Baa-Ram-Ewe!

-Petopia, in space, early morning the next day, Brainy-

“I think I finally got most of it out of my system.” So fairly sure of that I had returned to my previous comportment, I sat up straight without a hint of fear.

“Then why are you hugging that ewe toy to yourself.” Flatly stated Hot Dog, the red furred long bodied alien canine, who was giving my ewe toy a suspect look as I held it in my paws affectionately.

“Can’t a dog have a hobby and a strangely deep rooted love of adorable ewes?” My earnest statement made Hot Dog narrow his eyes at me. “Also… I’m thinking about getting into writing.”

There was a long and very tense silence.

“Finally, you got something to help you relax in your spare time, I was sure that you had a stick so far up there and that you’d never stop being so serious all the time!” It seems Hot Dog stupefied me into blinking owlishly at him. For a second there I thought Hot Dog was going to blow up at me in his usual flare of fire and anger, then again he was the calmest among them all. “Honestly I was going to get an intervention for you eventually, so you’d get a hobby and actually enjoy it, but it seems my concerns were unfounded. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m needed on the surface to reinforce our members. Tail Terrier is monitoring the satellites, Bull Dog is taking the next watch and then Paw Pooch afterwards, actually enjoy your free time for once Barker and stop working during it you darned workaholic!”

…

That went well I think. I should probably be angrier about the stick being jammed that far up my snoot comment than I currently feel, but he was not speaking lies.

-Travelers’ tent, Pom-

“Today, I’m going to be spending time with… Dodo!” I said with a smile and Dodo warbled curiously and came over to me, I ran a hoof over the mechanical ostrich’s head and he gave off a happy tune. “I hope you don’t mind Shanty.”

“Dodo, would you like to be spending time with Pom today?” Shanty asked and her partner nodded cheerfully and then spat a strawberry loaded pastry, yeah I did kind of need the calories to speed up my healing so I happily started nibbling into it.

-After Pom left to go who knows where, Dolly-

“So we’ll hit that place, then keep looking in case it isn’t his main base.” More psycho cat hunting today, yesterday went horribly.

“I only be spotting Agent Nine L two times.” Yeah Raunchy was on the trail of the other cat.

“That’s two more times than we’d normally get.” Massive Canine the currently small dog stated, then she said something odd. “Also it’s 9-L.”

“Isn’t that being what I said?” Yeah, I’m confused that sounded like the exact same thing Mercante.

“No you said ‘nine L’, its agent 9 hyphen L, as in 9-L, you said the spelling of ‘nine’ and didn’t add the hyphen in.” What? The little pink dog just lost me there. “Look, let’s just call her Agent ‘Del’ and move on with our lives.”

“Right, Delta Force got it.” Everyone just stared at me blankly. “Did I get it wrong again?”

-At a calming lake surrounded by flowers, Pom-

“Thanks for hanging out with me today Dodo. At first you kind of freaked me out, but then we became good friends didn’t we?” The strange living mechanical marvel warbled from his spot sitting next to me as I relaxed and watched the clouds go by.

“Pom Lambchop your death has been foretold… BY ME, as a Beezlemon!” That’s when this strange biped in biker gear showed up wielding what I recognized the two double barreled shotguns, one of which he was currently leveling at what had to be my blandest expression possible. He started to squeeze the trigger. “I’m going to savor this moment.”

“Oh, hey Gubezleeb Gubezleeb.” Might have worried for a split second there, but then I realized It was just Mr. Beezy again as I sat up to greet him. Placing my forward directly against the barrel of the gun.

“My name is not Gubezleeb Gubezleeb, also why did you say it…” Mr. Beezy promptly exploded directly upward and disappeared while screaming hatred at my very existence.

“Wark?” Was all Dodo had to say about that situation as he raised his head and looked in my direction?

“No clue Dodo.” I stated as I laid back down.

-Thirty Five minutes later-

“You will suffer the wrath of my deathly Mantis blades!” Said a comically oversize Mr. Beezy in the form of a mildly oversized inconvenience to my day. A Mantis Ant maybe?

“Can you do me a favor first before you kill me?” I held up the crossword puzzle I made for myself on the paper I had Dodo go fetch. “I can’t seem to figure out the remaining letters of this crossword puzzle.”

