FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Pushing myself to my limits my eyes were almost shut against the cool whipping air of nautical twilight. Asuka with her slim build kept her undulating body next to mine with ease. I almost told her to go on ahead but given how little I knew about her mindset and abilities wanted her to stay with me.

As we neared Angie's house I panicked when I passed by the flashing lights of dozens of police cars headed in the same direction I was. Over the rushing wind I could faintly hear their sirens and in the distance, I saw an orange glow on the ground.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. We were too late!

Far above her burning house Angie orbited keening loudly in pain and terror. Against the glow of the ground I could see that she was positively covered in luggage and belongings. I could also see that she had her mother held tightly in her front paws against her chest. Rage began to fill me, even against the effects of the root held forgotten in my mouth. There were several holes and tears in her left wing and steaming bloody mist was trailing behind her in flight. I saw glistening runners of blood making their way down her left flank and the rear leg on that side. She was heavily listing, and her wing beats were almost disastrously out of sync.

She spotted me. Kimmy! Kimmy! Help! Help! I hurt! I hurt! I want my Daddy! Daddy!She screamed her agony and confusion at me before her head pointed down and made frantic sweeps in search for him on the ground. Helen shouted to me over the calamitous noise of a full-scale assault in progress.

"Kim! George is down there! He can't get out! Save him! Save my husband!"

I looked and saw why. Behind the parked vehicles on the road I saw the twinkling of multiple muzzle flashes pinning George inside his burning home. I also saw a good dozen of them firing in our direction as well. But, two hundred meters into the air, and with black bodies against a black sky. We were safe from any kind of directed fire. George had much more to worry about. His choices were to burn alive or be cut down in a hail of gunfire. I was about to give him a third one. Life.

"Asuka get her on your back! Go! Get her out of here! I'll get her father!"

Quickly assessing the situation, I weighed the fact that I was pregnant against the fact that George would almost assuredly die in the few minutes it would take the cops to arrive. I spit out the ginger root and unleashed all the aggression that had been building up in me ever since my change. I became death.

With a sky rending war cry I furled my wings and plummeted into the entirely one-sided battle. Slamming into the ground I almost didn't even feel the body of my first victim explode into gory chunks that coated the car she hid behind. Only noticing when I felt her weapon bend and snap beneath my paw. Putting my head against her cover, I shoved it across the street pinning two more between my shield and the truck they hid behind. Out of the fight I gave them no more thought and rolled to my right with wings tucked firmly against me. Coming out of the roll my muscular tail slammed into three more shooters with enough violence that their broken bodies punched through the metal side paneling of a van before the whole vehicle tumbled onto its side.

The stinging bites of multiple bullet impacts raced along my side as they zeroed in on what they thought would be a vulnerability, my head. I didn't give them the chance. Hiding it from sight by flicking my wing forward I jerked it upwards and watched as tiny holes appeared throughout my wing were my head just was accompanied by the high-pitched whine of near misses. Darting forward I grabbed a nearby Miata in my jaws, gagging at the taste of motor oil as I bit into the engine compartment. Dropping my wing to spy my next targets I whipped my head to throw a metric tonne of Japanese sports car at the two that continued to pepper me with their fire. The car crashed to the ground and slid, leaving behind a gruesome trail of blood and body parts.

Eight gunmen remained, but not for long. All of them ran, splitting into four groups. I killed two more that foolishly had tried to flee too closely to me by leaping at them. Their bodies shattered as my swiping paw made contact with the both of them and flung their limp bodies into the air to smack against the second floor of a house behind them. The rest fled into the night and the first of the police began to arrive. Towering above the ground on two legs, I roared my deafening challenge for them to face me, but my demand went unanswered. The fucking cowards.

I ignored the police as they unracked every firearm that they had and began chasing after the figures that a few of them had been sharp enough to spot. A dozen of them had their weapons pointed at me as well, while fire engines began to arrive, using their reinforced bumpers to push their way through the scattered and destroyed vehicles.

All of it, was no longer any concern of mine. My single-minded focus had fallen upon the burning house. George had still not emerged, and I feared the worst. Smoke could kill long before fire ever would.

"George! George! Answer me!" I swung my head to the smoke eaters who stared at me with terror as I stood towering over them and backlit by the fire as hundreds of small holes in my wings rained blood on the ground beneath them.

"There's one in there! Tell me what to do!"

They just stared at me, frozen into stupidity.

"Tell me what to do!" I roared at them again.

Finally, one of the gormless idiots found his voice. "Open the front wall!"

Turning, I stuck my paw into the burning side of the home and swept it to the side. Ignoring the flames licking at my leg I opened up a hole four meters wide that the firefighters immediately attacked with two hoses. With my hearing I could hear cries for help from within. Extending my ears, I tilted my head side to side with the fins flickering this way and that, until I was able to pinpoint where I could hear George.

