Moontouched 19

“We have to go fix this,” demanded Donna, tightening her grip.  “How long will it take to get to your estate?”

A whimper of pain escaped Ray’s lips, and Donna looked down at her hand.  She’d crushed the blue vixen’s wrist.  Donna apologized profusely, releasing Ray and fixing her wrist with yet another application of power.

Ray panted for a few moments, staring at her wrist as it rebuilt itself.  “You’re utterly terrifying, did you know that?”

Donna grinned, huge fangs flicking into place.  “Good.  Because right now I need that.   I have a couple hours before I deal with...”  She glanced up at where the Moon was sitting in the sky, invisible behind the walls of Ray’s office, but as clear to her as if the walls were glass.  “Something over two hours to midnight, I think.  But it wouldn’t hurt to check...”

Donna looked around, failed to find anything resembling a clock, then shrugged.  She slipped a hand into her hip, pulling a cell-phone out of it as if there had always been a pocket there.  Ray stared at her, open-muzzled.  “How?”

“Transformation magic.”  Donna flipped the phone open to check the time, then tucked it away again.  After a moment, there was no sign there had ever been a gap in her hip.  “I’ve got just under three hours before I need to be back in town.  We can be there and back again in that time, right?”

“Oh, easily,” said Ray.  “Doesn’t take even half an hour to get out there this time of night.  I’ve got a limo with heavily tinted windows in the loading bay, you won’t need to change back.”

“You have this down to an art, I see.”

Ray grinned.  “Not my first time at this.”

Donna glowered.  “Not your first time abducting one of my creations, you mean.”

“They all came willingly.  You’ll see.”

When they got into the limo and Ray got into the driver’s seat, she coughed to get Donna’s attention.  “I’m going to need to be human to drive, right?”

Donna was struggling to get her coils into the limo.  She looked at Ray, and nodded.  “Right.”  She tugged at the power holding the vixen’s form. The blue fur receded, and a minute later Ray was back to normal and fully clothed.  While he was changing, Donna retracted her long snaky body into a simple pair of scale-covered legs.

As they drove, Ray chatted with Donna over the intercom.  He’d heard stories about Crazy Eights games played in the back room, but no details.  Donna regaled him with tales of the various changes she’d done for it, though he’d seen the results on Isolde.  And Ana, for that matter.  Donna asked how Ana had been, as she hadn’t seen the catwoman in some time.

Ray chuckled. “You’ll see, soon enough.  Here’s my driveway.”

A pair of wrought iron gates mounted in a tall stone wall swung open.  As they passed through the gates, Donna noted that someone had added a layer of wood to the back of them, rendering them opaque.  “You take your privacy seriously.”

“I did that for Ana, and enhanced the fence elsewhere on the property.  She can go literally anywhere at all in the estate without whatever it is that freaks her out.”

“Magic censorship, I call it.  Something doesn’t want us to share with the public at large.”

Ray pulled into a four-car garage attached to a sprawling house.  “Home sweet home.”

Donna slithered out of the car as Ray held the door for her.

“Didn’t you have legs a moment ago?” asked Ray as coil after coil of Donna’s body emerged from the car.

Donna shrugged with a hint of a grin.  “Easier to fit.  I could change back, if you like.”

“No, that’s fine.  You can probably handle Ana better like that.”

“I do want to see how she is handling life as a catgirl.”

Ray opened a door in the side of the garage and gestured Donna through it.  She smiled at him, and slithered up to the threshold.  Seeing that it went outside, she hesitated for a moment on the threshold.  Her emergence into the open was tentative, then she grinned like a kid in a candy store.  “I’m outside!  Like this!”  She spun in a circle, arms wide, tangling herself on her tail.

Ray laughed.  “That’s a bigger reaction than all of the others combined.  Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”

Donna’s twirling, slithery dance stopped abruptly.  “I can’t.  I have a family to go home to in the morning, a life to return to.  Still, I’d love to visit from time to time.”

