"So this is real?" asked Mang.

Cooky - who was standing at the foot of the beds - nodded his head as he looked at the others seated upon it. Tata had helped him to wake the others up to their new reality; some harder to wake than others. Hearing the 'click' of the bathroom door as it opened up, Cooky turned his head to the side to see Tata emerge with a wet washcloth over his eye from having been accidentally elbowed by Chimmy.

"But how?" asked RJ as he ran his hands along his white sweatshirt; a small pout forming upon his full lips. "I'm not fluffy anymore."

Chimmy looked at Tata standing beside Cooky. His face colored with a blush at the sight of the washcloth.

"I'm sorry, Tata. I didn't mean to."

"You're fine," said Tata. He brought the washcloth away from his eye, squinting it and trying to focus on the abstract art on the wall behind the beds. "I don't think you broke it."

"As odd as this is, the better question is where are our owners?" asked Koya, directing them back to the topic at hand.

"They were taken last night," said Cooky. "Don't you remember?"

"I do remember those ninja men..." said Chimmy, "And our owners certainly didn't seem to want to go with them...Are they okay?"

"We don't know," said Shooky, "Which is obviously why Koya was asking the question."

"Right," said Chimmy, blushing again as he tucked his hands into the sleeves of the yellow sweatshirt he was wearing.

"I wanted to stop those men last night, but I couldn't," said Cooky, remembering how Lorelei had dropped him as she had been unceremoniously dragged out of the room, "But now we can do something about it. We've got to while we can."

"But what exactly do we do, Cooky? We don't even know where those men took them," said Mang.

"Now that we're men, we've got to figure something out," said Cooky.

As silence settled in the room, a distinctive gurgling sound could be heard. Mang looked down at his stomach where the source of the noise was coming from. His eyes widened into two large saucers as he placed his hands on his stomach.

"I think I have a monster in my belly!" Mang shouted in alarm; everyone except Shooky looking at Mang in concern.

"It's not a monster," said Shooky. "That's your body telling you you're hungry. I should know. Iris gets cravings all the time even though she wants to keep dieting."

"But it sure sounds like a monster!" insisted Mang as his stomach growled again.

"Okay, new plan," said Cooky as he rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. "We split up into two groups. One group will go try to find food while the other group will report our owners missing."

"I dib being in the food group!" said Mang as he shot one hand up into the air. "I don't wanna die!"

- - -

"Cooky, are you sure that we should be doing it this way?" asked Tata as he followed Cooky towards the hotel's reception desk. "What if we get in trouble?"

"Why would we get in trouble for reporting our owners missing?" asked Cooky.

"It'd probably be wise to not say they are our owners," spoke up Shooky who walked a few steps behind them. "Humans don't have owners."

"True," said Cooky, coming up a few feet short of the reception desk. He turned to look at Tata and Shooky. "What do we say then?"

"Just say some women we were hanging out with the other night appear to have disappeared," said Shooky. "I mean, surely something like that should work."

"Right...okay. That sounds better," said Cooky as he turned back around and walked towards the reception desk.

The receptionist that had checked the seven ladies in before was the same one that was working at that current moment. She looked up as Cooky, Tata, and Shooky stood before her.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" asked the receptionist as she fixed the three handsome men before her with a kind smile.

"Hello, yes. We'd like to report some women missing please," said Cooky.

The receptionist didn't know whether to take him seriously at first or not considering how polite he was being about it.

"Who exactly are you reporting missing?"

Cooky proceeded to list the names of their seven owners; recognition filling the receptionist's face.

"We were hanging out with them last night," continued Cooky. "They were gone this morning."

The receptionist nodded as she looked from Cooky to Tata. She couldn't help but to notice his black eye.

"How did you get your black eye?" asked the receptionist.

"Oh! One of my friends accidentally elbowed me because..."

The rest of Tata's sentence was cut off as Shooky moved to put his hand over Tata's mouth. Obviously it wouldn't be a good idea to tell this receptionist exactly what happened. However, the receptionist misunderstood the action.

"You didn't see anything suspicious last night, right?" asked Cooky as the receptionist shook her head, trying her best not to look afraid of them.

"Well - if you think you did - come to us first please."

"Of course," said the receptionist as she pasted a smile on her face as she watched the trio walk off.

'Criminals are getting more brazen and stupid with each passing day,' thought the receptionist as she picked up the phone to call the police.

- - -

RJ, Chimmy, Mang, and Koya were all standing behind a pillar in the lobby, poking their heads around it to watch a patron of the hotel at the vending machine. They watched as he bent down to pick up the chocolate bar that had just fallen to the bottom of the machine.

"How did he do that?" asked RJ with a whisper.

"Paper magic," responded Chimmy who had seen the man stick a paper bill into the machine.

"But we don't have any paper magic," said Mang before groaning when his stomach growled loudly again.

They stayed there as the man walked off and another one came over to the machine. Like the person before him, he slipped a paper bill into the machine and they all watched as the machine sucked the bill in. Unlike the person before him though, this man's food got stuck against the window glass. Irritated, the man moved to slap his palms against the front of the vending machine a few times before the food fell to the bottom.

"Maybe we need to try that," suggested Koya. "That seems to work too."

The four of them emerged from behind the pillar as the second man walked off. They walked over to the vending machine and soon stood before it. They eyed all the choices, recognizing a few of the candy bars within from their owners. RJ tried to move to smack his palms against the window glass, wincing immediately.

"Ow! That hurts!"

"Let me try," said Koya as he moved to step forward. Chimmy and RJ stayed by Mang who was hugging his stomach as it growled again. The three of them watched Koya grab it by the sides and try to shake it.

"HEY! What do you four think you're doing?"

Koya stopped his actions and the four of them all turned in unison to face the angry looking security guard coming their way.

"We're just hungry," said Koya. "We're looking for something to eat."

"I feel like I'm gonna die," added Mang as the security guard looked at the four of them.

"Do none of you have money?" asked the security guard.

"Is money what that paper magic is called?" asked Chimmy.

'These four need to lay off whatever they are taking,' thought the security guard as he nodded his head.

"No then. We don't have any," said Chimmy.

"Please save us from the tummy monster," said Mang, even though he had been told several times it wasn't a monster eating him alive.

"Here," said the security guard as he dug a few dollars out of his pocket, handing it to them. "Just promise me you will stop using whatever you're on."

"Sure," said Koya as he took the money. "Thank you, sir."

The security guard walked off on the four of them shaking his head, leaving them to figure out how to feed the money into the machine to get their food.