"-be the strain."

"How high up was he?"

"Not enough to knock him out, and he was above the slime fall." As Ollie slowly came into consciousness, he recognized one of the voices to be Thomas's. The other two he didn't know. He tried to open his eyes, but they were glued shut.

"There must be more to these wings than we think. What if he is trapped in between morphs and this blackout is to signify he needs to shift into one soon?"

"You think there will be any consequences to these combined morphs?" A fourth voice that sounded like Chris came into the conversation.

"It's hard to tell. But the fact that he was able to make them go away temporarily tells me that he has more to him than he realizes."

At this point Ollie gave up on trying to open his eyes. Instead he listened carefully, positive that if they knew he was awake they wouldn't tell him these things.

"I'm sure he does realize now." Chris's voice twinkled making Ollie flinch. Did Chris know? Ollie wouldn't put it past him.

"Okay..." Thomas trailed off, clearly not catching on to what Chris was talking about.

"Our friend here is awake." Chris clarified.

"Wait, what? How did I not notice? I'm the doctor for morphs sake!"

Ollie finally managed to open his eyes and he gave Chris a sheepish smile. Chris returned it with a genuine smile and turned to the other three people in the room.

"You should learn to be more observant Scar."

"Yeah, I know. I'm not exactly the most observant." The person called Scar wrapped stethoscope around his neck. He wore a pristine white lab coat over a loose light blue shirt. Paired with black jeans, Scar looked like a doctor. It looked like he earned his name from the various mars on his arms visible from the rolled up of his lab coat sleeves.

"Ollie that is Daniel over there." Chris pointed at the last person in the room.

"Hey dude." Daniel gave him a huge grin. "Heard you took quite the fall. Wouldn't know what that is like myself, I don't shapeshift into flyers. But I figured my buddy Scar here would need help."

Scar rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. "Neither would I, but I'm the doctor here, so I have to be able to help anyone."

"That's why Thomas and I are here." Chris spun his chair back to Ollie. "Do you mind laying on your stomach?"

Ollie complied wincing at the pain that his wings emitted.

"How do your wings go through your clothes?" Chris gently ran his fingers over Ollie's wings, searching for any breaks.

"They just kind of slip through. No matter what I wear." Ollie shrugged.

"So I need to see if there is anything wrong with the base of your wings, but I can't see that through your thick sweater."

Ollie caught Chris's hint and wiggled out of his shirt easily. His skin was very pale and pasty, sticking close to his bones. In fact, he could count his ribs without sucking in his gut. He had checked.

"Do you get enough to eat?" Chris's cold hands triggered shivers up his spine.

"Yeah, my parents used to say I have a roaring fast metabolism." Ollie sighed. "Just means that I can eat practically anything and not gain a pound. I also can't gain muscle."

"You're one of the lucky ones as they would say then." Daniel crunched on something.

"Hey Chris?" Ollie still felt pain in his back as Chris was making sure everything was okay.

"Yes?"

"I don't have any belongings or clothes other than these."

"Oh, that won't be a problem. I've already got you set." Chris pressed down lightly on the small of Ollie's back. "Does this hurt?"

"A little." Ollie admitted as pressure was released. "But that was already hurting."

"Hmmm, Scar?" Chris turned to the doctor. "Do you see this?"

"See what?" Ollie tried to stretch his head to see his wings unsuccessfully. Everyone ignored him.

"Yeah I see it, I think my theory was right."

Chris turned to Ollie with a grim look on his face, helping him up into a sitting position.

"You'll be fine for now." Chris gave him a smile to mask what he had just seen. "But I think we will need to get you into one of your morphs and back. This appears to be very strenuous on your body, so we need to train you to shapeshift."

Ollie didn't think that was too dire, but his wings hurt way more than they should, so he was having second thoughts.

"For now you will need to rest yourself." Chris handed Ollie his shirt back. "Perhaps meet some of the other people if you're up to it."

"Aside from some pain, I think I'll be fine." Ollie slowly got up from the bed and put his sweater back on.

Chris opened the door of the room, letting Ollie see the living room from before. This time though, it was filled with people, chatting amiably. Aside from Ryan and Nick, Ollie didn't recognize anyone else in the room. There were four women in the room, scattered among everyone else. The one with shoulder length brown hair caught his eye and got up to greet him.

