(AN: Again, sorry for the wait… not as long as it usually is, but there you go. College has started up and updates will probably be one each weekend… and that's taking into account my other two stories, by the way. And also, I might be busy some weekends… so let's just say, I hope you were used to having updates few and far between, because they're going to be like that again. But I will not abandon this story, nor my faithful reviewers! Nightw2 and tbag2 (heh, you both have 2's at the end of your names! I never noticed that before!), you two (there's the two again… okay, I'm done now) rock the known world, including Ohio. :) Here's chapter five!)

O.o.O

Sheldon awoke early that morning, but he felt something… missing.

He couldn't quite explain it, but there was something different about the coup that morning. He stood up as quietly as he could and scanned the room through the dim obstruction of his shell.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…"

He stopped. He had nine siblings, not eight! Where was…

"Uh oh," he mumbled. "I should have seen this coming… Booker ran away! His tensions with Mom were bad enough, and Roy was probably the straw that broke the camel's back!"

Sheldon shook his head from behind his shell. Booker was hopeless! He overreacted over the littlest things, and even though he might be growing up—that white feather under his wing was physical proof of that—he could be like such a spoiled baby sometimes!

The unhatched chick kicked back the same loose board that Booker had last night. Stupid of Booker or not, the outside world was dangerous—the reason that Sheldon had never hatched! And Sheldon knew that he had to find his brother. Just had to.

He began walking east, into the rising sun.

O.o.O

"Out of my way!"

Tonya's restless slumber was rudely disrupted with a swift kick, sending her scooting to the other side of the chicken coup. She rubbed her eyes open crossly, to get a better look at her aggressor—although she had known the instant his foot hit her.

"Oh, if it isn't Buffy Bucky," she hissed at him. "The rooster who is so full of himself, he doesn't have any room for manners."

Buck turned around and set his hard gaze on her.

"Aaw, how sweet," he finally said, in a tone so mocking that Tonya felt like she had been slapped. "The little chick shows what a big hen she is. Adorable."

"I'm not a child!" cried Tonya. "But even a child could see what a creep you are. You're not just the harmless ego-case my brother thinks you are! Oh no, you're nothing but swine. Oh, wait, excuse me. That's insulting to pigs. You're more like the mud that the pigs wade in."

Buck was now absolutely infuriated. He marched up to Tonya and, before the chick could give any yelp of protest or alarm, grabbed her by the small neck and hoisted her up in the air.

"You don't seem to have much room in you for manners, either," he hissed at her.

Despite having his strong wings clutched around her neck, Tonya still managed to make a scoffing sound. "No, I only insult people who deserve it. Probably hard for you to understand, as you're only polite to people when it suits you best."

"Maybe if you got your facts straight, you little—"

"I have my facts straight, you arrogant bag of slime. I saw you last night! I saw what you did to that duck. You've gotten him terrified of you! You've made him your slave! And you've made all the hens your slaves too, although in a different way! Thanks to that ego of yours that they're all too stupid to see through, they'd do anything for you, anything! And you know it! And I saw what you did to Roy—although I guess it would be too much to ask that you treat him with respect, huh? You don't even know the meaning of the word."

Buck shook with rage as he glared at Tonya, with veins popping up even through his dark feathers, and his eyes turning bloodshot—not only freaky, but kinda gross, Tonya couldn't help but think. All of a sudden, he hurled Tonya against the wall in fury. Tonya hit the floor with a hollow thump.

"You're Joanna's whelp, aren't you?" he said, his voice shaking from his anger.

Although pain was shooting through her entire body, Tonya managed to stand up and look him directly in his bloodshot eyes. "Yes, and I'm proud of it."

"Proud." Buck guffawed rudely. "You know, I knew your mother would be the hardest to convert to my side, but my charms can work on everyone, even her. And as an added bonus, I got to enjoy that look of shocked rejection on Roy's face when she left him for me. It drove him out, you know."

"What?" cried Tonya. "You drove Roy out of the farm? What, couldn't handle competition, you pig?"

"I'll be driving you out next," he snapped at her, and turned around on one leg and strode haughtily out of the coup.

Now it was Tonya's turn to shake with rage. "He's going down," she whispered fiercely. "He's so going down. And I don't care if I'm technically just a kid—"

She stopped abruptly and stared at her wing—where her first white feather was just now beginning to show.

O.o.O

That night, Tonya was sitting in the coup, off in a corner by herself, nursing her wounds in a subtle way so that no one could see her doing it. Already her cunning mind had developed ways of bringing that jerk to his pitiful little knees… she was going to give him the "Tonya Treatment", two words that, when put together, sent all the rest of the coup into a frenzy.

Alexander timidly crawled up to his favorite sister. "Tonya…? What's wrong with your wing?"

"Nothing," she snapped at him. Alexander paled and shrunk back from her.

Tonya sighed in submission. "Alright, I'll tell you. That pig-head Buck strangled me and threw me against a wall, alright?"

Alexander gasped. "He… he did?"

"Yeah." Tonya's voice was hollow and dead-sounding. "Where the heck is Booker? If he's still convinced that Buck's harmless, I'll just have to show him what he did to me."

"What are you going to do?" Alexander asked her.

"I'm going to give him the Tonya Treatment," she said, grimacing. Alexander gulped and pulled back even more.

"Not… not the Tonya Treatment?"

"He deserves it," snapped Tonya. "Look what he did to me! And last night he terrified this duck into doing everything he told him to… he could have told the poor guy to leap off a cliff and the duck would have done so. And then he gave Roy the cold shoulder and, from what I heard from him, drove him out of the farm entirely. Coward. Can't face having someone else around who might upset his position."

