Last Leg by iplank

Last Leg

iplank, Adventure, Anthro, Anthropomorphic, Canine, Dog, Drama, M/F, Novel, Sex, Transformation

A man satisfied with just scraping by in life has said life turned on its head when his favorite aunt passes away and he finds himself unexpectedly the new owner of her dog. When the dog wakes up as a half human and the new master wakes up as half dog- the two set out on a journey. Bizarre happenings and dangerous supernatural enemies turn a mundane road trip into a chaotic adventure that neither will ever forget.

Last Leg

(TF, dog anthro, Drama)

CTRL+F to jump to or return to a part

1 From The Ashes <- major TF

2 New Perspective

3 The Road From Ruin

4 Never Look Back

5 A Little Rain Never Hurt <- sex scene

6 The Sound Of Her Heart

7 Problem Solver

8 Journey's End

9 Goodbye

Part 1 : From The Ashes

Cimon rode with his aunt Lacy out to the garbage dump, as she tossed out her ex-boyfriend's things with a chuckle; imagining his reaction when he learns where she put it.

"Auntie Lace, my momma said you'd be sad because your friend went away, but you seem happy to me!"

Lacy laughed again. "Damn right, kiddo! He wasn't a good friend so I have no problem getting rid of trash I don't need no more."

He nodded, kicking his legs as they dangled out the door of the truck- too short to reach the ground from there. "You are always so happy to do stuff! Even my momma don't like doing a lot of things, but you seem to like doin' everything!"

She dusted off her hands and leaned against the roof with one arm to lean into the open door to talk to him across the truck. "My sister was the realist between us, I suppose. Way I figure it- worrying about things makes the situation worse. You want to get rid of things that are bad, right?" Cimon nodded. "Well, stressing about something is like taking a part of it with you- in your head. You don't want to carry your problems WITH you, so just, forget about it. Leave it behind you. Do what you can, when you can. Everything else just ain't your problem." She picked up the baseball bat off the floor of the truck and handed it to Cimon. "Now- that TV I promised to let you smash to bits..."

23 years later -

Cimon sighed heavily, leaning against the wall of the funeral parlor, looking across at the coffin with flowers lined up against the side. She really is dead, huh? With the number of near-mental breakdowns Cimon's mother Alice has had over the years, he figured she would be dead before her sister Lacy. She was his favorite aunt. Some uncommon illness of the blood- her own bloodstream spread it very quickly to a lot of very vital body parts and took her out like a sniper. She went from perfectly fine to dead in less than a full month; no one seen it coming.

Cimon has the same suit on he wore to his aunt Rita's wedding- couldn't afford a new suit just for this so he dusted the old thing off. He has short bristly black hair and eyes a very pale, ice blue. His skin is a deeper tone of peach- almost a pale brown- that tans bronze, but he has been busy working as a fry cook inside most days; so he hasn't seen enough sun to have anything even resembling a tan in a long while. Doesn't have any muscle definition in the slightest- has the posture of a shrimp. Doesn't even have a girlfriend because he is either working or at home trying to relax as much as possible before having to go back to work... so when the hell is he going to talk to anyone to get a girlfriend in the first place? Heck he doesn't even really have any regular friends- he has three or four people from high school that pop in on him and hang out on extremely rare occasion and that is it. He is 31 now so... his high school days and any socializing he did are both far behind him.

He did not cry at the funeral but it certainly felt like he could. Lots of others cried, and a few growled under their breath whispering about wills and inheritance- both from Lacy and whatever her share of their still living parents' inheritance would be. Cimon didn't really care about any of that. Didn't know most of the people in this room by anything other than name too. Big family, but he has never interacted with most of it outside of being introduced to them by his mother when he was young and then never again. It made the time leading up to the funeral awkward and once again made things awkward afterwards. Typically this is the time you mingle with your remaining family and console one another- but Cimon just stood off to the side. He would just leave, but he came here with his mother so she was his ride back.

Can he take work off tomorrow? Isn't there a rule where you can take a day or two off if someone in your family dies? Does that extend to aunts? Eh, whatever, if it exists someone will tell him, probably. Cimon actually has no idea- he never bothers to remember stuff like that. Even 80% of the holidays he gets off work come as a surprise to him a day or two before it happens because he never remembers any of them- and doesn't know what half of the holidays are even for, which doesn't help them be memorable.

His thoughts were interrupted by the smaller voice of his young niece Melissa- daughter of his aunt Rita. "You trying to look cool, leaning against the wall like that?"

Cimon laughed. "Do I look... cool? I mean, I will take it." His smile shrank a bit. "So... how you holding up?"

"Uncomfortable. I didn't really know anything about aunt Lucy, and I my mom is busy talking business with your mom."

Cimon huffed. "Business meeting at a funeral." He lowered his voice. "Even vultures wait for the body to cool before they start picking it apart."

"Hey- you still looking for that pokemon card?"

"Charizard?"

"Yea?"

"The original? Hell yea. How much?"

"He says two hundred."

"For a caaaard? From a grade schooler?! Probably has coolaid stains on it."

She lowered her brows and put her hands on her hips. "Doesn't it sell for like, five or six hundred on Ebay?"

"Yyyeaa, but he shouldn't know that."

"Well, he does."

Melissa is the only relative Cimon really gets along with now that his aunt Lacy is gone, even though Melissa is only 12. Cimon... never really changes. He was too mature to get along with the other kids when he was a kid, and then too immature as an adult to get along with other adults. Most 'adult' topics just made him sick or depressed. Even when it comes to what games he plays and what shows he watches on his downtime- he will watch every cartoon show in known existence before he watches a single cop show, drama, or god forbid; reality TV! News and politics? Never heard of her. And thus he doesn't have a single thing to talk about with any of the other adults in the room. Doesn't watch much, doesn't get out much, doesn't read or watch the news. Too busy dragging himself through his own life to look at or interact with anything around him.

Most people in his family- save for Melissa- will tell you Cimon is incredibly lazy... and while he can see where they are getting that, it doesn't make it any more true. He isn't lazy, he just doesn't care about... much, of anything. If you don't care about something you're obviously not going to put much effort into it, right? It wouldn't make sense. His mother really started to lean into him about it when she found out he was offered a promotion at work. Been working at the same place for nine years now, so when the old general manager bailed- Cimon was offered the seat. And turned it down. Because that would mean more work for very slightly more money- not worth it. He can get by living off what money he already makes doing less work... so why the hell would he intentionally make life harder for himself to earn more money than he actually needs? They call him lazy for turning it down, but it just wouldn't make any sense to him to have done it.

His mother finally walked over to him and Cimon stood up straight thinking they were going to finally leave, but she spoke up to him first. "Cimon... about your aunt Lucy's inheritance..."

"Huh? She left me something? I don't need it- you can take it if you want."

"You don't even know what it is yet... actually I don't know what it is either- this is actually something she left OUT of her inheritance."

"...huh?"

"Her dog Anais. Her condition took her by surprise so she was not expecting out-living her pet, so Anais has no master and the will doesn't include her. No one else seems to want her, so, either you take her or the animal shelter does... and her odds at the shelter are not great."

Cimon tilted his head back against the wall and groaned. Anais is a whippet, a breed of quick and spindly dogs... but this one ain't quick. While she is a good dog; Anais had her own confrontations with severe medical maladies and only just barely came out on top. Her left front leg is nothing but a stump- the only way to stop her cancer from reaching her vital organs was to remove the limb it infested. A mid-life dog with a missing limb won't likely be anyone's top pick for adoption, and if a dog remains in the shelter for too long... they usually put it down. Cimon did not want unnecessary complications in his life, and he was the last pick for anyone to offload responsibility on. No one in his entire family thought he should be trusted to handle another living creature- but between him and death, Cimon still ended up being the lesser of two evils. Though he has only very rarely ever seen Anais before now, he did not want any harm to come to her, so he reluctantly agreed.

Anais was silent, and shivered a bit in the dog cage as they transported her. No one could tell if she shivered because she was nervous or because she was actually cold. Whippets have very fine fur, so she can get cold easily, even if it seems warm to you. Cimon was driven to his aunt's place to pick up Anais, and then his mom drove him to his house and dropped him off.

Cimon let her out of the cage in his living room. His house was tiny and a tad bit run down. It was the most inexpensive place he could reasonably purchase outright and not sink money endlessly into renting. When the door of the cage was opened Anais remained laying in it, making no move to come out. Cimon backed off to change out of his stiff suit while she got adjusted to the new environment. She had seen Cimon on at least a few occasions, so she should already know he is a friend. He got into his usual casual attire and mussed his hair up again, hating having it combed back all nice and neat- even though because of its length; there isn't much difference between combed and messy. He walked back to the living room and paused in confusion- once again seeing Anais in her cage. She still made no move to exit.

"Hey, what's up? Why the long face- ha! Get it, because-" He motioned his fingers off his nose. "The long... face, because you are a dog. Aaand because you're a dog, you don't get the joke. Okay." He knelt down in front of the cage and motioned forward out of it. "C'mon, you can walk around, the door is open. You live here for now, I guess."

Her ears were tucked back, and she turned to the side in refusal to leave her cage. Cimon groaned and picked the cage up, tilting it till she had no choice but to stumble out onto the floor. He told her he could not have a giant cage in the middle of his living room, so she had to pick a different spot to sit her butt down. Anais still did not wander, she plopped down exactly where she stumbled out of the cage and then refused to move from THAT spot.

It then occurred to Simon that she has no food. He filled a regular bowl with water and left that for her, but then had to run to the store to get actual dog food for her to eat. He has a motorbike but usually proffers to just do the forty-minute walk to work instead, and most of his groceries come from a corner store three streets over from his house, which only took ten minutes to walk to at most. Gas is expensive; he doesn't have to put gas in his legs. He was nervous about leaving Anais though. How long till she needed to go to the bathroom? And with him gone, is she just going to wreck the place? He really doesn't want to come home to a shredded pillow or a gnawed toilet paper roll, or a TV knocked over and shattered. But he had no choice. His overgrown yard has a fence but its barely standing and has many gaps in it- it wouldn't keep any dog inside; she would escape easily if he left her out.

He wanted to save himself multiple trips, so he purchased the largest bag he could, but was surprised by how heavy the food was, so his back was hurting by the time he got it home again even though the walk isn't particularly far. He braced himself when he entered his house again, prepared to see the feathers of a torn pillow floating through the air like snow. Nope, nothing. Everything looked fine, and Anais was nowhere to be seen. He wandered around checking all the rooms for damage, but also puzzled as to where the dog went because he also could not find her. He eventually spotted her in the corner between living room and kitchen- he passed her twice before actually seeing Anais because she was so still, and laying down curled in the corner.

"Hey. You can... sit on the couch, you know? Or the bed- I don't really care, it's your house now too, do what you want with it, just don't trash the place." He went to pat her head but she almost immediately moved her head back to avoid his touch. He turned his hand over to offer his scent but she did not smell him either. "Okay. I will just... give you space I guess. Upset your old master is gone, huh? I am too. She was a good woman. Better than the rest of us, anyway."

Cimon put her food and water bowls at the edge of the kitchen, so only a foot away from the corner she chose to hold down. She did not seem to eat or drink though. She never moved from the corner the entire rest of the day. The first time she ever got up- she wandered across the room to the front door and sat down on the mat and silently looked at Cimon. She needed to go to the bathroom. He led her to the back door though and let her out there- he has no front yard, only a tiny back yard. Whippet are medium sized dogs- but the grass in his back yard was still almost as tall as she is; tall enough to brush her chin. He never used the yard for anything- it might as well be a dog toilet. As soon as she was done she skittered back inside and straight back to her corner- the carpet still warm in her spot. She did not even attempt to explore his yard, smell around or bark to other dogs in the area. Cimon sighed. Great, he not only has a pet unintentionally, but it's a dog suffering from depression to boot.

He seen her eating food early the next morning, so at least she is eating something. He made sure to let her out to use the yard before he went off to work, just crossing his fingers she did not have to go to the bathroom again before he gets home. Cimon does not have to go to work till eleven in the morning, but he also doesn't get home till nearly nine at night. She seemed to do fine- though was eager to go to the yard again when he got in, holding it in for a bit waiting on his return. The next day his mom dropped off some items from his aunt's place, and most of them were dog toys and a dog bed. He placed the bed in the corner she sat in, since she seemed to like it there. He gave her the toys, but she did not want to play. She only took an old faded whale plushy and placed it into the bed with her to rest her head on, because it's so round she can use it as a pillow. She seemed to like having her items back, but did not play with any of them.

