Dave heaved a cleansing sigh. As his tongue glided across his Jacobson’s organ, he could practically taste the tension dissipate in the air. Good for the atmosphere, but that did little to still the pounding his chest. He had averted a workplace shooting and put an end to insanity, but the measures were certainly drastic. A new being had taken Nick’s place; Nicole came to life via the execution of Nick’s character, his existence relegated to a single lizardman’s swimming memory. It was the right thing to do under pressure, wasn’t it? No worse than firing a gun in self-defense at any rate. Perhaps something of Nick still lingered under Nicole’s exterior yet? Maybe the pen had only warped the problematic aspects of his nature instead. Dave hadn’t the time in the heat of the moment to write exhaustive stipulations, and Claire’s condition had already proven that no matter how badly he’d like the pen to strictly reflect his will it would exploit any leeway to exercise its power to a fuller capacity. He glanced over to Nicole’s so-called office watching her cheerfully staple and file documents while her tail balanced a rubber ball precariously on its tip. She seemed completely content to handle the mundane busywork delegated to her by senior employees. And if she was happy, then surely everything would turn alright in the end.
Dave’s introspection turned once again to quizzical pondering of the pen’s abilities and how to best use it. As he rapped a claw against the instrument lying in the yellow, scale studded palm that was once his fleshy pink hand, his mind turned to possibility that perhaps something less ambiguously benevolent could balance out any karmic taint he had feared. Ross, their security officer, had returned to his post and clasped his hands together over his abdomen looking ready to sneak a quick doze in the sleepy mid-day timespan. Perhaps the office’s lone lioness woman would benefit from doting companion? Ross always seemed like the sort of person who sleepwalks through life coasting from one easily managed self-support system to another. What if he were the picture of vigilance and strength? Dave wrote on his paper:
“Ross is a lion man embodying the ideals of regal, leonine strength and the disciplined watchfulness of a guardian. He will view the interests of his employers and their employees as he would the needs of his pride. He is physically imposing but carries himself with restraint and class. He is quite interested his lion woman co-worker and actively courts her favor.”
Finishing this, Dave watched as Ross started his changes. His security uniform unraveled into unspun fabric and fell into piles all around him. The guard didn’t take notice as his soft features started to harden, his slight pot belly flatting into an impressively sculpted abdominal region and spots of flab reconfiguring into mass of muscle. As his body changed from being mildly out of shape to something that of a gymnasium regular would have, it began to acquire feline features. Ross’ nose and mouth pushed forward into a muzzle tipped with a moist, black nose lined with sensitive white whiskers at the tip. His limbs grew in length and thickness as tawny fur covered them while his hands adopted some of the characteristics of a paw. His nails became sharp, polished black claws on the tips of fingers connected to a padded palm. His ankles and heels rose due to his skeleton comporting to a form suited for a digitigrade posture. A tail sprouted from above his buttocks, which were firming with muscle, and snaked around the side of his right thigh, a dark tuft punctuating the end. Ross stretched and yawned with a rumbling moan as sunny fur continued to consume his naked body. His ears rounded and migrated higher on his skull as his yawning maw revealed a thickening tongue and rows of carnivorously sharp teeth lining his gums. Finally, the king was crowned with a richly brown mane sprouting all along his torso, neck, and head. It wreathed his head, allowing his ears and face to stick out, and fell in a flowing wave all down his shoulders, chest, and back. Ross blinked once; in the span of a moment his brown eyes were changed into a brilliant, fiery orange-yellow. The new lionman stood up and flexed the torpor from his muscles. The piles of fabric that were lying about him leapt up and wove into a new symbol of authority across his shoulders. Now he wore a navy blue cloth extending from the base of his neck to just above his elbows topped with black leather on the shoulders. His badge hung from a gold chain connected to the left shoulderpad. Ross licked his pearly white fangs and checked the clock. With a smile, he began a confident, masculine stride towards a certain somebody’s office.
Meanwhile, a makeshift fort turned over and a stout, middle-aged man dressed in haggard formal attire pushed a desk out of the way and stumbled to his feet. “Oh my gawd, oh my gawd, this is horrible. This is worse den I thought!” he whined while stumbling to his feet. He just oriented himself upright quickly enough to see the results of Dave’s writing and witness a somewhat flabby security guard become a chiseled lion man. “Oh dear gawd! Aw gevelt gestault! Master’s gonna have my neck! Ach! I’m gonna sick. I’m gonna be nauseous!” the portly stranger muttered aloud covering his mouth with his hands. This immediately earned Dave’s attention. The pen had effectively altered reality such that Nick had never existed to cause an attempted shooting. Why then, was this fellow acting as if he’d just been cringing in terror from just the thing? The man pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed sweat from his brow. Dave was confident he’d never before seen this individual in all his born days. Just then, Dave flicked his tongue as another thought entered his head. Nobody else was paying the man any attention. Shouldn’t a chubby little dude dressed for business complaining in front of an overturned desk attract attention? All around where Dave looked, co-workers casually resuming their business, the answer was an apparent and resounding “no.”
The stranger gasped aloud and a sickly green glow caught Dave’s eye. A pendant hanging around the fellow’s neck, garishly clashing with his fashionable suit, began floating in front of his face and releasing a soft, almost cold luminescence. “Where? Where!?” the man hissed to himself as the refracting light obscured is eyes behind the lenses of his circular spectacles. His neck snapped left, then right. He spied Dave, a naked lizard man holding a golden pen and notepad returning his wide-eyed attention. The man sighed heavily and waddled over to Dave with is arms outstretched, “Oh good grief, I’m saved! There it is! Here you are! Aw, young man… reptile you have no idea how long I’ve been hoofin’ it to get here!” Dave flicked his tongue again and took two judicious steps back, “Uh, do I know you sir? Does anybody here know you?” Dave glanced over his shoulders again feeling disturbed that their very public conversation was going unnoticed. The man let his arms flop limp to his sides before running a hand across his salt-and-pepper hair, “Not yet, boychick. But I came all da way from Hungary and that’s changin’ right now.” The stranger raised a finger and tapped it on the butt of the magic gold pen. “It appears dat you came to have somethin’ dat was taken from my mast-, my boss!” he assertively stated, wrists bend inward and resting on his hips. Dave fidgeted the pen in his scaley fingers. He stared at the pen, then at the raised eyebrows of the portly stranger, then back to the pen again. His head shook with a start and his reptilian mien hardened, “Hold on, now. You never told me who you are or anything!” The gentleman sighed and rolled his eyes before producing a business card decorated on the margins with sharp fractals. “Name is Schlomo Wrenmeadow,” he introduced himself while passing the card into Dave’s much larger, outstretched hand, “And that pen of yours is stolen property.” Schlomo took inventory of the animal people working at their assigned stations, “I can see you’ve been having fun, and that’s all just dandy, but I’m afraid I’ll need to have it back now.” Schlomo pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow, turning out his palm like a teacher expecting the naughty child to hand over his slingshot. Dave’s toe talons scratched the polished floor as he learned back from the fat man. His eyes simmered with skepticism, “Simply stated: Got any proof?” Schlomo threw his hands upward, losing patience, “Aw fuck me! Are you serious, boychick? Who in the hell else would have any other way to know ‘bout dat pen!? Be serious, now.” The pendant, which Dave could now see resembled the head of a bat vibrated on its chain and emitted a pulse of green light this time complementing it with a low growl. “And den dere’s dat,” Schlomo offered matter-of-factly gesturing to his disgruntled jewelry.
Dave was in a bit of a bind.