"But—" Alexander began, but was cut off by Joanna fluttering into the coup.

She was acting strangely—strangely for Joanna, at least—and Tonya and Alexander noticed it. She looked positively annoyed, and more than a little flustered. The first thing she did upon entering the coup was counting her chicks.

"One, two, three, four, six… no wait, five… where was I? Did I count you already, Tonya? No wait, you're Logan… okay, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… You chicks don't know where Booker and Sheldon are, do you?"

"Haven't seen them all day," muttered Tonya darkly.

"It's late, they should know better…" Joanna stood in almost a trance for a moment, then suddenly darted out of the coup again.

"Jeez!" cried Nicole. "What's with her?"

"Probably it's because of what happened last night!" cried Tonya. She painfully raised her wing and motioned for her siblings to gather around her. "I knew it! Mom couldn't be the complete idiot she was seeming like last night. She seemed to be falling like a sack of bricks for Buck's phoniness!"

"Yeah, we haven't heard about that yet, from either you or Booker," said Ryan.

"In fact, I haven't seen Booker all day," said Karley.

"Or Sheldon either," added Alison.

"I haven't either… Booker's probably brooding because Mom caught him last night," said Tonya. She suddenly snapped upright. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" Julius prodded.

"You know how he sometimes overreacts to the strangest things, right? Well, what if Mom yelling at him made him decide to… run away?"

"Oh, come on, Tonya," said Logan. "Come on, he's probably just hanging out with everyone else on the farm! You know how he and Sheldon are. Besides, even if he did run away, it wouldn't explain where Sheldon is."

O.o.O

"No, I haven't seen either of them all day. Why, can't you find them?"

Joanna very nearly pulled her feathers out. "You haven't? But where else could they be?"

"I don't know!" cried Orson. "Maybe we should search the farm for them."

"Like, I have a possible theory, mother of the chicks," said Bo suddenly, who had just ambled up without anyone noticing him, as was his custom.

"What's that?" Joanna asked.

"Like, he seemed kinda put out yesterday. You don't think he might have flown the coup, pun intended? You know how he makes a big deal out of the smallest things, man."

"But what about Sheldon?" Orson asked. "He's much more level-headed than Booker is."

"Like, he might have noticed Booker was absent and went out searching for him."

Joanna gasped, her eyes growing wide. "Oh, chicken feed! That's it, I know it is! I snapped at him last night, and we haven't been on the best of terms… and if Sheldon noticed, he would have gone after him himself… he likes to do things on his own… Oh Colonel Sanders butcher me! It's all my fault! I've got to go looking for him, and Sheldon too!"

"Speaking of looking for people, has anyone found Roy?" asked Orson. "I haven't seen him all day, either."

"Oh honey mustard, he's probably run off too!" cried Joanna, rapidly loosing what little self control she had. "I blew him off last night, and he probably…" She suddenly grabbed Orson by the shoulders. "I won't come back until I've found all three of them, I promise."

"Well, okay, but if you've found Booker and Sheldon, you can bring them back… I mean, we've got a rooster here in the meantime…" Orson began.

"Oh, Buck?" Joanna snorted. "Trust me, you're going to want to get rid of that guy as soon as possible."

"Like, I thought you were succumbing to his mighty allure," said Bo thoughtfully.

"I know," muttered Joanna, "and it was probably the stupidest thing I've ever done. Once he tires of you he just practically tosses you aside and walks off… I mean, Roy never did that to any of us hens! And he spoke of the other hens in offensive terms to me when he had me to himself, and I just know he was doing that with everyone else too… I can't believe I feel for him." Joanna looked completely enraged with herself. "And trust me, when I come back here with Roy, you're going to be welcoming him with open arms. It won't take you long to discover him like I did. Not long at all."

"Well…" Despite everything he had heard—and somewhat even seen—about this newcomer, Orson was still trying to view him in at least a neutral light, although that was getting harder and harder by the second. "I hope you find them, Joanna. I'd help you, I truly would, but we've got more chores than ever around here—"

"Thanks for the offer, I really appreciate it, but I'll find them on my own, trust me," said Joanna, courteously but firmly. "Besides, it's my fault they're gone." With that, she turned around and ran back to the coup for some final preparations.

"Like, this isn't boding well, man," said Bo in that lazy drawl of his.

"No… I have to agree, this isn't boding well at all," said Orson.

O.o.O

"I'm leaving and I don't know when I'll be back," said Joanna to her eight remaining children. "I have strong reason to believe that Booker ran away and that Sheldon went after him—"

"We already figured that out," interrupted Tonya. "Well, at least I did." She shot a triumphant grin at Logan.

"Don't interrupt, Tonya," said Joanna distractedly. "Now, listen to me. While I'm gone, you're in charge, Tonya, do you hear me! Make sure you and your siblings get to bed at a decent hour, and—"

"—be good, yes, we will, mother," said Tonya.

"What did I tell you about interrupting?" sighed Joanna. "Alright, be good, and hopefully I'll be back soon." She gave all of her children swift hugs and then hurried out into the dark night, after her two wayward chicks.

"Things couldn't have worked out better for me," said Tonya, smiling almost maliciously.

"What do you mean by that?" cried Alison. "Our brothers are out in the dangerous world, and you think it's good… why?"

"I have total freedom in going after Buck," said Tonya. "Without Mom to scold me, Buck's going to get the Tonya Treatment like no one else ever has before."

All of her siblings took a step back, in both admiration and fear of their sister.

O.o.O

(AN: Well, there we go… like I said at the beginning of the chapter, I don't know when I'll be able to update next, but I'll be trying my utmost to be getting up new chapters as soon as I can. So keep your eyes peeled, thanks for the reviews, and see you at chapter six!)