“As a human, or...”

“As anything you like.”

“Anything at all?”  Ray asked, curiously.  At Donna’s nod he added, “I will take you up on that, you know.”  Ray led the way up the walk to the massive double doors of the house.

“Don’t you have an inside way to get from the garage to the house?” asked Donna.

“Of course.  But this is a more impressive way to enter.  Plus Ana likes it.”  Ray unlocked the door, and stepped aside as it opened, with an ‘after you’ gesture.

Donna slid forward, and was immediately met by a flying bundle of fur.  Reflexively, she flung it off, and it went soaring toward the driveway.  It was only after the catgirl was arcing through the air that Donna realized who it was.  “Ana!”

The lynx-like catgirl landed nimbly on all four paws and bounced lightly to her feet.  “Whee!  That was awesome!  Can we do it again?”  She scampered forward to give the new visitor a once over and a sniff.  Then her eyes went even wider.  “Donna?”

Donna nodded.  “In the flesh, as it were.”

Ana took in the scales, the snaky tail.  “You look great like this, it suits you.  Ray sure can pick ‘em.”  Then she touched Donna’s bare neck with one paw-hand while the other went to the silver torc at her own.  “But you’re not staying?”

“Just visiting, I’m afraid.  And as much business as pleasure.  I have to deal with the silver all of you wear.”

Ana’s grip about her torc tightened, and she hissed as she backed away.  “No!  Can’t have it!  I don’t want to go back to being an icky human.”  She glanced over at Ray.  “No offence intended.”

Ray laughed.  “I spent some time as a vixen, and I might yet go back.  None taken.”

“You turned him into a vixen?” asked Ana.  “Aww, I missed it.  Wish I could have seen that.”

“Donna!” cried Ray as he felt his body start to change.  “I... aw, what the hell.  Come on, let’s meet the others.   Where are they, Ana?”

“Lounging by the pool, like usual.  You’re back early, but I bet they heard...”

A black-scaled woman with cloven hooves for feet and broad leathery wings drifted into the grand entrance hall of the house, and peered at Ray curiously.  “Hey boss.  Why are you turning blue?  The boobs are a nice touch, are you going to join the rest of us?”

Ray chuckled.  “Not like this.  But...”  He looked over at Donna, as if seeing her in a new light.  “Perhaps.  Perhaps.”

Once Ray had stopped changing, he walked up to the mirrored doors of the coat closet, and studied her new body.  This one wasn’t as small or delicate as Cobalt had been, she was stocky, built much like Ray had been.  She could even see Ray in her face, though it was more delicate and had a hint of a muzzle to it.  “Huh.  You do nice work, Donna.  This is much more... me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Still could use some work, I’m not sure vixen is...”

“I could turn you back into Cobalt if you prefer...” teased Donna.

“No,”  Ray raised her furry hands defensively.  “That won’t be necessary.  Come on, let’s go find the others.”

“Oh yeah,” enthused Ana.  “They’ll love seeing you like this.”

They followed Ray down a side passage.  It went past a large room with several plush couches.  A cartoon show was playing on the big screen TV.  Ana’s tail perked up, and she prowled into the room.  One pounce took her over the back of one of the couches, and drew a squeak of panic from the occupant.

“Ana!” shrieked a mouse-girl as she bounced up out of the couch.  “Stop hunting me!”

Ana purred, “But you’re such fun to hunt, Mousie.”

“Come on,” said Ray, stepping between the arguing women.  “We’re going to meet the others by the pool.”

The mouse stared at the blue vixen.  “Wait a... Ray?  Why are you all blue and fuzzy?”

Ray hooked a thumb at Donna.  “It’s all her fault.”

“Actually, this time it’s Ana’s fault,” Donna explained.  “She wanted to see Ray like this, so...”

