#if you somehow know literally nothing about systems and want to ask for clarification on system shit feel free! my ask box is open

[witherroze]

Reminder that this account is run by a system and if you’re weird to systems or fine with people who are weird to systems, I hope you explode <3

[bruinhilda]

A Puppy Coda: The Last Bit of the Feline Rebels

Am I writing what I should?  Of course not.  This was threatening to eat my brain if I didn’t get it down.

So, this one prompted a few questions about the ending.  Clarifications were desired.  I knew in my head what-all had happened, of course.  It just didn’t quite fit in the story as a whole, and would have made the ending a bit clunky.  But I think it works as a companion piece.  So here’s what was happening before and around that last bit with the puppies...

She materialized to the familiar sneer, and a curt, “Well, it's about time.”

“Oh, don't give me that,” Soolin snapped.  “I spent two hours watching you sort through computer components on Praxis.  You can spare me thirty minutes on my own business.”

Avon gave the slight nod that Soolin had learned to interpret as “all right, I won't argue the point any further.”  She set her bag down on the console and moved to the co-pilot's seat.

Avon quirked an eyebrow.  Soolin glared.  “Problem?”

“I never believed you to be the shopping type.”

“Very funny.” Soolin flipped open the bag, and sorted through the contents.  “I wasn't shopping, I was stealing back something that was mine.”

“Rather careless of you to let it be stolen.”

“I was a child at the time.”  Soolin pulled out a small statue.  A dog of indeterminate breed pranced, one paw raised.  Topaz eyes glittered in the small, silver face.  Avon's eyes grew wide.

“And I am afraid you are going to have to take it right back off the ship.”

Avon idly noted that Soolin's hand automatically dropped to her gun.  “My father gave me this.  I never expected to see it again, but now that I have, I'm not getting rid of it.”

“You might change your mind when you find out what it does under the right conditions.  Which you have just unwittingly created.”

“What do you mean?”

Avon noted the slight glow starting to leak out of the dog's eyes. Mentally, he shrugged.  What the hell, there was no one else here. “Very well.  Shall I demonstrate?”  Before she could answer, he picked up the statue and tapped it on the console.

There was a flash of white.  Soolin yelped, her gun clattering to the floor as she suddenly had paws instead of hands.  There was a frantic moment as the foxhound pup sorted itself out.  Then she locked eyes with the doberman sitting quietly on the floor watching her.

Soolin growled.  The doberman gave a short, sharp bark, then stretched up and knocked the statue off the console.

Another flash of white send Soolin tumbling to the deck.  She sat up slowly, carefully checking her hands as though to reassure herself that they were actually there.

“Satisfied?” Avon was still sitting on the deck, holding the statue out.  She snatched it back.

“It never did that before.”

“Well now, it's never been teleported before, has it?”

“You mean the teleport did that?”

“It seems to be a peculiarity of the material it's made from.  I've encountered the effect twice before.”

“How did that even work?  I just blinked, and I was a dog!  That isn't possible, is it?”

“As it happened, it obviously is possible.  As to the how, I really have very little idea.  The effect does not leave a person in a state for conductive research.  All you can really do is dispose of the thing and avoid anything made of Oros metal in future.”

Soolin clutched the statue closer.  “I don't care.  I'm not giving it up.  It's the only thing I have to remember my father by.”

“We're taking it back.  You can keep an eye on it until you're sure it won't do that again, but then it's mine again.”

Avon smiled.  “I suppose if I refuse, you'll shoot me?”

“Would you care to test me on it?”

“No. Agreed.  One other thing; do not show it to the others.  They do not have fond memories of the experience.”

There was very little fanfare to the affair.  Avon had Orac analyze the statue for a week.  The charge from the teleport had faded quickly. The computer was fascinated, and theorized a difference between the teleport systems of the Liberator and the Scorpio.  It was very put out when Avon declined further research into it.  Soolin took her childhood toy back, and it was forgotten about.

***

“Come on, Avon!  Don't die on me now!”  Vila bullied, pleaded, dragged, and slapped.  Whatever it took to keep the dazed man moving.  Vila couldn't hear or see the pursuit, but he knew it was there.  The Federation had gone to a lot of trouble to keep the two rebels alive to be questioned; they weren't going to let them go now.

Why are you still trying?  His treacherous brain asked.  He wouldn't do this for you, and you know it.  It's over.  Let him go.  You might outlive him by another ten minutes if you do.

Vila told himself to shut up already.  He pushed Avon forward.  “Move, damn you!  I didn't drag myself back from the brink of death and break you out just to have you give up on me!”