I pointed with a talon just to the right of the hole I made, and luckily, where there seemed to be a relative absence of fire. "There! He's there! I can hear him!"

The spray from the hoses turned to that location, and as soon as there was a clear path, two firefighters rushed in and pulled George, blackened and smoking from the fire, but alive, out. Once he was clear and laying in the yard one of his rescuers pulled his mask off and began giving him pressurized air.

A new set of wailing sirens arrived and craning my head over those of the cops that continued to threaten to open fire if I did not lay down and stop moving I saw that the paramedics had arrived. But they were stuck behind the wall of law enforcement and their misguided attempts to neutralize me.

"Get the fuck out of the way!" I snarled at them.

A sergeant gave the command that I didn't want to hear. "OPEN FIRE! BRING IT DOWN!"

My heart dropped, and I hit the ground to curl protectively around my belly. The ricochets could kill everyone here. They could kill my babies!

"No! No! Don't fire! You don't know what you're doing!"

Amazingly, when I saw every trigger finger before me squeeze, all I heard was one misfire after another. Not one weapon fired. The sound of new rounds being racked into chambers came from all around me. But also, welcome relief, a Police Captain purple with rage appeared and began to shout orders.

"Who the fuck told you to open fire? Don't you know what will happen? Secure your weapons and do what she said! Get the fuck out of the way of the ambulance! Sergeant, did you order this? You're fucking relieved, go lock yourself in the back of a squad car! Kim, clear the area! Wait over there until we can figure out what to do with you."

I was too busy to listen to him however. I was sniffing over George and crinkling my snout at the scent of his burned flesh. He was wracked with a never-ending series of coughs as he worked to expel the smoke from his lungs. An EMT rushed forward with a canister of pure oxygen and ripped the fireman's mask off to replace it with the new one. The medic looked up at me as I asked if he'd live.

"MEDEVAC is inbound."

She wasn't answering my question, and that didn't bode well for George.

"Will he live goddammit?"

She still wouldn't answer me.

"Strap him to a gurney. I'll fucking carry him to the hospital!"

She looked around at the fire fighters, and her Chief that had arrived behind them.

"Do it. Call ahead, waiting twenty minutes for the chopper will be twenty minutes wasted."

They worked to stabilize him on a stretcher and strapped him down securely with the oxygen next to him. I turned my head to the police captain.

"These assholes attacked here, they might attack all else associated with a dragon. Eight of them got away, and I don't know who they were or if they'd been working with others. Send someone to check on Harry Callahan at his parlor." Not to mention, I thought, the families of the dozen other dragons in the area who had fled into the wilds.

He nodded. "We're already on it. He shot and wounded two attempting to break into his shop just forty minutes ago."

"He's ready!" I was mildly shocked, and greatly impressed, to see another medic climb onto the stretcher with George to monitor him. "Let's go, let's go!"

I clutched the gurney carefully in my two front paws, using the size of my hands to make sure the first responder didn't fall off.

"Brace yourself!" With that warning I launched and shot towards the Level II Trauma center downtown. When I arrived, the bewilderment I was met with when they were obviously expecting a helicopter would have made me laugh any other time. Several of them gasped at the sight of all the blood flowing from my multiple wounds. The constant barrage earlier had even managed to shatter some of my scales, but I didn't have time for treatment yet. The medic hopped off the gurney to raise and extend its carriage then began shouting his condition. Soon, he was wheeled from my sight, and from my immediate concern. I called after one of his attendants to give them a number for the rest of his family when his condition was stable.

As soon as I gave that information up, I was gone with a blast of wind. I had to make sure that Angie, Helen, and Asuka had gotten back. I had to tell them he was alive before they heard from anyone else. I hoped, I prayed, that a phone call giving them terrible news wouldn't get there before me.

Beating through the dead of night, I only just dodged the life flight helicopter as it overtook me with a blast of turbulence that sent me tumbling. Leveling out I returned to my rapid flight to my house and the glowing circle of every light imaginable. Slamming to the ground with my stomach heaving I had to make sure my friends had made it here safely.

"Angie, Helen! Are you okay?"

My answer was the thundering of paws as my mate galloped towards me with tears trailing from his eyes.

"Kim! Kim! You crazy bitch!" He stopped in front of me and then began craning his head over and under my body to scan me. "You're hit! You're hurt! You're bleeding!"

He threw himself at me, wrapping his front legs around my neck and kissing me over and over again. I felt his tears rain on me and between licks he told me again and again how we worried he was. How he wanted to kick my ass for putting him through that. How he would as soon as I was healed. I knew what he was saying and closed my eyes, kissing him back while welcoming the sensation of his love. But I had to know and pulled my head back.

