"A boy from the outside is being raised by a group of Spotted Ones as we speak. Another will fall from the sky. When these two meet, the heart of the Spotted Ones will be revealed. There, those who have earned the respect of such stealthy, magnificent creatures will have all their desires granted."

The man's bushy eyebrows were knit together in befuddlement while the chartreuse organs below were scintillating with interest. "Spotted Ones, eh? Where do you believe this 'heart' is located?" he asked, his voice laced with an English accent.

The hag sitting across from him screwed her eyes shut as she thought pensively, ignoring the sultry heat squeezing salted water from their bodies. "There are many trees, many creatures, all in danger of the nations that possess it. People everywhere swallow its natural fumes, and even the mighty sun and the tears of the wisps of cotton above take time to get to the ground. That is all I can say," she finished, opening her lackluster stone eyes.

The Englishman stood up from the royal purple carpet with swirling, intricate patterns of green, red, and gold that cloaked the floor. "Very well. Thank you for your time." Without another word, he exited the small rickety building.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Lovino, can we visit the Amazon rainforest just this once?" Femke pleaded with her jade eyes enlarged like a puppy's and her bottom lip sticking out in a pout. "Please? Just once!"

"It's too dangerous," her older brother, Ned, grunted.

"You always say that, Big Brother!" the female blonde whined. She spoke the truth. The Dutchman was extremely protective of her and their younger brother Henry. She'd asked him to loosen up a few times, but Ned always bluntly refused, as his siblings' safety was the first priority, especially with all the crimes and crazy stuff people did nowadays.

The only Italian on the plane begrudgingly mumbled, "Ned's right. There's a bunch of man-eating animals and plants in there, and I'd love to stay alive. Plus, it's a fucking jungle, and why would someone like me go in? There's a bunch of mud and vines, snakes, and all that gross stuff." His milky fingers ran through the cream and russet fur of the cat on his lap that strangely had a curl and amber eyes similar to his.

Femke's pout only exacerbated with her companion's words. "Models can go into rainforests too," she corrected him with emphasis of a single word. "Don't be so prim, Lovino." Her arms were crossed over her chest.

"I have to agree with Femke," Elizabeta, her best friend, jumped in. "We won't get another chance like this again, so why not take advantage of it?"

Lovino scowled. "We didn't come here for that death trap, just for my safe photo shoot. There's no way you'll ever get me into that fucking place, or any other jungle or rainforest like it," he stated obstinately. "Basically anywhere that'll kill me," he added.

The Hungarian woman's jade eyes flickered to the youngest blond on the  aircraft, sitting next to his fluffy, white canine companion, Pelze, taping vigorously at his phone. "Well, what does Henry think?"

He didn't seem to hear.

"Henry?" Eliza reiterated when he didn't answer the first time.

"Hey, bastardo," Lovino called him, shaking his shoulder. At the touch, the male jumped a little, looking up from his phone, startled. A light hue of salmon was smeared all over his face out of chagrin.

"Huh? S-sorry, what? I was just texting my professor..." Henry stated, smiling sheepishly.

At first, he didn't want to go on the trip, as he had a lot of work to do in his final years of medical school, but then his sister had persistently begged him to go and take a vacation because he rarely took breaks and worked himself to death often. In the end, he did go, and it didn't help that Femke knew he had a minuscule crush on Lovino though— of his good mutual friends—and enticed him with the idea of maybe starting a relationship with him. Even though it was supposed to be his vacation, Henry couldn't help but check up with his professors (who also thought he deserved a break, seeing as Henry didn't miss a day of classes at all since he started medical school and always exceeded the expectations in his work) and see what his fellow peers were learning now. After all, he didn't want to get too far behind.

His siblings and friends looked at him as if he were a lunatic, even Pelze and Lovino's cat, Romano, named after where the Italian had found him.

"Henry, take a break," Ned demanded, breaking the brief silence and snatching his phone.

Femke agreed fiercely, "Yeah! You and everyone here knows that you work too hard and need it, or your brain will end up dead! Spend some time with us won't you? Even Pelze looks a little lonely..." Her jade orbs with flecks of green apple flew over to the dog who whined in confirmation, nudging the male's arm affectionately.

Scratching Pelze's ear, Henry sighed. "Okay, okay, I get it... I'll use my break. Happy?"

"Fuck yeah," Lovino grumbled. "Don't be like Potato Bastard One, too caught up in his work to even pay attention to his own stupid brother."

"He's the Chief of Police in Rome, Lovino," Ned stated, tossing the model a mild scowl. "It isn't an easy job to do." The spiky-haired man would know because he often worked side by side with the German male previously mentioned, as he was one of the best detectives in all of Italy. Ludwig was the chief's genuine moniker, and usually, he was cooped up in his office at the police station or at home with a plethoric pile of police reports. However, he would sometimes go out on patrol in his patrol car, help Ned out with a case, or vice versa. For some reason unbeknownst to the Dutchman, Lovino regarded Ludwig with detest.

