Chronivac Version 4.0

Chronivac 4.23: The Fury in Which We Burn

Holly Inari Phillips was cackling up a storm as she fervently swiped her tiny fox paws across the phone screen of her soon-to-be-mate, David Nicolaus Scott the Third. Existing in the moment as a yokai fox with teal-colored Celtic glyphs glowing softly atop her white fur, Holly was taking pleasure in the 'punishment rite'—her words—concerning her much maligned current mate, the officer Trevor Christian Phillips. Her mirth was vengeful, and no one dared inquire about her current inclination for a response to her husband's actions: his rape of her and endangerment of her children.

The other occupants of the ranch house were three wolftaurs, each whose bodies were youthful, though two clearly children. Alice and Thomas Phillips, the kitsune's offspring, each showed signs of her teal glyphs in their fur as they sat on their hind legs around the kitchen counter. They were finishing a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash-browns, and biscuits... a combination of farm fresh and store-bought baked. With the seasonings the adult wolf had added, the meals were quite tasty to their new tastebuds what with this being the first meal after their current transformations.

In the rafters of the old farmhouse, the normal-sized fox was making happy yipping sounds as she bounded between the support beams. She'd been at her process for several minutes now, with her two captives up there complaining in her head. Trevor's telepathy continued, but David was currently done listening to his pleas for rescue, as were his two children who both admitted never hearing their father so afraid before they 'turned him off'.

The kitsune's three tails wagged in gaiety.

David Nicolaus Scott the Third was the bigger wolftaur, a creature with most of the body of a dire wolf for its lower-torso, but where the neck would be instead was a humanoid wolf from it's waist up as its upper-torso. His fur coloring was 'silver', a mixture of light gray long-fur with black undercoat. Tommy was similarly colored, though his silver was much lighter and his muzzle more narrow like a foxes as he'd taken on some of his mother's vulpine traits. The third was the boy's sister, Alice, whose fur was chestnut and her lower body stockier due to how she'd attained her tauric stature, modified from a male direwolf body she'd already been occupying.

The vixen bumped the shrunken german shepherds' cage close to one side of a rafter, a sound which caused David to glance up. He managed to allow himself a deep sigh as the two captives yelped. This whole situation would be a lot more fun if it was role-play, David realized. He had to believe this really was Holly's mood, though he couldn't be sure how to feel about that.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. He felt responsible and, ignorantly, a little guilty. Am I a homewrecker? He considered that thought while he moved towards the back door and peered out through the window across his grandparent's sizable acreage. His eyes swept the landscape outside. Of the visible hills and valley, much was owned by his grandparents, legally if not actually. After all, who really owns land?

"We're going for a walk." It was Tommy's voice which broke into David's thoughts, jolting him back from his distraction. The adult simply nodded, unlatching the bolt lock and pushing open the screen door from inside. Watching the wind hit the messy teal hair of the boy and the deep red mohawk of his sister, David smirked to himself at that now arbitrary distinction. The two were, in essence, the same sexes now.

They were, of course, like him... as genetically they were his children with Holly in their current make-up. That thought produced a smile along his muzzle. Most of his family was distant in no small part to him being the loser child of two mostly disowned criminals and druggies. If he was going to be a real father to these two wolves, he would have to do better... be better... than his parents... better, too, than their original father... a man literally a bitching bitch up above in the rafters, being given a punishing send-off by their furious mother.

The hazel eyes of Tommy looked over his furred shoulder directly into the golden eyes of Mr. Scott. "Should we be worried?" The inquiry was not entirely directed at Mr. Scott. His sister simply nodded. "It's just... The way she just... appeared in the house earlier. When she said she was looking for me? Like, I hadn't done anything wrong, but... I got so scared. She's scary now."

"You were scared before that," Alice pointed out, recalling the preceding moments of them locking themselves in the basement. "When dad saw me and thought I wassa monster, he wasn't scared even though he should'a been. I... I was ready to bite him to save Mr. Scott—new dad." She shook her head. "But, yeah. Mom's bein' real... Catra right now..."

David found himself shrugging his broad shoulders in response to them both, unintentionally putting off an air of blasé about the matter, an overcorrection to his appearance from how he truly felt. Was Holly even acting like herself? Honestly, he couldn't say. Maybe she's just on a power-trip? I mean, she's so right to be angry, so no... you know, I hadn't considered it's me who may have changed. Trevor put a child in her, forced her to marry him, and mistreated her for over a decade! He took a deep breath. No, yeah. He has coming, well, whatever that laughter is...

It was only after the hush began to envelope him that David realized the siblings wanted more of a response than just a shoulder shrug. "Well, kiddos..." he began, checking his tone for levity as he continued speaking. His tail was raised up, evenly aligned with his lower back. His ears, forward. "She is mischievous now," he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "Just be glad I didn't make her a nuwisha. Or naga."

"I know naga. What's nuwisha?" Alice wondered.

"A nuwisha is a werecoyote from that Werewolf game your mother larps on Saturdays," David explained. "They are purely tricksters. Well... 'Gaia's Teachers'. They teach you in a way that at the end you should learn a lesson. Usually it's a lesson about your own flaws like hubris, err... being self-centered and such. They're so chaotic that they have rules about there being more than one in a single geographic area."

"So mommy's gunna teach da—Trevor a lesson?"

"Oh, she is. I told her she has free reign because of..." David shut his eyes, pausing his movement as he considered the infinite number of transformation options available through the app. Tommy almost bumped into him. Turning his body, David faced the children... his children? He supposed so.

His big fluffy tail went still as he spoke. "Look. Kiddos. I know I've been one way with you guys for these last three years. But you do get that things are going to change if you take me as your father, right? I won't just be the adult friend... I'll have to, you know, be a father. That means helping you with your homework, giving advice, being a flank to lean on... but, also... punishments for poor grades, teaching you responsibilities, and sometimes telling you 'no' about things for reasons you don't fully understand yet... Yeah?"

Tommy glanced at his sister. Then he glanced at her again as part of a double-take. He kept forgetting was nearly his height now... her 4'6" to his 4'8". Literally shaking it off, he turned his more narrow muzzle back to meet David's eyes. The boy shrugged. "Yeah," he said, speaking as the older brother and representative of the children. "We get it. I said my goodbye, twice, but..." He trailed off before mustering the determination to make his next point: "I don't know if we're gunna be able to lie to cover up dad going missing," the boy stated. "Alice is a terrible liar."

The little girl quickly frowned the length of her chestnut-colored muzzle. "I may mess up words, but I can lie."

The big wolftaur wrinkled his black nose. It looked like the first task of himself as a parent-to-be was going to try and handle the aftermath of the Trevor situation. "Well, kids. First things first, just in case you wanted to call me dad, hold off. The big lie we have to workshop—figure out the details of—is how we say your dad's gone missing," David's tone was serious as he turned his lower body around to head off down the trail towards the lake far down the hill. "Most people are going to think your dad is dead once he's been missing long enough."

Alice narrowed her eyes, moving to walk up on David's right side as he padded along. "You know, Mr. Scott... we know how to make-believe? We're kids. I think? So..." She took a big breath, puffing up her mostly flat chest. "Where is it we definitely last saw dad?" Tommy glanced at her as he moved up alongside David's left side. "If people know he was here, then this is where they'll look first."

David smirked. "Well, clever girl, that's going to depend soon enough on if someone heard gunshots and called a report. It's deer hunting season, so even if they heard shots, they probably won't think anything of it. Benefits to the setting of the situation..."

"I certainly heard them. Felt them too," Tommy grumbled while rubbing the side of his upper-torso.

"What Mr. Scott means, Tom, is if anyone tells daddy's friends about gunshots from here, then that'll totes mess up a story by him if he doesn't include the gunshots."

"But if there's gunshots, that complicates things like David and me not dying. How do we explain that?"

David smiled, the sibling's back-and-forth a comfort to the wolf as the pack worked the problem together. "You're both getting it," he said, putting his hands outwards and onto the thick fur where their two torsos bent, just above their front legs. He smiled warmly at each of them. "We need one good story, and we need to stick to it."

"Alright. I guess we're doing this," the adult taur conceded. "In that case, it's time to teach my chitlins something that may bite me in the buttocks later: the first rule of lying is to not look like you're lying."

"That's easy enough," Tommy remarked confidently. "What's the second rule?"

David tilted his head to the side, watching Tommy as the group was passing the far end of the enclosure fence. Their four legs made it down the stone-laid path that lead towards a short cliff and dock. Smirking, David asked a personal question of the boy: "Think fast, kiddo: what's the first thing you did when you were alone after being transformed this last time?"

Tommy's tail dropped flat and his shoulders stiffened. "What? Uh. I checked out these sweet muscles," Tommy said as he raised up his left arm and flexed, showing he had good muscle definition even at his age. "Good genes."

The bigger wolf began a response: "Alice, can you tell me—"

"I checked my wee-wee," she quickly responded, crossing her arms over her chest and lifting her head. David's mouth fell open a little and Thomas just stared at her. "What?" she wondered, getting a little embarrassed. "You... you asked."

David blinked, realizing she thought he was going to ask the same question. Playfully, he chuckled. "Actually, kiddo, I was going to ask you if you could tell me ways to notice Tommy was lying, but... instead, you made a different mistake for me to point out: don't answer too quickly when someone's interrogating you..." He trailed off as he noticed Alice's initial confused head-tilt to the use of the word 'interrogate'. "That's when you're being questioned. An interrogation is just a formal questioning... when you sit someone down and they have to respond."

Grinning, the adult continued. "Because you answered swiftly, you didn't think if you should lie, but also seemed prepared with an answer which can make your response seem rehearsed and therefore deceitful." He paused to see that she was following his vocabulary and then went on. "And also, you may give them information that they weren't asking for which might accidentally incriminate yourself or others."

"It's okay to not know things," David continued. "With cops you have to be a bit more picky about how you answer them. Like, you remember when that one girl, Mia, made fun of you for getting a word wrong?" Alice nodded, her dark red hair bobbing as she did so. "Imagine that level of pestering, but with the power to get the whole class in trouble..."

The little girl seemed to take that in, the glint of understanding clear in her lupine eyes. David could recall that look from when she was a raptor last night, and wondered if he too ever gave off that appearance of predatory insight. He beamed. But the moment was broken by Tommy clearing his throat...

"I wasn't lying," the brother insisted.

"Better," David critiqued which had the young man narrow his eyes. "But Tommy, your pause was too long when you said it. You stuttered. You lowered your tail as if you were thinking it might give you away and so you stopped it. All things we'd call 'tells'."

The boy blinked, having definitely heard that term before. "Like in a poker game?" David nodded. "Dad was teaching me poker..." Thomas trailed off. "It's really hard not to call him dad."

"That's okay," David assured him as they reached the edge of the lake and stopped. He rubbed his hand over Tommy's lower back as the three began to sit in the dirt. "If you called him dad yesterday, you should today too. You have to live for a little bit like your dad is only missing and that you miss him as much as you would if he actually vanished." He sighed. "When your mom said I could come live with you guys, I mean. Yeah, I'm sure you have a nice house, but I can't just move in with you while your dad is only missing. That would be very suspect."

"But he's not going to be missing, right? Isn't mom gunna kill him?" Tommy wanted to know what David really thought. "You said you thought she was gunna do a murder."

