Summus Proelium

The sound of noisy crunching filled the back of the restaurant as six small stuffed animals perched on a couple different tables, enjoying the meal they had spent the past several minutes fixing up. Although it was daytime, the restaurant was closed. They were a small enough business that having any days off meant shutting the place down entirely. But that worked for the Corps, who couldn't wait until night time to eat. The lights in the place were almost all out, save for one in the nearby kitchen where the group had pieced their meal together before bringing it out here to enjoy properly. The sound of a radio that one of them had found near the front counter gave the room a little proper ambience, playing lively Mexican music.

“So delicious!” Cherry, the duckling, announced cheerfully. She had broken up her own taco shell across her plate into a bunch of small, crunchy pieces mixed in with the lettuce, tomato, cheese, meat, beans, and salsa. it was more like a salad for her. A salad she was pecking at with her beak in between taking sips of water from a nearby cup. Every once in a while, she would bounce up and down and flap her wings with delight while making cooing sounds.

Willow, the penguin, sat next to her with a regular taco held up between her own two wings as she happily chomped down on it repeatedly. “Mmmhmm! This was a good choice! We make good tacos!” Setting the food down, she picked up a bottle of hot sauce and added some to it before going back to eating. Small noises of delight escaped her, as she wiggled back and forth. “Maybe that’s how we should make money! We can be taco makers. Or just cooks. We could totally do that!”

Ash the dragon, seated on the other side of her, grabbed the hot sauce with his two front paws and poured a much more generous helping on his own taco. He liked hot sauce the most amongst all of them, claiming that it made his fire hotter. None of them were sure if that was true or not, but it seemed to make him feel better at least. “But our tacos are only this good cuz we had really good supplies. We’d have to buy more like this. You know, like from their supplier.” He got that much out before taking another big bite of his spicy meal, then sent a short burst of flame in the air.

Those were the three who were seated on that table. The other three, Oak the turtle, Aspen the bunny, and Maple the monkey, were seated across from them on top of the other one. They each had their own tacos to enjoy. At that point, Aspen gave a hurried nod. “Uh huh, but not here. We’ve gotta go to Detroit, so they can’t bring us back. Maybe we can be cooks there! We’ve gotta make a living.” She added that part sagely before taking a drink of her soda through the straw. “We don’t wanna be mooches.”

“Ah, weren’t we planning to be criminals?” Maple pointed out curiously. “We tried to rob that bank. I thought we were gonna try that again in our new home where they don’t know us so much so they’ll actually listen when we say to give us all the money.”

“You mean ‘so well,’ not ‘so much,” Oak corrected before nodding slowly, his voice thoughtful. “And yes, of course, we can play the devious criminals now and then, for fun and so they understand we are not going to be dragged right back to Mister Imens again.” They all shuddered at the idea of being paraded around as his trophies again. No, absolutely not. They would not go back to that. They would not allow themselves to be used like that anymore. They were people. Odd people, maybe, but people. They weren’t props for his career. Or anyone’s career. They didn’t want to hurt anyone, but robbing a bank would make everyone understand they weren’t gonna let themselves be used like that.

Aspen took a big bite, finishing her first taco. One of the first things people wondered about the so-called Cuddle Corps was if and how they were able to eat, and what happened to the food when they did. In truth, they weren't sure how it worked exactly, but they did eat. The food they took in disappeared after they swallowed, transforming into energy they used just like anyone else. Well, maybe not just like. They didn't have stomachs or anything. The food simply disintegrated and became energy. But it was close enough.

Raising both paws, Aspen announced, “We'll see what kind of criminals we have to be when we get there. Whatever we do, I don't wanna hurt people. Not really. Maybe just scare them a little bit? Just so they take us seriously and stop trying to grab us all the time.” They were all tired of every single person who talked to them simply grabbing on, picking them up, squeezing them, acting like they were toys. They may have looked like toys, but they were people. Real people. Everyone always acted like they could paw at them, drag them around, do whatever they wanted without permission. And Mister Imens let it happen.

They used to like hugs. But now they just wanted people to stop touching them so much. Or at least ask first. And take no for an answer. Every time they tried to say no, people just acted like they were joking. It was exhausting.

Willow was nodding. “Yeah, we don’t gotta really hurt people, just make them leave us alone. I uhh… I don’t even mind helping sometimes.” She added that last bit in a conspiratorial whisper, as though feeling guilty about the admission. “You know, if people really need it. I just… umm… don’t want…” She hesitated, searching for the right words.

