Brian had his back to the crowd tugging a reluctant Cherry behind him. Clearly she was not in a sound state of mind, and he wasn't about to leave someone in such a state around this sort of crowd. Vinny meanwhile, still in a very instinctive state of mind, could only see Brian as a thief, trying to sneak off with his property. He charged straight at him, blindsiding him with a vicious tackle. The two tumbled to the ground as Cherry looked on, overwhelmed with lust and an unfamiliar sort of pride as she watched the two bucks fight over her. The usually peaceful Brian was seeing red once he managed to toss Vinny off get back on his feet. If no one else was going to put this nasty little monster in his place, he'd do it himself.
The crowd was suddenly thrown into chaos, with half the spectators cheering on the combatants, and the rest trying to figure out where the huskies had all disappeared to. Vinny seemed out for blood, and had an edge thanks to his modified skeletal structure, but Brian was a bit larger overall, and holding his own at least for the time being.
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Charlotte could hardly imagine what Naomi was going though. Her own transformation had been distressing enough, and she felt a bit naked without her fur, particularly with so many people watching her through the glass, clipboards in hand to take notes. She briefly considered trying to ram the glass, but aside from the fact it was most likely designed to resist more of an impact than she was able to deliver, she wasn't sure how long they'd be able to survive out of the water. Besides which, She had no real concept of the layout of this floor, and crawling around with this fish tail wouldn't make it any easier to deal with security. The sensible thing to do was just explore the rest of the tank.
First though, she had to calm Naomi down. It was very strange, having gone from a gay man to a lesbian wolf, to suddenly find herself as a half-human woman whose girlfriend was a guy. He had quite a body on him, well-defined swimmers muscles, a nice solid jaw-line. The part of his new anatomy he was particularly upset to have was nothing to be ashamed of either, and below it was a nice powerful tail. Did she actually find him attractive? So far as she knew, the usual rule about orientation still held true, but he was still Naomi after all. She managed a bit of an awkward hug to calm her down before continuing along.
The tank was rather spacious, but narrow, without anywhere to hide from the researchers surrounding it. Charlotte worried for a moment there might not be any way out beyond the shaft in the ceiling they'd been dumped through, but from the sound of it, they weren't the first pair to occupy the tank, so there would have to be some way to fish people out. There was a vent on the wall... she didn't want to spend too long staring while being so carefully observed. She took another quick lap around the whole tank so as not to tip her hand. REAL quick. Under different circumstances, she could have a lot of fun with this. There was a little drag from her chest and her hair, but otherwise she was so aquadynamic she could just fly around this tank. Naomi could probably do even better. On her next pass, she get a better look. The grate was pretty well bolted on, but if she had any sort of tool to pry it off, it looked just wide enough to squeeze through. Unfortunately, she had no idea where it lead. It might just be a big filter system. One more lap around, and she saw there was also a hatch on the ceiling. Easily big enough for people to come and go through, that was probably what they used when there was an emergency or when it was time to feed them. Just what would you feed a mermaid anyway, she wondered. Live fish? Shellfish?Kelp? In any case, the hatch would have to lead somewhere, but it would be dry, and probably locked when the researchers didn't have reason to open it. On her next pass she grabbed Naomi by the wrist and pulled him along so she could explain things. When they passed a group of observers, she made sure to give him a big kiss too. Whatever the plan was, making them think they were enjoying themselves would make it much easier to pull off.
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Harry's trip to the research facility wasn't quite as rough as the girls' had been. Not wanting to alarm anyone in the park's parking lot, they had just gingerly escorted him to a more standard vehicle, and driven him off. He was outnumbered, but if the car slowed down he might be able to reach a door and bail out... or these unfamiliar huskies might beat him unconscious. Ultimately, curiosity was getting the better of him though. If they had Naomi locked up somewhere, he was going to need to see it. Stupid heroics could come later.
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Agent Sherman had no trouble at all securing the necessary paperwork to take this place apart. All he had to do was make a call to the local police station and let them know what was being faxed over. They'd be here in a few minutes with it, and he'd made just to ask for some extra manpower. He had a feeling their might be some resistance when it came time to start seizing hardware. They'd have all they needed on these bastards within an hour or two. Not long after that, they should be able to arrest the slimeballs in charge, maybe even get the whole freakshow shut down. The only catch was that he'd be stuck like this even longer. All these transformation chambers would need to be shut down for the duration of the investigation. Otherwise every implicated party would just be able to waltz out of here with a new face, and probably a new species.
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The huskies were whipping up into a near riot. It quickly became clear which of the new hires were on the side of corruption, and which were loyal to Harry. Meanwhile, on the other side of the park, Brian's fight with Vinny was taking a toll on him. There was a sharp pain every time he breathed that had him worried about his ribs, and his right eye was swelling pretty bad. He wasn't so sure he'd win this anymore.
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Agent Sherman's instincts were right of course. Almost the instant the police pulled up to the entrance, those members of the tech staff whose hands were the dirtiest began purging morally questionable genetic templates from computers, doing their best to delete incriminating, and rushing to transformation chambers to disguise themselves. The police and the FBI were generally moving fast enough to keep this from being 100% effective, but a few fish were going to slip through the net. A few guests, most notably the new does, were also ending up in Sherman's position, with all their original templates deleted to make it harder to track what was done to them. Sherman fumed a bit. If these security dogs had just come to the authorities in the first place, they'd have the jump on these clowns. But no, they had to hire some sloppy P.I. and give everyone a reason to be paranoid, didn't they.