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Level 5: Graduation!

Part Two of: The Pink and Blue Diaperfur Finale!

kitcnub

Continues straight on from [Level Five: Graduation, Part One!](%5C)

If you haven't read that (or don't remember if you've read it), go there first!

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. It is part of the Pink and Blue series, so if you have not read any prior stories in the series, this is probably not the place to start.

Special recap format!:Way past anyfur's bedtime, in the aftermath of the Pink and Blue diaperfur teams' competing boy and girl theme parties, Baby Blue combat leader Dex, unhinged by the revelation that he almost slept with a teenager, has fled to the enemy sissy faction, guilt-ridden and begging for release from his boyish sexual desires, unaware his concerned friends Rian, Ace, and Jax are in hot pursuit! Meanwhile, with the help of Dex's repentant boyfriend Twitchy, rival team leaders Roger and Calliope are making their way to the academy through a perilous underground entrance, hoping to arrive before things get too out of paw! We know that when they reach the school, Twitchy will stay behind, caught in a dangerous trap, so that the team leaders can enter! But while Roger, Callie, and Twitchy were navigating the subterranean gauntlet . . . what's been happening, upstairs?

Significant objects! Keep your eye on the birdie and on these:Rian is carrying a stun gun that he took from Ace; Lin Lin is carrying a chloroform rag she had prepared for a secret academy mission; Dex's backpack and changing kit are in transit with Twitchy.

On with the show:

Previously, on Pink and Blue Diaperfur Adventures . . . .

Clip One! (Level Five: Graduation!, Episode 2) A leopardess speaking

"I know this sounds quaint," [Calliope said,] "but Level 5 is . . . a test of virtue. . . The pure of heart have nothing to fear."

Clip Two! (Star Attractions, Episode 4) A raccoon and a panda. In the woods, on the way to a circus fairground:

Dex cut off the panda by tussling her head and ears with one paw as he walked past her. "Here I thought all this stuff about being better than your academy teammates was just talk," he said without looking back at her. "But no wonder. You really don't do anything halfway, do you, Triple L? Trail continues up this way," he pressed on without a pause, pointing with his free paw. "Get your stuff together, let's not linger."

The panda stood up unsteadily and stared down at her Velcro sneakers, silent for a long, surprised minute while the raccoon made his way up the incline. "Thanks. . ." she whispered to her shoes, when she was reasonably sure he was out of earshot, slowly raising her eyes to look up after him, ". . . Dex."

Clip Three! (Serafina's Big Day, Scene 2): A Newfoundland addressing a leopardess, in the headmistress' office, at Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys:

The Newfoundland's eyes flicked to her notepad. "The notes from the fairground operation that we missed suggest there's a promising screening candidate high-up in Baby Blue. Someone unusually suggestible, and, for one of Roger's boys, uncommonly repressed. If he's been . . . misplaced . . . it might present a major opportunity, should we tap him at the right moment."

Clip Four! (Open House, Episode 6): A raccoon and a lynx, in a break from sparring in the Baby Blue woods:

"I mean, [Ace said,] what stage are you and the bunny at, exactly?"

The raccoon got up to his feet slowly, then brushed away the lynx's paw. "I don't know," he said abruptly. "But we'll be advancing soon. I've been, uh," the coon looked down at the forest floor and said, after a long, heavy silence, "practicing."

The lynx raised an eyebrow and took off his safari hat, using it to fan himself. "I don't know what that means," he said. "Is this like that time Jax and I brought you to all those gay sex talks? Because that was painful."

The coon crossed his arms and glared at his friend. "I found those talks very informative," he said seriously.

Ace set his hat back askew on his head and snorted. "Dex, you took notes," he said. "One time you came with a written list of questions."

Dex pouted and tightened the brown sash of his karate uniform. "For your information I've been doing real things this time," he answered indignantly. "I couldn't get very far on one end, I mean, it's still pretty tight, but I, ummm, I can clean up after myself now. You know - like a little kitten should. So I think I can swallow, during - you know. That end I think I can totally do."

"Oh yuck," the lynx groaned, making a disgusted face and waving a paw in front of his nose. "Swallow? Oh, I wish I hadn't asked. If you were anyone else, Dex, I'd say you were playing for the wrong team."

Clip Five! (Open House, Episode 17!): Split scene:

[A wolf, a tracking hound, and a lynx in the lynx, Ace's, apartment]

"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."

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

[A panda, alone in her bedroom at the academy]

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 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."

And now . . . .

Episodes in this part:

Episode 3: The Pure of Heart!

Episode 4: Heroics!

Episode 3: The Pure of Heart!

Ninety minutes before Roger, Callie, and Twitchy reached the academy's basement entrance . . . .

"Help! Help!"

The gray hyena on patrol looked away from the ground-floor window he had been about to latch shut to see where the call was coming from. He had just been supposed to stand by it until the female squirrel came back, but in his increasing desperation to earn a minute or two of playtime, Iggy had slipped outside in the hopes of being more substantial help to his indifferent mistress, and at least holding an umbrella for her. Still wearing his sleeveless purple blouse, women's jeans and, needless to say, his now-standard under-equipage of corset, panties and chastity cage beneath, the hyena had been scanning the perimeter and carrying an umbrella in one paw. He had followed Miss Shelley outside but quickly lost track of her when she leapt into the trees, and was wandering around in the vain hopes of catching her and holding the umbrella he hadn't opened for himself over her head if she spent any time within his reach.

"Help! Help!" squealed a shrimpy gray girlish figure in a lavender dress, mostly obscured by the rain, dangling upside down in a net from a tree outside the window. "Daddy!" the high-pitched voice wailed. "I stepped in a trap on accident and now I can't get to my daddy! Ah-ah-ah-choo! I'm getting siiiickk! I'm going to make all the other girls and my daddy sick if I'm stuck out in this! Help me! Save me, daddy! I'm a little sissy girly wolf and I can't figure out how to get out of a trap myself! It's too haaaard! I caaaan't even change my own diapers. I wish some big strong boy would save me! Waaaaa!"

The hyena looked all around. No other furs were in sight. There had been some couples locked out by accident earlier; he had seen the Newfoundland let them in when the rain started. Maybe a caretaker had gotten separated from his baby girl? Or a caretaker who had two or three had wanted to get the first ones in out of the rain then been locked inside?

"Hold on," Iggy called out as he walked toward the cries, leaving the window unlatched behind him, "little wolfy. I'll call Miss Shelley to get you down from there. We'll have you dry and Daddy will be filling up his little wolf girl with something nice and warm in no-" He heard a soft pawstep thud in the sodden leaves behind him as though somefur had dropped from a treetop and pricked his ears. "Miss Shelley? Is that you?" he asked as he started to turn around, only to find himself staring into the chest of a rugged-looking lynx in a safari outfit. The hyena opened his mouth to call out, but suddenly someone on the other side was yanking a rag back into his half-open muzzle, as the lynx reached out and held him in place by his shoulders.

"You thought I was a girl?" Ace said, grinning at him. "I'm insulted. Now him," he gestured up at the net, "I can understand."

The hyena's eyes glinted in a panic and wandered up to the net, which fell away as the wolf inside it threw it down to someone on the other side of the hyena while Ace held him. The wolf started clambering down a branch and looked over his shoulder long enough to stick his tongue out at the hyena, as the tracking hound on the other side of the spotted fur tossed the net over him. Rian was in an emergency infiltration costume he'd hoped he'd never have to use. But Dex was in trouble so he had to break some of his usual rules, too.

Rian tilted his head to survey what he and the Scouts had caught in their trap once he had reached the ground and scrambled over to them. "Women's jeans?" remarked the disguised wolf.

The hyena wailed against his gag. Ace reached down and yanked a lanyard with a key card from around the hyena's neck, tossing it to Jax, who also frowned at the hyena's outfit. "He cannot be very high-ranking," the tracking hound observed critically, holding up the ID card with a sigh. "I doubt this will get us very far."

Rian shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Is this guy even a sissy?" he asked. "Or did we take so many of their recruits the pink team started taking any furs off the street?"

"Shut up!" whined the hyena, kicking his legs, against his gag, as he managed to spit it out enough to mutter around it, "I'm a totally effeminate subby slave fur. I have to wear a chastity device and everything and it's totally up to real biological girls whether I ever get to-"

"You look like a normal non-effeminate boy to me," Rian interrupted, motioning to Jax. "Can you tie him up tight and gag him better? I have a feeling he's used to being tied up and gagged tighter than we would do."

The hyena whimpered as he felt the gag yanked backward, deeper into his muzzle, and fastened more securely.

"Listen," the wolf said to the other boy, leaning forward and whispering into his ear while Jax knelt down and tied the hapless hyena's ankles together, "you have to put some effort into playing a role, sweetheart. If you don't want to wear skirts, I sympathize. But then if you're going to be over here you at least have to walk like a girl, okay?" He turned around, wriggled his bottom in the doll party dress, and held both arms out, taking a few dainty steps by way of demonstration.

Ace snorted. "You're not doing it right," the lynx said accusingly. "You're just toddling around with your arms out like you're on a balance beam and then crinkle-wagging up a storm like you always do. That's not girly."

"Well whatever," said Rian as he turned back to the hyena. "I can't do it good. But the right walk is very important for your identity. I can just do the cubby wriggle. Not the girly one. Got the diaper thing down. Am I a baby," he hitched up the rear of his skirt with one paw, wriggled his padded bottom, and slapped it as he looked up at the hyena, "or am I a baby? No big wolfies here. But you, I don't know, you at least need to sway your hips or something. Are you in Serafina's class? You'd never know there was anything boy about her at all from the way she walks. Now that's a real sissy."

Rian smiled as he let his skirt fall and stood back up. Jax coughed loudly and the wolf, who was looking a little dreamy, snapped back to attention. "Oh, are you one of the remedial students? That must be it, right?" he continued. "It's okay that you're having trouble. Building an identity is very hard work. Take me. I'm in these all the time now, don't own a single pair of big boy undies, not one," the wolf patted his own bottom again proudly, "and I still spend five or ten minutes a day modeling in a mirror and saying, 'Rian,' - that's my name, by the way - 'this is who you are. Total diaperbutt baby wolf who'll only ever know how to wet in three things, diapers, pants, bed.' Then I have a little mantra in my head that helps me, 'diapers, pants, bed; diapers, pants, bed; diapers, pants, bed,' and it's almost like a checklist to make sure I keep wetting them."

"I guess what I'm saying is," Rian continued, noting the hyena looked confused, "practice is important. So it's okay that you're so bad at being girly still. You need to be practicing in your mirror everyday. And don't be afraid to say it's hard for you. Say that you need extra help cuz you're slow and you can't do the walk or anything right. You obey real girls you said? That's cool. Don't worry, I won't touch you or anything. We just want to give you some tips. I understand," he spoke the last part slowly and gently, as though addressing a child, "that you're a remedial student here, so I know you haven't thought of this yourself. Ask whoever's in charge of you if she can please stick something in your tailhole. That will make it easier for you to walk the right way!"

He patted the grey hyena on the head gently and smiled at him as though he had just finished explaining something obvious to a kindergartener.

The hyena sputtered against his gag while Jax moved on to tying up his wrists behind his back.

"Now Rian," the tracking hound remarked patiently, "I'm no expert on how this place works, but I doubt that anyone as low-ranking as this femboy obviously is would be allowed to ask for anything."

The wolf in the costume dress nodded. "Right. Good point, Jax. Pen and paper," he said, motioning to Ace, who produced a pad from his pack and handed it to him. "We are going to tie you to a tree and stick your umbrella open over you since it is raining so you don't get sick if you're stuck out here for a while," Rian explained to the hyena as he accepted a pad and pen from Ace. "But to let you know that it's nothing fursonal, and by way of apology for the trouble you will inevitably get in because of us, I am going to do something very generous since you have no rights to make any requests of your own," he said as he began writing, "and leave a note for your mistress pinned to your shirt that says on request of some boys who ran into you, and of a leader in the local fetish community - that's me - would she _please_stick something under your tailhole so you'll at least walk a little girly, any time that she's going to let you go out in public in these half-girly outfits where other furs and real boys and real girls might see you? You're bad at being either and it's just embarrassing, not to you, which no one cares about, but to her and to the rest of the pink team and to real sissies like my girlfriend. You can't go out without something stuck in your tailhole any more, okay? I know, I know it all sounds silly coming from me. Well," the wolf waved a paw at the boy, who was muttering around his gag in wordless protest, "you'll understand better when your mistress says it. I bet whatever she says makes perfect sense to you."

The hyena whined and flopped around helplessly as Jax tied a final pair of coils around him and secured him to a tree, then propped up his umbrella to shield him from the rain as Rian, retrieving his own supply pack from the Scouts, found a safety pin and used it to pin his note to Iggy's girly sleeveless top.

"It was nice meeting you," the wolf remarked with genuine politeness as he turned his back on the hapless bound-and-gagged hyena, then held his arms out and hopped up and down in his petite lavender dress while Ace chortled. "Stop laughing at me and unzip me already!" he snapped. "That's an order."

The lynx shook his head, slapped his knee and held up one paw indicating Rian should wait for a second while he finished laughing.

"You're just jealous cuz _you_can't do the cubby wriggle," the wolf pouted as the lynx unzipped his party dress.

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

"There are more traps this way," Dex remarked as the panda caught his paw. She held him in place while she stepped gingerly over a low-hanging trip wire, then motioned for him to do the same. "Definitely has more of that restricted-area feel."

Lin Lin regarded him nervously. "Level 5 is not what this place should be about, Dex," she said. "It isn't what I signed on for. If you're going to do anything like - close to what I'm doing - it's not a decision you should make when you're upset. Are you sure about this?"

"I told you I just want to see it," the raccoon said firmly. "I want to hold the stuff in my paws and see if it's what's making me feel peaceful. I'll know. It will resonate with my chi or it won't. I think it will. But if you're right and it doesn't, I'll go."

Lin Lin shook her head. "You are so weird," she muttered as a sliding door appeared in their range of vision at the end of the corridor. She reached into her pocket and retrieved her academy ID card. "If they're really all on the perimeter, we might be okay," she warned, "but if they're not-we need to get in and out of here fast. Try to keep your focus. You might feel-different inside."

"I'm not afraid," said Dex, nodding. "If they come I'll say you captured me and dragged me there by force. Don't worry. I won't get you in trouble." He laid a paw on hers, seeing it was unsteady, and together they raised her keycard, inch by inch, toward the slot on the door, and watched it slide open.

As it did, the panda shoved him forward, for the floor outside collapsed underneath them. The two landed on their sides with a whump.

The raccoon looked up at the ceiling, and blinked as motion-activated lights flickered on at the top of the room, revealing a small corridor whose floor was covered with grass, with clumps of lilies, roses, daffodils, and, along one wall, sunflowers. Vines curled up the glass walls, obscuring the concrete visible outside through three of them; only the roof faced out to skylights that could let in open air.

At the opposite end of the room, across the long indoor garden, were two thick metal doors.

"This is Level 5?" he asked, looking around slowly, his eyes widening. "It's a conservatory! It's full of flowers!" He smiled. "It's . . . beautiful."

The raccoon started to get unsteadily to his feet, but Lin Lin grabbed his right foot with both her forepaws and pulled him back down to his knees.

"Dex," the panda said, shaking her head. "This place isn't what it looks like. It's filled with traps. It _is_a trap. It tests you, as soon as there's someone here to run a test. It's designed for couples screening, really. It overwhelms the senses during induction so it's hard to resist. There are two punishment rooms off here, and you get sent to one or the other depending on what you do and say. One has what you want-the ultimate sissification weapons, the hormone regulators, corsets, plugs, tubes, other discipline tools. The other, I don't even know. But, if you're really talking about - you can't do this just to spite someone, Dex. It doesn't work that way. If it's not the bunny, there will be other furs you care about."

The coon shook his head. "No," he said. "Rian belongs with that fox. It makes him happy. I've accepted it. I just want to be there for him. But the irrational part of me won't-"

"Why are you fixated on that wolf?" the panda snapped, sitting up and sounding unduly annoyed. "It's pathetic!"

"Rian," Dex tugged at his diaper and said, his voice sounding a little thick, "is very good at all this."

"All this," said Lin Lin, flicking her paw at the coon's bulky undergarment, "means fetish role-playing, Dex, I'm just reminding you. He's so-" she motioned in agitation with one paw. "I don't know. Ridiculous. Frivolous. Goofy. Lightweight."

Dex had moved on to a patch of daffodils and he was leaning over the panda to poke and sniff at them curiously. "Rian just seems that way because he wants to make things fun for everybody," he said fondly. "You don't know him. I know how he can look, but it's not about himself. It's a show for all our benefit. It's his way of fighting. Trust me, if he's awake now, my buddy will be doing something that seems - weird, sure - but really is a favor for somefur. He wants to give every diaperboy in the world the family love he didn't have. And he does a good job of it. He's not prone to depressive fits. He doesn't drag furs down the way I can. He can make anything fun."

The panda nosed at the raccoon's shoulder. "You shouldn't sell yourself short, Dex," she said softly. "I had fun working with you when we missioned together."

"We almost got kidnapped!" Dex remarked, coming to rest on all fours and looking back at her from between his arms.

"Well," the panda said, with an apologetic shrug, "It seems like we are the serious ones in our respective organizations."

Dex's upside-down face smiled at her slowly. "I had fun too," he admitted. "What is that smell?" he sniffed. "These flowers aren't-"

Lin Lin raised one paw and rested it on the side of his face. "They aren't normal, no," she said. "The scents they give off are designed to . . . break down inhibitions . . . and the ventilation in this room can be adjusted to make them stronger or weaker. This is an enhanced screening environment. It's a lot worse if the leopardess is here to run it. The whole point of this place is to take apart your psychological defenses and judge partners based on what they want-" she looked a little fearful, "as far as I can figure out. Determine how much, and what kind of discipline a boy needs. Cassie says it's for impossible cases. A fur as-" she eyed him a little suspiciously, before she said, "suggestible as you, I'm not sure what would happen if the boss lady was here."

Dex's tail flicked and his muzzle tilted, sniffing the air. "There's a name for those scent things, it's-" His head felt a little foggy. "I don't remember what they're called. You're pretty," he said absently. "Has anyfur ever told you that?"

The panda squirmed and tugged at her pink clothing. "It's a standard thing to say about the clothes, so, yes, even before my operation- when I was just playing dress-up-furs said-"

"I don't mean the clothes," Dex said, sounding mildly impatient. "I don't care about clothes. That's all play-acting. Just - you. You're pretty. When did you decide to have a sex change? How long did you know? I told you I feel less confused being here. I'm trying to figure out if I'm at the start of something, or near the end of it."

"Dex," she snapped, "I don't want to talk about that, okay? It's ancient history. Boys are awful. End of story. It's because of all of you that girls grow up in a world feeling like it's not okay to be who they are, like they're to be used and thrown away. You can make of that whatever you want. And I get to this allegedly liberal country and all this childhood garbage, it's all about boys, that's who all the shows are for, that's who all the toys are for. At least here, I can see there are some of you who wouldn't mind a world where being a baby girl was the better thing. Why shouldn't we be able to grow up in a world like that? End of talk. Focus on what you came for and get moving. Don't let the flowers get to your head already. We're here because of your stupid mission. As soon as you see that syringe you're going to wake up and realize how stupid it is and I won't have to listen to you keep babbling about it for the next six months. We're here to make you feel better, not me."

