"Why not?" Bitz asked as she carefully wrapped her puzzle up into her scarf again. She tied it around her neck as she continued: "You were the most dangerous of the ones we saw. But the rest of those guys were abusing you... I don't want to let them do that, so we'll take care of and protect you."

"That's right." Bier agreed abscent-mindedly, turning another page. He hadn't seemed to find anything yet, but wasn't about to give up.

Leech shook his head, "Only 'cause....cause...." He trailed off, tail flicking to the side in frustration--back when he had first met the others he had known how to speak better, and now he found it absolutely frustrating that he had seemingly forgotten how to really. "Different. I'm different."

"I think we knew that from the first time we saw you..." Bitz pointed out, smiling lightly. She tugged at her scarf to make sure it was tied correctly, and nodded to herself as it was.

"I definately did." Bier agreed, shuddering at the reminder. "You need to improve your people skills, not run around like a dog. But as long as you behave or we can get a leash, I think we'll survive..."

Leech seemed to think this over, resting his head in the palms of his hands...well...hand and claw anyway, then he looked over towards Bier. "You pulled my tail." He whined. It appeared as though that was the outstanding fact of what he recalled when thinking of Bier. He sighed at the mention of needing to have better people skills and dragged his claw across the floor.

"Th-they said I..am...am...." He trailed off once more as he tried thinking of the word they had called him, "Useless!"

He could hardly keep from uttering one of his shrill screeches at the fact he had remembered the word. He seemed to be rather proud of himself for knowing such a thing. After a few moments he continued, "S-so they decide...decided...uhhhh.......pet. Er, me pet. Make me pet?" He seemed to think about it for a bit and then shrugged as if that were as clear as he could make it.

"They did treat you like a pet..." Bitz mumbled.

"No they didn't, they treat him like an attack dog." Bier pointed out with a scowl. "I did pull your tail, but you were trying to kill me at the time so I'd say we're even!"

"Either way, we won't treat you like a pet if we can avoid it!" Bitz said, hugging onto Leech lightly. "You're not useless at all. I'm glad that you're finally talking to us..."

Leech smiled when Bier pointed out that he had, indeed been trying to eat him, "It..it's my job." he announced as Bitz hugged him, "I'm d-different."

Although he wasn't really getting the point across. He was trying to tell them he was a Shapeshifter Hunter and that that was why he was so adamant to attack them And that this was why he was 'different' and why he shouldn't be friends with them. But evidently, that was far too much for him to put into words.

"Well, it isn't anymore..." Bier sighed. "You're not the guard dog of those guys anymore. We'll try to make you less... 'different' as you call it."

Bitz just nodded, smiling softly. Evidently, neither of the two knew that shapeshifter hunters existed.

"But...." He frowned, seemingly genuinely confused by how they could make him any less different. Instead of trying to explain it any further though, he simply sighed and curled up on the floor. It was probably easier for him not to talk and just accept that people treated him like he was a dog--or maybe he preferred it over trying to work out what to say and being involved in normal conversations. Either way, it seemed as though he had used up all his ability to converse in any normal manner.

Bitz soon yawned as well, and Bier coerced her into going to sleep. Apparently she had been up later than she should have lately, worried about people finding them and what Leech's old owners could have been doing to him. Soon, she cuddled up with the blanket and pillow near Leech and fell asleep. Bier stopped looking through his papers, instead opting to keep guard over the other two and watch out for any visitors - welcome or not.

Leech had drifted off to sleep as well. Although he had forgotten to mention a rather...important detail about his collar that perhaps they should've known...considering they had taken him from his prior 'home.' and that was the fact it was in a sense, also a tracking collar. Either way he was carefree for the time being.

Seeing how it was the only thing he could use to stop Leech if he ran off, Bier hadn't even thought about taking the collar off. Once he did, maybe Leech would run off and he'd REALLY prefer not to try and tackle the beast to the ground. Instead he just watched the two, smiling as they slept alongside each other.

Somewhere deep down, he felt a bit jealous. Since they had to be on guard, it had been a while since he and Bitz had slept at the same time. Eating another puzzle piece, he resumed guarding in an attempt to somehow... stop being jealous. Unsurprisingly, it didn't exactly work.

Leech of course would've been oblivious even if he had been awake. He tucked his arms underneath himself as he rolled over, big tail curling to his side. He looked like the type with the capability to sleep through anything.

All of a sudden he snapped awake though. His head turning every direction in a somewhat distraught way. His tail thrashed behind him as he jumped up, and nearly tripped over Bitz in his sudden concern before simply sitting down and acting as if all had been fine.

