They were all lined up against the wall of the garden wall, all standing up straight except for Cammy who was leaning with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

She was already causing more trouble than Wolf did when he was first brought here. Constantly escaping and fighting against Miss Wagfingers and Mr. Humphrey. The latter of whom was impatiently waiting for the delivery of a new owner’s chip to inject into Cammy.

Miss Wagfingers was pacing back and forth in front of them, holding her clipboard as always and assigning them their chores for the day. Yet something was different today, alot of them were being told to harvest any crops or transfer Mr. Humphrey’s belongings onto trucks.

“Nixon, you’re to feed the dogs and birds today,” Miss Wagfingers orders. “Bring the girl with you as well!”

Cammy scoffs.

“Don’t even think about it, girl!”

She just rolls her eyes in response and turns to Wolf, who was merely just standing straight and listening. He personally had no objections to his pairing and considering they both have tails, she may know something about them.

“You’ve been assigned your tasks, now get on with it!”

The birdcage was packed full with doves with name tags cuffed around their pink feet. It was Wolf’s idea to name them all but his favorite was Leia who probably loved him the most next to Bobby and Bucky.

“Okay so what you wanna do is use the leftovers in the kitchen like eggshells and seeds, then you wanna mash them into the feeder here for them to pick at.” Wolf explains to her, Cammy merely rolls her eyes in response. “However, you should be careful that Kacchan doesn’t eat the main feeder, always try correcting him to the red feeder due to his medical needs!”

“Okay… does it look like I care?”

Wolf frowns, “Well you should! If you don’t do work, you just get punished!”

Wolf continues to mash the egg shells and seeds into a mush so that they’re edible for the birds. He attaches the two feeders against the metal fencing of the cage, and soon the birds flock to the feeder, fighting for a place against the feeder.

Wolf quickly notices Kacchan eating from the wrong feeder.

“Kacchan, you use the red feeder, not the blue one.” Wolf says, pointing to the red feeder.

The little bird flutters to the other one, like it could completely understand him and he swore he could understand them back.

“You talk to birds?”

Wolf doesn’t answer.

“So you have a tail too?” she asks him.

Wolf nods, his tail twirling a little. “Yeah, I’ve had it since I was born!”

Cammy softly smiles, “Same actually, but my parents never had one. Did yours?”

“Nah but my father did sell me cus of it,” Wolf replies, softly petting one of the birds, his tail happily twirling behind him. The bird leans into Wolf’s touch and chirps happily.

The two soon make their way over to the dogs’ kennel, that’s where the guard dogs reside. Despite sniffing Wolf out many times during numerous escapes early on, he couldn’t harbor any ill will towards them. They were just doing a job like he was.

There were three guard dogs, all three were German shepherds. They were called Jimbo, Hero and Pikko. Pikko and Jimbo have recently had a litter of puppies so they were going through food faster than normal.

However, it was going back to the normal amount now that the puppies were being sold leaving only one, a white female german shepherd named Aerial.

“Now you’re gonna feed the dogs, this is way easier than birds. Just throw some meat and kibble into their bowls and they’ll eat, just make sure they don’t fight.”

“Whatever,” Cammy rolls her eyes, grabbing the nearest bag full of dog kibble as she enters the pen.

What a headache, constant backchat and escape attempts and it’s only been a few days. He hasn’t caught enough sleep cus of it and he swears he was starting to hallucinate.

Snarls and barks snap him out of his train of thought as Cammy yells at him to get the three dogs off her back. Jimbo and Pikko were biting at her uniform as Hero takes a protective stance in-front of Aerial, snarling at Cammy.

“Come on, farm boy, lil’ help here!”

With a sigh, Wolf walks into the pen and yells “Knock if off!” and the three dogs immediately stop and line up for Wolf.

Wolf bends down and pours their food into the dog bowls before giving them all the pets they deserve.

“How come they like you?”

“They don’t like anyone, not even the adults here… but if you just give em’ a bit of love, they come around to like you too,” Wolf says, petting little Aerial.

