Keep in mind, this is an AU of the main stuff, and in no way affects it. Nothing from the Main Storyline will make an appearance here, other than some characters.

I will be uploading two chapters per week [Tuesday/Thursday], since the chapters are so short.

Thank you for clicking this story, and I hope you enjoy!


Part Sixteen - Hostages

Ted was furious. As soon as the reception was over and he and Trixie had done their parts, he gathered up the others by their ears. His pay was being docked because of his "friends", who could not keep together and behave like adults.

Zeb he had found lying on the bar counter with a drink nozzle in his mouth, guzzling honey. Fred he had found devouring the buffet and eating a giant fish whole. Tennessee was talking to any couple he could find and telling them how lucky they were to be together. Henry had been the only decently behaved adult bear of the group. Even Roadie had been appalled, though he was to blame as well, as he'd lost track of his chicken who had chased guests around and then caught by a chef who wanted to cook the poor thing.

Trixie was also furious with the group, and had rightly chewed them out before Ted got to them. Beary and Jewel, meanwhile, were off to the side, out of trouble, as they had behaved very well.

"What- What- What- What makes you think I'd get back together with you guys?" Ted growled angrily, staring his former friends down after he put away his guitar. "Look, that's where I started out," Ted continued, trying to stay calm. "I'm not goin' back. When I said I was finished, I meant it. I'm finished! You lot have shown me that only have you not changed, but that you are even worse than before! Even the cubs were behaving better than you, and they're cubs!"

"But," Jewel said, stepping forward towards him, feeling bad.

Ted let out an annoyed growl and glared at her. "Not now, Jewel."

"Mr. Bedderhead, we... we need everyone to make this happen, and we need you!" Beary piped in.

The others nodded at the cub's words.

Ted shook his head. "Now, listen, kids. I was going to do it. Really, I was. But after this, there's no way in hell I'm going to play with these immature idiots again! Because of them, I'm not getting my promised pay. Even Trixie is getting docked. There was damage, caterers had to be paid to bring food for the people that didn't get any because of Fred, for the honey that was stolen by Zeb, and for the annoyance that was Tennessee! Hell, they were angry about the damn chicken, and Roadie almost hitting the chef!"

"He wanted to kill my chicken!" the long haired human complained, holding Mr. Chicken close.

"You brought a chicken to a buffet serving fish and chicken! It's your own damn fault!"

"How was I supposed to know they were barbarians?!"

Trixie groaned and rested her head against her paw while the duo argued. "Thank the gods you two get along better than they do," she muttered to Beary and Jewel, who simply stared at the arguing adults.

"Fine. You want me to join you guys? Answer my questions. Who's doing sound? Have you rehearsed? What songs you gonna do?" Ted demanded.

"Well," Fred began. "We ain't exactly figured out all that yet, Ted." It was true after all. They hadn't really discussed it. It was usually Ted that made all the decisions.

Ted let out an exasperated sigh. "Same old Country Bears."

"Come on, Ted!" Zeb intruded, annoyed. "You do kinda owe us. I mean, you were the reason we broke up."

The black bear's ears flattened and his eyes darkened. He turned away and threw his arms up to the air and growled. "Yep! There it is! Knew that was comin' up!" Turning back to them, he snarled. "I'm the reason we stayed together, Zeb! And did any of you ever thank me?! No! Only Trixie had any sort of decency and respect for others. You all had your heads up your asses!"

"We all had our jobs to do, Ted," Zeb pointed out while Fred and Tennessee nodded in agreement.

Trixie groaned. Why couldn't he just shut up? He was making things worse!

Ted, however, surprised her by agreeing, but not in the way she expected. "Oh, right! Drinking! Blubbering! Staring into space high as a kite!" he growled, point at each one of the older bears.

"Hey," Fred pouted unhappily. He didn't like it when his older brother picked on him.

"What we were was years ago, and unlike the rest of you, I matured," Ted finished.

"Blubberin'? I-I..." Tennessee began, looking around helplessly.

"Well, you were blubberin'!" Zeb accused, looking at him, trying to divert away from his drinking problem.

Tennessee growled at him, and Fred had to put his arms between them.

"Yeah, yeah, okay here," Tennessee replied. It was true, though. He usually was crying. He was the more emotional of the bears, which is why all the girls seemed to love him, something that the others had always been jealous of. "At least I'm not having one night stands with some tramp that end in failed marriages!"

Zeb balled his fists and got ready to fight, raising his arms. "Don't you dare talk about Méngméng like that! She was not a tramp!"

Beary jumped in between them. "He-hey, you guys! Hey, hey, hey! Stop this!"

Ted shook his head and looked down with an exasperated sigh. He had just proven his point, now that the bears were back to being squabbling buffoons.

Jewel watched from the safety of her mother's arms, surprised that Beary was actually getting into the mess. "Mama, is he going to be okay?"

