From the time Abigail discovered the difficult truth of Rae's summer, another week had passed. For having met two friends from Outer Space, Rae's first week of school had been rather calm, serenely smooth, and relatively uneventful. He had spent a large portion of several of his evenings returning to the presidential suite of the Roan Maxis Hotel, helping the Aliens by tutoring them in the ways of humankind, and of course helping them with their homework.

And as is natural, for any cordial relationship in which people become accustomed to the company of one another, likewise were the Alien boys growing closer to Rae. Even Dasnir was beginning, ever so slightly, to show more tolerance and appreciation for his presence and help with their mission. Though the Prince still never showed any friendly affection towards Rae, at least they were slowly bonding in a working recognition of each other, and his tolerance of Rae's presence had increased.

Alas, no period of time in Rae's life should ever be so peaceful...

And so it was that, on the Monday evening of Rae's second week of his senior year, this period of unusual calm would come crashing to an end. For on that particular evening, Rae once again found himself encircled by a certain pack of dogs that never seemed to leave him alone for too long.

Monday's school bell had rung, and as is typical for the students of Roan, they had all run from their desks to board their transportation home. Rae, however, was not too swift this time; he had stayed behind to ask his World History teacher about details related to their first assigned project. After which, Rae ran down the stairs to hurriedly catch up to the place where he and his Warrior friends usually waited for their afternoon taxi.

There was an eerie silence as Rae stepped foot onto the plaza in front of West Roan High; he had taken so long that nearly all the other students had already left. But unfortunately for Rae, among the remaining stragglers were three Dogs and one Hound. Though the boys from the Top Dog gang had not been specifically waiting for Rae, they were more than happy to accost him anyways.

It was a rare occasion these days for the three Enforcers and The Hound himself, Ronnie Maxis, to be together in one place, especially in the open. The leaders of the notorious drug-pedaling, thieving, hustling, assaulting gang were standing huddled on a sidewalk which ran around the entire perimeter of the plaza. They had been discussing a sudden drop in Top Dog profits as the result of a recent crackdown. This was never meant to be a formal meeting, as they were still near school; however, Ronnie had just been giving his three Enforcers some brief instructions, about how he wanted to deal with the loss of influence in some of their territory. But during the middle of his briefing, his gaze caught the familiar image of a dirty-blonde, cat-eared, hoodie wearing boy emerging from the school a distance away from them.

Ronnie dropped the current topic and redirected his focus to a much more coveted subject. "Wes, how long has it been since the four of us beat the shit out of him together?" Ronnie's normally emotionless face was already contorted into a sick look-alike of a smile. It resembled that of a reptile just beginning to open its jaws.

"Boss?" Roland "The Bulldog" Douglas piped up dumbly, as he had not been paying attention, as per usual. The overgrown 19-year-old dumbass was leaning against the wall, his chubby bullish cheeks were shifted to the side to hold his evening cigarette.

"It's Rae you dullard. Why are you even here if you never pay attention?" Wes "The Shepherd" Wexler interjected.

"What do you want to do to him, Ronnie?" Kane "The Retriever" Olsen asked.

"Is that even a question? Of course you know what I want Kane..." Ronnie's head shifted back to look at his most loyal Enforcer. "...I want to hurt him..." The Hound's voice trailed off in a tone that was somewhat akin to lust, but was in fact no such thing.

Sometimes in life people are, for reasons only Fate may know, inextricably linked together by various forces, some of which are good and some of which are evil. Because Rae's suffering elated small hints of feelings, deep within Ronnie's warped brain, that he otherwise would never feel, he had developed this wicked attachment to the cat-eared boy. In a sick and twisted sort of way, Rae was Ronnie's favorite —his favorite play thing.

Much like a snake coils about a mouse and constricts it, before stretching open its mandible wide and greedily guzzling it down; so too, did Ronnie obsessively seek to devour Rae. But unlike the snake, Ronnie never ate the mouse; instead, in his grotesque and perverted glee, he simply preferred to stare at it transfixed. And as a result, Rae had been held there for so many years, forever on the brink of death sputtering and choking in agony.

Ronnie with the help of his Doggish-Devils had devised an inferno over which to dangle Rae for all eternity. That inferno had been built long ago when Ronnie first met Rae and before he even was known as the Hound...

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As a matter of fact, It started on the very first day of Rae's Elementary School life. Even before Rae had started school at age 6, he had always been made fun of for his physical differences from other kids, but it was not until that day long ago when Rae began an unsolicited quest down a pitiless, merciless, devilish path. For that is the day he met Ronnie Maxis —his very first friend.

