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Level 5: Graduation!

Part Three of: The Pink and Blue Diaperfur Finale!

kitncub

Continues directly from [Level Five: Graduation, Part Two!](%5C)

If you haven't read that, go there first! And if you're an eager recruit, look at [the journal entry](%5C) about secret clues to the Easter eggs in this part for long-term readers.

Author's Note: This is a diaperfur story for readers 18 and over only; if you're under-do your homework! It involves furs in diapers who are not (chronologically) babies, and furs in dresses who are not (biologically) girls, often doing things of a sexual nature. The story is fantasy and emphatically not a representation or recommendation to do anything in real life. It is part of the Pink and Blue series, so if you have not read any prior stories in the series, this is probably not the place to start.

Special recap format!: In the wake of the warring boy and girl AB/DL faction's competing theme parties, Baby Blue's regression-prone combat coon Dex, thrown into turmoil by his discovery of his boyfriend's dishonesty, has fled to the enemy sissy academy begging for release from boyish sexual desire - only to find, with the unexpected help of his onetime mission partner the scheming panda Lin Lin - that he has been repressing his true sexual desires all along! And then . . .

Downstairs: Team leaders Roger and Calliope, aided by the bunny Twitchy, who stayed behind, caught in a dangerous trap so they could get inside, have entered the academy through an underground passage, in the hopes of getting to Dex and Lin Lin before things spiral out of paw. Can the team leaders restore order and help set things right? And if they can't . . . then what hope is there?

Upstairs: Mission accomplished! Rian's three-fur rescue team showed those sissies who's big around here! Have those boys fitted for training pants! But what's this? Baby Blue's distressed combat leader Dex seems to have found peace after accepting a difficult truth about himself. Now he doesn't wantto leave the academy until he's undergone its dangerous screening procedure! His rescuer Rian is insisting that he must! That means it's time for a . . . .

_Best Friend Fight! _One is the life of the party; one is the crawl-offish fur in the corner! One thinks the crinkle is the best part of the diaper; one thinks cloth is the comfy and responsible choice! One has worked his way up to wearing diapers 24/7; one wears 24/7 because he has no choice! One struggled growing up gay; and one is finally ready to come out as . . . straight?! The best buddies at the center of Baby Blue are like brothers, but their differences are about to come to a head: Blue versus blue, boy versus boy, crinkle versus cloth, Rian . . . versus . . . Dex! May the biggest baby prevail!

And now . . . .

Episodes in this Part:

Episode 5: Sacrifice!

Episode 6: Other People!

Episode 5: Sacrifice!

The cross fox slumped against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief as the lights around him flickered on. Then he pushed the fuse box shut and looked down at the clamp on the floor, still holding a wrench in his right paw. It had been keeping the fuse box closed, and fastened very tight, before Swifty finally got it off. After that it had been a simple matter to see that the main fuse block had been left inside tugged out of its place.

Three of the other sissy students hanging back from Swifty stared at him admiringly. One scratched her head, not sure what she was seeing. "One down," the fox said, half-smiling at his teammates as he shook both his paws. "If the next one is clamped like this too I'm going to need help getting it open." He wrung his sore, stiff wrists. "Who here can use a socket wrench? Or at least scrounge up some lubricant?"

One of the sissies, a shy-looking bear, reached for a purse set on the floor. "I always have lube, Swifty," she offered hesitantly. "But I didn't know it was-"

"Not _that_kind of lubricant," said the cross fox with a sigh. "WD-40 or something. Look, there must be one fur here besides me who's ever opened a toolbox."

"I can probably manage," came a familiar voice from down the hall, and Swifty's eyes widened as they lighted on the black Labrador stepping around the corner wall where the corridor where they were in joined the main hallway.

The other sissy students quailed fearfully at the sight of the blue team's leader in their midst, but Roger raised both paws, palms outward, in a comes-in-peace expression. "And as soon as your power's back on," he continued calmly, "I need you to show me where someone is."

The group of sissies, including the fox who'd been playing the part of a boy admirably, just stared. Roger made no move to reach for a weapon but only smiled slowly as he held out one paw, palm up, toward the treacherous cross fox in his stolen Baby Blue uniform. Obviously a lot of things had been thrown off balance tonight. This seemed like a good place to start to prove he was here to set things right. "That uniform's for furs who want to wear it. Not that I don't like what I see, Swift, but I thought," Roger said gently, "you'd settled on the softer side of Sears."

"What's going on?" asked one of the sissies, her knees knocking. "Are we occupied?"

"Well, I'm giving orders about this anyway," said the Labrador, eying Swift up and down, as he unslung his backpack. "I brought something to deal with you. A Cub Scout of ours developed certain measures to keep this sneak from infiltrating our group again. So consider this part of an armistice: if this fox is dressed like one of us boys, he should have a bow in his tail at the least. And," the Labrador removed three light pink folded diapers, thick enough that he could barely hold them by the edge in one paw, and extended them toward Swifty, "there are these. More to follow as Kit Raccoon finishes stenciling."

Swifty handed over the wrench and took the diapers from Roger, turning them over in his paw and reading what was stenciled on the front of each. "Swifty Fox = Sissy Fox," he read, and dropped the first one, "Naughty girl = not a boy," he dropped the second, and find himself looking at the back of the bottom one. "Hey!" he whined, fidgeting. "Do all of these say . . ." The fox blushed, "'Change and spank' on the back?"

Roger chuckled. "Oh, that one was a misprint," he said apologetically, and turned over one of the folded diapers on the floor with his foot, pointing down at it. "They're all supposed to say, 'Spank until pink.' That way," the dog explained calmly, turning his attention back to Swifty's sister students, "even if he wriggles out of them, he won't be able to pass for one of us. Besides it will keep you doofs from putting his diapers on backwards, which I'm sure you lot who haven't practiced enough with your dollies do all the time."

One of the kittens standing near Swifty bit her lip and looked at the floor, embarrassed. How did the enemy know she needed to ask for help changing her dolly's diapers? "Well, what are you waiting for?" Roger prompted in mock-seriousness. "Keep him occupied while he debriefs me. I expect to see him flouncing and mincing like an uncommonly prissy little vixen by the time you're done. If I see the spy otherwise Baby Blue will consider it a hostile act. Then I just might have to throw a water balloon at all of you."

The Labrador reached for his backpack again, but faced with such a threat, the sissy students knew what to do. Swift only had a minute to blink and stare at the leader of Baby Blue before he thudded to the ground on his rear as the other sissies tackled their hero and forced him down.

"Now that I have you listening, Swifty," said Roger, his tail wagging, "what happened to your security team?"

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

The wolf caught himself against the wall and stared up at his steely-eyed friend.

"Dex," Rian said, gritting his teeth, "I can't stand back and watch you do this. You're determined to punish yourself tonight and it's irrational."

"Tell me about it," Lin Lin remarked from the sidelines.

"Well I won't let you go through with it! As soon as you're out of this mind-warping place, Dex, your head will start clearing right away!" Rian declared, and pushing himself off the wall with his foot, launched himself toward his friend-only to tumble into the opposite wall.

With the lights back on, the night vision goggles he was still wearing were anything but helpful. He looked back over his shoulder as he reached up to raise them up to his forehead and saw the raccoon looking over his own shoulder at him and raising an eyebrow. "I didn't even see you move!" said Rian. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "When did you get so fast? It's like you became a Super Saiyan! Is that why you're wearing a Dragonball shirt?"

Lin Lin held a paw to her head and squeezed her eyes shut; Dex, still in an offensive stance facing the opposite direction but looking back over his shoulder, also looked pained. "I _didn't_move," he said icily. "I just leaned sideways out of your way." Then he turned his head back forward and rolled his shoulders as though warming up.

Rian launched himself off the opposite wall brandishing a paintball gun, trying to catch the coon before or while he was turning and get him in some sort of combination tackle and cuddle arm lock. But that Dex was still facing the opposite direction was an illusion. The coon's ears flicked as Rian charged, and one of his footpaws slid backwards, catching one of Rian's ankles and, with a quick twist, sending the wolf stumbling sideways, just barely catching himself on his knees. He dropped the paintball gun with a clatter when he fell, and it went off, splattering his own blue and yellow pajama shirt with red.

"You're humiliating yourself," the raccoon said in a chilly tone. "And by extension, me, as Baby Blue's combat leader."

The panda winced. Baby Blue missions had made the wolf less of a klutz than he used to be, but he had never been a fighter, and this would still be too painful to watch. In the meantime, she had to figure out what to do with Dex. Maybe he would blow off enough steam fighting to talk more rationally. Then she could persuade him to take off before Cassie came back and resumed this deep hypnosis nonsense. She didn't think the raccoon was really ready for something that invasive, and she had no intention of finding out experimentally.

"Ohhhhh," wailed Rian as the raccoon turned around and took a step toward him, "snap out of it, Dex! What do you want, cutie? I know how to get your mind off all this silly stuff! How about, a teething ring!" The raccoon stopped mid-step and bit his lip. A what?

Rian looked down at the paintball gun. It wouldn't be helpful. Pretend wounds wouldn't slow Dex down. He had to do something. What if his friend went into this thing and came back injected with those drugs he knew they had, a depressed shell of himself that the sissy team could dress up however they wanted? Those girls didn't even know what damage they might do; only Dex's closest friends knew how much pain he had gone through, and had heard Twitchy's account of him coming unhinged earlier.

