Breakfast was cold and mostly devoured by the time Ty made his way down the stairs. The flash of the lizard being and the view of an entirely different planet had been so startling that Ty was in pure emotional and mental shock. He sat down in a near daze, not quite sure what he was doing.
"Are you on drugs, Ty?" June said sharply. "You look high. I bet he's on drugs!"
"No, no, ma'am." Ty said at a near whisper. "I just don't feel well."
"Probably the computer." Mark said accusingly, pointing with soggy eggs on a fork. "Need to get outside more. No more computer from now on."
"Yes, sir." Ty nodded.
A silence fell over the table, like it usually did, and Ty caught the acidic glare of small youthened Dustin, boiling with rage at Ty. Through trembling bites of his food, Ty stared back. He wanted to undo it all. He wanted life to go back to normal. He...
"We'll be away for the weekend." June said. "We're going to mom's farm."
"Ty, I expect the yard to be cleaned up." Mark ordered. "Dustin, you can help him. Maybe build up some muscles."
At this, Dustin visibly bristled with rage, well aware of how big and strong his body normally was.
Breakfast ended and Mark and June prepared to leave on their road trip. This left Ty and Dustin alone together in the kitchen as they cleaned up.
"I know what you did to me." Dustin finally whispered. "Nobody else believes me, but I fucking know, Ty."
"I know you know." Ty whispered back, blushing red. "It was an accident. I can change you back. Wait until they leave and I'll make everything right."
"I don't know how, but you better." Dustin spat, tossing a plate to Ty and laughing as he fumbled with it.
"All right!" Mark said finally, announcing their departure as he wheeled a suitcase towards the door. "We'll be back Sunday evening. It wouldn't hurt if the house was cleaned up as well."
June nodded as she stood by Mark's side, and without affection the two adults departed towards their Lincoln. Once they were safely out of view, Ty breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Dustin.
Except he was suddenly standing in a pitch blackness devoid of anything at all. Gasping, he wheeled around and saw a blank dark void of total nothingness. Though somehow he could clearly see himself, there was nothing anywhere. It was especially traumatizing when a seven foot two inch tall reptile woman blinked into existance five feet in front of him.
"HOLY FUCK!" Ty screamed, falling back on his rear and throwing into full blown 'nope!' as he desperately clawed backward into the non-existant ground.
"Really?" The lizard put a clawed hand on her hip and her tail fell flat behind her. She cocked her head to the side and sighed heavily, the slits of her nose twitching at the end of a long leathery snout.
Panting in sheer terror, Ty watched with round terrified eyes as the reptile offered her hand. Staring in utter astonishment, fear, disbelief, and a number of other emotions and mental states, Ty took her hand in bewilderment and rose, gripping a cool scaly palm and five powerful digits capped with hard dark claws.
Ty simply stared. Thank God she was wearing a jumpsuit of sorts. He probably couldn't have coped with her being naked.
"I said it was going to get weirder." The lizardess offered, a slight smile pulling at the corners of her maw.
"What... the fuck... is this?" Ty managed, barely able to get the words out.
The reptiless chuckled in response, a strange and human movement with an inhuman form. "In general, a sort of contact point between dimensions. Halfway between my dimension of being and your dimension of being, although really they're the same. Specifically, we are current nowhere. But we are physically here."
"Nowhere but somewhere." Ty gulped, nervously wringing his hands before the awesome sight of a seven foot monster.
"Yes. But that's not why you're here." The lizard said calmly, her voice oozing with a sort of patronizing calm, a near obvious amusement pemeating her form. As if all this was normal. "Do you know the last time I was face to face with a human being, about forty years ago, it was some idiotic satanist trying to meet the devil by tripping on DMT. I made sure to scare the living shit out of him."
"Are you the devil?" Ty said, going deathly pale against the pure black around them.
"Certainly not." The reptile laughed, a pleasant rumbling sound. "There is an archetype called the devil. But there is no such single being. In any case, do you really think the lord of eternal darkness and torment looks like me?"
"No." Ty said matter of factly, blinking as his color came back somewhat.
"Precisely." The lizardess nodded, beggining to circle Ty with a gentle graceful walk, a long tail swaying behind her as much for decoration as for balance. "In fact, you're here right now because I wanted to speak to you face to face instead of inside your head. A bit more personal. Although I can still read your thoughts. You're wondering if I am in fact 'one of the bad lizard people,' right?"
Ty nodded slowly, comprehending but not believing. He stared at the reptile and she stared back evenly with very old very vibrant yellow eyes. "Sorry." He blushed. "I didn't mean to..."
"It's all right." She said in a suprisingly concilitory tone. "It is in fact those very 'bad ones' that give our entire starborn race a bad name. A pity that humanity's first instinct is to fear and mistrust us, but sadly warranted."
"Why me?" Ty gulped.
The creature stopped dead still and lowered her snout, staring down it at Ty in a 'are you fucking serious?' sort of way, conveying the same sarcasm in her body language as she crossed her arms over her modest chest. "Truly? Come now, you're smarter than that, Tyler."
"So what do you want from me?" He gulped again, as the lizardess drew closer well within his personal space, almost snout to eye with him.
He could feel her breath on his face, smell the strange lizardy earthy smell. He could see every nuance and texture of his fine scales. In fact, it would be a disservice to call them scales. She was smooth and glassy, but at all rough or jagged.
