In the end, it was all down to Buck.
Everyone around him was incapacitated. Sam was a rather dumb-looking himbo raccoon mechanic, his lover, Bubba, was currently a feral raccoon, coaxing another orgasm from his new genitals. And Alpha was crumpled onto the gravel of the body shop’s driveway, having used up all his energy.
It was a fucking mess, honestly.
Buck rubbed his strange, hooflet-ted hands together, feeling the hard clack of his nails. It was such a strange feeling. He reached up and felt his horns. 12 points, pretty decent for any buck. And his short-furred hide was warm-warm enough that he felt he could go without wearing any clothes at all. He was still a chubby trucker, though, and somehow he’d managed to keep his body hair and beard even as a buck. The shift in textures between fur coat and the coarser, darker body hair was strange, to say the least.
The tubby stag tottered forward on his hoofs, trying to keep his balance, and picked the Book up off the ground. Dustin would be unconscious for a while, likely 12 hours. Troy knew that the next, most expedient course of action would be to look for the Book of Body.
Bubba was the raccoon on the gravel playing with himself, Troy deduced. He heard cars coming up the road and decided he needed to do something to make the scene less…odd.
“Half.” Troy pointed at the fat raccoon.
It swelled larger, becoming anthropomorphic. Troy hadn’t specified much changes, so he still looked quite a bit like Bubba….just furrier. And still jerking himself off.
“Command.” Troy said, pointing at Bubba and Sam. “Sam, Bubba, place Dustin in the car and get out of sight. You may…enjoy each other’s company behind those bushes over there, outside of casual viewing. The commands given to you by Dustin remain in place.”
The two anthros moved to comply, placing Dustin back in the car and closing the door. They seemed much more eager to go behind the bushes and, uh, help each other adjust to their new forms. The cars Troy heard with his enhanced hearing finally roared passed. A split second later, Troy ducked behind the car, realizing he’d stand out as an anthro stag.
“Half.” Troy muttered to himself.
His body slowly returned to that of a tubby trucker. He winced as he glanced into a nearby mirror, seeing his new hairy gut and lewd, pointy nipples attached to his drooping moobs. Fucking Bubba had done a number on him. He ran his fingers over his bald dome, feeling the strange, smooth pate. At least he had a beard, he thought, combing his fingers through it.
He shrugged on his clothes, which did not fit him properly and still showed off his fuzzy ass crack and a crescent of furry gut, and went to the Body Shop.
Still, Troy was sure he wouldn’t get too much heat, save for maybe some odd looks. Stupid, perverted Sam and Bubba had given him the kind of body that screamed grungy bottom.
Troy made it halfway through the garage before a heavyset man lumbered into his path, cleaning his greasy mitts on a dirty towel. Like all the others, he was dressed in a jumpsuit, though he’s only zipped it up to his waist, revealing a wife beater stretched over a hairy gut. Troy saw the man’s furry shoulders glisten with sweat as he padded his bald head with the towel.
“Hey, cub.” The mechanic grinned, walking over to him, heavy gut jutting proudly forward. “Ya need somethin’?”
“Yeah,” Troy swallowed, wondering why his cock was hardening in his jeans as he stared up at the big man. “Sam wanted me to get something from the office.”
“I see.” The man leaned forward, lifting the cap off Troy’s head and turned it over in his hands. Troy didn’t dare stop him, hoping he’d go away. He could smell his musk and sweat and it was delightful. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of this, you know.” He gently rubbed Troy’s equally bald dome. “It’s a sign of maturity.”
“Just wanted to show my support for the club.” Troy tried to breathe shallowly and edged towards the front desk. “Excuse me.”
“Here, have mine.” The big bear reached behind him and pulled out a well-worn cap. He placed it on Troy’s head, then adjusted it. “Ya look like a dork if you don't bend the brim right.”
Troy nodded, smiling, but avoided eye contact. “Thanks.”
He hurried off, though that familiar musky smell followed him. The bear’s cap must have been dosed with whatever pheromones Sam and Bubba excreted. It shouldn’t do anything to him now, while he was under his Book’s protection. When they got their hands on the Book of Body, figuring out how to neutralize it was going to be the first thing on his list.
Troy checked the front counter area first.
