Winter gave way to spring, and there was still no word on the mission, nor did Sundown awaken.
The one thing that did change was Kitri finally allowing Tina to participate with the others in combat training, but she still insisted that it was only for Tina's over-all benefit, not permission for her to actually be part of the mission if and when that time came.
Apart from the uneasy agreement between Kitri and Tina, and the concerns over Sundown, at least there was no Slender Man proxy furby making trouble.
The days grew brighter, longer, and generally warmer. One evening, Jessica decided to lounge outside after the picnic supper with the furbies. Now, they were back in the basement doing combat training. So Jessica lay back in the reclining lawn chair on the deck, watching the birds and the odd squirrel hurrying to and fro among the trees.
After some time, it began getting cooler, but it was still too light out for Jessica to want to go inside. So she decided to go get herself a blanket.
She returned to the deck chair with a blanket and with Toby on her shoulder. The training session had just ended, and everyone was exhausted.
So Jessica and Toby lounged beneath the blanket on the deck chair. Jessica was so relaxed that she turned on her side and soon began dozing.
The trouble was that a newcomer had arrived, landing on Jessica. It was not any of the other furbies, they were all inside as far as she knew, and they would've announced themselves.
Toby would've moved to chase the intruder away, but Jessica held him back.
She had heard of squirrels being daring enough to sometimes land on people. This seemed to be the most likely since the creature had some weight to it.
But when the creature jabbed at the side of her head, she wasn't too keen on this idea. It didn't hurt, but it might if the creature decided to have another go.
It jabbed at her a second time, and just before she was about to react, it made the tell-tale cry of a magpie.
Jessica hated magpies because they bullied and chased the other wildlife away. However, when she also learned that these birds would peck at livestock which couldn't fend them off, eating at their flesh even down to the bone, she was utterly repulsed by them.
Two things happened then. Jessica reacted by moving suddenly and tossing off the blanket and yelling "Get!"
The magpie made a hasty exit, but it wasn't the only one.
Toby tore after it, leaping onto the deck rail, into the trees, and was soon out of sight.
"Ugh. You go get 'em, Toby." Jessica muttered as she picked up the blanket and went inside.
Brittany and Polly were in the kitchen, hauling a cookie container out of a cupboard.
"Is it still nice out there, Jessica?" Polly asked, frowning at Jessica's strange expression.
"What happened?"
"It's getting colder." Jessica approached to help the two with the cookies. "And I want to strangle something, I feel so violated."
Suddenly feeling intimidated by Jessica's harsh tone of voice, Polly backed away.
Brittany didn't flinch, but narrowed her eyes. "What happened?"
"You're not gonna believe this." Jessica fumed. "A stupid magpie just tried to eat my head!"
"What!?" Both furbies were astonished, even Brittany, whom it was nearly impossible to rattle.
"How in the heck did that happen?" Polly asked.
Jessica explained.
"Oh, yuck." Brittany shook her head. Then she noticed something else. "Where's Toby? Wasn't he with you?"
"Don't tell me the magpie - " Polly began, looking alarmed.
"No, it didn't get him. He's out there, trying to get it." Jessica said, a bemused grin widening across her face.
The other two giggled.
Jessica called everyone to snack time, and once everyone had arrived and were happily munching on cookies, Jessica recounted her unpleasant experience with a greedy magpie, and they all wished Toby good luck against the mean bird, laughing and speculating about the kinds of trouble he could get into, or how that bird might regret it if by some dumb luck Toby actually managed to catch hold of it.
Toby didn't return that evening, causing concern for some of the furbies, while others were sure he would be back by morning. Even Denny, the dedenne pokemon had managed to communicate through electronic signal to the furbies, that Toby was not out of range. Kitri relayed this message to Jessica.
So if Toby wasn't back by the next day, it was agreed that Jessica would take Kitri and Denny out to help her find and bring him back. She left the bedroom window open for him should he return during the night.
Later when most everyone were dozing off or already sound asleep, Jessica was startled awake by something landing next to her on the pillow.
Jessica gave a gasp and quickly turned toward the disturbance.