"Talking is making me feel better. You're-" he squinted at the panda as though just noticing something about her, "I don't know what. But not like everyone thinks you are, Double L. When we're alone, you treat me like an adult. Why are you different with me? And why haven't you complained about the new nickname? Did you notice I changed it?" he said, and started to rise, stretching his arms above his head and flopping backwards onto his rear. As he did, his tail caught something, and a green mesh net, its strands so fine it had been invisible in the grass, closed around the coon and yanked him up into the air. One paw reached out through the net, groping down for Lin Lin's.

The panda sprung to her feet, looking alarmed. "You idiot!" she snapped as he grabbed her paw. "I told you there are traps everywhere!" She looked over her shoulder in a panic. "Let go of me! Maybe I can jam the door so they can't get in."

"It's okay!" Dex said, reassuring her. "Why are you freaking out? I came for this! I'll say you trapped me. Everything will be fine. See, I'm not upset. I did the right thing to come here after all. Something in this place resonates with my chi. Everything will be okay." He squeezed the panda's paw and pulled her back toward him. "If they don't let us talk in private for a while, do something for me, Double L?" he said in a low voice, and she looked up at him curiously. "Tell someone else on your team what you told me," the raccoon insisted, shaking her paw. "Someone else you wouldn't think to tell. Give them a chance to surprise you. If they don't, well, you can be angry at me about it and take it out on me during my sissy training."

She narrowed her eyes. "Not more of this," she said. "Not now. Don't even worry about that. I can take care of myself by myself, Dex."

"So can I," the raccoon said, beaming at her, "but you want to know a Baby Blue secret?" He leaned down as close to her ear as he could and whispered, "You don't have to."

"You are so freaking weird," she let out, sounding desperate as she looked up at him. "Why did you have to show up on my doorstep tonight all glassy-eyed? You of all people. Why do you have to be such a flaming-I don't know-boy? You even smell like boyishness. Why do you have to smell like that?" Dex frowned and sniffed at his shoulder and underarm as she continued speaking. He had put deodorant on that morning, hadn't he? "Don't you know I really... really..." She trailed off, looking back toward the door nervously. Had an alarm gone off? If so, it must be silent. If she tried to mess with the control panel near the door, would that just make things worse?

"Hate me?" Dex suggested, providing the usual conclusion to the sentence she had left dangling in the air.

"Like you!" the panda sobbed, producing a nail file in her right paw that she offered up to him. "All right? I like you. And you don't know what they'll do to you, Dex. You don't understand. I wouldn't be training you. You shouldn't be here! Our whole comeback plan was to kidnap you. No one is thinking straight at this place. Your party sent everyone through the roof. Cassie told me the leopardess would put you under and shove you straight into one of those rooms with the squirrel if you agreed to being a sissy! Then the squirrel would-I don't know what she might do to you besides the drugs and the riding crop. But I don't want to watch it. You wouldn't be here for the weekend, you understand? The Newfoundland said if it were up to Shelley you'd leave Level 5 afraid to wear anything but a dress and not speaking unless you were spoken to and quivering and curtsying on impulse whenever someone talked to you. You wouldn't be you, you moron! And I don't need something like that on my conscience. I'm certainly not going to feel guilty on account of some boy. So get yourself out of that thing! I'll look at the door controls."

Dex was dumbfounded for a moment, accepting the nail file uncertainly, then he looked down toward her eyes, only to see the open front of her left paw swinging toward him right before it connected, sharply, with his muzzle, as she snapped, sounding angry with herself about it, "I know I just said I like you!" Her paw returned the other way, slapping his muzzle again with its backside. "But don't let it go to your head!"

"Owwww," Dex moaned, rubbing the more recently slapped side of his muzzle with the back of one paw. "I didn't even say anything," he whined.

Then, the lights went out! Dex, not sure what else to do, reached out to take a hold of the strands of the net and begin sawing with the nail file as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. "What happened?" he asked, as he heard the panda pound against the door.

"No idea!" she shouted back through the dark. "At least no one else is getting in. This door is electric. But so is," she coughed, raising a paw to her muzzle, as she hit the control panel with a fist, "the system that runs this room, ventilation, the other doors locking and opening, everything, Cassie said it's all on some kind of program to synchronize with the boss lady's inductions."

Dex heard a clanging as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. His head felt thicker. His progress with the nail file was slowing and its small weight felt heavy in his paw. "What are you doing?" he called, as the panda came into focus standing at her tiptoes to reach a ventilation shaft above the door, hopping up and tilting it to slant down. Then she scanned for the next one. His night vision was way better than hers. Did she think he couldn't see that she was tilting all the vents down-away from him, and toward her?

"Swing up, you idiot!" she shouted. "Everything that's supposed to regulate this place is screwed up by the power surge or whatever just happened! Get out of that thing and break through the roof!"

Dex blinked. "You can't stay in here and inhale all that! What if this room stays shut up recirculating the same air all night? You'll-"

"I'll be fine!" she shouted up at him, coughing, as the vents clicked off and heavily scented air filled with floral pheromones began pouring back into the room. "You're the one who's suggestible enough to believe an infomercial! Get out of here!"

Dex sniffed. There was another scent in the air too. Something else was spilling out of the vents. It made him drowsy. It must be some sort of sedative to ease the induction. Maybe it was supposed to be time-released or had been filtering in a little bit at a time, but with the power off and the ventilation system already opened up it was spilling in all at once. He felt his grip loosening on the nail file in his paw. How was the panda still moving? Force of will? Well, her night hadn't been as exhausting as his. He was just starting to realize how exhausted he was. He was really, really tired. Even his tail felt heavy.

"Go!" she shouted as she slumped down onto her rear beneath the final air vent, looking up at him, though, her own night vision no match for a racoon's, she could barely make him out in the dark. "Start swinging!" She yawned involuntarily.

The raccoon looked from the nail file in his paw, down to the undersized bear uncertainly.

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

Rian and Jax crouched behind the bank of lockers nearest the door in the girls' locker room off the academy gym, which the window they'd squirmed in had dropped into, snapping on the red night vision goggles Ace had left with them. As they often did, both for stealth purposes and to make Dex feel more comfortable when they found him, the Scouts were both wearing cloth.

"He got it!" the wolf said, sounding surprised and looking down at his watch. "Not bad."

"Rian, listen," the tracking hound in the Boy Scout uniform next to him whispered, clapping a paw on his shoulder. "I told Ace I couldn't work those clamps so I could tell you two things."

Stripped of his party dress, Rian was wearing nothing except a two-piece suit of blue long underwear covered with yellow stars that barely concealed his puffy diapers, a holster on his shoulder that held Ace's stun gun, and a belt on his waist that held a paintball weapon, a squirt pistol, and a pouch of supplies. A pair of slippers muffled his pawsteps.

The wolf let out a long breath, and said patiently, "All right, Jax, just relax, I won't tell Dex you fiddled with his phone, okay? Of all the mistakes that happened in the last few days, that's like the least important, and I might need your help with him when we get back."

Rian felt the tracking hound's warm breath on his ears as Jax leaned down beside him. "I actually didn't tell Ace this yet because I thought he might blurt something out and maybe somefur is really sick or something. And I didn't want to confuse things any further at the apartment before we knew what was going on. I just want to make sure that there isn't more going on here than I know about. See, I think Dex might have been upset even before he found out about Twitchy, but I don't know why."

Rian furrowed his brow. "What?" he said quietly. "Jax, come on, if it's about-"

The dog whispered quickly, "I accidentally saw a message on Dex's phone when I was trying to delete Twitchy's call. I couldn't help skimming it. It was from that professor he protested with and it looked like there had been some offer to do some international environmental project over the summer."

Rian's ears perked and his tail wagged. "That's great!" he whispered happily. "That's awesome! That's like Dex's dream! I'll throw him a party! Where's he going? Maybe I can get on the Internet and make him a guidebook that shows where public restrooms and places with changing supplies are!" His voice fell, though, as he added, half to himself, "Why didn't he tell me-"

"I don't know where he was going, or wasn't going, more like. The whole message was that the professor wanted to know," the tracking hound rushed out, "why Dex said no and if he could match another summer job offer. Dex doesn't have anything now except the dojo, though, and that's only once a week. I'm sure he could work out something with them, and even if he can't it doesn't pay enough to be worth staying in town for. Do you know if he's having family trouble, or-"

Rian bit his lip and looked down at his footpaws as the sound of pawsteps from behind cut their conversation short. "Two fuse boxes down," reported the lynx in the safari outfit, who was also wearing a pair of thin red goggles over his eyes. "It's not _that_hard, you Luddite. Popped the main fuse blocks out, clamped the boxes shut. Didn't get to the one at the bottom of the back stairs. Two was the best I could do sneaking around the guards. Power's out to whatever they powered. At the least, it should screw up their security system. Let's hope that covers most of the building and let's get to Dex before anyone figures out this isn't a real power outage."

Rian and Jax exchanged glances and nodded. "We still don't know where Level 5 is," the wolf whispered as the three crept into the gymnasium. "But first we have to get there, at worst to spring Dex, and at best to block it off somehow and make sure he isn't brought into it. This building only has four floors so it's obviously not a geo-spat - I mean - neo-graph - I mean," the wolf waved a paw in a circle, "it's obviously not a floor number," he concluded. "We should move as stealthily and quietly as possible until we know where-"

Ace just nodded in the dark, reaching over his shoulder into the backpack he had filled from his crates of combat training supplies. He withdrew something wordlessly and motioned for Jax and Rian to hang back while he stuck his head out and surveyed the hallway. After a moment, he gave a coast is clear sign and they followed at a distance. A stairwell loomed into view around the corner at the end of the corridor. There would be some sentry patrolling it, but based on what they'd observed of furs' movements, they should have five or ten minutes before he made it back here.

Rian looked over his shoulder. "What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?" he asked Jax.

The tracking hound fidgeted. "I know that Ace trash-talks just a little bit sometimes," he said, which prompted Rian to roll his eyes as he continued, "but he really does respect our chain of command." The wolf looked up at him doubtfully as the dog warned, "Ace is actually running this mission, and he's even broken into his own supply boxes. I don't think you've ever been on one like that before, so it might go a little bit different than you're used to."

Ace hopped on to the stairwell and grabbed the railing, not letting his feet touch any of the stairs in case they were somehow alarmed. Instead, Rian watched as the lynx climbed up the edge of the railing, holding his feet in the air and shifting his weight from one forepaw to the other as he let them dangle and pulled himself up, then he hopped lightly over the stairwell and on to the entrance of the second floor, and threw a fistful of some kind of powder out into the air

Next, the lynx withdrew a projectile weapon from his backpack, took it in both paws, and with a loud burst, sent a glaring signal flare flying down one of the hallways!

Rian just stood and stared up in horror as Ace turned, and with his other paw, sent a slinky going down the stairs, to check for trip wires. On about the fifth step, it caught on something, and dangled helplessly half suspended in the air. "Hop over that on the way up!" the lynx mouthed to them, gesturing with his paw. Then Ace turned his attention back to the corridor he had shot a flare down just as two sissy furs, a jackal-skunk in an apron and a diaper, and a golden retriever in a short-cut nightdress, came sprinting down it, the dog clutching a dodgeball and reaching for a perfume bottle that could be used like a grenade under her dress, and Azzie wielding a bubble blaster that let out blinding streams of heavily scented bubbles.

"Hi, ladies," said the unperturbed lynx, saluting them without raising his flare gun, "I'm bringing up the rear. Me and my friends up the stairs are here to spring everyone from your Level 5 dungeon place. You have some furs in there who belong with us. So why don't you make things easier on everyfur and take us there? You're welcome to come along with us all to the party!" He squinted at the sissified jackal-skunk hybrid who had gone over with Swifty. Jax probably would have remembered something about him. Ace was drawing a blank. "We really miss you over there too," the lynx waved a finger in a circle, before concluding, "whatever your name is."

"No way! None of you will ever get all the way up there!" barked the golden retriever, looking up the stairwell, trying to catch sight of any others in the dark, then back down at Ace. "More of us are on the way! Lower your weapon!"

Ace, without raising his flare gun toward them, fired a blank cartridge down at the floor, igniting the powder he'd tossed into the air earlier! It released a quick flash of white light that filled the air around them entirely, and as the momentarily blinded sissy furs stumbled, the lynx, his vision protected by his night-vision goggles, reached for his belt and twirled his paintball gun up into his free paw, spattering both their outfits and sending them down on to their padded rumps with a soft thud while they wailed like babies, both stunned into instant bladder release, and sat there rubbing their eyes with the back of their paws as the diapers became warm and droopy and urine trickled down their thighs.

Rian clapped his paws to his ears and stared up at the lynx in horror, then down to the walkie talkie on his belt, then to Jax in befuddlement. "What's the matter with him? Is he crazy?" the wolf barked to the tracking hound, waving his arms around in agitation, "Now they'll all know we're here!"

Jax grabbed the wolf's forepaw without answering and darted up the stairs, tugging him along and yanking him up and over the one tripwire Ace's slinky had revealed. Since Jax had ignored his question, "What's the matter with you? Are you crazy?!" Rian barked at Ace directly as the two of them joined him at the top of the stairs, and gestured to the two sissy sentries wailing at the top of their lungs.

"I'm gay and I wanted to join the army," said Ace cheerily, "so, pretty much!" The lynx holstered his flare gun and shrugged as he reached into his backpack, producing a coiled climbing rope with a lightly weighted hook on the end that he handed to Rian.

He shoved the wolf toward the next flight of stairs, and, as he did, yanked something out of the wolf's shoulder holster. "We'll make sure any security team is sent down here. You're going up two floors! Move fast. Radio when you reach the place or spot Dex."

The wolf fumbled with the climbing rope for a moment before Jax, laying a paw over his, guided him gently, and their paws moving in sync, hurled it up into the air so it caught on the top of the railing on the inward-facing side of the stairs above them. Rian put one paw over the other and scampered up the rope as best he could, while the tracking hound held the bottom of the rope steady under his foot and with both forepaws, to keep it from swinging.

"And you say I never ask for directions!" Ace whispered over his shoulder to his boyfriend with a grin, as he twirled a gun in each of his forepaws. "Let's stash these two before they recover. Then let's get up to no good!"

The lynx frowned down at the weapon in his left paw, the one he had yanked off of Rian without asking. It should have been the stun gun Rian took from him earlier. But instead, he was holding two paintball guns! He looked up the rope just in time to see Rian's wriggling rear end vanishing over the railing above.

The wolf's muzzle poked out between the slats of the rails and Rian stuck his tongue out at the lynx, tugging on his empty shoulder holster. The wolf reached down the waist of his long underwear to retrieve the stun gun he had put between his two puffy diapers during the boat ride and return it to his shoulder holster before he vanished from view and began pulling up the rope, to make the same climb up alongside another flight of stairs, thus avoiding any trip wires or alarmed steps.

The tough cat shook his muzzle and sighed as Jax gagged the two sissy boys and tied the babies' paws behind their backs. "The wimpiest, wettingest baby wolf I've ever met just made off with my stun gun," the lynx muttered. "How did I let that happen?"

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

"Thanks for sitting with me and listening, Serry," the sissy Newfoundland said. "Now I think it's time for me to move. If Dex hasn't reached Level 5 yet, then he'll need a shove."

Serafina sat on her bed and stared up at Cassie sternly. "I'm not happy about this," she reported, looking as dignified as she could in her frilly negligee, "but if he really came of his own free will, I won't interfere until you're done. I crossed enemy lines once, too."

"And we're all glad you did," said the big dog, patting her on her head as she got to her feet. "You came out of screening a much stronger fur than you were before. Serry, how many sissies have you helped to realize that bottom is just a position? That the boy in a dress and a diaper is almost always the one really in charge in bed? And how many boys have felt more like real boys than ever after you let them have you?"

Serry blushed and bit one finger, looking up at the Newfoundland shyly. "Those ones always tasted the best," the sissy boy said wistfully. "There's nothing sweeter in the world than the cum of a boy who needs a blow job really, really badly, the ones who you know will feel like a man at the end of it, when they'd only ever been boys before. I've done enough missionary work, though. My wolfy is the only boy who's ever been totally focused on me when we're together. Sometimes I feel like he'd never even care about releasing into my tailhole except he knows how bad I want him in there. Of course he's always in those diapers. He loves with his whole heart like only a cub can love. Besides, who ever thought I'd find a boy who wasn't a sissy who _likes_going clothes-shopping with me? He wants us to get complementary outfits, you know. He loves helping me pick out dresses. We should color-coordinate! _He_used that word himself, I swear I'm not the one who said it," Serry practically squealed.

The princess fox was getting very squirmy, and very distracted, one paw resting on the front of her diaper, and it was clear it was an effort of will for her to restrain from dry-humping. "Cassie, I haven't had my wuffy's cum in more than a whole week and no one else's can do any more. On my paws and in my fur, okay, I have a job to do, and I do need to demonstrate things, but no one else in my muzzle and certainly not in my tailhole," the vulpine princess said apologetically, as though this long withdrawal could explain all kinds of bad behavior. "Sorry if it sounds like I'm not thinking straight."

The Newfoundland nodded gently. "I understand," she said.

Then, the lights went out! The dog opened Serry's bedroom door and stuck her head out into the corridor. "What's going on?" Serry asked.

Cassandra ran out into the hallway, Serry getting up grudgingly and dashing along after her. "I'll go to Level Five the back way to make sure it's blocked off!" the dog barked. "If the power's off that place needs to stay shut off! It will be very bad if the safeties go off once it's started! Then I'll make contact with Shelley! Serry! Get whoever you can grab and head to the stairwell, see what's happening on the different floors!"

The sissy princess nodded and turned to dash down the hallway, holding her negligee with both paws. She nearly ran into another fox, in a khaki outdoorsman uniform and red firefighter's hat, who caught her by the shoulder.

"Princess!" Swifty yipped.

"Swifty!" she blurted, then the foxes said, at the same time, "What are you doing up?"

"You have rehearsal tomorrow," the cross fox said accusingly.

"You're on vacation," Serry countered.

Swifty shrugged and raised a paw to take off his firefighter's hat and brush at his bed-rumpled headfur. "I'm used to it," he said with a smile, then gestured to a short wave radio beside the paintball gun and flashlight on his belt. "I don't know what's going on," he said, "but I don't think it's the storm. I tuned into the weather service just a minute ago. Some roads are closed because of minor flooding, but they didn't say anything about power outages. I'm not even sure if this is the whole building; it seems like lights still work in some rooms. I tried to signal the squirrel, but she's checking out a disturbance on the second floor and said to hold tight. Something is wrong. Three of our sentries have gone radio-silent, and the security system is off, which means half our traps will just trip dead alarms. How is this building powered?"

Serry fidgeted. "I . . . can't say I pay much attention to things like that, Swifty."

The cross fox bit his lip. "Have you ever seen a fuse box?" he asked.

Serafina tried to think and nodded. "On the lower level," she said, tilting her muzzle to look at the cross fox curiously, and adding apologetically, "somewhere near the gym. If you're going there, take the back stairs. They don't open on every floor and you'll need your academy keycard."

"All right," he said, setting the hat back on his head and reaching for a flashlight on his belt. "I'll start there."

"Swifty," she said, raising a paw to tap his muzzle, a little sternly, "did you dress yourself like that?"