It was kind of messy, though Troy was surprised at how organized it still managed to be. He flipped through documents and papers. There had to be some method to the madness. Why did Bubba even have a clipboard if that wasn’t what had changed Troy? Either way, that clipboard and whatever notes Bubba kept on it wasn’t in the front office, and not in the cash register either.
He sighed, really hoping it wasn’t in a safe. That would be the smart place to put it. Safes were so hard to break into, especially modern ones. They might have the code written down somewhere, but that would take some time to find, too. Already he was getting glances from the mechanics as he dug around, ass in the air, a cold breeze rolling off his exposed crack.
Troy stopped rummaging through the front counter area. It clearly wasn’t here. It hadn’t been in the pile of clothes Bubba had left behind, and Sam’s outfit was tight, Troy hadn’t seen the outline of a Book there either. Though why anyone would confront him without a Book was beyond his limited understanding as a human being.
Next place to check would be Bubba’s office. And Troy knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that someone would stop him from going in there. He tightened his hold on his Book, then paused, a horrible idea striking him. If Sam, somehow, did have the Book, was he faking being controlled?
Troy looked out the window, where he could see movement behind the bushes. Apparently, his command was working just fine on the handsome mechanic. He sighed with relief and walked back out into the shop to Bubba’s office.
“Find what you were lookin’ for, son?” The mechanic appeared again, sidling up next to him.
Troy looked over and met the man’s droopy gray eyes. He was forty or fifty, with hair the color of cast iron. The burly mechanic looked time-worn but had a smile on his bearded face. Not hostile. Yet.
“What’s your name?” Troy asked, still trying to figure out how to respond.
“Badger. You?”
“...Buck.” Troy said, deciding to pretend to be under Bubba’s spell.
“Nice name.” The man’s hand encircled Troy’s waist and he felt a pinch on his rear.
“Thanks. I like yours too.” Troy swallowed, trying to ignore the man’s gentle pats on his ass.
“Didja get what ya needed from the front counter?” Badger asked, pulling Troy closer against him.
“No.” Troy made a big huffy sigh and leaned against the man’s side. “He wants Bubba’s clipboard for notes he took about my truck. But it’s not in the front office!”
“What’s that you have in your hand?” Badger asked.
“Manual.” Troy lied. “Got it leather-bound, too!”
“Heh, I like a man that takes pride in his vehicle.” Badger’s eyes twinkled.
Troy felt the man’s calloused hand dip into the back of his jeans. His digit followed the crack of his ass all the way to his pucker. He gasped as the bear fingered his hole, moaning when it rubbed his prostate.
“B-badger, please don’t-” Troy gasped as the finger bumped his gland again. “Oh!”
“Why don’t you set that book down on that counter over yonder and we have a little fun?” Badger growled in Troy’s ear.
Troy was flustered and trapped by the large bear. He moaned again as that probing finger hit his prostate. This wasn’t good. Who knows, maybe this guy had the Book and he and Dustin had been distracted by the two most obvious guys. He tried to stall, to get a little distance between himself and Badger, remembering the lesson Sam had taught him about casting spells in melee.
“You gotta let me go first.” Troy smiled.
Badger grinned and pulled his finger from Troy’s bum. Tory stumbled back a few paces, ensuring a bit of distance between himself and the big mechanic. Then he took a breath, smelling the musk and trying to ignore it.
“Shape.” Troy said, pointing his finger at Badger’s tummy.
Immediately, the bear began to shrink. Troy turned and walked away towards the office. The man behind him tried to cry out, but all that came from his lips were whines and whimpers and barks as he transformed into a rather fat Rottweiler.
Troy dusted off his hands. That was one rather bothersome mechanic dealt with. He sighed as the man’s skull deformed and his eyes lost the light of humanity. Troy walked to the office and wondered if he would have to control Badger. He rather hoped he would be a good boy, considering-
A heavy weight dropped on his leg.
Troy looked down to see the fat Rottweiler desperately humping his leg, big red rocket slapping up against his jeans, smearing them with precum.
He rolled his eyes. “Down boy.”
The Rottweiler gave an odd grumble and persisted. Troy tried pulling him off his leg, but Badger tightened his grip with his forepaws. The horny fuck wouldn’t let go! He really did just want to fuck him! What a one-track mind to survive a feral shift, holy shit.
