**Hello, readers. I've neglected his story for long enough – school, research papers, preparation for cosplay events and laziness can only delay me for so long. :P Hopefully you haven't given up on me yet.

I just realized that I've forgotten to add a disclaimer, so: I, Zipper Whippersnapper, admit that I own nothing in this fanfiction but my original characters, the plot, fictional settings and non-canon dialogue by canon characters in the BRPD comicverse (which I do not own.)

…you know, I actually own a lot. I'm sorta proud now. ^,,^

{—)K

This had not turned out as we'd planned…

For what felt like an hour we both stood there, Jink panting and I just chittering to myself. Tony continued to shrink off into the distance, his braying becoming fainter and fainter as the distance between him and that woman, and Jink and me increased. Pretty soon he vanished from sight and earshot, and all we had was the sticky heat of the night and a feeling of guilt that was just as oppressive.

This is not what we planned, Jink. I held out a card, only to have it knocked out of my grip as Jink shot the bird towards where Tony was being spurred on. She was absolutely livid; her hair was puffing out from static and sparking enough that I had to step back to avoid being electrocuted. The fact that the spell gluing her jaws shut hadn't worn off yet made the whole thing much more bizarre.

Part of me felt like swearing as well, but I knew it wouldn't do anything in the end; we had to get Tony back, before anything…bad…happened. Well, anything worse than sudden human-to-animal transformations and practical kidnapping was, anyway.

"Miffwiffe mffwggf g—gah! And when I get my fucking hands on you you're gonna be fried crispy, you creepy S and M bitch!" With a sudden 'pop' noise, Jink's mouth became unstuck and she was free to storm and swear vehemently. "God-fucking-damnit I hope you have life insurance, because you're gonna be in the freakin' hospital a loooong time, bitch!"

Tony was going farther with every swearword, I realized. Scrambling for a pen and paper, I held up a card with one hand and put another on Jink's shoulder. Jink, calm down. When she refused to stop cursing, I tightened my grip on her shoulder and shoved the card in her face. ((Calm down, Jink!))

With eyes that practically burned holes in my exoskeleton, Jink glared at me, then looked away. Tony was out of sight now; I could almost hear another of those terrified neighing noises…

"Okay. Calming down." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "So what are we gonna do? Tony's out there with that…woman…and she's freakin' riding him."

'Riding him' never had as bad an implication until now. I shuddered and scribbled on a note card, antennae twitching wildly in my irritation. I don't know how, but we've got to find him.

"No shit, Sherlock," Jink snarled. As her eyes met my own and I flicked my antennae irritably - this really was not the time for screwing around - she sighed and held up her hands. "I'm calm, okay Greg? Not pissed off at all."

This wasn't the time for sarcasm, either. I didn't stop staring until she relented. "Okay, I'm not being sarcastic either."

Good enough. Thanks. Holding up another note card, I cast my eyes around and tried to come up with a way to track down our wayward friend. The locator, perhaps?

Scrambling to the truck, I opened the door and checked the small laptop-like device that pinpointed the location of an activated locator. Knowing Tony, he'd probably pressed that damn button as soon as the woman came near him with the bridle…

The screen was dark; the locator was off. Punching in a few buttons, I tried to activate the beacon remotely, only for it to flash yellow. What did that mean?

Jink was looking over my shoulder. "What are you…oh. Damn, I shoulda thought of that. The yellow means it's within 30 feet and not moving. It's in the house, Greg."

So the thing was on, but nowhere near Tony. The BPRD really had to work on their equipment's effectiveness. As Jink left me to turn off the tracking device and stash it back in the truck, I tried to come up with something else we could do. The ideas just wouldn't come though…all I could think about was either how hot it was, how dark it was, or what could be happening to Tony. Goddamnit, I needed to focus.

Jink helped me with that, thank God. "Did he leave tracks?"

I squinted and looked down at the dusty pavement - truthfully, I don't know much about horses and donkeys, but they're supposed to leave hoof marks when they run, aren't they? That sounded right. Maybe if there was enough dirt here, there'd be prints…

There were. Two neat rows of faint crescent-moon marks in the dirt. They didn't seem to be horseshoe prints, but then again Tony wouldn't have any. At least, he shouldn't have them; would a spell make someone turn into a donkey and suddenly have horseshoes on their feet - er, hooves? Come to think of it, they're horseshoes. A donkey wouldn't have them. Come on Greg, focus forward. You're in the middle of a rescue operation now.

