"David!?" It was Mrs. Phillips and she sounded new levels of terrified... though maybe he just heard more tone in her voice due to his new ears? He tried not to jump to any conclusions, but some protector gene in his newly lupine configuration kicked in. He thought of Phillips as, well, a potential mate... though only recently in those specific terms.
Alice and Tommy weren't his kids, to be sure. Mrs. Phillips was in the process of her divorce but it was far from finalized. Still, while he didn't think of them as his children, he had a good rapport with the kids, and he liked them all a lot. Unofficially 'mom's boyfriend'. And, with that in mind, human and wolf instincts combined into a quick response.
"I'm still at the farm. I'll get out the sleeping bags and I can make food." Before she asked, he was already answering her next question: "Yes, I had other plans, but I can hear it in your voice, Holly. I'm putting you guys' safety first."
She was choking back joy while still crying. She knew David was dependable and didn't think he was ever required to be. "He says he knows I'm seeing someone," she finally said, referring to her abusive husband... a man David has never met and had no plans to. Then again, story isn't much without conflict, and David glanced at me in that moment, still somewhat aware he was at the whims of another.
David could tell from the audio quality that she was probably on speaker phone. Therefore, because the kids might overhear, he worded his next statement a bit chunkily. "Nothing wrong with seeing someone... It requires a deeper connection to get you in trouble," David pointed out. What he'd meant was that in this state, adultery basically meant sex and they hadn't had it. "It's not like he hasn't accused you before. What else did he say?" He assumed it was over the phone as she'd kicked him out of the house months ago.
"He said he knew I took the kids to Margaret's last weekend," she went on, choking back tears. "She swears she didn't tell him. She wouldn't! I think he's having us followed..."
David nodded. "Just think logically. He probably is having you followed. You're divorcing him. Women have an advantage in that arena for keeping the kids. He's probably got a P.I. trying to find any little thing to even the playing field so he can make a case for custody."
Holly took a big sniff as if she were trying to keep her nose from running. "Not making me feel better..."
"What I meant is... he thinks he won't see the kids again, so he's—no, that still won't make you feel better. You know what, nevermind. Kids already got jackets on?"
"We were driving your way already. I don't mean to assume your kindness, but—your too good for me. I just knew you'd help."
He ignored the inclination that he was a good person and let it slide. This moment was not the moment to argue the point. Glancing down, He sighed and rubbed his head.
David Nicolaus Scott the Third looked across at his mostly wolfen body, a mix of anthropomorphic biped up top and slightly bigger than natural quadruped below the waist with a giant fully tail about the length and width of his lower body. He was a wolftaur, and he'd not set awareness of this on since he'd just finished making the change moments ago. Therefore, there was no retcon in the universe to make what he was any more than the 'generally not a big deal' setting.
"I heard you sigh," she said. "I know this is short notice."
"It's not that," David tried to assure her... but as she was over the phone, what he was about to say probably sounded crazy. "I've got a thing here which transformed me into a wolftaur... a wolf-based centaur creature... and I don't want you to be freaked about it, so it's good you called and didn't just show up?" Empty air. "Just being up-front about it."
There was near-silence on the other side of the phone, excluding the remaining sniffles of having been crying. In fact, the crying seemed to mostly stop in the confusion that now sat in the air.
"What?" was all Holly could muster.
"I'm a wolftaur, Holly. I look like a wolf-man with a lower body that's a large, regular wolf," he said as his tail swished back and forth. "OK, well, my tail's huge," he added. "If that freaks you out, I understand... I figured if I didn't say something and then you saw me it'd be worse."
"Like your pictures? I-I don't... I don't know what to think," she said. "You know this is a bad time for a joke, right?"
"This is not a joke.
"Send me a picture?"
David smirked. Pics or it didn't happen, huh?. "Sure. Do you mind if I hang up with—" David checked his phone screen but the 'Switch' button to go to his call on hold was gone. "Nevermind. I guess I'll call Chester back later. Hold on a second," he said as slid his phone out from the arm which had been holding it at his computer. He pushed the arm back towards his second monitor as he stood up on all fours.
