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Episodic diaperfur adventure story, continues straight on from the first part of [Level 4](%5C), if you haven't read it go there first. Comments, notes, e-mails welcome; votes only disabled because this is not the place to jump in because Open House is not for anyone new to the series, if you're reading it ought to be because you've enjoyed the other parts.

Level Four: The Message! (Roger, Episodes 13-14)

Episode 13: Invitations!

Episode 14: Ultimate Technique Revealed: Roger's Attack!

Episode 13: Invitations!

"Hey," Roger said, slipping into the tent and tussling the cubby wolf, still wearing his camouflage sweatshirt and his replaced sweatpants, behind his ears. "You _can_do this, little buddy." The Labrador held up one paw and let a car keychain dangle in them, adding mischievously, "I think you've proved that you can talk anyfur into anything."

With the last day of training wrapping up, Rian sat cross-legged at the foot of the beanbag chairs in the vacated command center, leaning back on it, with two newspapers spread out on the ground in front of him.

"I'm proud of you for wanting to make this call, Rian," the dog said, crouching low and whispering to him. "Heroes and heroics come in all sizes, you know."

The little wolf had been slumping lower, inch by inch, for the twenty or so minutes he'd been staring at the papers, and was now resting on about the middle of his back, only his neck and shoulders supported against the chair and raised off the floor. He looked terrified. "I need a few more minutes," he said. "You can start the huddles without me."

Roger nodded and, patting him on the head, padded over to the door.

"Sorry, Kit," Roger said at the tent flap, holding his arm up and shaking his head to the eager cub scout hoping for entry. "Rian's resting and he asked not to be bothered for a while. Why don't you ask Byron or Ben to drive you?" The dog added, lowering his voice, "I bet it wouldn't be too hard to convince Byron to go the toy store."

"Serry," Rian whined to himself inside, biting his lip, "I've put off doing anything about this long enough. I've swum across rivers and climbed up broken fire escapes and been hypnotized and bussed tables for you. Don't make me do this. Anything else, but not this. No, you wouldn't-I know you wouldn't ask me to. But I can't bear to call you back until I've tried to do something-"

His cell phone lay on the ground next to his knees. He read the end of the article about his girlfriend again:

'Of course we're sorry the Family Center's decided so close to our opening to withdraw as one of the sponsors of this year's Shakespeare festival,' the director said. 'But it won't affect our opening, and we'll still find a way to keep the festival free.' He added, however, that private donations and inquiries about sponsorship are always welcome.

"Dex and Serry are so brave," Rian whimpered, looking at the picture of Dex in the campus newspaper he'd placed next to it, "and for two days I haven't even been able to do this one thing for my girl."

He gulped, took a long breath to steady himself, and reached out, his paw trembling, for his phone.

****************************************

"Hello, Dex," the ferret activist professor on the other side of the computer screen said, grinning at the raccoon.

The raccoon was sitting seiza-style, and, relaxing from a long day of training with his new strike team members, had temporarily replaced the top of his karate uniform with a pale blue tee-shirt for the conversation on Twitchy's laptop, in a well-lit corner of the changing shed behind Roger's store. "Well, between Twitch and Jeremy looks like we have this Skype thing figured out. . . . Sorry for asking you to take a personal check. But for the time being I've tried to keep your name off anything public, so there wouldn't be any reprisals while your financial aid decision is still up in the air."

The raccoon nodded. "Thanks, Profess- I mean, Bill," he said tentatively. "But are _you_going to be okay? You said you had big news?"

"Ni hao Dex!" shouted the kid ferret who appeared in the background, hopping up and down and waving his paws in the air. "I'm going to China! I'm going to walk the Great Wall!"

Dex blinked. "What?" the coon asked. "You can't be serious." He narrowed his eyes. "Did the board ask you to leave? You can't leave town right after your big moment. It's a trick."

The adult ferret leaned back in his chair and put his stocking feet up on his desk; then, realizing after a moment they were blocking the camera, he lowered them and crossed his arms. "Sun's rising in the East. It's a new day. President Tanner suggested I take a summer fact-finding trip to visit recycling sites and consult with the Chinese government's natural resources people. Don't worry, Dex," he added, a glint in his eye, "I know what he's up to. He's getting me out of his fur, probably hoping I'll come back without having accomplished anything or better still having mucked something up before the money's been redirected, and that will be the end of that. I'm sure there's an agenda set up that will keep us running around in circles the whole time we're there. Well," the ferret bit his lip, "I never cared for these office politics, but I haven't forgotten how to work them. We're calling his bluff. This won't be a straight university business trip, and we won't follow his itinerary after the first few days. I do know one or two important people in other countries, myself. We'll have some off-the-books meetings, and we'll come back with some surprises."

The coon tilted his head. "We?" he asked.

The ferret blushed. "I got ahead of myself," he said, reaching for an envelope on his desk. "This is going to be bigger than the Forest Furries party, Dex. For one thing, it won't be so much about me this time. It will be about a team." He smiled. "Like your protest field manual says. This trip could be the start of a whole new front in the environmental movement. And, umm-you're welcome to come, and serve as my assistant from the ground up. I know this might feel a bit sudden, but, Dex-" the ferret looked over his shoulder at the cub the raccoon had rescued from the laboratory fire, shifted in his chair, then looked back into the webcam, tugging at his collar. "You already seem quite indispensable to me. Take some time to think about it. I don't need an answer just this minute. We leave at the start of July. It's not tipping my hand too much to say, I hope you'll say yes."

The kid ferret in the background had climbed on to the top of a sofa and was holding his arms out, balancing unsteadily. "You _have_to come, Dex!" he shouted without looking at the webcam. "It will be super-exciting! Things could be exploding and stuff!"

The raccoon looked down at his footpaws. In high school he had dreamed about doing something like this. But now . . . A trip to a non-English-speaking country? Could he really manage that on his own without exposing his incontinence? Or should he tell them about it? No way. He couldn't. He was crazy to be considering either option. Then again, eighteen months ago even going camping had seemed impossible. Maybe . . . He felt a little queasy, though, as he suddenly remembered an invitation he'd made the night of Rian's 24/7 party. "I might have to do something in July," he said cautiously. "I'll check and let you know. I know the answer to this is probably no, but, is it possible I could bring someone, like for part of it?"

