"Mr… uhm Captain." Nick said and sloppily saluted to Powers.
"Stand easy." The captain said grinning. "What's wrong?"
"I just wanted to say if there are updates from my da…fath…" he shook his head nervously "I mean Dudley."

"Nothing new as far as…" Powers stopped and looked over Nick's shoulder where Helena and another cat boy laughed obviously about Nick. "You, back there, stop."
"Says who?"

"The one who will personally throw you out of the shuttle if I hear any more talking back." Powers' gaze was drilling into the rat and his tone sounded like a graveyard. For the first time, Helena wasn't winning the staring duel she began and looked down onto the ground defeatedly.
"Very good." The captain said and turned back to Nick. "Nick if you are that concerned why don't we ask? Meternagel did…"

"Bad news Sly…" The pilot's voice mirrored the concern that Nick was emitting on the reflective surface of just received facts. "I play it."
In the next moment, the frenetic voice of René resounded through the packed shuttle. "We're in deep shit, enemy ship captured us. Send a fucking miracle."

Powers first action was holding Nick by the shoulders because the panic attack that followed was "No matter what you got to stay calm." Powers said sternly to him. "Panic is the enemy."
That was easier said than done. Even if Nick wasn't liking it, he was prone to outbursts of emotions. He always tried to hide that and during his school time, it was mostly not much of a problem.

Mostly he had been at the helm of his emotion but since the mobbing in school started and continued after the attack, he had a harder and harder time keeping it in. In replied to the man holding his shoulders he just nodded and tried not to ask the obvious.

"I know your father Nick, he was in worse situations." It was cold comfort for Nick to hear that, he knew that Powers just tried to calm him. He would keep letting him try over time until they were in the base. He quickly was ordered to help unload the shuttle with the others and overall stay calm while Powers left with all humans in a hurry.

"Nick…" the soft voice of Annabel gently tried to start a conversation as they were lifting crates. "I heard that and… I bet they will make it… Rob and the others."
Nick stopped his moves immediately and stared with his mouth agape at her. He completely forgot that Rob was in the group too.

Now the panic he had tried to keep at bay was taking control over him. "No…" Nick dropped the crate as his whole body moved like it was shaken by an earthquake only he could feel. The sudden realization that he would lose a great part of what was left of his family took its toll on his mind.
"What did you say to him?" Helena rushed next to Annabel.

"Nothing I just tried to tell him that everything will be okay." She said distraughtly and moved closer to Nick. "We better bring him somewhere…"
"Ew I don't want to…" Helena wanted to say but Annabel's angry stare slammed her mouth shut. Helena knew that if Annabel was angry she better shut her mouth.

"Could you for once stop being a jerk and help? Just for once?" Annabel hissed and took Nick by his arm like a nurse a senior. "Are you okay…"
"I forgot that they were both…" Nick mumbled, his mind was circling in a downward tailspin.
"I bring him to his mom." Annabel decided and started leaving with Nick.

"Hey I am not carrying crates while…" Helena was pushed from behind by an annoyed looking Snaptrap. "Nobody wants to hear you talk. Move." The elder rat meant and went past her carrying a create.

Nick's panic tightened his chest like a corset. All the things he wanted to say got stuck with the tears he wanted to cry below his throat. The only thing he could right now was breathing and make these clumsy steps while Annabel guided him. She also possessed the kindness to chase the silence away during their walk.

"Look Nick I…" She started as they navigated the labyrinth-like hallways of the bunker base. "I recently realized that… that I wasn't always really fair to you…" She sighed and they turned right. "Look I realized that Terry, the gang… and I we were simply bullying you."

Nick would have usually retorted with a remark that wasn't substantially wrong but unbeneficial for a fruitful discussion. Annabel knew that and this was maybe the reason she had chosen that point to bring that up. The conversations Annabel and he had were always shaped by her honest tries to make a step towards him and his blocking of that.

