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Chapter 1: A Quick Stop

“I'm still a teenager! Dad can't force me to work like this!"

“You heard what he said kiddo, when we were your age, your Pops and I were already mowing fields. You're lucky they don't let kids do that nowadays!"

Peter couldn't believe it, being forced to work a part-time night shift at the family gas station? He would've called the CPS if he didn't know they would probably tell him to suck it up. But here was his Uncle Jacob, in his middle aged, grey haired, uniformed glory, talking about how much of a great opportunity it was. While also trying to “teach him the ropes" of restock shelves and assisting any tourists that couldn't refuel their cars, because it apparently was “surprisingly common for people with no clue on how to operate Gas Pumps to show up so close to New York".

Right, the big apple, a huge city, a place where things actually happened, unlike the small town Pete lived in. If it was up to his parents Peter would be stuck here selling hot chips at a gas stop for the rest of his life, never going out to see and explore new places. The poor teen had never been more than a few miles outside his hometown, after all, it was as his dear old dad always said: “it has everything he'd ever need to live a good life while staying safe from whatever crazy people live out there".

“Look you're only working here for 4 hours a day Pete, It's not a big deal, the life experience will be worth it, plus you wouldn't want to disappoint your mom now would you?" Jacob calmly spoke to the young boy, as he played the “mom card", truly the most fatal move in his arsenal.

“No… I wouldn't want to disappoint her Jack" At this moment the tired teenager finally realized there truly was no escape from his new job.

“Good, and by the way, when we're at work you gotta call me Mr. Manners, Jack is my out of job nickname. We're the Manners' Gas Stop and Shop after all, and we always need a Manners on shift!" Mr. Manners winked and pointed at the boy's name tag “Isn't that right, Peter Manners?"

Before Peter could even respond a ginger woman entered the store, while she walked the aisles a dark haired young man with a skull hoodie was getting some gas from the pumps outside. Strangely they had parked their van at an angle that couldn't be properly seen from the shop and didn't reach the pumps, so the man was forced to use a gas can for his late night refueling stop. It was almost like they wanted to hide something in the vehicle.

“Hi sorry, my friend over there is picking up some extra gas for our trip, we didn't wanna risk running out. By the way, do you guys have any first aid supplies?" The young woman talked in a rushed manner, there was an air of desperation to her voice. It was like she was running a risk by talking to people she didn't know.

“There's nothing to be sorry about, young lady! Welcome to Manners' Gas Stop and Shop! I'm Mr. Manners, my assistant here will fetch some of our first aid kits from the ba-" While Jacob gave his standard greeting the man in the hoodie entered the store.

“No, we'll just be paying for the gas and leaving" He announced, shutting down Jacob's attempt at selling them overpriced antiseptic and gauze “We're REALLY in a hurry". Jacob decided not to insist upon seeing the suspicious look on the man's face, he had worked at this roadside gas station shop long enough to know when a client couldn't be argued with. So the money was exchanged and the two customers were on their way, probably to never stop by ever again, where would their path lead them? Why didn't they just refuel the van in front of the store? Were they actually hiding something? That was another showcase of the excitement Peter desired in his life, the thing he longed for, the adventure, the mystery, the…

“Hey kiddo, go get the first aid kit anyway. I want to have that in hand for the next person that comes by wanting one. Don't know why it wasn't near the counter already" Pete's Uncle requested, interrupting his daydreaming and sending him on another boring fetching job at the storage room. “And hey, look at the time! It's already 11:00pm, your shift's over, heh, and you keep calling this a night shift! You don't even have to wake up early or come to work tomorrow! Lucky kid" Jacob added, putting a bit of ease onto his nephew. What he said was true, today was friday and Peter still had the whole weekend to himself. To think it took so much begging to not add saturday and sunday into the Teen's work schedule.

Of course, weekends to him mostly meant just doing stuff around the house, playing video games, watching TV, and maybe going around the woods nearby when no one was looking. Peter lived right behind the gas stop, way too far from the city center where his few friends resided, and considering his family's constant need to administer their business nobody was ever able to take him there for anything but school. A bike ride was out of the question considering that time he broke his bike and right leg on the way to a friend's house and had to crawl all the way back to his parents crying. Fun times, though the thought of another weekend where nothing interesting happened haunted the teen almost as much as the painful memories of his accident while he walked towards the storage room.

