“16..” The new number replaced the 11 that was on the screen. Tommy was downstairs in the room with the PS2 memory card and a fob-like emitter that Uncle David used. “And… 40%?”
The percentage increased and decreased to a spot Tommy found to be a good median for his change. The slider’s gradient-scale format is depicted as his mental change of “Awareness”.
Tommy wasn’t sure if he did it right, the testing form of the Chronivac was detailed however, it was bland and uniform. He was sure that this change would be simple enough to execute and that if he was right, he’d be capable of using this device to the fullest.
The device was in the basement where mom’s boyfriend slept. All night, Tommy couldn’t sleep at all, thinking about what he just did and what he saw. Seeing the already freaky wolftaur body broken and mangled thanks to his dragon form was enough to traumatize the troubled kid. There was so much blood.
When Alice started whimpering from another of her nightmares, Tommy could only watch as the adult dire wolf with briskly gray and chestnut-colored fur trashed about on the shared bed. Her lightly colored underbelly was facing the other side. He reached over to shake her awake only for her to howl weakly, her whole body shuddering from the light touch. Tommy could feel something permeate the air, and his first thought was how embarrassing it was for her to wet the bed from a nightmare.
She, or he, was panting as she swiveled a blocky head to face him with eyes full of fear. Tommy could see it clear as day, the green-gold eyes of his sister in a male dire wolf body reflecting the same fear mom had of dad…
That was enough to get him acting. Maybe he could use the device to get this done. There was a split feeling inside of him, two thoughts constantly warring with each other on what he wanted. He wanted mom’s boyfriend to become Dad, but he just couldn’t bear for dad and mom to go for a divorce just because she found him to be a better progressive partner.
It was why he was so gruff and uncaring about his wolftaur form. It was scary, but if he isn’t using the device to save mom and dad, then he’d do it himself. It was easy to encourage Alice to go to the literal wolftaur for help while he offered to clean the mess.
Well, he didn’t clean the mess. He did go to the basement right after Alice did. The basement was stylized and comfy, but Tommy remembered it differently. Uncle David might have made changes so that the room didn’t impede his new form or he was just misremembering. The golden light cast a warm heated glow over the room, and the closed door to the bathroom looked weird. There was a set of tracks leading to it, and Tommy knew he had just a few minutes before he would get caught.
“Okay, transformation style: Poof? Good fast one...” Selecting that from a dropdown list, Tommy scans his sheet for anything that needs more alteration. “Teenage Tommy here I come…!” Ignoring his fear of physical changes, of growth, Tommy took the fastest way of change.
Clicking the green button shining at the bottom of the sheet, Tommy watched the whole screen block access with a loading circle while the emitter connected to the PC started to blink with its lights. The input bars greyed out preventing any changes, all while Tommy felt something heat up.
In a second, Tommy was looking down at the PC.
“Woah, this growth feels weird…” Muscle was packed onto his frame, and Tommy could feel his whole body go through throes of heat as he blitzed past puberty in that second. His hair had receded into a buzz cut reminiscent of military people, and his face sculpted up to a blocky, square form. Not old enough to look like an adult, but Tommy had grown up strong. Taking into account genetics and who he had for a father, along with the 40% awareness, Tommy blew past years of his life as if he had Trevor Phillips as his dad for the next 5 years, in a theoretical future he could have along with mom. However, with how things are, dad focused more on him than he did on Alice.
His brain flexed as memories of football, the game his dad loved built up in his memories, of him playing well, from both talent and pressure from his dad. Tommy winced as memories of working out with dad in the gym shoved themselves into his mind. There was a level of masculinity that Trevor Phillips instilled, something Tom didn’t find to be inherently wrong. Guys were naturally built for strength. It was natural for him to capitalize on that advantage and grow.
Tom blinked new eyes, both in the perspective of a 60% new mind and new height. The computer’s options and words are now something he could comprehend on what it should do. Tom knew what he should do. A large part of him wanted his dad, Trevor Phillips to stay as his dad, yet a smaller, younger part wanted David Scott to be his dad. That feeling was a bit weaker, yet Tom couldn’t deny it was what he wanted 5 years ago. And he still wanted it.
