System of the Damned

  Chapter 21- Roderick

  Who gave the bunnies plutonium, and who tasered the baby!?

  Tending a small hybrid creature that is cranky, has a built in firehose, and thinks it’s super fun to bite you, is fun. I also wasn’t adding Caltunium powder to his bottles or like a spice to my wife’s food at all, you can’t prove a thing. I have no idea where those mineral containers came from, or why Thunder’s eyes started glowing! It does take some of the bitterness out of my marine-grade coffee, cause yes the horseshoe floats in my coffee. I call it General-dad grade, cause what the hell is this thing you call sleep!? Ptsd related to your children? Nightmares related to them? William farts hard and I’m up and through the door…

  Ok, I only literally ran through a door once. On a side note, he knows daddy and fluffy daddy are the same person. My wife also finds it absolutely fecking hilarious that our son bites me, and not her. You wanna know who he absolutely adores? The bunnies, and Hera’s puppies, and anything with fur. The only time he doesn’t bite me is when I’m fluffy, and Thunder says that I’m not allowed to bite him back…yet.

  Honestly the last two months…maybe it’s three? I honestly can’t remember much of it aside from this haze filled with giggling baby, paperwork, changing diapers, meetings, getting hosed while changing diapers, and snuggles. I also have to add that everything in the nursery and master bedroom are fireproof, with sprinkler systems just in case.

  Ok enough of the melted dad-brain ramblings, coffee is good, so are cigars, liquid and smokey sanity. So it’s been about three’ish local months since William was born, he finally has a sort-of schedule, and that’s let Thunder and I get more than cat naps now. Hungry, needy, and cute as hell. Some of the leadership hadn’t liked how distracted and half awake I’d been lately and had complained, and according to Governor Rowland, shooting diplomats with beanbag rounds is frowned upon. It still works though.

  Some of the Lo’Kar had been pissy since it was usually the males that handled most of the first year’s raising. The Ca’zeze had noted we should hire help, but understood my trust issues. The Manti named Priest brought his twenty children to the meeting, and I got used as a pillow by ten fuzzy caterpillars the size of house cats. The birds bitched to bitch and went quiet when the meeting hall suddenly filled with every child born from the first generation of bunnies. Bunnies are gonna bunny, and holy shit there were a bunch of kids. Between the bunny kids and the caterpillars, the “why game” absolutely shut down that meeting.

  Now none of the diplomats bitched very much when someone wasn’t fully mentally at another stupid and boring as hell meeting. Today though, both Thunder and I had to be present for the graduation of the First Alliance Marines. And they were marines, and all of them saluted in the same sort of way. Six races marched in step, were disciplined, and had good muscle memory. My command staff and I had needed to use a stick, but we’d finally managed to beat in the culture with it. We also had the equivalent of beer and booze for each race, because marines know how to drink.

  Stormwind and Grek had tasked a Pulsar to help Wren watch over William since they were both also at the graduation. Stormwind was not a happy Lo’Kar, because it was twins, and boys, and she had three breasts. According to Grek, my mother in law was having to use a numbing cream on them because she was one of the odd gals that had them sensitive in the fun way. Neither I nor my wife nearly pissed ourselves laughing when we heard this, that would be improper and shameful. The twins would no doubt be a late spring birth, if they weren’t punted into the world early because they were breaking mommy.

  Joshua Price stood at attention with Albert and Eir sitting on his shoulders, and he was definitely back to being a he. It had taken months of work for Albert, Eir, Dr Lee, and a few others, but Price was back to being Price. His skin looked a little scaled, but it looked like human flesh, and he no longer had the retractable claws. His eyes were red and slit-pupiled, but he had a nose again, and hair…well sort of hair. He had the same sort of overly thick…more spines than hair growing on his head. First Lieutenant Joshua Price was also now the eighth berserker, and his code name was Nightmare. His changed form could make even me twitch when Price got his murder on. It was also why he wore a capacitor vest to help power his body through turning from one to the other.