The back of the store was surprisingly large, mostly used as storage space for the grand variety of products at the famous Manners' Gas Stop and Shop! But as Peter delved deeper into the room he noticed one of the windows had been opened, and worst of all, a bloody paw print laid on the glass. “Crap, this is it, some kind of animal got in, I gotta run and tell uncle Ja… Wait, what if I stop this thing myself, and make my dad and uncle proud! Then I could at least get a break from work, maybe even convince my dad to let me take a long vacation!" Pete thought to himself. He formulated a brilliant plan that surely would work without a hitch and grabbed a perfectly positioned baseball bat, now the teen was truly glad at the sheer variety of items in the shop.

Even with the bloody paw print on the glass the storage room seemed completely empty and almost intact, save for the trail of blood that was showing the path the animal took. Peter decided to leave the lights off and started following it. At a certain point he began to hear small noises, something was quietly searching the shelves, whatever this animal was, it was smart enough to not just topple everything over while roaming the area. Once the teen pinpointed the source of the noise he made his decision to strike and run towards it. He began swinging his bat wildly at the creature covered in shadow, only for it to be stopped dead in its tracks by a clawed hand.

As he was about to release a wild scream the animal's other hand covered his mouth, leading Pete to finally face the thing that had invaded the storage. At that moment, looking back at him was a bizarre furry creature, unlike anything he had seen. Standing slightly over a foot shorter than his 5'7 frame, covered in blood and cuts with a large open wound on its left shoulder and wearing nothing but rags, bandages and a torn cowl. Its form resembled that of a Fox (an Arctic Fox to be exact. Guess he'd have to thank his little sister's animal documentaries for his skills at identifying species later), it was completely covered in white fur, with its only color variation being purple face paint and the fresh blood that still oozed from her and dripped all over the floor. However the more Pete looked at its body the more humanoid it appeared, despite its arched back the creature was fully bipedal and had a clearly lean and feminine frame with surprisingly large hips, from which a tail slightly larger than her whole body grew. In the split second he analyzed it Peter concluded this creature was female.

“Don't scream, I don't want to hurt anyone else, but you would be forcing my hand. Now, give me a nod if you understand" The fox softly whispered. Her voice, despite her clear attempt at sounding harsh and tough, showcased that Pete's impressions about her gender were correct. He immediately nodded in response. “Good, I have a ride to take and I'm about to miss it if I don't find a first aid kit soon" Her hands let him go in a swift motion and immediately returned to searching the shelves.

“It's in the 2nd row on the shelf to your left" Now Peter was thinking he had gone crazy, why was he helping this bizarre mutant fox girl that had just threatened him? She turned back in surprise and it almost looked like she was about to thank him before she quickly grabbed a first aid kit and started patching herself up, even using some of the bandages she had tied to her arms and legs. Pete had no clue why he stayed with her, or why she didn't rush back to get on her “ride". However at this point he noticed how wounded she truly was, it was like the Fox had just crawled out of a war zone, moving on adrenaline alone and barely even standing. Still the mutant patched up her shoulder and quickly cleaned a few of her larger cuts. While she worked, she would sometimes look back at Peter, most likely thinking over her next move. This slowly lowered the boy's guard, who began observing more details of the “person" that stood in front of him. Long fox ears sat atop her head, her muzzle was short with only her nose not being covered by the rags she wore, and under her fur he could see soft scars of wounds that had long since healed. This creature had to be some type of warrior, but Peter guessed that having to fight to survive just came packaged with being whatever she is.

Her eyes were a bright orange, quite a striking color. Pete kept staring at them, thinking about how this being from beyond his imagination had shown up in his life and was probably about to leave him forever. He wondered if he would come across crazy things like these all the time if he lived in a place like NYC. As his thoughts ran wild the fox girl finished using the kit and attempted to run back towards the window, the boy in a rushed decision decided to follow, as he did so he noticed how slurred her movements were, almost like she was on the verge of collapsing but kept herself going through sheer determination. Both of them leaped through the window into the backside of the gas station, the Fox clearly too distracted or busy to care about her current stalker, who only observed her as she hid behind a bush near the road.

“I lost them, DAMMIT, I can't believe I made such a rookie mistake! Blood loss and stress must have messed with me. Maybe I can still track their scent, or even follow the road and reach the same town as them" She said to herself in a hushed tone, but still clearly in distress over losing her way out of this dump. However the true mistake was about to be made as Pete began quietly walking to a different position and accidentally stepped on a branch, which broke with a loud noise. The fox immediately ran back and grabbed the teenager by the collar of his shirt. “You're really still here, normally people yell or run off, but you actually followed me"

"I…I wanted to know what you… Were you with those 2 people that walked into the store earlier? The ginger girl and the skull hoodie guy?" Peter asked, desperately trying to find out what exactly did the creature want now.

