Oreldo and Marches were walking from their apartment to the Section 3 office one morning, when a high pitched screech was heard, along with the sound of gushing water. Before either of them could turn around, a wild garden hose that had wrenched itself from the hands of a local gardener had instead turned its full force onto the two young men. 

“Yikes!” Oreldo exclaimed, and this was the last that Marches had heard from him. Both men were sopping wet. 

The gardener ran over to the two to apologize. 

“I’m so terribly sorry! It seems like I’ve completely drenched you and your dog.” She spoke kindly. The woman held out a towel for the two.

“No, it’s fine! We’ll just get changed into our backup uniforms at work.” Marches replied, though he did take the towel to dry off his head. He turned to look at his friend, when he noticed that the man he knew as Oreldo wasn’t around. In his place stood a quite wet blonde German shepard, looking quite confused. 

“Oreldo!??” Marches gasped. 

+++

Alice was pacing back and forth. Most of Section 3 had made it to work on time today, but Oreldo and Marches were missing. She expected this kind of behavior from Oreldo, but was shocked that Marches was breaking the rules as well. Alice was thinking of appropriate corporal punishments for the two when she heard someone running down the hall, with another set of odd footsteps as well.

She turned toward the door, only to see a panicked Marches.

“Marches! I hope you’re ready to explain why you’re late! Where’s Oreldo!” said Alice. 

Marches was nearly out of breath, and behind him, a suspiciously familiar looking dog entered the room. 

Mercury went up to Dog Oreldo and wagged his tail. Oreldo hid behind Marches. 

Panting, Marches finally spoke. “Haaah…you guys…Oreldo…got…turned…into…a dog!” 

Hunks, Oland, and Stecchin got up from their seats to get a better look. Certainly, the dog was a similar shade of blonde to their colleague. 

“No way!” Stecchin waved her arms. “Oreldo turned into such a cute pupper!” She raced over to Marches and reached out her hand to pet him.

Oreldo looked annoyed, but let Stecchin pet him anyway. His tail was gently wagging. 

“Okay, disregarding the fact that this is clearly impossible, what even happened to get you into this situation?” Hunks asked smoothly. Marches explained the earlier mishap with the gardener. 

All members of Section 3 stood there, unable to decide what to do. Despite being a dog, Oreldo successfully jumped up onto his chair, and laid his front paws on his desk, appearing to be lying down, ready to take a nap. 

Noticing this, Alice interjected. “Oreldo! I don’t care if you’re a dog, we have work to do! You hate paperwork anyways, so we’re going to do some fieldwork!” She grabbed an extra collar and leash that was kept around the office for Mercury, and tied it to Oreldo.

The german shepherd yowled, but was dragged away by Alice, determined to accomplish some work today. Oland followed behind sheepishly.

Marches laughed. “Maybe he’s better off like this…” 

Hunks chuckled and Stecchin smiled. “He’s definitely cuter!”

+++

Oreldo got dragged around all day, forcefully by his Lieutenant, and more gently when Corporal Oland was holding the leash. Unsurprisingly, his improved sense of smell had led them to some surprising leads regarding the smuggling of illicit goods. Oland had convinced Lieutenant that it would be more successful if they raided such places after gaining more information, so they simply recorded the suspicious places for future investigation.

After a long, hard day’s work, Oreldo wondered when he would gain his human body back. He was hungry, but he didn’t dare ask for food, since he wouldn’t put it past Stecchin to innocently offer up dog food in his current form. Sharing dinner with Mercury? No way!

Oland, Alice, and Oreldo returned back to the office at the end of the day. Marches was finishing up on paperwork, and Stecchin was preparing tea for them, as usual. 

She had several cups on her tray, and passed them out to Marches, Alice, and Oland before realizing she had made one too many. “I guess you don’t need this, Oreldo!”

She was about to put it away, when she tripped on nothing, and the cups on the tray went flying towards Oreldo, leaving no time to dodge them. The cups of hot, piping tea fell on the blonde dog. 

“OOOOOUUUCCHHHHH!!” The blonde man screamed. 

He was sitting on the ground. Not wearing any clothes. 

This time, it was Stecchin’s turn to scream. 

+++

After some serious commotion between the Lieutenant and Stecchin, Oland took off his jacket and covered Oreldo, preserving his dignity while Marches rushed off to procure another set of clothes stashed in the man’s locker. The clothes from this morning were finally dry, but they were too dirty to wear out and needed to be washed.

After finally getting dressed (with Alice and Lili turning around so they wouldn’t see him), Oreldo finally explained. 

“Captain, have you heard of something called “Spring of the Drowned Dog?”

Hunks grinned.