There are many kinds of people in life, with various characteristics and traits, some of them rarer than others. But unfortunately for Rae, the boy who would befriend him first would be a very rare kind, indeed. Often when people refer to psychopathy, they do so in a figure of speech and not in the clinical sense. Ronnie's specialists who saw him at age 4, however, certainly did refer to the boy in the clinical sense. By that age Ronnie had strangled the puppy his mother had bought him for his birthday, set the Maxis mansion's living room on fire, and was found looming over the bed of his 6-year-old brother with a knife. His doctors told his parents the boy was the youngest case of Psychopathy they had ever seen. But Rae did not know these things, for what 6-year-old boy expects his first friend to be such a dangerous person at only 5-years of age.

After all, it had not been Rae that sought out Ronnie in the first place, it had been Ronnie that noticed Rae. The 1-year younger boy's family was ridiculously wealthy, yet they had sent him to a public school in hopes to socialize him further with other children his own age. But rather than humanize him, they provided Ronnie the perfect playground from which to pick the tastiest prey. The most innocent and unsuspecting kind of prey. A prey which wanted just one friend, because he had none, but instead received a predator.

You see, Ronnie had saved Rae, on that first day of school, from other kids who were picking on him. The huddled mass of young spiteful children encircled Rae poking, prodding, and mocking his tail and ears. Then why save him might you ask? Because Ronnie saw an opportunity to test the limits of human reaction to unexpected afflictions. Ronnie wanted this boy to himself, so that he could hurt him in far worse ways than teasing or pulling his ears.

Because of Ronnie's very nature as a person, he saw inventive paths to torture. If Ronnie had not been a psychopath, with a future as a gang leader, he might have been an Engineer or a Physicist, for he was always far and above the intelligence of his peers. So it was at that exact time, when Ronnie's hand first held out hope to Rae in a show of fake friendship that he had already devised a plan to crush that hope later.

Two years passed from that day when Rae met his first friend, and their group began to grow. Ronnie now had 3 other boys who hung about him during 3rd grade, it was these boys whose services he would employ many times as they grew up together. Their names were: Kane Olsen, Roland Douglas, and Wes Wexler. All three of these boys were relatively normal before they met Ronnie, but after they had fallen into his serpentine pit of charm they would submit to his leadership and be forever changed.

Ronnie never considered anyone his equal, which is why he referred to his friends as Dogs, although they believed this to be a playful jest. They were his servants, even though they did not yet know it, and by the time they did it would be too late. Ronnie had a great talent for hiding his true nature and mimicking the behavior of others, as well as assessing the essence of their character and manipulating them by his understanding of their own nature. He often saw people better than they saw themselves, and he showed them what they wanted to see in order to get what he wanted from them. But Ronnie was never excited by the character of any person, until he met Rae.

At that age, Rae was so quick to forgive and to trust. He was the kind of person who lived in every single moment, even though he was picked on sometimes. As well, Rae was an honest boy, and because Ronnie had saved him, he also discovered himself to be a very loyal type of person too. In short, one could say that Ronnie recognized Rae to be the exact opposite of him in every conceivable way. So it was because of this strange realization, when Ronnie finally got around to destroying Rae after two years of pretending to build him up, protect him, and be a loving friend; that Ronnie received a wicked reward: he felt feelings he had never felt before. They were not normal, nor healthy, nor as strong as one might expect from a person, but these tiny imitations of emotions tingled Ronnie's brain nonetheless. It was a sick sense of happiness, satisfaction, and excitement Ronnie got out of what he did to Rae, and like a hound who tasted blood he would crave it ever since.

At that age, Ronnie's "Dogs" wondered why their leader kept Rae so close under his wing. They all thought Rae to be a weird wussy freak with cat-like ears and a tail. None of the other kids would have even wanted to be near Rae if it were not for Ronnie being his friend. But during the last month of their 3rd grade year Ronnie showed them why he held Rae as a friend. That day he lured Rae out after school to an abandoned building nearby, and made sure his Dogs were present for the occasion. And it was there that Rae's eyes were opened to how cruel the world could be for the very first time.

Ronnie tied Rae to a cement pillar, and beat his 2-year-project to a bloody, bruised, and broken mess with a baseball bat, then he had each of his dogs beat him too. The swings of the bat were like a satanic scion straight from Ronnie's soul. The young Hound's green eyes were alight with sparkles of joyous zeal as he bashed his faux friend in barbarous commemoration. Each slam of Ronnie's bat was like a new stomach-turning serenade sung just for Rae. The psychopath's body rippled through the air of the hollow building, stirred the dust beneath his feet, and shook the bangs of his light-brown bowl-cut in an odious undulation. But Ronnie didn't even see the bat, nor did he hear the swings; he only saw Rae's tears, and heard his whimpering supplications. For Rae this moment was a descent into Hell, but for Ronnie this was a glimpse of Heaven.