“Halt!”

Vila stopped, still clinging to Avon.  They got in front of us. Damn it all.  I'm sorry, Avon.

Avon reached up and squeezed his hand.  It was the only real sign of life from him.  His eyes were still cold and dead, showing nothing of the man behind them.

“Come on, hands in the air.  Or you're dead.”

Avon smiled terribly.  Vila went cold inside.  Avon would choose to die, of course.  He'd been trying to die for weeks now.  Vila hung on to him tightly, and closed his eyes.

There was a shout.  Vila's eyes popped open just as the trooper was flung fifteen feet away.  The huge man who had done it casually crushed his gun with one hand.

The trooper scrambled to his feet, staring.

“I suggest you start running, if you want to live a little longer,” the huge shadow said menacingly.

The trooper ran.  Vila and Avon just stared as the shadow stepped into the light.

“We'd better get a move on.  There'll be more.  There always are.”

Vila found his voice.  “G-gan?” He stuttered.

***

The troopers ran around outside for days.  Houses were raided.  Stores and taverns were overturned.  Nothing came of it.  Gan's safehouse was a long-forgotten bunker accessible by an office building's basement.  Gan himself was overlooked.  He was just the janitor, after all.  A limiter-crippled Delta drudge who couldn't speak very well.  He might be the right size, but he was a half-wit, unable to commit violence of any kind.  His employers, in fact, had practically forgotten his existence, and never even mentioned him when a squad of angry troopers ransacked their offices.

Avon slowly recovered with both Gan and Vila to minister to him.  The two fugitives remained in the bunker, essentially buried from view.  And eventually, the Federation gave up.  It was assumed they'd gotten off-planet somehow.

They couldn't stop staring at Gan.  The big man took it in stride, but couldn't really explain how he was still alive.

The problem was left until Avon was better, and the heat was off enough for them to make plans again.  None of them were sure what to do now, and Vila had been worrying the puzzle over in his head for weeks.

“Blake said you were dead.  We wouldn't have left you behind otherwise.  He couldn't have lied to us, could he?  I mean, he was really upset about it!  He even left the ship for awhile.  How are you not dead?”

Gan sighed.  “I just don't know, Vila.  Blake was obviously wrong.  I woke up a year after we raided Control, and have just worked on keeping my head down.  Not very easy for a man of my height,” he joked.

Vila smiled, but kept worrying at it.  “You said you woke up.  Where were you?  In a hospital?”

“No. I'm not sure where I was, to be honest.  It was very hot and dark. I had to climb out of wherever it was, I remember that.  Startled a lot of people.  Fortunately, there weren't any troopers around.

“So it wasn't a prison.”  Vila thought.

“He was not a prisoner,” Avon said.  Vila's eyes snapped up and locked with the other man's.  Avon was tired, and still looked like death warmed over, but his eyes were alive again, and fully aware for the first time in...Vila didn't care to think about how long it had been.

“Gan was one of Blake's.  If the Federation knew he was alive, they would have kept him well-guarded.  Moreover, we would have heard about it.” He looked between the two men.  “Blake could very easily have been wrong.  He hardly had time or equipment to run a full medical scan. It is very possible that he left Gan alive down there, thinking him dead, or as good as.  But, it is absolutely impossible that Servalan and Travis would know Gan was alive, and not only never use him as bait, but never even taunt us with it.  Even if he had escaped them, and Servalan decided to keep it quiet for her own reasons, Travis had no reason at all to cooperate.  Servalan cut him loose because of Control.  He betrayed humanity itself at Star One.  He wouldn't have missed an opportunity to rub salt in Blake's wounds.”  Avon's eyes locked on Gan.  “And they would have checked the body very carefully,” he added softly.  “They would have left nothing to chance.”

“But he's here!  It's him!  It isn't a trick!”  Vila looked at Gan, his eyes pleading.  “It's not, is it?  Tell me now if it is, I can't take the strain!”

“Vila, I'm real!  I'm not going to betray you.  I wouldn't!”

“You would have no choice in the matter, and you know it,” Avon said. Then he sighed.  “However, there is absolutely no reason or purpose to spring such a trap now. They've won.  Blake is dead.  Everyone else is dead.  We were a fluke, and they had us.  We had nothing left to tell them.  They'd already signed the execution orders.  So either this is some mind game, or it is real.  And I do not believe I am dreaming right now.”

“I know I'm not!” Vila said.  “But how?”

Avon looked back to Gan.  “You regained consciousness after a year, and climbed out of what sounds like a literal hell.  Was there anything else?

