Hoo boy, yeah, I've been gone a while. So here ya go. The next chapter of Flying Mutant Bird Kid Hybrids!

Recap: The flock gets new clothes, but then Kaiba is suddenly wracked by immense pain, only to be knocked out by a guy with dark, empty eyes. What will happen to him now?

You know what's worse than being knocked out and abducted?

Waking up in a dog crate.

No really. They put me – me! Who's at least 6-foot-1 – in a dog crate. A large one, granted, but I'm not a dog. I'm a human!

… Okay, apparently not fully human, but I look the part.

So, since it's a large dog crate, and I'm pretty much capable of superhuman strength, it was made of metal as opposed to plastic. The only window to my cell was the little door in the side, which was just made up of horizontal and vertical bars.

Well, I was going to crawl over to look out of it, to see what I could see, when the pain from before came back with startling intensity. With a gasp and a groan, I curled up into a ball. I didn't really care about appearances right now. I was in PAIN. The sound of high heels against a hard smooth floor reached my ears after I heard an automatic door slide open. Through narrow eyes I watched a white pair of heels stop in front of my dog crate. The owner squatted down so she could see me. Lo and behold, Ann Liu in all her Oriental glory. Her narrow black eyes failed to twinkle as she smiled at me. I wanted to take her low, tight bun and rip it off her head. Ooh, I could imagine the bloodbath…

Wait, what was I thinking? I… I don't want to kill anyone!

"Nice to see you again, Seto," she said with her false smile.

"You're voice is still broken," I told her as plainly as I could, what with all the hurt I was feeling. "You still sound like poisonous honey." Give me a break, I wasn't thinking all that clearly.

Ann Liu frowned at me. Her voice hardened, but it still sounded like an overdose of Halloween candy. "Seto, I only want to help you," she said. "Your body is going through some painful changes."

"No shit, Sherlock," I hissed.

She continued, "It's because your feline genes have been suppressed for so long. It's like a dam that just broke. If you refuse my help, you might die."

Okay, if I wasn't paying attention, now I was.

"We have the technology to help you, Seto. After your mother had escaped with that ridiculous injection, we had to prepare for this."

"Go suck on a toad," I spat. That's how I knew I was absolutely delirious. I just told someone to suck on a toad. My insults were getting more stupid and– I mean, stupider.

Ann Liu obviously thought so, too. She chuckled. "Well, I can see that you don't take kindly to my offer."

"Is it that hard to tell?"

"I guess that means you're not afraid of death, either."

I couldn't answer to that. What could I say? I was terrified. I didn't show it, but I was. I was shivering both from muscle tension and fear.

Ann Liu smiled, but the intention behind it was purely sinister. "I thought so." She stood up so that all I could see of her again was her white high heels. They clacked away. An empty feeling gnawed at my gut. The pain, it was never-ending. Ann Liu had only confirmed that I was slowly being destroyed from the inside out. At least, that was the most likely course.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I know that I can withstand a lot of pain. I know I have the knack for getting out of potentially fatal situations. But what I didn't know was how long I had to live.

A new wave of pain washed over me and I couldn't stop a scream. And once I started screaming, I couldn't stop. All the pain, all the agony, all the terror spilled forth like a thousand volcanoes. I screamed until my throat was like sandpaper. I screamed until my voice gave out. I screamed until I could scream no more, and then I was forced to resort to these pitiful choking sounds until the pain took me away from the conscious world.

When I awoke next, I felt mildly better. Only mildly. My stomach hurt and even my nails ached. My head throbbed, and all of my muscles were stiff and cramped from being in the dog crate. But at least it was all bearable. I started to wonder where the others were. Did they get captured too? Or did they escape? Obviously, they saw me get captured, but that didn't help me much. They might have ditched me to escape for themselves…

I heard the automatic door slid open once more, but the feet that appeared in front of my cage were masculine, and the smell of food came with it. I shifted into a sitting position as best I could as the man crouched down. He had dark brown hair in a buzz cut and beady black eyes. He was incredibly ripped. I wondered vaguely how much time he spent into working out. But I looked into his eyes, and suddenly it was like a knife was thrown into my brain. I gasped as an image started playing in front of my eyes…

Epsilon brought the boy into the room Ann Liu and I were in. Our room was pretty empty, actually. I don't know why we were in there in the first place. I suppose Ann Liu knew Epsilon was coming. Epsilon's appearance was frightening. His dead, lifeless eyes bore into everyone and everything. Anyway, he was carrying the unconscious boy.

This was the first time I saw the boy. His hair looked like it might need a good wash, but I remembered he was on the run for a few days. He was incredibly tall and lanky, but Epsilon was big too, and he carried the boy with no problem.

"Is this our kitty?" I asked Ann Liu.

"Of course, Jonathan," she said, smiling. To Epsilon, she said, "Put him in a crate. When he wakes up, I'll offer him the pill."

"The pill to help him, right?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course! We don't want to kill him!"

I let out another shuddering gasp and raised shaking hands to cradle my head. The man grinned like an idiot. "Ann Liu told me that if I had a flashback, you'd see it. But I guess we can't help it if we have flashbacks."

"Wh-what?"

"Flashbacks," the man repeated, stressing the word. "It's what happens when–"

"I know what a flashback is!" I hissed.

The man grinned again, and I realized that while I had been experiencing a flashback that wasn't mine, he had opened the cage and placed the tray of food in it. "Ann Liu knows what all of your powers are. She kept a list somewhere." I stared hungrily at the food, but I didn't trust it. At the edge of the tray, too, was a white capsule pill. The man poked a finger through the mesh of the door to the cage. "Go on, eat. Ann Liu wants you alive. And that pill there, it'll help you." As if to support him, my treacherous stomach growled. He looked at me, his eyes reflecting his stupidity. "Please eat. If you don't believe me, I'll eat some of it too. It's not poisoned."

I looked away from him, away from the food. He seemed too moronic to utilize trickery, and I was almost certain he wasn't acting. So maybe I could use his stupidity to my advantage…

"If I eat, will you sit there and talk to me?" I asked him.

He beamed and sat down cross-legged. "Okay!"

I tentatively picked up the white pill. It wouldn't hurt to try it. I mean, if they wanted me dead, they would have killed me by now. They've had plenty of chances. I popped it in my mouth and swallowed it, and in a few seconds I felt the pain ebb away. I inched towards the man. "So… Jonathan," I started. "Tell me about Epsilon."