The inside of the cave was… dismal, to say the least of it. It was cold, especially on the dog's unaccustomed paws, and felt like the humidity had jumped up by a couple dozen percent, almost to a swampy level. If Courage and Computer had any word to describe it, it would have probably been 'grody', the pair mentally questioning how and why someone would willingly live in a damp cavern like this.

They'd soon get their answer, though, as as they walked, the humidity began to sharply drop again, leaving only cool, dry air around them. Even the earth below seemed to be getting… warmer? Which was certainly a strange sensation and seemed to go against what Courage knew of caves, considering they usually got colder the deeper into them you got. It was either Nowhere up to its old tricks again, or perhaps somehow Abel's family had worked out a way to get central heating and a dehumidifier into the depths of a cave. It wouldn't have been the first time that Courage would have seen electricals and such in a cave before, considering Cajun Fox (some part of him wondered if Abel was related), but this deep into one? Cajun's cave-home was pretty much right at the mouth of a single, open cavern.

It did give the pink pooch and his AI tag-along a good idea of why this bear was so adamant to drive the family out, though. It was practically free housing, and clearly 'Hurricane' wasn't the kind to think that anything that wasn't his deserved to belong to anyone but him. It didn't matter the whys of it, though; it was just an inherently gross situation, especially since he was trying to drive them out by force, and especially considering what he'd done to Abel. There was no way someone that was that willing to gouge out such a large chunk of someone else's anything was just 'misunderstood', at least in Courage's mind. This bear was bad news.

And that thought was almost-instantaneously solidified as fact in Courage's mind when they arrived at the actual living space of Abel's family; true to the bear's namesake, it looked like a hurricane had torn through the area. The table was torn to pieces, and huge gouges lined pretty much everything that hadn't been instantly demolished by the bear's talons. Courage almost couldn't believe a single bear could have been responsible for such devastation, treading over damaged chunks of wood and broken pottery with a ginger step, trying his best not to accidentally gash his paw open on any of the larger and sharper chunks of material.

He was thankful there was no overpowering smell of blood nor signs of any foxes no longer in the world of the living, but it was a small comfort considering what it seemed this particular bear was capable of and what he had done to this place over what was essentially a child trying to protect his family home. His nose sniffed softly at the wreckage, even if he was sure Abel's sense of smell was probably just as acute as his own, his ears pinning back as he took in the assorted aromas that clung around the cavern. Fox was one he recognized very well, not only because of Cajun Fox, but also since he was meant to have been a hunting dog, and the Farmer had (unsuccessfully) attempted to raise him as such for the longest time. He assumed that failure was probably part of why the Farmer seemed to resent him so much…

Regardless of that bad blood, his nose continued taking in the scents all around them; odors almost invisible to the likes of human nasal passages as strong and easy to detect as a sulfurous, rotted egg to the two-toned canine. He continued to trail the scent, ears listening as Abel moved about behind him, making his own way to other recesses of the cave Courage was only aware of thanks to the olfactory trails that leached from the stone. Fox, fox, more fox… and then, a scent he wasn't quite sure about. It was bear-like, certainly, but… not normal. It was off in the most subtle of ways, but those subtleties were not remotely lost on the beagle.

This was certainly the scent of the bear that everyone he'd met this way seemed to fear, but why was it so concentrated on a single spot, rather than spread everywhere like he'd have expected from the sheer level of carnage, and why did it smell so inherently wrong for a bear's odor? This was certainly not what he'd consider an average bear, or even a bear in the range of 'REMOTELY NATURAL', judging by the distorted scent. It wasn't a ghost bear, thank the heavens, but it barely even seemed like a bear, period. That was… concerning, to say the absolute least of it. They were in the midst of the unknown if this was any indication; they'd been expecting a pretty sizable bear, which was a terrifying enough thought already, not the hardly-counts-as-a-bear monstrosity they were likely to be facing down against.

