Ammy sat there in her laboratory and chewed on a yellow pencil. She was in a lull with recovering her memories. The puzzle box a friend had gifted her to help with the memory loss was proving to be a bit annoying lately as the images locked in the puzzle pieces were getting harder to decipher. She was also finding a point where she could do nothing further in her alchemy until her memory did return. In short, Ammy was dangerously bored tonight.

Her golden eyes fell over one of the work benches and on it was a small, ginger colored tribble. A gift from her daughter Myrlene to help soothe her through the trying times of memory loss. Ammy reached out and gave the fuzz ball a few strokes of the silken fur eliciting the harmonic cooing tribblling the creature was known for. The sounds sooth the needles of boredome some, but not quite enough. Taking the tribble into her arms she left the lab, sliding through that solid wall of mage glass and to one of the little fridges under the counter area in search of a treat for herself and the tribble.

Among the mini fridges contents she sifted and pulled out some chilled green tea and decided to be a bit naughty. Two packages of cellophane wrapped twinkies were pulled out and put on the counter. She was hesitant to open and eat them as twinkies were a very rare treat to find these days unless you liked to mess with the laws of time. Well she didn't get to spoil herself often so she gave in and opened a package of twin spongey cake delights. After she took a bite, she walked around the shop, partially eated twinky in one furred hand, tribble tucked in the crook of her arm. The shop was closed for the night and she was left alone to herself and her thoughts as well as the items that all spoke to her.

The tribble cooed more wanting some of that twinky she held. Ammy broke off a bit of the sugary sponge cake and gave it to the fuzz ball. White creme was all that was soon left on a bit of the fur of the tribble.

"Suppose now you'll want more then I'll be up to my glasses in tribbles. Why can't twinkies be replicated as fast as you guys? I mean, hell farm twinkies and grow them, add some nutrients and protein in them and you could solve world hunger."

Ammy went silent. The tribble persisted in cooing and trying to move up her lavender kimono sleeve and to that remainder of twinky she hand in her furred hand. If only the tribble knew what was going on in the Lupinossai's mind right about now. A few alchemical equations sifted into her mind; ratio of four twinkies to one tribble, factor in five grams of powdered philosopher stone, a quarter cup of sugar, three pinches of diamon dust, a lapis lazullie contained within transmutation array pattern of greater-inanimate/animate-minor-stabilize-activate , and a bottle of Ruby Saki for luck.

She fed the rest of the twinkie to the tribble and held it gently in the crook of her arm. Ammy went back to the counter and mini-fridge. More of her preciously hoarded twinkies as well as the packet on the counter and walked back through the glass wall into her lab. The tribble was set down in a large glass bowl so it couldn't get away, the twinkies krinkled as they were dropped on the large slab of copper that was one of many of her alchemy transmutation tables. Ammy set to work scribing out the needed array lines using carefully cut and shaped quarts stylus leaving behind very light lines as she traced upon the slab. Arrays scribed she turned to one of the many component shelves and her hands were already retrieving the jar of diamon dust, a small pouch containing lapis lazullie stones, a canister of sugar and a bottle of Ruby Saki.

Leaving the gathered containers on the copper slab, she walked to a small vault that only she could open. Heavily warded, shielded from all scrying, locating and divining spells as well as masked from all techonological sensors, she placed the palm of her hand on the vault. It glowed a slight silvery white and the seamless box of mitrhil metal opened up like a flower. Within were several deep crimson orbs that pulsed as well as one that was shatterred. Vials were laid among them with crimson powder. Next to Ammy, these were the second most valuable items in the shop. Her entire collection of Philosopher Stones. She took one vial out, spoke a single word and the vault snapped closed becoming a seamless, mithril box once more in the laboratory.

Returning to the copper slab, measured out her components into neat piles or stacks within the array, saving the Saki and tribble for last. She looked to the tribble. It was rolling around in the glass bowl still cooing as if the glass container was amusement. Ammy lift the tribble out of the bowl and looked it for a long moment. More cooing ensued and she sighed. She couldn't do it. She couldn't just sacrifice a peaceful creature like thise for an experiment. Though, maybe she didn't have to use the whole tribble? She held the tribble over the glass bowl and rubbed it's fur vigorously. It began to shed some of the fur into the bowl and Ammy grinned. That would be good enough for the experiment.

She set the tribble on her shoulder, placed the tribble fur in the center of the alchemy array, on top of a stack of four twinkies and grinned. Taking the saki bottle she opened it and sprinkled the array. Then she looked down at the tribble.

"Well Florence, shall we see what we get?"

A simple coo was her answer. Ammy grinned hearing the coo and clapped her paws together. She touched the array with her finger tips and spilled her soul energy into the array to start it.

"If my calculations are correct, and they always are, this should give us a reproducing twinkie that won't have to be baked or made . . ."

