This story will probably be longer than I thought. But probably not too much longer.

I hope you enjoy it! :)

It was a bright summer morning when Buster walked onto the stage to meet the contestants. Ever since the finale show and the theater's reconstruction, they had all met up frequently to perform different songs, help Buster and Eddie with shows as stagehands, or just to hang out.

Buster was in the middle of giving everyone their suggestions for songs for their next show, until he noticed that in the room was lacking a certain punk rock porcupine.

"Has anyone seen Ash," Buster asked, looking around.

"No", everyone said over each other as they shook their heads.

"Maybe she's just running a little late", Rosita said. "You know she's not much of a morning person."

Buster nodded his head at Rosita's sentence. It was well-known that the teenager was not an early riser, and that if it wasn't for her morning Slurpee, she probably would've fallen asleep on the subway and wind up in another state.

Again.

Suddenly they heard the opening of a door from backstage, as Ash started to run towards the stage.

"Sorry I'm late, Buster," she shouted from the door. "Something came up at my place, and I missed the subway."

"Nice to see you, As..", Buster trailed off as he got a closer view of the teenager in front of him.

Something was very strange about Ash's appearance. While she had her usual guitar in paw and heart sunglasses, she was wearing a large gray sweater covering her head and back not a single quill in sight.

"Um, Ash", Buster began to ask. "Whats with the sweater?"

"Oh, uh, no reason. Just wanted to wear it today, that's all.", Ash said before drinking her Slurpee.

"You sure you need that, Ash", Rosita asked. " It's kind of hot outside today, isn't it?"

"W-Well, yeah it is," Ash replied. "It's because I'm here.", she said, laughing nervously.

Everyone looked at Ash, who was now downing her Slurpee, in an attempt to avoid further talking.

"Well, if you want", Meena spoke up. "You don't have to wear it in here. Maybe you could take it off-"

"NO!"

Everyone all looked back in shock at the outburst. Meena shrank back, her ears covering her face.

Ash stopped before composing herself. "I mean...it's alright Meena.", she said calmly to the elephant. "It doesn't really bother me that much."

"Geez, Spikes", Mike began to say. "What's got your quills in a twist?"

"Nothing", she glared down at Mike. She then directed her attention to Buster. "So, what are we doing today?"

Buster looked at her for a few seconds, but decided it was probably best not to bring it up again. "We're getting ready for our next show. You think you can make a new song?"

"Oh yeah, sure", Ash responded nonchalantly. "I can definitely do that."

"Good", he then directed his attention across the stage. "Well, let's all get to work, and then meet back here around noon for lunch."

And with that, everyone left off to the practice rooms to rehearse.

As the stage emptied, Buster wondered before nodding as the door closed in front of him. He then turned to Eddie, standing beside him wearing his headphones.

"Yup", Buster concluded. "Ash is definitely hiding something".

"You think?"

A few hours later around noon, everyone had sat down on the stage. They were all eating a basketful of sandwiches and snacks that Rosita brought, along with a cake Meena had made.

As they ate, they noticed that around 10 minutes into their food, Ash still hadn't arrived.

"Where's Ash", Johnny asked before taking another bite out of his sandwich. "She should've been here 10 minutes ago."

"Maybe she doesn't know it's lunchtime yet", Meena said.

"Kid makes a good point", Mike concurred. "With as loud as Spikes plays, it's a wonder if she can hear herself think."

Buster nodded, before swallowing his bite and setting his sandwich down. "You guys are right. I'll go get her."

"Hopefully she's in a better mood than this morning, he thought.

Buster walked off the stage to the direction of the practice rooms. On his way, he heard the slightly muffled sounds of a guitar playing. He smiled and shook his head as his paw grabbed the door. He opened up to the sight of Ash, headbanging to the tune she was playing, her eyes closed behind her sunglasses, and her hoodie having been lazily tossed on the floor.

"Hey Ash", Buster said, walking into the practice room. "It's noon. Time for-"

Buster paused as the guitar riffs suddenly stopped. Ash turned around, eyes as large as saucers, to face the koala standing in the doorway in front of her.

Everyone else was on the stage, listening to a story Gunter had been telling, laughing at the pig's exaggerated movements. Suddenly, the sounds of Buster and Ash's screams caught their attention. They all dropped their food and instantly ran to the practice rooms towards their friends.

"Buster!", Rosita called out in worry as she ran. "Is everything al-", she paused when they all stood behind Buster outside the doorway, and looking at Ash. "Right?"

No one could believe what they were looking at.

There stood Ash, her sweater off and wide-eyed. However, instead of thousands of quills, instead there was just sprawled out brown-pinkish fur, only a few stubs of still developing quills sticking out in a few places, as well as one prominently on her head.

She looked less like a porcupine, and more like a brown rat.

There was an uncomfortable lingering silence between everyone, until Mike broke the silence with,

"Spikes! You're bald!"

And that's the first chapter. Don't know how many more there will be, but I'm not expecting more than 5.

Also, I need to give credit to bunny-lou on Tumblr, for the idea of Mike calling Ash "Spikes", because that's just brilliant. Go give their stories a look, they have a lot of Sing fanfics from prompts they were given.

Hope you enjoyed it, and please review. Reviews are always appreciated :)