Two days, three, a week, and two weeks pass. Cimon's routine did not really change from his usual like he thought it might. He had to actively remind himself he even has a dog in the first place. She flinches back whenever he tries to touch her, and she almost never leaves her corner. Her toys remain piled up around her bed and do not seem to move either- so even when he is not home she still does not play with them. He tried to coax her out, even offering her meat from his own dinners but she does not leave her corner to take the bait. She refuses to interact with him.

It was the weekend of the second week Anais came to stay with him that Simon was working in his 'garage'. His house didn't actually have a garage, but he created one using the framework of a greenhouse and thick plastic tarps permanently fixed to it. It is where his motorbike is locked up most of the time- on this day he was gathering random junk he had laying around and was looking up some images on his cellphone; drawing up sketches of a schematic. Cimon wanted to see if he could build Anais a leg.

Losing a leg for a dog isn't good for their life expectancy. Sure, she survived cancer- but now with her upper body weight leaned onto a single leg; her spine is slightly twisted at all times, putting strain on her skeletal structure. Her posture will slowly deteriorate. But how hard could it be to just, build a leg? It doesn't have to look pretty, it just has to work. Two posts of wood, with something like a bed spring in front of a loose bolt-joint? The spring will allow it to bend forward, but have enough tensile strength that the limb still supports her. Just make a leather cup to place over the existing stump, and then a belt-strap to tie it around her body so it remains in place. Or should he use metal instead of wood? He would need more tools to work the metal- he doesn't have any right now. Wood might wear out too quickly though, since the end would always be pressed into the ground and moving around.

Cimon groaned and dropped the pencil a moment, because an odd sensation entered his other hand. It felt like his fingernails were pushing against the skin around them? When he lifted his hand to examine it, he saw his fingernails almost look like they were folding in half! They were not actually folding though- they were becoming thicker which caused them to arch further up and out in the middle, and also give them sharper points as they lengthened a bit too! The thicker the keratin layered itself the darker the nail became, first to a milky white, then pale grey, dark grey, and finally black. But it only happened on his left hand, his right hand remained unbothered, which is why he did not notice the changes immediately; he is right handed.

The hairs on the back of his hand and then arm suddenly bristled and what little coloration they had quickly bleached out of them. A warm, prickly feeling accompanied the growth of more, softer hairs on the back of his hand and each segment of his fingers! It grows in thick and soft... fur, not hair. This again only applies to the left arm. His eyes widened in silent shock as he turns his hand over quickly, rubbing it with the other as a pressure builds again in several specific points. The tips of his fingers and the base of all his fingers- fat deposits build and shove the skin outward, but as it is forced to stretch around the bubbles of fat; his skin seems to overcompensate and thicken as well, causing the pigment to darken till it matches his blunted claws- black. Paw pads! The pads on the base of his fingers grow so close to one another they all sort of merge into one long. The fur on the back starts to spread around, consuming the knuckles and spreading to the sides of his fingers and hand now!

"Am I hallucinating?! Is there a gas leak in here?!" He quickly used his still-fine right hand to flip to his phone's camera and set it on the table, placing his changing hand in front of it to record a video. "What in the fuck is happening to me?"

He would have compared it to a dog paw- but the structure of his hand did not change, it's still a hand. The fur started to spread up to his elbow, and Cimon quickly rolled his sweater up over his head and tossed it to the concrete floor of his DIY garage.

"Ffffuuuck, it's getting worse. What do I do? Is it Anais?! Did she give me some strange new dog-plague?!"

After taking his shirt off; he only then noticed that a mat of fur had already grown in the middle of his chest too! No wonder he felt so hot. His nipples and areola oddly turned black as well. Splotches of his skin started to darken to a grey-peach tone, slowly taking over more of him as black skinned but it was harder to tell, because most of the skin was already covered in fur before it started to change. The fur is snow white. Where it originally started to grow continued to lengthen, becoming three times as long as the fur on Anais even though it matched her coloration. She is mostly white. When the fur got to his elbow however it switched to black, on the back of his arm only.

Cimon arched his neck back when he felt the warm tickle of fur on his neck now too! The bone processions on his vertebrae started to stand out, causing his spine to be very visible through the skin a moment before muscle started to shuffle around and pad the sides of it. It felt like someone was tugging on his ears- but it was his ears themselves shifting. With every gentle pull they became more and more pointed, stretching their shape into a dish-like triangle; the ears of a dog. He was definitely getting aspects from a dog, but it can't be the same breed as Anais... so is this change really related to her? Her old owner didn't turn into a dog, and she hasn't gone anywhere to be able to pick up any sort of strange illness to pass on.

Cimon adjusted the camera to see more of him as he stood there transforming. If this change takes away his ability to speak; he is going to need something to show what happened so someone can fix him. As in his transformation, not his- well, you know.

The fur became especially bushy on his chest and the forest of white fluff spread to his neck, causing him to lean his head back as if distancing his face would somehow prevent the fluff from reaching it. Like on his arms though- it grows white on his front side only, and black on his back. Cimon's eyes widened again and he froze up in nervousness when he seen fur spread UP from his groin! His pubic hair turned to white fur and is spreading up in a stripe toward his navel!

Cimon lost his balance when his feet started to change! They tried to grow, but that shoved his toes into the front and his heel into the back, immediately stretching his shoes! He stumbled back with his spine against the wall and tried to lift a foot to pull the shoe off but could not- his foot already stretched it too tightly for him to wedge his finger in to pry it off! Unlike his hands; his feet ARE changing shape to match a paw! The nails turn to blunted claws like on his hands, but his toes are squashed against the front of his shoes, so the claws have nowhere to go, and grow into the fabric, puncturing the front of the shoe as they grow. They create a weak point in the material and cause the entire end of his shoes to burst open! His toes could not uncurl even when released! The skin had fused them scrunched up like that, making them slightly webbed, but the fur quickly hid that fact from plain sight. Because they are scrunched up- that brought the pads closer together, and prevented the unpadded portion from being able to touch the ground.

Once the fronts burst open the shoe was loose enough that he could slip them off one and then the other. His feet became so long that he was forced to stand like a digitigrade! He can only reliably put weight down on the front of his feet- the heel never comes close to touching the ground. Unlike a proper dog though- he has no dew claws, and his toe count was not reduced, so he has one too many digits on his paws. So he has two paws, one hand that is dressed up like a paw, and one perfectly normal hand. What in the Hell is going on.

The fur that had been his armpit hair now helped spread the fur onto his torso from the sides- the fur from his chest spread around his neck and back down his backside, and the fur up his crotch spread to his thighs and around his hips! He felt an odd tugging on his lower back and immediately knew it must be a tail. He pulled his pants down just enough to expose his junk and butt. The fur consumed his balls entirely already but they otherwise remained unchanged. His tail bone looked like it was poking on the flesh from the inside out- and every poke stretched the skin and muscle a bit longer. A little cone, then a flesh noodle. A fuzzy proto-tail, a furry tail, and a massive bushy tail finally! That is a husky's tail! Anais is a whippet but he is turning into a husky. Or... resembling one anyway- he doesn't seem to be becoming a proper dog. The tail shoved his pants down in the back as it grew, so the moment it swished around on flexes it popped up over his pants, preventing his pants from being pulled completely up in the back again. Even after the fur spread across his entire upper body- it stopped over his right shoulder, it refused to grow on his right arm.

Cimon muttered the word 'no' before grabbing his penis and slumping over to the floor, feeling changes to his private endowments. It stood up before he grabbed it, but it was not the onset of an erection- he was far too frightened and confused for arousal to happen. It stood up because the flesh of his foreskin suddenly thickened tremendously, swallowing his penis deeper into it. He grabbed it at first in confusion through his pants, but then put his hand directly on it under his pants when he affirmed it was changing shape. Him grabbing it caused it to turn to a half-chub, which caused it to slide out slightly against his grip- the now super-dense foreskin rubbing it as it emerged and creating unwanted pleasure. His urethra seemed to want to stiffen faster than the rest of the shaft, causing it to stretch outward into a rounded procession... like the head of a canine phallus.

It felt like peeling a sticker off his skin as it emerged from his foreskin- new flesh peeling from the old as the shaft divided from the foreskin to stretch taller than it should be able to... because what had been his foreskin was now a sheath. The fur tickled the thick flesh as it consumed the new sheath. The new flesh of the emerging shaft was an almost irritated looking red- and webbed with hundreds of hair-thick purple veins. The expansion of his penis seemed to be front-loaded, causing the end to bloat wider than the rest, giving it a club-like shape to it, and as the shaft expanded wider than the corona of his glans; they inverted from the pressure! His glans popped the wrong way, getting shoved up and in by the shaft around it, causing the head to be a slight indent instead of a mushroom cap. A bulge formed inside the sheath as the shaft continued to divide from the inside of the sheath, but he was too worried to become properly erect, so the developing knot could not engorge.

As soon as it finished dividing, the shaft was drawn back inside to hide itself in the new furry sheath, as if it were ashamed of what it has become. Cimon panted from the heat and his head felt so hot he was dizzy. The fur on his neck became as long as the hair on his head- but the hair on his head became softer as it converted to black fur as well, and then started to spread at the hairline down into his face! It grew from his sideburns, then chin, then connected down his jaw and around his mouth as if it were normal facial hair, but once it was fully in; it grew beyond its normal boundaries too. The black fur only bordered his face- then dip down his forehead and the bridge of his nose, leaving the rest for the white fur. His eyebrows inverted this when they turned from hair to fur- they turned white inside of the black portion of his face. His lips turned glossy black and he groaned loudly, tilting his head back against the wall behind him- almost turning to a sound like a sickly howl.

Cimon could feel his entire head enlarge- his skull increased in size but then grew forward only after that- shoving his face out into a muzzle! His nose turned black and textured at the end as it was shoved forward- the bridge expanding wider to become more level with the rest of his face, but then longer to the point where it was almost at-level with his mouth. Then his jaws expanded outward. His teeth groaned and sharpened into fangs as his jaw stretched. Inaudible outwardly- he could hear the bone groaning like the floorboards of an old house inside his head.

Cimon looked to his propped up phone on the table. "Plea-ck! H-eh! Hulf...me." The muscles shifting and the bone expanding made it almost impossible to talk.

The further his jaw stretched the more the bridge of his nose was angled upward. His forehead tilted up as well to follow this. Cimon coughed several times almost choking on his own tongue as it changed too- becoming wider and flatter. The changes slowed as he now had the head of a husky as well. He used both hands to feel his new head- since his two hands are very different from one another and felt two different things.

"What... is... happening? And why...?" Now that his face wasn't actively shuffling around, he could once again talk.

He almost made the mistake of thinking his changes were over- but then raised his right hand into view as he seen the skin become discolored rapidly. The feeling in his right arm started to fade and the skin color turned to pale grey! He bent his fingers and turned his hand over but froze a moment as several chunks of his skin broke off and drifted away! The feeling rapidly drained from the limb, and then his hand started to crumble! From his fingertips up, his arm turned to ash, and fell apart! He grabbed his upper arm with his paw-hand but it was already too late and his hand only crumbled the ash even faster! He felt the stump and then clutched his shoulder, wedging himself against the bottom edge of the wall tightly. He was panting and his heart hammering in fear, frozen stiff in fear that any movement may spread the condition! His attention only being distracted for a moment- hearing Anais yelp in the other room.

Anais is pure white except for a spot on her small whip-like tail, a giant spot that takes up the majority of her back, and two spots that encompass her ear and eye on either side of her face- but do not meet in the middle. Her spots are an extremely pale sand-brown. Her eyes are a golden yellow and her privates and six teats are a diffused red.

Anais was asleep, so she was even more confused than Cimon when her body started to act strangely. It felt like her paw was melting- spreading out against the floor, stretching wider! The connective flesh between digits and the muscle structure within holding them into what to a human looks scrunched up, changed. They spread out longer and further apart, and her dew claw lowered as her hand compacted and widened, developing into a thumb! Her paw squashing out into hands shortened her limbs, unintentionally putting her rump up into the air because her front leg has become an arm, while her back legs are still very much back legs.

