This is Chapter 2 of a commissioned novel. It is set in the Caretaker Universe and is universe canon. The story follows moonshot, a socially lost bat in his 20s who walks into the wrong place at the wrong time, and winds up embroiled in the internal politics of a secret society.

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Story Text: (FA formatting is crap. Download to read it the way it was meant to be read.)
Black Sheep: Chapter 2

Moonshot woke again an undetermined amount of time later. His head was swimming, and his body felt weighted, limbs leaden and immobile, and in near total darkness. It took nearly all his limited thinking capacity to deduce that he was covered by many layers of blankets, the really thick northern comforter style blankets that used layers of heavy linens, and weighed them down considerably. He wiggled, about the only movement he could successfully manage, and eventually moved enough that his head came free of the heavy sheets, and saw he was in a very dark room, so dark that even his nocturnally adapted eyes couldn’t make out shapes and colors. Though, the fog in his head, clouding his vision, might have had something more to do with that. More than once the bat tried to sit up, wipe his face and hopefully figure out what had happened to him… or what had been done to him, but every time he did he became quickly dizzy, his muscles and bones turning to jelly, and fell back to the pillows, barely conscious once more. Eventually, after several attempts to rise or move, or even just toss off the blankets left him too exhausted to think, let alone move, Moony drifted off back to sleep, conscious only of the aching fullness of his bladder.
More time passed, the bat drugged nearly into insensibility. As the hours ticked away, the sun gradually rising and lighting the room, Moony’s head became less muddled, and he became more aware of his surroundings. Sometime in the night, the bat had pulled the weighted blanket over his head again to block out the light, which stung his eyes, and, the more perceptive he became, the more uncomfortable he realized he was. Moonshot’s upper body, insofar as he could tell, was covered in some elastic, clingy fabric, spandex maybe, and his fists and feet were balled up into heavily padded cloth mitts, his fingers and toes barely movable. When, finally, he felt confident enough in his strength to go back above the blankets, it took a full five minutes for Moonshot to adjust to the light. But, when he did finally open his eyes, what he saw terrified him.
Moonshot’s eyes first fixed on what was clearly a diaper between his legs, obstructed only by a thin layer of elastic fabric in the form of a full upper body garment that flapped up between his legs and snapped in place above his crotch, thus keeping the diaper from sagging. He had seen them used before, mostly on infants and small children, but didn’t know what they were called. On the fabric garment was a printed pattern of trucks, blocks, dinosaurs, teddy bears, and other babyish nonsense. When, instinctively, Moony grabbed at the crotch flap with the intention of ripping it off, his eyes caught sight of the inch thick, baby blue ball mitts that encased them, secured around his wrist with white, medical leather straps. They were even locked, judging by the small brass padlocks that swung from each buckle.
Terrified, Moonshot whined, and rose the mitts to his mouth with the intention of chewing them off, but, in his haste and confusion, hadn’t noticed that his maw had been strapped shut in some kind of leather muzzle, one with a pacifier built into the end of it, its rubber nipple forcing its way past his lips and teeth, keeping his snout half open, half closed, and unable to move.
When he tried to crawl around a bit, which was difficult not only because of the light bondage, but because of the powerful muscle relaxants which were still swimming in his bloodstream, he saw that, not only were his hands, feet and muzzle bound up, but they had even gone so far as to restrain his wings, which had been forcibly, and very uncomfortably bound up and covered with a fabric sheath. Straps had been buckled around the padded tube to keep them from unfurling, and, so far as Moony could tell, they too were locked.
Realizing the true hopelessness of his situation, Moonshot collapsed back onto the seat of his diaper, feeling it squish loud enough to be heard, and causing all the color to drain out of his face as he remembered how full his bladder had been last night, and the drugs that he had clearly been plied with… The ones that had caused him to wet himself while sleeping…
As terror and anger and humiliation wrapped their coils around the bat’s already troubled and stressed mind, seemingly amplified with the absurdity of the situation, Moonshot collapsed onto his sheets, whining past his pacifier and feeling tears boil in his eyes. Here he was, bound and humiliated, and dressed like a baby to boot! Helpless to reign in his swirling cloud of emotions, Moony crawled over to the eight foot bars that enclosed his mattress on all sides and wrapped his mitted paws around them, shaking with all his might. To his dismay, however, they didn’t even rock, the crib so solidly built, with bars well over two inches thick, and, with amazement, Moonshot looked beyond the crib bars into the land of the giants that he seemed to have been thrown into.
