When Jenny had been told a human wanted to speak with her about Spike's ultimate fate, she had made doubly sure first that Spike was safely among the herd with Robbie close to him. The last thing she wanted was her fawn stolen by the huskies when she wasn't there, she'd never forgive herself.
After being in the park for so long, Jenny's return to the alien environment of the complex would have been greatly unsettling if she didn't constantly remember exactly who she was here for.
When Naomi led Jenny to the human's office, and Jenny beheld it, Jenny for all intents and purposes felt she was looking at an alien creature, the coverings in false skins feeling totally unnatural and strange. Jenny however pushed such discomforts from her mind, when she had spoken to the human on the matter of her fawn.
But now... Jenny was pressed up against two walls, both closing in on her fast. On the one hand, this human wasn't going to move from it's position, that much was very very clear. It didn't matter that Spike loved his mother for all the world apparently, the rules had been set, and would be obeyed. The fact Spike had been freed of what had ever made him into a monster, was the very reason he had to be changed back -into- that monster.
Truth was, Jenny wasn't scared in the least of staying in the park, with the shadow of starvation or death by injury hovering over her head. She'd endure that for Spike's sake. The idea of Spike becoming that person again, was what scared her.
'And I won't let that happen.'
For Juanita, this was becoming like another request she had to handle, since she had been given pretty much full control of dealing with the park guests. Of the lynx child who was now saying she didn't want to become a 'boring adult' again.
It was becoming clear that the age reduction technology should have stayed out of this park. They should have left it on the cutting room floor when designing the park and focused only on the Species changes, the -only- reason they had included the changing of the X and Y chromosome was because their market research showed it would give them gigantic support from the TG community.
True, there was no legal document that said Spike couldn't become feral, after all, he was still TECHNICALLY over eighteen, regardless of how he appeared to be. But Juanita knew that Spike's mental state was another matter all together. Sage(Mike) and Vixen(Jasmine) had shown zero signs of any loss of academic knowledge what so ever, the IQ tests they had both been given showed they were just as clever (maybe a bit more) as when they had entered the park. While they showed traits of typical teenagers, they could have easily skipped collage if were made to work through the educational system again.
The Lynx, Lexy... knew who her family was, who her friends were, what she did for a living but, she acted no different from any other child her age. Though she had been a miniature adult at first during her regression and had been so for as long as Jasmine and Mike.
Spike had been the way he was however right from the start, this was chalked up to the trauma he had suffered. Spike, even when he was an innocent Fawn managed to cause trouble.
Jenny weighted her options. Spike mattered, everything else was secondary. Having him lose his innocence by becoming that awful person again wasn't an option. So allowing Spike's term to expire and to be de-spliced wasn't an option.
Juanita did know one thing that could work to their advantage... the deer had been voted as the most appealing, in particular the does, for humans to accept the hyper evolved animals in society.
Fawns, were very hard to tell a male from female anyway, so it didn't make that much of a difference. While Juanita in good conscience couldn't let Spike become feral in his current mental state.
"Spike is my fawn, I don't care if it was just a temporary thing you planned or not. I love him. And you can't change that. And I'll protect him from you if I have to."
".... Jenny Deer.... I have an offer for you... Spike can keep his current age." Though technically this was actually much the same with Spike rejecting his adult mind without being in a state to rationally decide that point, this was a way that would sit well with the rest of the managers and Jenny at least. And it could work well with their plans for Hannah. "If you leave with him as his legal guardian when his time expires."
++++++++++
"Congratulations." Su Yin's voice was neither cruel, nor kind, only observant. Hannah saw that the doe was standing behind one of the trees facing opposite where Marth was. "You successfully lost the self control that you've held dear for so long, you alienated Marth -further-, and you lied to him. You know you'd accept if he asked for a long term relationship, opposed to the meaningless flings that keep getting thrown your way."
"He's an arrogant jerk who can only think of himself!" Hannah snapped at her friend. "And what are you doing here Su Yin?"
Su Yin calmly shook her head, "I was here to observe what would happen, and I was here in case you, or Leticia, needed help. However both of you were able to handle things on your own from what you can tell."