She tried to shove herself up and back, into a sitting position to get off the new strange limb, but she only caused herself to fall forward into the floor! An odd sensation fired through her body, causing her to stretch out instead of try to get up again- her back legs pulling as straight as they can go. Her thighs were becoming much rounder- and her shins were growing longer and slightly larger! Her hips popped, becoming much shallower, but also much wider- this also had the side effect coupled with the rounding of her thighs, of giving her a round bubble-butt.

It felt like the floor was somehow moving around under her, confusing her even more- but she started to shove herself off of it, she realized it was her body shifting against it. Her entire body is growing in size!! She grunt from the pressure in her ribs, and then yelped in surprise when her sternum cracked like a shotgun blast- yanking inward! That is the yelp that Cimon heard in the garage! Her chest became shallow, but wider, and her rib cage scrunched up, stretching her midriff out. Her body is becoming more human!

Her normally projected labia regressed a bit- the mass shifting to project her entire pubic mound out a bit more. Her clit expanded, stretching the skin over it into a hoodie to keep it safe still while the front of it rose far enough to be exposed on the outside- and also stretch the shape of her vulva into more of a leaf-shape after pulling it far enough from her anus to give it a little breathing room to stretch. She developed two new teats on her chest, which then spread into areola causing the fur to fall out to make room and then bubbles of fat formed behind those- developing rapidly into breasts as her entire body grows to the size of a human woman!

Anais managed to get herself onto her knees and elbow, looking under herself panting as the breasts enlarged, wobbling more easily as they fatten up from A cups to jiggly Bs and finally bouncy Cs before stopping. The six teats on her midriff seemed to regress, but remained marked on her skin coloration. In a sudden shiver- all her fur seemed to break off her skin and disintegrate mid-air before it even touched the floor. Her skin retains the same coloration the fur did, but she is now bald! Although, difficult to notice since her fur was so very short to begin with. She did not become enough human to grow hair- but a small bush of fur remained over her now human genitals and actually grew slightly longer to act as pubes.

Anais became partially human- the same way that Cimon became partially dog. They both stopped at about the same cutoff point. Anais managed to shove herself up as her changes settled into a kneeling position, looking over her new hand especially. Her iris shrank, exposing more of her sklera and her mind filled with newly obtained knowledge, but it was so much, so fast, that she could not really parse any of it. It just confused her even more. Knowledge she obtained already, but did not understand. Her mind now reviewed it with a human perspective and intellectual capacity.

Anais was distracted a moment by tiny particles in the air- made visible by the light coming in through the windows of the otherwise dark room. They were floating quickly toward her in spite of the lack of air flow to carry them! Small particles, then flakes of both dark and pale grey... ash! She tried to get up, but she doesn't know how to move in this body so they were already touching her before she could get up, and then scrambled into the kitchen to escape but they changed direction to follow her! The only way out of the kitchen is through where the ash is gathering, collecting even more onto her! It started to form clumps on the stump of her missing left arm. She stumbled and tripped over basically everything as she attempted to escape the flow- but was not aware that she could now open doorknobs on her own, so she never attempted to simply leave the house.

A lump, then mound, then a stump, a pillar, and finally... an arm. Cimon's ashen arm left him to instead attach itself to Anais- and as soon as it completed, the ash compressed and gained coloration, restoring it to flesh and blood! It has a half-hand paw on the end, matching her other arm exactly! Anais was shocked stiff, gawking at her new arms.

"I... have two."

Cimon burst into the kitchen through the back door into his garage and the two immediately looked across at one another. Cimon on the far side of the kitchen and Anais between the TV and coffee table on the far side of the living room at the opposite side of the house. One was half human more than they should be, one was half dog more than they should. One was missing an arm and the other regained one. They somehow half-blended into one another!

Part 2: New Perspective

"What did you DO to me?!"

She immediately tucked her ears back and shook her head. "I no- I... I not done... a thing. Sorry, I mean..."

"You mean you didn't do it."

"Y-yea."

Anais knew all the words she needed to, to speak properly, but has never actually used them before; causing her to stumble over how to arrange them properly. He asked her what happened and she explained essentially the same thing that happened to him- only backwards since they started on the opposite end of each other's transformations. She had no clue what happened- if not even less of an idea since Anais is confused about EVERYTHING since she had a deeper understanding now about everything in her life. Suddenly the water dispenser was where dishes were cleaned. The false wall is a door. The window of flat people is a TV.

Cimon certainly did not know what was going on, nor did he know where to even start looking into it. Can't do a google search- that is just going to turn up fetish content, not information. If he goes to the doctor about it he might be on a government autopsy table by the end of the day as they test him like a lab rat thinking he has some sort of animal gene-smearing plague. Heck; he doesn't even want to leave the house, as soon as he steps outside people are going to point at him, scream, and run away. So he called the only person he could trust not to rat him out to some mad scientist- his mom.

He opened a video call with his mother- his own ears tucked back in worry and shame. To his absolute shock, she answered the phone normally. She did not react to his appearance at all. He asked if his camera was even on- yes, it is. Cimon kept asking her about his appearance and she got progressively more annoyed and confused as to why- he looks the same as he always has to her. She can't see any of his changes. He showed her Anais- though realized a second too late that unlike himself; she is naked still with her human boobs just out and about. But his mother yet again seen nothing wrong- just a dog that seemed quite curious about its new surroundings. She said it was good to see Anais finally start to move around and take interest in her new home. Cimon ended the call a bit after- seeing as he apparently did not know the scope of what was going on, either.

When he was done talking with his mother; Cimon brought up the video he had taken of himself as he transformed. To his shock- he looked perfectly normal in the recording. He was confused, worried, and writhing around oddly the whole time as if he had been transforming, but nothing was actually changing. He quickly went to photo mode, forward-facing camera. Yup, looks like a half-dog. As soon as he snaps the photo he can tell from the mini preview image that popped up at the bottom- he is human again. The camera picks up what he is seeing right up until he tries to actually record it- then suddenly he looks normal again. So if his mom seen him in person- would he look like a dog or a man?

He scratched the bushy fur on his head as he paced back and forth. "What... is going on? Did I eat something poisonous or something? Am I delusional?"

Anais hopped up, sitting on the top of the back of the couch with her legs dangling off, her tail flicking back and forth behind her happily. "I see too though. Can't be a 'lusion."

Cimon lowered his brows at her, pausing his pacing. "If this was a hallucination- you'd be part of the fiction."

She tucked her ears back. "Anais am real. Is... real. I is real... am real?" Her face got redder the more she puzzled over how to arrange her words- visible plainly now that she has no fur.

Cimon looked away, but motioned to her body. "Can you put something on at least?"

"On what?"

Oh right, she is a dog- she doesn't know how to wear clothes. Her intellect boost made it so she definitely knows what clothes are, but has still personally never put them on. Also since he is male and lives alone- Cimon is fresh out of panties and bras for her to put on. Cimon isn't quite sure how to wear clothes, either. His pants are pushed down a bit in the back, and he keeps trying to pull them up only to jam the waist band into the bottom of his tail. He can't pull them up. That is another thing that confuses him as well... if this were an illusion- why can he FEEL it still? Even if he can see a tail on himself- his pants are physically reacting to it being there. His pants can't also be sharing his hallucinations. And his socks have five holes in the fronts, and his shoes are absolutely wrecked.

He scoot Anais to the bedroom and had her stand in the middle while he rummaged around to find something that would look half-decent on her. He just tossed her a ratty old grey sweater and thin, flexible jogging pants. The sweater is pretty aged and starting to fray a bit on the sleeves- but it is also his favorite comfort clothing for when it gets cold out. She was already a breed of dog prone to getting the shivers- and now she has no fur, so he figured she could use something bulkier to insulate her. As long as her boobs were not jostling around in his face. He remained standing by the dresser with his back to her so she could put it on.

He sniffed at the air, turning toward her a moment- but not all the way since she was still figuring out how to put the clothes on. He wanted to say something but didn't want to offend her. He could smell her, but it wasn't really like... a BAD smell. But it must be strong if he can smell it so clearly from halfway across the room.

Anais had trouble with the pants- the claws on her paws kept snagging on the fabric as she tried to get the legs on. She glanced at him sniffing at the air and grinned.

"You have us smell. Er, a dog's nose- sense of smell... you know what I mean."

He blushed- but his cheeks were hidden in fur now. "Uh, y-yea. I guess I do." He rest his hand on his muzzle, rubbing it a bit; having a hard time believing its part of his body now. "Things don't smell any stronger to me, but like... I can smell them better as if they were stronger smells?"

"High-resolution smell, rather than raising the bigness, er... the..." She motioned with her hands for a moment trying to think of the word. "Vibrancy? Intensity! Yea, that is what I meant."

When she was done she twirled around to show him how it fit. He told her to pull just her arms in out of the sleeves a moment, grabbed the top of the sweater and twisted it- telling her the tag is supposed to go in the back. She put the sweater on backwards. The sweater is loose and Cimon has no bra to give her, so her breasts jiggle around rather energetically with every motion she makes; utterly uncontained.

Anais looked at him with cautious optimism. "So... what do we do now?"

Cimon shook his head and shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe this will wear off? I mean, if it is a hallucination it will have to wear off, or shift, or something. I guess just... try to stay calm for now. It is the weekend so I don't have to go to work for another day. I will try to find something on the internet but I doubt I can. You just..." He shrugged again. "Try to get comfortable."

Anais plopped in front of the TV the rest of the day- flipping through the channels to try and learn as much as she could about humans. No one has ever tried to explain sarcasm or figure of speech to her, so her intellect hike did not help at all in that regard- causing her to be easily confused. Cimon wandered the house nervously attempting to look up information on his condition- rewording it again and again trying to get results, but nothing. Closest he could find were fetish stories written about a fictional character undergoing a very similar situation. Well, that did not help- this isn't fiction, it's his life!

By early evening he decided to finally go out, and just sort of loomed around his yard, looking like he was waiting for someone. He was just waiting for a reaction. People passed in vehicles mostly- but there were a few people on foot. Most did not regard him at all, and the ones who did; did not react to him in any way. So it wasn't just electronics that could not record his transformed state- Anais and himself are the only ones able to see their transformed states. They look perfectly normal to everyone else! Well... that means he does not have to worry about being on a lab table if he attempts to go to work again. But that makes Cimon worried about his mental state, why does he think he is half dog? No one else does.

At dinner time; Cimon felt bad about filling up a bowl of dog chow for Anais since she is at least half human now, so he cooked a second portion of all his food for her, and invited her to the dinner table. It took him a lot longer to cook the meal- since he only has a single arm to use and it's not even his dominant arm. He tried a few times to put something where his arm is supposed to be. If this is an illusion- objects should still be able to collide with his arm, but nope.

Anais at first perched on the chair like a gargoyle- with her hands and feet up onto the seat of the chair, so her knees were up at her shoulders. Cimon chuckled at her and told her how she is supposed to sit- but she tried it several times before deciding she liked her perched position better. She lived her life as a dog- she is not used to her limbs being so long and gangly, so Anais is more comfortable all scrunched up.

At first she just gawked at her meal, and then across at Cimon; carefully watching to see how he eats it. Cimon had to eventually tell her to start eating before it got cold. In a canine pack; the alpha eats first, the rest eat when he is finished, so Anais was deliberately waiting for Cimon to finish first. Canine curtesy... but dogs also typically do not eat cooked food. She knows humans do not put the food right into their mouths, but never really paid any attention to the utensils they use to know how they work. They take such small bites! She could fit the entire drumstick in her mouth- why wouldn't she? It would be faster. Cimon didn't even bite open the bones to suck the marrow out! That is the sweetest part! Anais loves the aftertaste of marrow in her mouth after being tossed a real good morsel of food. She ate the veggies at this meal, but did not care for the taste, so she mostly just popped the entire thing in her mouth and gobbled it down so the taste could not linger. Both Anais and Cimon now have a mouth full of fangs to eat with, which helped Cimon because he could no longer use a knife. He only has one hand, so he can either hold a fork or a knife- not both, so if he tries to cut something he can't also hold it steady.