Jink had noticed the hoof-prints too, because a grin lit up her face. "Perfect. All we gotta do is follow those, and we'll wind up wherever Tony is!"

Nodding, I began writing a reply. Yeah, and now we've

"So let's go!" Jink interrupted, punching the air and breaking into a run. She sprinted down the road in the direction the tracks led as I stood there, half-written remark in hand. With a squeaky sigh I stashed the note card and pen away, then set off after her and Tony. To think that I'd actually wanted to go back to fieldwork…

{—)K

We both dashed down the dark road, the little red circles of illumination from our flashlights racing us to the next set of hoof-prints, and by extension Tony. The further we went, the darker and more erratic the tracks became - almost like Tony was tiring, or he'd gotten hurt.

I didn't write anything to comment on it; something told me that Jink was thinking the same thing I was thinking, and besides it was too hard to run and scribble things down in the dark at the same time. So instead, I just sped up and hurried down the road was fast as I could. The track marks guided me, set after set after set blurring together like the lines on a road until -

"Greg, hold it! Damnit Greg, stop moving for a sec!"

Jink's voice hissed from behind and somehow above me. Skidding to a stop, I realized that I'd dropped to all sixes as I ran, skittering along like…well, a cockroach from light. Weird…I usually realized when I did that…

Jink crouched down next to me and pointed to a moving shape just a little further down the road. "Look Greg - it's him!"

((Tony?)) It was - staggering on with his nose almost ground into the dirt. Flecks of foam streaked against his sides, blending in with the gray fur - wait a sec, whered his clothes go? No, not the time for this, Gregory - and mixing with mottled bruises on the places where heels had dug into his ribs. In the dappled darkness - the moon overhead did little to light up the road - I could see that the strange woman was still sitting on his back, the reins tightly grasped in her hands. If Jink hadn't stopped me I would have kept running and smacked right into them. Thank God she'd stopped me in time.

No, she hadn't. The woman looked over in our direction and smiled thinly, the red light from Jink's flashlight reflecting in her eyes again. Jink gritted her teeth and kept the light on her as she pulled on the reins, forcing Tony to a swaying halt, then slid off his back in one fluid motion. Tony's legs folded in and, with a snorting sound, he plunked himself down in the middle of the road. One gray eye met mine; I could see how tired he was.

Jink sparked, a small ball of light growing in her palm as she glared daggers at the woman. "You fucking asshole. What the hell did you do to Tony?" I hissed to strengthen her sentence, moving closer to Tony and trying to get between him and the woman. This was not going to be good…who knew what she could do…

You could only imagine what our reaction was when the woman smiled to herself and patted Tony's shoulder. Shrugging, she turned and began walking away. "You can have this one back. Él no es bueno."

"That's not a fucking answer!" As Jink went to toss lightening at her, the woman vanished. Just like that - gone, without anything to show she was there. The would-be attack hit the road and fizzled out, leaving behind a small crater.

A small groaning noise came from behind me. Whirling, I looked down, only to find a very human, very bruised, very unclothed Tony behind me. Blearily he looked up at me, then glanced over at Jink, who promptly turned around.

"…I'm tired…"

{—)K

The airplane soared overhead and taxied to a stop on the runway as Jink, Tony and I inched forward in the truck. Tony was riding shotgun next to me, half-asleep and thankfully wearing clothing now as Jink checked her bag for her Ipod; as it turned out, the clothing he had been wearing was shredded beyond recognition. Luckily, his jacket and extra pair of pants hadn't been. He'd clumsily dressed behind the truck before collapsing into the passenger's seat and falling asleep.

As she wound the cord of her headphones around the small mp3 player, Jink broke the awkward silence that had built up during the drive. "So, we gonna tell Daimio about this one?"

"Hnh?" Tony perked up and bit, rubbing his eyes. Wincing, he felt at a bruise on his side. "Well, protocol states that any encounter with supernatural forces or beings needs to be documented, so-"

Chuckling to myself - at least Tony hadn't changed from this encounter - I hit the brakes and passed him a note card. Daimio doesn't need to know everything, Tony. Trust me.

A faint blush crept up his face as Jink laughed. "Well…okay…"

Down the runway, the door of the plane opened. Time to head back to the base.

{—)K

**That's it for now. I know it's a cruddy chapter, but I'm trying to kick my own ass and get back into the hang of things. The fun chapters will arrive soon, when I get back to the original plot; I should update tomorrow, hopefully. :P