"Are we actually friends Su?"
Su Yin's voice remained calmed and control, but held a slightly stern tone. "We are friends Hannah, that's why I'm being honest with you rather than pretending I don't see the problems and keeping my muzzle shut."
"Well, he's a possessive, controlling, buck brained idiot who can only see what he wants to see, I don't want anything more to do with him."
Su Yin smirked, "In that case you won't mind if I go talk to him."
"WHAT?!" Hannah exclaimed eyes wide.
"Well, you just said you don't want anything to do with him, I haven't had a chance to really talk to any buck who used to be does other than Sam, and he wasn't here that long anyway. Marth is here for the same amount of time Leticia was going to be, so I'll have plenty of time to get to know him and gather information on the subject. Maybe I'll be able to help him find himself among the male hormones and deer instincts that are making him scared and confused. He's likely to open up to me a lot more easily than someone who was thinking of homeplate right from the start."
"SU YIN!!"
"Wake UP Hannah! I've been trying to HELP you. Ever since we met I've been trying to help you. Just like the other doe, we've been doing our best to help you along this path you've chose for yourself. We've supported you, just like you've supported every TG anthro accidental or otherwise who came out of the gene splicer once you got your head on your shoulders and decided to help others like you since you had a base idea of their troubles, with or without any formal study . . . and you're going to have to admit to something you don't want to, that -no-, woman or man ever wants to admit even in the slightest. What you don't want to admit to Marth, and what Marth doesn't want to admit to Leticia." Also, personally, Su Yin had felt something uncomfortable about Lateisha's grin at the news.
"What?"
"That the other one is right. Leticia is no longer Larry, he was blotted out of existence by this park's forced upon style of living, deer instincts, female hormones, happenstance, and, sadly, selfish short-term choices. This park -wants- us to accept our new bodies Hannah, I realized it a couple months after I arrived here. And Leticia, along with you, the panthers, and the foxes, are all their success stories."
Did Su Yin know that Hannah already knew that? No. She didn't say it in even slightly accusing manner, let alone one of someone saying something the other already knew.
"So Marth has to accept that Larry no longer exists, got that, what do I have to admit to?"
"That he was right in what he said to you, that you do want him as a companion, you were -happy- when Leticia rejected him. Don't lie to me and say you weren't, you were never all that good at deceiving people Hannah, you never could lie through your muzzle and pretend you never were male to any partner you met, you had to tell them the truth, otherwise it would just eat you up inside. NOW... you are going to march back there young doe, and do it -right- this time! I'll drag you back by your ears God help me if I have to."
In all the time they had been together, not once had Hannah seen SU Yin look so... intense... it was actually belittling, and a little scary.
Like a solider and her drill sergeant, Hannah turned around on her hoof, and did an about face, and with an almost robot rigidness, marched back the way she came, Su Yin's solid black eyes pushing at her the whole time...
<i> Ya know, how badly do you want to be with her? </i> Marth, no, Maria's voice taunted him. <i> Ya could just go back though the DNA scrambler, come out a doe, and be Jeremy's other doe, after all, a stag is supposed to have more than one female right? </i>
'No! He wouldn't betray his culture, or his beliefs! He wouldn't surrender to his animal side.
<i> Heh. But isn't that what you've already been doing? After all... you heard the lady, you're acting like a typical, mindless, empty headed, muscle brained, 1-D guy that you detested so much. Go back and get your X chromosome back, ditch that worthless Y, and you'll be with her... </i>
But, legal issues aside, it would also mean being forever bonded with Jeremy, a person Marth/Maria had never met, and most certainly didn't love... and Leticia... still... wouldn't love her as Maria... damn this place! Damn it to Hell! In that moment if Marth could have erased this park from history he would have!