Taking the paper and my pen, I watched him write down something on it while glaring at me the entire time… then he stopped writing and then passed it back to me.

“I don’t even know why I humored you!” He raised his left Mantis Blade and then tried to swing at me, only to explode upwards and disappear again.

“Yep… Mr. Beezy seems like he’s going to be a thing today.” I said calmly, as the letters I didn’t put into my makeshift crossword puzzle spelled his name backwards, basically ‘Gubezleeb’, three times this time from top to bottom, left to right, in the places I didn’t put any letters in. Maybe that’ll make him leave me alone for a little longer?

“Keewwahhh?” Dodo warbled in wonder as he tilted his head at me.

“Sure you can get him next time, I’m going to take a nap, make sure he doesn’t bother me when he shows up again.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, took in a deep breath and fell asleep in a nice patch of grass that didn’t have any ants or annoying insects.

-One hour ten minutes later, third person-

“I will complete my mission today and show the soul of Pom Pawdore Lambchop the true meaning of suffering!” Mr. Beezy stated as he showed up, this time in the form of a large, dangerous looking, arachnid thing called a Nerscylla.

“Fffzzzzttt.” Dodo responded lazily as he sat between Mr. Beezy and his intended prize.

“You take that back, my mother was the ugliest most hated monstrosity with a pulsating, bloated, festering, sweaty, pus-filled, malformed massive slug for a butt and she is quite the demon too!” Mr. Beezy angrily raised his front hooked claws.

“Keeeeee.” Stated Dodo flatly and then Mr. Beezy started attacking him aggressively, all Dodo did was dodge and move backwards continuing to taunt Mr. Beezy in a mechanical whine of cackling.

Mr. Beezy tore at the ground while attempting to tear apart the biologically alive ostrich like machine thing.

“You better take me seriously, whatever part of you is biological will ultimately suffer my… what… WHY?!” As Mr. Beezy was launched into the air. This is where he saw that the slash marks and the way Dodo had dodged him spelled ‘Gubezleeb’ four times on the ground in claw scratches. He also saw a slightly smug expression on the biomechanical animal’s beak and eyes. “Darn you all to…!”

Once again Mr. Beezy exploded.

-An hour later after Beelzebug’s last attempt to kill Pom went quite poorly, at the lakeside, Pom-

I stretched out three of my legs, checked one of my legs and then looked up at Dodo planting a Sitrus Berry at the top of the hill. My shattered leg was still agonizing, but I was able to get in some more peaceful rest on this nice warm day outdoors.

“Oh you moved, well it’s a good thing I already got you mostly on the canvas then.” The slightly messy pink monkey continue to work over a canvas. “Hello there, I’m Minka Mark and I like abstract art!”

“Do you just like abstract art for the rhyme with your name?” My question as met with smile.

“Maybe… anyway, been hearing about you from my friends, Pom right? Who’s the robot?” Minka pointed a paintbrush at Dodo who was relaxing next to me, we were definitely doing nothing interesting today.

“Dodo’s not technically a robot, he’s a living being.” There was a distinction, I knew what that distinction was and I would never call Dodo something so lifeless.

“Oh, so he’s like the Autobots and the Decepticons… oh wait… I wasn’t supposed to say anything about that… forget you ever heard me mention them or the fact that Blythe’s current electric scooter is a minicon.” No idea what those were Minka or why you were telling me of all people.

“Forget what?” I stated after a moment, because I had no idea what you were talking about and I felt like I really didn’t want to know.

“Thank you!” Minka said while holding her paws out to me. “Now if only Pinkie Pie would stop sending me sad sack bags to give to Ferguson… he’s not that bad… really!”

Again I wasn’t going to listen to her weird ramblings while I had a plan percolating in mind.

“Want to do something funny?” The question was met with a pair of tilted heads in my direction.

“That is more like Pepper’s thing, but sure, hit me with what you’ve got planned and I might deign to have some monkeyshines today.” Tilting the beret, Minka turned her portrait around and showed me what she made, it was me sleeping and surrounding by what looked like a sea of ghostly dogs.

Minka then looked at Dodo and then started doing some art of him as well. After Minka finished, I thought it was an interesting rendition of Dodo and Dodo was highly curious about it.

Dodo got up and walked over to Minka and opened his beak over her head.