“We don’t want them to think they own us!” That was Cherry, jumping up and down on her webbed feet while flapping those little wings agitatedly. “We’re our own people. If we wanna help, we will. But we’re not their toys. We’re not toys at all! It’s our choice!”

“That’s right,” Ash agreed, giving another short burst of flame for emphasis. “Sometimes we’ll rob a bank. Sometimes we’ll save people. Whatever we do, it’s cuz we wanna! Not cuz they told us to. And if they don’t stop grabbing us without permission--”

“We’ll freeze ‘em!” Willow blurted, sending a burst of cold through the air.

They all giggled at that, before Aspen focused on the turtle next to her. “Oak, how far are we from Detroit now?”

“Two more trips,” he informed them simply. “We sneak onto the food supply truck that should be here in…” He leaned over to stare at the clock on the nearby wall, “... two hours, then ride it back to its warehouse. After that, we'll have to sneak out of the place where the truck parks and go… six blocks. There’s a truck stop there, and we can sneak aboard one of the ones that’s going to deliver supplies into the city. We should be within the quarantine in twelve hours.”

They were all celebrating how close they finally were, and how effectively they had managed to stay out of sight, when Willow blurted, “Hey, a car just pulled in!” She pointed to the vehicle in question, prompting the whole group to stare that way for a moment. The restaurant was closed for the entire day, there shouldn't be anyone here.

“Join up!” Aspen quickly called. As soon as she did, all six stuffed animals transformed into beams of light, joining up together into a single combined figure consisting of an enlarged version of Willow’s penguin body, Maple’s monkey arms and tail, Oak’s turtle shell, Aspen’s rabbit legs and feet, Cherry’s duck head, and Ash’s dragon wings. When they were all together like this, in the form they referred to as Cuddle Commander, they stood about five feet tall.

As the Commander, they quickly grabbed their plates and dumped them in the trash, then ran on quick padded rabbit feet before the dragon wings lifted them off the floor to move even faster. The restroom was close, so they raced that way, barely remembering to hit the button on the radio on their way past to turn it off.

Just as whoever it was reached the front entrance and began to work at the lock, they passed into the restroom and hid there. After letting the door close behind them, they cracked it open an inch with the light off and peeked out.

The men coming into the restaurant definitely didn't look like employees. They were dressed all in black, though they weren't wearing masks. There were three of them, and they also weren't using a key. The Cuddle Corps had been doing this hero thing long enough to recognize lockpicks. They were quiet as the three men walked in and turned on the main lights. They didn't seem to care about anyone from the street noticing anything untoward.

“How far is it to the quarantine blockade?” one of the men asked. It was a question that made the combined form of the Cuddles straighten up a little bit. The quarantine blockade? That had to be referring to Detroit. Were these guys going there too? It was pretty weird for two different sets of dastardly criminals to break into the same random restaurant just before moving on to Detroit. Maybe they were really hungry too. This place did have really good tacos after all.

One of the other newly arrived men answered, “Just an hour away. So get in the back there and grab everything. Get all the food. I'll wipe their security footage while you guys get the truck loaded. We need to look like we're just delivering the next round of supplies. We pull up to those guards with a truck full of food and they won't even look at us twice.”

The men split up to work on that, while the Cuddle Commander hunched down lower and stared through the crack in the door. Unfortunately, within a few minutes of that, the two men who had been carrying boxes of food out of the restaurant turned and headed right for that same restroom. Immediately, the Corps split apart into their individual selves once more before running away from the door to hide. Aspen ran up the wall onto the ceiling, hiding herself behind a large light fixture. Ash flew up and clung to the far side of a fan structure that blocked the view from the floor. Oak scurried into one of the stalls at the far end and crouched behind the toilet. Maple opened the small cupboard beneath the sink where extra toilet paper was kept and tugged it closed after her. Finally, Cherry and Willow dove into the trash can near that same sink, covering themselves with paper towels just as the door opened and the men came through. The lights came on right as the six living stuffed animals had just barely managed to hide themselves.

The men headed for the urinals, while one of them announced, “I dunno, taking jobs from those Breakwater creeps seems a little iffy to me. Like, we’re working for the people who keep supervillains in prison now? What’s next, pulling a bank heist for the sheriff’s department?”

“You’d be surprised,” the other man retorted with a laugh. “But like I said, it's a simple fucking job. And they're paying out the ass for it. All we gotta do is grab this kid and get out with her.”

“Yeah,” the first man snapped, “just grab this Tech-Touched kid. Easy peasy, are you an idiot? They’re paying out the ass for it because this is idiotic. You really think it’s gonna be that easy to take a Tech-Touched, even if she is a little girl?”