  I’ll go into Price’s scary details later, roughly seven hundred pairs of feet were slamming the ground in unison as the graduates marched up in formation. All but two of the platoons were complete mixes of the races, the two that weren’t were supply and Aviation. Supply was all human and bunny troopers, while Aviation was bunnies, humans, and birds. Apparently none of the other races had the proper level of insanity for the supply platoon, and pilots are insane. Though to be honest, the birds couldn’t handle the impacts that happen in the supply platoon, the Ca’zeze and Rodu were too damned big, and the Lo’Kar are too scary.

  Several…well most of my original special teams were now either a level of Sergeant or Lieutenant. I heard their various voices barking orders and moved to the podium, watching as every arm…or ear…fecking bunnies…saluted. I saluted in return and I heard “parade rest” called across the parade fields. Thirteen platoons with two of them being double strength, but Supply needs hands, and Recon needs air transport. “Good morning and thank you all for coming today!” I called out, projecting my voice with years of practice. It earned me little smiles from the sergeants and lieutenants, along with a few of the graduates that got the bad joke.

  “I am General Roderick O’Connell and if your recruiters hadn’t mentioned it, I now own all of you for the next two cycles. That being said, I won’t be spending your lives in vain or at all if I don’t have to. To be honest the only reason that I’m a General now is because I’ve scared some of our friends and Major Evans likes to refer to me like a grenade with a loose pin.” I heard a few snorts from behind me. “I’m here today to get a good look at all of you, and to give you all my word on a few things.” I looked back at my wife and got a tiny little nod.

  When I looked back, I held up a finger and took off my dress jacket before tossing my cap onto the podium. With three accept commands put into the right spot in my hud, my implants made my body slam into a change. Off to the side of the stage, my suit let out the wail of an old air raid siren. I managed to keep quiet for about ten seconds and through five joints popping, and then I let out a scream of pain. To their credit, none of my command staff even bat an eye at my obviously painful change, they went through them too. Fire geysered from my mouth as it shifted and changed into a maw, the bones cracking and growing to do so, while capacitors in my pants and boots dumped their charge into me.

  After the forty two second session of absolute pain, I stepped out of my boots and looked at the platoons. Few of them looked really shocked, most had seen one of the berserkers change form already. “Semper Fucking Fi Marines!” I let out in a roar, and then put my hands behind my back as I started to pace back and forth on the stage. “First of all, your platoons are going to cycle through a week-long leave. We did it with dice rolls to keep it fair, Supply and Recon go first, please do not burn down the planet.” I wasn’t surprised to hear no reaction other than some soft groans. “Supply and Recon, you may now cheer if you…” The roar of noise from the two platoons cut me off.

  It took about thirty seconds before the cheering faded, and holy feck could the birds be loud with that odd bass cry. “The rest of you can get shitfaced drunk or stoned when your dice roll comes up. You all get to cycle through the artillery base, FOB, and various spots that we’ve been poking at. We are yes, sort of at war with the crabs, but we’re not tossing you at them just yet.” I pulled a cigar from a tube in my pocket and lit it, taking a puff on it to blow a smoke ring. “We don’t have suits for everyone yet, and that will take a while. We’re working on that though, but there is a bottleneck on resources.”

  “And anyone that wants to bitch about how fast things get mined or scrapped, can put their complaints through to Major Evans or First Miner Arnold. The first is much less likely to shoot you than I am, push ups though…” I shrugged. “The latter mines by punching the rock with depleted uranium boxing gloves, he’s very good at plucking hair and feathers…or tattooing those without them.” Another deep drag, deep breath, and I tilted my head up to blast smoke and flame into the air. “Thanks to the Ca’zeze and their smelting knowledge, we’re able to smelt what we’re getting.”There were a few clicks of annoyance behind me and I shrugged. “And also Brigid, who is taking a break and sitting there…” I motioned to the Lo’Kar female shackled and gagged with some of the nicest work I’ve seen Honey make. Even the reinforced chair was beautiful and comfy looking, even if she looked ready to eat steel and spit nails. “I still cannot pronounce the ten syllable name for our avian friends without messing it up, so I will either say Avians or Birds. If anyone wants to get their tail feathers in a fluff…I’m called Uncle Fluffy as a nickname by our small cotton-tailed friends. The Manti’s name also doesn’t translate into any human language.” I took another drag and looked around.