<i> Yeah... there's that male impulses... guess Hannah was right... the guys do turn into the most girlie girls, and the girls into the most manly men. ... Just go back into the gene splicer, jump the electric fence if you have to. You lost, get out of here, loser. </i>
Was that the only decent path Marth had left? To just walk out, to forget that Larry, no, Leticia, had ever existed? It felt like the entire park was against him, no, like fate was against him. Like no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much effort he put into it, Leticia had already decided she'd be more happy with Jeremy before having even met with Marth. Marth had no doubt that Leticia was being completely honest with everything she said, but everything just felt, rigged. Like someone had taken the laws of cause, and effect, and declared each and every scenario ended only with leticia with Jeremy. Dammit, as Maria she had always been able to reason with Larry. Why would Marth be so hopeless with Leticia? Maybe all those feminists were right and males were naturally more stupid.
+++++
Naomi sneezed. The two humans waiting besides her looked at her. Wondering if there had been a flaw in gene splicing in a human immune system into the hyperevolved animal.
+++++
Some vacation. Maria had had better vacations than this in a Cuban jail cell. Marth, when it all came down to it, felt like he had been declared the loser of a race without even being allowed to run.
'Don't make Promises you won't be able to keep, it'll be a weight that'll drag you down for the rest of your days.' Hannah had been dead right. And while Maria had had break ups before, Marth felt right now like a mountain had been loaded on his back.
"Hello." Very surprised to hear that voice again in this life time, Marth turned around, and saw Hannah.
Her ears were wilted, and her eyes were downcast. Her armored hands were clasped in front of her as she stood her shapely legs together. Her non-human head was leaning ever so downward.
"My name is Hannah, it's nice to meet you, and you are?"
"What game is it this time?"
Hannah still didn't raise her head. "No game. We got off on the wrong foot, and both of us still have friends I think who don't think we're awful people, so let's try this again. Like I said, my name's Hannah, what would yours be?"
What did he have left to lose? "My name for the moment is Marth, it's a pleasure to meet you too Miss Hannah."
"Heh. My formal title among the bucks is actually Beauty Queen Hannah, go figure."
It might have felt good. But a shadow hovered over the entire image.
"I'm sorry, but I have to meet him."
"Who?"
"Jeremy. At least once. I know you're going to tell me it won't make any difference, and maybe you're right. But if Leticia decided that I wasn't worth her time anymore, without me even there, I want to at least meet the person who she decided she'd be more happy with than me."
"'Leticia' after all?"
"That's the name she uses, what's what her name is. And I need to know, what made him the better choice."
"She means a lot to you huh?"
"It's stupid, but I guess that's love is, you don't matter, your other half matters."
"That's one definition at least." Hannah held her demure pose, but looked up, "I'll go with you."
"Huh?"
"You're still new here sorta... you're gonna get lost without me around."
"Why do women always think they know the best way to somewhere?"
"Why are men always adverse to asking for directions?"
So Hannah led, Marth followed. To fate.
++++
With the newshounds and Hannah distracted, Alexis entered the park unopposed and unwelcome. She felt confident in her mission. They'd be hitting this place with lawsuits so fast that it would implode on itself.
However. The influence of instincts on recognition had been dramatically increased unwittingly to Alexis. Where it had been a drawn out process for the others, and Maggie's personality happened to match up with what her new body was telling her, it was came crashing down on Alexis' brain. Where Spike as an adult had seemed like an animal that had learned to walk on two legs due to his personality, Alexis highly evolved pig brain was, while still containing her sentience, was effectively and in record time basically becoming that of an animal with human level intelligence.
To be fair of course, mundane pigs were much smarter than their stereotype as a mindless eating machine with a preference for mud baths would give them. And this naturally translated along the way into something with functional hands and a duel hemisphere brain. However, since the absorbing of instincts into rational thought had been greatly blurred by the 'revised' process, Alexis would be in for some surprises.
For started, while the vegetarian wolverine had had more than enough will power to hold himself in check until near death, these revised instincts, weren't nearly so inclined to listen to reason. And instincts, are the things we don't think about.
Thus, when Alexis knew she was simply too skinny. She didn't think about how socially, western culture disliked the overweight, and how she had gone to so much trouble to control her weight. She simply thought about how she was underweight, and what she could do to rectify this fact.