Clicking on the Transbar, Tom wrote “How to change biological dads.”
The Chronivac 4.23 gave him a list of options, but “Ancestry Edit” was the one on top so that must be the option with the closest ability to do what he wanted. Clicking on it, his portrait appeared on a blank screen, before a loading bar appeared and started adding other portraits. Lines connected up to Trevor Phillips and Holly Phillips, to mom's family on the other side, the Reeces.
“Huh, there’s a lot of people I haven’t met in mom’s family. Dad rarely lets us meet others from Mom’s.” Tom hovered over the people he hadn’t met, seeing a bunch of people he didn’t bother remembering. Tom had a limited amount of time to do what he wanted, and with the running proverbial water flow that he could assume is in the showers, the sand in the hourglass is draining quickly. Somehow, Tom couldn’t hear anything in there.
Tom found the option to add another to the large canvas and found David Nicolaus Scott III in the available dropdown list, being the only other person not existing in the current canvas.
Clicking on that name scrolled the view to the side of his family tree, causing a lot more names to appear from his portrait. Tom briefly checked the people appearing in the other family tree, seeing names that were either forgotten or just briefly mentioned. “Elizabeth Lupescu Scott?”
Ignoring that name, Tom set to work. Right-clicking Trevor Phillips only brought down a list of options that doesn’t say anything much. There was only Alter, Replace and Delete.
Alter allowed Tom to make changes to Trevor, but the changes need the actual person to be in range first before it can make any. Replace brought him to a list of people including David that he could select, but Tom was hesitant… Half of his old self wanted it, but maybe it was Stockholm’s, but Tom didn’t want to lose Trevor as his dad…
“Fucking hell.” It was a hard decision to make. Tom closed the choice window and glared, both at the screen and himself for being torn. Couldn’t he just get this over with? How the hell is he going to make a choice this big?
Tom’s eyes darted to a microphone sitting at the top right corner of the screen. Maybe that could help? Clicking on it brought forth a popup reminiscent of Google’s.
“Uh, how do I… um, get both David Nicolaus Scott III and Trevor Phillips as my dad?” Tom asked the PC. It heard him and began processing. The pop-up closed and Trevor’s and David’s portraits were highlighted in a gold frame.
“Okay…” Tom clicked on dad’s, but nothing seemed to happen. Tom dragged the portrait and it detached from its place and moved… “Oh.”
Taking no time, Tom dragged Trevor’s portrait over to David’s and let go. Both portraits stacked over each other and new options appeared. The highlighted one was “Merge.”
===—===
“Shit.” It was what Tom wanted. He wanted both. He could get both. But there was no way to know if Alice and David would be done in a second or minute, and Tom couldn’t just wait and think. It wasn’t one of his strong suits, but he managed. He wasted no time and clicked it, and a slider bar appeared. At least he could tailor the change! Setting the percentage to 75… no, 60% David and 40% Trevor and clicked okay, setting the change to… melding? the screen cleared up and an orange light appeared on the emitter. Tom closed everything back to how it was and quickly ran back upstairs.
===—===
Tom didn’t go back to his room that night, because he just remembered what Alice just did and he felt wrong, and he knew David would come up there and clean it up. There was no need for him to show that he used the device to grow up.
Tom remembered how Trevor made him grow up. Dad was a capable police officer, able to take on traffic duty on a rad motorcycle or look great in a cop chase car. Trevor was muscular and tall. Traditionally a preferred partner for a wife to have. If only dad didn’t have the ego and messed up masculinity that made him so toxic. With the set changes, maybe Tom could have the best of both worlds, and get a dad that’s awesome, and kind. That was what Tom wished to have. It was selfish of him to make changes to his mom’s boyfriend to become his actual dad, but he just couldn’t take it anymore.