Everything, the room included, seemed to have been blown up to 150% its normal size. Above his head, Moony could see a slowly twirling mobile that was easily as big of him, and each of the dangling stars and planets were the size of his fist. Beyond the bars of his crib, the floor was covered in a general nursery mix of colorful carpet and plastic tiles, though the carpeted areas were all fenced in by child-proof safety fencing that was all easily six feet tall. In one corner, along a series of huge windows was a vast armchair, maybe intended for someone eight feet tall or bigger, and spread out to either side in proportion as well. Along one wall, to the left of a door that was twice Moonshot’s height, was a long counter top, apparently intended as a changing table, along with a high-chair that, like everything else in the room, had been blown up to novelty proportions.
Equal parts scared and confused, Moonshot stared blankly out at the room beyond his crib, which was easily the size of a queen sized bed. Even the room itself was absurdly huge, with a fifteen foot ceiling and square floor tiles that were as long as Moony was tall. All this… bigness, it had the effect of making the poor little abducted bat feel tiny in comparison, like it wasn’t the world around him that had gotten bigger, it was him who had gotten smaller, been transformed, regressed… and put right where he belonged.
That was nonsense, of course, and, on a logical level, Moonshot knew it was such. One glance out the window showed that the trees beyond, still with their golden and red leaves, were in normal proportion, which meant that it was simply a ploy to intimidate him, to make him feel tiny in comparison, and it was working.
As the immediate fear passed into mere anxiety, Moony settled down a bit, laying back in the huge crib and feeling extremely vulnerable, so he crawled back under the sheets like a cub trying to escape the boogie man. So far as he could tell judging by the path of the light across the floor of his room, it was something like nine AM. Early, but not early enough that nobody would likely be awake. Soon, probably very soon, his kidnapper would come for him… and that raised more questions than it answered. Who the hell kidnaps someone and stuffs them into a giant nursery? But more importantly, why go through all this trouble just for a twenty five year old bat of no great significance. Hell, he served drinks to college students to pay the rent. What could they possibly want with him?!
With all four of his paws all mitted up, there was no way over the bars. With his wings free he might have been able to get enough lift to hop over them, but his wings weren’t free, so he discounted the idea. To make matters worse, the helpless little bat’s bladder was full again, and, not wanting to give whatever sick freak had kidnapped him the satisfaction of making him have another accident, he did it himself, relaxing and feeling the diaper grow steadily thicker and warmer as he soaked it yet again.
As hopelessness settled in, Moony curled up in a ball around one of the childish pillows in his crib, whimpering a bit as his diaper squished even more, then his ears perked, the sounds of deep footsteps resonating through this house of giants. Even through the thick wooden door he could hear them, and realized he was trembling. They were getting closer.
The bat’s ears heard a click, then a jingling of keys as they were fitted into the surely many locks of the gargantuan door. Moonshot whimpered and curled up under his covers face beat red with shame and scared beyond belief. The door swung open, and, as the bat glanced over to see his captor, was met by a female so huge that she actually looked totally in place in the massive nursery.
No, Moonshot thought to himself, eyes bulging in awe, No, this can’t be real. I’m dreaming, or hallucinating, or… something! The woman was a lioness, albeit a giant one, and, to Moony’s eye, might well have been a bit under eight feet tall. The bat, who was actually quite short for his age, looked up in amazement, his captor easily standing three or more feet taller than him, and, for a moment, Moonshot legitimately reconsidered his theory about being shrunk. This was getting too crazy for even reality.
“Well now, I see someone’s up already,” The lioness said, giving him a coy smile and leaning against the bar of Moonshot’s crib, “You know, you gave us quite the challenge, Starfall. Two years on the run, and then you walk right into one of our establishments? I would have thought you’d have skipped the country by now… But you never were very smart, just lucky… lucky and shameless.”
