This is another free story written for furs who responded to my
Transformation-a-Week thread. If you'd like to become
your fursona, head on over there and post a reply to get a free story! ^.^
This one was written for
Kaloyan Alett, who specifically requested a short story based on my
Soulgate: Identity Crisis thread. He also asked that I mention that his real fursona is not a full dragonwolf, and just has the horns and wings and a longer tail instead. But he liked the story enough that he allowed me to keep it as-is.
Anyway, enjoy!
The woman is short, with dark hair and skin and almond-shaped eyes. Her suitrobe and slacks are clean and loose-fitted, and she carries two carbine-length shotguns in hip holsters. They're probably why he hasn't seen her sit down, Kaloyan Alett thinks.
She talks into her cellphone in Lex Principia, slowly pacing around the table, casual and even laughing sometimes. Once or twice she says something that sounds like a warning, a "You'd better not get on my bad side" sort of reminder. And every now and then she looks over at Kaloyan through the bars, not with malice or pity, but with interest.
He looks away. He is tired, and the concrete floor is cold, and he barely even remembers last night. His clothes are dirty and damp, and his stomach is empty, and the side of his face and his chest still hurt.
He looks in the puddle beside him. One of his eyes has been blackened, and is nearly swollen shut. Dried blood cakes the fur just beside it, and beneath his horns. He wants to open his muzzle and check his teeth, but a thick metal clamp binds it shut. And his wings ...
Kaloyan shifts position and unfurls his wings to look at them, not caring if he draws her attention. They're black and they appear leathery, but if he looks closely he can see scales. Each one shines in turn, and the effect has him spellbound.
What has happened to him? Kal wonders. Has he become part dragon? Or part Infernalis?
He wants to reach up and touch his horns, but he can't, because his hands are cuffed behind his back.
His breath catches on something, and he clutches his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to let tears come out. His t-shirt is brittle with caked blood, and his nanites have helped but they've not helped enough. He wishes that he still had his phone's catalyst, so that he could tell them what to do.
Why did this have to happen to him?
How had it happened to him?* * *
The red-armored woman looked like a flying robot, with rocket thrusters in her feet. She landed on one knee on the cracked desert street, fist pounded into the asphalt next to her, and looked up at the Quad. It was an older one, with dry, peeling paint and a lurching gait to its walk. But the wolf pilot inside aimed his weapons at her, and fired.
Huge chain gun rounds tore into the pavement in two straight lines coming at her. She blasted around them, flying right up to the Quad and grabbing it by the leg joint. Then she ripped its leg off and tossed it into a building, and the Quad crashed to the street in a cloud of dust.
Down the street, a wolf and a jaguar were dressed in desert robes, and shouting at her in Faran. One of them shouldered a launcher, and fired a rocket at her. She grabbed it in midair with a CLANK, then turned it around and threw it at them. It exploded, and the anthropomorphs went flying.
I drummed my claws on the armrest, glancing over at my dad's face. It was blank and wide-eyed, lit by the glare of the forty-foot movie screen. Just like the rest of the people on down the row.
I looked back up at the screen, but I was no longer interested in what I was watching. I couldn't see a cool movie anymore, and an action superheroine laying the beatdown on bad guys. All I could see was these kids way over in Ardelion, in my mind's eye, pretending to be armored supersoldiers and kill people who looked like me.
It was just so dumb and hokey. It was like the people who made the movie forgot that there were human terrorists, and the makeup artists made the anthropomorph actors look as fearsome and feral as possible. I'd never felt uncomfortable about being an anthro, growing up, because most of my friends were anthros, too. But now I watch these movies, and see all the games we sell at the store that I work at, and watch news reports where they talk about "anthro terrorists." And maybe it's just me, but I'm starting to feel like people are looking at me differently, too. Like when they tell someone else about how they're planning on moving to Ardelion to have kids. And then they look over at me with this sheepish look, like "No offense, but ... "
It'd never used to get to me before, but now it was ruining the movie I'd taken my dad to see. Darn it all ... why did people have to be
afraid of me?
