Thrax growled at the familiar voice. Ozzie looked in surprise at the person sitting on the tip of the stray dog’s nose as the mutt sniffed about looking for something to eat.
“Klepta! What are you doing here?”
“Just bein’ around the neighbourhood. doll,’ Klepta winked as he leapt off the dog’s nose before the dog turned around to the other direction. Landing on his feet gracefully, he patted off the dust he got from walking around the dog’s dirty fur and came up to Ozzie, and wasn’t surprised when Thrax came forward to shield the cell from him.
“Of all people, we had to meet you,” Thrax growled.
“Wimpy as usual, aren’t we, brother?” Klepta sighed in dismay, rolling his eyes in a Why-do-I-even-bother manner. “I did mention we might meet one of these days. Didn’t think we’d meet again so soon, though. Aren’t you at least happy to see me in this crazy grassy wilderness?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Nice getup, wimp. What did ya do, wrestle with chicken pox or somethin’?”
“It’s a long story, Klepta,” Ozzie chuckled weakly. “You might wanna sit down to listen to our tale.”
“Who’s that?” Klepta asked, pointing at Drix with his thumb.
“He’s my friend Drixenol from my old city,” Ozzie introduced the cold pill to Klepta. “Just call him Drips. He’s used to it.”
“No, I’m not,” Drix complained, while Klepta chuckled lightheartedly.
“Nice to meet cha, Drips. The name’s Klepta, from the Rabies strain, half-brother of that wimp over here,” Klepta ignored Thrax’s glare when he said that and stroke his chin as he studied Drix from head to toe. “Ah, didn’t think you’d go for big, bulky guys, doll.”
“He’s not my ex, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Ozzie scowled, sending the cold pill blushing awkwardly, the Rabies virus into peals of laughter and the Red Death virus seething.
“Hey, hey, I’m just playin’ ya,” Klepta tried to compose himself after laughing some. “Don’t put that face, doll. It ain’t pretty on ya. ‘Sides, if he’s your ex, he wouldn’t be standing here alive and kicking. Ol’ wimp here would’ve done him in.”
“Ha ha, very funny,” Thrax growled sarcastically.
“Is this really the kind of crowd you hung out with, Jones?” Drix whispered, uncomfortable with the company they’re with right now.
“You don’t know the half of it, Drips,” Ozzie rolled his eyes.
“Hey, where’s Kiaran?” Klepta asked, noticing that the HIV puppy was not around.
“Oh spit! I almost forgot about him…again!” Ozzie exclaimed and gestured Drix to open his chest plate. Kiaran eagerly jumped out and leapt into Ozzie’s arms as soon as it was open, and after done licking Ozzie’s face, it wagged its tail and yapped happily at the sight of Thrax, wriggling out of the cell’s arms and jumped about Thrax’s feet, asking to be picked up.
“Humour the pup, Thrax. Kia hadn’t seen you in a long time,” Ozzie smiled at the incredulous look on Thrax’s face at Kiaran’s actions. Thrax stole a look at the smile that got him so smitten over the cell in the first place and sighed.
“Stupid mutt,” Thrax grabbed and picked the puppy up, in which Kiaran licked his face happily, much to the chagrin on the virus who was being laughed at by his half-brother at the sight. After licking a few more times, the virus grimaced and handed the puppy back to Ozzie.
“That was some crazy spit you pulled over there,” Klepta said as he jerked his head at the car crash.
“What happened exactly?” Ozzie asked, curious. “We know he got into a car crash, but we dunno what happened in between, what with whatever’s going on when we were inside the body.”
“I might be able to help you find out, but this ain’t the best place to talk, doll,” Klepta said as he searched for the dog he was riding on. Luckily for him, the dog had found something to eat and was sitting still at a spot near a bush a few miles away from them. “Let’s get back to my mansion. We’ll hang out at my porch.”
“Mansion?” Thrax raised a skeptical brow.
“Yeah, mansion. Think I can’t afford that?” Klepta gave a challenging look at his half-brother before turning to Ozzie, “You’ll love it, doll. It’s the best I’ve been in so far. It’s got a great view.”
“Are you sure we should?” Drix asked Ozzie warily in a soft tone.