  “First of all, we marines protect our people and of course the leaders of our people! We will never attack our own people!” I held up a single clawed finger. “Second, when we make contact with the Eda…all alliance races will get anything helpful learned from them. No race will have a tech advantage over another, which will be enforced by our wondrous kleptomaniac bunnies.” I held up a second finger and looked around for reactions, watching as many quick looks were given toward the bunnies.

  Thunder stepped up beside me and took in a deep breath, letting it out using her ability as a Pulsar, which was seriously cheating. “Third, when a female becomes pregnant, lays eggs, or a Manti spawns, they will be put on severely lightened duty or taken off duty. They will return to full active duty after a cycle of proper care is worked out for the child or children.” She looked to me and winked where the troops couldn’t see it.I smiled and held up my third clawed finger. “Not only that, but fathers for all races will be taken off active duty or put on light duty until their new child has a stable and manageable routine. I will also remind you that your implants can and will control your breeding cycles…” I trailed off and looked over at Priest. “Except for the Manti, nothing stops that clock for them.” Priest chirped that cricket laughter the Manti had.

  Admiral Wulf stepped up and nodded to me. “We are also picking targets and thanks to the Manti we now know that we’ve been dealing with the crab’s warriors. They have civilians of a sort, and some sort of odd caste system. You will not be slaughtering civilians unless it is forced upon us, we humans have a thing against genocide, and we’re hoping to bring in the civilians to our fold when we clear out warriors from an area.” He looked around at the troops for a second before continuing. “Since we have blocked one avenue of growth for the crabs, they have pushed in other ways. That has worried our allies, for that we have an answer.”

  I smiled as there was suddenly a weight between my ears, and a familiar voice booming over nearby speakers as Xavier chittered. “Clan Yamaguchi has made a small amount of special surprises for the Crabs that will disrupt their advances with mimics. Most notably the ancients, who…love radiation.” A rather large portal opened up showing a dark valley and range of plateaus, which suddenly became very bright as they were lit in nuclear fire. “With the detonation of special dirty warheads, the ancient mimics and boulders will move into an area cutting it off from the crabs.”

  As he went on to explain that it would only take a season or two to clean the radiation from an area, I was silently thinking of ways to get away with slapping the piss out of Hiroshima. He’d given the clan named after him…plutonium. He’d also shown them how to make breeder reactors with Lightbulb’s help and aside from it being great mimic food and producing power, they were using a small amount to make nukes. Admiral Wulf had armed a single shuttle with a few bombs and blurs to set them off, which they did after chasing out all of the animal life they could.

  Thunder’s fingers slipped between mine and broke me out of that train wreck of thought, making me look down at her to see her smiling at me. That made me grin like a dork for a long moment before a siren snapped up my head, because it was sounding in my head. It was easy to notice several other heads snap up, but it wasn’t the siren for an attack. It was the Lo’Kar lab’s siren for a security breach. “I must go.” I said as I bolted for my suit.

  Before my suit latched closed around me, Thunder was wrapped in a mimic that had taken a liking to her, I think the lab called it Foamy. It’d eaten her combat armor when she’d been in the lab bitching about it not fitting, and worked great for combat armor…aside from the occasional quacking. Her boots slammed onto the waist of my armor and stuck as she held on with a hand. “Wren was taking William with her to the lab today!” Was all she had to say.

  That was all she had to say as she activated the portal staff Foamy held for her and I charged into the rain that was pouring down at the Lo’Kar settlement. My armored feet splashed up mud and soil as I sprinted for the lab and jumped over a parked hauler just in time to watch a small section of roof explode upward. There was no fire, plasma, or smoke, only sound that shot the roofing away…and a wall or three. “Jumping!” I snarled out and used the added strength of the suit to jump up and grab onto the roof, jerking us up onto it.

  “Go for the broken part of the roof, but be careful.” Thunder said as she rode on my back, holding on as I sprinted across it for the opening, only to fall through with me as another blast of sound blew a wall out. “Who the hell is doing this!? The labs are made to handle a Pulsar during bir…” She trailed off as both of us got to see a small flash of bright metallic red fur and a smaller flash of blue and red scale jump out into the river’s current. “The hell was that!?”