“My perceptions were really off at first.  In fact, I could have sworn I was a cat.  But when I'd gotten away and things settled down, I was obviously me.  And I had to think about getting off Earth after that. I never really sat down and thought my escape over until now.”

“You are definitely Gan, then,” Avon cracked.  He suddenly looked thoughtful.  “A cat. You were a cat, and you clawed your way out of a chute.”

“Yes, how did you know there was a chute?”

“Logical deduction.”  Avon turned to Vila.  Tarrant's little mishap with the statue...the timing is about right, wouldn't you say?”

Vila's jaw dropped.  “You mean, when it got you, even though you were nowhere near it...?”

“It must have got them all.  Including the dead.  Orac once theorized that we weren't actually transformed as such, just that our consciousnesses were swapped to new bodies temporarily.  It remembered you, somehow,” he told Gan.  “And it swapped you back like it remembered you were, not as you actually were.”

“Do you mean that kitten statue?  You found it again?”

“Tarrant found a new one,” Vila explained.  “Full-grown cats that time.” His eyes grew wide.  “Wait a minute.  If it can do that...Avon, if we found another one, we could bring them all back!”  Then his face fell a little.  “Well, except Soolin.  Damn it, I liked Soolin...”

“We can bring her back too.”  Vila gaped.  “There was a third statue I never told you about.  Soolin had it.  And I know where we can find it now.”  He stood up, wobbling slightly.  Vila instantly jumped to his side to steady him.

“Gan. We'll need a ship.  One that can travel long distances at speed.”

“That's a tall order.  But I'll see what I can do.”

“Avon, where are we going?” Vila asked.

“First, to Xenon.  Then...” His eyes glazed over as he thought.  “We'll need some equipment.  And a second ship.  We can't just leave her alone...I wish I knew where Jenna was.  If her body's in space, this will...” Avon shook his head, and glared at them.  “We'll do what we can.  And to hell with the consequences.”

***

It was a long, long time later when the black-cloaked man appeared on Gauda Prime.  He spent a lot of time poking around the ruins of the old rebel base.  Nobody bothered him, though.  There was nothing left in that place to steal, after all, and what did anyone care what some idiot did with himself there?

Old Garrus took some tea out to him occasionally.  The man had a soft spot for rebels, and he figured this was some pilgrim.  They showed up now and then.  The authorities no longer cared.  The rebellion was dead and buried, and bigger things occupied their attention now.

The man, who gave his name as Chevron, was actually camped out on the mass grave where most of the rebels had ended up.  Garuss had pointed this out gently, and won a ten-credit bet with Del Cameron when Chevron had simply nodded and said he knew.  (Cameron had bet the man would leap out of his skin with fright if he realized.)

Chevron wouldn't talk about what he was doing, and Garrus didn't pry.  He noticed the shovels, though, and wondered.  Rumor had said that Blake had been one of the rebels dumped in that grave, though people scoffed at that one.  Blake had been dead for years before that, after all.

Maybe Chevron thought otherwise, and wanted to prove it one way or another. A somewhat mad project, but then, Chevron was obviously not all that sane.

It had taken Avon weeks.  But he had the time to kill.  Terminal was a long, long way away, after all.  There wasn't even the guarantee that the effect would reach this far, but no matter.  If it didn't happen by a certain point, he would simply take the bodies with him to the rendezvous.  

Evening was falling when he felt the vibration.  Or thought he felt it.  It was near to the time they'd agreed to try for, but it could just be wishful thinking...

And then with a flash of white, he was on all fours.  He pricked his ears up, on alert.  His tail wagged slightly, in spite of his efforts to stop it.

There were whines.  Paws scrabbled on dirt as puppies clumsily managed the dirt incline.

He recognized the foxhound, of course.  The whippet and the terrier were knew, but he knew them anyway.  They were unmistakable.

And so was the German shepherd puppy that stalked out, shaking dirt out of his fur.  Avon whined, his eyes only on it.

The pup wuffed once, and slowly walked over to the doberman.  Avon whined again, unable to stop that or the tail that wagged frantically behind him.

The shepherd puppy touched noses with him, and whined.  It's tail was starting to wag.  A tongue suddenly licked Avon's face, and the whining turned to happy yips.  Avon's tail wagged even harder.

The clearing was suddenly full of barking, dancing puppies.  The terrier nipped at everyone, the foxhound sniffed, and the whippet simply ran around in circles.

Five ears pricked up as the whine approached again.  White filled their vision.

There would have to be explanations, of course.  And recriminations. Forgiving was not as easy for humans as it was for dogs.  But whatever the outcome was, Avon thought he could manage it.