In the evening he gave up trying to find a cure for their mystery condition and plopped down beside Anais, though noticed she scooched over on the couch a bit- to distance them. He turned on his gaming console and tried to mentor her to play video games- she seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Cimon would have to rely on her to enjoy games if their condition doesn't fix itself, because he can no longer use the controller with only one hand; but he can watch her play.

Cimon was trying to give her space still. It was good to see her up and about finally, but it was also clear she was still trying to keep her distance from him. He was not sure if it was from worry about their current condition or just a continuation of her leeriness as a dog. She kept looking at him from time to time like she had something to say, but then did not say anything. She always sits across from him rather than beside him. When it came time to sleep- she flopped on the couch while he returned to his bed. In that much; Cimon would not have had it any other way. He has no guest beds and he isn't getting into bed with a woman he barely knows... especially since she is only half woman in the first place.

They both had some learning to do. Anais kept trying to walk on all fours, but it was awkward because of the length of her limbs. Her legs still ended in paws but her shins and thighs were human shaped and proportioned. Slowly she tried walking on two legs, usually hunched over or placing her hand on furniture to help balance. When she is nervous her tail vibrates, when she is happy it wags. Even if she tries to hide her emotions with her face; her tail will betray them. Cimon has to be aware of it too- he got used to the tail being there a little too easily and consciously stopped it from wagging some times because he doesn't want to give the wrong message. Anais clearly isn't super fond of him, so if he starts wagging his tail unintentionally every time he sees her, it's probably going to drive her away.

Cimon had a hard time remembering he is short a hand as well. When he woke up on Sunday he attempted to push open the bathroom door with the hand he no longer has and then walked right into the door! When going to the bathroom, releasing the muscles in his crotch also caused his penis to shove forward out of the sheath without actually engorging at all. Like a canine- his phallus now has a small bone inside of it that helps it stand out, and that is what is used when urinating, so the sheath doesn't get wet. Anais had to be taught how to use the toilet too- to Cimon's embarrassment. Apparently no one else would notice anything off if she squat in the backyard to go; but she looks half human to Cimon, and he doesn't want a woman using the yard as a toilet. Every time he went to the bathroom she was waiting outside- he thought she needed to use it at first and that is when he taught her how, but she was actually there on instinct. In the wild needing to go to the bathroom is a liability- a moment of vulnerability you could be ambushed during and killed. So all canines watch one another when they go to the bathroom, essentially standing guard. Anais stood outside the bathroom when Cimon went to protect him!

When it came to masturbating Sunday night to make sure he doesn't get any awkward unintentional boners around Anais; that took some getting used to too. Dogs have sheaths, not foreskins- so you can't just grab the shaft and piston it. The skin on the surface is tight as a drum, it won't move with your hand, you'll just hurt yourself. When getting fully up he grabs and uses the sheath, then once it's fully out and the pre starts to flow, he uses that to lube his hand and only lightly grab the shaft. The pads on his paw-hand feel great on the shaft. They are made of thick skin pulled around a bubble of fat- so they sort of have the consistency of small, taut boobs. Once his knot it out- that immediately becomes the focus. It is hard as stone and either side of the knot is equal in size to his balls, so the pleasure receptors are all pulled close to the surface, making the knot more sensitive than the entire rest of the shaft. Once it pops all the way out, he slips his hand around the bottom with his fingers spread on either side and just tugs upward on it gently. He doesn't even have to move much at all, because it's so sensitive.

Anais did not have to tend to her own new bits yet- but she also is not yet sure how her time of the month works in his body. She is spayed- so she cannot conceive, but apparently enough of her original equipment remains in her that she still goes into heat, in spite of her cycle not really doing anything outside of that. But her vulva is human now... so, does she still go into heat? Because with a human shaped torso she imagines scuttling across the floor while licking herself and humping her own face probably don't work anymore.

Anais is not as easily aroused as Cimon so outside of her heat it isn't a concern at all. Males are generally easier to arouse in the first place- but Anais was born with this sense of smell, Cimon was not. The fact he could smell both his genitals and hers through their clothing, and know what he was smelling clearly even though the smell isn't that strong at all, caused him to unintentionally picture those things. He also was not used to having a woman around at all. He found his new sense of smell baffling, and confused him many times with how strong a smell is. Normally the smell would have to be very powerful for him to detect it in that detail, but not anymore. Even with clean clothes in his dresser- the smell of laundry soap fading off them, he can still pick up on his scent on the clothing he wears the most, even though it went through the laundry before being put away, it still holds his scent. He can tell how far away Anais is from him by her scent- he can pick up on it from the opposite end of the house!

Late Sunday night he went to sleep, nervous about his job the next day. He placed his hand on Anais' shoulder from behind, where he stood behind the couch as she watched TV but she yelped and spun around immediately.

"H-ARK!? Oh... oh gosh." She put a hand to her chest to feel her heart hammering.

"Wow, sorry, I didn't mean to spook you! I was just going to say- I am heading to sleep. I have work tomorrow morning so I guess you are on your own in the house tomorrow. You going to be okay?"

"Y-yes."

He was going to walk to the bedroom but hesitated. "Hey... how do you feel about... y'know, living here?"

Her ears tucked back and she lowered her head, just peeking barely over the back of the couch. "You have to get rid of me?"

"N-no! No, of course not. You just... don't seem quite at home. Maybe it's just how you express yourself. I was just wondering if you were happy here."

"Y-yes. You didn't have to take me in, so anything at all I get, I am apprecia- er, I... appreciate...like-no... grateful? Grateful! I am grateful for. S-sorry, I still talk stupid..."

He chuckled. "You're learning fast, considering you've only known how to speak English for two days. Anything that would help this dump feel more like, y'know, your home- tell me, okay?"

"Right... yea."

She slowly slunk back into her seat to watch TV. Something about the way she said that makes it sound like she isn't going to mention anything. Cimon get rid of Anais? He is starting to think she has plans to ditch him instead. Like she doesn't consider this her home, just a place to stay temporarily. But no one else in the family was going to take her, so what did she think her alternative place would be? Maybe she just doesn't like Cimon? Cimon doesn't consider himself particularly likable, so that would make sense. She is sort of stuck with him, so she wouldn't want to stir trouble, so if she hated him for some reason she probably would not actually tell him. Cimon did not want to question her too much on it all at once. They both have a lot of think about already with their transformed bodies. They already slept one night and now going on two without reverting.

The next day Simon went to work... barefoot. His shoes were in ruins and he needed new ones, and any socks he attempted to put on got punctured by his claws after a few steps. But he also has paw pads now, which cushion his footfalls. He stepped cautiously, and made sure to leave ahead of time to give himself wiggle room to experiment, but he seemed to be able to walk fine on his new paws. As he had come to expect now; no one at work mentioned him being part dog, missing an arm, or even that he is only using one arm if they can see both his arms. They did nag him a bit for being slow- which is of course due to him only having one arm to work with. He wasn't sure he should even wear a hair net, because he technically has no hair anymore, he has fur. And it is everywhere, so a net isn't going to do anything. He decided to forgo it after his first break and like everything else; no one else noticed.

It was absolutely wild to see everyone else looking perfectly normal, and then look down at your own hand and see a furry paw-like extremity. Simon had a hard time keeping pace as a fry cook at the bar & grill he worked at; everything he did was slightly different thanks to his condition. Not just the fact he had one hand, but the shape of the hand he did still have. The pads on the inside were good for gripping, but projected outward so he needed to grip objects differently. He could no longer operate scissors at all- can't get his fingers into the loops because of the pads. He accidentally brushed the other cooks in the crowded kitchen many times with his tail, but luckily no one seemed to care. A few times they glanced down- so they FELT his tail brush them, they just didn't think anything was amiss about the tail being there at all.

His nails also altered how he grabs certain objects, and he cannot cut them currently. He needs to get nail clippers for a canine- they are far too thick to cut with human clippers. At least they are not very sharp- they have blunted ends. His right sleeve is folded up twice and then held up with a safety pin so it does not get in the way, since there is no limb in it anymore. A few times he caught himself panting like a dog and stopped himself immediately from embarrassment even though no one else thought it was odd. With fur in the way- Cimon supposed it made sense he no longer had the ability to sweat to release heat. And he works in a hot kitchen by a fry cooker.

He plodded home slowly, exhausted from trying to keep up with things at work and being stressed all day about his form. Cimon still did not know what to even think about it. It seems real, but somehow everyone but him and Anais had a block up on their perception of it. They react to him as if the changes are real, but not new- they react like he always looked like this.

One of the advantages of his job are that he can get free drinks from the soda machine whenever he wants while working, but never does because he doesn't want the superiors to think he owes them anything for their 'kindness'. So Cimon is parched and starving by the time he gets home, tired and barely standing. Sun already set- it is just a glow on the horizon on his walk home and gone entirely by the time he gets in. He was almost in a trance-like state by the time he got through the front door but then was startled by Anais hopping up fully onto the couch cushions and dashing to the side of the couch to look at him, leaned heavily over one arm- her tail wagging back and forth so quickly you could use it as a fan.

"Welcome home mas- uh... welcome home." She blushed, having almost called him master.

Cimon could not help but smirk at her enthusiasm. He did not expect her to be happy to see him again. "Uh, hey! Did you manage okay? Nothing go wrong while I was gone?"

"Nope, everything is fine! I held down the fort like a good girl."

Cimon whipped them up a rather simple dinner- too tired for anything fancy. Afterwards he brought out her leash and collar. "Hey... I want to try something. Wanna go for a walk?"

"Walkies?!" Her tail started swishing quickly again and she looked giddy, bouncing on her paws before bowing forward to let him collar her.

It felt weird as heck putting a collar on a humanoid, but she is still... sort-of a dog. It was not till he went to put the leash on next that he narrowed his eyes in thought. She is a lot larger as a half-human than she was as a dog... why does the collar still fit fine? He didn't even need to adjust it again, it already fit to her new size.

Anais' tail was wagging so quick it was just a blur behind her as she bounced from one paw to the other as she watched him get his jacket on to head out. "Yey! It has been ages since I got a walk."

"Really, Lacy not... oh. Yea, I guess she wouldn't have taken you out much when she got ill."

Anais giggled excitedly as he opened the door and quickly darted forward and licked him on the cheek! They both looked stunned after.

She became immediately flustered. "Oh-oh-oh uh, that isn't how... uh..."

"It's oka-mm!"

She leaned forward again and kissed him on the lips! Her eyes widened again and she broke off when she realized he was still surprised.

He just looked dazed at this point. "That isn't really how..."

"L-like this, right?!" She put out her paw-hand to shake his, but then froze in embarrassment. She was blushing so hard her eyes glazed over with tears.

Anais went to shake his right hand... which he doesn't have anymore. Which just seemed to rub in the fact that he does not have it, and she now does, in addition to still not being a proper 'human' response to the situation. Cimon just smiled awkwardly and nodded, patting her on the shoulder and just headed out- trying his best to ignore it so she didn't get any more embarrassed and the veins in her head start popping.

Since she is half human, Cimon let her just walk on her own and followed beside her- the leash just a formality at this point, hanging limply between his hand and her collar between them. There was not too many people in the nearby dog park at this hour, but there was still a couple here and there. Sure enough; everyone thought Cimon walking with Anais was normal.

A woman walking a young dalmatian stopped to comment on how pretty Anais looks, and let the two dogs smell one another. The dalmatian kept sniffing her butt, making Anais giggle, but she had to kneel down to him. She scratched the fur on his neck and inhaled deeply to properly identify his scent without having to get onto her hands and knees. She then pat his head and ruffled up his torso fur, like a human interacting with a dog.

When Anais stood back up straight the woman then pat her head. "You're a pretty one, aren't you? Your master is lucky to have such a well-mannered dog. My Dots here is only well mannered till he spots something he wants to chase- then he won't hear a word I say."

Anais laughed. "He gets lost in his own energy."

"Yup."

"It is hard not to when you are really excited, because your own heart beat in your ears makes it hard to focus on outside sounds. Dots seems like a good boy, he just needs to keep a level head. He doesn't mean any disrespect."

The woman smiled and nodded. "You are probably right. He is still less than a full year old, believe it or not, so he has plenty of time to learn still."

"Heh... yea."

