Care Bears Evolution
Chapter 5
Bad Fur Day
(Kim's motel room, morning)
Kim slowly awoke, feeling a bit off. Her body felt heavy, and it took extra effort to just move her arms and rub her eyes. Still feeling a bit off, she went to go reach for her glasses, when she noticed her arm. In place of what she was expecting to see, there was a pink fuzzy arm. It took a second for that to process in Kim's head, not 100% awake, she slowly blinked once, then twice, and then finally a third time. Soon Kim's thoughts finally caught up with her, and when they did.
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"
Kim spent the next 2 minutes screaming and panicking. She tried rubbing her arm, thinking maybe it would do something to bring her arm back to normal. It only made her panic more when she noticed her other arm was the same. Throughout her panic, A thought occurred to her.
" Mirror! I need to see a mirror!"
She tried her best to make it to the bathroom, that's when she also noticed yet another change. She was much shorter than she was last night, and because of that, she tripped over her now way too big clothes. She let out a cute squeak as she fell over with a thud. Taking a moment to recover, she slowly got up and noticed her legs were pink, as well as white towards the end of her feet, or in this case paws. Still panicking, she managed to shake off the loose clothes, feeling slightly embarrassed being naked. But she quickly got over it, needing to know what happened to her as she rushed to the bathroom. She was just about able to reach the door knob, she twisted it and pushed forward, entering the bathroom. Unfortunately, the sink was pretty high up now, so she had to use the toilet seat to prop herself up and hop on the sink to get a full view of what was happening to her. Now standing in front of the mirror, Kim was in utter shock at the person staring back at her. There in the mirror, was a pink Care Bear cousin Mouse, that had a cherry blossom color scheme. Her hair went from Black to a slightly darker pink color with white highlights. She had two round mouse ears, with heart shapes in the middle. Her eyes were now blue, and she had a heart-shaped nose, a white muzzle, and because of her shock her mouth was slightly opened, revealing to front incisor teeth. They were pretty small, and didn't look like they could do much damage if she used them to bite into something.
Continuing the inspection of herself, she noticed that her tummy had a blank white patch of fur. Swallowing hard, she decided to turn her body to the side revealing that she did in fact have a mouse tail now, and she also noticed on the side of her hip, right next to her tail was a small little red heart. Turning back to face the mirror once more, she concluded that she was in fact a Care Bear cousin now.
"Ittai watashi ni nani ga okotta no ka!?"
"(What on Earth happened to me!?)"
Kim spoke to herself in Japanese. She was so flustered and confused that it just slipped out. Due to her panicking and screaming, she soon heard a knock at her door, and a very concerned sounding motel owner checking in on her.
"Ma'am? Is everything okay in there? I heard screaming."
This made Kim start to panic for a completely different reason now. She couldn't let anyone see her like this! If they did, they would most likely call the cops. If anyone catches her like this they would experiment on her for sure! She had to quickly convince him that everything was okay and not to come in.
" Umm yes! Everything is fine! I just saw a really big Roach! Hehe…."
There was a couple seconds of silence before the owner responded.
" Oh? Well I apologize. We pride ourselves in keeping our rooms clean and have someone to spray every other week. Dang we were doing so well too, a whole 8 months with no complaints about bugs."
Kim felt a little bad for lying to him, in truth the room was pretty clean and well taken care of. But she could not afford for him to see her like this.
"It's okay, again sorry for giving you a scare, but you don't need to worry about me everything's okay."
"If you are sure. Just give me a holler if you need anything little miss, while our guests stay here they're practically family! That's our motto Haha!"
Kim heard his footsteps start to walk away. She let out the breath she was holding, she smiled a little. The owner was a pretty jolly guy and really friendly. She would be sure to recommend this place once she figured out how to get back to normal, if she can get back to normal. A bit calmer now, but not knowing how to proceed, she decided to think back, maybe there was some clue about what happened to her. Hopping off the sink, and returning to the bed, she began thinking back to everything that happened yesterday. She remembered she spent most of her day studying for an exam that was coming up. She remembers eating lunch with some of the staff and Roy. Kim concentrated harder trying to remember something that would spark this change. She then remembered the whole conversation she had with Bright Heart. She recalled how nice and polite he sounded, and the fact that he was willing to answer all of her questions with no catch. Thinking for a bit, the possibility that Bright Heart might have had something to do with this crossed her mind. That was quickly scrapped however when she remembered the chemical hazard alarm, and then finding Roy in his lab unconscious with a bunch of purple hazy smoke. The same smoke that she inhaled…. The same smoke that was no doubtedly the hazard!
