III: Strange

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"Have you ever had fun?"

The Commander didn't let his eyes stray from the screen as he pressed a few more buttons to send out more commands. "I command an army."

"That doesn't exactly answer my question, Claus." Paula, who was sitting next to the human chimera, observed the commands he typed out with quiet interest, watching the letters print out in neat pixelated white as the sounds of Pigmasks receiving his commands resounded on tiny speakers on either side of them. The Walking Bushie she had 'adopted' two weeks ago was currently skittering around their feet happily, making delighted "Chrr, chrr!" sounds as it walked.

The Commander paused in his command inputting. "Lady Polestar-"

"I still don't understand why you call me that."

"It's a term of respect!" The Commander snapped before continuing, not noticing the look of realization dawning on the blonde's face at the mention of it being a term of respect. "And I've told you already; I am the Commander of the Pigmask Army. I have no time for 'fun'."

Paula sighed. "And I've told you already: Commander is a title, not a name. That's why I'm calling you Claus."

"Bah! You're absolutely baffling." He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, halting command input, which startled most of the Pigmasks he was sending orders to into a flurry of nervous and panicked oinking. This made Paula cover her ears in annoyance, her little Bushie friend toppling over. Growling, the Commander returned back to typing in the next set of commands, making the Pigmasks settle down once more.

Once she was certain the oinking had stopped, the bow wearing PSI user let her hands drop back to her lap just as the Commander grumbled, "Pigheaded idiots can't even function properly without me sending commands to each of them when they know I'm at the command deck, ugh. Don't make me stop typing whenever I'm in here again, Lady Polestar."

Paula smiled. "Does this mean you'll let me call you Claus, then?"

The Commander – now lovingly labeled as Claus – didn't answer at first, still deadly focused on the task of inputting commands to the more incompetent members of the Pigmask army. Paula watched him with sapphire blue eyes, awaiting his response, until finally he grumbled, "Fine. You can call me Claus. But only you can call me Claus."

"Are you serious?" Paula looked incredulous.

Claus didn't glance at her as he typed in instructions for a group of Navy SQUEALs. "Take it or leave it."

"…" The disabled PSI user studied his helmeted face for a moment, trying to decipher if he was telling the truth. After a few moments, however, her face brightened, and she smiled. "Alright then, Claus! I'll call you Claus from now on! See, was that so hard?"

Oh, it certainly wasn't too hard, giving her permission to refer to him so casually. To everyone else's ears Paula's voice was light and airy, that of a typical sugary sweet girl's, but to the trained (and coincidentally modified) ear, they could hear her voice lilting ever so gently at certain words. Her light accent flavored each sentence she spoke - Claus still wasn't particularly sure where Paula had come from so he couldn't place the accent, but he did find it rather pleasing to the ear.

… Did he really just think that?

Thankful for his helmet's ability to prevent others from reading his mind, the heterochromic-eyed boy turned a rather embarrassing shade of pink, startling his companion.

"Oh, what's wrong, Claus?" The girl sidled up closer to him on the bench they both shared, the Walking Bushie falling flat on its face yet again when Paula accidentally tripped it up. She didn't notice, instead sitting a good deal closer to the Commander, observing his now fuchsia face. "Are you sick? Do chimeras even get sick?"

Claus tried his hardest not to stammer. He really did. "I-It's nothing."

Pork damn it.

"You're stammering."

Pork damn it.

"N-no, I am not."

Pork DAMN it.

"I'll go call Doctor Andonuts. Maybe he knows what to do." The PSI user stood up, her ability limiter – both of them had taken to calling it the PK-No Bracelet – jingling noisily as she did so. With a final concerned look cast in Claus's direction, Paula told him, "I'll be right back, okay? I won't try to escape for now… I need to get Doctor Andonuts to look at you and see if you're okay."

"For now?" That made some of the embarrassing red coloration from his face fade away a bit. "What do you mean 'for now'? Were you planning some form of escape?" That's impossible. The bracelet would warn us of any attempts to escape.