"Yeah, that's right," urged the wolf, pressing his advantage as his paw reached for the black weapon on his shoulder holster. He couldn't use it, could he? "You can hold it in both paws while you're looking up at the ceiling, and chew, chew, chew, and giggle and gurgle around it, and big brother will be there, and Rog will be there, and Ace will be there, and Jax will be there, and Ace will say, 'I need Dex for something,' and Roger will say, 'Dex is busy,' and Jax will say, 'Doing what?' and I'll say, 'What do you think? What's he been busy doing for the last week 'sides sticking toys in his muzzle? He's teething! It takes a lot of concentration!' That's why you're so upset, isn't it hon?" Rian smiled as broadly as he could. "There's no better way to keep totally focused on what a little baby coonie you are and keep icky adult suggestion-y things from getting into cubby's head."

"Teething ring? What?" said Dex, shaking his head, though he raised a finger to his muzzle and chewed on the tip of it, looking a little distracted for about a minute, before he said, in an almost affectionately annoyed tone, "You're ridiculous."

That had been enough time, though for Rian to roll across the floor head over heels. In his head, he would have popped up gracefully on his footpaws and pulled the gun on the coon from behind his back, but in reality he made it through about two tumbles before he landed painfully on his side off to the right of and behind Dex, though he still managed, from that position, to raise Ace's stun gun in two trembling paws.

Lin Lin's ears flicked. What had just happened? Had the wolf dodged Dex . . . by using a regressive suggestion as some kind of attack?

"Dex," Rian let out in a rush, "cutie sweetheart honey baby bro, the only tests that need to be done on you are on your diapers. I know you can't keep track of when they're soggy or not, love. It's okay. Your big brother's on the job. I know how to do _that_kind of screening. Come along with me and I'll take care of absolutely everything for you for the next few days. By Monday," Rian said, his paws shaking, "coonie, you'll have had four childhoods' worth of adventures. Do you want to spend the weekend at the playsite? You won't have to do any work there, I swear. Everyone will be under orders that you're _the_team baby. Ohhh, maybe you want some privacy though? You can go in disguise!"

The raccoon started to say something, but Rian continued non-stop without letting him get a word in edgewise, desperately watching his implacable friend for some sign of a reaction.

"Did I tell you we made Roddy and Sammy into twins on Baby Blue territory cuz they both told me they felt like they missed out by growing up as only children? Wait till you see those two next. Buuuut the point is you could have either of their old baby clothes and pretend to be someone else! Or do you want to spend the weekend in Rog's once we've filled the place with pillow forts and play castles? Or, or, or, we can go to a special hiding place that only I know about. You won't need to see anyone at all. We'll look for buried treasure. I can come up with other things, too! I know you've had an awful night. Please let me make you feel better, Dex. Stop talking like there's something wrong with you. You don't need any tests to tell who you are. Don't go back to being sad. Come with me. Please don't make me force you."

Rian smiled up at his friend uneasily, even while pointing a stun gun at him. "Whatever's going on in your head, hon," he said, choking back his own tears, "that you think you need to be tested or hypnotized or humiliated or repressed or changed into a different fur, don't try to deal with that torment alone. You went through something awful earlier tonight, I know you did. Let me help you. That's what I'm here for. I've got nothing more important to do than look after my little bros. And you're baby bro number one. You know that. Don't you?"

Lin Lin, though she wasn't speaking, was peering out from between her paws and observing closely. What was with the wolf? Rian clearly didn't realize it, but _he_looked and sounded like the one on the verge of a breakdown. She'd assumed her raccoon was being typically naïve when he said that Rian pawed and play-acted for everyone else's benefit. But the little lupine seemed in deadly earnest about this family stuff. He obviously felt personally responsible for what had happened between the raccoon and Twitchy. She'd wondered what those two had in common, but she was getting an odd feeling that, although they were at odds for the moment, she was watching two of the strangest, but also, in their own ways, most weirdly unselfish boys she had ever seen.

Wait a minute, she scolded herself, shuddering involuntarily. _Her_raccoon? Had she actually just thought that a second ago, about a boy?

Dex turned around slowly and squinted down at his friend. The coon looked unmoved. But things were stirring in his head. Should he go back with Rian and talk with everyone about what had just happened? Should he explain why he wanted to be screened and ask for the wolf's approval?

No. Lin Lin had asked before how he could have cuddled so much with Rian in front of Twitchy. In truth, since the three of them were all friends already, he hadn't even thought about it. If he had, would the bunny have done things differently? He'd never know, but he wouldn't make the same mistake with Lin Lin, not right after she pointed it out. It was obvious enough even to Dex that she'd had some sexual experiences from the surprisingly skillful blowjob she'd given him, and his gut feeling was that they'd been bad. Clearly whatever partners she'd had hadn't done much to change her low opinion of boys, and he felt bad thinking about that.

He had to show his panda what had just happened was life changing, and he had to show her he wasn't totally beholden to what his friends thought. Wait a minute, he scolded himself, furrowing his brow, _his_panda? Had he seriously just thought that, about a girl?

Dex tilted his head sideways, and scoffed as he looked down at Rian, pointing the stun gun at him. "I know what that is. And I know you'd never fire it. I bet you're only carrying it because you were afraid Ace would. Well, he's not as gruff as he acts. I bet neither of you would pull the trigger," he said decisively, and stepped toward the wolf, holding out one paw and gesturing with it. "Hand it over."

Rian's paws trembled and his eyes glistened. He shook his head wordlessly as Dex took a slow, firm step closer. A bustle and yelping could be heard from the top of the stairs down the corridor, but the two boys were too intent on each other to pay attention. Lin Lin edged her way around the fighting cubs to get a better listen, keeping her eyes on them.

Mostly, she heard crying and begging for changes, or little sissies asking for help finding their caretakers and reassurance they wouldn't be punished for future accidents now that they had been subjected to force potty-training.

"Calm down, everyone!" she heard a golden retriever yipping, raising her voice to address the whole crowd. "The headmistress is back! I saw her myself! She'll calm everybody down and restore order. If there's any other Baby Blue boys here she'll get rid of them."

Dex's ears flicked. Rian's did too. "We have to get out of here now, Dex!" the wolf yipped. "We can talk about whatever you want back home!"

The raccoon's head turned slowly to look down the corridor toward the stairwell. He knew the rules of the game as well as Rian did, and this was a big one, even if it was almost never invoked. "Callie! Are you in earshot?" he shouted as loud as he could. "I'm confused! I claim amnesty! I surrender! I'm turning myself over! Help me! Put me under induction! I want-"

Rian's stomach churned as he felt his finger twitch on the trigger of the stun gun. He squeezed his eyes shut. But he opened them, only a second later, to see Dex drop to his knees, and slump forward on to the floor. The wolf blinked, stunned, and opened his trembling fingers. He hadn't pulled the trigger. Instead, he saw the panda standing over Dex, folding a rag that looked like a cloth baby diaper.

"I'm sorry, Dex," she said, letting out a heavy sigh and patting the unconscious coon's head, stroking one of his ears fondly. "That was never meant for you."

Rian stared dumbly as the panda dropped her chloroformed rag on the floor. It had been dosed for a squirrel. She hadn't known if it would work on the Newfoundland - and she had never gotten a clear shot. For a raccoon, the dose should still be about right. Rian just opened and closed his muzzle, totally bewildered.

"Get moving with him!" she snapped, and tossed her laminated keycard to him. "That will get you through the doors now that power's coming back on. I'll take care of things here and buy you time!"

"I don't understand," the wolf said blankly as he got to his feet and reholstered his stun gun. "What just happened?"

"I left Dex to be put under hypnosis once and I saw what happened to him," Lin Lin said, trembling. "I won't let him go through that again. Not on my account and not because he has a crazy idea that he needs to prove something. I," she gulped, and her voice became unsteady, as she looked down at the raccoon who had lost his virginity to her a little more than an hour ago, "I think I love him." She could only say the word then because the wolf was someone whose opinion she didn't care about. Then she shook her head. "And I don't want to see him hurt himself because of it. He always ends up hurt when he's around me. I'll send him away before I'll watch it happen again." The wolf's brow furrowed in confusion.

She steadied herself and snapped at him in the sharp tone he'd grown accustomed to, "Besides, I for one am sick and tired of _your_sexist assumption that boys are the only ones who can ever rescue furs around here."

Rian stared at her and shook his head. "What?" he exclaimed vacantly. "You don't care about Dex. You're evil. This is a trick! An elaborate trick to make me leave him with you! You two haven't even. . . You've hardly talked! He's been dating Twitchy for months and . . ."

The panda glanced down the hallway toward the stairwell and the confused gabble of voices drifting closer from it. There was obviously still a lot of confusion down there or they would have been around the corner by now. That explosion must have sent the couples in bedrooms streaming out into the halls to see what was happening. Had Cassie been waylaid? Why hadn't she sent anyone up here? Well, no time to find out; Dex and Rian had to get out of there quick. "Hurry!" she urged. "There's no time to explain!"

"Everyone keeps saying that!" exclaimed Rian as he put one paw under each of Dex's arms and hoisted his unconscious friend up, then moved one arm to grip the coon under his padded bottom. "Short version? One sentence?" he asked desperately.

The panda clenched the muscles around her mouth and glared at him. Then she answered brusquely, "We had a moment when you were away over spring break. Now, go! Get moving!"

"Spring break?" said Rian, perplexed. "But that's also when Dex got together with Twitchy."

"Yes," said Lin Lin, turning her back on him. "Run already!"

"Oh!" wailed the confused wolf in the paintball-spattered blue-and-yellow star pajamas as he ran down the hall, cradling his unconscious raccoon friend in his arms and clutching him to his chest. "How much could I have missed during one trip? I can never go on vacation again!"