Kim's eyes widened as she put two and two together.
"The smoke! It has to be because of the smoke!"
Kim was starting to calm down now, understanding the scientific reasoning behind her transformation. However there were still questions in her mind that were still unsolved. What exactly was in that purple smoke that would cause something like this, and what exactly was Roy doing to come up with this kind of result?
Unfortunately Kim would not be able to ask him, he was currently at the hospital getting treated, and Kim was pretty sure they weren't going to let a short anthropomorphic pink mouse go visit him.
Kim was stuck for the moment, she couldn't think of a way to reverse the effect. Not without Roy or the lab.
With Kim no longer panicking, she began to think about her next move. The only thing she brought with her was her clothes, her wallet, her cell phone and her laptop. Her laptop wouldn't do her any good at the moment, despite this motel being nice and clean it didn't have any Wi-Fi to connect to. Most likely to keep people from just loitering and using it. This means the only way to contact people was Kim's cell phone. Her cell phone wouldn't do much good either in this situation, regretting not getting the unlimited data prepaid card for her phone which would include 4G mobile data that she could have used to connect to the internet.
The only person she would trust to see her like this was Roy, and she didn't have too many on-call friends that could bail her out. Her parents were in another state entirely. She was truly on her own for the time being. She frowned, she knew that she couldn't just stay in the motel all day, eventually the owner would check up on her, and she needed to eat and get something to drink as well. She spent the next 15 minutes pacing around the room thinking of some sort of plan, when she then came up with something.
"Maybe Bright Heart can help? If I can somehow sneak to a place that has Wi-Fi, I can contact him. Maybe he'll have some place I could hide, or know some people that would be willing to hide me."
It was a very risky plan, but it was the only plan that could potentially keep her safe. Once Roy got out of the hospital she could return with him, and once the facility was safe to go back to, they could do something to change her back.
Kim took a deep breath and then let it out. Now having some sort of plan to go with.
She decided to wait for the cover of night before she would try and look for a free Wi-Fi spot.
( Washington DC, night time, outside the motel)
Kim began her risky plan, it was about 10:00 p.mThere were still people about, but to a lesser extent. The addition of night helped a little bit, although her bright pink and white for color didn't help matters much, so she still had to be very careful while sneaking around. Luckily for Kim, there were a lot of small spaces and alleys for her to tuck or sneak into. She was currently making her way towards a plaza filled with different stores. She hoped that one of them had an open Wi-Fi source that she could use to get out a message to Bright heart. She spent a few minutes walking around the plaza, avoiding groups of people here and there, it didn't help that a lot of people were walking their dogs late at night, which all seem to notice Kim, making her have to go a different direction while the dogs began barking, noticing her before their owners did. Thankfully the owners didn't pay too much mind to their dogs and just kept walking, leaving Kim to continue her search.
( Washington DC, other side of the plaza, night time)
" Ohhhhhh! I don't want to tell no heart that we failed again! He's going to zap me for sure!"
A small harry goblin looking creature that went by Beastly, he had shaggy brown fur, yellow eyes with small black pupils, and wore a green hat with a pair of goggles on them, his hat also had a little Sharp point on it. Finishing his ensemble was a red scarf that he wore. Due to a failed mission, he was currently complaining about what would happen to them because they failed.
"Shut it furball! It's your fault that you let that little kid trick you! We would have had those goody goodies if you didn't fall for such an obvious trick!"
Shreeky, was a teenage girl, with purple hair that she tied into a ponytail, the tale having a nauseous green stripe going through it resembling a skunk pattern. This also applied to her eyebrows which were large, and had reverse coloring. They were mostly green up until the very roots, which were purple. She wore a red sweater with a purple vest over it, she had purple pants, and purple shoes.