The ferret blinked. "Umm, I don't know how much space we'll have, Dex, or how I could justify paying for that - unless your friend speaks Chinese. That would be a plus."

The raccoon chuckled and shook his head, as though reminded of a fond memory he'd almost forgotten. "Lightning would strike twice before that happened again," he said.

"Did I say something funny?" the adult rodent asked.

"Kind of," Dex said. "It's hard to explain."

"Well, if it helps you make up your mind," the ferret said, holding the envelope up to the web cam, "you got your first piece of fan mail. This was in my mailbox with your name on it. Umm, Jeremy opened it and read it-sorry about that."

Dex frowned. "I thought you said no one there knew my name?"

The ferret activist unfolded the note and held it up to the camera. "Sounds like someone who already knows you from somewhere else. Look familiar?"

The coon squinted at the screen. There were green ice cream stains at the edges of the yellow legal paper, and a simple, hastily scrawled note. "From one loser to another," Dex read. "Good luck, kid." That was it.

The coon shrugged. "I've never seen that pawscript before in my life. No idea who would have written that."

The ferret folded the note back up and replaced it. "Well," he said paternally, "usually that's the case with the _hate_mail. There'll be a lot of that, too; it's fair to warn you."

***********************************

"This is it, boys," Roger was saying to the group of recruits assembled around his campfire, toasting hot dogs and marshmallows on sticks. Twitchy would eat the hot dogs topped with marshmallows; Roger would eat the marshmallows off the end of his sticks; and the more gastronomically sophisticated would reserve the marshmallows for S'mores. "Everything we've been getting ready for. T minus zero tomorrow. We mobilize at exactly the same time as the sissies' Open House kick-off."

A jumble of plastic army figures were scattered around the campsite in a chaotic jumble around the dog.

"I'm nervous," said the giraffe. "I know we've practiced a dozen different ways, but . . . I still don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do and how it all fits together. There are so many furs. And there's so much that could go wrong. What if it just ends up a big mess? After all this work?"

The dog wagged his tail. "Hold on for the ride and do what comes naturally!" he said, rising on to his knees to put a paw on the tall fur's shoulder sympathetically. "Don't overthink it! Listen, Steven," he said, gesturing to the campfires sparkling around the campsite, where Dex, Ace, Jax, and Twitchy were delivering similar pep talks and answering final questions to other groups, "I don't plan things down to the minute like _girls_do." He pronounced the g-word distastefully. "But each and every one of you is here for a reason. If you chose to come here - and you're still here, after all these days - then you belong here! We don't take furs into this group casually. And finding good furs is the important thing. If you have good pack members, no matter how soggy, or droopy - or sticky -" he at the very exposed cloth flap poking out of the giraffe's pants, "things get - as long as we all do our best for each other along the way - they have a way of working out well enough, even if it seems like we aren't all on the same page about everything a lot of the time. If you care about the pack, the pack will take care of you. The group's smarter than any of us, individually." The Labrador nodded and grinned up at him. "I've always found that to be true," he said reassuringly, adding in a confidential tone, "Don't tell too many furs, though. It's a dog secret."

The rabbit at one of the campfires, a small mouse on his shoulder, ducked off to the side to have a private conversation with one of his team members, while Kyle hopped up and temporarily took over the support group debriefing.

"What kind of questions?" Twitchy asked the Doberman in hushed tones, as he eyed the reporter's card in his paw curiously.

"I don't know, boss," the dog mechanic said, shrugging. "He was really just fishing for a name, I think. I didn't give up anything. He might have just wanted to say thanks for something? I've never really even talked to Dex, but he's your boyfriend, so I thought you might know more about it."

"Squeak?" queried Squeak into one of Twitchy's ears.

The bunny flicked that ear and put a paw on the Doberman's shoulder. "You did good," he said, chewing his lip curiously. "I'll look into this before it causes any trouble for the group."

"Check it out," Ace whispered as he crouched behind Jax while his own boys munched on S'mores and pointed to a few fires over to a Dalmatian fumbling with two Lego playset models, one resting unsteadily on each flat palm. "Kyle's running a unit."

The Dalmatian looked terrified for a moment, until a malamute, arriving late from work and slipping into the group behind him, caught him before he fell. The clumsy Dalmatian relaxed, breathing a long sigh of relief, and looked up into Byron's muzzle - and in doing so, dropped one of the two models, which broke into several of its composite blocks around his feet.

"That's strange. It's not like Twitchy to turn over a briefing to anyone," The tracking hound's eyes slid sideways as the tracking hound whispered back, an edge in his voice, "Where _did_Twitch go?"

Ace shrugged, still basking in the afterglow of a rough-and-tumble play day and not picking up on his boyfriend's tone. "Just talking to someone. The bigger question my boys are all asking," the lynx said, patting his boyfriend on the shoulder, "is where Rian's been all night."

*************************************

The wolf's diapers were squishing audibly as he fidgeted on the floor. The sweatpants he was wearing were soaked from the waist down to their knees by the time he heard voices outside the tent flap, and, after a brief conversation, a familiar head poked inside.

"Yo," the coon said, padding over to the beanbag chairs and dropping a paper bag next to Rian. "I heard you were holed up in here. But _I_can come in, right, puddles?"

"Dex!" exclaimed Rian, brightening, and settling back into a mix of relief and feigned cheerfulness, stuck his tongue out and sniffed at the bag. "You're one to talk. Bet your uniform didn't come yellow. What is that girly-smelling stuff?"

"Chunks of scented herbal soap, coarse and grainy for scrubbing," the coon explained. "I use them for my, umm, shaved area. I thought you might want some too." He eyed the wolf suspiciously. "You _have_been trimming every day, right, diaperboy?"

Rian fidgeted and didn't answer. The truth is trimming his diaper area was something Serry had been helping with, and the two lovers were still officially fighting. "You know, Dex," Rian said, looking up out of the top of his eyes at his friend, "I love my crinkles and my life has been a million times better and more full of love for everybody since I decided to spend it padded, buuuut it's true what I told people, well, mostly, I mean it's true that I never would have had the guts to go 24/7, if I didn't know you."

