Family of 101

Chapter 8: Fight To Earn Trust

Cody's POV

After helping Dallas recuperate from her recent spider-scare with the help of the other two, I headed back downstairs to see if Dylan would need any help with his chores until I was called out. "Yo Codyyy! Real good performance on that commersh back there!" DJ made his presence known as he held a fist out for me to bump which I did so. "Also, I wanted to ask ya something. You like any music?" I should've expected him to ask something like that given his hobby and his meaningful name so this was probably his way to get to know me better. "Yeah I do, actually!" I remembered back to maybe when I was three years old and my mom and I were listening to some songs on her car radio. There was one particular song from that memory that stuck out to me that I fully remembered.

"My mom was a big fan of David Bowie and let's just say her enjoyment of him rubbed off on me, sometimes I'd wait at the radio and wait until one of his songs would play." DJ's eyes widened ecstatically at my answer. "No way! The Starman himself?! He's like my all-time favourite too!" He seemed to share my taste in music too, which might have been fuelled thanks to music class in my old school until I remember being downhearted to learn in said class that he had passed away six years ago from liver cancer. "...Kinda sad that he's gone now though." I solemnly pointed out as DJ's smile turned to a mournful frown. "Oh yeah... I think I actually cried for a week when I found out about that." He mentioned, blushing slightly from possible embarrassment, I noticed this and patted his shoulder. "It's okay. It's normal to feel like that when someone you cherished leaves. Just like when my mom left me..." I reassured him as a small smile returned on his face. "Thanks, dude. 'ppreciate it."

*CRASH!*

"What was that?!" I immediately exclaimed in shock upon hearing the distant sound of several objects violently colliding with each other. "Dunno. Maybe Dolly was trying a stunt and crash landed?" DJ suggested until a black furred Dalmatian pre-teen pup with purple spots on one ear and white spots on the other, dressed in a black zipper tank top with matching jeans and hot pink eyeshadow on his face resembling periorbital eyebags sprang up between us. "Or maybe it's the sound of the first meteor colliding with earth! THE END IS FINALLY NEAR!" The black Dalmatian tugged at his own ears in distress. "Chill out, Dante, if it really was meteors we would have heard more of them come by now." DJ remarked with slight annoyance but Dante wasn't eased. "You don't know that! They've probably grown an intelligence beyond ours or even humans! They're just waiting for us to assume it was nothing and then they come raining down upon us AND SEND US TO AN AFTERLIFE OF DARKNESS!" DJ's chagrin to Dante's over-reactive moment was starting to rub off on me as I rolled my eyes. "Look, if it makes you feel any better, I'll see what's going on." I sighed before walking to the front door and unlocking it with the scanner, remembering that I had been told on the day of my adoption that Dylan had registered my handprint. I heard Dante lament as I walked outside.

"There goes a brave soul, the first ever human brother of mine to enter the outside to face the cruel event of damnation-!"

"Oh give it a rest, already!" DJ finally protested before I closed the door and looked around. It was now nightfall so it was a little tough at first to make out any of my surroundings. Thankfully, the active street lights gave me the view I needed to see if anything was out of the ordinary. I didn't notice anything at first and just thought a cat had just knocked over some trash until I heard a distant grunt of pain followed by what sounded like someone hitting the floor. I turned to my right and saw the one person I never wanted to see again besides my dad. It was Brian, and judging by his posture he was towering over someone on the ground, I paced a little closer quietly to hear what he was saying. "Oh, is the mangy mutt giving up so easily? I haven't even started yet with you!" He snarled sadistically before yanking the one dog I never thought I'd see in Brian's vicinity by his neck. It appeared to be that very Dalmatian I had encountered when I first met the Dalmatian family, the one who had threatened me and whom I tended to when he cut his knee the following day. But on second glance, his attire was very different to the one I came across. Compared to the one I had interacted with, his ear had two white spots instead of one and a small notch on it. He had a similar coloured varsity jacket but it was instead tied around his waist by the sleeves, showing a plain white tank top. Most prominent however was the gold chain on his neck that held a golden number "2" at the middle. So that's who the one that confronted me was referring to back then when he said "We won't be afraid to make some human trash boy know what he's dealing with." I just wasn't expecting his brother to be a semi-identical twin.