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- Chapter 12: REUNION

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- Benji -

He reckoned he had been in that cage for three days and two nights. Of course, it could have been more. Or less. Like most dogs, Benji had a very poor sense of time. However long it had been, to him, it felt like an eternity.

The only indication of time this new prison offered came from a small dirty window which would let in a tiny glimmer of light every evening. The beam would slowly move across the dusty floor and Benji would watch it make its way towards his cage - and for a precious few minutes - he would bathe directly in sunlight. Then, the light would move on and ultimately disappear behind the window. But he still cherished those few minutes of the day, because it made the rest of the day a little more bearable. Knowing that there was still a world outside made him feel a little bit less lonely. A little less isolated. If only a little bit.

Benji had also noticed that his new enclosure was quite a lot smaller than the one the cage they had put him in at the old pound. It was just wide enough to allow him to lie down comfortably but not tall enough for him to sit on his hunches, or do much in the way of moving for that matter. It was, quite simply, a cage. He hated cages, but he supposed he was kind of used to them by now.

The humans would visit him occasionally - mostly just to refill his water bowl and occasionally mutter some soothing words that didn't make him feel much better.

He had already ranked them all after how much he hated them. He hated the veterinarian girl the least, then came those two young generic looking ones from the truck, and on top of the list was the caretaker who had captured him - a bearded, tall human who Benji thought looked more like a lumberjack than someone who should work as a caretaker.

He also had a well-stocked food bowl that he had no interest in touching. Food was the last thing on his mind.

Benji had found that one of the biggest differences between life in a cage and life on the outside was the food.

On the inside, they would feed you this, weird-looking, weird-smelling little dry balls that tasted only slightly better than old newspapers. Food on the outside was harder to come by, but if you were lucky enough to find a newly loaded dumpster or garbage can, you could find pizza-slices, thrown-away French fries or even hamburgers. And most of it wouldn't even be rotten.

Thoughts of such faraway delicacy made his belly rumble uncomfortably, and suddenly, the dry stuff in his food bowl looked a little bit more inviting. He was just about to give the food another chance when the doors flung open, making the startled Labrador jump and tuck his tail between his legs.

The last time humans came through that door, they had kept him down and given him a very painful and all-around uncomfortable vaccine shot. Benji knew that these little needles were supposed to help him - that they were given to dogs to make them healthier. But the entire experience had been so frightening it had made it even more difficult to trust those tall, pink creatures. So now, any sound of incoming humans would put the Labrador in full alert-mode.

Looking at the intruders from the safety of his cage, ready to lower his ears and growl if need be, he saw that the two caretakers were in fact holding something between them. Something white, furry and dirty, that appeared completely limp and lifeless.

His heart jumped.

_ Could it be?_ No, it couldn't be. It was impossible, he told himself

The cage right next to his was opened and the poor, floppy thing was dropped, rather carelessly, into it. Benji saw that one of the men had bite marks on his forearm. The other one looked like he had been kicked in the nose. Both of them seemed unusually irritated, even by human standards. And just like that, they closed the cage and left.

Benji took a closer look at the white canine they had left behind. His heart skipped a beat. His mouth gaped open. He just stared.

It was who he feared it was. It was his every own Bolt. And he wasn't moving.

"Bolt!" he barked.

...

"Bolt, is that you?" he barked a little louder.

....

"Can you hear me, Bolty?" he barked desperately, but his frantic yaps yielded no response.

His fear and worry surged when he got a closer look at the poor shepherd. It was Bolt alright, but like a broken, ruined version of the Bolt he remembered.

Completely unconscious, his eyes were closed. His tousled fur was so dirty and filthy it appeared more grey than white, and around his legs, he could see freshly wrapped white bandages with little bits of red having soaked through the fabric - an indication of the wounds hiding beneath. What was he doing here? Had he been in an accident? Why had they taken him here? His mind was rushing with questions, all of them overshadowed by that one desire to make Bolt wake up again.