She talked in a surprisingly high pitched, maternal voice for someone so huge, and, clipping a small magnetic key against one side of his crib, slid the eight foot bars into the ground. Terrified, Moony made a dash for it, trying to leap out the now open side of his cage and out the door, but his muscles failed him very nearly after the first leap.
“Oh no you don’t,” The lioness said, scooping the bat, tiny in comparison to her, up in her arms with no apparent effort. She squeezed him tight against her belly, looking down on him as if he were a child, and rocked the whimpering, terror-stricken captive back and forth, sitting down on the side of the crib and holding him close. “Some cubs…” she continued after a while, looking almost angry, “You just don’t know what’s good for you, do you? Just can’t see the big picture.”
“M-mmmggnhh?” Moonshot groaned, wiggling a bit and looking up at her, begging with his eyes that she let him go, but, of course, he got no response.
“Aela was a WREAK for six months after you went off during the night, you know that?” The giant female said, almost growling, and squeezed him to the point that it almost hurt, “She loved you, cared for you, probably the only person in your whole miserable life that ever did, and you earned her trust… just to turn your back on her. Pathetic.”
To say Moony was confused would be an understatement in proportion with the massive room around him. Starfall? Who the hell was that? And who was this Aela person I supposedly hurt…?
The lioness didn’t seem at all eager to catch on to Moony’s very apparent distress, and only kept squeezing him tight and monologuing, “Do you remember me, Starfall?” She asked, using that unfamiliar name once again as she looked down into Moony’s eyes, “We met once before, two weeks after you were first taken. Aela and I were good friends, I don’t see how you could forget…” She stared into Moonshot’s eyes for an answer, but none was forthcoming. When he realized one was called for, the helpless little bat in the arms of a giant shook his head. No, he didn’t remember her… whoever these people were, they had him mistaken for someone else. “No? Oh well, allow me to introduce myself, my helpless little newborn… My name is Hana. I’ll be your new caretaker, since Aela turned it down.”
Those last words were said as though they should be cutting, painful remarks, but, lacking any knowledge of the history between these two, Moonshot was just even more confused and scared then before. He made some loud whimpering noises, and looked like he might cry, and Hana softened a bit.
“I should stop lecturing you,” the lioness said with a sigh, loosening her grip on Moonshot until she was no longer squeezing him, “This is, after all, a new day… It’s a new start,” she hummed a tune that sounded vaguely familiar to Moony, but he couldn’t guess where he knew it from. It was probably of little consequence, but it bothered him nonetheless. “Let’s get you changed, mush butt. You can’t be comfortable in your soaked little pamper, can you?”
Moonshot whined and blushed furiously at the way she called his diaper a pamper, as though this whole ordeal wasn’t embarrassing enough, and felt the giant begin making her way across the huge room towards the changing table. It was exceptionally tall, especially up close. Were he to stand tall on his flat feet, the bat’s head would have ended right where the top of the counter began. This world… this room, full of… bigness, it terrified him, made him feel tiny and powerless, and, before he was even sat down on the laminated counter top, Moony buried his face in Hana’s belly, whimpering and weeping to himself.
“Oh, you must feel so little right now, Star,” The giant lioness said, almost smug as she rocked her charge, no bigger than a toddler to her, “This place was intended specifically for cubs like you… the defiant kind, the ones that just can’t accept their new roles… You should know by now that, once an initiate is taken, we can’t allow them to simply remain free… you endangered us, put this whole community at risk… and yet here you are, still being offered our help, our love and affection.” She lifted Moony up under the arms, the little bat’s legs flailing a bit beneath him as he was raised up to her stern, factual face, “This is your second chance at a second chance, Starfall. Do not squander it.”
“Mmmm- MMMnnngghhh!” Moony whined some more, kicking out his hind legs and squirming, but Hana’s hands were nearly big enough that she could touch her fingers around his waist. There was no way he was going to escape this massive female, let alone overpower her. With a disappointed shake of her head, Hana dropped Moonshot down onto the cool plastic surface of the changing table, humming slightly to herself as she pinned him belly up with a hand, and ran the magnetic key along the buttons of his onesie’s crotch. There was a clicking noise, and the buttons came undone, the flap falling down on its own and exposing Moonshot’s soaked, sagging, baby blue diaper.
