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Adventures", "description": "Adventure! Romance! Boys! Girls! Diapers! The adventures of our ageplaying heroes in a city torn between warring teams: Baby Blue (a boyish AB/DL fraternity) and its rival sissy Pink faction.", "count": "25", "submission_left_submission_id": "26219", "submission_left_file_name": "30047_kitncub_operation_bb.doc", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/30/30047_kitncub_operation_bb.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/30/30047_kitncub_operation_bb.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/30/30047_kitncub_operation_bb.jpg", "submission_left_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_huge_y": "181", "submission_left_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_large_y": "181", "submission_left_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_left_thumb_medium_y": "109", "submission_right_submission_id": "31969", "submission_right_file_name": "36272_kitncub_twitchy_gets_lost_ib.doc", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/36/36272_kitncub_twitchy_gets_lost_ib.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/36/36272_kitncub_twitchy_gets_lost_ib.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/36/36272_kitncub_twitchy_gets_lost_ib.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "190", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "190", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "114" } ], "description": "Here's the one that opened these little stories into a much bigger universe!\n\nIntroducing . . . Baby Blue!\n\n\nThis is a mature story so please be 18+ to read. It also involves furs in diapers, ageplay, crossdressing, and boys on boys, among other things. Don’t like that stuff, don’t read.\n\n[i]In brief: [/i]For months and months the blue faction of boyish AB/DL furs struggled as their heroic outlaw leader, the black Lab Roger and his unturnable lupine sidekick, Rian, lost new recruits to the rival pink faction of AB/DL sissies, led by Roger’s next-door neighbor and sister, the leopard Empress of sissies Calliope.\n\nBut today, there is new hope. Following a daring recruitment operation, the Baby Blue boys are five hideouts strong and growing. Then one day the boys receive a distress call from a surprising source—the sissy princess fox Serafina, who has slipped behind enemy lines carrying the plans for her mistress’ new sissy academy. She is willing to trade them if the boys can liberate her from a most unpleasant form of punishment. Rescuing Serafina—if they can trust her—will require Roger and Rian to put their best new agents in play for the boys’ biggest mission yet.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Here's the one that opened these little stories into a much bigger universe!

Introducing . . . Baby Blue!


This is a mature story so please be 18+ to read. It also involves furs in diapers, ageplay, crossdressing, and boys on boys, among other things. Don’t like that stuff, don’t read.

In brief: For months and months the blue faction of boyish AB/DL furs struggled as their heroic outlaw leader, the black Lab Roger and his unturnable lupine sidekick, Rian, lost new recruits to the rival pink faction of AB/DL sissies, led by Roger’s next-door neighbor and sister, the leopard Empress of sissies Calliope.

