(Catnap's PoV)

That BoneNap's gaze drilled into our souls as it held us down. All I could think was that at least the puppy and I would be together if this was the end. How would we get away from the creature now?

"Hey you! Don't think you've won so easily!" DogDay challenged the creature. "Because we will never surrender to you!" A bright light flashed from the orange dog. Our adversary shrieked in surprise and backed away.

"How did you do that?" I asked as we both got up.

"All I have to do is fill my heart with hope and my pendant glows." He explained. The BoneNap gurgled at us and began to approach again.

"Fascinating! I think I'll give it a try." We both focused on positive thoughts and our pendants shined brightly, DogDay's sun and my crescent moon. The flash seemed to blind the BoneNap temporarily. Despite this hindrance, it still lashed out at us with its claws.

"Evasive action!" I tried to warn. We both attempted to run away but couldn't get out of range of the wildly swiping bone claws. Both of our screams resonated as those claws raked against us. The creature's ferocious swats sent us spiraling in opposite directions. I could feel trails of wet drip down my torso as I collapsed to the ground. Wincing in pain, I forced myself to look over toward DogDay. He was suffering from a similar wound. His body shook as it lay on the ground. I could hear small whimpers coming from him. The fact that the dog was making noise caught the BoneNap's attention. It turned and headed for him.

"No!" I called and struggled just to lift my upper body off the ground. "DogDay!" I tried to warn him. But he was too hurt to get up and out of the way. The boney cat leaned down and scooped him up in its big mouth. The bone jaws closed around his shoulder blades and lifted him up. It shook him around as if he were a toy. DogDay began to struggle from within the grip, emitting grunts of effort as he tried to wriggle out of there. The BoneNap gurgled in annoyance and proceeded to stop its prey from writhing about. It lifted its paw and gave the puppy a swift swat to the stomach. DogDay immediately stopped struggling. In fact, he coughed up a little blood that splat to the ground.

During this time, I had managed to make it to my paws.

"Hey, over here! I'm the traitor. Come and get me!" I taunted the BoneNap. It gurgled at me, still holding my friend in its jaws. "You wouldn't want to disappoint the Prototype, would you?" The bone cat then dropped DogDay, who whimpered a bit as he plummeted to the ground again.

The creature charged me. We ended up getting into a genuine cat fight, lashing our claws wildly at each other. It made me cringe as my claws raked against the bone. I struggled to make a mark on it. The BoneNap, on the other hand, had no troubles marking me up. It kept nicking me with those elongated bone fingers. Each tap and scrape weakened me even more, drawing blood from me too. I looked to DogDay for a moment, who was struggling to get up. Why didn't he listen to me and run away? He could have been spared all this pain.

My glance was just enough of a distraction for the BoneNap to bring its claws down on my head. I screamed in agony and fell to the ground as the attack threatened to open the stitches up there. My head felt really wet. No doubt it did pull a couple out. Blood started to seep down into my eyes as I lie there paralyzed with pain.

My red-tinted vision still looked to DogDay. The puppy forced his legs to work and rushed the BoneNap. The creature could tell that he was going to try and bite down on its neck again. It began to swing its tail up. I wanted to warn the orange dog, but a cough choked me up. DogDay realized it was going to attack with its tail and tried to move away. The puppy landed and began to turn. That skinny and hard tail smacked him across the torso, right where that sensitive spot seemed to be. DogDay whimpered helplessly as his body got flung away and then crashed to the factory floor.

"Dog…Day!" I struggled to say as I lifted my fiercely stinging head.

A green button on the wall to my right began to glow. Sparks of electricity flew off it. Despite my distorted vision, I nodded to the human to use it. He launched the green GrabPack hand to absorb its charge. The fake hand had almost made it to the outlet when our plan crumbled to dust. The Prototype reached down from his safe place in the hatch and snipped the GrabPack's cord with his sharp fingers.