David swallowed hard, his concerns rushing back to him. "I sure hope not. That's not what we agreed to," he said simply, almost exasperated. "Even though..." He found himself standing up and turning to face both children at the same time. His tone was undeniably serious as he spoke his next words: "Look, I could lie, but I don't want to lie to you guys... and as the hopefully, eventual father-figure in your lives, you need to understand: whatever you think is a bad thing your dad has done, there's worse things he did that you're both too young to be told." He flexed his hands uncomfortably, and his tail flicked. "Someday, for sure. You deserve to know. But just trust me when I say: your mom's showing a lot of restraint right now."

Young Tom didn't like the sound of that. He stepped to the side on his four legs as he moved closer to Alice who just... didn't seem to care. Still, the big brother watched over her, then looked forward at Mr. Scott in front of them. "He shot me, so... it's over. I'm done with him. He did worse stuff than that?" he actually spit to the side. "Fuck'em." David looked over his shoulder giving a look that said 'that's disgusting'. Tommy smirked. "The spitting? Really? I swore. Nothing about that?"

"Don't let your teachers hear you, Tommy. And try to keep the swearing to a minimum otherwise. Do enough of it and you'll discover it loses meaning anyway."

"Or cops?" Thomas wondered as a follow-up. "Don't swear to cops?"

David stepped to the side and let the kids pass in front of him as they walked. "If a cop asks you a question, tell them you want your parent or guardian present and then ask for your lawyer... then say 'I'm invoking my right to be silent' and—and this is key—stop talking," he stated very clearly. "Cops can question you, but they can't make you talk."

"You deal with a lot of cops, Mr. Scott?"

"Growing up, I was referred to as 'white trash', kiddos. I think that's a slur now, so don't repeat that. But, basically, my immediate family was super-poor because my parents were the types of people who would fight people like your dad on a television in their underwear." He sighed. "Not the brightest, nor the best educated."

Alice's eyes looked around the lush and somewhat overgrown fields of green that stretched out from beyond the small lake they were at. "This is poor?" wondered the confused eight-year-old as she put her arms wide to motion towards the entire ranch. Some ducks quacked as if to emphasize her question. The overgrown hills used to have crops grown on them. They were the foothills of the nearby mountains which gave a beautiful rise to the horizon. "We have a nice house Mr. Scott, but this...?". She did spin in place, her arms wide. "This is poor?"

Tommy elbowed his sister lightly in the upper-ribs once she stopped turning. "Sis, this is his grandparents' place. His dad and mom did drugs... spent all their money." The boy met her eyes then looked to David. "Now that my dad's gone, I should maybe say... after mom and us were helped by you a few times, dad'd ask me questions about you... then tell me some things he found out, Mr. Scott." David's head tilted to one side. "I've heard him call your parents that slur before... but he also said any kid who'd turn on his family isn't to be trusted."

"And yet you trusted me to say that," David pointed out.

Tom reflexively put his hands on his hip, his muzzle pulling back from his gums just a tad. "Yeah, well... that's because I'm beginning to see my dad's been full of shit." The boy grumbled. "Wish I could have figured that out without getting shot."

"Having a gun pointed at you at all messes with you," David agreed. "That was only my third time," he added quickly. Tommy and Alice's eyes went wide as he'd shocked them with that reveal. Brushing off their reactions, he just genuinely laughed. "Glad I got regeneration the day before my first time actually getting shot," he chuckled. "This whole story would be totally different if I hadn't," he said, looking off into space, directly at me for the first time in the passage. He was almost... appreciative.

Alice blinked. "You seem okay with it."

The silver-furred wolf looked back to 'his' kids and smiled. "I'm alive. Which, to be clear, is better than simply surviving." He stepped up to the siblings, reaching out with both hands in order to hug them close to him. "I hope you guys can be okay with it too... I get the feeling our adventures have only just begun..."

(|[***]|)

"Hey..." Alice interrupted the quiet sounds of David teaching the kids how to accurately skip stones across a lake. The two boys turned to look at her. "Remember an hour ago when you were talking about future adventures?" she wondered aloud.

Like it was a paragraph ago, he thought, giving me the quickest of glances before swiftly responding: "Of course."

"Could we go camping? Oh! Could we go hunting?" the reddish-brown wolftaur asked, then licked her lips. Tommy's head titled to the side, listening. "You said off that way was just about one of the nicest campsites and it was all yours, yeah? It's clear... let's spend a night under the stars!"

David smirked. "You know... I'm down. But I don't know if the tent my grandfolks have is enough to cover the four of—" he stopped abruptly in his thought. He could have sworn he heard a dog yelling out in terror and took one step towards the house. Then, he realized, it was the bitch that was Trevor yelping and decided against pursuing or pointing it out. "—us. Sorry. Thought I heard something." Tommy and Alice glanced back at the house, then back towards David. Maybe everyone heard it, but no one acknowledged it. "But I bet we can figure something out."

"I'll have to take care of the animals again later, but you guys are usually fine on your own for a few minutes, yeah?" They nodded. A few moments passed before the three wolftaurs all looked towards the sound of the door at the side of the house opening and closing, with heavier footsteps walking across the planks of the side porch.

The wolftaur couldn't see who it was from over he hill, but Alice and Tommy both turned around as David's body language had changed. It said 'caution! strange sound' and his carapace-covered legs repositioned to stand a little wider, subtilely lowering his profile. He moved across the dirt on all fours over to the nearby large stones which bordered the underside of the dock. His golden eyes peered out from behind the cover.

Seamlessly, wordlessly, the two 'cubs' of Tommy and Alice had moved along the stone wall behind him. Tommy inched himself along David's side, a hand placed upon the adult's back to indicate 'I'm ready'. Meanwhile, the chestnut colored figure of Alice moved quickly further around the curve of the wall. Quietly she repositioned more downwind away from the guys to the point where she was essentially at a ninety degree angle from where the sound was to be shortly for a pincer. They were all ready to strike, wordlessly.

It was an unconscious thing they'd done. The conscious mind of David Scott, however, was listening to the heavier footfalls of a quadruped. Whoever it was, they seemed as big or bigger than the largest wolftaur present. Did Trevor escape? Did he fight Holly and somehow make himself larger? The footsteps didn't sound like anyone he'd heard before, but it was clear they'd come out from inside the house.

"Are you trying to spook me?" came Holly's voice from up the path. In the next moment, her white-furred, human-sized, vulpine face appeared over the hill. As she approached the edge of the stone stairs leading downward, it was clear that she was walking on all fours. Her lower body was bipedal no longer. Instead, she was a foxtaur, a mirror in shape to the three of them. Fox instead of wolf. Though she was clothed, her scent marked her as equally male and female to the keen noses of everyone present.

Her covering was something like a dress, a robe, and a carapace in equal measure. It showed off her cleavage in a V and you could see her shoulders those glyphs on them within the mirrored V over her upper back. The robe's sides fluttered outward from her lower-torso's sides, though it hung to her thicker yet still lithe form. Those three tails of hers were just beneath a big white bow. In fact, all her apparel were blues, mostly teals, and also white... it was quite the look.

David's ears went forward, his tail higher again. "Just... reflex. Getting a little jumpy is all," he said with a shrug as he took in her sight and scent. "Uh... how did things go?"

"Ah," the tauric kitsune chirped, raising a finger aside of her eye-line to emote. Her wedding ring was still wrapped around it. "You must've overheard Trevor's... concern," she smiled a wicked grin as she lowered her hand into her other's palm. Slowly she took off her ring and then slid it in one of the robe's front pockets. Lifting her head to say something else, she was interrupted by an outside force...

As Holly begins to move her paw out from the cloth, her hand jerks as if she'd snagged it on an edge. Her forward momentum changed and the foxtaur stumbled, causing Thor to bark. The kitsune staggered down the stone steps as if something had struck her, but the only thing seemingly different to those who were watching was the grip her hand had on the ring. It was as if it were holding something larger for a moment before she quickly let go.

The still small Thor hadn't tripped her as far as anyone could tell. Still, her four legs failed her as one front knee smacked a stone step hard and was scraped causing a small amount of blood to appear from within in her white fur. A moment later, her four legs gathered underneath her and she stood completely upright trying to act as if what had just happened hadn't.

"I probably deserve that," she groaned, rubbing her scraped shin free of dirt as with her other front paw. It was clear to everyone that something had happened, but not what. Probably to you too. Those ears atop her head rotated to track Thor who she ushered up beside her. "C'mon Cid," she remarked casually. "I mean... Thor," the fox remarked, realizing her mistake immediately. Glancing at everyone's reaction, the vulpine appeared worried.

To his credit, David appeared lost, though he was already most of the way up the steps offer a hand to the other quadruped even before she'd recovered. His eyes turned towards us relatively slowly, worried that I'd done something to Holly. A valid concern. Still, Holly tried to reassure him and her words regained his attention as he looked back into her bright green eyes. "Thanks, white knight."

"Hardly," he smirked, though the look in her eyes was one of concern. "You okay?" he wondered, thinking the widening of her eyes and the sliding back of her triangular ears was a bit of an overreaction. Is she embarrassed? He looked her over and took in her scent. She smelled of ejaculation. Was it hers? The foxtaur did smell of male musk. The scent wasn't Thor, he was sure. The dog was right there. Was... was it Trevor he smelled?

Actually, there was a certain scent of female german shepherd mixed in with the fox but before he could dwell on it, Holly's next words interrupted his thoughts:

"Sorry... what were you saying?"

She leaned on David's form as she stood on all fours. He grinned at her, and she weakly returned the smile. "Um," he began. "Pretty sure you were about to reintroduce Thor as Cid," he continued. "That like Thunder God Cid from Final Fantasy Tactics? Because I was mulling that over if we were going to uplift Thor."

"Yeah. I thought, of course, T.G. Cid... it works on multiple levels," she explained. "Thunder God because Thor's the god of thunder, and also that his name is T.G." She was clearly forcing a chuckle and, truthfully sounded unsure of her reasoning... as if that wasn't the whole story. Or, maybe, not her story.

Tommy and Alice glanced at each other, both clearly wanting to comment on how their mom seemed to be bad at lying based on the conversation they'd had on the walk down here to the pond. It was obvious to everyone that not only had something unclear just happened but that the kitsune was hiding something. David didn't press the issue and perhaps the children were following his lead as they too remained mum on the topic.

"So where's d... Trevor?" Tommy asked bluntly. Holly groaned and annoyed response to her son's direct inquiry and David's ears flicked. It was a valid question, but her response combined with the scents under her cloths gave him pause. What had she done to Trevor?

"I. He," Holly rubbed her temple with a free hand while she squeezed David's hand in her other more tightly. "I think I, uh..." the fox's tone carried with it concern... as if she were unprepared to handle this specific question. Tommy's mom frowned. "I'm sorry, but I don't have—"

David picked up upon her consternation long before she'd turned her green eyes to meet his amber ones. Tommy seemed to gather that something must have gone wrong with the Chronivac and his dad but was afraid to ask. The youngest, Alice, had her body language form a dialog of obvious concern as the girl had picked up on all the unspoken words from the forms of everyone else present even though the reasoning for it was unclear.

