Some Things Just Can't Be Understood

When the griffin didn't attack her, she tried to lead it back towards its cage. A low growl made her turn and see the pack of wolves behind her. "...Maple... What do I do???" She asked, trying to remain calm. She fumbled with her GS watch, trying to find a code

The griffin pup growled and flared out its wings in a threat stance. The wolves weren't very intimidated by the youngster even though it was slightly bigger than them.

Maple picked up on the danger and came running over super-fast, nearly bumping into Pheobie. He cast 2X Slow on the wolves to hinder them.

"Use2XSpeedOnYourselfAnd2XSlowOnAllThreats," he suggested, hoping his sped-up voice could be understood well enough.

"I can't remember how! I'm trying!" Pheobie stated, searching the codes.

"Number72XSpeed," answered Maple. "Number82XSlow."

Pheobie was looking for the codes when her finger slipped and she hit multiple buttons at once. Suddenly it was quiet and nothing else was moving but Maple. "... Maple... I think I broke reality." She stated in terror.

Maple stared around in mild shock for a moment.

"OkayWell..." he began, at a loss for words. "GuessThis'llMakeItEasierToCatchTheAnimals."

Tears of guilt and terror welled up in Pheobie's eyes. "Maple I broke reality!" She cried again, latching on to him. "What do I do???"

"AhAhAhWell," he babbled, not expecting her sudden clutch. "OneSec."

He deactivated his 2X Speed code, and his body motion and speech returned to normal.

"Okay, type in 100 for 'Clear all codes'. That should cancel out all effects, which should return everything to normal."

"So I didn't break reality?" Pheobie asked with big eyes. "I just hit a code by accident?"

"Most likely, or two or more codes interacted in a strange way," Maple explained.

"Okay!" Pheobie grinned, back to her chipper self. "Then we can put all the animals back while we're like this!" She chirped happily, wiping away her tears.

"Exactly!" Maple answered just as cheerfully. "Though there's no point in putting them back if we don't know how they got out in the first place, so we better check on that first. Either way, this time freeze helps."

"Okay! Let's go find out then!" Pheobie grinned.

Maple went over to the cage where the monkeys had been in. As far as he could tell, the cage was just fine. It was neither open or broken. A quick scan detected no trace of corruption, though the reading may have been distorted by the time freeze everything was in.

"Hmm..."

"Well? Is there anything wrong?" Pheobie asked. "Can I start looking for the monkeys?"

"...My dear, do you see any way that they could have gotten out?" asked Maple, pointing to the cage. "Because I can't."

"Nope. That means someone must have let them out." Pheobie replied. "Maybe they got frozen in the act"

Maple wanted to slap himself. Why hadn't he thought of that? He felt so stupid about it, he decided to actually slap himself.

"Very good dear! Though I didn't seeing anyone opening the cages, even though we were so close. That's odd."

"Well that means that either they're very sneaky or they have a GS to boost their speed like you do... How hard is it to get a GS?" Pheobie asked.

"Very," explained Maple. "You have to know where to get it, how to get it, what kind you're looking for, and then you have to know the codes. You have to program a lot of the codes yourself, you see. I already set up that one before-"

"Dal, what the hell did you do?!" yelled a boyish voice nearby.

"I didn't do anything!" an even younger boy snapped. "Not this anyway." A dog barked.

"You think Raze did something?"

Dalios and Falcon came, or rather glided into view, too busy bickering to notice Maple and Pheobie. Rolly floated right after them.

"This? I doubt it, unless he hit some time machine with his electricity," Dalios went on, looking annoyed. "He's probably frozen like everything else. I don't-" Then he noticed the other two non-frozen humans. "...Hi, Maple."

"Its Okay! I didn't break reality!" Pheobie chirped to the boys she knew were Maple's colleagues. She didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this situation, even though the only reason they weren't frozen was probably because they were using their GS machines as well.

Rolly tried to rush over to Pheobie, but was unable to progress past a certain point no matter how hard he pulled. It was then that a near-invisible string could be seen connecting Rolly's back to Dalios's. If one looked close enough, one could see a string that bound Falcon to Dalios as well.

"Maple! Have you seen Raze?" asked Falcon, seeing nothing wrong with the situation. "We've been trying to find him, and then everything froze."

"No I have not," answered Maple, before smiling unpleasantly. "I do see two likely culprits for why there are wild animals running amok though."

Both boys flinched at this, Falcon more than Dalios.

"But it's an illegal breeding ring!" Falcon protested.

"..." Pheobie blinked in confusion. "Wait, what?"

"What indeed," Maple replied. "What's going on?"

"This place has a front of a zoo, but really it's a place where poachers bring their captured animals and buyers come to look at them either by pretending to be a zoo visitor or going behind closed doors," explained Dalios. "There are a lot more animals where the visitors don't see them, and it isn't as pretty in those areas as it is here."

"Where did you learn this?" asked Maple in disbelief.

"Raze," answered Falcon. "He got a job here because we needed money, and he soon found out what this place really was. So we decided to do something about it and bust them out, since Dal can talk with animals and organize them and stuff."

"Only the animals either can't or won't understand me," added Dalios. "I think it's the drugs most of these animals are on. It's confusing them."

"That's horrible!" Pheobie exclaimed with a pout. "How could someone do that?"