"Yeah, go fetch boy!" Sadiq whooped as Kumajirou ran. The bear grumbled,
"Mrm… (Whatever. I'm not a dog.)", before he picked up the pace. The rain was getting harder and he didn't want to be here anymore than he had to be. He followed Sadiq's scent trail when he got back to town, immediately finding the man's house and having to do nothing more than nudge the door before he was allowed inside.
Kumajirou walked inside, shaking the rain-drops from his fur before he looked around. He looked over on the couch before he found who he was looking for. The boy who had been left behind when his mother died in a tragic storm, Heracles (now around preteen age) lay on the couch; sleeping while a bunch of cats pawed over him.
"Mm! (Hey!)" Kumajirou walked over, "Mrm! (Wake up, you're wanted!)" But Heracles slept on, causing Kumajirou to growl, "Grr… (Seriously? You've got to be kidding me.)"
Meanwhile, back at the cliff, Arthur, Sadiq, and Michael were still waiting for Kumajirou to come back with Heracles. "I hope he didn't get lost," Arthur murmured. As if summoned by the blonde's call, Kumajirou could soon be seen tugging a sleeping brunette all the way to the cliff. When he finally made it to where everyone else was standing, the bear left the boy and went to Arthur's side to take a nap.
"Heracles, there ya are!", Sadiq called out, successfully waking the teen who groaned,
"What do you want? You're going to force me to work tomorrow, so I need as much sleep as I can get and –" Just then, the brunette fell asleep standing on his feet ( 1 ).
"Damn it!" Sadiq fumed as he gave a swift smack to the young man's head. "Wake up, would ya?"
"Where am I? It's raining?"
"Yeah, great, whatever…" Sadiq sighed, "I need ya to put those, ahem, special skills I taught ya to good use."
"I don't think that those should be used outside of the bedroom, Sadiq…"
"Not those, you moron!" Sadiq smacked Heracles in the back of the head again, "Your thief skills!"
"Oh…"
"Yeah, now use your cat-claw technique and help us get up that wall!" Heracles blinked before offering,
"I know you've been training me since I was small but… This will be my first time using that technique in real life…"
"Just do it!" Sadiq yelled, pushing Heracles to the Cliffside.
"This wall looks scalable." He whispered, running his fingers along the surface, "I hope that this works." Heracles then dug his hands into his pockets for a minute before he whipped them out, showing that his hands were covered in brown, claw-tipped gloves; one of them holding a group of large staples, the other holding a hammer. "Here we go!" The brunette jumped up, hammering a staple into the wall. When that one was steady, he stepped onto it and used the lift to continue his work.
"That should do it." Heracles finally finished his ascent and saw that the way up could support more than his own weight. "Arthur, I—" Just then, Heracles fell asleep again at the top of the cliff. Sadiq only groaned,
"Damn that boy…" Arthur only briefly thanked Sadiq for his help before he hefted Kumajirou up in one arm and began to climb the make-shift ladder all the way until he was at the cliff's edge.
"Hey. Heracles…" Arthur walked up to the brunette and nudged him with his foot, Heracles soon waking up,
"Oh, Arthur. You made it up so soon?" He looked up and observed the lack of water falling from the sky, "Looks like the rain stopped." He noticed Arthur about to walk off, deciding to call out, "You know, despite my sleeping illness, I think I should help you out some more. Seeing as how I didn't know about everything that was happening until just a few moments ago."
"Thanks. I appreciate it." Arthur nodded, already climbing the tree that Michael had pointed out. A shaky hand reached forward, tugging the torn fabric from the branches. As soon as he touched it though, he gulped as his eyes went wide, "This fabric… It's the same color and material of the clothes that I sewed for Francis."
The blonde jumped down from the tree, grassy eyes still focused on the piece of cloth. Suddenly, with a screech, a mole jumped up from seemingly nowhere and, after biting away the cloth, began to rush off. "No!" Arthur barked out, immediately giving chase to the filthy creature.
It was about to burrow into a soft patch of ground, but it was suddenly stopped by a large staple pressing it into the ground. "Give me that!" Arthur huffed as he took the fabric away from the subdued creature. He turned around, offering a thank you to Heracles; the preteen holding his hammer and staples again. But he had to ask,
"Why are the animals around here acting so crazy?"
"I don't know, I think they're still unnerved by the fire!" Arthur shrugged, beginning to find a way up to the higher reaches of the mountain, "Come on, we need to see if Francis and the kids are up ahead."
The trio moved up and around the mountain, passing precarious ledges, slick and goopy mud, and more rabid, frightened animals. It was all so strange, especially to Arthur who, in his entire life, had never seen animals attack people. Hell, he had never seen the forest catch fire like it had; everyone was taught from their birth to keep fires as far from the woods as possible.
