A week had passed since Vic had been captured by this prattling preschooler. The young girl couldn’t have been older than five or six years old, but that hardly mattered to Vic. To her this sparkle infused nightmare was nothing more than her jailer, and she was waiting patiently for her chance to escape. However, she knew that unless something drastic happened she would never escape her confinement.

     In hindsight Vic realized that biting the girl so early on was a big mistake, and if the girl hadn’t begged her dad, Vic would have been drowning in a sewer or septic tank right now. She supposed she slightly owed the girl for saving her life, but at the same time, she still cursed her because she wouldn’t even be in this mess if it weren’t for the mouse trap the girl had set up. 

     “Now, Mr. Mouse, you behave today.” the girl scolded as she picked up the wire cage that was Vic’s prison. Vic had tried several timed to free herself from the enclosure throughout the week, but the girl’s father had used metal fasteners to keep the cage door shut so that she couldn’t chew through them and the girl couldn’t open the cage and get bitten again. The metal cage rattled as it was set down on a small plastic table covered in a pink table cloth. Set out on the table was a big pink, plastic tea pot with colored acrylic jewels glued to it and the faces of cartoon characters that Vic didn’t recognize painted on the side. Surrounding the pot were four plastic cups and saucers in the same bright pink as the pot, each of them set at one edge of the square table. Vic had gone through this many times in the past week and she was sick to death of having tea parties with Sir Fluffybottom, Madame Rainbowsprinkle, and Toby the plush, stuffed cat. 

     It was like a rehearsed play from hell with how methodical everything was. Vic often found herself wishing that the “tea” in the pot was real and scalding hot so she could pour the boiling liquid over the girl’s head just to shut her up. However, today Vic was saved from having such thoughts as a voice rang out from another room. “Kiki. Put Mr. Mouse back on your dresser. We’re about to go have lunch at Grandma’s house.”

     “Okay, Daddy.” came the girl’s reply. As she picked up the cage Kiki apologized to Vic. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mouse. We can have our tea party some other time, but right now I have to to my granny’s house and eat.” She kissed the bars of the cage and left the room saying, “I love you, Mr. Mouse. You be a good mouse until I get back, okay?” and with that Vic waited until she heard the door to the house shut and latch before allowing herself to relax.

‘How could I let this happen?’ she thought to herself, unable to speak while in her mouse form. 'If only I hadn’t panicked back then, I would already be back at Fido’s place with Val instead of locked in a cage again!’ …again… The word rang through her head like one of the bells in Notre Dame cathedral. She had tried so hard to forget, to put the ordeal out of her mind. She didn’t know how the rest of them could be so well adjusted when she, herself, had nightmares about the torturous treatment that she and her brother went through while they were at the facility. 

     She shuddered and walked up the plastic ramp in her cage to sleep in the small wooden house that was placed in there for her. As she settled into the paper bedding she was reminded of how she and Val had huddled together on the streets using old newspapers to try to stay warm. That was before the van. Before her brother encouraged her by saying that their situation couldn’t be much worse. 'Boy was he ever wrong.’ she thought. She tried to skip the unpleasant memories of the beatings that they suffered, the pain they felt after the surgeries, and the late night visits by the guards who had no problem taking her and her brother in turn. It wasn’t like they could really call anyone and report the guards. She remembered cursing herself constantly as she listened to her brother sobbing in his own cell after one of the visits. Remembered the curse and the threats that she made to every man and woman that so much as came near her brother. Their faces were forever burned into her mind, as were the faces of her own visitors. 

     Despite Fido’s constant warnings to lay low, Vic still maintained that if she ever saw one of those people in the real world either they wouldn’t walk away from the encounter or she wouldn’t. Either way she fully intended on making good on her promises one day. As she lay down in the bedding she started to close her eyes; Kiki had put her cage in a warm spot in the room and the heat made her sleepy. As she went through a mental list of the people that she would one day make pay for touching her brother she thought about the last person to walk through the door of her cell. Her eyes closed as the scenario played out in her dreams.

     It was completely silent in her cell; the only noise to be heard was the sound of electricity running through the wires and her own steady heartbeat. Vic’s body felt heavy from the drugs that she had been given earlier that day. It was supposed to be her final surgery, and after this they promised her that she would no longer have to live in a cell. She would have her own room and she would be able to live with her brother again. She heard the approaching sound of boots on tile and knew that her time had come. When the door to her cell whooshed open a man in a lab coat was standing in the doorway. He was wearing a strange mask with canisters on either side, and when Vic got a good whiff of the air she thought she knew why. 