Bier looked to the zetraloid in surprise, distracted from his guarding. "What... was that about?" he asked, rubbing one of his lowered helmet fins. He tried to keep his voice down not to disturb Bitz, who somehow managed not to make up from the sudden amount of movement. "Did you have a nightmare or something?"

"No, er. I. Ye--no. Y-es. Yeah." He nodded his head, despite the really divided answer.
Truth was he hadn't hand a nightmare at all. Just a real surprise from the voice of someone he knew--it was something they could do of course--a personal transmission conversation--your own private world if who you were speaking to was close enough. How close really depended on quality more than anything, but generally speaking they ranged from either being right next to the other or somewhere within a small city.

He sighed before trying to curl back up and go to sleep once more.

"Leech." Bier said aloud. "That doesn't sound right. You'd know for certain if you had a nightmare, not be THIS divided..."

He tilted his head to the side, watching Leech with a somewhat worried and somewhat suspicious look. "Are you sure that's what happened? What was the dream about?"

"Torment." he said before really thinking then shook his head, "Uh...uh....er...well no, I mean not....." His tail flicked back and forth in frustration of what a bad job he was doing making it seem perfectly normal--although that hardly made it any better. It seemed he just generally failed at lying all together. "I...don't know."

Bier grimaced. "Oh, eugh. I can see why you'd have nightmares about that guy." He climbed up to his feet, walking over and sitting next to Leech and patting him. "Why are you correcting yourself so often? What about Torment?"

Leech just shook his head and buried his head beneath his arms--evidently he found this to either be hiding or avoiding Bier--despite how...unrealistically effective it was. His tail still twitched back and forth but he was flat out refusing to answer.

"Leech." Bier repeated, seeming not to get a response. "Leeeech." He groaned, poking Leech. "Leech, talk to me." If nothing worked, he sighed somewhat guiltily and tried to grab onto the twitching tail. "Talk to me or I'll pull your tail."

"Don't pull my tail." He whined as he uncovered his head and tried poking at Bier to let his tail go. It was a rather pitiful attempt and he soon gave up and instead crossed his arms, suddenly a lot more defensive than he normally was, "S-stop being s-so nosy!"

"Look, I normally wouldn't be so noisy, but this is related to those guys!" Bier argued, trying - somewhat unsuccessfully - to keep his voice down. "I still don't fully trust you, but sis does. If you just remembered something or KNOW something about them, we have to know. Otherwise, we might all be screwed if they find and ambush us somehow."

He let go of Leech's tail, crossing his arms. "And if you get sis in danger, I'll kill you no matter how she feels about it." he said with his nose in the air, huffy.

Leech, being the ever so nice creature he was, attempting to slap Bier with his tail over the comment he did not approve of very much. He turned the opposite way of Bier and mimicked a very similar pose before muttering something about Bier being stupid and nosy.

Bier responded to this in a very mature way. He grabbed Leech's tail and tugged at it. "No, YOU'RE stupid and noisy!" Well, maybe to someone it was mature... Bitz was waking up from the argument, but didn't show it quite yet as she watched the two with a look of disbelief.

Leech cried out--not too loud but enough to be heard rather well when Bier tugged at his tail, curling up as tight as he could as if it were some kind of defense against him. Once in this state, he proceeded to whimper as if it had all been Bier's fault for causing him pain and he had done absolutely nothing. It was only for a split moment though before the previous side scene of Leech seemed to show through once more. He tried rolling over, claw ready to swipe at Bier--and no doubt a mouthful of teeth waiting too.

Bier let go of Leech, getting up to his feet as he, too, readied to fight...

Bitz jumped up to her feet, shouting and making Bier flinch. "What do you two think you're doing!?"

"I just... er... he started it!" Bier whined, but Bitz just glared at him with puffed-up cheeks. He tried to excuse himself a few more times, but finally just trailed off. "... Sorry."

Leech took a step back, surprised by the fact Bitz had woken up--although he probably shouldn't have been so surprised--before lowering his head as if in shame. His tail dragged the floor once more as he as well muttered an apology, also making sure to add that it was however, not his fault but Bier's for tugging on his tail.

"Hey, you hit me first..." Bier mumbled.

"I don't care which one started, you were both stupid!" Bitz called out. She sat back down. "Let's just go back to sleep, okay? Forget all about it."

"But..."

"I said forget about it."

"Okay..." Looking somewhat hurt, Bier resumed his duty of guarding, as Bitz tried to go back to sleep.