But today, there is new hope. Following a daring recruitment operation, the Baby Blue boys are five hideouts strong and growing. Then one day the boys receive a distress call from a surprising source—the sissy princess fox Serafina, who has slipped behind enemy lines carrying the plans for her mistress’ new sissy academy. She is willing to trade them if the boys can liberate her from a most unpleasant form of punishment. Rescuing Serafina—if they can trust her—will require Roger and Rian to put their best new agents in play for the boys’ biggest mission yet.", "writing": "[b]Damsel in Distress\nA Pink and Blue Diaperfur Adventure Tale in Seven Episodes[/b]\n\nThis is a mature story so please be 18+ to read. It also involves furs in diapers, ageplay, crossdressing, and boys on boys, among other things. Don’t like that stuff, don’t read.\n\n[i]In brief: [/i]For months and months the blue faction of boyish AB/DL furs struggled as their heroic outlaw leader, the black Lab Roger and his unturnable lupine sidekick, Rian, lost new recruits to the rival pink faction of AB/DL sissies, led by Roger’s next-door neighbor and sister, the leopard Empress of sissies Calliope.\n\nBut today, there is new hope. Following a daring recruitment operation, the Baby Blue boys are five hideouts strong and growing. Then one day the boys receive a distress call from a surprising source—the sissy princess fox Serafina, who has slipped behind enemy lines carrying the plans for her mistress’ new sissy academy. She is willing to trade them if the boys can liberate her from a most unpleasant form of punishment. Rescuing Serafina—if they can trust her—will require Roger and Rian to put their best new agents in play for the boys’ biggest mission yet.\n\nThis story continues the events of [url=http://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=26115]Newbie[/url] and [url=http://inkbunny.net/submissionview.php?id=26219]Operation Baby Blue[/url] but can be read out of order.\n\nTotal Length: 21,000 words\n\nContents:\n\nEpisode 1. You’re My Only Hope!\nEpisode 2. Mission Control: The Secret Circle Assembles!\nEpisode 3. Plots and Counterplots!\nEpisode 4. The Empress Strikes Back!\nEpisode 5. Failsafe!\nEpisode 6. The Sidekick Steps Up!\nEpisode 7. Release!\n\n[b]Episode 1. You’re My Only Hope![/b]\n\nLate summer was already turning to fall. The sissy princess fox, Serafina, sat with her sandals off and her emerald green skirt pulled up to her waist, dangling her footpaws off the small rock she sat on in the middle of a chilly, rushing forest stream. She preferred pink, but her green dress was excursion-wear, light and too tight-fitting to catch on branches, plus it had pockets. Bony as she was, she wore two disposable diapers under a pair of plastic pants, so sitting on the rock was not uncomfortable for her. And this far out in the woods, she was hardly worried about being seen.\n\nShe sighed gloomily as the shadows of the trees around her grew longer and traced the lettering on her plastic pants idly with one finger, thinking of what, for the moment, couldn’t be. The front of her plastic pants read, in cursive script “Fox. Wrong side up.” She smiled at them wistfully. They were one of her favorite naughty pairs, and the only pair of plastic pants she owned where she could always tell for sure which side was supposed to face forward.\n\nShe was about to get up and leave when the breeze carried a familiar scent to her nose. “You came! You really came!” she barked excitedly, holding her skirt up high with both paws as she splashed down into the shallow water, running to meet the hooded figure approaching down the center of the stream.\n\nThe Labrador was wearing a pale blue hoodie, had rolled his jeans up to his knees, and was carrying his sneakers, their laces tied together, in one paw. “Well, I still have my doubts,” Roger said as he peeled his hood back with his free paw, “but we have known each other for a long time, and when you mentioned this place, I figured something was up.” He waved the paw with his sneakers in it as he neared. “Do you see how I’m coming down the middle of the stream so even my own boys wouldn’t be able to track me? Pretty cool, huh? Like a ninja! By the way, do you like the logo?” He tugged at his hoodie, which had the letters “BB” over what at first appeared to be a simple outline of an X, but on close inspection proved to be two crossed safety pins, embossed on its breast.\n\nSerafina let her skirt drop, no longer caring whether the end of it trailed in the water, as she threw her paws around the lab, giving him a tight squeeze, and stifled a giggle as she remarked, “You are such a dork. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. So yes, it’s entirely appropriate for you.”\n\nRoger put his sneakers on to the boulder in the center of the stream, and hopped up on to it, taking a seat, patting for Serafina to get back up and sit next to him. She did so; here, even if either of them were being followed, eavesdropping would be impossible. “I didn’t tell Dex or even Rian about your message,” Roger said. “They wouldn’t have let me come alone—but if they saw it anyway, they might have assumed it was a trap and shadowed me. And even if you’re being honest, I can’t risk that someone tailed you anyway and might track me back to find a hideout. There are, after all, major doings in the land.”\n\nThe sissyfox frowned and bit her lip. “Then, you already know?”\n\nRoger smiled. “That Callie is the one who bought the abandoned charter school? Hard to miss; she’s been avoiding me like a full diaper pail since the news broke that it was sold. Won’t even answer her phone. Besides, she’s been talking about starting one for years, although I didn’t think she’d ever really pull it off.”\n\nSerafina nodded and took a deep breath, reaching into her pocket and removing a crumpled piece of paper, which she handed to Roger. “A proof of the first newspaper ad. It runs tomorrow.” Discover your destiny. Take control of your desires. Get in touch with your feminine side, it read. Sensitivity training and more under the watchful eye of highly skilled instructors. Empress Calliope’s Academy for Special Boys. Both private and group classes offered. All inquiries are answered, but admission is highly selective.\n\nRoger shrugged and splashed the water with one foot. “A school for sissies. I’m not threatened by this. Callie has been floundering since the party misfire. She never did understand that boys can play just fine a little . . . dirty,” he said with a smirk. “If anything we might have come out of it even better. Baby Blue is five hideouts strong and growing. I say, she’s desperate to recover lost ground.”\n\nThe fox shook her head and fidgeted anxiously. “I wish it were only that, Rog, but, Callie is . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . different, lately. Something is really bothering her. She’s usually so good at reading furs’ limits and stopping just short of them. Lately she’s so distant and it’s like she doesn’t care . . .” She looked around shiftily and pricked her ears. Her vulpine senses could detect no movement in the surrounding trees, so, taking a deep breath, she pulled down the front of her plastic pants, then, her fingers trembling, carefully untaped and folded down the front of her diapers one at a time. The light sparkled off her indestructible plastic chastity tube.\n\n“Well,” said Roger, taking a breath, “this explains why you aren’t your usual perky self. So this is what you want help with? But it’s not the first time . . .”\n\nSerafina cut him off, shaking her head energetically. “Roger . . . I’ve been in this thing for almost a month. Callie won’t give me the key. She doesn’t even want to talk to me about it.”\n\nHer ears drooped as she looked up at him pathetically and waved one of her arms in a frustrated gesture. “I am a fox, for heaven’s sake! I just . . . I don’t know what else to say. I can’t trust anyone there. They’ll rat me out if I ask. I need Baby Blue’s help to get the key. I know your boys can do it.”\n\nShe sighed, and carefully folded up and re-taped her diapers, then pulled her plastic pants back up from her knees, as she added, “I have real intel that would make it worth your while. The school layout and the . . .” She gulped. “Full opening schedule.”\n\nRoger stood up on the boulder at once, bit his lip, and looked down at her out of the corner of his eye. “Nuh-uh,” he said in disbelief. “You’re going to hand me everything BB needs to sabotage Callie’s opening right here? That’s too easy. Smells fishier than a day-old diaper. You probably just put that thing on yourself this morning. I’m out of here.”\n\nHe reached for his sneakers, but as he picked them up, Serafina assumed a kneeling position, and reached up for his waist, grabbing at his belt, in a last desperate attempt. “Help, me, Roger!” she blurted out. “You’re my only hope!”\n\nThe lab’s ears pricked and he looked back down at her consideringly. “Star Wars out of you?” he remarked thoughtfully. “No way. Even when . . .”\n\nSeeing she was making headway, the sissyfox broke in and finished his sentence, looking up at him imploringly as she swept along. “Even when I was a boy I made fun of those movies. Even when we used to play paintball right here and you would pretend to be Han Solo. When I blasted you so bad you fell in this stream and we only had one wearable shirt and one pair of pants between us, and we argued about who would get which, I said, ‘Where’s the force now?’ when I was taking your clothes off, before . . .” “Han Solo doesn’t even use—,” Roger muttered, but she pressed on, anxiously, without hearing him, “before I kissed you and grabbed you and . . .” She put her arms around his waist and hugged him. “Oh, Rog,” she sobbed out, “You were my best friend and I was so confused. I’m sorry it had to be you. I just got carried away. I’m sorry that I ran away when you tried to talk about it and I’m sorry I ran to Callie and I’m sorry I never came back and I’m sorry that. . . .”\n\n“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” said the lab, dropping his sneakers with a thud in order to cut the sissyfox off with a tight hug and pat her on the back as much as he could. “I didn’t think we were going to get into ancient history! You were experimenting; and do you think I would have wanted my friend throwing herself on furs she doesn’t know and can’t trust? No how. Besides . . .” he scratched her head and her ears reassuringly. “Callie said you were the fastest she trained ever to advance to princess. It’s where you blossomed. Who am I to stand in the way of what’s meant to be?”\n\nThe sissyfox snuffled and looked up at him with tears running down both her cheeks.\n\n“Whoa, Serry.” Rog shook his head sadly. “You really have been in that thing for more than three weeks, haven’t you? We’ll take the mission. It might be a hard sell with the boys, but I’ll bring them around.”\n\nSerafina released her trembling grip on the Labrador to reach into her pockets and extract the other papers. She handed them to him and he partially unfolded them to take a cursory glance, nodding and then stuffing them into his own pockets. “Any ideas?” he asked.\n\nThe fox shook her head. “My best guess is it’s on her at all times. I’ve looked everywhere else . . . believe me!”\n\nRoger nodded and chewed on his lip, already formulating a dangerous plan. “The opening,” he mused aloud. “That’s when we’ll strike. My best chance to sell this to the boys is as a sabotage mission. Plus, Callie will be busiest and easiest for me to catch off guard if she does have it on her. Especially if we create a distraction to tie up all the bothersome ones.” He looked at Serafina meaningfully. “Usually that would include you. And in case it is hidden there will be plenty of time to search the whole apartment while Callie is at the school. Rian can do that; besides me he knows it best.” Serafina fidgeted and blushed at the mention of the wolf cub’s name, but Roger, absorbed in his strategizing, continued without noticing. “You just hold tight until then. Be in touch if you can, but keep a low profile and look after yourself first. If you get any hint that Callie knows about this meeting, we abort and figure something else out.”\n\n“Rog,” Serafina tugged on his paw. “I know I already gave you the plans, but there’s something else I need to tell you if you’re really going to do this for me. And if you say no, afterwards, I understand. You can still walk away with them and I’ll fend for myself. It’s about Rian.”\n\n“Oh, please.” Roger laughed gently and spontaneously as he leapt into the water with a splash and, taking up his sneakers, turned to leave. “Dogs are nearsighted, not blind. Didn’t I say like two minutes ago who am I to stand in the way of what’s meant to be? Anyway, Rian’s my best man. If I were a girl, I’d be sweet on him too.”\n\n“Roger, one last last thing,” the sissyfox said with uncharacteristic earnestness, and he glanced back over his shoulder, tilting his head with one ear pricked and one flopped down. She tugged at her skirt uncomfortably. “Don’t expect me to say this, ever again, you big, housebreaking-impaired goofball . . . but no matter what happens, Rog,” she gulped, “you really are—and always have been—a hero.”\n\nThe Labrador broke into a broad grin as he raised his hood with his free paw and offered his parting words: “I know.”\n\n[i]Next time: Mission Control: The Secret Circle Assembles! Roger’s call to arms activates Baby Blue’s best agents.\n[/i]\n[b]Episode 2: Mission Control: The Secret Circle Assembles!\n[/b]\n“Ladies and gentlefurs, this is unbelievable!” the marsupial emcee shouted excitedly, jumping up and down as he did. “The coon kit who can’t be hit is holding his own outside of his weight class again!”\n\nAs he was somersaulting backwards Dex the raccoon noticed a familiar figure pushing his way to the front of the crowd toward the ring out of the corner of his eye, with a distressed look on his face, waving his arms anxiously.\n\n“Yo, Rian!” the raccoon, clad in a yellow martial arts gi and his face and muzzle streaked with war paint, called out casually as he landed softly on his toes and wrapped both his scrawny arms around the swinging forearm of the brawny tiger whose blow he had just leapt over. Shifting most of the weight normally on his heels forward into his upper body, he held the frantic feline’s arm locked in place. “Give me like ten minutes!”\n\n“Dodge this, squirt!” The tiger, enraged by being ignored, shouted, his eyes glaring, as his right foot sprung up between Dex’s legs and connected with the coon’s crotch . . . only to produce a muffled whump, the impact of his kick absorbed by many layers of ridiculously thick cloth padding. “Huh?” the big cat voiced in puzzled disbelief.\n\nThe raccoon smiled up at him, and remarked calmly, “That wasn’t nice.” Instead of doubling over in pain as expected, Dex caught the tiger’s leg between his thighs, squeezing them tight, and brought all his weight back down on to his heels, using his grip on the unbalanced tiger’s arm to flip the feline backward and sideways, releasing his leg, then his forearm, and dropping to one knee as he sent the larger fur reeling.\n\nThe raccoon rose and turned to face the anxious young wolf at the front of the crowd as the dazed tiger tumbled outside the ring and fell on to his knees. “Another upset victory for Dex!” The kangaroo emcee shouted, waving his arm decisively. “Let’s hear a cheer for the warrior with no weak spot!”\n\n“Actually,” the coon corrected himself, shrugging nonchalantly to the trench coat-wearing wolf cub and brushing himself off as the crowd burst into cheers, “now is good.”\n\n**********************\n\nThe rabbit’s beady eyes darted back and forth from one display screen to another, his whiskers twitching and his large feet tapping the floor in a staccato rhythm. He typed speedily, accessing all three of the flat-screen monitors through a single keyboard and switching between them by whapping at a function key whenever necessary.\n\n“Gotcha, Ace,” he said into the microphone on his headset as he zoomed in on a Google Earth satellite image and hit several keys to superimpose blinking red lines and blue dots on the map. “I’m lookin’ at ya now. Bear one o’clock from your current heading and ditch the canoe when you hit the sand. Then, north half-a-mile into the woods. Outpost 3 is in the cavern you’ll see on your left; there’s a changing station for your boys there. Show your squad leader badge, and tell them Twitchy sent you.” The bunny whacked at another function key to change the channel.\n\nHe cast a quick glance backward and down to see what was happening underneath the scoreboard-style sign above the front door to Hideout #4 that proudly displayed a blinking clock: “BB Tech is always on call: No bathroom breaks in — 5 1/2 — hours!”\n\nFrom the floor came a loud elastic twang as a miniature soapbox racer launched from a slingshot-like device and zoomed across the room. The car’s front axle snapped on impact as it collided with the test barrier, a padded archery target backed by a small brick wall. Its tiny rodent driver tumbled out of the wreck unharmed and scampered directly to his nearby red toolbox, which he hoisted on his back and carried short distances with both paws even though it was several times his own weight. He returned to the wreck with toolbox in tow and, setting it down, scratched his head as he sniffed along the length of the broken axle, feeling the joints between pieces with his whiskers.\n\n“Squeak!” reported the overall-clad mouse decisively as he pulled out a wrench and a screwdriver and busily set about removing the defective parts.\n\n“Kyle, I can’t get Commander Rian,” Twitchy said into his headset as he turned back to the monitors. “But Squeak is 95 percent there; go ahead and enter. The derby is a go.”\n\nThe trap door in the center of the hideout floor flipped open, setting off the jangling bells connected to it by a rope and pulley.\n\n“Squeak!!” said the little mouse as he dropped his tools with a clatter and sprang into a straight-backed salute.\n\nTwitchy removed his headset and leapt up from his chair, adjusting the safety goggles that were permanently settled askew on his forehead as he turned to face the visitor.\n\n“Rrrr...rrrr..... Rian!” he said, also saluting, his foot thumping against the floor anxiously. “Your soapbox model is almost ready, Commander . . . ”\n\nThe bunny trailed off in astonishment as a stockier figure than he was used to seeing hoisted himself up through the trap door and sat right at its edge calmly, letting his footpaws dangle down he looked up at them and around the entire room approvingly. Twitchy had last seen their visitor in person at his and Squeak’s initiation.\n\n“Captain!” he said with a gasp. “This is an honor, sir!”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse.\n\n“Hello, Twitchy. Hello, Squeak,” Roger said with a smile, patting the mouse on the head. “So this is the new Hideout #4. Rian said I had to see for myself what you two have done with the place, and he was right. He recommended you very highly for this.” Roger reached into the pockets of his hoodie. Twitchy trembled in anticipation as Roger held out two small gold badges; they bore the letters BB embossed over two crossed safety pins. “Welcome to the Secret Circle.”\n\n“I. . . I don’t know what to say,” the rabbit’s foot thumped and his whiskers twitched frantically as he grabbed the badge. “Except, thank you, sir.”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse, puffed up as he displayed his pinned to his overalls.\n\n“Don’t thank me yet, boys,” Roger warned, “because now that you have these, it’s time for your first Secret Circle summons. Follow me. And . . . brace yourselves. It might be . . . a little different than you expect.”\n\n****************************\n\nThe five-foot-five, twenty something wolf cub Rian, seated at Roger’s elbow, fidgeted with the new fedora intended to complement his trench coat.\n\n“It’s not the hat. I just don’t think hardboiled is the right look for you, that’s all I’m saying,” said Dex, who sat with his elbows elevated above the table and both the palms of his forepaws and the soles of his footpaws pressed flat against each other. “You have a whole cute thing going on and I don’t think you should fight with it.”\n\n“Fighting with cute,” Rian shook his head. “You’re one to talk.”\n\nTwitchy sat far in the back of the room, his eyes darting around anxiously and a pencil poised above his open notebook. “Umm . . . I agree with Lieutenant Dex about the new outfit, Commander. From an engineering point of view, it’s impractical. You have to take the whole coat off to get changed,” said the bunny, tapping his foot against the floor of the top-secret conference room nervously. “Anyway, if you ask me I preferred the leather jacket.”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse, who was seated, with his legs crossed, on the table.\n\nThe wolf stuck his tongue out. “You know what I think?” he said. “I think you’re all jealous because I’m the only one who can go outside without pants. I’m going for a new record you know. Do you know how many diapers I have on this time?” He held up all the digits on one paw proudly. “And I mean diapers. None of that absorbency pad liner stuff.”\n\nTwitchy and Dex both bit their lips and looked down humbly. They were starting to think Rian could move freely in any number of diapers. They had both changed BB’s second-in-command out of quadruple layers with stuffers more than once, and even a cloth purist like Dex couldn’t help but feel jealous and inadequately padded compared to Rian, who seemed never to leave home wearing fewer than three disposables.\n\n“Speaking of outfits,” the wolf cub asked teasingly, pressing his advantage, “Dex, what color belt do you have in kenpo karate? Wait, let me see if I remember. I bet it’s . . . yellow?” he asked with a snicker.\n\n“No,” the coon sighed resignedly. “It’s not yellow,” then added through gritted teeth, “I’m more advanced than that.”\n\n“Oh,” said Rian with feigned innocence, “well what color is it then? I bet the new Circle members want to know.”\n\n“Kenpo is a martial art based on multiplying small, hard-to-predict variations of basic mixed martial arts moves. So I know about a thousand moves,” Dex explained seriously, then turned sideways and muttered an inaudible conclusion.\n\nRian kicked his leg.\n\n“It’s a brown belt,” Dex said, raising his voice reluctantly. The confession provoked an involuntary spate of giggling from everyone at the table, except for Twitchy, who guffawed loudly in surprise and then cleared his throat officiously, regretting it at once.\n\n“Hey, smart guy,” the coon rounded on him, “speaking of accessories aren’t those . . .” he pointed at Twitchy’s goggles and made a tilting motion with his hand, “supposed to be like, over your eyes? I’ve never once seen you pull them down.”\n\n“Oh, these things?” Twitchy laughed and touched a forepaw to his safety goggles. “I forget that they’re there. Naw, they’re only for dangerous stuff.”\n\nRian’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Come to think of it you kept them up the whole time you and Squeak were building the dodge ball catapult. Isn’t that dangerous?”\n\nTwitchy shook his head. “Nah, not what they’re for,” he remarked.\n\nRian bit his lip and started to ask something else. “Well, how about when . . .?”\n\n“Ahem,” Roger cleared his throat, stood up and patted the wolf cub on the head. “I’d like to conclude the weekly discussion of Rian’s latest outfit. I think we’ve established that my sidekick is a master of disguise. And of pants-avoidance. You’ll find something that sticks eventually, little buddy. I’d like to redirect discussion to the proposed sabotage mission. You all know our rules. The Circle acts together, or we don’t act.”\n\n“Yeah.” Dex bit his lip reticently. “Don’t misunderstand me, I agree we have to do something to send a message. But as warped as a sissy school is, I have issues with the source of this intel. I’m not willing to run a strike team off it. My vote is no.”\n\nRian stood up. “I back Roger. I’d like to add that, for a girl, Serafina is all right. I think it’s because she used to be on the blue team, a long time ago. I’d go so far as to say, I don’t think she even carries cooties . . .” he fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to another and looking around the table nervously. “Because, umm, I’ve had contact—close contact—with her a couple times.” He counted on his fingers. “Yes, twice. And she was grea—I mean, I haven’t gotten them.” He held out his arms as though to say, See. “So there,” he concluded, and sat down.\n\n“I’m sorry, Captain,” said Twitchy, “but I share Lieutenant Dex’s concerns. You say this fox—” he looked down at his notebook and read the name—“Ser-a-fina—gave you multiple proofs of her sincerity. But I don’t understand her motive in collaborating with us. And I don’t understand why we need to pull so many boys off other things to deal with a bunch of sissies.”\n\n“Squeak!” remarked the mouse.\n\nRoger opened his laptop and connected it to the overhead projector in the center of the table. “I’d hoped I would be able to protect all of you from the unpleasant reality for longer, but I guess there are things you have to know. You have to understand more about our enemy.” The Labrador booted up his computer and began clicking through folders. “And about why it is that Baby Blue exists.”\n\nEveryone leaned forward and pricked their ears.\n\n“My personal belief is that regression is about freedom, physical and imaginative, for—all kinds of play. You all know that. We’re all blue for different reasons. Like sports,” Roger looked at Dex, “Computers,” he looked at Twitchy, “Adventure books,” he looked at Rian, “Bob the Builder,” he looked at Squeak.\n\n“Being blue is about running free. It’s about doing what you want. But my sister feels differently about regression. She feels it’s about submission, and surrender, in fancier words, structured forms of power exchange. Now, we’ve all been spanked of course. It’s part of initiation. But sissies as a rule, and as part of their gender conditioning, are subject to more . . . extreme . . . forms of discipline than my boys.”\n\nDex tilted his head. “You mean, like bondage, right?” he asked. “I’ve seen pictures.”\n\nRoger nodded slowly. “Yes—in a manner of speaking. Because of events for which I am, in part, responsible, Serafina has been wearing a tube for the better part of a month.”\n\nThe raccoon shrugged. “Not my concern if she wants to go swimming so bad. Maybe she wants to wash away her sissiness.”\n\n“This,” said Roger, as he found the photo and the image suddenly loomed large on the display board in front of them, “is a tube.”\n\nRian covered his eyes with both paws. Dex gulped. Twitchy asked, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, “What is the purpose of that device?”\n\nRoger took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes for a moment, then resumed his speech. “This device, which I expect to be in regular use as a disciplinary tool at Empress Calliope’s Academy for Special Boys, is designed for the sole and exclusive purpose of making it absolutely impossible to paw off, in or out of your diapers.”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse, who fell flat on his back with his arms spread out.\n\nDex doubled over and made a gagging sound. Twitchy squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his pencil so hard against his notebook the point of it snapped. Rian, however, peeked out from between his paws to stare at the screen mournfully and whispered, low enough that only Roger, standing next to him, could hear, “Serry. . .”\n\nThe wolf cub cast off his trench coat and stood up on his chair, revealing the black tee-shirt that came down to about his belly button and his newest pair of blue plastic pants, which had knights on charging horses printed on them. They could not, of course, entirely contain his diapers, and white plastic poked out through their leg gathers as well as above the wolf’s waistband. \n\n“I invoke my authority as a founding member to declare a state of emergency,” the wolf cub said, pounding on the table. “And now I call for an immediate vote on redirecting all available BB resources to a no-holds barred, A-rank rescue mission. Dex?”\n\nThe raccoon looked up with a steely glint in his eyes. “Just get me and my strike team inside that place so we can bust it up.”\n\nTwitchy opened his eyes and stopped his foot from thumping. “I request field duty. If these are the stakes, I want to take a stand. I don’t want to hide behind a monitor and a radio linkup this time.”\n\n“What?” The raccoon was taken aback. “No offense, Twitch, but I can’t cover someone with no combat experience. We need you too much in the sky.”\n\n“I approve,” Roger cut in. “In fact, it’s why he’s here.”\n\nThe raccoon shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe this. My team is a well-oiled machine . . .”\n\n“Exactly,” said Roger, switching off his laptop. “A machine my sister and her playmates have already seen in action. You’re still in charge of the raid, Dex, but I want Twitchy to consult on tactics and Squeak to review all equipment. Let’s keep the ballerinas on their toes.”\n\nRoger leaned over to his wolf cub sidekick and, with Rian still standing on the chair, they engaged in a quick, whispered conference, paws flying about excitedly, before turning back to the others, communicating in about thirty seconds what would have taken any other two furs at least several minutes. “Break it down for them,” Roger said.\n\n“Right,” the wolf cub said decisively, suddenly assuming a mature demeanor and picking up the folder of papers in front of his seat at the table. “Rog and I have one goal: to recover the key that will release Serafina. This is a three-pronged mission. You boys cause trouble at the academy to keep everyone else occupied; Roger makes a beeline for the Empress; and I raid her apartment solo to search for the key. Everything needs to happen at once, so timing is crucial.”\n\n“Rog, Dex, Twitchy, and me will each carry a short-wave radio. We’ll each radio part of a signal phrase when we’re in position. Then we all move at the same time if—and only if—the complete signal phrase has been radioed. Do as much damage as you like, but remember your primary objective is to keep everyone tied up until you hear from Rog or me that we’ve acquired the target. Then, phased withdrawal.”\n\n“Fortunately, this schedule and layout let us know who’ll be where when so we can deploy accordingly. Twitch had a second question about why we need so many boys. This is why.” He pulled out four battle-game style trading card mock-ups he had made and laid them one by one on the overhead projector. Each of them displayed a large character picture, as well as a range of various invented statistics and remarks. “Dresses or not, consider all of these sissies boss levels. If you encounter any of them, follow the appropriate protocol, and send a signal—We want to keep tabs on their locations.”\n\n“This is Princess Serafina,” he displayed a blow-up of the first card, smiling at the image of the silk-clad fox wistfully. “But she’s on our side this time. If you encounter her in a group, do your best to leave her out of the fight, or fake a fight with her if you have to. If you encounter her alone—the protocol is: Extraction.”\n\nDex played with his fingers and nodded occasionally. Twitchy’s eyes darted up and down from the projector display to his notebook as he whipped out another pencil and scribbled everything on the cards furiously. How does Commander Rian switch from little to big just like that, no matter what goofy thing he’s wearing? Twitchy thought as he listened to the diapered wolf cub, his recruiter and his hero. Someday maybe I’ll be that cool.\n\nRian flipped the cards to show a hulking Newfoundland wearing a milkmaid’s bonnet and a floral apron. “Princess Cassandra, a.k.a. Cassie, the Newfoundland. Empress Calliope has one heck of a lapdog; this is her quietest and longest-standing confidante. Her loyalty to the pink faction and to her mistress is unshakable. The only good news here is, she’s slow. So the protocol is: Pile-up. I estimate four boys to hold her in place; six to take her down.”\n\nNext was a shorter-and-slighter than average panda curtsying in a tutu with an icily superior grin. “Lady Lin Lin. Don’t be fooled by her big round eyes; this undersized sissy panda is as smart as a whip, and about as cuddly. The protocol is: Long-Range Engagement. Keep her at a distance. She’s new to the scene, but we all know she’s trouble. Preliminary intel suggests she’s spent every waking moment in extracurricular activities of one kind or another since the age of seven, so be ready for anything and proceed carefully.”\n\n“Finally, this,” he flipped the final card to display the imperial leopardess in a stately gown and tiara, “is Empress Calliope.”\n\nThere was a moment of silence and Twitchy raised his paw in the air. Dex snorted at him derisively. “Umm,” Rian looked around the room and then pointed at the rabbit. “Twitchy?”\n\n“Why are the stats blank?” the rabbit asked, lowering his paw.\n\n“Because putting any stats on that card might give one of you the idea that it is somehow possible for you to win,” said Roger, stepping back into the briefing. “I handle my sister. Period.”\n\n“If what Serafina says is true and Callie is no longer fooling around, then you all need to know: My sister is not in the same league as any of these others. If somehow you do encounter her one on one,” the lab stared at each of them in turn, including Rian, to make sure the message sank in, “the protocol is: Run. And call for help. In that order.”\n\n“Got it,” said Dex and Twitchy simultaneously, the raccoon standing up as the rabbit flipped his notebook shut. “Jinx. Double jinx,” they both said at the same time, then, “Ohhhh. . .” with drooping ears as their jinxes deflected.\n\nRoger smiled and clapped them both on the shoulder. “The team spirit’s already taking. You’ll be like Rian and me in no time. Let’s split up, Rescue Team and Combat Team. We’ll regroup at 24 hours before the opening to review each other’s strategies and rendezvous at T minus 60 for a final breakdown and equipment distribution. In the meantime, let’s get all of Baby Blue ready to do one of the things boys know how to do best.”\n\nHe cast a glance at Rian, who nodded firmly and concluded Roger’s thought for him. “Rescue a princess!”\n\n[i]Next time: Plots and Counterplots! The boys are gearing up for a no-holds barred raid and rescue mission! But is everything as it appears?\n[/i]\n[b]Episode 3: Plots and Counterplots![/b]\n\n“Callie? Is your new office all set up? Why are the lights off?” Serafina asked as she fumbled for the switch in the large, suite-like room, clutching a tin beneath her arm. “I made a big batch of cinnamon scones for our first tea party in the new building; I thought it would be a nice thing for the interviewees.”\n\nA lamp clicked on in the middle of the room; its soft light illuminated the leopard empress, who was sitting straight-backed behind a Victorian writing desk wearing a semi-formal gown and tapping an oriental fan against her claws.\n\n“The lights are off because I’m in mourning,” Calliope remarked sadly. “That’s how much it pains me, when a good girl goes so far astray.”\n\nSerafina found the light switch and clicked it on. With a gasp, she saw that there was a lady-in-waiting on either side of her eying her suspiciously: Cassie, the huge Newfoundland incongruously wearing a daisy-pattern dress and a bonnet, and Lin Lin, the diminutive panda, wearing an Asian schoolgirl’s uniform that couldn’t entirely conceal her diaper.\n\n“Okay,” Serafina confessed. “So I bought the scones. Cut me some slack, it’s been a crazy few days.”\n\n“I told you she would take them if you left them lying around!” Lin Lin exclaimed, pointing at Serafina as though there were some ambiguity who she could be talking about, and hopping up and down. “Oh! I just knew you could not trust her, I knew it, I knew it! That fox does not deserve to be an instructor in our school! She is entirely too fox-like even for a fox.” The panda dropped to the ground and sniffed at Serafina’s shoes, then at the hem of her skirt, trying to determine where she had been. “Hey!” the fox batted off the panda’s insistent paws as they tried to reach into her pockets. “What’s going on here?”\n\n“What’s going on here, Serafina,” Calliope explained, “has to do with this.”\n\nCalliope extracted a cord holding several keys from within her gown and held up a long plastic one between her eyes. The fox dropped her tin to the floor with a clatter and leapt forward, paws outstretched Cassie the Newfoundland easily caught the scruff of her neck in a single paw, and held her dangling off the ground, waving about furiously. “That’s my key! Give it to me! This has gone well beyond acceptable discipline, Callie!”\n\n“Empress Calliope,” the leopardess corrected her as she stood up stiffly. “And I am not in the habit of asking misbehaving sissies to decide upon their own punishments. Two days ago I left the academy opening schedule and layouts on the coffee table in my apartment and my computer running, inadvertently.” She unsnapped her fan and fanned herself gently. “Or so you believed.”\n\n“But that fox printed copies!” broke in Lin Lin, waving a large paw at Serafina’s nose accusingly. “There were twenty sheets of paper in the printer that morning, and only fifteen when her majesty returned home that afternoon!”\n\n“What?!” Serafina blinked, suddenly furious, and Cassie had to grab her waist with another giant paw. “That’s insane! How would you know that, you crazy midget bear, unless you set me up! This is. . . This is not like you, Callie. You’re strict, but you’re not mean. This new girl is a bad influence, and it’s time someone said something. I don’t like the way she does things. She’s too competitive! Sure, we don’t run wild like the boys, but we’re still about having fun here, aren’t we? Cassie!” She elbowed the Newfoundland repeatedly and futilely, producing only soft thumping noises; her struggles caused her own sparkly tiara to fall off her head and land softly on the floor. “Cassie, you know I’m right! Stand up to someone for once!”\n\n“Lin Lin is a bad influence?” Calliope asked skeptically, petting the panda on the head as the bear smiled at Serafina archly. “Did Lin Lin nearly ruin our most important party by fooling around with my brother’s sidekick? No. But Lin Lin did prove herself by helping to correct your mistake. Was Lin Lin willing to trade my plans—for a school I have dreamed of for years—for her own right to paw off in her diapers?”\n\nCalliope spoke with disgust; she clicked her fan shut and tapped Serafina’s nose with it sternly. “Lin Lin was generous enough to suggest a simple way you could prove your trustworthiness and earn your freedom back. I only went along because I couldn’t imagine she was right in suggesting you would take the bait and steal the plans. But Serafina . . .” The leopardess returned the cord of keys to her bosom as the fox gritted her teeth in frustration. “You failed us. Again. And you aren’t even apologizing.”\n\n“You set me up to fail!” the sissyfox screeched. “What’s wrong with all of you? I am a fox! You don’t tube a fox for more than three weeks and expect her to act rationally! Callie!” She wailed despairingly. “Why are you listening to that panda instead of me? Don’t look away from me! Cassie, put me down! That bear will be after you next, just watch! Don’t you come crying to me for help then, you giant doormat!”