     The lean man tossed a mask at her and said, “Put this on. And hurry. We don’t have a lot of time.” His voice sounded urgent, but not panicked. Vic watched the mask fall through the air and crash on the ground in front of her without lifting so much as a finger to try to catch it. “W-why should I trust you?” she croaked out weakly. As if in answer a smaller person, who was also wearing a gas mask poked his head from behind a wall. “Val…” she managed. “Thank god you’re safe.” She looked the taller man square in the face and pleadingly said, “Get him out of here. What ever you do, I don’t care what happens to me, but you make sure he gets out and lives the best life ever!” 

     Val walked up beside her and picked up the mask before her. “What are you talking about? We’re twins! Whatever happens to one happens to the other, and since I intend to get out of here,” He finished fastening the mask on her and helped her to her feet. “that means you’re getting out of here, too!” As soon as Val got Vic standing, the taller man ran in and picked Vic up in a fireman’s carry and ushered Val to quickly follow him. Although she was drugged up the entire time, Vic vaguely remembered them going through access ways and service entrances before they made it to the facility’s kitchen where a box truck was waiting. She remembered seeing a lot of people sleeping as they went, but the last thing she remembered was being put in a large cardboard box and the sound of the truck’s horn blowing.

     The blowing horn seemed to get louder and louder and louder until Vic was violently ripped from her dream to rejoin the real world. The wire cage which imprisoned her was hurtling through the air along with chunks of wood and brick. The cage smashed against the far wall of the pink painted room and an opening formed in the side of it just big enough for her to slip through. Not understanding what just happened, and not caring, Vic seized the opportunity to escape her confinement. She quickly squeezed her mousy form through the aperture and darted through the door of the room which had been left open. She could hear curses being shouted behind her as she ran, but didn’t look back as she desperately sought an escape from the house. 

     She had only just made it to the front door when a key turned in the lock and the door swung wide open as Kiki’s father came rushing into the house. As he entered she exited, the older man, being too concerned about the damage, didn’t even notice her, and she quickly ran for cover under some bushes that lined the house. She could see the little girl who had imprisoned her crying, and she began to put together what happened once she saw the pick-up truck that was lodged halfway inside of the house.

     'They must have lost control somehow.’ she thought to herself. 'Oh well. Lucky for me they just happened to hit the wall of the room I was in.’ Turning she scampered off through the bushes with the last sounds that she heard coming from house being the little girl asking if her pet mouse was okay. Vic couldn’t get away from that house fast enough. As she sped along from bush to bush, she began to realize that it didn’t feel as hot out today as it had a week ago. She wasn’t sure if this had to do with her much smaller form or if the heat wave had actually passed, but she thought it was something interesting none the less.

     It took her a full half hour before she finally recognized the house that she had run away from a week earlier when the police came looking for her. She carefully sniffed around the back door of the house before trying her best to squeeze under it. She came to the realization early on that she wouldn’t be able to knock or ring a door bell in her current form. Once inside began looking for Frank, however she was unable to find hide nor hair of him. Understanding her situation of being unable to speak all too well, and wanting to avoid being squished upon site, Vic found a pile of old newspapers and sales ads. Using her dexterous paws she flipped through the pages and ripped letters from the headlines until she had the right ones to spell out “I-A-M-V-I-C-!-I-W-A-N-T-T-O-G-O-H-O-M-E-!”

     After gathering the letters in her mouth she made her way into the living room where she had watched the documentary with Frank and climbed into his chair. Once on the cushion she arranged the bits of paper to spell her message and got comfortable while she waited.

     Roughly three hours went by before she heard a key being inserted into the door handle. She perked up on her hind legs, her beady eyes full of hope. When the door opened she jumped up onto the chairs arm rest and started waving at Frank, trying to get his attention. The pale skinned man hung his keys on a hook near his door and shut and locked it behind him. When he turned around hiss attention was caught by the scattered papers all over his floor and he warily began looking around the rest of the house while allowing his hand to reach behind his back for the pistol that he always carried in a waistband holster. As his eyes slowly trained across the room he stopped and relaxed a bit when he saw the dark blonde mouse waving at him awkwardly from the arm of his favorite chair. 