Hesitantly, Cammy bends down and reaches out to pet Jimbo, who slowly leans back into her touch, enjoying the affection. “Why haven’t you tried to escape, why are you so content being here?”

“I have tried many times but they always catch me… eventually I just had to adapt here.” Wolf replies. “One day I’ll escape, just gotta wait… any day now.”

“Why not today, me and you work together?” Cammy asks. “We both have tails, so me and you should stick together.”

He thinks about it for a moment, every escape attempt he’s had was thwarted by Miss Wagfingers and Humphrey. Why even try, the probability of escaping is next to zero and after who knows how many attempts, what would make this different?

He concludes he was better waiting for someone to find his message in the bottle. Someone will, he swears someone will find it.

Yet he basically has no time, if there really is gonna be a G.I.A. attack he needs to act now and Cammy would be injected with a chip soon enough if he doesn’t hurry.

“Have you ever tried escaping during the day?” Cammy says, leaning against the wall and giving him a side glance.

Wolf shakes his head in response.

“Then we escape during the day, it’s obvious when you think about it. The mansion gets busy during the day and everyone is doing chores, it’d be easier to slip away like that compared to the night when it’s quiet and they expect escape.”

That could actually work, just good timing and their own stupidity. They could actually pull this off!

“If we do it tomorrow, we’ll be free and you won’t even have that chip in you.”

Yet, he ponders, what would he do after this? Where would he even go?

His father was out of the equation and he doesn’t really have a way out of the country, nevermind the planet.

“Cammy, where are you gonna go after this?”

“Home of course!”

Imagine having a home, Wolf couldn’t relate. His father sold him into slavery and he doesn’t have any extended family… he was an orphan by all means.

Cammy must have a good home.

“Well… I won’t have anywhere to go now,”

“You can come with me, I’m sure my family will be in your debt after rescuing me!”

She holds Wolf’s hands with her own and looks up at him, “You can have anything you want when we escape, I promise you that!”

Anything he wants? He really wouldn’t know what he would want, he’s really been focusing on escaping here more than anything.

“And I promise to bring you home!”

“Then we have a deal, Marcas Nixon!”

These dogs better not snitch to Mr. Humphrey or Wagfingers about their plan.

Cold, he felt cold.

Opening his eyes, Wolf could see he was standing in a black void, with nothing around him except for the ground he was standing on and he could instantly tell he was standing on glass.

Looking down, he could see that he was indeed standing on stained glass, from where he stood, he could barely make out the art on the glass being that of a boy with starry hair. The boy looked sad, like he was in pain of somesort.

“It’s time to awaken!”

Wolf frantically looks around, trying to find the source of that voice.

“Who are you?”

No answer.

“What path will you take? The Warrior, The Protector or The Marksman?”

What kind of questions are those? This isn’t some type of video game.

Yet he could see three pedestals rise from the ground, one held a sword, another, a shield and the third one held a bow.

“What path shall you take?”

What path would he take?

A sword, it’s got a lot of uses, mainly for attacking. It would grant him greater mobility and perfect for close range combat. However, it would leave him too open for enemies to strike.

Then the shield, perfect for a defensive role. Great for blocking and countering strikes, however, shields don’t have as much mobility as swords and their damage output is pitiful. Meaning he wouldn’t see use for this in attacking.

Yet he never really likes fighting anyway.

A bow, similar attributes to the sword in the fact it’s perfect for fighting but at a range instead of close. Range weapons are also great for stealth attacks. However, bows are heavy and finicky to use without aim and training… which he didn’t have.

What would he choose?

Wolf approaches the Shield and lifts it up, “I choose this one!” he proclaims to the void.

“Your path has been set! What will you give up in return?”

What would he give up?

Easy!

It was going to be the bow.

“I give up the bow!”

Having a shield and sword would be a great combination. He prefers playing defensive than offensive in games, so it suits him more. Not to mention, a bow and shield wouldn’t go well together.

“You will find yourself battling danger, but do not worry. You’ll never be alone!”

“As long as light shines upon you!”

The ground rumbles as the glass beneath him shatters, sending him plummeting into the endless void below him.