\n\nCalliope looked down at the floor gloomily and waved her fan. “I’ve heard enough of this venom. We do need to test Level 3. Put her in there for now.”\n\nAlthough her grip didn’t loosen, Serafina could feel Cassie’s hesitation. “Level . . .3? Are you . . . sure, your majesty?” the quiet Newfoundland asked.\n\n“Of course I’m sure. And don’t change her diapers until she’s good and locked in,” Calliope said sadly, opening the door and wrinkling her nose as she stepped past Cassie and Serafina into the hallway. “I don’t like it either, but she’s given me no choice. There are many things that have to happen in the next day, that make me sad. Being a good mother sometimes means playing the villain.”\n\n“But everything does have to end, sooner or later. It’s the only way a new era can begin. We can let her free tomorrow, as soon as it’s all over. In time, Serafina, you’ll understand it was for your own good. This is all I can do for you: no one outside this room will know about this latest betrayal, because it won’t matter in twenty-four hours. The other girls will still consider you a princess. Come with me, Lin Lin.”\n\nAs soon as . . . what’s all over? Serafina wondered as Cassie dragged her down the hallway in the opposite direction. Belatedly she realized; if the floor plan and schedule she had taken had been left around as a test, they couldn’t be the real ones. “Oh no!” she gasped. “Roger! Rian!”\n\nAs Calliope vanished down the opposite end of the corridor Serafina suddenly saw the diminutive panda, who had lagged behind to see the sissyfox dragged off, looming in her field of vision and waving her paw accusingly after her. “Oh I knew it, I knew it!” Lin Lin shouted out. “You are thinking about your dozens of fox-loving boyfriends like a fox! Well after tomorrow you will not be able to betray us to your boyfriends on the blue team again! Because there will not be a blue team any more!”\n\n“No!” Serafina whined as she vanished from view.\n\n“And when the Empress sees that my brilliant plan has humiliated those meddling morons into giving up for good,” said the panda to no one in particular, picking up Serafina’s fallen tiara from the floor where it lay and settling it on her own head, “I will not be Lady Lin Lin any longer, but Princess Lin Lin. I am sorry, fox, but you played your part perfectly, for in order for me to move up more rapidly, it is necessary for someone else to move down.”\n\n**************\n\n“Ohhhhh,” the battered and bruised bunny staggered up through the trap door and slumped onto his desk in Hideout #4 in despair.\n\nHe threw the tactical packet he had made onto the ground. “Dex was right, Squeak. I should just shut up and stay out of the way. It was a dumb idea to think I should ever leave my comfort zone. I should stick to background support; it’s what I do best. Two days of one humiliating simulation after another. If only our mission was to knock over a whole row of hurdles and fall on our noses repeatedly, I’d be doing just fine.”\n\n“Squeak?” said the mouse quizzically, dropping the foam ball blaster he had been tinkering with and scrambling over to his hideout partner.\n\n“No,” said the bunny, with tears in his eyes. “They didn’t even read it. I just got snickers and comments like ‘I didn’t know there’d be homework.’ I never played a sport, I don’t know how to talk to the boys on his team.”\n\nThe mouse scampered over to the discarded folder and flipped it open, spreading the papers out around his work area on the floor.\n\n“After all,” the bunny continued his self-pitying soliloquy. “What’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done anyway? Take something apart before its warranty was up? I’ll never be as confident as Rian or as cool as Dex. I don’t belong in the Circle.”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse insistently, stamping his tiny foot.\n\nTwitchy looked down at his rodent friend. “You really think I’ve come a long way, Squeak? Well, I guess I’m more confident than I used to be.”\n\n“Squeak!” added the mouse, nodding. “Squeak!”\n\n“I guess you’re right,” Twitchy mused. “I never fit in anywhere else, anyway. I do owe them my best.”\n\nThe bunny reflected back for a moment, and remembered himself, wearing overalls to conceal his bulky padding, with the mouse in his pocket, frozen in place outside the doorstep of the apartment hosting the age players’ party, his heart and his foot thumping in rhythm.\n\nComing all the way across the city, he had been terrified, convinced everyone around him could hear the faint crinkling of his diapers even in the bustle of the crowd. He couldn’t believe he’d actually come across town for this. It was all just a bad idea. And he’d dragged Squeak, hidden in his pocket, into it, too. Who knew how crazy those furs inside really were? He was on the verge of turning tail and dashing out of there, and forgetting he had ever thought about it, when he heard the gentle voice of someone coming up the stairwell behind him say, ‘You’re about to run away, huh?’ and froze as a wolf cub’s paw rested on his shoulder. ‘That would make me sad. I mean, here you are wearing blue and everything.’\n\n‘Are you . . . Ryan?’ the bunny had asked, trembling as he looked back over his shoulder at the lupine carrying a grocery bag full of party supplies under his arm. ‘Almost! Rian,’ the shrimpy wolf cheerfully corrected him. ‘Just come on in for fifteen minutes. No hard feelings if you leave after that. It will get easier. I promise!’ With a gulp, Twitchy had said, ‘Okay, I guess . . . I’ll try anything once.’ Rian’s eyes had twinkled and he burst into what Twitchy found a surprisingly big grin.\n\nTwitchy remembered lying on a fleece blanket with a rocking-horse pattern on the cold, dank floor of the cavern outpost, shivering furiously, on the night of his initiation. He wore nothing except two diapers and the safety goggles on his forehead—an exception Rian had granted him to the BB initiation rules. Two plastic bags with leg holes cut in them had been slipped on and taped securely to the edges of his diapers to magnify the crinkling he made with every move and normally tried to muffle. He had been wearing those all day, clothed or no.\n\nAt that moment the rest of the circle of Baby Blue boys, all fully clothed except for him, hung back as Rian, his sponsor, leaned over to look down on him, rubbing the front of the nervous bunny’s diapers with one footpaw in a slow, circular motion. The wolf cub, wearing an open leather jacket over a pair of baggy jeans, urged gently, ‘It’s okay, Twitch. Go ahead and say it. You’ll never be comfortable with yourself until you do.’\n\n‘I . . .’ the rabbit’s eyes darted about furiously and he hugged himself tight as he anticipated derisive giggles. ‘I like my . . . diapers,” he whimpered, shivering.\n\nRian shook his head. ‘And I like ice cream,’ the wolf cub explained patiently. ‘But I don’t eat it every day.’ Removing his foot and dropping to his knees in front of the bunny, he rested his cold paw on the shivering rabbit’s tummy. His paw slid down under Twitchy’s waistband. ‘But you, you do wear your diapers every day, don’t you, Twitch, and every night, too. Or, at least—you want to, from now on? You sure do, I bet.’\n\nThe rabbit had only nodded, whimpering and shivering as Rian’s cold paw entered the warm area in the front of his diaper and began stroking gently. The bunny gulped, keenly aware of the other boys, only about half of whom he had known at the time, watching him with varying degrees of interest. He blushed fiercely as he felt his entire body become warmer. ‘I . . . I . . . I . . . looove . . .’ he bit his tongue and shook his head, whimpering, as the pressure in his crotch mounted.\n\n‘Everyone here is a friend,’ Rian whispered, suddenly beginning to squeeze, very softly at first. ‘You can tell your big brother and his friends the truth. We understand. We do. So tell us. Tell your big brother the truth, ya l’il bunny baby.’\n\n‘I . . . lo. . . love my . . . diapers!’ Twitchy had shouted tearfully as he spasmed and felt himself release into them in front of all the other BB boys, and all over Rian’s gently ministering paw. The wolf cub leaned down over him and licked his nose.\n\n‘F-f-fankoo, Commander Rian,’ the rabbit added in a feeble, babyish whisper as he did, looking up at his hero with wide eyes, as he added, ‘sir.’ He squirmed and grabbed the wolf cub’s free paw tightly in both of his. ‘You’re the bestest sponsor ever. I . . . I allays wanna call you Commander from now on . . . sir.’\n\nTwitchy chewed on his lip and another half-forgotten moment, this one from the past two days, bubbled to the top of his mind, one nearly knocked out of his head in the flurries of foam projectiles and flying sports equipment. Dex had pulled the dazed rabbit aside for a short timeout after another brutal dodge ball session and sat with him seiza-style on the grass holding the packet Twitchy had distributed that morning.\n\n‘Listen, Twitch,’ the coon had said. ‘Don’t take anything the boys say personally. Jocks communicate differently, that’s all. What you need to understand is that not everyone is as smart as you. And that’s okay. We’re all good at different things. My boys can’t process things like this as fast as you can.’ He waved the packet at him. ‘Or they’ll do it wrong. Just watch me for a bit. They don’t need to know the why behind every order. They just need to know that you do. A team leader just needs to act. You don’t need to explain to them you know what you’re doing. Just show them, and if you do, well—they’ll know.’\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse excitedly, snapping Twitchy out of his reveries and back to the present. He looked back at the rodent, who was pointing at two of the spread-out papers.\n\n“Yeah,” Twitchy nodded, “I pulled the ventilation plan for the building. Thank you, City Zoning. It was a dumb idea, though. We already have a map, and it’s not as though Dex’s smallest boy could fit through those.”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse, shaking his head, and sliding the two papers, the ventilation plan and the layout Serafina had leaked, under each other, then apart again.\n\n“Hold on. I think I see what you mean,” Twitchy turned to his monitors and pulled up the original files on two separate screens, then keying quickly, rotated them. The two images slid over each other and appeared superimposed in the center monitor. Squeak crawled up the rabbit’s pant leg and hopped on to the desk, pointing at a corner of the image. Twitchy leaned toward it and his foot slowly began tapping as he zoomed in.\n\n“You’re right, Squeak!” he exclaimed. “Why would anyone ventilate a storage closet? That doesn’t make any sense.”\n\nThe bunny’s foot began thumping the floor faster and his mind raced.\n\n“Squeak?” said the mouse, picking up his headset.\n\nTwitchy shook his head. “No, we move out tomorrow morning, and we only have once chance to strike during the opening. I don’t want to wake up the boys maybe for nothing and confuse everyone. Dex’s plan should still work. But, just in case. . . .”\n\nHe patted the rodent on the head as he reassembled his own tactical packets and his pages of notes from Rian’s briefing.\n\n“I want to check this out and I want to look at everything again—Rian’s battle cards, the maps, everything, and just see if there’s anything else we could throw into play that might help. Break out the juice boxes and start the bathroom break counter, Squeak. Hideout #4 is running all night.”\n\n[i]Next time: The Empress Strikes Back! The ultimate showdown between pink and blue begins, featuring heroes, villains, and Rian in a sailor suit!\n[/i]\n[b]Episode 4. The Empress Strikes Back!\n[/b]\n“Watches synchronized. T Minus 60 and counting!” Roger, Rian, and Dex exclaimed in unison at the forested meet up site while Twitchy and Squeak unloaded sacks of equipment to hand out.\n\nDex eyed Rian’s latest outfit incredulously and shook his head. “When I said you shouldn’t fight your cute, I didn’t think you’d take me that seriously.”\n\nThe wolf cub had opened his trench coat to reveal a short-sleeved white sailor suit with a blue trim, complete with a matching sailor hat and baggy shorts, topped off by what appeared to be a blue adult-sized cub harness; he was operating, judging by the relatively loose shorts, at his three-layer minimum. The front of the suit said, U. S. Cub Guard Rescue above the breast. Rian tugged on the harness. “This is totally getting me up that busted fire escape,” he remarked, clicking a bungee cord to the hook where a cub leash could attach. “And no sleeves or pant legs to get caught on anything. I’ll roll right in.”\n\n“Well, I still think it’s dumb,” the coon remarked, then added, with a touch of envious pouting, “Where do you find this stuff anyway?”\n\n“Well, someone’s looking bright-eyed and fluffy-tailed this morning!” remarked Roger as Twitchy handed him a short-wave radio. “I guess you got a lot of sleep?”\n\n“Quality over quantity!” Twitchy exclaimed, nodding brightly. “Can I talk to the Rescue Team for one second?”\n\nRian and Roger exchanged glances and stepped aside with the bunny, who reached deep into the pockets of his baggy jeans, as Dex’s combat troops gathered around the war-painted raccoon in a huddle.\n\n“What’s up, Twitch?” Rian asked. The bunny just smiled as he produced two large pacifiers from his pockets and handed one each to Roger and Rian, who looked at them quizzically. “I know the Rescue Team specs are for light armaments, but, since you two are running solo . . .”\n\n“Every well-designed system has a failsafe. You know, a backup system that you probably will never have to use, but that still exists—just in case. Well, these are yours. A present from me and Squeak. Let’s say they give a new meaning to the term sucker punch.” He put his arms around the two leaders’ shoulders, and whispered instructions.\n\n******************\n\nT Minus 15.\n\nRoger dropped through the half-open skylight into the unused attic of the school building, coughing as he stirred up clouds of dust. He opened the trap door and lowered himself into the top-floor corridor, holding his body suspended by both paws for a moment while he looked up and down the hallway. Seeing and hearing no one, as expected, he dropped onto the linoleum floor with a soft thud and, reaching into his backpack, extracted the top item, an impact-absorbing coffee thermos, which he unscrewed to remove a loaded water balloon, clutching it behind his back in his left paw. As soon as he had put everything back, he radioed his signal phrase: “One if by land!”\n\n******************\n\nT Minus 10.\n\nThe stairs between the third and fourth floor fire escape platforms had long since rusted away. Rian’s bungee cord caught on the railing with a click. Once it was settled, he bent his knees and hopped up, twice, the rebound bounce boosting the shrimpy wolf just high enough to catch the bottom of the fourth floor platform.\n\n“Phew!” he let out, pulling his scrawny weight up the railing around the platform carefully, one paw after another. From where he dangled he could see that Calliope’s bathroom window was, as always in the overheated apartment building, cracked just the slightest bit open to keep the air circulating.\n\nHe began panting as he neared the top of the spiky railing and hoisted himself over it; he whined involuntarily as he had to flip one leg over the top at a time and rest all his weight momentarily on his crotch. Only three diapers on, but it’s a good thing I still put a stuffer right in the middle, he thought, as he pulled his other leg over and tumbled unsteadily on to his feet on the fourth-floor fire escape platform.\n\nHe sat down to rest for a moment and took off his sneakers and his backpack, leaving them both on the platform and taking what he would need out of the knapsack. Then, scampering over to stand beneath the frosted bathroom window, he stood on his tiptoes to peer through the crack and set in place the car jack Squeak had given him to help get it open, first hooking his bungee cord to the top of the jack; he was a good half foot too short to push the window very high up himself.\n\nIn a moment it was in place, and he was pumping the handle, hoisting the window a little bit further open, and himself another centimeter or so into the air, with every pump. \n\nSoon he could see into the empty bathroom. As expected, he would drop right into the bathtub. He took the radio off his belt to radio his signal phrase right before he swung in: “And two if by sea!”\n\nThe radio crackled back in a moment. “And I on the opposite shore will be,” answered Dex, so Rian knew the Squad A boys were in position in the locker room.\n\nThen again, in about twenty seconds. “Ready to ride and spread the alarm,” Twitchy completed the signal phrase. He and a handful of second-string boys were in position in the small separate bathroom removed from the locker room, that remained designated a men’s room, for non-sissy visitors; they would provide Squad A with background cover fire.\n\n*****************\n\nT Minus 2.\n\nThe dozing sissyfox shifted in her soggy diaper and pricked her ears as she heard a clatter in the punishment room. “Cassie?” she asked sleepily, blinking. Her mind was just playing more tricks on her. She had spent the whole night in Level 3—mild sensory deprivation bondage—and her tail twitched uncomfortably as she started to doze off again. Before she did, though, she heard something snap, and her right forepaw came free from the bedpost it was attached to.\n\n“Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed, reaching up for the leather hood that had a muzzle hole but no eyeholes, and began unsnapping the neck buckles. “I knew you’d come to your senses. I’m sorry about all the things I said, Cassie, but . . .”\n\nShe sniffed. She thought she could smell crumbs from cinnamon scones falling on to her muzzle; yes, she licked, that’s what they were. In another minute, her left forepaw came free as well just as she pulled up the hood and turned to see the small visitor standing on the bedpost of the punishment cot, leaving a trail of crumbs behind him.\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse, holding up a pair of pliers and pointing proudly to his toolbox on the floor and then to the dangling air vent on the wall, which was swinging by a single screw.\n\nSerafina instantly became alert. “Did Roger send you?” she asked.\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse affirmatively and he held up all his fingers, indicating there were many more as he nodded reassuringly.\n\n“Everyone?” she barked at the mouse. “No! Listen to me! You are all in terrible danger! I need to talk to Roger! The boys are walking into a trap! Today is not even the real opening! This whole thing is a set-up!”\n\nHer mind leapt days back as she suddenly recalled Roger describing part of his plan to recover the key. There will be plenty of time to search the apartment while Callie is at the school, he had said. Rian can do that. Besides me, he knows it best. It was more or less what she would have expected; and Callie knew her brother at least as well as Serafina. “I know exactly what Callie will do! And I have to warn the boys before it’s too late!”\n\n“Squeak!!” cried the mouse in alarm, waving his paws frantically, holding one to his ear with fingers in the shape of a phone, and then shaking his head sadly. “Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!”\n\n“Then take me to someone who does have a way to call him! And fast!”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse as he snipped through the bonds on Serafina’s legs and the sissyfox sat up, rubbing her ankles.\n\nThe mouse leapt on to the floor and scampered over to his toolbox, flicking it open, and lifting its top tray to reveal what was underneath. “Squeak squeak!” he pointed anxiously at its contents, and then up at Serafina’s nose. “Squeak?”\n\nShe looked down as she stood up unsteadily and shook her head. “Oh, you have to be kidding. It’s been years since I’ve even looked at one of those.”\n\n“Squeak!” said the mouse, hopping up and down.\n\n“All right,” she said, biting her lip as she reached into the toolbox, and whispering, “Just hang in there, Rian!”\n\n*********************\n\nLin Lin’s voice spoke mellifluously over the combination gymnasium/assembly room’s public address system, addressing the small crowd assembled in the gym’s unfolded bleachers. The panda’s speech echoed into the locker room and restroom: “Welcome, everyone brave enough to make this first important step, to your first period class. I know you have all been personally selected by Empress Calliope and by at least one of our qualified recruiters. A special welcome to my girls—you, of course, are the best. You will be hearing more from the Empress about her vision at our afternoon assembly. For now, I am honored and excited to say, that your lives will never be the same. And as your physical education instructors, Princess Cassandra and I will be delighted to begin today with basic charm school discipline—posture, balance, dance . . .”\n\nT Minus 0! And . . .\n\nDex’s ten A-squad boys, clad in a variety of pirate, bandit, cowboy, and martial arts costumes, burst out of the locker room door and poured into the school’s gymnasium / assembly hall from its side, directing a first volley of foam-tipped arrows, plastic projectiles, dodge balls, and a blast of water fire toward the crowd they saw assembled in the first few rows of the bleachers and toward the speaking podium.\n\n“Hold up!” Dex suddenly shouted, his eyes flickering over the bleachers as he slid to a halt and raised one paw in the air, but as the volley had already been launched, he was a split second too late.\n\nThere was a loud metallic click over the PA system as the recording of Lin Lin’s voice terminated, and the first barrage of missile fire collided with a defensive row along the edge of the bleachers and at the podium of fragile inflatable animals, balloons, and bags, all filled with flour, sugar, glitter, and baby powder, and covered in pink plastic and inexpensive dresses. The devices burst and, thanks to a powerful fan on the opposite side of the gym, spewed forth blinding white sparkly clouds that swirled into the air around the attack squad, blinding them and stinging their eyes as the overwhelming scent of talcum dulled their noses.\n\n“They’re ready for us! It’s a trap!” the raccoon shouted frantically, pressing his radio button, but the now-useless device emitted a shriek of static; something was jamming the frequency.\n\n“Squad B, fall back! Fall back!” he shouted as loud as he could, coughing as he inhaled the flour and talcum mixture. His boys scattered in confusion and the sugar stung his eyes as he made out a crowd of petite figures running toward them and saw some of his troops falling to the floor in tears. “Repeat, B Team! Get out of here! We’ll buy you time!” Dex leapt up into the air as a line of sissies approached with their arms locked. He managed to get above the cloud, but was hit in the air by a bucketful of ice water, causing the flour and grits of sugar to adhere in a sticky layer to his soaked martial-arts outfit.\n\nThe raccoon landed outside the smokescreen and behind the advancing girls to find himself facing Lin Lin just as she hurled the empty bucket at him. He spun to avoid it, and jumped again to avoid her kick. “Kung fu!” he thought aloud. “I can counter that.” But something was off; he felt so much heavier than usual; with a sinking feeling, he realized that not only his uniform, but his thickly layered cloth diapers were soaked all the way through. The greatly increased bulk of his bottom completely altered his center of balance.\n\nLin Lin followed him into the air and pirouetted not once but three times, catching his punches and flipping his arms up and backward, causing him to land on his back on the gym’s shiny hardwood floor with a sodden thud. She dropped next to him on her toes and stopped spinning, looking down at the fallen coon. “And figure skating,” she corrected him archly, then asked tauntingly, “Not as quick as usual? Waterlogged, maybe?”\n\nAll around him, Dex could see flailing, blinded, or running boys being surrounded by giggling sissies who entangled them in silk sheets and ribbons that further restricted their movement. There must have been about fifteen girls under Lin Lin. His mind filled with dread at what would happen next. On the rare events when Dex did lose his cool or a fight, the results were unfortunately predictable and totally out of his control. That’s why he worked so hard to make sure it never happened.\n\nTears streamed down his eyes. In a moment the raccoon began bawling, kicking his legs wildly in the air, and occasionally sucking his thumb. A large, warm yellow puddle spread out under him on the floor, further soaking most of the lower half and back of his outfit. He would be a little kit throwing a tantrum for some time.\n\n“I wonder what a mighty fighter little Dexie Wexie will grow up to be,” Lin Lin suggested to her girls, “in a dress.” Dex opened his muzzle to squeak out something, but still inhaling the settling powder, only let out a high-pitched series of small sneezes. At once, the now helpless martial artist was surrounded by giggling girlie furs.\n\nThe panda smiled down at him and patted his muzzle. “Do not worry, coonie. You’ll probably be clumsy in a skirt at first, but I have a feeling you’ll get used to it. Now let’s bring our new girls to their first classes. School is in session as of today, Baby Blue boys. And our entering class,” she remarked to the fallen warriors with a broad grin, “is you.”\n\nA dodge ball whizzed by the panda’s head and she pivoted to see its source, a white rabbit clad in denim with gritted teeth standing behind the girls at the top of the bleachers, holding a megaphone snatched from the locker room in one paw.\n\nTwitchy was entirely covered with the flour and talcum mixture—except for the lenses of the safety goggles snapped down over his eyes. A row of six other boys knelt in front of him across the top row of the bleachers, a mix of Nerf rifles and Super Soakers cocked and pointing downward, and a handful of dodge balls grabbed hastily from the gym’s supply bin arrayed across the bleacher seats in front of them.\n\nA tug-of-war rope lay behind the dodge balls. Before he spoke Twitchy reached down with his now free throwing hand to unlink the end of the rope from his belt.\n\nLin Lin gritted her teeth as she realized what had happened. That was how he had pulled his small line of boys straight through the smokescreen and avoided her girls; they had been holding the rope and all their eyes had been closed except for his. He had used her own smokescreen as cover to get his boys behind her and into the bleachers while she fought with Dex’s. This was a nuisance.\n\n“Don’t give up! We’re still fighting! Anyone who can get free!” Twitchy shouted over the megaphone, his various maps of the school flashing before his eyes. “Join us on the bleachers! Make for high ground! Don’t run away! Every exit from this room has bad visibility; if it’s a trap, you’re just stumbling out there to be pounced! We have to make a stand here! Dex wouldn’t leave us!”\n\nThe panda’s eyes flashed and her lip curled up into a confident smirk.\n\n“All that would have been considerably more impressive if your throw had actually hit me!” she shouted up at Twitchy.\n\n“But since you missed, I assume you are what they call the second string. Well, do not worry,” she gestured behind her at Dex, who only wailed louder as two girls held his legs down long enough for a third to yank his pants off. “I am still accepting applications.”\n\n*********************\n\n“This is what you get for putting me on ignore, sis!” Roger said as he flung the door to Calliope’s office open and stepped through the small waiting area to view her desk—which was empty.\n\nHis nose caught a familiar scent, and the Labrador growled, turning slowly, “Cassie.”\n\n“Hello, Roger,” the quiet Newfoundland said placidly as she leaned back against the door, pressing it shut and locking it behind her with one paw. “My mistress said you would understand what it meant if I told you—what was it?—that your princess is in another castle.”\n\nHer large brown eyes gazed at him mournfully from under her frilly Easter bonnet. “She reassures me that everything that is happening is indeed for the best. Still, I would be very sad, if you are not willing to wait here for her. I would rather not lock up someone else so soon after Serafina.”\n\n*********************\n\nRian froze mid-step in his path from the living room to Calliope’s bedroom door.\n\n“What an adorable costume, Adrian,” said a familiar voice that seemed to be coming from behind him, then in front of him. “And what an adorably ridiculous way of coming in. All you had to do, was knock.”\n\nThe wolf cub’s ears flicked. He was used to hearing Calliope speak in brusque, imperious tones, but her voice this time was soft, mellifluous, and gentle. She didn’t sound mean. Not at all.\n\nBut Roger’s words echoed in his head: ‘If somehow you do encounter her one-on-one, the protocol is: Run. And call for help. In that order.’ He reached for the radio on his belt, and pressed the button. “It’s Rian. I’m in trouble! She’s here!” he blurted, but the device only emitted a piercing static shriek so loud that he winced and dropped it to the floor in shock. He wanted to run away, but the leopardess sounded so uncharacteristically . . . nice.\n\n“You’ve become so dear to my brother,” the voice continued, unconcerned by his abortive distress call, “Yet you and I have never sat down one on one. I simply can’t imagine what nonsense he’s told you. Did he say, for instance, not to be alone with me at any cost? Well, I can imagine why. He’s only frightened that someone will finally tell you the truth. You see, I know far, far more about you than you think.”\n\nThe wolf cub felt goose bumps cover the skin under his fur and his nose twitched as he was enveloped by the scent of floral perfume. The imperial leopardess stepped out of her bedroom and walked toward him, wearing so much silk she seemed to shimmer.\n\n“My brother’s sudden expansion all began with you, little Adrian,” she explained gently as she approached. “And I blame myself. Way back when we first met, I should never have handed you off to my ladies-in-waiting as a toy. It was unfair to both of us. I apologize for not recognizing your potential.”\n\n“If you’re here . . . the boys at the school!” Rian blurted out. “My friends! Roger!” Why did he feel stuck? He grabbed at his harness with one paw and took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to count to ten. His right paw inched its way into his pocket.\n\n“Oh, don’t worry,” Calliope smiled and waved her paw, laughing gently. “Everyone will be all right. It’s a silly wild goose chase, something I had to arrange to make sure we could talk uninterrupted. The academy isn’t even opening today.”\n\n“I’m just conducting one admissions interview.” She reached into the folds of her dress and produced an Oriental silk fan, flicking it open as she stepped nearer. “Yours.”\n\n“What are you doing to me? Oh no!” Rian exclaimed aloud, as the fingers in his pocket gripped the pacifier Twitchy had given him tightly. “I understand why Roger says you’re so dangerous now! You . . . you use genjutsu!”\n\nShe looked down with a gently amused smile. “I don’t even know what that nonsense word means, sweetheart,” she began to say. “But stop looking so worried about throwing or dropping all your playthings in my apartment. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t, because . . .”\n\nRian thrust his right fist, grasping Twitchy’s pacifier, upward, toward her mouth as she spoke. He just needed to land one hit . . . but his eyes widened with dismay as the ruffles of silk shifted into an indistinct mass before his eyes and, as though in a blur of shimmering folds, Calliope moved, with the speed of a big cat on the hunt.\n\nSuddenly he felt her warm breath on the back of his neck and the lacquered side of her Oriental fan rapping his fingers hard enough that they sprang open. The wolf cub watched with dismay as his ultimate weapon clattered to the floor and slid out of sight into the bedroom and under the bed.\n\nShe concluded her sentence calmly, “None of your children’s toys can hurt me.”\n\n[i]Next time: Failsafe! The boys have walked right into a pink trap. All is lost! Or . . . is it? The ultimate showdown between pink and blue continues.\n[/i]\n[b]Episode 5. Failsafe!\n[/b]\n“I really thought you were smarter than this, Cassie,” Roger said, inching his right footpaw forward and swinging his left paw, which still clutched the water balloon behind his back, down toward the Newfoundland’s bonneted head.\n\nCassie effortlessly caught his left paw in a giant vise-like grip, catching his paw between his fingers and holding them apart in a vise-like grip that prevented him from either opening them enough to drop it or squeezing them shut to set it off. At the very same time the Newfoundland opened her mouth to offer a rejoinder. As she did, Roger’s right fist swung up from his pocket and connected with the larger dog’s muzzle, ramming Twitchy’s pacifier into her open mouth.\n\n“But you sure look like a sucker today,” he concluded, grinning at her.\n\nThe Newfoundland tried to spit out the pacifier, but found herself sucking it instinctively, and looking up at Roger with wide eyes as she fell first on to her knees, then, involuntarily relaxing her grip, onto all fours. A massive trickle spilled down between her legs and into a slick puddle on the floor. Roger hopped backwards to avoid the spreading urine, letting his water balloon fall and splash harmlessly on the office floor behind him.\n\nThe Labrador patted her head as he reached into his backpack with one paw. “Twitchy was right. That is one powerful diuretic. Even at your size, I’m afraid you won’t be doing anything except peeing yourself continuously for the next ten or twelve minutes, with an intensity that prevents you from moving much, besides maybe a slow crawl. But you should be able to help me with this. For Serry’s sake.”\n\nHe pulled out and unrolled his map of the school, holding it in front of the hulking puppy’s nose. “Where’s my sister? I just want to talk to her.”\n\nCassie was wetting so intensely her vision blurred, but she managed to focus on the image and leaned forward, touching a spot with her huge nose and also licking it with the tip of her giant tongue. Roger looked down at the map and asked, “In the school gym. Are you sure?” Although it required considerable effort, she feebly nodded.\n\nRoger hopped over the puddle just as its rim touched the toes of his sneakers and landed on the other side of Cassie, opening the door and casting a backward glance into the office from the hallway.\n\nKnowing the Newfoundland couldn’t follow, he called back cheerily as he replaced the map in his backpack, “Hey, Cass! Even in this state, you would never give up Callie. So I bet if you want me to think she’s in the school, she isn’t! Pretty cool how I figured that out, huh? Like a spy! So when you do finally manage to call sis, tell her . . . I’ll see her soon!”\n\nThe huge dog collapsed into her own still-spreading puddle with a resounding thud and let out a low, despairing whimper.\n\nRoger assumed a more serious demeanor, biting his lip as he ran down the corridor and headed for the nearest stairwell. “Good luck, boys,” he whispered. “I believe in you. And Rian—just hang on, little buddy. I’m on my way.”\n\n*******************\n\n“Owwwwww!” cried the Dalmatian crouched next to Twitchy as the dodge ball he had thrown at Lin Lin came hurtling right back at him and knocked him on to his luckily padded rear with tears in his eyes. “Why do we suck so bad? We haven’t hit her once, and she keeps hitting us.”\n\n“Don’t give up! You’re almost here!” Twitchy shouted into the megaphone, looking down hopefully. Two of the flour and powder-covered Squad A boys had managed to kick their way loose and were crawling on to the first level of the bleachers, shaking off their ribbons. “Rifles go!” A volley of Nerf projectiles aimed closer to the front of the bleachers drove back the girls who had been gripping at the escapees’ ankles and sent a large silk screen they had tried to throw over the flour-covered boys flat to the ground.\n\n“Now dodge balls again!” Twitchy shouted. “All at that panda!”\n\nLin Lin didn’t move as the three balls hurtled toward her, instead grabbing a metal twirling baton from one of her teammates. Spinning it rapidly with both paws, she sent all three balls bounding across the floor and off into the corners of the gym.\n\n“Not good,” said Twitchy, lowering the megaphone and shaking his head. “She just realized she’s been returning our ammo by batting them back at us. That means we won’t have enough left to keep this up much longer.”\n\nThe rabbit dropped the megaphone and hopped one level down on the bleachers, reaching behind him and drawing the Nerf sword strapped to his back. “Twitch!” called the Dalmatian, “Where are you going?”\n\n“Take command, Kyle!” the bunny shouted. “I know you can do it. Just stick to the rhythm and keep shouting orders! Keep covering Ace and Jax until they get up here and then turn the megaphone over to one of them. Someone has to take out that overachieving panda or we’re toast!”\n\nHe hopped down another level. “Twitch, no!” the Dalmatian called after him as the rabbit gathered speed, leaping from one bleacher level down to the next. Then hearing Kyle call, “Dodge balls!” he leapt high at the same time as he heard them whizz above him, knowing the other girls would scatter before the volley, and aimed straight for Lin Lin, thrusting his Nerf sword out blindly.\n\nThe panda sidestepped the balls easily and rammed her twirling baton into the hilt of Twitchy’s sword, flipping it backwards and out of his paws, flying over her shoulders. \n\nHere goes nothing, he thought as he hopped backwards, unslinging the one-shot foam ball blaster Squeak had modified from his back and giving it not one, but two quick pumps. Lin Lin swung the baton to deflect the single ball it would normally fire, but instead two balls connected by a string whirled out of the device, wrapping around the baton and sending it skidding across the floor out of her smarting paw.\n\nThe two opposing leaders — the petite panda, clad in a schoolgirl uniform with white top and short green skirt, and the flour-covered, talcum-scented rabbit, she disarmed and he with an empty weapon — faced each other calmly for a moment. Lin Lin eyed Twitchy up and down, holding up a paw indicating that her girls should hang back and let her finish this herself.\n\n“You are . . . interesting,” she admitted reluctantly and with a hint of curiosity. “Smarter than the other blues. Not that it takes much. So . . . what will you do now?” she asked, assuming a fighting stance. “Surprise me.”\n\n“Ummm,” Twitchy blushed and thumped his foot against the floor, at once stalling for time and genuinely embarrassed. “Admittedly, I didn’t think quite this far ahead. I’m sort of surprised I’m still standing honestly.” All of a sudden, he couldn’t help but hop and giggle as he felt something run up his pant leg, and he tried to disguise the hop by shouting, “Dodge balls! Fire!” The next volley of balls from the tiring second-string boys fell a good six inches to a foot short of their target, except for one thrown too hard, which flew well over her head and banged the opposite wall.