My stomach turned into knots as I continued to watch the movie, until I realized it wasn't my mind playing tricks on me and I was starting to have an acute attack. "Oh,
heck," I thought, as I felt the nausea building. It was like a one in a million chance to be an anthropomorph who had the Stigma, and mine liked to flare up on me at the worst times.
I got up slowly, feeling my stomach churn and my stiff back muscles protest. My dad looked up at me, questioning me, and I smiled and wagged my tail and got up to go outside.
I managed to keep from throwing up in the bathroom. Washing my hands and looking at myself in the mirror, I saw a lanky timber wolf in t-shirt and jeans, and it didn't look like there was anything wrong with me. But the light made my head hurt, and my back was really stiff. I was careful to keep it from moving as I dried my hands off on the towels, then went outside near the water fountains and reached into my pockets for my medicine.
Only one pill left. I'd been sure that there were at least two! Cursing myself for not getting a refill, I popped it into my muzzle and gulped it down with some water, then squinted out at the parking lot past the movie theater's windows. I could barely see it, since the sun was setting past the mountains in the distance and the glare made my eyes hurt. But across the parking lot there was a pharmacy, and I was pretty sure they'd take my insurance card.
I got out my phone and texted my dad to let him know where I'd be, then walked to the doors and pushed them open. As soon as I did, I felt uncomfortably warm, like I was getting a sunburn beneath my fur even though it wasn't that hot outside. I think I just decided that it was my Stigma, and didn't think much of it at the time. But I remember that as I walked across the parking lot I started sweating, and thinking that it was farther than I'd thought, and that I'd have to text my dad again and ask him to come pick me up after the movie. I'm not sure what I was planning to do until then.
I
do know that I did
not want to go to the hospital. I don't mean that I didn't want to be sick; I mean that I didn't want to go to the hospital even if I
did get sick. Call it a phobia, but the places just creep me out. And in my experience, doctors act the weirdest around anthropomorphs. I went to the hospital after I swallowed something once, when I was a little kid, and they kept me overnight ... then three days ... then an entire week, drugged up in their "recovery" ward. And my parents had trouble getting me out of there, because they hadn't read all the fine print on the release that they'd signed.
As it turned out, the people at the hospital had been taking all kinds of blood samples and things from me, and letting the interns practice cutting me open. And they'd billed it all to my parents' insurance, which the insurance company did not want to pay the bills so we had to sue the doctors for malpractice
and dispute the charges. Meanwhile I started developing all these weird aversions, like popsicles making me gag because they'd scratched my throat with a tongue depresser. So, yeah ... that's why I didn't call for an ambulance, even though I was starting to feel so sick I could hardly move. No offense to any doctors out there.
I barely remember anything about what happened to me at the pharmacy. I know I was standing in line for a long time, and I kept leaning up against things, trying to keep my stomach settled and trying not to fall over. My phone vibrated when my dad texted me, but I felt too sick to even get it out, and I don't have a heads-up display so I'm still not sure what he said.
Then I was leaning on the counter, and they were asking me what I needed and I just kind of slurred something at them. Then they said something to me, and they sounded alarmed. But I couldn't pay any attention, because my stomach and back muscles were tightening, and it was getting more and more painful, and it hurt so bad that I screamed ...
... right up to the point when my back exploded.
* * *
I was awake for a while before I could move, just laying on my side on the car seats. When I opened my eyes, all I could see was the seat back in front of me, so I just closed my eyes and rested there. My whole body was so exhausted that I only felt it as this lump, attached to my eyes and my head. And I was starting to wake up and get uncomfortable with where I was at, but I didn't want to. I wanted to go back to sleep.
I'd almost gotten back to sleep, when my mind told me that "
I went to the theater in dad's pickup truck. What am I doing inside a car?"
That got me up. I sat upright all of a sudden, but smacked something on my head into the car roof. There was this big, solid object attached to the top of my head, and it felt like a helmet that was wired into my skull. So when I hit the ceiling, the force was transfered
into instead of
around my skeleton.
I started turning around in my seat, trying to see was these things were that were attached to me. That's when I realized two things.
