Walking through the bottom floor of the factory's residential district, Skitch found himself overwrought with anxiousness. The various small shops and markets proved to not tempt his eyes away from the path ahead. His normal apathetic frown had been replaced with a more wide eyed expression. Finally, a few shop places away from the centre of the district, Skitch turned to enter the premises.

inside the premises was a bright and bustling bar, with most tables brimmed with factory employees. Skitch scanned the room and caught eyes with Roland, who sat with his team on a table near the middle of the room, Dafydd and Minden sat either side of him. He waved Skitch over in a very exaggerated movement, Skitch slowly snaked his way throught the employees and over to the table. Sitting in the open space Roland's team had left for him.

'Hey Skitch, good to finally have you here' Roland said, in a tone that bordered on being just a little too pleasant. Roland reached under his seat and pulled out an item with both hands. 'You better be getting changed into the uniform now. Thankfully, Minden has already filled me in on your sizings' Roland dropped what he was holding onto the table. It was a set of his team's uniform. Picking the clothing up, Skitch darted his eyes between the clothes and Roland. Skitch noticed a black sleeveless jacket, a set of black workman's trousers, and nothing else.

'I need my undershirt, will that be okay?' he quietly asked. Roland leant up in his seat. A little confused.

'Well, it would ruin the look. Are you sure you need it?' Roland responded, weasled in his intonation. Skitch gave a slow nod with a deadeyed scowl. Roland paused for thought before returning with a dismissive 'Just use the undershirt you're wearing'. Skitch rose from the table silently, grabbed the clothes, and walked towards the toilets. Roland watched him as he left, with a confused look.

'He gets insecure about himself, still' Minden politely warned. Facing Roland as he still gazed at the doors.

'He surely can't be that much worse than what we see already' Minden shot Roland an aggressive expression at his sentiment. Roland turned to finally look at Minden to see his anger. 'Not that he's hard on the eyes, it's just his injuries are so severe in his face alone. Like, what could he be hiding under his shirt?'

'What actually happened to him?' Dafydd asked, before Minden gave the chance to respond. Minden gave Dafydd a wide eyed expression to cut in and interrupt.

'You'll find out in time. But long story short, he looks like that so that I only look like this' Minden hovered his hand over his face, highlighting his long diagonal scars. '...He nearly died for me, and the rest of the team, for that matter' He fell silent. Looking down at the table, holding his glass. Roland, after waiting a couple of seconds, raised his own glass to the air.

'To the Leopards!' He cheered. Minden looked up at Roland, then to his glass, raising and tapping his own against it. He repeated Roland's cheer meekly and smiled.

Skitch reappeared from the toilets, wearing the team uniform and a plain white T-shirt underneath, untucked from his trousers. Walking over to Roland and his team once again, he noticed Roland and Minden hold their glasses together, and watched as Dafydd blinding put his own glass into the centre aswell.

'What are you toasting? You happy I went for a minute?' Skitch playfully called out, closing the gap to the rest of the team.

'Just for the Leopards, Skitch' Roland replied. Skitch finally reached his own seat and sat down. 'We lost two of the best. But, at least the other two are now here, together, in my own team of all places. I'm sure you haven't lost a thing' Skitch snickered a little at the sentiment before holding his hand to touch everyone else's glasses.

Everyone broke from their cheers and kept their drinks to themselves. The team falling awkwardly silent. Skitch drummed his fingers against the table before breaking the quiet. 'Okay. So now we're all in this together, I hope I can get an answer out of this' Skitch looked at Dafydd and immediately asked him 'Just what is your story?'

Dafydd sat up with his ears perked straight in the air. His surprise keeping him wordless. Roland moved his own gaze to Dafydd and quietly advised him 'Don't say anything if you're not comfortable'

Dafydd gave a nod to Roland before taking in a deep breath and giving his own reply. 'If I'm going to tell you, I need you to tell me where your scars came from'

Skitch paused and looked at Minden with a look akin to a deer caught in a car's headlights. Minden closed his eyes and gave a slow nod, Skitch slowly met Dafydd's gaze again and checked if he really wanted to know. 'You sure you want to know? it's not exactly a pleasant thing to talk about' Dafydd nodded as he leant forward on his seat, hands between his knees, with wide and eager eyes.

'Okay' Skitch started, sighing as he spoke. 'Don't say I didn't warn you...'

Skitch started by introducing the Leopard team at that time, composed of himself; Minden; their leader Skarab, a slim built short haired sweeper resembling a Sphinx cat; and Whisk, a tabby, grey furred sweeper. The four warped from the time factory and into a world full of underground tunnels resembling pre-industrial mines. Minden landed first, Skitch second, Skarab third, and Whisk last. Skitch noticed how the ground seemed to vibrate when he stood and waited for the team to land in the mines. As soon as Whisk landed, and the portal gate dissipated, the newly met silence was broken by the ground around the Leopard team breaking and giving way to Molesaurs. The first of which flanking the team to one side, slashing Minden's face with its jaw as it rose and causing him to fall back distracted for a second. A second broke through on the Leopard's other flank, leaving the four trapped between the large, dangerous monsters. Lastly, the team felt one last rumble beneath their feet, and before they could act, a third Molsesaur crashed through the floor and swallowed Whisk as it rose to the ceiling and burrowed into it. Skitch froze in fear as he saw his team mate devoured in a split second before his eyes. Skarab and Minden noticed how the first Molesaur had sunk into the ground, and the second had lowered to about half of the height of the mine, pointing its triple jawed maw towards the team. Minden activated a Slow control and called Skitch and Skarab to follow. Minden and Skitch hopped the hole from the first Molesaur with ease, however Skarab approached the hole as the control expired. Undeterred, Skarab jumped to cover the gap.