"It's just me." Toby whispered to her.
Jessica heaved a sigh and began to relax. It wasn't long before she fell asleep again.
The next morning, the furbies wanted Toby to tell them what he'd been up to the night before.
He told them how no bird was going to get away with trying to eat Jessica. He directed their attention to a long feather that was now lying beside the carousel. "I couldn't catch it, but I got this close."
"Tell us more!" several furbies implored.
"It was exhilarating, fun, challenging. I chased that bird all over the place. Sometimes I thought I'd lost sight of it, and then I could see it somewhere up ahead. Sometimes I managed to get so close, and then it would take off. I tried simply chasing it without concealing myself. Tiring it out. Then I tried stealth. By the time I managed to grab it by the tail just as it took off again, I realized it was getting dark, and I should get home so you wouldn't worry. I didn't know how tired I was until the chase was over. I caught myself nodding off a few times trying to make it back here."
Dmitri laughed. "If that bird's smart, it'll avoid coming around here again."
As spring went on toward summer, not much eventful happened. Every once in a while Jessica or some furby, or even the two pokemon would check on Sundown and try to wake him. Each time, they were disappointed, and all except Jessica would feel gloomy for a time, worrying that the longer it took, the more likely he was to be dead rather than dormant.
As summer arrived, Jessica's spirits and energy were at their best. It was also in early summer that she called everyone together for an announcement.
"We are getting another resident, one who is sure to be a big help with mission training, and the mission itself, if it ever comes," she added under her breath.
"Who is it?" asked Floyd, and all eyes were on Jessica, silently asking the same question.
"His name is Chewie."
"What kind of a name is that?" Peekaboo chuckled.
"It is short for Chewbacca."
"Chewbacca is coming here!?" Toby squealed, hopping up and down with excitement.
"Awesome!" said Jenny with a broad grin.
"How did you manage to get him enlisted?" Brittany, always the calm one, asked.
"Oh, I couldn't accommodate a full sized wookiee, and he's still working with the Star Wars crew."
There was a mixed response of disappointed and puzzled looks.
"Not funny, Jessica." Kitri said, rolling her eyes at her.
"No, this isn't a joke. He is a - " Jessica shrugged, "furby version of a wookiee... Or a wookiee version of a furby. It is called a 'furbacca". So he is about the size and shape of Holly, but the same coloured fur as a wookiee, and he also speaks wookiee."
"How are we going to understand each other?" asked Buck.
"You all have silent furby electronic signals humans can't understand even if we might hear them faintly at times, right? Chewie speaks that language too. So you should have no problems understanding. You'll need to interpret between him and me, though. I expect he may understand English as the wookiee does. But I can't understand him."
"Deal!" Kitri exulted.
this was followed by more enthusiastic reactions from the others.
So, about a week later in that early summer, Chewie arrived.
He came with a bandolier, and there was a note from Mission HQ stating that there seemed to be some problems with electronic communications, but Chewie's tiny bow caster weapon would be given to him the day of the mission, and he had various types of ammo he could use. In addition, they had an elf apply for job as assistant trainer and damage repairs should anything happen to the furbies and they'd need fixing up.
"Well, still no date as to when this stuff will happen, but at least it's not called off." Jessica announced, "And we have another, very capable looking newcomer on our side. I'm curious what they mean about problems with electronic communication, though. I've been trying to send them notes and hear nothing back until now. This makes me think maybe they're having the same problem. And if so, why."
"I hope this isn't something Mark set in motion while he was here." said Buck.
"I thought of that too." said Jessica. "he claimed he didn't get to talk to slendy while he was here, but he could've been lying - or he was in contact with other proxies and word got back to slendy about us. It just seems suspicious that absolutely nothing is being communicated.
Chewie spoke up, and Kitri translated.
"Mission HQ suspects Slendy has been messing about with teleportation and time, trying to throw everyone off the trail of his proxies and himself."
"That figures." Floyd rolled his eyes.
"Well, make yourself at home, Chewie," said Jessica, "get to know everyone, and let's have ourselves a little party."