The cross fox shook his head. "I was made to by someone shaking a riding crop," he pouted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "These clothes still itch something awful. I swear there are beagle ticks breeding in them. Way worse than cooties, those."

Serry smiled at him softly. "I'm sorry you were woken up. I hoped you would get to chill and just be one of the cubs for our party weekend. It seemed like one thing we could do for you."

Swifty laughed. "You're a sweetheart," he said. "I told you; I'm used to it. I'm sorry there hasn't been much in the way of..." He gestured vaguely with his paw.

The princess reached down into her negligee and produced a sprig of lavender; she often slept with crushed flowers and floral petals, on her body or strewn over her bed, so the scent would cling to her. "We're both happily taken," she said gently, "so I understand. I'm learning that a fringe benefit of being committed to someone is that 'We should be friends' becomes a real sentiment instead of a break-up line. Besides, Swifty," she planted the sprig of lavender behind one of his ears, and squeezed his forepaw as she whispered, "I don't do girls."

The cross fox blushed all over and looked down at his footpaws as she planted a kiss on his muzzle. He quivered as his fashion consultant and pink team recruiter brushed by him, the tip of her tail touching his, and whispered, "Good luck. I'll replace every stitch of your boy underwear for this. We both know briefs, and not diapers, are what give _you_rashes."

Swifty took a few moments to steady himself as Serry made for the stairwell, then started moving. The princess rounded two corners in the opposite direction, then stopped in her tracks as she saw the figure at the top of the stairs, clad in blue long underwear covered with yellow stars, turning to face her after completing his second rope climb.

The princess fox's eyes widened. "Rian!" she yipped.

The wolf smiled innocently as he saw her standing there. "Serry!" he exclaimed in a loud, clueless whisper. "Oh, thank goodness!" He gestured over his shoulder. "Come with me!" he said. "You can show me where Level 5 is, and if the power is still on there I bet your keycard can open everything! I'm here to bring Dex back and as soon as we leave with him everything will go back to normal, don't worry!"

The vulpine straightened her negligee and stamped one footpaw. "What are you doing here, Rian?" she demanded. "Why is our power out? What happened to the three sissies who've gone missing? Roger said if we broadcast your invitation you'd leave us alone afterwards. What- what are you wearing?" She gestured to the holsters around his shoulder and on his utility belt. "That doesn't look like a paintball gun. Rog has never allowed black ones! Is it a-?"

The wolf frowned and raised a paw to the holster on his shoulder, thinking he realized what the entire problem was, and gulped. "Oh," he explained quickly and incompletely, "Serry, it's not what it looks like! Rog has nothing to do with this, okay! It's not even a Baby Blue thing. It's all me, well a few of us, because Dex needs his best friends now. I didn't want to bring a stun gun, believe me. I'm carrying it so _they_couldn't carry it."

Serafina cut off his rambling explanation sharply, shaking her head and expressing obvious distress. "A stun gun?!" she asked in horror "Have you used that on anyone here?"

Rian shook his head quickly and raised his paws to wave them from one side to the other emphatically. "No, I swear! I swear I didn't! I never would! Ohhh, this is all Ace's fault," he pouted. "Those two said we should have it in case Dex was out of his head and doing crazy things-"

"Crazy things like what?" Serry snapped at him. "Sneaking through the tunnels to experiment? Wearing a dress? Playing pattycake with boys pretending to be girls?" Then she added sharply, feeling uncharacteristically defensive of a teammate she ordinarily didn't like much, whose room she had spied Dex in earlier, "Having sex with a fur you don't like, maybe? Is that the 'emergency'? Did you come here to knock him out and drag him back to the partner you all approve of just as soon as you heard about it?"

"What?" Rian exclaimed, completely baffled, and waved his forepaws, palms forward, back and forth again. "You're not making any sense!" He looked back and forth down the hall frantically. "Look, Serry, Dex is really, really upset. He came here after a fight with Twitchy and it was bad. Twitchy is-well, Dex found out something bad about him and blamed himself for it. He really needs to know the rest of us are still there for him."

Serry shook her head forlornly. "You're not even denying that Dex came here of his own free will," she said, her throat swelling up. "You know he did and you're still attacking us. I defended you to the others. I accused Cassie of lying. I said you'd never do something like this."

The wolf took a long breath. "I'm sorry I'm not doing a good job of explaining right now, sweetheart," he said in a gush. "I'm still too upset. And I need to move! I don't know how much time I have! I have to get to Level 5! Serry, listen to me, evil things happen in that place! They obviously haven't told you everything! They can crush boys there! If I told you right now I don't think you'd even believe me! Come see what they have there with me, or come see how upset Dex is, and you'll understand. I don't want to make you upset, I love you more than anything in the world, buuuut," he squirmed as he looked down the stairwell, and thought of the rebuke Ace had delivered to him a few days ago, when he had been worrying about his relationship instead of about Dex and Twitchy on the day after the lab accident, and said, his voice quivering, "but I'm here because Dex really needs me right now and I need to focus on my friend."

"I can't believe this," said Serry, choking back a sob. "I barely saw Dex but he didn't look upset at all. You really do hate everyone here except me, don't you? It really would be that terrible to you if Dex jumped teams and pretended to be a girl for a few days, wouldn't it? The other pink team players are my friends, Rian. I put up with your weird friends. Dex doesn't exactly greet me with smiles and sunshine, you know. And you're using words like evil? We aren't the ones going back on our word and breaking into buildings at ungodly hours and threatening furs with bodily harm. You've come far enough." She crossed her arms. "You get on that walkie talkie right now and march down those stairs and order everyone who's with you to release any prisoners and pull out before one more sissy's junior prom night is ruined. If your friend wants to be here that's his business. Maybe he needs a break from an environment where people will electro-shock him if he doesn't toe the team line."

"Ohhh, Serry," Rian wailed, fidgeting, and look back and forth from her to the stairwell. "I'm really sorry about this. But Dex needs me." Then, not sure what else to say, he dived on his side, sliding on his slippers under his girlfriend's reach as fast as he could, clambered to his feet and sprinted frantically down the nearest corridor, leaving her standing there, stunned. The sissy fox leaned against the wall to recover her composure, and stared up at the fire alarm on the wall, uncertain what to do. Then, she heard yelping from down the stairs, and, abandoning the alarm, started down.

Rian ran right down a hall in time to see a hulking black dog disappearing around a corner as a thick gate lowered behind her. He dived, hoping to slide under it, but his slippered feet collided with the sheet of metal instead.

"Nooooo!" he wailed, pounding on it with his forepaws. He couldn't have come all this way to stop here. What if Serry was right and he should turn around and go? No, he didn't believe they had come for nothing. He couldn't believe that. "Dex!" he barked, not caring at the moment if anyone else heard him. "It's me! How far in there are you? Everything is okay, Dex!" he shouted. "We know what happened and no one is angry at you!" His words echoed back at him, sounding hollow. The area on the other side, he realized, his ears pricking, was soundproofed, probably so inductions couldn't be interrupted, or interfered with.

What if it was already done? What if Dex wasn't Dex any more? He couldn't be too late. Rian wrung his paws together. He sobbed. "We all love you!" he shouted, and kicked the door with one footpaw. He reached for the walkie talkie on his belt, not sure what else to do. He couldn't let his best friend down. Dex needed him. That's why he was here. His life had finally been perfect. He didn't want anything about it to change. Certainly not his best friend.

The wolf squeezed his eyes shut - and found himself wrapped up, for a moment, in a memory of another weekend night, one that he had never thought would feel so long ago, when he had just come out of the bedroom in Roger's apartment.

The coon had been standing and leaning against an armest of the couch paging without enthusiasm through an issue of the latest martial arts manga Roger had hoped might interest him. As usual, he seemed unimpressed by it. All of a sudden he was pounced and tumbled back onto the sofa, over the armrest, with a whump!

'Hey!' Dex exclaimed, shaking the open comic book off his face, to stare up into the muzzle of the short wolf in a pale blue onesie who was pinning him to the couch. Rian's tail was wagging and his eyes were glittering, and he looked excited about something.

'I woke up wet this morning, Dex!' he yipped, obviously proud. 'I woke up wet for the first time! I mean I didn't wake up then go back to sleep wet first to have to do it! I don't even remember it happening!'

'That happens to me all the time,' said the coon, trying to push Rian off of him.

'Because you're awesome!' Rian exclaimed, wiggling around in his onesie and pushing the coon back down on the couch.

'Because I'm incontinent,' the pounced raccoon in the karate uniform corrected him.

Rian scrunched up his face for a moment, then asked, 'Does that mean awesome?' Dex sighed and shook his head, and Rian called out, 'Rog! He's using big words again! It's confusing me!'

The Labrador poked his head in from the kitchen and grinned at the two of them on the couch. 'You boys can start the movie,' he said, 'I'm just looking for the lids for the sippy cups.'

'Pfft,' snorted Rian. He squinted down at his pinned friend for a minute as though assessing him then whispered to the raccoon, 'Don't worry. I'll straighten this out.' The wolf raised his voice and called into the kitchen, '_Dex_doesn't drink out of a sippy cup!'

The coon squirmed a little. The longer he was held pinned down, the more his regressive impulses would bit by bit overtake him. But what was terrifying so much of the time felt safe, fun, and more than a little bit arousing around these two. By now, he trusted them completely to know what was best for him. 'I don't?' he asked, feeling genuinely confused for a moment as he felt Rian's paw reaching inside his diaper.

'Dex, you're a baby. You don't even notice you're wetting yourself when you're awake,' the wolf explained patiently.

'Not a baby. Know if I'm messy!' the regressing coon retorted defensively. 'Or when I'm gonna be a good few minutes before! Totally 'void those kinda accidents!'

'Uh huh,' said Rian skeptically. 'When did you learn to do that, pillowbutt, last week?' Dex wanted to say he'd been able to tell for a long time. Was last week a long time ago? It sounded like a long time ago! He could barely keep track of everything that happened in a whole week! There were so many days in it! Last week sure seemed like a long time ago, now that he thought about it. So . . .

The coon nodded, uncertainly, a response that delighted his lupine buddy. Dex was getting so much more comfortable with them and the other boys lately! He'd really taken to the group they were getting together. And to think, Roger had grumbled about having another play session so soon and made them put it off for a couple weeks, saying to Rian he didn't want to overwhelm the coon. He was loosening up just fine, and taking to more than half the ideas Rian had been absorbed in brainstorming for the past few days. In no time he'd have Dex feeling like predicting his own messes accurately for a week had been nothing but a lucky streak. This would be a day for his buddy's baby book.

'Well,' Rian continued as his tail started to wag at double-speed, 'you're gonna be sitting on our laps during the movie, coonkit. That way at least Rog and I will know if you mess while your attention's all wrapped up in it.'

The raccoon blushed and looked down at his pants as Rian's paw gently stroked Dex's slowly stiffening shaft inside of his thick, soft cloth padding. That's why it was a little hard to think. Rian always knew exactly how much pressure to apply where and what tickled the right way.

'You sure, Dex?' asked the Labrador from the kitchen entrance, holding up a sippy cup demonstratively once he'd located the lid. 'It's red like your plastic pants.'

Rian let out a resigned sigh. 'He'd be wetting all over me anyway, and now he's gonna spill all over me too. I just got this onesie,' the wolf cub whined, but he needn't have been worried.

The coon narrowed his eyes and looked up at the drinking cup suspiciously. 'Who's gonna hold it?' Dex asked, one paw drifting up toward his muzzle, and his eyes flickering from Rian to Roger and back again. He was feeling cubbier by the second the longer he was pinned on the couch.

'You are,' the Labrador said patiently. 'You can use both paws, see? Like this.' He demonstrated, taking an imaginary sip that way.

The raccoon, still pinned under Rian's knees and forepaw, stared blankly as though Roger were showing him how to solve a Rubik's cube. Then he shook his head. That looked way too hard! He'd already gone and shot off his mouth and said he could keep track of when he was messy or had to mess. He didn't want to break his weeklong streak of being right about that, so he'd have to be really concentrating on it even with a cartoon movie on that he really wanted to watch and two furs he wanted to nuzzle all over on the couch with him! A baby coon could only handle so much multitasking.

'Baba,' he insisted, while Rian watched with a twinkle in his eye. That sippy cup contraption looked complicated! What was he supposed to do when he finished taking a sip-let go and drop the cup on his lap? Or would that make a mess? And if he was holding it himself and sipping what would happen if liquid dribbled all over his muzzle? What should he do then? Stop sipping, or raise his muzzle in the air and keep on sipping as hard as he could to try to sip more up before the rest of it dribbled out on him? As if he could figure all that out by himself! He was grateful his big brother had headed off that potential disaster: Rian was totally right. A bottle was the thing for him. He'd nurse it when it was stuck in his muzzle, but his caretakers would take it away before he made too much of a mess and wipe off his muzzle before his whiskers got all sticky.

'Oh all right,' said Roger, 'I'll warm some milk up for you.'

Dex giggled and clapped his paws together. Roger never let him drink milk cold. 'I'm wet too!' he announced to Rian in a belated response to the wolf's big news.

'Duh,' said the wolf cub, rolling his eyes, as he withdrew his paw from the coon's diaper, which he would return to stroking the inside of periodically during the movie. 'You're always wet.'

Dex's tail flicked against the sofa as he nursed on his paw. That was true! Dex stared up at his observant big brother admiringly as deep thoughts ran through his head: Rian had called him pillowbutt before and that was a new nickname. He liked it a lot. His diapers were feeling comfier all the time. It really was like sitting on a pillow if he wore enough of them. He had to wear more of them at a time. Then he'd be comfier. He'd ask Rian to help him count how many someone his age should wear. At least for all of last week he had been able to predict and head off messy accidents. Maybe even longer but so much happened in a week that it was hard to say with certainty. Would he be able to keep that up? His big brother Rian was without doubt the coolest funnest big brother on the planet. Dex was a silly little kit who wished he were as cool as Rian. After a few minutes of such weighty rumination, though, the cell phone Dex had left on the coffee table began buzzing and he retracted his paw from his muzzle to bat at it. Rian picked it up and handed it to the coon, who planted one elbow on the top of the armrest and used it to push himself up into a sitting position before he answered the phone with a smile on his face.

'Uh huh,' Dex said into the receiver. 'Of course I did!' He got to his feet and shook the fog out of his head, though still seeming pleasantly distracted. 'It's Mom,' he whispered, holding the phone away from his muzzle for a minute and gesturing to the bedroom. 'It won't take long, we had the big talk yesterday afternoon. She's just calling to say thanks for the flowers. You can start it; I don't care about the previews,' he said, wandering off a few paces that way while he chatted.

Flowers? Mom? Rian flopped on his side on to the couch and stared at the TV screen for several minutes blankly. For the latter half of the week he'd hardly been thinking about anything but the approaching play date, what he could come up with to broaden Dex's horizons, and how much of it might translate into things he could tell the other boys to do with the secretive raccoon. 'Rog,' he called into the kitchen after a few minutes. 'What day is it today?'

'It's Sunday,' Roger shouted back. 'I didn't want you boys to come until I could take a Monday off in case we ran long, remember? It was a good thing! And it's a good thing neither of you has class Monday morning this term.'

The wolf looked crestfallen. Had he forgotten? He could easily have. It wasn't a day he created any reminders for, and Roger knew full well he had spent the last one at a cemetery. Not even the right cemetery, which would have required a long trip to his hometown without visiting his father; he had just wandered to a random one on his way back from Roger's in the morning and read there until he fell asleep. The dog had expressed concern when he found Rian asleep there in the dark, an open book over his face, on his own way back home later.

'But why did you bump our next loosen-up-Dex sleepover to this specific weekend?' Rian called into the kitchen suspiciously.

There was a clatter of bowls and pans from the kitchen. 'Can't hear you!' the Labrador shouted, even though the clatter occurred after Rian's question rather than during it.

Dex returned after a few minutes and flipped his phone shut to see his friend still staring at the TV screen, biting his lip hard and looking down at the remote. 'You didn't start-' Dex observed, then the coon trailed off as he looked from the phone in his paw to Rian, who was still staring off into space and, for the moment, barely seemed aware Dex had returned. 'Oh,' he said, sadly.

Roger emerged from the kitchen after a few minutes holding a sippy cup and a baby bottle.

'Someone's highly mobile for his age,' he observed, looking at Dex. 'Why don't you get back on the couch before you trip, Dex! Relax and enjoy your-'

Dex shook his head and waved a paw. 'Remember, Rog,' the coon in the karate uniform prodded, as the cubby wolf looked up at him from the couch curiously, 'That's Rian's bottle,' the raccoon said. 'He'll be sitting on our laps during the movie. Today is a day for my buddy's baby book. After all,' Dex added, half-smiling, 'there's a lot to celebrate today! Our little boy wet in his sleep for the first time last night.'

Rian fidgeted and shook his head, starting to get up from the couch. ''S not mine,' he argued. 'Deeex! You're littler 'n me! I don' need-'

But Dex deposited his cell phone and knelt down, pushing him back on to the couch. 'Hey, you little klutz,' the raccoon said gently, 'If you need to go somewhere, Rog or I will carry you, or hold on to your paws over your head so you don't trip and fall or bang yourself on anything.' Then he kissed Rian's forehead.

Rian blushed and suddenly felt warm all over - including in the front of his diaper, which he realized as it was happening he was wetting again. Well, of course, the little wolf chided himself as his imagination raced. If he was still getting used to putting one footpaw in front of the other, it was no wonder he couldn't ever make it to the potty on time and had given up trying! But as clumsy and accident-prone a baby he was, he still had helping paws with everything he did.

He looked up from Dex on one side of the couch, to Roger, on the other, and felt everything broken inside him mending. The world was how it was supposed to be. He was with his daddy and his brother, by one manner of speaking anyway, and they all loved each other. Love was spilling out of him. He wanted to share as much of it as he could. He _was_Roger's cub. He _was_Dex's brother. He belonged to these furs and to everyone in the group they were starting. He was their baby boy mascot. His diapers proved it! He would let each and every one of those boys know how happy they all made him and how pack love worked. It was his mission. He was a wolf, and after years of living on the margins of one that only tolerated him, he had a pack again.

'Can walk just fine by myself,' Rian argued feebly, biting his lip. 'Been able to do that f'rever!'

'Uh huh,' said the raccoon skeptically, as he pushed Rian down and over on to his side, leaving the wolf staring up at the two of them. They both seemed so much taller than he did. Maybe that _was_because he was crawling usually. Is that why he always found himself looking up at every fur he talked to? Because he was either on all fours or on his knees most of the time? It was hard to remember!

'When did you learn to toddle solo, puddles,' Dex asked him with a smile, and Rian, having already flooded his diaper, felt his heart flood with joy as the coon concluded with a smirk, 'last week?'

And the next time he saw his friend, Rian thought, as he called himself back to the hallway, where he lay outside a cold, metal door, on cold linoleum, the raccoon might not be the same fur at all.

"Dex!" Rian shouted, pounding on the door, whimpering and sniffling. When it didn't budge, the wolf fell to his knees. "I_need _you!" the wolf cub wailed. "That's why I'm here! Please still be yourself in there." A single tear ran down his cheek. "I don't want to do life without you, buddy."

He pounded at the door again, weakly, with no better results.

