my own little ki--"

"_Not _like any kind of blood relative," the rabbit said despairingly. "Jeez. How stupid are you? Or are you just in denial? He capital-L loves you bad," Twitchy let out a long sigh. "You keep making it worse. And it's hurting him." The rabbit shook his head. "You don't even know what I'd give up for Dex," he said, sadly. "And you have him, and your sissy girlfriend, and half the team hanging on you. I'm sorry I can't be a big brother to the world like you can. I'm sorry I'm not fun and rich like you and I can't just buy things for furs every time I have a cute idea. I've lost sleep worrying about how I could ever catch up with you in his eyes, just because I have a life outside all this stuff, and you don't. But you know what I think, Mr. 'All You Boys Need Me'? I think you're the one who's been changed most by Baby Blue. I think you need the rest of us way more than we need you. You'd be a self-absorbed brat who only cared about his own cub time if not for me and Dex and the others. Some boyfriend you'd be then." He raised himself in his seat an inch or two. "Before Baby Blue existed, and Dex was some lonely kid in your class, did you even start hanging out with him because you wanted to?" he asked, "Or did Roger make you do it?"

"Now I know why you're always wetting your pants, it's because otherwise they'd be on fire all the time," Rian retorted. "You are a lying little liar who tells lies and you'd say anything to make yourself look better right now. You're making this all up as you go."

The wolf added, after a pause, "And I don't have to answer any questions from you."

"Yeah," said Twitchy, rolling his eyes, as the wolf turned on the radio and turned up its volume with his free paw, "that's what I thought."

*******************************

"I'm sorry, mistress," Cassandra the Newfoundland was saying to herself as she bustled through the halls, making sure all the bedchambers in use were secured so the sissy students and their partners wouldn't be interrupted. "I have to do this for you. I'll let you in as soon as the package is fully secured. You know the security plan as well as I do. There's only one way in from down there right now, and I _know_you won't do what _that_would take."

"Where's Callie?" the squirrel asked, giving Cassie a start as she dropped from the ceiling and landed softly in front of the big Newfoundland padding down the hallway. "I'd rather report this to her."

Cassie steadied herself. "The mistress is taking a well-deserved break and asked not to be bothered," she said. "She needs to be ready when you turn the package over. As I said, this won't be easy."

"Fine, big and black," Shelley said, rolling her eyes, and holding up a scrap of yellow cloth, "I was just trying to save time."

Cassie's already huge eyes widened. "Is that something you're using for tracking?" she asked. "Some scouting or trapping technique?"

The athletic squirrel blew air out of the side of her muzzle. "Okay, I track furs by looking at them, and watching where they go. Sometimes they leave pawprints and stuff. I don't have magic powers and I don't have a very sensitive nose. Fortunately for you diaper types or trust me, I would so totally not be here any more. This is something I found stuck to a skylight, when I was doing yoga in the attic."

Cassie blinked. "The ceilings up there are twelve feet high," she remarked.

Shelley shrugged. "I jump around some. It had been pulled open from the outside, and wouldn't go all the way shut because the latches broke. No tool marks or anything. No average fur did that. Only a climbing-type could have gotten to it from the outside, and only someone real strong could have opened it with their bare paws."

"No way!" said the dog, in amazement. "It really is him! I was sure things would be harder than this. Either Roger went back on his word and this is the start of an attack or," she bit her lip, "or he's a better candidate than I thought, to come here on his own. Either way, there must be more going on than we know about. Change in plans!" she announced quickly, "We're staying here. Everything you and Lin Lin put in place to stop a full-on attack is back in play. Wake up Lin Lin and the foxes and whoever else might be useful and let the others keep snuggling--actually, you better let me check on Serry. Tell the others you've seen boys moving through the woods and we think they broke their word about not attacking. Say they're mad to see that any furs are still here with us after their announcement, say however many they got, it just wasn't good enough for them. Whatever you do, do _not_let anyone else from Baby Blue get inside this school tonight. It is imperative that they all be kept out, or contained on the lower level if they do get in."