“Tsk tsk, I see someone’s just as much of a baby bladder as the last time I saw you,” Hana said, teasingly tickling his belly and sending the ticklish bat into wiggling convulsions. He tried to sit up, or rise on his own, but Moony wouldn’t have been strong enough to overcome Hana under the best of circumstances, let alone while exhausted, bound up, drugged, and on her home turf. “Let’s get you cleaned up, sweetie.”
Once she was sure she had Moonshot under control, Hana removed her paw from Moonshot’s belly and used both free hands to tear the two big tapes on his diaper, one on either side. The little bat piped in shame and embarrassment as the diaper came down between his legs, though Hana didn’t joke further or tease him during his vulnerable, exposed state. Next the massive lioness took a small handful of cool wet wipes and began gently and expertly wiping down Moony’s crotch and diaper areas, which felt odd and alien since it was someone else doing it, but there wasn’t anything he could do to resist, and so he only wriggled, whimpering helplessly into his muzzle and pacifier.
“Don’t squirm, you know well enough that won’t get you anywhere,” Hana reminded, smiling and putting one of her strong, large paws on his chest, pinning him as she pulled the diaper out, then discarded it into a pail or bin of some kind beneath the table. “Now, let’s see… What to put you in?” She stepped back, looking down at the drawers and cabinets beneath the counter top before keenling and coming back up a moment later with yet another bright blue diaper, this one maybe twice the size of the previous, “I’d been planning on saving these for bed and nap time, but I don’t think you’ll need to be doing much walking today.”
Hana winked playfully, seizing the bat’s mitted hind paws with one hand and lifting Moony’s rear with little apparent. She slid the two inches of padding underneath him, paying little attention the her charge’s wiggling and whimpering, then set him down once again, the diaper feeling like a thin pillow beneath him, and could only go limp with shame as his new caretaker powdered his loins, gently tickled his belly, and pulled the diaper up around his waist once more, taping it securely in place before patting the front and backing off as Moonshot batted at the front helplessly with his restrained paws, but it was too firmly taped for him to get under and pry off.
“Now, I’m going to take that muzzle off for your breakfast, but I want you to remember that not being muzzled is a privilege, and I don’t want any trouble while I feed you, or getting it back on you afterward, understand? That means no biting, screaming, or refusing to eat. Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Starfall,” Hana explained, tacking the newly changed bat’s onesie back up between his legs, though it had a hard time stretching to accommodate the newly inflated padding, then picked him up without another word, letting the hapless little Moony continue to whimper and squirm in confusion, himself knowing that these people had the wrong bat, but without any means to communicate it.
Hana carried him a short distance to the other side of the nursery, where an over sized highchair had been literally bolted right into the walls and floor of the room, and was more than big enough for the squirmy bat, despite the intentionally tight fit. As soon as the giant lioness lowered him into it, though with a bit of effort, she snapped down the laminated plastic tabletop, complete with a bar to go between his legs and prevent him from slipping out beneath the table, she adjusted a few things to make the fit as snug as possible, and leave Moony practically immobile from the waist down.
“There, that should hold you,” Hana said, leaning over and looking the little, terrified bat in the eyes, practically on the verge of tears, “You’re not getting away from us again, little bat. I guarantee it. Now, do you promise to be good for your feeding?”
At first Moonshot was too confused by the lioness’s bravado, which probably would have meant more if he was the actual person intended, Starfall, he believed the name was, but, realizing she was actually expecting an answer, he gave a few short nods, hoping that would suffice.
“I hope so,” Hana said dryly, reaching behind the bat’s head and beginning to unbuckle the straps of his muzzle, “because otherwise this is going to get very unpleasant for you, very fast.” The muzzle straps loosened, and Moonshot felt some of his anxiety melt away. With his mouth free, he’d try and make his case with this clearly mistaken fringe group, and, with luck, clear up the misunderstanding.
