After days of being looked at and kept in the vet's office, the humans suddenly found themselves being carted off in large carriers once more.

The vets had played dirty trying to get them all in there. They hadn't fed them the night before, which certainly wouldn't have been out of the blue when in the arena, but after nearly a week in the vet's clinic, the humans had gotten quite used to being fed delicious jerky multiple times a day. So, as one could imagine, they were quite peeved that they didn't get supper.

It had made sense, however, when a carrier was propped up against their cages the next day. Both doors were open wide, and deep within the carrier, a bowl of jerky. Viktor was convinced he had seen heavenly light shining on it.

It really hadn't taken much more convincing to get them all into the carriers.

Now, they were all shoved into a vehicle, carriers stacked on top of each other. They were smaller than the ones they had come in, but still pretty roomy. They were long enough for Viktor to sit and stretch his legs, but not tall enough for him to sit up straight. He was slumped against the back of the carrier, knees bent.

Wherever they were going, it was a long way away. Viktor was bored. Thankfully, he was the carrier on the top of the stack. Pedro was in the carrier directly below him. Viktor drummed his fingers annoyingly loudly on the bottom of his carrier.

"I will break out of this thing and come up there," Pedro threatened, knocking harshly on the roof of his carrier.

"Will you turn the car around, too?" Ezekiel snarked lightheartedly.

"Yeah, I'd leave you on the side of the road," Pedro grumbled.

Viktor sighed dramatically, trying to force out the nerves of where they were going in that single breath. After a week of getting taken care of, he was pretty sure they weren't going to go back to any arena, but it was still nerve-wracking. Anything could go wrong. They had been stolen away in the middle of the day, after all. Of course, there had been a few thousand humans in their section of the corral; several going missing wouldn't have even been blinked at.

He shifted his legs again, stretching them out enough to touch the door. Ever since he had outgrown his shoes, Viktor's socks had taken a beating. They were nearly worn through. He kicked at the door uselessly. "I am going to go fucking crazy in here," Viktor declared, contorting himself so that his head was near the door and his feet at the back. Lying on his stomach, he looked out at the passing scenery from the back window of the alien car they were in.

"Tell me about it, kid," Aiko said.

Viktor closed his eyes, resting his head on his arms. He idly listened to the alien's conversations, mingled in with the humans' understandable ones. He must have dozed off somewhere in between because his carrier nearly fell off the stack when the vehicle came to a stop only a few seconds later. His body told him that at least another hour had passed, considering how stiff he felt. Blinking slowly, he watched as the back of the vehicle opened up to reveal an unfamiliar alien accompanied by one of the vets.

Most aliens Viktor had seen had all varied in some shades of deep red. They were darker, duller. Some had other hues mixed in their color, but they all erred somewhere on the red side of the color scale. The only exception he could recall seeing was Lilac, who had only the slightest hints of purple in her.

This alien was literally fucking pink.

"Wow," he heard someone say.

Enamored, Viktor hardly even minded that they started lifting carriers eagerly. The new alien spoke with a soft voice, cooing at the humans. She was definitely female, going off of her voice. She wore an outfit of light blue that didn't clash too terribly with her skin. Unlike Lilac, she didn't have a tail. She was definitely way taller than Lilac but fell short of that official-looking alien's height who had visited the vet earlier in the week. It took the vet and the pink alien about twenty minutes of effort to get them all out of the vehicle. After they were on the ground, the vet went around and slammed a hand on top of the carriers.

Even if it was much quieter than what he had heard at the arena, Viktor still flinched despite himself. His heartbeat tore viciously at his throat, feeling as though it was about ready to jump out. He reassured himself that nothing was happening to him and tried to still the shaking of his hands by threading his fingers in between the bars on the carrier door.

The vet activated something on the carriers that caused them to move seamlessly over the ground. Viktor peered out, trying to get a glance at another carrier. He blinked in surprise as he saw it had sprouted wheels from the sides. "Huh," he said to himself, feeling himself move as he got pushed forward.

Nervous, Viktor shuffled back into the carrier some more. He wished he had his blanket with him. Why was he always the one to go into freaky new buildings first? He eyed it warily. The building looked large from the outside and turned out to be even larger on the inside. The smell is what hit him first.

It smelled exactly like the warehouse.

Suddenly, his cage looked a bit too much like the one he had stayed in for almost a year. The carrier underneath him felt a bit too much like the ground he had slept on. The bandages on his neck felt a bit too tight, a bit too constricting. He swore he could feel zips of electricity running down his spine. He could hear the chattering and roaring of the aliens in the crowd, chanting his name for a rematch.