She was blaming beastly as she always did, even if it was her fault, she would always pin it on him, leaving him to deal with most of the punishments when they failed.
They were on their way back to No Heart's Castle to report their latest mission. Shreeky, not wanting to have to deal with her uncle's wrath quite yet, decided to do some late night shopping. Despite her being an accomplice to an evil wizard, Shreeky was still a teenage girl, and still was up to date with the latest trends. She was in the market for some new shoes today, her old pair were pretty old and tattered. Not wanting to deal with the hassle of looking around for a decent pair that she would like, she decided to use her magic mirror. This hand mirror would allow her to see what she desires, it was a tool she used to spy on the CBF most of the time.
She decided to use it to find the perfect pair of shoes right away.
"Magic mirror, what's the news? Show me a pair of brand new shoes!"
She held up the mirror, and after a quick flash, it revealed a shoe store on the other side of the plaza they were at. There in the display case was a nice pair of black shoes with green and purple highlights and stripes. They were perfect! Shreeky had to have them. But before she put away her mirror, a glimpse of pink caught her eye walking past the store. Doing a double take, Shreeky spotted Kim walking past the shoe store in a hurry.
" Ugh! What's one of those fuzz balls doing here?"
Shreeky says in disgust.
"Hmmm, maybe they're looking for shoes too Shreeky?"
Beastly suggested, which rewarded him with a bonk on the head from Shreeky.
"You dult! Don't be ridiculous! They don't make anything for Care Bears!"
"Ohhhhhh. Sorry Shreeky…"
Beastly grumbled, rubbing his head where Shreeky bonked him.
"Anyway, forget the shoes for now. This is my chance to capture them and bring them to No Heart! Hehehe! Then Uncle no heart will praise me!"
Shreeky was cackling to herself, having a chance to not show up empty-handed, she quickly turned to Beastly with a scowl on her face and a commanding tone.
"Go get your net furball, and don't screw this up, or else!"
Beastly gulped, knowing exactly what or else meant, his ears still ringing from earlier today after they had to retreat, and Shreeky let out one of her infamous Shreeks.
"Right away Shreeky!"
( Plaza, Kim)
Kim was still trying to look for an open source Wi-Fi connection. She wasn't getting any kind of luck so far. She had a couple close encounters with people along the way. She decided to stay put for the moment until the crowd lessened. After a little bit, she continued moving. She was pretty far east of the plaza now, almost to the end of it. She then noticed something that got her attention. There in front of her was a Family diner, and what was even better was the sign that said free Wi-Fi. Kim's mood brightened up, seeing that the diner was not busy at all, she opened her laptop and quickly checked to see if she could connect. To her absolute Joy it did, and it had a pretty decent connection too. Now all Kim had to do was Call Bright Heart on FaceTime. She just really hoped that he would pick up this late. It was currently 11:00 p.m. now, and she didn't know if he would. Logging into her account, she decided that she would send him a quick message stating that she really needed to talk to him and she would like to talk with him FaceTime. It would be easier to explain the entire situation, and to have him see what she was talking about with his own eyes. Getting ready to send the message, Kim heard a maniacal cackling from behind her. It sounded like an old fashioned witch laugh, and it caught kim off guard. She quickly spun around, her blood running cold as she saw Shreeky. Despite her being human, Kim could tell something was off about her. She felt like there was something more to this girl, and it wasn't good. What surprised Kim more however, was Beastly. Seeing that he wasn't human at all, he looked like trouble. Not to mention he had a net and was slowly approaching her with a smug grin on his face.
" Hahaha. I'm not going to let you get away!"
Kim was scared now. Not knowing who these two were, but knowing that they wanted to do her harm, she slowly backed away.
" W-what do you want with me?"
" Hehehehe! Isn't it obvious? We're going to bring you to No Heart! He'll be so proud of me once I bring you to him hehe!"
Kim noticed the girl seeming to become giddy at the prospect of delivering her to this No Heart person. Kim got the feeling that she had heard that name somewhere before, but couldn't remember when. At the moment she was too scared to recall.