  I looked around and saw we’d fallen into the lab that had been holding samples we’d recently gotten from one of the ocean sized lakes, which were Eda samples…including an egg. That egg was shattered and empty, there were sparking power cables leading from a destroyed breaker box.

  “By the goddess! I only left to go to the bathroom!” Snarled Wren as she moved to check the downed Pulsar. “Where is the child!?” She asked loudly and slapped the female’s face, then all of us got a shock as she pointed out the shattered wall at the river.

  “He…bit…power…” And then the female passed back out, not that I noticed, I’d turned toward the river and ran. Thunder jumped from my back as I leapt out over the rushing water, her entry was like a divers, while mine was like a brick.

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  The flood lights toggled on with a single thought as I started to sink, listening to the sounds of Thunder pulsing William’s name into the water as she swam. And then a giant wave of sound grabbed hold of my suit and hurled it nearly out of the water. Was that William!? Thunder was practiced at avoiding and countering sonar blasts, working her way down toward the riverbottom as I got treated like a gong. “William!” I shouted over the suit’s speakers, which were muffled by the water.

  Every time I moved for where the sound was pulsing from, I got slammed back by it, but it was letting Thunder work her way around. And then after what felt like an eternity, I wasn’t slammed back. My suit started picking up talking instead and I could hear Thunder’s water muffled voice piped in by my suit. I may have forgotten to mention this, but my wife could breathe underwater. “Is he ok!?” I called out through my suit.

  “It’s ok…it’s ok, see it’s mommy!” Apparently my son must be able to breathe underwater too, that made bath time easier at least. “Oh…he’s your friend? Ok…yes you can hold him…it’s ok, see.” I was slowly working my way toward her. “That’s your father, it’s ok…see…not gonna hurt you…oh you’re hungry…ok…” Really…was she really going to…yep my wife was feeding our son at the bottom of a river.

  When I finally got close enough to see Thunder, William, and his new friend…wow. Ok this is totally my fault, kinda. William was a big chubby hungry baby before, now he was lankier and maybe taller? His entire body was covered in short bright metallic red fur, and I could see his fingers and toes were webbed more, and he had pointed ears that twitched when I came up beside them. He unlatched from the buffet and looked at me with bright glowing blue eyes, letting me see that he had a short muzzle like his mom.

  And he was guarding something between him and his mother, which peaked a blue and red scaled head around to look at me. “Hey William…is this your new friend?” I asked through my suit and saw him grin big, then got knocked off my feet as he pulse-giggled, which he thought was funny as hell. It is not fun being bounced across a river by a baby sound-cannon, but it was nice to hear he’d calmed. Fuck it, we were going to be an odd family and apparently have a baby dragon. Cause you try and talk a baby sound-cannon out of a new friend he’s claimed, don’t want to? Didn’t think so, you have to pick your battles.

  Granted it appeared that the baby dragon could not only breathe underwater, but also liked milk, much to my wife’s dismay. But with the distraction of the buffet, I was able to tote the trio up out of the water and back for the lab. William got two nice new collars that were stretchy and comfy…and would stop him from blowing out walls and eardrums. The Pulsar that had been watching him was in a tank getting worked on and broken bones set, cause he’d blown her across a room and through a door. And Wren’s old cane wielding ass was trilling with laughter fit to die…mainly because I got set on fire. Not just by a baby dragon, oh no, my son apparently had gotten it from me and now thought it was funny as hell to turn daddy into a candle.

  Thunder looked very displeased that she now had three fire hazards to deal with. Foamy meanwhile smacked both William and the dragon on the nose if they looked like they’d spit any at Thunder…which Foamy was riding. Normal fire couldn’t really hurt a mimic unless it became stupidly hot and or went into plasma fire. Either way, fire near a mimic earned you whacks, or if you set one on fire…even by accident…they’d beat you like a redheaded stepchild with an alcoholic parent. So it was hilarious to Thunder when William and the dragon burnt off my formal clothes, and less when Foamy got annoyed and quacked off leaving her naked.