Viktor pressed his hands to his eyes, breathing unevenly. A broken sound tore out of his throat and distantly, he realized that the carrier stopped moving. He heard movement to his left, and reflexively, he lashed out with a fist. He felt it hit something solid and recoiled, hissing in pain. There wasn't any time for feeling pain, now, though. He needed to move. He tried getting up to get away from the beast he was fighting, but he felt something hard pressing against his back. Panicked, Viktor started kicking and punching at whatever was touching him. He wouldn't die in this arena, he refused.

Everything, suddenly, went dark. His senses slowly came back to him. All he smelled was dust, not the straw coating the warehouse floor nor the scent of the other animals. He wasn't in the arena, pinned down by something heavy. He was kneeling in the carrier, pressing himself into the walls of it.

His harsh breathing had deafened him to the outside sounds, but as he slowly forced himself to take even breaths, he could hear people outside his carrier speaking to him.

"Viktor, that's it. You're safe, here. We aren't in the arena, and you aren't fighting anything. You're safe." The mantra repeated over and over.

Viktor breathed through his nose, lips tightly pressed together. Unable to trust himself with speaking, he let out a loud "mhm" to let the others know he was fine. He felt ashamed. Hot embarrassment crept up his neck. Why did he feel like this? The others didn't seem to have nearly as bad a time with the aliens as he did. They didn't freak out at the slightest of smells or sounds, so why did he?

He stewed in his own embarrassment for a while longer. His heart rate finally got under control as the blanket on top of his carrier (which had thankfully been the reason he had been able to calm down in the first place) was removed slowly. He saw the vet bend down and peek into the carrier. Viktor blinked. The vet blinked back.

It said his name and then some other nonsense. Viktor was done listening, though. He tucked his head on top of his knees, wrapping his arms around his legs. Listlessly, he watched as the vet went out of view. He eyed the door with suspicion as it clicked open in response to a light thump on the top of his cage.

He was right to be suspicious as the vet peeked back in and started reaching into the cage. Viktor bared his teeth and kicked blindly, not wanting to be touched right now. The vet sighed, straightening. He heard the vet and the pink alien talk for a moment before he felt himself moving again. They wheeled him into a large pen. The other carriers were already in there. As soon as the carrier stopped moving, Viktor nearly jumped out of his skin as Aiko appeared at the entrance of the carrier.

"C'mon, kid," she said kindly, reaching a hand out to him. He took it.

He was tucked under her arm when he got out. The others all smiled at him sympathetically. Pedro hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Nikolas. "He pissed all over himself the first time he went in. You were still passed out, but he made us promise not to talk about it."

"What the hell, man." Nikolas slapped Pedro on the arm. "Fucker was scary, though."

"I cried like a baby when those vets had me on the exam table. It all caught up to me up there," Aiko said.

Viktor nodded mutely, feeling a bit better about his... freak-out in the carrier. Still, the shame wouldn't leave him, hanging over him like a cloud. He offered them a weak smile, which they returned. He took a look at his surroundings instead. They were a corner of what looked to be a giant pet store.

What the hell. His day could not get any worse. A pet store?

"Man, I thought you were joking when you said we'd be an exotic pet or something," he spoke up, glancing at Ezekiel. The big man was watching the aliens carefully. They were milling around, watching them acclimate to their surroundings. Ezekiel shrugged, lifting his hands in a 'what can you do?' gesture.

They were in a half-walled room. The only way in and out of the room was blocked off by a six-foot fence that looked quite like chicken wire. Viktor snorted. They could easily climb out of here. On top of the half walls were windows that reached all the way up to the ceiling.

The inside of the room was nearly filled to the brim with all sorts of cool-looking stuff. A pile of blankets was stashed on the far side, and Viktor was tempted to just go over there and lay in them for a while. Multiple bowls lined the opposite side, filled with jerky and water. Man, Viktor loved this new jerky stuff, but he would kill for an apple right about now.

Licking his lips, he turned to face the majority of the room, extremely conscious of the aliens behind him. Even if they were separated by walls and windows, Viktor had never turned his back on one of them willingly.

The middle of the room had a variety of... toys. All sorts of things were littered throughout the room. A tunnel that someone could crawl through. A small jungle gym that was probably no taller than he, though it was vastly different than anything seen back on Earth. The shapes were hexagonal and the whole thing was shaped like a cylinder. Balls, strange feathers, noise makers, you name it.

