89A95 hovered over the streets of Corix 85. Well, the craft he had been provided with wasn't made for hovering so he supposed what he was actually doing was pacing. Or maybe 'patrolling' was a better way of putting it. He'd been on the other side of the market when Q12 first caught sight of P13 and, owing to his limited manoeuvrability, had been unable to follow the 'target' into L06's coordinates either.

He wasn't sure 'target' was the right word to use- it came with violent connotations that didn't quite match up with what they were doing. They were retrieving one of Sire's experiments, one that coincidentally came from the same batch as he and his friends did. They had been told that P13 was dangerous and that violence was permitted for the sake of minimizing collateral, but that didn't mean it was necessary. Especially considering he was technically one of them.

He double-checked for the eighth time that the cloaking was still on. The mission was also supposed to be completed in secrecy, so that noone tried to interfere and thwart Sire and their greater goals.

"Any progress?" he asked the three creatures on the other end of the line.

"I found L06," Q12 replied. "Her legs aren't working properly so P13 was definitely here. I think he's making his way to the surface."

"Thank God," J0100 cut in. "It stinks down here. And it's all wet and sticky and I think some of the orloni are mutating."

"J," L06 mock-scolded. "Focus."

"You sound like Vim," the youngest of their batch retorted, and even though A95 couldn't see him, he knew he had his tongue stuck out insolently.

"Vim's usually right," Q12 added, ever the level-headed one. "Come on guys, the sooner we find him the sooner we can go home."

"Oh, I think I've got something!" A95 chirped as the ship's scanner made an affirmative beeping noise. He followed the signal to a dark alleyway just outside Corix's main street. A small, mask-faced, ring-tailed little creature that matched the description of P13 stood atop a roof, swearing relentlessly as he waved a communicator around in search of a signal.

"I found him!" A95 whispered into his comm, so as not to give away his position.

"Noooo, I wanted to get him!" J0100 complained, which got them all shaking with mirth.

"Might escape A too," L06 pointed out inbetween giggles as J's footfalls grew louder. "Hurry J!"

Because that was always a possibility, A95 gave them his coordinates. "It… looks like he's arguing with his communicator," he added.

"No, no, no!" J0100 exclaimed. "I'm going in the wrong direction!"

That got them all laughing again, even and perhaps especially J0100.

"Well played, 95," he added. Because of course they were just joking around. The game was just a way to pass the time and keep them all from worrying.

"I haven't won yet," A95 reminded him gently, because he had never had the same competitive streak. He flicked on the tractor beam and shut off the cloaking, instantly catching P13's attention.

"Crap," muttered the little thing, ears falling back against their head.

"Subject 89P13!" A95 declared through the ship's speakers. "Please raise your paws above your head-"

P13's masked features abruptly swapped from fear to annoyance. "Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me."

"I don't believe that I am-" A95 replied in confusion as below, P13 sighed in resignation.

"Screw this!" the smaller mammal declared, turning away from him entirely and leaping into the streets below before A95 could beam him up.

A95 was not overly fond of the crass way some of Sire's men spoke. But he supposed everything did go to shit after that.

He watched in horror as a quantum destabiliser tore off a chunk of the street and took out half a dozen of the nearest Recorders. He watched as, inbetween screaming and running for their lives, virtually everyone in the market pulled out a gun and fired.

"A95? Is everything alright?" Q12 asked, voice filled with concern as the sounds of chaos carried to the other side of the comms. "A95!" she repeated, with some degree of urgency as he failed to reply. "A95 come in!"

"N-not funny A95!" L06 cut in, sounding even more worried.

"I-I-I'm alright," he replied, shaking himself out of the initial shock, but unable to tear his eyes away from the carnage as a large, blue humanoid with a large hammer rushed forwards and got hit with a dozen taser rounds to the face.

"Hang in there, we're on our way!" J0100 promised, audibly picking up the pace.

"HEY ASSHOLES!" P13 emerged from behind an upturned cart, wielding a rifle taller than he was as an ioniser popped up behind him. "Nice to see you again!"