This was getting more and more dire by the minute, but the dog still had to help, and still certainly had a few tricks up his metaphorical sleeves to at least try and deal with this monstrous ursine nightmare he'd been dragged into dealing with. Stepping over broken pots and razor sharp wood splinters again, his paws met the handles of some nearby drawers and began to pull them open, looking specifically for anything they could use to at least try and take the monster-bear down with if things got extra ugly. The sheer devastation around the cave gave a dire reading of their actual luck in injuring Hurricane by any meaningful metric, but if it was enough to repel him into some kind of larger trap, that would work well enough.

At least, that was the theory, but the whole situation was a colossal question mark right about now and was shifting and changing by the minute, especially since Abel's parents were very obviously missing right about now, and who knew whether that was because they'd ran or that the bear had taken them? Courage and Abel both hoped it was the former, that was obvious even if the two were on opposite sides of the cave right now, but Computer, ever the logical one he was, had already assumed that it was the latter, even if he didn't say so either out loud or to Courage.

Regardless of anyone's thoughts on the matter, though, the two-toned dog had soon found what he'd been looking for; cutlery, and lots of it. Knives, forks, even spoons could work with his current somewhat-of-an-idea, his paws pulling the drawer free entirely from its place in its wooden housing, being even more careful as he stepped over the damaged, jagged materials on the cave floor again and placing the drawer on the ground closer to the entrance. He turned his attention back to the ruined room once he did, letting out thoughtful hums as he made his way over to what electricals seemed undamaged enough to be of any use, pulling the plugged ones away from the wall and also gathering them into a pile beside the cutlery he'd gathered.

Whether Abel's family would be happy about them weaponizing the silverware was something they could deal with later; when the fox and dog duo were certain said fox's family was okay.

'What on Earth are you doing?'

It was the first words Computer had 'spoken' for a good few minutes now, startling Courage from the suddenness of it and making him almost drop the sizable microwave he was holding, though he managed to readjust his grip on it before he accidentally crushed his paw or smashed the machine on the ground, gently lowering it next to the pile of other assorted items he'd gathered before he spoke.

"Making a weapon that's better than a darn stick." A weapon? Consider the machine's curiosity piqued at that one, a thoughtful hum escaping the dog proper at the expression of interest. He could see how cutlery could potentially work as a weapon, but potential did not mean they already were a weapon, not against a bear at the least. 'And how do you plan to do that?' came the response to Courage's answer, the tone halfway between curiosity and mockery of whatever insane plan that the canine had cooked up.

"Well, I was planning on using some wheels attached to a motor to make a sorta 'cutlery cannon'. Then I realized we don't have any motorized wheels 'round here, but I could probably work something out with other wheels from beds 'n' stuff if they've got wheeled beds…"

Computer seemed surprised Courage had come up with such a violent-sounding solution to their lack of a bear-repelling tool, but at the same time this was the same dog who had jury-rigged an explosive out of the TV and a toy train back home (a feat of engineering that Computer, to this day, still questioned and was slightly concerned about, even if he would never openly admit it), so his only response was a short 'ah, I see.'

Before Courage could get back to constructing his improvised weapon, though, the duo soon heard a soft 'Mr. Pewter!' from another part of the cave, catching their attention. They made their way over to the voice, and soon found Abel stood over a bed with red staining over it. Red staining with a familiar, iron odor that put dread into the two canines. The dread was short-lived, though,

as Courage's nose twitched at the familiar bear-like scent that laid beneath the iron odor, following his nose to pull back the sheet and find a broken tooth, still red from where it had met its mark, and far too small to belong to a regular bear, much less this monstrous not-bear that had decided to become public enemy number one.

Another sniff confirmed it; the scent saturated this tooth too. The bear had been bitten, and that's what this blood was from. And if it was only the bear's blood here, that meant that Abel's family had gotten the hell out of dodge before anything happened. Courage wasn't stupid enough to think the nightmare was over that easily, though. Bears had far better senses of smell than even he or Abel did, and that wasn't even getting into whatever sort of genetic abomination this 'bear' seemed to be. The pair (or trio, still unbeknownst to the fox) needed to find them, and fast.