"Fine, but," Shelley cocked her small ears and tilted her head, "I'm confused. I thought I was here to deal with your intruder?" she asked.

"You were here to deliver him," the Newfoundland said, and raised one paw, correcting her gently. "But it seems like destiny really is on our side. I will handle the package. And please, Shelley," she said, her tone softening, "don't call him an intruder. He's someone very, very special." She rubbed her huge paws together. "Our last Open House guest," she said, sounding, unusually for the placid dog, excited, "is here."

*******************************

"What's going on, little buddy?" said Roger as the wolf and the bunny stumbled up to the main command tent, where he was sitting up in the soft glow of his computer, a stubby-maned lion and a mink who were supposed to be on checking and changing duty with him slumbering at his footpaws. Both his new visitors looked a bit worse for the emotional wear, if not for the lack of sleep. "I told you on the phone--"

Twitchy hopped forward. "That Dex is here!" he finished, eagerly. "I'm glad he came back here, Captain. This place we all made together is special. Spending the night here made me strong enough to do . . ." the rabbit tapped his foot and concluded vaguely, "impossible things. I feel like I'm waking up again myself being back with all of you. Is he okay? Where is he? I mean, you don't need to tell me where he is. Just tell me how he is. Please," the bunny adjusted the goggles on his head nervously. "Tell me he's doing better."

Roger looked confused. "I haven't seen Dex since the two of you took off," he looked over the rabbit's shoulder at Rian. "That's what I told you on the phone. What _is_going on? I thought there was a miscommunication about meeting up on your campus and you two were going out looking for--"

The rabbit's eyes flashed and he looked over his shoulder at the short wolf behind him, twitching his whiskers and his nose in agitation as he realized he'd been lied to.

"_I'm_going out looking for Dex," Rian said firmly as he laid a paw on the rabbit's shoulder and shoved him, gently but decisively, into the tent. "He doesn't need to see Twitchy right now. I'll call you as soon as I know anything, and call me the instant you hear from him if you do. In the meantime," his eyes narrowed as his gaze flickered from Twitchy to Roger, and he added sternly, "Twitch has something to tell you."

Then he let out a long breath, and looked up at his mentor nervously. "As usual, I'm leaving you with the hard job, Rog," he said apologetically. "Make sense of this so our group can stay together. Please don't let Baby Blue fall apart. Not after everything we just did together. Figure out something. I know that all dogs go to heaven," he squeezed the Labrador's paw with both of his, sounding anxious, "but you'll go to a better one. I really believe that."

Roger scratched his head as the wolf released his paw and dashed off into the night. The Labrador lowered his gaze to the bunny, who was staring at his large feet. "Oooookay," he said slowly, nudging the cubs at his legs, and still, at least for the moment, sounding friendly, "I'll clear these two out so we can have some privacy, Twitch. Then I think _you_had better start talking."

*******************************

Serry blinked, yawning, and rubbed one paw with the back of her eyes, shaking her head as she lay in bed. "There's a misunderstanding," she told the Newfoundland looming in her doorway, "I don't know what kind of movements you think you saw in the woods, but Roger said there wouldn't be an attack. He wouldn't go back on his word. Furs will keep coming and going through those tunnels and everyone will end up where he or she belongs." She waved a paw in the air lazily and flopped over in bed. "It will be fine. He and Callie will work things out so the cubs in between get the best of both worlds. That's what always happens."

The dog shifted her enormous bulk from one foot to another. "I didn't want to tell you this, Serry," she said sadly, "but the Baby Blue attack hit us harder than we thought. More than half the furs who snuck off to that playland haven't come back yet. Some brought their dates with them. If more of them don't come back tomorrow, that could leave us below what we'd set as the new enrollment quota. I'm afraid Roger intends to strike again, and finish us while we're down."