Things Rian could have or should have done for his packmates paraded through his mind. He should have been looking out better for Dex to begin with. He should have been more sensitive to Twitchy and maybe the rabbit would have come clean sooner. He should have listened to Jax. He should be there for his girlfriend to lean on but instead she was keeping her troubles from him so he couldn't mess up that situation, too. When Dex came out that door, his brave best friend might be broken and quivering. Would he hate himself, and his diapers, again when they were through messing around in his head? Rian couldn't stand to see that.

There was one form of self-control ingrained in a wolf even deeper than potty training. One impulse every cub learned to curb before he could ever be taken out in public and one thing a grown wolf never did at full volume. But, the terrible feeling that his friend's boyhood might be slipping away in there, and that it might be Rian's fault for not keeping a better eye out for him, was too much. Rian couldn't restrain himself. The little wolf raised his muzzle in the air and let out a strange, unearthly sound that began deep in his throat and came to involve his entire body, with muscles quivering from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail.

It was a long, loud, mournful howl.

It reverberated off the walls around him, and reached up to the ceiling and into the air vents, a howl that gained in volume as his pitch oscillated up and down.

Around the academy, furs slumbering in bed tossed and turned, and those in the throes of passion thought they heard whistling in the air ducts.

A floor below, a sissy fox tending to a bound and gagged jackal-skunk hybrid who had tumbled out of the closet she'd heard noises from, paused after she hefted the sniveling cub and began carrying him toward a safe bedroom. "Rian," Serry said sadly, recognizing the voice, and bit her lip thoughtfully. "Oh, honey," she said after a moment. "You really are upset about something."

On the same floor as Rian, deeper inside the restricted area, behind another sliding door, in a soundproofed room, the drowsy raccoon's ears twitched and, still half-tangled in a frayed net, he tightened his grip on either edge of the tear he'd made with Lin Lin's nail file right before he dropped it and slipped into a stupor.

"I heard something!" he said loudly, and the sound of his own voice woke him up further. What was it? The room was soundproofed; what could get through that? Was it whistling in the air vents? He wasn't sure, and it was starting to subside, but there was something familiar about it.

Whatever it was, for some reason, hearing it set him on alert instantly, and the distressed raccoon's well-honed emergency instincts kicked into gear.

As the cobwebs in his head began to clear, his eyes scanned the room beneath him. Most of the gas had probably settled below. The panda was lying on her side, breathing shallowly, a couple yards away from him. The undersized bear had taken the worst of the hit by tilting the vents down. He probably could follow her escape plan and get out through the conservatory roof and the skylights. But there'd be no easy way back in from there. Dex's senses were rapidly returning, and he looked up, then down to her, then up again for several minutes.

"Double L!" the coon shouted, and yanked the net apart as forcefully as he could, straining against either end of the gash, until it snapped around him and he dropped softly onto his feet and one forepaw, looking down and raising an arm to cover his muzzle and keep from inhaling more than he had to as he made his way over to her. "I won't leave you here! I'm taking you into a punishment room!" he shouted, really just trying to make noise in the hopes of waking her up. "If the power's off, I should be able to break them open, and we'll close the door behind us, and you'll be out of this! Then we'll figure out what to do!"

He bent down and lifted the petite panda in his arms, hoisting her up and cradling her against his chest. She stirred fitfully and muttered something, but Dex couldn't understand most of what she was saying; it wasn't in English. There were snippets, here and there. "Leave me alone," she whimpered, shuddering. "I'm not one of you. None of you touch her," she got out at various points, but Dex couldn't understand much else.

"Double L! Listen! Lin Lin!" he said loudly as he staggered with her across the room, then, remembering in a flash a name he had seen on a deck of cards he had retrieved from a circus trailer long ago, "Li!"

She stirred and he felt her shiver; the murmuring became a little louder and more articulate. "I don't know where you are!" Dex kept talking, as much for himself as for her, as he made his way across the room, stepping carefully. He retrieved a slender stick from the ground with his free paw when he felt it beneath his foot. Then he held it and used it to poke around before each step, hoping to avoid triggering any other booby traps, while his other paw grabbed one of hers and squeezed it.

"When we went to the fairground," he shouted as they approached the two bulky metal doors that led to the punishment rooms, "I went somewhere when I was under hypnosis! I had to do it on my own. I had to remember that I _could_do things on my own! But you have to learn the opposite! That you don't _have to_do things on your own, okay? I'm with you. I am." He felt drowsy-he couldn't help inhaling the soporific vapor-but his own monologue was helping to keep him awake and alert. "So I'm giving you a tip! Wherever you are! Whatever all this stuff has jostled up! Listen to me!"

He felt a loose grip against his own paw, the one holding hers, and he smiled as he stepped up to the punishment chamber doors. They were almost there. Poking with the stick, he felt the edge of a trip wire, and hopped over it. He discarded the stick and tried one of the handles, but frowned. No luck. He moved toward the second, still carrying her, and kept talking. If he had to try to kick them down, he'd have to set her against the wall.

"Don't run away!" he shouted. "Go backwards!" he tried the second door, and frowned. The handle remained firm. It wasn't simply locked-it just didn't budge. How could that be? He thought the panda said some kind of computer program kept the punishment doors shut during inductions. But the power was off. Was it just jammed shut? He didn't want to, but he'd have to put her down so he could try to kick the door open.

He crouched to set the panda down against the wall space between them, and patted her head as he propped her against it.

"All night long," he continued as he coughed and covered his own muzzle, "I've been learning that you and I have more in common than I realized. So I'm just going to bet we have this in common, too! You need to remember something! Double L - Li - you told me you had bad memories about how boys were you didn't want to talk about. That's why you're you, now, I mean, a girl. Are you worried to tell furs about it because they'll all think some boy hurt you or something and that's all there is to your life? Or have you told a few furs and that's what they think? That you're hateful? Or weak? Or they need to handle you with kid gloves? I think," he spun and kicked the heavy door, and recoiled, his foot smarting, catching himself against the ground with one forepaw, "that's bunk! I think it's what everyone expects someone in your place to say so maybe you've just started believing it! You'd slap me if you were awake and say I have no right to tell you this, but you have nothing to be ashamed of! Not for being a girl now and not for not having been born a girl."

"The same thing happened to me. Everyone thought I regressed to protect myself and I just started to believe it too, I forgot what I really felt like when it started. But none of us have stories that are so pat! I know from my friends! Besides it doesn't make sense! Why the ageplay then? Ageplay isn't about hate!" the coon shouted as he spun and kicked again, with his other foot. "It's the least hateful thing ever! And if there's one thing I could never see you as, Double L," he fell back, once more, and paused this time to look down at her, still half-conscious, "it's a victim! I don't know what, I don't know where, you need to look, but forget anything that happened later that confused things, remember the first time," the coon staggered to his feet, "you felt different, the first time you opened something inside and you knew, somewhere, you wanted to be a girl," he kicked the door a third time, by necessity with a foot he'd already used, and winced as he fell back from the impact, starting to feel a little drowsy himself, "I think if you go there," he shouted, "you'll be strong!"

The raccoon sunk to his knees, and steadied himself with one forepaw, his vision starting to blur. The panda in the Powerpuff Girls sweatshirt and sweatpants, leaning against the wall, stirred and murmured.

Rural China. Twenty years ago.

A small boy panda squinted and shaded his eyes with his forepaw, not used to being so high up in mountainous country, where the sun shone directly in front of them, as they drove.

'Life is about accepting change. Every day, something in the world changes that we thought would remain constant,' said the panda in the driver's seat in Mandarin as he turned on to another dirt road and slowed his weatherbeaten vehicle. 'There is no use wringing our paws about it, Li. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve my country in a new place for a few years. The city had grown too familiar.'

The skunk sitting next to the small boy panda in the back seat rolled her eyes. 'Translation,' she said to him softly in English, "I criticized the party one too many times.' The American skunk, her headfur frizzy and dyed purple, and a piercing in her snout and on each of her ears, bent over to whisper in his ear. 'I know I rag on him, Li,' she said, 'but your father's a good man. You'll meet a few of those, but they're like the exception who proves the rule. You grow up to be one, okay? Don't think that makes patriarchy okay, though.'

'What's patri-' the little panda sitting next to her fumbled the next word, his English accent uncertain, 'ality?'

The skunk patted his head. 'Maybe we'll have that talk when you're older,' she said.

'We will send for your mother and your aunt once we've seen this place and made sure the accommodations are ready,' the large panda in front said as a cluster of huts appeared in view. 'The three of us can do what work needs to be done to make things more comfortable for them. I am grateful you could come, Miss Jennifer.'

The punkish skunk girl shrugged and adjusted her rock band tee shirt. 'I'm officially done as far as the Peace Corps is concerned, anyway,' she answered him in Chinese. 'I'm glad I could stay for a few extra weeks to wrap up loose ends with my friends. Including you and Li.'

The older panda seemed pleased. 'I have appreciated all the time you have spent teaching my son English,' he said. 'I know it will bring him great advantage. Especially now that he may need to start school in this place instead of in the city. I hope that you are teaching him respectful forms of address.'

'Translation,' the skunk, switching languages, whispered to Li, who giggled, 'I hope that there's a school here. And I don't speak English, or I would start to get worried about some of these translations.'

'Can say whatever I want in English,' the little panda said to her mischievously.

'That's right,' the skunk said, patting him on his head, 'you say exactly what you think. If you do ever end up in America come visit me and my GFs, Li. It's not exactly a boy-friendly household, but, if you can put up with all our sisterhood talk, I'm sure we could make an exception for you.'

The car came to a halt and the father panda stepped outside, staring down the slope, into what looked, for the next few years, to be his family's hometown.

'Well,' he said as the skunk and his son got out and stood next to him, then, after a long pause, 'I am certain that our family can bring positive change here.'

The skunk let out a long breath as she looked down at the houses, some of tamped mud and some with wooden walls and bamboo thatch roofs, spread out along the base of the mountain slope and off out of sight, and noted what looked like a small cluster of outhouses near the edge of the housing area.

A few run-down houses, obviously the vestiges of an aborted development, were clustered together at the end of their vision near a pair of paw-operated water pumps in a small town center. That's where they would be headed.

'Translation,' the skunk said to Li, 'this can't possibly suck as much as it looks like.'

The small boy panda frowned and fidgeted in his white shirt and black slacks. His father waved to someone approaching from the village. There were only a couple cars here, and seeing one coming remained a rare event. 'Hello!' the father panda called out. 'I am the new district public officer! I understand the office has been vacant for some time.'

The skunk had reached into her pocket and fished out a pack of cigarettes. While she was preoccupied, the small panda darted a glance to the left, then to the right, then ran off, exploring. There had to be _something_around here worth seeing.

The skunk had closed her eyes and was enjoying her cigarette, clearing her head from the long, bumpy car ride. Coming over the mountains had been thoroughly jostling. It was maybe twenty minutes before she looked down to her left.

'Drat,' she said, noting the panda boy's absence. 'He ran off. If I weren't working for free I might get fired for something like this.'

She started off, picking her way through shorn crop stalks and muck in between the huts, most of whose panda inhabitants looked at her strangely and a little suspiciously, and headed toward the sound of running water and the start of trees on the other side of the village. If she were a cub, that's where she might have gone.

'Miss Jennifer,' she heard the big panda call from behind her, 'where is Li?'

The skunk shrugged and gestured vaguely toward the woods with her lit cigarette as she continued in that direction. The father panda and the bear greeting him from the village started that way, too.

By the time they had reached the woods, Li had made his way back from further up the stream, holding a bundle in his arms. The young panda boy looked concerned, and he was shirtless, his headfur wet and with a tuft of moss clinging to it. 'Dad,' he said, 'someone lost this. I don't know what could have happened. Maybe a wild animal frightened them away or they got terribly lost. But I thought I heard crying and I found it in a cave.' He looked up at the village bear accompanying his father as he held the cub out, swaddled in his shirt, which he had converted to a makeshift blanket. 'Do you know whose it is?' he asked hopefully. 'They must be worried.'

The village bear frowned. 'I could not say,' he said, looking away. 'But I'm sure it is nobody's from here.' Even to the little panda the response sounded suspect. Where else could the baby have come from? There weren't a lot of other choices; this was the only village for miles and it wasn't exactly a tourist attraction.

The bundle let out a feeble, fading sob, and the panda frowned at it in concern.

Li's father looked unhappy and eyed the village bear suspiciously. 'Perhaps your village has had difficulty making petitions for assistance during the time it did not have a district public officer,' he said to the village bear sternly. 'The procedures can be confusing. But this country is a civilized place. We have a great tradition of advanced civilization.' Li didn't understand the speech at all, but he had a feeling he wasn't intended to. His father turned to his son and patted him on the head. 'We will take the cub someplace warm,' he said, reassuringly.

'Why don't,' offered the skunk in a slightly stilted, but understandable Mandarin, snuffing her cigarette out against a tree as she reached for the bundle, 'I try to do something about this? I'm leaving soon anyway and I have time on my paws. I'm sure someone in the Peace Corps office can help me figure out something for the cub. I'll see it through and get the baby placed somewhere with someone who will take good care of it. I swear in the name of Joey Ramone. Shows you I'm serious.'

Li's father raised one large paw to his muzzle and chewed on the side of his index finger thoughtfully.

'Who is Joey Ramone?' asked the village bear, scratching his head. 'The president of America?'

Li's father removed his finger from his muzzle. 'I think he is a figure from Miss Jennifer's religion,' he answered.

The skunk with the piercings and purple headfur, who could understand them, just rolled her eyes. 'How about it?' she said. 'I'll help you set up and take the cub with me when I leave here next week?'

The father nodded and eyed the village bear next to him, who looked away. 'That might be best,' he agreed. 'If I begin my first day as district public officer by reporting this and start a witch hunt, all the villagers will be fearful and there will surely be little positive change.'

Li offered his bundle up to the skunk, looking up at the punk American girl wide-eyed. 'Will you take the cub away from here, Jenny?' he asked, switching into a formal, but fluid, English. 'What if its parents come back?'

The skunk smiled softly, knelt and patted the top of Li's head before she took the bundle in both arms. She examined the bundle more closely, checking inside its cloth undergarment, and nodded. Then she leaned forward and said into his ear, since she was sure neither of the older pandas could understand, 'I'm sorry everyone is responding like this is a bad thing instead of congratulating you, hon, but you saved a life today. No fur is coming back for this cub, Li.'

She explained, gently, as she patted the wide-eyed boy panda on the head, in a hushed whisper, as though it explained everything, 'It's a girl.'

In the present, Dex was about to get up and launch a fourth assault on the door when a paw loosely gripped his wrist, stopping him in his tracks.

"It took a long time to take, but the very first time I remember having the feeling that the world was wrong," the panda said unsteadily, as she pushed herself up, leaning against him for a moment, "and that I wanted to be a girl with other girls," she shook herself off the coon's arm and turned to face the doors, "I wasn't thinking about a boy, you're right. I was thinking about sisterhood and taking care of someone." She surveyed the two doors, and raised her paw for one of their handles, letting it waver for a moment.

Dex reached up and rested a paw on her shoulder, feeling groggier by the minute himself. "Double L," he said, "You woke up!"

The panda blinked herself more awake. "Stick to being the strong one," she snapped after a moment.

The raccoon grinned from ear to ear even though he had a feeling he'd just been insulted in a way that went over his head. "You heard me! And you remembered something!" he marveled. "Do you feel diff-"

"If I say yes will you finally_leave me alone about it, Dex?" the panda cut him off, ducking out from under his paw and testing one of the door handles as she reached up behind her ear for a barrette thick enough that it might help jimmy the lock. "I thought boys were supposed to be strong _and silent. But _you_never shut up. You're babbling like a two-year-old who just started talking tonight. Maybe it _would_be better if you didn't speak unless you were spoken to."

Dex shrugged in resignation and stepped over to the other door, resting his paw on the handle, in fact at the same time the panda turned hers. But when he did the two heard something creak and click, in the floor under them, and they exchanged glances through the low-lying fog as the door handle in Dex's paw released, and easily came open.

"There's no complicated program! They're just connected!" he exclaimed. "By weights and pulleys to each other and to the floor! We just had to each try to open them at the exact same time! Of course! You said this room is for couples screening and one door leads to the ultimate sissification weapons! The right door will never release if you're trying to drag someone through one! Not just any couple can get through here. Only one that acts together," he eyed the panda curiously, "as partners and each trusts the other! So it doesn't matter who ends up holding the punishment instruments!"

Then he pushed the door open, and stepped inside, as she ran in after him. "But-" she started to say, "the repressant is a punishment, Dex! Not a reward! If we passed the test, you won't find what-" The door clanged shut behind her, and they heard it click back locked behind them. The two took long, clear breaths of surprisingly fresh air, blowing in from a duct visible above their heads.

The second punishment room was lit only by a flickering luminescent nightlight that cast star and moon shapes large against one of its walls. The walls themselves were papered, with teddy bears in dresses and holding flowers against a lavender background. Against the far wall stood a crib, and an adult-sized high chair, with a feeding tray in the locked, feeding position, and a squat glass bottle resting on it next to a medicine dosing spoon, which Dex had already picked up. A cabinet under a sink against the near wall presumably held various other supplies and allowed a caretaker to wash her paws or to browbeat a cub into doing so.

"Where's the syringe?" Dex asked as he turned the bottle to look at the label. "Come on, please be a secret serum that will help me keep all these ugly, angry feelings away-" The coon's eyes lit up as the bottle's label came face up in his paw, and he turned to show Lin Lin, holding it up.

"The other ultimate academy punishment is," the panda observed, looking at the bottle curiously and poking it with one paw, suppressing a grin, "castor oil! This is a punishment room for naughty cubs! I wonder if the other is . . . . a punishment room for bad adults? Dex, if what you said is right this is the only room a couple would be able to open. I've seen Cassie open and close the door to the _other_room, with the repressant and restraints, without a key when she showed us this place, but she's a Newfoundland and by far the heaviest fur here. If you're right about the weights-" she calculated quickly, "maybe this place is rigged so she can step somewhere to open the other door. She'd be the one who'd step in to break up any fights between furs in here."

"I came here to get medicine that would help me get my anger under control again. This bottle," said Dex, holding it out to the panda, "resonates with my chi."

Lin Lin snorted. "I cannot believe you just said that," she said, shaking her head, then she fidgeted, a little awkwardly, and looked from Dex to the high chair behind him. She'd pawed to this fantasy. "I mean," she blushed, "I _really_can't believe that you just said that. You _want_a dose of that stuff?"

"Yes!" the coon whimpered. "I've been a jerk tonight. I go to extraordinary lengths to keep my temper even, Double L, because I'm stronger than most furs. If I just get a spoonful of this in my muzzle whenever I throw a tantrum, that could be my new way of keeping calm!" The coon blushed and bit the tip of a finger, looking uncharacteristically mischievous. "I haven't had it before. Rog would _never_have castor oil around. It's on the Baby Blue contraband list. Not even Rian's ever used it for regressive purposes. It's naughty stuff."

He eyed the bottle, shifting uncomfortably in his diaper. He'd been a bad baby coon, he found himself thinking. He broke something and he'd gotten so very, very dirty, and he'd run off by himself way past bedtime and broke a window and woken up furs in the middle of the night, and he'd probably gotten the panda in deep trouble. And he'd never been able to do enough for the other boys-

The panda stared in disbelief, seeing Dex regard the bottle with the same mix of fear and anticipation an ordinary boy showed faced with the first piece of pornography he found titillating. As soon as Dex started to raise the bottle to his muzzle, Lin Lin hopped up and snatched the castor oil away from him. "That's academy property! And you're crazy if you think I'm letting a masochist like you dose himself with it." She frowned, realizing how protective she sounded, and added, quickly, "There could be liability issues."

