"Alright team, is everything all set?"

"All clear here, Skipper!"

"Ready, sir!"

"You got it, Buzz!"

The captain nodded, ignoring the pitter-patter of rain against his glass helmet. "Good work, Rangers! Now then, let's get inside and wait out the rest of the storm. The storm should end soon." He looked up towards the sky while the rest of his team retreated indoors.

His final thought before he followed after his team inside was, "Wherever you Chlorm are, we'll catch you and bring you in!"

"Oh, drat! Now how are we going to capture that creature? We NEED her for our television show! I can't be patient anymore, Eon!"

"You think I like this defeat anymore than you do? We need a new strategy. Besides, the rain's here, and we can't exactly do that anything about that, even with our invincible exo-skins. Those animals could still be out there and our best weapon is still broken."

A garble from Epoch indicated his agreement with Eon. Era pouted as he crossed his arms. "Well, at least we have made it to safety and we don't have to worry about lightning striking twice."

If only waiting was the easy part. But Era was never a paragon of patience.

"Oh come now, Era. We can now discuss our new strategy. Epoch and I were talking, and we believe that those lesser beings took shelter in that doctor's home. Until the rain stops, that is where they'll reside. We could proceed with our plans then."

"Yes... yes, of course! That's it!"

Confused by the change in his attitude, Eon asked, "That's what?"

"Silence, Eon! I have a plan. And I want you and Epoch to listen carefully..." He rubbed his thin claws together in anticipation.

"You're serious."

"...Yeah." He was dead serious.

Ozma frowned. "What happened?"

Suddenly, Ty's throat tightly wound itself up and shriveled into nothing.

The thunder roared once more from outside.

Pix nibbled his hand, begging for more pats on the head. He gladly obliged. He tried once again to speak, only to find his throat dried up. "I..." He squeezed his eyes tightly as he shook his head. "I... ah, Helene. I'm sorry, Dr. Furbanna. I can't talk about it." He picked up his cup and tried to drink out of it for strength.

But somehow his coffee didn't seem to taste good anymore.

After heaving and forcing the dry liquid down his throat, he placed his cup back down onto the floor.

And trying to keep his body from shaking in front of of the woman and dog.

Once more, Dr. Furbanna was observing him the way a scientist would normally observe its subject; silently, calmly and without assumption. And the subject right before her was stuck in a place he didn't want to return to. Or at least his mind wouldn't let him. Perhaps if the mind were distracted by something else...

"Buzz introduced you as an old friend. So with that the case, how did you meet him? I assume you both went to the Space Ranger Academy?"

Calming down, Ty smiled a little in gratitude for the change in subject. But he also felt the need to get up and stretch his legs, so he did just that. After motioning for Pix to move, he hoisted himself out of his seat and parked against the wall, crossing his arms while resting his back against the wall. "That we did. We were roommates and had a few classes together. From there, we became best friends. We teamed up in the Academy and out of it.

It worked out for awhile, but... " He briefly lowered his eyes. "After some time during our first years at Star Command, things changed between us and we ended up going our separate ways, due to some...differences in our points of view over things. It went like this for some time before we were assigned to work together again for a mission for the first time in a long time. A very long time. It was rough on both of us." More so on Ty than Buzz, anyway.

"Hmph."

"Well, what were you expecting, a fully detailed front-page article about it? That's basically what happened."

"But you're talking to him again, meaning that you two worked some things out." She took another sip from her cup.

"You can say that, sure." He shifted uneasily. "But after the mission, we've had some time to sit down and talk about certain things that needed to be said. And now... well you can see for yourself how things are for us."

"Just like best friends should be. Isn't that right, Pix?"

Pix nuzzled Ozma's hand, barking out affirmatively.

This would have been an adorable scene for Ty to smile at if it wasn't busy making him feel uneasy. "Yeah, well, there was a time when our bond wasn't as peachy as yours is."

"Are you tryin' to imply something about our friendship that you don't like?"

Alarmed that the dog suddenly become stand up in defense and glaring at him, Ty immediately threw up his hands."Whoa, there! I didn't mean it like that. Sorry." He sighed. "I'm glad you two are friends. But Buzz and I have had our share of tough stuff, and I guess they've still left a mark on me even though we've done our parts to fix them."

"It's okay, Pix, relax. He's feeling a little grouchy because he's not drinking his coffee anymore."

Pix looked back to her master and then to Ty, who managed to get in an unamused scowl, before lightening up. "Ooohhhh. Okay then." She tilted her head as a strange thought came to her. "But I don't get it. What happened to make you and Buzz get into a fight before you made up with him? Did you and he-?"

"Okay, stop right there. Two things; first, it wasn't a fight, per se. It was a rough moment in time for us and we both needed to figure some things out. Second, that's... hard to explain. And it's too private and a lot to share, more than what I'm sharing now."

"But...!"

Ty eyed her sternly.