\n\nLin Lin didn’t even move and her sympathy seemed to fade. “That again? No more tricks left,” she sounded somehow disappointed. “I guess bunbun bottoms finally reached his limit. Seems you cannot handle equations with too many variables.” Then, she added with a smirk, “Well, I can. Now I know the capabilities and limits of everyone on your team. Including you.”\n\n“That’s ironic,” Twitchy said inexplicably, as one of his large feet resumed tapping.\n\nLin Lin snorted and lowered her paw. “All right, girls . . .”\n\nA streak of red liquid splattered across Twitchy’s safety goggles. The panda reached both paws behind her to touch the back of her blouse then raised her trembling forepaws, red streaming down them, to her face in horror, her eyes widening. The sissy girls scattered around the gym and began whispering frantically and in sudden confusion.\n\nWith a series of staccato clicking shots more projectiles thudded into Lin Lin’s back and the stains spread rapidly from her blouse to her skirt to her fur.\n\n“M . . . my . . . my . . . outfit!!” she shrieked, wheeling on her heels only to slip and fall as three more shots hit her chest. “Stop, milling around, girls! They have a shooter somewhere! Get the bunny! Finish this! And find the fur who’s . . . ”\n\n“It’s all right, girls, take a break, you’ve earned it. I’m sure she had you drilling since well before dawn,” countermanded the voice, familiar to most of the assembled sissies, of the stately vixen clad in a light, slightly tattered green silk dress who approached placidly from the locker room.\n\n“Speaking of variables,” Twitchy bent over the panda, spattered with red paint, and smiled down at her, “I was just saying it’s ironic you know so much about your competition—but so little about your supposed friends. You,” he said, righting himself and turning to face the fox, “must be Serafina.”\n\nThe fox smiled calmly as she handed him the empty paintball gun handle first and nodded graciously. “Thank you for the loaner. That was . . . satisfying.”\n\nWithout bothering to look down at the panda, she removed the tiara from the stunned bear’s head and settled it gently over her dainty ears. “But it’s Princess Serafina. And since I still outrank all of the sissies and soon-to-be students that I see here — Girls,” she called out, and began moving around the gym, explaining, “Most of you know me as a Princess, and advisor to Empress Calliope. To the new recruits coming from other handlers, hello — I am going to be your instructor in a very important — extremely special — subject. I hope it will become your favorite class. We’ll talk about that later. But for now, playtime is over, you can let the boys go.”\n\n“I will commend all of you to Empress Calliope for your fine work in thwarting this dangerous assault and sending the blue team a stern warning not to interfere with our real opening. Especially meritorious for those of you who were just accepted. I was sent by the Empress to inform you that that was the full extent of today’s exercise, whatever else you might have heard from — ambitious — ladies-in-waiting. And to reassure you that we are not interested in students,” she gestured at the fallen, wailing boys, “who are not up to our rigorous admissions standards. I’m also here,” she added as she turned to a young bear who yawned and blinked involuntarily, “to check up just to make sure that no fur was being worked . . . unreasonably hard. We are, after all . . . supposed to be having fun.”\n\n“I lost,” Lin Lin, still too stunned by the outcome to mount a counterargument, and exhausted from her grueling preparations and the long fight, spoke to herself as she lay on the floor and stared up at the high ceiling of the gym in stunned disbelief. “I have . . . never lost at anything in my entire life. Not even hopscotch. Or jumping rope. And to . . . a fox. No,” the panda burst into tears and broke down crying as she forced herself to voice the awful truth, “I lost to a boy! A grungy, geeky, gangly, goggle-wearing boy. Who is grimy and awful and smelly and smart and twitches his whiskers and taps his foot and chews on his lip . . . oh why am I noticing such stupid things that do not matter?” Her sobs became shorter. “I hate boys and I hate their stupid games and dumb rituals that would never include me. Anything boys can do I can do better anyway! I hate everything about them! Especially about him! He must be the very worst boy! Ever invented! In history! I am sure of it; but oh, this day is so confusing!”\n\nTwitchy’s boys scrambled down from the bleachers and spread out over the floor, rushing to their fallen comrades as the sissies fell back. Twitchy felt a tugging on his tail and a quivering voice asking, “Bwo?”\n\nA smile broke across his face as he turned to see his regressed co-captain, let loose by his captors still wearing the top of his karate uniform and a droopy cloth diaper. He was covered in flour and his war paint ran down his face, but Twitchy was relieved to see no more damage had yet been done than some ribbons tied around his ears and a daffodil painted on his muzzle. Even as a kit, Dex flailed a little too furiously to make getting his shirt off an easy task.\n\n“Oh Dex!” Twitchy threw his arms around the oversized baby coon gleefully and tussled his head. “Don’t worry. You and your boys were awesome. I wouldn’t have lasted five seconds out there if not for everything you put me through these last few days.”\n\n“Bwo?” the coon asked again.\n\n“I know,” Twitchy nodded. “Don’t worry. We’ll find Commander Rian in no time.”\n\nThe coon shook his head and wrapped his arms around Twitchy’s waist, rubbing his face against the rabbit’s crotch. “Bwo!” he said.\n\n“Oh!” Twitchy said in shock. He gulped and turned beet red. “You mean . . . me . . .” he pointed at himself, and, not quite sure how to phrase the rest, “you mean I should help you out the way that, umm, the Commander does at . . . umm . . . times like these?” The raccoon nodded, smiling, and flicked his tail against the floor.\n\n“Well . . . I would be honored,” Twitchy patted the regressed martial artist’s head as the other boys gathered around him. Twitchy’s sense of smell was still blunted by all the talcum that covered him but he thought his ears caught squishing as well as sloshing as Dex fidgeted on his rear. “Umm . . . Kyle . . .” the rabbit asked the Dalmatian coming up behind him and still holding the megaphone, who remained jittery from repeated dodge ball blasts to the torso, “Any idea how long this usually lasts? I might need a paw with my new little brother. You know . . . he has a brown belt.”\n\n“Ahem,” a stately vulpine paw rested on Twitchy’s head as Serafina, having spoken briefly and reassuringly to each of the girls under Lin Lin’s command, broke through the celebratory blue team huddle. “Are you done thanking everyone, et cetera?” she asked with mild impatience. “Because as soon as you’ve accepted your award, I need a way to call Roger, or Rian. It’s very important.”\n\nTwitchy beamed up at her, his eyes starting to glaze over. “Princess!” he said, yawning as he did. “We have radios! But they’ve been jammed. I dropped mine, and Dex dropped his, but I’m sure they’re still in this mess . . . somewhere!” He gestured vaguely. “And just as soon as we find them, I bet Squeak and me can figure out what’s jamming the signal and have us back online in a jiff!” The mouse, resting in Twitchy’s pocket, said, “Squeeeak,” sleepily, before collapsing limply over its edge, slumbering.\n\n“Yup,” Twitchy continued without noticing Squeak’s exhaustion, “the boys from Hideout #4 can do anything, right Squeak? The Captain and the Commander will be just fine because we gave them secret super-weapons! And we saved Dex, and the princess,” he yawned again, wider, “and Baby Blue, and . . . everyone! We . . .” Twitchy trailed off as he collapsed backwards into the waiting arms of the Dalmatian, his slim night’s sleep finally taking its toll. “Won,” he concluded dreamily, and dozed off, the largest smile of his life plastered across his face.\n\nKyle laid him gently on the floor, and Dex cuddled up next to Twitchy, resting his head on the exhausted rabbit’s chest.\n\nSerafina moaned and slapped her forehead in frustration, addressing the Dalmatian. “Can anyone else fix the radio?”\n\nKyle shrugged apologetically. “I can try, Princess, but I’m kind of with Twitchy here. We boys, we really need to tend to—and change—our own. It’s over. Everyone is safe. And with what we’ve got left . . . I’m so far down on the food chain I can’t believe I’m even talking to you. A few days ago my biggest assignment was entering Rian in a soapbox derby.”\n\nSerafina shook her head and looked down. “I’m afraid not everyone is safe. To tell the truth I have doubts about whether Callie even knew the full extent of what Lin Lin would try to do here. It would be just like that panda to go off-mission and try to capture all you boys on her own just to present you to the Empress as a gift and make herself look good.”\n\nKyle stared at Serafina blankly. “What are you saying . . . this . . . all this . . . wasn’t the real trap? That we were fighting for nothing?”\n\n“No.” Serafina took a deep breath and patted him on the head. “It was a trap, all right. You fought for your freedom. And your friends. And to preserve the proper balance between pink and blue, necessary for both to exist. You’re some of the bluest boys I’ve ever seen Roger pull together. This just is not how Callie would strike at her brother. She’s not so heavy-pawed. She and Roger have existed for years in a delicate state of equilibrium. If she feels that balance has been disrupted . . . .” She bit her lip nervously. “She would just go after the one thing that had altered it. Try to make contact with Roger. Search the school, radio him, do what you have to do. Just tell him—listen carefully—Callie will be at the apartment, and I’m on my way there, and Rian is in danger. That’s all. Do you have any vehicles, anything?”\n\nThe Dalmatian shook his head ruefully, “We came here on paw.”\n\nSerafina stood up unsteadily and steeled herself. “Then that’s how I’ll go. I just pray I’m not already too late.”\n\n[i]Next time: The Sidekick Steps Up! Twitchy’s failsafe has saved the boys back at the school. But the brain of the boys’ team is tapped out and the orientation of Baby Blue’s co-leader is still on the line! Rian is facing his toughest battle ever—alone—in the two-episode conclusion.\n[/i]\n[b]Episode 6. The Sidekick Steps Up!\n[/b]\nThe leopardess flicked her fan open again and waved it in front of the shivering wolf cub’s nose gently and teasingly as he stared after the vanished pacifier blankly.\n\n“There there, sweetheart. There’s no need to throw things,” she chided him gently. “Why don’t you relax and make yourself comfortable, dear? Just follow me.”\n\nRian clenched his paws into as tight fists as he could. “I won’t follow you,” he said warningly. His legs and arms felt like lead weights. His mind felt foggy. What was wrong with him? He let all his weight go in an attempt to make himself heavy as Calliope grabbed his harness, but she pulled him along into the bedroom as easily as if he were a real cub and set him down on her canopied bed amidst its pillows and plushies. The room was lit only by candles. He found himself looking up at the ceiling; when the lights were off, it glittered with simulated stars. There was a faint buzzing in his ears.\n\nStepping away unconcernedly from the dazed wolf cub, Calliope gripped the handles in the center of the far wall of her bedroom, and Rian gasped as she slid the whole wall open to reveal a more extensive walk-in closet than he could have imagined. \n\nCalliope smiled at his surprised reaction. “It’s impressive, isn’t it? You like playing dress-up, don’t you, Adrian? I can tell. You’re collecting such adorable outfits.”\n\n“Umm . . . yeah . . . I guess. ” He fidgeted on the bed. He could have kicked himself. No, that wasn’t the right answer. What was wrong with him? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear his head. His lupine nose twitched. There was another heavy scent in the air, besides Calliope’s perfume. He couldn’t place it, but he liked it. It made him tired, though.\n\nHe felt one of Calliope’s paws rest between his ears and tussle his headfur affectionately as another unsnapped the front of his shorts and poked the front of his diaper. Rian shook his head. “I’m drrryyyy,” he whined.\n\n“Shhh!” Calliope hushed him sweetly, and the scent of her perfume flooded his nostrils. “I know.”\n\n“Yooou can’t change me,” he protested feebly as he felt her other paw reach down the front of his diaper, checking . . . no, that wasn’t it. She squeezed the entire length of his wolfy wee-wee gently once, as though taking a measurement, clicked her tongue, and nodded, then withdrew her paw and patted him on the head again.\n\n“Have you ever worn a dress, Adrian?” Calliope whispered into his ear.\n\nThe sailor-suited wolf cub shook his head firmly and gripped his chest tight with both paws, suddenly shivering. “I hate them!” he mustered, sticking his tongue out.\n\n“Well,” she said gently, laughing. “If you’ve never worn one . . . how do you know?”\n\nRian opened his muzzle, but felt flabbergasted and muttered, “I guess . . . I just do . . .” She had a point, though. No, no she didn’t. What was wrong with him? He fell backwards on to the bed with a soft thump, spread-eagled, and stared up at the glittering stars on the ceiling.\n\n“My brother and I do talk, you know. Why does he like you so?” she asked softly as she paced back to the closet. “Do you even know?”\n\n“Because I . . . Because I don’t like you!” he managed defiantly, sticking his tongue out. “And because I’ve done lots of missions! And I met him first, out of all the boys. So everyone in the group listens to me!”\n\n“Seniority? A little pup like you?” Calliope laughed as she looked back at him. “I think he believes you’re more special than that. I have a feeling I know what’s special about you too, Adrian.”\n\nRian squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could and felt one of his paws creeping toward his muzzle. “Because . . . because of . . . my friends . . .” He gripped the comforter on the bed as tightly as he could with one paw, speaking determinedly. “Because I have good friends! That makes me special. You can’t make me forget about my friends. Whatever it is you’re doing! And Roger and the other boys! I won’t let you hurt them!”\n\n“Why would I want to do that?” Calliope asked gently as she set her fan down and selected two dresses from the rack, eyeing the wolf on her bed appraisingly to pick out the appropriate sizes.\n\nShe approached the bed holding a dress on a hanger in each paw. “Oh, is it what happens in those silly cartoon shows he lets you watch? No, dear, I actually want you to think about your friends. Please. Go ahead, close your eyes.” He did, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “And your darling little club. And why you’re at the center of it. Is it because you’re smart, like your bunny friend? What is his name?”\n\n“Twitchy,” said Rian smiling fondly as he recalled his occasional little brother bunny, then shook his head, suddenly feeling glum. “Well I’m not dumb but . . . not . . . not smart like him, no.”\n\n“Well,” Calliope prodded gently as she laid the two dresses out on the bed on one side of him, “you must be strong, then. Like your raccoon friend.” Rian, his eyes still closed, bit his lip and shook his head again, admitting, embarrassed, “I’m . . . kind of clumsy.”\n\n“Oh?” she asked in feigned surprise as she lowered his shorts and tugged at the tapes of his outer diapers. “I’m just wondering . . . well . . . why it is that they all look up to you so. Maybe if you think about the very beginning of this latest version of Roger’s little club,” she continued. “Maybe it would help you . . . figure it out.”\n\nRian felt as though he were falling, weightless, thousands of miles. Then he wasn’t in Calliope’s bedroom at all. He was somewhere else, entirely, somewhere that, especially after the events of the last few days, felt like forever ago, an in-between phase that he could hardly remember, when things he now took for granted were still being explored, negotiated, worked out.\n\nOne Friday evening, ‘Surprise! I made it Friday after all, Rog!’ Rian had said, tail wagging and eyes bright, as the door of the darkened apartment slammed shut behind him, ‘Mission accomplished! And a good thing! You don’t know how much I need this right now. Wait until you see the stuff I . . .’ the wolf dropped his diaper bag on to the floor with a thump and concluded quietly to himself, kicking at the air with one footpaw in disappointment, ‘found this time.’ He sighed. ‘Or you could already have other plans.’\n\nHis Labrador mentor was watching a martial arts movie on the couch and eating from one of two bowls of popcorn on the coffee table. His bowl was about half-finished; the other one, not touched. ‘Mmmmmmffff,’ Rog mumbled as he fumbled for the remote and put the movie on pause, while forcing himself to swallow a mouthful of popcorn in one gulp. ‘Come on in, Rian.’\n\n‘Roooog,’ Rian said hesitantly as he padded over to his mentor’s side and looked at the silent raccoon who sat all the way across from Roger on the couch. ‘Who’s this?’ He tilted his head to look at the visitor curiously.\n\n‘Yo,’ said the raccoon without taking his eyes off the screen.\n\n‘I’m Rian,’ the wolf said cautiously. ‘Roger’s side . . . umm, friend. You look . . . kind of familiar . . . give me a minute . . . hey, do you sit in the back of my civics class?’ He leaned suspiciously toward the visiting raccoon. His ears were on full alert, but he didn’t hear any telltale crinkle as the coon shifted in his seat. ‘Why are you here?’\n\n‘Well, Rian, this is a funny story,’ Roger laughed, sounding a little embarrassed as he gestured for the wolf cub to sit between them on the couch, ‘but Dex and I were just talking about martial arts movies, and it turns out my favorite barista here was a national junior champ in some kind of karate, and had a long list of accurate ones. It got him talking about things in such a way, that I sort of wondered, If this fellow needs a job, why is he serving me coffee instead of teaching cubs karate or working at a gym? Anyway, we’ve chatted a bunch of times now, since I realized Dex is at your school. He ended up with a few days of limbo before his new apartment lease starts, so I kind of . . .’ Roger smiled and shrugged, looking abashed, ‘offered him crash space, for one night anyway.’\n\n‘Regional champ,’ the raccoon offered a correction, as he picked up some of the movie cases on the table and turned them over to see what else Roger had rented. ‘I went to the nationals after senior year, but I didn’t win.’ He said nothing about the remainder of Roger’s story.\n\n‘Oh. Okay,’ Rian looked at the raccoon quizzically and continued to elbow the Lab, but Roger was either genuinely oblivious or pretending to be. ‘Hey,’ Rian tried, ‘I went to one class from the mixed martial arts group at City College. It was . . . pretty embarrassing! I don’t remember seeing you, though. Well, it’s probably way too easy for someone like . . .’\n\n‘I’m giving it up,’ Dex interrupted abruptly, then added, his tone softening but his eyes still glued to the movies on the table. ‘It was just a high school thing. I’m not getting in the way of anything am I, Rog? I really can afford a motel room, don’t worry about it.’\n\n‘Actually you kind of . . .’ Rian started to say, but this time Roger elbowed him and quickly said, ‘Nope. Rian and I are just going to grab some drinks. Do you want anything, Dex?’\n\nThe raccoon shook his head, gesturing at his own open can on the coffee table. ‘I’m good.’\n\nThe wolf followed Roger into the kitchen anxiously, then rounded on him with a confrontational whisper as he opened the refrigerator. ‘Your barista? Are you crazy? Doesn’t he know anyfur else he can stay with? And if not, what’s wrong with him? How long is he here for?’\n\nRoger shrugged. ‘Just tonight this time. We were still on for tomorrow night, after all.’\n\n‘What do you mean this time?’ Rian tugged at the lab’s elbow, and then had a sneaking suspicion. ‘Rooog . . . I know I haven’t seen him at a party. I thought we didn’t do privates. At least not cold.’\n\nRoger had just finished making a root beer float, Rian’s favorite treat, and handed it to the wolf with a shrug that said, This is by way of apology. Then he whispered to the wolf cub, as quietly as he could, ‘Sorry, little buddy. Kind of a critical case. Didn’t know when else I’d ever have a way to actually get him here and maybe loosen him up a bit. No hard feelings if you want to split. Just wish me luck with it.’\n\n‘Oh, come on, just tell him the next party . . .’ Rian started to say.\n\nRoger cut him off as he dropped ice into his own soda, terminating the discussion with a sharp, final whisper that was the closest to impatience Rian had ever heard from the older fur: ‘He’s not recreational.’\n\n‘Oh,’ said Rian, stunned, staring down at his footpaws and suddenly feeling selfish as he trudged back into the living room after Roger, preparing to get his things after he drank his soda.\n\nDex had finally eaten a couple pawfuls of popcorn and was walking around the room with his empty soda can in his paw. ‘Do you have a recycling bin?’ the recalcitrant raccoon asked. When Roger shook his head, the coon bent over and unzipped a side compartment of his own bulky overnight bag, which was on the floor near his seat on the couch, and put the aluminum can into it.\n\nRian blinked. ‘You’re kind of a . . . hardcore environmentalist I guess, Dex?’ he asked in a feeble attempt to make small talk.\n\nThe raccoon stood up, relaxing a bit. ‘Worse than that: vegetarian, too. Don’t worry, I don’t preach, but when it comes just to myself and my own little bit, yeah,’ Dex said, the corner of his lip turning up in the start of a smile, and as he stretched his arms above his head Rian noticed with a start the folds of cloth peeking out above the waistband of his pants for the first time. ‘I’m pretty dedicated.’\n\nThe wolf cub recalled what Roger had just told him and pictured the raccoon doing extra loads of laundry late at night—always, Rian imagined, by himself.\n\n‘Well it’s nice to meet you, Dex,’ Rian said spontaneously, and Roger tilted his head to watch his protege curiously. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I hang out with you guys for the rest of the weekend too. You are staying with Rog at least that long, right?’ Then, acting on instinct, the wolf cub walked over to the raccoon and held out his root beer float with both paws. ‘Do you like root beer floats? We made you one.’\n\n‘What a nice gesture.’ The coon relaxed into a grin as he reached for it with both paws. ‘Who doesn’t?’\n\nOn Sunday morning, Rian lay behind Dex on Roger’s towel-covered couch with both paws resting on the front of the raccoon’s cloth diapers, breathing on the back of his flicking ears as the tip of Dex’s tail twitched against his own naked chest. Rian licked the back of one of Dex’s ears and spoke as he felt the front of Dex’s diaper warm up: ‘Ah, someone’s a little wet. You know what that means.’\n\nThe coon moaned softly as Rian’s paws pressed and the wolf cub continued, ‘That’s right, focus on what it should feel like from now on; I know you have the mental discipline to make this easier on yourself, Dex.’\n\nRian began to massage the front of the raccoon’s squishy diapers gently and added, ‘I can call in the bet now, right? If we can keep them fun for just 24 hours, you do me one big favor?’ Dex nodded, taking a breath as Rian began squeezing gently. ‘Give in to Roger. Let him take you to that dojo place one time. Take the test, see what happens. That’s all. He’ll be with you, whatever does. You can trust Rog to handle things.’\n\n‘Not what I expected. Why’s that—’ Dex inhaled sharply as Rian ran his tongue up the raccoon’s neck—‘a big favor for you?’ he finished, confused.\n\n‘It isn’t,’ the wolf cub spoke softly, resting the edge of his muzzle on Dex’s neck and licking up at his ear. ‘It’s one for a friend of mine.’\n\nIn the present Rian’s eyes snapped open and he felt his whole body convulsed by a shudder, a tear streaming down his face as he stared vacantly up at the stars on Calliope’s ceiling, which shimmered and swam in his field of vision.\n\nThe leopardess’ scented paw brushed it away from his eyes gently. “Ah, you’re back. It’s okay,” she whispered. “You see, you can’t lie to me right now. Or to yourself. Can you? So what is it, that makes you special, compared to the others? Do you know yet?”\n\nThe front of his third diaper with the taped-in stuffer had just been opened and folded down, leaving him exposed, and he felt a distinct chill as he blurted out with involuntary pride, “I can help the other furs open up — and, and make them feel good about themselves! Some of the boys—even Dex, even Twitchy—they . . . they used to be so sad. It makes me sad just to remember it. I helped make them happy.”\n\nThen, with a gulp, he added, lowering his voice, suddenly feeling fearful and confused, “The other . . . boys. I can make other boys feel good. No one else there can . . .” he took a deep breath, “do that as well as me.”\n\n“Ah ha, Adrian,” the leopardess purred with satisfaction, stroking his face gently with the back of one paw and leaning close to give his nose a single dainty lick with her slender tongue. “A breakthrough. You see—I thought it might be something like that. Now, you’re making progress.”\n\nThe wolf cub shivered as she turned his head sideways to look at the two dresses. One was a soft lavender color; the other was denim. He shook his head feebly and quaked. “No . . . I’m not a . . . I’m not . . . I’ve never worn . . . I’ve never done . . . And what I did . . . that’s just with my paw. Only with my paws. Okay, footpaws and forepaws. But that’s still only paws.”\n\n“Oh, don’t worry so about your qualifications. This is an entry interview, dear,” Calliope said soothingly. “I’m more interested in talent than in experience. Experience we can supply. And shouldn’t your paws be put to . . . the best use? Isn’t it more satisfying, making your friends feel special, than yourself? Don’t you want to be even better at it? At making your friends feel good about themselves? You understand that that’s more important than your own pleasure . . . don’t you? A moment ago, I bet you remembered a time you didn’t even cum. Probably didn’t even try. Am I right? And that doesn’t bother you, does it? Not one bit. No, you would do the same thing again. You are a very special boy, aren’t you?”\n\nRian’s head swam. He pawed a lot; there was no question. Probably too much, he would admit. If he had to choose he would certainly put his friends’ needs first. That was true. He couldn’t stand the thought of Dex hating his diapers again, or of Twitchy desperately engineering ever-more elaborate strategies to muffle the sound of his, quivering whenever he wore as though he would bolt straight into the nearest wall if anyone asked about a crinkle. Still, Rian gulped and quailed when he rolled his eyes back in his head to see what Calliope had placed on the mattress on the other side of him—a plastic chastity tube.\n\n“You see I’m not trying to take you from your friends, Adrian,” the leopardess said. The scent of her candles and incense hung heavy in the air, and the simulated stars on her ceiling hummed as they moved across the painted sky in a slow, carefully choreographed pattern. “I just want to teach you even more things you can share with them. Do for them. I want to help you give them a very special gift. You do care about your friends, don’t you? With an intensity that very, very few boys can match.”\n\n“Why, you can go right back to them, after every school day, and share what you’ve learned with them. If you’re dressed differently, well, that too would only be to make them feel more comfortable about it. About doing new things with you. You do care about them so. Please, look back at the dresses.” She nudged his head gently, seeing that he had spied the tube. “And tell me—which of them would you like to try first?”\n\nRian quivered. He couldn’t let this drag on; she would get harder and harder to fight the longer it lasted. If he tried the blue dress, he knew she would keep talking longer and try to get him to switch to the girlier one. He had outsmarted her this time! That was the only reason he reached out with one paw and, eyeing both dresses, batted wordlessly at the lavender one first . . . . Wasn’t it?\n\n“Excellent,” she congratulated him, and he looked back up with benumbed horror, as he realized one of her paws was on his crotch with the device, and the other was reaching into her bosom. “Shh. Be still. Close your eyes if you wish. All I want, little Adrian, is to help you.” He gasped as she withdrew a long cord hidden by the high neck of her dress and wrapped it around her wrist; several keys, some plastic and some metal, dangled on it. \n\n“All I want,” she continued, keeping one paw on the tube resting over his crotch as she took her eyes off him to shuffle through the keys on the strand, “is to help you do the right thing. For my brother. For your friends.”\n\nCalliope bent over him and held the key ring next to the device, looking for the matching key as she continued talking. “For the furs that you really care about. For the furs that you really love.”\n\n“That I care about,” Rian repeated dreamily. “That I . . . that I . . . that I love.”\n\nSpeaking the last word cut through the cobwebs in Rian’s head and he opened his muzzle, inhaling sharply as though he had just burst out from underwater, as he remembered why he was in the apartment at all, why he had risked climbing up the busted fire escape, why he had talked all of his friends into taking this mission, why he was now facing his ultimate adversary, the one Roger had warned him never to fight.\n\nCalliope, who had looked down at the device for a moment to click it shut and insert the key, gasped involuntarily as his small paws sprang up from the bed and gripped her larger wrists as tightly as they could.\n\n“But,” Rian spoke quickly, before the surprised leopardess could interrupt him, his voice building in confidence and volume with each word, “the fur that I love, and the only reason that I know how to make those boys feel good, is so girly that, boy parts or no, I wouldn’t mistake her for a boy if she were wearing a three-piece suit.”\n\nHe raised the leopardess’ right paw off his crotch, and the unfastened chastity device fell on to the comforter.\n\n“And I’ll need that to make her feel good,” he pressed on with a low growl, “because it’s going in her tailhole. Just as soon . . .” and his left wrist slid through the entire cord of keys in Calliope’s paw and clutched it tightly, yanking the whole ring of them out of her grip as he released her right paw, rolled off the bed, snatched up his discarded shorts, and broke into a sprint for the bathroom. “As I’ve finished my mission!” he called out behind him.\n\nCalliope stared after him for a long moment, genuinely stunned, then called out, “Wait!” gathering up her skirts and hurrying to the bathroom, where the wolf had already hopped out the still-jacked-open window and made a leap from the isolated fourth-floor fire escape platform, over the missing section of the fire escape staircase.\n\n“For goodness’ sake, you’ll—” she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that he had landed safely on the third-floor platform and was putting his shorts on. “Rian!” she started to call, but as soon as his shorts were on the wolf covered his ears firmly with both paws and shook his head at her, then began walking as speedily as he could down the remaining fire escape stairs with his arms still held that way.\n\n“Out the window,” she remarked in disbelief, shaking her head. “What else should I have expected? He really is just like Roger.”\n\nShe strode back into the living room. On her way to the front door, though, she noticed her phone was flashing to indicate a missed call—from Cassandra—just as an insistent pounding began at the entrance.\n\n“Of course,” she said to herself, groaning inwardly. “I had to mention my brother’s name out loud, didn’t I?”\n\n[i]Episode 7. Release!\n[/i]\n“Relax,” Calliope said, as she unlocked the door and swung it open, calmly facing down the squirt gun that sprayed into her face and over the front of her dress, only flicking her ears and twitching her tail in mild annoyance. “He got away. He’s fine.”\n\nWhen Roger didn’t release the trigger and continued spraying her, she blocked its nozzle with one paw and added, reluctantly, “He even took Serafina’s key. Actually, he took most of my keys. So I’ll need to be a bit more creative with discipline at the new school, to start. I may have been getting in a rut anyway.”\n\n“No kidding? He did that!” Roger dropped his water pistol in surprise and laughed, wagging his tail. “Ha! My little buddy beat you up! I can’t believe it! Well, he sure has turned out to be something special.”\n\n“Serafina is on her way here too,” he added more seriously as he padded into the apartment without invitation and pushed the door shut behind him, settling on Calliope’s couch and putting his still-sneakered feet up on her coffee table, ignoring her glares. “I got a radio message from my boys at the school. Rian will be heading back that way, so they’ll probably run into each other. What do you think will happen there?”\n\n“Oh, the usual thing,” Calliope flopped down next to her brother on the couch, exhausted, and let out a long breath. “Serafina has been restrained for almost a month, and your boy has been working up his courage for at least six, so I imagine they’ll have the best sex of their young lives.”\n\n“I mean,” Rog added pointedly, “Do you think they’ll last?”\n\n“I certainly hope so,” she turned her head sideways to look at him. “We worked hard enough at it.”\n\nRoger shrugged. “Nothing but the best for our favorites, right?”\n\nCallie nodded, and added thoughtfully, “I just wish I had someone to soften up Lin Lin a bit. That girl is starting to grate.”\n\n“Way ahead of you,” Roger just grinned at her. “I think I’ve put just the guy in play.”\n\nThe siblings smiled at each other for a rare peaceful moment.\n\nThen the Labrador’s eyes glinted. “But you follow my lead this time. Holy not communicating, Callie! You came this close,” he held up two fingers right against each other, “to breaking the rules, I swear! I ask for one thing, Let me do a test, you say, I say, Oh no, not one of your tests, radio silence, and next thing I know Serry is crying on me. She used to be one of mine, you know. And you know what I think about your routine. Orientation screening, my tail. Not on my boys, you don’t. I thought we agreed those were off limits unless and until somefur goes to you on his own. If you hadn’t just been shown up by a kid, I would be so furious at you right now! I already told you Rian and Serry were worth a try. I’ve worked closely with both of them, after all. That should be good enough for you. Just because I’m a little indulgent with my boys sometimes . . .”\n\nThe leopardess crossed her arms and snorted, cutting him off. “Yes, forgive me for not trusting your judgment! Can’t imagine why I would have reservations about that. Not everyfur can appreciate a sissy, and Serafina is secretly quite romantic, you know. I won’t have my darlings set up for heartbreak. Just because I’m a little protective of my girls . . .”\n\nShe shook her head in annoyance. “Indulgent!” she repeated his self-description contemptuously, just as Roger crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, muttering with disgust, “Protective!” Both siblings looked to opposite sides of the room and exclaimed at the same time, “That’s an understatement!”\n\n************************\n\nSerafina had just stopped and leaned against a tree, panting, to catch her breath at the forested meet up site halfway between the apartment building and the school, when her ears pricked at a familiar voice.\n\n“It is you that I smelled! Princess!” shouted the trench coat-wearing wolf cub as he caught sight of her and charged forward. “Sera—” his trench coat snagged on a branch and he, pressing forward blindly, tumbled out of it, rolling across the clearing to land flat on his stomach in front of her. “Serry,” he concluded, smiling as he looked up, and extended his left paw, with a cord full of keys wrapped around it, into the air. “I brought you a present.”\n\nThe vixen looked down at the shrimpy wolf, now wearing only his sailor suit, in sheer astonishment.\n\n“Ow!” he added belatedly, and a puddle spread beneath him as he soaked his shorts through. “Umm,” he blushed, still on the ground, “I took all these from the Empress. One of them must be yours. But she, umm, took all my diapers.” He fidgeted and warned her, “So I kind of just wet my pants. Sorry.”\n\nSerafina dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him, rolling him over on to his back and out of his puddle, then crouching over him, giggling involuntarily at his sailor suit and its U. S. Cub Guard Rescue label and shaking her head. “Don’t apologize,” she said at once, yanking his shorts down with both her forepaws, pressing her muzzle to his. “I wouldn’t have left you in them long anyway.”\n\n“Waaait,” he whined, jangling the keychain on his left paw.\n\nSerafina rolled off him, and he rose to his knees as she stood before him, fidgeting anxiously as he crawled under her green skirt and pulled down her plastic pants and diapers, unfastening them gently and letting them fall, for the moment, to the forest floor. He tried several of the keys before finding one that clicked the device open. It was fitting a little too tightly right then to simply clatter off, so the wolf cub carefully removed it with his paws and crawled back out, displaying the parts to Serafina. “Ta da! Magic!” he said as he held up the unfastened tube. “And for my next trick . . .” He threw it forwards, into the woods, as hard as he could. “Poof!”\n\nSerafina tackled him and he tumbled to the ground. She pressed her tongue into his muzzle a second time. They kept rolling that way through three or four rolls, he and she alternately on top, the earliest layer of autumn leaves crunching under them, before they came to a halt, with her again crouching over him. The ring of keys had, in the course of their tumbles, fallen off Rian’s paw, vanishing into the leaves and undergrowth.\n\nSerafina started to lower herself to nuzzle at Rian’s crotch, but he grabbed her muzzle with a gentle paw and shook it. The vixen looked up at him questioningly as he scooted out from under her. She remained in a crouch as he raised her skirt and pointed at the plastic pants he had set aside; her favorite naughty pair, the ones that said Fox. Wrong side up.\n\n“I read your label,” he whispered as he started to play under her tail with his left paw and leaned close over her, the tip of his erect cock rubbing against the edge of her hole \n\nShe giggled and nodded over her shoulder at him, closing her eyes.\n\nHe saw one of her paws making for her own erect fox yiffer, but his right paw reached around her legs and got there first, just as he mounted his princess for the first time. “Let me do that,” he whispered in her ear, then added, blushing as he entered her and started to stroke the sissy’s own cock gently at the same moment, “I’m good at it.”\n\n[b]The End![/b]\n\nIf you made it here, thanks for coming with me this far! Hope you enjoyed the ride. All comments are welcome and appreciated here or to kitncub@yahoo.com\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Damsel in Distress
A Pink and Blue Diaperfur Adventure Tale in Seven Episodes