  Public safety warning, if you are friends with a mimic and it decides it likes you enough to play dress-up, you will not have clothing on when it leaves. Even as well behaved as Bubbles was, Evans only clothing was Bubbles and attachments that Bubbles would hold so his ride stayed safe, like air tanks, cold thruster packs, and combat items. Though having a mimic for clothing and possible armor also meant that said clothing could rapidly grow things like spikes. I’ve seen Evans more than once walking around looking like a rusty porcupine when she was angry and Bubbles knew it.

  Back to topic, and humor, because “Baby’s First Boom” had ended up gathering quite a few people of various races to the labs. One of them being Albert, who was wearing a silver suit used in the smelters and scaled for his size. He looked like a damned Christmas ornament, and William thought it was funny as hell playing peek-a-boo with him. The giggling blasts of fire were why Albert had on the suit, let alone when he’d spooked the dragon and gotten hosed with fire for a few seconds. The lab we sat in was one meant for special cases like me, so aside from having a turret loaded with tranq darts, it also had fire extinguishers, and a water turret…that kept hosing Albert every so often. “So, thoughts?” I asked him curiously as William got distracted by the buffet, and the dragon by a bowl of ground chicken.

  It took a few seconds, but Albert worked his way over to me while Thunder fed the kids and relaxed. “He’s taken after his mother for the most part, his fur is Ca’zeze in nature, he has a very powerful Lo’Kar pulse, can breath underwater, and went from furless to furball like his father…” He trailed off and shrugged, popping off his hood and scratching at his head. “Best we can tell is that the dragon hatched, William wanted to pet it, then got angry when the gal said no, and bit the power cable. Then boom…he turned into number nine and blew apart one of the containment rooms, along with damaging another…”

  “So the main thing he gets from me is turning from one thing into another, great…” I grumbled and glared at Thunder when I heard her trying to laugh quietly.

  “That, his strength, seems to be as stubborn as you, and I do believe he's going to keep the red hair. When he turns back it will possibly keep that metallic sheen, but he will have red hair like his father…” He pulled down an ear and rubbed at it with his hands as I bit my lip to keep the hell quiet, I would not start laughing. “Which means his middle name will become his nickname, seems common with humans when one has red hair to call them Red….”

  Must. Not. Laugh. At. Possible. Trauma. Just a little snicker wouldn’t…Clang! The metal chair went against my head so quickly and brutally that the metal wrapped down around the side of my face. Ok, that hurt a lot…and Albert was hopping his happy ass for the door, because cranky mommy automatically earned me a bathing in holy baby fire…damnit…

  As it turns out, there had been bets going on and Albert along with Jackalope won them all because I’d giggled, got hit, and then set on fire. So Albert won a ton of data and credits, while Marie now had to build Jackalope a few remote controlled versions of his first body the size of a rex. So I got bathed in flame whenever Thunder clicked or growled, Albert got to geek, and we had to worry about nosey curious drones.

  Granted thanks to the almighty power of bladder, I ended up holding the boys, and getting happy warbles when I puffed flame back at them. Ok, this was definitely a dad game to play, who can make the funnier candle. We played that for a little bit, making the lab control systems get seriously annoyed at having to hose out fires repeatedly. Happy giggles and warbles sounded and then we had to all three take a shower, cause diapers don’t work with flames. On the way to said shower, I heard Thunder arguing with someone over us needing non-flammable diapers now.

  Once I had William, the little dragon, and myself cleaned up and dried, I ended up sitting in a big chair in the lab with two sleeping babies. I did the only sensible thing a marine could in such a situation, I passed out as well. When I woke up it was a baby battle, a mix between slap fighting and bitey mma wrestling. I of course tried to calm them down and unwrap the tangled mass of limbs and wings and cute battle cries, and got bit. I was still half asleep, so I let out a rather angry snarl and bared my teeth…they stopped. REALLY! Four fucking children and it’s number four that responds to dad snarling! Seriously! The rest of them had thought it was funny as hell, and the stab in my heart was now just an ice pick and not the barbarian spear it had been when I thought of my other kids.