Troy grit his teeth and dragged himself and the horny mutt towards the office door. It was, of course, locked. He couldn’t exactly kick it open with a dog on his leg.
“Control.” Troy said, with a heavy sigh. “Stop humping me, Badger.”
The energy left him, but as he’d suspected, the lack of too many big commands made it much less energy-consuming. The dog stopped humping him and wandered around the garage, whining, red rocket flopping, knot fully engorged. Troy watched him wander and shook his head.
“Alright, time to use the universal door opener.” Troy took a breath and kicked at the door.
The door gave, small splinters of wood exploding out from the frame as it flew open and slammed against the side of Bubba’s desk. Troy heard distant shouts from the garage, some about the dog running around, but most coming to investigate the noise. Not wanting any accidental reality shifts, Troy just walked inside the office, out of direct line of sight, and waited.
“Bubba, what was that-” A bearded and bellied mechanic stepped into the room.
“Shape.” Troy said, pointing.
The man gave a yelp and stumbled back out of the doorway. As the sound of panic turned to whines that rapidly retreated into the distance, Troy waited. There was silence outside the corridor.
“I know there’s more of you out there... are you coming in or not?” Troy asked, impatient.
“Hold on, don’t do nothing crazy.” A big, bearded man stepped inside, hands in the air.
“Who else is…” Troy began asking before the man suddenly lunged for him.
“Shape.” Troy sighed, flicking a finger in the man’s direction.
He stumbled and tripped as he shrank out of his clothes into a rat’s form. It squeaked at him angrily, then scurried off into the garage. Troy shook his head and started looking around. That should be enough examples that no one would come looking into the office any time soon.
There was a clipboard!
Troy nearly cried when he found it, on the top of a bunch of other paperwork in his upper desk drawer. Fucking Bubba. He flipped through the pages, but all it described was…changes. The questions he asked, intent, that sort of thing.
It looked like Bubba was experimenting with the Book, somehow. Like he was willing changes and then…letting the Book just…do it’s own thing. The kind of changes seemed to depend on the mood of the room, the owner’s desires, and if he pushed really hard for a certain change mentally, it would just happen.
And the target rarely noticed it. It even documented how they controlled reality shifts. This notebook was extensive! Bubba even watched porn and tried to duplicate some of the body shapes he’d seen or try to clone a hot trucker he’d fucked (a natural trucker, not someone he’d transformed) with one of his customers.
In some ways, he’d succeeded-the guy he’d transformed looked like him. But he only superficially acted like him. There was a sharp limit to how far the Books would go, as Troy himself had found when attempting to replicate furry OCs.
But where was… ah!
Troy chuckled. Body odor. That was what they used. They’d figured out how to make their body odor transformative, using pheromones to adjust people, alter their minds and bodies. Rather, the mind followed form, as Sam had wrote. They didn’t NEED the Book on them, they already had that passive defense mechanism. And if they didn’t want to transform anyone…well, they took a shower and wore deodorant.
Simple and effective, the best kind of weapon.
BUT. That still left the question of where the fucking Book was. While the clipboard had plenty on Bubba’s experiments with it, there wasn’t anything about where he was actually storing it. Seeing that the desk was covered in paperwork, Troy tried rifling through it for any clue about the books location. But all he found was lots of business related junk.
Gross. Troy hated running his business, but thankfully it was the kind of job that required him to remove any evidence he’d ever had a client in the first place.
Unfortunately for Troy, Bubba meticulously documented all of the work done in his garage – and business had clearly been good. Beyond the stacks of paper on the desk, a quick glance around the room showed Troy that it was filled with filing cabinets and boxes full of paperwork. And this wasn’t some tiny cubicle, the office itself was more like a decent sized bedroom. Hell, it even had its own bathroom.
“Hey Bubba, what’s up with the dogs-?” A man walked in and saw Troy rifling through cabinets.
“Shape.” Troy pointed.
“Wharuff!? Ruff!” The man said, voice warbling in pitch as he slowly transformed into a pitbull.
“Don’t make me control you.” Troy said, not even looking up when he heard the man fall onto all fours and begin growling. “You’ll be sucking your own cock if you attack me. I’ll change you back when I’m done.”