It was then that Ronnie's future Enforcers decided never to cross him, as they watched a positively gleeful young deceiver unmask his true nature, and break Rae's ribs, arms, and legs. Doggy ears listened to the crunch of bone and the massacre of flesh reverberating through that hollow place. The pitched sound of screaming, questioning, and pleading from Rae as he stared up at Ronnie, would never leave their minds.

But it was not the physical pain he inflicted that excited Ronnie most, it was the look on Rae's face when he realized he meant nothing to the Hound. Rae was so trusting and loyal that it took several bones to break before he started to actually realize Ronnie's true nature. And even then, it was so unfathomable to young Rae that such a person could even exist, surely this must have been a mistake or a nightmare. Ronnie may have left Rae's blood on the floor there that day, but he left the boy's mind shattered into a million suspended pieces of pulverized glass that would follow him seemingly forever. And it was the best thing the young psychopath had ever seen.

Later that night, when Ronnie was finally done destroying Rae and leaving his broken never-had-been friend in front of the hospital, he leaned down to stare into Rae's bruised eyes and said: "Make sure you don't die, because I'm sure I'll want to see you again." Rae eventually healed, physically, and Ronnie was sentenced to 6 months house arrest and specialist therapy after that incident; he received light punishment because of his very young age and his parents' connections. But Ronnie didn't care about that, all he could think of was the next time he would get to see his favorite new chew-toy.

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So as unfortunate and cruel as it may be, it was not too much of a surprise to Rae that he should find himself gripped about the neck by the Hound, before he could make it down the stairs of West Roan. The Top Dogs had grabbed the boy, at the insistence of their Boss's desire, and pulled him back to a secluded area near the side of the school along the sidewalk, much as they had so many years ago.

Ronnie uncovered Rae's mouth and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Hello Rae, did you miss me?"

With an uncovered mouth, Rae spit in Ronnie's eye and began to struggle to get away.

"Ahhck— you fucking bitch!" Ronnie wiped his eye, and tightened his grip on the boy.

Ronnie's unsoaked eye shifted down in its socket and peered at the struggling boy. He thought something was a bit odd about Rae's demeanor; he was usually not this combative. The last time the Hound had seen his pet cat was 3 months ago, when he was banned from buying Tranqs, and the smaller boy had not fought his beating as he was doing now. There was some kind of renewed fire in his eyes, and Ronnie began to get excited...

"What's gotten into you, Twirp?" Ronnie frequently called Rae as "Twirp" because that is the nickname he had given him when he was pretending to be his friend. He just loved making Rae think of their past, to Ronnie it was even better than beating him.

"Fuck off Ronnie!" Rae bit down on his captor's arm.

Ronnie let out a small grunt as Rae bit him but did not let go. "I love this, you've made my fucking day!" That serpentine smile manifested as he peered down at his struggling mouse.

There was a swift swing of a motion as Ronnie flung Rae out away from him only holding him by the hand, as if to dance, but then with a cocked head and face full of joy he slammed the entirety of his leg into the smaller boy.

Rae doubled over onto his knees and clutched his stomach. He wheezed and winced but he was not about to give Ronnie what he wanted.

"Ohooo you're so feisty today, don't be a tease Rae, come on!" Ronnie taunted, in a singing tone. "I just need..."

The cobra arched itself up into the air drooling fangs dripping down, and diamond eyes locked in a spellbound hypnotic gaze.

"... to hear it... that sound you make. I want it."

And then it struck its helpless prey with lightning reflex and stinging precision.

Another kick befell the boy.

And then another.

And another.

Until Rae could not hold it any longer...

"AHHHHGGG!!!!!!"

"There it is, there it is..." Ronnie grabbed Rae's hair and jerked the boy's head back bringing hazel eyes to greet soulless emeralds. The snake held his mouse and peered into it, as if he were searching for something there. But he apparently did not find it, because he continued striking Rae, this time with his fists.

Ronnie's knuckles dug along the soft skin of Rae's cheeks and left a bruise; the boy's head flung sideways and spit escaped his mouth.

"This is so much fun Rae! This is the best! You're the best!"

Another punch. Another kick.

"Come on Rae! Beg! I want to hear you beg! If you do it I'll let you go—" Ronnie lied, but was interrupted by an intruder to this torrid affair.

"You should let him go, unless you want to die." The demand of a certain grumpy Prince rang out across the sidewalk, and disrupted Ronnie's good-time.