She also didn't think once on squatting, taking a dump, then continuing on her wandering path barely breaking pace. The other morphs as a rule attempt the illusion of privacy on such matters, but the idea didn't even once enter Alexis' pig brain.
When she had spotted a fat caterpillar crawling up the bark of a redwood, she didn't think what she normally thought. Which was how they would all eventually grow into beautiful butterflies. Without even thinking about it, she grabbed it, stuffed it in her mouth, and swallowed. It wasn't until five whole minutes later that it occurred to her she had just eaten another living thing that wasn't a non-sentient brainless plant. That 99% of animals were not sentient either wasn't something had once considered thought about, or even accepted as fact or a possibility. But on a realization that would have, and should have mortified her, she merely thought 'So that's what they taste like.'
Using her newfound sense of smell, she was easily able to locate the strongest scent of wild swine that smelled like her, went on two legs. The sow smiled to herself.
Being omnivores, the boars' territory lay between the unofficial borders between the predators and prey animals. Not that Alexis' knew any of this at the time, she just knew, when she first spotted them, her first thought wasn't on gathering information for her cause the humans had given her. It was how she felt a little shame at apparently being the most skinny one there.
++++
Jeremy hoped that Leticia was right, but he wondered if this Marth would give up that easily. He had no intention what so ever of going back on his word with leticia, not even in slightest. But he worried that Marth would chose to challenge him directly, and Jeremy of course would have to respond in kind. Lateisha had described him as some controlling jerk, a person Jeremy had to honestly wonder how Leticia could have ever liked. Thus, Jeremy was on edge, and he knew it. He just hoped Leticia didn't pick it up and felt more negative, that was the last thing he wanted.
Leticia meanwhile, while she felt betrayed by Marth calling her an airhead, and didn't want to back out of marrying Jeremy, just felt something was wrong when Lateisha grinned at what had happened. And she wondered, if not for Marth's outburst... what would she have done?
+++++
Harry and Zack, while scared of Maggie, soon found themselves board with their position. Harry had trusted Kathy with the final details of the 'wedding material' the staff would provide as a surprise to the happy couple and she promised the flowers and what not would arrive on time.
Maggie hadn't attacked or yelled at anyone since the huskies had started watching her, though there was no way in hades Maggie could know she was being watched by the husky's with their ninja like stealth.
Maggie meanwhile, knew she had one last card she could play. Jeremy himself. Her cub had learned to stand up for himself, and shown to be radically different from the pathetic human he was before (something Maggie was begrudgingly beginning to admit to herself she felt proud for at least). But there were still some trace elements of her former cub still there. She knew she couldn't hope to call off his wedding with his unworthy mate, he was firmly stuck there. She also knew that if that fake buck fought for his fake doe, that her cub might suspect her somehow.
But... there was still one play she could make. Talk to Jeremy, and play on his stupid emotions towards the fake doe, and he would fight the fake buck of his own free will, or make him paranoid enough to challenge the fake buck on sight. For Maggie was many things, but unfortunately for Jeremy, Leticia, and Marth, ignorant of her own son's personality traits, and how to manipulate them, wasn't one of them.
++++
Jackie and Keith didn't know when it started, or where they had gotten the idea. But both of them had started to sit in on Father Tyminski's sermons.
One of the things that stunned Jackie to Hades and back was that Tyminski didn't once say they were all damned to Hell or commanded them to leave the park. He did mention 'wait until marriage' more than once. And of course Tyminski backed conversion to his religion, he wouldn't be much of a priest if he didn't.
But still, Jackie's experiences with priests had been limited to what she read on the Spanish Inquisition and Witch Hunts, while Keith was limited to reading on the news when Christians (protestants, catholic, Keith's former self had never been able to keep them apart) declared pokemon evil.
Doth, Tyminski confused them greatly by his behavior. Also, none of his sermons were exactly alike, when the panthers had been sure that he'd just recycled them.
Tyminski's regular message on how they were still human in spite of DNA, was the exact opposite view that many in the park had. And it made many evolved animals reconsider themselves. After all, as Tyminski had pointed out, when they left the park, they'd all as a whole would have to still live up to their responsibilities in human culture.