" Say Shreeky….. do you remember they're being a pink mouse one? I remember there being a pink elephant, or was it a hippo?"
Beastly asked, scratching his head in confusion, his threatening demeanor disappearing for a moment trying to recall the cousins he has seen before.
Shreeky gave Beasley a scowl.
"Who cares! Just catch them!"
"Oh uh right away Shreeky."
Beastly saluted, then faced back towards Kim ready to spring into action. Kim continued to back up, accidentally bumping into an outdoor dining table, beastly saw this and chose that moment to strike, leaping towards Kim. At that moment Kim's fight or flight response kicked in, and she chose flight. As beastly leaped towards her, she quickly dashed to the left. Not expecting her to quickly move out of the way, and with him airborne with no way to stop himself, he comedically crashed into the outdoor table, causing a big mess. Kim used that moment to quickly run behind the diner to hide.
"Beastly you dult! They're getting away!"
Shreeky yelled, getting agitated at Beastly's failure. Seeing Kim run to the back of the diner, Shreeky was about to give chase, when the front of the diner opened up, and out came a big angry looking woman with a spatula raised menacingly.
"You darn kids! Look what you did to my table! You better have the money to fix all this!"
Shreeky turned as white as a ghost, the angry woman's presence was intimidating her. She thought she was loud, but this woman trumped her in that regard.
Not moving an inch, Shreeky watched as a woman made her way towards where beastly landed. Sorting through all the debris, the woman came upon beastly who was out cold.
"What on God's green earth is this thing!"
The woman said alarmed, holding beastly by the scruff.
Shreeky had to think fast. Although she didn't really care for beastly, one of the only rules No Heart demanded that they followed was not to get discovered, especially beastly.
"Well you see umm he's my dog!"
Shreeky tried to be as convincing as possible, giving the woman a very nervous smile.
"This thing's a dog?"
The woman said with a deadpan look, and a raised eyebrow.
" Ya… he's a very unique breed… I got him from a shelter a couple months back… you see he's a rescue and he's what happens when some irresponsible people breed a pug with a pig hehe…. I just felt so bad for the little guy you know.."
Shreeky was doing her absolute best to try to sell this story.
The waitress didn't seem to really buy it, but at that moment she really didn't care.
"Whatever. What I want to know is how are you going to pay me back for that table your "Dog" broke."
Shreeky sighed, and took out her wallet.
Meanwhile, Kim was behind the diner, hiding in between two dumpsters. She could briefly hear what was going on, grateful that someone intervened for her to escape. Now she was frantically trying to get in touch with Bright Heart. There are actually people after her and she was so scared. She needed a friendly face, any friendly face, and he would be the only person that would be able to help. She immediately decided to just go straight for the face call, crossing her fingers that he would pick up. She did not know how long the lady would keep those too busy.
( Care A Lot Bright Hearts Home)
Bright heart was settling in for the night. He had just finished a chapter of his favorite night time book and was ready to go to bed. Just as he got comfy in his soft warm bed, He heard his laptop ding and then started to ring. Curious about who would be messaging him at this time of night, and for it to be a FaceTime call, he decided to see who it was. He smiled when he noticed it was from his friend Kim, figuring that she had a few more questions she wanted to ask him. Quickly rubbing his eyes, as to not seem tired, he accepted the call ready to greet Kim
" Hello Kim. It's good to hear from….."
" Bright Heart! Oh thank goodness you picked up! There's these two weird people chasing me, And they're trying to bring me to someone called No Heart! Please, I need your help!"
This time it was Bright Heart who was the one at a loss for words. he was expecting to see Kim's face, or at least the mask again. What he wasn't expecting was to see a scared Care Bear mouse cousin's face. There was no mistaking it however, that was definitely Kim's voice, and she sounded so scared. Questions could be answered later, right now his friend needed help, and Bright Heart could already guess who the two people were going after her were.
"Hold on Kim! Help is on the way! Can you give me your location?"
Kim was able to give Bright Heart her location, and the exact diner she was at.
Once he got the address, Bright Heart decided to message all the members of the CBF on their phones. He installed his own app to quickly get information across to every member of the family with a phone. He was desperately hoping that not everyone was asleep yet. He told everyone to meet him at the drop off as quickly as they could.
