The return to Janace was quiet. The only noise was in what had happened to Charlie. None of them expected what was already a Kat to be affected by the Virus again. Sally was still somewhat uneasy with Charlie's form, but so long as it was to be temporary, which Charlie had agreed to, shi managed to keep hirself under control. Eventually, Charlie and Sally's family settled into what was Charlie and Sally's adoption center. When it was built it had been attached to Charlie and Sally's and Luna and Lia's houses. For the moment though, the children that were there in "foster" care were out playing with Torrent and Aqua. Torrent was commonly a bit more business-like than hir mate, but Aqua proved quite willing to play and Torrent commonly wished to be with hir mate. Lia thought shi heard the Sharkat and Dolphkat talk about going swimming.
"I can't believe this could have happened to you," Luna spoke as she hesitantly approached Charlie, "How could they get the drop on you? How could they catch you? The two Marias and Gloria have been teaching everyone their kung-fu skills and have even been perfecting all sorts exercises that would work for us four legged Kats."
"He had Scorpkats with him and they seemed to be working with him," Charlie admitted and glanced to hir pincers for a moment, "and well... I guess their extra limbs and armor countered kung-fu. I'd also add that Gloria, Maria Herroud, and Maria Rodriguez are the only ones that could be close to a black belt... and adapting it for Kats... is still... slow."
"Why did he do this to you, mom?" Pinkie asked nervously. Shi sat near Janice, though not as closely as shi would have liked given the situation as Snowflake had hir older sither in a very tight hug.
"I don't really know why," Charlie said weakly, "Probably that we've been opposing them and thus was some form of punishment..."
"We'll get even," Luna vowed.
"This won't be forever will it, mommy?" Fluffy asked, poking hesitantly and looking a bit depressed that the exoskeleton was hard and not soft. Fluffy was glad hir mother wasn't mindless, but having a hard outside was odd. Mommys were supposed to be soft and loving, not hard and unfeeling.
Charlie wasn't quite sure on how to respond to the poking. Shi knew that Fluffy was poking at the exoskeleton, but shi had also found that unless someone brushed various sensory hairs that poked out in periodic points along hir body, shi couldn't actually feel anything. Shi only knew that Fluffy was poking hir by seeing the black and white long furred kitten poke a finger against one of hir legs.
"No, it won't be forever," Charlie answered.
"Just until we can figure out how his "venom" works as a vaccine and make enough of it," Sally said weakly, "Maurice and Snowy don't know how long that will be though."
"And this guy got your brother too?" Talia asked.
"Sither now, I suppose," Charlie answered, "Shi's presently gone with Maurice and Snowy to let them run their tests."
"You're still you... right, dad?" Janice asked.
"Where it matters, yes," Charlie nodded, "This is all just on the outside..."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile Maurice and Snowy were in the main labs of the new Chakat Industries. Thad the DNA samples to map the new strain of the virus and they had Brent with them. The first thing was that the virus not only looked more powerful in that the DNA and RNA sequences in the retrovirus made it stronger and produced a code that attacked the fairly biological nature that made up both the Foxkat and Justin Vaccines. Testing on the virus from the samples from the Vatican also presented another problem.
"They've completely changed the strain," Maurice said slowly.
"Hmm?" Brent asked nervously.
"They've changed the strain of the Kat Virus," Maurice answered and explained, "The original strain the one that Snowy and I created and released couldn't affect those with Type O blood and partial D Rh antigens. It's why the Foxkat and Justin Vaccines were built around that blood type... Jess's Foxkat Vaccine also adding in Fox DNA to use a canine's natural monogamy to counter a cat's natural polygamy."
Brent only answered with a grunt. Shi apparently didn't understand this.
"Cats by nature have no real loyalty to any one mate," Snowy answered, "It's why we originally used cat DNA for the Chakat Virus. It would mean free love and less hatred... the problem is that when we also combined it with the hormones produced when one is aroused... we also created that lust phase of the virus, and that created the issues of "rapes" that occurred in the Fee City outbreak and repeated in many of the other outbreaks."
"Dogs, be they wolves, coyotes, or foxes usually take only one mate and stay with that mate until the other dies, it's only AFTER a mate dies that a fox or other canid takes a new mate," Maurice answered, "And since Jess had Ryles with hir..."
"The Kat out there that met us with the snake coiled around hir?" Brent asked.
"Believe it or not shi was only a male Fennec Fox back then," Maurice chuckled, "Jess added Ryles' DNA to that which would add the more "monogamist" fox DNA to the "polygamist" cat DNA. The end result when combined with Jess's blood type was the Foxkat Vaccine. It broke the lust and broke the infectiousness of the virus. In that since it was the perfect vaccine to stop the outbreaks that started, as the only thing that Li Sang did was to replace the cat DNA with the DNA of some other animal and supercharging the amount of the arousal hormones to keep the lust phase present..."
"But the new strain from the Vatican is completely different," Snowy answered, "The inability to affect those with a Type O and partial D Rh is not in this new strain, as this Scorpkat HAD that blood type and Rh strand... shi didn't even need the Justin Vaccine..."
"I don't understand, if you had a vaccine, wouldn't it always work?" Brent wondered.
"Only against one strand," Maurice sighed, "The Foxkat and Justin Vaccines work against the strain we created... but this strain is completely different and thus the vaccine is ineffective. Its like with cases of the Flu. The Flu virus has SEVERAL different strains naturally existing and thus one is vaccinated against the strain that seems the most prominent every year and after that one is immune to that strain... but if you can't a different strain you'll get the Flu. What Li Sang's scientists have done is change the strain... something we feared... and thus why we need a new vaccine."