"Hey!" the raccoon whined, flicking his tail. "That's the medicine I came here for!" He frowned. "Why can't I take any myself? Do you think I'm a wimp?"

Lin Lin raised an eyebrow as she looked from the warning label on the back of the bottle up to the naïve raccoon. "Sure," she said with a sigh, "let's go with that." Then, she hid the bottle behind her back. "Anyway," she said, "it's vanished. Not here any more. All gone!"

"Noooo it didn't," Dex pouted, tilting his head to try to look behind her. She produced one empty paw, and held it up to him. He sniffed at it. Then she repeated the process with her other paw, and he sniffed it again. The raccoon whined and dropped down on to his knees as he strained to look behind her. "It's right behind you!" he protested. "You're treating me like a baby!"

Lin Lin backed toward the crib. "Dex," she said carefully, "your obsession with punishing yourself is starting to bother me. And that definitely means you have a problem. You . . . said some things tonight that I think you need to talk with somefur off your team about. Before I let you near anything else dangerous."

The raccoon, still on his knees, stared up at her, puzzled. "I don't really have any friends off my team," he admitted, shamefacedly. The panda deposited the bottle in the crib and kneeled down to face him.

"Yes you do," she said. "Don't make me repeat what I said when you were netted," she cautioned with gritted teeth. "It was bad enough the first time and now I'm starting to think you weren't even listening to me."

What was going on? She'd blown him off outside. But was she really trying to pay him back for talking her back from her own troubled reverie? He felt a little woozy. Did she too? How much of the junk from the flowers was still in their systems? Pheromones. That was the word he couldn't think of before. Did they stop working as soon as you were no longer breathing them? Or did they have a half-life? He didn't know.

Dex half-smiled. "You said you like me," he repeated, feeling warm as he recollected it. "I've never had a girl friend - I mean," he corrected himself quickly, "friend . . . who happens to be . . . a girl . . . before." He frowned at her, then asked suspiciously, "Are you one of those girls who likes gay guys, Double L? I didn't think you were."

The panda clapped a paw to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, then let out a long sigh. "That's what we need to talk about, Dex," she said.

The raccoon blinked. After a pause, he raised one paw and laid it over one of hers. "It's okay," he said, smiling gently. "I didn't want to make you feel like a hanger-on or anything. If it makes you feel better, nofur would think of you that way, because I only half-count. I mean I've never had sex with a boy." He frowned. "I've tried," he added, sadly. "I don't even go to gay bars and things except as a designated driver for Ace and Jax, and I don't like those places. At first, Jax would introduce me to any mammal he could find who didn't have a criminal record. Eventually I had to tell him, only diaperfurs." The raccoon chuckled and smiled fondly. "Last time that happened," he recollected, "the guy complained to both of them about me being mopey when I went into the restroom and I came back to find Ace nearly started a fight with him. Ace was saying he was mopey too to see me wasting my time with someone who couldn't appreciate me and told the other fur to get lost so he didn't have to watch any more of it. I know they're weird, but, I love my friends."

The black-and-white bear looked at the paw holding hers, then at him, and raised an eyebrow. "Dex," she said slowly, "if I'm right I think this is going to be hard for you to accept. But, it's not your fault. Some things you can't force. Not even you can change certain, basic things about who you are. You have some odd sexual interests, obviously. You're a boy," she looked at the cartoon tee-shirt he still had on, then down at the still stiff cloth diaper safety-pinned around his waist, and laid a paw on the front of it, shaking her head, as she undid one of the pins, "and a babyfur."

"Totally!" the coon said, snorting, as she undid another of his safety pins. "I'm down with the diapers. It's not just making the best of a bad thing any more. Rian showed me that. He's my-"

"That wolf," the panda interrupted him, "is your friend. I'll wager you've never licked his diaper area or turned over and asked him to mount you. You two have never done anything like that in either direction, have you?"

Dex looked crestfallen and his tail and ears fell flat. "I know," he said, "you don't need to remind me. He's done so much to make me feel accepted and normal and I wish I could have-"

The panda's ears pricked. This was a better opening than she'd expected. "Done the same for him," she concluded on Dex's behalf. The raccoon just stared at her, and shrugged, unsure what she was getting at.

"Don't make fun of him. I told you, Rian is a lot less secure than he acts. He grew up with furs who didn't accept him," said the raccoon, still feeling a bit groggy. "I wanted to have sex with him," the raccoon concluded wistfully, then winced. It hurt when he said it so forthrightly. "But I let him down."

"Dex," Lin Lin coaxed, "that doesn't make sense. There's a link missing somewhere." She unfastened and removed the third safety pin on his diaper, reaching up to set it on the feeding tray of the high chair along with the others in her palm. Then she moved on to the last one, and leaned up close to him. "There's more cloth under the crib," she explained, breathing into his ear. "We can get you changed finally."

The raccoon exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. A diaper change! That _would_be a relief. "He got me a sleeper with a drop seat once you know," Dex said. "I thought that was a pretty clear sign of what would make him happy."

The panda let his diaper fall open around him. It was stiff from swimming through the river and navigating the woods in the rain more than anything else; the coon hadn't messed in it, and his most recent wetting was mostly dry already.

"Dex," the panda said, "during all these boy-on-boy pawing sessions the girls gossip about, you think about what you imagine your friends want, don't you? Not about what you want."

The coon fidgeted on top of his open cloth diaper as the panda retrieved a box of wipes from under the crib and handed them to him. He took one uncertainly and lowered it to his crotch, starting to clean himself, and eying her uncertainly, confused about why she wasn't turning around. "I don't understand the question?" he said cautiously, not sure what else she was expecting. "What I want is for my friends to be happy."

Lin Lin got down on her knees and slid a little closer to him. "You said earlier you were worried about . . ." she squirmed a little before she finally concluded, "being too tight. Under your tail for the bunn- I mean, a boy, to go down there. So, what have you done about it?"

"I stick my fingers in there sometimes," Dex answered, a little poutily, as he looked down at his diaper area, moving the wipe mechanically in a circle.

"How many?" she asked.

The coon held up one shaking paw, then raised one finger, and then another.

"How many is that?" Lin Lin prompted.

"Two," Dex said, then muttered, "I'm not a baby."

"And," she pressed, "have you done anything else, to loosen up?"

Dex squirmed. He obviously felt deeply guilty about this failure. He even gulped as he confessed, "No. I think I might be a little afraid to or something. I just have a weird feeling about it. I know there's no excuse for it." He sighed, looking as apprehensive as though he had admitted he couldn't ride a bicycle or only brushed his teeth every now and then. "I'm a gay diaperboy. Loosening up my tailhole is like the most important thing I should be doing sexually, right? It should rank up there on the to-do list with my statistics homework and my laundry. But I went into a store once and I couldn't even bring myself to buy beads, never mind a plug. Somefur asked me if I needed help while I was looking at them, and I ran right out of there. I've been too embarrassed ever since to go back." He shook as though he were about to cry. "I thought about asking Twitchy to take me and pick some out. I'm sure glad I didn't, now. To think the night after the fire I was so sad, but also so relieved, that he collapsed into cuddling when I presented for him. I just knew I wasn't ready and I might bleed or something. Or maybe I knew he was lying about something. I must have known he was lying. I don't know why I'm so-"

"Dex," the panda bit her lip as she interrupted him, "I know it's a statistical anomaly among diaperfurs, but- have you ever thought that maybe the reason you can't actually go through with having sex with a boy-the reason you just let the bunny put you off for so long without probing too much about it, the reason you're scared into sucking your thumb and feel like you're forcing it when you actually try to, might be-" she leaned over the raccoon's shoulder, and whispered something in his ear.

Dex's eyes widened and he raised a paw to her muzzle to stop her from talking, though he didn't push her away from his shoulder. He shook his head wordlessly, looking horrified. "It wouldn't be your fault, Dex," the panda said, reaching a paw up to pat his head as the stunned raccoon continued cleaning his diaper area mechanically, then grabbed an unnecessarily large pawful of wipes, and moved on to cleaning his bottom. "It's not something you can help. It doesn't mean that anything is wrong with you- well," she looked down at the diaper spread out beneath the heroic raccoon, and eyed the one paw wiping his bottom with a cluster of baby wipes, and the other creeping toward his muzzle, "It doesn't mean that anything _extra_is wrong with you. Let's put it that way."

The raccoon gulped and shook his head violently. "I'm a babyfur and I'm a leader in a fetish group. I support my friends," he repeated blankly. "I'm not prejudiced and I'm a good person and my friends know I'm on their side. I think Rian is cool, not weird or creepy. I love Rog, and I look up to him, I don't hold it against him that he's still single. I don't know any furs who should more obviously be married than Ace and Jax. There is no way I'm . . . I couldn't be . . ."

The panda was shifting uncomfortably on the chloroform rag still tucked between her diaper and the panties over them, and she moved to turn over so she could reach into her diaper to adjust it, but Dex arrested her progress, redirecting the paw that had been en route to his muzzle to rest on her shoulder. "What are you doing?" Dex asked, his tone changing, as he dropped his wipes and reached for her waistband with his other paw. "Don't tell me you need a change too, Double L? I can help you. It's only fair."

The panda bit her lip, suddenly nervous. She still might need that, and it was a far too long-ingrained habit always to keep a card up her sleeve. So she covered quickly. "I'm just . . . turning over first. I thought the view would be less upsetting for you from that side. I do worry that seeing what's down there would freak you out."

"Well don't! Don't be embarrassed in front of me," urged Dex. A confident, in fact quietly reassuring note crept into his voice as he pressed the panda back into the wall, tugged the bear's sweatpants down, gingerly plucked the top left tape of her diaper between two fingers, and peeled it back.

He smiled as he leaned over her, his own left knee touching hers, his own freshly cleaned, halfway-shaven crotch coming to rest above her diaper area. She reached down, worried that he might unearth the rag by accident if he did proceed with changing maneuvers, and found herself tugging the panties over her diaper down in front, and carefully trying to wriggle them down just a little bit, to be sure the rag wasn't exposed and stayed pressed against the back of her diaper.

The raccoon's warm breath and boyish smell washed over her as he said gently, as though issuing a reminder to both of them, "I told you in your bedroom and I'm starting to think you weren't even listening. You're a girl to me. Not like these other cross-dressing types. And I don't mind you being a girl, Double L. It's a little bit," her own breath intermingled with his as his muzzle drew up to her snout, "different."

Dex had come here expecting Lin Lin to take delight in the chance to humiliate him, but all night long, the raccoon thought to himself, she'd been trying to protect him. And all night long, Lin Lin was forced to admit internally, the distressed raccoon, caught up his own personal disaster, had nevertheless been trying to make her feel accepted with a casual ease that she had rarely encountered. Finally, the impulses the two mismatched, serious-minded diaperfurs had been denying all night, even as aphrodisiac perfumes swirled around them, bubbled to the surface as, their diapers open and half-open, they breathed in each other's scent, and their muzzles locked.

They were kissing for five minutes before the panda reached up with one paw, and wordlessly, banged against the supply cabinet. Dex's eyes followed her paw, and he nodded, leaning across her to tug it open and reach inside. His raccoonish night vision let him light on the right bottle quickly, and he extracted it. "You're letting me know before much more happens you might need this?" he guessed, setting down the bottle of lube.

The post-op panda felt as though a blush covered her entire body, and she just nodded, wordlessly, averting her eyes, waiting for him to pull back, but Dex grinned and patted her head.

"It's already more like everything I dreamed about than I ever thought sex with a girl could be," he reassured her.

The panda stared up at him wide-eyed. It took a lot to really crack her defenses. But that might have done it. "I can't think of anything nasty to say," she said despairingly as Dex spread the lubricant over his paws, and made a first, chilling contact with her diaper area, spreading it around as gently as he could. "I've never met anyone like you."

Then, the raccoon, pressed down, and his own shaft just beginning to harden, entered her for the first time. "Tell me if anything hurts," he whispered.

"Let me know if you get tired," she whispered back as he started thrusting, slowly, and gently, running one paw over her tummy beneath her belly button and the top of her diaper area as he did. Dex's equipment, she realized from what she felt as much as what she saw, was average-sized, but given the situation, that was probably just as well. And, besides, there was a lot more than size that could matter.

She moaned just a little as the raccoon moved, very slowly and uncertainly at first, pushing his hips forward just a little, then pulling back an inch or so, then pushing forward just a little more. He looked down at the panda, tilting his muzzle questioningly, as though to ask how she felt. The corner of her lips curled up slowly into a cautious smile, and she nodded up at him. Little bit by little bit, Dex gathered speed and force as he resumed thrusting, gradually becoming more sure of himself. The coon's nose twitched - were those still the flowers he smelled? Or was it her? He liked the smell. He rubbed his wet nose along the underside of Lin Lin's cheek, and in slow circles over the side of her neck. His whiskers tickled her there, and she shivered involuntarily as his thrusting slowly gathered force.

She couldn't help herself-she reached up and clasped her paws around him, raising her knees and pulling him down gradually so he was actually resting on top of her. "Hi," whispered the raccoon as his chest came to rest on hers.

"Again," she scolded him, in between shallow breaths, "you're talking too much." The raccoon smiled, and let his mind focus on the rhythm of pushing forward and pulling back. He could do this, and it felt awkward, and more than a bit nerve-wracking, but somehow instinct was telling him what to do. More importantly - his partner seemed to be enjoying it. He was making her feel good.

After maybe ten or fifteen minutes, it would have been hard for either of the two combat team leaders to tell, Dex released a spurt into her and heard low moaning as her footpaw banged against the floor. Eventually, they relaxed enough, though Dex was still inside her, to talk. "Should I stop?" he asked, uncertain. "Is everything okay? Do you need to break?"

Lin Lin squinted up at him. "What do you mean," she got out in between shallow, panting breaths, "do _I_need to stop? You're the boy and you just came. Didn't you?"

She could feel Dex fidget apprehensively from the part of him that was inside her as he carefully pulled out. "Some," the raccoon confessed. "I'll just need a few minutes. My body starts and stops it sometimes. I don't know. I have a lot of mental discipline from martial arts training that regulates extreme responses to things," he panted for a second, then finished, "in ways I don't even realize. I don't think it's normal. If I want to get it all out and totally spasm when I'm pawing," he said, blushing, "sometimes I need to paw pretty hard. But doing it this way is so strange compared to what I'm used to. At this rate, I have," he looked down at her, "I'm not sure, three or four more of those tonight, maybe?"

Lin Lin stared up at him, wide-eyed. The raccoon's ears flattened against his head. "Is that bad?" he asked meekly, sounding genuinely worried.

"No, Dex," she said quickly, still shaking a little, "you're a little awkward, but . . . you're a natural."

"You don't have to make me feel better," the modest raccoon in the cartoon tee shirt said, smiling at her.

The panda just smiled back. If Dex was right - and she doubted he had the wit to exaggerate about this - he would release more times with her in one night than any other single boy ever had ever cum with her, period. For some reason, it made her feel warm all over to think that the wide-eyed, do-gooding raccoon was, obliviously, showing up all the thoughtless boys she'd ever been with. It was, of course, because she couldn't stand any other boy. That's why she was beaming up at Dex; he was her unwitting accomplice in getting back at all of those jerks. Yeah, that had to be why.

A distressing thought soon occurred to the raccoon during their break from intercourse. "Ohhh, this is a serious problem," he said, his tail falling flat. "What will we say tomorrow morning? Or when they find us in here? What will they think at Baby Blue? They may never look at me the same again. What if having me in the group or hanging out with me affects their reputation in the furry fetish community? Ohh," he stared down at his paws, "maybe I should step down as an officer before I say anything about it. That way, it won't affect how furs see the whole club. I wouldn't want them to think I'm asking them to change things just for me. Baby Blue's fine the way it is. I don't want them to think they can't do things around me or get nervous all of a sudden or have to act cautious just because I'm," he bit his lip, obviously feeling guilt-ridden, and backed off saying the word he couldn't yet stomach, settling on, "different."

Lin Lin laughed. "I was right all along," she affirmed, "you really _are_the weirdest of the weirdest. Only you could have _this_problem."

"Don't laugh at me," he whined. "This isn't easy to process, you know. How can I tell my friends I think I might be," the coon shuddered as he voiced the dreaded label, "straight? I'd at least like to think I'm not like other straight furs. I don't fit any of those stereotypes. Do I?"

Lin Lin ignored his question and continued to laugh, pounding one fist against the floor. Dex frowned and redirected his attention from his own dilemma, though, when he saw her other paw reaching for her crotch. Suddenly, he felt grossly negligent.

"Wait," the innocent raccoon said, though still shaken by his own identity crisis, "I forgot to ask the important question, and this is something I should have learned from my friends, because believe me, they're all very attentive to this! Did _you_cum?"

The panda smiled. "A little," she said. Just a little? The raccoon scratched his head. What did women want? After a moment, he decided he wasn't qualified to guess. "What do girls like? Like, what's the thing that would make you cum all at once, do you think? Have a real orgasm?" he asked.

Lin Lin was breathing steadily and rhythmically again. "Don't try to do too much your first day on the job, Dex," she said.

"I'm making up for lost time," the twenty-something raccoon said apologetically.

"Well, okay, for future reference, convent coon," the panda raised her head up enough to whisper something, and his eyes glinted. "But don't try to-" she added, though before she could stop him, the bright-eyed raccoon had shifted so his rear was next to her head and his muzzle was nosing at her crotch, and she felt his tongue lick around the top of her genital area, right where the opening began.

"Dex," she protested, grabbing for the lubricant bottle with one paw, and squinting up at the back of it, "at least let me check that this is-okay, it's water-based," she dropped the bottle, "but seriously, don't, you made a mess down there. At the least the taste of your own stuff will-"

"It won't bother me!" answered the raccoon cheerily, looking up at her from between his forepaws, a smear already on his muzzle. "I didn't know it, but if this is a big deal for girls, well, I think- I've been practicing for this."

The panda squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't ordinarily do this. But she had done it, in the long, tortured course of experimentation, though her partners had generally turned out to be pretty callous afterward. Identifying yourself as 'in transition,' she had learned, rarely attracted furs were interested in anything besides novelty and an easy lay. "You're making my team look bad, coonkit," she said, nosing at his thigh, and shifting so her muzzle could have better access to his shaft. "I can't let a boy show us up to this degree."

The raccoon's upside-down-face grinned at her from ear to ear. "You want a contest!" he said, his tail flicking against the floor unconsciously. "Whoever makes the other cum first," he floundered for a minute, then proposed, somewhat randomly, "chooses a scene! Cubby or not, it doesn't matter!"

Lin Lin groaned inwardly. There had to be something wrong with him, and here it came. "You won't win," she warned him, "but just in case, I play scenes every day, Dex, and if there's one thing I don't like, it's for all of them to be exactly the same. When you say non-cub I don't suppose that the one other thing you're interested in besides diapers is puppy play?" She bit her tongue and refrained from adding, like every sissyboy diaperfur student here. For him she could probably manage to feign interest. . .

"That's sort of clichéd, isn't it? I guess it's all right if you're into it," said the raccoon, right before he started nosing and licking at her again, "But if you want to do pet play - I'm more of a cat person."