"That's old news," Dex said, patting Rian's head. "Everything okay?" he asked, and the little wolf grabbed one of Dex's paws in both of his.

"But I'm saying it because once again, Dex," Rian said seriously, hugging Dex around the waist and rubbing his head against the raccoon's diaper area, feeling the pillowy cloth underneath his karate pants, "you've given me the courage to do something very important." The wolf took a long breath, starting to relax, but still holding on to his friend's waist. "I had a long talk with my dad. I think he's going to write a check to Serry's Shakespeare festival."

Rian couldn't see his friend's muzzle, but Dex, who had been chipper, looked stunned. "You went to your dad? Who you've barely spoken to in years? For her?" The raccoon dropped on to the beanbag chair Rian was leaning against as though he'd been punched in the stomach.

His voice echoed in his own ears like he was hearing himself from a thousand miles away. "This isn't one of your games. You two are really serious-like, _forever_serious-aren't you?" He let out a long sigh, and admitted, "I don't get it." He shifted in his diaper awkwardly and looked down at it, feeling inadequate. "Is she that good at-I mean, is it about sex, or-"

Rian smiled dreamily, warming to a chance to talk about his favorite subject. "No-well, not oooonly," he said, sniffling and releasing Dex to wipe his nose with the back of one paw. "I'm a better fur when I'm with Serry, Dex," Rian said. "I don't want to be whiny and pathetic like this." He gestured at the discarded cell phone. "This is part of my story, but it's not who I am or what I want my life to be about, you know? She makes me more the fur I _want_to be. We're different for being together. Things just click, and all of a sudden we're better furs, we can do things as partners that we couldn't do alone." His eyes were glistening and he seemed newly confident as he talked. "But why am I telling you this?" he asked, pressing both forepaws against the floor to straighten himself up from his slouch. "That's how you feel about being with Twitchy, isn't it, rescue ranger?"

Dex frowned and changed the subject. "Are there strings attached to this donation?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," Rian said, sloshing slightly. "I need to tell you. I'm sorry, Dex. I don't think I'll be spending the Fourth of July with you and your folks after all. I need to go out there and thank him in the fur. Let him see how I'm doing for a few days. I think it's better to do it on a big holiday, when Spence and other furs will be around, and there will be things going on." The wolf smiled uneasily. "I know I haven't really seen my dad since I felt like I was out from under his thumb, but it's only three or four days. No matter what he says I'm not going to slip into Oslo or Copenhagen or-" the wolf waved a paw in a circle as he fumbled for the right word.

"Stockholm syndrome," said Dex, correcting his friend automatically. "I don't want to see you feeling freakish," he mused, "and come back acting not like my buddy. I'd still feel like a misfit toy if not for you."

"I mean, I'm nervous of course," continued Rian, rambling, "and I don't want to worry Serry by telling her about it cuz that will be such a busy weekend for her play, and I'll probably have to do it without my security blanket, I mean, security undies, unless I'm reaaaallly careful, but still it's not like- I'll be okay. I'll just tell myself this trip," he took a long breath, "isn't something bad. It's a chance that I hoped for - a chance for me to make an ultimate expression of love - to do something real for the fur I care about so much."

Dex stared off into the wall of the tent blankly and took a long breath of his own, pondering what Rian had just said.

"I was just debating not going home for the Fourth of July anyway. If you want," the coon said quietly, "I'll go with you."

Next time: T minus zero! The pink team's Open House-and Roger's counteroffensive-kick off!

Episode 14: Ultimate Technique Revealed: Roger's Attack!

The sun rose slowly, and Rian, who had woken up first, was padding around the campsite, smiling down at the slumbering boys sprawled across each other in furpiles of various sizes, patting each on the head, and kissing their foreheads lightly.

He had moved up onto the slope of the hill overlooking the small meadow where yesterday's training exercises had been held, and dozed off himself, against a tree.

He woke up from his long nap with a jolt, though - when he felt a paw rest on his shoulder - and smelled perfume! The wolf leapt up and whirled around, raising both paws defensively, and a giggling sissy fox hopped backwards away from him.

Rian's eyes narrowed. This was bad. At least they hadn't relocated to the main operation site yet. But they were moving now. The groups of boys below were already breaking into cells and moving out. Roger had gone on ahead with the first batch. A pink student in their midst, and he didn't have a weapon! What if she was transmitting their heading? What if she followed them to the main operation site? What if she wasn't the only one? The short wolf raised a paw warningly, taking a minute to recall the trainee's name. "Brianna, isn't it?" he said cautiously. "How did _you_get back here?"

The crossdressing fox blushed. "You remembered!" the sissy student exclaimed, evidently pleased. She reached into the loose folds of the negligee slip she was wearing over her pink plastic panties and produced a doily Valentine, which she held out to him. "Don't worry, Mr. Rian! I'm alone! I came here on secret. Lady Lin Lin would be horrified if she knew _you_were being invited. The invitations aren't supposed to be seen too far in advance by anyone who won't keep them secret until the Open House," the sissy fox said quickly, then added, in an excited whisper, shaking the Valentine, "But it _is_up to each of us who they're for. No one else has anything to say about it. That part's very important. The first round are going out this morning. It's beginning!"

The wolf scratched his head with one paw and took the card in the other, wrinkling his nose distastefully at the perfume it contained, and, holding the card loosely in one paw, flipped it open, his eyes flickering from the message inside up to the sissy fox trainee, who shifted her weight from one footpaw to the other, looking nervous.

"Ummmmmmmmmmmmm," Rian said for a long moment, blinking, and reading the card again to make sure he understood what was happening correctly. "I can't go to a dance with you, Bri," he explained awkwardly, straightening the camouflage top that only hung down to his belly button, leaving his double, slightly soggy overnight diapers exposed. "I have a girlfriend. And I can't do anything like that time I subbed at the academy with you again. I'm sorry. Serry and I are going steady now, you see."

The sissy fox trainee swished her tail and her ears drooped. "Okay, Mr. Rian," she said quietly. In truth, she'd expected this; that's why she'd gotten up at the crack of dawn to deliver her first card early. "I thought you'd say that. But I just wanted to say," she said, looking nervous, "you were a _great_top. I didn't shower afterward until Lady Lin Lin made me."