They all moved out to the back deck for a picnic. As usual, it was a mix of iPad food and regular. At some point, Jessica went inside to fix herself something, and suddenly got the idea to do something completely unrelated.
After some time, Jessica returned with a plate of food for herself, and something quite unexpected.
Sitting on the edge of the plate, munching down part of this feast was -
Not Toby, for once. He and Chewie were chatting about mission work.
"SUNDOWN!" Kitri spotted their long lost old friend, and she scurried from her place, made a prodigious leap onto the plate next to Sundown and pressed her beak into his ear.
Sundown laughed and nuzzled her back.
Soon, all other furbies swarmed Jessica to welcome Sundown back to the land of the living.
Jessica was all smiles, and she stood, holding the plate steady as she was being mobbed.
Sundown welcomed Chewie warmly, and everyone updated him on all he had missed that they could think of.
With the new addition and the revival of an old friend, things were happier again.
Later that summer, some family visited Jessica. Among these was a 9-year-old boy, who fell in love with Chewie. During the visit, he carried Chewie with him everywhere.
After the visit, things went back to normal, though Chewie was too worn out to participate in combat training that night.
When training was over and snack time began, Jenny pointed out that Floyd didn't show up at all, not for training, and he still wasn't there for socializing.
Jessica thought nothing of this since Floyd, unlike all other furbies, just wasn't big on stuffing face.
But Kitri was concerned. "Even if he doesn't want to eat, he still joins in for the chit-chat.
"Maybe he's going dormant." Sundown suggested.
"I hope not." said Dmitri.
"Oh, like we need that happening to another one of us." Duckling groaned.
"I'll see if I can find out what's going on." Tina volunteered, and hurried out of the kitchen.
Chewie heard the chatter, and came wandering in to join the fun.
"Have you seen Floyd?" Polly asked him.
He shook his head.
Buck belched.
"Excuse you." said Jessica.
Dmitri and Toby belched back in unison.
"Oh, no." Jessica made an exaggerated horrified gasp.
Several furbies laughed.
"Jessica!" came an urgent voice from down the hall. "Help!"
Kitri sprang into action before Jessica could even move. She followed the sound of Tina's alarmed voice to Jessica's room, where she discovered Floyd standing by the dresser, and something was definitely not right.
Floyd's nose had puffed up to nearly twice its usual size, and that was only the start of it.
"Kitri, Floyd has no mouth!" Tina exclaimed.
"What!?" Kitri approached and took a closer look at the non-responsive Floyd.
"Oh my gosh! Jess - oh, there you are!" Kitri turned to see Jessica hurry in. "We have a problem!"
"Floyd's mouth is gone, and his nose is bigger than it should be! How could that happen?"
Jessica's eyes widened, and she gaped. "let's see." She hurried to pick up Floyd.
Sure enough. He was just as Tina had described.
"What're we gonna do?" Kitri lamented.
By this time, all the otherr furbies had flocked in, and they whispered among themselves and darted anxious glances at one another and back at Jessica and Floyd.
Jessica frowned, a look of concentration on her face. She gently poked at Floyd's face, trying to determine the problem and how it might have originated.
"What's wrong with him?" Misty asked.
"His face has been - disfigured." said Jessica. "But I'm going to see if I can fix it or not. Brittany, come here, please." she directed.
"When Brittany approached, Jessica picked her up and examined her mouth too, since it was the same sort Floyd had, both furbies being from generation 2006.
But Brittany's mouth was fine.
"You're okay, Brittany, thanks."
"Why wouldn't she be?" Dmitri asked.
"I was checking for possible wear and tear. If that's all it was, then Brittany's face would look like that too, and there'd probably be nothing I could do about it.. But this has to have been done on purpose, recently."
"None of us did anything to his face." said Jet, looking panicked, "At least, last time he was at training, he looked normal."
"I'm sure this wasn't because of any of you." said Jessica.
She woke Floyd, who had gone dormant.
He squirmed, and looked mortified.
"Open up." Jessica said, trying to get her finger into one side of where his mouth should've been.
"I look like a freak." Floyd said shutting his eyes.