"Well… actually…" Paula glanced at her hands once more. "I planned on leaving a lot of times during the past few weeks… but I didn't know how. The reason I'm telling you all this is because…" Her voice dropped down to an incomprehensible mumble which even Claus's highly trained ears couldn't decipher.

"Pardon?"

"Mmnhmmmnm…"

By this point, Claus had stopped blushing, and was now rather annoyed that Paula wasn't speaking comprehensibly. "You do realize I can't understand a single word you're saying-"

"I SAID I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE ANYMORE BECAUSE YOU DON'T TREAT ME LIKE A PRISONER ANYMORE AND YOU'RE ACTUALLY REALLY SWEET!"

… Well. Well then.

Both of them had effectively shut up at the words she had shouted out. Trying to process her words, Claus was silent, running them over and over through his mental database. Realizing what she had blurted out, Paula gasped and turned a bright red, raising her hands up to her mouth immediately and covering it. The PK-No Bracelet jingled noisily as she immediately turned heel.

"OkayIthinkI'mgonnagofetchDoctorAndonutsnowbye-" SLAM!

The door slammed shut as Paula absconded out of the room to leave behind a baffled, red faced Commander – who had finally realized what her words meant - and a sulky, tiny Walking Bushie, still face down on the floor. Upon noticing the predicament of Paula's little friend, he halted all command input – thankfully enough, this time he had inputted enough for the Pigmasks to function for a few more hours on their own without any guidance - and bent down a little, lifting up the little Bushie by its leaf until it was seated where Paula had been previously, upright and walking again.

Thank thank!

"You're welcome," Claus mumbled, taking off his helmet and placing it on his other side, revealing styled ginger hair under it. His hair, despite the helmet that had been pressing down on it for a long while, had strangely enough retained its strange double cowlick style. He ran his fingers through said hair to assure himself that it wouldn't fall apart at any moment.

The Bushie watched intently as Claus traced the three scars running through his left eye. Doctor Andonuts had told him that a rogue Mecha-Drago had done it to him, and without any other reliable source of information, Claus had believed him. It looked deep enough to have been done by a mechanically modified reptile – the unnatural cleanness of the edges of each scar was too precise to have been done by a simple clawed hand.

"…" Claus's hand dropped back down onto his lap.

What matter?

"Nothing's the matter." By this point, Claus had given up and had accepted that yes, he could talk to monsters and chimeras. He didn't particularly understand how, but he could. Perhaps Doctor Andonuts would know…

Is bothered by Paula?

"No, I could never be bothered by her." Pause. "Well, bother in the unproductive sense of the word, anyway."

Then what going on? Is you okay?

The Bushie peered up at him with sleepy eyes. Claus sighed. "I'm functioning at 100%. All systems are fully functional, with no parts in need of repair or touchup."

What?

"I am… functioning well enough." Claus allowed a few sparks of PSI to erupt from his fingertips. These sparks however were unlike other PSI sparks in the sense that they were iridescent hexagons, sparkling despite the lighting of the command deck. "However, I can't seem to shake this strange feeling that I am getting every time Paula does something inherently different than usual." Pause.

Is love?

Love? Claus only knew of PK Love, and that was his unique PSI power. Did the Bushie mean that it was his special PSI reacting to Paula's PSI? But… as far as we're all aware, Paula doesn't have any unique PSI abilities, unless… His eyes widened. She could have unawakened special PSI powers, and PK Love is reacting to it!

"C-Claus?"

He immediately froze up. Oh Pork, oh Pork, he didn't have his helmet on, oh PORK-

"Claus, I brought Doctor Andonuts o-" Paula stepped inside the room, having recovered from her temporary bout of embarrassment only to squeak upon not recognizing Claus's bright ginger hair from behind. She did, however, recognize his fur trimmed jacket even from afar. "EEP! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Is here! Is here!