Rian looked thoroughly confused. "Thanks?" he said experimentally. Would that make her leave? She still fidgeted there for a moment.

"Would it be cheating," the fox in a dress asked cautiously, "if you just did one long piddle into another girl's diaper and sent her away? So I can wear that diaper until the end of the day? I prooooomise," she said, negotiating shrewdly, "I'll never ask again and I'll keep everything about this campsite secret if you do." The fox held out both paws so he could see them, and made a motion over her chest with one of them. "Cross my heart."

Rian shot her an exasperated look and started back to camp to retrieve his cell phone, rolling his eyes.

"Let me text Serry and check," he said, annoyed.

**************************************

"And she gave me this," said Rian, sounding horrified, as he dropped the scented doily card on to the picnic changing table in the middle of the central tent of the main operation site, and pointed at it, whimpering fearfully. "She caught me when boys had already started moving here and said it's starting now! 'It's just beginning!' That's what she said! There will be multiple waves of attack! They're bringing furs back there as soon as they catch them! It's some kind of a sissy activation code! An operation protocol! It sounds," he shuddered, "awful. Whatever they're up to, it's twice as bad as we thought."

Roger picked up the card and tilted his head sideways, regarding it curiously as he opened it. "Dear Rian," he read, then corrected himself, with a chuckle, "Sorry, Dear _Mr._Rian - you are cordially invited to Empress Calliope's. . . bla bla bla . . .Academy for Special Boys' first annual semiformal . . . bla bla . . ." Roger skipped to the bottom of the card, and blinked as he read the conclusion, "Sadie Hawkins dance?"

"Aaarggggh!" the little wolf exclaimed, flopping back into a conference chair. "I feel the cooties flying off the paper just hearing about it. Is it like Sadie-ism? What kind of a terrible, awful, sissifying, repressive-"

His fellow Circle members, Dex and Twitchy, who had gathered for this emergency session shortly before the final attack began, looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes. The small mouse on Twitch's shoulder squeaked and clapped a paw to his forehead.

"You don't know what a Sadie Hawkins dance is?" exclaimed Twitchy in disbelief, crossing his arms and looking huffy. "Some social chair you are."

"Whaaaat is it?" Rian whined, hugging himself and shivering. "Something terrible? Is Sadie Hawkins Dance the name of a horror movie? Or a book where people go to a dance and are zombified? Or a brainwashing-"

Roger patted the wolf's head. "Girls ask guys," he explained quickly, sounding mildly intrigued. "Well, this fight _could_get interesting. Maybe I underestimated you, sis."

Dex, who had been sitting seiza-style next to Twitchy, looked up from the floor at Rian, biting his lip to stifle a chuckle. "I also cannot believe that you didn't know that," the wolf's best friend admitted.

"I went to boys' schools!" the wolf wailed apologetically.

**************************************

"Annnnnnnnd cooooontact!" shouted Ace, unslinging his paintball gun and charging into the woods, his tracking hound boyfriend and their malamute lieutenant at his side.

The two Scouts hopped back as soon as they felt the traps spring inches in front of them and fly up, empty, landing on their heels and raising their weapons defensively; Byron, whose foot was caught in a third rope noose, was yanked up into the air, flailing around with both paws.

The panda who had been behind a tree nearby watching them ford the river was facing them immediately, holding a dodge ball in one paw. Her eyes darted around the clearing. A gray squirrel in a white tennis shirt and skirt dropped from the treetops and landed softly on both footpaws next to her.

"Flipper and the Rainbow Scouts?" Lin Lin remarked, surveying the trio. "_You're_the first wave? Well, this shouldn't take long."

"Ouch," said Jax, frowning, as the Scouts crouched next to each other in a defensive position. The lynx in the safari outfit muttered something to himself grouchily.

"See," the panda explained, looking up to the taller squirrel, "you need to know things about people to insult them effectively, that's all I'm saying." Then she turned her attention back to her blue team opponents. "Come on, if this is a strike team, where's Dex-I mean, where are the ones who really matter?" Lin Lin asked. "Cooperate and we'll go easy on you."

Shelley just shook her head. "You two are really dressed like Boy Scouts," she said, in disbelief.

Lin Lin elbowed the squirrel's leg. "I _told_you they would be dressed like Boy Scouts. I _told_you all about them."

The malamute meanwhile, had grabbed on to the rope snare he was swinging in and pulling himself up with both paws to stop the dangling.

Shelley shrugged. "You were probably being boring at the time," the squirrel answered, "and if that was the case I woulda stopped listening, peaches. I told you I don't care about 'knowing' any of these weirdos, on their team or yours. I don't want to spend more time than I have to for this contract job with furs who have no interests besides their weird fetishes. But _now_I'm a bit miffed. Scouts ought to know better than to take a crowd of furs crashing through these woods. Have a little respect for nature. Stand back from it and let it be. There's a family of whippoorwills living here for goodness' sake. _You_wouldn't know but those happen to be rare song-"

The tracking hound wearing the badge-covered scout sash narrowed his eyes and glared up at her, interrupting, "Nature's meant to be enjoyed," said the tracking hound seriously, "responsibly. Try to tell furs to respect it who never spend time outdoors. What's the point in that? And you'd think _I'd_know about the whippoorwills," he continued smugly. "I'm the one who found their nest. Saw the father guarding it. It was a beautiful thing."

"Found their nest?" Shelley narrowed her eyes and leaned on one paw against a tree. "Jax?" she said curiously. "Is that you, sugar plum?"

"I_told_you his name was Jax," said an exasperated Lin Lin, kicking her shin.

The squirrel ignored the kick, seemingly unaffected by the impact, and shrugged, "I thought you said Jack," she said without looking down at Lin Lin.

The tracking hound's ears twitched. "Respect for nature-whippoorwills," he repeated, then asked, a note of surprise creeping into his voice, "Shelley?"

"Okay, what in blazes," exclaimed the lynx, standing up and looking around the assembled group of furs warily, and ticking off questions on the paw that wasn't brandishing a paintball gun, "who_are you? Panda-your team is throwing new furs in the mix? _Now?"

Lin Lin rolled her eyes and remarked, sympathetically, "That's what I said . . ."

