Blood of my Brother

A New Home

I very rarely use OCs in my fics, but the next few chapters will include a few for sake of the plot.

Trigger warnings: panic attacks, mentions of injuries

-------------------------------

Varian hated magic.

Every time he encountered the blasted stuff, it always found a new way to ruin his already crumbling life.

Today was no exception. Why should it be?

Of course, a few months ago he would have denied that magic existed. It was just science that had yet to be explained. But he was certainly having trouble finding a scientific explanation for this.

He had woken up in a panic, clawed his way out of the crazy lady's arms, and had immediately taken off running, the sounds of the weirdos yelling close behind him. Something was off about him, but he could not tell what it was. He had let instinct and fear take over and keep him moving. Seeing a barn nearby, he had darted inside and curled up in a corner in the hay. The scene reminded him a lot of home, the scents and sounds of farm animals a welcome relief from the fumes of the knockout bomb and the grating voices of the weirdos.

Now if these children could just leave him alone!

He hissed in anger and clawed at the little hand stretched out towards him. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt a child, but he would not submit to being touched! The children had shown up not thirty seconds after he had found his hiding place and had proceeded to bother him to no end.

Something was wrong, though. He remembered being drugged, and then the hands had grabbed him and put something around his neck. Then he had changed somehow. Where was he, anyway?

And why were his nails so much sharper?

It only took a moment to determine the cause of his problems. And discover why the children, young as they were, towered over him. And why they wouldn't seem to stop trying to touch him.

Of course. Of all the things the weirdos had been able to do to him, they had chosen something they knew he would hate. They had turned him into something small children would love to pet and touch and hold.

"Kitty!" one of the little girls shrieked happily. She ran to the door of the barn and motioned to someone outside. "Sissy, come look! There's a kitty!"

A moment later, an older girl stepped into the barn and saw him. "Oh, poor thing! Here, give the little kit room to breathe." She shooed the other two children away, for which Varian was very grateful. "Don't crowd him. Can't you see he's scared? Run to the kitchen and get a saucer of milk."

The children rushed off. "Sorry about them," the older girl spoke softly. "They're just excited."

Varian drew further back into his hiding place. No matter how nice this girl seemed, he had absolutely no intention of leaving this spot until Hector came and found him, and he had no intention of allowing her or anyone else to touch him.

Please hurry!

O‴O‴O‴

Hector gritted his teeth as Artemis swept down from the sky and landed on his arm with a shake of her head. "Crap." He had searched the clearing top to bottom, but not a single footprint was left behind to point the way the kidnappers had gone. It was as if they had teleported. For all he knew, they might have.

With no way to track them, he had to resort to letting Artemis be his eyes in the sky while he, Ruddiger, Riki, and Kiki searched the surrounding forest. If they had teleported, however, they could be anywhere in the world. Hector was about five seconds from panicking. Varian was injured and defenseless against a couple freaks who had already demonstrated their willingness to do whatever they wanted, and he had no way to find them.