The panda looked over her shoulder to make sure he had actually left and let out a long sigh as she stared down at her Tinkerbell stop watch and let enough time pass to give the boys a substantial lead. Although she hadn't tried to butt into the boys' argument, she'd been listening to it. Rian's vows had had little effect on Dex, who was used to hearing them, but they had made an impression on her.

"I still think you're an idiot," she said softly, after the departed wolf, "but I trust you to take care of him."

Lin Lin rounded the corner of the stairwell and stopped herself just short of colliding with a sissy fox who had made her way up through the confusion below. She groaned. "Well, it's a happy day for you," the panda snapped.

Serafina raised an eyebrow. "Lin Lin! Where's Dex?" The sissy fox caught the panda's arm in one paw as Lin Lin attempted to brush by her. "Don't play games. I know he was with you."

"Your wolf took him," she said, flicking a paw over her shoulder. "Don't worry, the two of you can throw a party once you've heard the news. Where's the boss lady? I have some business to finish here."

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

Dex doubtless would have woken up sooner if he hadn't already been up most of the night.

The first thing he heard as his senses returned was the crackling of a fire. The raccoon moaned softly and stretched his legs, feeling his toes wriggle, and wiggling his bottom to verify that he was powdered and in a comfortably dry diaper. There was a blanket under him. And . . . he was dressed. In pants and everything. It seemed like he hadn't worn pants all night! In a moment, he felt a cold nose and a warm tongue pressing against his face, and he giggled and batted with his paws involuntarily as he was covered with licks.

"Hey," he said, "that tickles!"

"Dex!" exclaimed the wolf cub, wearing a rain poncho, his hood down, over his blue and yellow pajamas, who was crouching over him on all fours. "You're awake! I brought one of your spare karate uniforms in my rescue kit, cutie. I redressed you and started a fire to keep you warm. How do you feel?"

"Where are we?" the coon asked groggily, his ears flicking. What was that crashing noise he heard? Were they near-

"Don't worry, you're safe here. We're basically unfindable," Rian said confidently, his tail wagging. "I brought you to a secret spot, like I said. Or, umm, one of the things I said I might do. No craziness here. Just you and me. We're going to hole up until the storm passes and everything is safe, and by the time we go back to the play site tomorrow, you'll feel better about things. I promise." The wolf smiled, and patted him on the head.

Dex half-yawned. He did feel a little more peaceful. The sound became clearer in his ears. "Are we," he strained to look up and over his shoulder, but couldn't quite get his head off the ground, "behind a waterfall?"

Rian nodded eagerly and his eyes glimmered. "Pretty cool, huh?" He flopped down on his side, on the Indian blanket he'd lain out under the coon. "So, tell me what happened," he prodded gently. "I want to hear the truth from you. Other furs said other things but," he wrinkled his nose, "I don't believe them. Why did you try to surrender back there?"

The raccoon squirmed as memories came rushing back. The conservatory. The punishment room. The castor oil ruse. The sex-oh, the sex. How could he have felt that way and done those things-with a girl?

"Nothing happened," he said after a moment.

The wolf frowned. "Do you remember where we were, little guy?" he asked, nosing at Dex's muzzle gently. "We came here from the academy."

Dex nodded. "I remember just fine. I can't believe she knocked me out from behind. Didn't she trust me? Or was it because it seemed like I wouldn't go in as her prisoner? I guess you sprang into action and still got me out of there, though."

He looked up at Rian sadly. "Talk about a long con. How long do you think she was planning that? She must have had whatever she used on her the whole time. Oh, the things I did. She could humiliate me with-if the team ever knew the things I said to her, and how stupid I must have sounded-ohh, I can hear myself, I sounded so dumb. Who knows what she'll do with this. Do you suppose she had a tape recorder or something? That's what I get for trusting a girl, right? Well," the exhausted coon half-smiled, and his eyes glimmered sadly, "look at me mixing myself up again. The important thing tonight is," he draped one arm around Rian's neck and sniffled, "you came to rescue me. Not even your soulmate could stop you. And I guess it's a good thing. I'm back where I belong."

"Oh, Dex," said Rian, cuddling up the coon, and repeating the narrative he'd already developed in his head, "what an awful night you've had. Twitchy unmoored you so much and once you got here, you thought you could trust that panda to show you what they had that might calm you down, right? Is that what happened? Because you'd been on a mission with her and you didn't feel like you could burden anyone else on your own team with the truth about Twitch. And she saw an opening and totally took advantage of you. But I'm here now, hon. I won't let anyone else hurt you." He flopped down alongside Dex, and licked the side of his muzzle as he added, "Not ever again."

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

The Newfoundland thumped her foot against the rear attic floor impatiently as she tried to maneuver the two chairs, tied back-to-back, closer to the exit. The small, dusty room near where Dex had broken in served as an annex space for the academy library, and its racks and chests were filled with back issues of girly magazines and princess-themed children's books.

Cassie had managed to work the gag out of her mouth, and it was hanging around her neck. "What's taking you so long?" she snapped. "When furs are tied up on TV, all they need to do is get near a door knob or something! It only slows them down for like five minutes!"

"I'm working, I'm working," said the squirrel tied back-to-back with her, who had spread her legs enough that she could rub the ropes around her wrists against the top of one of the chair legs. Shelley's blouse was still singed and covered with plastic shards, but she had managed to shake her gag out as well. Unfortunately, the two had been stashed in a remote enough location that shouting and stamping didn't do much good. "Jax did this, remember? I guess furs on TV don't go getting themselves tied up by Eagle Scouts. If I could just . . ."

"Just who I'm looking for!" declared a black Labrador wearing a backpack at the door as he stepped through, flipping a Swiss army knife open in one paw. "You two are good at hide and seek!"

"Roger!" barked the bigger black dog, sounding more relieved than anything, for she knew the Labrador wouldn't be part of a black-ops assault team. "Is the mistress here with you? Did she go to your camp? I never thought she'd do it! Listen, your boy is-"

"Hush," said the Labrador as he began sawing through the coils that bound them to the chair. "One thing at a time. First - I need Shell."

Shelley groaned and began rubbing more frantically, as though her bonds might come undone in the next thirty seconds if she concentrated hard enough. "I am not_getting rescued by _you, you half-housebroken hypocrite!" she snapped.

"Get over it," said the dog as the first coil fell away. "There's someone stuck in your underground gauntlet that a climber like you just might be able to reach, and it's already taken us too long to sort out the havoc here and find you. Hurry and you can do something good for a change. Try it and who knows, maybe you'll like it."

"Listen, Roger! We aren't the real danger to your boy!" barked Cassie, "Nothing here is as it appears!"

"Oh that's a surprise," muttered the squirrel. "You know what, don't even explain things to me. Why would we want to spoil the walk down memory lane? I _am_glad I made this trip. Now I know I _don't_have any regrets," remarked Shelley, rolling her eyes, as the coils fell away and she stretched her arms out to either side. Roger began working on the rope around her ankles. "But at the very least, after the long fight you and Callie have been having around this party," the squirrel said to Roger smugly, "I certainly think even you can admit that you owe me an apology."

"I certainly do not!" exclaimed Roger. "She told you from the beginning we're brother and sister. You're the one who started jumping to crazy conclusions. It was totally inappropriate of you to try to get me involved in getting your stuff back at the end. As though I'd take _your_side or anything," the dog said, as he reached the final coil.

"Okay, maybe Callie could have explained the shared fetish stuff to you a teeny bit sooner or have gone into a little more detail, but if _my sister_says that nothing is going on and things aren't what they look like," he concluded, a little bit huffily, as he stood up, holding up the undone rope to demonstrate that she was free, "Callie's word should have been good enough for you. She is a good fur."

The squirrel just stared at him dumbly for a moment. "You two just . . . you. . . she . . . you said she had to explain about what was going on here or . . . Gaaaa!" she shrieked, ending in wordless rage, and snatched a stray women's magazine from the floor, hurling it into Roger's face.

The dog stood implacably, just tilting his muzzle sideways so that the magazine covering his face slid off and fell back onto the ground. Then he raised an arm and pointed sternly to the door. "Basement," he summarized sternly. "Fur hanging on a rope. Go. Now. Hurry. Make with the climbing action."

Shelley bit her lip and glared at him. "I still hate you!" she called, before, in a gray blur, she vanished.

Calliope arrived in the doorway a moment later. "I told you I'd find them first, sis!" said Roger, wagging his tail, as he began working on Cassie's bonds, then added, poutily, "And I still don't like your ex."

"Mistress," the Newfoundland blurted out, "I'm sorry. I was trying to protect you! But you're both here now. You need to find Dex and Lin Lin. The balance between our teams is all out of whack, and it's partly my fault. But now that you two are working together, I know you'll be able to fix things. You're the only ones who can reach across team lines for something like this."

"Lin Lin," said the leopardess, pursing her lips, "is in my office insisting she talk with me. The boy has vanished. We think, although no one is sure, with the wolf."

Roger shook his head as he finished slicing the ropes off Cassie. "Rian," Roger said by way of apology, "has the biggest heart of any fur I know, but he's had a hard time accepting the last few weeks that he can't be all things to all furs and there are situations he might not be able to help with. He's really beating himself up over what happened with Dex and Twitchy, and this whole rescue mission is . . . well, it's probably massive overcompensation."

"Oh," moaned the Newfoundland, burying her head in her paws, "this is all very bad. The raccoon has to get back here. You two have to do your routine to restore equilibrium. That's our last hope now; who else could sort something like this out?"