The lynx continued ticking off questions, punctuating each with a shake of his paintball gun, "Why haven't I heard of you? How do you know my boyfriend? And are you a _really_good cross-dresser or a-"

The athletic squirrel rolled her eyes, "I'm the genuine article, litterless kitty. Girl since day one and girl till I die."

"Oh thank goodness," said the lynx, visibly relieved, resting a paw on the brown-and-black tracking hound's head protectively as he relaxed. "For a second I was afraid Jax might have dated you."

A dodge ball thudded into the distracted lynx and sent him down onto his rear.

"Enough chitchat," Lin Lin snapped as he recovered. "Let's finish this. Time to take care of you losers and get back to the soon-to-be girls all tied up at your real attack site."

"What do you mean?" Jax asked nervously, as the lynx got back on his feet, "the _real_attack site?"

Lin Lin waved one paw at them dismissively. "You stooges might want to make Distraction Central more convincing next time by bringing more than three furs. We found your tunnels under the academy," she said contemptuously. "As we speak, your little cub scouts are marching into a trap."

"Oh," repeated Jax placidly, "they found our tunnels under the academy, Ace."

"Well," said the lynx flatly, shrugging, "might as well surrender. It's all over now."

Lin Lin frowned. "You don't look worried," she said, a little perturbed. "If there are more of you coming through the woods, we've got them covered too. Besides us two, you're in range of a multi-purpose catapult as soon as you come out of the woods near the building. You aren't going to like some of the stuff it launches. You aren't going anywhere near the academy. Not unless you curtsy and ask nice, anyway."

"Okay," said the hound dog. "Just hope you don't end up too lonely over there."

The squirrel was regarding them all with a mix of curiosity and disbelief. Lin Lin shook her head. "You three _are_a distraction, right?" she said, starting to sound a little concerned. "There _is_another attack?"

The malamute, who had been sawing away at the snare with a Swiss army knife once he had steadied himself, finally dropped to the ground, landing in a bundle next to Ace.

"Can I do it?" he whined from the ground.

"Take it away, puppy," said the lynx encouragingly.

"We're just here," announced the burly black-and-white dog, holding up a pale blue envelope from his prostrate position, "to deliver a message!"

Lin Lin shook her head and snatched it from him, ripping it open and throwing the envelope back at them as she yanked the paper out and unfolded it. The panda did a double take.

"You cannot be serious. _That's_what all these ridiculous drills and operation talk by you idiots has been about?!" she exclaimed in disbelief. "You're throwing a party?"

"Correction," said Byron, still on his back, holding one paw up into the air, "we're throwing _the_party!"

**********************************************

Rian stood as guard at the entrance to Roger's main operation site, wearing a ship captain's hat, the top of a sailor suit, and pale blue diapers, trying to keep himself from bouncing at the gate as he greeted the furs still waiting in line to get in.

"Remember!" he announced, holding a paw up to his own forehead. "Gotta be at least this big to enter! And noooo holding spots! Potty breaks most _definitely_lose your place in line!"

That rule was, in fact, the entire purpose of making furs stand in line. Too many of the boys, in Rian's opinion, took fifteen or twenty minutes of anxious pacing before they finally let go and piddled like babies, and Roger and Rian had been brainstorming ways to ensure those ones still felt sufficiently relaxed when the party began.

Just to be safe, juice boxes were being given out at the start of line for cubs, and iced tea for caretakers, both spiked with mild diuretics. Rian was also quite unnecessarily making furs wait five minutes in between each admission.

A beaver a little shorter than the shrimpy wolf was standing a few furs back in line and knitting his paws together in worry. His anxiety about whether he'd even get in led him to piddle into the front of his swim diapers and feel his pants warm up the very moment he came up to the wolf.

Rian grinned to see the shorter fur looking nervous. The wolf crouched down on his knees to make himself shorter and traced an imaginary line from his forehead to the top of the beaver's head with his paws. "Whew!" Rian said, in mock surprise, and wiped his forehead with the back of one paw. "You're juuuuuust big enough! Wow, sooooo big all of a sudden!" he declared and the worried beaver breathed a sigh of relief. Rian patted his bottom, giving the thick cushioning on his rear a hearty squeeze before sending him on in with a light slap on his rear. "You'll be in Pull-Ups in no time, Sammy!"

Inside, the beaver's eyes widened as, feeling very small, he scoped out Roger's fully finished main operation site.

He ran over to a long, looping water slide where Ryo, holding the spot for Byron until his trio got back, stood at the top with a lifeguard whistle hanging around his neck. It was no ordinary water slide - it snaked around an entire section of the abandoned campground, making about four loops, and furs were riding down it in inner tubes - and, of course, swim diapers, which would be checked both at the top and bottom of the slide by one of the lifeguard assistants, and changed if necessary.

"Oh, go back one more time!" Roger urged one dizzy cub stumbling out of the whirling above ground whirlpool it emptied into, and propelling him toward the ladder, sticking his tongue out at him, "you don't look one bit wrinkled yet!"

The entire site was covered with equipment Roger had been collecting or received on loan from furs who had been in and out of one of the incarnations of his boys' club, or who knew furs who had, and who had been called on to make an offering - to the first day of Baby Blue's first annual start of summer members-only weekend-long play-all-day party.

The one donation he'd adamantly refused, of course, was a set of Port-A-Potties. Instead plentiful diaper pails and buckets of cleaning fluid were scattered around the playsite in free corners, and the Baby Blue team members running the site would each be checking them in shifts to spray around air freshener and transfer their contents to vaccuum-sealed laundry bags tossed in the back of a car or to a rented Dumpster at the edge of the woods that would be driven to the city dump when everything was over.

In the center of the complex, Kyle the Dalmatian wore a white apron and cap, manning an old-fashioned soda fountain on loan from the local ice cream parlor.

A raccoon cub scout approached the counter cautiously. It had been artificially elevated by being placed on cinder blocks, so that furs who hopped up onto the tall stools to reach the top of the counter wouldn't be able to touch the ground with their footpaws while they were drinking thseir sodas.

The coon scout hopped up, trying to catch the top of the counter with both paws so he could hoist himself up onto the stools. Seeing him struggle, Kyle reached over the counter, and, taking the slight coon under the armpits, hoisted him up and settled him on to the school.