The biggest wolftaur glanced from Alice to Tommy, then the tiny Thor, then back to Tommy. "Would you three mind heading up the path to check the campsite?" He glanced to Holly. "Unless you have some objection? You look like you could use a rest. We were thinking of camping."

"Yeah..." Holly trailed off with that one word. The foxtaur tried to swallow down what she'd just been thinking and looked towards her children. "You're dad and I need to... clarify some things," but when she said the word 'dad' she very clearly meant David which felt a little off to everyone but her. Something was askew, but no one was verbally acknowledging it. All that was certain was that whatever it was, she didn't want to concern her children further.

Redirecting the moment, Holly attained a more upbeat tone before she said her next words: "Just... pick up the campsite, don't let Ci—Thor... don't let him assert dominance, and Alice, honey," she said, looking to her large little girl. "If you do hunt something, you still have to wipe your mouth. We're not feral," she smirked. Alice blinked. "We're, uh... gunna get the tent?"

"Ah, the tent, yeah," David nodded his lupine head. "We'll be a few minutes," he offered as a statement to the children but an implied question to Holly. She nodded. Her vulpine head leaned down and looked away as she turned to head back up the stairs towards the barn. "Any trouble, you know what to do."

Tommy grinned. "Fight it?" David and Alice frowned while Holly just kept walking away, shaking her head. "What? We can't be killed right, so..." The man shook his head, turning his eyes towards the little girl.

"Howl for help?"

David smiled, giving her 'finger guns'. "That's more like it." He laughed, but then turned to Tommy, shaking his head. "We're harder to kill, Tommy, but don't test it. No one wants to read about children being hurt."

"Says the guy who appreciates it when children are killed in horror movies..." was Tom's retort.

"I... You...?"

"Tommy," came Holly's voice, still distracted. The young man looked at her. It was clear to her he was concerned with his mom's tone. She turned her upper body to look at him directly, meeting his eyes.

"Yeah, mom?"

"You remember my passcode?" she asked as she fished out her Android phone from her pocket and tossed it to him. He responded affirmatively, catching the little cyan-colored cased mobile device into his new paw-hands. "Stay with your sister. Your new dad and I will be back in a few hours—"

"Hours?" Tommy and also David both responded at the same time.

The foxtaur nodded her head softly, green eyes meeting those of her son. "Your parents have done crimes and need to cover them up," she explained to her oldest child. "Keep the phone in power-saver, and don't answer it unless it's David. As far as anyone knows, I took you and your sister off into the woods just now. The data from the phone needs to support that." It was clear now to Thomas that his mother's mind was unfogging, her body language speaking volumes of 'serious'. "Don't drain it watching YouTube or something," she added. "You two be good, and we'll get you your own phones this weekend."

"Really?" It was abrupt, but it had always been his dad who was the house veto on him and his sister getting phones. His mom smiled and nodded. David's head turned to look back and forth between the two of them. "You'll tell us what the story is later?"

"Of course," Holly assured him. "I think we'll be working some kinks out... expect us back by noon."

"What a morning!" Tommy called out in laughter as he turned his body to hurry after Alice and Thor. His sister was nearing the end of the fence, moving with the tiny Thor up the lumber-lined path to the edge of the woods. The three of them were off into a run before long and David smiled. But as he turned his face to Holly, she looked quite stern.

David blinked, stepping to the side as Holly made a wide, tauric turn and started moving towards the house. "Things not go as planned?"

She did not immediately respond.

(|[***]|)

Holly Phillips's mood had been dramatically different ever since she'd misnamed Thor. Having had a few moments to think it over as they proceeded back towards the house, David mentally pinpointed the change to right about where she stumbled. Since the children departed for the camp clearing, she'd clearly been upset about something she wasn't elaborating upon.

Ultimately the situation was very upsetting to the wolftaur that had walked up the stairs behind her on the way back to the house. He wondered if she knew how appealing the side-bulges to her undercarriage were. Her balls were bigger than his own, and he was a bit jealous of that. But, that's okay. I can change that later...

What was actually far more distracting was that during their return to the home of his grandparents, his thoughts were interrupted multiple times by Holly interjecting or finishing a thought. In fact, every time he tried to inquire what was wrong on their walk back to the old farmhouse, she'd interrupt him as if she knew exactly what he was going to say. That is until David preceded her into the house and she slammed the screen door behind. She screamed like a fox would:

"Choose Your Own Change!"

David Scott ducked like Holly's outburst was gunna hit him in the back of the head. Turning around, he saw her hands outstretched into the air as she stepped passed him into the living room area. It was still a mess. Glancing first towards you and I, the big wolftaur eventually studied the form of the foxtaur before him. Her stance was otherwise submissive, regretful. What's she done? David had to wonder as he took in her body language. She looked so defeated that he couldn't help but feel like hugging her.

She put up her hand as he took two steps towards her. She even took a few steps back, bumping into the table between the couches where her husband had been caged not two hours ago. "No hugging," she insisted. "Not this time. Not that I couldn't use it," she whimpered, putting a hand to her head. "Please believe me... this is not a 'shark jump', OK? You know what this looks like. Just guess... then let me explain."

Mrs. Phillips was starring at him, intentionally giving him time to put things together on his own. She had tears in her eyes and was clearly hurting mentally. And, yeah, he felt like all the pieces were there, but that it wasn't a common two-dimensional puzzle picture... more like an escape room he didn't comprehend he was inside of until he was asked to look around and only then realized he was trapped.

"Wait a second," he said aloud, using the time delay of paragraphs to mull over the few details of the weird experiences and what explanation they may have. Holly made a motion with her hands towards him, encouraging him to continue his line of thinking. "Interrupting my thoughts like you knew what I was going to say next," he met her eyes irectly. "You sure this isn't 'shark jump'? Because it sounds like 'shark jump'," he admitted, then sighed. "Have you time traveled?"

"Did you ever tell me the name of the website we're on?" she asked, making a sweeping motion with her hand towards the two of us. She couldn't see or feel us, still, to be clear... but she could feel where David's thoughts or focus were distracted to. "No. Did you ever mention hyperlinks? I can't remember, but I don't think so," she went on. "Here... let me expound for a moment..." she requested, trailing off. "And no hugging! I don't deserve it!"

"That I find hard to—"

"David!" the fox actually growled at him, fire lighting her undercoat briefly. That dim green glow of teal came seemed to backlight her white fur from within before slowly fading. However, the submissive stature was gone as she took a few firm steps into the open space of the living room. "I don't know what to do, so I'm doing something very different this time... attempting to break fate—" to which the older man was about to remark "no fate but what we make," but Holly beat him to it, speaking the words before he could open his mouth.

Those words hit David's realization directly in the face and he reacted as if he'd been slapped. As his head turned, he couldn't help but glance towards us before returning his attention to Holly's bright green eyes. Just in case you missed it... it's an oft-quoted line from the Terminator series which involves time traveling, killer robots. Seemed fitting in this moment. Though, hopefully there's no killer robots in what she's about to say... even if Synth or Protogen antagonists would be neat...

David then swallowed and gave a sweeping motion with his hand that indicated she was clear to continue. Holding her hands behind her back, she began pacing the perimeter of the lower central floor of the family room in earnest. "Thank you!" Holly grumbled, exasperated. "Damnit. Where to begin?" But the question was rhetorical and she quickly changed tact, transitioning into her big reveal:

"I know that you, 'David Nicolaus Scott the Third', are based upon the 'original' Author of this version of the Chronivac story, 'Chronivac 4.23'. I know this, exclusively, because you've told me so before. You said you've got some vague knowledge of the words of any prior passage, but also explicit knowledge of where the Author and Reader are currently." The wolftaur nodded, turning his head towards us and waving. "But that their motivations are unknown. And, furthermore, you can sort of see their appearance—well, the Author anyway—whenever they're present."

"Big gray-toned, silver-furred wolftaur... stands about seven foot two inches, with more muscle mass than I have. He looks like the 'original', but I've always known it could be possible for one Author to imitate another, without permission." He shrugged. "I don't think it's happened yet, so I think this has been my only Author so far this string. The one guy with a hyper pussy and balls, yeah. Most of the time he's not naked, but this time he is for some reason..."

"He's a herm like you, and yet you know his pronouns? Or are you just assuming?

"Know," David confirmed. "If I didn't, I think there'd be the chance of one Author misgendering themselves due to making a character honest with the situation and so that's something I just innately know, apparently."

"Right, okay. But... you know there's other Authors out there?"

"My awareness includes stories of the C.Y.O.C. website as it exists on the C.Y.O.C. Layer, regardless of their publication date. I'm not explicitly aware of those dates, most of the time. Most Authors don't mention the 'current year' since some segments are over twenty years old while with some continuations are from, well, a Future beyond our current moment of August 2022." He took a breath. "But, yeah, C.Y.O.C., B.E. Addventure, and select stories on various art websites related to T.F., depending on the current Author's proclivities...

"I cannot believe you live like this," Holly spoke, exasperated, as she paced on all four legs, robe bulging underneath slightly at the sides as her hips swayed. You the Reader would know it was her volleyball-sized testicles, so, you're welcome. David will learn this later. "You... We live in a dollhouse. A dollhouse where all the people behind their screens are voyeurs. And I get it... you're an exhibitionist, so... why wouldn't you have sex in front of Trevor?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Okay... look. It was a shitty path to getting back to here," she remained vague, pointing a finger at David accusingly. "I learned a lot about how the reset button works but—"

"The what now?"

"What do you mean 'the what?'. You knew what that was the last time..." Holly put her hands through her teal hair and started to pull it away from her head. "The fuck is going on!? This is shitty time travel! Nothing aligns from one attempt to the next, not perfectly. Not sensibly. Sometimes I do the same actions and people react completely differently!"

David moved towards Holly and put his hands on her arms. Her eyes began to glow teal, but he still softly pulled her fingers out of her hair little by little. "If I had to guess, you're referring to inconsistent characterization from one passage or string of passages to the next," David wondered. "That happens. At one point the current Author, over in Washington Wolves tried to shove in a retcon as to why one character previously hadn't been affected by transformations and wrote, like, fifteen thousand words to explain it..." he glanced at me. "If Authors are tied down to all the details or feel like they are, then they can get burnt out trying to keep facts and timelines straight or, worse, not contribute to a story at all. As a result, you get Authors who have no idea there's an even an Author's Handbook at all or who use it only as a guide for the moment they're trying to write..."

Holly just stared at him. "So if Alice is like a big brother sometimes and a cute and whimpering little girl other times, that might be the normal hormones of a kid going through puberty or it might be because one Author wasn't taking to heart the prior Author's characterization?" Holly was this close to bleeding from the nose and her head hurt, immeasurably stressed. "Again, I ask: how do you live like this?"

"I think Chester explained it best." The fox leaned into the wolf, her head resting between his pecks. "Last night, he said: 'it doesn't really change anything... like, whether you believe in an almighty god or not, the universe is still the universe. We can't really do anything about it, so why worry. Our whole lives have been simulations so what's really the difference now that we know?'" The wolftaur's chest rose against his future mate's vulpine muzzle as he inhaled for a big sigh. "He also pointed out I was an exhibitionist."

