Chapter 8: Fight To Earn Trust

Cody's POV

After helping Dallas recuperate from her recent spider-scare with the help of the other two, I headed back downstairs to see if Dylan would need any help with his chores until I was called out. "Yo Codyyy! Real good performance on that commersh back there!" DJ made his presence known as he held a fist out for me to bump which I did so. "Also, I wanted to ask ya something. You like any music?" I should've expected him to ask something like that given his hobby and his meaningful name so this was probably his way to get to know me better. "Yeah I do, actually!" I remembered back to maybe when I was three years old and my mom and I were listening to some songs on her car radio. There was one particular song from that memory that stuck out to me that I fully remembered.

"My mom was a big fan of David Bowie and let's just say her enjoyment of him rubbed off on me, sometimes I'd wait at the radio and wait until one of his songs would play." DJ's eyes widened ecstatically at my answer. "No way! The Starman himself?! He's like my all-time favourite too!" He seemed to share my taste in music too, which might have been fuelled thanks to music class in my old school until I remember being downhearted to learn in said class that he had passed away six years ago from liver cancer. "...Kinda sad that he's gone now though." I solemnly pointed out as DJ's smile turned to a mournful frown. "Oh yeah… I think I actually cried for a week when I found out about that." He mentioned, blushing slightly from possible embarrassment, I noticed this and patted his shoulder. "It's okay. It's normal to feel like that when someone you cherished leaves. Just like when my mom left me..." I reassured him as a small smile returned on his face. "Thanks, dude. 'ppreciate it."

*CRASH!*

"What was that?!" I immediately exclaimed in shock upon hearing the distant sound of several objects violently colliding with each other. "Dunno. Maybe Dolly was trying a stunt and crash landed?" DJ suggested until a black furred Dalmatian pre-teen pup with purple spots on one ear and white spots on the other, dressed in a black zipper tank top with matching jeans and hot pink eyeshadow on his face resembling periorbital eyebags sprang up between us. "Or maybe it's the sound of the first meteor colliding with earth! THE END IS FINALLY NEAR!" The black Dalmatian tugged at his own ears in distress. "Chill out, Dante, if it really was meteors we would have heard more of them come by now." DJ remarked with slight annoyance but Dante wasn't eased. "You don't know that! They've probably grown an intelligence beyond ours or even humans! They're just waiting for us to assume it was nothing and then they come raining down upon us AND SEND US TO AN AFTERLIFE OF DARKNESS!" DJ's chagrin to Dante's over-reactive moment was starting to rub off on me as I rolled my eyes. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I'll see what's going on." I sighed before walking to the front door and unlocking it with the scanner, remembering that I had been told on the day of my adoption that Dylan had registered my handprint. I heard Dante lament as I walked outside.

"There goes a brave soul, the first ever human brother of mine to enter the outside to face the cruel event of damnation-!"

"Oh give it a rest, already!" DJ finally protested before I closed the door and looked around. It was now nightfall so it was a little tough at first to make out any of my surroundings. Thankfully, the active street lights gave me the view I needed to see if anything was out of the ordinary. I didn't notice anything at first and just thought a cat had just knocked over some trash until I heard a distant grunt of pain followed by what sounded like someone hitting the floor. I turned to my right and saw the one person I never wanted to see again besides my dad. It was Brian, and judging by his posture he was towering over someone on the ground, I paced a little closer quietly to hear what he was saying. "Oh, is the mangy mutt giving up so easily? I haven't even started yet with you!" He snarled sadistically before yanking the one dog I never thought I'd see in Brian's vicinity by his neck. It appeared to be that very Dalmatian I had encountered when I first met the Dalmatian family, the one who had threatened me and whom I tended to when he cut his knee the following day. But on second glance, his attire was very different to the one I came across. Compared to the one I had interacted with, his ear had two white spots instead of one and a small notch on it. He had a similar coloured varsity jacket but it was instead tied around his waist by the sleeves, showing a plain white tank top. Most prominently however was the gold chain on his neck that held a golden number "2" at the middle. So that's who the one that confronted me was referring to back then when he said "We won't be afraid to make some human trash boy know what he's dealing with." I just wasn't expecting his brother to be a semi-identical twin.