And then he laughed, cutting through the recorders with brutal efficiency as the ioniser burst into life, tearing apart the Hellspawn that dived towards him. Still laughing, he lobbed a satchel full of explosives at a few more Recorders who had taken shelter behind a stall.

A95 watched in muted horror as a head computer came rolling out of the inferno.

A few moments later, it was all over. The battle was lost, Sire's hellspawn had been torn into greasy chunks and his recorders were either pumped full of holes, or damn near incinerated. Only then did A95 consider that maybe, just maybe he should have run away. There was nothing standing between him and P13's wrath now.

Instead of picking up any of the nearby rocket launchers and blasting him out of the sky however, the little maniac pulled out his communicator, gave it a few gentle slaps and dialled someone up.

A clean-up crew, presumably.

The cloaking wasn't on, P13 definitely knew he was still there, and yet he more or less ignored him. Perhaps the ioniser just needed to cool down, perhaps he wasn't very fond of surface-to-air weaponry, or perhaps P13's violence was limited to the ones firing on him. Maybe that was why he managed to work up the courage to bring the ship slightly forwards and turn on the tractor beam.

"S-subject 89P1-1-13!" A95 whimpered, because right now all he wanted was to get the mission over with and go home- "P-please stop resisting-"

"Relax, buddy." P13 turned to face him, arms raised to show he was unarmed as his ears pinned back in shame. "I-I ain't gonna- No! Wait! Don't come any-"

The next thing he knew, the ioniser burst back into life, and he was spinning through the air in an uncontrollable downward spiral as the ship's alarms blared. In a desperate effort to regain control, he tried to turn only to hit the side of one building and slam into the other before hitting the ground hard.

The alarm died abruptly as the ship groaned horribly. He tried to wrench himself out of the wreckage, but A95 found himself unable to move. Warm blood filled his mouth as his life flashed behind his eyes.

Sire had given him purpose and a life, and legs, and three very good friends. A slim, gentle creature who always comforted them, who had a way of making the hurts go away and always talked about how bright their future would be. A little white thing with red eyes and more limbs than the rest of them put together who would play all day and all night if she had her way. And the smallest of them, a sweet little thing with a mask on his face and a mischievous streak that delighted in coming up with new games for them all to play in the rusted cages they called home… no, no it was a little black thing with long ears- and J0100 didn't have a mask.

Dimly he felt the wires connecting him to the ship tugged off his headpiece, and then P13 stood in front of him, eyes wide with concern. "Teefs, you there?" What was Teefs? Was that the thing on the other side of his comm? "Wake up!" P13 snapped, spiralling into a panic as the ship groaned. "Move! You need to move or y-you'll die!" It was only then that A95 realised he was talking to him. "You'll frickin' die like an idiot!" And then he slapped him, hard. P13 blurred and shrunk and there was something familiar about his mask. One moment he was smaller, with metal sticking out on either side of his face as he laughed, the next he was taller, terrified, and straining ineffectively against his much larger form. A95 tried to blink but something in his eyes must have disconnected because all he could do was stare. "Please wake up…" P13's voice cracked as the ship made another awful sound-

A95 woke with a start and an involuntary yell, ineffectively shooting to his bizarre wheel-shaped feet and scattering the smaller mammals who had been curled up around him.

"Sorry," he said, wringing his flippers awkwardly as the others picked themselves up (giggling, in L06's case). "I-I had a bad dream."

"Don't worry about it," said Q12, reaching up to pat his shoulder as she stifled a yawn.

"Morning soon anyways!" echoed L06, stretching her legs out as far as they would go before retracting them down to her shorter standard.

"Was it Rocket?" asked J0100, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as a mischievous grin spread across his features.

"J," Q gave him a look and wagged a disciplinary claw at him. "Don't be mean."

The hare raised his arms up defensively. "I'm just saying. He would give you nightmares."

"It wasn't… just Rocket," A95 admitted. "I dunno, I just… wasn't expecting the outside world to be so… violent."