Not with how dad was treating mom and Alice. Not with how he wanted Tom to be a mirror of himself. All the traits he was picking up inadvertently from the school and its cliques he’s encouraged by dad to be part of and dad himself.
Tom heard the door getting knocked… at 5 am.
“Mom?”
===—===
“Okay, you can get out of the showers now.” David waited for her to come out, giving her a handful of towels before realizing that she can’t dry herself. After she shook much of the water out, David went to work. He kept any thoughts other than cleaning out of his mind, even as his wolfie instincts made him consider the big, strong lupine. No. Bad David.
“-want to stay in wolfie form for a while. Don’t want to go back yet.” Alice murmured under the heavy toweling David was giving her. Him. Ugh.
David Nicolaus Scott III flinched when he saw me out of the corner of his sight, another author. To him, he could barely perceive me as another dire wolf just out of sight, with black fur scattered with purple motes of light all over me, though he could not really see me in the strictest of senses. I was different from the previous author, and that was apparent. He stared only for a moment before he went about drying off the dire wolf that was in the room with him and shaking her fur to get it dry. He suspected from the appearance of the new author that it was the reason why Alice did not want to return to her human form. Not yet anyways.
Taking a hair dryer, David went to work on grooming this big ancient lupine, the coarse fur fluffing up with the heat. The musky wet dog smell quickly built up in the room and David was getting heady from it. The wall fan sucked out most of it though.
It only took about 10 minutes before he was done, and the happy, dry, and poofed-up dire wolf looked at herself in the mirror on two hind legs, panting from the heat and loving the look.
“Okay… who are you?” David whisper-asked me. I don’t respond. Alice responded. “A good girl!”
There is something big coming isn’t it? He thought about it hard enough to be heard. He was sure of it, and I know he would go through it shortly. Very near in fact.
Opening the soundproof doors of his bathroom, David let Alice out first only for her to jump up his bed and lay down.
“Bed is still messy, don’t wanna clean it up,” Alice whined on the bed. “Want to stay clean.”
David could only sigh as he turned to the chronivac not yet seeing anything out of place. Orange mote of light can just easily be missed and using it to clean the mess is outright lazy. The thought of touching dire wolf semen though, instincts flared up and David fought it back down. Bad David.
Sighing, David walked up the stairs out of his basement and went to the store room under the stairs, picking up a mop and cleaning supplies. As David walked out of the storeroom, a rather loud, heavy knock on the front door perked his ears. He was stuck in his thoughts and wasn’t aware someone was in front of his house. But how? Did they climb the gate? Is it the PI?
David put down the cleaning supplies and grips his mop, loosely holding it to his side. There should be no one coming up to the front door, let alone at this ungodly hour.
Paws stealthily walking up the front door, David peered in through the spyhole and saw a male. Blocky features, younger looking than he is. The clothing he wore was nondescript, bland, and wet with what smelled like booze. This guy’s drunk. But he doesn’t sway or look heavily inebriated at all. High alcohol tolerance for sure.
David looked up at me again, side-eyeing me. He could see a menacing grin, anticipating something to happen.
David has a choice to make now. "David here." He announced himself, still peering into the peephole. What seemed like confusion was plastered on the man's face, probably not recognizing David Senior or David Junior thanks to his altered vocal cords being a wolf.
"Hey, open up, we need to talk..." A gruff, masculine, and deep voice called out. "I know there's some weird shit going on in this house, and Holly cheating on me is one of them."
Ah. It's Mr. Phillips. Probably coming here to get his kids out of here. He's drunk from what David could smell through the door, his wolf senses picking up the man's scent and committing it to memory.
"Look, it's pretty late and what you're claiming is not true. Ms. Holly is a friend, nothing more than that." David could see the man shift, and hearing his heartbeat speed up signified a rise in anger. David turned on the security interface at the side of the door, activating the door cameras as it turned away from the driveway towards the burly man standing in front of the door.