"Ngh, get off me already, damn it or you'll regret it!" The Dalmatian snarled at Brian. "Oh, what are you gonna do? Cry to your mummy?! Then go ahead and cry like a little puppy!" Brian mocked viciously as he had him in a very tight headlock, only getting angry growling as a response. "No? Okay, then HOW ABOUT I MAKE YOU?!" He threw the teen pup back onto the ground and stamped one foot on his back to pin him down before reaching for his tail.

What I heard next was probably the most excruciating whimpering cry of agony from the Dalmatian as Brian violently yanked his tail. I just couldn't watch anymore, whether he and his brother respected me or not, I had to help him, even if Brian were to bludgeon me to death. Trying to hide how nervous I was, I slowly walked over before calling out to him. "Hey, leave him alone!" I yelled at Brian as angrily as possibly, taking his attention away from the Dalmatian to me as he blinked.

"Well well, if it isn't Cody the weak little turd! And look, your precious mutt "sister" isn't here to protect you!" He pointed out before approaching me as he cracked his knuckles. "You're gonna regret ever getting in my business, let alone ever being born." Every nerve in my body was screaming at me to just run but I couldn't, I didn't want one of my brothers to think of me as a dirty coward even if he didn't see me as one so I stood my ground when he glanced back to the floored Dalmatian. "I hope you take this all in as a lesson on what happens when you cross paths with me, mutt."

With that, he turned back to me and immediately swung a fist forward but I held an arm up just in time before it could hit my face. Without hesitation, I countered with a punch to his stomach but he just laughed at this attempt. "Is that really the best you got?! With your dad probably starving you, it's no wonder why you're so damn weak!" He swung again with a fist which only just grazed my cheek as I quickly leaned backwards, this time I tried to counter with a jab to his jaw but he somehow expected this and grabbed my wrist and was very slowly starting to twist it painfully like he was intent on breaking it. Out of pain-induced panic, I swiftly kicked at him, hitting him in the shin which actually forced a grunt out of him as he let go. Now seeing an opening, I rammed with as much force as I could muster into his torso which managed to shove him back a little only for him to grab hold of me, attempting to squeeze the life out of me. He was too distracted with crushing me to notice me attempt to reach for his hair until I grabbed some of it and tried to pull it as much as possible. He tried to pull his head back to make me lose my grip but this proved to be a big mistake for him as the pulling force as enough for me to rip a handful of hair from his scalp, causing him to yell out in pain. I could see the bald reddening area I had ripped the hair from as he rubbed it in shock before staring at me, his face going red. "Now you're really pissing me off." He charged at me once more and managed to grab me before I could dodge, my arms locked in his grip so I couldn't pull that stunt again so all I could rely on was my legs as I swung them wildly, not hitting anything until a few seconds later.

I was suddenly dropped to the ground on my rump as I saw Brian double over and hold his hands tightly over his crotch, holding back a very pained scream.

"Ahck… You… You kckd me in th…!" He tried to yell out in searing agony. Adrenaline was still overwhelming me however and I tackled him and managed to land two hits on him until he fought through the pain and shoved me off. He was struggling to even stand up as he looked at me with now a bruised eye and a bloody nose before he started to back away. "You want that damn dog so much?! Take it then, just get away from me, you frigging psycho!" He yelled through clenched teeth, but within his still aggressive demeanour, I could actually sense some fear in his eyes before he fled the scene. I had no time to celebrate my victory. Right now, making sure that Dalmatian was okay was way more important as I hurried over to see him staring up at me with a stunned look, his nose bleeding and a bruise on his forehead. Before I could reach a hand out to help him up, I heard the front door of our home open followed by two pairs of footsteps rushing to the scene.

"What the hell is going-?!" I turned around to see the Dalmatian who had threatened me on day one and right next to him was yet another very similar Dalmatian. Like the former, he also had his varsity jacket on, this one having a number "3" on the front and to emphasize this, he had three spots on one ear. Practically the only way to tell these three apart were the numbered clothing they adorned or the number of spots on their ears, I never thought that the Dalmatian I encountered in the back garden would be part of a triplet group like the Triple D. The one with the "3" jacket looked down at the one on the ground and suddenly growled as he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and slammed me against the wall.