"What? Curiosity's one of my natural traits! Can't I ask things like anyone else?" She shined her large, sad and pleading eyes into Ty's.

But unfortunately for her, he wasn't going to fall prey to her begging. "No. I said it's too private for me to share."

She motioned her mouth, as if to try and talk again. But Ty beat her to it.

"No."

She tried again.

"No."

She tried one more time.

"I said no, and that's final." He turned his head from her, closing her off from inquiring any further.

Pix looked to Ozma for support, but the researcher only shook her head. Pix's ears deflated, as did her desire to find out more from Ty.

Ozma finished up her coffee and as she did, she glanced over at Ty's abandoned cup.

"Ty?"

"Yeah?"

"How about one more cup of coffee? I want to use up the batch I made before I have to get back to work."

"If you mean it'll make me less grouchy, then alright, I'll bite."

Ozma rolled her eyes at Ty's sardonic callback to her earlier comment. She motioned with her head to Pix to follow her to the table, the dog trailing behind and sitting on her haunches while she watched Ozma stir Ty's coffee. She looked up into the good doctor's face and looked back forth between her and the coffee. And finally, she looked to Ty, looking lost and distracted.

A small smirk formed on her face.

She had an idea.

She barked loudly at Ozma, getting her attention and she put her plan into action.

Ty, on the other hand, had his own mind far away, and out the window in which he was peering into as though he were waiting for Buzz and his team to come back. Really, he was just thinking about anything else he could think of that had no connection to his conversations with Ozma and Pix, for his own peace of mind. A part of him did feel bad for not being able to be upfront with what happened, but how can someone be that honest about their most personal memories to someone they didn't know? Even Buzz barely delved into his private memories, even with his socially awkward position. At least as far as Ty knew about his best friend anyway.

Then again... did he really know Buzz anymore?

Ty frowned at the absurdly random thought. Of course he knew Buzz! Sure there were some less-than-happy moments between the two, but they had reconciled and put the past behind them.

Right?

"Hey, Ty!"

Jarring out of his thoughts, he looked down to see a quirky sight. Pix balancing his cup on a tray in her mouth. She was smiling at him...or attempted to with the tray locked in between her teeth. "Here ya go!"

"...Uhh..." He looked at her, then to Ozma (who merely shrugged nonchalantly) and then back to her again. "...Thanks, Pix."

She wagged her tail happily. And she waited.

He took a sip of his coffee...before bursting his eyes wide open and spit it out back into the cup instantly. He stuck his tongue out in reaction to the strange taste of his coffee.

The instant reaction caused Pix to drop the tray and drop herself to the ground onto her back, "laughing" through her collar and panting in excitement!

Even Ozma was greatly amused, but she threw a hand over her mouth to keep herself from losing it.

Ty eventually recovered and to Ozma he did demand, "What do you put in this?!"

The still-smiling Ozma calmly proclaimed, "I put in sugar and combined it with salt."

"...What." Sugar with salt? Talk about disgusting.

"Pix's idea."

"...Uh?" Pix's idea? What did she mean by that?

"I didn't mention this before, but Pix loves to pull pranks on others. It's her way of getting them to lighten up if they're too tense for their own good."

When Pix was able, she spoke in between laughs,"Yeah, and it's fun to see their reactions! Yours was priceless!" And she threw herself into another laughing fit as Ty glared at her again.

"Yeah well, I didn't think it was that funny. I could have choked on that!"

He waited until Pix was done laughing. She got up onto her haunches to look him straight in the scowling eye, all the while still smiling.

"Choked on what? The sugar or the salt? 'Sides, it didn't kill ya, did it? I only asked Dr. Furbanna to mix so that I could turn that frown of yours upside down." She turned her head upside down to prove her point. "You were getting a little too gloomy to talk to."

"...You actually wanted to do that because I wouldn't answer your question, didn't you?" He was eying her with great suspicion.

"Nonono!..." Turning her head back to its proper position, Pix then shook her head at that before adopting a wide grin, her teeth flashing. "Well... a teensy bit. But I didn't mean t'make you spit out your drink. Honest! And it was the last batch of coffee that was made for ya. May as well go out with a bang!

And if you said so, I woulda asked Dr. Furbanna to put in something else instead. Like hot sauce!" She barked excitedly.

Hot sauce? "Uh.. I think I'll stick to the sugar and salt, thanks." He was still salty, but not from his coffee.

"You must admit, Ty; she did get quite a reaction out of you. Do you feel a little better at the least?"

"Better how? From the prank or the coffee?"

"Both. Neither. Something else. That's up to you to decide. But do you feel a little better in general? She is right, you know. You were tensing up when you tried to talk about whatever happened between you and Lightbrain to make you want to strangle him. Which I can understand, by the way."

Ignoring Ozma's loving insult to Buzz, Ty hesitated as that particular topic cropped up again. "Oh... that." He hadn't fully explained what he meant by how he almost killed Buzz back on Canis Lunis. He sighed again. "I'm not sure. I mean... no offense, but what you have to understand is-."