She often had called him a jerk for doing so and then the others had continued their name-calling. But this time he was too weak for his usual modus operandi, and she showed an opportunistic side by using this chance. "I read some books… it's nice having more free time for that. Anyway, I did some reading and that made me reflect. We were… I was mean to you. I am sorry. I also know that isn't the best moment but I hope…"

"Ann…" Nick gasped and tried pressing some words out. The slight feeling of control at least over this small part of his body made him gain hope that the panic would have an end eventually. "I wasn't nice to you either…"

Annabel stopped as they reached an iron door. "I know but… you know, a victim doesn't have to be likable to be a victim." She said sternly. "I would like to have a fresh start… because you seem like an okay guy."

"Really?" Nick felt a rush of blood to his cheeks and a little bit more of self-control coming with that. "Thank you." he croaked.
Annabel knocked at the door and Keswick opened the door for her. "Can you please help him? I think he's having a panic attack."

"Wh… Oh! Th..Th..Thank you Annabel…" Keswick tried to give Nick a helping hand but the girl immediately saw that it was in vain. It was like supporting a shaky table with a flat sheet of paper. The two of them together carried Nick to the next chair.

"Don't give up hope Nick." Annabel whispered to him before she left the room quickly. It were, most probably, the dozens of eyes that looked at them that made her retreat a rapid one.
"What do we have here." One of the new humans approached him and for the first time in a subjective eternity Nick felt the familiar grip of a physician examining him. "Ah, the dogs spawn?" he asked grumpily and then typed something onto the glove he wore.

"Ryan, objectiveness." Powers said.
"Yeah yeah" The grump meant an continued his examination. "I'll give him a sedative, that should calm him."

"Careful with the dosage." Isaac interjected but Ryan just huffed.
"I am not explaining to you how to build weapons of mass destruction so be so kind and keep your nose out of my field." A bit rough but with the precision of a professional Ryan pushed his fingers onto Nick's neck. He felt just a little bit of pain then a rush of euphoria that catapulted him into a state of somberness and contentment.

"What have you…" Kitty said but Ryan waved off her concerns.
"He sleeps, don't worry." Ryan said and sat down. But Nick didn't sleep. He might not be able to move or talk but he was awake and could still listen.
"This is all to much…" Kitty moaned and said back down into her chair.

"Excuse me ,Miss Katswell but…" Powers stepped to Kitty and handed her a handkerchief. "Your nose is bleeding."
"Wh..." Kitty touched her face and immediately grabbed the cloth as she saw the blood on her hand. "Thank you."
"No need." Powers meant and said. "First of all…"

Nick had problems concentrating at that point. Powers was telling something about a plan to leave the surface. He spoke about a cargo ship they needed to steal from a lizard shipyard. Nick didn't remember the details but he remembered Isaac and the other new human, her name Meliha or something, telling that this was basically the only option they had.

Also, they said something about slavery and survivors somewhere else. The longer Nick listened the more he realized that he was indeed pretty tired. Just for a moment, the world was black before it became brighter again. It was a lot quieter. Nick interpreted the absence of voices that most of the others had left the room. He could still hear his mother's voice, she was talking to someone.

"Everyday you think: No it can't be worse…" she moaned.
"Are you alright?" The other voice was certainly captain Powers. One of them must have asked for a private conversation Nick reckoned.

"These damn headaches…" she groaned and tried massaging her head to ease the pain. "They're really tying everything together."
"I tell Ryan to take a look at you."
"An aspirin would be enough." She sighed angsty. "So tell me… how bad is their situation really."

"Dire… their life basically is tied to the time they can withstand the torture." Powers leaned back against the table. His tone was very prosaic given the topic. "I am mostly concerned about Rob, to be honest, I have no idea how resistant he is. Kate won't speak, she is trained to withstand. René is a weak spot, but he should be able to keep it together for a while."