Skarab's jump was interrupted as the Molesaur pointing its mouth towards the team lunged for the hole. The large monster clasped Skarab's legs as it descended into the hole head first. Skitch recalled Skarab's blood curdling screech as his legs suffered their impromptu injuries. The left leg severed from the knee down, and the right leg from near its base at his groin. Skitch turned to face Skarab as he slowly slipped into the hole, only for Skitch to grab him by the cuffs and start dragging him back up. Skitch felt rumbling once again, and could only see glints of reflections as one of the Molesaurs started to rise again. Skitch jammed his eyes shut and yelled out in fear.

The Molesaur snapped its jaws as it surfaced once again. Catching Skitch at his torso, its teeth puncturing through both him and his sweeper on his back. The punctured sweeper crackled and flashed, before flooding the mines with a split second flash of yellow light. The sweeper beeped as it spoke in a robotic voice, 'Slow Reactive Activated' Skitch felt the teeth pull out from his body as he keep tugging on Skarab, running on pure adrenaline and sheer instinct. the jaws opened to their apex and started to slam shut once again, its teeth pinching Skitch though his body, scraping his face, and breaking the cartilage in his ear, which had caught itself on the Molesaur's jaw as Skitch reflexively pulled his head away.

After the Molesaur's second chew, Skitch finally broke free, and the reactive expired, Skitch found himself falling to the floor with a delirious and unresponsive Skarab atop him. Minden dragged Skitch to his feet and helped hold Skarab up as they helplessly ran for an emergency gate infront of them.

Skitch lamented that his memory had faded at that point, with him coming round from unconsciousness in a bed in the medical wing. He started choking up as he told Roland and Dafydd how he missed the moment that Skarab succumbed to his injuries. Skitch pulled himself in tight, using his hands to hold his arms to his body.

Minden popped his own arm over Skitch's shoulders and pulled him in close. Roland and Dafydd sat with wide eyes and mouths agape. 'Daf, I think you owe it to them now' Roland remarked in shock. Dafydd closed his mouth and nodded quickly in agreement. Minden and Skitch turned their solemn faces to Dafydd as he gave his own story.

Dafydd told the team about his home world, a hilly, underindustrialised world where he and his people herded their equivalent of sheep as a way of life. Dafydd opened saying that he was patrolling the farmland he worked on, and noticed a strange creature in one of the distant fields. Investigating, Dafydd found the creature to be a large, bipedal frog, a Keropper, starting to hop towards him. He tried to run, but was caught by a small hole hidden by the tall grass. It reached close quarters, Dafydd remarked how all he could do was shudder in place, until the Keropper suddenly leapt into the air and landed on its back, fizzing and shrinking into nothing. Dafydd looked in front of him to see Roland, who gave a small wave before running away from him. Dafydd gave chase and saw Roland hop into a portal gate. He stood perplexed for a moment until he noticed it start to shrink and dissipate. Dafydd suddenly became overrun with an intruding thought, and lunged for the portal, making his way through as it closed.

Inside the factory, Dafydd quickly became overwhelmed with the large metal and concrete room with bright colours. He saw more employees of the Time Factory, and dove for cover to hide himself. He waited for the noise to die down, frantically thinking through a way out of the mess he dropped himself into. Confident he was alone, he turned away from the cover of the centre stair case, and directly into Roland's eyesight. Roland himself sat on the promenade, waiting for him. Dafydd could not understand what Roland was saying to him, and Roland quickly seemed to realise such, gesturing Dafydd to follow. He followed Roland out of the gate room and through the large travelator corridor. Dafydd noting how his balance whilst stood on it was not all that good.

The pair left the corridor and climbed into the offices, where Roland gestured Dafydd to stand still as he entered one of the rooms, leaving with a copy of paperwork, and waving Dafydd to follow.

Roland laughed and added to the story, 'It took him a while to learn the language, but having him signed up to the sweeper corps. seems to be doing him well, he's come a long way, hasn't he?' Minden coyly smiled and Skitch nodded with a blank expression as their responses to Roland's remark.

The table fell silent again for a second as everyone came to terms with each other's stories, until they, and everyone else in the bar heard a sweeper run in and shout out 'NecoJi's team has just fought a Squeppelin! They're in Medical right now!' The bar erupted into murmurs, with Skitch and Roland lurching upright and rising from table. Skitch quickly and firmly told Roland to stay put as he ran out of the bar and out of sight.

Making his way to the medical wing, Skitch found Blinx stood outside one of the rooms, and after a little back and forth, Skitch finally shared what happened at the bar. Blinx looked at Skitch with and a look of mild surprise. 'That's a real surprise with your new team's secret. I didn't see that coming'

'No, me neither. but I knew there was something different about him' Skitch pulled his eyes away from Blinx for a split second before asking him one last question. 'You given any more thought to how we're going to rescue Kevin?'