"No!" Cried the human. I had had enough of this thing! Immediately, I pushed myself to stand up. My body shook every inch of it, but if I had a chance to do something, it was now!

Once I got up, I jumped onto the BoneNap and used it as a launch pad to try and reach the hybrid. In the time it took me to do this, the Prototype had touched the outlet to put the charge in his metallic hand. He then caught me by the throat as I came close. The sly devil then used the electric charge on me. I screamed in agony as my body writhed in his grip. A small cloud of red smoke got choked out of me. The red smoke mingled with the electricity and caused a fire to sprout – right on me! The Prototype dropped me when he realized he would get burned if he kept hanging on.

The fire began to spread on my body. It was so hot and painful – unbearable. I could barely hear my friends when they called out to me. It sounded like the human said to roll around. So I flopped on the floor, still yowling in pain as the flames seared and ate away at me. This action seemed to douse the flames…but not before they had severely damaged my body. Once the fire had disappeared, I lay on the ground panting.

There was no way we could beat these BoneNaps and the Prototype right now. We needed to retreat. No….my friends needed to retreat. Perhaps I could strike a deal with the Prototype that would spare my friends? They were all exhausted and hurt. My poor vision could make out that a BoneNap had Huggy and the human pinned down under its paws. The other I could sense was pacing right near me. It was leaving DogDay alone. I guess it didn't see him as a threat anymore. My gaze shifted to the other side of the room. Poor DogDay was still having trouble getting his body to work the way he wanted it to. He barely had his upper body off the ground. His legs and tail looked like they had gone limp. I had to try and stop this violence and pain.

"Okay, you win." I panted to the Prototype. His arm still dangled down near me. I attempted to drag my body up. It took almost a minute, but I was able to make it to a sitting position. My body screamed at me with every little movement. "If I give myself over to you, will you promise to let my friends go unharmed?"

"Catnap, what are you talking about?" The human called over.

"Don't make a deal with him, Catnap!" Huggy added. The BoneNap they had been fighting leaned down and wrapped its mouth around his head. "Augh!" Huggy grunted in pain. The creature was trying to keep him from interfering with my deal.

"This is your proposed deal, Catnap?" The Prototype urged.

"Yes, I surrender myself to you as long as you leave these other three alone." I lifted my forepaws up in the air as a sign of surrender and closed my eyes. This left the whole front of my body exposed to the unpredictable hybrid.

"Take it back, Catnap! The Prototype can't be trusted! He won't keep his word!" The human argued. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on that receptor in my head. That way the Prototype would know that I was being serious.

"Your sentiment is heartfelt….but you should have listened to the human! Your services are no longer required." He hissed. I could sense his hand was coming toward me. Any moment now, I would feel those metallic fingers rip into me and end my life. There was an awful crunch sound as my body got tossed to the side. Was I in so much pain already that I didn't feel his strike? I opened my eyes to find a horrible sight. I wasn't the one that had gotten hit. My heart skipped a beat as I witnessed DogDay dangling from the Prototype's hand that held him aloft. That monster had shoved its fingers through DogDay's mouth and out the back of his head.

"DogDay!" We all cried out in horror. The puppy's body struggled to get free. The Prototype seemed to adjust his grip, making DogDay stop moving. The poor orange dog didn't even scream in pain anymore. I tried to rush over there and help him, but that BoneNap pinned me down and forced me to watch. I felt utterly useless.

"Get off me!" I hiss at it. But it did nothing to deter the bony imposter. "Let him go! Please!" I pleaded with the Prototype.

"Oh, but if I let him go, he will bleed out." The hybrid chuckled and taunted. "You brought me the last Smiling Critter just as you promised."

"Take me instead!" I insisted. Tears started to well up in my eyes.

"How noble. But it is too late for that." He answered.

DogDay's little pupil slid over to look at me. Water came out of his eyes too. His gaze seemed to say: "It's okay, Catnap. I don't regret this. At least I was able to do right by one of you." We kept staring at one another for a few seconds. Our hearts connecting for one final time.