Lin Lin's eyes twinkled and she licked the tip of the raccoon's cock, taking it in her muzzle, and running her tongue down its base in a way that made him shiver.

"Still the same panda," he said, looking up at her, before burying his own muzzle with renewed energy. "You really want to win."

The panda blushed and let that slide. She'd humbled herself enough for the moment. It was bad enough she was taking a boy in her muzzle who'd screwed her minutes ago, and she certainly didn't want to admit that, for the first time in all the years, even pre-reassignment, that she had been referring to herself as a girl, she really wanted to make a special boy feel as much pleasure as she possibly could.

Besides, her mouth was full-and she wouldn't be tricked into letting Dex get ahead.

Next time: Heroics! Rian and the Scouts have their paws more than full as the academy's defenders retaliate! When Dex and Lin Lin are interrupted, the new couples' reactions are unexpected! Has one of them fallen into an elaborate trap? And will the rescue mission only end by producing more pink prisoners?

Boss-level combatants in play! Random opponent selection to be made from the following:

Blue: Rian (special ability unlocked-howl!); Ace (special ability unlocked-personal toy chest!; other???); Jax (special ability-???)

Pink: Shelley (unlocking multiple special abilities-three-dimensional combat field!; motivation!); Cassie (unlocking multiple special abilities-secret motives!; building controls!); Swifty Fox (unlocking special ability-boy skills reactivated!)

Field spell activated! Change of Heart: Turn die rolls in progress . . .: The following furs' loyalties are now in question! Lin Lin; Serafina; and . . . Dex!

Episode 4: Heroics!

With a mighty heave, the Newfoundland in the Easter bonnet and maid's dress leveraged a crowbar she had retrieved from a bondage room and, after a prolonged effort to get into the crack between the sliding doors, finally forced the entrance to Level 5 open. She took off her bonnet and raised it to her muzzle, using it like a gas mask as the door slid open, and the pheromones and sedative gas poured out into the hallway around her feet. She set down the battery powered fan she had found in one of the supply closets and turned it on; that would help disperse the danger more quickly.

Then, she peered inside. Both the punishment room doors were shut. After a few minutes, one of them clicked open, and a raccoon in a Dragonball tee shirt that came down to his belly button and a cloth diaper stumbled out, clutching his stomach with both paws and looking desperate. "Oh my diapers can't take it," he moaned incoherently, then gagged, then fell down on to all fours. "Oh my gosh that's awful. Oh. Oh. Oh..... Oh," then he shouted over his shoulder, "Oh, there's someone here!"

Cassandra blinked. "Dex?" she asked. "What happened in here?"

"Ohhhhhhh," the coon answered her, then collapsed on to his side.

A panda in Powerpuff Girls themed active wear appeared in the punishment room door, leaning against the frame cockily on her elbow. "We fought," she said simply, screwing the top on to a bottle of castor oil. "I won," she rested one foot on top of the coon. "I respect that you kept fighting after the outcome was already decided," she said to Dex, and seemed to tremble slightly herself, "but I told you, you didn't stand a chance."

Then she crossed her arms and looked up at Cassie. "Package is delivered. And he's quite breakable. Do what you want with the loser. I," she pushed the the coon with her foot, rolling him over on to his back, which only made him moan loader, "couldn't care less."

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

Crash! An equine caretaker looked up and clutched his girly cougar cub protectively as his door swung open, the lock jimmied from the outside.

"What's the meaning of-" he started to say, only to freeze as two furs clicked paintball guns and pointed them at him.

"Don't move, oorrrrrr," snarled the lynx, pausing as he scanned the room quickly, then pointed his paintball gun at a shelf of stuffed animals, "teddy and friends get it!"

"Waaaaaaaaaa!" screamed the cub. "Nooooooo, Aaron! Dolly died in the washing machine! Don't let them send everybody there!" The cougar sobbed. "None of my plushies have ever come back from it the same."

The horse took a breath and steadied himself. "What do you want?" he asked calmly. "Diapers are in the closet. Take as many packs as you need. I won't try to stop you. Please. Just take what you need and leave us in peace." Then he whispered to the cub, "It's all right, sis. I've heard of these furs. They're just from a rival diaperfur club. Big brother will handle this. Just stay calm and don't let them know you're a boy. If they knew that they might try to turn you." The cougar nodded, determined to be quiet, brave, and girly.

"Oh, we don't want your diapers. Although we might as well take them off your paws when we're finished because you won't need them any more," said Ace. "We came because your cub's about to have an accident."

"I am?" asked the sissy cougar on the bed uncertainly. He wasn't too good at telling things like that.

"You are, so it's time to move, right now, out from under the covers, into the cold, dark, unlit hallway, across the floor and any toys left out on it, and hope, hope, you can do this without tripping, or banging anything, or knocking anything over, or waking anyone up, or crashing apart your playmate's LEGO set he spent all day building, or disturbing your partner," growled the terrorist lynx's tracking hound accomplice. "If you can't, you'll be brutally spanked, and if you can, you'll join the others who are getting special merit badges, and who get to run that gauntlet multiple times - every . . . single . . . night. Every time some sissy is about to have an accident on this floor, there _we_are to remind you that your bedsheets are more important than a good night's sleep."

The cougar quailed and clutched the equine desperately. Ace clicked his paintball gun. "What's it gonna be, kid?" he asked. "Is the teddy bear brigade going to the laundromat in the sky? Or are you coming with us? We'll _make_you sit there until we're sure you're finished. We're rounding up your classmates. They'll be joining you on those cold, cold seats. Furs who aren't wearing exactly the right type of pajamas or think they can sleep in only frilly bathrobes might have to take off their whole outfits and sit there shivering and naked for half an hour until they go."

"You fiends!" said the equine, looking from the stuffed animals to his shivering partner. "What do you think you're doing to the little furs here?"

"Now Aaron," said Jax, clearing his throat, and picking up the name the cub had used earlier, as he assumed a friendlier tone, "I know she still seems like a baby to you, but there comes a time when every little girl has to set childish things aside. . ."

The tracking hound cut off as his partner interrupted him by jamming an elbow into his side. "Conference," the lynx said apologetically, holding up a paw to the confused equine and cougar, though keeping his paintball gun trained on the stuffed animals and one eye locked on them to prevent any sudden moves.

"What the heck, Jax," the lynx growled out of the side of his muzzle. "What part of 'bad cop' don't you understand?"

"Sorry," said the tracking hound in the Boy Scout uniform with a sigh.

"Don't do that again, okay?" the lynx reprimanded him.

"Okay," said the dog.

The lynx's eyes flickered from his boyfriend back to the furs in the bed. "Take it from 'You fiends,'" Ace suggested. "I liked that. I'm very fiendish."

The equine and the cougar exchanged bemused glances. Not sure what else to do, the horse cleared his throat. "You fiends," he repeated. "What gives you the right to drag these little furs out of bed in the middle of the night?"

"Oooh, he improved it," observed Jax. "That was nice ad libbing. He's talented." Ace elbowed him again. "I mean," said the dog, clearing his throat and assuming a deeper speaking voice, "What _else_would give us the right to harass little furs mercilessly at all hours of the day and night no matter what they were doing? Every sissy on this floor is being..." the dog gathered his breath for a suitably megalomaniacal conclusion, and Ace patted him on the back as he declared, in threatening tones, "potty-trained!"

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

"Potty-trained!" exclaimed Serafina as Azzie completed relating what he had overheard. "But that goes against the most fundamental thing both groups stand for!"

The defeated sentry hugged the blanket Serafina had tucked him under close and shivered. "And then they said, 'Ha ha ha ha ha ha!'" he reported. "No wait, I skipped a part." He counted backward on his fingers for a moment. "First, they said, 'And when we're finished, all these kits will know that Baby Blue is the only safe place for a baby to be. Sissies have to choose between girly play and baby play. Only boys get to keep their diapers!' And _then_they said, 'Ha ha ha ha ha ha!'"

Serry shook her head. This was obviously an elaborate distraction to draw everyone down to this floor while Rian looked for Dex. Should she say that? Should she tell everyfur Rian was on the top floor and to ignore whatever else was going on? She was pretty sure that Cassie hadn't seen him. She patted Azzie's head uncertainly. No, his howl had been too strange. There _was_something going on outside the game that she didn't know about. And there was no justifying such an unscrupulous assault unless it was a distraction. Only boys could keep their diapers indeed! Even Baby Blue hardliners like the Scouts would never go that far.

She had to find out more about what was really happening. "Don't worry," she said, patting the jackal-skunk's head. "If worst comes to worst, we'll get you a princess potty chair that can stay right next to your bed. Now, you try to rest, little girl. I'm going to look into this further." She kissed his forehead. "I'm sorry you were woken up. You're far too little for guard duty."

In the hallway, Ace and Jax herded two more cubs into the girls' restroom, then pushed the door of it shut, and jammed it with a broom handle. Both wearing night vision goggles, they looked at their watches, then at each other. What was taking so long?

"Are you two serious?" cried an incredibly annoyed voice in a Southern accent from somewhere in the halls, but Ace and Jax couldn't sight the speaker. "I was this close to being caught up with Ladies' Home Journal!"

Both Scouts started and stepped forward a few paces, looking to either side, as they heard swishing echoing through the halls, and an athletic gray squirrel in a white tennis skirt and blouse landed behind where they had been. Ace's eyes widened. How had she done that? The squirrel whipped a riding crop off her belt and, cracking it behind her, snapped the broom handle in half, letting the restroom door swing open.

"All right, girls," said Shelley as the door swung open behind her. "Rush them like fangirls at a boy band concert. Let's see if they're man enough for that."

The Scouts looked at each other nervously as rumbling gathered from inside the bathroom; they had been throwing cubs in there one or two at a time and using the stalls to separate them. They weren't ready for them all to come out at once. On the whole, this was still good news; if Shelley was here, their distraction was working, and Rian could move freely. Where was the panda, though? She should also be in charge of security. There wasn't much time to think about that. The sissies poured out of the bathroom in a squealing stampede while Shelley watched with satisfaction, tapping her riding crop against her open palm.

"Split up!" Ace shouted quickly, and Jax obeyed, each Scout taking off in a different direction.

The girls started to divide, but Shelley countermanded it quickly. "Don't split up!" she shouted. "It's what they want you to do so you won't get either of them! They're counting on it! All go left and throw everything at one! Go left! Once we have one prisoner the game changes! Bringing in the kitty would be a waste of time anyway. I'll keep him occupied. Y'all just bring me," she punctuated her orders by whapping her riding crop against her open palm as she concluded, "the dog. _He_has a decent head. He just needs some body work."

As he ran, Jax reached into his supply pouch, and strewed marbles and jacks behind him. Then he produced two pawfuls of extra-bouncy rubber bouncy balls and hurled them both at opposite sides of the corridor as he picked up speed, sending a dozen or so small red rubber spheres ricocheting insanely off the walls behind him, pelting the approaching sissies just as they began stumbling over his floor obstacles.

"Ha ha!" the tracking hound laughed as he heard girls tumbling back into each other behind him. That would let him pull another ten or twenty feet ahead, the dog thought as he reached for the hyena's academy keycard on his neck. The hound's keen memory for details of conversations was racing. It was a gamble, but if the straight hyena would only obey a biologically female mistress, like he had said, then, as low-ranking as he obviously was, he probably reported to either Calliope or Shelley, and he wouldn't be a useful gopher for either of those two if his keycard didn't give him backdoor access. At least in that stairwell there should still be power.

The tracking hound made his way to the restricted back stairwell, and stuck the keycard into a reader on the door, looking behind him in a panic as the group of sissies, its front flank thinned by five or six girls who had taken tumbles, began to recover its momentum. Then he looked at the door. The lock came open under his paw. It had worked! He tumbled into relative safety and shoved the door shut behind him, manually locking it. He reached into his backpack and produced a slingshot. Not sure of a better use for it at the moment, he used it to jam the door handle.

Then, he heard something, echoing through the whole academy, particularly loud in the magnifying stairwell! An unearthly, ghostly sound that caused his ears to flick-a howl. A full lupine howl.

"Rian!" he deduced, and began heading up the stairs. "Come in, sir," he radioed with the walkie talkie on his belt, not sure if the wolf would hear him or not, "Is everything okay? Ace and I got separated! I'm coming! I think he's keeping the squirrel occupied. No resistance here. Those girls were easy . . ." as he spoke, the tracking hound felt his ankle catch on a fishing line, and tumbled backwards, his walkie talkie falling out of his forepaw and tumbling down a flight to land on the landing below.

The black-and-brown mottled hound dog caught himself against a railing with two forepaws and, at about a 45-degree angle to the ground, found himself staring up at a vulpine in a firefighter's hat holding both ends of the long fishing line wrapped around his legs in one paw.

"Hi, Jax," said the cross fox. "I've been thinking about organizing my own camping trip. Do you want to help? I thought our collaboration went really well last time."

"Oh," muttered the tracking hound at the sight of Swifty, "you're still here." Each of the two furs reached for the paintball gun on his belt. "Swifty," Jax said as he tried to shake one foot free while he reached into his supply pouch for his Swiss Army knife with his left paw, "team stuff aside, you're a stand-up guy. And an out-of-towner. There's more going on here tonight than it looks like."

The cross fox frowned. "It looks like you're beating up on a bunch of defenseless sissy babyfurs and giving them night terrors," he said.

Jax clicked his tongue. "Yes, but that," he said carefully, "is just one thing that's going on. See, before that-"

Swifty yanked the fishing line with one paw and sent the tracking hound tumbling backwards, landing on his rear and both forepaws on the landing below, as the cross fox drew his paintball gun first and pointed it down at him. "You can stop there," Swifty said. "I've heard enough."

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

Ace looked slowly to his left, then to his right, making a full circle holding a paintball gun in each paw, his tufted ears flicking, and stopped to pant. How had he managed to run up the main stairs to the third floor? Why had they all stopped following him? He didn't like it. If he and Jax had split those groups up, it should have been easy to deal with them; he just needed to get up on the stairway and pick out the few following him as they came up one or two at a time. Had they just let him go? No. He heard . . . something. Again. Not pawsteps exactly. A creaking? A rustling? What was it? Could it just be the wind and rain? He hadn't seen anyone following him.

The lynx made his way through the corridor slowly, rhythmically - and then whirled, hoping to catch someone who may have been trying to mask their pawsteps in his own. He tumbled back with a start when he saw the squirrel standing behind him, tapping a riding crop in her paw. "Where did you come from?" he snarled, taken aback.

"I was powdering my nose, sugar plum," said Shelley. "Trying to dull my sense of smell as long as all you diaper boys are running around."

"Well, it doesn't matter," snapped Ace. "You picked the wrong fight. You're just a squirrel. And a Girl Scout. How tough can you be?"

Without waiting for an answer, he opened fire with both paws, spattering paintballs everywhere - and the squirrel vanished!

Ace's eyes widened. What had just happened? He backed up slowly, continuing to fire, and raised his gaze toward the ceiling to see the squirrel hanging from it just before she rebounded off the opposite wall, and advanced toward him, bounding from wall to wall with a speed that made the cat dizzy. His breathing quickened. "Oh, I should not have said that," he scolded himself.

The cat felt one of his two paintball guns yanked from his grip as it was caught in the noose end of a riding crop and flung backwards, clattering to the floor and sliding off down the hallway.

The lynx dropped to his knees defensively and shot straight up, hearing a yelp! Then he rolled backwards as she dove to the floor, and rolled back as far as he could, popping up and leaning against a door, steadying himself. Okay-calm yourself, cat, he thought. Stay cool. He had got one direct hit and he'd made it out with one of his pistols. That wasn't so bad. Now he had a sense of how fast she was. Faster than he could track with his eyes. And able to bounce off the ceilings and walls. Right. That wasn't so bad. . . .

Shelley stood up from the all fours position she'd landed in, clearly hoping to have pinned him on the floor, and tugged at her white blouse. "Stains," the squirrel growled, "will never come out of this."

Ace snorted. "Try wearing cloth diapers, princess!" he said as he reached one paw into his backpack and raised his paintball gun with the second, trying to keep it trained on her.

"Gaaaaaaaa!" Shelley shrieked at his suggestion, cracking her riding crop against the air. "I am not_one of you freaks! I dated one of you _once_and I keep on hearing about it for _years! What is it with you people and the lifetime membership cards?"

Ace shrugged. "Ummmmmm," he said slowly, "Well I'm not twisting your tail to stay here."

The squirrel shook her head. "I don't suppose you're the one who dragged Jax into all this?"

The lynx blinked. "What?" he said, his tail twitching. If anything, it had been the other way around. Ace would have given up the diapers if a partner had asked him to. But it was certainly none of this squirrel's business. Though come to think of it, he never found out why she had recognized his boyfriend in the woods. Or had recognized him when his name came up anyway. "That's right," the lynx snarled, taking a potshot with his gun. "How do you know my boyfriend?"

"I thought he'd end up with someone more interesting," the squirrel said, dodging his blast easily by leaping to the side and catching herself on the wall, continuing to advance toward him. "But I _have_wanted to work on him for a long time." Ace dropped his paintball gun, as his left paw found what it wanted in his backpack, and reaching with both paws, he sent his throwing net flying into the air, spread out to take up most of the hallway! He blinked as he felt something catch around his ankle, and gasped as he looked down! No way! She had dropped straight from the wall or the ceiling and caught herself on all fours almost flat to the floor, so the net went right over her!

Shelley yanked her riding crop forward, grinning wickedly, and sent the lynx tumbling down on to his fortunately well-cushioned rear. "Did you just throw a net at me?" she said, sounding mildly surprised. "Well, cat, I have to admit, this has been," her voice sparked, "different." Ace flailed and skidded backward, looking up at the door behind him. He reached up for the handle with one paw and gripped it as tight as he could, all the while trying to shake his foot free of the riding crop.

"Nice effort. But that thing," Shelley chided him, "takes up both your hands for too long, and you stop paying attention to your feet."

Dex had said the same thing to him. He should have listened then. Ace felt a sinking feeling overtaking him. He reached into his backpack at random and hit on a small cherry bomb. He twisted its cap and tossed behind him. Its loud, fast blast was enough to send the door behind him swinging open, and he tumbled backwards into a room full of crates, Shelley, linked to him by the riding crop around his ankle, was pulled along, though she pushed down firmly to arrest his progress, instead of tumbling head over heels as he'd hoped.

The lynx thudded into a wall of boxes, and one teetered at the top of a stack for a moment before crashing to the ground next to him. Something was familiar about these. His eyes widened as some of its contents spilled out. Of course. He'd intercepted dozens of boxes that looked just like this. These were the chastity devices the girls had shipped to the academy in bulk through the boys' woods. He had led so many raids to try to stop that. And now he was being confronted with a room full of the ones he'd failed to stop.

"I'm not even keeping you," Shelley said. "I'll just put you in bondage until we're done with Jax and then let you out somewhere. You wouldn't repay the effort."

The lynx quivered and clenched one fist around the riding crop noose on his ankle, trying futilely to yank it off. Shelley was reaching for a fanny pack. What else did she have on her? He couldn't just wait to find out. "You would put my puppy," the lynx growled, staring down at the tubes on the ground, and kicking at one, "in one of those?"