The woman continued on her way out of the park while Cimon and Anais continued deeper into it. Cimon was a bit absentminded, thinking of that conversation. Every interaction he has seems to confuse him even further on the matter. Anais acted both like a dog and human and neither was regarded as strange. The woman addressed her as a dog, but had a back-and-forth conversation with her, and that was considered normal? So people definitely are aware that she looks like a half-human half-dog, they just don't think it's weird somehow.

Cimon did take notice of how Anais' mood shifted suddenly after talking with the woman, now looking lost in thought herself and a bit depressed. He decided to sit on the next bench and rest his legs. After working on his feet all day he was not at all up for this walk, but his curiosity as to what would happen won out. The bench had a lamp post illuminating it in the dark of the night. Crickets and frogs chirp all around them. You could see the stars if they were not under the lamp post- from within the light everything around them just looked solid black.

He glanced at her, but she just looked ahead at the ground. "Hey... you okay?"

"Hm? Y-yea, I am fine. Thank you... for taking me on the walk. Well; for everything, really. You seem pretty run down but still take the time for little ol' me."

He nodded, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "Very. With this new body work was twice as difficult, and it is never especially easy in the first place. Half the day it's so slow you are struggling not to fall asleep on your feet, then rush hour starts and suddenly it's so fast you don't have a moment to think. I uh... kinda suck at the whole work thing."

"Yea, even before we changed you always came home looking depressed..."

He chuckled weakly and shrugged. "All jobs suck. Some people will tell you 'get a job you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life'. Yea... doesn't work like that. Unless you enjoy suffering, then I guess you are set. They all suck, if you do what you love for a living; it will make you no longer enjoy it, because by being a job- it will then suck. So then you're miserable at work, and also no longer have a hobby because you ruined it by turning it into a job."

"So... all humans are like that? My old master seemed to be okay with hers? I am not entirely sure what she did though, but maybe get her job?"

Cimon shook his head. "Some people find jobs they like... I have no idea how. Best I can figure is they just like that particular brand of suffering. My job isn't even that hard- doesn't require any advanced skills or training, and isn't physically straining. It is just that every day, even when it is time to punch out- I go home knowing I will just have to come back in a few hours the next day and do it all again. And the day after that, and the day after that, till the day I die."

She tucked her ears back. "Y-you have to punch each other out at the end of each day? Can't you quit the job?"

Cimon laughed. "Punch out as in... leave work. There are these punch cards some older places use to easily keep track of the hours a person worked to calculate their pay. You put the card in a machine that keeps track of time- and the machine punches the card, popping part of it out that shows when you leave work." His expression darkened again. "As for quitting- nah. Need money to live off of. One day I can retire, I suppose. But by then I will be too old and decrepit to enjoy my time anyway so it will no longer matter. And then I am living off old age pay from the government so I won't be able to afford any fun regardless." He shrugged, sitting up a bit again. "Sucks being human."

She sighed, cupping her chin with her hands as Anais leaned forward. "Sorry I am making it harder..."

"What? What makes you think that?"

"Well, you have to waste the money you work so hard to get on me."

Cimon laughed. "Ah, but that is part of the ironic tedium of working!"

"Huh?"

"If I am at work, or sleeping to recover enough to go back to work again- then I am not spending money, am I? I have to work to live, but I can't do both at the same time, so by working I am not really living. I game- but a game that says it has 50 hours of content ends up taking me an entire year to finish. I... don't really buy anything else. Utilities to keep the lights on, food to eat, and that is it. Occasionally if one of my shirts or pants rot all the way through I go get a new pair once in a blue moon, and that is it. That is the only things I ever spend money on, so I actually have a good bit shoved in the bank in my savings. No point in spending it on anything else because I am not going to have the time to use it anyway- I am so tired from work when I get home I just sleep till I have to go to work again."

"Yea but it's your money, and you're spending it for my benefit instead of yours."

"Having you there when I get home really brightens my day though- that wagging tail is more than worth the cost."

She smiled, but the smile looked pained as she glanced away. "I am sorry for that too. I am just setting us up for loss..."

"What loss?"

"Cimon, I may not quite look it right now but... I am a dog. I only live like a tenth as long as you. Even if I retain perfect health from now on... I am still going to die well ahead of you. And... I lost my dear master, I know the sting of loss. I danced with death myself but it did not hurt as much as losing her. I... don't want to do that to you."

So, the reason Anais has been avoiding Cimon is because she doesn't want to hurt him, when she inevitably dies?! Well... that is a surprisingly dark thought from a dog. So it isn't because she dislikes him- it's the opposite. She likes being with him and his home a lot- she just doesn't think she deserves it, she views herself as a cost-sink.

"Anais..!" She refused to look directly at him, but he gave her leash a tug, forcing her to turn to him to avoid being pulled over. "Hey. We all die one day, that isn't a reason not to live, that is even more of a reason to cherish every moment. Your master- my aunt- died before you, and she was human. I could get run over by a car tomorrow on the way to work and you will out-live me too. Nothing lasts forever, so you have to make use of every moment you have."

Anais and Cimon both looked rather somber on the return home, and they both went to sleep quickly, but they had a lot to think about. Cimon wondered if he should even go to work the next day... he sort of wanted to spend some time hanging out with Anais now. She has been secretly trying to isolate herself from life and Cimon could not allow that.

Part 3: The Road From Ruin

The next day at work seemed to fly by for Cimon because he was lost in thought as soon as the work eased up enough for him to think at all. Anais is half human... even if no one else realizes it changed, it is still a big change. She can eat human food, she can sit in a chair at the dinner table. She could go on an amusement park ride, learn to drive, play sports! He already taught her how to game! If this change is temporary- they have to make good use of the time. The transformation may have been a downgrade for Cimon but it gave Anais back what she had lost and then some.

When he got home he rattled the doorknob rather than open it and then stepped to the side- out of the view of the window. Anais slowly crept up to the window to peek outside, wondering who was on their territory. Cimon slapped his hand on the glass of the window when she put her face up to it! She jumped two feet back, her upper lip curled to bare her fangs, but then she let out an angry sigh and placed a hand to her chest to feel her thundering heartbeat. She barked at him through the window as he actually opened the door to go inside.

"Sorry, couldn't help myself."

She furrowed her brow angrily, but her tail was still wagging. "Meanie. I am not really meant to be a guard dog."

"So, I was thinking while at work- what do you want to eat? You are half human now yourself so you can actually tell me what food you proffer."

She blushed a bit. "Y-you were thinking about that at work?"

Cimon shrugged. "I work at a bar and grill."

She nodded. "What... is a bar and grill? Those sound like machine parts..."

Cimon laughed, following her to the couch and plopping down on the opposite end. "I guess technically they are, but a bar is also somewhere they sell drinks to people, and a grill is something you use to cook food. Basically I work at a type of restaurant. I help cook food quickly for a lot of people."

Anais asked what having a job was like, since Cimon did not seem that upset by it today. Normally he was depressed and sore looking by the time he got home, so she was afraid to ask him about his job because she feared it would upset him. Cimon actually never spoke about his job to anyone before- this was the first time he has ever really thought about what it is he does. He normally just does it without thinking about it. What seems like reflex to him seemed impressive to Anais, which made him smile even though he still knew what he did was nothing. The job is so low-tier it essentially had no prerequisites whatsoever. Heck, he originally did not even sign up to be a fry cooker- he went there to apply for a dish washing position, but they needed a fry cooker more.

Their conversation ended up in the kitchen, and he put together a nice dinner for them with Anais by his side. He laughed when she was washing the veggies off in the sink before cutting them and leaned over to lap at the running water with her big tongue. She watched closely the process of cooking food to eat, and Cimon let her try to do some things too- though he was leaned real close when he made her cut some veggies to make sure she did not cut herself. She has two hands, but they are the same type of paw-hand hybrids as Cimon now has on his one arm. Cimon was panting by the end of it, but Anais was fine. She still has the coloration of her former fur imprinted on her flesh, but she doesn't actually have the fur, which means she can sweat while Cimon cannot. She also has a lower body temperature normally, so she likes it hot.

Cimon could swear the food tasted better than usual. Something about knowing the effort that went into making it, made the experience of eating it better. He always cooks- so he technically always knows what went into making it, but usually he doesn't really think about it. It just seems like a chore. The time cooking it, eating it, then he usually gets sleepy after eating so the effort of digesting it, then it will make him have to go to the bathroom later, and then having to do all the dishes... it was just a long series of annoying chores. Making a big fancy meal just seemed like a worthless time-sink. You could potentially spend an entire day making a huge extravagant meal... but it is still only going to take you like ten minutes to actually eat it. Then you shit it out and forget it even happened in the first place a couple of hours later. So you spent an entire day just to get ten minutes of enjoyment out of your food? Seems like a giant waste of time. You could just go get that same level of enjoyment by doing something else you like that doesn't burn an entire day worth of time you will never get back. But Anais had fun doing it and learning, and he had fun being with her and watching her have fun with it. He could basically syphon some of her energy and enthusiasm where his own was constantly floundering. She wanted to try and make dinners on her own now. Though... he was a bit nervous about her potentially burning the house down. She is a dog... but she also has human-level intellect now, so maybe she will be fine.

They went for another walk that night after dinner. It would be nice to walk with her when it was actually still light out, but he works so late that the sun is already setting by the time he gets through the door. It still feels weird putting her leash and collar on, when she just walks beside him like a normal person anyway. She doesn't need the leash- he knows she isn't going to run off.

"No, no! Put it on. I..." She blushed. "I need the other humans to know I belong to you. They might take me to the pound or run up and pet me without asking if they think I am masterless."

Ah, so the leash is a comfort item for her, because she is shy. Anais did not mention that it also works the other way around too. The leash marks him as her master- so other dogs or females don't try to rub up on Cimon out of the blue when he clearly already has a pet. This time they walked further than the last because they started a bit earlier. They wandered to the far side of the dog park, which ended in a dimly illuminated bike path that orbited a small dam. Anais slowed and stopped short of the path, looking a bit nervous.

Cimon raised a brow, turning to look at her in the dark. "What's up?"

"The ground ends."

"H-huh?" He looked ahead. "Oh, yea, the river. There is railing around it, you won't fall into it. C'mon, it's fine."

Apparently Anais is nervous around heights. The river on this side of the dam is a good distance down. She approached the ledge very leery, even though the railing would prevent anything from happening. The edge is solid concrete so it's not like it will collapse under her. It took a bit for her to work up the courage to lean up to the railing and actually look down. She gawked at the view for some time, then slowly turned to the side and pointed to the lake on the other side of the dam.

"Wow, look at all that water! It is like a water dish only... giant!"

"You've... never seen a lake before?!"

She shook her head- first time she heard that word, actually. Her old master Lacy did not live near here, so she has never been to a dog park or a lake before. Lacy always walked her around her old home- which is in the middle of the city. The most nature-y path they walked is a bike path, or the dirt path back laneways of the residential blocks.

Cimon chuckled, making Anais furrow her brow. "What? You making fun of me?"

"N-no. It is just... this is like, nothing."

"That huge lake is nothing?"

"It isn't a huge lake- that is a SMALL lake. A small man-made lake. There are lakes a hundred times this size."

"How many sinks do they have to make that much water?!?"

That caused Cimon to freeze a moment in confusion, as he realized she thought sinks were the source of water somehow. "Sinks don't... MAKE water. They get water- from sources like lakes."

"Then... where do lakes get their water?"

"They are the water. THIS lake was man-made, so, we built the dam to block the flow of a large river, which then pooled to create the lake. Most of the Earth is covered in water, that is why the sky is blue!"

"The water turned the sky blue?"

"Eh..." He rubbed his head a moment before sighing. "That is way too complicated to explain, especially this late at night. Just... take my word for it on that one."

They walked toward the lake so she could see it up close- the path circled both sides of the dam so it went around the entire lake. It only takes like fifteen minutes to walk casually around the entire thing- it isn't very big.

"So... almost the whole world is one giant lake?"

"Well- the really huge body of water is called the ocean. It is salty! But yea- it is so big that you can stand on the edge and there will be nothing but water as far as your eyes can see."

She looked out over the lake beside them now for a moment in silence. "Wow..."

The moon was just a thin crescent tonight, but there was plenty of stars out. The street lights on the path were few and far between so they did not interrupt much. The lake acted as a perfect mirror for the night sky.

