"Poor Jeremy." Lateisha said, "Losing to a brute like Spike. Hopefully he can still put Drake in his place."
"I think Drake is already in his place." Jenny said, "You see how he's acting?"
Lateisha said, "Well maybe another loss will help it stick. And maybe help Jeremy keep his confidence he's been building. Poor guy didn't deserve to loss that fight."
Su Yin said, "Life is rarely about what we deserve."
Leticia just shook her head to herself, shaking off the feeling that the more fights a buck won, the hotter they were.
+++++
"So exactly who are you rooting for Mike?" Jasmine asked enjoying the feeling of his fur against hers. Mostly to be polite. It was truly strange, while a cross dresser, she had never been bored by sports like football or boxing before. Heck, she had picked up most of her love of football from her birthmother! Maybe because she didn't know any of the 'teams' here.
"I've been here a while." Mike said, which was logical if he had organized many of the foxes into a group. "So I know most of the bucks, and believe me they aren't great guys. I'm hoping that the new guy there is of a different sort and puts them all straight." He said point to the finalist who was a six pointer.
Laurie decided to stay quite that the person Mike was cheering for was a married woman on the outside.
+++++
Both panthers heard the person approach on two legs long before he said anything. "Hello."
They cats saw he was a white and brown hound dog. Standing tall, polite, and rather brightly. "Howdy, might if I ask you some question? I think we accidently missed you the other day. I'm Harrison, I'm one of the newshounds."
Jackie shook her head, "You're joking right?"
"Not at all, with how the park keeps us like bugs in a jar for our stay, we need to talk to people like you who have been in the outside world until recently to give everyone else the up and up for those who care to hear it."
Jackie hadn't thought about it, but the hound dog was right.
"It's a little risky to get close to the bucks to ask them any questions, so me and some of my packmates are going around asking the spectators what they think."
"Oh." Jackie could understand that.
"So mind if I ask you some question?"
"I don't see why not."
Harrison's questions were basic stuff, stocks, state of the union, sport scores, along with any major disasters that might have happened or new movies that had come out. Finally came, "So who do you think is gonna win?"
"Sam." Jackie said without having to think about it.
"I see." Harrison nodded.
"Hey!" Keith said, "You wanna bet on the winner?"
"Sure..." Harrison grinned, "What do you have TO bet?" And grinned wider.
Jackie laughed at the two men, "I guess we are rather like communists?"
Harrison said, "I was thinking more like the bush-men in Australia. Lot more polite. Less snow too."
+++++
Harry, the husky who had been talking to Katie before, sipped on a soda through a straw, one of the fringe benefits of not being one of the actual park guests was the Dr. Pepper. The drawback of course of having a muzzle was that a straw was the only way to down it.
"Dang those bucks are full of themselves." Harry commented. "What part of 'the way your DNA is, is the way your DNA stays for the rest of your vacation' is hard to understand?"
Katie, still wearing her one piece dress, said, "Maybe they figure if they cause enough noise the management will be willing to do a few concessions if they sell it off as being 'for the greater peace of the park.' "
"Heh, a couple of guys can't get some so they decide to bully some of their frat brothers into being ladies, some friends."
"If you ask me this is just what I'm talking about. Leaving people with human instincts in an animal body would leave them helpless, taking away all their human instincts would leave their super ego defenseless. But mixing them is like mixing acids and bases. Ka-boom."
"Do you always have to make such gloomy predictions? It's not like any of us are trying sniff each other's butts."
"That's because we still have fingers and opposable thumbs for a handshake." Katie said. "The way the animal and human instincts mixed in my humble opinion just shows this technology isn't ready for public use."
"Which is why we're not on Yellow stand-by." Said one of two lady huskies that Harry and Katie smelled behind them, unlike the guests, the park workers didn't have the option of altering their X and Y chromosomes. "The management wants us to be ready to move in a second if things turn ugly. That includes the bucks gaining up on the does, and if the winners of their little contest try to force march the losers back through the one way doors."