This is a mature story so please be 18+ to read. It also involves furs in diapers, ageplay, crossdressing, and boys on boys, among other things. Don’t like that stuff, don’t read.

In brief: For months and months the blue faction of boyish AB/DL furs struggled as their heroic outlaw leader, the black Lab Roger and his unturnable lupine sidekick, Rian, lost new recruits to the rival pink faction of AB/DL sissies, led by Roger’s next-door neighbor and sister, the leopard Empress of sissies Calliope.

But today, there is new hope. Following a daring recruitment operation, the Baby Blue boys are five hideouts strong and growing. Then one day the boys receive a distress call from a surprising source—the sissy princess fox Serafina, who has slipped behind enemy lines carrying the plans for her mistress’ new sissy academy. She is willing to trade them if the boys can liberate her from a most unpleasant form of punishment. Rescuing Serafina—if they can trust her—will require Roger and Rian to put their best new agents in play for the boys’ biggest mission yet.

This story continues the events of Newbie and Operation Baby Blue but can be read out of order.

Total Length: 21,000 words

Contents:

Episode 1. You’re My Only Hope!
Episode 2. Mission Control: The Secret Circle Assembles!
Episode 3. Plots and Counterplots!
Episode 4. The Empress Strikes Back!
Episode 5. Failsafe!
Episode 6. The Sidekick Steps Up!
Episode 7. Release!

Episode 1. You’re My Only Hope!

Late summer was already turning to fall. The sissy princess fox, Serafina, sat with her sandals off and her emerald green skirt pulled up to her waist, dangling her footpaws off the small rock she sat on in the middle of a chilly, rushing forest stream. She preferred pink, but her green dress was excursion-wear, light and too tight-fitting to catch on branches, plus it had pockets. Bony as she was, she wore two disposable diapers under a pair of plastic pants, so sitting on the rock was not uncomfortable for her. And this far out in the woods, she was hardly worried about being seen.

She sighed gloomily as the shadows of the trees around her grew longer and traced the lettering on her plastic pants idly with one finger, thinking of what, for the moment, couldn’t be. The front of her plastic pants read, in cursive script “Fox. Wrong side up.” She smiled at them wistfully. They were one of her favorite naughty pairs, and the only pair of plastic pants she owned where she could always tell for sure which side was supposed to face forward.

She was about to get up and leave when the breeze carried a familiar scent to her nose. “You came! You really came!” she barked excitedly, holding her skirt up high with both paws as she splashed down into the shallow water, running to meet the hooded figure approaching down the center of the stream.

The Labrador was wearing a pale blue hoodie, had rolled his jeans up to his knees, and was carrying his sneakers, their laces tied together, in one paw. “Well, I still have my doubts,” Roger said as he peeled his hood back with his free paw, “but we have known each other for a long time, and when you mentioned this place, I figured something was up.” He waved the paw with his sneakers in it as he neared. “Do you see how I’m coming down the middle of the stream so even my own boys wouldn’t be able to track me? Pretty cool, huh? Like a ninja! By the way, do you like the logo?” He tugged at his hoodie, which had the letters “BB” over what at first appeared to be a simple outline of an X, but on close inspection proved to be two crossed safety pins, embossed on its breast.

Serafina let her skirt drop, no longer caring whether the end of it trailed in the water, as she threw her paws around the lab, giving him a tight squeeze, and stifled a giggle as she remarked, “You are such a dork. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. So yes, it’s entirely appropriate for you.”

Roger put his sneakers on to the boulder in the center of the stream, and hopped up on to it, taking a seat, patting for Serafina to get back up and sit next to him. She did so; here, even if either of them were being followed, eavesdropping would be impossible. “I didn’t tell Dex or even Rian about your message,” Roger said. “They wouldn’t have let me come alone—but if they saw it anyway, they might have assumed it was a trap and shadowed me. And even if you’re being honest, I can’t risk that someone tailed you anyway and might track me back to find a hideout. There are, after all, major doings in the land.”

The sissyfox frowned and bit her lip. “Then, you already know?”

Roger smiled. “That Callie is the one who bought the abandoned charter school? Hard to miss; she’s been avoiding me like a full diaper pail since the news broke that it was sold. Won’t even answer her phone. Besides, she’s been talking about starting one for years, although I didn’t think she’d ever really pull it off.”

Serafina nodded and took a deep breath, reaching into her pocket and removing a crumpled piece of paper, which she handed to Roger. “A proof of the first newspaper ad. It runs tomorrow.” Discover your destiny. Take control of your desires. Get in touch with your feminine side, it read. Sensitivity training and more under the watchful eye of highly skilled instructors. Empress Calliope’s Academy for Special Boys. Both private and group classes offered. All inquiries are answered, but admission is highly selective.

Roger shrugged and splashed the water with one foot. “A school for sissies. I’m not threatened by this. Callie has been floundering since the party misfire. She never did understand that boys can play just fine a little . . . dirty,” he said with a smirk. “If anything we might have come out of it even better. Baby Blue is five hideouts strong and growing. I say, she’s desperate to recover lost ground.”

The fox shook her head and fidgeted anxiously. “I wish it were only that, Rog, but, Callie is . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . different, lately. Something is really bothering her. She’s usually so good at reading furs’ limits and stopping just short of them. Lately she’s so distant and it’s like she doesn’t care . . .” She looked around shiftily and pricked her ears. Her vulpine senses could detect no movement in the surrounding trees, so, taking a deep breath, she pulled down the front of her plastic pants, then, her fingers trembling, carefully untaped and folded down the front of her diapers one at a time. The light sparkled off her indestructible plastic chastity tube.

“Well,” said Roger, taking a breath, “this explains why you aren’t your usual perky self. So this is what you want help with? But it’s not the first time . . .”

Serafina cut him off, shaking her head energetically. “Roger . . . I’ve been in this thing for almost a month. Callie won’t give me the key. She doesn’t even want to talk to me about it.”

Her ears drooped as she looked up at him pathetically and waved one of her arms in a frustrated gesture. “I am a fox, for heaven’s sake! I just . . . I don’t know what else to say. I can’t trust anyone there. They’ll rat me out if I ask. I need Baby Blue’s help to get the key. I know your boys can do it.”

She sighed, and carefully folded up and re-taped her diapers, then pulled her plastic pants back up from her knees, as she added, “I have real intel that would make it worth your while. The school layout and the . . .” She gulped. “Full opening schedule.”

Roger stood up on the boulder at once, bit his lip, and looked down at her out of the corner of his eye. “Nuh-uh,” he said in disbelief. “You’re going to hand me everything BB needs to sabotage Callie’s opening right here? That’s too easy. Smells fishier than a day-old diaper. You probably just put that thing on yourself this morning. I’m out of here.”

He reached for his sneakers, but as he picked them up, Serafina assumed a kneeling position, and reached up for his waist, grabbing at his belt, in a last desperate attempt. “Help, me, Roger!” she blurted out. “You’re my only hope!”

The lab’s ears pricked and he looked back down at her consideringly. “Star Wars out of you?” he remarked thoughtfully. “No way. Even when . . .”

Seeing she was making headway, the sissyfox broke in and finished his sentence, looking up at him imploringly as she swept along. “Even when I was a boy I made fun of those movies. Even when we used to play paintball right here and you would pretend to be Han Solo. When I blasted you so bad you fell in this stream and we only had one wearable shirt and one pair of pants between us, and we argued about who would get which, I said, ‘Where’s the force now?’ when I was taking your clothes off, before . . .” “Han Solo doesn’t even use—,” Roger muttered, but she pressed on, anxiously, without hearing him, “before I kissed you and grabbed you and . . .” She put her arms around his waist and hugged him. “Oh, Rog,” she sobbed out, “You were my best friend and I was so confused. I’m sorry it had to be you. I just got carried away. I’m sorry that I ran away when you tried to talk about it and I’m sorry I ran to Callie and I’m sorry I never came back and I’m sorry that. . . .”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” said the lab, dropping his sneakers with a thud in order to cut the sissyfox off with a tight hug and pat her on the back as much as he could. “I didn’t think we were going to get into ancient history! You were experimenting; and do you think I would have wanted my friend throwing herself on furs she doesn’t know and can’t trust? No how. Besides . . .” he scratched her head and her ears reassuringly. “Callie said you were the fastest she trained ever to advance to princess. It’s where you blossomed. Who am I to stand in the way of what’s meant to be?”

The sissyfox snuffled and looked up at him with tears running down both her cheeks.

“Whoa, Serry.” Rog shook his head sadly. “You really have been in that thing for more than three weeks, haven’t you? We’ll take the mission. It might be a hard sell with the boys, but I’ll bring them around.”

Serafina released her trembling grip on the Labrador to reach into her pockets and extract the other papers. She handed them to him and he partially unfolded them to take a cursory glance, nodding and then stuffing them into his own pockets. “Any ideas?” he asked.

The fox shook her head. “My best guess is it’s on her at all times. I’ve looked everywhere else . . . believe me!”

Roger nodded and chewed on his lip, already formulating a dangerous plan. “The opening,” he mused aloud. “That’s when we’ll strike. My best chance to sell this to the boys is as a sabotage mission. Plus, Callie will be busiest and easiest for me to catch off guard if she does have it on her. Especially if we create a distraction to tie up all the bothersome ones.” He looked at Serafina meaningfully. “Usually that would include you. And in case it is hidden there will be plenty of time to search the whole apartment while Callie is at the school. Rian can do that; besides me he knows it best.” Serafina fidgeted and blushed at the mention of the wolf cub’s name, but Roger, absorbed in his strategizing, continued without noticing. “You just hold tight until then. Be in touch if you can, but keep a low profile and look after yourself first. If you get any hint that Callie knows about this meeting, we abort and figure something else out.”

“Rog,” Serafina tugged on his paw. “I know I already gave you the plans, but there’s something else I need to tell you if you’re really going to do this for me. And if you say no, afterwards, I understand. You can still walk away with them and I’ll fend for myself. It’s about Rian.”

“Oh, please.” Roger laughed gently and spontaneously as he leapt into the water with a splash and, taking up his sneakers, turned to leave. “Dogs are nearsighted, not blind. Didn’t I say like two minutes ago who am I to stand in the way of what’s meant to be? Anyway, Rian’s my best man. If I were a girl, I’d be sweet on him too.”

“Roger, one last last thing,” the sissyfox said with uncharacteristic earnestness, and he glanced back over his shoulder, tilting his head with one ear pricked and one flopped down. She tugged at her skirt uncomfortably. “Don’t expect me to say this, ever again, you big, housebreaking-impaired goofball . . . but no matter what happens, Rog,” she gulped, “you really are—and always have been—a hero.”

The Labrador broke into a broad grin as he raised his hood with his free paw and offered his parting words: “I know.”

Next time: Mission Control: The Secret Circle Assembles! Roger’s call to arms activates Baby Blue’s best agents.

Episode 2: Mission Control: The Secret Circle Assembles!

“Ladies and gentlefurs, this is unbelievable!” the marsupial emcee shouted excitedly, jumping up and down as he did. “The coon kit who can’t be hit is holding his own outside of his weight class again!”

As he was somersaulting backwards Dex the raccoon noticed a familiar figure pushing his way to the front of the crowd toward the ring out of the corner of his eye, with a distressed look on his face, waving his arms anxiously.

“Yo, Rian!” the raccoon, clad in a yellow martial arts gi and his face and muzzle streaked with war paint, called out casually as he landed softly on his toes and wrapped both his scrawny arms around the swinging forearm of the brawny tiger whose blow he had just leapt over. Shifting most of the weight normally on his heels forward into his upper body, he held the frantic feline’s arm locked in place. “Give me like ten minutes!”

“Dodge this, squirt!” The tiger, enraged by being ignored, shouted, his eyes glaring, as his right foot sprung up between Dex’s legs and connected with the coon’s crotch . . . only to produce a muffled whump, the impact of his kick absorbed by many layers of ridiculously thick cloth padding. “Huh?” the big cat voiced in puzzled disbelief.

The raccoon smiled up at him, and remarked calmly, “That wasn’t nice.” Instead of doubling over in pain as expected, Dex caught the tiger’s leg between his thighs, squeezing them tight, and brought all his weight back down on to his heels, using his grip on the unbalanced tiger’s arm to flip the feline backward and sideways, releasing his leg, then his forearm, and dropping to one knee as he sent the larger fur reeling.

The raccoon rose and turned to face the anxious young wolf at the front of the crowd as the dazed tiger tumbled outside the ring and fell on to his knees. “Another upset victory for Dex!” The kangaroo emcee shouted, waving his arm decisively. “Let’s hear a cheer for the warrior with no weak spot!”

“Actually,” the coon corrected himself, shrugging nonchalantly to the trench coat-wearing wolf cub and brushing himself off as the crowd burst into cheers, “now is good.”

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

The rabbit’s beady eyes darted back and forth from one display screen to another, his whiskers twitching and his large feet tapping the floor in a staccato rhythm. He typed speedily, accessing all three of the flat-screen monitors through a single keyboard and switching between them by whapping at a function key whenever necessary.

“Gotcha, Ace,” he said into the microphone on his headset as he zoomed in on a Google Earth satellite image and hit several keys to superimpose blinking red lines and blue dots on the map. “I’m lookin’ at ya now. Bear one o’clock from your current heading and ditch the canoe when you hit the sand. Then, north half-a-mile into the woods. Outpost 3 is in the cavern you’ll see on your left; there’s a changing station for your boys there. Show your squad leader badge, and tell them Twitchy sent you.” The bunny whacked at another function key to change the channel.

He cast a quick glance backward and down to see what was happening underneath the scoreboard-style sign above the front door to Hideout #4 that proudly displayed a blinking clock: “BB Tech is always on call: No bathroom breaks in — 5 1/2 — hours!”

From the floor came a loud elastic twang as a miniature soapbox racer launched from a slingshot-like device and zoomed across the room. The car’s front axle snapped on impact as it collided with the test barrier, a padded archery target backed by a small brick wall. Its tiny rodent driver tumbled out of the wreck unharmed and scampered directly to his nearby red toolbox, which he hoisted on his back and carried short distances with both paws even though it was several times his own weight. He returned to the wreck with toolbox in tow and, setting it down, scratched his head as he sniffed along the length of the broken axle, feeling the joints between pieces with his whiskers.

“Squeak!” reported the overall-clad mouse decisively as he pulled out a wrench and a screwdriver and busily set about removing the defective parts.

“Kyle, I can’t get Commander Rian,” Twitchy said into his headset as he turned back to the monitors. “But Squeak is 95 percent there; go ahead and enter. The derby is a go.”

The trap door in the center of the hideout floor flipped open, setting off the jangling bells connected to it by a rope and pulley.

“Squeak!!” said the little mouse as he dropped his tools with a clatter and sprang into a straight-backed salute.

Twitchy removed his headset and leapt up from his chair, adjusting the safety goggles that were permanently settled askew on his forehead as he turned to face the visitor.

“Rrrr...rrrr..... Rian!” he said, also saluting, his foot thumping against the floor anxiously. “Your soapbox model is almost ready, Commander . . . ”

The bunny trailed off in astonishment as a stockier figure than he was used to seeing hoisted himself up through the trap door and sat right at its edge calmly, letting his footpaws dangle down he looked up at them and around the entire room approvingly. Twitchy had last seen their visitor in person at his and Squeak’s initiation.

“Captain!” he said with a gasp. “This is an honor, sir!”

“Squeak!” said the mouse.

“Hello, Twitchy. Hello, Squeak,” Roger said with a smile, patting the mouse on the head. “So this is the new Hideout #4. Rian said I had to see for myself what you two have done with the place, and he was right. He recommended you very highly for this.” Roger reached into the pockets of his hoodie. Twitchy trembled in anticipation as Roger held out two small gold badges; they bore the letters BB embossed over two crossed safety pins. “Welcome to the Secret Circle.”

“I. . . I don’t know what to say,” the rabbit’s foot thumped and his whiskers twitched frantically as he grabbed the badge. “Except, thank you, sir.”

“Squeak!” said the mouse, puffed up as he displayed his pinned to his overalls.

“Don’t thank me yet, boys,” Roger warned, “because now that you have these, it’s time for your first Secret Circle summons. Follow me. And . . . brace yourselves. It might be . . . a little different than you expect.”

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

The five-foot-five, twenty something wolf cub Rian, seated at Roger’s elbow, fidgeted with the new fedora intended to complement his trench coat.

“It’s not the hat. I just don’t think hardboiled is the right look for you, that’s all I’m saying,” said Dex, who sat with his elbows elevated above the table and both the palms of his forepaws and the soles of his footpaws pressed flat against each other. “You have a whole cute thing going on and I don’t think you should fight with it.”

“Fighting with cute,” Rian shook his head. “You’re one to talk.”

Twitchy sat far in the back of the room, his eyes darting around anxiously and a pencil poised above his open notebook. “Umm . . . I agree with Lieutenant Dex about the new outfit, Commander. From an engineering point of view, it’s impractical. You have to take the whole coat off to get changed,” said the bunny, tapping his foot against the floor of the top-secret conference room nervously. “Anyway, if you ask me I preferred the leather jacket.”

“Squeak!” said the mouse, who was seated, with his legs crossed, on the table.

The wolf stuck his tongue out. “You know what I think?” he said. “I think you’re all jealous because I’m the only one who can go outside without pants. I’m going for a new record you know. Do you know how many diapers I have on this time?” He held up all the digits on one paw proudly. “And I mean diapers. None of that absorbency pad liner stuff.”

Twitchy and Dex both bit their lips and looked down humbly. They were starting to think Rian could move freely in any number of diapers. They had both changed BB’s second-in-command out of quadruple layers with stuffers more than once, and even a cloth purist like Dex couldn’t help but feel jealous and inadequately padded compared to Rian, who seemed never to leave home wearing fewer than three disposables.

“Speaking of outfits,” the wolf cub asked teasingly, pressing his advantage, “Dex, what color belt do you have in kenpo karate? Wait, let me see if I remember. I bet it’s . . . yellow?” he asked with a snicker.

“No,” the coon sighed resignedly. “It’s not yellow,” then added through gritted teeth, “I’m more advanced than that.”

“Oh,” said Rian with feigned innocence, “well what color is it then? I bet the new Circle members want to know.”

“Kenpo is a martial art based on multiplying small, hard-to-predict variations of basic mixed martial arts moves. So I know about a thousand moves,” Dex explained seriously, then turned sideways and muttered an inaudible conclusion.

Rian kicked his leg.

“It’s a brown belt,” Dex said, raising his voice reluctantly. The confession provoked an involuntary spate of giggling from everyone at the table, except for Twitchy, who guffawed loudly in surprise and then cleared his throat officiously, regretting it at once.

“Hey, smart guy,” the coon rounded on him, “speaking of accessories aren’t those . . .” he pointed at Twitchy’s goggles and made a tilting motion with his hand, “supposed to be like, over your eyes? I’ve never once seen you pull them down.”

“Oh, these things?” Twitchy laughed and touched a forepaw to his safety goggles. “I forget that they’re there. Naw, they’re only for dangerous stuff.”

Rian’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Come to think of it you kept them up the whole time you and Squeak were building the dodge ball catapult. Isn’t that dangerous?”

Twitchy shook his head. “Nah, not what they’re for,” he remarked.

Rian bit his lip and started to ask something else. “Well, how about when . . .?”

“Ahem,” Roger cleared his throat, stood up and patted the wolf cub on the head. “I’d like to conclude the weekly discussion of Rian’s latest outfit. I think we’ve established that my sidekick is a master of disguise. And of pants-avoidance. You’ll find something that sticks eventually, little buddy. I’d like to redirect discussion to the proposed sabotage mission. You all know our rules. The Circle acts together, or we don’t act.”

“Yeah.” Dex bit his lip reticently. “Don’t misunderstand me, I agree we have to do something to send a message. But as warped as a sissy school is, I have issues with the source of this intel. I’m not willing to run a strike team off it. My vote is no.”

Rian stood up. “I back Roger. I’d like to add that, for a girl, Serafina is all right. I think it’s because she used to be on the blue team, a long time ago. I’d go so far as to say, I don’t think she even carries cooties . . .” he fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to another and looking around the table nervously. “Because, umm, I’ve had contact—close contact—with her a couple times.” He counted on his fingers. “Yes, twice. And she was grea—I mean, I haven’t gotten them.” He held out his arms as though to say, See. “So there,” he concluded, and sat down.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” said Twitchy, “but I share Lieutenant Dex’s concerns. You say this fox—” he looked down at his notebook and read the name—“Ser-a-fina—gave you multiple proofs of her sincerity. But I don’t understand her motive in collaborating with us. And I don’t understand why we need to pull so many boys off other things to deal with a bunch of sissies.”

“Squeak!” remarked the mouse.

Roger opened his laptop and connected it to the overhead projector in the center of the table. “I’d hoped I would be able to protect all of you from the unpleasant reality for longer, but I guess there are things you have to know. You have to understand more about our enemy.” The Labrador booted up his computer and began clicking through folders. “And about why it is that Baby Blue exists.”

Everyone leaned forward and pricked their ears.

“My personal belief is that regression is about freedom, physical and imaginative, for—all kinds of play. You all know that. We’re all blue for different reasons. Like sports,” Roger looked at Dex, “Computers,” he looked at Twitchy, “Adventure books,” he looked at Rian, “Bob the Builder,” he looked at Squeak.

“Being blue is about running free. It’s about doing what you want. But my sister feels differently about regression. She feels it’s about submission, and surrender, in fancier words, structured forms of power exchange. Now, we’ve all been spanked of course. It’s part of initiation. But sissies as a rule, and as part of their gender conditioning, are subject to more . . . extreme . . . forms of discipline than my boys.”

Dex tilted his head. “You mean, like bondage, right?” he asked. “I’ve seen pictures.”

Roger nodded slowly. “Yes—in a manner of speaking. Because of events for which I am, in part, responsible, Serafina has been wearing a tube for the better part of a month.”

The raccoon shrugged. “Not my concern if she wants to go swimming so bad. Maybe she wants to wash away her sissiness.”

“This,” said Roger, as he found the photo and the image suddenly loomed large on the display board in front of them, “is a tube.”

Rian covered his eyes with both paws. Dex gulped. Twitchy asked, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, “What is the purpose of that device?”

Roger took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes for a moment, then resumed his speech. “This device, which I expect to be in regular use as a disciplinary tool at Empress Calliope’s Academy for Special Boys, is designed for the sole and exclusive purpose of making it absolutely impossible to paw off, in or out of your diapers.”

“Squeak!” said the mouse, who fell flat on his back with his arms spread out.

Dex doubled over and made a gagging sound. Twitchy squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his pencil so hard against his notebook the point of it snapped. Rian, however, peeked out from between his paws to stare at the screen mournfully and whispered, low enough that only Roger, standing next to him, could hear, “Serry. . .”