She darted over to the water, then paused to look at Cimon again. "Can I?"

"What? Wait, swim you mean? At night?! You'll freeze!"

"Aww..."

"We can come back during the day and you can swim then, heh."

"But... you sleep till you go to work."

Ah yea, there is that problem. He needs the rest to survive a day of work, and he works till the sun goes down. So his only time off normally is late at night.

"Oh right... well, there is the weekend. Gives us something to look forward to."

They wandered around the far side of the lake and then branched off the path- Cimon showing her an alternate route back home for the night. Anais stopped to look at him though after she felt a gentle tug on her leash several times- Cimon slowing down because he was lost in thought, causing her leash to run out of length.

"What are you thinkin' about?"

"About you, and me. Being half human, there is so much you could experience that you wouldn't understand as just a normal dog. Like cooking earlier. But, it's annoying my job gets in the way. I am so run down all the time and working when you'd normally do stuff like that..."

"If there is so much out there, why don't you ever do it?"

"Huh?"

"Well, when you get home from work, even on the weekend I don't see you go anywhere. If it is so fun, why don't you ever do it? You seem so sad often..."

"No, I am not sad, it is just that... I dunno." He paused for a moment before shrugging. "I don't know. No time. Too much hassle normally."

She tilted her head in confusion. "Having fun is too much hassle? But... you want to do it with me? Shouldn't you be more concerned with your own happiness? I am okay- I am content with whatever I get. I thought I was as good as dead long ago, so anything I get at all at this point is already a mirage- er, no, mir... m-m-mmmm-fuck I can't remember the right word."

"Miracle?"

"YES!"

Cimon chuckled at her again. "Well, I am fine too. I might look sad all the time, but I don't feel sad. I don't really... feel anything, most of the time, if we are being honest. I just go through the motions to survive another day. Get money, pay for food, eat, sleep, work again. It gets tedious, annoying, and draining if you stop to dwell on it so I just... don't. We don't know how this-" He motioned over himself. "-happened, and we do not know how long it will last. For the time being you have an extra hand and a chance to do and experience a lot of stuff you could not before. It would be a waste not to try. I just need to figure out how and when I can help you."

"But..." She hesitated, not wanting to seem like she is being annoying or pushing him but already spoke up so decided to continue anyway. "You said the other day that you could die at any moment. That means we are all on a limited timer. But when it comes to your life it is fine to settle? Why am I the special case? Why do you think I am more important than you?"

"You were avoiding me because you didn't want me to feel loss, you are the one who thinks I am more important than yourself!"

They both gawked at each other in mock-anger, but their faces both turned red in embarrassment from being called out. They were rather quiet on the way home, not because they were upset, they just did not know what to say to one another at that point. They knew it was true, but could not think of any other way to view their situations. Anais did not see herself as being something to invest in, because her life was already frail and fleeting. Why invest in something you are just going to lose anyway? Cimon seen his woes as simply being how the world worked, and there being no alternative. You work to live, and end up living to work. He didn't really care about anything, so why invest effort into something you don't care about? Well- he did have one thing to care about. That tail behind Anais- and making it swish. Make her smile like only a doggy does. To Cimon the world is grey, tarnished and bland- but to Anais everything is new and fun. He can't make himself happy- but he can make her happy.

The next day Cimon seemed quite happy, and woke up earlier than he normally would. He made them breakfast and sat with Anais to watch some television before heading off to work. Cimon made sure to point out the news and animal documentary shows so she could actually learn something from watching the television. Anais' tail was wagging the whole time- seeing him so much happier out of the blue made her happy for him. He headed out, waving goodbye and her tail settled down. Anais looked around the house wondering what she should do. There are books to read, games to play, lots of shows and movies to watch. Without Cimon here to decide for her, she doesn't really know what to do with herself. She has too many options to pick any of them.

Cimon burst back in through the front door, startling her. "HA, just kidding."

"W-what?!"

"Took the day off work."

"You can... do that?"

"Yea- I just told them I was sick." He shrugged. "They aren't going to know whether I am or not. In the food prep business they generally don't mess around with sickness. If you MIGHT be sick- get the hell away from people's food."

"So you lied to them, mmmm, naughty Cimon." She did a mock-pout, even though her tail was starting to move again.

"Nah- I turned into a half dog; that could be a sickness for all I know. Anyway- c'mon, let's go shopping!"

"Shopping? That is what they call it when you get new stuff with money, right?"

"Yup!" She went to get her collar but Cimon grabbed her wrist before she could leave. "You don't need a leash to go shopping. There won't be any other dogs."

Cimon was embarrassed a bit but luckily there were not a lot of people at the mall on a weekday. He took her to several different shops selling women's clothing. It was time to get the lady into something proper. He got her several different outfits including a cute two-piece bathing suit for swimming in. When it came to underwear, Anais unintentionally made it even more embarrassing for him when she kept going back and forth on what to get. Eventually she settled on panties only- she did not like the feel of bras and her breasts were not especially big so she should be okay without it. A bit puzzling however is that while showing off her outfits to decide what to purchase- Cimon immediately noticed her thin tail jutting out from the small hole just under the waist band. There was a tail-hole in the clothing. Like it had somehow been designed for a half-dog woman. He was too embarrassed being seen looming around a clothing store exclusively for women to actually go in and ask. Judging by how all the other changes were perceived- they probably wouldn't realize anything was amiss to be able to answer him properly anyway.

Anais kept thanking him seemingly every couple of minutes- overly grateful for him spending so much money on her out of the blue. They had lunch together in the central area of the mall, talking about random things and laughing. After lunch Cimon made Anais wait on the bench between two large fake plants while he went into a shop to buy some travel bags. It was a boring shop and she had no opinion on travel bags so there was no point in Anais having to follow him in. She put her paws up on the bench and laid her back down on it to rest. Cimon is too generous. Anais really does not need much of anything to be happy. But she did feel happy, so happy. Both of her masters have been such kind people. She isn't a good guard dog- since losing her front leg she wasn't a good race dog, either. She doesn't know any tricks. What does Anais do for her masters? Does she... deserve all this happiness?

Anais heard someone walking up, rather heavy footsteps clacking on the tile floor of the mall hallway. She narrowed her eyes in thought a moment. There is no scent in the air. If someone was approaching she would smell them- she doesn't smell anything. She sat up in confusion and looked at the source of the sound and her heart immediately froze.

A very large dog was approaching her, but its body was both skeletal looking, and made entirely of metal. That is why she cannot smell it- it is a machine. In place of a tail is a very long chain ending in a spade-shaped tip with bladed edges! It swirled and waved around the steel dog, but even that did not make sense. It is a chain- there is nothing pulling the chain around for it to move like that, it is moving like it were a flesh and blood tail even though it clearly is not. As soon as they made eye contact, it lowered its head and an electronic growling sound came from it as its ears flip back. The ears are made of several layered steel sheets, so they can still fold how a normal dog's ears do. The top half of the skull-like head was black, but still shiny like the rest of its body. The body of its paws and several plates over its ribs were also black- made of carbon fiber. Its eyes were black digital displays in the shape of eyes- the iris is just an illuminated cyan circle with a black dot in the middle to represent the pupil. The iris was replaced with a pixilated skull and crossbones a moment before the steel dog charged!

Anais called for Cimon and bolted immediately! Cimon came out right away but paused a moment trying to figure out what he was even seeing. He called to the clerk in the shop to call the guards or police and the clerk just looked at him odd. Really? The giant mechanical demon dog doesn't seem out of place? The dog snapped at Anais, but she turned and stumbled back, evading the bite. She then grabbed one of the planters and yanked it to the side, knocking it in the way- hah- the mech dog doesn't have hands! It was too preoccupied trying to attack her and didn't notice the planter till it was too late- crashing into it hard enough to shatter it to bits.

Rather than get up, it swung around using its chain-tail like a whip. Anais was still carrying her bags of goodies so she was not nimble enough to evade and the chain wrapped around her hips! Cimon grabbed the base of the chain and yanked the dog back. It turned to look at him, but then made a confused grunt before turning to him fully, letting Anais go for a moment, ignoring her now. The steel dog barked at him but it was non-aggressively. It was acting as if it knew Cimon already?

"Uh... hi? Can you not try to kill my dog?"

It shook its head 'no'. Cimon seen its tail lift and lunged forward to grab it but not before the tail shot backwards toward Anais! The dog attacked her without even facing her! Anais darted back in time- luckily she is a breed of race dog so she is agile if nothing else. The spade tip of its tail speared the floor where she had been standing and shattered straight through the tile like it was made of brittle chalk. It turned to charge at Anais again but Cimon grabbed one of its steel ribs from behind and held it still.

"Anais- run, get home."

"W-what about you?!"

"Just go. I will figure something out."

Anais did not want to leave him to the hounds of hell, but it also is not in her to refuse her master's orders. She held the bags close to her and darted as fast as she could out of the mall and straight home. He did not say to STAY home, just to get home. If she gets back fast enough and secures their purchases she can return to him at the mall. That was being overly optimistic though.

The metal dog yanked against him, pulling Cimon to his knees but he would not let go of its rib. It thrashed around, and eventually forced him to let go because he risked getting his arm shredded. Its metal vertebrae were tipped with tiny metal thorns- which got progressively longer down to its hips where they became full spikes. Once it broke free it darted forward several paces before it growled and then barked loudly in anger- realizing Anais was long gone already. Anais cannot smell it, but it can smell her- and it can tell by the strength of her scent that she is already too far to effectively chase down. It twirled around- its long chain tail making an exaggerated circle around it in the air before settling back behind it.

The steel dog casually wandered back to the confused and worried Cimon, before sitting on its metal rump and panting. Or... making a panting sound- it doesn't actually breathe.

"Who... what... are you? What do you want?"

It lowered one ear and raised the other, then tilted its head. It turned its head to the left and the digital iris turned to the pixel image of a dog, then it turned its head to the right to show the other iris was a skull.

"You... want to kill my dog. Wwwwwhyyyy?"

It made a sound almost like a chuckle before the iris then changed to a pink heart, and then a long pink line before it turned its back to him and casually wandered off again.

"Did it just... WINK at me?! What the actual fuck is..?"

He looked around at the few people in the hallway with him and everyone fully ignored the situation entirely. No one even acknowledged the broken planter. Like Cimon and Anais were the only ones able to see ANYTHING that had just happened.

Cimon bolted home as fast as he could, his lungs burning by the time he got back- though admittedly he wasn't in the best of shape to begin with. Anais was pacing a frantically debating if she should go back to him or if that would be disobeying when he burst through the door. Before she could even try to ask if he was okay he hugged her tightly.

"Thank the Gods you are alright."

"Me, what about YOU?"

"For some reason it only attacks you. As soon as you left it gave up and went away. It didn't even try to attack me." They pulled apart and he turned his arm, through his fur you could see a small bit of blood at the roots where the thorns on its spine grazed him when it was thrashing. "No one else seemed to notice, but it was real, because it actually hurt me."

"W-what are we going to do?!"

He smirked, motioning to their purchases. "Well, luckily I already unintentionally planned for this."

"For a metal dog to try and kill me?"

"W-well. I planned to skip town, which indirectly also solves our hellhound problem. It can't kill you if it doesn't know where you are in the first place."

"Skip the town?"

"Er- leave, it means to leave."

"Where are we going?" Her tail started a slow swish with her cautious optimism.

Cimon shrugged. "Anywhere. Away. Especially now that that thing is looming around somewhere. Let's just pack and get the hell out for now, iron out the details later."

And so Anais did not even need to find a place to keep her own things among Cimon's, she placed them directly into a travel bag and was already ready to go. Cimon packed two- because he also had to bring some supplies to survive off of. But not too many since he doesn't own a car. They are going to have to take his motorbike. He gave Anais his helmet since he only has one, and told her to hold on tight, so she wrapped her arms around his chest. By late afternoon- they were both long gone. That mechanical mutt can tear the whole town apart- it isn't going to find them. Because they left by vehicle- Anais' paws left no scent to track on the ground.