While explanations were offered and argued, Donna watched the action on the screen.  The cartoon was old, and she was having trouble placing it, until one of the characters morphed into a car.  “You were watching Turbo Teen?” Donna asked the mouse-girl.

“Yeah.  I used to get a real kick out of that show...  But it’s just not the same any more.”

Donna looked at the mouse-girl’s neck.  “Take the silver torc off.  It’s a full Moon tonight, so you won’t change back for a week if you leave it off.”

“But we all wear them,” she protested, followed by a chorus from the others.

“That’s why I’m here.  Come on, let’s get everyone together so I only have to explain it once.”

They found Nissa in the pool room, paddling around with all eight legs.  Ana dashed off to the kitchen to fetch Kate, and soon returned.  A silvery robot entered behind Ana, its smooth ovoid head showing only a glowing blue line where eyes should be.  Donna shook her head at the sight, she’d forgotten just how extreme Kate’s transformation had been.

“So,” started Ray.  “Hi.  This is Donna, who... wait, you all know what she does already, right?”

Ana grinned and nodded.  “She can change people’s shapes.  And apparently you’ve partaken.”

Ray chuckled, and nervously ran her paws over the fur of her forearms.  Ana batted at Ray’s floofy tail, and she yanked it away, gathering it up in her arms.  “Yeah.  This is all new to me.  I... made a mistake.  Nearly lost an arm over it, too.  Anyway.  The silver has more effects than I knew about when I got the torcs made.  You need to take them off.”

“No!” said Ana, backing up with her hand to her collar.  “I won’t!”

Donna raised all four hands placatingly.  “You don’t have to, Ana.  I know how badly you wanted to be a catgirl, so I don’t think it changed your mind much, if at all.”

Ana kept Ray between her and the snake-woman even so.

The mouse-girl was the first to take the torc off.  “Now what?”

“Put it down, Mousie.” said Ray, indicating a nearby table.

She did so, then her eyes widened as soon as the silver left her paw.  “Oh!  My name isn’t Mousie, damn it.  It’s Pat.”

“You’re still Mousie to me,” said Ana with a toothy grin.

“Ana, leave her be,” said Ray.  The phrase sounded like a wearied repetition.

“Pat,” asked Donna softly.  “Do you remember why you liked Turbo Teen, now?”

Pat looked over at Donna, and a smile unfurled on her face.  “Oh, yeah!  I loved the idea of turning into a car, especially the part where he doesn’t have good control over it.  But why did I forget?”

“Because the silver does more than just hold you in your current form, blocking magic from touching you or changing you back.  As best I can tell, it also makes you unable to imagine ever being anything other than what you are.  For those of us who love the idea of transforming, it tears away a big part of who we are.”

The others didn’t look convinced.  “But why don’t we remember that, then?” asked Nissa, her spider legs tapping nervously at the floor.

“How long have you been half-spider?” asked Donna.

“I’ve always been like this.”

“And how long have you been here, the only place where you can go outside?”

“About a month,” replied Nissa, her leg-tapping growing more agitated.

“And have you ever been outside before?”

“Oh yeah, lots of... oh.”  She grabbed her torc and tore it off, then let it fall from her fingers.  “I remember.  Crap, I really should have known better, I tried using silver to be Marilyn.  She totally took over.”

Ray sighed, ducking her head.  “I didn’t know.  Donna showed me just how potent it can be, though.”  At the curious looks from everyone but Donna, she explained what it had been like to have such a radical change forced on her.

“And you wanted to go back to that?” asked Nissa incredulously.

“Hey, my life here may look easy... and by pretty much any standard, it is,” admitted Ray.  “But I still have plenty to worry about.  Cobalt had none of that.  Nothing to worry about but obeying her mistress.”  Ray favoured Donna with a pretty smile, then slowly turned to face Kate.  Ever since she’d entered the room, Kate had been standing rigidly at attention.

“Kate,” Ray asked gently.  “Is that why you like being a robot?”