Roger nodded. "As soon as I can rustle up the Scouts, I'll get them looking for Rian and use their walkie talkies to try to hail him; he won't answer his phone."

Calliope looked over her shoulder as she heard a timid knock. A golden retriever in a dress eyed them uncertainly from the doorway.

"How is the attendance going?" Calliope asked. "Tell me at least that we aren't missing anybody from my team."

The dog bit her lip uncertainly and let her tail fall flat. "We're still looking, headmistress," she said, eying Callie cautiously, "and I know you don't need more bad news, but I thought you should know that . . . no fur has any idea where Serafina is."

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

The coon moaned softly as Rian stroked the shaft inside his diaper with one paw, licking his nose all the while. "Someone needs way more help than usual," said the wolf, redoubling his efforts. "Poor coonie. Relax. Relax. Aww, you may just be too tired, hon. It's okay. We'll tell ghost stories. How about that? What's my bestest baby buddy in the whole wide world wanna hear? What's my bestest baby buddy in the whole wide world wanna do?"

In an adjacent tunnel, a fox in a loose-fitting green silk dress, a purple shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders, reached the end of a long crawl space, and stood up in a little grotto. She flattened herself against the wall, her ears flicking.

"Sweetheart," she whispered, "I hope I'm right about this. I saw you headed off into the woods in this direction, and this is where I would come, when I felt like how your howl sounded."

She heard voices echoing from not far ahead, and stepped cautiously towards them, listening.

Dex fidgeted and eyed Rian uncertainly. "Rian," he said in a grown-up tone, a little querulously, "did you really fight with Serry about coming after me? Just a few days ago, you were begging your father to sponsor her play. You've barely talked to your father in years. I don't know if I've ever seen you so frightened. I can't imagine you fighting with her after that."

Rian smiled softly and patted the raccoon on the head. "Oh, Serry doesn't know about that," the wolf said. "She can think she's protecting me from knowing how much hate is in the world. But I know all about that. Look, I needed to find you, Dex. After what Twitchy told me about how you left, and we heard you'd gone to that place, where they had drugs and things, I had to see that you were okay."

The raccoon tilted his head and looked up at the wolf strangely. "Why did you come?" he asked, not entirely sure any longer what he wanted to hear as an answer. "Why wouldn't you leave me there when I said you should go? Do you love me?"

"Like a brother, Dex," Rian answered eagerly. "Like family." The wolf sniffled. Family. That made him think of something Jax had told him that he'd almost forgotten in the subsequent adrenaline rush. Something about Dex turning down an international summer job. "Dex," he said slowly, "are you going anywhere this summer?"

The raccoon fidgeted. "What," he said, "you mean, besides going with you on the Fourth of July to see your dad?"

Rian frowned. "You don't _have to_do that, Dex," he said.

The raccoon smiled up at him. "Sure I do. You don't have to deal with things all alone, Rian. You taught me that once. I owe it to you. And . . . I want to do it. I couldn't stand seeing you come back crushed and . . . not the wolf we know and love. Don't worry. I'll keep my calendar clear for that." He yawned, and said, mid-yawn, "I love you, buddy."

The wolf felt a slow, terrible realization that he'd been repressing all night bubbling in the back of his mind. In the car earlier, Twitchy had told him that Dex was in love with him, that it was damaging him, and that Rian was making it worse by never being able to step out of the way. At the academy, the panda had said she wouldn't keep Dex around her if she thought it was hurting him.

Rian squeezed his eyes shut. They were both liars. He didn't have to listen to scheming furs like that. Twitch had lied about his age and who knows what else. Lin Lin had been carrying a chloroformed rag around with her, for goodness' sake. What other proof did he need not to trust them?

But why would the panda lie about loving Dex? And why would Twitchy say such hurtful things and still insist he was Rian's friend? Oh, he had a sinking feeling. Twitchy was right about this. Dex did love him _that_way. He was ready to give up his dream job because of it. That wasn't something you did for a friend. He was steeling himself to sacrifice the best chance of his life to the ghost of a relationship that would never be. Meanwhile, Dex could actually be with someone who would rather push him away than see him make a self-destructive gesture for her.

"Oh Dex," he said, a quiver in his voice that he quickly steadied, "you really don't remember. It must have zapped you harder than I thought. I can't keep pretending about this. I never should have drawn that stun gun. I'm afraid the shock from that thing confused you." He stood up, and turned his back to the raccoon, leaning on one paw against the cave wall, and staring down at the stone floor.

"What are you talking about?" asked the raccoon blankly. "I told you I remember fine. Lin Lin knocked me out." He snorted, a bit indignantly. "And after we- well, never mind. After she did things to get all sorts of crazy confessions out of me."

Rian felt the void opening around him. They'd had sex. Hadn't Serry tried to tell him something like that? Dex hadn't gone to the academy for drugs or hypnosis. Whether he realized it or not, when he felt like the world had been pulled out from under him, he'd gone to see her.

"She caught you after I shot you with the stun gun, Dex, maybe you're remembering that. Lin Lin didn't hurt you," Rian lied, in a manner of speaking, keeping his back to the raccoon so Dex couldn't see the tears streaming down his face. "I did!"

Dex just snorted. "What are you doing?" he asked, sounding amused. "I told you, I remember. You'd never . . ."

"She'd be here now," Rian said, gathering steam, "except I warned her off with it. I told her, look what she had done, preying on you at a time like tonight, and pointed down at you. I told her never to come near you again. I started to say I wouldn't let her near you again before you hit me, remember?"

"You're crazy," Dex said dully. "You're making things up and they don't even make sense."

Not more than a few yards away, the sissy fox who had flattened herself against the wall until she could figure out what was going on coaxed her heart out of her throat. She could feel her wolfy failing. He couldn't pull this off alone. He'd be crying in front of Dex and begging for his forgiveness in twenty seconds. She steeled herself and let go of the shawl around her head and shoulders, making her way into the main room, trying to make it look like she was in a rush, and feigning panting so it wouldn't appear she'd been standing a few corners back listening.

"What's _she_doing here?" Dex snapped. "I thought this was a secret spot!" He had the discomfiting feeling he was lying in a place where Rian and Serry had had sex.

"Oh, umm," admitted Rian, blushing, looking up at Serafina uncertainly, "it's _her_secret spot actually. I kind of borrowed it because it's nearish to the academy. Serry - what are you doing here?"

The sissy fox rested a paw on Rian's shoulder and looked down into the short wolf's eyes, for a moment, smiling at him, "I followed you. I thought you'd come here to avoid everyone, sweetie. I came as quick as I could because I thought one of you," then she looked over his shoulder at Dex, "might want to know what's going on at the academy."

Dex looked from one to the other of them uncertainly, sitting up, then getting on to his knees. "Is Double L okay?" he asked.

Rian blinked. "You have a pet name for her?" he asked incredulously, but the raccoon ignored him.

"I ran into her after you two left and tried to calm her down," Serafina related. "Dex- she's quitting. She told me she was on her way to Callie's office to ream her out about the squirrel and what they wanted to do to you. She was going to pack first, though. She's leaving town."

Without realizing it, the two had hit a nerve, for Dex recalled Lin Lin's guilt-ridden goodbye outside the circus fairground, when she had blamed herself for leaving the regressed raccoon in the circus workers' paws. She had said then that Dex should stay away from her for his own good, that it had been his mistake to trust her, and he shouldn't make it again. Rian's story was starting to make sense. How could he have said something like that to her? No wonder she was upset.

Rian blinked. "Why would she leave town?" he asked.

Dex unsteadily got to his feet. "As though _you_need to ask!" he snapped. Serafina regarded him curiously. There was something different about him - angry, of course - but something confident. It was like he had shaken off the diffidence she was used to seeing as soon as she mentioned the panda was distressed enough that she might be leaving. "Packing? What, is she going to leave tonight? In the dead of morning in a rainstorm? Where will she go? What will she do? I need to get over there before she does something she'll regret!"

"Okay, okay," said Rian, turning back to face the raccoon, and trying to be soothing, "we can head right back and . . ."

"_You're_not going near her!" Dex growled, raising a finger and pointing it at Rian. "If anything happens to her, or if she leaves town and we don't hear from her again, I'll never forgive you!" In a flash, the wolf tumbled backwards, and found the stun gun he'd been carrying pointed at his muzzle, in Dex's paws. "You think this thing is a toy?" he demanded. "You like threatening furs with it? Well-see how it feels!" The raccoon glanced over his shoulder, in a panic, then at Rian and Serafina. "Where are we?" he snapped.

Rian gulped and pointed past the coon. "This waterfall is in city park," he said. "Over the lake where they rent paddleboats and have the big bicycle rack." The raccoon, holding Rian and Serafina at bay with the stun gun, turned over Rian's supply pack in his foot and rifled around in it.

He grabbed a bicycle helmet in one paw and put it on his head, fastening the straps. "I can't let her ride in the rain without a helmet," he said. "By the way, Rian," said the coon, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, steeling himself to confess something dramatic, "I'm sorry you have to find out this way, and I know you won't understand, but . . . I'm straight. I'm sorry. I tried not to be."

"Dex, stop!" Rian shouted as the raccoon stepped backward into the waterfall. "It's okay! I'm sorry! Everything is okay! You don't have to-"

The raccoon took another step back, toward the cascading wall of water, and fell from view. Rian and his girlfriend rushed to the edge, and breathed simultaneous sighs of relief as they saw the raccoon clinging to a rock outcropping with all four paws just to the left of and below the cave opening, making his way over to the dry surface of the rock more fit for climbing.

