Chapter Three

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The morning didn't come with the sounds of birds chirping anymore. Space felt rather boring to most of them, with nothing more to see outside besides the occasional space debris. The only person it entertained was Kuki, although that wasn't much of a surprise to them. She spent most of her time staring out the windows in awe, watching space debris fly past.
Weirdly enough, Chad had taken over a rather fatherly role for her, and would try to get her to do some other things, like draw. They would occasionally toss a ball around or play make-believe when they weren't busy. It was a nice change for the two, Kuki having a not-so-good real father and Chad having felt alone for the past year.
Chad had woken up rather early that particular morning. He heard sobbing coming from Hoagie's room, along with chatter from Abby's room shortly after. It wasn't unusual, but for some reason it had kept him up all night. He only had three hours of sleep, but had since given up on trying...
He rubbed his eyes as he slowly walked out to the main part of the ship. No one else was awake, besides Kuki. As per usual, she was standing by a window, gazing out at the stars from afar. He cracked a weak smile, unable to make it bigger with how tired he was.

"Hey, Numbuh Three. Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Hello, Chad! Yes, I am! Come look at the stars with me!"

Chad rubbed his eyes again. "I'm sorry... I can't. I didn't sleep well last night..."

"That's okay! You can go and get some sleep."

"I shouldn't... The others aren't up yet. I-I'll just make some pancakes, or something."

"Can I help?!" Kuki began to jump up and down with joy.

"Uh, well... I guess...-"

"Yay!-"

"-Just don't add anything into it that I didn't tell you to!"

Kuki skipped over to their "kitchen", which wasn't really big. Considering they had made the ship their new home, they really only needed the essentials. There was a microwave, a stove and oven, a small cabinet, a table that could only fit the 5 of them, and a sink. Hoagie had been wanting to build a dishwasher to make things easier, but he still had yet to understand how to construct one in the first place.
They had robbed a few stores back on earth of their food items, so they had everything they'd be willing to eat. Most of it was pretty simple things, though. The only food that required decent preparations were the pancakes, because Abby enjoyed making them.
Kuki hummed the Rainbow Monkey song as she dug through the cabinet. She threw out an average sized box with the words "pancake mix" on the front. Kuki watched as Chad began adding stuff to it, mixing it, then adding stuff again. As much as he hoped she'd retain this memory of how he made pancakes so she could make them herself, she didn't. Besides, she wasn't much of a cooker or baker. Although she knew how to make a cake, she didn't care to learn other things.
She followed him around the kitchen like an abandoned dog as he went from corner to corner, grabbing different tools and add-ins. After what felt like forever to the girl, they were ready. He had made some for the others, despite them being asleep. He knew at least one would wake up just because he could smell it. That was enough for him to allow his body to rest. He retreated back into his room - which was originally Wally's room - and shut the door, hoping to get some sleep.
As suspected, Hoagie came out from his room, making remarks about the scent in the air.

"Woah, did you make these all on your own?!"

"Nope!" She giggled. "Chad made them! You want some?"

"Of course!- But I should wake the girls first. They wouldn't wanna miss out on breakfast, would they?"

Hoagie bounced up and down before running in the direction of Abby's room, then Rachel's room. Kuki swung back and forth humming the Rainbow Monkey tune yet again, placing plate after plate on the table.
Hoagie soon came back with the two girls, albeit with a few slap marks on his face that he got for startling them awake.

"Thank you for making these, Numbuh Three-"

"Chad made them!" She giggled as they all sat down in their wooden chairs.

"-Right..." Rachel shot her a rather annoyed look for interrupting her. "I was already planning to speak about what's been discovered so far, so this is very much appreciated."

"Discovered? We discovered something?"

"Well- Not exactly. We have info that we're near confident is true that should be disclosed to the rest of the team."

Rachel stood up on her chair and pulled out a long piece of blue paper. She rolled it out in the middle of the table and began pointing at different parts of it.

"That thing we encountered... It's collar had a shockingly similar design to a shock collar designed by Numbuh Two for a mission a year or so ago."

"Great, so he's using my tech to get that thing to do his bidding. Now the whole world will blame me for it!"

"That is far from the truth, and the point, Numbuh Two." Rachel rubbed her forehead. "If you designed it, there has to be some sort of way to disable it, right?"

"Of course. I make sure all of my devices can be disabled!"

"Great! So--"

"-But they all have failsafes."

Everyone at the table groaned and threw their heads back against their chairs.

"Well, sooorrry! It's not like there isn't other things to worry about! We don't know which operative he used, maybe it's one that hates our guts and would attack us regardless of what it's got on it's neck!"

"I highly doubt it would attack us... But I do see your point. Luckily... I always have another plan."

Rachel shifted her attention over to another part of the paper and pointed at another drawing.

"We go back to his little hiding hole, get the beast's attention, and snatch some of it's blood."

"Sounds foolproof... But who's doin it?"

The room was silent for a moment before all's attention was on Hoagie.

"H-Hey, why me?!"

"You've drawn blood more than any of us. Besides, it's not gonna be that dangerous."

"Not that dangerous?! Did you SEE how massive his mutt is?! It could squish me to death!"

"We won't be letting that happen, trust me."

Hoagie finally gave in to their plan, despite his worries. He shoved the last of his pancakes into his mouth with an obvious attitude, to let them know how upset he was with the situation he was going to be put into.

"Once you all finish your food, meet me in the cockpit. We have no time to waste!"

Rachel stood up and ran up the flight of poorly constructed stairs as Kuki cheered. Abby put a hand on Kuki's shoulder to stop her cheering and she let out a loud sigh.

"Let's hope we can save that thing... Whoever it might've once been."

To be continued...

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