There was no answer.  Ray sighed.  “Unit Kate, answer the question.”

“I cannot,” replied Kate in a monotone.  “This unit does not understand the question.”

“What do you not understand?”

“I do not like or dislike anything.  So there is no why,” intoned Kate.

“Wow,” breathed Donna.  “And you didn’t pick up on just how radically the silver messed with her mind?”

“I thought she was playing the part!”

“Boss, she hasn’t broken character once,” chided Ana.  “You just liked having a robot maid around the place.”

Ray sighed again.  “OK, that was pretty cool.  With the four of you, the housekeeper was having trouble keeping up.”

“You have a housekeeper?” asked Donna.  “Does she know about...”

The others laughed.  “We’re pretty obvious, hanging around the house,” said Ana.  “Ray got her to go to the club one of your full Moon nights just so she could learn about magic and we could finally talk to her about it.  Martha’s cool.”

“She only works days, though,” added Ray.  “Long enough to make lunch and dinner, and do whatever tidying up is needed.  You won’t run into her tonight, but I think she’d like to meet you.  She doesn’t really care for the atmosphere of the club, but she’s pretty curious about the whole magic thing.”

“We’ll see,” replied Donna.  “First, we have to fix the mess you made with these torcs.  Unit Kate, take your torc off and set it on the table with the others.”

Kate did so, picking up Nissa’s discarded torc along the way.  Once all three were neatly arranged on the table, the robot stood at attention again.  Donna looked over at Ray, then back at Kate.   “Kate, are you in there?”

After a moment Ray prompted, “Unit Kate, answer the question.”

“This unit does not understand the question.”

“Kate!  Stop playing, you’re worrying me,” Donna fretted.

“This unit is not playing.”

Donna reached out for Kate, pulling at the power the way she usually did to revert changes.  Her eyes went wide as saucers when she realized that there was no power there to be found.  “Oh no, no no...”

“What?” asked Ray, worriedly.

“She’s...  I can’t pull her back.  She’s stuck like this.”

“Can’t you change her back into a woman?” asked Nissa.

“Well, yeah, I could do that.  But it would be to my memory of Kate, not to original-Kate.”

“Oh.  What about me, then?”

Donna looked at Nissa, and then tugged at the power she could feel wrapping around the woman.  There was less than she expected, but it was still enough to change her back.  Donna nudged the change along almost by reflex, and Nissa’s eight legs started fusing together.  

A minute later Nissa was back in her normal body.  She took a few careful steps on her two legs, to reassure herself that she still knew how to balance, but was soon dancing around the others as nimbly as ever.

“So,” asked Donna after Nissa finally settled down.  “Which of the two do you prefer?”

“I...  Do I have to choose?”

“Not right away.  I could change you back to spider-Marilyn, and if you left the silver alone, you’d change back to yourself in a week or so.”

“Would I get to dance at the club as a spider?”

“That can be arranged,” said Ray.  “Since everything else seems to be changing around here.  You’d be welcome to stay here as yourself.”

“Oh?  I thought you were only collecting enchanted beauties.”

Ray’s muzzle quirked into a half smile.  “I’m branching out.”

“What about me?” asked Pat, worriedly.  “Am I stuck too?”

Donna tugged at the power around the mouse-girl, and shook her head.  “Not like Kate, but there’s not enough left for you to change back on your own.  If you left the silver off, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t change back this month.”

“But can you change me back to... well, me?”

Donna closed her eyes, letting her sense of magic take over.  “Yes.  It’s faded, weaker than your mouse-form, but your original form is still there.  Kate’s is... huh.  Not quite gone, just so weak I missed it the first time.”

Donna triggered Pat’s change first, and started working on Kate while the mouse-girl went back to being human once more.  It took much less power than usual to start Pat’s change, but Kate seemed to be actively resisting hers.  That didn’t change the outcome, and a minute later two women were standing where a robot and mouse-girl had been.