“What choice do we have?” Ozzie shrugged. “Come on. It’ll be fun. Trust me.”
“You’re the expert,” Drix shrugged and sighed in defeat.
“Straight up, Drips. Can we go, Thrax, please?”
Thrax looked at the cell and his half-brother for a while before sighing and running his claws through his dreads, saying, “I suppose we gotta need a place to bunk in for a while. Lead the way, runt.”
Following behind Klepta as he went off with his crazy super leaping abilities, Thrax picked Ozzie bridal style again and ran, with Drix tailing behind them as fast as he could as they made their way swiftly towards the stray dog before it walked off without them and entered through one of its droopy ears.
--:--
“No way! Get out! You’re spittin’ me!”
The quartet was settled in the little porch of the mansion located near the eye area that gave them direct view to the outside world. Judging by the wealth amounted in the private mansion he had, Ozzie could tell that Klepta ran this dog city quite successfully, and judging by his loud exclamation, he had already found about Ozzie’s little ‘excess baggage’ after Ozzie and Thrax told him about their encounter in Jackson County.
“No, runt. We just find it nice to see you goo-goo eyed over the fact that you are going to be an uncle soon, yo,” Thrax replied sarcastically as he allowed Ozzie to help him nurse his wounds that he got from his time in the army barracks prison. Ozzie just smiled quietly while he dabbed the medicine on the virus’s cuts before applying band-aids on them, while Drix just sat there quietly a few feet away from the trio, feeling rather out of place at the moment.
“Dang, doll! You really got guts!” Klepta, after being silent for a full 10 seconds to digest the news he was given, clapped Ozzie’s back happily, earning a glare from his half-brother. “No cell has ever, ever in the history of mankind would ever willingly want to get knocked up with our spawn. Well, not that I know of, that is. You just beat the odds, doll.”
“I just did what I had to do to preserve Thrax’s legacy, is all,” Ozzie replied as he wrapped the last bandage on Thrax’s wounds. He kissed Thrax’s forehead and started packing the first aid kit, saying, “All done, Thrax.”
“Thanks, Ozzie baby,” Thrax replied as he moved his limbs a little to make sure the bandages were not restricting his movements. So far, so good.
“Going on first name basis now, aren’t we, wimp?” Klepta commented, raising an amused brow.
“Don’t push it, runt.”
“Well, at least you’re partially infected and your body modified. If you were still a pure cell, you’d be signing your death warrant.”
“Why is that?” Ozzie asked.
“Don’t you know?” Drix suddenly voiced out after watching the display before him quietly for so long. “The main reason why no cell would ever willingly want to be impregnated by a virus is because technically they would not be impregnated. They would be considered infected. The spawn will explode out of their bodies once the due date arrives and goes on with their mission of reaching maturity and infecting other cells. That’s why I was worried about you and asked you whether you are sure if you want to carry on with this.”
“Ex…Explode…?” Ozzie’s face paled at the thought of his belly swelling and bursting into a million pieces like the crazy alien movie he watched from one of Frank’s dreams, possibly after Frank watched a movie of the same genre.
“He’s right on that, doll,” Klepta replied. “Nicely put, cold pill. I was beginning to think you’re gonna turn invisible and disappear into oblivion if you carry on sitting there unnoticed,” he chuckled at Drix’s glare at him, “but seriously, doll, that how we virus spread the disease even more to other bodies without having us going around infecting each and every one of them one by one ourselves. That’ll work us to death, so we have our little spawns to do the work for us, although glory-hog wimp here prefers a more…solo approach to things, which is why he’s not really making it big scale and all…”
“Don’t test me, runt. You haven’t gotten as far as I have, so don’t think you can judge me,” Thrax stood up and growled, activating his killer claw and glaring venomously at Klepta. Quickly, Ozzie came up to Thrax and hugged him by the waist to stop him.
“So, Klepta, you said you might help us find out what happened to Jackson. How are you going to go about that?” Drix, seeing the situation needed appeasing, decided to intervene.
