The Adventures of the "Four Muskytears"

🦅 Locked & Loaded [1/6] 🦅

Stick's POV:

I sat outside by the pool, preparing for Jester to open one of his teleportation rifts.

With my rabbit hole of a shoulder bag slung across my body and my motorcycle helmet fitted on my head, I tweaked a couple flaws in some coding on my laptop.

The sun was about to rise, pale streaks of dawn crossing the sky with a muted turquoise glow.

A cool breeze flowed through the open air, filtering into my helmet.

I let out a relaxed sigh, appreciating the quiet.

"Hi," Polar soundlessly padded up to me, nudging my visor with her snout. "You okay?"

Turning toward her, I noticed a couple things out of place.

Her eyes were droopy, normally they were sharp and alert.

Frostbreath leaked from the edges of her maw, trickling down her snout and puddling onto the floor.

The light mist that usually clouded her snout disappeared, replaced by a warm steam.

However, these problems were already addressed.

She was sick, after all.

"I'm alright, Polar." I mumbled, closing my computer. "Are you warm?"

She nodded, settling down beside me and laying her snout on her paws. "I might have a fever, but I'll be good to travel for today. I promise I'm fine."

Reaching over and taking off my work gloves, I tentatively laid the back of my hand on the side of her neck.

The shapeshifter was alarmingly warm, and considering she was plain ice on the inside, this wasn't very good.

"You're burning up." I said to her, putting my hand on her forehead to confirm my suspicions. "Yes, you definitely have a fever. Go inside for a bit and check on 69 and Jester. I'll prepare something for you."

She dipped her head, padding back toward the sliding glass door.

Once she was inside, I unzipped my shoulder bag, reached in, and started to dig through it.

Days prior to this whole trip, I had fabricated a couple new inventions, with a special collar being one of them.

It had a bulky look to it, thick as your average history textbook and plated with steel.

Clear vials of temperature-controlling liquid made the interior of the collar, visible from the outside like little windows.

A small screen was embedded into the side of the collar, intended for monitoring Polar's heartbeat and other vitals like her temperature.

In general, this was the updated version of her old collar.

We don't talk about what happened to her old collar.

Once I finally felt the cool sensation of steel on my fingers, I grabbed the device, pulled it out of my bag, and zipped it back up.

The vials of temperature-controlling liquid sloshed around in the collar, giving off a faint, turquoise glow.

These would hopefully keep Polar's fatigue at bay, considering that she may as well just live in a freezer.

"LET GO OF ME!" 69 yelled, distantly thudding down the stairs.

"I WON'T DROP YOU UNLESS YOU APOLOGIZE!" Jester screamed back, bursting through the sliding glass door.

They were both tussling with each other, with the mercenary robot on top of his counterpart.