Opening up the camera app, David posed in front of his Super Metroid poster and dresser, one furred paw up on his bed with khaki pants covering his lower body. He shot up the peace sign with his right hand and smiled a toothy canine grin for the camera as he took his first true wolftaur selfie. Looking it over, he flicked options on the screen until he was sending the photo over Messenger.
Switching the phone off of speaker, he put it up to his ear. "Should be there in a—"
"David those khakis look terrible on that body," she said, but he could hear over the cell network when both Alice an Tommy caught sight of the picture. 'Whoa!' and 'Cool!' came from the background audio. "Not that I don't believe you, but I don't believe you," Holly said.
"I mean, it is kind of unbelievable. Easy solution. Ask me to hold a pose or an object that I probably couldn't pre-plan and I'll take another picture."
David realized he must have been on speaker phone when he heard Tommy yell "Mega Man X Pose" and Alice added "stick your tongue out". He could hear Holly wiping her face. "What they said," she added, a shrug implied in her tone.
"Easily done." David stood with his front feet a little further apart, with his rear legs doing the same. He put his left fist into the air, and lolled his tongue out the side of his head... it reached down almost to his chest it was so long now. His right hand held the camera as he took the photo. A moment after, it sent.
"I still don't believe it," Holly remarked. "But I guess we'll be there soon.
"Should I make food?"
"I was gunna get them McDonalds, but if you're up for it, that would save a stop."
"Consider it in-progress, then."
(|[***]|)
I won't bore you with the details, but David was getting more cozy with the Chronivac at this point. He was very comfortable in his new form, but with Chester and Holly both commenting on his khaki pants, he took their feelings to heart. He'd been out and about yesterday applying at various minimum wage jobs in person and white shirt with khaki pants were the nicest cloths he had... even if the khakis were torn at the bottoms. They were years old and cheapest that would fit, purchased from the local Walmart.
He'd already set the chopped up potatoes to boil on the stove, began the heating of the popcorn chicken in the oven, and messaged back Chester about tonight's emergency all before he suddenly realized the perfect clothing to modify.
Making an unintentionally quick pace, David was down the stairs gracefully on all fours before he had much time to think about how fast his powerful new body was moving. As he descended towards the last step, he realized how fast he was going and put out his right hand to the column to the right of the bottom of the stairs just past the pictures of his family. His hind legs kicked out into the air as he spun, big fluffy tail wiping along the portraits as he did so. He landed on the carpeted floor in a gait that continued across the long basement back towards the workroom.
Coming to a stop with all four legs, he opened the door and entered the room full of tools and garden equipment. The gardening stuff was mostly his grandmother's while his grandfathers were things like the lawn mower and pressure washer. They both used the other tools for various things, and the red metal case there held many of them.
Over next to the washer and dryer, David retrieved from a cloths hanger a his denim blue utilikilt. Think of a kilt, but with a number of pockets for holding tools and such. Moving back out to the workout space downstairs, he plugged the Emitter into his phone. It appeared instantly and vanished just as fast from his Windows 10 computer in the other room. Searching through clothing and lowering the proximity to 3 meters, he laid the ulitikilt over the treadmill's controls. Tapping a few buttons on the screen, he had this idea of making a 'wolf carapace'.
A carapace, horse armour, was just as it sounded... a gown of sorts worn over the body of the horse used to protect it in battle or competitions. What David did was use the transAI to auto-generate a transformation of the utilikilt like trying to get a decent artwork out of AI Artwork. A few attempt to make horse/wolf carapace using the kilt as a base and David had something reasonable.
David could feel the khaki pants almost ripping at the seams as he undid his belt, noting how there was no longer a zipper at the front. Using his hands, he pulled his pants legs down in the front and stepped out of them. Then, leaning back, he put his hands on some pipes in the ceiling while his partly hand-like front paws pulled the pants down over the boxer-briefs that covered the rest of his lower torso and the tops of his back legs. Lifting his back legs one at a time, he stepped out of the rear of the pants quickly finding out that the zipper now ran longways from his crotch around to his tail, presumably for access for his genitals and tail.