"Whatever, I don't care."

"You know, Ludwig's not that bad," Eliza said. "He's a pretty nice guy once you get to know him. Can't judge a book by its cover!"

Before Lovino could reply, a sudden, deafening clap of thunder intervened, causing the Italian to jump. Surprise and fear clutched his heart with their clammy claws tenaciously, whimpers escaped his lips and shudders shot up his spine. He desperately hoped it wasn't a sign of a thunderstorm; he was terrified of them, and didn't want to seem like some scaredy-cat in front of his friends. Silently, he thanked God that no one else was on the plane save for his four friends along with his feline and Henry's dog. The embarrassment would be much worse if other people were on it, and Lovino wasn't sure how he'd handle it.

More thunder boomed, and blinding flashes of white accompanied it, making Romano the cat screech in terror and cling to his owner who was trembling vehemently and struggling not to get up and go hide somewhere he deemed was "safe." He was sure the fright showed on his face, and through his body language. Unfortunately for Lovino, his comrades had their green and chocolate (Pelze) gazes fixed on him and his pet in concern and bemusement, having captured his reactions to the thunderstorm.

"Lovino, you okay?" Femke inquired, cocking her cranium to the side. "You look really pale all of a sudden..." she informed him, worry slithering into her voice.

The Italian male insisted with poor confidence, "O-of course I'm fine, dammit... Wh-why w-wouldn't I be?"

"Because you're usually not that pale," Henry said, placing a comforting hand on Lovino's shoulder. "You're shivering too. It's okay to be afraid of thunderstorms, you know, you don't have to hide it."

Obstinately, Lovino mumbled, "I-I'm not scared of something stupid like that..."

Pelze hopped down from her seat next to her owner and padded over to the frightened male, nuzzling into his leg soothingly. She pawed at Romano genially, attempting to calm him as well, but was rewarded with a warning hiss. The canine only whined and lolled her tongue in apology.

"See? Even Pelze says it's alright to be scared." Henry's mellow voice made Lovino snap his head up to look at said male, a rare microscopic smile conquering his lips as he saw the blond grinning at him encouragingly. He could feel a rosy blush gently skittering onto his face as he noticed Femke watching them from not too far away, beaming. Lucky for him, Ned and Eliza weren't paying attention, as they were engrossed in their own conversation.

"Shut up," was grumbled by the auburn-haired Italian as he glared at the ceiling. The smile that graced his features had dissipated.

The pilot abruptly came on over the intercom, "Um, Mr. Vargas and friends, please have your seat belts on. As you might've heard from outside, we're in the midst of a strong storm, and I'm doing our best to try and get us out of it, but..." he trailed off, unable to finish before another trident of lightning with the addition of thunder bellowing struck, jarring the plane violently and making Lovino and his companions jump out of their skins.

"Th-that couldn't have been good!" Femke exclaimed, hooking onto Eliza's arm with one hand and her seat with the other as the aircraft sharply sloped into descent, thrusting everyone aboard into the vacant ocean-blue and elephant seats in front of them.

The Hungarian yelled over the thunder, "You think?!"

Frantic furry paws scaled up Lovino's body and curled up around the back of his neck, digging keratin claws into his shoulders desperately in fright, but Romano's owner didn't pay attention to the pain constantly prodding him with searing thin spears. Whining emanated from between his legs, for Lovino was involuntarily squishing a mound of snowy fur against the seat in front of him. His own fingers clutched the baby blue fabric thinly striped with a deeper blue of Henry's shirt, his breath hitched in his throat as trepidation and anxiety completely seized him.

Screaming, yowling, and barking filled his ears. Then, an obsidian abyss of agony swallowed him up.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Antonio jerked his head past the curtain of leaves that guarded the cutout window of his treehouse, crystalline drops of rain plummeted into his soft, chocolate nest of hair. His green eyes that were brighter than the green of macaw feathers scanned the dense vegetation and diverse trees clustered together. He could see nothing abnormal from his position, but had heard a sound louder than the thunder that still rumbled overhead that made him and his little brother scared to death. The weird sound had silenced all the animals of the rainforest.

"Stay here," he turned his head and said in his native tongue, Spanish, to the mound under the golden pelt dappled with black rosettes, cradling the spots within it. Without another word, he clambered out the window and scrambled up the nearest tree, jumping onto taller ones and scaling those when he had to with ease and practiced phalanges, hands, and feet.

Drenched to his bones with rainwater that relentlessly plunged into and past him, Antonio finally made it to the top of a tree where he could see leagues and leagues of trees huddled around him. The melancholy clouds continued their crying, lashing out occasionally with their multi-colored whips of electricity, but he payed no attention to that. Almost in seconds, his eyes had caught the plume of smoke in the distance.

That wasn't good.