The fox snickered at that, beginning to laugh into his chest... but soon after it transformed into heavy crying. Leaning back from David's chest, the vixen looked up at her longtime mate. She pushed back from him, stepping away and hugging herself. "So... the reset button is the recessed pinhole on the side of the emitter. Holding it down for ten-seconds blanks out all ongoing transformations. Holding it for thirty does so and takes you back twelve hours." Holly sighed. "Caveat: the emitter actually switches twelve hours ago's location with itself to its present, then past, holder."

David blinked. "Say again?"

"If half a day from now you were to reset the world with it, when we came back to this very moment, you'd be holding it instead of me," Holly said as she dropped her hands and put one into her front pocket where she'd placed her wedding ring. Pulling out the emitter, she held it up for him to see. "You sort of Quantum Leap into yourself, with the exception you take the emitter with you... which can mess up a whole lot of things, believe me."

"I can think of a dozen ways things would be different in just the last twelve hours," David granted the point. "Which, given how distraught you are, makes me wonder what brought you back to now from twelve hours in the future. And you didn't, like, wait for a more appropriate time to tell me what happened, living your life up to the same point. You immediately felt different and took me aside to say so, so... why?"

He began listing off his most immediate thoughts. "Did Trevor get away? Did the P.I. show up? Did the kids answer truthfully to the cops? Did..." he let his words trail off, taking in her increasingly distressed look, tears beginning to form at her eyes. He bit his lip, sensing more drama than he'd calculated for. His hand went over his muzzled, then he dropped it. Oh. I think I see, he realized, glancing at us, then back to Holly. "You're from further ahead than twelve hours, aren't you?"

She nodded. "Closer to twelve months, give or take." David blinked. "I've had a wild year-or-so, David, and I kept trying to revert back to when I could set things right, but I'm all the way to here and I've come to say: I can't fix it. I shouldn't have this thing." She waved the emitter at him. "I'm... I'm not a good person."

"I can relate," David smirked, then reached out and gave Holly a big hug again. She let him. "Holly, I'm not a good person either. You've heard me say this before, I know... If this device had fallen into my grubby paws in other times of my life, I'd have surely taken another path... one of, if not evil, then chaos." He allowed himself a deep breath as she cried into his shoulder. "Definitely chaos."

The wolftaur wasn't as large as the foxtaur. Truth was, Holly had always been taller than him and he was okay with that. But an hour ago, she was a bipedal humanoid. Now she was tauric like him, and bulkier. It was interesting and a little bit of a turn-on. Still, he tried to think other thoughts to keep his arousal down as he didn't think that's what she needed right now."

Eventually the vixen spoke first. "I feel like I'm supposed to be the insert-character for the remorse our current Author feels about things they did in their past... just using me as a teaching tool." She groaned. "I get it, actually. I've had a year to learn some of the writing methods of these... people." She allowed her arms to reach around his backside and run her hands up under his shirt. "I must be here to teach about a Future they wanted to alter... and also give exposition about the working of an aspect of the emitter they apparently hadn't gone over yet."

"Maybe."

I can neither confirm nor deny.

Holly leaned back from David, his eyes meeting hers. She began to smile, then looked away. "Okay. I'm gunna leave this up to you," she said as she took the emitter and put the device in his hand as she leaned away from him. "Whatever you want to do, we'll do."

"Okay," David relented, taking the emitter from her. "But first... please. Give me some idea what you did." His tone had a desire to be understanding... pleading with her to trust not just himself but also herself. He sat down on his hind legs and patted his side with his free hand. "C'mon. Whatever it was, I—"

"—won't judge, yeah." She put her hands on her sides where her bipedal hips used to be, the hackles of her lower fox body. "I don't want that. I want some judgement," she insisted. "Last time around, you were very understanding until you weren't. It... it shook me, David. It really made me question our relationship the way you'd already been questioning it a this point..."

The man took a breath. "Okay, well. Judgement, then. Judge, jury, but not executioner."

"If only," Holly mumbled, but regretted it immediately. "I... I didn't mean for me," she said.

"Trevor," David said, and she nodded. "You kill Trevor, eventually?"

"For all I know, a lot of him have already died." David met her eyes, watching for the big reveal. "Trevor's sperm, David."

"Mine or yours?"

"M-mine," Holly blinked. "You can smell I'm male, right?"

"Everyone on the farm can, yeah," he smirked, one hand absently waving in the direction of either the farm animals or kids outside. "You made Trevor's male genetics your own, and—" She shook her head. "Oh? Oh. You made him your literal sperm... which is why you don't know if he's dead yet... because you've form-shifted to have testicles and you don't know if that killed any when you erupted the first time." It was Holly's look that indicated there was more that she wasn't saying, but also a bit surprised David had figured out so much. "Holly, you wanted judged. Just tell me what's really going on."

"Did you know kitsune can become corrupted, replete with darkened fur, inverted color eyes, and tentacles?" she asked, though it was rhetorical because she just kept talking. "These are things I've learned in the last year, and I just want to be clear, they're for getting lost in the haze of power that results from a couple of bad choices that domino starting from sometime in the last twenty-four hours."

She continued: "I'm worried that that catalyst was you making me a kitsune like I'd always imagined. If it was, well, we can fix that no big deal... but I hope it's not. I'm just... I'm so comfortable in my skin now. Even when I get chances to be something else, unless it's temporary, I don't much care for it. This is me, now. I hope. Besides, I have built-in transformations and illusions... I don't need more."

"I say that with the understanding that... I got no corruption for what I've done—did do—am doing—to Trevor..." she turned to face him, meeting his eyes. "...because Trevor deserved it. He raped me. You know he did. He raped me and a part of you disagrees... which is really fucked up because you go on and on about consent." She then went back to pacing. "He punctured a condom, David. That's not consensual sex."

"I agree," David said, unequivocally. "If there's any wavering on my part to that point, I blame, well, me. I'm sorry if I go back on this later, or have in your view. I apologize for it even though it isn't yet me. Maybe it's how long ago it was, or that it didn't happen to me, or that something good came out of it: Tommy. I don't know what Future David's reasons for not agreeing with you that it was rape was, but like I said two hours ago—" he motioned in the direction of the grandfather clock, "—my issue was never with punishing Trevor for what he did... it was killing him. I dunno that I think murder is worse than rape, but it's really bad, Holly."

"I know. And what I did was cruel and unusual." Holly groaned, putting her hands into her teal-colored hair again. She'd finished pacing, but started to do so again. "I remember running my hands up and down my shaft as Trevor watched, making it harder and bigger than any real-world cock I'd ever seen. Bigger than any one I'd seen in movies or any place outside of 'E' six twenty-one." David made a point move to a couch, climbing onto the seat and lowering his quadruped body against the cushions as Holly described herself so that he might hide his own growing erection. "I needed it big so I could reach the tip... and big enough so he'd fit."

David Scott's eyes slowly went wide as Holly described what she did next. Taking Trevor from inside the glass case that the three-inch-tall german shepherd bitch had been kept in, she rubbed his wet slit up the length of her shaft until he was near the head of her penis. Once there, she told of the wide grin growing across her muzzle as she pushed the tiny dog into her meatus, the hole upon her tip. It seemed to grow around the dog as her urethra pulled the squirming, clawing canine down the length of her shaft. She recalled being surprised the flailing Shepard didn't hurt her he struggled.

The wolftaur couldn't help getting hard at the description, his scent noticeable in the air as she described how she could feel Trevor's last scream as his body blobbed out and exploded violently into millions of white spermatozoa. David wasn't aroused by the torture, to be clear. But in the moment of telling, it was how she knew Trevor could feel it all, and how his mind split millions of time, all yelling at each other. The description she gave to her furry white scrotum getting more full as his tiny mass was duplicated throughout both her testicles. It was the transformation itself, not the act, which stirred his interest.

Holly noticed David's scent, but from her perspective, she'd been living closely with David over a year and was use use to it. She, like the children, had learned not to put too much stock in something just because they could smell it. Still, she tried to make it less visually appealing... describing her first male orgasm like a mass-murder really did it in and David mentally had cold water thrown on him. The bluntness of the horror was made very clear in that moment and he briefly distracted himself by pondering how that one scene might could be so hot by one telling of events and yet so chilling told another...

From there the circling foxtaur explained that Future David never looked at her the same after she first revealed all the details. And, yes, that's a way for me or some Future Author to write another path detailing these events. To me, they happened or are happening... but without details, the blanks can be filled in at a later date.

"I think I see the problem," he admitted.

Holly released a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Her eyes slowly turning to meet his hazel ones before her head turned as well. Almost smiling to herself, she spoke cautiously: "Usually, you don't feel like talking to me afterwards, so I'll take this as progress."

"How many times before have you passed me the emitter first?"

"Uh... none?"

"That makes sense too," he nodded, moving his legs a little wider to get comfortable. "Holly, you may have missed it, but... the fear that I'd fucked with your head, gave you immense power, and that you were starting a revenge tear have all been on my mind today. Tell me. With that context, have you ever unknowingly intimidated me? Maybe put fear into me so I wasn't completely honest with you?"

Her hand was already over her vulpine muzzle, and she slowly dropped it. "Yes," she admitted. Her tone had shifted to one of realization. "I got a twinge something was wrong the first time I told you what I did. I got the feeling, well, maybe you were worried I'd meant it as a threat. A kind of 'you wrong me, and I'll kill you millions of times' sort of deal."

"Yeah. Did, uh. Did you tell me after we'd already had sex?"

Holly's ears went backwards and she lowered her head so not to look at him. "Yeah," she admitted, softly. "I made you complicit in those murders."

"Killings, really. Murder is an illegal killing and there's no law I'm aware of about turning your husband into sperm and letting him shrivel and die in the open air." He sighed. "But, thank you for telling me. Anything else I should be aware of."

"Just 'future stuff'... not a lot I want to go into. Probably a lot which is already completely off course, so I'm not really worried. Though, if anything memorable seems like it's about to happen, I'll do my best to mention it." Turning her vulpine head to look at the time on the old grandfather clock in the corner, her eyes met him. "Speaking of which, we've got about fifteen minutes until you're getting a phone call."

"From the kids?" he wondered. Holly shook her head. "Chester?"

"No," she said flatly. "You'll see. Just don't walk back out front," she said, motioning to the foyer where the damaged front door lay across they bloody tile. "Ask me something else..."

The wolftaur crossed his arms over his bloody shirt and smiled at the kitsune. She was back to being a little playful, which gave him a question to ask. David tilted his head, then allowed himself a playful tone as he asked: "How'd the polyamory work out for us?"

Holly clearly wasn't expecting that response. She became distracted, thinking about some of the good times they'd had. Those thoughts mad her smile. "I told you I'd be willing to try it, but I think I was initially trying to please you," she said. "It made me uncomfortable."

"But?"

"But, fake it till you make it, I suppose. I had my first lesbian experience with Emily—"

"Chester's roommate Emily?" Holly nodded. "Wow... You know, she always struck me as one of those beast-on-the-inside kind of shy girls," he smirked.

"A completely fair assessment," Holly agreed, her eyes looking away as she tried not to reveal anything to him. "Accurate, even," she smirked, then looked back to him as she walked over. "After that, we had a fair number of adventurous encounters. We ended up explaining things to Tommy who explained things to Alice... and Cid didn't seem to care," she offered as a final thought, watching David's reaction. "You seem... chill... about this all," then added, "This time."