Another lightning boom outside, and it temporarily shook Ty, resulting in him slightly jumping. He breathed in and out when he realized he wasn't in danger. But he did realize Ozma and Pix, who was no longer laughing, stared at him like he just sprouted three heads and a pair of antennae on his head. "...Uh...I...uh..." Great, now he made himself appear to be afraid of lightning strikes. He was still on the edge more so than he thought.

Now he was right on the spot of that edge, with no way to get away from it without coming up with something to satisfy Ozma and Pix as well as preserve his own sanity and reason. "I... "

The silence filled the room like a poison gas, stripping all of their abilities to speak a word. The only one object that dared to withstand the gas was the clock on the wall. The hands clicked away to reveal its chronic revelation; three o'clock, it read.

But it would be overcome by a louder and stronger source of noise.

A loud ping spoke in intervals, and Ozma jumped into action, with Pix following right behind her heels. Making a mental note to thank whatever kind of fate up there in the cosmos for smiling at him, he was the last to trail behind the duo. He followed them to another part of the building, to where a sonar screen's green hand moved clockwise over a stationary green screen, signaling its recent find. The green hand moved in a slow blur over five circles and two lines, both pointing horizontally and vertically respectively to indicate the four directions. A few tiny dots could be seen blinking whenever the hand finished passing them by, to which was causing the sound.

Ty asked, now working back into his Ranger protocol, "What is it? What's going on?"

Ozma explained, "This machine helps pick up on my electronic tags. It's another method I use to study animals in their migratory habits."

"And it looks like they're headin' off to the eastern side of the jungle," Pix commented.

"What's out in the east for them to go to?"

"There's a river over there, but the animals don't go there when it's raining unless they have homes on the other side. Even then, it's too dangerous; the water can overflow and cause some species to drown."

"Lovely. Is there a way you can find out which animals are going that way?"

Ozma shook her head. "Not in this weather, I can't. And even if I can, I can't stop them when they're migrating."

"Which is where I come in!" Pix exclaimed.

Ozma put her hands onto her hips and looked at her dog right in the eye with disapproval. "No. Pix, If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times; if you go out there while it's raining heavily, you're going to slip and fall, and you will hurt yourself. It's happened before and it will happen again. I don't want you running after them at top speed!"

"Aw, come on, Dr. Furbanna! I can do it! I've learned my lesson. I'll be careful from now on when I'm in the rain!" But much to Pix's disappointment, her boss would have none of it.

"No. You're a fast runner, but the mud is even faster. And it's slicker. You will get caught in it."

"But didn't you see my trick earlier today? I could TOTALLY avoid the mud if I bounce the rocks!"

"Even if they're covered with mud? That's still not going to get you there any faster."

Ty cottoned onto the rough picture painted for him on what happened, but he didn't want to add his own commentary on the issue. He aimed to refocus everyone's attention. "Dr. Furbanna, if I may, maybe I can-"

His communicator rang again, three buzzing times."-Open my communicator and see what's up with Star Command," he dryly finished. He brought his wrist close to him and opened up his communicator. "Yes?"

The buzzing stopped and on the small screen was another kind of buzz. "Ty, listen up; we think we might have spotted the Chlorm again!"

Now that everyone in the room was on full alert when the Chlorm were brought up, they moved closer to look at Buzz through the screen. Or at least Ozma did. Pix had a hard time balancing three acts: standing on her tippy toes, latching onto Ty's other arm to keep her balance, and trying to get a good view of Ty's tiny communicator. She was promptly ignored as Ozma came closer to Ty to look at Buzz through the screen."Where?"

"Out east away from the Bio-Sphere. Doctor, is there anything of great-?"

She promptly answered, "We were just talking about that; there's a river that flows that way, but it's too dangerous to cross there in this weather. But if they can, then they're up to something," she finished darkly.

"Uhhh... right. Well, that's just what I was thinking. And we've got to find out what. But we only have our surveillance drones to watch where they're going, and the wind is getting too strong for them to stay afloat so we'll have to call them back. Is there a safe passage we can use to see why they're heading that way without flying or walking through the mud?"

"Not if you feel like slipping through the mud or feeling the force of lightning through your veins." She looked out a nearby rainy window, hands still on hips. She sighed in exasperation. "I don't have anything that we can use to traverse through the rain to find out what they're up to. We'll have to wait until the storm passes."

"Well, you're in luck; according to our systems, the storm should pass in about ten minutes. Then it'll be safe for us to come out."

"But dangerous for all the animals. Ten minutes...that's all it takes for poachers to do their job. Just ten minutes."

Ty followed her line of sight, as did Pix, who decided to give up and retire all four paws to the ground, and she too, looked outside, feeling her owner's own growing concern.

A/N: Long time since I've updated this story. To all who follow this story, thank you for remaining loyal readers and I hope you enjoy this chapter! :)