"No one thought these through," David said, discovering his modified boxer briefs made a lot more sense... mostly human-likr, they had a u-shaped cut that went beneath his tail. A lightweight latch held a belt-like band over the top of his tail's base to keep it from pushing down the briefs. "Yeah, these are better."
Reaching down with his left front legs, David ran his paw-hand across the lighter fur of his belly and down onto his bulging boxer-briefs. Like many guys, he thought of going for bigger and even glanced at the Emitter as he considered it... but being that wolves were already larger than humans, him with some horse mixed in, and then the wolf form was already about 5% bigger than the biggest male wolves... he left it as it was. He could always revisit the matter later if he found it an issue.
Pulling the 'new' carapace from off the treadmill, David pulled it forward across his back so that it fell over his lower body like a blanket. There wasn't a hole for his upper torso to be pulled through like a shirt. Instead, it wrapped around his front from the side. Feeding the belt through a hold on his left side, he pulled the front flap across his front two legs. He fed the belt so that it could latch and be held around where his upper torso met the lower. Taking steps to the side, David moved it so that his lower torso was bent back towards his front in a u-shape so that he could also do the reverse motion to latch the kilt back under his tail.
Moving to the full-length mirror, David stood there looking at himself. Tweaking the settings within the Emitter, he lengthened the carapace so it came just above his ankles. Taking a few steps around the room, he enjoyed the freedom of movement and the air up under the kilt as he moved.
"Being a clothing designer is easy when you don't have to put in years of effort gaining a skill," David remarked wryly to himself. Putting his hands where his hips used to be, he just shook his head. An instant later, his watched started to buzz indicating that it had been ten minutes and it was time to mash the potatoes. With that, he jaunted up the stairs on all fours, pleased with his new outfit.
David trotted upstairs. Across the living room where the big old TV and two couches were was the kitchen space. Wooden countertops with an island in front of them. Against the wall, under the one window, was the oven where the pot of potatoes were atop.
Opening a drawer, he pulled out an 'ove glove, holding it in his right hand while he looked at his left. Unsure it would fit with no-retractable claws, he was careful to slide the glove over his furry hand. It fit. He wiggled his fingers to make sure he wasn't going to rip it, then slid the second glove onto his other hand.
Placing the top with the sieve holes facing the notch at the topside pot, he lifted it up easily with two hands and held it sideways slowly over the sink to pour out the boiling water. Finishing that task, he placed the pot back on to the stovetop and reached for the butter. Putting in a fair amount, he added a good amount of salt, and stirred in a hint of garlic powder and sugar while he mashed. All the while, he's periodically scooped out some for him to try, finding his taste buds seemingly intact.
The wall-comm his grandfather installed back in the 90's beeped the indicator that someone was at the front gate. "Yes?" David asked after pressing the button to speak, like a walkie talkie. He made no assumptions just in case it was someone other than Holly.
"We're here. You're drive's long enough I think we'd see lights if we were followed..."
Yeah, but what if someone had their lights off? David found his mind asking. Again, he glanced at me accusingly, then held the button to respond. "You're safe here," he insisted anyway. "Thirty seconds for the gate, as always." Moving his finger over, he tapped the open gate button which began to flash red. When twenty-five seconds had passed the light flashed quicker until it reached thirty and then silently stopped.
David realized he hadn't been listening for their arrival, but now that he knew they were here, he started paying attention. He could hear the minivan accelerate atop the pavement for a short distance before pulling into the gravel parking places. Ears aiming, he could tell the sound of three individuals, each with different footsteps and weights to those steps. A smile formed on his face at the details and he'd wished he'd been listening earlier... he probably could have heard them coming up the drive before reaching the gate...
He realized he could sort of visualize them without seeing them. Their footsteps indicated they were a little hunched over, sad. As he moved towards the front door, he began to more clearly place where they were as they moved across the porch. Taking a deep breath, he opened the white wood door just before the group got close.
Holly Phillips stood on the old wooden porch staring at the figure behind the screen door. She gasped while her two young children, Tommy and Alice, both went wide-eyed, starring silently up at the face of a wolf's head atop a man's body, atop yet another wolf's body. "What the fuck..." she said softly but trailed off. She was frozen in place and David could hear the heart rates of the three figures slowly begin to escalate.