Shelley looked down at it curiously and smirked. "Starter model," she said condescendingly. "Baby's first chastity device. I think Jax is probably ready to start at a higher feminization threshold than that. I prefer metal; they're more effective if they can get cold. You know, I didn't even think the hound dog was a boy when he just signed stuff 'J.' When he said he came out to his friends about his hobby then he started signing stuff with his full name. I assume that means he'd kept it secret from a lughead like you. He and I kept that birding forum alive in its darkest days."

Ace stared up at her in disbelief. "Bird-watching!" he exclaimed, not sure whether to be relieved or horrified. "Are you serious? _That's_how you two know each other?"

Shelley tilted her head as he produced what looked like a first aid kit from her fanny pack. "What a fur sees in nature is a window into her soul, sugar plum. Jax and I have been trading photos and recordings online for years. Four years running the regional Audubon Society photo prize has gone to either him or me. But _you_don't care about that. I can tell. Besides, peaches, I'm probably doing you a favor if I lock Jax up for a while. Birders are patient furs. I bet it would be good for your relationship, for you boys to take a break so _you_could learn a little patience too."

"Patience?" Ace gritted his teeth and clenched both his fists as Shelley fitted a syringe, his lips curling into a snarl as selected events of the last month replayed in his head. Being about to mount his hound dog the night of Rian's party, when worries about Dex and Twitchy had interrupted them. "Patience!" Being ready to go down on him in the woods when Jax had sighted a family of rare songbirds. "Patience!" Being about to penetrate him hours ago, when Rian had showed up, out of breath and half out of his wits, to say that Dex had vanished, in desperate search, they soon learned, of the hormone repressants Shelley was carrying.

The lynx let out a roar as great as a lion's, and, with all his strength, gripped the base of Shelley's riding crop with one thick paw, and pressed down. The thick black rod snapped right in two with a sharp crack that echoed through the hall as he crushed it with a single paw! Shelley's eyes widened and she glanced down at the broken weapon, tumbling back as the lynx surged to his feet, just managing to jump back out of the reach of his freed footpaw as he kicked up at her on his way up.

"I'm not good at talking like the two of you but I can tell you_something about Jax!" he snarled as he pounced, and she ducked just in time to avoid being pinned, but the two of them both went tumbling backwards out of the chastity device storage chamber, into the hallway. "He likes having sex. Not with girls. With _me. He likes cock. And he likes having his tailhole played with. He likes it a lot. But he's boy enough that he doesn't need frilly clothes or panties or your plastic playthings or any kind of pretend to give a better blow job than anyone here. Being gay's not part of any kind of role for us! It's the only thing we don't_play at. Patient! We've been saving puppy's first full-on feline mounting for a special occasion and it's been interrupted three times in the last month. _Three times! If you_hadn't come to town," snarled the lynx, "we would probably still be having the best sex after the best party of our lives _right now! Patient?! I know all about patient! I take a long time to get going," the lynx shoved himself up on to his knees, setting himself, this time, with his back out to the hallway, so Shelley was in between him and the entrance to the storeroom, "but I'm just getting revved up!"

Shelley rolled to the side as the lynx's elbow came thudding down where her torso had been, and sprang lightly to her feet. Her eyes sparkled, and she tilted her head, eying the cat appraisingly. "You're cute when you're angry," she said, sounding surprised.

"Then I must be pretty cute!" the tawny cat growled, leaping backwards on to his feet and reaching into his backpack to produce two pawfuls of small spheres, which he hurled straight toward her.

The squirrel leapt up, catching herself on the ceiling and smirked as the lynx reached for his belt and unholstered another gun. "Too bad you didn't get any smarter," she snorted archly as she hung from one forepaw with her knees in the air. "Are you throwing rocks at me now? You can't hit me with those. Or with more pellets."

Ace cocked the new weapon straight at her and let it fly, as she disappeared from his view in a gray blur, dropping to the floor on her knees. As she landed, she noticed one of the projectiles he'd thrown that had rolled out of the room and eyed it curiously. "What is-?"

But the squirrel didn't have to finish her question. She raised her eyes slowly as the glare of a second flare from Ace's flare gun, following the first he'd fired before she ducked, filled her vision, and both flares ignited into the small storage space, making contact with the pawfuls of cherry bombs he'd thrown. Two flashes of bright light filled her eyes, and even before the flares faded, she heard a series of small, flameless, loud popping explosions beginning, first sounding like a bag of microwave popcorn, but much louder and picking up speed rapidly. While she looked, stunned, the lynx bent over and snatched up one of his dropped paintball guns.

"Well good because I wasn't aiming for you!" Ace shouted, as he bent over, and grabbed the squirrel, her own first aid kit falling from her paws on to the threshold of the storeroom as he tugged her out from the blast radius. The lynx wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and another around her waist, pushing her against the wall and setting his own back toward the blast to shelter her from the debris. Then he raised the paintball gun and cocked it, pointing it threateningly down at her bosom. He was guessing she had nice undies on there, and that in any event she wouldn't want paint in her fur.

"You can put me down, Girl Scout," the trailblazing cat said to his hostage smugly as a series of small explosions began in the room behind them, boxes tumbled, and fragments of plastic flew through the air around them, "for all the boxes you've got."

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

One floor up, the Newfoundland looked from Dex, standing between them with his paws clenched around his stomach, to Lin Lin suspiciously. "You couldn't have opened that door by fighting," the dog said confidently as the two pink team members walked, their debilitated captive between them, toward the exit.

"Sure we could," said Lin Lin. "This idiot broke in here to destroy Level 5 and had some phony story to snow me into bringing him up here. I pretended to listen to him, but I planned to flip him the whole time. When he tried to open one door, I bolted for the other, figuring I'd be quicker on the draw with whatever was behind it, and mine clicked open while he was still struggling. He came in after me but I got my paws on the castor oil and dosed him with it when I tackled him. End of fight. Now let's get to work on this loser."

"Whhhhhyyyyyy did I ever want to try this stuff?" Dex sobbed.

The big dog narrowed her eyes as they continued walking. "How much castor oil did you have, Dex?" Cassie asked.

"Four tablespoon-" the raccoon started but Lin Lin stamped on his footpaw, hard. "Ow! I mean, two tablespoons! Teaspoons!" he corrected himself. "Ohhhhhhhh! It's awwwwful!"

"Well, what do you want to do to him?" the panda urged, sounding impatient. "Where's the squirrel? Where's the boss lady? Get the furs who would work on reshaping Dex in one place and let's finish all this."

"The mistress can't be here right now," Cassie said. "Dex is going into Level 5 testing. We have to move him."

The panda looked taken aback. She and the doubled-over raccoon exchanged glances out of the corners of their eyes. "I'm sorry?" said the panda, gesturing behind her. "This is Level 5 testing."

"This room was never an ideal test for Dex," the Newfoundland said cryptically. "And we need to get going. Fast. This place may have been compromised. I made special arrangements to outsource him so the mistress needn't be involved at all. The rain might slow us down a little. But by the time the mistress gets here, it will already be started."

The panda blinked. "What?" she snapped. "Outsource? Again? How many consultants do you have?"

"Two," said the Newfoundland as she reached the door, then turned to face the two of them. "Come on, Lin Lin," she urged, "restrain him."

The panda hesitated, and reached behind her back with one paw. "We should call Shelley to help," she suggested.

The dog shrugged. "I suspect she's needed downstairs. We need to get Dex in transit now," Cassie suggested as they walked down the hall. "We'll need a ball gag, a bondage hood, and an ankle bar. Orrrrrr we could just do it," the dog pivoted on her heels and made a grab for Lin Lin, "this way."

Someone's leg shot up from a crouched position to deflect her arm, just as his arm was flung straight and his forearm thudded into her stomach. The dog frowned down at Dex for a moment, and gripped the leg that he had kicked up at her arm in a vise-like paw. Lin Lin buried her forehead in her paw and shook her head, letting out a sigh.

"I thought so," said the giant dog, staring at the raccoon, no longer doubled over in pain, who had just moved to intercept her grab for Lin Lin. "Four tablespoons of castor oil would have been enough to induce labor, Dex. Ouch, by the way," she said calmly, as she lifted the coon off the ground by one leg, imagining her mistress in her own place. "If I were any smaller or slighter," the protective Newfoundland explained to the raccoon dangling upside down, "I bet that would have hurt a lot. Now, Dex, I only want to talk to you. We just want to help you."

The coon, abandoning the facade of stomach pain, glared up at her, letting himself dangle in the air. "Double L told me what you want to do," he said. "Turn me into a spineless sissy mascot."

"Dex," the Newfoundland observed, sounding surprised, "you have a pet name for our panda?"

The panda slapped another paw to her forehead, shaking her head in both of them. Could he lie about anything?

Dex, seeming calm as only a climbing type could while hanging upside down, squinted up at the large black dog. "Yes," he said confidently.

The big dog's tail wagged, only once. "Dex," the Newfoundland suggested, "we just want to make sure that you haven't gotten stuck in a spot you don't belong in. What if I told you all we want to do to you are tests? Including an orientation test? To help dispel any . . . confusion in your head?"

"I don't need any," said the upside-down raccoon, crossing his arms. "I'm figuring that out more and more by the minute."

The Newfoundland eyed Dex curiously. She knew which tack would work here.

"It's not about yourself, Dex," Cassandra said gently. "Do you think anyone important has reason to be doubtful about your orientation? What if you could take a simple test to quell those doubts? Not for you. For him. Or for her. So that fur wouldn't have to worry about it forever. Or feel guilty. Feel like he or she had forced or confused you into something. You could spare her those feelings of doubt and guilt. You'd be protecting that other fur."

The raccoon, still hanging upside down, tilted his head, and looked up at the dog curiously.

"Don't listen to her, Dex!" said the panda. "Once they have you under that's that!"

"I'll do it," Dex said decisively, and the dog's tail wagged again.

"Then let's move. If you're concerned, Lin Lin-then come," Cassie declared, pulling a lever as the three made their way into a corridor near the start of the restricted area. A mechanical gate lifted, slowly and creakily, as the lever moved, and once it had opened the dog made her way out toward it, still carrying Dex.

As soon as she did, though, a figure crouched in the shadow of the gate poked her leg with a black weapon clutched in two quivering paws. "Stop right there!" a familiar, quivering voice barked.

Dex looked down from his position in the dog's grip and his eyes widened.

The Newfoundland looked distressed as she let the raccoon fall. "No!" she barked in dismay. "Not you! Was that you earlier? I assumed it was someone having an orgasm! How did you get in here? _You_cannot be here yet! I took every precaution to keep you out!"

"Rian!" the raccoon exclaimed as he caught himself on all fours, then thudded back on to the ground on his diapered rear, sitting there like that.

"Dex!" the wolf said tearfully, wagging his tail, then cast his gaze over the enemy players on the scene. "I'm not surprised at you," he growled at Lin Lin, "but Cassie," the wolf, his sobbing just coming to a stop, shook his head, and gestured at his friend, "I thought better of you than to take advantage of Dex when he's obviously falling apart."

The dog looked down from Rian, whose facial fur was matted with tears and who still trembled slightly, to Dex, who could still really use a bath, but no longer seemed that upset, and back and forth between the two of them for a moment. The wolf definitely looked like the one who was hanging by a thread, but she just shrugged his remark off. "We're almost finished here, Rian," the dog concluded brusquely.

"She's right," affirmed Dex. "Rian, they're just tests and I _want_to do them."

"Ohhhhhh," wailed the wolf in the blue and yellow-star pajamas, "they got to you already. Dex, I won't let you make life decisions when you're feeling this way. I haven't been able to think about anything except what you must be going through."

Dex fidgeted. "I feel fine," he said.

"You don't have to pretend. I know everything. Did they numb you?" asked Rian, concerned. "What did they do? I mean, Dex," he wailed, "you're wearing a Dragonball shirt! You hate Dragonball, Dex! You would never wear that shirt!"

At that moment, what sounded like an explosion echoed through the hall, from down the stairs.

Cassandra looked back and forth in a panic. "What could that have been?" the second-in-command of the academy asked, rounding on Rian. "You! Wolf! What was that?"

Rian shrugged. "I dunno," he muttered vaguely. In truth he didn't. After a certain point he'd decided the less he knew about Ace's fursonal supplies the better.

The dog looked from Dex, to Lin Lin, to Rian, then, abruptly pulled a business card out of her pocket and handed it to the panda. "This is where he's going for screening," she said. "There are instructions on how to deliver him on the back of the card. I need to go check this out and make sure these Baby Blue shenanigans haven't gotten anyone injured. I will be right back. Start moving and I'll meet you downstairs or on the way!" Then she dashed off down the hall.

Rian clenched one paw into a fist. "Good work, boys. Don't worry, Dex," said the wolf cub, glaring at Lin Lin, "it's two on one now. We can take the panda."

"Rian," the raccoon said, staring up at him, "why are you here? How did you get here? What's going on? Is everything okay at the party site?"

"Oh honey," the wolf said, "don't worry about it. I'm here for you. We know about what happened with Twitchy. He told me. It's okay, sweetheart. It's my fault for not knowing. It's our fault for not knowing. All of us should have. Coonie. It's not your fault." He blushed. "Serry's pretty mad at me," he admitted, shifting his weight from one footpaw to the other. "She ordered me to pull everyone out and leave you alone here and I didn't."

Dex squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "You bucked Serry to be here?" he asked, blankly, obviously moved, for he knew better than anyone how important his friend's relationship was to him.

"Baby bro," said Rian, falling on his knees and wrapping his arms around the raccoon, "let's get you home. Whatever happened here tonight, sweetheart, it doesn't matter, okay? Whatever they did to you, we'll erase it. You'll be yourself again in no time. Rog will take care of you-know-who so you'll never have to see him again if you don't want to and it will be like everything after midnight tonight never happened."

Dex looked up over his best friend's shoulder at Lin Lin for a long time without saying anything. Rian's embrace was as pleasantly warm as the feel of a diaper at the very moment it was first wet.

Seeing his friend was bringing everything that had happened outside these walls back in a fast, confusing crash. All these furs he'd been talking about in the abstract - Rian, Twitchy, Ace, Jax - they still existed, of course. He'd have to go back and face them all again. But, so soon? Could he go back and tell them he might be a different fur than they'd thought? Whatever happened here wouldn't be easy to explain. Some of his friends might drift away from him. Things hadn't really been so bad before, had they? They hadn't been bad at all. It's not like he needed to have sex to have a good life, anyhow. Maybe it would be easier just to go back. It might be a relief not to be in any kind of a romantic relationship.

"It's okay, bro," Rian said, rocking the raccoon in his arms. "Buddy. Baby. Who's my baby coon? Who's my baby brother?"

"I am," said Dex, uncertainly, and Rian stroked the striped fur on his head, flattening it systematically.

"Uh huh," said the wolf. "I let you down, coonie. I'm sorry. Everything bad that happened to you is my fault. Not your fault. I'll leave no stone unturned next time, okay? I'll get background reports on furs who wanna date you. I'll insist that Rog or I talk to their parents. And I won't be so distracted- I'm getting better at balancing. I'll do the tuck-in calls again, Dex. I'll read you stories. I'll even read those preachy ones you like about the environment that I usually make fun of." Rian rocked the raccoon back and forth in his arms. "Hush, little angel," he whispered. "Ace is here, and Jax is here, too. We'll get you out of here. Don't worry."

"What is this?" interrupted Lin Lin, staring at them over the business card in her paw, then narrowing her eyes to slits as she looked at the two boys. "Did the bunny know all about this?" she wondered aloud, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. "He _must_have. I can say a lot of mean things about him, but stupid isn't one of them. Dex," she asked slowly, trying to reconstruct what might have gone on in her other blue rival's head, for she had long thought of Twitchy as clueless and self-absorbed, but had a hard time envisioning him as evil, and it did feel like there was something missing from Dex's abbreviated version of the story. "Did you ever talk to your boyfriend about this and what it was and wasn't? Or did you just let him watch it?"

"He is _not_Dex's boyfriend and we're not talking about _him_and all his lies now! Lies about himself. Lies about Dex. Lies about me," said Rian, wrapping an arm around Dex's head protectively and covering the coon's ears as he glowered up at her. "None of that. Nothing that would make Dex upset!" He reholstered the black gun in his paw and eyed the panda suspiciously as he reached for the walkie talkie on his belt.

"Dex," Lin Lin said slowly, flicking the business card in her paw. "Get up."

In the back stairwell, Jax rolled out of the way at first blast, but Swifty's modified paintball gun, which shot two pellets, one as a curveball, still splattered his side! The tracking hound frowned. That was a Baby Blue weapon being used against him. "Swifty!" Jax yipped. "Stop! I just need to get up the stairs! There's somefur in trouble up there." The tracking hound frowned as his sash was splattered by a second volley. Jax took a shot too, but he only got railing. This wasn't good. The fox had the high ground advantage.

"And I just need to get _down_the stairs to get our power on. Looks like we're at an impasse," Swifty said. "There's trouble going on in this building, all right. And you're causing it. I thought you had a bit more respect for rules, Jax. With your merit badges and your stupid buddy system chart. Maybe you need to see things from the opposite point of view for a little while."

The fox reached with his free paw for the shortwave radio on his belt and changed the channel to speak into it. "Call sign VV," said Swifty into the short wave radio on his belt. "Everyone who can hear me: I've got a hound dog pinned in the back stairwell off the second floor. Anyone who can, come and get him."

The cross fox looked down to see Jax up on his knees, his Swiss army knife open in his left paw, and a snapped-off portion of fishing line lying loose around him. "What did you just say about my buddy system chart?" the dog demanded, tugging on his Boy Scout sash, but he didn't even wait for an answer. "Swifty Fox," he said sternly, as he closed his pocketknife and dropped it in his unzipped supply pack, "_you_messed up my buddy system chart. You left me in the woods with an odd number of boys. An odd number of boys! Thanks to you, someone on our team," the dog stamped his footpaw emphatically, "didn't have a buddy. For days, Kit Raccoon was the only fur without one. Now, there is someone in serious trouble up those stairs."

Swifty looked doubtful - but, at that very moment, the two heard what sounded like an explosion, and both their ears flicked. "If you let me up these stairs, I'll tell you how to get the power and your security system back on," the dog said quickly, tugging on his sash. "Eagle Scout's honor."

Swifty tilted his muzzle and looked down at the Boy Scout. "Well," the cross fox said consideringly, "I don't think you'd lie about that. All right, Jax," he stepped down, moving to the side of the stairs cautiously, as the tracking hound stepped up from the landing, moving to the opposite side of the stairs, the two of them eyeing each other. "What did you do to turn off the power?"

The tracking hound counted to five on his fingers, and, as soon as he had stepped one stair above Swifty, broke into a mad run toward the third-floor exit! "Hey!" shouted the fox, whirling on his heels and releasing a paintball volley after him. "You swore!"

"Well, technically," yipped Jax gleefully, as he clambered for the door on to the third floor and swung it open, heading for the main stairwell that would take him the rest of the way to Rian, and touching the empty spot on the center of his Boy Scout badge with one paw, "I was never an Eagle Scout!"

Looking over his shoulder for Swifty, the dog ran straight into an immovable wall of blue and pink frills, black fur and canine flesh, and tumbled backwards on to his rear to find himself staring up at a Newfoundland bustling toward them, who glowered down at him.

"Oh, no!" he whined, looking anxiously from Cassie to the cross fox giving pursuit down the corridor. The dog reached for his paintball gun, but Cassie batted it out of his paw with a swipe of her huge one, and he watched it despairingly.