She happened to be sitting next to Nick, who also got up when he saw his friend. "I'm Grace!" Grace had the manner of a fond mother, and she clucked over his slightly crumpled wings.

"The one who made the ice sculpture?" Ollie wondered, even though there were only three other people in the room who could likely share the pretty name.

"Chris, you remembered!" Grace beamed happily, Ollie not failing to notice that she seemed to be naturally joyful. Her whole mannerism put him at ease, reminding him a little of his own mother, had she been a little younger

"Of course I did Grace." Chris chuckled. "I keep my promises."

"Well," Nick shuffled from next to Grace. "I'd introduce you to everyone else, but you took quite a fall there. We all kind of have our closer friends, but we are all pretty tightly knit anyway. Want to hang out with us?"

Ollie nodded as Thomas, Scar, and Daniel all went off to different areas of the small room. Chris stayed in the center, telling them he would join them in a second. Sitting on one of the chairs clustered around a couch, Ollie saw Ryan next to him.

"How are you feeling?" Ryan asked him, once he settled in a position that wouldn't pinch his wings.

"Pretty good, considering I fell from a pretty high place." Ollie replied as Nick and Grace sat on the couch leaving a space for Chris.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" Christopher announced from the center of the room, the chatter of the room coming to a hush. "Some of you know this already, but we have another person to join our ranks, Ollie."

A short round of applause followed everyone welcoming him to The Sanctuary. Once everyone was hushed again, Chris continued. "He was rescued by Nick, who noticed activity by Evil."

Mummers happened after that, and Chris finished up. "Please introduce yourself to him in your own time."

Chris started making his way back over to the little group once he was done with is speech.

"Is Chris your leader?" Ollie asked Ryan.

"No, everyone just looks to him for guidance and wisdom. He has kind of settled into the role of leader. After all, he founded this group. We all work together, instead of solely relying on one person."

Chris settled in on Nick's other side, and leaned forward. Ollie noticed that the helmet he wore before was nowhere to be seen. "What do you think of this place so far?"

"It's more than I expected," Ollie's eyes roved around the room, taking everything in. "Are you self-sustaining?"

"Yes, we are." Nick answered the question. "We have two groups that help keep this place running. The Engineers create new technology to harvest food, gather resources and upgrade things. Me, Chris, and Ryan are some of the Engineers. The other group is the architects. They gather resources and create buildings around our contraptions. The architects design systems around the basic functions. They are also really good at decorating."

Grace smiled at that and took one of her hands in Nick's. She was also wearing gloves, but hers were snow white and thin, up to her elbows. "I am an architect, and so are a few other people. I guess we'll see what you can do."

"Do you guys all wear gloves?" Ollie asked.

"Yes," Ryan replied, hesitating after Nick gave a very pointed cough. "It's to protect from morphing unexpectedly and to help hold swords or bows. I don't wear mine when I'm wearing my suit because it looks weird."

"Why do you wear a suit?" Ollie asked, certain that the suit would get mangled up with basic tasks.

"I'm a man of business." He replied, automatically adjusting the sleeves. "Before the whole mess happened I was the owner and founder of Architect Engineering ™. It's hard for me to transition when I'm working on the Star Dust contraptions."

"Wait," Ollie didn't realize his mouth was agape. "You're the owner of AE? The company that has revolutionized the way we build things!?"

"Well, yes, although the company likes to pretend I don't exist. My old CEO, you know him as Osborne, now runs the company. A portion of it goes into my account that my family can use. They don't know where I am, and they could care less. So it's hard for me to not wear my suit, despite the fact I don't wear gloves with them."

"Don't worry," Grace smiled at Ollie. "Hope over there is an amazing seamstress and can have some designed up before you can say ice."

"She's currently designing clothes for you Ollie, and soon she'll need to take your measurements. You'll have to borrow Scar's clothes for now, he is close to your size." Chris looked over at Hope and waved her over.

"Hello Ollie!" Hope shook his hand. Her gloves were black and had the look of a warrior with their rough edges open at the fingers. Hope's gloves also went up to her elbows. "Hope to see you on the flying course soon? I heard you have wings in your human morph."