Rushing to his door he quickly made his way to the drop off, ready to go alone if he had to to save Kim.
To Bright Hearts relief, after about a minute waiting, Bedtime Bear, Love a lot Bear and Loyal Heart Dog all made it.
" I got here as soon as I could Bright Heart, but could you tell us what's going on? "
Loyal heart, a blue dog Care Bear cousin, with a big red heart in the style of a badge that someone would wear proudly for an act of service. Asked bright heart, slightly concerned
I'll explain on the way, but we must hurry because a friend of mine is being attacked by Shreeky and Beastly!
Hearing those names, the group quickly got on board, knowing those two were nothing but trouble. Bright Heart summoned a cloud car, and they all hopped in, making their way to the address that Kim had sent.
( Near the diner, Kim)
Kim decided to go for the tree lines. Not wanting to stay close to the ones hunting her down. She would find somewhere to hide within the trees until she saw Bright Heart. She didn't know exactly how he would show up, but due to their studies of The Care Bears, they certainly had their ways of getting around and fast. Kim decided to keep her eye on the diner, seeing if she saw anything unusual. She then noticed something in the night sky making its way towards her. A closer look revealed that it was some sort of hybrid between a bike and a helicopter, but what concerned her, was the fact that beastly was flying it, with Shreeky in a passenger cart next to him. What made things worse, they seem to be heading straight for her. They couldn't possibly know where she was right?
What Kim didn't know was Shreeky had her magic mirror, and it was telling her where Kim was.
Soon, Beastly began to dive, swooping down towards Kim, she dropped to the ground, just as beastly swooped in with his net, just barely missing her.
"Beastly you dult! You missed! "
"I know I know you don't have to shout, I'll get her next time!"
Beastly quickly turned around to make another attempt, he knew he would have her for sure this time as he once again dove for her.
Kim was still dusting herself off from her previous dive, so she was slow to get up. By the time she decided to turn around and look up, Beastly was already diving towards her and closing in fast.
" No no no no!"
Kim panicked, not having time to do anything but flinch away.
"Hahaha gotcha!"
" STARE!!!"
"CALL!!!"
At the very last moment, a quartet of brightly colored beams intercepted beastly's dive, pushing him and Shreeky back and far away, the force was so strong that they ended up flying out of sight. Despite the distance, everyone could hear a piercing Shriek in the distance.
A little confused about what just happened, Kim started to look around before she locked eyes with a group of Care Bears and Care Bear cousins. One of those cousins she recognized immediately.
" Bright heart?.... You made it…."
At that moment Kim's strength gave out, and she fell to her knees, beginning to cry. With all the stress from the day, it finally took its toll on her. Now that she was safe for the moment she let it all out.
Bright Heart immediately ran to his friend, not wanting to see her cry and wanted to comfort her. He kneeled on one leg, and put a comforting arm on her shoulder, letting her know that he was there for her. To his surprise, she immediately wrapped her arms around him and gave him an air squeezing hug. Bright Heart was caught off guard, and his cheeks flushed a little red from the sudden contact.
"Thank you *Sniff* thank you for saving me!"
Kim thanked him, staining his fur with tears. All he could do was just hug and comfort her, assuring her that everything would be okay. Bright Heart noticed the surprise look on his friends faces, that wasn't surprising, right in front of their eyes was a new cousin out of the blue. He didn't know the exact details of why this was happening, but that question could be answered later. Right now they needed to get Kim to safety, and the safest place that Bright Heart could think of was Care A Lot.
"Listen guys, I know we all have so many questions, but I think it would be a good idea to bring her back with us, wouldn't you guys agree?"
There was no objections from anyone, and bright heart helped Kim to her feet.
"Hey Kim, let's get you somewhere safe.
Why don't you come with us?"
" Ok *Sniff* thank you so much"
With the addition of a new passenger, Loyal Heart decided to make a one seated cloud car, and fly home himself. Everybody else went together, consisting of Bright Heart, Love a Lot, Bedtime and now Kim. With everyone now buckled in, the group made their way back to Care A lot.