The Bushie jumped up and off the bench, skittering off to the now red-faced Paula, who immediately turned away as Claus hastily stuffed the helmet back onto his head just as Doctor Andonuts ambled in, holding, well, a donut and a cup of coffee. Upon seeing the blonde PSI user turned away, the Bushie chattering around her heels, and the ginger commander furiously trying his best not to glance in her direction, he raised an eyebrow. Otherwise, he walked over to Claus, raising a portable X-Ray.

"Paula here has retrieved me because she believes you're not doing well," He explained as Claus attempted to compose himself, facing the scientist with a stoic look on his face. Claus already knew why he was there; Paula had already mentioned she would be heading for him, after all. "According to this small scale X-Ray, you appear to be functioning fine enough. Perhaps it's your inner cooler?"

"… I have an inner cooler?"

The scientist shrugged. "I'm not certain myself. I've already forgotten."

WONDERFUL. "Well, it was very gracious of you to check up on me, Doctor Andonuts. It wasn't necessary, however, so I apologize for having wasted your time and taking you away from whatever project you were currently working on."

"No need to apologize." Doctor Andonuts shook his head. "I consider you like my own son, and taking the time to make sure my son is alright is a good thing." A look of unrestricted sadness crossed the good doctor's face. "I wish I had done so before…"

"Doctor Andonuts…" Paula looked like she knew what he was talking about, which baffled Claus. Did Paula know Doctor Andonuts more than she let on? Did they have a past? How did they know each other?

… What was a son?

Each question seemed to make annoyance bubble up within the scarred Commander. Well, to be frank, it wasn't exactly annoyance. It was more of annoyance mixed with some other strange, foreign feeling that he didn't truly understand. Now that he thought about it, any strange, foreign feelings he received nowadays… they were always triggered in some way by the PSI user he kept under his wing.

"Egads, I've been rambling." Doctor Andonuts replaced the X-Ray into one of his many pockets – the wonders of science, honestly - as the Bushie skittered back to Claus, chattering. "Well, if there isn't anything else to be done, I shall be returning to the Chimera-"

"Wait."

Both Paula and Doctor Andonuts paused and raised an eyebrow at him.

"If… it's not a bother… I would like to pose a few queries." The Commander stood up, reestablishing his full height – which was at least a good two heads taller than the doctor and nearly one head taller than Paula – and staring down at him with a stoic look on his face. "I believe they will be beneficial for both you and me, seeing as that you were the one in charge of my design."

Doctor Andonuts blinked, and then nodded. "Yes, well, I don't see why I can't spare a few minutes, Commander. To keep you in tip top shape would benefit the army greatly, so any personal inquiries about your makeup would help keep you in good form at all times."

Claus nodded in acknowledgement, and then turned to Paula. "Paula."

"H-hah? I-I didn't see, anything, I swear!" Paula immediately turned to face him, stammering, her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink.

He couldn't help it: the faintest of smiles crossed his face, which did not go unnoticed by Doctor Andonuts, whose glasses glinted in recognition. "I was just going to ask if you would be so kind as to check on the Mecha-Moles and Rhinocerockets down in the Chimera Lab. The scientists will be glad to have your assistance in taming some of them, even if they don't say they appreciate it."

"O-oh… are you sure…?" Suddenly, the girl looked uncertain. "I mean, sure, they tolerate me, but only because I'm sort of, well, you know… and only because you're there with me, supervising! They don't do anything to me because you're around-"

"Trust me: now that I'm not with you, they're going to be even more cautious." Claus let a smirk cross his face. "I could drop in at any moment, and could catch them doing something that would make me…" He clenched his fist involuntarily. "… angry."

Doctor Andonuts swallowed. Paula didn't flinch at all.

"Well, if you're sure…" Paula's PK-No Bracelet jingled as she turned around again, her hand on the door. She glanced back at him. "Will you be going to the Chimera Lab later, after you talk to Doctor Andonuts?"