Behind him, the stun gun he had thrown over his shoulder faded into a speck as it vanished into the foam below.

On the horizon, the first light of dawn had just begun to glimmer, and it reflected up at them, magnified and made colorful, through the cascading water.

Rian collapsed backwards into his girlfriend's arms and stared up at her as soon as they saw Dex had a sure footing. "How long were you there?" he asked.

"Long enough," she said, and grabbed him close to her in the tightest hug she could manage. After a minute, she released him. "Keep an eye on him and watch which way he goes. I need to text and call Callie," she reached for a pouch fastened to her waist, "if there's still time, maybe she can send Lin Lin in the same direction."

Rian shook his head. "Was she really packing to leave town?"

Serafina nodded and sighed. "That's Lin Lin. Did your friend really just climb through a waterfall?"

Rian shrugged. "That's Dex," he answered. "Maybe those two aren't such a bad match after all. If they do run into each other," he asked, "what do you think will happen then?"

"They'll have sex, I imagine," said Serry, as she fiddled with her phone, sending a text first, "if they haven't run out of gas already."

"I mean," said Rian, tugging on her sleeve, "do you think they'll last?"

"After what we went through tonight," said Serafina, sending the message, "I hope so."

"Oh, Serry," Rian wailed, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his head in her chest. "That was hard. Dex might hate me forever. And I-" he trembled as he squeezed the sissy fox closer, "oh, I haven't really seen you in more than a week."

"It's okay, honey," Rian's princess answered him as she saw a reply text back, and closed her phone. "I know. I saw what you did. And it was the right thing. It's time for your friend to spread his wings and be his own fur."

"I could never have done that by myself though," he said, looking up at her. "You're more than my princess," he nuzzled at her forepaw and looked up at her imploringly. "Partner."

Serafina returned her phone to the pouch and drew him close to her. "And you're more than my lover," she whispered in his ear. "Champion. Fighter. Partner. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the trouble we were having with the play. It sounds like there are things you need to tell me about, too."

Rian smiled at her uneasily and nodded. "Yeah. There'll be time for that later," he said, settling down and sitting in the cave near the edge of the waterfall, watching his best friend drop on to the ground far below, and reaching for the walkie talkie near his backpack. "Let's do what we can to make sure this turns out okay."

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

Ace and Jax tumbled into Roger as the Labrador opened the front door to the academy. The Labrador blinked at the sight of the two Scouts, who had been trying to force the front entrance open.

"Sir!" They both exclaimed. Jax looked a little wobbly.

"I thought you two would have taken off with Rian and Dex?" he said.

"We pulled out ahead of them," Jax said. "We were heading right back and Rian said Dex was okay and they were moving! Then the power came on. Just now. Practically. I mean, we just noticed that the power came on. So we were investigating. We tried to hail Rian, but he just said he was bringing Dex to a safehouse, and said to head down the river without him, then cut out. He . . . . might have thought that we were further away. Since we're fast. Er than them."

Roger looked at the pair, noting Ace's unbuckled belt and Jax's unzipped fly, then at his watch, and raised an eyebrow. "All this happened before you got more than five steps away from the front door?" he asked.

"We," the tracking hound's eyes flickered from Ace, his shirt still dingy and his fur still singed and acrid, to the team's leader, "were moving slow, because Ace," the dog gestured up at him, "was wounded!" The tracking hound reached down and zipped his fly, realizing he had forgotten to do that moments ago.

Then Jax caught himself against the front wall, his knees buckling a little, and he looked up at the lynx over his shoulder, unable to suppress a dreamy smile.

"I suppose you were wounded too?" Roger asked critically.

"I-" The hound dog hung his head. "No," he admitted. "It didn't hurt," he reassured his boyfriend, turning his head back over his shoulder to smile up at him some more. "Not at all."

Roger, still holding the front entrance open with one paw, opened his muzzle to say something, but all six of their ears flicked. "Ahhhhhhhhh owwwwwwwwww!" came a high-pitched lapine squeal, followed by a sob and a cry of, "She's torturing me!"

"Come on," said Roger, starting off in that direction, and gesturing over his shoulder. The three broke into a run.

They followed the cries into a small bondage cell where Twitchy was sitting, locked into place, in a reclining restraint chair tilted back to be parallel to the floor.

"You are a nervous one," said Shelley, releasing the rabbit's leg with a sigh and wiping both her paws. "I told you - stay still and stop touching it!"

"You're not who I want to be with," whined the querulous, captive bunny.

"Join the club, kid," said Shelley, as she turned to a small sink and washed her paws.

"What's going on?" barked Roger.

"Captain!" yelped the tearful bunny, wriggling in the loose restraints to reach down and rubbing a paw as close as he could get to the top of the compress wrapped around his ankle, apparently in less pain than a moment ago. "H- h- hey, that feels . . ."

The squirrel looked over her shoulder at them and sighed. "I caught him right near the bottom. He sprained his ankle fierce. It might be broken. If it is, it's a simple fracture. We better take him to the hospital to make sure. I'd rather not set it myself."

The three regarded the squirrel curiously. "If it is it's a simple fracture? You'd rather not set it yourself?" repeated Roger in a daze as though he had just heard the squirrel say something in Greek. "Shell, how do you . . .?"

"Haven't I told you," she interrupted him curtly, "daddy used to take me trapping? Not a lot of hospitals where I grew up. I'm a wilderness EMT and I try to keep the certification current. The problem is he won't stop moving and leave it alone. I'm trying to make a splint for him and then the two of us can get moving. If I can get Callie or Cassie's keys I'll drive him to the hospital."

Jax bit his lip, his eyes flickering from the door to the bunny whose message he had deleted hours ago. He had wanted to make sure the bunny leveled with Dex, but he certainly hadn't wanted to see him injured again not long after his last accident. "Jax, Ace," said the whimpering bunny, squinting up at the Scouts, "what are you two doing here? Where is Dex? Is he okay?"

"Well, we don't know exact-" Ace started to say.

Jax spoke over him, cutting him off, and stepped into the room, "Yeah, Twitch. He's fine," said the tracking hound reassuringly. "He's with Rian right now. Just a little shook up, but he'll be okay. No one else is getting hurt tonight." He patted the bunny's head.

"Oh," the rabbit stopped sobbing and smiled up at Roger. "We got him." He gave Roger a shaky thumbs up, and it was evident his fingers were streaked with drying blood. "Dex is okay. Mission," he said tremulously, "accomplished."

"Ace," the tracking hound said, "why don't you go with Rog on the Dex detail? I'll help you with the splint and ride with you and Twitch," Jax offered, looking up at Shelley and extending a paw to her.

"So, wilderness EMT?" he asked cautiously, sounding impressed. "Where did you go for that? Because you know . . . I've been looking."

"Sorry to be the heavy," Ace said to Roger as they stepped into the hallway, "but what's going on with this kid? Has anyone thought about what we're going to do now? The group was just fine until Rian let a teenager in."

Roger stared down at him sternly. "Here's what's going on," he said, assuming an uncharacteristic tone of executive command, and ticking off his decisions on his fingers. "First, the bunny is eighteen now. He stays. In a modified capacity. Second, Rian, it seems," the Labrador produced a key ring from his pocket, "recently acquired a group car. I need to talk to your cub scout. But since we're all agreed that Kit Raccoon can't drive himself anywhere, I need to make a list of permitted drivers, and I want to make sure his caretakers are all covered one way or another on insurance on the vehicle. Kit should not have to pay if one of us dings his car up. I'll figure out the best way to do that, but it means: tell your boys, I need to see everybody's driver's license. I don't want to hear excuses like, well, I would never drive him. We have a team car and you never know when each team member might end up driving it. Kit Raccoon is the only one who can't, being confined to a car seat and all. And Rian already confiscated his license for reclassification." Roger opened his wallet and showed Ace the cub scout's driver's license, which had "B-A-B-Y" printed across it in large block letters in what appeared to be permanent marker.

The lynx squinted up at him. "Showing ID? Some of the boys won't like that," he warned. "There's already muttering from some furs who feel like our group has too many rules."

"Just say it comes from the top down and you have nothing to do with it," said Rog. "Blame it on me. I'm happy to be the bad guy."

"We might see some furs leave," Ace said.

"Fine," said the Labrador decisively. "They can start their own diaperfur groups if they want and make whatever rules they like. But I need to see every fur's driver's license from now on. Because we have a team car, and that's a big privilege-for such little boys. And carseat Kit needs as many potential drivers available to him as possible seeing as how his driver's license is now only good," he turned it over to show Ace what Rian had written on the back, in large block print, "for the Power Wheels class of vehicle. That's just how it's going to be for the time being. Okay?"

Ace bit his tongue. He sometimes thought the lab should take a stronger paw in group management. But somehow, in the midst of everything going on, Roger had come up with a plan that wasn't a harsh, recriminatory demand, but would reward those of his boys who went along with it. "Yes," the lynx answered Roger with a salute, "sir!"

"You should head after Lin Lin with that raccoon's things," said Calliope primly as she rounded the corner and approached the front door, looking drained, "but hang back a bit." She bristled when she saw the lynx, though, and rounded on Roger. "First, though, we need to talk about tonight."

"Darn right we need to talk about tonight," Roger shot back.

"I should be suing you!" each of the siblings exclaimed angrily at the same time.

"You first," said Roger, with a grudging sigh.

"What's the big idea setting any kind of fireworks off indoors?" Calliope blurted out angrily, "Your junior NRA member here," she shook the closed silk fan in her paw at Ace, "could have seriously hurt furs. How could you let a diapered kitten get hold of stuff like that? What are you handing out over there, babies' first tactical combat kits?"