Pat frowned, and looked over her body.  “Can I go back?  I think I’d rather be a mouse.”

“I... sure, why not.”   It took the merest nudge to send Pat’s body back to mousiness.  Donna studied the change as it happened, how it sped up once it was past a critical point.  “Interesting.  I... you seem to have two default forms.  You’d stick in either one, though your human form is less attractive than this one, and if you stay like this it’ll likely continue to fade.”

“That’s OK, I think my human form is less attractive, too.  So... if you turned me into an inflatable mousie, what would I change back to next week?” Pat asked, eagerly.

“Your mouse form, I think.  Some forms might land at human, but most of the rest would end up here, it’s the stronger attractor.”

“So if I was a car for a week, I could end up as either?”

Donna chuckled.  “Back to that, hm?  Yeah, I’m not sure.  If you wait until next month, though...”

Pat nodded.  “OK.  I’ll let this form set for another month.  But then I get to be something cool?”

Donna nodded back, then turned to Kate, who was still standing at attention.  “Kate?  Hello, Kate?  Unit Kate, what is your status?”

“I am...  human?  How odd,” intoned Kate, sounding very much like her earlier robotic self.

“What’s wrong with her?” whispered Ray.  “She should be back to normal, right?”

“I changed her body, not her mind.”

“But the others remembered who they were once they took the silver off,” protested Ray.

“Kate’s been stuck longer.  But maybe...  Unit Kate, pick up one of the silver bands.”

Kate did so, then stumbled to her knees with the silver neckpiece gripped tightly in one hand.  “What the everloving hell was that?” she breathed.

“Um, Kate?  Are you OK?” asked Donna.

Kate turned lost eyes up at Donna.  “I...  I don’t...  How did I get here?”

Donna lowered her body, piling up more of her coils in front of Kate to put herself on the same level.  “You spent the last three months as a robot.  You... ah, seemed keen on the idea at the time.”

Kate’s brow furrowed.  “I... that doesn’t seem like me.  Why would I want to be a robot?”

“You wanted to be a love doll first.  And you spent time as a mannequin...”

“Really?  How odd.”

Donna sighed.  “Put it down.  I’ll have to do this the other way.  Try not to freak out.”

Kate set the silver down, then stood and resumed her stiff, robot-like pose.  Donna rose higher on her coils, and stared into Kate’s eyes.  She gently pushed a little power at Kate’s mind, hoping for some kind of reaction.

Kate gasped, and stared around.  “What’s going on...  Why do I feel so... stiff?”

“You’ve been playing robot,” said Donna.  “For rather a while.”

Kate grinned, then.  “Oh!  Yeah.  That was fun.  So... why am I human, again?”

Donna patiently explained the silver once again.  “You weren’t in your right mind when you decided to stay like that indefinitely.  I want you to think about it, and decide who and what you want to be.”

“I want to be a robot again,” Kate said without hesitation.  “That was awesome.”

“Even when you lost your mind, and became a robotic servant?”

Kate grinned.  “That was the best part about it.  I was a real robot, not just a woman who looked like one.”

“Look, for my peace of mind... please just stay human for now?  I’m pretty sure that in a week’s time you’ll start gradually changing back into a robot.  Spend the time thinking about it.”

“I’m going to spend three days losing my humanity?  Awesome.”

Donna sighed.  “I’ll take what I can get.  No more silver for her, OK?”

“Awwwww.”

“Honestly, I really don’t think you’ll need it.  Unit Kate’s mind is there, waiting for you.”

Kate clapped her hands gleefully.  “Oh, this is going to be fun!”

Donna looked up at the glassed-in roof of the pool, and beyond the clouds to the hidden Moon.  “Give me strength.”   While she hadn’t meant it literally, the pulse of energy from the Moon reassured her even so.

“Okay.  One left to go.  Isolde.  Please take the torc off.”