This night was so odd that it was scary. And now Francis and the boys had yet to come home? Arthur didn't show it, of course, but he was really starting to fear the worst about his family… He was in such deep thought, praying that they would be safe, that he nearly jumped a foot in the air when Heracles tapped his shoulder. "Oh," He panted, "What is it?" The brunette had a perplexed look on his face as he pointed in front of them, up ahead on the path that they were taking,
"Arthur, am I dreaming or do I see something strange over there?" Arthur looked over and couldn't speak, his eyes were wide as he took in the sight.
In front of the trio were two men in the same uniform of brown jump-suit, dog-ear helmet, and black goggles that Arthur had seen before. Only these two were so much more threatening. One of them was holding a knife and a scalpel in his hands, while the other had a strange metal device that seemed to produce fire along with a hammer in his other hand. However, Arthur's eyes widened at one detail in particular:
The dripping crimson that cascaded from the two beings' arms and instruments.
Then Arthur looked behind them and gasped at the sight of what once appeared to have been a caribou. But now, half of its face, its spine, hind legs, and eyes had been forcibly replaced by steel and metal. Kumajirou growled, his fur bristling,
"Grr..! (They're hurting him!)"
"You two!" Arthur called over, causing the two strangers to jump in shock, "What are you doing to that caribou? Answer me?" The couple looked at each other for a moment before one of them chuckled,
"Heh heh…", taking a strange device out of his pocket. He pressed something on it that caused the caribou's mangled corpse to shudder. Then, on shaky artificial limbs, it stood; nostrils flaring and steam billowing out with each exhale. "Go get 'em, Reconstructed Caribou!", the strange dog-ear hatted teen called out. The caribou's mechanical eye gleamed red before it started to charge forth; lowering its head to try and gore the trio with its horns.
"Move!" Arthur yelled out, shoving Heracles and Kumajirou out of the way as the beast rushed them.
When he was by himself, Kumajirou rolled over in order to open the small pack on his back, two thunder balls falling out. He quickly picked one up in his mouth before flinging it towards the Reconstructed Caribou. Shrieking and metallic sounding groans filled the air as the ball exploded in a flash of lightning and sparks.
The Caribou bellowed and dug its steel hooves into the ground before charging forward in a berserk fury; its eyes glaring and foam escaping his mouth. Kumajirou was its first target, the impact sending him flying across the clearing. Then came Heracles, receiving a vicious kick to the stomach; a firm crack of bone sounding before he fell to the ground. Finally, the beast charged towards Arthur. "Stand your ground Artie…" The blonde whispered to himself, bracing his feet like he would if he was wrestling with his brothers. The Reconstructed Caribou collided into him at full speed. "Damn!" Arthur choked out as he felt his feet shifting in the sparse dirt as the beast shoved him backward.
"Go, go! Go!" One of the strangers cheered, his counterpart saying,
"Push that loser right over the cliff, R.C.!" At that, Arthur gulped as he looked behind him: the cliff's edge growing ever closer. It quickly seemed as though pushing back was futile, and with the cliff growing ever closer, the blonde was running out of options.
"Don't make me…" He whispered, reaching to his side for his old sword, "Do this." The Reconstructed Caribou didn't listen as it pushed harder. The heels of Arthur's feet were just over the edge, pebbles and dust sprinkling over into the darkness. That settled it.
"Stop this at once!" He yelled, swinging his sword down with so much force that it was embedded into the creature's skull. The animal's natural eye went wide as the artificial one's red light dimmed to black. It creaked, groaned, and creaked again before it fell to its side; dead.
"Crap!" Both of the dog-ear hats yelped as they ran away, one of them dropping something in their haste. Kumajirou waddled over to the item and picked it up before he slowly brought it back to Arthur.
"Mrm. (Here, take this… whatever it is.)" The bear then started to doze off at Arthur's feet.
"Do you know what that thing is?" Heracles asked. After he looked at the paw-print marking on the cover, Arthur opened the item, paper pages flipping as he went along.
"It seems like a notebook of some sort." The blonde squinted his eyes, trying to read the words, "My god, the hand-writing is poor. But let's see here:
'All the animals around here suck… We need to make them cooler… So the new theme will be… Tougher! Rougher! Badder! We'll mix and match this and that to create whole new things that no one's ever seen before! This has been dubbed The Fascinating Chimera Project. Let's reconstruct and modify things steadily and in secret."
"What does that mean?"
"I have no idea…" Just then, a loud whirring accompanied by an eerie tune sounded from a while's ahead. "Quick, follow it!" They all rushed forward until they stopped with a gasp, Kumajirou growling at what they saw. It was a large, round structure that was almost shaped like a dog's collar but made of metal and steel. It slowly rose into the air, that eerie tune filling the air as it made its departure. After the strange entity was gone, Heracles began,
"Arthur..?"
"Let's go back to the base of the mountain." The blonde stated, not even wanting to think about what bizarre things this night had presented.