(Quentin's POV)

“And you think we should just head back?” Ty asked, standing right in front of me.

“Yes,” I responded, as evenly as I could. “This is as far as the squids will come, anyways. If they did come all the way out here, we can be sure that they know about the town.”

He glared at me and quickly adjusted his shirt collar; I would never understand why he always did that. He took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said, calming down. “Jerome, Jason, Seto, we're heading back to the town,” he called over his shoulder, to the rest of the camp.

“There's a town?” Jerome asked, jumping down from the tree he was perched on.

“No, he just said that because we're going to the moon,” Seto responded, rolling his eyes.

“I wouldn't mind going to the moon,” Jason said, scratching Dillon behind his ears. “Especially now that I have this awesome suit.” He hadn't taken it off to sleep in, and as a result, was still wearing it.

“Can we just go?” Adam demanded, sounding a lot unlike his usual self. Everybody turned around to look at him, raising eyebrows.

He gritted his teeth. “Look, you just... you guys need to go to a certain spot at a certain time...” His hands clenched into fists, like he was having a hard time saying it.

“Adam...” Jason began warily, unlatching his laser gun, “You're not a squid.”

Adam stopped gritting his teeth and stood up straight. His amulet bounced off his chest and hung there, not touching any part of him. “I...”

I was amazed at Jason's skill at figuring out what was happening. “Adam,” he said, his hands on the gun, his eyes staring right at his sunglasses, “I think your amulet is messing with you. You think that you have to obey those orders. You don't. You want to stop those orders from being carried out as soon as possible.”

Adam put his head in his hands. “Right,” he mumbled. His amulet swung back and tapped him on the chest. His face twitched, but then he took a deep breath and took his head out of his hands. “Right,” he repeated. His hands shook as he lowered them.

Ty was watching Adam closely. “Adam, did you just get a new message?”

His face contorted as he thought about it. “Well... sorta...”

“What was it?” he asked.

“I don't really know. It was... more of a feeling than actual words,” Adam said slowly.

“What was the feeling?” he asked. He sounded nervous for some reason.

“I don't... I can't remember.”

Ty bit his lip. “Well, we'll just keep going,” he decided. Jason and Seto hoisted the bags full of stuff over their shoulders; they had been elected the night before to take the first shift carrying them. I shot a sideways glance at Adam, feeling worried. If that amulet was messing with his brain... I shuddered away from the thought of what could happen.

We walked for a few hours, Jerome and Jason trying entirely too hard to keep the conversation light and cheery. The bags rotated from Jason and Seto to Adam and Ty and finally Jerome and I. Jerome groaned good-naturedly about how heavy his was, but I just put my head down and kept walking. I wanted to get back to the town as soon as possible; not that I had doubts about Dan's leadership, but I was worried. What if we got there to find that the entire town had been captured? I tried to shake that thought off, too, but it kept coming back.

“No, not that way!” Adam said suddenly, interrupting the silence; Jerome and Jason had given up long ago. Ty stopped in his tracks and cast a glance at Adam over his shoulder, confused.

Adam's cheeks went red. “I mean, uh... you shouldn't go that way,” he said lamely.

“Adam,” Seto warned, gesturing to his amulet.

“No, I mean, you seriously shouldn't go that way,” he said uncomfortably. “I have a bad feeling.”

“A regular-bad feeling or a squid-bad feeling?” Jason asked.

“I don't know!” Adam shouted, getting angry. “You think I can tell the difference?”

Jerome placed two fuzzy paws on his shoulders. “Calm down there, Biggums.” Adam took two obviously strained breaths. Ty, Seto, Jason and I all exchanged a worried glance.

“Let's... let's just keep going,” Ty said. He sounded unsure, but we kept walking anyways.

We had barely gone twenty meters when Jerome's ears perked up and his nose twitched. “Did you guys hear that?” he asked, looking around.

“Hear what?” Seto asked. Then I heard it too: a rustling of leaves.

“Stay calm, everybody,” Ty said quietly. “Jason, get your gun ready.” Jason quickly unlatched his laser gun and held it in both hands, pointing it directly into the forest. Dillon hopped off his shoulder and hovered above his head, fangs bared, clearly sensing danger. Adam's amulet glowed a strange, purpley light, and it hit his chest. He flinched and glanced around, as if trying to locate a threat. That could only mean one thing: squids.

I heard a few exceedingly derpy noises and our entire group whipped around, Jerome and Adam with identical expressions of fear on their face. There, next to something that looked like a bigger version of Jason's gun on wheels, was a squid's robot. It belted out some more derpness which I was pretty sure would terrify me if I could understand it, because Adam's face was a sheet white and Jerome was completely still. It moved it mechanical arm over to the gun.

Thankfully, Ty caught on and remained calm, in control of the situation. “Duck!” he shouted, throwing himself to the side and pulling Adam with him. Jason sprinted a ways away, and Seto was close behind him, Dillon over both of their heads.

Jerome and I, though, were carrying the supply bags. Jerome managed to move quickly, thanks to the fact that chewbaccas are a heck of a lot stronger than your average human, but all I did was stumble forward a few steps. In the corner of my eye, I saw a bright green beam heading towards me. I didn't even have time to grit my teeth before it hit me.