"Bolt! Please, just wake up okay?" he sniveled as he tried to reach the shepherd through the bars. His body, however, was too far away for his black paw to reach. And Bolt could still not hear him. And he still wasn't moving.

- Mittens -

"You ready, rodent?"

• "I was born ready, cat."

"Three... two... one... JUMP!"

Mittens and Rhino jumped at the same time, both of them leaping off the back of the truck right as it passed by a relatively comfortable-looking patch of grass.

Their plan was to land right in it. Rhino did. Mittens did not. Soaring uncontrollably through the air like a black ball of yarn, she eventually crashed hard against the rough dirt next to the grass, tumbling and rolling before sliding to an uncomfortable stop in wet, muddy sludge. The hamster landed next to her, safe on the grass side, his fall softened by an appropriately placed pile of leaves.

"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!" Mittens groaning loudly while she get up on her aching paws. "I just can't seem to catch a freaking break..." she complained while brushing the worst excess of mood of her white sleeves.

• "Yeah, you should probably have tried to land in the grass instead. Your trajectory was definitely a bit off and you should probably have tossed and ..."

Rhino was interrupted when one angry glance from the muddy cat informed him that she wasn't in the mood for instructions on how to toss and turn.

"Sorry..." he mumbled.

• "It's okay, I'm fine. Nothing of importance is broken. But I bet you dollars to doughnuts that this shit's gonna hurt in the morning..."

She jumped off the mud and shook off the rest of the dirt, pleasantly surprised to find that moving her feline body didn't hurt quite as much as she feared it might. At least considering that she had just jumped off a moving car.

Of the many things she had learned from Bolt, leaping off of speeding automobiles was never one she had expected to try herself. But overall, their escape plan had worked flawlessly. Rhino had used his surprisingly good lock-picking skills to get them both out of their respective cages, and since the caretakers had been foolish enough to but their two cages on the back of pickup, simply jumping off en-route to the shelter they planned to infiltrate proved to be, if not entirely unpainful, at least a pretty easy escape.

Of course she would never admit that seeing as it was Rhino's idea.

The hamster in question was already scurrying ahead and looking around. He saw that the road continued through a forest clearing and behind the green tree tops, there were lights.

"Mittens! I think the prison is right over there! Come on!"

Mittens licked the rest of the mud of her paw and then hurried after the hamster.

"Calm down. Benji isn't going anywhere..." She said as she lifted Rhino up by the neck scruff and threw her over her back like a furry backpack before continuing down the road.

"...The one good thing about a dog in a cage is that you usually know where you have him"

...

Only a few minutes later, the two pets found themselves looking down at the place the place their Animal Control truck had parked. They were standing on a little hill from which they had a perfect overview of the shelter which consisted of a large, grey house with fencing and glass doors with a parking lot next to it.

Mittens didn't have to read the signs. She knew it was a dog pound. In fact, it looked exactly like the pound Bolt has rescued her from so many days ago. Same lonely, concrete building in the middle of nowhere, with a lonely parking lot and a lonely couple of vans parked on it. The only question was if they had found the_right_ dog pound.

A couple of workers had stepped out of the parked pickup and was now looking confusedly at the empty cages in the back, one of them scratching his head.

The sight put a pleased smile on her lips. Bolt would have been proud of their little escape, not to mention the fantastical way they got here. She made a mental note to tell him, now that she might actually see him again.

Further down the parking lot, she could see another car parked. A white van which she immediately recognized from that terrible night when she got Benji captured. It was the van that took Benji away. She was sure of it. And if it was parked here, that could only mean one thing. It was the right place!

"This gotta be it!" she whispered to Rhino.

"And we got here before Bolt too!" Rhino squealed happily. "Otherwise, this place would have been decimated. Even with Benji still inside, I would have expected to see a least some smoking holes in the wall. You know, from his laser vision."