"Any of them hurt him, and they're going to be dealing with Henry," Trixie responded. "He'd whoop all their butts... but he doesn't look much like has the strength anymore..." Even she could see that Henry was starving, even if his belly looked full.

"Hey! You guys!" Finally getting their attention, Beary continued with his small speech. "You know, in People magazine, April 1983, you all said that the Bears were your family. And like a family-"

Ted abruptly cut him off. "Kid, that was just a bunch of meaningless publicity! You don't know nothin' about the real Bears, understand? Nothing! We are not a family! Look at us! We all hate each other. This fieldtrip is pathetic. Henry can rebuild. Sure, it won't be as grand, but he doesn't need that anymore. He needs to settle down and raise you right. Obviously paying hospital bills and taking care of a business and trying to pay back his loans is not working out! The fact that he had to resort to getting this sorry lot back together is ridiculous! Look at us, boy! Do we look like a family to you?! Do we even look like we're friends?!"

The other bears stared at Ted in shock. Fred had to hold Henry back from attacking the bear for being so rude to his son and for insulting him.

Hurt filled Beary's hazel eyes as his ears flattened. "You're right..." he muttered, glancing at them all as he continued. "This isn't a family." He turned back to Ted, ignoring the surprised looks he was receiving from the others. "A family is made of people that love you no matter what. I had that, and I threw it away. I had parents who took me in despite us being different species.

"I had a family that went out of their way to make accommodations for the bear in their lives. Who bought a new car for me to be able to sit in. They redid their entire bathroom because my fur kept clogging up the drain. They showed me love when they didn't have to. My brother doesn't like me at all, but I can understand why. He sees me as another bear, and after seeing how you all behave I now know why he's so afraid of me."

Beary turned to Henry. "I'm sorry, Papa, but I want to go back to them. If this is what being a bear is all about, then I don't want any part of it." Without another word, Beary turned and left the assembled group of shocked bears, not wanting to see the hurt on his birth father's face.

Jewel let out a whine and pulled away from her mother, going after him, only to be stopped by her father. "No! Let me go! Let me go to him!" she cried, struggling against him.

"No, Jewel. Not this time," Tennessee murmured. "I... I don't want you around him, all right? He's confused and conflicted, and I believe you are making it worse. He needs to sort out what he wants to be: A human in a bear's body, or just a bear."

"Beary is Beary! How can you say that?" she asked, struggling. "He's my friend, and I won't let him be in pain alone! If that's how you're going to be, then I hate you and never want to see you again!" With a battle cry, she bit down on his arm and ran off when he released her.

Tennessee, being Tennessee, started to cry.

Trixie sighed and sat down with a shake to her head. "It was supposed to be such a simple thing... And then you dunderheads had to go and ruin it!" She turned to Ted. "And you! Yelling at Beary like that. Don't think that didn't have a part to play in all this, Theodore Bedderhead!"

"What? But they're the morons who were being completely immature! Did you not see what they were doing?!" Ted asked, surprised.

"Oh, I did for sure. I saw Zeb guzzling down the honey. I saw Fred eating the buffet after I told him not to. I saw Tennessee annoying my customers as well. My pay got docked, too, because of the damages. I have just as much right to be cross with them as you do. Especially since Zeb ruined the vest I got him! They made a mockery of themselves and made no fans here to spread the word of the benefit concert. However, unlike you, I did not berate them in front of the cubs. I shielded Beary and Jewel. You did not." Trixie shook her head unhappily. "And now my baby girl is mad at her father and is saying things she doesn't mean. And Beary's even more confused than before!"

Ted frowned, ears falling flat. "I know I shouldn't have yelled in front of the cubs or gotten after Beary's delusions of grandeur, but come on, Trixie. You have to admit that this is a sorry lot. The only one of them who behaved at all was Henry! And even he couldn't keep them in line!"

"No, I couldn't," Henry admitted. "I got lost in my memories, that's all. And now... Now I'm going to lose my boy all over again. I never should have agreed to their idea of getting the band back together. I knew deep down it wouldn't happen, and yet I built up their hopes. I should have just returned them home while I had the chance."

"Yes, Henry, you should have."

Henry whipped around and let out a growl. He knew that snake-y, oily voice. "Reed."

As one, the others turned around, eyes widening in surprise. Two people, a tall polar bear with multiple piercings and a human in a suit, stood side-by-side. Reed had his arm around Beary's neck with a gun to his head and the polar bear held Jewel by her long hair, his other large paw holding the bottom of her jaw, ready to twist and snap her neck like a toothpick.

Trixie bared her teeth and snarled. "Release my daughter!" Her claws were ready for mauling. How dare someone lay a paw on her precious child?! She could see the pain Jewel held in her eyes from her hair being yanked up like it was.