Quick, David... Icebreaker! He pushed open the screen door a little slower than normal, motioning to his side with his right hand to welcome the group in. "Food's done," he said. "I didn't have any corn, sorry." He grinned, but held back the smile so as not to show his teeth.
"Mr. Scott," Tommy, the 11-year-old boy spoke softly out of reflex, "You look really cool." David allowed a smile there, golden eyes looking the boy over. He was wearing Denver Broncos jersey which David knew was a hand-me-down from his father. It hung out over the top of his blue jeans. The black sneakers he wore were touched together as he motioned his right foot against the other. "But... like, scary cool?"
David's overly fluffy tail couldn't help but wag a little behind him. Alice's wide eyes focused on it. "Can I... can I hug your tail?" she asked. The little girl had been hugging her mom's leg. She was eight. Dressed in long red and white socks up to her knees, she had on a long maroon skirt and a white shirt with a bus on it with red balloons and a number of people jumping from it with gliders.
"I'm OK with it if your mom is," David said, his eyes meeting Holly's.
Holly was wearing teal slacks and a white shirt. She was a little taller than David's 5'5" by two or three inches. "It sounds like you... mostly," she said. "But... what happened?" she asked slowly, clawing around for the words. "You were fine the other day..."
"I'm better than fine now," David insisted, allowing himself a faint of white to his smile. "I can show you, but... now I feel like I look like the me on the inside, outside."
"You do," Tommy said, taking a step forward. Reaching at his mom's side, he tugged her shirt. "He looks like his 'sona now." Holly glanced away to look down at Tommy before looking back up into David's golden eyes.
Alice looked to Tommy, then to her mom. Suddenly the little girl knew how to solve everyone's problem so she could hug that tail! She smiled and pointed accusingly at David. "What's the save word!?"
David put a front paw forward to keep holding open the door as he put a hand over his chest as if she'd wounded him. He chuckled in a tone close to his old one and smiled. Leaning forward from the waist, he looked down at little Alice. "Tonberry!"
Holly blinked. This creature knew the family safe word. "David?" She was having a hard time with this, his ears shifting direction from Alice to Holly as the other spoke. He smiled at her.
"I think the kilt looks nicer than the khaki pants," he said as her eyes slowly lowered to his waist. "What do you think?"
"Holy sh—tuff, it is you," she almost swore, her eyes taking in all of him as he stepped once more to the side to usher them into his home.
Tommy laughed, and it finally broke the tension: "Mom, you already said fuck!"
"Yeah, mom!" Alice agreed, putting her hands on her hips. At that point, everyone of the four started to laugh. And that was that, in the moment. Things were seemingly normal. Or as normal as they might could have hoped.
Holly reached out to touch David's face, and the humanity in his eyes shown through as he smiled at her, leaning his cheek into his hand. Alice caught her mom's eye as the little girl made a grabby hands motion to David's rear. The mother nodded and Alice made a 'squee' sound, grabbing hold of the fluffy tail that was bigger than she was.
"Girls," Tommy said, rolling his eyes as he moved passed David's big wolf body and into the house looking for food.
(|[***]|)
Tommy and Alice were sitting in the living room in front of the big widescreen CRT where David's grandparents X-Box One was. He'd gotten it for them years ago to watch UHD movies on, even though grandpa refused to get a clearer TV. They were playing Rocket League in split screen. Near to them, on the coffee table, were the bowls of mashed potatoes, popcorn chicken, gravy, and shreds of cheese, mostly gone.
The big open space was shared with the kitchen where Holly and David sat talking. He was loosely trying to explain the situation to her without going into too much detail. Holly and David had known each other for almost three years and in that time, Holly was a little prone to fearful overreactions and he didn't want to lay on her shoulders that he had god-like powers now.
"So, you came into possession of a Goober which granted you the ability to have this form?" she asked. "Putting aside the issue of a 'fursona' walking around in the real world, what's the eventual point of this?" she asked, motioning at him as he shoveled some of the food he'd made into his mouth.