“Hold out your paws Minka, Dodo wants to give you something since he likes you.” After doing as I asked, Minka was soon holding a large chunk of Banana bread.

“Thank you, I didn’t want to be a starving artist stereotype today anyway!” Minka sounded a little nuts, but was ultimately friendly artist monkey. “So what’s the plan sister?!”

-Thirty Minutes later-

“I’m here to infect you to slowly and quite painfully turn you into a Chryssalid that will be fully under my control as a subordinate!” Mr. Beezy was getting really inventive, this thing had tentacles, purple crystals sticking out of it and even looked vaguely threatening… for once. The four spider legs, two armed four clawed upper torso and mandibles that looked like they inject one with a parasite that’ll inevitably warp my biology in a nasty and ultimately lethal way.

Now if he threatened to turn me fully into a Chrysomallus I might actually be a little worried, but this was Mr. Beezy. He simply wasn’t that threatening.

“Excuse me… but I’m having trouble getting your image right could you help me out here?” Minka asked of Mr. Beezy and he slowly stomped over angrily to look at the strange painting that had random splotches that vaguely looked somewhat shaped like Mr. Beezy on it. “Can you make yourself look oh so glorious and strong Mr. scary guy? You can even use my paint to do so!”

“…” He eventually gave in to the monkey’s big friendly eyed look and started working on finishing the portrait of himself. He did so and eventually turned to me after spending twenty minutes getting his image just right in the blank spaces Minka left on the canvas. “Now it’s time for me to… HOW DID IT HAPPEN THIS TIME?!”

Mr. Beezy promptly shot up into the sky and exploded while screaming several profanities that had Minka covering her ears so she couldn’t hear his evil.

“You were right, that was funny and I can brag about beating a demon today!” Minka was laughing her little fun loving butt off. “Kind of surprised he didn’t recognize the parts of the painting I left unfinished spelled his name backwards in cursive several times. I’m keeping the painting of him by the way…”

“That you can even write backwards in cursive is kind of amazing and I would have missed that personally.” No seriously, that was an amazing talent. Also I felt kind of sorry for Mr. Beezy at this point. “That would have actually gotten even me.”

“I might have had several calligraphy classes with my friend Penny Ling… fancy writing is really useful in some cases. Penny is a very kind panda, but a little overly sensitive.” Minka was still in a fit of giggles. “Speaking of my friends. My friend Vinnie Terrio is doing a whole song and dance routine in Paw-tucket at a studio and Zoe Trent will be there tomorrow. I’ll paint a portrait for you if you promise to come to the studio as a favor to me. Also there’s just something about you that Zoe…”

“Really likes. Yeah, I know, a lot of dogs say it eventually. Either to my face or behind my back.” I sighed, didn’t know what I was doing tomorrow anyway. “What kind of portrait?”

“Ooh eek eek eek, yes Zoe’s going to be so happy!” Minka clapped her hands above her head as she hopped in place. “What do you want? While I really love abstract, I’m a decent paw at every other art style that exists!”

“Well… maybe something with me and Dodo together since I was spending the day with him.” Dodo spat a Sitrus Berry crepe into my hoof when I held it up, I glanced at him and sighed. I hadn’t actually be asking for a pastry and was just gesturing to Minka. “Yes, I know, I need to keep my health up Dodo… thank you.”

“Is it weird that he spits pastries?” Minka asked while gesturing to Dodo. “Buttercream would really like this guy if she were around to meet him… that rabbit is already on way too much sugar so it probably wouldn’t be healthy if she did.”

“He used to spit odd looking laser blasts, but he took a volcano to the body and sadly lost that ability.” You think Dodo would have gotten that back by now to better protect Shanty. “Also could you tell her, Buttercream, she makes really good ice cream?”

“Yep, Buttercream really makes her ice cream work for everyone, I’ll pass the message on.” After that, Minka painted a nice portrait of Dodo offering me a flower, a flower of which I will have in my wool for the rest of the day.

This is probably the most relaxing day I’ve ever had, the reason I chose Dodo for this day is that I’m fairly certain Dodo doesn’t have any expectations of me and was just happy to spend time with me.

-An hour or two later, during lunchtime after Dodo picked up some picnic supplies-

“Ah- vegetable tacos, so delicious!” Yep, enjoying the taste of civilization once more after being stuck on Sitrus Berries for way too long… and still having to eat them for my continued good health even now.” A spike hit the edge of the picnic blanket and the thing was positively hissing as it ate through the ground near it in a highly acidic manner.