"Howdy, scout. Do you want a surprise?" the Dalmatian asked. Kyle was running an open bar, randomly mixing sodas, the way only kits did at soda fountains, so unless you ordered really specifically, you could bet your Coke would have root beer, Sprite, and maybe vanilla syrup in it. Some special selections were on display in a bottle rack behind him - sparkling grape juice of various vintages - kids' beer, a non-alcoholic foamy, guarana soda for Japanese kits that simulated the foaminess of beer - a milky drink called calpico - and well, most of the non-alcoholic, sugar-loaded kids' drinks one could think of.

"I want a Roy Rogers," the traditionalist cub scout announced, tugging at his kerchief.

"There's an age restriction on that one," Kyle said, raising an eyebrow, or rather raising the black spot that was above the Dalmatian's eye. "I'll need to see some ID."

Kit Raccoon unfastened his belt and wriggled around on his stool until his pants fell onto the ground underneath them, then stood up, unsteadily, on the metal ring elevated a foot or so up from around the base of the stool. The cub scout pointed down to the crinkly Bambino diaper he was wearing, labeled "Baby." "This is all I've got," he said hopefully.

"That'll do," said the Dalmatian cheerily, patting his head. "Not that I doubted! But rules are rules. If you keep it out, I won't have to ask next time!"

At an adjoining snack booth, chocolate-covered grasshoppers, lollipops with insects inside them, crispy fried worms, and various other kinds of gross-out foods from around the world were being offered to the adventurous cubs - or to big brother types in search of ways to prove their toughness - alongside the usual selections of licorice, popcorn, and cotton candy (although only pale blue cotton candy was being served).

Ben the leonine combat trainee, on a break from his main activity, was munching on a small plate of chocolate-covered a grasshoppers a mink he'd changed minutes ago looked up at the incredibly tough-seeming lion wide-eyed.

"Mmmm, bugs," Ben mumbled and held out the plate to the mink. "I think you should try one, Roddy! Open wide!"

The mustelid stumbled backwards, falling on to his padded rear, and quivered fearfully, shaking his head, and waving both paws.

Around the perimeter of the abandoned campground, boys were running in sweeping circles flying kites and banners under a giraffe's direction. "Follow me, kids! Veer left!" Steven, who could see all the tree branches and the heading of the kites better than any fur, shouted, giggling, as he ran alongside one of the invariably shorter kits, directing the aerial traffic with his long arms, "Don't let the trees getcha!"

On a grassy field, boys were checking out the Doberman's refitted Power Wheels, equipped with radios, batteries that let them run up to 15 miles an hour, and rubber bumpers on all four sides. Some were scrunching themselves into the small compartments and driving with lips bit and expressions of the utmost seriousness. Others were wantonly crashing into each other and tumbling out of the cub-sized bumper cars, laughing and snuggling up to each other after the harmless collisions.

"They're not too roomy are they?" asked an otter waiting for a vehicle to become available.

"Nope," said the dog mechanic in overalls at the edge of the track, unsnapping the visitor's pants snap and unzipping his fly, watching his pants fall to his ankles. "Those won't fit, that's for sure."

In small fighting rings nearby, mechanically minded furs were being invited to assemble their own battle-bots, but most of the participating cubs found themselves being thrashed by one of Squeak's three fighters, which the tiny mouse was manning simultaneously, hopping back and forth from one controller to another and running multiple matches, squeaking up a storm.

At a pair of picnic tables behind him, Twitchy, his goggles perched defiantly on his forehead, was leading one of his first workshops on making volcanoes, and hopping over the lava spills that flowed out onto the ground to pat the participants' heads and check their diapers. The cubs at his table didn't know it yet that the workshop would lead directly into one on making volcano sundaes with crazily mismatched toppings like bananas and gummy worms - provided the rabbit saw signs of intense concentration on their science fair work.

That meant it would be open only to furs who'd been absorbed enough in their chemistry project that they'd used their diapers. The others would get booted and told to come back for the next workshop and work harder for their ice cream. Joint prizes - packs of diapers and related accessories from the boys' changing tent, mainly - would be given both to the most impressive volcano builder and to the architect of what was voted the craziest sundae in each contingent.

Nearby, the first of Dex's combat for cubs drills was starting, and furs were squirting baby bottles at each other as they clambered up and down a jungle gym, negotiating high chairs and other nursery obstacles as they tried to rescue a teammate stuck beneath the jungle gym's trap door, before he was too badly in need of a change. The captive was guarded this round, by Dex, and next round, by Ben or another of his trainees. It didn't sound that hard, of course, except for two things. First, this being a cub mission, it had to be conducted entirely on all fours, and anyfur breaking that rule would be booted from the field as swiftly as someone using his forepaws in soccer. Second, the jungle gym was surrounded on all four sides by open-walled bounce castles, and cubs hoping to get to it had to crawl over one of their inflated plastic platforms while Dex and his lieutenants, threw pillows at them from the jungle gym above.

All around the jungle gym and bounce castle complex, small clusters of curious furs who had grabbed one of several copies of the newspaper article about Dex's heroism being circulated around the playsite whispered to each other and pointed up at the coon, eager to meet him. By the time the night was over, Dex would have so many offers of changing assistance that even a cub who took his shoes and socks off wouldn't be able to count them all. When he went on his first break, he'd find himself moderating a series of pouty disputes between little furs ardently making protests like, "I volunteered to change him first!", "I'll use the most powder, Dex!", "Deeex, pick me, I'll do it when you're messy, too!", or "Noooo meeeeee, I'll wash it in the river right now with my paws and hang it up to dry on the jungle gym, Dex, I won't put it in a diaper pail!" For the entire evening he spent at the playsite, the incontinent coon so practiced at changing his own diapers wouldn't have to change himself once that night. He'd have trouble getting a quick change, though since often he would be coordinating between three or four little helpers fumbling with safety pins and powder.

Rian met the three returning furs who bypassed the line near the entrance, and put up a "Hold it just a minute-or better yet, don't" sign on the small table he had been leaning on with his guest list. He escorted the messengers directly to the group's leader, and all five scuttled into the picnic table in the transparent central tent. "How'd it go?" Roger asked.