"What about Dudley?" Kitty asked and in opposition to Powers, her voice was filled with all the worry and fear he was lacking.
"Dudley, let's see…" Powers sounded like he tried to remember something. "He has a normal pain resistance I think… I guess he can keep it together maybe a week or two."

"This is horrible…" It was apparent that also Kitty tried to keep it together.
"Miss Katswell…"
"Kitty…" She said and the Captain replied with a quick. "Sly." Before he continued.

"I refuse to give up on them before I have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they're not with us anymore." Powers looked down onto Nick's mother whose dams were slowly but steadily breaking. Silent tears began to drop to the ground. "Twice… I lost him twice."

"It might seem dark." Powers knelt down and looked Kitty in the eyes. "But I've never seen a night with no dawn."
"Do you have something more tangible?" Kitty sobbed as she let her tears run more and more freely.

"I might, I remember a story of a dog that was still a cadet and, on a ship, so badly damaged that the escape pods were boarded. Unfortunately, that particular dog was too late, so he missed the last chance to escape." A little sob surrounded chuckle came over Kitty's lips hearing that.
"Yeah that sounds like him."

Powers smiled softly and then continued. "Confronted with a soon to be crumbling ship and falling oxygen levels he concocted a plan. He grabbed one of the cargo boxes, got in, and ejected it into space." Powers started laughing as he remembered. "We found him two days later as we were searching the wreck. Don't get me started on the stench."

Kitty grimaced but still joined Powers' laughter. "Oh I can imagine that, back then in his days as an agent he once locked himself in a metal container in Keswick's lab for a weekend."
Powers started laughing even more and she joined in. "That old goof…"
"Yes…" Kitty wiped some tears from her cheek. Nick was happy seeing her smile, the times she did were few and far between.

"You see Dudley is quite imaginative in dangerous situations." The captain straightened up again and helped Kitty out of her chair. "We have to be strong now and have trust that the four of them will use some of that imagination to get out of this."

Again things started to get a little blurry and dark for Nick, the next thing he remembered was a dream about a lizard pushing a button and then fire. All engulfing auburn fire that ate everything to stay alive. Nick woke up again this time with a start, he sat up and felt rather comfortable in his own skin. The feeling in his chest was gone, and so was the panic although he still felt a fear appropriate for the situation.

"Oh you're up." His mother said softly. She was sitting on a chair next to him and it seemed she was sleeping there. Nick had no doubt that she had cried otherwise her eyes wouldn't have looked so swollen.

"Mom how long was I sleeping…" Nick yawned and stretched. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so good after sleeping. What kind of stuff did this doctor put into him?
"Half a day…" he said and looked at his hands. "What did this dude put into me?"

"Are you feeling sick?" Kitty immediately switched from a tired state into mother alarm mode.

"No, I feel… I feel great, I haven't felt so good since…" Nick tried to remember the last time he felt so energized and ready to grab the bull by its horns. "Since sixth grade."
"Sixth grade?" Kitty asked now even more alarmed with concern. "Have you felt bad for so long?"
"Not bad mom just…" he gesticulated with his hands trying to relativize his statement. "I mean we had good days too. But mostly it was just me like…"

Nick could see in his mother's gaze that he had just unloaded a little too much onto his mother. What was going on with him? He usually wasn't the guy to externalize his feelings. On the contrary, he had mastered internalization. Since the first time he visited his mom in the hospital after one of her 'work accidents'. A euphemism she had used every time some villain had tried to shorten her lifespan to lengthen their time out of one of Petropolis' excellent correctional facilities. He never told someone how he felt about that, not even the many psychologists his mom had sent him to. But right now, he needed to get it out for some reason.

"You know the days alone at home the hospital trips as your guests the permanent fear that you wouldn't come home." He enumerated. "I always felt good when you were at home or during our vacation trips."
"Nick, you never told me that this…" Kitty put a hand on her forehead and winced.