Serry threw a pillow at her over her shoulder; it thudded off the Newfoundland's chest and landed at her footpaws. "Don't you people ever sleep?" she moaned. "Go away. I have rehearsal tomorrow night after all this."

"If Shelley's right and there's a commando attack party coming I know who will be leading it and you do too," the big dog continued. "The one who convinced Roger the academy has to go. The one who dislikes the mistress and what we stand for more than anybody."

"Rian," the sissy fox said, sounding worried and sitting up, her sheets wrapped around her, and the waterproof cover of her mattress crinkling. She shook her head. "No, he wouldn't. He's the last person who would lie and break a truce like that. Besides, he saw enough of the Open House for himself." Serry looked a little dreamy still. "I have never seen girls girlier than those boys in dresses lining up for their little school dance. Helping each other into them in little groups, teasing each other, showing each other how to walk in a skirt while the caretakers on the sidelines watched, hoping one of the precious little things would come over and take them by the paws," she smiled in spite of herself. "It was adorable. And all around this place their tubes are clicking off tonight for the furs who will appreciate our little flowers best, the ones they wanted to give their own keys to. Tomorrow morning they'll all be having tea gossiping with the other sissies and their dolls about how wonderful it was, and each new little girl will be absolutely convinced the boy she had was the best. And Callie calls me romantic. Who cares if we don't have a waterslide? No, you're wrong, Cassie. Rian might not get the academy but he understands love, he's not going to barge in and frighten our guests like that."

"I'm just warning you," the big dog said as the sissy fox stretched her paws above her head and yawned. "I hope I'm wrong, but I don't want you to be surprised if he charges in here with stormtroopers. If that happens you just ring the alarm. Don't let him trick you into letting an attack force inside. If you have to you remind him that furs who come over here through those tunnels of their own free will have every right to be here. If someone crosses lines and voluntarily submits to screening, Baby Blue has to stand down. Even if it's a team member. Those are the rules. The mistress and I are taking every security precaution. I'm just afraid that he might make up some story to get you to let him inside tonight," the big dog eyed her cautiously. "When is the last time you talked?"

The sissy fox fidgeted. "Not for days except by text messages," she said, sounding a little nervous. "It's the longest we haven't talked since we started dating. I think he might be avoiding me because he's mad about what happened with Swifty." As the sissy Newfoundland talked, Serry slipped her cold footpaws in to a pair of pink bedroom slippers and got to her feet, turning to her bed to tuck in the little wolfy plushie she had been sleeping with.

She bent over and kissed the toy on its muzzle. There was still a note, carefully folded up and tucked inside its shirt, that said, 'Dear Serry, This was hard. If he's with you and I'm not, I'll be jealous. But it would be even worse for you to be lonely. Your puppy love forever, --R."

"Poor Serry," the Newfoundland said, chewing her lip, and in fact believing what she said next, for neither girl knew that Rian had been too ashamed to talk to Serry until he had made a nerve-wracking phone call about her play; in fact, Serry had been careful not to tell him about her backstage worries. "You must be right. He's ducking your calls because you were loyal to your team. That doesn't seem fair, does it? He wouldn't betray _his_side. You saw him up there flashing his fancy diaper at all of us. He may even think it's justified to use you to get inside the academy as payback. It's best just not to chance that kind of trouble, for both your sakes. I know you don't want to fight with each other again, Serry. And you don't have to. You can go back to bed and if he calls, or anything, answer it tomorrow, after we've wrapped up the Open House with the morning-after tea party. You two will be right as rain when this competition nonsense is over and you can go right back to sweet-talking each other. Just, for tonight, for the academy, trust the mistress and I to keep any trouble out of -- where are you going?"

"To talk to Callie," said Serafina as she started padding to the door. "I'm sure there's just been some misunderstanding about this. Maybe some of the boys were spying on our girls' make-out sessions and Shelley misinterpreted what she saw. Callie might not like being the one to call her brother back after his last display, but I'll get her and Roger communicating and put this false alarm nonsense to rest before it ruins anyone's night."

