"Purehearted roach, fire-hot~ Tonight he comes to your house~"
Ollie Blake moved to stand next to Julian North. Julian looked a little down; Ollie opened his mouth a few times but said nothing, and in the end followed the others.
But Jade Hayes heard the whisper Ollie sent to her.
"Help look after my Julian. Keep both of you away from Shane Keane."
"Huh? Ah? Oh—"
Cat-tilting-head.jpg
She didn't know why, but she trusted things the resident genius said—if he said it, it had to be right.
"Don't worry, Ollie. I'll take care of this human. Us tabby cats punch way above our weight."
Ollie agreed. Tabby cats were fearsome; no matter how strange Shane Keane was, he was still just a human. What could a monster be afraid of a human for?
In the end the teams split—one headed east, the other west. Ollie volunteered to lead the west side, leaving the slightly safer east to Julian's group.
Mason Yu had been put off by Ollie earlier, and since Mason's on-screen persona was that of a rebellious rich kid, he didn't hesitate—he ditched the other three and went off by himself.
In his eyes, Grace Jiang and Anna Lang were fragile; bringing them along would only slow him down. And Ollie looked like the type who couldn't fight—pretty enough to be useless—and might even have less stamina than the two women.
"Ugh…" Anna couldn't get a word in before Mason left. She sighed and forced a smile; their live-stream gear caught their faces in the other cameras, so she did her best to manage her expression.
"What now?" Grace asked.
Ollie scanned the area. It turned out to be a lucky coincidence—last night Shane Keane had somehow shoved him into this patch of woods, so the place where Shane had snapped off branches was nearby. One of those trees had something stuck in it that looked like a makers' marker.
"Do what you normally do," Ollie said calmly. "Don't let anyone throw you off. First priority: find supplies. The longer we dilly-dally, the more energy we waste. Food first."
He led them toward the spot he'd been at the night before. Not long after, they spotted something that definitely looked like a production-team marker.
If Ollie hadn't complained about the poor lighting last night and bothered to move things around, nobody would have noticed it now—this show sure loved hiding things in annoying places.
But a new problem presented itself.
Three people stood under the tree and stared up with wide eyes.
0.0
Even if they could see the marker, what could they do? That thing was so high up, and the tree so bare—who could climb up there?
Their live chat could see the marker too, frustratingly close but far out of reach.
[6: If you want the cast to starve, just say so. If it were a thick branch they might heave one of them up, but this tree? I don't even know how the crew got that up there.]
[Give up, babe. The tallest of you is Ollie at 5'10", and that marker's like 16 feet up. You'd have to stand on each other's heads to even come close.]
[Suspicious. This height is just to mess with them.]
[Wait??? What is Ollie doing???]
Grace and Anna weren't ready to surrender. One held the tree, the other pulled; they shook it hard, trying to dislodge the stubborn marker. The production team wasn't going to forget to rig things—after a while the marker didn't budge.
Ollie listened for a long moment, then ducked into the grass beside them. He poked around, and finally pulled out a pinecone.
"Ollie, are we going to eat this later? Isn't this for squirrels? Is that how pine nuts work?" Anna asked, taking the pinecone out of his hand and biting it before Ollie could stop her.
"Ouch! My tooth—"
"No, we don't eat it—"
The chat nearly exploded with laughter. Anna had always been the well-behaved one, until the variety show and Ollie slowly dragged her out of that image—maybe it was just her nature finally showing.
Ollie sighed, aimed a pinecone at the spot where the production team had put their marker, and heaved it with all his strength. It landed, perfectly wedged on the branch near the marker.
Before anyone could admire his aim, he picked up another pinecone and tapped a nearby trunk a few times. Soon, little furry faces poked out from the surrounding trees.
[! Squirrels! Awwww]
[SO CUTE OMG I—there are so many baby squirrels, let me kiss them!]
What looked like Ollie knocking on the trunk was actually misdirection: out of sight he used his aura to ping a message to the local squirrel friends.
"Anybody want to snag something for me? Payment: ten pinecones."
The squirrels nearby weren't short on pinecones. They poked their heads out because they felt a familiar call. Ollie might be a little hamster, but in Northridge the forest critters had all sorts of petty fae and spirits—he had squirrel friends, chinchillas, marmots, flying squirrels, and more.