"I knew how you loved your job, mom. And Keswick and the chief and the others were always good to us…"
"But Nick if you had said something, I would have asked the chief if he could give me a job without field duty." Kitty pleaded helplessly.

"We both know this is a lie mom." He said and jumped from the chair. "You would have been miserable… and I also couldn't live with that either."
"That's not true!" she stood up and was eye-to-eye with him. "We could have found a solution for that too if you just had talked…"

"Mom I couldn't! I would have done so if I could." Nick now shared the feeling of helplessness his mother already put on. How should he communicate his inner self so she could comprehend? Nick finally decided that this wasn't the time for that. Also, Kitty wasn't really sure how she should proceed and their mutual insecurity resulted in a break of silence.

"Is there something new about Rob and Da…" He swallowed down the anger he felt every time he made this mistake. "Fuck it about, news about Rob and Dad?"
"Nothing new so… hold up." Kitty needed a moment before the lightning struck her. "Did you just call him dad?"

"He is, no matter what, and I don't want to pretend like I have none no matter if I like him or not." He stated. "Now what are we going to do?"
"Nick we…" Kitty took a deep breath and then said. "Nothing… there's nothing we can do."
"Bullshit mom!" Nick crossed his arms angrily in front of his chest. "There is a way."

"Nick please I was at that point already…" she shook her head and then a tired chuckle was audible. "I mean what do you want to do, go and board the ship like an old-timey pirate?"
"You know what mom, if you don't have the guts to do so, I will." He said and wanted to leave but his mother grabbed him by the shoulder.

"You come here all high and mighty and tell me that I lack the courage?" She looked into his eyes and there was suddenly something that scared the newfound well-being out of him. Kitty's eyes had something murderous in them and hands on his shoulder slowly began to extract claws. "You come and tell me that I am the coward." Her voice sounded like a stream of hatred. "You maybe saw one or two raids, but you have no idea how often I stood in front of their killing squads. I know what it means if circumstances are desperate and yet you have the audacity…" Kitty's gaze became just a bit more hateful before it turned numb like lava that met the ocean.

Nick immediately took the chance and stepped away from her. Something was completely off with his mother and he also knew that it was best to get as far away as possible from her right now. He rushed to the door and closed it tightly.

Kitty shook her head confusedly as the door closed. What just happened? She looked around. Wasn't Nick here a minute ago? What was going on here? Was there a gap somewhere in the chain of events or something? The last time she had a blackout like this was when she and Dudley went to the Spanish bar and met her old friend Carmelita.

Too much tequila later she and Dudley woke up in separate dumpsters two blocks away from each other. Her friend on the other hand was found in a taco joint, she had eaten fish tacos the whole night and passed out during dawn.

The door sang the sound of oil-needy hinges, and the elder human doctor came inside. He didn't deign to look at Kitty as he aimed for a little briefcase that lay on the table.
"Hey you… doctor!" The cat straightened up trying not to show that her headache was still torturing her. "What did you give to my son?"

"Hmm? The boy?" Ryan took a quick look at her and then grabbed the briefcase. "Just some sedative with also some stabilizers… he looked like he needed them."
"Stabilizers? What did they stabilize?"
"A hormones… serotonin, noradrenaline stuff like that… He seemed in need of a boost."

"Hold on…" Kitty said as Ryan was almost at the door again. "Did you basically give him some anti-depressants?!"
"You could say it like that but that wouldn't be right. These are doing a few orders of magnitude more than anything your pharmacology could." And with these words, he closed the door.

Kitty didn't know if she should cry or scream in anger. The sheer way Nick described his state was proof that there was something afoot before. When did it happen again that they had this talk? Was it a while ago or a few minutes? She couldn't really remember.

-Author's note: Hello there, hope you all had fun with this chapter. We will soon see what happened to Dudley and of course what Nick is doing. Hope you all have a lovely day and don't forget to tell me what you think. See you soon and of course, stay tuned-