The smaller taur shrugged. "Well, it's how I was written." He smirked. "But the truth is, I've lived these fantasies too many times... It's sort of like how I think real people would react in something as opposed to how they're otherwise written. Like any good atheist, once you've presented evidence, we can accept it." He motioned towards us. "Like, I might be crazy, but they're there, you know. And we didn't do the trope, but you could easily tell me things about the future that'd come true and prove the point... or tell me back things I confided in you in the future that I know now..."

Holly held up her hand, all fingers out. As she named off five things, she lowered one finger. "Donald Trump gets indicted over ninety times; Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's release date will be 2024; Baldur's Gate 3 will win multiple Game of the Year Awards; Loki season two is debatably better than the first... a real return to form; and—" she paused, taking a breath, "—you'll be fantasizing about having sex with Cid if you're not already... because you're actually going into heat right now." Holly tapped her lips with a claw, thinking that was probably some good, small spoiler reveals...

"Did... did you put me in heat?"

"You mean, in the past? The actual past? Past Holly? Did she?" she wondered, tilting her head to one side and looking up at the rafters. "I mean, admittedly, I think I considered it, if I remember correctly. What would it hurt, you know? Mischief." She caught the look in his eyes out of the corner of her eyes and sighed at his concern. Waving her hands in front of her, she shook her head as she met his gaze directly once again. "I didn't! I swear! Considered it, but didn't do it. Still, I looked at your stats, and... it told me you were at the beginning of estrus, right now. And if you weren't, I'd like to think I wouldn't have changed it."

"Me too."

Holly put her hands on her hackles as if she were a biped putting her hands on her hips. "Look. Are we good? Can we start working the problem now?" David blinked, noticing Holly's difference of tone, but before he could ask which problem, she went on: "The problem of how to undo the error of Trevor."

"You had a list ready. You've done that part before?" he wondered. A frown creased her muzzle and her tails went stiff. "I'll take that as a yes," he offered. "Well, honestly, Trevor is an easy fix."

The fox sighed, crossing her arms under he breasts. "After a year, I think the original plan didn't work. And, besides, the emitter has knocked out the sequential transformations I set up which is probably why Thor is like a foot tall right now, because he was slowly shifting back to regular size when Past Holly originally left the house," she sighed. "As for Trevor, he's probably all my sperm, forever, right now... at least until I stop having balls." David blinked, getting up onto all fours as Holly went on. "See, while you can't precisely do multi-stage transformations, you can set the trigger of one transformation as the status that's created by then end of a prior transformation."

"Good to know."

David pulled out his nearly dead iPhone and plugged in the emitter to the base of it to see the Chronivac 4.23 app as Holly spoke. "Originally, I set Trevor's now current transformation with a few variables, one of which was the elimination of him from our 'Mind Web' telepathy. It instead linked him to himself so he could experience the collective fear but also work together in their goal of trying reach an egg..."

The wolftaur bit his lip at the description. "And so he'd experience the many deaths and mass-fear of being lost in darkness with no real body and only one eventual goal." Holly nodded, her eyes sliding away from David's direct gaze as he'd gotten uncomfortable. One slightly too long moment later, David realized she was waiting on him to speak, so he did. "Let me guess... it traumatized him and made freak out about it forever, even after he was born...?"

"Ye-yeah," Holly said, briefly feeling bad for her husband and rapist on the plight of multiple sentients all dealing with what had happened to them. In truth, he... if not 'ruined' her life, well... decidedly changed the direction of it without her knowledge, let's say. Point being, the kitsune's sympathy was short-lived. "Yeah. Eventually I used my Empathy Manipulation to make his trauma less and less. He cried less afterwards. Probably plotting revenge."

David took a moment to step away, walking up the length of the barn silently thinking things over. "Okay, well. I assume if the Author wanted to change that facet of the past he could have easily written you into the last passage. Instead, this is the choice that is made, so... let's stick with Trevor being made into our child like was the original selection," he offered as he walked back up to her, thinking aloud.

"But Past Holly already gushed millions of Trevors. She didn't even really clean herself off," he considered aloud. With that verbally acknowledged, she reached down and waved the sides of her robe carapace and gave David a taste of her male musk and the scent of still-wet semen. He took a whiff, then continued as he walked back towards her. "Then again, sperm lasts fifteen to thirty minutes outside the body, so it's likely a number of him have died at this point."

"Prolly..."

Holly put a hand on David's shoulder. She looked like she wanted to say something, but then turned away from him. Hugging herself, she resisted the urge to point out they could just give him final death. All the while, David tapped on the phone's display to give Trevor a place to go.

"I said I'd give you the power, and I am. So... yeah, just do whatever you want. And I'll understand if... if—"

"If I never want to see you again?" David inquired in a flat tone while staring at his screen, expecting that's what she feared. He scented it without even looking in her direction. "Far as I'm concerned, Trevor's probably suffered a good amount, and you've taken actions against your own best interest simply to try and repair a relationship that from my perspective wasn't yet in danger."

Their eyes met as David turned to face her. "How did we do... things being on the rocks as they were. You said you slowly fell into polyamory... were you happy with that?"

Holly wouldn't have described their relationship as 'on the rocks', but she just let that comment slide. It was complicated. Instead, she focused on the polyamory question. "Less at first than I'd be now if you want to try again... I'll still worry about Tommy's perspective, but the boy went through some changes over that year. I caught him telling baby Jesse—that's what we named Trevor—about how he still hated him and how his life was better with you, more than once. Him still being in the family seemed to be a thorn in everyone's flanks."

"Hold up," David blinked, looking to Holly. "He was our only child? I had a litter of one? Does Chester not get me pregnant too?" he wondered.

"Litter of one," she nodded. "You did ask me about... I mean, I hadn't considered... no, yeah, no. I asked you to only have children with me, and only after Trevor was declared legally dead. That way we could always say Jesse was your child with someone else if someone asked."

"I propose we fix that. Just. Okay, here we go."

|Oh my fucking shit, where am I!? I can't move. I'm stuck on something!|

"Goddamn it, David!" Holly yelped a foxy noise then grabbed her head. "Warn me the next time I need be ready for incoming Trevor telepathy." Groaning, she turned her attention inwards. |Hi, Trev. Be sure to thank David for your reprieve.|. Moving her hand, she placed it on the wolftaur's shoulder. "I assume you got all of him, because my balls feel empty," she cooed. David nodded. "Just one?" He nodded again. |Okay, so, yeah, I probably don't want to hear what you have to say, but congrats, your sentence has been reduced.|

|Am I a cell?| grumbled Trevor's angry voice.

David nodded reflexively. |Congrats, it's a wolftaur! Or it will be, anyway,| he smirked at Holly. |You were a bunch of cum, but now you're a zygote, Trevor. You should be wedged in my uterine wall.|

Trevor was repulsed and his disgust dripped from every following word. |Your wall? What about Holly???| He asked without considering the implications.

Holly snorted, her contempt clear when she too responded to Trevor. |Yeah, no. Then you would literally be my rapist baby. No thank you.| She delayed her next thought for a moment. |I'm sure you just got through the feeling of drying out, Trevor. I don't know if any of you died and right now I don't care. I never stop being angry about what you did... not yet, anyway,| she considered, giving a glance to David. |David saved your wiggly little lives. He's going to give birth to you. Genetically, you'll be our child, so look forward to that.| He began to talk back to her, but she preempted him: |This is the end of our interaction, but I might check back in a few hours so I can get a live reaction of you becoming two cells...| And, with that, she turned of her telepathy.

|Okay, kiddo,| David jumped in before Trevor could complain to him. |I gave you the ability 'Sleep-on-Demand'. Use it wisely to pass the time rather than being left alone in nothingness with your thoughts. Should be easy to use. Just think yourself wanting to sleep and there you go. We'll check back with you in a few hours like your mom said,| he smirked. |Until then, you are confined to your cell. See you in the Future. Literally.| And with that, David also shut Trevor out.

The fox watched as the wolf's eyes refocused, turning to her. "Done?" He nodded in response. "So... I know how one general version of events plays out, but given the inconsistency of the Authors, I've probably invalidated lots of the Future. Butterfly effect, my ass."

"Hard to say. What's the furthest you've ever gone back and then gone forward?" David was honestly curious. "And do you know what happens if you reach a point in the next loop when you would have come back?"

"Well, the most I've gone back and re-lived has been about a fortnight. Resetting gets a lot easier once you've learned to make ridged objects like I have, so... I can just make a pin," she said, moving her hand up in front of him. Pinching her fingers together, nothing happened. "Uh... also, the powers are their own experience pool, best I can figure. It's easier for me to raise my own power level when I go back each time, but since I'm me in an older—no, no... wrong word." She took a deep breath, reconsidering her meaning. "Let's call it 'less experienced' body. This body," Holly said motioning down at her tauric form with both hands. "So, it takes me longer to reacquire the ability to do things I otherwise have the knowledge how to do. My mind knows what to do, but my body needs practice again."

"Transmigration. The Reader might not consider it a T.F., but I do. You know how to do a thing, but your muscles—physical ones and magic ones—aren't experienced in doing whatever action. Mind versus body. I get it." He nodded, glancing at us briefly, then turned back to Holly. "So what happens if someone were to reset back to before they existed?" he wondered, rubbing his chin. "Or what if I reset from now to before I had the emitter yesterday... before the story started?"

"Well, since the emitter cannot be destroyed, and the universe was simulated before you gained awareness of it... I'd make the educated guess your package would arrive, but empty, because you'd be in khaki pants and non-tauric," she said, reminding you about the image David sent the Phillips to Holly's phone the night before. "I think you were in the middle of a job interview about now, right? So... this you, now, would be in your previously human body in the middle of a sentence or something. So... I wouldn't. I mean, what if the interviewer swiped the emitter, huh? Bet that'd be a story."

"But you'd forget, right?"

"Correct. I would be Yesterday's Holly, asleep." She took a breath. "Though, I guess you could warn me about Trevor earlier?" Reaching forward, she put her hands on his wrist. "Whatever you do... think it through and don't let me interrupt. If there was one thing you've always been better than me, it's the variables of transformation. You've got this untapped skill there in your hands... something that couldn't be possible without the trappings of a story like this, I think. You seem to think things better than the program, the transAI, and do your best to make as few mistakes as possible."

"Thanks. I've read, wrote, and role-played a lot of transformation... stuff that, before now, was kind of useless for real-world applications." David chuckled. "Good to know over-thinking serves me well."

"Most of the time," she joining him in his laugh. David's head tilted to the side, questioning her with a single ear-flick. "Uh. Well. For example, one time someone was being really transphobic in public. Let's just say, they really did identify as an attack helicopter afterwards," she snorted. "Ah. Good times." Holly allowed herself a full laugh, and David joined her. "But with more fallout than most," she added, rubbing the tears from her eyes. "Basically, even a greymuzzle like you can be impulsive from time to time. There was field trip whe—"

"Spoilers!" David chuckled, throwing his hands in the air. The vixen's brow furrowed, though she was smiling. She punched him lightly in the arm and he took a playful step back.

There was a bit of an awkward silence where the sounds of the animals around them and the wind gusting across the valley outside were the only noise prominent to their ears. Holly was calmed, listening to David's heartbeat and breathing. Meeting his eyes, she simply asked: "Okay, so... where do we go from here."