Honestly, it looked like some little kid's paradise. Viktor hummed.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. His fist met a wall of muscle before he could register the action. He pivoted on his heel quickly, taking a hasty step back. "Oh my god, I am so sorry," Viktor said, his hands hovering a bit uselessly over Pedro as the man was bent at the waist, wheezing.

Pedro waved a hand silently. He took a strangled breath of air, before coughing a few times. "Got a good punch there," he wheezed.

"That's why you don't sneak up on people," Aiko said snippily, ball in hand. She chucked it at the aliens, who were standing behind the window and looking as if they were about to come in. They jumped a bit in surprise but did nothing, merely talking to one another.

"Thought I was loud enough," Pedro grumbled, straightening up after a while, rubbing his chest.

"I-" Viktor started, but stopped as the other man's hand slapped onto his mouth.

"Don't apologize, kid. Come here," he said, moving his hand to drape his arm over the teen's shoulder, dragging him over to the food dishes. Pedro picked up a water bowl and handed it to Viktor, who obediently drank out of it. After eating a few pieces of jerky to appease him, Pedro nodded, grabbing the dish and taking it to the others. Viktor felt a bit better with food in his stomach.

Viktor scratched at his bandages, mindlessly. They were extremely itchy. Couldn't they come off by now? He started to peel the one off his arm, inspecting the wound underneath. Oorah's bite had done some heavy damage, so it should've been no surprise to see the vicious scarring along his arm. Frowning, Viktor completely peeled the bandage off, wondering idly where to put it.

A sudden bang on the glass made him jump out of his skin. A harsh "Kohgrash!" met his ears, and he fell into a crouch, whirling around to watch the alien that had called his name. The vet looked angry, but the expression melted off his face and turned to something... guilty? Viktor frowned, but after a few minutes of staying close to the ground and seeing that the alien wasn't going to come over, he got back up, quickly walking over to the others. He stuck himself to Pedro's side.

They noticed the discarded bandage and his scar, confusion at the loud noise and yell clearing away when they realized what the cause of it had been. They sat on the ground, and Viktor got acquainted with the other humans that he had been unable to see or talk to in the warehouse. Zach, Skylar, and Maeve. He felt a bit out of place when surrounded by all of the fit, muscled people. He was still a scrawny kid, despite the lean muscles he had gained while in the arena.

The aliens soon left them alone afterward. The vet had gone home, leaving them in this new place. The pink alien could be seen puttering around for a few more hours before she, too, finally went to her own home, leaving the pet store cascaded in dim lighting. They could faintly hear other animals calling, hooting, and howling in different parts of the building. It made him slightly sick at first, but soon became part of the background, just as it had been like in the arena.

"Pet store, huh?" Ezekiel mused, leaning back against the plastic tunnel. He had finally gotten it to stay in place after wrestling with it for over an hour. He looked very proud. Viktor was tempted to kick it out from behind him.

"I ain't gonna be someone's damn pet," snorted Zach, crossing his arms. He looked like he could be in a motorcycle gang. Tattoos lined his arms, quite like Ezekiel's. He had a long beard. It must've been bitten off at some point in the arena, though, as it looked pretty choppy.

Some of the others muttered their agreement. Viktor silently agreed. He wanted to stay in one place and wait for some sort of rescue. It had sounded hopeless in the arena, but since they had done the impossible and gotten out, he had some sort of hope that rescue would be on its way. He would definitely be found in a public place like a pet store and less likely to be found in some private home.

He didn't even want to imagine being someone's pet. He was a human being, for Pete's sake!

Sighing, Viktor shuffled closer to Pedro, propping his head on the other man's shoulder. They would just have to see where this whole pet store endeavor went. With these aliens viewing them as nonsentient, there wasn't much they could do. They could act undesirable, but how much was too much, and they were euthanized like animals? It worried Viktor.

Despite his worries though, he found himself nodding off. He heard Pedro speaking, felt a shove on his shoulder. He grunted in response, sitting up with his eyes still closed.

"What," he grouched.

"Kid's sleepy. Someone, get a blanket!" Ezekiel said, still precariously leaning on the plastic tube. Viktor kicked it.

"You get it," he said, cracking open an eye to smile smugly at the man, who was flat on his back after emitting a sharp yell of surprise.

After shaking his fist at Viktor, Ezekiel graciously grabbed an armful of blankets, dragging nearly the whole pile over to where the humans were situated. Getting comfortable, they all decided to call it a night, each claiming a blanket for their own. The carpet on the floor was nice enough that they didn't mind sleeping on the floor. They've slept on worse, after all.

Viktor shuffled next to Pedro and Aiko, barely managing a 'goodnight' before he went out like a light.