Among the squirrels, one plump, energetic brown-furred squirrel with a particularly perky tuft scrambled down and stopped in front of Ollie, flicking its massive fluffy tail.
Ollie crouched and offered his pinecone. The squirrel quietly slipped a few freshly picked sunflower seeds into his hand.
That's how mousey friendships work—simple trades and quiet trust.
A gluttonous hamster like Ollie wasn't going to refuse free sunflower seeds. He carefully scooped up the plump squirrel, pointed once at the high branch and then at the pinecones in Grace and Anna's hands.
He didn't say a word, but, to everyone's astonishment, the squirrel seemed to understand.
It dropped the pinecone Ollie had already put up, darted up the trunk in a blink, and in no time reached the marker at least five meters high.
Grace and Anna probably didn't see the whole thing live, but the cameras did. The chat watched as the squirrel took the pinecone Ollie had wedged up there and passed it to its companions, then used its teeth to chew through the knot of the marker and gnaw off the tiny branch holding it.
Triumphant, the squirrel bounded back down, hopped up to Grace's foot, and presented the little branch as if to say: "Hello, here's your UPS Mouse Mail—please sign."
No one can resist a tiny critter like that. The girls gingerly set their pinecones on the ground and tried to pet the squirrel. Surprisingly, the normally skittish animal didn't bolt; it nudged against their hands.
"Omg Ollie, you're amazing! It's so soft! So soft!"
"Look at that fluffy tail—heehee squirrelie!"
The chat was green with envy, practically begging to be transported into Grace and Anna's shoes to pet the squirrel themselves.
[Ollie, have you been secretly studying beast-taming? Jiji's so in tune with people—spill! Are you a Beastmaster?]
[Aaaa the baby squirrel is so good I'm going to cry I want to pet it I want to pet it I WANT TO PET IT]
[Ollie, when's Jiji going to stream? You're such a bad big brother, don't hog the critter—let Jiji make money! Or better, send it to college, it has more future than you.]
[Noooo stop psyching us out with parenting, it's one hamster, leave Jiji alone, he's a baby]
[OLLIE!!! My mom's gonna die without pet content I need to feel that squirrel energy!]
[Non-fan: Hey fellow folks, if you stan Ollie, do you get a chance to worship at the Beastmaster Clan? I've heard his pet Jiji is talented—I really want to see it up close.]
[? Where did the ancient scholar come from]
[Are you all actually regular people? What if the apocalypse comes and you all fly away on spirit swords and summon pets while I'm the only one still running on foot?]
[Let's focus: Ollie please, my mom left when I was young and now her life dream is to hold a baby—if you won't spare Jiji then please, give the squirrel to my mom? Pretty please.]
The two girls blissed-out, nearly forgetting the show's mission. After five or six minutes the squirrel tucked its tail away and, with Ollie's help, packed a tiny bundle from the seed reward. The squirrel's little body, loaded with the package, hopped back up the tree until it vanished from sight. Only then did they reluctantly return to the task at hand.
Caleb Ross watched the new Instagram trending and smiled; his wallet was going to be beefed up again.
He posted on the account he ran in tandem with Ollie, releasing footage of the long-awaited little hamster Jiji—who had been absent from the public eye.
Random viewers clicking the #OllieBeastmaster trending tag would now see Jiji, and Caleb's post hit the trend perfectly.
Jiji did some pet-food sponsorships: not huge money, but Caleb thought every bit counts.
Everyone tuned in hoping for a repeat of the adorable fluffy squirrel, but the video Caleb uploaded gave them a different kind of shock.
In a meticulously staged hamster set, a gray-and-white little guy bounded around—into his house, onto his wheel—but the important part was what he wore.
The tiny, photogenic, sugar-cute hamster was dressed in a giant roach costume. The fake wings on the back were uncannily realistic; felt had been molded to look disturbingly authentic. Antennae bobbed atop his head, and a few hairy legs dangled and swayed with every scurry.
When the hamster slipped and tumbled down a tiny stair, viewers realized the costume even had…six-pack abs.
[Note: author notes omitted]
—>
End of chapter.