- Well, this is my first ever fan-fic, so I'm sorry if its bad/OOC or has mistakes etc. ^^'

Chapter 1

Matthew sighed as his brother pulled him quickly around a stack of what seemed to be crates of different types animal food. The strangely dressed man passed by not seeing the two crouched quietly in the shadows, one snickering slightly with a huge grin stuck on his face and the other looking rather irritated and yet somehow passive at the same time… kind of like this sort of thing happened to him a lot.

"..Al… I don't thin-"

"Shhhh!"

"… but-"

"Don't worry! I know it'll be around here somewhere.. we just gotta look around some more." the strong American sounding accent easily overshadowing the much softer Canadian one. Matt sighed again, he knew from experience there was no point in arguing, his best option was too just go along with him and hope he didn't end up getting killed somehow… or get left behind again.

"C'mon!" Al grinned excitedly as he practically dragged his brother past more crates and other odd looking equipment. In the background they could hear the fast and happy sounding music along with the loud and annoying voice coming from the speakers, now sounding muffled from inside the huge striped tent. Inside the tent was completely crowded full of people crammed together, all eager to get a closer look at the show. Though Matt wouldn't admit it he actually was somewhat glad to be out of the overly hot and noisy tent (he was secretly claustrophobic and really didn't like large crowds of people anyway)… but, unlike some people, that didn't mean that he wanted to spend his time sneaking around the 'Strictly Out Of Bounds' section where all the props and such were kept.

It started off not to bad, everything fairly boring and normal at first but it seemed the further back they searched the more and more uneasy Matt was beginning to feel about it… the lights were getting very dim here which was causing the weirdly shaped props (some of which were starting to remind him of old-fashioned torture weapons he'd once seen in books) and cruel looking masks to cast eerie shadows around the walls and floor. The once happy and lively sounds from the show were now much quieter and even more muffled than before, causing them to sound strange and haunting… something about this area was definitely creepy and it was putting him on edge. But glancing up at Alfred it seemed as though he hadn't even noticed that anything was wrong. As they passed a large wooden and metal cage which contained two small tiger cubs cowering together at the back Matt tried to speak up again.

"…It's not that I don't believe you, Al. It's just that… Well, you know, most of the stuff in circuses are fake... They know how to trick people into believing the stuff's real…" his voice was gentle but sounded slightly strained, like he was having to force himself to speak.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but this was real Mattie, I know it was! I mean, you could tell just from looking that it was real!" his boisterous voice making Matt flinch and look around himself worriedly, panicking slightly that something would be drawn to the noise they were making. He needed to leave this place. Now. He stopped moving pulling Al to a stop as well, his voice shaking a little.

"L-look, Al, we should just go-"

"No way! Not until we find it!"

"Why? Look, let's just lea-"

"Just five more minutes!"

Trying to keep calm Matt kept his eyes on the floor following his brother close behind. He wanted to leave but he didn't want Alfred to be wandering around alone in this place either. Taking a deep breath to calm himself he was about to try and ask Al to leave again when he was suddenly dragged to the front of another cage that was almost hidden behind a stack of more crates. Startled by the unexpected movement he instinctively snapped at Al for his sudden behaviour… not that he was listened to anyway.

"Look, look! Mattie I told you!" he was grinning even wider now, crouched in front of the cage bars and pointing excitedly to something that was laying in a heap on the floor inside. Matt crouched down next to him and peered into the cage, secretly curious himself as to what had gotten his brother so hyped up about. At first glance he thought it was just a type of animal in clothing, he could make out a pair of back legs that looked like a reddish-brown dog and a matching front leg… but there was something wrong about it's shape and it was making him feel more and more uncomfortable by the second… leaning closer he looked more carefully.

The thing seemed to stretch out a bit in its sleep. Matt felt his jaw drop as he noticed a human hand and arm along with the animal limbs, but couldn't even react when he realised that it really was (as Al had insisted what he'd seen before) a human. Now that it was stretched out more he could see it looked like a boy around their age, maybe slightly older but it was hard to tell. He had light, extremely scruffy blonde hair, very pale skin and was wearing old and worn looking brown shorts and a dark ripped green T-shirt… his face also seemed to be flushed and he was panting a bit, like he had a slight fever maybe. The 'interesting' thing about him though was that he had a large pair of pointy reddish-brown ears on either side of his head along with matching dog-looking back legs (ending at around the knees) and a large fluffy tail. But weirdly he only had one animal front leg (ending at the elbow) the other was a normal human arm.

"A-al, t-this-"

"See! Isn't it cool? Ha! An you thought I was being stupid, Now all we need to do is get him out of here and we can go." he finished proudly, still grinning ear from ear.

"What? W-why would we do that, eh?"

"Cause he needs help! and hero's save people in need, I'm the hero remember!"

"You can't just go arou-"

"First we gotta figure out how to open the cage though, its locked. Hmmm"

Matt sighed looking back at thing in the cage. He should of just stayed home today… he could be at home right now, or he could be out somewhere nice... like the movies.. with Gilbert… anything, anything would be better than this. Why did he always get dragged into these typed of situations?

The thing was looking at him. Matt's breath froze suddenly in his chest feeling as if he had been kicked and he felt his blood run cold. One of it's eyes had opened and was looking directly at him. His heart had stopped for a second and felt sick as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up,. In fear he fell back so he was sitting of the floor as it's large green eye continued to stare at him unblinking.

It smiled slightly and wobbly began to sit up, though it looked kind of weak there was something about it that seemed dangerous. Alfred grinned as he finally noticed it was awake.

"Hi! I'm Al, this is my brother Mattie, and we're here to save you, so don't worry, okay, hero's promise!" Al laughed happily, excited to meet it and not seeming to be bothered by it in the least.

"Well hello, Al. It is a pleaser to meet you." it replied in an almost sadistic sounding British accent as it grinned toothily back at Al.

- And that's it for now (sorry if its bad/spelling/etc but I was really tired when writing this). ^^… Does anyone want me to continue this story?

(Edit: really sorry about the underlining, I don't know why that happened or how to change it, sorry ^^'')