"Angie and Helen, how are they?"

"Terrified, and Angie's wing is pretty ripped up. Everyone else is trying to calm them right now."

I lowered my voice until it was almost a whisper. "Tom, I airlifted George to the hospital... Tom..." I began to cry, thinking about the poor Holbrooks, about little Angie. "Tom... I don't know if he's going to make it. He had burns across his chest and down one of his arms, and bad smoke inhalation."

Angie cried out from where she lay with her wing extended next to her. "Kimmy! Where...where is... where is my daddy?" Her speech was so broken and choked with sobs I could barely understand it.

Collapsing to the ground I shoved my head under Tom's wing to hide my tears as they fell. I didn't... I couldn't tell her. While I cried silently the feeling of hands touching my neck registered and I pulled out my head to look. It was Helen.

"Kim tell me! Kim! I need to know! Please god tell me he is still alive!"

Digging deep, I found the strength to look her in the eyes and tell her the truth. "He was when I delivered him to the hospital. I did all that I could for him, it's in their hands now."

"What hospital! What is their number?" She screamed, and then the call came.

"Hello? Hello! Yes, that's me!" She listened for a moment and then dropped the phone to rush at me and hug my neck again. "Thank you! God bless you Kim! God bless you! You saved his life Kim..." She trailed off into cries of relief before running back to her daughter to tell her that her daddy was going to be okay.

"Where are my children? I want to hold them! I want to feel them next to me!"

Tom gave the call that we had arranged with them that meant come to us immediately. "Mom! You're hurt! What happened mom! I'm scared!" They said almost as one while running towards me.

Burying my nose against them I took the comfort that I needed right now in the familiar scent of my own children, and the feel of them against me. If only Irma was here I could be satisfied with her safety as well. But I could at least take solace in the fact that far out in the forest as she was she was likely beyond danger.

As I lay on the ground, guarded by my mate, and snuffling at my children, Athena and Carla came to make their own request known.

"Kim, our father called. He said he shot two people coming into our shop! He wants us home where he can keep an eye on us."

"You know you'll be much safer here."

"Just as you want to be with your family to ensure their safety. So do we with ours." Carla added.

"We won't hold you hostage if you wish to go. As long as you're aware of what danger you may face I will take you home." Tom said

"I will take Asuka and Haruto with me, maybe even Hayate if they will allow it. As many as are uninjured. We will get the food on the way back. Some of us here still have to eat. Kim, while I'm gone promise me you'll get treated. Please!"

Wounded as I was, the events of tonight were largely over for me. I bobbed my head. "Be safe, don't do anything that I wouldn't do."

He sniped back at me with a remark that was all too justified. "No I won't even do that much, we can't leave our children with both their parents shot up and unable to defend them."

"Seriously Tom. Things are reaching a breaking point tonight. Fly high, fly fast, and don't forget the chicken wings."

He snorted and trotted off to leave me with our children. Alex came up to my side, dragging what I presumed was a combat medic behind him and ordered me to stretch out my wing. Behind them Colonel Stout followed. As they began to make me wince and jerk while they probed my wounds the full bird began to talk.

"The police know that you were not the one to draw first blood tonight Kim. But you still killed eight people and put two more in the ICU. There will be questions, and charges, to be answered. The Chief of police has also called to inform me that the families of every known child of the egg out in the wilderness have been attacked. You have finally gotten your wish. These militants are out in the open. Now what?"

I smiled, my fangs gleaming in the light of scores of security lights. "Now? We make the rats dance in the spotlight."

"What do you mean?"

"Colonel, I think it's time that you let the media interview me."

Tom along with Athena, Carla, Asuka and Haruto, but no Hayate who I could spot sulking next to my house, came back to brief the Colonel, Alex, and myself on their flight plan and expected time of return. I said goodbye to my friends on my husband's back and then Tom nuzzled me, and I reminded him to be careful. Then they were gone, and hopefully not for long.

"What are you going to do with the media Kim?" Alex asked from my side, and obviously Stout wanted to know as well judging by his keen look.

"It's time for my charm offensive to continue. Now that those rat fucking bastards have exposed themselves with their hostilities, and as much as I would like to kill the rest of them. Even I recognize that will only breed more of the scum suckers. They have put one of my friends in the hospital with life changing injuries, they have shot up another of my friends, a six fucking year-old girl! And they have shot me! Shot a pregnant female! Risked my fucking babies! I'll see them all in jail, or I'll see them all dead!"