"C'mon, we gotta go!"

Courage gestured to the fox, his ears tilting slightly as he began to make his way back to the cave entrance. He'd expected to have more time to try and put something together, but the situation had changed again and now it was very much a race against the clock that he didn't want to know the lose conditions of. He at least made sure to scramble over to his pile and pick up a couple of the sharper knives though, shoving them haphazardly into their little first aid box with little regard for neatness or tidiness. If one or two slid out when the box was open, he could deal with it.

Abel seemed rather confused by the flip of Pewter's, as he had been introduced to him, ideas, but considering how much older the canine was in comparison to him, decided to trust the two-toned dog's decision and change of plan, orange paws slowly following behind the much smaller pink and purple ones. He still kind of wanted to know what was up with the canine's unusual coloration, but that query was a question to be asked when they were sure his family was safe and Hurricane couldn't do anything to anyone again.

Of course he was ultra nervous about this, though. Who wouldn't be? He'd been a first-hand victim of this demon of a bear, his paw reaching up to his bandaged torso as though confirming the memory wasn't little more than some twisted, horrible nightmare. He wasn't even sure they could overcome such a creature; even other bears feared the Hurricane, and he and Pewter were just a pair of canines. Smarter than most of the animals around here, sure, but still much smaller and frailer than even the regular bears that were themselves terrified by the monster that lurked in these woods. It didn't help that 'Pewter' was so small he'd be turned into a fine pile of salami by a single swipe from the hellish bear. It was just a very worrying situation all around.

Regardless of the fox's reservations, though, he still followed in-step with the two-toned dog, the pair quietly exiting the cave and heading into what was now the unknown for them both, Computer having all but resigned to his fate of being dragged along on this unexpected whirlwind adventure, staying eerily silent in the back of Courage's mind whilst the two canines went off to deal with something that neither of them were equipped to deal with (and both knew that all too well.)

It was nothing but eerie silence the whole way except for the soft sniffing noises of Courage's nose, the breeze that whistled through the trees and shuffled the leaves above their heads thankfully headed upwind, meaning that the scent trail they were following was stronger for them than the bear, which evened out the advantage that the bear had that his sense of smell was multiple times stronger even than Courage's.

At least, that's what the pair was hoping, though it was hard to tell if even that advantage was actually, well, an advantage. The bear's nose might have been too sensitive even for that, though entertaining that idea put a deep pit in Courage's stomach, so he chose to ignore it as best he could, which was easier said than done considering that deep-set paranoia that gnawed deep into him at any given moment.

He focused his attention behind him and to Abel, the fox only giving an awkward, half-hearted smile that was about as full of nerves as Courage himself felt. There was something about Abel that the dog couldn't put his finger on, though. A weird sense of familiarity with the fox's appearance and scent both, yet he was also aware that he'd never actually met Abel until today either. It was hard to reconcile the sense of familiarity with the sense of not knowing the young fox, but at least that served as a distraction from their march toward almost guaranteed death that the pair had so brazenly chosen to take as their paths.

'Why is he so familiar?'

It repeated ad-nauseum in his mind even as he returned the awkward, half-hearted smile with his yellowed teeth and turned his attention back toward the scent they were tailing and the path ahead rather than the fox trailing behind. The question was going to chew at the edges of his mind until he finally got an answer for it, and he was half-tempted to just turn around and blurt out his query as to why the vulpine seemed so familiar, but decided against it in the end, even if only through sheer strength of will. He was sure it would be answered in due time anyway; maybe the dog had met his parents in the past? It wasn't like this was his first time in Nowhere's more tree-dense parts, though he didn't think he'd ever been this deep into the forest before either.