"Rhino... I'm not sure that..."

"Oh you're right. He could have decided to go full stealth again. And there's only one way to find out. Come on cat, let's get inside. I've been meaning to practice my neck-snapping abilities!"

He started marching down towards the shelter while buckling his fingers menacingly.

"Woah woah, slow down!" Mittens ran up to Rhino and stopping him with a white paw.

• "What are you doing cat? Are we're gonna infiltrate this place or not?"

• "I really think it's better if you stay out here, okay?"

• "But why? I thought we were a team!" Rhino asked, positively shocked and visibly disappointed.

• "We are a team, Rhino. It's just... I really think it's best if I handle this particular part of the mission myself. Besides, I need you out here to do reconnaissance. You know, if those humans call for backup or something."

"Oh I see what's going on..." Rhino laid a discerning eye on the feline.

• "You... you do?" She tried to sound as natural as possible. If Rhino figured out that she didn't want him along because she was 100 percent certain that the little ball of hyperactivity would mess it up, things could get complicated.

• "Oh yes." Rhino continued. "You think that if you rescue Benji on our own, Bolt's gonna be so madly impressed he'll forget all about your past deeds of evil."

• "Errr... yes! You got me Rhino. That's exactly it."

• "I respect that." Rhino continued. "And as much as I've been looking forward to this, I guess I could let you hog all the glory for this one if it means you can patch things up with Bolt!"

He gave a warm smile, and Mittens let out a deep sigh.

"Wow. Thanks Rhino. That's really unselfish of you!"

• "Just promise me you come fetch me if things get hairy, aight? No offense, but I'm a little bit concerned about your lack of superhero skills."

• "I don't know, Rhino, I got some pretty wicked claws."

• "I thought you were declawed?"

"Details! You just stay here and keep an eye out for Bolt, I'll go in, check things out, then come back out to you and Bolt if he's arrived and we'll attack this... errr... prison, all three of us. How's that sound?"

"Sounds like a plan!" Rhino shrieked, all happy again.

"Right" Mittens took a deep, anxious breath. "Okay, just stay put and keep chicky. I'll be right back". With that, she started sneaking her way down towards the building, slowly but surely.

Reaching the building, she looked back over her shoulder and could see Rhino back at the hill. He looked like he was doing a thumps up. She felt a bit bad about having to manipulate the hamster like that, but bringing him inside simply wasn't an option. She had the most experience with these type of places. With humans. She could sneak in and find Benji and sneak out again, without being seen. Rhino was just gonna get in the way.

But that wasn't the only reason she had lied to the hamster. She was pretty sure she was going to find Bolt in there as well, probably locked up in a cage. As smart as Bolt was, Mittens knew there was no way Bolt was going to evade the caretakers if he decided to attack this place head-on, as the foolish, heroic dog probably would. And she also knew that there was no way Bolt would leave Benji behind without first getting captured or worse.

She simply didn't want Rhino to see Bolt in a cage. Even though she despised Rhino's superhero-complexes, breaking the little guy's heart like that was the last thing she wanted to do right now. Maybe when she got back with Benji and potentially Bolt, she could lie and say that Bolt saved both of them. And then Bolt could tell the little hamster about his lack of superpowers someday when things had calmed down. But not today.

A sharp, gut-wrenching sting struck her as her mind considered another possibility. What if Bolt wasn't inside? What if he really hadn't gotten here yet? What if he was still out there, lost somewhere along the highway, drifting around desperately in the cold? If that was it, Mittens doubted either she or Rhino would ever see Bolt again.

The thought made her shiver and she decided that possibility wasn't very likely. Another possibility was that Bolt had already arrived and managed to bust out his friend long before she or Rhino even got here. She found that possibility even less likely than the former.