That was the promise I made to them. But there was still something else that had to be addressed that night. The goddamned alien's involvement in everything that they did, or did not, allow to happen tonight. I didn't even have to call out. Thumper and Tomoko appeared before me, and soon Prometheus slithered over like the snake he was.

"Let me start off with what the fuck? Then let me continue by saying what the fuck? Finally let me end by asking what the fuck?"

Thumper started "We knew..."

"Well I fucking didn't! You let me rush into a firefight by myself, PREGNANT, risking the life of my unborn children! And you are going to start with we knew but weren't going to tell you? Not to mention the fact that my friend over there is crying about her torn wing and asking for her daddy while he is in the fucking hospital!"

"Kim, we can see that you are so very unhappy, and that makes us unhappy too!"

"Shut up you four-legged candy cane! You are just as complacent as the rest in what happened! Will the family of whatever the fuck their names are appreciate your role in tonight's events?"

I was shocked to see that the fucking alien program actually began to tear up and cower against the ground at my telling it off.

"But...This is what you wanted! You thought that if you could have your aggressors before you so many more people would smile instead of frown! We just want more people to smile! A little sadness now will lead to happiness later! You don't understand Kim! You are the one in control of making others happy! I don't like to do this! It hurts me! It makes me sad! I cry because Angie and Helen have no thoughts of joy in their hearts right now! I just want to see everyone smile! Not hurt!"

It covered its head with its own wings and wailed from beneath them. "Not hurt! Not hurt! Not hurt!" Prometheus with his badly calibrated sense of 'enhanced empathy' tried to calm the childish alien god by grooming her, it, whatever. My head just wanted to explode into a fountain of blood.

I couldn't, I just couldn't deal with this right now. My whole body hurt, I was worried about my babies, I was freaking out about Irma and Jesse, and my mate was gone into who knew what hazards to take friends of mine home. My dear little friend Angie was crying uncontrollably nearby, and her parents, Helen and George, were traumatized mentally and physically. I needed a moment to digest this cluster fuck. Now this alien was telling me that I directed them to cause tonight's hell? Fuck this, them, the IRS, everything!

And because of all that, I forced myself to deal with it. Because long ago, I taught my children we do what we have to even when it seems impossible. So, I grabbed hold of my ovaries and buckled down.

"Stop crying. If you wanted to help me by driving these people out of their hidey holes, why the fuck didn't you just give me ten more minutes warning. Helen! You should hear this as well." I called her over. She needed to hear whatever fucking excuse they were about to give for why her husband needed to be in a burn ward right now as opposed to here, safe and sound.

Prometheus answered for the sobbing god. "You need victims for what you are attempting to do. Kim, I'll put this to you delicately, no one that knows you or sees you in action will ever think of you as anything other than a hostile combatant. But this, this family. Because of them and the pain of what they've been through. Because of what has happened to Angelina, and now her parents as well, the bloodshed in this area will stop tonight. No one else in Idaho will go through what they have. As one domino falls so shall others."

"What the fuck happened to this being our test? Huh? Do we have any choice at all in how this plays out? What is your game here? You turn us into these things, flip our world upside down, tell us we're being tested, and then interfere at every fucking opportunity that you see fit?"

"The establishment of the test, and our subsequent actions will generate a favorable outcome. These elements of your society are a cancer. Much as you had said yourself Kim. If it was not this, not us, not you children of the egg. It would have been any of a myriad of other things. We did not create these rogue groups. But we can help you eliminate them. George has suffered much tonight, and Helen and Angelina as well. By tomorrow evening, this community will rally around Angelina. You already are on the path to ensuring that Kim. Please don't let their pain go to waste."

"You demons! You allowed this to happen to us? My husband almost died tonight! Because what? You want to see us dance? Why couldn't you have warned us? We could have been safe! Let them burn our house down! We are all that matters! We...we... Oh god, oh god, oh god."

Helen ran to the side of my house where I could hear her vomit.

My mind reeled, thinking through everything, jumping from one stream of thought to the next. Soon I was weaving those thoughts together until a picture began to emerge. Layers upon layers, tonight had served many purposes. The burning rage that threatened to consume began to abate as realization followed realization. My spinal fin drooped limply as did my ears and wings. I... What was happening to me? How could I so suddenly dismiss my friend's suffering when I could see how it would benefit them and others? No! I won't! I can't! I will not allow myself to become like them! I will not be a shell!

"That's it Kim! You begin to see? Yet you still refuse to let the fire die! Excellent!" Prometheus was almost glowing with approval. I wanted to kill him. Deafening static erupted from the speakers in my house, and Thumper and Tomoko pricked up their heads.

"What are they talking about Kim?" Alex asked as my twins hugged tighter against me while I jerked from another indelicate probe of a wound.