"Me loved it!" chirped L06, but then she loved just about everything. "So many sounds! And so many colours! And so shiny! Lights everywhere, music everywhere, people everywhere!"

"And we barely saw any of it!" J0100 chipped in, practically shaking with excitement. "That was just one planet and statistically it's a pretty small one. Can you imagine what else could be out there?"

"I'd rather not," A95 shuddered. Frankly, those thoughts terrified him. One day in the outside world and L06 had nearly drowned and he'd nearly gotten blown up. And they were both lucky compared to all those unfortunate Recorders. If he had it his way, the four of them would never step another foot outside of Sire's domain. It was safe here. The rest of the Galaxy? Not so much.

"Right." Realising that this was an uncomfortable topic, J0100 tugged his ears downwards. "Sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up."

"Rocket call us soon anyways," L06 pointed out in her usual cheery way, completely oblivious to the way A95 shuddered at that. "No imagining. Soon we is seeing!"

"I suppose working with P13 will be… interesting." It did him no good to worry, so A95 did his best to focus on the positives. "His plans should be…" Well, all of his planning seemed to involve hurting something so A95 trailed off. All things considered, they hadn't had the best first impression. "He did try to save me… badly but…" Once he had finally calmed down, P13 had been nice enough, and he was sure they could all get along. They were batchmates after all. But it would be a while before he could shake off what he'd seen on Corix 85.

"But of course," J0100 shot a wink over A95's shoulder, wearing the ghost of a grin. "Rocket would go to the ends of the universe to save his beloved Teefs."

"Oh not this again!" A95 flopped to his front, as the younger half of his batch pounced.

"Teefs! Teefs! Teefs!" L06 cheered, bouncing on the spot as she tickled him with all her limbs.

"Stoooooop! Q, save me!"

Q12 only smiled slightly. "They are pretty prominent."

"Oh not you too!"

Once they all got tired of laughing, J0100 double-checked to make sure his biggest friend was alright. "If it really bothers you we'll stop talking about them, but you said Rocket could."

"Because it seemed important to him," A95 pointed out. "But I don't really mind. I just think it's a little silly." He turned to L06. "Don't you think you could come up with a better name than Floor?"

"Me likes Floor!"

Q12 snorted. "You want to be called Floor?"

After maybe half a second of consideration, L06 nodded vigorously. "Yes! Me is now Floor."

"Floor," J0100 echoed, trying to get a feel of the sound.

"Fair enough. I suppose having a name does have a kind of charm to it…" A95 admitted, before muttering "Teefs…" to himself.

"I wish I had a name." J0100 tried to make it sound casual, like it didn't matter too much. But they all knew this was a sore spot for him.

"You can have mine if you want," Q12 shrugged.

His face lit up instantly, but faltered slightly when he put the rest of the sentence together. "But, what about you?"

She shrugged again. "I'm the oldest, don't really need one. Besides," she rubbed at the spot where Sire had written her designation. "There's nothing wrong with Q12."

"Can I be Lylla then?" A95 butted in. "And then you can be Teefs?"

"I'll sleep on it," J0100 grinned.

"J, pleeeeeeeeeease."

"I go by Lylla now." He turned on the spot with dramatic flair, only to turn back around once he remembered something. "Ooooh! I almost forgot! Look what I got!" From behind one of his more prominent implants, J0100 withdrew a small, bright pink package. "It's called 'bubblegum'," he explained, tearing it open as his batchmates looked on in awe and anticipation. "And you chew it and you blow-" he demonstrated, and blew a bubble twice the size of his head before it finally popped.

"Give Floor five!"

"Is that safe?"

"Where did you get it?"

"I mean, it should be. The ingredients are on the package and it doesn't look like it has anything we can't have," J0100 explained, giving Floor five and Teefs one. "And I er- I found it?"

"J," Q12 frowned. "We're not supposed to steal."

"I mean…" he dropped his voice to a whisper. "What Vim doesn't know won't hurt her, right?" He held one out to her and after a moment of hesitation, she closed her hand over it.

"Please, don't do it again."