“You will die now, any last words?” Mr. Beezy asked as he was in the form of a serpent with two long bone claw things and a wide crowned head loaded with those biological acid spikes he was about to try and fire at me.

“Yes, I would like to get in some last word Beelzebug Beelzebug, but I don’t think you’ll let me.” I continue to gnaw on my beans, cheese, lettuce, tomato and mild sauce taco lazily.

“Wait, you just said my actual name twice? Seriously?! Do you really think I would fall for you trying to reverse psychology me into saying Gubezleeb Gubezleeb, because that’s never...” Mr. Beezy slowly trailed off as he saw the faint grin on my slightly sauce covered face right now. “I hate you so much right now, you can’t even begin to understand the raging inferno you are bringing upon…”

Demon goes up in sky, he goes boom.

I’m going to have to remind myself to thank Fred for this day being so fun. Though I’m terrified of Fred, he was still a decent source of knowledge and was mostly safe as long as Oleander was around.

I continued merrily gnawing through all my tacos, while Dodo enjoys a large nacho platter that he was quite willing to share with me.

It was just me and a really good friend hanging out and doing barely anything at all.

-An hour after lunch, Pom-

A strange character appears laughing strangely while glaring down at me.

“You’ve been a naughty little ewe, messing with my friend Beelzebug.” Stated the strange red parrot with a croaky sounding voice. “I’m a fifth dimensional being here to get some revenge for my friend by…”

“Here, can you read this out loud for me real quick to make sure I got it right?” I think I had an inkling as to who this was and for some reason I had an urge to write something rather specific, so I quickly wrote it on a piece of paper and pass it to him.

Something Oleander once said, about how I would know exactly what to do when I got this feeling to protect myself from someone Fred has had issues with in the past.

“Sure… kill tip, seize him. Kill tip, seize him? How is seizing someone a killing tip, wouldn’t you just kill him on the… oh… Ohoho--- this was a rather brilliant one and I’m surprised even ‘Supes’ hadn’t come up with this one himself. A completely original ploy, a really good one, how well played of you, I didn’t even get to have any fun and... I'm completely angry with you!” The parrot looked at me while nodding exuberantly, knowing exactly what just happened here and crossed his wings with a rather angry, yet slightly impressed, demeanor. “You know Fred don’t you, he put you up to this didn’t he, this has that bast… crap-crAP-CRAP!”

Up goes the guy, explodes while creating fireworks noise that Dodo cooed at cheerfully and appreciated.

“Huh… well then… that was interesting, don’t know who that was other than he was a friend of Mr. Beezy. Oleander did something to protect me from him a long time ago, but it was certainly interesting that it finally occurred.” I went back to relaxing on the hillside without a second thought.

-Early afternoon-

A giant bipedal robot stomped forward and glared down at me, said robot had a beetle theme. The brains cells I had to spare for Mr. Beezy were beginning to wear thin and were begging for me to let Mr. Beezy have it this time.

“I…” He was about to go into his diatribe, so I cut him off.

“Gubezleeb Gubezleeb!” I interrupted loudly and put into his train of thought immediately.

“Gubezleeb Gubezleeb… oh you little piece of s-” Up goes Mr. Beezy and he made a big bang this time, he was some kind of biped mechanical kaiju bug thing so the explosion was pretty sizable this time and nobody got hurt by it.

“You know what Dodo, I have a really neat idea for the next one, but it’s going require some doing… can you find a lot of dominoes on such short notice?” I received a curious tilted head from Dodo, but he gave me an affectionate warble and a nod that he’d help me with whatever I had planned.

Dodo and I were having fun today and I was being a bit too lazy, I needed some low key exercise and nothing said that like playing with dominoes. This is going to take up a lot of my time and the rest of this evening.

-Almost time to head to the ‘Traveler’s Tent’ for dinner-

“Hey mom, have you been at Paw-tucket’s camping lake all day?” Dormarch came here alone, I didn’t see Marshall anywhere… come to think of it he wasn’t sleeping on me this morning either.

“Yes, I’ve been having a lot of fun too, mostly lying about. Where’s Marshall? I don’t remember seeing him last night.” My concern was quickly alleviated when my son spoke up.