I sighed resignedly, "Some things make sense for me. I must be insane, or tired, or shot up and insanely tired." I stopped at that, I didn't really feel like elaborating further at the moment. "Helen, are you okay? How are you doing little Angie?"

"Urk..."

"Kimmy! Where's my daddy? If you show me pictures of where he is I will go rescue him! Kimmy is he okay?" She hobbled over with her paw curled around a tiny stuffed teddy bear. My rage over what happened earlier coursed through me again at the sight of the bandages all over her wing as it drooped limply against her equally bandaged side. She was in no condition to be rescuing anyone.

"He's at the hospital little one. He's going to be good as new in the morning! I promise! Come closer Angie, let me have a look at you." She shuffled closer and lay before me so I could look her over. My twins detached themselves from my scales and hugged her neck, causing her to close her eyes and hum contentedly. While I looked at the bandaging on her wing, Sora and Kazane reappeared from wherever it was the two adorable children had scampered off to.

Blood!

Scary!

We hide!

Yes, hide! Now see!

Now see! Now learn!

Why blood?

Why sad?

Sad from blood?

We learn! First blood, then sad! Blood sad!

We learn!

You two are silly! Angie added, finally being drawn from her mournful cries. Do you want to be friends? I am sad...

No sad!

We happy!

Make happy! Not sad!

Yes, Yes!

We play!

Yes play!

Find thing!

Find yellow thing!

Yes!

Come with!

I made sure my kids were included in their game of I spy... or whatever... after I explained to them what was said. Seeing them off with a nudge of my long nose I watched after them wistfully until Helen stumbled back to my side holding Angie's teddy bear after having vomited out the tension of realizing she and her family had been shot at and nearly burned along with the majority of their belongings.

Trying to cheer her up (and calm my own lingering anger) I relayed to her what the very young children had said. She sighed and sat down on my forearm not looking particularly comforted.

"Kim, I'm terrified, the only reason any of us are alive is because of you. Now I find out that those aliens could have prevented all of this? I mean... what kind of future are they trying to force us to make? Are we just dolls to them? Why make us go through all this?"

Snorting, I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell her. But then I would be no fucking better than them. So I told her what I thought. She had every right to know. I told her my suspicions on why this charade tonight was put on to force us to band together. To generate sympathy in others. To vilify those who see violence as the first, not last, option. Why it had to play out the way it did for these effects to take root. I had to convince her that I had no prior knowledge of how this was going to happen. Her suspicion was completely justified, and it was only by pointing out that I was pregnant would she accept the fact that I had nothing to do with this.

I wasn't as sanguine that others would be as easily convinced. But I wouldn't be the only one doing the convincing. The more people touched by this violence the easier it would be to put a stop to it and drag those performing it into the grey bar hotel.

"My husband almost burned alive. My daughter and I were almost shot to death. For this? For this! Kim... I... if you were anyone else... Kim would we be sacrificed if these things thought our deaths would serve some grander purpose?"

She laughed bitterly when I wouldn't give her the answer I didn't even want to hear myself speak.

"If anything ever happens to me and George... Promise me that Angelina will live... Promise me!"

I nudged her off my leg and then pushed myself up on to my tail and raised a forelimb until I could reach my chest. With a long grunt I was finally able to twist my leg over until the claws on its end pointed at my body. Then I dug them into my breast until I felt blood. I didn't know why I was doing this, but it felt...right.

"As long as my blood flows no harm will come to your daughter."

"Thank you Kim." She wrapped her arms around my leg once I had set it back down.

"That was impressive Kim. But as your doctor I have to say you're a fucking moron. Lay back down so I can dress the five new gouges you just put into your chest." Alex muttered next to me. He was coated up to his shoulders in the black ichor that was a child of the egg's blood and looked pissed for some reason.

"I need an ultrasound out here. I think there are still three bullets in you."

I jumped to my paws knocking everyone around me to the ground with the overwhelming scent of concern.

"My babies?!?"

"Relax, as far as we can tell where your eggs are." He raised his hand above his head to run it along my belly until he stopped a meter or two forward of my legs. "Is right about here." Looking at him upside down through my front legs I thought that felt about right. "Where I think you've been shot is..." He walked forward for about four meters (reminding me once more just how long I was now, and how little I even considered it anymore) and stopped once more. "Right here, about half way up your side. Look, you'll even be able to see where the scales shattered."

Craning my neck, I was able to see the truth in his words. A few rounds must have caught an edge and chipped away at a corner exposing the root of the next scale down. Repeated fire had severed the scale leaving an opening to the black skin beneath that was now open and oozing blood.

"Get them out! Get them out! Get them out! I don't need heavy metal poisoning, I'm pregnant!"