The Prototype made another whistling sound. Was it calling something else now? The pitter-patter of little steps filled the hallway. From the darkness emerged the Smiling Critter plushies.

"No, please! Anything but them! I'll do anything you want! Just please call them off!" I frantically begged the Prototype. For I knew they were a savage bunch that started eating their prey before they were even dead. I struggled under the BoneNap's claws, but couldn't budge them. DogDay's little pupils shifted to the other side to see whom I was talking about. His eyes widened in horror at the hungry little mouths coming toward him. A flood of water came out of his eyes.

"And why would I deny them their dinner?" The Prototype sneered.

The little monsters jumped and grabbed onto the dog's paws that dangled about a foot off the ground. They began to climb him like a tree. A trio of them stopped at waist level, having sensed that tender spot. They savagely bit into him and gnawed his stitches off. DogDay let out muffled screams. His paws flailed around, hoping to find some sort of relief. But there wasn't any hope for relief while he was living.

Not long after that, his legs and tail fell off his body. A big puddle of blood gushed out. The poor puppy's screams got louder. DogDay eventually closed his eyes and prayed for it to be over soon.

I couldn't imagine how much pain he was in now. Huggy, the human, and I all struggled against the BoneNaps and were freaking out about what was going on. We yelled at the Prototype to stop this torment. I can only imagine we were feeding his joy at this moment. And then something even worse happened to DogDay.

The plushies proceeded to crawl inside him from the gaping hole they made in his torso. Chomping noises came from inside the poor dog's body. For they were eating his insides. We watched as the light faded from DogDay's eyes. His body went limp as the chomping continued. When the plushies were done, all that was left of my friend was his fur pelt. The stuffed animals dropped out and scurried back to where they came from, taking the legs along with them. The Prototype gave a shake of the fingers, letting the orange pelt drop to the ground.

"Come along, my kittens. We're done here. Let the traitors mourn over their loss." The Prototype sneered. With that, the bony cats let us up and left quietly. They slunk out of there, leaving no trace of sustaining any injuries from the fight. Only our blood stained the room. We were outmatched….and the Prototype knew it from the beginning.

Once the Prototype and his BoneNaps were gone, I slowly raised myself up. My body stayed low to the ground and slunk over to what was left of my poor puppy friend. I gently picked up the pelt in my paws. I pressed it into my face as I began to cry some more. This time it was loud sobs. How could I have let this happen? This is all my fault. If only I had never fallen under the Prototype's control, none of this would've ever happened. I would still have all my friends with me. My heart felt heavy….and, to be honest, so did the rest of my body. It seemed like all the physical pain had transferred to a mental pain that resided in my heart. I drank in the scent of DogDay's pelt. It brought back all our happiest memories. Some being with the orphan children. And some just being as a family with the rest of the Smiling Critters.

"It's all my fault." I muttered, pressing my face into the fur.

"No, Catnap, this isn't your fault." The human told me. His voice sounded sad too. A quick glance told me that he was crying too. And so was Huggy.

"There wasn't anything any one of us could've done. We all tried our best. It's all the Prototype's fault. He destroys everything." Huggy added. "I wish there was something more we could do….but DogDay's gone now. Come back with us, Catnap. Us friends….we need to stick together."

"Friends?" I looked over to them. Huggy was offering a hand to me. "Even without DogDay around, you still consider me your friend?"

"Of course we do." The man replied. "Let's get out of here and back to where it's safe." He held out a hand toward me, too. I looked from the hand to his face.

"You're right. We shouldn't stay here. The Prototype could come back for us at any time." My ears folded back in sorrow. I gently placed the pelt down on the ground. My paw reached in and grabbed the sun pendant. We all shook as we got up to make our exit. Huggy and the human helped me up. My body stayed slouched low, ears turned down, and tail dragging on the ground. I stared at the ground the entire trip, none of us saying a word.