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"Three jacks. Three of a kind, baby." Zapook said with a smirk. Fluffles was perched on her head, looking down at the cards Zapook threw onto the table. "What you got, hot head?"

With a growl, and a chuckling Koopling sitting on the table next to her, Zee merely tossed her hand of cards over her shoulder. "I got garbage. That's what I got. What about you, Pantsu-man?"

Sitting on the other end of the table was Wolven, in a card dealer's cap, a candy cigarette in his mouth, and held his cards close to his face with his little paws, only to peek from behind his cards. Sliding his hand forward, he's card revealed two 3's and three 10's; a full house.

Zapook only let her head drop to the table, and Zee shot to her feet in a rage. "You know what!? No! This ain't fair! I don't care if he is just a damn cat! I keep gettin' crap cards!"

"Oh hush..." Zapook groaned, "He's just lucky..."

Wolven grinned happily, wagging his tail like an eager puppy. Fluffles only gave him a sneaky grinned. Catching the two exchanging smiles, Zee narrowed her eyes and growled, "I quit..."

Tina walked into the room with a grimace on her face. She purposely avoid making eye contact with Zee, and didn't even speak. Zapook stared curiously before shrugging and speaking, "What's got your panties in a knot?"

"Oh hush. You do not possess a sensitive nose. So I do not expect you to understand. Speaking of which, tell that monster on the other side of the table to let someone know if she finds the cause of that horrendous smell."

Once Tina had left the room, Zee sat back and sighed. "A week and a half, and she's still pissed."

"You did kinda kill someone we grew found of Zee. That was a little messed up."

"Hey, I was hungry. She was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, wearin' the wrong clothes."

"...Zee...She was naked."

"Exactly. Birthday suits. Not a good thing to wear around a predator."

"...What the heck does clothes have to do with that!?"

"Duh...nothin' caught in your teeth. And! Clothes are a little harder to digest than meat. So there." Zee grinned, snapping her fingers inches away from Zapook's nose.

Zapook rolls her eyes and stands up, tossing a pair of green undies toward Wolven, "You won little man. Come Zee. Let's go find this smell Tina's talking about."

Wolven gave Zee an innocent look. Zee only grinned and responded, "I don't wear underwear, you know that", before leaving Wolven sitting at the table with his arms folded.



Zee walked along the halls on all four, and Zapook followed close behind like a hunter with a hound. Halfway down the hall, Zee stopped as her nose turned up in the air. "Ew...What smells like mildew?"

"I don't smell anything."

"That's because you're part squishy."

"Part what now?"

"Human."


Zee's nose lead them to the door of the room Onima occupied before she was...taken...
At this point, the smell no longer eluded Zapook and they both barged into the room. Nothing had been moved, changed, or fixed.
Not the the knocked over furniture.
Not the broken window.
Not even the towel that was left in the middle of the floor.

Zapook decided to take a look around the room, while Zee went right for the towel, sniffing at it, only to back up a bit and gently pick up the towel.

Under the towel...was a patch of mushrooms.
Strange shrooms that were bright purple and green.

After a few seconds of watching and examining them, Zee finally looked over at Zapook and said, "So...Are these edible?"





A few minutes and a few whacks on the head later, the two of them decide to try and straighten up the room, cleaning the fungi up in the process. As Zee neared the window, her nose turned up in the air again, and she found herself staring out the window.

Noticing her counterparts actions, Zapook sighed, "Can you stop staring at the birds outside like an untrained kitten and help me clean up?"

"I ain't lookin' at no damn birds. I smell somethin' else." Zee was now leaning out of the window with a grin.

"What? What do you smell?"

Zee only grinned and screamed out Onima's name as she leaped out of the window.




Zee found herself in a quiet, yet familiar part of the forest. Aside from the singing birds, and babbling brooks...There was her groaning and complaining. That was quickly silenced as her ears picked up on the sound of a person humming. Upon further inspection of the source of this noise, Zee found herself staring at her old friend Mikey, then empath. He was happy walking down the path, dressed in winter clothes. Zee's first thoughts were 'pounce while he's not looking', but one hint of her nearby would put him on a defense she knew she couldn't get around. Instead, she stood up straight, and morphed her form into that of her human self, and used the berries of a nearby bush to make it look as though she wore makeup. To top it off, Zee took a deep breath, clearing her throat a little, and stepped out of the shrubs with a lost expression on her face. "Excuse me?"

Her voice made him jump, but seeing this 'lost girl' only made him grin and give a sigh of relief. "Oh...You startled me...What are you doing out here on your own?"

Zee gave an innocent, deceitful smile and shrugged, "I was going to ask you that." Inside, however, two feelings were bottled up, her first was her hunger, which urged her to pounce on him there and then. Her second was fear, fear that he would read her mind or sense her thoughts before she was able to carry out her plan. That plan quickly changed with his next statement though.

"Actually..." her mumbled, "I think I took a wrong turn somewhere. I feel like I went down this path before...I don't know where the heck I'm going now."

Zee's eyes lit up, both at the fact that he didn't recognize her, and at the surprise of him loosing his way. "Well. Where were you headed?" She questioned.

"Home, actually. But while out, I thought I'd take a new path and...yeah...bad idea..."

Zee quickly changed her tune as a new idea popped into her head. "Here. Lemme show you around, hun." She smiled cheerfully, taking Mikey by the arm and pulling him along the path