"Yooooou can't do that right now," the Newfoundland said hesitantly. "The mistress asked not to be disturbed. She's getting her own beauty sleep for at least the next 90 minutes, so she'll still have her mask time in case something like this does happen and she has to be up the rest of the night."

Serry frowned. "Callie and her beauty masks. All right. Who's running security?" she asked. "Lin Lin and Shelley?"

The Newfoundland nodded, relieved. That would be an end to that. She'd go right back to bed before she'd ever say--

"Okay," the princess fox said calmly, slipping into a bathrobe over her negligee, and gestured for the big dog to step aside. "I'll talk to Lin Lin."

*******************************

The five foot five wolf stood on his tiptoes to reach the doorbell of the ground floor apartment at his next stop, and hesitated for a long moment.

"Just who I need to see right now, my favorite teammate," he moaned inwardly, steeling himself as he raised a paw to knock on the door. "But, it's okay, because Dex is going to be right inside, blowing off steam with you, beating up pillows. Or you'll be out in back with him sparring. Maybe you're the fur he needs to see right now."

He rapped twice, sharply. After there was no answer for a few minutes, he tried again, louder. From the other side of the door he heard confused fumbling. After a moment, the door cracked open. "Ace," Rian started to say, but a tracking hound in a hastily thrown on bathrobe, and with three fingers stuck in his muzzle, appeared on the other side.

"Oh," Rian fidgeted, "sorry, Jax, I thought this was Ace's place?" For a moment, the wolf was confused; had he come to the right address? As much as he interacted with the Scouts on Baby Blue territory, he didn't exactly visit either of these two. They were really Dex's friends. "I came to see Ace." The dog held up one finger on his free paw without saying anything, turned around and shuffled out of sight.

"Well tell him to go away!" he heard somefur shouting from a couple rooms deeper inside the apartment. Rian could only hear the louder half of the conversation. "I don't know; say we're not here!" He couldn't quite make out the quieter line of response but there was a pause before the lynx, his voice raised again, said, "I know he saw you, I'm not stupid! I mean _functionally_not here! Like, we're busy!" There was more muttering, then, "I don't care if he looks upset that we left! We'll be back there tomorrow morning, won't we? Is he the only one who can have a love life now? Is that coming in the next newsletter?"

The wolf let out a preemptively annoyed sigh and shook his head. "Ace. Circle material my diaper pail," he muttered to himself. "You always only see the good in furs, Dex."

After a moment the stocky lynx, one of his tufted ears twitching, pulled the door the rest of the way open. He was wearing the khaki bottom of what looked like Jax's scout uniform, since it was a little tight on him, and the snap and fly were both undone, something he attempted to cover, but didn't entirely succeed at doing, with the safari hat in his free paw. A casual glance in that direction made pretty clear why he hadn't been able to zip and re-button his pants on short notice. The tracking hound watched from further back in the hall, standing there uncertainly, still sucking his paw.

"Am I interrupting any--" Rian began to say politely.

"Yes! Apparently I have to be the one to tell you," exclaimed Ace, shooting an annoyed glance at his boyfriend and cutting the visitor off at once. "But it's important! So unless this is about--"

"Dex is missing," Rian said abruptly, in a burst, not realizing that his own paws were shaking as he tried to keep his voice level. "He had a real bad fight with Twitchy maybe a couple hours ago. And he took off, without a car or a cell phone or anything," the wolf leaned against the doorframe, not aware how unsuccessful his effort at sounding calm was, "talking to himself and not sounding rational. He left his backpack with his changing kit. Dex _never_forgets his changing kit. No one's heard from him since. He's not at home. I just came from there. I was sure he'd be with one of you. Has he called either of you?"