How deep they were into the forest was still rather blatantly only a secondary concern though, the very air around them seeming cloyingly thick and oppressive as the scent of the likely-horrifically-mutated bear grew stronger and more potent in the two canines' nostrils, and now there was also physical evidence of them growing closer to their goal; entire trees were toppled, and huge chasms from colossal claws bit into the very earth below their feet. It was as though the bear had gotten increasingly frustrated with something that it was rather obviously in pursuit of.

That was both a good and bad sign. Good because it meant that there was something smart or crazy enough to know how to avoid the bear enough to invoke its ire and make it leave a swathe of destruction in its wake, and bad because it meant that something, which was very likely to be Abel's parents, were still being hunted down by the monstrous bear. The sheer obliteration only made that concern, that gnawing pit in Courage's stomach, grow deeper. It was like a bulldozer had plowed through the area at mach speed, not a living creature moving at what was assumedly a relatively normal pace.

'Feeling a bit more concerned about the whole 'helping' thing, twit?'

Computer's tone was as smug and condescending as ever, but it didn't take a psychologist to catch the underlying dread that even the machine was feeling at the sight ahead of them; Courage had seen his fair share of destructive beings in the past, but the only thing even remotely comparable to this destruction was the literal elder god that Shirley had pulled up from the deepest abysses of the Earth's crust, if not a place deeper still than that. Was this bear going to be as indestructible as that monstrosity? The idea was certainly there and sat in an uncomfortably-forefront position of Courage's thoughts. He didn't want to entertain the thought any more than it was already present, but it was hard not to when you were staring at the destruction the bear had wrought.

'A… A little bit.' Came Courage's response and full admittance, though trying to downplay just how frightened he was for the sake of not panicking Abel too. Had he been alone his knees would have probably been rattling to the point of being uncontrollable and he would have just curled up and cried himself to sleep, but there was a part of him, his namesake in fact, that refused to let him buckle under this immense dread. This was all for Muriel, after all, right? At least that was what he was telling himself to power his way through, even with the impossible, delusional visual of the bear somehow ending up eating Muriel now plaguing his mind. 'I have a bad feeling about this…'

Computer had half been expecting a "...or my name is 'some silly name'" as a follow-up from the dog, but the fact that there was no such follow-up was entirely too disconcerting for his tastes and proof of just how frightened out of his wits Courage was, even if he was trying to keep a brave face on all the while. And it felt even worse considering the pair of them seemed to still be sharing emotions to some level and the absolute terror Courage felt behind his brave facade was even making Computer feel frightened (much to the AI's chagrin.)

"Mr Pewter…?"

Abel's voice was almost a whisper, though considering the potency of the scent in the air now, neither Computer nor Courage could deny that it was probably their best option to communicate now instead of regular speech, just in case the ursine monstrosity was lurking around a corner somewhere where the trees hadn't been snapped and felled like twigs in a, rather fittingly for the beast's name, gale force wind, ready to lunge out at them. It was highly unlikely, but the pair would rather err on the side of caution for that small percentage chance. Stranger things had happened, after all.

The dog turned back to Abel once again regardless, though kept his ears tilted toward the path that they were following, still listening for any potential movement, however subtle or disguised by the rustling of the leaves above that it was. He was thankful that there seemed to be nothing lurking around at the moment outside of what was, at least in Courage's mind, an acceptable level of sound.

"Mhm?"

It was a simple response, but simple was sometimes all that was needed, and in this case it was also the preferable option. The two-toned canine cocked his head askew, if only a small amount, awaiting whatever sort of statement or question that the fox apparently had for him. Being face-to-face brought back that agitation of familiarity gnawing in the back of his mind, though; it was distractingly consuming, especially with the peculiar pose that Abel found himself standing in, hips tilted to the side and both front paws resting on them.

He wrangled the urge to question the fox back down again, giving a nod in conjunction with the short sound he had made as though to approve of Abel's question before it had even left the young fox's snout, expression carrying both patience from Courage and expectation from Computer.