J0100 bobbed his head up and down in half-hearted earnestness, and flicked a second one into his mouth. "Oh, one thing you're not supposed to swallow them."

A95 froze on the spot. "What?"

"Yeah. Apparently it sticks your insides together or…" he noticed the way his friend's cybernetic eyeballs were bulging more than usual. "Did you…?"

A95's silence spoke volumes.

"Nobody panic!" J0100 screamed, beginning to panic.

A few minutes later, the doors hissed open to admit Vim. She paused, too professional to blink at the sight that met her eyes. She had seen a fair amount of shocking things in her time, but it still startled her to find L06 holding onto J0100's feet which were sticking out of the upside down A95's mouth. Q12 blinked at the sight of her, but offered no elaboration as she continued to hold the walrus up. A95 had his mouth full and L06 was not a reliable narrator. Frankly though, Vim wasn't sure she wanted to know. Their games were getting stranger by the day…

"Sire requests your presence, Q12," the Recorder explained, backing out of the room to let them finish up in peace.

"I'll be right there," the otter promised, as J0100 made a muffled noise that sounded a lot like 'got it!'

Q12 knew the way to the lobby like the back of her hand. It had been years since she'd needed an escort. "You called, Sire?" she asked, finding him hovering above the ground in meditation.

"Yes, Q12!" He turned towards her, frowning slightly when he caught sight of her face. "What is it? There is something you want to tell me."

"J0100 stole some bubblegum," Q12 confessed, because she knew better than to lie to Sire. He would find out about it eventually and it felt wrong to keep secrets. "And A95 swallowed it. B-but we got it out and-" she fiddled with her thumbs. "I'm sorry. It was my fault. I should have-"

"I did not call you here to talk about bubblegum," said Sire with a roll of his eyes that washed over her like a wave of relief. "I daresay we face far greater obstacles."

"Of course," Q12 shook her head, feeling stupid for bothering Sire with such a trivial matter.

"We received a transmission earlier," he said, and she followed his arm to where it gestured at a holoscreen displaying the extent of the transmission.

HEADED 2 XANDAR. GOT PLAN. NEED STUFF. Caps Lock.

Followed by a long list of things Q12 only half-recognised.

Now standing, Sire beckoned her closer to the window. When she stood besides him, he gestured out beyond the horizon. "What did you think of the outside world?"

L06 and J0100 couldn't wait to see more of it, but Q12 leaned more towards A95's line of thinking. "It was… loud. And not in a good way. And it smelled strange. And… people…" she rubbed at one of her exposed cybernetics, recalling the dozens of eyeballs that seemed to follow her around wherever she went on Corix. "People stared."

"You understand our goal of course, the reason you were created."

"The perfect species for the perfect society," Q12 nodded, she had memorised it a long time ago. "We are, or are supposed to be-"

"You are supposed to be," Sire repeated and though he meant nothing by it, the words still hurt a little. "And what qualities are required from a perfect species?"

"Optimism, adaptibility, honesty, empathy, intelligence and-" she grit her teeth. The last one always eluded her.

"One more," Sire urged.

"Creativity." Q12 remembered.

The High Evolutionary smiled and nodded in approval. "I have strived for perfection for hundreds of years. Nearly a hundred batches in… and in that time only one has achieved true invention."

"P13?" Q12 asked, glancing back at the transmission and immediately knowing who had sent it.

Sire chuckled. "You sound surprised?"

"With all due respect, Sire," Q12 scratched at her chest. "He didn't seem all that smart to me. Clever, in his own way," she had to admit because he had gotten the upper hand on her twice already. "And good at thinking on his feet. But…" He had also burst into tears at every possible instance. "...Irrational."

"And that is what makes him dangerous," Sire stopped smiling. "I'm assuming he spoke ill of me?"

Q12 hesitated a moment before nodding. It was no good keeping secrets from Sire.

"Please, speak freely. I will know them to be his words, not yours."