She decided that the most likely scenario was still that Bolt had arrived, tried saving his friend and gotten his clumsy self accidentally captured in the process. Knowing Bolt, it sure seemed to Mittens like the most likely scenario. And if that was true, she was going to see both him and Benji real soon. And that's what she found herself hoping more than anything as she quietly made her way inside the building.

The window of the front door was crushed. Did Bolt do this?

She was struck with an even stronger since of worry as a last possibility entered her mind:

_ What if Bolt had gone too far...? What if the caretakers had gone too far...?_

_ What if he had gotten himself seriously hurt, or even killed?_

She knew humans could be cruel, but they were seldom _that_cruel. But she also knew that Bolt would stop for nothing. That he would bite and claw his way to Benji, without hesitation or concern for his own safety. And dogs who attacked humans never feared well.

_ What if Bolt was dead?_ How would she explained that to Rhino?

_ How would she get over that herself?_

She found herself desperately missing Bolt's face, and that dumb, goofy smile he always produced whenever they would come by something new that fascinated him on their journey - like a plastic bag in the wind, or snow, or a particularly bright street-light. Basically, the least interesting things in the world would capture his fascination. Because most of these things, he had never seen before. She suspected that their road-trip through America would have taken twice-as-fast if it wasn't for Bolt's insistence to stop and marvel at every meaningless little thing along the way.

And now, the thought of him being gone was just too for her psyche to handle. And she knew it would be her fault. His death, and everything that has happened to both him and Benji since that fateful night, was her fault. She shook her head as if to rid herself of these haunting thoughts, and switched focus to her current situation instead. He was going to see Bolt soon enough, if she just kept focusing on the goal.

She was inside the shelter now. She hurried quickly along a corridor, passing many doors and a couple of talking caretakers. She sneaked past them, and a dozen more doors. Somewhere in this maze, she knew she would find Benji. And hopefully Bolt. Somewhere. Soon she would know.

- Benji -

"Bolt! PLEASE, wake up okay?" Benji tried again, knowing that it still wouldn't make Bolt respond, or make him move, or make him do anything but just lying there.

However, as he looked really close, he could see his chest raise and fall slightly. At least he thought he could. It was hard to see in the dimly lit room. But he knew he had to try something....

Benji would not give up. Looking around in his cramped cage for something to use, he laid eyes on his water bowl, which was still half-filled with cold water. At least the humans that kept him imprisoned took care to refill his water regularly.

Without hesitation, Benji picked it up in his jaw and casted the cold liquid against Bolt's unconscious body. While the metal bowl bounced against the bars, it's cold, wet contents splashed perfectly over Bolt's head and shoulders, and Benji could clearly see his ear twitch slightly.

Finally a reaction!

"BOLT!?" Benji barked again, the loudest he could manage. His voice echoed in the dark room, along dust and metal bars.

Suddenly, like a lightning bolt from conspicuously clear sky, the white shepherd flew up on all fours, hyperventilating and looking around frenziedly.

"Keep your hands off me you net-wielding fiends!" he growled while swinging around with the fur on his back standing up and his sharp teeth bared.

"It's okay Bolt, it's just me" Benji said in the softest voice he could manage, experiencing both intense relief and worry at the same time.

"You've been captured. But you're okay, right?"

• "Ben... Benji?"

Bolt stared at him with dizzy eyes while his wobbly legs struggled to keep him balanced. But as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, it didn't take long for the dazed Bolt to realize that it was indeed looking at his very own Benji, who was staring back at him with big, concerned eyes.

"Benji! Oh my gosh... are you okay?... I..."

He took a few wobbly steps towards Benji before tripping over his own paws and falling straight forward with a surprised yelp. Luckily, he was close enough to Benji's cage for the latter to reach out his paws and capture him mid-fall.

"Alright... you should not be moving right now" Benji half-laughed, half-cried, completely overcome with relief. He smiled down with teary eyes at the dizzy sheppy face in his arms who despite still being a bit sedated managed a faint smile back.

"I'm here to rescue you..." he whispered weakly.