“Now that you’ve mentioned it,” Klepta realized before going towards the study room. The trio followed after him and watched him fumble for what looked like some sort of remote and a walkie-talkie. He took the remote and aimed it at a blank wall, which parted to reveal a huge flat-screen TV. Turning on the walkie-talkie, he used the remote again to turn on the TV, showing the view of the outside world before he spoke, “Yo, Mess! Try and get the dog to some nearby human TV that’s showing news or something.”
“Roger that, Boss,” the walkie-talkie replied before the view in the TV changed, showing the dog moving. The view was bumpy as the dog was controlled to go where Klepta wanted it to go. Soon enough, the dog stopped and sat in front of a shop that sold television and looked at one of the TV showing the news at the display window.
“I run this city pretty well, eh?” Klepta looked smugly at the trio and pointed at the TV screen. “That was Mess, the mayor—wait, ex-Mayor—who was the line. I made him take the dog to somewhere we can find out what happen to your Jackson fella, and I thought he’d bound to make it into the news somehow, what with the big kaboom you just caused back there. Ah, here we are.”
Everyone turned to look at the TV. After a news broadcast on a drugstore robbery, the newscaster began announcing the news on Jackson’s accident.
“This afternoon, a tragic accident happened near Edelweiss Park after a hijack and a car chase went bad. The hijacker, who was known as Jackson Terrence, died on the spot when he escaped from Newcastle Government Medical Facility Centre and hijacked a security car along with his family hoping to avoid quarantine after he was being diagnosed with exposure of the recently discovered disease known as the Red Death viral disease. His family, namely his wife Yolanda Terrence and his 14-year-old son Tyler Terrence and 3-year-old daughter Corinna Terrence, were with him in his escapade but have also suffered multiple injuries, possibly critical or fatal, but the police have yet to reveal their condition at the moment. The area is being quarantine at the moment to avoid exposure and spreading of the Red Death to neighbouring area. As you can see here, this is the car chase…”
“Woah, look at that spit!” Klepta exclaimed as he watched the car chase footage broadcasted on TV and the accident that followed. “Guess you ended up killing the bugger after all, eh?”
“You watch your tongue, canine virus! Some of the people I care about were in there!” Drix shouted in anger.
“Well, they’re long gone and you left them there to be here, ain’t ya? Deal with it, cold pill.”
“Why, you…” Drix growled as he moved forward towards Klepta and activated his hand cannon, only to be held back by Ozzie.
“Chill, chill, Drips. He’s just being straightforward. No need to get so uptight about this.”
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you because of all the hype back in Greg—and coz I’m so eager to get rid of the pup—but you might wanna hope that your kid will come out a girl,” Klepta said as he gestured at Ozzie’s still-flat belly.
“Why do you say that, Klep?”
“Because for one thing, Kiaran will not grow properly until he is bonded body, heart and soul with a female Master, and you’re a male Master, so he’s probably gonna stay that way until a female Master takes him in.”
“But why not me? Why can’t I be his Master?”
“Well, according to Caesar, the AIDS guy who gave me the litter, it’s all in the pairings, the polar opposite of the genders. A male dog must always have a female Master and vice versa. Yeah, he’s attached to you now and all that, but his growth is not gonna go anywhere unless you get him a polar opposite of his gender. It’s always been that way, according to Caesar, and none of his family ever questioned about this genetic tradition. A normal HIV kid can only survive with the dog. The dogs are like normal viruses: smart, deadly and all that and they grow old as their Masters would, even breed the same time as their Masters. Kia is gonna have to grow up with your kid—if it comes out a girl—and they would be sort of sharing a lifeline for life. That means if Kia dies, your kid dies as well.”
“Then why the fuck did you give us this kind of troublesome mutt in the first place?!” Thrax growled angrily at upon hearing this news.
“Well, I dunno what sort of effect it would do if Kiaran was paired with someone other than a HIV virus, but think about it, wimp. Your future daughter would become almost immortal. Anyone who hurts or kills Kiaran, your daughter is dead meat for sure, but they don’t have to know that. Your future daughter would be almost immune to all injuries inflicted on her. She will heal with no scars and it’ll take forever to try and take her down to even give any effect on Kia. Kia would be like…like her life-sustainer or something. Wouldn’t you want your future daughter to last long enough to carry on your legacy without having to worry that she would get herself killed? And since you’re not of the HIV or AIDS family, who knows what sort of cool powers might manifest on Kia that would alter your future daughter’s lifespan and abilities? Wouldn’t that be a cool thing to consider?”