"So you get a real kick out of beating up one of our bros, huh?! I thought one of us warned you to stay out of our way! Guess I have to teach you the hard way." He snarled as he kept me against the wall with one hand and pulling the other back, ready to punch my lights out.

"Dimitri, don't!" The Dalmatian that had me against a wall blinked and looked back down at the one Brian had beaten up quickly get up. "He didn't do this to me. Some older kid did. ...And he saved me." He glanced at me as he said this, Dimitri took another look at me before letting me go and helping the other escort the one injured back inside with me tailing them to see Dylan and Dolly come downstairs.

"Hey—OH MY DOG, DIMITRI! What happened?!" Dylan yelped in shock to see one of the triplets in his current state. "Some jackass human kid was beat him up and then he stepped in and stopped him, at least that's what he said." The one in the "1" varsity explained as hastily as possible before Dolly and Dylan glanced at me. "I bet it was that same little jerk that shoved Cody the other day!" Dolly growled under her breath as Dylan rushed them upstairs presumably for medical care. Dolly walked over to me and knelt down. "Cody, are you okay?" I nodded before Dolly looked upstairs and then back to me. "Whatever you did, you did a real awesome thing for us." She smiled honestly before heading upstairs to help Dylan.

About half an hour later, Dylan came back down and said the triplets wanted to see us, specifically, the one whom Brian beat down. I nodded and walked upstairs until I saw Dalmatian triplets "1" and Dimitri outside a slightly open door, the two stepping aside to let me enter when they noticed me. Dalmatian triplet "2" was laying on a bed with a band aid on his bruised head and some cotton balls in his nostrils as his head turned to face me.

"Hey, you." He simply muttered, his voice sounding a little nasally from the cotton as I sat down on a chair next to the bed he was laying on. "Hey. How are you feeling?" I asked as I also noticed that his tail was wrapped in gauze. "Eh, I've been better. Probably the closest I've been to getting this messed up was when me and the others egged some human's home. I mean how were we supposed to know he was a retired professional wrestler?" He answered with a shrug. "Dylan said you wanted me to see me, right?" He nodded in response. "Oh yeah. I just wanted to say something to ya." He replied before continuing. "Gotta admit. You had some serious balls to kick that human's head in when I could see he was bigger than you. When did you like become a Bruce Lee protege or something?" I snickered a little at his joke before answering truthfully. "Well… Brian's always been my worst bully in school. I guess you heard from Dolly that he had me on the ground a few days ago. And… well, when I saw him beating you up, I guess I was more worried about you than what he would do to me." He nodded in understanding. "That's fair, I guess. You did a pretty good number on him." He commented with a smirk. "And hu..." He stopped himself before rephrasing. "Cody, right?" I nodded affirmatively, letting him continue. "Thanks. You know, for having my back. And..." He exhaled before finishing. "...I'm sorry if we were such an ass to you." He apologised sincerely as I smiled. "That's okay. After all, that's what brothers are for, right?" He smirked in response to that. "Right." I returned a smile before leaning over and hugging him as gently as possible, making him chuckle and pat my back. "Haha, okay, okay. No need to overdo the sentimentals." I chuckled back as I let go. "And one last thing." He added. "Name's Dimitri." I recalled back to when he referred to one his brothers who had me against the wall as "Dimitri" so I had to ask. "Are you all called "Dimitri"?" He could tell this would be confusing for me. "You can refer us to Dimitri 1, 2 and 3 if that makes it easier for you." He suggested, confirming my question, I nodded at the idea before leaving the room to let Dimitri 2 rest. Outside, Dimitri 1 and 3 looked at me with much warmer smiles on their faces. Seems like they had the same thoughts about me as Dimitri 2 did.

"If that human messes with you ever again, just let us know." Dimitri 1 said as I smiled back at him. "I'll keep back in mind. Good night, you three." I replied before making my way up to bed.

"See ya tomorrow, bro." I heard Dimitri 2 call out before I turned in for the night.