"Hmph," snorted Roger, crossing his arms. "Don't try to do the girl trick and turn this around. Maybe Ace got a bit carried away. But everyone here looked fine to me. It's one of my boys who's going to the hospital. His ankle might be broken and he's lucky he wasn't hurt worse, all thanks to your overprotective paranoia."

"You can't let these boys do whatever they want!" snapped Calliope, gesturing at Ace.

"And you can't lock up impressionable sissies in a dungeon!" barked Roger.

"They're still in diapers for goodness' sake!" both siblings snapped at the same time.

They were interrupted by a crackle as Ace looked down at the radio on his belt. He began talking on it as Jax and Shelley carried Twitchy into the hallway, the bunny suspended off the floor with one arm over each of their shoulders. Each of them held up one of his legs by the knee, and a makeshift splint encased his right ankle and kept him from shifting it around.

"Don't let Dex," called the white rabbit over his shoulder as they headed for the back door, "forget his changing kit!"

The leopardess in the blowsy Victorian dressing gown bit her lip and looked up at Roger a little apprehensively. "What are you going to do about the bunny?" she asked.

"Actually, I wanted to ask for your input about my idea," Roger said.

A good deal ahead of Jax, Shelley, and Twitchy, outside the back door of the academy, in the woods beyond the small clearing where a couple cars and several bicycles were parked, a panda stood staring in the direction of a winding path to the river, a wheeled pink suitcase gripped in one paw. She looked at the envelope in her left paw and snorted.

"Promote me now, will you," she muttered to herself, agitated. "A little too little, and a whole lot too late, lady. If you're going to quit, Lin Lin, follow the trail back to the river, look at where you always tangled with the boys, look across to their campsites, take a last glance at those spots before you do anything hasty," she repeated the advice she'd just heard, and cast a disgusted glance over her shoulder, and then grabbed the envelope in her left paw, and ripped it in half. "I don't need your stupid promotion and I don't need to read the stupid mission statement you decided on either. I've had about enough of you telling me what to do. This is what you get for trying to guilt-trip me."

Then she headed off, along the long path that led off to the road behind the academy, on the opposite route than the one Calliope had suggested to her, on the start of her trek to a bus stop that would get her moving toward the airport.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Calliope asked Roger, as Ace, still standing aside and talking on his walkie talkie, hoisted Dex's backpack from the floor and let it hang loosely over one shoulder. "You could suspend him temporarily and see if he even wants to come back after a few months. He may be too ashamed to."

The Labrador shrugged. "Am I sure? Not really! But I can't banish the kid. That _would_send him to a bad place. As it is, I don't know what might happen to him in a few hours. I mean," Roger wiped his paws on his pale blue tee shirt, "if all I knew about him were the underpawed things he'd done, maybe. But I _do_know him better than that. So I can't shut him out. Besides, you know as well as I do, sis. It's impossible to be like us," he tugged on his waistband, and smiled at her, "and do it alone. We all need to take an unjustified leap of faith and trust in other furs, sooner or later, no way around it. And if you give them a chance to, other people, if you don't write them off too fast, can surprise you. We all have more friends than we think. I try to tell my boys that."

Callie was silent, biting her lip and nodding slowly.

"Say, sis," he asked as they started down the hall, "speaking of knowing furs, the one thing I don't really get is why you had to invite your crazy ex-girlfriend to town for your party. Surely you could have mail-ordered some of that stuff from her or found it yourself. You two parted on such bad terms, I never thought I'd see _her_again."

Calliope gripped one of his paws in hers and squeezed it as she bid him farewell at the front exit, preparing to return to restoring order inside, as Roger and Ace set out with Dex's backpack.

"The word on the BDSM circuit," said Calliope, "is that it's been a long time since Shelley's done any scenario play other than for money. In that kind of situation, I don't know if furs have always been respectful in what they've asked her to do. Tops have limits too. I thought maybe spending some time here and seeing how our boys and girls played with each other... well," she smiled up at Roger, "I was trying to be a little more special like my big brother."

"Special like me?" said Roger, blushing. "You were always the talented one in the family."

"But you're the one," said Calliope, giving him a peck on the nose, "who doesn't give up on people."

Next time: Other People! The world is bigger than you think-and smaller, too.

Episode 6: Other People!

"Blaze!" The collie reporter, half-asleep at his computer, collapsed over his keyboard and an upside-down notebook, started as he felt a paw on his shoulder. "What is this crap?" his leonine editor continued accusingly, shaking a paper at him.

The big cat was too upset to notice a small gray mouse slumbering, spread-eagled, on his back on top of Blaze's computer monitor. "You said to save space for something big," the lion continued angrily. "Trust me, you said. We need it in the last regular issue before graduation, you said. This is just a bunch of quotes from furs happy that we won the basketball title. It doesn't belong on our front page. I already have a story on the sports page about the basketball tournament. I thought you were doing a follow-up on the fire story? You said you had something new to say about your anonymous hero."

The collie yawned, still rubbing the sleep out of the back of his eyes with both paws. "You know what," he said, "comic books are right about some things. Sorry, chief. Being the reporter chasing somefur's secret identity," he paused for another squeaky yawn before concluding, "It just never works out."

The lion threw down the paper he was holding. "If it weren't your last week of school, I swear," he growled, shaking his head so his mane flopped about. "I hope you have a backup career plan. You, Blaze Collie, are never going to be more than a cub reporter."

"Well," said the dog, yawning again, shifting and feeling the soft, powdered plastic cushioning muffled under his shorts, the only thing that had made it possible for him to sleep relatively well on a hard plastic chair and wake up without a sore bottom, "there are worse things than that."

"Papers are closing in the Northwest anyway," the lion said, sounding a little concerned. "What else are you going to do if you can't get a job once you're out there?"

The happy-go-lucky collie shrugged. "Live life. Write about it after. Fix cars, maybe. I can do that. Once I get out there, if I have enough free time, I'm thinking," he said, resting a paw on Twitchy's journal resting face down on the desk in front of him, "about starting a club."

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

A wolf traveler, wearing a denim jacket and jeans with penny loafers, blinked and grabbed the railing on the cramped motel staircase with one paw to steady himself as an tawny golden and black spotted blur rushed by him.

He breathed a relieved sigh that he hadn't been knocked over as the cat grinned at him mischievously. "Hello again," the cat said. "Caught up with you."

"Stop doing that," the wolf said. "I wasn't running."

"Staying in practice," the smiling cheetah answered.

The wolf sighed and raised one paw to his single pierced ear, fiddling with the earring in his right ear. "What do you want now? This is already the longest layover of my life. I don't know how many times I have to tell you, we were in Cambodia visiting an anthropologist friend-"

"Just to say goodbye," said the cheetah, reaching into the short trench coat he was wearing over a white tee-shirt and jeans and producing an envelope. "Both your passports are in there. I appreciate your discretion, but next time don't be so coy, okay? After you're detained for ten days both your names went on the watch list. As soon as they do, all of a sudden I hear my boss got a samurai-shouting phone call from across the Pacific about it. How dare we, are we trying to publicize that he shares information with the U.S. government, we'll never get anything out of his directorate again unless we clear this up immediately and let you on your way, shout shout shout. That was a nice Monday morning phone call. Thanks, wolfy. And now I've wasted all this time questioning you." He shrugged. "Didn't know you were friends with a blustery officious raccoon dog in northern Japan."

The lupine blinked and accepted the envelope cautiously, spilling its contents into his open paw and flipping through them. Shinjuki? His ex? Who'd thrown him out when he visited a couple years ago and not spoken to him since?

"Neither did I," he muttered to himself, flipping through the passports to make sure nothing had been done to them. The cheetah raised an eyebrow, but the wolf corrected himself quickly, adding, "I mean, friend isn't the word I would have used. Shinji is not what I would call friendly." The wolf's eyes sparkled as he remembered play scenes from long ago. "Not since he's grown up anyway."

"Well next time this happens mention his name so we can make a call and clear things up faster, okay?" the cheetah said as the bemused wolf made it to the top of the first flight of the stairs and the two of them walked along together. "It might seem like we should know, but business informant types are cagey about their carrier lists."

"I have to say," the wolf said, looking sideways at the cheetah, "when we were called back to the airport and _you_showed up instead of our passports I just assumed it would be a bad thing. But you've been much easier to deal with than the airport furs, Agent-"

"Question time's over," said the cheetah, rebuttoning his trench coat. "Call me J. D."

The wolf shook his head. "Aren't you kind of young for this job?" he asked curiously. "I've run into some other furs who work for the-"

"Don't use that name," the cheetah interrupted with a chuckle. "It's all Homeland Security now. I'm not even sure what my unit's supposed to be doing. Our budgets get cut too, you know. Actually, our budgets get cut first. I'm just a glorified beat cop. Never went to college."

"Why not?" asked the wolf idly.

"I was recruited after a martial arts tournament my senior year of high school," he said.

"You won?" the wolf asked, looking at his watch and pricking his ears. He was using the time to try to determine if anyone else was following him.

"I was disqualified," the cat said casually. "I cheated. You probably got lucky drawing me; I was in town to do something else anyway and customs was still on the phone to us about you. I feel a little differently about this than some of my co-agents. Actually, I think the higher-ups are kind of disappointed in me. They were looking for the most aggressive fur at that tournament. But I didn't go in as a killer. I just didn't have anywhere to go for a while. When they approached me out of the blue, I thought, I don't know, maybe the universe was giving me a chance to do something good. Maybe life wasn't over."

The wolf reached into the inside of his own denim jacket to fish for a room key card.