"I have a suggestion," David said simply, bumping his carapaced flank into hers. He felt the bulge of one of her testicles through the side of her robe's underside. "You know... if you want?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows. "If we both want."

Holly tried not to smile, but her three tails wagged a little. "C'mon now... this would be a tiny bit unlike you. I know you're not in the mood for real. Right?" The vulpine laid her hands on his back, taking in the scent of his arousal. "Wow. Talk about inconsistent writing." She chortled. "I can smell your desire, but, besides the original Trevor situation, we didn't have sex for a while afterwards." She tiled her head. "You were very considerate, always going at my pace rather than what you probably wanted and..." she trailed off, watching the look appearing in the smaller wolf's eyes. He wiggled his eyebrows. A blink later an Holly realized he was trying to go at her pace. Smiling, all she said was "Oh."

"I want children," he reminded her. "I want many children," he assured her. "Chester's on the shortlist for that. But if you stopped it originally, then maybe there was a rift, yeah," he nodded. "But that was the then that won't happen now, right? You're a year into an open relationship, and that means I can try to catch up," he explained. "I don't want you waiting on me now that you're maybe four hundred days of relationship ahead of me."

Holly blinked. "You're asking me for sex now because you've mentally skipped ahead to me? That's interesting," she said, licking her lips with a teal-colored tongue. "You were taking it slow before, but now, just like that—" she snapped her fingers, "—you're willing to be a little more insistent?"

The wolftaur ran his hand along her side, pulling her robe carapace tight around her tail. "You said earlier the Author was probably making you self-insert for regret. What if he's also several segments in on a smutty website and worried the audience is getting disinterested?" David licked his lips. "Everything I've done so far has been cautious because I didn't want to mess things up... but dealing with Trevor and Thor sort of painted us into a corner with the color drama." He smirked, running his hand up her long back to her shoulders. "But with your Future knowledge, we can skip some of those things... and the only thing we really have to worry about is you being too happy with your new relationship too soon for everyone else..."

"You're really ready for this?"

"I've always been ready for this," David remarked. "The truth has always been that I never wanted to pressure you. I wanted it to always be your call... and I could always wait. Still can, in fact. But," he leaned in, nibbling along the white fur of her neck. "If you're in the mood, I'm more than ready... and, besides, maybe some of Trevor's social issues can be solved by not being an only child."

She placed a finger at the end of his muzzle, over his lips. "No Trevor talk... it's weird enough to think I've probably got his genetics in my balls."

"There's an easy fix for that."

Holly's eyes went a little wide. "I do love it when you flirt, but maybe consider your own pace, David. From your own perspective, you've been a wolftaur less than twenty-four hours and been without sex for a week now. Never taken it as a woman. The kids still will be attached to their own father no matter how they try and act... and I won't know how to act around them, anymore. I'll be weird."

David stepped back from Holly, holding her hands in his. "Getting close to the truth is better than not," he offered as a thought. "I was just teaching the youngins how to lie and they both clearly saw you were withholding information when pressed about your weird mood-change." He took a breath. "So, we can either tell them you gave yourself a power which gave you a vision and I helped you sort it out... a one time deal, but now you know things. Unintentional. But a lie. Or we tell them you've come back from the future, which'll lead to more questions... Or—"

"We're vague and just don't tell them anything." Holly sighed, and David nodded. "Speaking of future knowledge, honey. Did you ever consider the repercussions of educating children to be better liars?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And I'd have a lot less scars if I'd been a better liar growing up... and not just physically."

Holly clearly wasn't a fan of the way something had worked out later, but she didn't elaborate. She did give a deep sigh, though. David looked over her body language. "So. Where is it we go from here?" David wiggled his eyebrows at her and she punched him playfully in the chest. "I mean, besides sex." The kitsune looked over to the grandfather clock once more. "Oh! Your phone call!"

"My what'sit?" asked the smaller, fully-clothed wolftaur as he looked over the robed form of his soon-to-be mate. Reaching in to a front pocket of his denim carapace, he fished out his phone. It was properly small in his hand as he held facing her. "When's it—" It rang, and David flinched. It was playing the opening notes to Green Grass High Tides, the custom ring for David Scott Senior.

"Speaker phone, please," she said as she moved into the kitchen and grabbed the little whiteboard used to keep track of groceries from the side of the fridge. "I'll have a plan," Holly yipped playfully as she moved behind the isle there and quickly became bipedal. Pushing down onto the countertop she pulled her two legs over the top and sat down with them crossed. Her giant bulge was sitting in her lap. "Trevor is tied up... so 'you're kind'a busy right now'. Go!" she said while doing air-quotes with her fingers. Holly then motioned towards David's iPhone with the blue marker she'd picked up, indicating he should start with that motivation.

"Seriously?" David blinked. She's acting like she's directing improv. He sighed. "This oughtta be fun." He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. Shaking his head, he tried to get into the character who tied up Holly's abusive husband. Taking a deep breath, he answered the phone. "Hey, Papa. Can I call you back? I'm kind'a—"

"Hold that thought," the speaker produced the voice of a much older man... a human who was no-nonsense. David immediately shut up. "Before you spin a tale, is anyone hurt?"

"Not anymore?" David said, tilting his head. "Why do you—"

"The security system just notified me of a situation which occurred a few hours ago in which it seemed like maybe my grandson got shot and died." David made a noise to start asking something, but Senior pressed on, undeterred. "Your grandma and I have been in poor-service Spain until a few minutes ago, so the cell-backup notification for our door camera only just played for us."

David's eyes went wide and slowly shifted to look towards the front door about the same speed as his jaw dropping. "When did—"

"You remember a few weeks ago when you asked if Mrs. Phillips needed to get her and her children away from her abusive husband if they could hold up at the house?" David was nodding without realizing it. He quickly responded in the affirmative. "Forgot to tell you I got a door camera."

"Front door only?"

"Never you mind," came the gruff response. David took a breath. "I have many questions, but the most important you answered already. So, second question, is there damage to the house?"

The wolf looked at the fox, and she just shrugged. "Currently, yeah. I can have it fixed, though. Uh, does the camera have audio?"

"Focus, kid," insisted his grandfather. "Third: where is the bald man with the gun?"

Holly tapped the sign which David read aloud: "Tied up in the basement. Holly's watching him." He did the best not to sound like he was reading a script. I think I get it, David realized. Trevor's car is still out front, meaning story-wise he's still here. "Yelling at him, actually. I'm not the only one who got shot."

The fox was rubbing her head but actually smiling as David Senior tried to put two and two together. "I thought you said no one was hurt— No, you said 'not anymore'," Papa realized just as he said the words aloud. "Now would be a good time to elaborate. And being that that seems farfetched, just try to skip over the part where I wouldn't believe you if you told me."

David the Third blinked, then started pacing. "Okay, well. I have regenerative abilities now... so do the Phillips kids. We were all various amounts of shot or shot at before Holly arrived and—" He glanced up at the board, nodding to the white fox since the two were on the same page. "—got the drop on him."

"I've manually saved the recording, so don't worry about that. All your testimonies along with the evidence." Holly gave him a thumbs up. "Have you called the police yet?"

The kitsune shook her head while scribbling. "No," David said after a delay. "Since we aren't permanently hurt, she's trying to get him to agree to the divorce in exchange for not pressing charges." David wasn't so sure of that idea even as he read it, but he delivered the concept as written. "It's lucky Tommy and I are alive, but she's right in this case... we weren't permanently harmed.. physically."

"And mentally?"

"I still remember all the wounds I've taken, even if they heal. For example, the bullet that went in my brain today," David casually revealed. That actually gave Papa pause. Holly pushed up off the counter and headed for the basement stairs during the silence. "Sorry. Apparently it's easier for me to be casually graphic after returning from the dead..."

"Apology accepted. That sounds terrible," grandpa said matter-o-factly. "What was the thing about the drag—"

It was then that Holly screamed bloody murder.

David was quickly onto all fours, bounding for the doorway to the basement. He caught the frame at the top of the stairs as he suddenly stopped. Holly was at the bottom of the stairs holding the little whiteboard. It read 'I'm bleeding', which she clearly wasn't, but it was direction. "He bit me!" she yipped loud enough for David Senior to hear. "I loosened his straps to sign the papers and he bit me and took off!"

Grandpa's voice from the phone was interrupted as David hurriedly took her cue. "I hear him starting the car," David remarked off-handed, appreciating seeing Holly's larping first-hand. "Papa, I gotta let you go! I'll call you right back!" It was then that the wolftaur tapped the screen to hang up.

Shaking his lupine head, he turned his eyes to discern Holly's reaction. The bipedal fox gave a performative bow as a mischievous grin curled across her muzzle and David couldn't help but think that mayhaps he'd be seeing a lot more of that vulpine contentment as events proceeded forward from this point.

Lifting the back of her left hand up to just below her muzzle, she bent her wrist so her hand was horizontal across her chin. Eyes shut, the teal-colored rim of them made the shape of upside-down U's like any fox might have. It was then Holly unleashed a haughty "Ho ho ho" laugh and giggled playfully. "Most fun I've had in ages!"

"Who moves the car?"

"If this body has caught up to me, I can cast an illusion to look like Trevor... and then I think I know right where to crash the car." With that, Holly revealed she'd already pocketed Trevor's car keys sometime earlier by opening her other hand and revealing them. "Call your grandfather back and say I took the kids to the campsite since you don't think Trevor knows where that is. You're going to watch for him, then turn your phone off and meet me at Shonash Point."

"And if grandpa asks me to call the cops?"

"Tell him Trevor's a cop, what you look like, and why you think that's a bad idea until they're home. Anyway! I've gotta pretend to be Trevor and crash his car. Wish me luck," she smirked as she turned to face one of the basement doors. "This body's never used this ability before."

David was about to ask what she meant before her white undercoat began to glow softly of teal fox-fire. No heat. Her robes shifted around, reweaving into a thicker denim material for blue jeans over her thickening, widening legs. Her bulge didn't shrink much, though her breasts did, flattening out into wide pecks as her full robe shifted into a red and black checkered flannel jacket. Her bra rewove into a white sleeveless shirt.

Running a hand over her squaring chin, she looked at the silver-furred wolf with her differently green eyes. A full beard grew out in a redder shade than the brownish red mullet of hair over her head. She reached for Trevor's old pile of equipment and picked up his phone and gun.

"How do I look?"

The wolftaur motioned at her with his right hand. "Trevor had a close-cut beard and shaved head," he pointed out. "Though he certainly looks better like that." Holly blinked, running her hand through her longer hair, causing it to receded as she pushed back against it. David smiled at the transformation, but tilted his head inquisitively. "Is that what he use to look like?"

"Yeah," she said, reaching up to scratch the beard so that it too shrunk down until it was just stubble on her manly chin. "I wonder why he... hm..." Trailing off for a moment, she contemplated the appearance question briefly before defaulting to a remark which she and David had both acquired from a YouTube series. "Questions for later," they both said in unison. Holly smiled. "You owe me a Pepsi. Any other critiques?" He took a few cantered steps around her Trevor-form. It was then that he shook his head. "Then I'm off!"