Byron yanked a ribbon out of his ear and stomped it under his foot. "They took the message back to the academy," the malamute reported, grinding his heel hard against one of the perfume-scented decorations that the three messengers had been told to wear if they expected safe passage back. "We didn't get hit too bad."

"Hey, don't worry," Roger said, tucking the malamute's chin, "you three were handpicked to deliver the message for your high cooty immunity. As soon as we're done you go straight on the waterslide. You'll wash it off in no time."

"Just don't take too long," warned Ace. "I've got to get safari adventure running before all the diapers with little lions on them are gone."

Roger opened his laptop and, opening up a control panel, connected it to the video cameras Twitchy had set up around the main operation site, making sure they were streaming views to several open windows on his computer.

Then he opened a channel. On the other end of a video chat window, he saw his sister, a leopardess in a Victorian dressing gown glowering at him. "I was told," said Calliope, snapping an oriental silk fan shut and tapping it against her claws, "that you had a message for everyone in our group. I'm only playing along, brother, because there's been so much gossip here about what you're recruiting for. I want to show the girls I'm not frightened by this ridiculous bluff, and that they can enjoy the Open House without looking over their shoulders."

The Newfoundland standing next to her looked distressed. "Don't do this, mistress," Cassie was protesting. "There's no need! There won't be a manned attack either way. I'm sure he won't risk sending his boys in now that he's heard Shelley is here! I think everything will be fine if we just ignore them."

Calliope flicked the fan at her.

Roger held up one finger and his tail began wagging as he flopped down into his wheeled command chair. "First," the Labrador said, holding up the invitation Rian had delivered, "I want to give you a last chance to explain what's going on over there. What's Level 5? And what's the squirrel gone squirrely doing in town? I'm sure we've," he caught sight of Ben, who had delivered them disturbing intel from the academy dungeons, on one of the monitors and concluded, vaguely, "heard the same rumors."

"How I run my school is none of your business," said the unflappable leopardess curtly. "And you never should have heard about Level 5. I assume you've been poking your nose in where it doesn't belong. As usual. But the gossip you're spreading has been useful to me these past few weeks, so I didn't think it was essential or prudent to correct it."

"Okay, sis," said Roger, shrugging, "Then you give me no choice. But I want to be sure you understand the terms first."

Calliope rolled her eyes and bent over her laptop, pressing a few keys. "There'll be no manned attack as long as you can see that we've broadcast your message to everyone here. So long as we listen to it, you promise to leave us alone the rest of the night. That's fine. I'm not worried about your silly message and this battlefield nonsense would just get in the way of what we're doing."

"Which is what?" the dog asked. "Level 5?"

Calliope rolled her eyes again. The Newfoundland next to her looked increasingly anxious and was shifting her considerable weight from one foot to the other. "Again it's none of your business, but no," Calliope said curtly, "The Open House is its own thing and it's just begun now. We've been making announcements."

Then, ignoring her aide's frantic gestures, Callie looked down at the pale blue paper Lin Lin had delivered and keyed in codes given by Twitchy that opened a two-way video connection to the handful of display screens that had been installed around the academy's auditorium. From what Roger could see through the chat window, what was going on at the academy looked exactly like a high school junior prom, with various fairyland decorations strewn around the auditorium, and even a puffy, fake winter wonderland landscape, the floor covered with cotton and pillows, on one side of the large auditorium. The sissies were in full dress and most were slow-dancing with their partners and caretakers.

"Heeeey!" said Rian curiously, leaning past Rog to point at the screen at one pair, a sissy bear dancing with a tall wolf. Roger batted his finger away, though it left a smudge. "That's not Muffy's boyfriend." The wolf tilted his head. "There a few others I don't recognize either."

Cassie cleared her throat. "Our students have been screening with various partners," the Newfoundland cut in, clearly hoping that what she said might still forestall Roger's attack, "but tonight it's entirely up to each girl who she brings to the dance, and we'll be adjusting her curriculum and helping her adjust other things based on her choice. Some of the tops who didn't get invited, or who got invited late, are feeling a little anxious right now."

Callie rapped her assistant's knuckles with a fan. "We have no obligation to explain ourselves to him," she said severely.

Roger's eyes sparkled, and he laughed. "Of course! Sadie Hawkins. It's a switch event!" he exclaimed gleefully, clapping a paw to his knee. "You little busybody, sis! You've been bluffing your own customers for weeks. Whether they're paying the bills or not, you just wanted to see how your students' caretakers would behave if you held out the promise of unlimited power and no limits, didn't you? Expose who would treat your sissies right and who wouldn't? See if the furs they're already with are good enough for them? Then you throw the decision back to the cubs who they want to be with? Something like that? And what about this other stuff-what happens in Level 5? Why are you working with Shell?"

"I've told you three times now," Callie flicked her tail and pursed her lips, but her eyes twinkled affirmatively, "that how I run my school is none of your concern. You don't check in with me about how _you_operate. Now, your message, so we can get back to business here?"

"My boys are my message!" said Roger proudly, opening the footage from around his party site and watching it come up on the presentation monitors around the school's auditorium in the background of his laptop screen. "Let's see, who's showing the most white - Our two 24/7 boys, of course - You all know Rian, our Mr. Popular; he was a terrified closet case who couldn't even knock on your door once, remember? I bet most of your girls wouldn't believe that," Roger gestured to the cubby wolf next to him, before turning back to the monitors. "And there's Dex, local hero; for almost two years he thought he'd never have a choice but to work double shifts in a coffee shop for the rest of his life" - The coon in the karate uniform, on one of the monitors, clapped a paw to his chest in mock pain as a squirt gun sprayed him, and let himself tumble off the jungle gym, landing on his back, with a bounce, on one of the crowded bounce castle platforms, as crawling cubs swarmed over him. "There's Twitchy; he can figure out any complex system, except bathroom-based ones, and not because he grew up taking prep classes and having expensive computers to play with, no, he didn't come from where you might guess if you met him now" - The rabbit, on another screen, was hopping over an overflow of fake lava, carefully lifting an unwisely situated popsicle stick castle that had been placed near the volcano tables and handing it to a concerned-looking age-player.