"He said… he said you had no right to decide what was perfect. And that you were crazy. And that you didn't love us. Th-that we were just biomatter to you." Q12 huffed, still incensed by the audacity of it all. "Obviously that isn't true." She glanced up at Sire, hoping he'd confirm it wasn't. But that was stupid. It couldn't be true. Sire wouldn't have made them if he didn't love them.

There was no need to confirm the obvious, so Sire went on. He always kept things brief. Focused. Straight to the point. "P13 will help us. He is… retrieving something for me and has requested the presence of you and your batch. But like you said he is irrational." He smiled. "Which is why I took certain precautionary measures. Batch 89 will be the ones most at risk so I thought it would be wise to extend the safeguard to you." He stretched out a hand, and a small, round device floated towards him from behind the desk. "The trigger is voice-locked so only you will be able to activate it. I've already input your specifications. Enter a keyword to open it and follow up by pushing the button."

"What happens if I push it?" Q12 wondered aloud.

Sire laughed. "Let's just say we will have one less problem to worry about." He held it out to her, smiling expectantly.

The device felt heavy in her hand, and something about the way he was smiling made her shiver. "S-sire, I know in exceptional circumstances violence… violence is permitted- no it's a necessity in this imperfect creation, but I don't- I don't think I can-" she offered it back to him, staring at her feet.

His smile vanished instantly. "I see. What a shame, I was counting on you, Q12."

"I'm sorry."

"Perhaps the fault lies with me," Sire took the device back, frowning deeply. His disappointment cut deeper than any blade. "It seems I expected too much from-"

"N-no!" Q12 threw her arm back. Sire had made it for her, to be strong and to be gentle and to care for her friends. Sire loved them and only wanted what was best. She couldn't let him down. "I should have known better. I- if you think it's necessary-" She took a deep shuddering breath, and worked up the courage to meet his eye. "I shouldn't have questioned your judgement."

The High Evolutionary crouched down to her level and put an affectionate hand on her mechanical shoulder. "You were programmed to be peaceful, Q12, your hesitation is a testament to our success." He smiled, and Q12 felt warm all over. "Don't worry too much. P13 is unpredictable, but we can hope it does not come to this."

"Yes." She nodded vigorously. "I-it won't. I'll make sure-"

"But." He pressed the device into her hand and closed her fingers over it. "Just in case. Choose a keyword, something that is unlikely to come up in conversation. We wouldn't want you turning it on by accident."

She nodded, and did her best to ignore the way it weighed on her insides. A keyword. Something she wouldn't say normally. Something in case P13 proved to be a danger for her and her friends. It took her painfully long to think of one, but she found it eventually. "Rocket."

Sire trusted her to find her own way back to Batch 89's chambers. She followed the familiar path through her home, rubbing at the spot she'd hidden the device and trying to wipe it from her mind. It was just a precaution, a last-minute resort in case things went south. Far south. Very south. But they wouldn't. She would never have to say the word. She would never have to push the button.

P13 was mean, and temperamental, and stupid, and smelled funny. But he was also their batchmate and more than anything, he was just misguided and confused. It would do him some good to spend time with them. L06 and J0100 would drag him into their games. A95 would tell him all about what he was thinking. And she would keep them safe. All of them.

She found her friends in the middle of a chess match. L06 was winning. She usually did when she was playing against A95. Mostly because he let her win, but at least some of it was because the walrus was lying upside down and had J0100 bouncing on his belly.

"Q!" cried Floor. "Look! Floor winning!"

"One might even say you're 'wiping the floor' with me," Teefs chortled.

"What did Sire want?" asked J0100, doing a flip. He always liked to show-off when she was watching.

"He just wants to keep us safe," Q12 said simply, pushing the button to the back of her mind.

Footnote: Just a brief little chapter to bring us back to the main plot of the story, catch up with Batch 89 and set up a few guns of the Checkhov Variety. I will say sorry to the one person who asked if we'd see Batch 89 again soon. Turns out when I say 'three or so chapters' what I mean is 'nine'. I do think the pacing worked out pretty well in the end though. Four Dog Days and four Mission Reports feels auspicious somehow. Either way I hope you all enjoyed, they're a fun bunch to write.