The array softly glowed yellow, then went to white but then winked to red in a flash as Ammy spoke. A small boom rattled the mage glass of the Alchemist's Fires laboratory. Fail safe wards and protection spells had all kicked in properly. Nothing went up in flames and only the bottle of saki was shattered. Ammy though had been knocked back by the sonic boom and the stool behind willingly helped her fall to the floor. She was staring up at the ceiling of the laboratory for a bit.

"Maybe my calculations aren't always correct . . ." she painfully ammended.

Florence the tribble rolled into her peripherry vision, perched on her chest, cooing for a bit. Ammy stroked the tribble then sat up rubbing her head then rump. She didn't look at the table, figuring an explosion like that meant her attempt and all traces were obliterated.

"Guess we are back to square one Florence." She gave the tribble a nuzzle and elicited another coo.

They both went silent though as they heard a second coo, followed by some trilling notes and some more cooing.

Returning to her lab the next day, she found the Twibble was out of the glass box. Ammy was baffled by this. She picked up the Twibble from the corner it had found its way into. It was just cooing in delight. She walked around the lab checking to see if anything was eaten. Ammy didn't want to think what would happen if a Tribble, much less this new species of Twibble ate any magical reagents.

Nothing appeared tampered with, or eaten. Ammy gave a sigh of relief and went over to the glass box to inspect it. The glass box was intact, still closed and latched. The only possible way it could have gotten out was by magic... her eyes looked at the small air holes in the glass... or it compressed itself and slid out a hole. She held up the Twibble and looked at it.

"You are just full of mystery. I think it's time we start doing tests on you."

The cooing stopped and a little growl was heard from the Twibble. Crunch! Ammy yelped in pain as the Twibble bit her furred hand and held on to it with its tiny, sharp teeth. She glared at the fuzzy pastry.

"Let go, before I get my hammer and smash you into Smore filling." she growled at the Twibble.

The Twibble just bit harder and Ammy yipped more, flattening her ears. As fascinating as the insight was that the Twibble could understand her, the pain was not pleasant to deal with. Ammy walked out of the lab with a furry thing attached to her hand and went to the counter. She pulled out several muffins and put it on the counter.

"Let my hand go and you can have the muffins." She said through gritted teeth.

The Twibble let her hand go and cooed, she swore, in excitement for food. Ammy sat it on the counter and it moved rapidly to the muffins and began to devour them. She stared in horror and fascination as the Twibble ate faster than a Tribble.

She reached under the counter and got out the massive first aid kit she kept. Ammy cleaned and bound the deep Twibble bite on her hand. She was hoping nothing bad would come from the bite, but that was a big 'iffy' hope. She packed the first aid kit up and put it away. The Twibble was still feasting on muffins. She walked to her private bookshelf and pulled out the Encyclopedia of Alchemist Arrays. She started to look up binding and holding arrays. The Twibble, she felt was not going to stay put in any normal containment.

Finding the array she wanted, she scooped up the Twibble with her stone hand and took the last half eaten muffin with her to the lab. She put the Twibble on an open alchemy table that was not being used and the muffin in front of it. As it worked on eating the muffin again, she quickly etched the containment array in the copper slab and willed a little energy into the array. The array winked with a green shimmering energy indicating the spell took and held the Twibble, she hoped in place.

She left the lab for the day to think about what she'd learned so far and to rest. Her hand throbbed a little.

Ammy sat back from the microscope and yanked the printed ticker tape from the analyzer next to her. The results were read, read again, then read a third time.

"Well I'll be damned. The Twibble's blood really is vanilla cream filling. The fur samples are a mix of plant and animal proteins with sugar as well giving it a sort of...." she took a bit of the Twibble fur she clipped and took a risk.

Ammy tasted a bit of the fur and blinked. "Spun sugar?" she looked at the fur strands again.

Had she really done it? Created a reproducing, living variation of a Twinky? But the teeth? The singing? And the acts of understanding her? Was it really just a pastry food she replicated or a possible sentient life form? Florence, her now dubbed shoulder Tribble cooed a few notes wiggled against her furred neck sensing Ammy stressing some. Ammy reached up and gave Florence a few strokes.

"I'm okay girl. Just not sure if I've created something edible that may have a soul and a reason to live." she sighed. "There's no way around it. I need to do another test or two and eat one."

Standing up, Ammy took Florence with her out of her personal lab, closed the warded door and swung the hinged bookshelf back in its place barring access to the door further. Grabbing her leather satchel she headed out to her shop in the Market Place district. She entered her store soon and headed for the glass box of a lab. She stopped, wide eyed.

There were four Twibbles rolling around the antigravity field cooing. The two new ones were two different tones of red. That had Ammy very curious as she slid through the glass wall and walked up the floating Twibbles. The red ones that cooed let out little flames from their fur as they cooed. Flames? How did this .... the fire sand!

