Mission: Friendship

Chapter 9

I have no idea how long I was out. The entire time, I felt like I was falling in an endless void filled with voices of my own thoughts around me. It was almost terrifying, not knowing what was going to happen to me suddenly. Part of me felt helpless but at the same time, I was trying to pick up every bit of strength to wake up already.

After what felt like an eternity, I managed to wake up first from my colleagues. I guess that my health is quite good and capable of keeping me pretty okay no matter what happens. I wasn't tied up as I expected to be, it was the opposite actually.

I woke up on a comfortable mattress in a room with very little light in it so it wasn't hurtful to my eyes. As I was the first one awake, I decided to stand up and try to inspect the place. I put my glasses on to see if I can see anything more through it or any possible traces of magical power, but nothing. The only thing I saw was a door so I put my glasses back up on my head. As I was about to open the door, someone else opened the door from the other side. The door showed a tall bunny figure. I freaked out and screamed while backing up, obviously waking up everyone. Even Noah, who looked as if someone actually tried to poison him, looked very weak.

When I turned back to face that guy who opened the door, I saw Zara pointing a gun to that bunny's head with a cold expression. "Hm, so the cat wasn't the only one awake for a longer time I see" the figure said, it was a male. "Don't ya ever scare my worker like that ever again" Zara yelled with coldness in her voice.

She was about to unlock the gun so she'd easily pull the trigger but the guy took her paw first. She got caught off guard. "Don't worry Zara, that cat girl knows that we are not here to hurt any of you, now just follow me and I'll let you know all of our intentions with you" he chuckled as he let go of Zara and walked off. We decided to follow him because we clearly had no other option. Max helped out Noah to get on his paws and gave him a support shoulder so that Noah will be able to walk with us. I was still visibly very weirded out and shocked by everything that just happened. Max also noticed that and held out his paw for me, to help me calm down and to come with them.Noah wasn't fully by his senses yet so Zara also had to pay slight attention to him as she started following the guy who freaked me out earlier. Nina also visibly felt uneasy but tried to stay cool as much as possible.

We walked out of the room and we walked down a long hallway. It wasn't dark or anything but this was all very weird either way. Why would they capture us and then treat us well? It was all weird.. After a while, we walked to a huge room. There were several other cats and dogs, looking at us. The bunny told us to stay at our place suddenly, so we stopped and he went up a bit higher. He had some sort of platform higher than his reach. Through magical power, he made himself some stairs up. There was a huge screen behind him. I was still looking around and I noticed three familiar faces, they noticed me too, Bibby, Vera and Teddy. Bibby and Vera smiled and waved gently at me, while Teddy was giving me absolute death glares, I waved a bit awkwardly at them and pretended to not know them. Looking around more, I saw two other female cats, a yorkie and some other black-brown dog there too. That was until the bunny began to talk.

"Zara, Noah and the rest that I don't know, let me introduce this organization to you all. This is Blind Star, one of two known mafias left in Nixious. However, we are more like spies rather than mafia" he almost yelled as a huge star with an eye in it appeared on the screen behind him while he jumped to our level of ground. Really made me wonder if going up in the first place was worth it for him since he jumped back down anyway. He probably doesn't think much.

"Noah, who seems like he will need a doctor, and mainly Zara are already aware of who I am and our tiger woman doesn't like it very much visibly. However, the rest of you most likely don't have the slightest idea, unless you'd dig very deeply into the history of mafias in this city, so let me properly introduce myself to you all. My name is Mike Croshaw and I'm the boss of Blind Star as you could probably tell by this point. Just call me Mike though please. My workers will introduce themselves surely, they are not children anymore so I have no reason to do it instead of them" Mike says while smiling and looking at others. "I guess we could start by the introducing our couple here"

"Ugh, do you always have to point out that we are a couple?" says one of them, the one who is shorter than the other. It was the girl who was talking to me before. She reminded me of my aunt Alice.
"My name is Charlie Cordova, I'm a Norwegian forest cat and most of the time, I go on missions here with my girlfriend". The other girl smiles while Charlie introduces herself. "My name is Emily Reese and it was already mentioned what I do with Charlie so no introduction on that one" Emily says while smiling. Taking a note on these two, not only that they are dating but they are also the opposites of each other, like YinYang, nice dynamic though. Emily seems to be full of energy while Charlie looks like she would be able to fall asleep there any minute. Then we turned to the other side of the room.

"My name is Timmy Wolf, I am a laboratory technician, like Nina is. To that, I work as a medic here so if you have any injuries, don't be afraid to report it to me and I'll look at it" says the black-brown dog. That immediately caught Nina's attention. "And I am Max Steinman, I help Timmy a lot so you probably won't see us pretty often unless you'll need something specific" says the Yorkshire. Inseparable coworkers, another self note to them. Seems like something that Vicky and Nina do and also medical staff.

"To one of you, Angie, the introduction isn't needed but it is to others. My name is Teddy and those are Bibby and Vera, I am their aunt, Bibby is working with ciphers and cybernetics, I go on missions and Vera is in photographic scenes" says Teddy in a cold tone, setting almost everyone immediately off guard. Nina looked slightly weirded out at me, her eyes having like a million questions for me but in the end, she stayed silent. Obviously not me, since I already know them but definitely, some form of respect is there since Teddy seems to be very protective of her nieces. Understandable though.

Mike signalized something to all of them and they all stepped up in front of the big screen through the same magical stairs that Mike created in thin air, just like before. He turns something on the big screen with many photos, not only of some furries but also of us. Noah was beginning to get to his senses, so when he saw his own photo on the screen, he growled slightly.

Mike obviously noticed that but only chuckled. "As you can see, we know who you all are and we also know your intentions. Because we have the same enemy, I have an offer for you. Let's work together" he says with a big smile on his face. Noah and Zara were speechless at first, Noah then let go of Max and walked to Zara, then they talked a bit together. The rest of us looked at each other, me and Nina talking in our signal language that we came up with in high school for our secret chats. Emily and Charlie seemed to catch up with this type of chat, because they did the same together, just a bit differently. It is very clear how close Emily and Charlie are together in their relationship. Me and Nina talked about how we were wondering how long are they watching us this way and through who, because some of those photos were of me and Nina back in high school or Academy years. Which was minimally 4 years ago. This lasted for a good 10 minutes before Noah and Zara made up their decisions about Mike's offer about working all together.