“Yeah, he got his key and went back to Ryder and his friends, since he’s ready to face them again now that he’s feeling better.” There was a hint of Sadness in Dormarch’s voice, even if he was cheerful his friend was now back with his family and home only being a simple portal trip away. “I still wonder how all the pets deal with weird time shenanigans going on here, obviously there’s a day and night cycle here. Yet they return to the same point in time they left without aging… what kind of magic is at work here?”

“I’m not thinking too deeply into this one, I’m just leaving it at it works and looking too deeply into it might be a bad thing.” Though I did wonder how much time was passing when they weren’t in the world of Paw-tucket. “Does it really matter?”

“It doesn’t because you are about to die!” Oh look its Mr. Beezy… sigh, how many strange bug monster forms is he going to come at me with?

“Is that Mr. Beezy?” Dormarch asked as the large four legged arachnid looking thing with two large scythe arms raised and a giant scissor like jaw that was open wide and ready to snap us in half. He came at us with clearly lethal intent, that’s all it was… the intent to do harm. “Hey Mr. Beezy!”

Dormarch waved his big goofy claws on his right paw cheerfully to the tiger bug monster coming at us… then said tiger striped arachnid bug demon thing tripped the trap that Dodo and I spent so much time setting up earlier.

One of his four spindly stabbing legs, hit a batch of carefully placed dominoes and thus Mr. Beezy started a chain reaction. This made him pause and looked at the line of toppling dominoes heading towards the large patch of open space next to the lakes edge that was now occupied by thousands of dominoes.

“Oh, don’t tell me…” Mr. Beezy horrific and currently horrified voice stated as he watched as the dominoes that were knocked over spelled ‘Gubezleeb’ several time over, but that wasn’t quite the end of the domino chain. “That’s… it’s just not fair, not fair at all, no fair, you can’t do this to me, not again and not this fast!”

“Do you realize how much time me and Dodo put into setting this up?” I asked as I watched the last bit of toppling dominoes create my smiling face alongside Dodo’s with the words ‘friends’ written above them, all in dominoes that did a loop to underline the word ‘friends’ and led into the last bit of dominoes that made a friendly looking heart. “If the payoff didn’t ultimately happen, then I would have been sorely disappointed and that would be what was truly unfair after all our hard work!”

“RAAARRRRRGGGHHH YOU ‘BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEPING EUPHEMISM FOR A SACK FULL OF DEFLATED BASKEBALLS BLE-!” Mr. Beezy launched into the air.

“Bye Mr. Beezy, have a nice day!” I stated pleasantly.

The air, the Demon and finally the explosion. Today has been pleasantly unproductive as all get out and it was getting my mind off the gnawing pain coming from my leg… I think I needed another spritz from Mitzi and Pepper to end out this day.

“So want to go for a ride around Paw-tucket on Dodo with me before we head back and I get started on dinner?” I still wanted Dodo to do one thing he really wanted to do… such as break loose and go as fast as he could while flying or runner. “If you see Mitzi or Pepper stop and let me off real quick Dodo, they can help me with any pain I’m in.”

“No thanks, I have something important to do back at the tent, just enjoy the rest of your time with Dodo.” Dormarch teleported away in his requisite Search Hunter flash.

-Traveler’s Tent, Dormarch-

“Okay, what happened?” I had gotten a tug on my bond from Dolly and I came back to a fairly battered Caper Canine, Tusky Husky, Mammoth Mutt, Cut Lass and Hot Dog.

“That cat be being a psycho of the highest order!” Shanty stated making it clear that what they had gone through was an entirely unpleasant ordeal.

“You can say that again, but unlike you, we have to actually deal with Snooky all the time!” Mammoth Mutt whined.

“Agent Del was being a bit of a bother too eh.” Judging by the fact that they hadn’t captured the two fugitives, they had managed to escape Dog Star Patrol again.

“How’s Pom’s day going, do you think she’s on to us Dormarch?” Dolly I think Pom already knows some limited vestige of what’s going on with Dog Star Patrol, but is actively trying to ignore that it is happening and is trusting you to be able to deal with it.

“Mom is doing fine Dolly, she even seems to be enjoying her time with Dodo and he’s been keeping Pom safe and cozy all day.” That was a sigh of relief as my news was good, compared to their bad news.