     Dropping his hands to his sides, Frank said, “Oh, there you are.” He walked over to the chair and read the message that Vic had spelled out for him. “Yeah, I kind of figured, but thanks for spelling it out for me.” He held out his hand and continued, “It’s been a week since you went missing and everyone is worried sick. Come on. Let’s get you home.” With that, Vic hopped onto his open open palm and allowed herself to be carried back to the door. Once they were in Frank’s car he sat Vic on the dashboard and said, “So why haven’t you turned back into your humanoid form yet?” Vic made a couple of annoyed squeaks at him before he remembered that she couldn’t talk in her current form. “Oh, right. Right. Well, once we get back to the cabin I’m sure Fido can help you change back. He’s told me before that he can somewhat communicate with other animals, but since you two are also more human than not, I’m sure he’ll be able to communicate better with you.”

     Frank cranked his car and slowly pulled out of his driveway. As he was leaving town he passed a house that had a gaping hole in the side of it and said, “Sheesh. You don’t usually see folks lose control of their cars like around here. Thankfully it doesn’t look like anyone was hurt.” He continued driving, and as they passed the house where Agnes Greer lived Frank spoke up again. “Just so you know, you made a lot of trouble for me last week. You’re lucky I thought to hide your bloody clothes before those cops showed up, and I managed to convince Mrs. Greer that she was hallucinating because she forgot to take her medicine earlier that day.” He sighed and gave Vic a quick glance before returning his eyes to the road. “There’s still one problem, though.” He spared a glance at her again. “That preacher whose cheek you bit off. Now, we tried to convince him that maybe what he saw was just a girl in a Halloween costume, but he’s not buying it. Especially not when the doctors who examined his would said that it looked like a giant rodent was responsible for his missing flesh. The people I work with are still trying to sweep this under the rug, but at this rate we’re going to have to hire our own doctors and pay them off to discredit the local quacks. After that we’ll just have to hope that he gets labeled as some crazy who got attacked by a girl in a costume.” Vic squeaked angrily at the accusation that she was the attacker. “I’m guessing there’s something about that that you don’t like, but look we’re here.” he said as he finally pulled up to the cabin.

     The lights were on inside the two-story cabin, and as soon as Frank put the car in park the large wooden door flew open, and a blond figure wearing a skirt and cropped t-shirt came running down the stairs of the wrap-around porch. As his feet hit the dirt two other figures followed him out of the house, one a loomingly tall dog man and the other a fennec fox woman that was only slightly taller than Vic.

     When Val reached the door to the car he waited impatiently for Frank to get out, but as soon as he was out, the mouse boy grabbed the human’s vest with his unfurred hands and asked with pleading eyes, “Have you seen her yet? Has she come back?” Frank replied by putting his hand to the dashboard of the car and letting Vic hop into it. “Yes and yes.” he said as he held Vic’s rodential form out to her brother. “The little scamp was waiting for me at my house when I got off from work.” By this time Fido and Sidney were walking up to join them. “She doesn’t seem to know how to turn back from this form though. She was probably only able to make the transformation the first time because of how scared she was. Fido, can you talk to her in your dog form and help her change back?”

     Fido looked over the small blonde mouse and said, “I can try… but to be perfectly honest whether or not she can change back is entirely up to her.” Val grabbed Fido’s fur-coved arm and, with tears in his eyes said, “Please, Fido… You have to help her. She’s my sister.” Fido pulled his arm free and said, “Fine,” before pointing a clawed finger at Vic. “but you and me are going to have a long talk about your anger issues later.” He then straightened up and unbuttoned his shirt, taking it off and handing it to Sidney. He took a deep breath and seemed to tense up as he strained before the joints in his body started to dislocate and his form began to shrink. His transformation was a lot smoother than Vic’s and within just a few seconds he stepped out of his jeans as a fully matured Saint Bernard.

     Frank set Vic on the ground in front of him and, to her surprise, she heard his voice in her head. 'Vic? Can you hear me?’

     'Yes, but how?’ she asked looking up at the much larger creature.