"Oh, those two" The fox girl spoke as she loosened her grip on the boy. "Yeah, they were my ride… not that they knew it anyway" Pete couldn't help but notice a tint of sadness in her voice when she mentioned that they were unaware of her presence.

There were a few seconds of dead air between the two as both of them thought of their next action, so the teenage boy decided to break the silence "So, uhhh… what are you going to do now… Arctic Fox?".

The creature only stared at him for a few seconds, reading the name tag in his work uniform before settling into a smirk "Wow, he even knows I'm an Arctic Fox! Say, Peter Manners, we could help each other y'know?" She could see how nervous he became once his name was spoken, her sharp fangs being in full display when she did so certainly didn't help.

"Well, sure! Whatever you want, I'll help you!" The response relieved the creature before him, who was about to say something before staggering and falling into him. Thankfully Peter was able to keep his balance and carefully lowered her to a more comfortable position. "Are you alright?"

"I lost a lot of blood, I lost my ride, I lost everything, I wouldn't have made it even if you didn't show up… Wasn't thinking straight, they stopped to refuel and I needed to stop the bleeding, but I should've just risked it and tried enduring the whole ride… I… I should've struck sooner, waited too long" the Fox was clearly delirious at this point, her adrenaline was wearing off and the consequences of her blood loss were settling. "I hitched a ride with them, but they would've thrown me away if they saw me… Even if I survived the trip I wouldn't have been able to… I… I need…" she wasn't even able to finish her request before finally passing out in Peter's arms.

Now the situation was dire, what the hell was Pete even supposed to do? The desperate teenager decided to lay the Fox girl in grass near the bushes before running back to the storage to finish his shift, grabbing a first aid kit and going at full sprint to the front of the store where his uncle and father were.

Peter's dad was impatiently waiting by the counter, but the moment his son appeared holding the kit a bright smile formed in his previously bored face. "Hey Champ! Took you a while to come back, we were starting to worry that you got eaten by a bear!"

"Nope, no bears, I had to run off a raccoon that was trying to get in haha, I'll just be putting the first aid kit on the counter and going back home, thanks dad, love you, bye!" Before anyone could even respond to him or notice the blood the mutant had rubbed on his shirt Pete was already rushing towards the back entrance, thank god his uniform was red. When he got back to the bush the fox was in the same spot he left her. Still alive but now in a deep slumber, recovering from her wounds that had finally been properly treated. Peter's home was only a short distance from the Gas Station, so he hoped to carry her there to give the girl a better place to rest.

Hundreds of thoughts were running wild in the boy's mind, but the sadness in the mutant's final words before passing out kept replaying in his mind. They plaguing his consciousness with a desperate request for help, a scared girl hidden beneath the surface of a frightening predator. Convinced he was doing the right thing he picked her up, luckily he was just strong enough to carry the fox, who was surprisingly lighter than he expected, her fluffy fur helped make her appear bigger and heavier than she actually was.

Following the dirt path behind the store Pete arrived at his family home, praying to whatever god would listen that his mom or sister didn't spot him or the slumbering beast in his arms, luckily his prayers were answered and they were both sleeping, allowing him to go up the stairs straight into his room, laying the fox on his bed. "Guess, I should probably make a little place for her to sleep." he thought to himself, grabbing an old kid mattress with a blanket and pillow before neatly putting the now peacefully sleeping creature on his newly set up temporary bed, while also locking the door to make sure nobody would be walking in during the night.

This was probably a terrible idea, but something inside him was saying that helping her was the right thing to do. Sure she may have threatened him at first but he could put that up to her desperation. The fox was clearly putting up a front to hide her fear, and considering that the people that left her behind would apparently reject her anyway, Peter might have been her only chance left. Plus he did want some excitement in his life, and what's more exciting than helping others?

With his path settled he got in his bed, deciding to sleep while still in uniform, hopefully the Fox girl would be thankful enough to stay and talk and not just run off or slice his throat during the night. "y'know on second thought maybe locking myself in a room with a weird mutant fox girl isn't really a good ide..." Was the last thing he thought before falling asleep, one of the few disadvantages of being a quick sleeper.