  Mouths slowly unclamped from my teeth dented fingers and I broke the spell by crossing my eyes, flattening my ears to the side, and blowing a raspberry. William let out a squeal of giggles as the dragon warbled and nose booped my son, yeah I was fucked, William had a friend now and Eda were apparently immortal…cue mental tirade of cursing. Not a bunny, a wolf, even an O’Pang, no, a damned dragon had claimed my son. So I took some deep breaths and thought about changing back, then got a slap of sense and remembered talons and claws hurt without fur.

  So I got up and ended up with the dragon clinging to my bicep and my son chilling on my forearm, raising a finger on the other hand. “No fire…no foom.” I got a snort of smoke from William and nodded. “Good boys, you can foom on me away from people, but not on other people.” I looked between them and got that baby “But I wanna!” look and sighed as I walked for the door that led out into the rest of the lab. One of the rats of the Order was hanging upside down from a wire repairing something electronic by the ceiling, and let out a squeak when it saw us.

  The dragon licked its lips and I bopped him on the snout. “No, they’re friends. No eating, no foom.” I got warbled at in a cranky fashion and walked on down the hall, and was handed a pair of pants by a Rodu lab tech that was holding two fire extinguishers. “Thank you…hang onto me William.” Oh strong baby hands in fur! Ow! That made putting on the fire-proof fatigue pants a quick thing, and then I was supporting him.

  “No fire please, any of you…” It was about that time that I noticed the Rodu was female, and there were no pins in those extinguishers. She’d come prepared to hose the lot of us with co2 if we misbehaved, must be a mom. Thou shalt not trust the dad with the boys, they do stupid things! Or some semblance of that phrase.

  “Yes mam, no foom.” I said and walked past her as her implant shit a brick trying to translate “mam” into a Rodu word. Both of the boys were gleefully looking around, curious as any kid in a new place full of things and people. And then William turned into a mess of wiggles when Thunder was visible sitting at a table.

  “Well someone must be hungry…diaper first…” Thunder said and with the skill of the warrior she was, she scooped up William and quickly put a diaper on his fuzzy bum. The sound of talons on a table sounded as the dragon had to investigate the odd padded thing being put on its friend…kids I swear. “Well hello there let's get you some proper food.” It was amazing how well Thunder multitasked, baby latched to her, another winged one warbling and bouncing around, and she mixed some milk with fresh ground chicken to spoon feed it to the dragon. I love my wife, I really do. “So, Albert snuck some samples while you were napping. Have a seat husband, we need to talk.”

  I yipped and started for the door before my brain processed the action, and then found that my wife had backup. Said backup was in the form of Mel and Tom, who each grabbed one of my ankles in death grips and hauled me back to trip me into a chair. “Thank you boys.” Sounded from my wife and the duo saluted her and bounced off. “You have been spiking my food and his milk with mineral powder. I’ve known for a bit, since my eyes started to glow…” I was frozen in my seat by the basilisk stare of my wife, and a thousand yard stare of a Lo’Kar female is one that drills into the soul.

  I nodded softly, unable to lie to my wife, because it wouldn’t do me any damned good. Her basilisk stare softened when she turned her attention to spoon feeding the baby dragon more food. “Thanks to the added mineral, our son wasn’t injured from him stupidly biting a power conduit in anger…”

  “I’m not the only one of us that bites when angry…” The basilisk stare returned and I shut up, because shutting up was good, speaking was bad.

  “So in part it was a good thing, and Albert tells me that William would have gotten enough in his system in a few years to do much the same…and it awoke not only his ability to look more a mix of your current form and me.” Another spoonful of food to the dragon and a twitch as William used a little more tooth than usual when switching buffet plates. “You want to know the real pain in my ass with this…the absolute horror I’m facing now…”

  I blinked, because I didn’t know, and was afraid to shake my head. I love my wife, but she’s my wife. Happy wife, happy life. Angry wife and run for the fecking hills, cause you’re so screwed it’s not funny.