The wolf cub cast off his trench coat and stood up on his chair, revealing the black tee-shirt that came down to about his belly button and his newest pair of blue plastic pants, which had knights on charging horses printed on them. They could not, of course, entirely contain his diapers, and white plastic poked out through their leg gathers as well as above the wolf’s waistband.

“I invoke my authority as a founding member to declare a state of emergency,” the wolf cub said, pounding on the table. “And now I call for an immediate vote on redirecting all available BB resources to a no-holds barred, A-rank rescue mission. Dex?”

The raccoon looked up with a steely glint in his eyes. “Just get me and my strike team inside that place so we can bust it up.”

Twitchy opened his eyes and stopped his foot from thumping. “I request field duty. If these are the stakes, I want to take a stand. I don’t want to hide behind a monitor and a radio linkup this time.”

“What?” The raccoon was taken aback. “No offense, Twitch, but I can’t cover someone with no combat experience. We need you too much in the sky.”

“I approve,” Roger cut in. “In fact, it’s why he’s here.”

The raccoon shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe this. My team is a well-oiled machine . . .”

“Exactly,” said Roger, switching off his laptop. “A machine my sister and her playmates have already seen in action. You’re still in charge of the raid, Dex, but I want Twitchy to consult on tactics and Squeak to review all equipment. Let’s keep the ballerinas on their toes.”

Roger leaned over to his wolf cub sidekick and, with Rian still standing on the chair, they engaged in a quick, whispered conference, paws flying about excitedly, before turning back to the others, communicating in about thirty seconds what would have taken any other two furs at least several minutes. “Break it down for them,” Roger said.

“Right,” the wolf cub said decisively, suddenly assuming a mature demeanor and picking up the folder of papers in front of his seat at the table. “Rog and I have one goal: to recover the key that will release Serafina. This is a three-pronged mission. You boys cause trouble at the academy to keep everyone else occupied; Roger makes a beeline for the Empress; and I raid her apartment solo to search for the key. Everything needs to happen at once, so timing is crucial.”

“Rog, Dex, Twitchy, and me will each carry a short-wave radio. We’ll each radio part of a signal phrase when we’re in position. Then we all move at the same time if—and only if—the complete signal phrase has been radioed. Do as much damage as you like, but remember your primary objective is to keep everyone tied up until you hear from Rog or me that we’ve acquired the target. Then, phased withdrawal.”

“Fortunately, this schedule and layout let us know who’ll be where when so we can deploy accordingly. Twitch had a second question about why we need so many boys. This is why.” He pulled out four battle-game style trading card mock-ups he had made and laid them one by one on the overhead projector. Each of them displayed a large character picture, as well as a range of various invented statistics and remarks. “Dresses or not, consider all of these sissies boss levels. If you encounter any of them, follow the appropriate protocol, and send a signal—We want to keep tabs on their locations.”

“This is Princess Serafina,” he displayed a blow-up of the first card, smiling at the image of the silk-clad fox wistfully. “But she’s on our side this time. If you encounter her in a group, do your best to leave her out of the fight, or fake a fight with her if you have to. If you encounter her alone—the protocol is: Extraction.”

Dex played with his fingers and nodded occasionally. Twitchy’s eyes darted up and down from the projector display to his notebook as he whipped out another pencil and scribbled everything on the cards furiously. How does Commander Rian switch from little to big just like that, no matter what goofy thing he’s wearing? Twitchy thought as he listened to the diapered wolf cub, his recruiter and his hero. Someday maybe I’ll be that cool.

Rian flipped the cards to show a hulking Newfoundland wearing a milkmaid’s bonnet and a floral apron. “Princess Cassandra, a.k.a. Cassie, the Newfoundland. Empress Calliope has one heck of a lapdog; this is her quietest and longest-standing confidante. Her loyalty to the pink faction and to her mistress is unshakable. The only good news here is, she’s slow. So the protocol is: Pile-up. I estimate four boys to hold her in place; six to take her down.”

Next was a shorter-and-slighter than average panda curtsying in a tutu with an icily superior grin. “Lady Lin Lin. Don’t be fooled by her big round eyes; this undersized sissy panda is as smart as a whip, and about as cuddly. The protocol is: Long-Range Engagement. Keep her at a distance. She’s new to the scene, but we all know she’s trouble. Preliminary intel suggests she’s spent every waking moment in extracurricular activities of one kind or another since the age of seven, so be ready for anything and proceed carefully.”

“Finally, this,” he flipped the final card to display the imperial leopardess in a stately gown and tiara, “is Empress Calliope.”

There was a moment of silence and Twitchy raised his paw in the air. Dex snorted at him derisively. “Umm,” Rian looked around the room and then pointed at the rabbit. “Twitchy?”

“Why are the stats blank?” the rabbit asked, lowering his paw.

“Because putting any stats on that card might give one of you the idea that it is somehow possible for you to win,” said Roger, stepping back into the briefing. “I handle my sister. Period.”

“If what Serafina says is true and Callie is no longer fooling around, then you all need to know: My sister is not in the same league as any of these others. If somehow you do encounter her one on one,” the lab stared at each of them in turn, including Rian, to make sure the message sank in, “the protocol is: Run. And call for help. In that order.”

“Got it,” said Dex and Twitchy simultaneously, the raccoon standing up as the rabbit flipped his notebook shut. “Jinx. Double jinx,” they both said at the same time, then, “Ohhhh. . .” with drooping ears as their jinxes deflected.

Roger smiled and clapped them both on the shoulder. “The team spirit’s already taking. You’ll be like Rian and me in no time. Let’s split up, Rescue Team and Combat Team. We’ll regroup at 24 hours before the opening to review each other’s strategies and rendezvous at T minus 60 for a final breakdown and equipment distribution. In the meantime, let’s get all of Baby Blue ready to do one of the things boys know how to do best.”

He cast a glance at Rian, who nodded firmly and concluded Roger’s thought for him. “Rescue a princess!”

Next time: Plots and Counterplots! The boys are gearing up for a no-holds barred raid and rescue mission! But is everything as it appears?

Episode 3: Plots and Counterplots!

“Callie? Is your new office all set up? Why are the lights off?” Serafina asked as she fumbled for the switch in the large, suite-like room, clutching a tin beneath her arm. “I made a big batch of cinnamon scones for our first tea party in the new building; I thought it would be a nice thing for the interviewees.”

A lamp clicked on in the middle of the room; its soft light illuminated the leopard empress, who was sitting straight-backed behind a Victorian writing desk wearing a semi-formal gown and tapping an oriental fan against her claws.

“The lights are off because I’m in mourning,” Calliope remarked sadly. “That’s how much it pains me, when a good girl goes so far astray.”

Serafina found the light switch and clicked it on. With a gasp, she saw that there was a lady-in-waiting on either side of her eying her suspiciously: Cassie, the huge Newfoundland incongruously wearing a daisy-pattern dress and a bonnet, and Lin Lin, the diminutive panda, wearing an Asian schoolgirl’s uniform that couldn’t entirely conceal her diaper.

“Okay,” Serafina confessed. “So I bought the scones. Cut me some slack, it’s been a crazy few days.”

“I told you she would take them if you left them lying around!” Lin Lin exclaimed, pointing at Serafina as though there were some ambiguity who she could be talking about, and hopping up and down. “Oh! I just knew you could not trust her, I knew it, I knew it! That fox does not deserve to be an instructor in our school! She is entirely too fox-like even for a fox.” The panda dropped to the ground and sniffed at Serafina’s shoes, then at the hem of her skirt, trying to determine where she had been. “Hey!” the fox batted off the panda’s insistent paws as they tried to reach into her pockets. “What’s going on here?”

“What’s going on here, Serafina,” Calliope explained, “has to do with this.”

Calliope extracted a cord holding several keys from within her gown and held up a long plastic one between her eyes. The fox dropped her tin to the floor with a clatter and leapt forward, paws outstretched Cassie the Newfoundland easily caught the scruff of her neck in a single paw, and held her dangling off the ground, waving about furiously. “That’s my key! Give it to me! This has gone well beyond acceptable discipline, Callie!”

“Empress Calliope,” the leopardess corrected her as she stood up stiffly. “And I am not in the habit of asking misbehaving sissies to decide upon their own punishments. Two days ago I left the academy opening schedule and layouts on the coffee table in my apartment and my computer running, inadvertently.” She unsnapped her fan and fanned herself gently. “Or so you believed.”

“But that fox printed copies!” broke in Lin Lin, waving a large paw at Serafina’s nose accusingly. “There were twenty sheets of paper in the printer that morning, and only fifteen when her majesty returned home that afternoon!”

“What?!” Serafina blinked, suddenly furious, and Cassie had to grab her waist with another giant paw. “That’s insane! How would you know that, you crazy midget bear, unless you set me up! This is. . . This is not like you, Callie. You’re strict, but you’re not mean. This new girl is a bad influence, and it’s time someone said something. I don’t like the way she does things. She’s too competitive! Sure, we don’t run wild like the boys, but we’re still about having fun here, aren’t we? Cassie!” She elbowed the Newfoundland repeatedly and futilely, producing only soft thumping noises; her struggles caused her own sparkly tiara to fall off her head and land softly on the floor. “Cassie, you know I’m right! Stand up to someone for once!”

“Lin Lin is a bad influence?” Calliope asked skeptically, petting the panda on the head as the bear smiled at Serafina archly. “Did Lin Lin nearly ruin our most important party by fooling around with my brother’s sidekick? No. But Lin Lin did prove herself by helping to correct your mistake. Was Lin Lin willing to trade my plans—for a school I have dreamed of for years—for her own right to paw off in her diapers?”

Calliope spoke with disgust; she clicked her fan shut and tapped Serafina’s nose with it sternly. “Lin Lin was generous enough to suggest a simple way you could prove your trustworthiness and earn your freedom back. I only went along because I couldn’t imagine she was right in suggesting you would take the bait and steal the plans. But Serafina . . .” The leopardess returned the cord of keys to her bosom as the fox gritted her teeth in frustration. “You failed us. Again. And you aren’t even apologizing.”

“You set me up to fail!” the sissyfox screeched. “What’s wrong with all of you? I am a fox! You don’t tube a fox for more than three weeks and expect her to act rationally! Callie!” She wailed despairingly. “Why are you listening to that panda instead of me? Don’t look away from me! Cassie, put me down! That bear will be after you next, just watch! Don’t you come crying to me for help then, you giant doormat!”

Calliope looked down at the floor gloomily and waved her fan. “I’ve heard enough of this venom. We do need to test Level 3. Put her in there for now.”

Although her grip didn’t loosen, Serafina could feel Cassie’s hesitation. “Level . . .3? Are you . . . sure, your majesty?” the quiet Newfoundland asked.

“Of course I’m sure. And don’t change her diapers until she’s good and locked in,” Calliope said sadly, opening the door and wrinkling her nose as she stepped past Cassie and Serafina into the hallway. “I don’t like it either, but she’s given me no choice. There are many things that have to happen in the next day, that make me sad. Being a good mother sometimes means playing the villain.”

“But everything does have to end, sooner or later. It’s the only way a new era can begin. We can let her free tomorrow, as soon as it’s all over. In time, Serafina, you’ll understand it was for your own good. This is all I can do for you: no one outside this room will know about this latest betrayal, because it won’t matter in twenty-four hours. The other girls will still consider you a princess. Come with me, Lin Lin.”

As soon as . . . what’s all over? Serafina wondered as Cassie dragged her down the hallway in the opposite direction. Belatedly she realized; if the floor plan and schedule she had taken had been left around as a test, they couldn’t be the real ones. “Oh no!” she gasped. “Roger! Rian!”

As Calliope vanished down the opposite end of the corridor Serafina suddenly saw the diminutive panda, who had lagged behind to see the sissyfox dragged off, looming in her field of vision and waving her paw accusingly after her. “Oh I knew it, I knew it!” Lin Lin shouted out. “You are thinking about your dozens of fox-loving boyfriends like a fox! Well after tomorrow you will not be able to betray us to your boyfriends on the blue team again! Because there will not be a blue team any more!”

“No!” Serafina whined as she vanished from view.

“And when the Empress sees that my brilliant plan has humiliated those meddling morons into giving up for good,” said the panda to no one in particular, picking up Serafina’s fallen tiara from the floor where it lay and settling it on her own head, “I will not be Lady Lin Lin any longer, but Princess Lin Lin. I am sorry, fox, but you played your part perfectly, for in order for me to move up more rapidly, it is necessary for someone else to move down.”

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

“Ohhhhh,” the battered and bruised bunny staggered up through the trap door and slumped onto his desk in Hideout #4 in despair.

He threw the tactical packet he had made onto the ground. “Dex was right, Squeak. I should just shut up and stay out of the way. It was a dumb idea to think I should ever leave my comfort zone. I should stick to background support; it’s what I do best. Two days of one humiliating simulation after another. If only our mission was to knock over a whole row of hurdles and fall on our noses repeatedly, I’d be doing just fine.”

“Squeak?” said the mouse quizzically, dropping the foam ball blaster he had been tinkering with and scrambling over to his hideout partner.

“No,” said the bunny, with tears in his eyes. “They didn’t even read it. I just got snickers and comments like ‘I didn’t know there’d be homework.’ I never played a sport, I don’t know how to talk to the boys on his team.”

The mouse scampered over to the discarded folder and flipped it open, spreading the papers out around his work area on the floor.

“After all,” the bunny continued his self-pitying soliloquy. “What’s the bravest thing I’ve ever done anyway? Take something apart before its warranty was up? I’ll never be as confident as Rian or as cool as Dex. I don’t belong in the Circle.”

“Squeak!” said the mouse insistently, stamping his tiny foot.

Twitchy looked down at his rodent friend. “You really think I’ve come a long way, Squeak? Well, I guess I’m more confident than I used to be.”

“Squeak!” added the mouse, nodding. “Squeak!”

“I guess you’re right,” Twitchy mused. “I never fit in anywhere else, anyway. I do owe them my best.”

The bunny reflected back for a moment, and remembered himself, wearing overalls to conceal his bulky padding, with the mouse in his pocket, frozen in place outside the doorstep of the apartment hosting the age players’ party, his heart and his foot thumping in rhythm.

Coming all the way across the city, he had been terrified, convinced everyone around him could hear the faint crinkling of his diapers even in the bustle of the crowd. He couldn’t believe he’d actually come across town for this. It was all just a bad idea. And he’d dragged Squeak, hidden in his pocket, into it, too. Who knew how crazy those furs inside really were? He was on the verge of turning tail and dashing out of there, and forgetting he had ever thought about it, when he heard the gentle voice of someone coming up the stairwell behind him say, ‘You’re about to run away, huh?’ and froze as a wolf cub’s paw rested on his shoulder. ‘That would make me sad. I mean, here you are wearing blue and everything.’

‘Are you . . . Ryan?’ the bunny had asked, trembling as he looked back over his shoulder at the lupine carrying a grocery bag full of party supplies under his arm. ‘Almost! Rian,’ the shrimpy wolf cheerfully corrected him. ‘Just come on in for fifteen minutes. No hard feelings if you leave after that. It will get easier. I promise!’ With a gulp, Twitchy had said, ‘Okay, I guess . . . I’ll try anything once.’ Rian’s eyes had twinkled and he burst into what Twitchy found a surprisingly big grin.

Twitchy remembered lying on a fleece blanket with a rocking-horse pattern on the cold, dank floor of the cavern outpost, shivering furiously, on the night of his initiation. He wore nothing except two diapers and the safety goggles on his forehead—an exception Rian had granted him to the BB initiation rules. Two plastic bags with leg holes cut in them had been slipped on and taped securely to the edges of his diapers to magnify the crinkling he made with every move and normally tried to muffle. He had been wearing those all day, clothed or no.

At that moment the rest of the circle of Baby Blue boys, all fully clothed except for him, hung back as Rian, his sponsor, leaned over to look down on him, rubbing the front of the nervous bunny’s diapers with one footpaw in a slow, circular motion. The wolf cub, wearing an open leather jacket over a pair of baggy jeans, urged gently, ‘It’s okay, Twitch. Go ahead and say it. You’ll never be comfortable with yourself until you do.’

‘I . . .’ the rabbit’s eyes darted about furiously and he hugged himself tight as he anticipated derisive giggles. ‘I like my . . . diapers,” he whimpered, shivering.

Rian shook his head. ‘And I like ice cream,’ the wolf cub explained patiently. ‘But I don’t eat it every day.’ Removing his foot and dropping to his knees in front of the bunny, he rested his cold paw on the shivering rabbit’s tummy. His paw slid down under Twitchy’s waistband. ‘But you, you do wear your diapers every day, don’t you, Twitch, and every night, too. Or, at least—you want to, from now on? You sure do, I bet.’

The rabbit had only nodded, whimpering and shivering as Rian’s cold paw entered the warm area in the front of his diaper and began stroking gently. The bunny gulped, keenly aware of the other boys, only about half of whom he had known at the time, watching him with varying degrees of interest. He blushed fiercely as he felt his entire body become warmer. ‘I . . . I . . . I . . . looove . . .’ he bit his tongue and shook his head, whimpering, as the pressure in his crotch mounted.

‘Everyone here is a friend,’ Rian whispered, suddenly beginning to squeeze, very softly at first. ‘You can tell your big brother and his friends the truth. We understand. We do. So tell us. Tell your big brother the truth, ya l’il bunny baby.’

‘I . . . lo. . . love my . . . diapers!’ Twitchy had shouted tearfully as he spasmed and felt himself release into them in front of all the other BB boys, and all over Rian’s gently ministering paw. The wolf cub leaned down over him and licked his nose.

‘F-f-fankoo, Commander Rian,’ the rabbit added in a feeble, babyish whisper as he did, looking up at his hero with wide eyes, as he added, ‘sir.’ He squirmed and grabbed the wolf cub’s free paw tightly in both of his. ‘You’re the bestest sponsor ever. I . . . I allays wanna call you Commander from now on . . . sir.’

Twitchy chewed on his lip and another half-forgotten moment, this one from the past two days, bubbled to the top of his mind, one nearly knocked out of his head in the flurries of foam projectiles and flying sports equipment. Dex had pulled the dazed rabbit aside for a short timeout after another brutal dodge ball session and sat with him seiza-style on the grass holding the packet Twitchy had distributed that morning.

‘Listen, Twitch,’ the coon had said. ‘Don’t take anything the boys say personally. Jocks communicate differently, that’s all. What you need to understand is that not everyone is as smart as you. And that’s okay. We’re all good at different things. My boys can’t process things like this as fast as you can.’ He waved the packet at him. ‘Or they’ll do it wrong. Just watch me for a bit. They don’t need to know the why behind every order. They just need to know that you do. A team leader just needs to act. You don’t need to explain to them you know what you’re doing. Just show them, and if you do, well—they’ll know.’

“Squeak!” said the mouse excitedly, snapping Twitchy out of his reveries and back to the present. He looked back at the rodent, who was pointing at two of the spread-out papers.

“Yeah,” Twitchy nodded, “I pulled the ventilation plan for the building. Thank you, City Zoning. It was a dumb idea, though. We already have a map, and it’s not as though Dex’s smallest boy could fit through those.”

“Squeak!” said the mouse, shaking his head, and sliding the two papers, the ventilation plan and the layout Serafina had leaked, under each other, then apart again.

“Hold on. I think I see what you mean,” Twitchy turned to his monitors and pulled up the original files on two separate screens, then keying quickly, rotated them. The two images slid over each other and appeared superimposed in the center monitor. Squeak crawled up the rabbit’s pant leg and hopped on to the desk, pointing at a corner of the image. Twitchy leaned toward it and his foot slowly began tapping as he zoomed in.

“You’re right, Squeak!” he exclaimed. “Why would anyone ventilate a storage closet? That doesn’t make any sense.”

The bunny’s foot began thumping the floor faster and his mind raced.

“Squeak?” said the mouse, picking up his headset.

Twitchy shook his head. “No, we move out tomorrow morning, and we only have once chance to strike during the opening. I don’t want to wake up the boys maybe for nothing and confuse everyone. Dex’s plan should still work. But, just in case. . . .”

He patted the rodent on the head as he reassembled his own tactical packets and his pages of notes from Rian’s briefing.

“I want to check this out and I want to look at everything again—Rian’s battle cards, the maps, everything, and just see if there’s anything else we could throw into play that might help. Break out the juice boxes and start the bathroom break counter, Squeak. Hideout #4 is running all night.”

Next time: The Empress Strikes Back! The ultimate showdown between pink and blue begins, featuring heroes, villains, and Rian in a sailor suit!

Episode 4. The Empress Strikes Back!

“Watches synchronized. T Minus 60 and counting!” Roger, Rian, and Dex exclaimed in unison at the forested meet up site while Twitchy and Squeak unloaded sacks of equipment to hand out.

Dex eyed Rian’s latest outfit incredulously and shook his head. “When I said you shouldn’t fight your cute, I didn’t think you’d take me that seriously.”

The wolf cub had opened his trench coat to reveal a short-sleeved white sailor suit with a blue trim, complete with a matching sailor hat and baggy shorts, topped off by what appeared to be a blue adult-sized cub harness; he was operating, judging by the relatively loose shorts, at his three-layer minimum. The front of the suit said, U. S. Cub Guard Rescue above the breast. Rian tugged on the harness. “This is totally getting me up that busted fire escape,” he remarked, clicking a bungee cord to the hook where a cub leash could attach. “And no sleeves or pant legs to get caught on anything. I’ll roll right in.”

“Well, I still think it’s dumb,” the coon remarked, then added, with a touch of envious pouting, “Where do you find this stuff anyway?”

“Well, someone’s looking bright-eyed and fluffy-tailed this morning!” remarked Roger as Twitchy handed him a short-wave radio. “I guess you got a lot of sleep?”

“Quality over quantity!” Twitchy exclaimed, nodding brightly. “Can I talk to the Rescue Team for one second?”

Rian and Roger exchanged glances and stepped aside with the bunny, who reached deep into the pockets of his baggy jeans, as Dex’s combat troops gathered around the war-painted raccoon in a huddle.

“What’s up, Twitch?” Rian asked. The bunny just smiled as he produced two large pacifiers from his pockets and handed one each to Roger and Rian, who looked at them quizzically. “I know the Rescue Team specs are for light armaments, but, since you two are running solo . . .”

“Every well-designed system has a failsafe. You know, a backup system that you probably will never have to use, but that still exists—just in case. Well, these are yours. A present from me and Squeak. Let’s say they give a new meaning to the term sucker punch.” He put his arms around the two leaders’ shoulders, and whispered instructions.

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

T Minus 15.

Roger dropped through the half-open skylight into the unused attic of the school building, coughing as he stirred up clouds of dust. He opened the trap door and lowered himself into the top-floor corridor, holding his body suspended by both paws for a moment while he looked up and down the hallway. Seeing and hearing no one, as expected, he dropped onto the linoleum floor with a soft thud and, reaching into his backpack, extracted the top item, an impact-absorbing coffee thermos, which he unscrewed to remove a loaded water balloon, clutching it behind his back in his left paw. As soon as he had put everything back, he radioed his signal phrase: “One if by land!”

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

T Minus 10.

The stairs between the third and fourth floor fire escape platforms had long since rusted away. Rian’s bungee cord caught on the railing with a click. Once it was settled, he bent his knees and hopped up, twice, the rebound bounce boosting the shrimpy wolf just high enough to catch the bottom of the fourth floor platform.

“Phew!” he let out, pulling his scrawny weight up the railing around the platform carefully, one paw after another. From where he dangled he could see that Calliope’s bathroom window was, as always in the overheated apartment building, cracked just the slightest bit open to keep the air circulating.

He began panting as he neared the top of the spiky railing and hoisted himself over it; he whined involuntarily as he had to flip one leg over the top at a time and rest all his weight momentarily on his crotch. Only three diapers on, but it’s a good thing I still put a stuffer right in the middle, he thought, as he pulled his other leg over and tumbled unsteadily on to his feet on the fourth-floor fire escape platform.

He sat down to rest for a moment and took off his sneakers and his backpack, leaving them both on the platform and taking what he would need out of the knapsack. Then, scampering over to stand beneath the frosted bathroom window, he stood on his tiptoes to peer through the crack and set in place the car jack Squeak had given him to help get it open, first hooking his bungee cord to the top of the jack; he was a good half foot too short to push the window very high up himself.

In a moment it was in place, and he was pumping the handle, hoisting the window a little bit further open, and himself another centimeter or so into the air, with every pump.

Soon he could see into the empty bathroom. As expected, he would drop right into the bathtub. He took the radio off his belt to radio his signal phrase right before he swung in: “And two if by sea!”

The radio crackled back in a moment. “And I on the opposite shore will be,” answered Dex, so Rian knew the Squad A boys were in position in the locker room.

Then again, in about twenty seconds. “Ready to ride and spread the alarm,” Twitchy completed the signal phrase. He and a handful of second-string boys were in position in the small separate bathroom removed from the locker room, that remained designated a men’s room, for non-sissy visitors; they would provide Squad A with background cover fire.

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

T Minus 2.

The dozing sissyfox shifted in her soggy diaper and pricked her ears as she heard a clatter in the punishment room. “Cassie?” she asked sleepily, blinking. Her mind was just playing more tricks on her. She had spent the whole night in Level 3—mild sensory deprivation bondage—and her tail twitched uncomfortably as she started to doze off again. Before she did, though, she heard something snap, and her right forepaw came free from the bedpost it was attached to.

“Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed, reaching up for the leather hood that had a muzzle hole but no eyeholes, and began unsnapping the neck buckles. “I knew you’d come to your senses. I’m sorry about all the things I said, Cassie, but . . .”

She sniffed. She thought she could smell crumbs from cinnamon scones falling on to her muzzle; yes, she licked, that’s what they were. In another minute, her left forepaw came free as well just as she pulled up the hood and turned to see the small visitor standing on the bedpost of the punishment cot, leaving a trail of crumbs behind him.

“Squeak!” said the mouse, holding up a pair of pliers and pointing proudly to his toolbox on the floor and then to the dangling air vent on the wall, which was swinging by a single screw.