"I can't Kim! I can't just reach blindly into your body. Your girth is measured in meters. Even if I knew where the bullets were, I don't have the instruments to get them. You're just too damned big!"

He turned to Prometheus. "A little help with the results of your latest bullshit stunt?"

"We have helped earlier when she was in immediate danger. She is not so now and is in no danger from toxic metals. There are several resources I can recommend for you..."

Suddenly, an ultrasound and a large medical tool box appeared. "...Or Tomoko can provide these."

"I want to see some smiles!" It declared from where it was perched upon the tool box. It would seem you can't keep that chipper little thing down for long. I felt cavities developing in my mouth every time it spoke. I didn't quite know what to make of the fact that they didn't operate with one voice however.

"Prometheus is fallen Kim and holds all the wisdom of half a million years of experience! Some things cannot be transferred! We hold his counsel with the highest regard, but we are not always bound by it! Thumper and I act as one, not Prometheus!"

It amused me to see Prometheus turn away with a vexed gleam in his eyes. So, a fallen pseudo-god can feel frustration after all. Good. Alex sent the medic assisting him off to find an extension cord for the ultrasound while he went through the tool chest to see what was in it. He seemed to be impressed.

"Where did this come from? This is top shelf stuff. I hope you didn't take it from an operating room somewhere."

"I moved it here from a warehouse in New York! No one will miss it! Not for years!"

"I don't suppose you are aware of the concept of theft?"

"Kim's health will make more smiles than their need to make money!"

He shook his head at that philosophical excuse and returned to rummaging through the cabinet.

Shouting suddenly erupted and then a frenzied stampede of children and dogs ran by our gathering. Angelina thundered by in the lead followed by Luke and Lucy, Sora and Kazane came behind them and I blinked in disbelief. Each had one of my shepherds on their backs as they raced after my twins. The dogs themselves didn't seem to mind this as they both looked forward eagerly with their tongues out and tails wagging.

I was heartened to see them at least temporarily distracted from things that they shouldn't have to concern themselves with. Even Helen had the ghost of a smile on her face, a fact that had Tomoko nearly levitating with ecstasy.

Alex beckoned me to the ground once more and directed the medic to begin treating my self-inflicted wounds while he began to operate the ultrasound. Because of the size of my body he had to crank the power up high enough that my scales began to grow warm, and I had lay on my side while he stood on me. It was little things like that that reminded me how large I was.

"Kim, Helen, the Chief of Police is going to be here soon with the district attorney and two detectives to take your statements. Angelina will have to give her account as well, however that is going to go. The two that you have critically injured are in no condition to give statements." Stout gave us an update from his tent.

"My husband! Have they told you more?"

"He is stable, but he is suffering from severe smoke inhalation. He also has burns on his left hand, all the way up his arm, and across his chest. He got lucky. Kim was the difference for him between life and death. A shootout between the police and these marauders could have gone on all night. You did the right thing Kim, you saved him from that fire."

I didn't need his fucking validation, but I bobbed anyway. I should have gotten there before it had even gotten that far. My next regret was that I hadn't gotten a chance to kill all the attackers. My claws scored the ground in annoyance. Next time... Next time I'll wear their fucking skins as a cape.

"When can I see him? I need to see him!"

I interrupted. "When Jerry gets here I'll demand that he take you to the hospital. He will, or I'll sit on him."

Laying my head down, I dozed at the encouragement of the ticklish feeling of Alex and his helper scrambling around on my side. Just a few minutes later I felt an unfamiliar scent wash over me and then the nudge of someone's nose. It was Hayate.

"Ma'am, my parents and your husband are returning."

That got my attention pretty quickly, and I almost threw my two attendants halfway across the clearing in my rush to get up. Only at the last second did I restrain myself long enough for the feeling of them sliding down my flank to end before I heaved myself to my feet.

"Where?"

He pointed his head to the North.

Eagerly I reared up to seek them out. I could not see them against the night sky, but I could hear them. Even over the steady drone of the generator for the soldiers, heavy wing beats were approaching, and then shadows swept over the clearing as they came into sight.

Asuka and Haruto were greeted by Hayate and their swarming youngest. While I waited for Tom's wings to settle after touchdown. He set the large tub of food he was holding down, and then much muzzle rubbing followed.

"I'm glad that you weren't shot."

"Well you were! Why the fuck aren't you laying down and resting?" He began to sniff me over and then jerked backwards when his snout reached my neck. "Ow! What is that?" His nose nudged at something on my back, and I could feel the pressure right on my spine.

"Stop that! What are you poking at?"

"There's a thorn growing out of your neck!"

If there's one thing I didn't need it was being even further from the human I was. My fucking spikes were starting to develop.