“Not if my daughter is to be sharing lifelines with this mutt!”
“I dunno, Klep,” Ozzie said worriedly. “It may sound like a pretty good thing to consider since we are quite concern about our child’s future wellbeing, but Thrax may be right as well. What if it goes wrong? What if it didn’t work out and my future daughter is left with the bad side effects, or if someone figured out a way to defeat my future daughter through Kia? What if I give birth to a son instead? There’s no telling what and how my pregnancy is going to turn out, let alone giving birth to a child.”
“Our child will turn out fine, baby, it’s just that this mutt will complicate things,” Thrax glared at his half-brother with a vengeance.
“Look, doll,” Klepta sighed and shrugged in defeat, “if it makes you guys feel any better, Kiaran won’t die without a real Master to be paired with, but he will definitely not grow properly without one, and if your kid turns out to be a son, or if you’re still uncomfortable with the fact that your future little girl is gonna live and die by Kia, I’ll be glad to take Kia off your hands and give him to a real HIV virus instead. Happy?”
“I guess,” Ozzie replied quietly, feeling a little disappointed that he would not get to keep Kiaran if it didn’t work out.
“You know what you have to do now, wimp, now that you’ve impregnated our doll here,” Klepta turned off the TV as he glanced at Thrax knowingly. Thrax grimaced and looked away.
“They don’t have to know.”
“You bloody knocked our doll up, wimp, and you’re not thinking of taking him officially as your mate?”
“Of course I do. He’s having my child. He’s my responsibility and he’s my baby. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“What about you, doll? Do you have any intention to be this wimp’s official mate, now that you’ve got his little bundle of joy growing inside you?” Klepta asked Ozzie.
“Well, yes…” Ozzie blushed bright red at the thought of it, eyeing Thrax once in a while, unable to believe that Thrax was actually indirectly proposing marriage to him, “I mean, well, I didn’t really think about it because we thought he was going to die, but…yeah, I have considered being his mate.”
“Then they must know! It’s tradition! Every member of the Roja family must go through this ritual once they’ve decided on a mate.”
“Fuck, what century are we in, the ‘30s?” Thrax exclaimed exasperatedly. “I’m not going to go through some stupid ritual just because of some old-fashioned way of thinking…”
“A thinking only Pops and Big Mama would have, true,” Klepta said in a firm tone, “but you know how she will find out about things even if you’re a gazillion miles away from her. She will find out you’ve knocked up our doll here and she will get pissed that you eloped with our doll without going through the ritual.”
“That’s the whole point of avoiding the ritual and getting away from them,” Thrax grumbled and rolled his eyes in disgust.
“What exactly are you guys talking about?” Ozzie asked.
“He didn’t tell you?” Klepta looked at Ozzie incredulously. When Ozzie shook his head, he turned to Thrax with the same facial expression. “You didn’t tell him?! Tell me you didn’t forget telling him the most important ritual of the Roja family!”
“Shut up, runt. You’re not helping here,” Thrax growled, his tone wanting him to have this conversation over.
“Tell me what exactly?”
“It’s not important, Ozzie baby. You don’t have to know,” Thrax wanted to wave the question away but was given an angry warning glare from Klepta.
“Don’t even think about, wimp. I can’t believe you didn’t tell him about the…ugh! Why do I bother?” Klepta groaned as he turned to Ozzie and took him by the shoulders, “Ozzie doll, this is one of the most important rituals our Roja family ever has and it’s been done for generations. No one gets past the Roja family door without this ritual because we’ve been doing this since our forefathers’ time. It’s tradition.”
“Oh, for Jackson’s sake, get on with it!” Drix said exasperatedly.
“You must meet the parents and they will test you,” Klepta continued, ignoring Drix’s outburst. “They will put you through a wringer to see if you’re worthy of being the ol’ wimp’s mate. They did that with all our other mothers, and it’s not pretty.”
“What sort of test?” Ozzie swallowed nervously.
“You’ll have to find out for yourself.”
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