Small Talk : Chapter 34

"So, you were an orphan since?" Tony asked bluntly to the small kit. Ace slightly flinched at the question while Lily glared at the older tiger.

"So blunt, don't you think?" she said with little sharp in it, for since she was also curious with the answer of that question.

"Hey, I'm training to be the 'bad cop' here. If you want to be the 'good cop' in this interrogation, then be my guest." Tony shrugged, ignoring Lily's sharp glare at him that may could've put normal mammals run away scared. But Tony knew Lily, so he didn't mind much about it.

"This is not an interrogation. Chief Bogo just asked us to look after him! Not interrogating him!" Lily retorted. Jason and Stanley glanced at each other and decided to calm her down. But when Stanley want to put his paw on her shoulder, Lily suddenly walk forward and grabbed Ace's arm in her hold, "Come on, Ace. Let's talk somewhere else without this bully around."

Lily didn't wait for an answer and quickly pulled Ace with her, then ran while half-dragging the hybrid kit fox. Ace wanted to protest, but he didn't like the tiger either. He was too intimidating to him with his tone of voice and his big size. Not to mention he seems to be older than him too. So he let the half-arctic, half-black fox pup dragged him around, away from the tiger.

Robin, Juan, and Austri were quick to follow the two fox and they all ended up in their classroom. Lily noticed the extra 3 pups but didn't mind them. They were not at wrongs afterall.

"So, Ace right? wanna play a game?" Lily asked the half-frightened, half-curious fox pup.

"A game?" he asked.

"Yeah! It will be fun, trust me." Lily smiled. Ace look at Lily and was taken aback from her words. The 'trust me' words almost hit home. He never trust anybody again after he lived in the orphanage since he was 4 years old and then ran away when he was 6. He lives on the streets for 2 years, and it's hard for him to trust someone after everything he went through.

But his child side wants to trust this fox. She seems pretty nice and kind enough to include him in a game. Besides, he can ran away again when the game went to a wrong turn.

But his trains of thoughts were interrupted when Robin suddenly butted in, "Hold on a minute. when you were saying,'fun', it never ended well for all of us. What exactly on your mind, Lily? You're not planning some kind of prank, are you?" he crossed his arms while asking this. He looks so much like his father when he acted like that. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree it apparently seems.

Lily rolled her eyes at that playfully while smirking. By that, Robin already got his answer.

"Lily, no-"

"Yep, it's a harmless prank though. So, are you in, Ace?" Lily asked the pup, cutting and obviously ignoring the frowning black fox in the room.

"Is-.. Is it okay to do a prank? This is ZPD, right?" Ace finally talked longer than just telling his name since this morning. He even didn't talk this long to the Chief earlier.

Lily slightly laughed at that and said, "This is ZPD. But it's not as tense as you might thought. Well.. to us anyway. Don't worry about it, I've done it a couple of times already."

Austri leaned and whispered to Ace's ear, "When she said, 'don't worry', then that means we have to worry." Ace mentally shuddered at that. He had worse before of course, but he didn't know what to expect from this since he wasn't familiar with the other pups' idea of prank.

Lily noticed his troubled thoughts and immediately clasped a paw in his shoulder, making him flinched a little but didn't recoil. She smiled at him and said, "I'm not going to force you, Ace. You have your own free will after all. But.. since we are assign to watch over you for a while, you have to follow us for a while. So either way, you're coming with us." Lily slyly smiled at that. Ace gulped but not really scared. A prank does sound fun, besides he didn't have any other choice either, did he? So it's better get along with it.

A.N : I hope this is good enough for a while.. I'm really really sorry for the long update, I really do. I have too many ideas and I'm learning to arrange my ideas so I can type it one by one in this site. See you in the next chapter!