A non-descript tennis ball flew up, spinning in mid-air. Gravity quickly caught up with the tennis ball and it journeyed back down. A gloved hand snatched it out of the air, then, in the same motion, tossed it back up into the air. Up and down, over and over again. A never-ending circle.
"Would you please stop tossing that damnable tennis ball into the air?" An irritated voice broke through the silence like a knife cutting through butter. The ball hit the ground, rolling to gently bump against someone's feet. Another gloved hand reached down to pick it up. A rather irritated looking Dervish held the tennis ball in his hand, emerald eyes showing that he was most definetly not in a good mood.
"Well, we didn't have any Frisbees or I'd be tossing that instead." The Sheltie rolled his eyes at the nonchalant Star, who was holding her hand (paw?) out to him - obviously wanting her tennis ball returned. Dervish grumbled and dropped the ball into her outstretched hand, simutaneously pulling his leather jacket tighter around his upper body.
"Why is it always so cold in this friggin' base?" He voiced the question to no one in particular and, as expected, got no answer. He paced around the room for a few minutes then turned to face Star, who had resumed tossing the tennis ball in the air.
"And why are you here, anyways?"
"Well, Mr. Crank-Ass, in case you've forgotten I have no owner. I live here on the base permanently, I don't get neat toys to go run around and do separate missions, and there's a mission coming up and apparently I get picked to go with a team to check it out."
"Oh."
"'Oh' is right."
"You don't sound too pleased."
"The pleasure of rank."
Dervish chuckled, a mischevies glint glowing in his eyes, "Oh. You get to take the babies for their walkies? Is that it?" He began to laugh as Star fumed. She growled at him, then threw the tennis ball at his head. Dervish reached up and caught it, still laughing.
"I wouldn't laugh so hard, Orange Juice. You get to help me."
The laughter soon faded. "What!?" He sputtered incoherently for several minutes as Star smiled maliciously.
"Oh yes, revenge is sweet. You heard me. And guess what? I outrank you in this little 'mission' so you have to do what I say."
Dervish groaned.
~*~
"Line up! Line up...in a straight line! No...oh, for the love of..."
Dervish sighed and brought his hand up to lightly smack his forehead. Unfortunately, he forgot that was the hand holding the clipboard. The board smacked into his forehead, drawing a rather loud curse from his mouth that caused most of the new recruits to cringe away. Oh, just wait til this is over Star....
"Star put you to work too?" A large Rottweiler grumbled under his breath at Dervish.
"Who else did she wrangle into this?"
The Rottweiler pointed and Derv made out Dawn, the Golden Retriever, Chaos, the mutt, and Liebe, the Akita, all desperately trying to keep the small sections of newbies under control.
Dervish sighed for what seemed like the millionth time that day, "How the hell did we get into this, Muzz?"
"‘Cause Star threatened to beat us all."
"Oh. Forgot about that. Well," he brought the clipboard up to his face again, "Lesse here, Kio Kure?....why do I get the hard names?"
A tiny Japanese Chin paced forward and barked rapidly at Dervish.
"Yes. I understand that you are royalty, but you still have to wait in line. We can't just shove everyone into one Transdogmafier, you know." He checked the name off of his list and pointed the small dog over to Dawn, who was dealing with the next process of the recruiting.
"HOW HARD IS IT TO STAND IN A STRAIGHT LINE!?"
Dervish blinked as Muzz snapped and went off on a tangent at all the dogs milling about. He shrugged and continued his work.
"Bo Rioso?"
A stuck-up looking Italian Greyhound paced forward with great dignity and Dervish stifled yet another sigh.
~*~
Liebe gently massaged her forehead, hoping the massive headache that she had accumilated over the day would go away. If she ever caught up with Star she would kill her - slowly and painfully.
She glanced up as someone entered the room, muttering to themselves. Muzzle looked about as pleased as she was at the moment. The Rottweiler snarled slightly and plopped down onto the couch next to the Akita.
"If I catch up with that flop-eared, fluffy tailed wench of a bit-female dog...I swear I'll kill her."
Liebe smirked, "You too?"
"Psh, chya! I can't believe she wrangled us all into doing her dirty work for her."
"You would have done the same."
".....I know..." Muzz hung his head, "I'm just mad that I didn't think of the same thing."
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