Swallowing a chunk of chicken whole, he shrugged. "Honestly, I'm still working that out... but with great power, you know," he twirled his fork in the air with his left hand. "Great responsibility and all that. I wanna do some good."
"By turning yourself into a wolftaur?"
David blinked. "OK. Hear me out: yes. Clearly yes. But also: would you have preferred I test it on other people first?"
"You could have started something... smaller? Changed the color of something."
"I shrunk my phone." With that said, David pulled his phone out of his ultilikit's front and slide it over to her. "That's my same phone, just smaller. Far as I can tell, it still has all its functions... and a little more spacious drive." She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. When she flipped it right-side up, the lock screen appeared and tried to read her face. She passed it to David. "I mean, it doesn't read my face anymore for the ID, but..." He shrugged.
Holly sat there, both hands on her coffee. "Anything else? Made any of the animals talk?"
"No. I don't want to uplift an animal just to have to explain that they're basically captives," David said. "And I really don't want to give something sentience and then take it away." Holly sipped her coffee, then glanced at her watch. "You gunna tell me what's really up?" David whispered bluntly, lowering his voice so the children shouldn't hear.
The mood immediately changed again. Holly closed her eyes. "I lost track of time... the restraining order runs out in the morning." David reflexively licked his lips, puckered them, then whistled softly. "I know, right?" she asked softly. "That means he could come home... and I think with all the hints he'd been dropping he's planning something. It might be a P.I. like you said, or he might be planning to kidnap the kids. I dunno."
"Updated all your safe words?" She nodded. "I've got one here for if he showed up that Tommy and Alice know. The basement has a heavy-bolt. It's no 'safe room', but it should hold back one guy until cops show up."
"The cops don't care."
"I mean, they're cops. Most of them abuse their spouses," David offered with a shrug. Holly blinked. "But still. Locked basement. And worst comes to worst, my grandpa was a little paranoid about the company he kept. There are guns in the study..."
"And you have fangs and claws," she pointed out. David blinked, then opened his mouth slightly to lick one of his right front canine teeth, realizing the measure of it for perhaps the first time. She sighed, stirring her coffee, she took one of her last sips of it. "Wish I had fangs and claws."
There was a recognizable 'beat' in the story, a pause where the two character's both realized the implication of what was said. David glanced at me, which to Holly was over her shoulder. Turning her head, she looked to where David was looking, didn't see anything of note, then looked back at him. She ran a hand through her hair nervously. "What?"
"I can give you fangs and claws."
"I don't want to... seem scary."
"Do I seem scary?"
"Yes, David. Yes, you do," she said directly. She motioned at David's for with one hand. "I've convinced myself that this wild animal has a human mind, but a talking wolf isn't as friendly as you and your Furry friends think... Balto aside." Holly waved a hand dismissively. "Can you... can you give me super-powers or something?"
David rubbed his furry chin, black lips curling into a smile. "Well, I'd worry about escalation," he offered, omitting that the Chronivac didn't seem to have super-powers, even if you could swipe some from Presets. Maybe he'd just been looking in the wrong place? Still, this was an opening for a transformation as well as being helpful and he took it. "How about something half-way? I could make you something supernatural with a shape-changing ability. That way, you can have a few powers, but still look like yourself in your 'human guise'." He emphasized those last words with air-quotes.
Noticing her empty coffee mug, David motioned with his left hand towards the pitcher that was still warm. She nodded, but held up a finger indicating he should hold on a second. From her purse, she produced a small thermos and slid it and the mug she was drinking from towards him. Without any words, he smiled and took both and turned around on all fours to fill them, his tail wagging back and forth behind him as he did.
Holly looked up at David as he placed both back in front of her. He smiled when she asked her next question: "What would you recommend?" David grinned big, rattling off as many creatures as he could think of with human guises. He didn't shy away from demons, though he expressed worry they might be innately evil. Kitsune and Eastern Dragons were standouts... but eventually, she had to stop him. "OK, OK. So there's options," she sighed, almost done with her last mug of coffee. "You've been kind of impartial, David."
"Well," he shrugged and then, with a knowing smiled added: "I want you to choose your own change."
Thinking it over, she said: