I keep saying 'David Nicolaus Scott the Third' once each passage as sort of a one-time reminder of the character's full name. Sometimes, I use 'site:cyoc.net' on Google.com to find stories and then back up from that branch to read how the story got there... but I don't know if that's what other people do or if they only read the newest passage alone. Therefore, I always try to reestablish the characters and their appearances at least once a branch.
Though, up here on the cyocLayer, I often leave full descriptions off early in a chain so that there's more leeway given to later authors to fill in details of a character's appearance. I did that with Tommy and Alice Phillips and now here we are, with two thus-far vaguely described eleven and eight year old children, respectfully. Green eyes, but otherwise mostly blank slates beyond dialog which has shaped their personalities up to this point.
Tommy, I think, comes across rather brash and takes a little toxicity from his father, which is understandable. The man was the primary male figure in the boy's life until three years ago. David and the Tommy were complete strangers then. Holly's car had broken down on the side of the road near the mailbox at the driveway's end. David was on his way out to Chester's yearly video game party when they flagged him down.
Alice was so small back then and wore more frilly things. Like her mother, she was very cautious around David at first... but this was the beginning of summer when David's grandparents had not yet left for Europe. After some vaguely answered questions from Holly to the elders about why she was traveling at that time of the night with her two young children, they were allowed to stay until morning when the nearest tire shop would open.
Holly didn't know what to make of David when he gave her his phone number the next morning after David Senior towed the car to the garage. This wasn't a pick-up at the time, but simply a friendly gesture. It didn't seem to him like she had many people she could depend on, and while he made no promises, he'd try and help her if he could.
Not long afterwards—a few weeks—Tommy got into a fight on the school bus and wouldn't be allowed back onto it. That was when Tommy and eventually Alice began spending occasional time with the David as he took them to and from school and, every once and a while, activities. Holly paid for the gas and food, but their originally one-off interaction eventually expanded into friendship, trusted friendship, and then whatever David was now...
Tommy got how it worked. His mom had failed to go through with a divorce around the time they'd first met David. She'd gotten cold feet, or her husband lured her back in, one. David wasn't sure. This current time seemed different, though. Holly was pushing forward even though it seemed like she was worried her and the kids were in danger. But there was to be no sex, because that would be adultery...
The boy understood, you see, because two years ago, David stepped over a line and answered a few questions about sex that as a non-parent he probably shouldn't have. But once that pussycat is out of the bag, you can't really put it back. David may not have had sex until he was in high school, but he'd been taught way too early by his father, Junior's boozer friends, and some movies one shouldn't be watching with youngsters present...
When Holly found out David was talking about sex with a child that wasn't his own, well. That was the first time Holly and David had a fight... a big one. He suspected her anger was left over from her Catholic upbringing. Somewhere in the fight, David pointed out that not being educated about reproduction is how someone ends up having unprotected children too early. Holly got even more heated on the topic and David didn't understand why. He'd thought she was older than she was... and he was talking about his own parent's, not her personal life experience.
Ultimately truth is the great disinfectant and David was nothing if not talkative. Eventually, they came to an understanding. He wasn't to do that with Alice, and he should definitely tell Holly whenever the kids had questions like that so either she could answer them herself, or be present when he tried.
I say that all both to get in some backstory and to set up the notion that young children can be more educated about sex than you think. Not everyone has religious people protesting and having their sex education canceled like happened with Taylor... He ended up learning from Cinemax on his parent's illegal cable almost as much as he ended up learning from David.
David, for his part, was that kid in gym class who knew way more than anyone else about sex at his age by a wide margin. Upbringing, paid cable channels, lenient Blockbuster clerks, and having access to AOL internet and chat rooms all contributed to his upbringing. It's also how he found out he was a Furry, but I digress...
(|[***]|)
Tommy Phillips looked up David's wolfen face as Alice locked the bathroom door behind her down the hallway and away from the living room. "So," Tommy said, standing in the Denver Broncos jersey that was a little too big for him. "You think you'll be my new dad soon?"
The wolftaur that was David Scott sat on his hind legs near the two couches in front of the big plasma TV. His golden eyes turned to meet the boy's green ones. "Would you like that?"
"Being mom's boyfriend is not the same as being my dad."
"Right," David agreed, looking the tween up and down. His right ear shifted slightly to listen up the hallway for the unlocking of the bathroom door not by thought but reflex. "Didn't answer the question, kiddo."
"I guess I don't know."
David smirked. "A nice, honest answer." He chuckled, then shrugged. "Better than a 'no', that's for sure."
Tommy crossed his arms. "You still planning to sleep with other girls?"
"Your mom seems OK with it, so why shouldn't I? We've gone over this, Tommy. Polyamory isn't cheating."
A frown creased Tommy's face. He huffed. "Well, why not?"
"Because there's an agreement. Whenever a new relationship or encounter might start, one of us has to tell the other and make sure it's OK. It's consent, like I always say. If there's no agreement, it's cheating."
"Mom'd never do that."
"You don't know that, kiddo. She's not in an 'open marriage', so she's not allowed. Your dad doesn't consent to it. In fact, she's in such a closed marriage that I've not the slightest idea who Mr. Phillips is or what he does for a living. Your mom seems keen that I stay way from him, so I am."
"You could Google him."
"Or you could just tell me," David countered. "Personally, I care only that he seems to inflict emotional distress on you all and that's not OK by me. Even if your mom and I don't end up hooking up, we'll probably still be friends." He shrugged again. "Maybe I'm not for her, and that's OK."
Shaking his head, Tommy didn't understand what he was hearing. "All this and you'd just not be with her?"
David put his hands on his waist. "You expected a long-con to get into your mom's pants?" David asked. "That's not what this is, kiddo. I love your mom... and I'm pretty fond of you and your sister. If we can make this work, I think we should... and I think things are going to turn around for me with this," he said, waving the Emitter where Tommy could see it. "Things are looking up."
Tommy's eyes followed the device. "What if someone takes it from you?"
Reaching down, David latched the Emitter onto his belt where a chain was supposed to take a pocket watch. He let it drop tointo a side pocket on his denim carapace. "I dunno. Maybe nothing bad. Maybe other people will just use it to better their own lives," he said. "I'm hoping to do some good with it."
"I think it'd make me a bully," Tommy said flatly.
Tilting his head to the side, David considered the eleven-year-old's words. "Being worried it would make you a bully is a good sign," he pointed out to the boy. "As bullied as I was back in school, I'd probably be a little—" David almost said 'shit' but stopped himself, "—bully-bully... and then, yeah, just a plain bully shortly afterwards." David allowed himself a sigh, maybe being more honest with the kid than he should be. "I didn't see as much good in the world back then as I do now... and when you're mad at the world, you take it out on other people."
Tommy's green eyes met David's golden ones again, then he looked away. "Yeah," Tommy said. "I think I get that."
"I hope that's true... I hope we can get you and your sister more happy memories than not." He stood up onto all fours and walked over to the countertop where he'd set down his phone, his big fluffy tail swishing behind him. "I'm gunna give you and Alice a maximum of three transformations. So, think about what you want."
Tommy grinned. "I just need one: dragon."
David was totally unfazed by this prospect. "There's a whole lot of types of dragons out there, Tommy. Give me some specifics." Tommy looked up at the ceiling. "Maybe close your eyes and try to imagine yourself as one... really envision what you'd desire?"
"Can't you just try some dragons until we find one I like?"
The wolftaur shook his head. "Not this time. Gotta be one and done."
"Why?"
"You know when you're editing in Photoshop and there's that 'history' section that keeps track of all the steps you can undo?" Tommy nodded. "Well, imagine we have that but can only undo ten things with the Emitter," David explained. "A single brush stroke or one full-screen effect which takes fifteen minutes to execute both take up one history item each, even though their effect on the picture is vastly different."
David went on: "And, right now, I'm trying to keep it so your mom's transformation stays in that history list," he explained. "I can undo up to ten changes in the last twelve hours, which is why you and your sister should get three each, just in case."
"Does that ten include undos?" Tommy wondered. "Like, can you do some things, like ten things, then undo one thing so that now nine things are done, and then still do one more thing making there still be ten things, or would that be eleven things by the count?"
David found himself pointing in the air as if mapping out Tommy's question there. He blinked and lowered his hand. "I don't know? The device doesn't have the best instructions."
"And you have to undo them in order?"
"Yup. Ten reverts, undone in reverse order."
"So if Alice and I got forms we like and mom wanted hers undone, you'd have to undo ours first?" Tommy asked. David nodded. "Huh. Well, I probably couldn't stay a dragon forever, right? Monster hunters."
"Extra carves off your tail?" David smirked, making a video game reference that Tommy missed. "If nothing else, things would get crazy public really fast... and past that, it'd be hard to feed you if you're large."
"I do wanna be large," Tommy agree, rubbing his chin.
David's ear flicked, hearing Alice finishing up in the bathroom.
"Large for a dragon can be Kaiju sized, and while that's cool, I don't think it's appropriate for an eleven-year-old."
"Ageist."
The wolftaur waved his finger in the boy's direction. "I don't think that means what you think it means." David chuckled, then explained like he was a teacher: "Ageism is prejudice or discrimination based on age. Prejudice is unreasonable. Discrimination is unjust," he pointed out. "As someone who's cut small creatures apart just to watch them squirm, Tommy, I don't think it would be in my best interest to give you a size and strength which could crush this house like paper mache..."
"Ugh. Fair!" Tommy declared, throwing up his arms as Alice walked into the room. "I don't do that anymore anyway...!" The boy grumbled while dropping his hands back down. Looking back at David's eye, cross, he inquired further: "What kind of watered-down dragon can I have?"
Alice, having only heard part of the conversation, said: "Sisu is a water-dragon..."
"And a scronny noodle... and a girl!"
"You know scronny, polyamory, and fursona but not ageism," David said, crossing his own arms and raising an eyebrow in Tommy's direction. "I mean, you're not wrong... Sisu is kind of scronny. But that has nothing to do with being a girl, Tommy. When did you start getting this idea in your head? You didn't use to be like this."
"Mom's weak, Alice is weak, all the girls in my classes were weak. It's just a fact. Girls are weak."
Alice yelled out: "Mom's not weak!"
The wolftaur turned to face the little girl. "Neither are you!" She looked a little surprised, but took the compliment. Placing both her hands on her hips, she took a pose like Superman. Her flat chest out, she turned her head up and towards the sky in a heroic pose.
Tommy crossed his arms yet again. "Bet you can't name a single strong girl."
"Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup," David began, actively counting on his fingers in binary. "Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity—" Alice chimed in, going through most of the My Little Ponies cast by name. David added: "She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Carmen Santiago, Marisa—"
"Those girls aren't real!"
David rubbed his chin. "Ronda Rousey, Olga Liashchuk, Holly Phillips—"
"You just made mom a fox-spirit, so now she's strong! Doesn't count!"
David made a big sweeping motion towards Tommy while turning to look at Alice. "There's no winning with this guy!"
"Nope," Alice agreed, her hand still on her hips.
"Alright, girl," David said, putting a hand out towards her. She took it, sliding her human hand into the grip of the wolftaur's hand, the paw-pad rough against her skin. He led her sideways to the couch where she took a bit step up onto it so she was about eye-height with him. "While your brother tries to think of what kind of dragon he wants to be, please tell me your first of three transformations tonight?"
"Can I be a fairy?"
David put his right hand to his chin, thinking it over. "You dare speak of them directly... must be grown up in the present when fairies are pretty, powerful but generally not dangerous..." he considered, giving her a smile she didn't understand.
"What do you mean?"
"In the ancient times, fairies were known as Good Neighbors, Kind Ones, and other positive euphemisms because to name them was to call down their wraith."
Tommy huffed incredulously. "Fairies?" David turned his golden wolf eyes over towards the boy and nodded. "You're making that up."
David just shrugged. "In most magical lores, there's a big deal about names, kiddo. Often naming a powerful fey creature gets you their attention." He waved his free hand out into the air beside his head. "On the other hand, knowing a magical creature's name can, in some stories, give you power over them."
Alice put her hands together. "Like Rumplestiltskin!?"
"Or Mr. Mxyzptlk?" Tommy asked.
Alice blinked. "Whossat?"
"Superman villain," David said with a grin. "I rarely say it right on the first try, myself, so... respect, Tommy." The two gave a simple nod toward each other. "But! You get the idea. I remember reading a modern story where speaking a Fey Queen's name was something she hated, so you'd just get, like, instantly cursed no matter where you were." David let go of Alice's hand so she could stand there ready. "But not to make this a history lesson... you clearly didn't mean that type of fairy. I'm just full of useless trivia."
Tommy nodded vigorously at that remark. Catching the look, David simply rolled his eyes at the boy. Bringing up his phon, David began looking through the Chronivac options. "OK, so... as big as you are? Smaller? Little colored dots with wings like Zelda?" He smiled. "Maybe what kind of powers?"
"Do any have powers like Poison Ivy?" she wondered. David nodded.
Tommy groaned. "Oh, I see. Weak girl gets given powers of a super-villain because she's weak and it OK! Meanwhile, her big brother can't be a big, powerful—"
"What's that, Tommy?" David nonchalantly interrupted him, his triangular ears shifting towards the boy as he kept looking down at his small PC. "You're feeling tired at want to go to bed early? I mean if you really—"
"That's not funny!"
Alice snorted, then cackled. "Is to!" Her brother crossed his arms again. Sticking her tongue out at him, she looked over David's shoulder. "Oh... there's no pictures?" Green eyes scanning over the Chronivac screen. "It's like a test paper."
Nodding, David held the screen towards her. "Anything seem off? Like I was telling Tommy, every little change counts the same as one big change. You get three tonight... though if you like something, we can always revisit it later."
"Ooh, green skin? Red hair? Plant-based powers. Butterfly leaf wings? Neat. Do I need a wand?" She wondered, picking up a pencil from the end table to her side. David shook his head. "Ah, of course," she smirked, tossing the pencil. She put her hands together and lowered her head, putting her hands together. "The real power comes from within!" David grinned a canine smile and nodded as Alice looked back up. She hopped on the couch excitedly. "Magical Girl transformation, please!"
David gave her a thumbs up. He lifted his back legs off the ground with a push and pivoted on his from left leg until his back was to Tommy. His tail brushed across the boy's face as he took two steps back. Aiming the Emitter at Alice with his left hand, he hit the 'Change' button all dramatically, his right hand up behind him as he did so. It was like he was a magician.
Alice reached out to her sides, hands out, fingers wide... she wiggled them in the air, then tried to make fists with her hands. She couldn't... reality tugged back. Looking up at her hands, she could feel energy in the air like an energy of water rippling at her fingertips. Like a woman possessed, Alice gave a toothy grin and yanked her hands towards her center, pulling magic all around her in a sudden flash of green, brown, red, and orange with a cloud of tiny leaves pouring in from somewhere else.
Tommy's eyes went wide as he watched his little sister pull red and green vine-strings from the air which wrapped over her shoulders and down her arms. Her whole body began to glow with rainbow light and she spun on one toe at the edge of the couch seat. Vines pulling inward around her as she twirled, wrapping her arms and legs with a web of green growth as she did so.
"This is fun!" she screamed a terrifying cackle, clearly enjoying herself (and maybe a tad too much fey energy).
Maybe something fey in her included banshee? David worried. All the while, an orb of green light surrounded her, pressing inwards... soon neither of the two others present could make out her form. An instant later, the light compressed with vines, leafs, and energy swirling around. Cracks quickly etched their way around the orb as it shrunk and shrunk. Those cracks shown light from the inside, breaking outwards as lime-colored light filled the room a moment later. Pausing in the air, the fragments rushed towards Alice's green silhouette, the eight-year-old now looking double her age in shape, though easily only a half a foot tall.
As the fragments impacted Alice's small frame, they became something of an armoured dress. Wings halfway between fall-colored butterfly wings and webbed green leafs burst from her back. Her maroon skirt shifted to a brighter color and took on the shape of a red maple leaf wrapped around her waist. The red and white stripped socks she'd had were gone, replaced with red and white vines which circled her legs in bands. The darker red of a wood-plate chest armour framed her new teenage bust.
As the light died down, Alice was left hovering in the air on new wings... her ears a half time longer than they were before narrowing to points like knives. Pale white skin had become a more mossy green, and those green eyes of hers were now like emerald where they sat. Flexing her red gloves, she shook her long twin-tailed hair from side to side. Raising her hands in front of her, the eight inch tall girl squealed with joy.
"This is so cool!" she declared loudly, rushing up in front of David's face like a humming bird. "Thank you so much Mr. Scott!" Reaching out, she hugged muzzle, face pressed against his wet canine nose.
Tommy laughed nervously, but played it off with a goofy grin. "And I thought you were small before!"
Quickly, Alice was turned around and right up in Tommy's face... two eyes staring closely into just one of his. "Shut up, you! Or... or I'll turn you into a toad!"
Chuckling, Tommy glanced over at David. Mr. Scott was doing the 'cut it out' motion with his hand, looking really distraught. Tommy's eyes went wide. "She can't do that, can she!?" Alice quickly turned her head to look at David's reaction. For his part the wolftaur simply shrugged... then started laughing.
"That's not funny!" he pointed accusingly at David. "You're not funny!"
David's face became serious. Those golden eyes meeting the green ones of each of Holly's children. "Honestly?" he asked, closing his eyes. "Solid maybe." Those words were then followed by a few measure nods of seeming seriousness.
Alice stuck her tongue out at her brother.
(|[***]|)
"Those are you two versions, Tommy," David was saying. "Dragons are super-dangerous. You can either be a full-sized adult dragon at, like, one tenth the size... or you can be a whelp... basically a baby dragon. About the same size, but with far less powers and probably less mobility."
The wolftaur was lounging on the back patio, legs up underneath him as the carapace ultilikilt flattened out a bit with his lower body. Briefly looking up at the setting sun, David realized he was soon going to need to feed the animals. He was looking over the screen on his shrunken iPhone 12 mini, going over the options with the boy. It seemed like Tommy was being overly cautious, wanting his first transformation to be really special, whitch David could respect.
Alice, for her part, had been buzzing around the bushes for an hour, growing flowers in them from her magic. After a while she ran out of nearby flora and asked Mr. Scott if she could go out to the nearby woods. Nodding, he told her to stay in eyesight and to not look like food if at all possible. Quickly, she had departed for the treeline not far away.
Standing up on black sneakers, Tommy groaned. He acted like trying to get what he wanted was akin to pulling teeth. It wasn't fair, he'd insist, that he had to go through so much more effort to get a transformation.
David's black lips curled up a little into a smile. He glanced at me, then shifted his golden eyes back to the boy. "You know, when I was your age, no adult would ever have let me turn into a dragon."
"When you were my age, dinosaurs roamed the Earth."
David wanted to laugh, but Tommy's remark was so absurd it somehow crossed a line for him and couldn't possibly be funny. "The human race never existed at the same time as dinosaurs lived," David pointed out, deflating the moment with an unnecessary fact. Then the adult stuck his extra long tongue out at the boy.
"You're so weird."
David smiled, his head tilting slightly. "That's the nicest thing you've said to me all afternoon."
"S'cuse me," said a small voice, suddenly next to them from seemingly nowhere. David and Tommy both swore and jumped away. The two of them quickly landed on their six collective feet. For an instant, David's full wolftaur body was between the intruder and Tommy, growling, before he quickly realized who it was. His hackles were raised, ready for a fight, before he saw it was Alice.
"S-sorry!" she said, waving her hands towards the large furry adult. "L-Looks like fairies can 'blink'," she giggled, though a little nervous at the predator's reaction. As they relaxed, both began to return to their previous positions on the patio. "Anyway," she smiled. "You gave me an idea: dinosaur."
Tommy blinked. "What?"
"Oh... you've chosen your second form?" David asked, then glanced at Tommy who still hadn't transformed once. His eyes went back to Alice as she gave him a verbal affirmation. "Let me save Tommy's progress real quick," he said tapping a few buttons. "Lay it on me. You have something specific?"
"Blue."
David raised an eyebrow. "Bluey? I thought you said dinosaur. Or wait, Blue the dog? With the clues? I'm sorry—"
"The velociraptor—" Tommy interjected, "—from World."
David snapped his fingers and it was notably loud. Looking at his hand for second, he titled his head, then looked back at the children. "Jurassic World, gotcha," he said, having connected the dots. "Forgot the velci-mommy had a name." David motioned for Alice to come over at sit on his shoulder. "If there's nothing more special to your request, that should be easy to find. Feathers or no? What kind of TF."
Alice fluttered toward the wolftaur and sat down on his left shoulder. "Feathers, sure. And, I like the red and green with white," she said, motioning towards her arms and legs. "Can I get one of those transformations where... you kind of... uh... it's like something inside of you comes out?"
Tommy blinked. "Like in Van Helsing?" Alice pointed to Tommy, then looked to David. "You can't do that one... that's what I wanted for my dragon!"
Frowning at Tommy, David simply said: "There's a finite number of TF styles, kiddo. Alice's first one was the same as Holly's."
"Yeah, but she picked it because it was mom's TF!"
"No I didn't!"
"Oh yeah? Name two Magical Girl anime?"
Alice huffed. "Sailor Moon and... and...!" Saying 'and' a few more times, Alice trailed off. "Fine. So! I like mom, and I like mom's transformation! Holly Phillips, Magical Fox-Girl! That's my second anime."
David smiled, then looked to Tommy.
The boy pointed accusingly at the adult with the gray fur. "And you're a boy, so you don't know any either!" David narrowed his eyes, grinning, his fluffy tail wagging far behind him. Tommy blinked.
"Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Kämpfer," David said confidently. "That's three, no Sailor Moon, and the last one is especially relevant because the main character is a boy." Tommy blinked. "Also, Tommy. It's not important that you know this, but I'm as much a girl as I am boy now. There's very superficial differences between men and women when you boil things down."
"Not supposed to talk sex with us without mom here," Tommy said, trying to get David to shut up. "How is the MC of Kanter a boy? How are you a girl?"
"There's nothing about the act of sex being discussed here you weird little boy," David frowned, his tail laying flat behind him. "But the main character of Kämpfer gets a magical girl transformation so he transformed into a super-powered girl to fight... monsters? I forget," he shrugged. "Otherwise, you and Alice have shared a bathtub. You know what I probably mean when I say I'm a girl now too. There's nothing wrong with being a girl, Tommy."
Tommy seemed to fume in silence as David swiped on his small phone. The boy crossed his arm. Meanwhile, David worked for a few more moments while Alice picked out her transformation specifics. Eventually, the young lad seemed to just sigh and roll his eyes, stepping out into the grassy yard. While the two 'girls' worked on Alice's second transformation, Tommy took up a stance like he was going to perform kung-fu... but then was clearly pretending to be a giant lizard...
"No, wait. Not 'burst'. We want 'tear out'," the wolftaur finally noted. He checked the description of the transformation style and nodded. "OK... says it won't hurt, but will itch. That OK?" Alice put her hands together and nodded vigorously. "OK. Boop," David said as he pointed at the tiny, teen-shaped, eight fairy on his shoulder as hit Change on the app.
"Oh, wow that totally itches not just a little!" she squealed, squirming in place as she hopped off David's shoulder and landed on the patio. She began giggling erratically as her hands, together in front of her, began scratching on each other. Suddenly, Alice screamed... but not one of those terrified screams, no. One of those little baby, happy-surprised screams.
One hand pulled the other hand completely off in a patch of fleshy material like a flimsy human suit. In it's place was not a new hand, but instead a six-inch claw coming out of the nub that was her wrist. There was little blood, and soon Alice was using her remaining hand to rip the green skin off of her other arm, leaving her with a full raptor hand sticking out from the side of her tiny fairly body.
"Uh... uh... I don't think I fit!" Alice yelped as Tommy and David watched. David had his finger on revert. "Doesn't hurt, it just. Oh!" she made a screeching sound as she itched at the edge of where her raptor claw jutted out from the side of her body. "Oh. Oh! Oh no," was the last thing she could say before she exploded.
Not like that. Hold on.
Like a fissure along a fault line, Alice's whole right side opened up. The effect was so fast and not unlike a balloon being overfilled. Out of Alice's side ripped a whole right arm of a velociraptor... but that seam couldn't be stopped. As soon as that arm—which was normal raptor size, to be clear—burst fully from the side of the tiny fairy's body, the girl was grounded...
An instant later, the seam where her flesh ripped apart went forward down her right leg and upwards towards her neck. In the next moment, her chest shot up and out of the side of her body, crushing her remaining fairy-ness into the planks of the patio. Her right leg hung off of the scaled mass until it too shredded, unable to be contained by the powerful dino-leg.
The remains of Alice's fairy head briefly got stuck on top of her new raptor-shaped, emerald eye not unlike a discarded, popped balloon, before she blinked. It landed on the patio with a wet sound. Her mostly dark red body was dual-striped from the flat nostrils of her snout backwards over and under her head. Down her back and front where two thin white stripes which framed an inner, third stripe of brighter green. Fluffy scales of feathers jutted out from her outer arm and elbow along that one current raptor limb and also up off the top of her head like a mohawk.
From the her neckline, the remaining fairy form ripped leftward, a long and powerful tail jutting quickly out behind her as her wings fluttered their last and fell into a mildly sticky pile to her sides. Then, at long last, what little remained of the fairy form just burst open into comical effect, like one of those can of worms toys. It left Alice squirming for a moment on the ground as a velociraptor as she got her feet beneath her and stood up.
But for Tommy and David, she just exploded. For them, that above description took maybe four seconds, max. It was so sudden and shocking that even though they each had some tiny fairy bits on them, no one could withstand Alice's reaction. Her giant snout full of sharp fangs opened up and she just started cackling a hearty laugh.
"Holy shit!" Tommy yelled, then slapped his hands over his mouth as he quickly caught David's gold eyes turning to look at him.
The wolftaur blinked, glancing back to Alice as she got to her feet, her giant claws tap-tapping on the wood planks she stood on. "I'll allow that swear," David said seriously to Tommy, then did his best to choke down a laugh. He motioned at the boy's Bronco's jersey. "You got some red on you," he managed but almost snorted the last word as he joined Alice in laughter.
Alice looked at her brother, not getting the movie reference that David had made. Even lacking context, when she saw the light area of his jersey with a tiny, fairy hand-print in red, she pointed at it and just began raptor-cackling.
Tommy looked down at the bloody handprint. "Awe, come on!"
"Don't worry," David said eventually after calming enough to speak again. "I can get that out."
"You'd better," Tommy said. "How would I explain this?"
David resisted the urge to make an inappropriate joke... like a true adult.
Groaning, the eleven-year-old asked: "Can I be a dragon now?"
(|[***]|)
David was putting the finishing touches on Tommy's transformation selections while Alice ran laps around the ranch. The sun lowering below the horizon even now, but it was summer, so they'd normally not be going to bed for quite a while.
"Serious question," Tommy said after a few moments of silence. "Is she going to be OK?" he wondered, watching Alice trace the perimeter fence, steering clear of the pens and the barn as David instructed. He had used the rare 'responsible older brother' tone, which perked David's triangular ears and grabbed his addition.
"OK how?"
Tommy took in a deep breath. "You didn't undo the change... you changed the fairy into a dinosaur. Is there not, like, a copy-of-a-copy situation or something?" he asked. David's head looked up at Alice, then thought about Tommy's question. "You're different from how you were last Saturday... she wasn't much different as a fairy, but fairies are kind'a human, right? So... is she still really in there, the old human version of my sister?"
The wolftaur glanced at the Emitter. "Well... if she seems really different to you, we can always undo," he said. "But the truth is, I didn't change her mind, specifically. I included some magic knowledge for the fairy... and some instincts for the raptor... but I don't think those carry over." David looked back at the Chronivac. "Nothing in here shows those factors, so I don't think it's a concern..."
"Your answer... and the way you trailed off... you're not sure are you?"
"Part of being an adult is admitting you've made a mistake and trying to fix it," David pointed out. "So... I don't think I've made a mistake... but your concern is valid and noted. I don't actually know if some part of the fairy stuck, or if the raptor will stick too... not with any certainty."
"Guess it's good I'm just doing one TF."
"It's done, by the way," David offered. "Unless you're worried about having a little dragon in you later."
"I mean... when you say it like that," Tommy smirked. "I guess it doesn't sound so bad after all." The boy pushed himself to standing up on his black sneakers. Putting a finger to his cheek he considered his options. "Now to figure out the style... oh, and what about my cloths? I noticed Alice's haven't come back."
"I mean, she's a raptor."
"And you're just a wolf from the waist down, but you still have cloths on."
"You are making some really good points tonight, Tommy." The boy smirked, but David went on. "Except for the whole 'girls are inferior' thing. You wanna talk about that? Doesn't seem like something overtly your dad... are boys in your class saying stupid things like that?"
"It's not stupid."
"I know your mom taught you the difference between ignorance and stupidity, kiddo, so yeah... thinking girls are weak, fragile, need a man, etcetera... all stupid. Those are stupid things to think. You know better."
Tommy resisted the urge to say 'You're not my dad' because the last time he said those words David just smiled and said 'thank you for the compliment' or something like that... he didn't exactly remember, but... much as his dad upset him with how he treated his mom, he was still his dad. Everyone but David seemed to think that was important... but while David loved a lot of his family, Tommy knew he wasn't beholden to his parents and even, one might say, hated them.
David took the silence as a chance to change topics. "Anyway, I collected your sis's fairy pieces in that tray over there... so I should be able to restore her cloths in the morning... or tonight if you guys are up long enough."
"Good," he said. "She loves that Fortnight shirt."
David snapped his fingers loudly again. Tommy's green eyes turned to meet the wolftaur's gold ones. "Alice ranks higher than you in competitive games like Fortnight and Rocket League—higher than me too. Explain that Mister 'Woman Are Inferior'."
Tommy was unprepared to respond, and the snap really threw him off. "Uh... Video games don't... They don't... Video games don't—"
David grinned, leaning forward with both ears trained on Tommy. "I dare you to finish that sentence."
"Cu... cou... hm. Man, screw you!" The boy crossed his arms... he couldn't bring himself to say 'video games don't count'. A moment of realization hit him, though... that his dad would have no problem saying it...
"Now admit you were wrong," David insisted. Tommy shook his head, stubborn. "Part of being an adult is what...?"
"I'm not an adult," Tommy huffed.
"Well, at least that's mature of you." Getting up from his lounging position on the patio he moved to the back door. "I have an idea for your TF style if you're still unsure." Opening the glass door, then the screen door, then reaching behind passed the doorway, he pulled out a yellow and white stripped, dirty old hula-hoop. "Found this up in the barn while I was feeding the pigs earlier... barely smells," he offered, rolling it over to him.
"Is this a hula-hoop? Man, you are older than dirt," Tommy remarked, catching the hoop with one hand to stop it.
David frowned. "It was my mom's, smartass."
"It's not pink."
"Yellow is my mom's favorite color. You're just full of weirdly out-of-date stereotypes today aren't you, kiddo?"
"Whatever," he said. "How's this work as a TF style?"
"Ever heard of 'Hoop TG'?" Tommy could not say that he had, and simply shook his head. "Nothing initially special about it. Person puts their body partly through the hoop. They can see their own body through their side of the hoop, but the part of them that comes out the other side looks like what they'll transformation." The boy blinked. "Was all the fad on the internet a few months back... in my circles, at least."
"Never heard of it," Tommy said. "But it's nothing special... 'initially'?"
"Right," David nodded. "You might say it's 'mid'. But... But! I personally think it's something special when there's a size difference between one form and the next... like with you becoming a dragon."
Tommy looked at the hoop. He thought about it, then just shrugged. "I was thinking instant because... I don't... I don't think I'm into transformations as much—" he said, though David picked up a tonal shift he hadn't before. Did transformations scare Tommy? "—as you guys do. But... that sounds, what's the word. Benign?"
"Good word use," David said. "You've made your Change and checked it twice. Ready?" he asked, motioning towards Tommy and the hoop. Tommy held up the hook between him and David, then nodded as he looked at him through it. David put two fingers between his lips at the end of his muzzle and blew, creating a loud whistle effect. It was meant to get Alice's attention and it worked. The raptor turned quickly to hurry towards the back of the ranch while David aimed the Emitter at Tommy with his left hand and tapped Change on the Chronivac app with his right.
"Whoa! That is neat!" squealed Alice as she came to a stop next to the patio.
Tommy's face inside the ring of the hoop on the side David and Alice could see from was instantly draconic. Black metallic scales, burning from underneath as if being heated from within, shown all across his square-jawed, spike-toothed snout. He huffed a plume of dark gray smoke, but it didn't leave the ring of the hula-hoop. For, you see, they were on the exit side of the hoop. Behind that head, from this side, was a full dragon with molten metal beneath it's tongue... but on Tommy's side he was still human.
The eleven-year-old turned the hoop to look into it from the other side. "What?" He asked, but quickly had his answer. When he turned the hoop across his body, he could see a thick dragon hand holding it from the other side. In fact, his one thumb had already hooked through it, creating a large claw that came through the hoop like a portal.
"Your thumb-claw is as big as my hand!" Alice blinked her reptilian eyes. "Why were you complaining about size?"
David chuckled, looking at Tommy as put more of his hand through the hoop. "Men always complain about size, Alice." He didn't elaborate and figured his innuendo should be lost on her. She looked confused, after all. "Anyway... Tommy, you OK?" Actually, David couldn't get over the look on Tommy's face, and his tone went a bit more serious. "Actually. Really? Are you OK?"
The boy's heart rate was increasing, thumping in his chest, and David could hear it. "I don't think I want to do this," Tommy said, leaning back from the hoop and removing his hand. "I mean... I want to be a dragon, but..."
Alice clicked her long claws of her feet on the porch, then stepped down the steps towards her brother. "What are you doing? You wouldn't stop talkin' about being a dragon all day and then—"
"Alice," David said sternly. "We can probably reset the transformation. Just—"
"Look at him! He's scared to transform!" She hissed at him, clicking her tongue against the top of her mouth. Her hands flexed. "From one reptile to another..."
"Alice, don't!" David yelled, realizing what she was going to do just a moment too late.
"Get over here!" And, with that, Alice's raptor-arms reached through the hula-hoop from the dragon side and grabbed onto two things at once. As a dragon, she'd grabbed just the big thumb... but on the side Tommy still saw his human arm, she'd fully gripped it, poking his arm with her claws. Fully holding that giant thumb, she pulled with all her might, taking steps back to yank Tommy partway through the hoop.
For a moment, Tommy's left arm moved swiftly through the hoop. But soon enough it was too heavy for him to support. A full front arm of a dragon now lay on the ground, plated, black, metallic scales layered back from a giant four-fingered hand. It was longer across than David was from waist to tail and seemed to be weighing down hus human self on the other side of the hoop.
Alice's hands went to the pits at the side of her reptilian head. "Why is he screaming?" she yelled over Tommy's pleas. "Does it hurt? Did I hurt him! Why is he screaming!"
David's ears were flat. "Break the hoop!" he yelled at Alice.
Quickly, she leaned in and bit the crummy old hula-hoop hard. Tugging at it, it inched further up Tommy's arm as he screamed. Gripping her claws on it, she reached up with her big hooked claw on one foot and tried to cut it. Seeing nothing working, David lunged at the hulking arm, giving his own crushing bit to the hoop, but it wouldn't break!
"It must be part of the moment... you can break the hoop of a 'Hoop TF', I guess!" he yelled, spitting blood from where he'd busted a tooth. Tommy was crying. "We need to get it fully over him or off him!" Alice and David both tried to lift the dragon arm, but they couldn't. They tugged at it, but it was too much weight... like trying to lift an I-beam. Tommy was face-first in the ground, and David quickly realized that without with upper-body strength of a dragon, not one of the three of them were getting this hoop back off the way it went on.
Alice put her small hands over her eyes, feeling so much guilt as she didn't know what to do. What had happened? Everything was so fun!
"New plan!" David called to Alice over Tommy's scream-crying. Alice was now crying too, salty tears welling up at the corner of her reptilian eyes. Looking over at David's wolftaur body as he circled around to where Tommy's human side was, he called over to her: "Help me get him all the way through!"
Quickly, Alice was snapped into action. David grabbed the hula-hoop while trying to pick up Tommy's torso. Alice moved to her brother's backside and managed to lift up his legs. The two of them began to backward walk as David slowly pulled the hoop towards Tommy's feet. Slowly Tommy went in one side and quickly exited the other. The difference of speed was accounted for by how much more size the dragon version of Tommy was than the human... for every one inch of him that went through as human, a muscular four inches came out the other side...
The tempered dragon slowly formed from the ever too-small hoop. His head was the first thing beyond the one arm. Big square jaw, jagged teeth, comically large horns which spiked from the top of his head. His solid yellow-green eyes leaked molten metal which hissed as it hit the mud while Tommy whimpered and cried.
As the velociraptor and wolftaur each pulled, the next thing evident were the folded wings across his back. Webbed like a bats, the the membrane was like some kind of metallic leather. Big clawed hands with only two digits came up from very top of his wings, the golden orange glow of the phalanges crossing down over that black wing and ending in curved golden claws.
Tommy began to grow more quiet as his torso became weightier. He whimpered, eyes shutting, but now he could do something about his situation. While his whole upper body was now on one side of the hoop, he had the upper body strength to pull himself across the ground. That big barreled belly of his was colored golden orange and seemed to singe the ground. It was flanked on either side by the same black plates that were his arms, though not nearly as thick as the cascade of short black spikes down his shoulders.
Both foreclaws gripped down into the earth and Tommy pulled himself forward across the blackening grass. His thick hindquarters, wider than the hoop, looked like a cartoon character wedged in a hole. While the hula currently had strength imbued in it from a higher plane of existence, it also seemed to be frictionless. That giant dragon body still kept squeezing through, culminating with a hard yank by Tommy's arms which brought the remained of his legs forward through it.
As soon as Tommy was fully through, David took the hoop and threw it onto the patio. "Tommy!" he called out, moving up towards the boy's front. "Tommy are you OK?"
Molten tears on the brutish dragon's face, Tommy roared feral anger at the smaller, wolfish creature. Reaching to the side quickly with his right arm, he swatted David across the backyard with angry orange claws. The wolftaur's body tumbled across the ground and crashing through a wooden part of the fence where he fell limp and stopped moving.
"David!" Alice and Tommy both yelled at the same time after they each realized what Tommy had just done. They looked at each other, one big dragon head towards a smaller raptor face. Each gave an inhuman hiss towards the other, then hurried over to where the adult had stopped moving.
Alice's raptor mind saw a fresh kill... Tommy's did similar. Mr. Scott was bent numerous wrong ways, some of which involved bones broken an exposed and wow, was there a lot of meat and bone. Internally, Alice and Tommy were both human enough in mindset to be mortified... but neither was having a very human reaction to the apparent death of their adult supervisor.
"Look what you did!" Alice finally declared, putting up her comparably smaller raptor arms. "This is why he thought you shouldn't be a dragon! You totally killed him," she huffed, crossing those same narrow arms. "Mom's gunna be so mad. I'm mad! David was gunna be our new dad!"
"It was his idea we transform. He did this to himself!"
"Liar! We asked mom!" Alice put her clawed hands on her head. "He was so nice to us!" Tommy reached over towards David's front pocket of his bent body, sticking a claw in to try and find the Emitter. "Are you... Are you looting him!?"
"No, you stupid girl, I'm getting the thing so—"
"—so we can revert everything, right! Twelve hours!?" Her big, green, reptilian eyes looked up from her smaller raptor frame to the yellow-green eyes of her big dragon bother. His faces gave away that that's not what he was going to do. "You just wanted to be able to transform more, huh?"
"No."
"Liar!"
The Emitter was still on its little yellow chain, attached to the front side of the seemingly dead wolftaur's carapace. Of course, those of you that remember smaller details this far in would know the jump-scare is coming, but Tommy and Alice have no idea. So, when David's bent-wrong arm reaches up to grip the Emitter in Tommy's sizable hand, they both scream.
David's ears flatten against his skull. "Can we have less screaming tonight?" he spoke in a gurgly tone... probably from the ribs in his lungs, filling them with blood. The children screamed again. "Less not more!" He took a harsh breath. "I require... the opposite... amount of screaming..." he struggled to speak. "Zero screams."
Tommy's big square jaw dropped. "You're OK!"
"No he's not!" Alice said, moving around to David's other side. "But he is alive! Why are you alive?"
"That bad, huh?" David wondered, coughing up blood. "I gave myself regeneration..." he trailed off, quickly recovering from the dizzying hit. "Didn't actually expect to use it tonight... maybe later when your father shows up. Seemed like there was foreshadowing with that." The kids looked at each other, then at David like he was crazy. "Alice, please bend my one leg back the right direction."
"Won't that hurt?" the velociraptor with the human voice wondered.
David chuckled harshly. "If I say 'yes', will you still do it?" Alice replied negatively. "Then 'no'. Go ahead." And she did... and David bit into his own lip to stifle his own yelp of pain. "Thanks," he said, beginning to get all four legs back underneath him. "Damn, kiddo... you hit like a truck... and that's not hyperbole as I have, in fact, been hit by a car before." Tommy sat back on his haunches, looking guilty. David looked up at him, arm around Alice at his side, partly for support as his bones and muscles and skin all knit back together. "Why so serious?"
"I'm mad, but I also messed up... I hurt you bad. I'm sorry."
Taking a few steps forward, it seemed like David's legs had already healed. He put his right hand on Tommy's sizable shoulder. "Hey," the wolftaur smirked. "We all made mistakes," he said, then pulled Alice forward a little bit.
Those green raptor eyes looked up at David who then motioned towards her brother with his head. Alice looked up at Tommy's glowing face, his eyes, nose and mouth glowing golden orange in the frame of thick black scales. "I'm sorry I forced you through that... I... I thought you were being a big baby. Kept complaining about girls being weak and then you were wussing out..."
"I didn't. I mean. I don't know what..."
David took a step between them. "Tommy... your fear in that moment... Did it seem unreasonable to you? Terrifying in the moment, but now you couldn't say what caused it?" The big boy nodded. "Congratulations... I think you have yourself a phobia." He'd spoken nonchalantly. A moment later, David used his hands to push at his neck and head, causing some popping sounds. "Lots of people have them..."
The big, heavy metal dragon sat back on his haunches. He was about thirty foot tall from head to end of tail. Those leathery wings draped over him like a cloak around his shoulders. Alice stepped over to her brother who was easily five times her size and hugged him from the side.
"Like mom's fear of spiders?"
"It sure seemed that way," David nodded. "Phobias are totally unreasonable. You might even think your own is stupid, but when it comes up... it freaks you out... like... on a level that you can't explain." David sighed. "It can make you angry. 'Why?' you'll ask yourself... makes no sense, it just... is."
Tommy looked down at the much smaller, moderately bloody wolftaur. "You have a phobia?"
David nodded. "Yup... and it's just as dumb." The little boy in the big dragon body leaned over to ask softly 'what?'. Alice tapped her claws on her brother's scales. "Isolophobia... the fear of being truly alone..." He smirked, throwing his arms wide towards the two of them. "Luckily, it almost never comes up."
The big metal boy blinked. "I feel fine now, so... it's not... being something else... it was just... the becoming."
Alice looked up at her big brother. "Never would have come up before today, I guess."
Tommy glanced away, looking at the stars. He recalled being small, long before meeting David, in which his father made fun of him over crying about losing a baby tooth. It was never clear why Tommy was so upset... it didn't hurt, but now? Maybe he had to do with his body changing...
(|[***]|)
"And that was enough adventure for one night," David said softly from within his room, talking on the phone to Holly about everything that had happened, leaving out a few bits here or there. "Luckily Tommy's OK. The revert button is instant, it turns out... like, suddenly, he was back. Very control zee."
"And Alice?"
"Well, after a fairy and a velociraptor, she got to be a cartoon pony which was pretty neat. Like, a real cartoon," David grinned. "Then, because she kept a secret, I gave her one more transformation after Tommy crashed in his sleeping bag."
"What into?"
"She wanted to be a 'big wolfie, but a boy'... so I made her a dire wolf. She's napping next to her brother."
Holly took a second before asking: "Why that, you think?"
"She said a wolf's been helping her with her nightmares, so she wanted to be one for sleep tonight. She also said since Tommy was a girl, she wanted to know if she felt different as a boy."
"Wait... when was Tommy a—oh. Girl dragon, huh? That's the secret Alice kept, huh?"
David sighed. "Yeah. Making a point about strong women seemed in bad taste after phobia, briefly killing someone, then sort of bonding at the end there..."
"Better part of valor."
"I think so."
"Well, my breaks ending. I've felt pretty naughty hiding in a human form most of the night, but they might be asking me to double, so... don't worry about reverting. I wanna stay this way for a while."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I... I may have cured someone's cancer on accident—anyway, I'll explain later!" she said and hung up quickly.
David took a step up onto his bed, circled in place, then laid his wolf body down. He wouldn't fit longways on his bed any longer, so he ended up curling up around himself, his waist pressing against his own tail, his upper torso using his lower torso as a body pillow. Shutting those furry eyelids, he tried to go to sleep.
Unfortunately, he had one of those sleeps where he closed his eyes for a moment but the digital clock on the wall was now a different number and it hadn't felt like he'd slept. There was a knocking somewhere, and it had woken him up.