He slid down the tree until he landed on a thick, sturdy branch, and began his set of rainforest gymnastics that consisted of a mixture of hopping from branch to branch, swinging on vines and more branches, and swinging himself on other limbs of trees to gain enough power to fling himself to another vine or wooden appendage. Antonio flew through the rainforest at a breakneck pace, only stopping every now and then to climb up a tree and make sure he was going the right way. His arms weren't even the slightest bit tired because he did these exercises daily ever since he'd witnessed monkeys trying to evade capture during a hunt with his family. Carefully, he had studied those movements, and tried to replicate them. It didn't go too well at first, but after some practice, he was a little better at traveling like the animals he'd eaten that day. Then when he'd grown and more time passed, his abilities were equal to the monkeys, and Antonio's entire family was proud of him. The man was proud of himself as well, of course.

Finally, he arrived at the source of the smoke: mountains of silver and white scraps of a strange substance were scattered around everywhere in piles in the freshly made but cluttered clearing. Most of the chunks were being ravaged by fire, which was probably yielding all the smoke that stung Antonio's eyes like the bite of a viper and made him hack as he inhaled the toxic onyx fumes. Since the object had crashed and destroyed the trees previously occupying its location though, the rain quickly tackled the flames faster than it would have with the trees upright. Already, he could see the bright, scalding orange and yellow diminishing gradually.

"Mr-mrow..."

His ears ensnared the weak mewl, compelling him to go closer to the center of the wreck of what seemed to be some kind of a bird? Maybe one of those big birds his beautiful Daniella had told him about once. He couldn't remember the name of the object in her weird words, but he extracted the information from his brain that people often rode them to get from one place to another. So if this was one of those things, then that soft sound meant there was someone, or something on board!

Antonio started to toss the warm sectors of smooth skin and the odd blue entrails of the bird over his shoulder, holding his breath, trying to keep out the deadly smoke. He kept tossing away (even some burning ones), hearing the mewling crescendoing until finally, he spotted a fuzzy creamy-furred creature with a russet back on all fours with a tail, prodding and pulling at another human with its teeth, a male who seemed to be slumbering.

Stooping, he grabbed the creature which only hissed at him, and put it down not too far from the carcass of the bird. Next, he went back for the male and brought him back over to the creature who curled up next to the unconscious male and pawed at him sluggishly. Upon further scrutiny, Antonio realized both of them had a weird curl protruding from their fur/hair, and were littered with cuts and injuries. At first he thought that he should take them back to his shelter to help them, but then figured there were probably more people trapped in the carcass of the bird. There was no way he'd be able to save them all in time if he took the creature and the man home. The rest would either die from the last of the flames, or be suffocated from the weight of the skin and entrails, which were pretty heavy, unlike any bird Antonio had seen.

Putting his fingers to his lips, he blew an earsplitting whistle. The creature beside the unconscious male glared at him halfheartedly, and Antonio smiled apologetically before signaling to the saffron beasts coated with black rings surrounding tiny spots that emerged stealthily from the shadow of the uncrushed trees that circle them. The small creature abruptly got to its paws in alarm and unsheathed its claws, but the Spaniard calmed it with a few scratches behind the ear.

"Everyone, please search through the bird's body to see if there is anything else like me, or them!" the man requested in Spanish, pointing to the other male and his companion. "Try to avoid the fire as much as you can!"

A grunt from a male missing three-quarters of his tail and an eye with claw markings on its side and face sent the other felids scrambling over to the strange bird. They picked up pieces of the skin and the flesh in their maws, and then tossed them aside, trying to help out Antonio who was assisting them in the search too, and briefly warned them on the sharp parts of skin.

As time passed, they had gradually recovered people, and finally ended up with a total of four males, and two females, all bashed up. In addition to them, they'd also found another creature, larger than the first one Antonio had found, with a white matted coat. After some more scavenging, it was confirmed that nothing else, or no one else, was in there. All of the fires were finally swallowed up by the rain which persistently continued its relentless siege, even now. Another pro was that the clouds finally stopped screaming and lashing out at the world below. Most of the toxic smoke had vanished to wherever it was destined to go, but the Spaniard, and he was pretty sure his animal comrades too, could smell its nasty lingering odor.

Antonio sneezed. He sniffed a few times and sneezed again, trembling a tad. The rain was finally catching up to him, and he figured it would be best to head back to the treehouse and his brother.

Turning to his friends, he thanked them for their assistance and dismissed some of them, watching them melt into the shadows of shrubs and trees. As for the rest, he asked them to help him carry the injured humans back to his home politely. They accepted, grunts of slight annoyance following as they struggled to get the humans on their backs, succeeding after a few moments.

The green-eyed brunet went over to the smaller of the two creatures they'd found which was now slumbering, and scooped it up along with the first male he'd found. He set the creature down on the male's abdomen, and started back home.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Heyo, everyone! Well, that was the first chapter! :3 I hope you enjoyed it, because I enjoyed writing it! More shall be on the way soon~! C;

~Wolf