And she was... out the door and to the K-9 Cruiser out front, moving around the building in a direction to avoid the one camera she knew about. Reaching out with her right hand, she held the keys, but didn't use them. As she approached the car, she willed the door to get out of her way as a kistune. It flung open, unlocked, and she quickly got inside. She took a second to check the mirrors before shutting the door and revving the engine.

Peeling out in the gravel, the cruiser did a quick loop in front of the house before turning and lunging up the drive and back towards the main road. There were no other cars on the road as she peeled out from the long driveway's entrance and headed north into the mountain.

(|[***]|)

Moments later, Trevor's case-protected phone rang. Having already placed it within its cradle on his car's dashboard, Holly could clearly see the name plate of who was calling. "Ronan Bromell," Holly spoke aloud. Man, what a year he'd had before I undid it, she considered, trailing into thought before the second ring brought her attention to the call once again.

Ronan had been a good cop that Trevor had made friends with shortly after joining the police. Yada yada yada, the two were still friends even after Bromell had departed the precinct for the less corrupt pastures of private investigation. When Trevor could no longer use his connections to pursue investigations into David Scott, he enlisted Ronan to check on his 'cheating bitch of a wife', a line that Holly had latched onto during the following months' divorce proceedings that now no-longer happened.

In truth, Ronan being a good enough soul was, in large part, why she was insistent upon this hectic cover-up. In her original timeline, Ronan made it clear he kept telling Trevor that she and David were good friends... but as there was never an explanation before about what happened to the man, they became prime suspects of a personal investigation by Ro through the course of the next year. We are guilty of covering up Trevor's disappearance—

The phone rang a third time.

C'mon, Holly, you marvelous yōkai... what would he be calling about now? What had been Trevor's original plan? She frowned with Trevor's face, trying to recall details of future conversations recently obliterated. Thinking she was about to regret this, she shook her head and tapped the green dot on the phone to answer, hands-free.

There was silence on the other end. Clearly Ronan expected Trevor to say something. It ended up being the P.I. who broke the silence: "The kids?"

"Skurred," she slurred in Trevor's voice, remembering his inebriation until he'd been a bitch for a while.

"Did you fire you're weapon?"

"He dinnea die," Holly expressed frustration, thinking of the recordings Papa Scott had showing Trevor firing his weapon into the front door.

"You told me you weren't going to try and kill him. That's not okay, Trev. That's really not okay." Ronan groaned. "What do you mean he didn't die? You shot him?" but he clearly regretted the prompt because he began to backtrack before Holly interrupted. "Don't answer th—"

"Yes!" croaked Trevor's voice. "Tommah too! They're monstahs. They dinnea die." Holly realized Ronan might try to call for an ambulance. "Gottup likath wuz nussin."

Holly was just over a mile away from Trevor's final destination and didn't have time to back-and-forth with Ronan. He'd grown quiet, but the call was still open. Eventually, he spoke up again. "Trevor, where—" he began, but Holly tapped the screen to hang up.

She didn't know what he was about to ask, but it didn't really matter. Using her fox-fire, she held onto the steering wheel and gas peddle as the cruiser accelerated, passing another car on the narrow, two-laned road. Exceeding seventy miles an hour, Holly completely let go of the wheel with her hands and put them onto the open window. The power of her fox-fire kept the vehicle steady, hands-free.

In a singular motion, Holly pulled herself upwards as Trevor's form bled into tiny fox paws. All his cloths shred off and faded away into the air as she bounded from the window's sill and up behind the lights atop the front windshield. The tiny vixen held onto the speeding vehicle with her paws, those three tails waving in the wind as the car continued to accelerate.

Near to where an old, green-painted steel bridge crossed a crevasse through the mountain cut by a river far below, Holly reached back with one paw. Remembering how she failed to make a needle a few minutes ago, the kitsune found herself focusing extra hard on what she was creating. She wiggled her free paw as her attention was divided between telekinetically driving and making something sharp. Forming something akin carbon fibers, she wrapped them tightly into a blade. Nice and sharp. Tossing it out from the car, she then redirected it back towards one of the tires in a quick, teal-flamed motion.

The impact was jarring, even for the kitsune. A tire ripped apart from the blade and the car lurched off the road and into the woods. Leaping into the air, the kitsune used her hands for steering as she redirected the car's forward motion, trying to avoid trees as she envisioned Trevor would. The fox lightly bounded between the trunks, from branch to branch, all while maneuvering the car with her fire from safely outside. Keeping this up was taxing, but luckily she didn't have to keep it going for long. Once the cruiser was almost free in the air over the top of the white-water rapids below, she changed her tact.

Her tails fluttering up and behind her, she gently created a burst of heated air to knock the car so that it impacted a final, sturdy tree. The car came to an abrupt stop, airbag deployed, with a thick pine almost all the way to the windshield. It was a sudden stop, which probably would have killed the real Trevor, but Holly wasn't done. After all, there wasn't a body to hide.

Maneuvering herself closer to the driver's side door as she hovered in the air, she imagined Trevor's reaction. Making another blue blade from her fibers, she stabbed the airbag to deflate it... then she reached in and cut the still-locked seatbelt. She imagined Trevor trying to get free of the car, sobered by the impact. As the normal-sized fox unlocked and then kicked the driver's door open, she fell out into the open air. As she plummeted towards the river below, she thought about how she'd later have to react to the gruesome details of whatever cop would have to tell her what happened.

Using her fox-fire, she levitated over to the narrow cliffside. The water rushing below was loud, swift, and strong. A series of waterfalls was nearby. Up above, the K-9 Cruiser lay wedged into one tree, pinned at its rear bumper by another. Smiling to herself, she looked up to the sky, thinking that's where you and I were... but without David to percieve where we were, she was just wrong. Still, she grinned that direction the mischievous smirk she'd acquired from her new spirit-heritage. Then, the fox spoke softly in the spirit-tongue:

"Everything went better than expected."

(|[***]|)

David Nicolaus Scott the Third stood on his four webbed wolf paws looking out from Shonash Point into the direction of the Tugaloo River where he'd heard a car crash a few minutes ago. If he hadn't been expecting the sound, he might not have caught it. It was easily seven miles from where he was... a preciseness he'd not have been able to determine prior to attaining lupine ears.

Smiling at that realization, he'd found himself lost in thought, considering all the cool things that had happened in the last twenty or so hours. Various transformations, cheating of death [twice], and now a whole cover-up! He shook his head, then glanced towards us. He thought about all those stories he had in his awareness which would get stuck in a bedroom for passages at a time and was thankful he'd at least left the house. Still, he couldn't help but consider a need for a change of venue and hoped this would be the catalyst for such...

Shonash Point was up on a plateau whose flat area was less wide around than a standard double-wide house. It was also a bit of a climb. Enough of an experience that the path even had one of those yellow danger ratings and warnings signs posted to 'beware loose stones'. David had never had an easier experience climbing to the top than this time, though. His speed an agility had surprised even him as this had been the first time he'd managed an admittedly sprinting run.

Still, once you were up at the Point, it was a beautiful view with mostly the calming sounds of wilderness in all directions. I mean, excluding the one road nearby. He could see the farm through the trees from up here. The creeks which fed the Tugaloo were all around, and the smell? Refreshing. Once again, he found himself contemplating finding a proper cave structure for his pack, but he caught himself. He truly loved technology too much to leave it all behind.

Thinking of which, the wolftaur lifted his watch to see that sixteen minutes had passed. Let's see: I'm about four miles from the ranch, and I got here in seven or eight minutes. Math wasn't his strong suit, but he managed to figure out the timing meant he'd dashed at thirty to forty miles an hour through rough terrain. "Wow," he said aloud as realized. "That's pretty good."

"You made it here fast," considered a little white vixen hovering in the air over his head. Her three tails were spinning like helicopter blades. "The deed is done," said the fox as she dispelled her fox-fire of teal and dropped from the air and onto the taur's lower back. "No body... but the implication of falling into the river."

Nodding to himself, the bigger wolf turned his upper body to look at the normal-sized fox. She was covered in teal glyphs of Celtic origin with a white ribbon tied into a bow at the base of her tails. He reached up and skritched behind one of her ears and she leaned into his attention. Looking at David with a smile, the fox gave herself little blue framed, circular lensed glasses and cocked her head to the side.

"Cute."

"Oh, I know," she said in english as she propped her tiny paws up on his shoulders. She licked his face. "A fox would normally be screeching at this point," she grinned her little upside-down 'U' eyes. "Mating calls and all that," she explained. "But I'm not merely a fox. I am kit-soon-nay. And... I love you, David Scott. Literally more than you know." Licking his face, he instinctually leaned in and licked her back. Leaning in, she touched her teal nose to his black one, then hopped down at his side.

Looking up at him, she yipped playfully: "Strip!" The insides of David's fluffy ears flushed red slightly, and when he opened his mouth to speak, his gums were redder. "Oh, I know," she insisted before he could protest. The little white fox moved very slowly around the wolf's front right leg, her three tails wrapping around it as she moved. She knew what he was thinking... they were alone for now, but someone could walk up at any time.

"We'd hear someone coming," insisted the vixen as she stood up on her hind legs and put her paws where his hands had gone: the belt buckle at his front. "Or maybe we won't... wouldn't that be fun?" She teased the exhibitionist. "Maybe they'll take wildlife photos?" His heartrate increased and she could hear it. Grinning up at him, those green eyes met his golden ones as she used her mouth to unlatched hid belt, then slowly, sensually pull the leather away from his body until the denim carapace sat loosely around his waist.

David's eyes clearly indicated his thoughts: you've done this before? And it was clear within a vocalized 'chuff' that she didn't need words to confirm the situation. As she lightly took the loose denim in between her teeth, she walked slowly but deliberately along his flank, pulling the taur-skirt with her as she made her way to his big, fluffy, wagging tail.

Flicking her head to one side, the carapace landed in a clump, leaving his black boxer-briefs as her only obstacle to his growing arousal. His musk was ever-present, but that spicy scent she had gotten used to every two months in her past was mixed in amongst it... noticeable now when it hadn't been as recently as half an hour ago.

Moving under the wolftaur's tail, the kitsune ran her tails wide across his underbelly. Briefly, she considered that he may have pushed himself more into heat in the past few minutes, but quickly realized it didn't matter if he did. Either way, he's ready, she grinned. Opening his muzzle again, she slipped her mouth around the band of his underwear, prepared to pull it down his legs.

But Holly's small vulpine nose bumped into the crowning red tip of David's thick canine dong. Even if she knew it was bigger in a future time, this was still a respectable, more than foot-long length. Reaching up with two front paws, she pulled his the waistband lower. Leaning her head inward, she licked some of his salty clear pre. He shuttered at the fox's attention as his sheath pulled back, revealing his hard length.

But the vixen preceded beyond his shaft, pushing her paws closer to his taint, and revealing his silver-furred scrotum. Lifting her head, she pushed up between his softball-sized testicles and let them sit on her head so she could finally see her target: the glistening wet canine cookie of her mate. Though it would always appear engorged, the scent was unmistakeable. It was lovely, and she couldn't help but give a lick across the triple-lipped vulva once it was right before her. As she leaned in and touched her own wet nose to his clit, she heard him gasp once more.