Jax, in the background, had removed his fingers from his mouth and retrieved a pair of pants from the ground, reaching into the pockets in search of the cell phone he'd silenced earlier. The two Scouts looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes. Jax bit his lip, looking guilty, and looked down at the phone in his paws as he flipped it open to check for messages. Ace nodded without further complaint and let the khakis he was wearing fall to his ankles as he motioned for Rian to come inside.

"We'll get to work," he said calmly. "Where else have you looked?"

"I wasn't so worried as long as I thought he was with one of you," Rian said as he stumbled inside, letting the resolve he had displayed in front of Twitchy and Roger slip for the first time. "Now I am. Dex needs a friend right now," he fidgeted, not even realizing his pants, in spite of the three layers of absorbent padding underneath them, were visibly wet in front, "I have a terrible feeling that he's only going to be okay if he connects with someone who cares about him really, really soon. And," the wolf gulped as he said, "Dex doesn't have any real friends besides us."

*******************************

"Help furs who hate themselves. A nice speech," the panda muttered to herself as she drowsed, in and out of sleep, atop her pillowy pink comforter. "But I don't know if I've helped a single fur the way I wanted since I've been here. The truth is none of these kids are like me. Why am I still thinking about this stupid thing? Mission statement. What a joke. Tomorrow she'll be on to some other ridiculous idea."

Lin Lin awoke with a start when she heard the knock on her door, and, still in her Powerpuff Girl-themed activewear, rolled off the cot and on to her feet. She looked at her watch. A little early, but almost time to move out. She flicked on the fairy-covered lamp on her nightstand.

The panda took a long breath and steadied herself on what she had decided to do, and opened the drawer in her nightstand retrieving the rag soaked with chloroform from inside and clenching it behind her back nervously in one paw. Could she use it, when the time came? Was she really going to go through with this? She wouldn't be able to take it back. Lin Lin padded over to the door.

The undersized panda wasn't prepared for what she saw when she cracked her door open and looked out from under its chain lock.

"Yo," the wet raccoon in the hallway said quietly, "Double L."

It looked like he had been drenched recently and was just beginning to dry off, his fur still soggy and scented of river water. He was staring down at his feet. His karate uniform was clinging to him, and he was covered with mud. Twigs and leaves were caught behind his ears and burrs from climbing through the treetops stuck to him here and there. A few pieces from broken rope snares he'd snapped through as he moved through the forest hung off his wrists and ankles. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his jacket to one of the trees.

"Long time, no chat. Just an insult, a dodgeball, and the occasional kitnapping attempt. I thought this was the room I saw you into to pack once. Happier days, huh? I thought about that trip when I stopped at the riverbank on my way here. I didn't realize until I'd already started where I was going and why. Then I decided halfway along, well, maybe I'm also going to see her. Seems to happen when we're both feeling lousy. Are you feeling lousy too? Maybe we bring each other luck. Bad luck, but," the coon chuckled grimly, "better than none, right?"

The undersized bear opened and closed her muzzle three times before she finally spoke.

"You're an absolute mess," she snapped, shaking herself awake, her grip on the chloroformed rag behind her back tightening. "Do you have _any_idea what time it is? Let me guess," she added caustically, "you've added sleepwalking to your long list of psychiatric disorders."

Dex half-smiled without looking up. "Still the same panda. Never cuts anyone a break. At least some furs don't go changing on you," he observed. "Aren't you going to ask what I'm doing here?"

Lin Lin's eyes narrowed and she eyed him cautiously. "I crazily assume that furs who show up on my doorstep between the hours of one and five a.m. looking like they were dropped from a low-flying seaplane will tell me that. But if I need to ask to get an explanation, Dex--what are you doing here?" She lowered her voice slightly and, added, in a different tone, as her gaze darted from one end of the hallway to another, "This is an awkward place for you to be right now."

"I came to ask your advice about something you should know about," the coon said, raising his head slowly, still whispering. "I've heard what your Level 5 is," he extended his paws out toward her, palms up. "I want to know if it's a bluff or if it works. You ought to know, right?"

The panda took a long breath and steadied herself. "Please, you don't want to go into Level 5, Dex," she said, "you have no idea what kind of stuff is in there. And incidentally, this has to be the laziest infiltration attempt ever. Do you think if you show up looking suitably disheveled I'll waltz you right into a restricted area and you can commence smashing stuff? Haven't you boys already done enough damage to our team for one day? If you knew what some of that stuff was, you wouldn't even joke," she shook her head. "As though I would really think that you--"

The raccoon dropped to one knee and he looked up at her eyes for the first time. His eyes were foggy, and the fur under them was matted. He had obviously been crying. "Don't want to feel sexual desire any more!" he sobbed. "Yes! Give it to me. I surrender. Put me in a dress and take some pictures again if you want. Make me do something embarrassing. Girl for a day or whatever. Sissiest sissy name tag. Say here's what we did to the boy coon hero. Win this dumb war. I don't care about that right now. As long as you shoot me up and give me some of the stuff. Just help me turn it off. I thought I'd turned a page. My life would finally be good again except for," he shuddered, "what a failure and a . . . a pathetic freak those feelings make me into. They poison everything I do. They've mucked up things between me and my best friend so I can hardly be happy for him, they've made trouble for every fur that I care about because of my relationship with Twitch, and they've only ever brought me pain and frustration and disappointment, to the point where I can hardly think straight right now. I felt so angry I didn't quite know what I might do a few hours ago. I've hardly felt that angry since--"

He shuddered and shook his head. "I try to think about something else and I see the look in Rian's eyes one time we were under a tent made of blankets over Roger's couch, he'd been reading me a story, and he dropped his flashlight when I -- it was the last time I tried to paw him and tickle him under his tail, when he winced and said I was awful sweet and of course he liked it, but the light shined up into his eyes and I knew he was lying, and he licked my nose, and kissed both my paws like they were a cub's, then you know what he said in my ear? 'I love you like my brother, Dex, the real one, the one I ought to have had. Let's cuddle.' Never pawed or fingered him again after that. And he's with that fox. He's with that fox forever. Just--see, I'm doing it again. Just turn it off. You ought to know if the stuff here is real, like, hormonally, right? Don't you have to take some kind of repressant or--"

Lin Lin's eyes darted up and down the hall and her ears pricked. Did she hear pawsteps coming down the hall around the corner? Whose? She raised one paw abruptly and flicked the chain lock of her door loose, kicking it the rest of the way open with one foot. Dex raised his eyes questioningly.

"Stop babbling," Lin Lin said, her voice softer, but her knuckles tight around the chloroformed rag behind her back, "and get inside."

The raccoon got to his feet, slowly, and stepped into her bedroom.

You have completed Open House!

You collected the following Hidden Achievements:

Rian (Charisma!)

Twitchy (Age of Consent!)

Dex (Class Change!)

Roger (Chill!)

You activated the following Wild Cards:

Double agent Swifty Fox (Level One), activated by: an overeager Rian stealing a recruit from Serafina!

Meddling friend Jax (Level Two), activated by: a stressed-out Twitchy being twitchier than usual when grilled about his relationship with Dex!

Nosy reporter Blaze Collie (Level Three), activated by: a heedless Dex spilling changing supplies and leaving them behind when he broke into his backpack and used his cloth diapers to rescue Twitchy!

By activating Wild Cards on each of the first three levels, you have gained access to a Secret Level -- Level 5!

This is the End of Open House** but now the **** real ***final showdown begins:*

Next time: Level 5: Graduation! Dex and Lin Lin reunite to enter the academy's secret level; Rian and the Boy Scouts set out on a three-fur rescue mission; in the middle of a difficult conversation, a surprise visitor asks for Roger's help; Twitchy makes what could be his last maneuver; and at least one of the teams will lose at least one member, in the last big (multi-part) Pink and Blue story!