“No.”  A flat refusal.  Isolde folded her scaly arms over her chest, her wings curling around her body defensively.  Only her tail revealed her agitation, whipping back and forth.

“Why not?” Donna asked, gently.

“You’ll make me into a pathetic, weak... human,” she spat the word out as if it tasted vile.  “Just like you did the others.”

“Would it help if I promised to change you back to this shape once we’ve had a talk?”

“What’s in it for me?”  Isolde grabbed her traitorous tail and held the tip with both hands.  It wriggled like a snake even so.

Donna studied Isolde’s scaly form, attention lighting on the wings.  “I could change you into a form that can really fly.  Bigger wings, lighter body...”

Isolde growled deep in her throat, then yanked the silver torc off, and flung it onto the table with the others.  “Fine.  Do your worst.  But I better get to fly by the time you’re done.”

Donna focussed on the succubus for a time, then shook her head.  “Nothing.  This is your true form, now.  You won’t change back on your own.  I can’t even find an echo of your old body.  I could change you into something close to your old form, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

Isolde glared at her.  “So?  Are you going to cripple me or not?”

Donna looked over at Ray, whose expression was pained.  “This isn’t her.  She’s always been sharp-tongued, but...  Is her old personality really gone?”

“I could force her back to human, give her silver, and in time she’d... approximate the old Isolde.  Maybe.”

“No!” screeched Isolde.  “You promised!”

“And so I did.  No, Isolde.  I won’t cripple you tonight, or any night.  If at some point you’d like to experiment with being human, I’ll accommodate you.  Maybe in time...”

“No.  Flying now.”

“As you wish.”  Donna gestured at Isolde then turned away from her, feeling like she needed to cry.  Nissa gathered her into a hug, but before the tears could flow Isolde started to complain.

“I’m shrinking!  What did you do to me, witch?”

Donna tensed, but didn’t turn to look.  She could feel the change, and knew full well what she’d set in motion.  “You can’t fly when you’re human sized, not without wings bigger than this room.”

“How small?”  Isolde’s voice was subdued.

“Bat-sized.  That way you can fly around in here, where it’s warm.”

Ana giggled.  “She’s so cute like this!  Donna, can we keep her?”

Donna couldn’t help but grin.  She turned to see Isolde looking quite offended by Ana’s grip on her tiny body.  Isolde squirmed and wriggled.

“Let me go!”

Ana tossed the bat-sized succubus into the air, where she flapped her wings three times, then spiralled helplessly into the pool.  The splash was correspondingly tiny, drawing giggles from more than one of the onlookers.

Ray fished Isolde out with the pool’s skimmer net.  The look in Isolde’s eye was murderous, but she simply said, “Again.”

Ray launched her into the air with a flick of the net’s long pole.  This time, Isolde managed a dozen flaps of her wings before she lost control and once again plunged into the pool.  Patiently, Ray reached out with the net once more.

The cycle repeated two more times before Isolde got flying really figured out.  Watching her dart happily around the room brought a smile to Donna’s face.

Then her phone rang.  Everyone except Ray stared at Donna curiously, and saw her dig the phone out from her hip.  Nissa looked a bit nauseated, Ana curious, and Pat grinned.  “Handy,” she noted.

Donna stared at the display for a moment.  “Only two people have this phone number, and that’s not either one.”  She accepted the call, and put the phone to her ear.

“Am I speaking to Donna?” came a creaky voice.

“Yes.”

“Ah good.  You’re very hard to reach.  If you want to save your friend...” he was interruped by a voice in the background.

“Donna!” called Gwen’s voice.  “Be careful, they know...”  Her voice was cut off by a grunt of pain, echoed in a stabbing sensation in Donna’s side.

“Enough out of you,” said the creaky voice.  “As I was saying, come...”

“I know where you are,” growled Donna in a dangerous voice, eliciting a squeak of alarm from Pat.  Then she shrunk away to a point, and flashed away before the phone hit the floor.