Chittering playfully, the fox climbed up inside his underwear. From there, she hung briefly upside down between his bitchhood and anus. Pushing with her snout, she popped the latch strapping his black briefs over his tail. She dropped. Tumbling forward, she landed in the grass. Laughing, she was momentarily tangled in his boxer-briefs. Holly was stuck within her mate's undergarments, between and around his legs.

Head exiting a leg hole, she pulled herself free of the cloth. Stepping overtop of her, David widened his stance while freeing his back paw of his boxers with a simple flick of his foot. Turning around beneath him, the white kitsune ran her three tails up under his body from front legs to genitals, giving extra attention to all the lovely scents between his rear legs... the violet glans of her tails coating his underside with her unique fragrance, claiming him as her's.

"Well, my mate, we have a size difference," noted the fox in english, opening up communication before proceeding. "Do you want me as a taur?"

David had long been appreciating all the attention and as he looked back, Holly could see that his hands were entertaining his chest. His tongue was lolling quite long out of his muzzle. Blinking his eyes, he met her gaze. "I want you," he said first, but realized after a moment that his words didn't answer her question. "I want you as you want to be," he said, managing something more akin to a full thought.

A fresh breeze from down in the valley blew up towards the two of them, bringing more of the aroma of David's femsex to the nostrils of the tiny vulpine. Pushing those glasses up around her tiny green fox eyes with a small paw, she grinned. Closing her eyes, they once again became the upside-down 'U' look of a pleased kitsune. But while happy, that smile grew across her snout into something more recognizably mischievous.

While her body remained the shape of a fox, it did not maintain the size of one. Steadily, smoothly, the vulpine form of Holly grew upwards and outwards into a larger and larger shape. Circling around to David's front, she paced herself so that when she got to his back, she was casually stepping over it thanks to her new height. His hands sank into her fur as she passed over his front, and on the next loop he could see the sack of white fur between her rear legs becoming a magnitude bigger than her taur form had had not long ago.

The next time she circled him, her tails brushing over his body, David could smell her aromatic musk. The female wolf of him couldn't help but lean in to it. Pausing her walk, he was allowed access to her maleness. Without hesitation, he let that tongue of his extend and do what it was meant for... covering a canine shaft in his full attention.

Holly gasped. In an entire year, David had never once given her head. He'd always had sex with her on her terms, and she always saw herself as a woman. A vixen. But as she placed her now oversized front paws on his shoulders, David made sure that he wasn't the only one to be pleasured in this.

Licking her shaft, he took in the sweat taste of her red rocket. That vulpine cock was teased and squeezed by that long and powerful tongue that all wolftaurs had. His hands reached down and cupped her still growing balls. Opening his muzzle, he fed her shaft up into his throat, taking her little by little as he thrust his head down her length. After a few bobs, he could tell the bulb at her cock's base was already growing in size.

Eyes almost rolling back in her head, she felt a tension pulling in her sack, and Holly groaned. "I only... have the... one load... dear," she offered as a reminder. "As far as... I know, heh."

That tongue squeezed her penis in a muscled vice as he pulled his head off of her length one final time. Lifting his head back, he rubbed his face across her belly before finally looking up at her from between her front legs. Her feral form pressed against him with need. "Take me, then. Lock me up with that bitch-breaker of yours," he growled teasingly, the effect shaking her body.

David toppled backwards as the fox pushed against him. He vaguely realized he'd hit earth as his taur body lay splayed outward on his back with a giant vulpine positioned above him. The fox yipped, her pre bursting out onto her mate's white shirt with black design upon it. The smaller wolf laughed.

As the vixen leaned backwards, her three tails fanned out. Failing for a moment to notch her tip into his folds, the wolftaur used his front leg's paw-hands to push down her appropriately-sized, giant prick until it was aligned with his sweat cunny. Keeping her dick aligned, she leaned back with her hips, then thrust foward into her mate's waiting sex.

He was big enough inside to take her. She realized this after a few short thrusts and decided it wouldn't do. As the bulb at the end of her cock grew in size, so too did her entire form. Onwards and upwards, the feral-shaped fox grew. Soon, he was tight and David gave the slightest yelp of surprise. His entrance resisted her half-solid knot.

Now was the time.

The fox stifled her instinct to scream her intention, but her body language said it all. His first time as a bitch, David felt fearful for an instant as Holly's enormous vulpine cock pulled almost all the way out of him. Looking up, he met her eyes, bright and green. In that moment, he knew that he was hers and she, in turn, was his.

Holly thrust forward up into the silver-furred tauric wolf beneath her. That double-bulged knot at the end of her red rocket hit a squeeze within his tri-fold lips beneath her, but that internal ring gave way with the power of the impact. The wolf yowled in pleasure, his internal muscles clenching onto her shaft. Alien muscles David had designed in the early morning's hours gripped her shaft inside of him not unlike fully articulated throat muscles.

Lust overpowered the kitsune. It was a sexy trap! While she had been the top, her mate was allowing her a surprise. Her entire solid shaft was hidden within him. But with each thrust, one after the next, her cock was given more than simple pleasure. It was better than she imagined a handjob, and more pressure than the head David had been giving her a few moments prior.

Her undercoat lit up with teal fox-fire as she incorrectly thought it might give her more stamina. It did not. Tugging at their connection with each outward pull, and crushed tightly in waves with each inward push, the fox felt her legs go weak. Beneath her, her mate gave a playful growl of victory.

You thought you would best me!? David found himself playfully insisting with his eyes as she re-opened hers. The vixen couldn't recall even closing them.

Trickster, tricked! she realized... but she had one final play.

David felt the warmth of her fox-fire heat her shaft. Outwards from it, the fire filled his body. He didn't know what all it was, but it went away in the next moment... because Holly's hips jerked, staggering a final thrust before she came and came. Balls slapping between the taur's rear legs and onto his tail, she kept trying to keep up the rhythm as she shoved against and within him again and again. But now, with each thrust she grew slower. Her balls jerked, releasing a torrent of white into his waiting tunnel.

The wolfaur was awash with heat and she could feel it. Had she hurt him? No, no. Not that. Even though she'd already cum, David's sex persisted. His eyes glazed over in teal as Holly's gift filled him... but not simply a bloated belly of seed. No, she was improving David's fertility, forcing his body to release more eggs. Her own trick to match his. A final thrust of her power within his before his body shook and gave in...

Once she pulled her fire out from within him did he realize he was at climax. Instinctually, he lifted his head and arched his long back, releasing from both sets of lungs a pleasureful, lust-filled howl of just damn-well being! Feeling somehow full of fertility, his wolfen howl was long and deep. Baritone wolf.

They had both had wanted this release, and it came along with them. The huge vixen lifted her own head lifted back to join his voice. For an instant, it was a fox's lustful scream... but she caught herself and shifted her neck to better produce a proper wolf-like howl. They were as one, and every animal across the mountain range would know it... their wordless single voice filled with a message of unity, love, and determination...

(|[***]|)

After having collapsed for a few minutes, mumbling sweet nothings to each other, eventually the fox came around first. "I think we need to get back in case anyone shows up." Holly smirked. Reaching out with her fox-fire, she started casually weaving a white and blue knapsack around David's discarded clothing. Wrapping his boxer-briefs, denim carapace, and leather belt into a single large bag, she tossed it over he shoulders kenetically.

As straps wove themselves over her shoulders, Holly looked down at her mate who she was still laying atop. She was heavy, but David wasn't complaining. His tail was cupping her now empty balls between their back legs. Grumbling at the need to move, the wolftaur finally responded...

"Okay," David managed, dreamily. His eyes were back to golden, though somewhat unfocused. "I guess... you could shrink so we can untie," he offered as a thought. His legs were still splayed to her underside while his arms were around the fox's neck. It was a moment later, but Holly was getting up onto her four large feet. "Uh, Holly," David spoke as she put one paw in front of the other and started to move.

"Yes dear?"

"Isn't this a little awkward?"

The big fox looked down at the smaller wolftaur as he was hugging her from beneath as she stood up. "You seem comfortable," the kitsune grinned. "Didn't know your body could bend like that. Just look at your legs. Beautiful." Her mischievous grin appearing once again. "I'm definitely fucking you a lot more. Surprised me with those muscles..."

"We... we can't go back like this."

"I don't plan to ever go back to things as they were," she mused, looking up over the trees. "Canonically, we've killed Trevor. And I've picked my mate. A part of me doesn't want the mess of young children, but I know that responsibility won't be mine alone this time." She smiled those fox 'U' eyes down towards David. "I'm a different person than I was a few hours ago to you, and even different to myself. I've chosen my change, and I'm happy with it."

"That's not what I meant," David smirked, his tail weaving up within her numerous appendages like a rump-exclusive hug. David blinked, running his thick fluffy tail between her's. The gaps didn't feel right and confusion bled across his face. But, then, he smiled. Holly was about to ask what that strange feeling was, when he just grinned bigger and began to speak with a narrator's voice: "Sometimes, when a kit-soon-nay has a dramatic, life altering event—" he began to expound. Holly's eyes went slowly wide. "—such as time traveling for over a year; denying or killing or taking a mate; undoing their life and picking a new path—" Holly gasped. "—they'll grow a tail... proof their experiences have changed them."

The kitsune fanned out her now four white tails, each tipped in teal color as if they were paint brushes. Muzzle falling slowly open, tears appeared at the corners of her vulpine eyes. She'd been through a lot... and the rules of this admittedly simulated universe had acknowledged her trials and tribulations. A sound of a choking laugh escaped her throat.

David chuckled. "I guess we really can't go back..."

"Don't worry, we'll unknot before we get back to our kits," she said playfully. David blinked. The vixen's giant body strolled casually in the direction of the path that David had run up earlier. His body, pressed against her's, was clearing the ground without issue. She walked with pride and purpose even while she remained knotted inside the wolftaur. It was silly, and she knew it, but it made her happy.

"But someone could see us!" David protested in a playfully weak voice. He understood what she was about to do, and a part of him was excited by it.

For certain, their lives had changed.

The edges of Holly's vulpine muzzle curled upwards into that wicked, teal-lipped grin. "Yeah, my white knight. They could," the kitsune chuckled. David didn't say anything more, though his arousal was growing from the possibility of being seen like this. Taking a deep breath, the man slowly began flexing his internal muscles again. It caused Holly a single misstep, but that was fine. Two could continue to play this game.

Hopping down from the path to the forest floor below, Holly's four tails fluttered over the top of David's thick and fluffy one. The two were joined now, spiritually, whether they knew it or not. Only time would tell how their story played out...

Meanwhile what was happening somewhere else around the same time?

• No options available - Create your own addition below!

• Tommy and Alice have been alone for a while with Thor...
• Ronan Bromell wasn't all that far away...
• Papa Scott did, in fact, call the cops...
• tiny Thor got lost in the woods!
• they come across some hunters in the woods...
• hikers overheard the commotion and were spying from the foliage...
• Chester got impatient and had arrived at the ranch, unannounced...
• Ronan and Chester run into each other, nearby...
• David had dropped the emitter during his earlier run and it was found by someone...
• a nearby pack of wolves were uplifted to wolftaur on David's way to Shonash.
• it turns out Holly had turned on Trevor's connection for him to enjoy her fucking David.
• Trevor was able to perceive the love-making and new egg additions at his micro size.

Write a new chapter