"Which means." The other lady husky grinned, "We need to be in uniform."
Katie realized what they meant one second too late as one girl husky grabbed her legs and the other one pulled up on Katie's dress, in a confusion havoc filled moment leaving her as 'not naked' as the others.
"HEY!" The irony that this would have been considered sexual harassment if done by males opposed to being a prank if done by females was completely lost on Katie. "I NEED THAT!"
"Oh calm down." Said the first girl husky. "We've seen it all before Katie. And you know the rules about interacting with the park guests."
"I have to know, where you a nudist in the outside world too?" Katie sighed.
"I was not. And to note I AM a practicing Catholic Christian."
Katie stared in total disbelief, then said irritated, "Just don't damage my dress. It took forever for me to get it mail ordered here."
"Will do!" The second lady husky saluted.
"And let's hope you guys didn't have a reason to do that later." Katie said hoping whatever the bucks did it didn't turn into a crisis. They had already almost sprung into action when that kid, Jeremy, had stabbed the big guy in the chest.
"I hear that." Harry said, drinking the soda dry, shaking it, and tossed it into a recycle bin behind him, more worried about the park guests than his own safety. This was because the huskies had one major advantage over the park guests, they had all been taught have to handle each advantage and disadvantage each species the park had!
++++++++
As Sam thought about what Drake had been planning, and heard that Spike believed in following a modified version of it. Sam couldn't help that it felt, wrong somehow. Yes, he admitted a lot of the guys here should have been jackasses and not deer. But this was meant to be a vacation for himself, and everyone else here. It was supposed to be relaxing. And even if the other bucks were lower in the pecking order that was forming, he couldn't help but feel that it was cruel to have their DNA screwed with a second time around if they didn't want it to. Yes they had been jerks, a lot of them, but in spite of it, Sam couldn't help but feel that wasn't justification. Unlike Keith, who had spent his entire life on the receiving end of people like Drake, and Spike, Sam knew that gender didn't decide nature, as her husband had proven time and again to Samantha. She knew there were feminists, even in this park, who'd see the changing of the bucks as being pure poetic justice.
But they were just a bunch of people on vacation, weren't they? What right did Sam have to dictate what form they'd have during that vacation? Sam had joined this tournament to make sure Hannah wasn't harmed, with the way the bucks were acting, they may have been less of a danger, or even MORE of a danger if Spike won. Now here he was, a temporary male in the finals to see who was top buck until he left the park. He knew that Samantha would love to tell her husband over and over about this even if he didn't beat Spike. Sam made a note that if the prices weren't too insane to bring both him and some other family members along for the ride next time.
But in the here and now, Sam the Buck, was now protecting the jerks and not jerks alike from having their Y chromosome replaced. Maybe it would make for some good therapy in manners, but this wasn't the time or place for it.
'I'm going to beat you Spike. I HAVE to beat you. if any of my bucks wants their DNA revised again, that's their business.' Sam didn't dwell on how he thought of the others as 'his bucks.'
+++++++
Sam and Spike watched Drake and Jeremy size each other up, like they were watching a test version of their own fight. Finally, Jeremy charged head down, but upon seeing the position that Drake was in, skidded to a halt before being caught in the grab. This was when Drake charged and Jeremy had just enough time to lower his antlers to meet Drake, and they clashed, and both stag's felt their blood pump at the force of horns against horns.
Their antlers were caught, and they twisted onto their backs at the same time, now shaking and they hastily tried to undo themselves. Jeremy copied Spike somewhat and taking advantage of their mingled state grabbed the shorter more muscular buck and tossed him about, twisting his own head to keep from breaking his neck. However Drake managed to untangle himself and stand on his own two hooves before Jeremy could claim his victory. But this fight could still go either way. Both bucks not thinking anything of how they were fighting for the buck that had defeated them more than themselves.