Austin groans as he rubs the sleep from his eyes, stretching his arms as the wolf rolls out of bed. He quickly changes from his pajamas into his uniform and unplugs his phone from the charger, stuffing it into his front pocket. His roommates are still asleep, and as to not disturb them, he silently sneaks out of the room, shifting his weight on his paw pads.

The wolf makes his way towards the halls where Sully, his otter teammate, told him to meet. [i]“16-B[/i]”, Austin thinks to himself, as he arrives at the designated classroom. He props himself up against the wall and browses through his phone until he hears the sound of someone else walking down the halls. Excitedly, he looks up from his phone, and sees his teammate approaching. Immediately, Austin gets up and goes in for a hug, which Sully is al too glad to reciprocate.

“Hey, buddy!” Sully says with a happy grin. “What’s the vibe?”

“Ah, you know the deal by now”, Austin responds cheekily. “Out and about for some stupid things at the request of my stupid teammates.”

Both baseball players grin, before giving each other a weirdly coordinated combination of high fives and fist bumps.

“So, what’s with the secret meeting?” Austin asks.

Sully smiles and awkwardly scratches the back of his head. “Ah, glad you asked. Sounds like Sevve, our sports psychologist – remember him? – has found a temporary replacement and he asked to meet us at the previous training, while you were away. I figured I’d introduce you to him!”

“That was quite the convoluted infodump,” the wolf responds with a mixture of amusement and confusion on his snout. “Got a TLDR?”

The otter chuckles. “New Shrink. Say Hello.”

Right when Sully finished his sentence, the door to the classroom opens, causing Austin to jump in surprise. Normally he can hear everybody walking quite clearly, even from behind doors. So the fact that this new psychologist managed to catch him off guard was interesting. Austin recognizes the layout of the room on the other side, though he can’t quite recall what from. Inside, the floor is made out of comfortable sports mats, with a bunch of pillows strewn about. [i]“That explains the stealthy entrance”, [/i]Austin thinks to himself as he steps inside.

The scent of incense lingers in the air as both Austin and Sully sit down cross-legged on the mat, while the new sports psychologist closes the door behind them and sits himself down right in front of the two teammates. It’s a pearly white scaled dragon with little purple accents, dressed in a comfortable tracksuit – an odd look for a dragon like him.

“Ah, you must be Austin.” The Dragon says. “Sully told me quite a bit about you! Captain of the team, eh?” His voice is deep and inherently calming, and Austin could swear that the scent of incense gets just a bit stronger whenever he speaks.

“My name is Ardath, the temporary sports psychologist here. I thought it’d be nice to meet all of the students, but you weren’t there with the last training, correct?”

Austin scrapes his throat, feeling an odd sense of embarrassment as his absence is exposed by the dragon, even though he had plenty valid reasons to skip out on training. Buck and Luc had taken him to a theater show that he simply couldn’t miss. Plus, presence wasn’t obligatory.

“Yes, my apologies. But it is nice to meet you, Ardath. My name is Austin. I’m indeed the captain, though… it’s not like we have an established hegemony within the team or anything.” Austin can’t help but feel the need to justify his position towards the dragon, as if he’s demanding a certain level of importance.

Ardath, on the other hand, sees right through him.

“Oh, silly wolf boy. You don’t have to be so… [i]on edge”[/i], the dragon says as he leans forward, getting closer to his face.

Austin nervously glances over at Sully, noticing that the otter’s eyes have glazed over, a pink hue dancing across his pupils. The otter’s expression has shifted into a woozy smile, and he’s struggling to stay upright.

“Uh…” The wolf says, uncertain of what is happening. He tries to shake Sully to snap him out of it, to no avail, and panickedly he looks back over at Ardath, who has suddenly gotten significantly closer to the wolf’s snout.

The dragon chuckles. “Ah… You must’ve already smelt it when you walked in here, didn’t you? That [i]fascinatingly [/i]intoxicating scent of incense…” Ardath says, putting extra emphasis on the letter F. As he does so, Austin notices a little purple bellow of smoke coming out of the Dragon’s maw. “It’s not actually incense, though... But you’re a clever wolf. I’m sure you already put that together. Sevve had his ways of making you athletes more… let’s say malleable. I don’t like all of his gadgets and gizmos, really. I prefer to get right… up… [i]close.” [/i]

Without warning, Ardath breathes a full waft of the smoke in Austin’s face. The purple smoke enters his nostrils, and immediately Austin can feel himself go lightheaded. The lavender puff starts to distort the wolf’s vision, and his eyelids grow heavier by the second. His body can’t help but crave fresh air – or maybe more of the smoke – so Austin takes in another deep breath in through his nose, causing most of the smoke to enter his body.

“That’s a good boy.” Ardath says, letting his fingerclaw trace across Austin’s cheek. The wolf can’t help but nid-nod, finding it increasingly more difficult to stay awake. Meanwhile, the leftover smoke has drifted over to Sully, who eagerly breathes in what is left, causing his eyes to flutter and the otter to slump over, falling onto the mat, deeply asleep.

“Still fighting off the sleep, hmm?” the dragon says with a chuckle as he sees Austin’s expression showing still the slightest hint of resistance. “It’s okay. You’ll soon submit to my gas too. Don’t worry, it’s fully harmless – though this way I can actually program you all to listen to your coaches more… [i]attentively.[/i] Obediently. Nice little mindless servants, isn’t that right, Sully?” Ardath says with a confident grin.

“Yeah… serve…” Sully mumbles quietly.

Austin’s resistant grimace starts to form cracks as the urge to sleep begins to overpower every cell in his body. His blinks grow slower and uneven, fighting to even open them in the first place. Ardath is well aware and snickers at the sight of the wolf’s losing battle.

“Sssh, Austin. It’s okay. You can let go to sleep…” Ardath says, blowing one final puff of smoke right into the wolf’s face. As the smoke enters his nose, Austin’s eyes roll upwards, and the wolf collapses right into the Dragon’s arms, who can’t help but chuckle at his surrender.

“Good night, pup.”