"So… uhm, if we do manage to take… the bear down…" Abel glanced around like the mere mention of Hurricane would have been enough to summon the monstrous bear on top of him. "What then…? 'Cause I'm certain you wasn't exactly… expecting this to happen…" He was certainly right with that statement, and the two minds within the dog still had two very differing opinions toward it, even with the knowledge of what had happened, at least as far as they knew from Abel's side of the story, though they had no reason to distrust him.

Regardless of opinions, though, they both had the same response come to mind for the question, and that made responding to it easy enough; "We're heading back onto the road. We have a long journey ahead of us!" How long was not something that they were going to tell the fox, or where they were even heading on the off-chance that he would want to tag along with them: their conceptualized reasons for why he would want to also vastly different from one-another. Courage believed that it would have been to keep the pair company, especially since he was obviously not aware that they even were a duo, thanks in part to Computer keeping his erudite, blunt vocabulary out of their mouth, and also in part to Courage having simply introduced them as a single individual.

Computer, on the other hand, was less on the 'it'd be to keep us company' side and more because he was being what he considered to be pragmatic and thought the fox would be too much extra weight, especially seeing as A) he was injured, and B) he would be a second mouth to feed. Courage and Computer knew what the other was thinking since they didn't bother to hide those thoughts from each other, and both felt there would certainly be words exchanged about it on the off-chance that Abel did indeed ask to accompany them. Both preferred that he didn't for surprisingly similar reasons despite the differences in the 'why he potentially would'.

They didn't want him to get hurt again.

Computer would do the usual and deny it, though; probably whilst bringing up some kind of insult about the frailty of flesh-creatures or somesuch, but Courage wasn't ever going to fall for that whole schtick ever again no matter how much the machine fell back on it as some kind of deflection tactic. He knew Computer too well for that.

The what-ifs didn't matter too much though, as Abel seemed to be sated by that simple answer and gave a soft smile and nod of his head, tail gently swaying behind him as he did so, before focusing back on the path ahead of them, causing 'Pewter' to turn around and start heading down through the ravaged trees once more, as well. It was fascinating, even beyond the sheer horror, how much damage this bear had been capable of within what had felt like only a little while between them arriving and all of this current situation; it almost felt like an entire logging crew had been through here and only added to the completely unnatural sense that the vaguely-a-bear (at least by odor) gave off.

There was something else, too, though… Something that was lurking in the back of the dog's mind about this place; a feeling of dread with no obvious point of origin, even beyond the general anxieties. He'd never been one to be scared of woodlands and forests (a surprise considering his sheer number of actual, genuine fears and phobias) but something just felt… off about this entire place, even beyond the killer doomsday-bear meandering around and trying to apparently eradicate a family of foxes. It was like the air was getting thicker, but in a different manner to those anxiety attacks Courage had been through earlier. This felt too real, too oppressive and dark.

Maybe it was just his anxieties about the bear manifesting in a different way to the anxieties of his thoughts whilst being alone, but he was deeply disquieted by it anyway. At least, that was until he turned to look at Abel, and saw the fox had the same expression of repressed dread and stress etched across his own features, like the air had somehow been filled with the very concept of fear itself.

And then suddenly it was gone, and the air was immediately clear again, the pair no longer feeling like their lungs were being squeezed in their chests. Maybe they really were just going crazy, but something felt… off about that short-lived bout of severe stress. It felt unnatural, in a way.

There was no point in dwelling on it, though; Computer especially wanting to focus on what was already currently a long distraction and time sink in his eyes. They could figure out the sudden sensation of fear later on, when they were on the path to their main objective for even hiking out this way. No more distractions.

And Courage surprisingly, or perhaps not considering he didn't want another dose of whatever that strange feeling of terror had been, agreed, shaking his head and refocusing on the task at hand with a slightly serious expression carved into his features, nose trailing the scent as the trees began to thin out a little, leaving less of an obvious and blatant trail of destruction for them to follow. At least the wind was still in their favor for the time being, though that seemed to be the only thing that was on their side.