He suspected the cheetah's back story was a little hairier than he made it sound, but who was he to judge this guy? How many boys had he let develop feelings for him then run out on in his life? Sure, he'd pretended that things had been less serious than they were all those times, or that he hadn't noticed anything on the other party's part. That he might have acted differently had never really registered with him until something clicked with the fur he was with now.

"Time doesn't just stop after you make a huge mistake, I know that too," the lupine commiserated. "Sucks, doesn't it? But why are you telling me this?" he asked.

The cat just shrugged. "Why not?" the spotted secret agent said. "It's been on my mind the last few days, so I want to get it off my chest, and we'll never see each other again. Besides, for all you know," the cheetah's eyes glinted mischievously, "I'm lying anyway and I'm still profiling you. Do you need a ride to the airport after you've checked out?"

The lupine fidgeted. "Actually," he said, hesitantly, "we'll be here a few more days. I picked up a small contract job shortly after we got stuck here. Just an academic thing. Helping a short-staffed boarding school with some backlogged grading and admissions dossiers. I just need to finish it up."

"Suit yourself," the cat said. "I've got more gopher work to do."

"J. D.," the wolf said, resting a paw on his shoulder as he started down the stairs. The cat tilted his head and looked at him sideways over his shoulder. "Hang in there. I told you I've run into furs who work for your," he waved a paw in a circle, "organization before. You're different. I have a feeling . . . you're going to be good at it. For what it's worth from a stranger, the world might be a better place if the guy in your job, isn't too obsessed with following all the rules all the time."

The cheetah snorted. "It's not worth much from a stranger," he said, "but thanks." Then in another blur, the cheetah was gone. The wolf shrugged, looked at his watch, and, having had many, many boys, over in many, many houses that were not his own, waited for a good five minutes before acting as if the cheetah were gone.

Then he padded down the corridor and knocked softly on the door to his motel room. He half-smiled as he heard tumbling and things crashing over from inside and a vulpine voice yelping, "Just a minute!"

It was, in fact, three more minutes before an eye appeared in the peephole and the wolf made an "ok" sign with his forepaw to indicate the coast was clear. Then the motel room door creaked open, and the fox on the other side, wearing a red and white tee-shirt that only came down to about his belly button with a giant iron robot on it, incongruously over a frilly pink tutu that hardly concealed his puffy, rocket-ship-covered plastic diaper cover, tumbled down onto the floor as a short bear tackled him from behind.

"How are things going," the wolf asked warmly, "Jaice?"

"Alex is tryin' to confuse me, Daddy!" yipped the fox, kicking his legs and flailing helplessly, giggling as the bear, in a baby blue boyish tee-shirt and a puffy pink diaper himself, pinned him on the floor. "I fink he's getting less confuseded though."

"Confuse you, huh? Let's see how he's doing. Are you a boy or a girl, Jaice?" the wolf asked as he looked down at them.

"I'm a sissy boy!" the fox answered.

"Not a stupid answer. But that still makes you a boy. Alex is a boy. We're working on bringing out his boy side again. He's on top of you, isn't he? Are you sure you're a sissy boy? And not a tomboy girl?" Jaice's Dad asked.

The fox, looking up at the bear now sitting on his chest, whimpered. "Whass the diffence, dad?" he whined.

"Well, maybe you're a tomboy girl having one of your first crushes that's making you want to be all girly for the first time," the wolf suggested with a smile as he stepped over the oversized cubs and pushed the door shut behind him, clicking the lock shut and relatching the chain latch.

"Pffft," said the bear on top of Jaice, "he's a boy."

"I wanna be," whined the male fox, his mind already fast at work rebalancing opposite ideas about himself. "'S why I wear boy clothes. And I'll haff you know, Alex," he squirmed as he looked up at the bear in the blue tee shirt and diaper, blushing and getting fidgety, "dat even if I wanted a boy inside me, I wouldn't do any kind of yiffing ever dat a boy couldn't do. Uh uh no way!" He stuck his tongue out at the bear, who hadn't said anything about him being a girl, in an act of feeble defiance. "Whatever else ya get me ta wear or do," he insisted, "Jaicie's not gonna back down on that!" Out of the corner of his eye, the fox eyed his lupine boyfriend, eager for any sign of his partner's approval.

He got one; the wolf's tail wagged. "I like where this is heading. As always, honey," the wolf said, wiping his paws together, "I hardly need to do anything but nudge you." Then he looked around and checked his cell phone quickly, assuming a more serious tone. "Any word on that raccoon they wanted me to look at? I thought you were supposed to pick him up."

The cubs were flailing and flopping, but the increasingly submissive Jaice managed to get out, between effeminate giggles, "He's not comin'! You gotted an e-mail that I, umm, mighta marked readed accidentally when I was looking at Alex's scripts," he waved one paw up toward the laptop on the bed, "dat said the coon's fine the way he is."

The wolf snorted. "Sounds more like they decided we're too expensive," he said as he dodged the rolling, wrestling baby boys.

Another bear sitting in the corner fidgeted. "Are you sure about this?" he asked cautiously. "He's had one bad experience with hypnosis with his last boyfriend already. You aren't going to use a pocket watch or-"

The wolf patted the nervous-looking caretaker on the head. "What do you do again?" he asked.

"I'm a dentist," the bear said. "Ever since I saw Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, I knew it was the thing for me." The wolf raised an eyebrow. Well, this fellow seemed pretty harmless.

"You don't pull people's teeth out with a string do you?" he said calmly. "This is not conventional hypnosis exactly," the wolf explained, patting the nervous-looking caretaker on the head. "I'm trained a little better. Don't worry," he said, padding over to the bed and opening his laptop. "He's having fun isn't he? Alex is in charge here. Jaice's coaxing him out so he'll be relaxed enough for it. The one thing you can be sure of with Jaice, however else he surprises you - my sweet foxy couldn't top anyone. We're peeling away layers to start, not introducing them. Trying to separate what he wants himself from what he's been induced into. Train his mind to handle opposite ideas about himself without misfiring. Your cub's in good paws. I have a Ph.D. in this."

Jaice squealed and squirmed as the formerly sissified bear on top of him tied a ribbon around one of his ears. "You're so cute," he giggled, looking up at the bear wistfully. "I wish I were a boy like you."

The caretaker stared quizzically at the tumbling, gender-confused diaper cubs. "You have a Ph.D. in what, exactly?" he asked.

The wolf's eyes glimmered. "Good question," he said as he flicked the lights off. "I'll show you."

"Noooooooooooot myy diaappppper!" Jaice was wailing. "Don't let him take that off, Daddy! You know what'll happen!"

Outside in the parking lot, the mole sitting in the driver's seat started the ignition, as the passenger door opened and a cheetah slid in next to him.

"Well, the lights went off. He's probably having celebration sex with his vulpine 'research assistant.' Gay, gay, gay. Explains all the nervousness about his computer and stuff. Probably pictures of his foxy modeling women's undies on it. Nothing worth investigating here. Anything on your end today?" the cheetah asked. "Or more of the same? Okay for us to drive out of here and check another errand off the list?"

The mole shook his head. "This wolf's hardly left the neighborhood of this motel any time that I've been tailing him. Just went to some bookstores." The squat, squinty-eyed rodent shifted in his seat.

"Something bothering you?" J. D. asked as he retrieved his paper bowl of half-melted green mint chip ice cream from the dashboard above the glove compartment and began eating it.

The mole shrugged. "It's just that whenever I've been on that guy, I haven't lost sight of him once, even in a crowd. Which is weird. Even I lose track of furs now and again. If this were a real case and not some passport control inquiry, I'd be thinking he knew I was there and he wanted me to stay on his tail. Like there were things going on somewhere else in town he didn't want us to know about."

The cheetah spoke around a sticky spoonful of ice cream, getting some of it in his whiskers, "It's not worth thinking about that hard," he said. "Lone wolf ex-academic drifter delivered letters here and there in odd countries for a CIA informant he studied with who couldn't travel to those places himself without raising eyebrows. Marginal characters like him get involved in low-end intelligence work all the time. It's not like the guy's a genius. Never published much of his research that I could find and does a lot of private tutoring."

"How can you eat that all melted?" the mole said without looking straight at him, observing the cat out of the corner of his eye as he turned on the radio. "I'm a rodent and even I think it's disgusting."

"Ice cream soup!" said the cheetah. "It's better this way." He lowered the bowl, getting some of the sticky residue on his fingers as he brushed off his whiskers with the back of his paw.

The mole just shook his head. "Did you do the report on those New Day furs that you wanted to handle yourself yet? The potential eco-terrorist group? Remember, our Chinese friend wants full threat assessment work-ups on anyone you could identify attached to it."

"I'll fax it tomorrow," he said, waving a sticky paw at him. "Without the threat assessments. Those forms take forever to fill out and it was an idiot request to begin with. Hey, you know what I just remembered? Did we ever get dossiers with clear age and background information on those Olympic athlete visitors from our so-friendly-when-he-wants-something-from-us Chinese buddy?"

"We never did." The rodent said slowly, then rolled his eyes. "Of course," he snorted, "now you wanting to start by visiting this crap city makes sense. High school friend to look up, my tail. You've had that excuse in your back pocket since we started. You haven't done anything the entire time you left me watching that wolf, have you? You were just blowing off work."

"Mmmm," said the cheetah defensively, swallowing his ice cream and waving a sticky paw at him, "I went over to that campus and left a note for their leader guy so he'd know someone's watching. I'll just make a note to reopen the old FBI file on him now that he's causing trouble again. I couldn't identify anyone working for him, though. Besides, even if we knew who they all were, why would we want to open a threat profile on some tree-hugging college kits? It just clogs things up. We have enough real police work to do."