She paced around the floating pastries. "So, you did eat some of the sand and had offspring?" Ammy leaned in to look at them all closely with golden eyes behind ruby lenses.

Only one offspring should have happened since only one had eaten, yet two were created by the one eating fire sand? As she thought about this the original Twibble squeaked and another Twibble appeared. This one was golden in color. Ammy blinked seeing this. Maybe they didn't need to eat to reproduce? She reached in with her stone hand and snagged a very hot feeling red Twibble and put it in a stone container, then snagged the newly born? baked? hatched? Twibble of golden color and put it in a separate stone container.

"Okay.... time to get serious about understanding you guys." she took the two containers and walked to a set of steps leading down to her underground garage and the array of equipment she had down there. This was not going to bode well for the Twibbles.

Ammy sat in her lab once more after repairing the door, upon a folding chair and the last remaining table half devoured. Thank goodness it was not her alchemy lab. Opening her person laboratory log she entered this notation.

To my credit, I found something to be a match against a rolling heard of murderous Twibbles. The Red Dragon Inn's stew. Never before had I seen it eat 10 metallic Twibbles with such swiftness. May I never have to see it again, though many that eat the stew claim it now holds a note of sweetness and a hint of iron tang.

Closing the journal she left for the night. Restocking and re-equipping the lab was going to be a pain.

It had been some time since Ammy had harrassed the Twibbles in her care. Her creations were tucked away now, safely in a third spire of her shop. The entire spire was filled with an enclosed living environment magicall spelled to be zero gravity and a backup anti-gravity generator to kick in should the wardings fail. The only way to that spire was by a signing a particular glyph only Ammy knew.

So today, she was floating in the zero-g spire with Twibbles drifting around her like fuzzy space ships, cooing and trilling at her. She moved through them by giving small bursts of compressed air from canisters strapped to a harness she wore. As she moved, she used a small hip flask connected to a spray wand to mist them with a mix of water and a variety of nutrients and proteins to keep them nourished. So far their numbers appeared stabled, and they seemed content not to multiply.

Ammy counted several variations in color now: White, Cream, Blue, Red, Gray, Violet, Green, Yellow, Orange, Pink, Black and Brown. She had decided to see what each variety of Twibble could do before she was heavily sidetracked by being a puppy and cleaning up the mess the Ebony Knight had left behind. Now she was back to testing them. So far she knew the Twibbles in White, Black and Brown were normal and reacted to everything she did to them for tests; she had the bite marks on her arms to prove it. The Reds, Pinks and Oranges seemed to absorb heat and could make any room frigid cold if they were allowed near the heater units. The Blues and Violets seemed to love eating metals and soaked up water like a sponge, they also seemed to release a chlorine type gas for self defense if threatened. The Yellows and Green seemed to multiply the fastest out of all of the Twibbles, just needing sunlight to split, though if they ate as well they split even faster. They were one reason Ammy had non-UV lights in the spire.

The Cream Twibbles proved nearly brain dead critters with enoug I.Q. to match a pinto bean. She was curious one day and did disect a few of the Cream Twibbles. None of the other Twibbles seemed bothered in their hivemind like they usually did when one of the other colors were injured. The Cream Twibbles, she found were actually quite edible and proved that her theory of mixing Tribble and Twinky could provide a self sustaining desert food.

It was the Grey Twibbles she was fascinated with the most and soon she had touched three of them with a hand glowing with teleport glyphs. They appeared in her lab below in zero-g wells. Ammy teleported out of the spire and grinned as she prepared her series of experiments that should prove quite, fascinating.

Almost a full year had slid by since her initial testing on the Twibbles in Spire 3. The colony had reached a population of 100 Twibbles in all seven color varieties. Ammy was floating in the spire, the zero-g wards making her crimson hair float with underwater grace. Clipboard held in paws she was categorizing the colony and jotting down names as well for each Twibble. Once her tally was finished, she teleported back to the tech lab in her garage, the pink, bejeweled collar she wore glinting from the spell.

Ammy had acquired a lot of advanced equipment over the last 12 months. She built most of it and help now from Amar Su, her partner in crime for the Crystal Core Labs projects. It was those labs and the border collie brain of Amar she had picked for her next series of tests to try on the Twibbles. She walked up to a large green nylon weave roll and undid the black webbing straps on it. Rolling out the material revealed rows upon rows of tiny medical grade sensors no larger than a postage stamp, just as thin as one too. After each pocket was checked and the sensors inspected for defects, she rolled up the material. A bottle of surgical glue and a pair of heavy, titanium reinforced gloves were taken.

Ammy teleported back into the zero-g of Spire 3 and spent a few hours catching floating Twibbles, nipping small patches of fur and gluing a stamp sized sensor on the exposed, golden brown flesh. That tedious task done, she was back in her tech lab now and had flipped a series of switches and began several signal scans from the sensors. It was now a waiting game to see whether or not Twibbles thought and used their cooing as language.