There was a pause, then the clatter of nails as the dog padded out of the room. Troy could hear yelps and whines coming from the garage area, but ignored it. He could only imagine what they were getting up to.
As Troy returned his attention to the room, his attention was drawn to a large, framed picture of two monster trucks hanging behind the desk. “Could it really be that obvious?” Troy thought as he lifted it up off the wall. Yep, sure enough, behind that picture was a big, black, fireproof safe. Because of course it would be fireproof in a garage. He sighed. Time to find that acetylene torch.
Troy hitched up his pans, which only made them hug his waist, and walked back out into the garage. It was almost silent, save for the two dogs fucking next to a half-chopped car. Troy smirked as he saw the pitbull getting reamed by the fat rottweiler from earlier. The acetylene torches and their gas cylinders were next to the car. He grabbed them and hauled them back to the office, huffing and puffing the whole way.
Fucking Bubba hadn’t made him that much stronger, just enough so he filled out his shirt and pants properly. He desperately wanted revenge on the man, but he also needed someone to chop the fucking cars. Couldn’t have both revenge and a useful tool.
Troy set up the torch below the safe, then went back to get some welding gear and something to catch the sparks. Wouldn’t do to set the office on fire. He sighed, then paused, wondering how he knew exactly what to do. Had one of the two mechanics implanted to the training in him?
“Weird.” Troy shook his head, still smelling Bubba scent in the air.
Was the odor messing with his brain even now, with him out of commission? That would be kinda scary, like a trap that only got unsprung. Easily combated with a bit of Fabreeze, though, now that he thought about it. He slapped the welder’s helmet down on his face and got to work.
Twenty minutes later and it still hadn’t burnt through the thick metal on the locking mechanism. Troy threw the torch down in agitation, then scrambled to shut it off as the rub caught fire. Twenty minutes of cursing and dousing the carpet later, and Troy was officially fucking done.
“Wait.” Troy said, as he paced the hallway outside the office, throwing off his welding mitts and helmet. “Am I…being stupid?”
Why did he think he was going about this the wrong way?
Troy stopped, feeling as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice on him. Because he WAS being fucking stupid! Troy turned and marched back outside, ignoring the looks he got from the few workers he hadn’t turned into animals.
He went around into the bushes and found Sam and Bubba going at it strong, an hour after he gave them the order to do with each other as they pleased. He rolled his eyes.
“Stop fucking and tell me where the Book is!” Troy said heatedly.
“I merged it in me, Buck.” Sam said, eyes slightly unfocused.
“You can do that?” Troy’s jaw dropped.
Sam nodded.
“So why not attack me with it, or keep yourself from getting controlled?” Troy asked.
“It’s the limitations of the merge. Only passive applications work. Didn’t have time to unmerge it when we caught you with the Book of Beast.” Sam droned.
“And what was with Badger giving me his hat.”
“We promised him you. His own cub.” Sam shrugged. “Didn’t know ya had a roommate.”
“The hat has Bubba’s scent on it.”
“Mechanic pheromones. You wouldn’t really be a trucker if ya were his.” Sam shrugged. “Did he like ya?”
“Yes, but that isn’t the point!” Troy reddened. “Unmerge your Book and hand it to me. Now.”
“Ya got it, Buck.” Sam smiled and put his hand to his side.
Troy waited as the Book of Body formed itself out of flesh and fur and gradually assumed the form of a leather-bound tome. The raccoon held it out to Troy. Troy reached to take it…and noticed light beginning to flicker in Sam’s eyes. It was giving him active protection!
He snatched it from Sam just as the mechanic blinked and shook his head, hand reflexively closing on the outer binder. Troy shoved him away. The mechanic stumbled back, ears twitching, and his eyes glazed back over and he assumed his passive posture.
Troy held up the Book and watched in awe as it merged into his own Book, becoming the Book of Living Forms. He flipped through it, noting the different spells that had appeared. There were even some advanced rules that had popped up on the first page, but they weren’t something he was good at reading. More of Dustin’s thing.
Speaking of Dustin…his roommate was still passed out. Troy sighed, realizing that they needed to make some big decisions now, and it would be best if Dustin made them. He was the more levelheaded of the two of them.