The dog squeezed his eyes shut, "Ace, Rian, Dex," he said to himself, quivering, and feeling himself release into the front of his diaper, as Swifty arrived at Cassie's side, "if Baby Blue had to lose someone as a prisoner of war tonight, better me than any of you."

Cassie rested one paw on the entangled tracking hound's head and pressed down enough to help keep him in place. Taking one of these attackers prisoner might neutralize the others and let her get back upstairs. Besides, an extra bargaining chip couldn't hurt. And the nurturing hound dog was on their potential switch list. She could say they snagged him by mistake and have the mistress work on him while Dex was en route to somewhere else. She wasn't about to let her mistress try to screen a pair as dangerous as Dex and Lin Lin. And she had a feeling Jax would warm to panties.

Then, all three of them raised their eyes and twitched their noses as smoke came pouring out of an adjoining corridor, and a shadowy figure appeared in the distance. Jax's nose was the keenest there, and he recognized one of the scents easily. "Ace!" he yipped, sounding distressed. "No! Run away!"

The cross fox twirled his paintball gun and Cassie cracked the knuckles of one paw - then, Swifty fell to his knees, tangled and flailing, his paintball gun skidding out of his grasp, as a throwing net came flying out of the swirling smoke and landed over him.

Jax stared up with wide eyes as his boyfriend, restraining a squirrel with one arm and training a paintball gun with the other, staggered into view, one leg lowering from having extended into the air-he had kicked the throwing net from off the ground without releasing either of his forepaws! The lynx was covered with pieces of broken plastic, clinging to his fur and his discolored safari shirt. His hat had been blown off, leaving his tussled headfur and tufted ears exposed. The flap on his backpack was open and flapped up and down as he moved.

"Ace!" the dog barked again, joyously this time, his tail breaking into a wag, and got to his feet-only to fall back again as Swifty caught him around the ankles, from under the net, with the remainder of the fishing line he was again holding between both paws.

Behind Cassie, a pawful of sissy furs who had responded to Swifty's call began tumbling in from the stairwell.

"Let my puppy go!" the lynx growled. "Here's what's happening here! We're arranging a prisoner exchange! You let him get over to me first! Slow and steady like! No fox tricks! Then you get your hostage!"

The Newfoundland frowned and her eyes glimmered mournfully. "Now, Ace," she said slowly, patting the tracking hound's head. "There's no need to raise your voice. We don't want to hurt any of your friends. We just want to help them. There's no harm even if Jax here takes a test. I only want to talk to the two of you."

The lynx cocked his paintball gun and pointed it down at Shelley's chest. "Here's the problem with talking. As Jax is fond of reminding me," the lynx roared, as the smell of smoke and burned fur thickened in the air, and smoke swirled around him, "I'm a bad listener! Now, my boyfriend and I have a date after this," he shook his muzzle toward the ensnared hound dog, who was staring up at him with widening eyes and open muzzle, feeling like he was about to melt into a puddle on the spot as the lynx growled at both Cassie and the new arrivals, "and believe me when I say: Not one of you wants to be the fur who interrupts it!"

Up one floor, Rian radioed into his walkie talkie, eying the panda suspiciously all the while, "R here! I have Dex! He's okay! He's free and he's really okay," the wolf repeated, feeling his stomach unclench. "Everything's going to be fine. Together we can get out of here no problem. You two go on ahead and we'll catch up! Exit safely! If you're both okay?"

After a crackle, he heard Ace's voice saying back, "Roger that. A here. You're all clear, sir. We're okay here. The dog and the squirrel are neutralized. Only the leader and the panda are unaccounted for but they look to be missing. Let's pull out!"

The wolf stood up unsteadily, and smiled down at his seated friend, extending one forepaw.

The dog looked around as Jax finished tying her and Shelley together in facing chairs in the middle of an empty classroom and wiped his forepaws together before gagging the two pink team leaders. Then he looked up over his shoulder as the lynx entered.

"Bad news first, that switchy cross fox rolled out from under the net when I turned my back and scampered off somewhere, I think to the stairwell. But it doesn't matter. Rian radioed. He got Dex! He's free, and he's okay. They're pulling out together!" Ace reported, then added, with a chuckle, "And everyone else is running away at the sight of me. Sissies."

The Newfoundland stared up at them mournfully and tried to mutter something, but Ace ignored her.

Oh, the dog thought to herself. This is very, very bad. How could she have been this close? How could they not have stopped this attack? What would happen to the academy now? First the Open House, now this! How could Rian have made it all the way up there? What kind of attack was this? These boys weren't acting like Dex had just snuck across team lines. It could be the beginning of the end for the pink team if the wolf gets away with this. And the one who can save our team won't be strong enough yet.

She thought back, to the beginning of the events of the last month.

f

She was sure now she hadn't been wrong, back when they began the Open House preparations . . . .

'What do you think, Cassandra?' the regal leopardess in the Victorian dressing gown remarked, her back to the door, as Cassie entered the small conservatory. 'Isn't it charming? I think a natural environment will help lower defenses. And it's given me a place for some nice specimens. Most of these flowers,' Calliope explained as she gestured with a closed silk fan, stroking one of the sunflowers, 'can't grow outside in this climate, you know. They can only take root here.'

'Mistress,' the Newfoundland said cautiously, 'I'm still worried about interference with the Open House. It's already a catch-up effort.'

Calliope laughed, gently, a lilting, musical sound. 'From my brother?' she said, sounding amused, as she moved on to the daffodils. 'Cassandra, please. Roger is not capable of organizing anything on the scale of our Open House. He can barely get his entire team to show up at IHOP at the same time.'

'Mistress,' the Newfoundland suggested, curtsying, 'if I may, sure, we've always humored the boys for the sake of having a community, but this town has been pretty pink for a long time. I'm not sure if you've accepted that the situation is different now. We've both grown, but . . . For the first time for the last six months, his membership numbers have been steadily getting further and further ahead of ours. This group is not like any group of boys Roger has had before. And I don't know if I've ever seen your brother act quite this way with a group before, either.'

The leopardess turned to face her subordinate and, walking across the small garden, reached up to pat her on the head. 'Something will happen to correct the balance. The natural tendency for sissy instincts to grow in fetishists will work in our favor. Didn't you say much the same thing, Cassandra, about one of his past teams before Serafina showed up on my doorstep?'

The dog looked nervous. 'I don't think this is even the same as that, mistress,' she warned. 'I think any one of those boys in his top ranks, possibly even in the team's second tier, is as much of a threat as any of his past second-in-commands. I don't know if it's them, individually, or if it's the way they relate to each other. And there's also the fact that your older brother is at the age where, well, he might be thinking more than ever about whether he'll ever have...' the dog shifted from one foot to the other, before concluding, a little sadly, 'a family.'

'Cassandra,' purred the regal feline headmistress, 'I appreciate your concern, but this place is in no danger. I don't let things just happen at random and fires break out to the left and right of me like _boys_do,' she pronounced the b-word distastefully.

'A sissy needs structure. Discipline. Authority. The reason these flowers can take root here,' she gestured to the garden, 'is that this is an artificial environment. One designed to make them feel welcome. I'm not concerned about Baby Blue. And neither are my girls. Inside these walls, no authority exists," she flicked her fan open and waved it daintily, 'that anyone need worry about except ours. And that works to shut out the authority that's _really_repressive.'

'In this room, in this school, in face of their caretakers, and in face of me, a fur who wants to be a little girl isn't worried about what her relatives, or her co-workers, or her classmates, or her neighbors, or her other friends want from her. Do you know why she has that freedom? Because she's too overwhelmed by us_to worry about anybody else. And in face of our authority, and nothing else, to say yes to - or to say no to - she'll be able to stand up, and answer, directly, what she _really_wants. For herself. Not what she thinks her friends or her relatives want to hear her say. And then,' Calliope sniffed at a hibiscus blossom hanging on a vine on the wall, '_then, when they've blossomed in warmth and light, and had the time they need to grow, my flowers can survive outside, knowing the truth about themselves. Accepting the truth about themselves. That's the gift we offer here. A bunch of boys running around in the woods with my brother can't interfere with that.'

The dog nodded. 'Mistress,' she said, 'you don't need to explain this place to me. But please just let me put a failsafe in place for my own peace of mind. I've told you this before, and I still think it's true. There's a weakness at the very center of the current boys' team. One we can take advantage of, if we have to. We know, from the notes on the circus mission, that one of its high-ranking members is extraordinarily suggestible.'

'So suggestible that you think,' Calliope concluded, having heard this speech before, 'that he's let himself be brainwashed by the 'Girls are Bad' groupthink over there. I know. I've heard your theory.'

'Lin Lin wasn't taken prisoner by those boys twice. It's obvious,' insisted the big dog, 'that something happened between her and the boy she spent most of that mission with that we aren't being told about. And she began pawing so much not so long after they got back. I don't know what went on, but what bothers me is that for some reason neither of them has acted on it. Anyone as suggestible as that raccoon is repressing a lot. I still think it merits further investigation. If we could just . . .'

The leopardess shook her head. 'I'm not convinced,' she said. 'And for the last time, I'm not willing to do a straightforward screening on Lin Lin to see how she feels. I told you already, I decided against the usual screening when she identified as in full transition. I don't know what kind of traumatic memories it may accidentally bring out. Besides, it's a bit hard for me to keep track of who does what in which part of whom over there in diaperboy country, but doesn't the boy in question,' she flicked her fan, 'have other commitments?'

The Newfoundland shifted. 'I've asked Serafina if she has a sense of how deep those commitments are under cover of collecting general social scene intelligence. She has good instincts about these things. If she reports back that he seems to be in a happy relationship, I'll shelve this.'

The leopardess sighed. 'Already, too many bystanders,' she said. 'The answer is no. I won't do anything.'

'Mistress,' the dog said quickly, 'This isn't just a team issue. I'm also concerned about Lin Lin. I worry about whether she's still having fun. I'm concerned that if she represses too much for too long she'll end up like- like you know who. If there's an opportunity for her, well. . . a leader looks out for her own people first.'

'Is that something you read in one of your new business books?' asked the leopardess, critically.

'No, mistress,' said Cassandra, curtsying. 'I heard it from you.'

The leopardess looked down at the head of a sunflower for a moment, then laughed and blushed, waving her fan. 'Well if you can find a way to get a clear indication of where Lin Lin stands, _without_putting her under, then we'll consider what we should do with this boy. I don't expect getting a read on what she wants will be easy.'

The Newfoundland nodded. 'It wouldn't be a mistake, mistress,' she said. 'If we do ever have to renegotiate, you know all the liberated sissies in the world wouldn't carry much weight with your brother. But if we could release him- then Roger would have no choice but to admit that good things can happen here. Still, none of this would be easy. I might have to take measures that will appear. . . aggressive.'

Calliope flicked her fan. 'Well, do what you need to to figure out Lin Lin's feelings first, because my involvement will depend on that. I imagine you'll have your work cut out for you there. Don't worry too much about appearance. After all, as my brother might put it in one of his comic book speeches,' the leopardess said, patting her subordinate on the head before turning back to her flowers, '_we_know we're the good guys.'

In the present the Newfoundland, thumped her foot against the floor and muttered around a ball gag, trying to get the attention of the shell-shocked squirrel tied up with her.

They barely had any time, she scolded herself. They were supposed to have as long as they needed. And the wolf of all furs had gotten in: as social chair and number one recruiter, the chief Baby Blue indoctrinator, who just happened to be the raccoon's close friend. Cassandra knew that much, and sometimes, the Newfoundland understood, knowing only a little, it was easier to see what might be happening than if you were too close and knew too much.

What if nothing had happened in Level 5? Or worse still, what if something just started, but it hadn't taken? What would happen then? If the seeds were washed away before they had a chance to take root, that would be worst of all-then there might never be another opening. And the weekend would end in unmitigated disaster for the pink team. There was only one fur who could help the academy now.

Downstairs, the two Scouts were making their way unimpeded to the exit. Any sissies who caught sight of the gun-toting, explosion-causing, potty-training terrorists fearfully cowered or scampered out of sight.

"We did it! We won," the lynx said, still on an adrenaline high, shaking his head. "Dex is safe and Rian said they'll be right along and we should go on and get the boat ready. It will be a long time before these girls think they can tangle with Baby Blue again."

Ace, still covered with shards of plastic, his fur in disarray and the smell of smoke clinging to him, opened the front door and stepped out in the thinning rain, and felt himself tumble to the soft earth as he was tackled, and his boyfriend's muzzle and tongue pressed against his. "Whoa, whoa, puppy!" he managed to get out as soon as Jax came up for air, "I can wait until we're back home! I have a little patience left."

"Who said anything," said the dog, wagging his tail, "about you?"

"Puppy," Ace scolded, "no! We don't even have supplies. You know I can't let you..."

"Forget who you're talking to, soldier?" said the tracking hound, tugging on his Boy Scout sash, and reaching for the supply pouch at his side, producing a small square plastic wrapper, which he held up to his boyfriend's muzzle. "I'm always prepared."

He humped Ace's leg desperately until the cat relented and reached down, unsnapping the dog's khaki shorts and feeling the front of his boyfriend's diaper, then taking the condom. "All right, all right," Ace said. "We're in the woods right outside this place where who knows how many boys have gotten girly with their partners tonight. But you show them all a sissy has nothing on a boy bitch in heat."

"Rarf!" the usually articulate tracking hound barked affirmatively, his animal instincts taking over in face of the blunt-spoken, protective, battle-scarred feline he often felt like only he could appreciate, but who he had never wanted inside him more desperately.

Upstairs, outside Level 5, Dex took Rian's paw and got unsteadily to his feet. Lin Lin was flicking the business card Cassie had handed her between her fingers.

"Okay, buddy," the wolf said as he helped the coon up, "all the sissiness and scariness is over. Let's go home. We did it. We rescued you. I'm here to help you with the rest now. Tomorrow morning you'll wake up and everything will be back to normal."

"Rian," the raccoon said, looking over his shoulder at the panda guiltily, feeling like he had already committed some kind of betrayal, "I can't go back yet. There are tests I need to do in the hopes of putting something to rest once and for all. Something started here, and I can't leave it half-finished. Tell everyone I'm fine. It's really sweet that you came here for me, and I'm sorry everyone got woken up and for all the trouble I guess I've caused. But, I'm fine. And I'll be back as soon as the screening is done one way or another."

The wolf shook his head. "Ohhh Dex, nooo," the wolf said, tugging on his paw and starting for the stairs. "I did those screening tests, little coonie. They were hard. _I_nearly didn't pass. You can't do them. Okay? You have so much more baggage upstairs than me. And you've just gotten your regression in control. Besides, you don't need to do them. You're not a sissy. You're you. You're still you," he said, sounding relieved.

The raccoon didn't move, and Rian turned to stare at him quizzically. "I wasn't asking for permission, Rian," Dex said calmly.

The wolf looked over the raccoon's shoulder suspiciously, his eyes darting from Dex to the panda. "What is she holding over you, Dex?" he growled. "Did you tell her what your fight with Twitch was about? Is she blackmailing you? Don't worry; we'll back you up in public if we have to. We'll make it go away."

Dex frowned. Did most of his teammates really hate Lin Lin enough to think she'd do something like that? "Leave her alone," he whispered, looking down.

"What?" Lin Lin exclaimed in response to Rian, sounding horrified and shuddered, then she added. "I don't want him to do the tests either. Dex-you don't have to do the tests. Not on my account."

"Yeah whatever," Rian muttered. "Come on, Dex."

Again, the raccoon didn't budge, instead reaching for the business card in Lin Lin's paw, which she surrendered apprehensively. He eyed the panda. He had a sad feeling at some point she had given up on trying to correct furs when they thought the worst of her.

"Rian," the coon said in a level tone, "it's okay. She's been with me since I got here. Helping me out. She's not like you think she is." Dex looked at the panda, waiting for her to speak up. "I know her," he said.

The wolf snorted. "Helping you into a dress. Dex, it's an act, come on. See, it's working. She's been helping you right into getting yourself hypnotized into sissyhood. If _she's_the good cop, that's all the proof I need that this place really has gone evil."

Dex's tail hung sadly. "I'll tell you how it turns out afterward," he insisted to Rian. "I'd rather not tell everyone about this twice. If I'm right, well," he grimaced and held back from using the s-word, which he could hardly think yet without feeling ashamed, "it's enough of a shock to say once. Besides," he eyed the transsexual panda, and bit his tongue, "it's not just my secret I'd have to tell. For now I'll just say I'm going into this Level 5 screening thing for her. I don't care how long or how deep it is, I need to stay there until I can tell her I really know."

"Dex, no!" both Lin Lin and Rian exclaimed at the same time, then Rian narrowed his eyes and glared past the coon at her. "Oh, you're good," he growled. "What did you do to my friend?" the wolf demanded, addressing her directly. "Is he hypnotized already? Is he drugged? Is Callie back there pulling the strings somewhere?" He stood on his tiptoes to look beyond her, but saw only darkness.

When she didn't answer except to stare at him angrily he shook his head and stopped speaking to her. "You'll feel fine once you're out of here Dex," he said, reaching for the holster on his shoulder. "I'm not letting you decide about this right now. You're still too upset, poor boy. Did you eat anything here? Did you drink anything here? Maybe they put something in it! We'll get you totally cleaned out and comfortable. What do you want, coonie? Come on, tell me what I can do. Anything you want. Do you want some oatmeal? Do you want an enema to get anything icky out of you? I can ask Rog about that while you're in your bubble bath, baby. Uh huh. If they put anything icky in your bottle we'll get it right out. I'll ask for all your favorite toys to be brought to his apartment. Do you want to go there? We can go there. You'll have a real bath. Then you can sleep with Rog and me. Won't that feel good? That panda is doing something to you and we'll talk as soon as you're safely far away, and she's all tied up and can't follow. Don't worry, we won't forgive how they took advantage of you. We won't let her near you agai-. . ."

Rian yelped as a sharp blow to his forearm sent him reeling off balance, catching himself against the opposite wall. He looked over his shoulder to see his raccoon friend crouching on his heels, with one forepaw extended in front of him, palm facing outward, in an offensive stance.

"I thought I said," the raccoon said, his voice gathering strength, "to leave her alone. That's one of Ace's toys you're wearing. Where is he?"

"I told him and Jax to fall back and we'd be right out to meet them, Dex, you heard me. No tricks," the wolf said. "It's just me here, baby bro. Okay?"

As he spoke, the lights flickered on around them, and Rian shivered! Someone had turned the power back on in at least one fuse box! Would that mean the security system would come on again, too? What if the Scouts were already outside and couldn't get back in?

The coon glared at him sternly. "Didn't I tell you," he growled, flicking his tail, "never to do a combat mission on your own, Rian? Do too much of that," the coon slid one foot back and bent his knees slightly, "and you're going to get yourself hurt."

Next time: Sacrifice! One of our heroes must make a difficult decision. What will Roger and Callie find when they arrive? What will happen to Twitchy?

Boss match results:

Random match #1: Jax . . . versus . . . Swifty Fox! Winner: Stalemate!

Results: Special ability unlocked (Jax-bending the truth!)

Random match #2: Ace . . . versus . . . Shelley! Winner: Ace!

Results: Special ability unlocked (Ace)-area attack!; Party member (Ace) levels up! All lower-level opponents cleared!

Initiating final match-up selection:

Rian . . . versus . . . Cassie

Rian . . . versus . . . Lin Lin

Rian . . . versus . . . Dex!!!!