As the tram clumsily slammed the brakes, bodies tumbled in various directions, and one came sliding from underneath a bench.

		[i]One, two, three, four...[/i]

	Before anyone could fully process that their numbers had increased by one, and that the one coated in a black, tar-looking substance was not a corpse, Number Five suddenly unfurled into a catlike creature, filling the tram with more gurgling shrieks of alarm as it leapt through a broken window, morphed into something more humanoid, and quietly skittered up a nearby column and into the mess of pipes, vents and cables above. It let out one more, quieter gurgling noise, a mewling sound that seemed almost apologetic as it disappeared from sight.

[hr]

	Well, [i]that[/i] went horribly wrong. Maji had hoped that someone, by chance, would have noticed the cute girl sleeping under a bench and said something. That certainly would've made introductions much easier than if someone had seen her in rat form, or if she had tapped someone's shoe to try to get their attention. Maji wasn't sure why she hadn't been worried about how trigger happy those two boys might be, until she was [i]already[/i] under the bench. Maybe the thought of meeting one of her own kind had made her go a bit silly in the head. Perhaps she'd even imagined, just for a moment, that she might be a familiar face, even though the scent wasn't familiar at all.

	But then, as she was scampering through the vents, she [i]was[/i] hit with a familiar scent.

		[color=#B57EDC][i]...It's Lea! Or at least, it's the medbay, which also smells like Lea![/i][/color]

	Emboldened by the prospect of company, food, medical supplies, and at least the illusion of safety, Maji picked up the pace, and made perhaps a little too much noise as she crawled through the ceiling of the room where Lea was. Moving from the ceiling vent down to the wall vent behind a nearby desk, a pair of hoofed feet kicked the vent cover open, then meshed together and morphed into the head of a girl with long, bluish-black hair and pointed ears. Curious eyes darted here and there, peeping around the corner of the vent, then over the top of the desk, until she found who she was looking for. Eyes lit up, and Lea was met with a toothy grin.

		[color=#B57EDC]"Ah-ohh~♪"[/color] the Sapishte greeted cheerfully with a burbling chirp.

	It was highly unusual to see Maji without her escort: the mysterious lab man who had no official name, and went only by the pseudonym "Dr. Dirk," at least when speaking to Lea. He was a weird one who didn't speak much aside from strictly business, and when he did, it was usually to Maji, in some strange language only she could understand. When Lea asked Maji a question, Dirk would have to translate, and Maji was not allowed to ask Lea questions in return. It was difficult to learn much about her, other than that she seemed friendly, despite being "officially" a dangerous creature—formerly a dangerous criminal. It was hard to believe, given that she'd never shown any hostility, and would often smile at people, seemingly for no reason at all.

		[color=#B57EDC][i]I wonder if she knows that I'm a 'cat burglar?'[/i][/color] Maji thought.

	Speaking of which, there was that smile. [color=#B57EDC]"Nnheehee~"[/color] she giggled. But despite how happy she was to see Lea, her gelatinous coat was covered in all kinds of grime and filth, and even a few stray bits of broken glass. Her unexpected arrival was seemingly only yet another element of chaos resulting from whatever was going on in the cell blocks.