Time Share – Part Five

 

            Time was short.

 

            Tim looked at the clock and then looked at the setting sun. Carol had already left half an hour before to go to some alleyway or maybe even out of the city, to put as much distance between herself and Nathaniel/Lindsay as possible. She did this every night now, and it was never enough. Once she even drove to another city, but Keyba had just run back in the course of a night and hadn’t seemed to break into a sweat. It was frightening, but more frightening was Gabrielle. No one knew who her human host was during the day, and perhaps that was a blessing… but at the same time it was something they needed to know. If the human host of that she-wolf could be found, could be recruited, then perhaps Keyba and Gabrielle’s plans to take over Earth could be slowed down, even stopped, but Gabrielle seemed two steps ahead whenever they tried to hunt her down at the end of the night.

 

            They. Tim had to scoff. “They” were, by night, Rachel and Nathaniel, but by day, they were Lindsay and Paul. Lindsay was a bimbo who cared about nothing except money, partying, and clothes, and not necessarily in that order. Paul was a rather overweight young man who seemed to be part slacker and part pervert. Mostly pervert. Their counterparts were more capable than they could ever be, Nathaniel being the leader of a resisting army from another universe, Rachel being his second-in-command. Nathaniel, a fox anthro, had died crossing over to face the threats on Earth, while Rachel, a blue-furred bunny anthro, was comatose.

 

            An average person might ask how he, a random bystander of this little war, knew so much. As he walked to the backyard, he recalled.

 

            Tim held the books in his arms around him, heart pounding. It had been three months since Keyba had taken over his wife, and he was rightly and truly terrified he’d never see her again. Their marriage was falling apart and their money was running short from all the household repairs they had to have thanks to Keyba making an “exit” in their walls instead of using doors. They needed… he needed to get help, and as far as he knew, there was only one place to get it, and it certainly wasn’t on Earth.

 

            He recited the spell and poured some of the mixtures in front of him as the book instructed him to. There was a shimmering in the air and he took a deep breath of the fumes the mixture created. He hoped he hadn’t just created some voodoo version of crystal meth, but before his mind could even comprehend the word “methamphetamines”, he was out cold and his mind was someplace else.

 

 

            Five minutes to sundown. He wondered if he would find his wife. He wondered if she would find Keyba and kill him. He wondered if killing Keyba would also kill his wife. He wondered a lot of things, and it made his heart heavy with dread and his stomach fill with cold fear. He knew that Rachel and Nathaniel would never kill, not while their human counterparts were human and innocent victims of trickery and coercion, but if push came to shove… could he let his wife be sacrificed to save seven billion lives?

 

            As the sun set, he prayed he would never have to find out.

 

            The tabby catgirl appeared before him in the white ether world.

           

            “What in the blue busting balls of Beluga are you doing here?!” She yowled at him. Tim stared in shock. This had to be the place. “You’re not supposed to be here!” The tabby cat shouted at him. “How did you even get here? You’re a human!” This seemed to snap Tim out of his momentary stupor.

 

            “You have to help me,” he begged. “Please, my wife… she’s possessed by this demon-pig that keeps trying to kill everyone and…”

 

            “Yes, yes, Keyba, I’m well aware of that,” she snorted indignantly. “How did you get here? And before you say there’s no time,” She interrupted him just as Tim opened his mouth, “Time is slower here. We have a lot of time.” She crossed her arms, looking like she was expecting something fantastic. Tim took a deep breath and explained everything he could – Keyba’s arrival, Carol’s horrific realization that people would, could, and have died at her hands, their crumbling marriage and sanity, and finally Tim’s desperate act to get help.

 

            “We’re running out of time and with that bitch Gabrielle aiding him, Nathaniel is just able to keep ahead of Keyba but they’re hopelessly outmatched. There’s got to be someone on your end, someone who can come over here and give them the advantage they need.” Tim pleaded.

 

            “And who are you volunteering to be their host? You’ll have to have a willing volunteer to put themselves into this battle,” Geia had said.

 

            “I volunteer myself,” Tim found himself saying. “I’ll do anything to make sure my wife is safe. I’ll do the soul-bonding. Just find someone to help us.”