"And how come you didn't notice it last night?"

"It wasn't there last night!"

"Your time to lay is nearing Kim! Your body knows it! It also knows how much danger you've been in! They will be super quick to grow from your neck and tail! Tom too! It is very important that your young grow up to make many smiles!"

A quick examination of my mate revealed he had a white point of razor-sharp bone growing from the side of his tail.

"Well, never mind that for now. How was the flight?"

He fidgeted and tried to deflect until I stared him down and he admitted the truth. "We were fired at three different times in our flight over the city. Just when we were low enough to be seen. I don't know what the cops are going to do about this. I don't know what the cops can do about this."

I was upset to hear this, and made it known with violent contortions of my lanky body.

"Are Harry, Athena, and Carla okay?"

"If by okay you mean armed to the teeth and bunkered in their house? Yeah, I suppose so..." Tom replied while pushing the tub of chicken wings and pizza towards our house with a paw, Kazane and Sora slithering all around it stridently asking if they could eat what was in it.

"Where the hell did you get that tub?"

"The pizza place gave it to me."

My ears flattened in disbelief.

"Okay, okay. It's actually our second water tub. You didn't see me take it, obviously. For fuck's sake Kim lay fucking down!" He jumped and stomped his paws. "You're pregnant and you're shot! Two things you should never be at the same time! Kim...Please!"

I couldn't say no to the obnoxious puppy dog eyes he was making at me at the moment, so I curled up right in front of the shelter to let Alex finish shoving his whole fucking hand into my wounds. Eventually he threw in the towel for now.

"Kim, I've stopped your bleeding. But I don't want to do more until I consult with Brian. It's time to make use of him being scanned from nose to tail for the past six months."

Ha! That creepy lizard gawking lizard! Hopefully he and Serena had been making inroads after he willingly gave up being human to learn...whatever it was that he wanted to learn. Haven't talked to them for a full month.

"You'll be fine for now, I'm calling his department first thing in the morning."

"Tom" I turned back to him. "At least get me something to eat. I need the energy, and so do my babies. So, go hunt me some food, since I'm going to lay here barefoot and pregnant. You...Tarzan...Me...Jane... Uhuhuhuh!" I finished, mimicking some ape noises (Pretty spot on if you ask me!). I expected a head butt, instead he kissed me and trotted into the woods as I wormed my way into the shelter. Hopefully he didn't have to go far. It was very dangerous. But I knew he knew how to take care of himself. He had volunteered to go through Level-C at Mackall after all.

Alex left to get himself clean, and some pizza. He invited the medic along with him to offer him a changeup from the MREs that he had been subsisting on. At least none of them had to suffer those things long. All the soldiers except Stout were on a one week on, two weeks off, rotation. But not me, and not my family. This crisis was our lives.

Finally getting a chance to relax after the past hours of chaos and terror I called Haruto and Asuka over to finally get to know them. Something that I'd noticed I'd never really gotten a chance to do. Hayate tagged along and soon I got a chance to learn about my guests. The Suzuki family had been travelling to see Crater Lake when their change had occurred. While camping in the Umpqua National Forest one night they had been visited by Tomoko who had warned them of their impending transformation.

Put to sleep by the creature, they had awoken the next morning unable to stand on two legs as the terrifying hybrids that I remember being in my own half-way condition. Their youngest children, 45-day old Sora, and 13-month-old Kazane (Back to back pregnancies? Fuck that! Asuka had a guardsman pull up her online profile to show me a picture of the rail thin thing she used to be, and I don't know how she managed.) were completely changed and found thrashing in their hopelessly cramped camping cribs crying out in words that they did not know yet. Released from their sturdy prisons, the two babies huddled together against their changing mother. By that evening Hayate, Asuka, and Haruto could understand the youngest of their family and the bizarre speech patterns of what the infants had become. By the next morning they were all several times larger than their car. By the morning after that Asuka and Haruto had become the true monsters that I knew all too well.

Equal parts confused, and exultant at their changes, for the next several months they were guided by Tomoko in acclimation to their bodies and their roles in the developing new world that started that fateful day. Their 'guide' had also been instrumental in explaining the difference in behavior between the infant and newborn that they had known what to expect from and the completely new experience of two infantile children of the egg. It was explained to them, that given their ages and lack of any kind of systematic mental development, they had 'regressed' to the mindset of the freshly hatched that they would keep for 10+ years unlike slightly older children such as Angie. Their new personalities being insatiately curious, preternaturally intelligent, and holding instincts just as inhuman as the bodies that they had grown into.

As I had had demonstrated to me by the whole 'remove scary' exchange. I still couldn't get over how fucking creepy it had been to lick clean another family's children right in front of them. Tomoko could tell me all day long how normal it was for our new species to perform such an act, but goddammit I had still been human for 46 years! You don't just lick babies! Gross!