They were both still nervous because they did not know where the metal hound came from in the first place or why it was hunting Anais specifically. Cimon was nervous for other reasons too. He did not yet mention to Anais what this trip meant for him, but she didn't really need to know. The point is- they can leave the danger and their troubles behind. It is a silver sky day- the wind is warm but smells of rain yet to fall. The sky is covered in lumpy clouds- white in the depressions and dark grey where they stand out. The breeze felt wonderful in Cimon's fur, and he blocked the blunt of it so Anais did not get the chills behind him. When she was more confident in how the bike worked, she leaned back a little and put her face up into the air- letting the wind wobble her floppy ears back and forth under the helmet! Anais giggled at the feeling of the wind whipping past her. The sight of all the scenery as it passed so quickly. The same as a dog sticking its head out a car window. 'That was a feeling every dog needs to experience once' thought Cimon. The feeling of running without moving yourself. To a dog; it's like being able to fly. Whether she will ever admit it herself or not- Anais deserves this.

They stopped by an ice cream shop in a small satellite town. They would need to travel late to make any sort of ground up so dinner was likely late tonight- even by their standards. Cimon smiled at Anais concentrating on the ice cream cone, turning it slowly and measuring where it needed to be licked next to prevent it from dripping. She is still half dog, so he did not give her a chocolate ice cream, just in case it is still poisonous to her. He also avoided chocolate himself... since he is half dog too. She likes strawberry though- when he asked her what foods she really likes the other night, blueberry was the only thing she could think of. Anais likes berries! Although she also admitted that as a dog; she has never had access to much food in terms of variety, so there could be lots of food she likes that she is entirely unaware of still.

She got the ice cream down to the cone part, so it became easier to control, finally glancing across at Cimon who had been smiling at her the whole time. "Okay- so now that we have a moment... going to explain gooder... er, better? More details."

"Elaborate."

"Huh?"

"You want me to elaborate on my plans."

"Yea, that!"

He laughed. "Well... I don't have much in terms of a plan. There is so much I wanted to show you, now that you were not avoiding me like the plague." She tucked her ears back and glanced away a moment. "And you pointed out the other night- I don't really do much, because I don't want to put in the effort and risk it being a waste. So, I figured... fuck it. Can't figure out a way out of the loop, so just drop everything, take it sideways."

"So, we are just going in a random direction. Like the world's longest walk? Heh."

He took out his cell phone and turned it to show her a map. "Not quite random. The fastest route to the east coast. I want you to see the ocean, Anais. At least once."

"Ah...awww... Cimon..." She blushed hard and her eyes got a bit watery.

"We will both have fun. No job to worry about. Just the long road ahead of us, the wind in our... fur, our troubles further and further behind us. What comes next? Dunno. Something new, and that is all we need to know."

"Yea! Adventure!!"

Part 4: Never Look Back

Cimon was a bit nervous driving at night, but there was very little traffic on the highway out here. When he felt Anais' drip start to loosen on his sides he decided to call it quits for the night. She was starting to fall asleep on the back of the bike. Dodging that robot really took a lot out of her. Since there were no hotels or... any buildings for that matter for a good distance yet- he veered off the side of the highway and around an outcropping of brush. He unrolled a tent from the side of one of his bags, then got Anais to scrounge for a stick big enough to use as the center post to hold it up, and they slept in that the night. He brought two sleeping bags and the simple tent so they would not have to rely on finding (and affording) a hotel room every night. Anais flopped down and went to sleep almost instantly, snuggling up close to Cimon to keep warm. He was a bit embarrassed, but figured it would be fine.

Anais woke up before him the next day, and already marked a spot as their temporary bathroom. She looks half human but she is still a dog at heart- so she has no problem adapting to the outdoors. They split a stick of bison jerky and loaded up onto the motorbike to hit the road again. The clouds of yesterday were starting to split up. Now the clouds in the sky were tall with wide bottoms, scattered to paint the landscape with large moving shadows. It made the landscape look like it has cow splotches.

She looked straight up into the sky as the warm wind wobbled her ear tips. "The clouds look like floating mountains!"

"Huh?" He paused securing things to the bike to look up. "Yea. Yea, they do, heh. Sometimes you can spot clouds that look like all sorts of things. But not really this type of cloud. Hey- do I have anything stuck to my face still?"

"Mmmm, no you got it all."

Since Anais wore the helmet yesterday; Cimon was being pummeled by insects as they drove, and had to wipe bug guts off his forehead when they stopped. He went to hand her the helmet again but she hesitated to take it.

Anais only half grabbed the helmet. "Isn't there a way we can... share it?"

Cimon laughed. "It barely fits you, how would we share a single helmet? I can buy another one I guess if we pass a shop that sells them."

"Well if you wear it, then I can put my head exactly behind yours, and your head will shield mine... maybe?"

"Yea, but if you fall off or we crash that won't save you, and that is sort of its primary function. Keeping bugs out of your teeth is a secondary benefit."

Anais grumbled and went to pull the helmet out of his hand but they were both shocked when the helmet split in half! A second helmet phased out of the first one, creating two helmets where there had only been one!! They both fumbled the helmet in their hands several times as they shifted shape a moment later! At first it looked like the helmets had started melting, stretching forward a bit and then with the sound of the material cracking two slots appeared on the top of both helmets! Anais recognized what happened before Cimon could wrap his head around it. In order to wear his helmet before, she needs to aim her face straight up, lift the visor and hook her muzzle out the opening in order to get her head inside- because her muzzle obviously doesn't fit inside of a human helmet, but there are no dog helmets. Well- now there is two dog helmets, the slots on the top are for their ears to slide out. The helmet looked like it was starting to drip forward because it was stretching to make room for their muzzles! The overall helmet now had a vague teardrop shape to it.

Anais giggled and put hers on excitedly right away, and as soon as she put it on the color shifted from graphite grey to pastel pink! Cimon on the other hand just gawked at his in disbelief. He just watched a solid object shift like it had been made of soft putty, yet remain a solid object. Anais' collar is bigger and leash longer, and even her favorite plushy blue whale is now larger to match her own size change- but this is the first time he actually witnessed something overtly transform in front of him since his own body shifted. Is it... Anais? Everything that has changed so far has changed in favor of something she wanted. Even his transformation resulted in her gaining half-humanity and the limb she lost being restored at the cost of his. She definitely isn't the type to lie about anything, ever, so he believes she knows nothing. But that doesn't mean she cannot also be the cause, without knowing it. The machine dog also seemed hell-bent on hunting her alone.

Anais snapped him out of his thoughts, and Cimon eventually put his newly formed helmet on too- and its color shifted to deep ocean blue the moment he put it on. Cimon started to match his speed to the clouds overhead as he drove the bike, and occasionally weave from one side of the highway to the other. There was no other vehicles around so it didn't really matter. He was keeping his motorbike in the patches of sunlight as they rolled quickly across the sky between the cloud-mountains. Anais' tail was wagging away as she held on to his sides tightly- her plump paw pads leaving a perfect red imprint on his skin through his clothes where she holds him for so long.

Anais startles Cimon into thinking something is wrong when she barks several times- but then he realizes she just got excited because she seen a field of cows. They are coming up on a farming town, so of course there would be animal ranches too. She has seen cows on product labels and on TV before, but this is the first time she ever seen or smelled the creature in the flesh. Cimon cut across the opposite highway lanes to slowly roll through the grass at the edge of the fence, so Anais could see the cows as closely as possible. The cows were also curious and a few drifted to the fence. Cimon stopped entirely for a few minutes to let Anais reach over and pet a cow through the fence.

"Awww, its big pink nose is soooo cute! They are so friendly, eeee! They are a LOT bigger than I thought they'd be though. It could swallow my whole head if it wanted!"

"Well, they are herbivores so that won't happen."

"Herba-what?"

"Uh... prey species?"

"Oh!"

Anais blushed a bit, looking between the gargantuan swinging pink udder below the cows and then to her C cup handfuls. She only just now started to connect the dots that all mammals have these in some form or another.

After a brief stop at the cows, they took to the road again. Anais once again got excited spotting some horses! This time rather than wander closer out of curiosity the horse started to run down the field at the same pace as Cimon was driving, so he sped up a bit, and the horses sped up too. They are the spirits of competition- a horse won't back down from a challenge. Anais waved to them when the equine herd ran out of field to run in and Cimon passed them.

They were both starving by the time they got into the town proper, so Cimon brought her straight to the local diner and they had a good sized lunch- sharing a basket of fries between them in addition to their own lunch.

Anais slowed her chomping on the fries enough to talk. "So... you were already planning to leave before the whole killer dog situation happened, huh?"

"Yup. Made up my mind while trying to go to sleep the night before, heh."

Anais smiled timidly. "So... it was me again, wasn't it?"

"Hmm?"

"You would never do something like this if I wasn't around."

He put his hands up defensively for a moment. "You got me. To you; this is all new, and you really seem to be enjoying yourself."

"I am! But... aren't you too?"

"Yea, but, I could enjoy myself doing other things too, y'know? Like... this is stuff I could always do, always knew about... this is just normal stuff to me."

"Procreator!" He blushed in confusion, which caused her smile to fade a bit and she started to slowly blush. "Did... was that the right..?"

He just shook his head. "I am... 90% sure that isn't the word you're looking for."

"What does procreator mean?"

"Uh, someone that makes babies?"

Her cheeks turned bright red. "N-no, I mean... uh... p-pro... ordinator? No..."

"Procrastinator?!"

"YES!!"

He burst out laughing, almost choking on his food he was barely able to swallow in time. She lowered her brows and head a moment before sighing loudly, causing her jowls to flap. "It isn't that funny..."

"S-sorry, heh. Look; it isn't really procrastination, either. That would be me saying I would do it, and then not doing it. I never said I'd do it in the first place. If I did this on my own, all I would do is worry. Worry about dropping everything, worried about how to pick things up again, stressed about where I stop for the night, what and where to eat. I wouldn't be able to have fun."

She tilted her head. "Then why are you having fun now? How do I change anything?"

"Because YOU are having fun! You have so much energy, and optimism. It is fun to let you have fun, Anais. You let me see the joy I wouldn't have been able to on my own. I couldn't make myself happy- but I can make you happy. And that makes me happy."

"Aww... Cimon." She glanced away a moment, then suddenly back. "Wait- what is there to worry about leaving? Didn't you lie to the job people that you were sick so you could leave?"

Cimon looked nervous, digging his fingers into the bushy fur on his neck to scratch it. "Eeeh... well, the problem with that is that it only works one day at a time. And I have already been gone more than a day."

Her ears tucked back. "So... the job will be angry with you when you come back?"

"The job will be GONE when I get back. I just up and left- that is basically the same as quitting. Only arguably worse, because it upsets them by doing it this way."

"But the job is where you hunt for money, isn't it? How will you do the trading without money?!"

"I have money. I had a savings account I dropped money in all the time, remember? Because I don't ever buy anything other than the essentials. The only problem is now that the savings account is the only money I have, so I can't replace what I spend."

"So you'll run out."

He sighed, looking a bit distant in worried thought. "Yup. A problem for tomorrow's me. Look at it this way- a meteor could hit the planet and kill everyone at any moment and then what? If I hadn't done this, we would have both died without ever experiencing it. Maybe I will run out of money and get screwed in the future, maybe I won't. It's a gamble, but I already tossed the dice so at this point we make the best of what we have and figure out the rest... later."

He shrugged, but looked absentminded himself, like he was trying to convince himself as much as he was Anais. This isn't quite a vacation- it is more like he just uprooted his entire life and threw it out the window. He has no job waiting for him when he gets back, and this trip will most likely burn through a good portion of what he has saved up, if not all of it. So he will return broke and jobless... almost entirely relying on getting lucky with finding a new job. With no real credentials.

For now Cimon just wanted to focus on letting Anais have fun, and showing her the world she never knew as a regular dog. They did not know how long their transformed states will last so he wanted to take the opportunity while it is here. Another thing he wondered too was if they are stuck like this permanently... does that affect their life span? Humans can live up to 100, but a dog only lasts 15 years typically. So is his life span shorter now because he is half dog, and Anais' life now longer for being half human?

Cimon and Anais headed out- the clouds parted further now showering more sunlight down. It made things uncomfortably hot- especially for Cimon under so much fur. The wind is still blowing, but the wind itself is also warm. The sun bouncing off the pavement made the air wave in the heat, and made Cimon walk faster than he would have been the pads on his paws are cooking against the parking lot! As they approached the motorbike however, another man was parking his sports car, opened the door and smacked Cimon's bike over with the door!