Serafina instantly became alert. “Did Roger send you?” she asked.

“Squeak!” said the mouse affirmatively and he held up all his fingers, indicating there were many more as he nodded reassuringly.

“Everyone?” she barked at the mouse. “No! Listen to me! You are all in terrible danger! I need to talk to Roger! The boys are walking into a trap! Today is not even the real opening! This whole thing is a set-up!”

Her mind leapt days back as she suddenly recalled Roger describing part of his plan to recover the key. There will be plenty of time to search the apartment while Callie is at the school, he had said. Rian can do that. Besides me, he knows it best. It was more or less what she would have expected; and Callie knew her brother at least as well as Serafina. “I know exactly what Callie will do! And I have to warn the boys before it’s too late!”

“Squeak!!” cried the mouse in alarm, waving his paws frantically, holding one to his ear with fingers in the shape of a phone, and then shaking his head sadly. “Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!”

“Then take me to someone who does have a way to call him! And fast!”

“Squeak!” said the mouse as he snipped through the bonds on Serafina’s legs and the sissyfox sat up, rubbing her ankles.

The mouse leapt on to the floor and scampered over to his toolbox, flicking it open, and lifting its top tray to reveal what was underneath. “Squeak squeak!” he pointed anxiously at its contents, and then up at Serafina’s nose. “Squeak?”

She looked down as she stood up unsteadily and shook her head. “Oh, you have to be kidding. It’s been years since I’ve even looked at one of those.”

“Squeak!” said the mouse, hopping up and down.

“All right,” she said, biting her lip as she reached into the toolbox, and whispering, “Just hang in there, Rian!”

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

Lin Lin’s voice spoke mellifluously over the combination gymnasium/assembly room’s public address system, addressing the small crowd assembled in the gym’s unfolded bleachers. The panda’s speech echoed into the locker room and restroom: “Welcome, everyone brave enough to make this first important step, to your first period class. I know you have all been personally selected by Empress Calliope and by at least one of our qualified recruiters. A special welcome to my girls—you, of course, are the best. You will be hearing more from the Empress about her vision at our afternoon assembly. For now, I am honored and excited to say, that your lives will never be the same. And as your physical education instructors, Princess Cassandra and I will be delighted to begin today with basic charm school discipline—posture, balance, dance . . .”

T Minus 0! And . . .

Dex’s ten A-squad boys, clad in a variety of pirate, bandit, cowboy, and martial arts costumes, burst out of the locker room door and poured into the school’s gymnasium / assembly hall from its side, directing a first volley of foam-tipped arrows, plastic projectiles, dodge balls, and a blast of water fire toward the crowd they saw assembled in the first few rows of the bleachers and toward the speaking podium.

“Hold up!” Dex suddenly shouted, his eyes flickering over the bleachers as he slid to a halt and raised one paw in the air, but as the volley had already been launched, he was a split second too late.

There was a loud metallic click over the PA system as the recording of Lin Lin’s voice terminated, and the first barrage of missile fire collided with a defensive row along the edge of the bleachers and at the podium of fragile inflatable animals, balloons, and bags, all filled with flour, sugar, glitter, and baby powder, and covered in pink plastic and inexpensive dresses. The devices burst and, thanks to a powerful fan on the opposite side of the gym, spewed forth blinding white sparkly clouds that swirled into the air around the attack squad, blinding them and stinging their eyes as the overwhelming scent of talcum dulled their noses.

“They’re ready for us! It’s a trap!” the raccoon shouted frantically, pressing his radio button, but the now-useless device emitted a shriek of static; something was jamming the frequency.

“Squad B, fall back! Fall back!” he shouted as loud as he could, coughing as he inhaled the flour and talcum mixture. His boys scattered in confusion and the sugar stung his eyes as he made out a crowd of petite figures running toward them and saw some of his troops falling to the floor in tears. “Repeat, B Team! Get out of here! We’ll buy you time!” Dex leapt up into the air as a line of sissies approached with their arms locked. He managed to get above the cloud, but was hit in the air by a bucketful of ice water, causing the flour and grits of sugar to adhere in a sticky layer to his soaked martial-arts outfit.

The raccoon landed outside the smokescreen and behind the advancing girls to find himself facing Lin Lin just as she hurled the empty bucket at him. He spun to avoid it, and jumped again to avoid her kick. “Kung fu!” he thought aloud. “I can counter that.” But something was off; he felt so much heavier than usual; with a sinking feeling, he realized that not only his uniform, but his thickly layered cloth diapers were soaked all the way through. The greatly increased bulk of his bottom completely altered his center of balance.

Lin Lin followed him into the air and pirouetted not once but three times, catching his punches and flipping his arms up and backward, causing him to land on his back on the gym’s shiny hardwood floor with a sodden thud. She dropped next to him on her toes and stopped spinning, looking down at the fallen coon. “And figure skating,” she corrected him archly, then asked tauntingly, “Not as quick as usual? Waterlogged, maybe?”

All around him, Dex could see flailing, blinded, or running boys being surrounded by giggling sissies who entangled them in silk sheets and ribbons that further restricted their movement. There must have been about fifteen girls under Lin Lin. His mind filled with dread at what would happen next. On the rare events when Dex did lose his cool or a fight, the results were unfortunately predictable and totally out of his control. That’s why he worked so hard to make sure it never happened.

Tears streamed down his eyes. In a moment the raccoon began bawling, kicking his legs wildly in the air, and occasionally sucking his thumb. A large, warm yellow puddle spread out under him on the floor, further soaking most of the lower half and back of his outfit. He would be a little kit throwing a tantrum for some time.

“I wonder what a mighty fighter little Dexie Wexie will grow up to be,” Lin Lin suggested to her girls, “in a dress.” Dex opened his muzzle to squeak out something, but still inhaling the settling powder, only let out a high-pitched series of small sneezes. At once, the now helpless martial artist was surrounded by giggling girlie furs.

The panda smiled down at him and patted his muzzle. “Do not worry, coonie. You’ll probably be clumsy in a skirt at first, but I have a feeling you’ll get used to it. Now let’s bring our new girls to their first classes. School is in session as of today, Baby Blue boys. And our entering class,” she remarked to the fallen warriors with a broad grin, “is you.”

A dodge ball whizzed by the panda’s head and she pivoted to see its source, a white rabbit clad in denim with gritted teeth standing behind the girls at the top of the bleachers, holding a megaphone snatched from the locker room in one paw.

Twitchy was entirely covered with the flour and talcum mixture—except for the lenses of the safety goggles snapped down over his eyes. A row of six other boys knelt in front of him across the top row of the bleachers, a mix of Nerf rifles and Super Soakers cocked and pointing downward, and a handful of dodge balls grabbed hastily from the gym’s supply bin arrayed across the bleacher seats in front of them.

A tug-of-war rope lay behind the dodge balls. Before he spoke Twitchy reached down with his now free throwing hand to unlink the end of the rope from his belt.

Lin Lin gritted her teeth as she realized what had happened. That was how he had pulled his small line of boys straight through the smokescreen and avoided her girls; they had been holding the rope and all their eyes had been closed except for his. He had used her own smokescreen as cover to get his boys behind her and into the bleachers while she fought with Dex’s. This was a nuisance.

“Don’t give up! We’re still fighting! Anyone who can get free!” Twitchy shouted over the megaphone, his various maps of the school flashing before his eyes. “Join us on the bleachers! Make for high ground! Don’t run away! Every exit from this room has bad visibility; if it’s a trap, you’re just stumbling out there to be pounced! We have to make a stand here! Dex wouldn’t leave us!”

The panda’s eyes flashed and her lip curled up into a confident smirk.

“All that would have been considerably more impressive if your throw had actually hit me!” she shouted up at Twitchy.

“But since you missed, I assume you are what they call the second string. Well, do not worry,” she gestured behind her at Dex, who only wailed louder as two girls held his legs down long enough for a third to yank his pants off. “I am still accepting applications.”

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

“This is what you get for putting me on ignore, sis!” Roger said as he flung the door to Calliope’s office open and stepped through the small waiting area to view her desk—which was empty.

His nose caught a familiar scent, and the Labrador growled, turning slowly, “Cassie.”

“Hello, Roger,” the quiet Newfoundland said placidly as she leaned back against the door, pressing it shut and locking it behind her with one paw. “My mistress said you would understand what it meant if I told you—what was it?—that your princess is in another castle.”

Her large brown eyes gazed at him mournfully from under her frilly Easter bonnet. “She reassures me that everything that is happening is indeed for the best. Still, I would be very sad, if you are not willing to wait here for her. I would rather not lock up someone else so soon after Serafina.”

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

Rian froze mid-step in his path from the living room to Calliope’s bedroom door.

“What an adorable costume, Adrian,” said a familiar voice that seemed to be coming from behind him, then in front of him. “And what an adorably ridiculous way of coming in. All you had to do, was knock.”

The wolf cub’s ears flicked. He was used to hearing Calliope speak in brusque, imperious tones, but her voice this time was soft, mellifluous, and gentle. She didn’t sound mean. Not at all.

But Roger’s words echoed in his head: ‘If somehow you do encounter her one-on-one, the protocol is: Run. And call for help. In that order.’ He reached for the radio on his belt, and pressed the button. “It’s Rian. I’m in trouble! She’s here!” he blurted, but the device only emitted a piercing static shriek so loud that he winced and dropped it to the floor in shock. He wanted to run away, but the leopardess sounded so uncharacteristically . . . nice.

“You’ve become so dear to my brother,” the voice continued, unconcerned by his abortive distress call, “Yet you and I have never sat down one on one. I simply can’t imagine what nonsense he’s told you. Did he say, for instance, not to be alone with me at any cost? Well, I can imagine why. He’s only frightened that someone will finally tell you the truth. You see, I know far, far more about you than you think.”

The wolf cub felt goose bumps cover the skin under his fur and his nose twitched as he was enveloped by the scent of floral perfume. The imperial leopardess stepped out of her bedroom and walked toward him, wearing so much silk she seemed to shimmer.

“My brother’s sudden expansion all began with you, little Adrian,” she explained gently as she approached. “And I blame myself. Way back when we first met, I should never have handed you off to my ladies-in-waiting as a toy. It was unfair to both of us. I apologize for not recognizing your potential.”

“If you’re here . . . the boys at the school!” Rian blurted out. “My friends! Roger!” Why did he feel stuck? He grabbed at his harness with one paw and took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to count to ten. His right paw inched its way into his pocket.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Calliope smiled and waved her paw, laughing gently. “Everyone will be all right. It’s a silly wild goose chase, something I had to arrange to make sure we could talk uninterrupted. The academy isn’t even opening today.”

“I’m just conducting one admissions interview.” She reached into the folds of her dress and produced an Oriental silk fan, flicking it open as she stepped nearer. “Yours.”

“What are you doing to me? Oh no!” Rian exclaimed aloud, as the fingers in his pocket gripped the pacifier Twitchy had given him tightly. “I understand why Roger says you’re so dangerous now! You . . . you use genjutsu!”

She looked down with a gently amused smile. “I don’t even know what that nonsense word means, sweetheart,” she began to say. “But stop looking so worried about throwing or dropping all your playthings in my apartment. It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t, because . . .”

Rian thrust his right fist, grasping Twitchy’s pacifier, upward, toward her mouth as she spoke. He just needed to land one hit . . . but his eyes widened with dismay as the ruffles of silk shifted into an indistinct mass before his eyes and, as though in a blur of shimmering folds, Calliope moved, with the speed of a big cat on the hunt.

Suddenly he felt her warm breath on the back of his neck and the lacquered side of her Oriental fan rapping his fingers hard enough that they sprang open. The wolf cub watched with dismay as his ultimate weapon clattered to the floor and slid out of sight into the bedroom and under the bed.

She concluded her sentence calmly, “None of your children’s toys can hurt me.”

Next time: Failsafe! The boys have walked right into a pink trap. All is lost! Or . . .  is it? The ultimate showdown between pink and blue continues.

Episode 5. Failsafe!

“I really thought you were smarter than this, Cassie,” Roger said, inching his right footpaw forward and swinging his left paw, which still clutched the water balloon behind his back, down toward the Newfoundland’s bonneted head.

Cassie effortlessly caught his left paw in a giant vise-like grip, catching his paw between his fingers and holding them apart in a vise-like grip that prevented him from either opening them enough to drop it or squeezing them shut to set it off. At the very same time the Newfoundland opened her mouth to offer a rejoinder. As she did, Roger’s right fist swung up from his pocket and connected with the larger dog’s muzzle, ramming Twitchy’s pacifier into her open mouth.

“But you sure look like a sucker today,” he concluded, grinning at her.

The Newfoundland tried to spit out the pacifier, but found herself sucking it instinctively, and looking up at Roger with wide eyes as she fell first on to her knees, then, involuntarily relaxing her grip, onto all fours. A massive trickle spilled down between her legs and into a slick puddle on the floor. Roger hopped backwards to avoid the spreading urine, letting his water balloon fall and splash harmlessly on the office floor behind him.

The Labrador patted her head as he reached into his backpack with one paw. “Twitchy was right. That is one powerful diuretic. Even at your size, I’m afraid you won’t be doing anything except peeing yourself continuously for the next ten or twelve minutes, with an intensity that prevents you from moving much, besides maybe a slow crawl. But you should be able to help me with this. For Serry’s sake.”

He pulled out and unrolled his map of the school, holding it in front of the hulking puppy’s nose. “Where’s my sister? I just want to talk to her.”

Cassie was wetting so intensely her vision blurred, but she managed to focus on the image and leaned forward, touching a spot with her huge nose and also licking it with the tip of her giant tongue. Roger looked down at the map and asked, “In the school gym. Are you sure?” Although it required considerable effort, she feebly nodded.

Roger hopped over the puddle just as its rim touched the toes of his sneakers and landed on the other side of Cassie, opening the door and casting a backward glance into the office from the hallway.

Knowing the Newfoundland couldn’t follow, he called back cheerily as he replaced the map in his backpack, “Hey, Cass! Even in this state, you would never give up Callie. So I bet if you want me to think she’s in the school, she isn’t! Pretty cool how I figured that out, huh? Like a spy! So when you do finally manage to call sis, tell her . . . I’ll see her soon!”

The huge dog collapsed into her own still-spreading puddle with a resounding thud and let out a low, despairing whimper.

Roger assumed a more serious demeanor, biting his lip as he ran down the corridor and headed for the nearest stairwell. “Good luck, boys,” he whispered. “I believe in you. And Rian—just hang on, little buddy. I’m on my way.”

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

“Owwwwww!” cried the Dalmatian crouched next to Twitchy as the dodge ball he had thrown at Lin Lin came hurtling right back at him and knocked him on to his luckily padded rear with tears in his eyes. “Why do we suck so bad? We haven’t hit her once, and she keeps hitting us.”

“Don’t give up! You’re almost here!” Twitchy shouted into the megaphone, looking down hopefully. Two of the flour and powder-covered Squad A boys had managed to kick their way loose and were crawling on to the first level of the bleachers, shaking off their ribbons. “Rifles go!” A volley of Nerf projectiles aimed closer to the front of the bleachers drove back the girls who had been gripping at the escapees’ ankles and sent a large silk screen they had tried to throw over the flour-covered boys flat to the ground.

“Now dodge balls again!” Twitchy shouted. “All at that panda!”

Lin Lin didn’t move as the three balls hurtled toward her, instead grabbing a metal twirling baton from one of her teammates. Spinning it rapidly with both paws, she sent all three balls bounding across the floor and off into the corners of the gym.

“Not good,” said Twitchy, lowering the megaphone and shaking his head. “She just realized she’s been returning our ammo by batting them back at us. That means we won’t have enough left to keep this up much longer.”

The rabbit dropped the megaphone and hopped one level down on the bleachers, reaching behind him and drawing the Nerf sword strapped to his back. “Twitch!” called the Dalmatian, “Where are you going?”

“Take command, Kyle!” the bunny shouted. “I know you can do it. Just stick to the rhythm and keep shouting orders! Keep covering Ace and Jax until they get up here and then turn the megaphone over to one of them. Someone has to take out that overachieving panda or we’re toast!”

He hopped down another level. “Twitch, no!” the Dalmatian called after him as the rabbit gathered speed, leaping from one bleacher level down to the next. Then hearing Kyle call, “Dodge balls!” he leapt high at the same time as he heard them whizz above him, knowing the other girls would scatter before the volley, and aimed straight for Lin Lin, thrusting his Nerf sword out blindly.

The panda sidestepped the balls easily and rammed her twirling baton into the hilt of Twitchy’s sword, flipping it backwards and out of his paws, flying over her shoulders.

Here goes nothing, he thought as he hopped backwards, unslinging the one-shot foam ball blaster Squeak had modified from his back and giving it not one, but two quick pumps. Lin Lin swung the baton to deflect the single ball it would normally fire, but instead two balls connected by a string whirled out of the device, wrapping around the baton and sending it skidding across the floor out of her smarting paw.

The two opposing leaders — the petite panda, clad in a schoolgirl uniform with white top and short green skirt, and the flour-covered, talcum-scented rabbit, she disarmed and he with an empty weapon — faced each other calmly for a moment. Lin Lin eyed Twitchy up and down, holding up a paw indicating that her girls should hang back and let her finish this herself.

“You are . . . interesting,” she admitted reluctantly and with a hint of curiosity. “Smarter than the other blues. Not that it takes much. So . . . what will you do now?” she asked, assuming a fighting stance. “Surprise me.”

“Ummm,” Twitchy blushed and thumped his foot against the floor, at once stalling for time and genuinely embarrassed. “Admittedly, I didn’t think quite this far ahead. I’m sort of surprised I’m still standing honestly.” All of a sudden, he couldn’t help but hop and giggle as he felt something run up his pant leg, and he tried to disguise the hop by shouting, “Dodge balls! Fire!” The next volley of balls from the tiring second-string boys fell a good six inches to a foot short of their target, except for one thrown too hard, which flew well over her head and banged the opposite wall.

Lin Lin didn’t even move and her sympathy seemed to fade. “That again? No more tricks left,” she sounded somehow disappointed. “I guess bunbun bottoms finally reached his limit. Seems you cannot handle equations with too many variables.” Then, she added with a smirk, “Well, I can. Now I know the capabilities and limits of everyone on your team. Including you.”

“That’s ironic,” Twitchy said inexplicably, as one of his large feet resumed tapping.

Lin Lin snorted and lowered her paw. “All right, girls . . .”

A streak of red liquid splattered across Twitchy’s safety goggles. The panda reached both paws behind her to touch the back of her blouse then raised her trembling forepaws, red streaming down them, to her face in horror, her eyes widening. The sissy girls scattered around the gym and began whispering frantically and in sudden confusion.

With a series of staccato clicking shots more projectiles thudded into Lin Lin’s back and the stains spread rapidly from her blouse to her skirt to her fur.

“M . . . my . . . my . . . outfit!!” she shrieked, wheeling on her heels only to slip and fall as three more shots hit her chest. “Stop, milling around, girls! They have a shooter somewhere! Get the bunny! Finish this! And find the fur who’s . . . ”

“It’s all right, girls, take a break, you’ve earned it. I’m sure she had you drilling since well before dawn,” countermanded the voice, familiar to most of the assembled sissies, of the stately vixen clad in a light, slightly tattered green silk dress who approached placidly from the locker room.

“Speaking of variables,” Twitchy bent over the panda, spattered with red paint, and smiled down at her, “I was just saying it’s ironic you know so much about your competition—but so little about your supposed friends. You,” he said, righting himself and turning to face the fox, “must be Serafina.”

The fox smiled calmly as she handed him the empty paintball gun handle first and nodded graciously. “Thank you for the loaner. That was . . . satisfying.”

Without bothering to look down at the panda, she removed the tiara from the stunned bear’s head and settled it gently over her dainty ears. “But it’s Princess Serafina. And since I still outrank all of the sissies and soon-to-be students that I see here — Girls,” she called out, and began moving around the gym, explaining, “Most of you know me as a Princess, and advisor to Empress Calliope. To the new recruits coming from other handlers, hello — I am going to be your instructor in a very important — extremely special — subject. I hope it will become your favorite class. We’ll talk about that later. But for now, playtime is over, you can let the boys go.”

“I will commend all of you to Empress Calliope for your fine work in thwarting this dangerous assault and sending the blue team a stern warning not to interfere with our real opening. Especially meritorious for those of you who were just accepted. I was sent by the Empress to inform you that that was the full extent of today’s exercise, whatever else you might have heard from — ambitious — ladies-in-waiting. And to reassure you that we are not interested in students,” she gestured at the fallen, wailing boys, “who are not up to our rigorous admissions standards. I’m also here,” she added as she turned to a young bear who yawned and blinked involuntarily, “to check up just to make sure that no fur was being worked . . . unreasonably hard. We are, after all . . . supposed to be having fun.”

“I lost,” Lin Lin, still too stunned by the outcome to mount a counterargument, and exhausted from her grueling preparations and the long fight, spoke to herself as she lay on the floor and stared up at the high ceiling of the gym in stunned disbelief. “I have . . . never lost at anything in my entire life. Not even hopscotch. Or jumping rope. And to . . . a fox. No,” the panda burst into tears and broke down crying as she forced herself to voice the awful truth, “I lost to a boy! A grungy, geeky, gangly, goggle-wearing boy. Who is grimy and awful and smelly and smart and twitches his whiskers and taps his foot and chews on his lip . . . oh why am I noticing such stupid things that do not matter?” Her sobs became shorter. “I hate boys and I hate their stupid games and dumb rituals that would never include me. Anything boys can do I can do better anyway! I hate everything about them! Especially about him! He must be the very worst boy! Ever invented! In history! I am sure of it; but oh, this day is so confusing!”

Twitchy’s boys scrambled down from the bleachers and spread out over the floor, rushing to their fallen comrades as the sissies fell back. Twitchy felt a tugging on his tail and a quivering voice asking, “Bwo?”

A smile broke across his face as he turned to see his regressed co-captain, let loose by his captors still wearing the top of his karate uniform and a droopy cloth diaper. He was covered in flour and his war paint ran down his face, but Twitchy was relieved to see no more damage had yet been done than some ribbons tied around his ears and a daffodil painted on his muzzle. Even as a kit, Dex flailed a little too furiously to make getting his shirt off an easy task.

“Oh Dex!” Twitchy threw his arms around the oversized baby coon gleefully and tussled his head. “Don’t worry. You and your boys were awesome. I wouldn’t have lasted five seconds out there if not for everything you put me through these last few days.”

“Bwo?” the coon asked again.

“I know,” Twitchy nodded. “Don’t worry. We’ll find Commander Rian in no time.”

The coon shook his head and wrapped his arms around Twitchy’s waist, rubbing his face against the rabbit’s crotch. “Bwo!” he said.

“Oh!” Twitchy said in shock. He gulped and turned beet red. “You mean . . . me . . .” he pointed at himself, and, not quite sure how to phrase the rest, “you mean I should help you out the way that, umm, the Commander does at . . . umm . . . times like these?” The raccoon nodded, smiling, and flicked his tail against the floor.

“Well . . . I would be honored,” Twitchy patted the regressed martial artist’s head as the other boys gathered around him. Twitchy’s sense of smell was still blunted by all the talcum that covered him but he thought his ears caught squishing as well as sloshing as Dex fidgeted on his rear. “Umm . . . Kyle . . .” the rabbit asked the Dalmatian coming up behind him and still holding the megaphone, who remained jittery from repeated dodge ball blasts to the torso, “Any idea how long this usually lasts? I might need a paw with my new little brother. You know . . . he has a brown belt.”

“Ahem,” a stately vulpine paw rested on Twitchy’s head as Serafina, having spoken briefly and reassuringly to each of the girls under Lin Lin’s command, broke through the celebratory blue team huddle. “Are you done thanking everyone, et cetera?” she asked with mild impatience. “Because as soon as you’ve accepted your award, I need a way to call Roger, or Rian. It’s very important.”

Twitchy beamed up at her, his eyes starting to glaze over. “Princess!” he said, yawning as he did. “We have radios! But they’ve been jammed. I dropped mine, and Dex dropped his, but I’m sure they’re still in this mess . . . somewhere!” He gestured vaguely. “And just as soon as we find them, I bet Squeak and me can figure out what’s jamming the signal and have us back online in a jiff!” The mouse, resting in Twitchy’s pocket, said, “Squeeeak,” sleepily, before collapsing limply over its edge, slumbering.

“Yup,” Twitchy continued without noticing Squeak’s exhaustion, “the boys from Hideout #4 can do anything, right Squeak? The Captain and the Commander will be just fine because we gave them secret super-weapons! And we saved Dex, and the princess,” he yawned again, wider, “and Baby Blue, and . . . everyone! We . . .” Twitchy trailed off as he collapsed backwards into the waiting arms of the Dalmatian, his slim night’s sleep finally taking its toll. “Won,” he concluded dreamily, and dozed off, the largest smile of his life plastered across his face.

Kyle laid him gently on the floor, and Dex cuddled up next to Twitchy, resting his head on the exhausted rabbit’s chest.

Serafina moaned and slapped her forehead in frustration, addressing the Dalmatian. “Can anyone else fix the radio?”

Kyle shrugged apologetically. “I can try, Princess, but I’m kind of with Twitchy here. We boys, we really need to tend to—and change—our own. It’s over. Everyone is safe. And with what we’ve got left . . . I’m so far down on the food chain I can’t believe I’m even talking to you. A few days ago my biggest assignment was entering Rian in a soapbox derby.”

Serafina shook her head and looked down. “I’m afraid not everyone is safe. To tell the truth I have doubts about whether Callie even knew the full extent of what Lin Lin would try to do here. It would be just like that panda to go off-mission and try to capture all you boys on her own just to present you to the Empress as a gift and make herself look good.”

Kyle stared at Serafina blankly. “What are you saying . . . this . . . all this . . . wasn’t the real trap? That we were fighting for nothing?”

