FUNCTION DISORDER :: VOLUME ONE

15C

Damnit!! Rain gave a little growl of exasperation, outlines of his face dimly lit up by the phone screen, fur ruffled and damp with tears. "Hey, I have to go, like, right now, I'll be back soon I promise!", he declared, standing up abruptly.

"What's this about?", asked the golden retriever Beastkind who stood across the table from him with a spotless black tuxedo. "If you want our assistance with your plan today, we can't lose any more time. Could it wait until we've finished the paperwork, perhaps?"

"i-I can't, my friend needs me, it's an emergency, I'll still be back later this morning, as soon as I can.", Rain responded, breaking eye contact. "Forget about the plan, okay, this is more important...", he added, ears falling a little.

"Alright, fair enough. We shall see whose side you're on in time, I suppose.", responded the golden retriever. His big floppy ears were motionless, but his twitchy left paw idly played with what appeared to be a gold doubloon.

With that, Rain was off again.

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Halley was sprawled out immediately outside the store, softly clutching his bottled coffee, still bleeding significantly, front fur sticky with purple, watching it trickle along the creases between the bricks in the ground. The guy behind the counter sent him out quickly so he wouldn't sully the floor anymore, and was currently in a video call with some kind of Lower City authorities in attempt to get them to deal with the situation. They might heal me, at least... but they might find out who I used to be, too...

He thought he heard something. His ear twitched, which hurt – is my ear torn too or something? Fuck...

He lay for a while longer, growing weaker, colder, desperate, slightly numb. He was in a daze by the time, an unknown amount of time later, he heard a comforting voice and soft paws rested lightly on his back, before grabbing him.

"Oh nooo, my Halley, poor puppy! Don't worry, I've got you now.", Rain said, hot magenta eyes shining with concern.

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Halley woke up on his back on a bench, aching all over, blinking up though a wide, dim, bluish room, at square office ceiling tiles. He groaned and sat up a little. He was no longer shivering nor covered in blood and the deepest wounds had partially-transparent, possibly magitech bandages covering them. It was comfortably warm. He peered around to find himself in... some kind of abandoned facility or business or something? Somebody had brought approximately one home's worth of furniture into here and had decorated the walls with party lights and blocks of soundproofing foam. Regardless, Halley thought it didn't look like a home at all, but rather, it resembled an abandoned store of some kind – empty, and consisting mostly of one large rectangular room. There were several other people here, all of them fellow Beastkind. A couple of metres to his left, five stood around a table, engaged in some hushed serious discussion, throwing around scary names like Ascher and Tunselous. Oh hey, Rain's here! And is that Soren over there? Why are they here? Why am I here?

The moment he started making sound, all of them turned to look at him. Rain immediately leaped to Halley's side, sat beside him and patted his head softly.

Halley turned his head and yipped cheerfully up at Rain, whose soft gently paws were playing with Hal's delicate fuzzy ears. He then reached up softly for his nice fluffy demon sire with his front paws, gently grabbing onto him. "i-I'm sorrryy...", he mumbled, gazing into Rain. "What happened? I missed you so muchhh, I'm afraid without you..."

"Ssshhh, fluffy. It looked kinda nasty, but, you'll be okay now, we got you fixed up.", Rain said softly, voice shaking a bit. "I'm so, so fucking sorry Halley, I should've been there for you, I shouldn't have run away without you..."