 

            Tim closed his eyes and started undressing quickly, stripping down to a black neoprene unitard. It was a little embarrassing, sure, but he wouldn’t be around for much longer to worry about his dignity. He had heard complaints from Rachel (and boasts from Paul) that there was often a camera set up in Paul’s room. It had given Tim an idea, but instead of trying to catch Rachel/Paul in lewd acts, Tim had set it up to communicate. Whenever it was possible, a few minutes of advice or conversation would be taped and left for their counterpart to watch at a later date. It worked out well and it helped Tim and his counterpart settle on something that could stretch, was form-fitting, light, and more importantly, covered the important bits. As he felt his insides churning from his changing body, he knew he wouldn’t regret this choice.

 

            And change he did. First, he started to grow, stretching up like a tree, legs, torso, and arms all growing to fit a much taller figure. Muscles started to stretch and appear to increase his form’s strength, but thanks to the leanness and height, they’d be barely noticeable. He reckoned he could lift a car and throw it. No, he thought. I know I can lift a car and throw it.

 

            It wasn’t difficult finding Tim’s soul counterpart in Geia’s world. She needed to find the perfect match to be able to complete the soul-bonding process. Apparently this “near impossible” process had been done four times already at least, and here she was, about to make it happen for a fifth time. Surprisingly, the difficult part wasn’t finding the soul.

 

            The difficult part was convincing the dragoness it belonged to.

 

            Tim clenched his teeth as he felt them fall out, replaced with larger, sharper fangs and teeth that made his gums bleed. This happened every night and it never got any less painful. Tim just got really good at blocking it out. His ears started to merge and shape themselves into finned ears, and a pair of horns poked out of his head. His hair fell out, leaving a smooth, green-scaled head behind. Meanwhile his feet started to grow and his toes sharpened, turning into talons that gripped into the ground as he changed. He felt a crunching sensation in his midsection as his curves reversed themselves and his hips widened and he let out a cough as his chest seemed to balloon out. Was this how Paul felt every night? Probably not, he thought.

 

            “You realize who you’re talking to, right?” Tammy glared down at the cat witch. Geia stared up at the dragoness who stood twice as tall as her (maybe even three times as tall). Tammy’s name was a bit of a long story – dragons were ageless creatures, and Tammy was no exception. According to legend (of which there were many) Tammy’s real name was forgotten, lost in the centuries of battle and bloodshed. One day when asked what her name was, she had given the name Tammy and refused to be called by anything else, often killing those who tried. Geia’s theory was that her real name was Tammy and she just didn’t want to advertise the fact that her parents were horribly unoriginal.

 

            “Yes, I realize who I’m talking to. That’s why I’m here.” Geia said. “I know you worked with the Master and I know you quit. I know you left his army about a hundred years ago and I know you’ve been cooped up here ever since. I also know that you haven’t gotten yourself involved.”

 

            “For a reason!” Tammy exclaimed. The dragoness had green scales and yellow down her front and down the bottom of her tail, spikes lining the tail all the way up her spine. A pair of wings was folded up tightly behind her as she glared at Geia angrily. “Do you think I like fighting? Do you think I want to be involved in bloodshed and gore all the time? I’ll admit, that’s what I used to do. But all dragons do that, they fight, they roar, they beat their chests, they want to prove that they are the biggest, toughest, meanest in the land. Then dragons grow up. Or they die. I grew up, and that’s why I left the Master’s army.” She glared at Geia. “Give me a good reason why I should join your little ‘cause’.”

 

            So Geia gave her a reason.

 

 

            Three nights later, Tammy closed the door to her cave with a large, heavy, and nigh-impenetrable piece of mountain and curled up to “sleep”. The same night, on Earth, reports stated that a loud, dragon-like roar could be heard above the air. It had shattered many windows, like a shock wave. The origins went “unexplained” and the mystery was unsolved and forgotten, except for a 5 year old child who claimed to have seen a giant dragon-lady fly above his house.

            “Good luck,” Tim groaned as his body finished and he closed his eyes. When he opened them, the pupils were slits and Tim was no longer in control.

 

            “Alright,” Tammy growled. “They have a warpig. Now we have a dragon.” She grinned and lifted off. In the simplest of terms, she had a score to settle with the pig, and if stopping him from hurting billions of innocent ape-people was the way to do it, she’d do it, and enjoy it.

 

            And did she ever enjoy it.