Miss.Ecofreak: chapter 3 up! (again) Almost got worried there for a second I couldn't upload it because of the red note here

Zakura: which one? You mean the one that says the web page will be offline? But that's not untill eight pm, now it's just 19 minutes past 10 am

Miss.Ecofreak: right... How'd you know that? Not only don't you have a watch but the clock is 19 minutes past 18

Zakura: but it's 19 past 10 in LA

Miss.Ecofreak: Precisely! How do you know what the clock is in LA?

Zakura: (whistles innocently)

Miss.Ecofreak: okay! Give me back my cell phone! Er... back to the story

CHAPTER 3

A DOSE OF HYPERACTIVITY

"So, what do we got?" Buster asked as soon as he came in the door.

His colleague, Jingo, stared blankly at a bottle filled with a green liquid.

"We have some green stuff here that heals bruises instantly" Jingo said. "Unfortunately it's no use for an ottsel who has just been eaten".

Buster sighed.

"Great. Just sell it to the hospital and we'll start from scratch" he sighed.

Jingo stuffed the bottle in a cardboard box along with the notes and ingredients.

"What are we doing here anyway? For the last four years we've been searching for something that can help the ottsels climb higher in the circle of life, a miracle potion that probably doesn't even exist" Jingo said.
"We can't give up hope! It's out there I know it" Buster said.

"How can you know? I'm getting sick of this" Jingo said. "So far we've only invented a new way to clear the garden of parasites and a green liquid that heals broken limbs.

I've got a family to tend to Buster, and so do you. Wouldn't you like to see them grow up?"
"If they grow up" Buster said. "And even if they do grow up, what kind of life will they get? Anny will have to stay in the caves all her life while Balder has to risk his life to find food to keep both himself and her alive! And what if he gets killed? What will happen to Anny? What if nobody wants to care for her?"

"It's kind of your own fault" Jingo muttered.

"What did you say?" Buster snarled.

"You were the one who had to fall for an albino! Even though you know what dangers it can cause! Why didn't you just do as I suggested and married someone ground-colored?" Jingo said accusingly.

"Keep Snowrose out of this!" Buster said.

"Of course! She can't help that she's white. She was doomed to die, no good breeding material" Jingo said as he picked down some of the creepy stuff on his shelf.

Buster glared at Jingo. How dared he say those things about his mate? Didn't she have the right to live free from fear was that it?

All he wanted was for his wife and daughter to see the sun, was that really so bad?

Jingo didn't get it. All his children were either orange or light-brown, they could hide if they wanted to, and so could Balder. But not Anny and Snowrose. Not if Buster failed.

"There must be a way to stop those predators" he muttered. "They must have a weakness".

"Sure. If we die out they will starve to death" said Jingo. "So why don't we just all commit mass suicide?"

"This isn't a joke Jingo" Buster said.

"No, of course it isn't. We're only looking for something that can wipe out the entire precdator and draco-bird population. Then what? It'll all be fun and games?" Jingo asked. "It has happened before Buster. Remember your history-lessons.

Many millions of years ago there were no such things as precdators, or draco-birds. The ottsels and the now extinct chinbits at that time had other predators to hide from. But then a large meteor struck.

The ottsels survived because they hid underground, and since they already knew of the coming danger, they advised the tree-climbing chinbits to do the same.

For many years the chinbits and the ottsels shared the caves underground, as great masses of sand from the meteor strike blocked the sun away, making life above ground level to cold and inhospitable even for the thick coated chinbits. No food was found except the plants growing underground, getting heat from the very core of the planet.

But then the sun came back, and scouts reported all the previous predators were gone. All that had survived were some tiny lizards and insects.

The chinbits were thrilled to get back outside, but in a matter of 3 million years they were all gone. Do you remember why Buster?"
"The lizards evolved" Buster muttered. "With no other competition they grew into becoming the precdators, and hunted the chinbits to extinction".

"Precisely. So even if you kill the modern-day predators, soon there will be more of them, even more deadly. When the highest rank species dies out, another will take its place. That's the circle of life" Jingo said.

"Not if we take that place" Buster said.

"Not this again" Jingo said, too bored of the conversation, he didn't watch what he was doing as he pored the wrong ingredient into his potion.

"Watch out!" Buster yelled as he noticed but it was already too late. The potion exploded, right into Jingo's face.

Buster shook the dust of his fur, looking at what was once Jingo's part of the office.

"Jingo!" Buster shouted.
"I'm right here" a voice said.

Buster turned around, only to see a very shaky brown ottsel, Jingo, standing right behind him.
"Jingo? How on earth did you manage to get out?" Buster asked.

"I-I don't know" Jingo admitted. "But I think it was that thing I just created".

He pointed at the blue sparkling liquid that had pored out on the floor.

Buster noticed the same blue sparks were flowing across Jingo's body.

"Great mother of the rocks. I think we just had a breakthrough" Buster said. "Come on; help me scrape up some of this "blue eco"."

Miss.Ecofreak: whoho! I got the chinbits in too! In case you don't know what a chinbit is, they are crosses of chinchillas and rabbits that I made up for another fic. I just realized I wanted to write some more about where they came from too.

The chinbit's body is like a chinchilla's.

They are very round fuzzy animals with the back feet of a rabbit and the front paws with chinchilla fingers. The tail is of a chinchilla, long and fuzzy and their ears long like rabbit ears.

I've got a coverat for this fic up at DA right now, just follow the link in my profile. There is a picture of a chinbit and some of the ottsel characters+Rose, XD and Kor. Go on watch it

Zakura: you killed them!

Miss.Ecofreak: er… yeah… more species on the precursor-planet will probably die out during the fic, but not the ottsels of course; they will live on for all eternity!

Zakura: I hate you.

Miss.Ecofreak: watch it or I'll put in rabbits and drive them to extinction too. Please review.