“At least we took out one of Snooky’s bases, so we’ve set him back a bit… now if only he didn’t have what is a rather annoying habit of bouncing back from setbacks quickly or making us look like fools at times doing it. He’s considered one of the most evil cats in the galaxy, barring Dex-starr or Mechanikat somewhat, for a reason.” Hot Dog started living up to his name when the alien wiener dog exploded into flames violently, my sister’s first reaction was to pull out a stick with a carrot on it and started roasting it over the flaming alien dog. His emotions seem to be somewhat tied to his pyro-kinetic abilities. “If only you all had read the full dossier on what happened to all of Snooky’s brother and sisters, he is one true evil sicko and we really need to bring him to justice before he ruins this pet paradise somehow! We cannot let him do anything relatively close to destroying the ecosystem or the entire planet itself on a whim and I don’t want Mechanikat getting involved in our business either.”

“Calm down Hot Dog, we’re working on it." Mammoth Mutt groaned out as stretched out her limbs. "Snooky can run, but he can’t hide from us forever.”

“Who’s Mechanikat?” I asked.

“Something of a functional cybernetic boss for Snooky, but more like his safe haven from us when he isn’t out being a destructive feline shaped monster that entire galactic civilizations fear the name of.” It seemed like Hot Dog had been in a number of leadership roles. “Snooky once even tried to overthrow Mechanikat, when it didn’t seem like he was being evil enough on a given week, with his engineering prowess… that didn’t end well for Snooky, but he still got a lot of respect from the criminal community for trying to usurp his own boss in an ambitious manner.”

“What’s Brainy doing during all of this eh?” Good question Tusky, isn’t Brainy Barker technically the overall leader of the Dog Star Patrol and Affiliated Awesome Animals?

“She’s finally got a hobby.” Hot Dog said triumphantly.

“Was this after she saw Pom?” It seemed as if Dolly was just as aware as I was what the hobby might entail.

“Yes, but is that a bad thing?” Well, it could be a bit of a bother Hot Dog, considering Pom has an odd effect on canines.

“Not necessarily, but you might want watch out if she starts forming a cult in the name of the ‘Doggy Messiah’.” It was supposed to be me jokingly saying this, but Hot Dog apparently took my words seriously.

“Yeah, she’ll probably join that galactic wide cult before the year is out, they do good charity for less fortunate individuals.” Hot Dog informed us.

I sent a look to Dolly and she shrugged, while looking a little freaked out about the cult having been implied as existing long before we got here.

-Inside Dodo running around at high speeds throughout Paw-Tucket, Pom-

“Die, die, die, die-.” It seemed Mr. Beezy was just a little upset, but Dodo was staying one step ahead of the Giant Water Beetle he was currently chasing us as trying to spew toxic metal and flesh eating gas at us from his nose.

I’ll ask if Dolly’s alien dog friends have a method to clean that gas up later if it doesn’t dissipate quickly enough in the atmosphere, Mr. Beezy was making quite a mess of the nearby landscape as we lead him about in an unpopulated area.

After an odd hitch in his running, Dodo stopped running and faced the monstrous kaiju sized demon bug in the setting sunlight.

Mr. Beezy was about to attack us with the full might of his weight and then… up in the air and exploded.

Apparently he hadn’t noticed Dodo manipulating him to place his feet down in the right way to spell ‘Gubezleeb’ several times in binary, a computer language that Dormarch has referenced to me several times even that went completely over my head. It was hard to notice at first because of the sheer size of the way the numbers one and zero were written. Even I had been confused by what had happened until I looked at the ditches in the ground dug out by Mr. Beezy’s gargantuan size more closely and noticed some of the divots looked more like zeroes than ones. The numbers were so large, you might be able to see them from the atmosphere of this planet.

“I think he’s done for the rest of the year with trying to kill me after that one!” I said jovially as Dodo and I watched the sunset together. “Come on Dodo, let’s go, Shanty is probably waiting for you!”

Dodo was looking at the horizon with fond eyes as the darkness and stars lit alight on this strange paradise of a world, he then slowly turned and started running us all the way back to the tent so I could prepare dinner for a lot of hungry mouths.

-In space at the moment, a dog named Tail Terrier-

“Gubezleeb, what in tarnation is a Gubezleeb?” I scratched at my head with my extending tail tentacle.