"Mr. Pewter, can we rest a second…?"

The dog stopped upon hearing Abel's rather pained-sounding words, turning around once more with a soft nod. They'd been walking a while, certainly, and the scent they were pursuing was certainly still potent enough in the air for a short break.

Especially considering the reason Abel wanted a break; his bandages were starting to stain red again. Maybe it'd been some kind of movement that had agitated the wound, especially considering that influx of fear that swept through them momentarily and that Abel had been fine before that, but he was clearly experiencing a mild rebleed beneath the bandages. It didn't seem to be enough to be concerning, but the dog stayed on standby regardless, grasping the first aid kit and watching as Abel sat on the grassy ground below to catch his breath.

"If this is what my dad considers being 'born lucky' to be, I'd hate to see what he'd consider someone 'unlucky' to be…"

The fox joked, letting out a slight laugh that led into a hiss of pain, paw grasping the slowly reddening bandages as he winced. Was it normal for huge wounds to go for hours without pain and then suddenly start hurting like the devil? He wasn't quite sure, and he wasn't sure that the two-toned dog knew either, considering the bandage mummifying their head seemed to be the only sign of a wound on the smaller canine.

"'Born lucky', huh?"

'Pewter' tilted his head at Abel, seeming to have perked up at the mention of the fox's father and an all-too-familiar catchphrase. That familiarity tingle was back again, and this was a perfect 'in' for them to have it answered without sounding like they were being ultra intrusive about it. "And you said your dad likes to say it a lot?"

Courage was definitely still currently controlling the conversation; Computer staying back in the depths of their semi-shared mind. He'd never had parents (beyond a creator he just… couldn't recall, if that counted) so he had no real footholds here that wouldn't just immediately give their duality away.

"Oh yeah, papa loves going on about how 'we Foxes are just born lucky', but I don't think I believe a word of it. There's no place where a bear nearly turning your insides into outsides is considered a stroke of good luck!"

Another pained laugh escaped the fox, his ears tilting back as the laugh turned into a cough, paw still grasping at the bandage.

A soft "o-ouch…" was all he managed to get out of his system, turning his attention to 'Pewter' again after the fact, tilting his own head now in direct mimicry of the two-toned hound, whose expression was one of deep thoughtfulness. And then his face shifted again as thoughtfulness gave way to a mix of surprise and realization, his eyes focusing on Abel like they were laser-guided.

"You're the son of Cajun Fox, aren't you?"

The words almost escaped of their own volition from the dog's snout, and then it was Abel's turn for his expression to shift into something like surprise as well, his ears perking up immediately.

"You know my papa?"

He sounded giddy, or as giddy as he could be whilst remaining quiet, his tail slowly starting to wag behind him in spite of the pain of his torso wound. "You two must go way back! He hasn't used the name 'Cajun' in years!"

"...Hasn't used 'Cajun' in years?"

That was certainly a surprise to Courage more than Computer, who, as expected, couldn't give less of a damn about who was called what at what time; only what they were called NOW mattered. Still, the canine raised an eyebrow and let out a soft 'huh' at the young fox's reveal. "But yeah, we certainly do, uh, go back." He didn't have the heart to tell Abel that the pair of them had been enemies on more than one occasion. But, from the fact the giant-eyed fox even had a kid, maybe he'd mellowed out in the many years that had passed since then. Abel didn't seem to get the almost-spiteful way they'd uttered 'go back' and instead just smiled wider.

"I can't wait for you two to meet again! I'm sure there's lots of catching up for the pair of you to do, haha!"

(A.N. There's Chapter 12 done! I promise Chapter 11 wasn't a prank despite the day it was posted on if anyone missed it for that reason)

(Also how about that Abel/Cajun reveal, eh? :]

I can't wait to get to show you what I've got cooked up for the Foxes!)

(Anyway, on to Chapter 13!)