"I can feel your jaws under there, even if you look like you have no mouth. Open up." Jessica insisted.
Floyd complied.
Seeing what Jessica was doing with Floyd's jaw, Tina approached and helped Jessica put Floyd's face right.
As they pushed the excess rubber skin inward, Floyd's mouth took its proper shape, tongue and all. His nose went back to being the size it should be.
"Open and shut." Jessica said.
Floyd did.
The other furbies cheered.
"You're right as rain!" Jessica said with a broad grin. "Well done, Tina, thanks for the help!
"Hehe! You're welcome!
"How did that happen?" Misty asked.
"It had to have happened during the time I had company." said Jessica. "He loves Chewie so much, but he must've played with Floyd too, and thought it would be fun pulling his mouth inside out."
"Yes, that's what happened." said Floyd. I couldn't fix this myself, my toes are way too big for that, and I can't even reach my mouth with them.
"Well, from now on, when I have company, including children, Floyd and Brittany, you two will have to hide away so nothing like that happens again."
The summer flew by too quickly, and as fall went on, Jessica's general disposition changed. She became quieter, less lively, and seemed to be a little on edge.
It all came to a head in early November. Jessica seemed more relaxed, back to her old self for maybe a day or two, and then her mood turned dark and agitated.
One night, everyone was done combat training, and flooded into the kitchen for their snack. But Jessica didn't join them, which was something she always did.
Toby bounded into the front room, expecting to see Jessica asleep in her favourite reclining chair. He was only partly right.
Jessica was there, but she was not sleeping.
She was huddling beneath a blanket, sobbing.
"Jessica, what happened? What's wrong?" Toby asked urgently as he squeezed under the blanket to comfort her.
Jessica had been trying to process it all in her mind for the better part of the day, and had held back at work. But when she was finally alone, and the furbies were in training, she couldn't hold back any longer. And once the tears started, there was no stopping them, toby or no toby.
All she could do for a while was cry without speaking, and try to be quiet about it. But when she finally tried to speak, it came out in bursts of choked sobs.
Toby could only try to dry her tears and love away whatever was upsetting her so much.
In the kitchen, it was Brittany who first heard it, and shushed the others. Her voice was unusually urgent. "Something's wrong with Jessica!"
Soon Jessica's chair was bombarded by worried furbies, asking "Are you okay?" "Are you sick?" "Should we call 9-11?" "Did something happen to a family member?" and so on.
"No!" Jessica finally managed to say. "I'm not sick. - I'm just really upset."
Some furbies froze, others backed away.
"Would it make you feel better to talk about it, Jessica?" Kitri asked gently.
"It might, but I don't think I'm gonna be over this soon. Some people are just so damned cruel - and stupid, and hypocrites!"
Jessica's rising voice and use of "damn" caused a general shudder among the furbies. Even Toby winced. Sundown twitched his ears nervously back and forth, opposite of each other. None of them except Sundown had ever heard this from her, not even when she was upset with trouble-maker Mark the year before. Sundown recognized this as extreme stress, something they would just have to ride out.
though they knew it was not any of them who upset Jessica, this still wasn't going to be easy to listen to, nor were any of them able to help Jessica other than by simply being there for her.
Jessica ranted out her feelings and description of a horrifying case of child abuse, where a mother had kicked her elementary school son out of the house for voting in a school election. Around the same time, 4 racist thugs beat and robbed a man because they believed he voted in a real election, in a way they didn't like.
Toby scowled. "I thought these disgusting SJW would start to pipe down once that was all over.
"No, bullies never lose gracefully." Jessica said. "I wasn't expecting them to get quite this deranged, though."
"SJW?" Peekaboo asked.
Jessica, who had finally regained her composure, sighed. "Gather around, you all might as well learn what they are. Peekaboo, Tina, Brittany, I'll tell you when to cover your eyes or leave. These people make me sick."
The furbies got a frightful education on SJW-ism and the state of humanity that night, as Jessica went through the few videos on the subject that explained and exposed the problem best.