“No.” Serafina took a deep breath and patted him on the head. “It was a trap, all right. You fought for your freedom. And your friends. And to preserve the proper balance between pink and blue, necessary for both to exist. You’re some of the bluest boys I’ve ever seen Roger pull together. This just is not how Callie would strike at her brother. She’s not so heavy-pawed. She and Roger have existed for years in a delicate state of equilibrium. If she feels that balance has been disrupted . . . .” She bit her lip nervously. “She would just go after the one thing that had altered it. Try to make contact with Roger. Search the school, radio him, do what you have to do. Just tell him—listen carefully—Callie will be at the apartment, and I’m on my way there, and Rian is in danger. That’s all. Do you have any vehicles, anything?”

The Dalmatian shook his head ruefully, “We came here on paw.”

Serafina stood up unsteadily and steeled herself. “Then that’s how I’ll go. I just pray I’m not already too late.”

Next time: The Sidekick Steps Up! Twitchy’s failsafe has saved the boys back at the school. But the brain of the boys’ team is tapped out and the orientation of Baby Blue’s co-leader is still on the line! Rian is facing his toughest battle ever—alone—in the two-episode conclusion.

Episode 6. The Sidekick Steps Up!

The leopardess flicked her fan open again and waved it in front of the shivering wolf cub’s nose gently and teasingly as he stared after the vanished pacifier blankly.

“There there, sweetheart. There’s no need to throw things,” she chided him gently. “Why don’t you relax and make yourself comfortable, dear? Just follow me.”

Rian clenched his paws into as tight fists as he could. “I won’t follow you,” he said warningly. His legs and arms felt like lead weights. His mind felt foggy. What was wrong with him? He let all his weight go in an attempt to make himself heavy as Calliope grabbed his harness, but she pulled him along into the bedroom as easily as if he were a real cub and set him down on her canopied bed amidst its pillows and plushies. The room was lit only by candles. He found himself looking up at the ceiling; when the lights were off, it glittered with simulated stars. There was a faint buzzing in his ears.

Stepping away unconcernedly from the dazed wolf cub, Calliope gripped the handles in the center of the far wall of her bedroom, and Rian gasped as she slid the whole wall open to reveal a more extensive walk-in closet than he could have imagined.

Calliope smiled at his surprised reaction. “It’s impressive, isn’t it? You like playing dress-up, don’t you, Adrian? I can tell. You’re collecting such adorable outfits.”

“Umm . . . yeah . . . I guess. ” He fidgeted on the bed. He could have kicked himself. No, that wasn’t the right answer. What was wrong with him? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clear his head. His lupine nose twitched. There was another heavy scent in the air, besides Calliope’s perfume. He couldn’t place it, but he liked it. It made him tired, though.

He felt one of Calliope’s paws rest between his ears and tussle his headfur affectionately as another unsnapped the front of his shorts and poked the front of his diaper. Rian shook his head. “I’m drrryyyy,” he whined.

“Shhh!” Calliope hushed him sweetly, and the scent of her perfume flooded his nostrils. “I know.”

“Yooou can’t change me,” he protested feebly as he felt her other paw reach down the front of his diaper, checking . . . no, that wasn’t it. She squeezed the entire length of his wolfy wee-wee gently once, as though taking a measurement, clicked her tongue, and nodded, then withdrew her paw and patted him on the head again.

“Have you ever worn a dress, Adrian?” Calliope whispered into his ear.

The sailor-suited wolf cub shook his head firmly and gripped his chest tight with both paws, suddenly shivering. “I hate them!” he mustered, sticking his tongue out.

“Well,” she said gently, laughing. “If you’ve never worn one . . . how do you know?”

Rian opened his muzzle, but felt flabbergasted and muttered, “I guess . . . I just do . . .” She had a point, though. No, no she didn’t. What was wrong with him? He fell backwards on to the bed with a soft thump, spread-eagled, and stared up at the glittering stars on the ceiling.

“My brother and I do talk, you know. Why does he like you so?” she asked softly as she paced back to the closet. “Do you even know?”

“Because I . . . Because I don’t like you!” he managed defiantly, sticking his tongue out. “And because I’ve done lots of missions! And I met him first, out of all the boys. So everyone in the group listens to me!”

“Seniority? A little pup like you?” Calliope laughed as she looked back at him. “I think he believes you’re more special than that. I have a feeling I know what’s special about you too, Adrian.”

Rian squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could and felt one of his paws creeping toward his muzzle. “Because . . . because of . . . my friends . . .” He gripped the comforter on the bed as tightly as he could with one paw, speaking determinedly. “Because I have good friends! That makes me special. You can’t make me forget about my friends. Whatever it is you’re doing! And Roger and the other boys! I won’t let you hurt them!”

“Why would I want to do that?” Calliope asked gently as she set her fan down and selected two dresses from the rack, eyeing the wolf on her bed appraisingly to pick out the appropriate sizes.

She approached the bed holding a dress on a hanger in each paw. “Oh, is it what happens in those silly cartoon shows he lets you watch? No, dear, I actually want you to think about your friends. Please. Go ahead, close your eyes.” He did, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “And your darling little club. And why you’re at the center of it. Is it because you’re smart, like your bunny friend? What is his name?”

“Twitchy,” said Rian smiling fondly as he recalled his occasional little brother bunny, then shook his head, suddenly feeling glum. “Well I’m not dumb but . . . not . . . not smart like him, no.”

“Well,” Calliope prodded gently as she laid the two dresses out on the bed on one side of him, “you must be strong, then. Like your raccoon friend.” Rian, his eyes still closed, bit his lip and shook his head again, admitting, embarrassed, “I’m . . . kind of clumsy.”

“Oh?” she asked in feigned surprise as she lowered his shorts and tugged at the tapes of his outer diapers. “I’m just wondering . . . well . . . why it is that they all look up to you so. Maybe if you think about the very beginning of this latest version of Roger’s little club,” she continued. “Maybe it would help you . . . figure it out.”

Rian felt as though he were falling, weightless, thousands of miles. Then he wasn’t in Calliope’s bedroom at all. He was somewhere else, entirely, somewhere that, especially after the events of the last few days, felt like forever ago, an in-between phase that he could hardly remember, when things he now took for granted were still being explored, negotiated, worked out.

One Friday evening, ‘Surprise! I made it Friday after all, Rog!’ Rian had said, tail wagging and eyes bright, as the door of the darkened apartment slammed shut behind him, ‘Mission accomplished! And a good thing! You don’t know how much I need this right now. Wait until you see the stuff I . . .’ the wolf dropped his diaper bag on to the floor with a thump and concluded quietly to himself, kicking at the air with one footpaw in disappointment, ‘found this time.’ He sighed. ‘Or you could already have other plans.’

His Labrador mentor was watching a martial arts movie on the couch and eating from one of two bowls of popcorn on the coffee table. His bowl was about half-finished; the other one, not touched. ‘Mmmmmmffff,’ Rog mumbled as he fumbled for the remote and put the movie on pause, while forcing himself to swallow a mouthful of popcorn in one gulp. ‘Come on in, Rian.’

‘Roooog,’ Rian said hesitantly as he padded over to his mentor’s side and looked at the silent raccoon who sat all the way across from Roger on the couch. ‘Who’s this?’ He tilted his head to look at the visitor curiously.

‘Yo,’ said the raccoon without taking his eyes off the screen.

‘I’m Rian,’ the wolf said cautiously. ‘Roger’s side . . . umm, friend. You look . . . kind of familiar . . . give me a minute . . . hey, do you sit in the back of my civics class?’ He leaned suspiciously toward the visiting raccoon. His ears were on full alert, but he didn’t hear any telltale crinkle as the coon shifted in his seat. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Well, Rian, this is a funny story,’ Roger laughed, sounding a little embarrassed as he gestured for the wolf cub to sit between them on the couch, ‘but Dex and I were just talking about martial arts movies, and it turns out my favorite barista here was a national junior champ in some kind of karate, and had a long list of accurate ones. It got him talking about things in such a way, that I sort of wondered, If this fellow needs a job, why is he serving me coffee instead of teaching cubs karate or working at a gym? Anyway, we’ve chatted a bunch of times now, since I realized Dex is at your school. He ended up with a few days of limbo before his new apartment lease starts, so I kind of . . .’ Roger smiled and shrugged, looking abashed, ‘offered him crash space, for one night anyway.’

‘Regional champ,’ the raccoon offered a correction, as he picked up some of the movie cases on the table and turned them over to see what else Roger had rented. ‘I went to the nationals after senior year, but I didn’t win.’ He said nothing about the remainder of Roger’s story.

‘Oh. Okay,’ Rian looked at the raccoon quizzically and continued to elbow the Lab, but Roger was either genuinely oblivious or pretending to be. ‘Hey,’ Rian tried, ‘I went to one class from the mixed martial arts group at City College. It was . . . pretty embarrassing! I don’t remember seeing you, though. Well, it’s probably way too easy for someone like . . .’

‘I’m giving it up,’ Dex interrupted abruptly, then added, his tone softening but his eyes still glued to the movies on the table. ‘It was just a high school thing. I’m not getting in the way of anything am I, Rog? I really can afford a motel room, don’t worry about it.’

‘Actually you kind of . . .’ Rian started to say, but this time Roger elbowed him and quickly said, ‘Nope. Rian and I are just going to grab some drinks. Do you want anything, Dex?’

The raccoon shook his head, gesturing at his own open can on the coffee table. ‘I’m good.’

The wolf followed Roger into the kitchen anxiously, then rounded on him with a confrontational whisper as he opened the refrigerator. ‘Your barista? Are you crazy? Doesn’t he know anyfur else he can stay with? And if not, what’s wrong with him? How long is he here for?’

Roger shrugged. ‘Just tonight this time. We were still on for tomorrow night, after all.’

‘What do you mean this time?’ Rian tugged at the lab’s elbow, and then had a sneaking suspicion. ‘Rooog . . . I know I haven’t seen him at a party. I thought we didn’t do privates. At least not cold.’

Roger had just finished making a root beer float, Rian’s favorite treat, and handed it to the wolf with a shrug that said, This is by way of apology. Then he whispered to the wolf cub, as quietly as he could, ‘Sorry, little buddy. Kind of a critical case. Didn’t know when else I’d ever have a way to actually get him here and maybe loosen him up a bit. No hard feelings if you want to split. Just wish me luck with it.’

‘Oh, come on, just tell him the next party . . .’ Rian started to say.

Roger cut him off as he dropped ice into his own soda, terminating the discussion with a sharp, final whisper that was the closest to impatience Rian had ever heard from the older fur: ‘He’s not recreational.’

‘Oh,’ said Rian, stunned, staring down at his footpaws and suddenly feeling selfish as he trudged back into the living room after Roger, preparing to get his things after he drank his soda.

Dex had finally eaten a couple pawfuls of popcorn and was walking around the room with his empty soda can in his paw. ‘Do you have a recycling bin?’ the recalcitrant raccoon asked. When Roger shook his head, the coon bent over and unzipped a side compartment of his own bulky overnight bag, which was on the floor near his seat on the couch, and put the aluminum can into it.

Rian blinked. ‘You’re kind of a . . . hardcore environmentalist I guess, Dex?’ he asked in a feeble attempt to make small talk.

The raccoon stood up, relaxing a bit. ‘Worse than that: vegetarian, too. Don’t worry, I don’t preach, but when it comes just to myself and my own little bit, yeah,’ Dex said, the corner of his lip turning up in the start of a smile, and as he stretched his arms above his head Rian noticed with a start the folds of cloth peeking out above the waistband of his pants for the first time. ‘I’m pretty dedicated.’

The wolf cub recalled what Roger had just told him and pictured the raccoon doing extra loads of laundry late at night—always, Rian imagined, by himself.

‘Well it’s nice to meet you, Dex,’ Rian said spontaneously, and Roger tilted his head to watch his protege curiously. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I hang out with you guys for the rest of the weekend too. You are staying with Rog at least that long, right?’ Then, acting on instinct, the wolf cub walked over to the raccoon and held out his root beer float with both paws. ‘Do you like root beer floats? We made you one.’

‘What a nice gesture.’ The coon relaxed into a grin as he reached for it with both paws. ‘Who doesn’t?’

On Sunday morning, Rian lay behind Dex on Roger’s towel-covered couch with both paws resting on the front of the raccoon’s cloth diapers, breathing on the back of his flicking ears as the tip of Dex’s tail twitched against his own naked chest. Rian licked the back of one of Dex’s ears and spoke as he felt the front of Dex’s diaper warm up: ‘Ah, someone’s a little wet. You know what that means.’

The coon moaned softly as Rian’s paws pressed and the wolf cub continued, ‘That’s right, focus on what it should feel like from now on; I know you have the mental discipline to make this easier on yourself, Dex.’

Rian began to massage the front of the raccoon’s squishy diapers gently and added, ‘I can call in the bet now, right? If we can keep them fun for just 24 hours, you do me one big favor?’ Dex nodded, taking a breath as Rian began squeezing gently. ‘Give in to Roger. Let him take you to that dojo place one time. Take the test, see what happens. That’s all. He’ll be with you, whatever does. You can trust Rog to handle things.’

‘Not what I expected. Why’s that—’ Dex inhaled sharply as Rian ran his tongue up the raccoon’s neck—‘a big favor for you?’ he finished, confused.

‘It isn’t,’ the wolf cub spoke softly, resting the edge of his muzzle on Dex’s neck and licking up at his ear. ‘It’s one for a friend of mine.’

In the present Rian’s eyes snapped open and he felt his whole body convulsed by a shudder, a tear streaming down his face as he stared vacantly up at the stars on Calliope’s ceiling, which shimmered and swam in his field of vision.

The leopardess’ scented paw brushed it away from his eyes gently. “Ah, you’re back. It’s okay,” she whispered. “You see, you can’t lie to me right now. Or to yourself. Can you? So what is it, that makes you special, compared to the others? Do you know yet?”

The front of his third diaper with the taped-in stuffer had just been opened and folded down, leaving him exposed, and he felt a distinct chill as he blurted out with involuntary pride, “I can help the other furs open up — and, and make them feel good about themselves! Some of the boys—even Dex, even Twitchy—they . . . they used to be so sad. It makes me sad just to remember it. I helped make them happy.”

Then, with a gulp, he added, lowering his voice, suddenly feeling fearful and confused, “The other . . . boys. I can make other boys feel good. No one else there can . . .” he took a deep breath, “do that as well as me.”

“Ah ha, Adrian,” the leopardess purred with satisfaction, stroking his face gently with the back of one paw and leaning close to give his nose a single dainty lick with her slender tongue. “A breakthrough. You see—I thought it might be something like that. Now, you’re making progress.”

The wolf cub shivered as she turned his head sideways to look at the two dresses. One was a soft lavender color; the other was denim. He shook his head feebly and quaked. “No . . . I’m not a . . . I’m not . . . I’ve never worn . . . I’ve never done . . . And what I did . . . that’s just with my paw. Only with my paws. Okay, footpaws and forepaws. But that’s still only paws.”

“Oh, don’t worry so about your qualifications. This is an entry interview, dear,” Calliope said soothingly. “I’m more interested in talent than in experience. Experience we can supply. And shouldn’t your paws be put to . . . the best use? Isn’t it more satisfying, making your friends feel special, than yourself? Don’t you want to be even better at it? At making your friends feel good about themselves? You understand that that’s more important than your own pleasure . . . don’t you? A moment ago, I bet you remembered a time you didn’t even cum. Probably didn’t even try. Am I right? And that doesn’t bother you, does it? Not one bit. No, you would do the same thing again. You are a very special boy, aren’t you?”

Rian’s head swam. He pawed a lot; there was no question. Probably too much, he would admit. If he had to choose he would certainly put his friends’ needs first. That was true. He couldn’t stand the thought of Dex hating his diapers again, or of Twitchy desperately engineering ever-more elaborate strategies to muffle the sound of his, quivering whenever he wore as though he would bolt straight into the nearest wall if anyone asked about a crinkle. Still, Rian gulped and quailed when he rolled his eyes back in his head to see what Calliope had placed on the mattress on the other side of him—a plastic chastity tube.

“You see I’m not trying to take you from your friends, Adrian,” the leopardess said. The scent of her candles and incense hung heavy in the air, and the simulated stars on her ceiling hummed as they moved across the painted sky in a slow, carefully choreographed pattern. “I just want to teach you even more things you can share with them. Do for them. I want to help you give them a very special gift. You do care about your friends, don’t you? With an intensity that very, very few boys can match.”

“Why, you can go right back to them, after every school day, and share what you’ve learned with them. If you’re dressed differently, well, that too would only be to make them feel more comfortable about it. About doing new things with you. You do care about them so. Please, look back at the dresses.” She nudged his head gently, seeing that he had spied the tube. “And tell me—which of them would you like to try first?”

Rian quivered. He couldn’t let this drag on; she would get harder and harder to fight the longer it lasted. If he tried the blue dress, he knew she would keep talking longer and try to get him to switch to the girlier one. He had outsmarted her this time! That was the only reason he reached out with one paw and, eyeing both dresses, batted wordlessly at the lavender one first . . . . Wasn’t it?

“Excellent,” she congratulated him, and he looked back up with benumbed horror, as he realized one of her paws was on his crotch with the device, and the other was reaching into her bosom. “Shh. Be still. Close your eyes if you wish. All I want, little Adrian, is to help you.” He gasped as she withdrew a long cord hidden by the high neck of her dress and wrapped it around her wrist; several keys, some plastic and some metal, dangled on it.

“All I want,” she continued, keeping one paw on the tube resting over his crotch as she took her eyes off him to shuffle through the keys on the strand, “is to help you do the right thing. For my brother. For your friends.”

Calliope bent over him and held the key ring next to the device, looking for the matching key as she continued talking. “For the furs that you really care about. For the furs that you really love.”

“That I care about,” Rian repeated dreamily. “That I . . . that I . . . that I love.”

Speaking the last word cut through the cobwebs in Rian’s head and he opened his muzzle, inhaling sharply as though he had just burst out from underwater, as he remembered why he was in the apartment at all, why he had risked climbing up the busted fire escape, why he had talked all of his friends into taking this mission, why he was now facing his ultimate adversary, the one Roger had warned him never to fight.

Calliope, who had looked down at the device for a moment to click it shut and insert the key, gasped involuntarily as his small paws sprang up from the bed and gripped her larger wrists as tightly as they could.

“But,” Rian spoke quickly, before the surprised leopardess could interrupt him, his voice building in confidence and volume with each word, “the fur that I love, and the only reason that I know how to make those boys feel good, is so girly that, boy parts or no, I wouldn’t mistake her for a boy if she were wearing a three-piece suit.”

He raised the leopardess’ right paw off his crotch, and the unfastened chastity device fell on to the comforter.

“And I’ll need that to make her feel good,” he pressed on with a low growl, “because it’s going in her tailhole. Just as soon . . .” and his left wrist slid through the entire cord of keys in Calliope’s paw and clutched it tightly, yanking the whole ring of them out of her grip as he released her right paw, rolled off the bed, snatched up his discarded shorts, and broke into a sprint for the bathroom. “As I’ve finished my mission!” he called out behind him.

Calliope stared after him for a long moment, genuinely stunned, then called out, “Wait!” gathering up her skirts and hurrying to the bathroom, where the wolf had already hopped out the still-jacked-open window and made a leap from the isolated fourth-floor fire escape platform, over the missing section of the fire escape staircase.

“For goodness’ sake, you’ll—” she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that he had landed safely on the third-floor platform and was putting his shorts on. “Rian!” she started to call, but as soon as his shorts were on the wolf covered his ears firmly with both paws and shook his head at her, then began walking as speedily as he could down the remaining fire escape stairs with his arms still held that way.

“Out the window,” she remarked in disbelief, shaking her head. “What else should I have expected? He really is just like Roger.”

She strode back into the living room. On her way to the front door, though, she noticed her phone was flashing to indicate a missed call—from Cassandra—just as an insistent pounding began at the entrance.

“Of course,” she said to herself, groaning inwardly. “I had to mention my brother’s name out loud, didn’t I?”

Episode 7. Release!

“Relax,” Calliope said, as she unlocked the door and swung it open, calmly facing down the squirt gun that sprayed into her face and over the front of her dress, only flicking her ears and twitching her tail in mild annoyance. “He got away. He’s fine.”

When Roger didn’t release the trigger and continued spraying her, she blocked its nozzle with one paw and added, reluctantly, “He even took Serafina’s key. Actually, he took most of my keys. So I’ll need to be a bit more creative with discipline at the new school, to start. I may have been getting in a rut anyway.”

“No kidding? He did that!” Roger dropped his water pistol in surprise and laughed, wagging his tail. “Ha! My little buddy beat you up! I can’t believe it! Well, he sure has turned out to be something special.”

“Serafina is on her way here too,” he added more seriously as he padded into the apartment without invitation and pushed the door shut behind him, settling on Calliope’s couch and putting his still-sneakered feet up on her coffee table, ignoring her glares. “I got a radio message from my boys at the school. Rian will be heading back that way, so they’ll probably run into each other. What do you think will happen there?”

“Oh, the usual thing,” Calliope flopped down next to her brother on the couch, exhausted, and let out a long breath. “Serafina has been restrained for almost a month, and your boy has been working up his courage for at least six, so I imagine they’ll have the best sex of their young lives.”

“I mean,” Rog added pointedly, “Do you think they’ll last?”

“I certainly hope so,” she turned her head sideways to look at him. “We worked hard enough at it.”

Roger shrugged. “Nothing but the best for our favorites, right?”

Callie nodded, and added thoughtfully, “I just wish I had someone to soften up Lin Lin a bit. That girl is starting to grate.”

“Way ahead of you,” Roger just grinned at her. “I think I’ve put just the guy in play.”

The siblings smiled at each other for a rare peaceful moment.

Then the Labrador’s eyes glinted. “But you follow my lead this time. Holy not communicating, Callie! You came this close,” he held up two fingers right against each other, “to breaking the rules, I swear! I ask for one thing, Let me do a test, you say, I say, Oh no, not one of your tests, radio silence, and next thing I know Serry is crying on me. She used to be one of mine, you know. And you know what I think about your routine. Orientation screening, my tail. Not on my boys, you don’t. I thought we agreed those were off limits unless and until somefur goes to you on his own. If you hadn’t just been shown up by a kid, I would be so furious at you right now! I already told you Rian and Serry were worth a try. I’ve worked closely with both of them, after all. That should be good enough for you. Just because I’m a little indulgent with my boys sometimes . . .”

The leopardess crossed her arms and snorted, cutting him off. “Yes, forgive me for not trusting your judgment! Can’t imagine why I would have reservations about that. Not everyfur can appreciate a sissy, and Serafina is secretly quite romantic, you know. I won’t have my darlings set up for heartbreak. Just because I’m a little protective of my girls . . .”

She shook her head in annoyance. “Indulgent!” she repeated his self-description contemptuously, just as Roger crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, muttering with disgust, “Protective!” Both siblings looked to opposite sides of the room and exclaimed at the same time, “That’s an understatement!”

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

Serafina had just stopped and leaned against a tree, panting, to catch her breath at the forested meet up site halfway between the apartment building and the school, when her ears pricked at a familiar voice.

“It is you that I smelled! Princess!” shouted the trench coat-wearing wolf cub as he caught sight of her and charged forward. “Sera—” his trench coat snagged on a branch and he, pressing forward blindly, tumbled out of it, rolling across the clearing to land flat on his stomach in front of her. “Serry,” he concluded, smiling as he looked up, and extended his left paw, with a cord full of keys wrapped around it, into the air. “I brought you a present.”

The vixen looked down at the shrimpy wolf, now wearing only his sailor suit, in sheer astonishment.

“Ow!” he added belatedly, and a puddle spread beneath him as he soaked his shorts through. “Umm,” he blushed, still on the ground, “I took all these from the Empress. One of them must be yours. But she, umm, took all my diapers.” He fidgeted and warned her, “So I kind of just wet my pants. Sorry.”

Serafina dropped to her knees and threw her arms around him, rolling him over on to his back and out of his puddle, then crouching over him, giggling involuntarily at his sailor suit and its U. S. Cub Guard Rescue label and shaking her head. “Don’t apologize,” she said at once, yanking his shorts down with both her forepaws, pressing her muzzle to his. “I wouldn’t have left you in them long anyway.”

“Waaait,” he whined, jangling the keychain on his left paw.

Serafina rolled off him, and he rose to his knees as she stood before him, fidgeting anxiously as he crawled under her green skirt and pulled down her plastic pants and diapers, unfastening them gently and letting them fall, for the moment, to the forest floor. He tried several of the keys before finding one that clicked the device open. It was fitting a little too tightly right then to simply clatter off, so the wolf cub carefully removed it with his paws and crawled back out, displaying the parts to Serafina. “Ta da! Magic!” he said as he held up the unfastened tube. “And for my next trick . . .” He threw it forwards, into the woods, as hard as he could. “Poof!”

Serafina tackled him and he tumbled to the ground. She pressed her tongue into his muzzle a second time. They kept rolling that way through three or four rolls, he and she alternately on top, the earliest layer of autumn leaves crunching under them, before they came to a halt, with her again crouching over him. The ring of keys had, in the course of their tumbles, fallen off Rian’s paw, vanishing into the leaves and undergrowth.

Serafina started to lower herself to nuzzle at Rian’s crotch, but he grabbed her muzzle with a gentle paw and shook it. The vixen looked up at him questioningly as he scooted out from under her. She remained in a crouch as he raised her skirt and pointed at the plastic pants he had set aside; her favorite naughty pair, the ones that said Fox. Wrong side up.

“I read your label,” he whispered as he started to play under her tail with his left paw and leaned close over her, the tip of his erect cock rubbing against the edge of her hole

She giggled and nodded over her shoulder at him, closing her eyes.

He saw one of her paws making for her own erect fox yiffer, but his right paw reached around her legs and got there first, just as he mounted his princess for the first time. “Let me do that,” he whispered in her ear, then added, blushing as he entered her and started to stroke the sissy’s own cock gently at the same moment, “I’m good at it.”

The End!

If you made it here, thanks for coming with me this far! Hope you enjoyed the ride. All comments are welcome and appreciated here or to kitncub@yahoo.com

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