I asked them further what they had been doing before they found themselves like this. Asuka revealed she taught high school science while Haruto surprised me by saying he had worked at a gun shop as a firearms instructor. Definitely not what I'd expected. Asuka was able to keep her job, somehow, which she now taught by shoving her head in through an exterior set of double doors. A fact that I thought was hilarious, making her scales open and broadcast her embarrassment. I apologized, but she chuffed and said it was and is pretty humorous to have pictures taken of her whole body sticking out of the side of the school.

There were also pictures, on social media apparently, of her neck snaking into the classroom where her head rested upon her desk to watch over her class. It was a source of unceasing hilarity for the students but had also been a target of rage from the community as well. She explained it had taken a few weeks for her speech to develop to the point that it could be understood but new students continued to have problems understanding her stretched vowels, a problem I could sympathize with. Lastly, she also told me that she had been granted a week's leave in order to seek out our advice, which explained how she could be here in the middle of the school year.

Haruto had managed to keep his business up as well, but had to give up teaching indoors for obvious reasons. Instead moving his focus to his outdoor tactical shooting with help of a knowledgeable assistant. I asked him where he had learned his trade and after giving me a few halfhearted evasions he revealed he had been in a counter-terrorism unit for the JGSDF. More surprises, and I wondered just why exactly every new person I'd been meeting lately had been in some elite military unit. Serendipitous plot devices I presumed, or just weak story writing caused by an example of the fallacy of composition.

I also learned, a big part of the reason for why they were here was the same pushback from student's parents currently facing Angie. Hostility directed at Hayate for attending school, and Asuka for remaining a teacher. The only difference between their situation in Spokane and ours here, was while they had already been subjected to numerous credible death threats, no one had actually shot at them yet. They knew it was only a matter of time, and had seen my face on the news channels more than once. They were hoping to find some guidance that Tomoko had nudged them to seek from myself and Tom.

Our conversation lasted until Tom returned, having to go much further north than normal, with some prey for me. With our usual enticement of providing some of the meat for the soldiers, we were able to recruit a few to roast it over our enormous barbecue pit. Skinning the mule deer, they set the pelt aside and bound it to the spit after cutting its head off. I offered the skull to the Suzukis and they respectfully declined saying they had eaten enroute. It's a good thing everyone other than me ate so infrequently, game animals would be locally depleted pretty quickly. As it was, an emergency order banning non-subsistence hunting had gone into effect. Local hunting clubs had howled like their feet were on fire, but once some of the children of the egg hiding in the surrounding forests began poaching livestock from farms, they were quickly silenced by the even more powerful political group. The offered head soon disappeared as Sora and Kazane descended upon it and ran off with it.

The soldiers finished their prep by bleeding the animal into a bucket for that purpose and had to squeamishly look away when Hayate picked the pail up and gulped it down like a steaming drink. At least he had no problems with the way he ate, I wondered how long it took him to warm up to that. To crown this bloodthirsty display his long tongue flashed outwards to lick spilled blood from his jaws.

Introductions continued as Tom settled to get to know the Suzukis as well. This time Hayate even joining in to detail the difficulties he was facing as a teenager in high school who went from being a non-entity at school to a towering flight capable alien. He admitted that he had many more friends but wasn't particularly thrilled about it either as none of them cared to notice him before. Many of them badgered him for rides, but those he told us were reserved for the handful of his friends that had been with him since before.

Including, he shyly told us, a girl that he had been caught making out with by his parents. His mannerisms remained fairly stolid, but when talking about his nascent girlfriend his scent couldn't lie. Given how traditional his parents seemed to be I could make a good guess as to how that went. But amazingly she had only grown even more infatuated with him since his change. He even hinted that they had kissed since then. Good for them. It just proved what I hoped to show others. For every fanatical dickhead that has a hard-on for shooting at us, there are at least as many willing to continue to treat us as the friends, neighbors, and family that we were.

My twins, Alex, Angie, and eventually a still tormented and worried Helen joined the conversation which took us well into the night. At some point I noticed my children drooping further and further sleepily and I nudged them into their room at the back. They threw themselves into their beds, fully clothed, but the likelihood of them going to school tomorrow was zero. So, for once I didn't mind how late they were up.

They didn't seem quite ready go to sleep yet as Angie stuck her head in after them and they had their own quiet conversation. Before long Sora and Kazane snuck into the room to share a bed with each of my kiddos and joined into the quiet chatter. Eventually the only thing that could be heard from the room was the gentle whistling of three children of the egg and the obnoxious snores that my children had inherited from me as I killed the light.

...