     'I don’t know the technical details, but it seems that we can talk to each other via some sort of psychic link or something. I first found this out with Sidney back when we first met. But that’s not important right now. What’s important is getting you back to normal. So I need you to tell me anything you remember about when you transformed in Frank’s house. He’s already told me about the police showing up and I’m sure you were scared, but what I need to know is what you felt in the moment. Fear and desperation will trigger a change, but there is always a tell with your body, a kind of nervous tick that accompanies it. For me, my nose starts to tingle and twitch. If you can remember what your tell was then you just focus on that and it will trigger your transformation.’
Vic waited for him to finish before saying, 'I… I don’t remember though. It was a whole week ago, and I was panicking.’ She thought extremely hard until she vaguely remembered her right ear twitching just before her joints dislocated. 'Um… well my ear twitched a few times just before it happened…’

     'Good.’ Fido said approvingly. 'Try to make your ear twitch again without touching it, and focus your mind on transforming from a mouse to your other form. Your body will do the rest, but you have to start it.’

     Vic focused hard as she tried to make her ear flicker until finally Fido noticed it quickly flick three times. Vic’s small form suddenly began to grow as pain howled throughout her body. Fido made his nose twitch in the same way, and soon he was upright as well. When Vic finished her transformation both she and Fido were standing in front of everyone butt naked, but Vic was so overjoyed at being home and with her brother that she didn’t care and ran to hug him tightly as she loudly sobbed into his shoulder. Fido picked up his jeans and put them back on as Vic continued to tell Val how sorry she was and that she didn’t mean to hurt him, and how she wouldn’t ever run away and leave him again. Val was crying as well calling his sister a big dummy and telling her how much he loved her.

     Shirtless, Fido walked over to Frank and said, “Thank you for this. You always seem to be doing more for us than we do for you.” Frank replied by laughing and saying, “I do, don’t I? But then again it’s not every day I get to see a little boy that I rescued grow up to be a man with a family of his own, even if yours is far from ordinary.” Fido slugged him in his shoulder. “So what you’re trying to be my dad now?” Frank chuckled and replied, “Not in the slightest. You can think of more as a guardian angel or fairy godmother though, if it makes you feel better.” Fido laughed at that and said, “You’re an ass. Haha. But seriously… Thank you for bringing her back to us. I don’t know how much longer Val would have lasted without…”

     “YOU HAVEN’T BEEN EATING?!” The accusation rang out from one of the twins, cutting Fido’s sentence short. Sidney put her hands on Vic’s arm saying, “He was so worried about you that he could barely get up and walk around. We tried to convince him, but with you gone…”

     “So what?!” She grabbed Val by his shirt. “You think just because I’m gone that means that ya don’t have ta still look after yerself?! Don’t ya remember what I said back when we were rescued from the facility?! You have to keep living, asshole! Do you have any idea what it would have been like if I had gotten back after you…” She let her voice trail off and then suddenly ruffled her own hair before putting her brother in a headlock and walking him towards the stairs. “Yer lucky I missed your ass all this time because if not, I would be kickin’ it all over the yard right now.” She then straightened up as she remembered something. She turned to talk to Frank, still keeping her brothers face squished against her naked chest. “Oh yeah, Frank! Thanks for bringing me back here, and if you see a little girl named Kiki down in town tell her that her 'Mr. Mouse’ has gone back to live with his old family.”

     “So you were in that room that that truck ran into all week long?” came his reply.

     Vic responded in an annoyed voice. “Fuuuuuuck yes. I’ve never been a victim of so many unwanted tea parties, but at least she did save my life when her dad was going to flush me down a toilet. She at least needs to know that her pet mouse survived the truck crashing into her room.”

     Val started patting Vic on the arm trying to get her to let go of him. “Oh, thanks again for bringin’ me back. Now I’m gonna go force some food down my stupid brother’s throat. See ya later!” She waved at him as she pulled her brother up the stairs.

     Frank looked at Fido and shrugged. “Like I said, far from ordinary.” Sidney popped up uncomfortably close to Frank and put her hands on his chest before saying, “That just means we’re unique and fun to hang around with. You should come over more often. It’s been a while since I’ve seen those pretty green eyes~” Frank grabbed both of her hands and pulled them off of himself. “Sorry, but I’m still busy trying to clean up Vic’s mess. It might be a while before I can visit again.”

     “That’s fine.” Fido said before Sidney could protest. “We’re just thankful to have someone watching over us.” He held out his fur covered paw and the two men shook hands before Frank got into his car and left. Once he was gone, Fido and Sidney went back in the house were Vic was trying to force feed her brother some tomato soup and and a grilled cheese sandwich. She stopped struggling with him just long enough to pull Sidney to the side and privately apologize for slapping her before. The solid white fennec woman smiled brightly and gave her a hug telling her that she forgave her… this time.