Flat buzzcut of a blonde head of hair, a lantern jaw most women would swoon over, and a body that showed heavy dedication to the gym as the man's arm stretched his sleeves reaching down to his side. David could see a gun, not sure what it really is thanks to the night vision of the camera's grainy feed obscuring much of the details of the weapon.
"You think I'm just some fucker to believe that?" Despite the man swaying, he was aiming the gun toward the handle of the door. No doubt to weaken the locks inside and then kick it in. There was no doubt that both events would wake the kids up. David couldn't allow that, letting out a soft growl. No one should dare threaten his territory and his adopted pups.
Hands gripping the mop tighter, David put a paw onto the door knob. "Look we can talk this peacefull-"
"Like fucking hell! You think you're gonna be the one to raise my kids? Run away with my wife?" David unlocked each bolt, and he could see the man on the other side of the door shift to be ready to storm the house when the door gets opened.
David opened the door, letting the man see his monstrous wolftaur form shrouded in the darkness of the house with golden eyes, arms holding tight a mop.
Trained reflexes kicked in as the gun was immediately pointed at his head, and only thanks to David's wolf instincts that he ducked and pounced onto the man, bringing him down but not before a shot was fired into the ceiling. Mop smacked into Tommy's father's chest as David pinned the man.
There was fear and anger in both males, as David fought like a wolf mauling a man as the man fought back despite being drunk. David howled in pain as gunshots onto his body caused flowers of blood to form on him, as he wrestled down the man with the gun for his life.
David pressed too hard into Mr. Phillip's shoulders and his paw sunk through.
___
Tom heard the gunshot and ran. He ran to the basement where Alice was and saw her whimpering, scared of what was happening outside. She must've heard dad.
"Alice, you gotta trust me. Stay here and be safe!" Tom grabbed the emitter and ran back upstairs where he could hide the device. He didn't know what would happen with the change he had set up, and he didn't want the idea of dad somehow winning the merge and using the device. He knew it was a risk and it was something he was happy to take if it meant their lives would be so much better. The emitter no longer has an orange light, sitting idle. The change was executed.
Tom hid the device somewhere in the attics, a place David always found him but Tom grew up and hid it where it was obvious but not. Somewhere that would be disregarded.
Shit, Dad and Uncle David are fighting. They're actually fighting outside.
___
David stares as he found his furred hand wrist-deep into Mr. Phillip's muscular shoulders, pulling it out only brought along strands of putty-like muscle. His hand where his wrist ended was a blob of melting flesh, joining the muscle putty that was the man's crushed shoulders. The wolftaur checked under him to see that was the case, his left leg was sunk ankle-deep into the muscular thighs of the man, and there was a weird feeling. It was as if his ankle was a few ways down the thigh...
"What the hell?" David confusedly looked at his transformation. He hadn't made any changes...
"What the FUCK?!" The man horrifiedly stared at what seemed like a bloody muscle pulled out from his shoulders.
The hand holding the gun pointed at him again and David instinctively gripped it, only for his other hand to melt into the other man's hand and release the gun. David's legs felt like putty as he felt his stature sag and drop his whole weight over the man below him, and the disgusting squish of meat splatter entered his wolf ears. He... was melting.
Like a melting candle in an oven, David reached out to the house doors only to find his snout had melted together. He could only soundlessly scream as his form completely turned to a pile of gooey gray meat.
It took a minute or so before the two piles of flesh goo started moving again, sucking into each other and mixing. Tan goo flowed up the grays, sinking deep instead and uniformly forming. From the pile, a new, bigger form was being created.
It grew paws first, creating the vague shape of a normal feral wolf before the wolf head portion elongated and grew a torso. A much thicker, wider torso as shoulders took shape. The wolf half was much bigger than before, even as the humanoid half grows bigger.
A blocky snout began forming from the rapidly forming mass, and as the change was finished something familiar yet different stood alone. A wolftaur that was David yet not. He cracked his neck and stretched his muscular furred arms, taking a deep breath. He could smell both his pups in the house. He knew that already.
David "Trevor" Nicolaus Scott contemplated what he was going to do now.