Ollie simply nodded, kind of shy with all these new, friendly people. People like him, people ready to fight for him and with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So. Many. Names. So many different people, and he didn't even know their morphs yet. Heck, he barely knew where to go in this place. And now he had to figure out if he was a architect or an engineer. As if it wasn't hard enough originally figuring out what he wanted to do in life, now he had to start all over again. He highly doubted that these people needed a biologist/botanist on their side.

Ollie was sitting on the top bunk bed, looking for his sleepwear. Nick sat in his bed, already in a green hoodie and black and white sweatpants. Nick's clothes were over-sized on him, so when Nick offered Ollie a pair, he politely declined. He wasn't exactly chaffed to be swimming in fabric.

Ryan popped out of the bathroom holding his suit delicately. As he hung it up, Ollie noticed the wraps around Ryan's hands. They looked normal with the T-Shirt and grey sweatpants Ryan wore.

"Bathroom's free." Ryan plopped down on the bottom bunk with a sigh. Ollie found some suitable night wear and ran into the bathroom with them. "Long day, eh?"

Nick nodded as he folded his legs underneath him. "I wasn't expecting to find another morph there." He admitted.

"Yeah, you just went on a scouting mission. Did you have to use your morph?"

"No," Nick shook his head. "Evil didn't seem to want to face me. It was odd, almost as if he hadn't come to fight."

"Maybe he was only expecting one morph?" Ryan suggested.

"No, that can't be right. I might have horns, but I'm not that scary for a person like Evil." Nick rubbed his chin, stubble on it. "What if there is more the Evil than we thought?"

"Dude," It was Ryan's turn to shake his head. "Chris would have told us if there was something else. It was probably just a way to recruit Ollie or kill him if he refused."

Nick sighed as he leaned on the wall behind him. He knew Ryan had a point, and it was futile arguing. "Something just feels off. Evil knows what I can turn into, same with you. We aren't exactly impressive."

"Squid man and reindeer to the rescue!" Ryan chuckled. "I think Ollie has more to teach us, even if we don't know it yet. Combining morphs can be very useful. And I honestly doubt that his morph is a dragonfly. That would just be cruel."

"Oh and not being able to fly during the day, but you try it anyway isn't?"

"I forget!" Ryan protesting.

"Oh you forget." Nick mimicked as he threw a small pillow at Ryan. "How many times have you morphed?"

Ryan grabbed the pillow to retaliate when they heard a war cry.

"Pillow fight?" Ollie had a mischievous grin on his face. "Prepare to face your demise gentlemen!"

"Oh you're on!" Both Ryan and Nick replied, arming themselves.

Many pillow throws later, they got a knock on their door. "Boys..." Hope sighed when she entered. "I came to deliver the gloves to Ollie. I'll have to do a fitting check tomorrow, but trust me when I say you'll want them tonight."

Ollie accepted the gloves with curiosity. They were a honey color, practically the same as his hair, and had a scale pattern embroidered in white. They fit perfectly and his fingers popped out of the hole on the gloves. "These are perfect, thank you."

Hope blushed a little, and ran her fingers through her ginger hair. "I've always been able to tell what colors and style go with each person, and I gotta say Ollie, you have potential." She tipped her head a little and bade them goodnight, closing the door softly.

"Don't take that lightly." Nick told Ollie once Hope was gone. "She doesn't say that to a lot of people, and those gloves have more detail on them than I've seen before."

Rubbing the fabric, Ollie thought about how they actually felt like scales. He flexed his fingers, and the gloves moved easily with him, as if they were a second layer of skin. "Why do we need to gloves so badly?"

"Nightmares, unintentional transformations, and pain. Lots of pain." Ryan gave him a sympathetic look.

"Ryan!" Nick hissed. "Way to lay it out easy!"

Ryan shrugged, and stretched his back. "He had to know at some point. Plus he has the gloves, so I doubt it will be a problem."

"Do these have something in them?" Ollie climbed the ladder to his bunk and sat down.

"Yes, there is something in there called moon powder. It will cause an allergic reaction to anyone who is not a shapeshifter, but for the shapeshifters it provides protection." Nick pulled the switch to the light and wrapped himself in the covers. "Night."

Ryan muttered something about end magic being fickle before he responded. "Good night, fellows. By the way, Nick snores."

"I do not!"

"You only think that because you don't know you do it!"

Ollie snickered and snuggled into his sheets, not forgetting to call a goodnight as well.

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