"Any one of those boys," Roger continued as he cycled through different scenes from around the sprawling playsite, "had reason to be bitter and angry about his problems and stop his life where it was years back. But they chose to keep putting themselves out there, instead, even if it wasn't always easy, and even if they had some disasters along the way and things didn't go quite as they thought or wished they would have, and eventually they found me, and each other, and things might not be perfect now, but they're still hanging on. There's all of them together, doing what boys do best." The couples stopped dancing, and looked up curiously as scenes from all around the party site came up, some on split screens. "Just playing. And on this screen you'll see a plan of everything we have here in case I leave anything out. There's a water slide, robot arena, a ball pit, bounce castles, a soda fountain . . . Finally, I want to explain," he said, fumbling for a map, which he started to hold up, "how other cubs can-"

"They found our tunnels under the academy," said Jax, tugging on his sleeve.

"Oh!" Roger exclaimed, sounding chipper. "You found our tunnels under the academy! Well, that makes things easier! Then I don't have to spell out," he said, holding up his dotted-line covered sketch of the academy, with a grin, "how you can get here! Both those tunnels narrow out at this end," he said, pointing at the map, "so you can only come out near our playsite one at a time. And those openings _are_being watched. There's no use trying to launch any kind of attack through them."

Lin Lin, who had joined Callie and Cassie near the laptop, clenched a fist and rammed it against her thigh when Roger said that.

Serafina, who was on the sidelines coaxing a group of shyer sissies uncomfortable moving around in their dresses, shook her head, watching her onetime partner fumble with the map, and giggled in spite of herself. She bent over and whispered to Azzie, who had been scurrying around serving drinks wearing only an apron, a diaper, and a pair of ballet slippers, since that's all his senior students had decided their new maidservant had earned in the way of a wardrobe so far. "Just watch, little cadet," the princess fox said fondly. "This is going to work out the way it always does with these two."

Around the auditorium, some of the couples were breaking up as several sissies hopped up and pawed at the monitors curiously. A couple muttered excuses - which took some doing, since potty break wasn't a valid one, for a sissy baby - and slipped out the exit momentarily.

"The dance moves outdoors later on," the Newfoundland said hopefully, bustling off to try to stop some of the ones wandering off. "We finish in the moonlight. You can get fresh air then! There's no hurry."

"We haven't shown the best part yet," Roger said, stepping back, and motioning to Rian, who pulled his shirt up to show what he was wearing, as he hopped up on to the large table in the central tent, "right here, in the center of everything is, our changing tent."

Serry's eyes sparkled as she saw the wolf on one of the monitors, waving both paws above his head. "Hey," the princess fox remarked curiously, although her boyfriend couldn't hear her, "what kind of diaper have you got on now, Rian? I haven't seen you in those."

"Turn around, little buddy, show it off, give them a full view," said Roger, and the wolf did, holding his arms out, bending over to look at the webcam from between his legs, "this is just one of the Japan models. You'll observe how unusually puffy it is around the leg gathers." Rian wriggled his bottom as cubbishly as he could manage. "We've got the regular American and Canadian stuff in the middle - standard brands - and we have a Europe section on this side - and an Asia section on that side. If there's a diaper you've ever wanted to try - we've probably got it! Our first shipments finally came around the time of Rian's 24/7 party, but I've been keeping the whole stash under wraps."

"_First_shipments?" Calliope asked, letting her consternation show for the first time.

Roger nodded eagerly as Rian, still looking out from between his legs, stuck his tongue out at the screen. "You're hearing it hot off the press," the Labrador announced gleefully. "Rian and I made a business trip over spring break when everyone thought we went to Euro Disney. I was visiting wholesalers for my comics and hobby shop now that I've started a mail-order catalogue and website thingy. But besides that, in addition to picking up some fun party foods and things, I can officially confirm," Roger swept his arm back to encompass the massive stacks of bags around, on and under, the changing table, "that Baby Blue has bulk diaper suppliers - on three continents." He put an arm around each of the Boy Scouts' shoulders. "These two scamps who you might mistake for teenagers are wearing their first baby-printed adult German ones under those uniforms. Nothing but the best for my boys." Ace blushed and Jax bit his lip.

The Newfoundland buried her face in her huge paws, obviously very upset. Calliope looked at her watch, doing her best to look unfazed. "Are you _finally_done talking?" she asked acidly. "Is _that_your entire message?"

Roger saw an athletic gray squirrel drop from the ceiling and land beside Calliope. A hyena broke away from the other sissies and came toward her cautiously, extending a doily invitation; she shoved him away without looking at him, and said, "All right, Cal, am I still needed here tonight or not? You said to wait and see whether -" Shelley said, pausing as she glimpsed the display monitors, "What's going on? Oh -," the squirrel looked exasperated when she saw Roger's face on the screen and crossed her arms, looking sideways and up into the air, pretending to ignore him.

"Hi, Shell!" the Labrador shouted, waving at the screen. The squirrel just rolled her eyes, looking even more incredibly annoyed than usual. "Wow it's been a while huh! The last part of the message is especially for you and then I'm signing off."

"I can't wait," she said out of the side of her muzzle without looking at him.

"I don't know what time your thing finishes over there. But in case any cubs are curious about this, I-" began Roger, flopping back in his chair and crossing his arms as he slid back to rest his feet on the edge of the changing table, smiling triumphantly. Right before he closed the connection, the dog concluded, waving goodbye at the screen with one paw, "Will be here all night!"

Next time: Best of Both Worlds! Both parties continue as cubs move back and forth through Roger's tunnels, but eyebrows are raised when one fur goes missing in the confusion.

Level . . . Cleared?

Congratulations! You have successfully completed Level Four (Roger) . . . I think?

You have unlocked a Hidden Achievement: Chill! You're just easy to be around and hang out with. Which is sometimes, the first and most important thing furs need; you give them a place to go.

Game Over! You win! As long as you didn't leave any loose ends or activate two or more wild cards in the prior levels that could combine. . . .

Wait a minute? You did? Because if you did, then something like this might happen:

Next time: Open House: Level 4 (Episodes 15-17: Sequel Screen)

Wild cards activated: Swifty Fox (Level 1); Jax (Level 2); Blaze Collie (Level 3)

Wild cards subject to combination:

Jax . . . + . . . Blaze Collie

(To be continued . . .)