My entire body felt numb. I had a pounding headache and felt like my face was being stretched. My fingers felt like they were being coated in syrup, extremely sticky syrup that you feel the urge to wash off right away. My throat tightened, and my vision went completely white for a second or two. I blinked away the spots, returning my vision to normal. I heard somebody say, “Darn, this doesn't work either,” and then footsteps faded into the background noise. Everything looked weird; the greens and blues more prominent, colors like red virtually nonexistent. The smells were amplified, too, flooding my nose so fast that I didn't even have time to process them. I felt dizzy, top-heavy, and like I had a grape stuck in each of my cheeks, as if I was a chipmunk.

I looked over to see everybody else staring at me, expressions of disbelief on their faces. “What?” I asked. My voice sounded different; more monotone. I cleared my throat and tried again. “What?” I demanded. Still the same.

“You...” Adam started to say, but he couldn't even finish the sentence.

“I what?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst.

“You're a...” Jerome's eyes were wide, staring at me like I was from outer space or something. Well, for him it wouldn't be that weird, but you get my meaning.

“You're a mudkip,” Seto said bluntly.

“What? You're joking,” I said nervously, almost hysterical. I shut my eyes and brought my hands in front of my face. Tentatively, I opened them, looking at my fingers.

They were blue.

My eyes widened and I stared at my hands. My fingernails were completely gone, and my fingers were webbed up to my second knuckle. They still looked like they were human hands, not paws, but they were coated in a thin, shiny liquid. They were roughly the same shade as the sky, and might have even had extremely stubby claws; I couldn't tell. I just kept my eyes locked on them. They didn't look like they'd be mine, but they moved when I wanted them to.

I felt like I was being hit in the face when I realized what exactly this meant. Slowly, like this was all just some crazy dream I would wake up from any moment, I lifted my 'hands' up to my head. I placed them on my forehead and slowly, slowly moved them up my head. No hair... but a giant fin. I frantically ran my hands over the entire top of my head. The fin-no, MY fin-was half the height of my entire head, about a quarter inch thick. I ran my fingers over my cheeks, poking them on spikes that I could see, out of the corner of my eye, were orange. I bit my lip and looked behind me, ready for what I would see: a tail, almost white in color, roughly the size and shape of my fin sticking out from underneath my tuxedo's overcoat. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. The problem was, they were shallow and panicked. And when I inhaled, something on my neck moved... I tilted my head ever so slightly to see that I had gills.

I froze in place. No, no, no, no, no, this was just too much, too much... it wasn't politics anymore. It wasn't sitting around a table discussing how to feed an army. It was participating in the fight and facing the consequences.

(Ty's POV)

I couldn't believe what was in front of me. It looked like a human, if you changed the color of the skin and removed the fin and tail, and it was even wearing the exact same suit Quentin had been wearing. But this was not Quentin. This was some mutant of a mudkip the squids had made. That I let them make.

I felt like punching myself. I should have been quicker; I should have pushed Quentin out of the way, taken the beam for myself. I should have punched the squid, not giving it a chance to fire. All I did, though, was jump out of the way, save my own skin.

But you saved Adam, a small voice reminded me. And you warned the others. But that didn't mean anything. I hadn't done my job. I had failed. I felt like ripping my hair out, like tearing something to shreds. This hadn't happened. It wasn't real. I felt like sinking to my knees, giving into the urge to cry, but instead I locked my legs in position, an empty expression on my face. That was even worse than crying.

I noticed that my gills were straining madly, opening and closing even faster than I was breathing, but I didn't care at that point. Let them know; let them know that I was ashamed of something that couldn't even compare to what Quentin had just gone through.

I wanted to cry even more.

Quentin looked at us with fear and hysteria in his eyes, which were now completely black. I could tell he wanted to say something, but couldn't get the words out.

Jerome took a step forward, giving him a half-hearted grin which didn't even show his fangs. “Hey, it's not THAT bad being an animal, right?” His own eyes were full of sympathy.

Why couldn't I be like that? Understanding, sympathetic, knowing how to make somebody laugh. It would be more useful than being cold and uncaring, ignoring somebody until they needed help.

Quentin's eyes were still wide, but his face relaxed, if only a little. “Just so long as being extraordinarily weird only comes with the bacca package, I think I'm good.”

“Oh!” Jason said, obviously trying to lighten the tension.

“Please, you fish, I'm special edition,” Jerome said.

Quentin's eyes darkened. “I'm NOT a fish,” he said, almost growling. His tail stiffened behind him. Then he seemed to realize what he had just said. He covered his mouth with his webbed hands. “Sorry.” Fear flashed in his eyes once again.

“Hey, it's fine,” Jerome said, placing a paw on his back. “We'll just have to remember that you're way awesomer than a fish.”

Seto raised an eyebrow. “Is 'awesomer' a word?”

Jerome thought about that. “Well if it wasn't before, it is now,” he decided, nodding in approval of his own statement.

“Fieush!” Adam shouted randomly, apparently recovered from the utter shock of seeing somebody get turned into a mudkip. Quentin gave him a half smile.

I felt useless. Completely, utterly useless. I hadn't protected Quentin. I hadn't beaten the squid up. I hadn't even managed to help cheer him up. I took off my headphones and stared at them. Okay, so I had beaten a squid. I had strangled it to death. But that meant nothing, so long as it wasn't just me involved in the fight.

I took a deep breath and put my headphones back on. And I promised myself that I was not going to stop fighting until I was sure that the squids were defeated.