“I- I’m nah…” Moonshot said, his mouth so numb and fat from the long period strapped into the dreadfully uncomfortable muzzle that he could barely speak.
“No speaking, Starfall, don’t make me remind you again,” Hana said, lifting one hand once more with the head harness and pacifier still dangling from it, and Moonshot fell silent, his hopes dashed. The lioness briefly left the room, leaving the diapered bat with little to do but wiggle about in his padded high chair, blush, and quietly practice speaking. Hours with the pacifier muzzle in had left him feeling numb, and he couldn’t annunciate very well, but he could have made himself understood if he had to.
Moony’s attempts to properly speak fell suddenly silent as Hana returned, carrying in one hand a large jar of something purple, and in the other a plate and baby safe spoon. At first he was a bit confused, seeing the bottle and thinking immediately of berry jam. Maybe she was going to make him a sandwich? But, of course, no such luck. Hana stood the jar up on the table as she set up his plate, making sure that the label faced Moonshot, and, on the front, in big, bold letters, were the words Bulk Berry Baby Food. Now all natural and with 0% synthetic additives.
“Just like old times, eh Starry?” Hana said with a grin, twisting the tin lid of the jar and scooping some of the semisolid goop out onto the plate she had brought for him. It did, for all intents and purposes, look like fruity jam. He could even spot chunks of fruit in the general gelatinous mush. It hadn’t quite occurred to him yet that he was about to be fed the stuff whether he liked it or not, and was taken suddenly by surprise as the giant lioness reached around behind his chair, came back with a heavy, plastic covered bib with cartoon characters of some kind on the front, and, on her own initiative, snapped it around his neck. “Couldn’t forget that,” she continued, leaning over and kissing the blushing bat on the forehead, as though he needed to be regressed any further, “Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be allowed to eat on your own?”
Forgetting her earlier warnings, Moonshot opened his mouth in frustration, intending to drive home the fact that he was not, and never had been, this Starfall character that she kept prattling on about, but was cut off abruptly as the big plastic spoon the lioness had brought with her, now containing a large scoop of baby food, was popped into his mouth, and emptied out onto his tongue.
The goop tasted… well, not gross exactly, but not good, either. Like berry puree, and had the consistency of a jam or yogurt. Moony recoiled a bit, his face contorting under the sweet, tangy baby food he’d just been fed, then, with a firm look from Hana, sank into the chair, averted his eyes, and swallowed.
“I see someone’s learning,” Hana said, smiling again, and proceeded to meticulously empty the jar onto the plate, then the plate into Moonshot’s mouth. He considered trying to resist once or twice, to refuse to eat unless he was allowed to speak, but Hana always either forced the spoon into his mouth, getting baby food all over his bib and face, then proclaiming how much of a messy eater he was, or giving him one of her firm glares and forcing him to submit and eat another bite.
Eventually, uncomfortable in his stuffed belly, Moonshot groaned under the last few bites of baby food, feeling bloated and more than a little nauseous. When finally he finished the entire jar, and was too full to even consider resisting, Hana took the empty jar, spoon and plate and left the room once more, before retuning and removing the haplessly overfed bat’s bib and picking him up once more, this time right out of the high chair he’d been stuck in nearly an hour.
“There’s a good baby, it’s okay,” Hana cooed, putting one arm under Moony’s padded posterior and the other around his back, holding him like a toddler over one of her shoulders and hushing him as he groaned, but otherwise remained complacent and limp.
The giant lioness and her more than reluctant charge sat down a few moments later, this time in the great armchair Moonshot had been impressed by earlier, and watched as his unsolicited caretaker produced a large, one liter nursing bottle of milk from somewhere in her sweater. At first the little bat, stuffed as he was, was skeptical that he’d be able to drink a drop after what passed for breakfast among these strange, strange people, but, when she gently popped the nipple of the bottle into his muzzle, and began cooing into one of his ears, each the size of a small gourd, he even began gently suckling, despite it all. A weird form of tiredness and relaxation had started to ebb its way into his mind all that time, and the sucking motion felt so natural and calming, like all his troubles could just drift away as the warm, fatty milk passed into his belly.