One, my reflection in the car windows didn't look like it always had. Those things on the top of my head were horns, and there were scales running down the top of my muzzle and the backs of my hands and arms. I had long, sharp claws, and fangs that stuck out even when my muzzle was closed. And the things that were stuck on my back were wings, huge leathery wings like the one that I'd just been sleeping on. Blood trickled back into it as I stared at my reflection, and I felt every inch of its crawl, as this part of me that I'd never had before slowly came to life.
I traced a claw down its inside, and it reflexively stretched and pushed against the inside of the car. That's when I realized the second thing.
There were bars on the windows. There was barred, tinted glass, in between me and the driver's seat. And there were no door handles on either side.
I panicked. I didn't know how I'd gotten there, and I wanted out. And I didn't just want out because I was scared, either. I wanted out because I was six feet tall (if not taller now), and I had a wingspan that was greater than that, and I was crammed in the back seat of a car. My wings felt like they had to stretch
now, and there was this intense, physical feeling of being trapped inside a coffin. I had to get out!
I struggled just to face one of the doors, bumping my wings into everything and getting their clawtips stuck on the upholstery. Then I started prying at the door, tearing out chunks of lining without even meaning to and trying to find a latch.
There was a sound like a speaker had just turned on, and I saw the driver's silhouette shift position through the tinted glass as a woman's voice spoke:
"I don't know what you think you are doing back there, but you'd better stop unless you want to pay for repairs."
That stopped me, for a second. "Who are you?" I asked.
"
I'm afraid that I cannot hear what you say, as this microphone only works going one way. I'm Ellen Seléna, at any rate, and you're fortunate that I happened to be there while your transformation occurred! The people there were in a panic, and I do believe there was at least one weapon drawn."
"What?" I gave her a weird look. "Why?" Then I saw my reflection in the mirror again, and remembered what those last few minutes in the pharmacy had felt like. And I realized what had just happened to me
in public, and what it must have looked like to other people.
She went on. "
You're in my car now, and I'm taking you someplace safe. So please sit down, and enjoy the ride. I've relieved you of your phone, but you'll be allowed to call your family once we've arrived at my office."
I checked the case on my belt. My claw-proof, touch-screen, full-color phone was gone. "What the heck?" I cried out, feeling even more shocked and violated. "Why did you ... what
is all this? Did you do this to me?"
"
That's soundproof glass," she reminded me. "
I can only hear you well enough to know that you're making a racket."
I took a deep breath, then shouted at her. "LET ME OUT!"
She didn't respond, and I took another deep breath and tried again. "Let me out of here right now! Who do you think you are, the police? I know my rights!"
I kept shouting at her because I was mad, and because I was scared and I wanted out. And the sound of my voice was frightening, even to me. It sounded louder and deeper, and as it rumbled I felt my insides resonate, like it came from someplace deep inside my chest.
I shouted as loud as I could until I
knew that she could hear me. Then I stopped all of a sudden because I'd just gagged, like there was something caught in my throat. I started choking and coughing, and struggled to breathe as the place that my voice came from burned.
"
That doesn't sound very healthy," Ellen Seléna's voice said. "
Don't worry, I was already planning to take you to a special hospital."
I stopped in mid-gag. The hospital?
"
The doctors there will be very interested to find out what's happened to you ... "
Oh, no they won't. Oh no they
won't. There was no way that I was
ever going to go through that again. I started breathing more slowly, acting on instinct and filled with a cold determination. Then I started breathing more deeply and rapidly, filling chambers inside my lungs. Until I finally inhaled more deeply than I'd thought possible, and let it out as a blast of white-hot flame, right at the driver's seat.
Everything in front of me vaporized, and in the next instant I was left staring at the burning insides of the hole that I'd blasted in the seat back in front of me, and the dripping plastic remains of the steering wheel. I could see all the way through to the engine block, and I could see out the windshield, and I held onto the seat with my claws as the car ran off-road, into the prairie of tall grass outside my home town.
Now I was
really panicking. What had I done? Had I just killed her?
I sat there, terrified, waiting as the car finally slowed to a halt. And then I kept sitting there, as this voice in my mind just kept saying "
I killed someone. I killed someone. I totaled a car and I killed someone. Oh man. Oh man." If there was ever a time in my life when I needed a hug, that was it, because I was just so scared that I could not even move.