"And that is where you and Charlie will come in," Snowy added, "Though, since Charlie is busy meeting with hir family, we're going to start with you."
"What do you need?" Brent asked.
"We need you to sting this," Snowy commented as shi approached with a plastic cup with a heavy elastic lid over it, similar to the type of cup used to milk snakes. Casey even volunteered to milk hirself so that they could also produce anti-venom, as they found that Casey's venom was identical a regular rattlesnake's.
"Okay," Brent said slowly and took the cup in hir hands (not pincers) and brought hir tail over hir head and slowly stung the cup.
Maurice and Snowy watched as a surprisingly pink liquid began to drip from the stinger. When it was completely full, Brent handed the cup back to Snowy. Maurice and Snowy took the cup and began taking smaller samples with syringes and beginning to run their own tests, both with their computers and with microscopes. It took about an hour or so, but eventually Brent heard some odd "hmms" from the two scientists.
"What is it?" Brent wondered.
"Well... you don't have any venom, at least not venom in the way its known," Maurice spoke, "and when we tested it against the virus in the samples we have from Rome... it..."
"It what?" Brent asked.
"It acted like the Foxkat Vaccine in a way, stronger than the Foxkat Vaccine," Snowy answered, "though still ineffective. In our simulations based on the chemical composition, it slowed the transformation down but didn't stop it... your venom was specifically engineered and is apparently an attempt to be a new and stronger vaccine. Though obviously a failed attempt..."
"Charlie's appeared to get those that were wounded in the Vatican back in their right mind..." Brent commented.
"Which would mean that your "venom" is a first step toward a new vaccine and Charlie's is a final step," Maurice nodded, "but we'll need to test Charlie as well."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A day later they did get to test Charlie's venom. It was as Maurice and Snowy surmised. The scientists had not only engineered a new strain of the virus they had also engineered a newer and stronger vaccine and engineered the virus so that when Charlie was injected with it, as shi became a Scorpkat, hir venom glands would produce not venom but the new specially designed vaccine. They also found though that when the scientist changed Charlie, Charlie was once again potentially infectious despite having the new vaccine quite literally in hir sting. The only thing that really worked in their favor was that as a Scorpkat, while Charlie still had male and female genitalia, they were not capable of mating with anything other than another Scorpkat. The male parts of a scorpion in a Scorpkat produced spermatophores that the female parts of a scorpion would then be rubbed on that a Scorpkat had. The mating process was more external than internal.
"Shi's infectious again?" Sally gasped.
"Yes," Maurice nodded, "but it does thankfully prove Snowy's initial suspicion that we can easily return Charlie's Chakat form completely."
Charlie only looked on, while Fluffy and Mary presently sat on hir back.
"But I can't go back until you have enough of the new vaccine?" Charlie asked.
"Or milked enough of it to synthesize it," Snowy nodded, "and vaccinating you would also lock your form as a Scorpkat."
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Sally asked nervously.
"Well, we were talking with Talia, and she actually came up with a stopgap," Snowy commented, "It would allow Charlie to be re-vaccinated against turning people into Scorpkats, but since the transformation would begin and put on hold... the re-vaccination wouldn't outright prevent finishing the complete transformation back into a one hundred percent Chakat and you would still be producing the new vaccine... or at least that was hir idea..."
"What is it?" Charlie asked curiously.
"What do you know about the manticore?" Maurice asked.
"The manticore?" Sally asked.
"A mythological creature, like myself, and would be a sort of naturally existing Kat... though unlike sphinxes, manticores were more brutish than tricky and while humans at times revered sphinxes for our riddles and cunning, they hunted manticores into extinction for fear of being eaten," Talia spoke up beside Midnight, "but in body design they had had the head and body of lions with the tail of a scorpion. I figured that since Maurice and Snowy are the original designers of the virus they could a way to begin your return to being a Chakat, but would have a sort of time delay or pause to it that would allow you to keep at least the scorpion's stinger that would allow you to provide the base for the new vaccine."
"They were Persian maneaters weren't they?" Midnight asked nervously, cuddling up to hir mate's wings.
"The mythical ones were, but they were all hunted into extinction and their remains burned completely," Talia assured hir, "No trace of their DNA remains. And Charlie would merely become a Chakat-Scorpkat hybrid."
Maurice and Snowy nodded and punched a few buttons on a nearby computer where they had been working at earlier to pull up a an image of Chakat that resembled Charlie before the Vatican outbreak, with the only difference being that shi had a scorpion's tail.
"Can you do this?" Sally asked.
"With Charlie, yes," Maurice nodded, "with Brent, no. When Charlie vaccinated hir, Brent gained the same sort of transformation lock that the Foxkat Vaccine provided with the previous strain. We did vaccinate Brent with the Foxkat vaccine in case shi fully joins the team and his here from time to time and might come in contact with the old strain of the virus."
"So you will need to recover from what those Scorpkats in the Vatican did," Snowy commented, "and feel fortunate that Charlie can go back."
"I can recover," Sally answered, "I just need time to recover..."
Maurice and Snowy nodded.
"How long will it take to get this reversion serum ready?" Charlie asked.
"We have the working theory right now," Maurice answered, "but it will likely take a week or two to engineer the retrovirus to pause at your tail until we inject a final "hormone booster" and to make sure all the right animal DNA is in order."
Charlie looked to Sally who looked hopeful at getting hir soft and fuzzy mate back, and to feel hir purr against hir.
"The only thing left is to figure out why the scientist engineered a new virus and the vaccine to that virus," Snowy then spoke.