  “I have four panicking pregnant women that have been getting slipped mineral as well. Our most skilled and violent smith has called her sisters what you would call pussies, and is somewhere in the burrows with Honey. I have an entire people absolutely fucking confused and seemingly brainhurt like I whacked them all with my hammers….” She trailed off and let out a loud trilling giggle and hugged William, then lifted him up and kissed at his face. “Cause my first born is a boy and a Pulsar!” Cue happy baby giggles and squeaky trilling giggly laughter from my wife.

  I seriously think I felt something or maybe several things in my head crash, erupt in flames, and then explode. Smoke had to be coming out of my ears and maw, cause my maw had to be laying on the floor. Then I felt the gravid rage that was Stormwind behind me and turned, lashing out and ever so lightly poking three times. Grek caught his wife and covered her mouth as she twitched and picked her up to tote her off. I looked back at my wife, who was grinning imperiously at me. “I love you, I also hate you, but I love you…”

  “I love you too, husband, but if you do anything like that again without telling me, you’ll be my wife.” Her eyes actually flashed, literally flashed! “Are we clear on this, no more spiking anything without telling me about it?” I was nodding so quickly that it actually rattled my brain a little, ouch. “Good, now that I’ve put the fear of the goddess into you, how in the depths do we get our son back to himself?”

  I looked from her to William and back a few times and blinked. “Um…he’s gonna need juiced up, and to be stubborn enough to want to be back to a less fluffy form.” I sighed. “I have no idea how to talk him into turning back. Hell, what will he look like if…”

  “Miss Li!” My wife called sharply and the Waifu of sniper rifles and murder…simply appeared. Well she shot into the room, but it was seriously quick, and she was human, but she had the tails out and was somehow able to wear pants normally. Maybe she wore suspenders under her top? Well my wife didn’t seem to care, she simply sighed. “Would you mind chargi…” Miss Li went sith lord on my wife and son, which made my son giggle.

  My wife on the other hand, clenched her eyes and locked her jaws shut as something odd happened. And then Miss Li scooped up William and the baby dragon as my wife arched wildly in her chair and bucked, kicking the table into my face. When I tossed the table aside, Thunder was on all fours, her shirt split open in the back to reveal a growing fin, a hairless fin, like her arms were hairless now. Webbing spread between her fingers up to the first knuckle as claws grew longer.

  I moved forward and held her shoulders as Miss Li backed out of the room with William and the baby dragon, and I heard her speaking rapidly into an intercom. “She’s about to blow! Do it!” The room grew bright as claws dug into my sides and held me tightly in pain, then a warm late spring breeze ruffled my fur. A mane of brown and bright blue hair brushed against my chest as her ears grew longer, drawing back against the sides of her head. And then she pushed on me and I dove from her as if she were a live grenade. My arms went over my head as the afternoon air exploded in pulsing sound. That pulsing sound was a pained wailing shriek, a pause long enough for another deep breath and I didn’t bother brushing the sod from myself as the air exploded again.

  When the exploding waves of sound stopped, I looked up and then ducked my head back down as I’d never heard the word. “Fuck!” Screamed quite so damned loudly before in my life.

  And then my head snapped up as I heard a wonderfully cute and adorable voice cheerfully say in all its glory….fuck. Then a giggle as I looked up through a slowly opening portal to see a happy giggling baby William paroting the word gleefully. The absolute raw terror on Miss Li’s face as my wife’s not quite normal and furless face glared glowing daggers at her, that was different. The portal, though, snapped shut.

  I also got to see that the mohawk sort of mane of hair Thunder now had, was because of a fin atop her head. Her cute little muzzle had pulled back and she now had a tiny nose, the sort you see on people who’ve taken a baseball bat to the face. She still had the big anime eyes, which were glowing softly, and so were the blue and brown lines that flowed over her body. I could see the lines, cause her clothes hadn’t lived through the blasts she’d let out. Neither had my pants, or most of the sod on the hilltop.

  She looked at herself in near terror then looked up at me. “I’m going to kill that fox and that rab…” Her words died as I pounced her and gave her other things to think about. And no I’m not telling, seriously are you trying to get me killed!? I will say that everyone left us the hell alone till that night cycle, and it was Lola that came to get us, other than that…no. Not tellin.