A/N

Sorry about the wait, was having a mite of trouble getting the computer to work, and getting myself to work along with it.

"The bugs are eating ME ALIVE!"

Julian popped his head over the log he had been lying against to see Amara swatting at non-existant winged insects. Mr. Warren, that name being used now instead of Mr. Wings, was having to repeatedly duck as her hands swatted erratically.

"I will be so glad once we're back to the institute, where I never have to deal with these little pains ever again. When I was back at the palace they had people especially for this!" She ranted angrily.

Amara and Roberto had arrived late last night. Apparently, Mr. Logan got lost somewhere along the way. And he didn't want to pull over for directions.

Roberto was with Kurt, attempting to fish. But the fish were sly creatures, even though they barely knew the two mutants were there, and kept evading them.

Mr. Logan and the Professor were trying to figure up a syllabus, now that they were short a couple of teachers. They both seemed frustrated over it,, however, because neither of them seemed to want to divide the classes, as that would mean they were resigned to not being able to do anything else.

Arcane was looking forward to when the mutants left. He said that while company was nice, too much made him want to shoot something. What was not discussed.

Jamie was raiding the house again, but finding nothing he had wondered over to where the large three dogs were sleeping, or not sleeping, and had sat down boredly.

The dogs had their ears pricked in case something came their way. Nothing did, all of the animals had learned long ago that it really didn't pay to poke around.

Herman the bat was sleeping in the house, resting up for the trip back to Bayville. Or so he said. Let it be known that some bats are incredibly lazy creatures.

Julian idly tilted his head and watched Amara going on about bugs and palaces and why she shouldn't be served eggs on white bread. He wasn't quite sure how it got to that point, and from the looks of it, neither did Mr. Warren.

"It is just a few days."

"A few days are millennia for a Princess like me!" She was over dramatizing her situation too much.

"Ha! Millennia? Believe me, you have got it easy. I've been having so many things happening to me, it's a wonder I don't lose all of my feathers."

"Yes, well, you're probably used to it."

"I'm a millionaire. I am used to nothing that has to do with nature."

Julian rolled his eyes and got up and stretched. His tail whapped the ground and he took off at a run through the forest.

It was amazing to run. When he was younger, and his legs didn't always do what he told them to, he felt contained and well, useless, he supposed. He had always admired how the dogs seemed to move so effortlessly, with speed overwhelmingly fast, at least to his eyes. Now he knew that machines were faster, but machines seemed to lack finesse. Even the jet, the Blackbird, though nice and streamlined and obviously the pinnacle or air flight technology, seemed clunky and slow compared to the sparrows he'd seen playing outside his window.

Using all four paws he leaped up the side of a large tree. The bark wasn't very thick, so he dug his claws in as he climbed.

Soon he'd be able to fly. He always wondered how it must be to fly. He imagined it was like falling, only never actually hitting.

He scurried across a outstretched branch and hurled himself forward, straightening his body first to cut off the wind resistance, than curling up again to land on all fours to attach himself to the side of another tree.

If he could fly, well, there'd be no place he really couldn't go, would there? He would be a better swimmer, soon enough, once he got to deeper water, and when he learned to fly he could get up into places his claws couldn't take him.

He jumped backwards and flipped in midair so his head faced down when his claws came in contact with the bark again. Then he ran down the tree, face first barreling towards the ground.

Just when it seemed he was going to make the world's most undignified run, he leaped forward off the tree, and slid through the leaves. It was a little slippery, and he had to swing his tail to get his balance back. Once it was restored, he tore off into the forest again, sometimes sniffing the ground. The only scents were of the mutants and other animals.

Leaping over a dead log, he skittered to a stop when he heard voices. Lifting one long ear like a hunting dog, he listened carefully without making a single twitch.

Roberto and Kurt. That's who it was.

He mused that he might as well go see what they were doing. Judging by the sound of it, they hadn't yet caught fish.

He bounded easily into the underbrush, sneaking up on them.

"I swear, these fish must be stupid."

"Naw, maybe they are just extraordinarily smart, ja? They are saying to each others, 'I swear, these mutants must be stupid'."

He poked his nose out from under a bush and watched Roberto pulling on a stick he was using for a rod.

"They can't be that smart. I think I'm caught on some seaweed."

"Seavweed? We are not near ze ocean."

"You know what I mean." Roberto grumbled as the rod suddenly got unstuck, and slapped him across the face. "OOW!"

"Maybe someone up there is trying to tell us something." Kurt said sagely.

"What? Use a bomb instead?"

"Actually, I was thinking more along the line that mutants shouldn't fish."

"We should eat bugs?" Roberto retorted.

"No, I say we steal ze jet and go to the Burger Bomb."

"Logan would kill us."

"True, but not before we ate our weight in burgers." Kurt said with a big grin.

Julian stopped prowling after them and turned his attention to the water. The fish were swimming around the lines, but wouldn't actually come to them.

Fish sounded really good, actually.

He prowled forward, using the bushes as cover and crouched at the river's edge. He waited until the right moment, and then he leapt.

"Jul—" The rest of Kurt's sentence was drowned out by a torrent of water caused by Julian's dive.

Underwater, Julian caught one fish in his teeth and grabbed two by one paw and knocked one senseless with his other. The fish, sensing a predator, immediately swam in different directions and hid. He scooped up the one he stunned and swam upwards.

Roberto and Kurt immediately started yelling as soon as the younger mutant poked his head above the water.

"What are you doing! You scared the fish away!"

"You tangled up our line---Is that fish?"

Julian nodded a few times and began to swim forward, only to discover he was tangled in something.

"Helf!" He yelped, struggling. The two older mutants grabbed him and hauled him to shore.

"Didn't catch any fish. These rods must be made for mutants," Roberto said as he put the fish on a rock out of the way. Julian let him take the fish out of his mouth, but noticed it was put apart from the other three.

"No offense, it's just you have teeth marks on that one." Roberto said as he pulled out a small knife and began cutting what used to be the fishing lines from Julian's legs.

"Ja, we should be more careful with safety. Just think of the mutants we kill each year when they become tangled in fishing line."

"At least I got some fish." Julian said as he shook the last bits of line off. "Now what do we do?"

"We cook them, of course. Better grab Jamie and Amara, three fish should be enough for us." Roberto said to Kurt. Kurt immediately teleported away.

"There's four."

"Yes, but you should have a whole one, you caught them. Besides, you have some pretty big teeth, and you've left holes in the fish. And hey," He began arranging stones for a fire, "you'll probably want to give a bit to those dogs, right? They probably won't mind."

"Okay. Sorry."

"No need to be sorry. Without you, we'd have never gotten fish." Roberto said grinning. "Just be careful diving where people have got fishing lines, right? You could get hurt."

"Alright, sure." Julian nodded happily.

Behold the mighty hunting mutants.

Anon(girl): Leprechaun seems to be doing his job, I see. Kally thanks you for the sunflower seeds, and I hope you like this chapter!

Asteria: Perhaps. She probably won't come out of this story without some trauma, wildlife or otherwise.

PrincessOfWilfire: Yeah, that always mystified me too, but then I realized the truth. Hope you like this chapter!

Raliena: Wow, really? Back at school already? Here's another lolly, hope if you do use it for revenge, it works.

Kally will take the reviews wearing a fishing hat! Now that I think about it, fishing hats aren't really her thing.