"I'll bring you back to our room later after our discussion." He nodded. "Don't worry. And stay away from the Ultimate Chimera, no matter what any of the scientists say."

Her eyebrow rose. "Ultimate Chimera?"

"Just don't go anywhere near it. Don't ask about it, don't even think about it."

"…"

"…"

"… Alright then, Claus." She smiled softly, exiting the room. "I'll see you later, then." The door shut behind her, and she was gone.

Immediately, Doctor Andonuts turned to Claus. "You have a lot of explaining to do."

"I have a lot of questions, can't we go with that first?"

"… Fine."

"… Hmm, so that's how it is..."

Minutes after Paula had left, Doctor Andonuts had sat down on the bench of the command deck, the Bushie sitting calmly beside him AND staring up sleepily at the pacing Commander. Said Commander had been talking rather animatedly for the past few minutes for someone who had had most of his emotions locked away. From the first time he had subdued her to the Chimera Lab incident and even until now, he mentioned all of the strange occurrences and feelings that he had experienced from the date of Paula's arrival. Each incident had made Doctor Andonuts' eyebrows rise further up his face, but by the last incident, they had sunk back down to their usual spot, perched above his eyes like wooly caterpillars.

"-and I just can't get the idea out of my head that maybe, just maybe, she has an unawakened PSI power within her that keep reacting with PK Love! It could prove to be beneficial to the whole army if she possessed a unique power too, wouldn't it? What do you think, Doctor Andonuts?" Claus stopped, looking towards the scientist. "… Doctor Andonuts?"

"… hm? Oh, pardon me. Yes, yes, you think Paula has her own special PSI that hasn't been awakened within her yet, but you think it's reacting to PK Love…" Doctor Andonuts leaned forward. "But how are you certain it isn't just remnants of recently used PK Thunder?"

Claus shook his head. "No, I'm sure it isn't just PK Thunder anymore. I used to think it was, but it would appear that alongside electric jolts, there are strange surges of foreign emotion that I feel from time to time. It has to be a special PSI."

"…" Doctor Andonuts had a rather good idea what he was talking about, but he wasn't exactly sure, so he just shrugged. "Well, we could perhaps bring up the topic of unlocking said powers with the young Polesta-"

"COMMANDER!"

Both males froze at the sound of a panicked Pigmask rushing in, saluting shakily. "C-C-C-Commander, sir, t-there's a problem!"

"What is it now, soldier?" The Commander asked in an exasperated tone, a little annoyed at having been interrupted in the middle of what he considered an important discussion with the good scientist. "You do realize I could have you executed for just barging into the command deck, right?"

"I-I'm well aware, s-sir!" The Pigmask stammered. "H-however, I-I am also well aware that t-the girl is more important than executing me r-right now!"

The girl? What-

Paula.

"What happened to Paula?" The Commander strode closer to the Pigmask, using all of his self-control not to grab the Pigmask by the throat and strangle him. "WHAT HAPPENED TO HER, SOLDIER?! ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW!"

The Pigmask could sense his self-restraint, because they backed away a little. "T-The men brought in some rogue Minor Robots to be fixed in the Chimera Lab sir, and one of them hit the girl with a Drow-Z Beam!"

"Oh, is that all?" Claus relaxed, though only by a fraction. "Drow-Z beams from Minor Robots do not last very long. I'll just take her back to our room and watch over her until she wakes up, while one of the Captains takes control over the others momentarily."

Even though they were helmeted, the Pigmask was visibly sweating. "T-that's just it, Commander sir… those Minor Robots… they were considered rogue because they were attacking Pigmasks without reason in New Pork… and their attacks are stronger than usual, as if they were tampered with by some outside force smart enough to change their AIs…"

No… you can't mean…

"T-the girl won't wake up, sir."

Despite the narrowness of the room and the hallways, the Commander spread his wings. And then, without another word, he was gone, headed for the Chimera Lab with only one thought in mind.

I am going to fucking MURDER the man who tampered with the Minor Robots.