"A better question." She smiled coyly. "One worthy of my time here." She extended a hand again and her grin broadened across her lips and pulled into a warm toothy grin as Ty placed his open palm against hers. "Indeed, I have an offer for you."
Ty stared at his hand, at the lizard's hand, and decided very deftly that if she meant him any real harm a gesture of reassurance and calm was not something he had read about with evil flesh eating lizard people. He realxed and began to truly enjoy the surreality of this actually happening. Right now.
"W-What kind of offer?" He whispered, findin it hard not to embrace the lizard's joyful smile.
"So." She whispered back, kneeling down to meet his eye level, never letting go of his hand. "There have only been a few people like you in the history of your planet that can connect with this sort of power you have. A very keen ability to... change things."
Ty felt the coolness of her palm on his, and much to his blushing disbelief he found the courage to raise his other hand to touch the lizard's shoulder. She casually looked to his hand, smiled wider, and looked back to him with patience at his fascination.
"You want me to do something." He guessed, to which the reptile nodded gently.
"Yes. Correct." She whispered gently. "You see, we want to save your world. We want to free humanity from this dreadful self-destruction you're currently engaged in. But we can't do it from my side alone. There are... rules. About what we can do to help."
Ty blinked, seeing the total and utter seriousness that had taken over the lizard's face. Her meaning, though, much like feeling her emotions before, was something obvious and instant to Ty.
"You... want me to help you. Fight a war. Beat the bad guys. An ancient battle." He said, speaking as the words came to his mind.
"Yes." She nodded sincerely. "Now... that's not something to take lightly, all right? There is very real danger involved. You could be hurt. Or killed. Just as with all wars."
"I understand." Ty whispered. He felt the compulsion to touch the lizard's neck, and she momentarily broke her gaze to offer a smirk as he did.
"No, I'm not as rough as you thought I'd be." She said with a playful annoyance. For emphasis, she took his hand, rubbed it against her face, and Ty blushed deeply as he realized he liked the texture of her skin. "Can we focus?"
"Right. Ancient war." Ty smiled.
"Yes." She nodded. "Like I said, there are rules. You, Ty... you are the rule breaker. I want you to think about putting your power to a very meaningful use. Because, you see, if I sense your abilities and found you like this... others will too. And they may not be as nice as me."
Ty nodded solemnly and stared back into the reptile's eyes and her wash of green/teal/yellow skin. She-
"Really?" She said curiously, suddenly switching tracks with a knowing smile. "I'm arousing you sexually right now?"
"Oh shit!" Ty reeled, pulling away his hand and putting it on his head in a horrified blush.
"No, it's out there now." She chuckled, rising to her full height and shyly looking away. "Telepathy can be quite interesting between two beings."
"Sorry, I'm..." Ty turned beat red. "I mean... I've never seen anything like you before. I..."
The lizard chuckled patiently and waved it away. "It's all right. It's a healthy natural thought. I am humanoid, after all."
"So... anyway." Ty gulped, taking a deep breath. "Can... you... protect me from the others?"
"Yes." The lizard said sternly, almost aggressively. "As I said before, I am a higher fifth dimensional being. I can easily protect you from lower negative fourth dimensional beings. Easily. Or rather, I can protect you from things you can't see. Anything in your reality, though, that's much more difficult."
"I get it." Ty nodded, again staring at the lizardess for a split second longer as he considered the implications.
"You like me." The lizard said with a sly smirk. "You think I'm a potential parent figure. You've decided I'm really cool."
"Stop that!" Ty said with mortified embarassment.
"It's okay." The lizard grinned, walking up close and carefully putting her powerful arms around Ty's back, deepening his blush. "That's how you feel. There's a reason I found you first, I think we'd work really well together. We could do amazing things."
Ty simply stared up into the tall reptile woman's deep yellow eyes, and he knew he had made his decision of his own free will. "All right. I'll use my powers to help you. But only if you help keep me safe in return."
"Are you sure?" The lizard whispered. "I need you to be very sure."
"I'm sure. How could I say no?" Ty whispered back, grinning.
"You can call me Narissa." The lizard whispered gently, before letting go of Ty and turning to walk away.
"Narissa?" Ty asked, not quite believing it.
The lizard stopped in midstride, not turning to face him, and swayed her tail playfully as she looked over her shoulder with a sly grin. "My actual name would rip your throat apart if you tried to say it. It's a pseudonym of sorts."
"Oh. A-All right." Ty said, putting his arms around himself and relishing how warm her embrace had made him feel. "Narissa."
"Incidentally." She called over her shoulder, vanishing into the shadows of nothingness and nowhere. "I can phase shift physically into your dimension for as long as I wish. All you have to do is give me your consent to do so. Might be useful to keep talking like this, in the comfort of your home, with your step parents away, don't you think?"
"Oh! A-All right!" Ty nodded.
He was alone. In the black. Total nothingness surrounded him, and in that moment Ty felt pathetically scared and alone, uncertain of what he had just gotten himself in to, but reassuringly hopeful of what it might mean.
"Narissa?" Ty called into the black. "How do... how do I go back?"
Now back to a whisper in his mind, the lizard audibly laughed. { Click your heels three times, of course. }
Ty was about to protest, but was suddenly standing back in the kitchen facing Dustin. Not even a second had passed. He blinked, remembering it all, and found himself staring at a cross and pouting step brother.