Chapter 4

New Bodies

Mathias woke up early, still tired from his lack of sleep. He looked at the clock and sighed before he got up from the sofa and headed into the kitchen. It was 6 am and the rest of the house was still asleep. Mathias decided to surprise them all with a big breakfast and after a quick check up on Lukas, he began preparing all of their favorites; different kinds of sandwiches, bacon, egg, yogurt, coffee and some hot chocolate that he knew both Tino and Emil would appreciate.

"Good morning!" The sudden voice from the doorway made him jump and suddenly turn around, sweeping down some of the cups with his tail so they fell onto the floor with a big crash. Shards flew everywhere and Mathias froze in place so he wouldn't hit anything else or step on any of the shards. "Sorry" Tino had already begun to pick up the bigger shards while he looked like he was having a hard time not laughing. "Having trouble with the tail?" he managed to say. Mathias carefully made his way through the kitchen, "accidentally" smacking Tino gently in the back of his head.

"You would have trouble moving around too if you grew a completely new body part." Tino was just about to answer when they heard Emil coming down the stairs.

"What's going on?" he said as he walked into the room. When he saw the current chaos in the kitchen, he sighed and went to fetch a broom. When they had managed to pick up all the shards, Emil decided to help Mathias with the breakfast while Tino tried to call Berwald again. After five calls and a voice message he went back into the kitchen and sat down.

"He didn't answer now either and he's usually up by now." Mathias placed a cup of hot chocolate in front of Tino before joining him at the table with Emil close behind.

"Well, we decided that we would look for him if we couldn't reach him so we'll head out immediately after we've eaten. Does that sound good?" Emil and Tino nodded and filled their plates with food. When the dishes were done, they decided that Emil would stay behind to keep an eye on his brother while the other two would go and look for Berwald. It was a three hour drive to him and then three hours back and they didn't want to leave Lukas alone for that long. It was a lovely day and the sun was shining. They took a deep breath of the clear morning air before they sat into the car and begun their journey.

.

Matthew sat on the ground next to the sleeping Arthur that had fallen asleep in the middle of his research. He thought about waking him up, but at the same time he knew that Arthur hadn't slept much that night. He sighed, as well as a cat can sigh, and jumped up on the sofa to curl into a ball. Matthew looked at the clock on the wall. It was only 6 am and the rest would probably not wake up in a few hours. He was really tired of this room now since he had been there since last night. Being a cat wasn't actually so bad, he could see everything from a completely new perspective and all the smells and sounds where different. The biggest problem was that he couldn't open doors and since the others were too caught up in their own problems to remember him, he had gotten stuck in here when the others had gone to bed. Matthew was used to being ignored so he didn't take it too hard, but it still hurt.

And he really needed the toilet right now.

.

After half the way they decided to take a break to fill up gas and visit the toilet. They stopped at a gas station and Tino went inside to buy something for the rest of the ride while Mathias filled up the tank. He was just about to pay for their things when Mathias came inside the store. "What's taking so long?"

"There was a line"

"Oh, I see" Mathias smiled in his usual way and packed their candy, sandwiches and drinks in a bag while Tino paid the cashier that was staring at the dog eared man. They went outside and noticed that another car had stopped next to theirs and a gang of teenage boys were getting out of it. Because of the amount of bags they had loaded into the trunk it looked like they were going camping. Mathias got into the driver seat of their car and Tino was walking around it to get in the passenger seat when someone stopped him by putting an arm around his shoulders.

"Why don't you dump that guy and come with us instead sweetie?" The boy smelled of cigarette smoke and his friends were smiling creepily at Tino. He shook the boys arm off.

"No, I don't want to"

"Oh come on, think about all the fun we could have!" The way he said "fun" and the way his friends started laughing made Tino feel sick. The arm was back around his shoulder and another of the boys had grabbed his wrist and was pulling him towards their car.

"Let go of me"

"Such a pretty girl like you surely likes to have a good time right? We'll give you a really good time."

"LET GO" The other boys were now circling like vultures around him, eyeing him all over. Tino felt his anger build up, something like this shouldn't be happening and it wouldn't have happened if he had his old body. He wondered if it was this kind of thing women had to go through all the time. He closed his eyes for a moment and elbowed the guy holding an arm round him in his shoulders.

"Why don't you all just fuck off?"

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It took him two hours to give up. Francis looked at the hairbrush in his hand before he threw it into the wall. Just to check one more time, he took of the rag and just like all the times before a new one materialized on his body. There was a pile laying on the floor with all the rags he had tried to get off, but a new one would always appear. It didn't matter what he tried to do to his hair even though he knew all the little tricks for perfect hair. Instead of screaming and breaking things like he felt like doing, he picked up the pile and walked over to the room he was staying in where he dropped it on the floor. Francis had faith in Arthur and knew that he would find a solution for this. He really hoped so. He walked back to the living room and carefully opened the door. As Matthew slipped out, Francis walked up slowly to the sleeping Arthur and put a hand on his shoulder. The sudden pressure startled Arthur that quickly sat up.

"Yes, I'll fix it!" He blinked and rubbed his eyes before he looked up. "Oh, it's you"

"Have you been up all night?" Francis looked around the room. Piles of books of all shapes and sizes where everywhere and random sheets of paper where spread all over the floor. The desk was filled with notes and on it laid an open book where the pages showed a human in what looked like a very painful transformation. Arthur closed the book when he noticed Francis stare and turned around.

"Almost, but I don't understand! I mean look here" He picked up a book from the pile to his right and after flipping through it for a moment he gave the book to Francis and pointed at a picture. "Here read the description" Francis squinted and read out loud.

"To make the enemy easy to defeat, follow the steps described below and you will make them unable to call for help" Francis looked up at him, chocked. "This is just like…"

"Yes, but that is not all" Arthur stood up and reached for a book he had placed on a shelf. He took it down and just like before he gave the book to Francis. "This is just like Mathias described it. The ears and the tail" Francis looked at the picture that was showing a man crouching with a pair of ears coming out from his head and a long tail sticking out behind him. "I found Matthews and mine too and I do believe the others should be around here somewhere"

"Do you know how to fix this?" Francis was hopeful, if Arthur knew this much then maybe he would know how to reverse it too.

"No, no I don't" Francis felt his hopes fade away but when he looked into the eyes of the tired nation he couldn't show it. What he saw in those eyes where not defeat but determination. Instead, he gave Arthur a pat on his shoulder and walked back to his room where he sat down on the floor and spent the next hour cutting all the rags into pieces. He thought about the fact that they hadn't fought in a pretty long time now and that was very rare. He paused for a moment and thought about something he had read in that last book, something that was bugging him. He put down the scissor and mumbled.

"To increase strength and agility, throw this spell onto yourself. There will be side effects which will give you attributes of a dog. High risk spell: Category 6. If used for too long your instincts might take over and you will lose control of yourself."

He hoped that it didn't mean what he thought it meant.

A/N: Thank you again for reading! All favs/follows/reviews are really appreciated! The updates will get a bit slower since homework has started pouring in but I'll update at least once a week! Also, I do know that most boys don't act like this and I am not trying to say that all boys are bad with this chapter.