The mole snorted. "You never want to arrest anybody."

"Mmmmm," J. D. waved a paw three times while he swallowed his ice cream, then got out, "It's less paperwork." There was a moment of silence as they started driving. "You know," the cheetah said to his partner, "you didn't have to volunteer to do this month of punishment errands with me. I'm the one who nearly blew an undercover operation."

The rodent turned down the radio for a minute. "Of course I'm doing it with you, spots," he said. "I might not be here right now if you hadn't gone 'Screw the rules, I have speed' on us and took a bullet for me. You're lucky it didn't hit anything important. You've only got six or seven lives left, you know."

The cheetah had finished his ice cream and took a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket, trying them on as they drove into the sun, which was easier for the squinty mole to avoid looking at than his taller partner. "I picked up these," the cheetah said. "What do you think?"

"They look good on you," said the rodent without looking at him. "What b.s. do they have us doing next?"

"Visiting some fur who showed up in a money trail connected to a case of Max's a few hours from here. I'll read the file on the way," the cheetah said, flipping through a stack of folders he had removed from the glove compartment. "Might be something real, but if not and it seems like an honest misunderstanding, there's a golf course near there that goes around a couple waterfalls, one of the biggest in the country and it's supposed to be beautiful, and I thought while we're there anyway we might-"

"Stop right there, there is no way on earth I'm playing golf with you!" the rodent driver exclaimed indignantly as he accelerated. "You'll cheat at anything!"

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

The sound of applause reverberated through the small backstage area behind the outdoors set. Serafina tugged at the beaver's paws insistently, succeeding in sliding his feet forward a few inches, but he shook his head and shooed her back toward the front where the other actors were. An orange tabby cat in a doublet hanging behind her was looking from Serry and the beaver to the other actors out on stage uncertainly.

"Get back out there," Serry's director ordered, "they're just waiting for you and Garrick! I told you, I'm staying in the background. Curtain calls are for the actors. Besides, I have a feeling there are furs in the front row who want to see you."

"Come on, Marty," she pleaded, "I want my friends to see you. You're the one who wouldn't let me quit this show."

"They want to see you, Serry. You were a great Viola. I'm just a selfish jerk," the beaver said, shaking off her paws, and adjusting the beret on his head that had slipped down over his eyes due to the fox's insistent tugging, "who won't let sponsors compromise his fursonal artistic vision."

"Whatever," the sissy fox said, as the tabby cat grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up, hoisting her a short distance away from Marty toward the other actors. When they stepped out into the center of the stage, he set her down and bowed with a flourish of his plumed Renaissance hat, gesturing to Serafina, and flicked his tail as the furs in the first row, then each row after them, stood up.

"Is that him?" asked the tabby cat in a whisper, scanning the front row quickly as he righted himself. "Hopping up and down and howling, with the white roses? He's kind of short, isn't he?"

Serafina blushed and waved. "Rian is a lot bigger than he looks," the sissy fox actress playing a cross-dressing princess whispered back.

"Oh really?" the flirtatious orange tabby cat actor playing Orsino asked, his eyes twinkling. "How much bigger, exactly?"

Serafina grabbed his plumed hat and shook at it him threateningly. "Don't even think about it," she snapped.

The two occupied themselves in bowing for several minutes until, after a few more curtain calls, they were actually relieved to see the audience start to disperse so they could head backstage.

"These are for you," said the beaver as their stage manager Woody, a white opossum, scampered over and continued distributing gifts he had collected at the rear entrance. Woody disbursed a bouquet of white roses to Serafina, a box of chocolates to her co-star, then offered a bouquet to the beaver.

"I'm taking the whole cast out!" the director shouted spontaneously, holding a paw up in the air and waving one of his thoroughly chewed pencils around for attention. "That was a great opening! It's okay if you want to sneak off with your boyfriend, Serry. All night long you've been saying you couldn't have done this without-"

The sissy fox cast a glance back in the direction of the audience. "Let me check with Rian," she said, and opened the card attached to her bouquet.

She found a crude drawing of a seating plan with labeled stick figures and a list of names. She squinted at it and turned it over.

'Dear Serry,' she read, 'these are the Baby Blue members I'm sending on the Fourth of July. And they don't want to see an understudy. Don't dream of trying to wheedle out of a big weekend for your show so you can go back home with me. I might be all alone there, but it's okay. I am big enough,' there was a crude hand-drawn illustration of a short wolf looking sad, next to one of the same wolf standing on a block and smiling triumphantly, 'it's time I do some things on my own without help from anybody. I am writing this hours before your show, but I know it will be terrific. Love, R.'

The sissy fox smiled and returned the card to its envelope on the bouquet, setting it aside for the moment "Just let me talk to him quick," she said, "and say we're all going out to dinner. He'll understand." Impulsively, she grabbed the beaver and the tabby cat in a hug that also swept up the flailing white opossum, who after a few seconds gave up trying to escape from it. "The truth is, I couldn't have done this, without any of you."

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

A tall, six-foot-one preppy adult wolf wearing nothing but his pressed socks twirled his untied necktie around his forepaw as the female wolf with him, still panting, hoisted herself off the oak conference table and began straightening her displaced panties.

"You see, way up here," Rian's stepbrother said, gesturing toward the glass wall facing out on the skyscape, "we're looking down on one of the busiest places in the city, but we're practically invisible. Almost public. Is _that_enough of a change of pace for you?"

"Yiffing in the boardroom," she said, "you naughty, naughty boy. I was starting to think missionary in bed was all Mr. Straight Arrow could do."

"Pretty kinky, right?" Rian's stepbrother said. "I told you, the men in my family are real romantics. Though," he added, sounding overly impressed with himself, "bet I'm the naughtiest one we've had in a while. Sex in dad's office," he grinned, a little flushed. "Now that's pretty dirty stuff. Did I surprise you?"

"Your technique was excellent. About that family part," said Spence's girlfriend, who avoided commenting on his creativity, as she retrieved her blouse from the floor and tried to disentangle its sleeves. "Why didn't I know that you had a brother until now? I'm nervous enough about meeting your father on the Fourth of July."

"Oh," Spence said, his voice falling as he took his carefully folded pants off the back of a boardroom chair, and slid it out, looking under the conference table for his briefs. "Sorry. My little brother is off doing his own thing. We never really hear from him. I'm the one who deals with the parents and who's more aware of family money and stuff." The female wolf looked unsurprised. Of course he was; he was the older son. Everything about Spence was so regular. He even dated almost exclusively in his own species, and that wasn't as common as it had used to be. These days, in fact, it was a little old-fashioned. "Having him around just-" Spence got on his knees and fished out his briefs with one paw, then, as he was talking, got into them, hopping awkwardly on one leg at a time and holding himself upright against the wall with one paw as he did, "I wish underwear were adjustable. Stupidly designed invention. They get so tight and restrictive when you're with a girl and you want to-"

"I keep telling you," the female wolf interjected, "you should wear some of those cute boxers I got you. Your father and your co-workers can't see through your clothes. Loosen up a little about what you wear. Clothes can be fun, you know."

Spence rolled his eyes. "Those are kid undies," he said, then changed the subject. "Having Adrian around just brings up things I don't like to talk about. The truth is," he kicked up his rumpled dress shirt from the ground, caught it in one paw, and shrugged it on, then buttoned it as he continued talking, "my family is, well, it's a little bit weird."

The female wolf, who was doing a much faster job of redressing than Spence despite the relative complexity of her clothing, already had her bra and her blouse on. "Look, honey, I figured there was something," she said sympathetically. "I mean, to be honest, and don't take this as a complaint, it's almost creepy how normal and well-adjusted you are. You even talk about your dad like he's one of your friends. And you're working with him? No fur I know gets along with his parents as well as you do."

Spence looked sad for a minute as he cleaned off the boardroom table with a spray cleaner and paper towels. "Yeah," he said.

Neither of them said anything until they had turned the lights off and stepped into the hallway, their clothing on, but still largely askew, and Spence's tie still wrapped around his wrist and forepaw. "So," she asked as they walked down the hallway to the elevator. "There's something weird about your brother?"

"Actually," Spence said, letting out a long breath as he pressed the elevator button, fished out a key and inserted it into a slot next to the controls, turning it so he could summon the elevator after hours, "the weirdness in my family is about me." He smiled uncertainly when the elevator came and held up one paw to keep the door open for his girlfriend while she stepped inside. "I'm adopted," he confessed. "Even though I'm the older one. It's awkward, and I don't know if I've always dealt with it well." He pressed the button for the first floor and then the close button, and felt his girlfriend's paw reach for his free hand.

"Is that all I need to know?" she asked as she reached past him to press the door close button, her paw brushing over the emergency stop one. "Because the boardroom was fun, but it was still missionary. These have lots of buttons, you know."

"That's the weird part," said Spence, then added, as though voicing an afterthought, when he looked back up at her muzzle, "But you should know this, too. My brother's gay. This is his first visit back in a while. It could be awkward. I might have to keep an eye on things. You know, throw myself in the middle and try to change the subject before it looks like unscheduled fireworks."

"If that does come up-" he added as she took his paw and guided it to the emergency stop button, "Don't make a big deal of it."

Next time: Rian and Serry have made up, but what about their warring teammates? Where are Dex and Lin Lin? And can Baby Blue still accept Twitchy?

The camera pans back to our diaper-wearing heroes next time in . . . the two-episode Pink and Blue finale!