A few days later, Jessica was still glum, but had no more bouts of crying. The furbies went about cautiously, just as they had when she had been so sick a few months before Mark the trouble-maker.
It was Sundown who tried to keep the other furbies from becoming too disspirited. "Jessica hasn't changed for good," he told them. "I've seen her do this before, not often, and she's always bounced back.
"You can tell a lot about someone by what makes them happy, and what upsets them." said Kitri. "Our Jessica is tops. If I wasn't sure at first, I'm certain of it now.""
"And all my original doubts about you are gone too, Kitri," said Sundown."
"We've come a long way." Kitri grinned.
A couple of days later, when Jessica seemed much calmer, she called all the furbies together.
"I have decided that one of you should get an additional name.
There was an excited, curious murmur among the furbies.
"And that one is - " she indicated Jet.
He looked astonished. "Me?"
"Yes, you, Elwood Jet. How does that sound to you? It doesn't fit with the other boys who don't already have two names. And I want to name one of you in honour of the little boy who has been so badly treated by his own mother, and who has haunted my thoughts lately."
"Thank you, Jessica!" Jet said, and rushed over to give her a snuggle.
Over the next month or so, Jessica showed them more videos as they came out, trying her best to find those that didn't fall flat in the fight against SJW and their hideous agendas, terms and tactics, and the big lie known as the "fake news" meme.
But she got sick over Christmas again, and as happened before, Toby was her constant comfort and companion. Kitri had become openly much more fond of Jessica ever since the outpouring of emotion over the child abuse incident. But she was invited to be part of a Christmas Eve show, as happened every year since arriving at Jessica's.
After New Year's, Jessica called the furbies together for yet another announcement.
"We are getting another newcomer. He is a Furby Connect. His name is Jethro."
"Cool! Buck exulted.
Hehe! Peekaboo chittered. "Jessica, Jenny, Jet, and Jethro!"
"Yeah!" Jet cheered.
"The more, the merrier!" said Kitri, "and I have an announcement too." "What?" chorused some of the furbies.
Congratulations, Palestina, welcome to our mission!"
What!? Tina squealed, looking as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You mean - "
"I mean, you're in! You earned your place in our mission when you helped Jessica with Floyd, and you were even the first to discover his condition. You're grown up enough to be part of our mission!" Tina was too stunned to speak for a few moments, but finally said, "Thank you, Kitri!" and gave her a furby hug.
Everyone cheered.
Jethro arrived a few days sooner than expected, which was something everyone was glad about.
Jethro had extremely soft, beautiful blue fur, and an antenna on the top of his head. He was slightly larger than Holly and Chewie, and his voice was very much like Jets in the evil personality, or Dmitri's, and he was so excited upon arriving that when he awakened in Jessica's arms, he looked at her and said, "I dreamed about you!"
Jessica laughed and stroked his fur.
Jethro loved this as much as Toby or anyone else did, and he could've sat there all day if it weren't for the other furbies wanting to introduce themselves.
Jethro turned out to be very friendly and cheerful, fitting in with the others right away, and he was a very enthusiastic participant in combat training, though Kitri determined everyone needed to was him into it at first.
Jethro could out-eat anyone, too.
Jessica called everyone together for yet another announcement.
I wrote Mission HQ again to let them know we have another newcomer. They wrote back with some advice that when the mission takes place, Jethro is to leave his sleep mask here, so no enemy can use it to put him out of commission. And just in case any of the foe has figured out that Furby Connects can also be put to sleep by holding down their antenna, we're getting someone sent over here who can disable that function for him. She's also going to participate in one of your training sessions as a stand-in for part of the enemy."
"Who is it, Carma?" Dmitri asked eagerly.
Rachael the raichu looked at Jessica with excitement too, she had never forgotten her previous owner.
No, her name is Elsa Elf, and she's been with Mission HQ for a few years. She's had experience in at least one battle with a vampire and its followers. she's also had much experience with toy-making, so can make or unmake just about anything to do with any of you, I guess."
Some of the furbies shuddered.
But she is on our side, for sure... Right?" Toby asked.
"Definitely." Jessica assured them.
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