"Oh, this is your brat?" Reed looked at the golden cub for a moment. "Huh. Well, I have no quarrel with her or you. Go ahead and release her, Kumoko. Wait, no; on second thought, two hostages are better than one. Maybe her parents will listen to me better. At least, I'm assuming that crybaby oaf is her father. Shocking, actually, that he would even know where to stick it."

Tennessee blinked a moment, but then what the banker said dawned on him and he growled angrily, though Zeb snorted and laughed.

"Oh, you have no reason to laugh, either. From the tabloids I read, you got married, but because of your drinking you got ditched by your wife and child. Figures. You're not better than he is. Tell me, how many other illegitimate children do you have? Ten? Twenty? I'm sure quite a few. You drunkards are all the same," Reed said smugly. "Find a hot date, shack up with them in a motel, and call it good."

"What? I never betrayed her!" Zeb was appalled and angry.

"You certainly jumped her bones quick enough, from what's been told. Or was she just some whore you picked up off the street?"

"Zeb, don't!" Fred cried as the auburn bear charged at the banker.

Bang!

Zeb pulled back at the pained scream that erupted from Beary as he tried to get away from the banker, only to be grabbed up by the polar bear.

Jewel looked at her friend's bleeding ear in horror. "You... You gave him a holey ear!"

"Yes, he is so blessed. Now he has a battle scar. Hell, how do you know he isn't covered in scars already? Most bears are. Plus, being thrown from a car as a cub? Amazing." Reed grinned and studied Beary's new ear hole and the blood that ran down it, even going as far as to stick a finger through and pull back out. "Not bad, not bad. No big damage. He'll still be able to hear, maybe, from that side. Who knows?" Reed straightened and looked over at Henry, who was being forcibly held back by all the bears and Roadie. "Ah, so that does prove it. He is your boy. Then again, from the sounds of things, he doesn't want to be yours any longer. Oh well. Get on the bus. We're going to go for a little ride. Move! All of you!"

Grudgingly, the others began to move, all taking a look at Beary while keeping Henry from attacking the deranged man for they knew any move against the banker would result in Beary and Jewel being crushed by the polar bear.

Beary tried to fight back his tears, but failed. Who wouldn't when they're ear now had a hole in it and was gushing blood? That, and the fact that his hearing was nearly obsolete on his right side, and on his other it was questionable. Everything was muffled and quiet.

Jewel stared at her friend, wondering why he wasn't responding to her. "Beary? Ow! Hey!" She growled a bit as she was roughly pushed along towards the bus. She glared furiously at the human walking before her. He had hurt her friend! She tried pulling away from the polar bear Kumoko, but to no avail. He held her tighter than ever by the hair. So she did the next best thing – she kicked Reed between the legs.

The human howled and fell to his knees in pain. "You damn bitch!" He swung his arm wildly around and fired the gun, but it did not hit his intended target, as she had been kicked out of the way.

Beary let out another cry of pain as the bullet hit him in the leg.

In an effort to keep the squealing cub upright, Kumoko let go of Jewel, who used the opportunity to jump at Reed. She was scared, of course, but he had hurt her friend, and she wasn't going to stay back and cower! Her teeth sunk into the human's shoulder, earning a pained scream from him.

Before serious damage could be done, Kumoko dropped Beary and grabbed Jewel away, forcing her jaw close as he growled with fury. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal and leather muzzle. Once he had her, he forced the muzzle onto her face, and wrapped the final strap around her neck to keep her from pulling it off. "That was a stupid thing you did," he stated, pulling her back and picking up Beary. "You are in trouble now."

Reed glared at the she-cub furiously. "How dare you!" He reached up and rubbed his bleeding shoulder. "I should have you written up for assault!" He looked at his partner. "Get them on the bus. Leave the boy with me. You keep the others in line."

Kumoko nodded and walked forward, following the human almost like a puppy, pushing Jewel along and practically carrying Beary. The bus leaned greatly as he climbed on, but balanced back out shortly when he sat down after shoving Jewel over to the other group of bears. He kept his paw on Beary's shoulder and forced him to sit on the floor.

Reed followed last and sat in Henry's chair. "We're all going on a little ride, mongrels. If you behave, no one will get hurt. But if you misbehave, this brat is the one that suffers, got it? And no removing that muzzle from that bitch! You do, and I'll shoot her!" He looked at Roadie. "DRIVE!"

Roadie gave an unhappy nod and turned on the engine, driving away from the country club.

Trixie shifted her daughter behind her, her forest green eyes narrowed with hatred. She wanted to attack him, but with that polar bear bodyguard he had, it would be impossible. They were stuck.

Henry stared at his fallen son, heartbroken at the injuries he'd received. "Beary, everything's going to be okay. I promise," he called, ears flattening when Beary didn't even seem to take notice of him. Was he ignoring him? Or was it something else?

He could only pray that everything would be all right.


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