“We’ll be careful,” his partner insisted. “Look, it’s not gonna be as big of a deal as you’re making it sound. We wait for a shot at the girl, grab her, and go before anyone even knows anything’s going on. She'll be bundled up safe and secure in the back of the truck, hidden from any of their scans. The Breakwater peeps promised no one would be able to detect anybody in that compartment. As soon as we’ve got her out of the city, they’ll come and take her off our hands.”

Washing up at the sink, the other man sighed. “Yeah, and I’m supposed to feel okay about handing over a little kid to those guys? They gave me the creeps.”

“Oh come on, you’re being a fucking baby,” his friend scoffed. “They ain’t gonna hurt her. Hell, they might hire her on to consult for them if this works out. That kid won’t ever get a better chance at some real cash. Without that teleport machine that got snatched right out from under their noses, the kid’s the best chance they’ve got at figuring out how those two got transported onto their island.”

Shaking his head while drying his hands off, the other man asked, “You really think she’s responsible for it? Some kid managed to build something that could break through all their defenses and drop those two off right in the middle of their super-secure island?”

His partner shrugged. “Who the fuck knows? But she’s from the same city he was arrested in and where those two came from. They think he’s still got contacts there. Maybe one of them paid this Trevithick kid to build the teleporter. Either way, she’s the expert in transportation tech. Even if she didn’t build it, she’s still their best chance at finding a way to block it. So we grab her and hand the kid off. Then we take a nice long island vacation with that pile of money they offered. And stop feeling guilty about it. They ain’t gonna hurt the kid. They'll keep her nice and happy. She'll probably end up getting paid better than we are.”

With that, the two men headed out to get back to work loading the food. Once they were done, the Cuddle Corps all rose from their hiding places and stared at one another. A moment of silence communication passed between before they all nodded and turned to the door. Very carefully and quietly, they snuck out of the room, watching for any of the men. Once the coast was clear, they raced outside through the propped-open front door, and clambered up into the back of the waiting truck. The original plan was tossed aside. They would hide in this truck and ride it all the way into Detroit. And then… well, then they would make sure these men couldn’t carry out their kidnapping plan.

After all, they were okay with being bank robbers, but letting a kid like them get abducted? Not on their watch!

*********

At the end of a long day of driving, followed by a quick yet exciting few moments when the three men opened the back of the truck upon reaching their destination, the Cuddle Corps stood victorious. Those three men were tied up in the back of their truck, which had been parked in a tow-away zone so the police would find them along with a hand written sign saying they were kidnappers. The tools they were going to use to do that, including handcuffs and drugs to keep their target unconscious, were nearby. Even better, the men hadn’t actually gotten a good enough look at the Corps to realize who was knocking them out before it was too late. Their presence here in Detroit was still a secret.

Now the group had the address those men had been heading for. It was a pawn shop called Wren’s Nest. They had no idea if those Breakwater people had hired anyone else to abduct her, but they felt it was their duty to check. It wasn't hard for them to sneak inside with their secret ability to be hidden from any technology, and soon they had placed themselves on the shelves full of other random bits of equipment and toys. A pawnshop was an easy place to hide, especially one with as much random stuff as this one had. They blended in just fine. And any time they needed to move around, the cameras and motion detectors failed to notice anything.

They had originally planned to only stay long enough to make sure this girl would be safe. Maybe they could leave a note for her to be aware that people were after her and to beef up her defenses. Well, that and to see the girl for themselves. They were really curious about a kid who might be able to make something that could teleport onto Breakwater. That was supposed to be impossible, but if the prison people themselves thought she could…

Of course, whatever their intentions had been, that fell away more and more as they eavesdropped on all of the shocking revelations that kept piling up. It honestly hadn't been their intention to find out so much, especially all the secret identities and conspiracies. But once they started hearing things they shouldn't, it was impossible to just sit up and tell these people to stop talking. They had no idea what else to do other than lay there and hear all of it. They found out about this Ministry, the fact that their leader’s daughter was Paintball, who was actually a girl (or maybe not a girl exactly, if what Aspen had heard the others saying at one point was right), about this Pittman guy, the whole Biolem thing, and more and more and more. They just kept overhearing everything.

And the more they overheard, the more the Cuddle Corps were convinced that this was where they wanted to be. Whatever was going on here, whatever the full story was, this was a place where they could be useful, a place where they could accomplish something real without being seen as props or trophies. But how were they supposed to show themselves? How could they reveal their presence and just explain that they had been spying this whole time? They would have to be very careful, approaching the situation in just the right way, after analyzing it from every possible angle and considering the ramifications of every word.

Or, alternatively… they could just stand up and start talking.