Finally I made myself move. There was only one way out of where I was, and that was through the hole in the seat back. I crawled out through it slowly, not sure if it'd burn me, afraid to see what was on the other side ... charred ash that'd used to be a person? The burning stumps of her feet, still inside her shoes? But I didn't see anything, all the way until I got through the hole and into the driver's seat.
That's when I noticed the door was hanging open.
How on Ardea ... I stared at it. She must have realized what I was doing, and jumped out. That was what she had done, right?
Where was she?
I climbed out of the car, stepped a few feet away from it and finally stretched out my wings, and it felt glorious. I followed up by stretching my arms and legs, and working out a kink in my neck. Then I looked around, still scared but starting to calm down.
The air was quiet and still, but the grass was up to my chest, and I couldn't see anything in it. There weren't even any streetlights, this far out of town, so I couldn't tell where the road was. I could see the car and the grass quite clearly, however, and I remember thinking it must have been a full moon. It didn't occur to my messed-up brain that the sky was overcast.
I leaned my elbows on the roof of the car for a second, head in my hands, trying to think what to do next. But in the next second something grabbed my wrist and twisted it around my back, 'till I cried out in pain. Then it pulled me away and tripped me, so that I fell flat on my face.
I was dazed, and could feel my arms being pulled around behind my back. Then I felt the metal loop of a handcuff go around one of my wrists, and I flared my wings out all of a sudden and knocked whoever it was backwards. I jumped to my feet and turned around, and saw this woman with eastern features and a dark suitrobe, who was at least a foot shorter than I was.
That couldn't be her! But it was. And she was recovering from her own daze from when my wings had hit her, and drawing a handgun. I'm sorry to say, when I saw it I panicked, and lost all of my coordination. I tried to kick it away from her, but she whirled away from me as though in a dance. And I lunged at her weapon hand, but she swung her gun into the side of my face, and it felt like I'd just been belted upside the head with a hammer.
I was staggering, and seeing double. But I could still sense where she was -- I thought -- so I ran towards her with my claws spread out. Then there was an explosion, and the force of it knocked me back. And I remember standing there dazed for a second, before I realized that there was blood all over the front of my T-shirt. Then I realized why that was, and dropped to my knees, one arm holding me up and one hand clutched to my wound.
I sat there like that for I don't know how long, while she spoke into her cellphone and kept her gun pointed at me. It didn't hurt as much as I'd thought it would ... I remember it being sort of like bad heartburn. But I also remember going between feeling ice cold and burning hot all over, and knowing I couldn't stand even if I'd wanted to. I remember my arm started to shake, the one that was holding me up, and then I started to shake all over but I couldn't do anything about it except sit there. I couldn't even think straight. I just sat there in a haze of shock.
About the time another car pulled up on the side of the road, I remember looking down at the puddle that I was kneeling in and thinking "
That is a lot of blood. I wonder how much is left in me?" Then someone tried to pull me to my feet, and however much there was left just flew right away from my head.
I passed out.
* * *
Finally, a car pulls up outside the building. And Kaloyan Alett is led outside, still handcuffed and muzzled, into the daylight.
The "car" outside is an armored van. Four soldiers with rifles and bulletproof armor step out, along with an official-looking man in a suitrobe. He hardly pays the wolf creature a thought, while the soldiers -- shorter than Kaloyan -- do their best to maintain composure. Finally the man finishes his conversation, and the soldiers roughly shove Kaloyan into the vehicle. He lands on his muzzle, and they kick his feet inside before climbing in around him and sliding the door shut.
"They're afraid of me,
" he thinks. "I'm a dangerous anthropomorph terrorist. I could hurt them or eat them, or use some magical power to turn them into an anthro. Or into a strange creature like me.
"
He squeezes his eyes shut. Tears come out anyway, but deep in his throat he is growling, inaudible above the car engine. He wishes he had
killed the woman, and he wishes he could just breathe fire at everything around him right now and make it all go away.
Perhaps one day he will ...