The man just looked down at the bike a moment, chuckled and continued to get out of his car without a care.

Cimon just put his arms out. "Uhm... hello? You mind?"

The man looked at Cimon and smirked. "Not at all- would you like me to do it again?"

The man had to be at least six and a half feet tall, and his skin bronzed by the sun. He has short forward swept black hair, but a streak of blond in it that oddly also included his eyebrow below the streak. The eye under that brow was also a different color. On the other side it was baby blue like Cimon's eyes, but on that discolored side the eye was a wine red- the color of morganite. He is wearing a forest green hoodie but even through that you could tell he was absolutely built. He had several piercings in both ears and his belt buckle was shaped like a human skull biting into the belt.

Cimon sighed and shook his head. "Yea, well fuck you too, buddy."

Anais stuck her tongue out at him as Cimon went to get the bike up. The man spun around and punched Cimon in the back of the head, knocking him over the bike and to the ground. Anais darted to him and tried to bite the man on the arm, but he swatted her back.

Cimon got up, his vision blurry for a moment as his head spun from the hit. "What the fuck..? Is wrong with you?"

He thumped a fist to his chest. "Nothing. I am Agrios, the perfect man. There is nothing wrong with me- but there is plenty wrong with you. And you make me sick, frankly."

Cimon got up, dusting himself off. "You don't even know me, dude."

"Don't I, Cimon? I know how you failed to live up to anyone's expectations, and the one job you manage to hold- you abandoned of your own will. I know your life is hollow, and it sickens me."

"What the fuck... are you some sort of stalker?!"

Agrios held out his right hand and the rings on his fingers seemed to melt and spread out- the metal expanding and reforming like a liquid, but reacting to all outside stimulus as if it were still solid. It wrapped around his hand forming a finger-guard, then expanded as it united again on the other side of his fingers, turning into a handle. A pommel and hilt on either end, and then the sunlight itself mixed with the molten metal and turned it into gold as it erupted upward to form a golden sword blade! In a flash, a chunk of the blue sky itself seemed to divide like an optical illusion and become a sphere of perfect blue that partially embedded itself into the base on the spine of the sword- not touching the metal but floating in a half-circle depression.

Cimon immediately knew this was another insane situation like with the machine dog! People in the diner should be able to see this happening but no one has reacted to it- no one but Anais and Cimon can see Agrios! Cimon bolted, telling Anais to run too- hoping she would run in a different direction. Agrios seems to be coming after Cimon primarily- but unlike the machine dog; he isn't adverse to hurting both of them. Agrios is taller than Cimon so he can clear more distance with each step, and caught up to him before Cimon could get up to speed! Agrios swiped forward with his sword at Cimon's left arm, but Cimon felt him approach and turned around- causing the sword to instead swing past where his right arm would be; except he already doesn't have a right arm, so the sword missed entirely.

Anais slammed her hand onto his back and raked her claws down it- she could not cut through the hoodie but still left swollen red lines across his back. Cimon seen the word 'truth' etched into the sword blade that came so close to cutting his remaining arm off.

Agrios smiled at Anais, bowing forward away from her claws before turning to her. Cimon punched him in the back of the head as soon as he turned around, but Agrios was almost entirely unfazed by it. He thrust an elbow back and smashed Cimon in the side of the muzzle, stunning him before turning again and slicing him across his chest! Anais snarled at him and jumped on the huge man, scrambling up his back, causing him to stumble back a bit trying to keep his balance with a dog climbing him like a tree! She went to bite his throat from the side, but as soon as she bowed forward, he closed a hand over her muzzle- clamping it shut and then threw her off of him into a newspaper dispenser hard enough to dent the metal siding! Anais yelped in pain, but scrambled to get to her feet again quickly- taking the hit oddly well.

Cimon furrowed his brow and punched Agrios right in the throat as soon as he turned again. Agrios grabbed his neck and stumbled back a bit but just shook his head at the little man's pathetic attempt.

"You can't touch this, you little shit. Unlike you- I have a car, not a tiny little motorbike. Because I actually have relationships- women to drive around. A life to live. I have a good job, and I do it well, and I actually make time to have a personal life. You had a nowhere job paying minimum wage and you still couldn't balance your time enough to do anything other than work. How do you fuck up that badly, for that long? You'd think after seeing that it wasn't working-" He made an exaggerated shrug. "-maybe you should, I don't know, make some effort to fucking fix it. But nope, you were a fuckup and decided that was all you will ever be. I am over here making humanity look good, while shit stains like you tarnish the world." He spun the sword in his hand, pointing it to Cimon. "Dying will be the only thing you ever did right."

Anais flew at him and jumped high enough to punch him in the side of the head! Agrios was blown off his feet and tumbled to the ground four feet away! She somehow punched a 500+ pound man literally off of his feet! Before Agrios could get up again she was already on top of him, ready to punch him again! He smashed her in the side of the head with the pommel of his sword, getting up ready to split her open while she is still on the ground.

"Little bitch."

Cimon called to her and rushed forward, Agrios just sneered at him over his shoulder. Cimon stomped down on his leg from behind, taking Agrios by surprise and forcing him to bow back, and then Cimon punched him in the side of the face! The upward strike snapped his jaws shut and chipped his teeth! A tiny bit harder and Cimon would have broken his jawbone! Agrios growled and turned to thrust his sword into Cimon, and skewer the little man through his heart! Anais jumped in the way of the sword at the last moment- Cimon tried to grab her and move her out of the way so she would not take the hit for him but it was too late. The blade deflected off her torso , to both of their sides.

Cimon elbowed Agrios quickly, but only caused him to stumble back a bit. He then drew back and kicked as hard as he could into Agrios' gut causing him to stumble back even further.

"See you in hell."

"What? The f-" And the transport truck smashed into him at full speed.

Cimon kicked him far enough back that oncoming traffic ran him over. No one else reacts to his presence- so the transport driver did not even slow down. His body collided so hard it crushed the grill on the front of the truck and impacted the entire hood, embedding his body into the front of the truck, but the driver just kept going like nothing even happened.

Cimon quickly looked to Anais to see if she was okay, but could see immediately that she was fine. Agrios hit her directly with his sword- but it deflected off of her as if Anais herself was made of metal. The blade did absolutely nothing to her other than cut the sweater. Cimon on the other hand is bleeding, but insisted it was okay. It was not a very deep cut. Agrios cut through his shirt and across his lower chest, but the hoodie was loose enough that most of what he cut was just the top itself, only leaving a shallow cut through his skin.

As much as he would like to recuperate and clean his wound up a bit- he really wanted to get the hell away from there. Agrios was no normal human, so Cimon isn't even entirely sure getting run over by a transport truck would be enough to actually kill him. They needed to get as far away from this town as possible to make sure that if Agrios is still alive- he doesn't catch back up with them. That makes two psychotic killers in two different locations out for their blood, that no one but they can see. Is the next location going to have another one? What is causing all this chaos and why can only the two of them witness any of it?? They cannot go to the authorities or anyone for help, because no one else can see or interact with it.

Cimon took a bit of a detour, heading to a smaller satellite town instead of the next big city over- just in case Agrios is still alive and attempts to follow them. A bit too frazzled to be staying out in the middle of nowhere in a tent- they got a hotel room this night. The hotel was rather run down, but it did not cost that much to stay and most importantly- it has a pool. Since both their tops were cut- Cimon swapped out a t shirt since his fur insulates him enough even when riding, and Anais put on her two-piece swim suit and ran straight for the pool!

Cimon just walked calmly behind her- not intending to get into the water himself. She did a cannon ball straight into the pool without hesitation! Her aquamarine swimsuit had small frills on the top and bottom that made it look cute. Technically you can still see where her six teats used to be as discolored spots on her midriff- but in this form they are not actually nipples to need covering.

She popped her head back out of the water to take a deep breath again. "Pwah~! Come in Cimon, swimmies!"

"S-swimmies? Heh. No thanks. I actually don't even know how to swim."

"Whaaaaat? Really?!"

"Eh. We had a mandatory swim lesson in school but I never really learned anything. I know how to float- that is it, heh. So I can keep myself from drowning at least." He lifted his T shirt and pointed to the long narrow scab forming across his chest now. "I don't think my wound would enjoy me getting chlorine on it, either."

She inhaled sharply. "Oooh, yea. Does the ocean have chlorine?"

"No, but it is really salty- so you shouldn't drink it. There are lots of animals that live in salt water though and actually like it. A lot of life in the ocean. Refreshing breeze, warm sun, soft sand... the sound of seagulls all around. You can find and collect seashells, sand dollars and starfish!"

"Sand dollars?! You can find money from the sea? Is that where money comes from originally?"

Cimon laughed. "N-no. They are a sub-species of starfish, they are just called sand dollars because they look like coins. They wash ashore and because they are so slow moving- get stuck and dried out."

She scrunched her face up. "So you... collect their dead bodies?"

"Well it sounds weird when you say it like that."

Anais swam circles around the pool over and over again. It had been eons since she had ever been in water. Cancer growth caused her joints to seize up on her left foreleg which caused her to have difficulty walking, never mind swimming. Then to remove the cancer they removed the entire limb too- and she cannot swim with only three legs. Now Cimon is the one who is short a limb- and Anais can once again swim with ease! To see her this happy, it was almost worth losing the limb. Though; he did still wish he had lost his left arm instead of the right. It is actually a bit odd. He lost a limb and she gained one- so you'd assume she got the limb he lost when they transformed. But he lost his right arm, and she gained her left arm. It is the wrong limb.

Cimon had to explain to Anais how hotel rooms work- she at first was surprised at the price, thinking he now owned the room like he does his house. He only has it for one night. When she returned to the room after swimming she just shook herself off- and then Cimon directed her to the shower. You can't just shake off pool water, the chlorine will hurt your skin if it dries on it. She darted out of the bathroom after stark naked, saying she didn't want to get out a new outfit till tomorrow- so Cimon took his own t shirt off and tossed it to her so she would at least cover her boobs for now for his sake. He didn't need to pop any awkward boners- because he can't take care of it in the hotel room without her knowing. He has fur- she does not, so he sat on the blankets and she slipped into them, but they both slept on the same bed. He wasn't going to get a two bed room- she wouldn't use the second bed even if there was one. Anais always took out her whale plushy and hugged it to herself when she gets comfortable in bed. The navy blue of the plushy is starting to look like powder blue- it has been through the wash many, many times. It is her favorite toy because it is also her first. Cimon's aunt Lacy had it from when she was younger and visited an aquarium in her college days with her friends. When she eventually got Anais- she gave the plushy to her as the pup's first toy, and she has never let it go. When she was just a simple dog; Anais would carry the plushy around like it was her puppy.

Cimon went to the bathroom one last time before heading back to bed. The room was dark- only the light from the TV illuminated it, with Anais' head popped up on a pillow to watch over the blankets tucked under her chin with her plushy. He leaned on the windowsill and looked up at the starry sky. There is a lamppost not that far from the door to their room so he cannot see much, but there are still stars twinkling up there for him. Moths danced in a cloud around the lamppost light, muffling it. The moon is not visible so it is quite dark out otherwise. They are on the edge of the small town so beyond the path just outside the door is just brush, no other buildings. He could hear both frogs and crickets singing in the night.

When he plopped down in bed, Anais held up her plushy to look at it in the light cast from the TV. "Hey Cimon... are whales eatable?"

"Edible. And... yes... but also no?"

She lowered her brows. "What kinda answer is that?"

"Well you CAN eat a whale, it is not like it is poisonous. But uh, it's illegal to hunt them in MOST places. They are mammals like you and me- they are not fish."

"Whaaaat? Wait doesn't that mean they have boobies?"

"Er, mammaries, yes- they do. Whales are absolutely colossal as well. You might see some when we go to the ocean!"

She smiled at her plushy before hugging it to her body again. "I would really, really like that. Mmm... night mas- er... Cimon."

She turned over and curled up under the covers and closed her eyes. Cimon could not sleep yet, so he just turned the TV down to let her sleep. He kept thinking about that psychopath that attacked them. That is two strange attackers now, and they seem to come right for them- like they already know Cimon and Anais. But how? And why?

He seen the silhouette of movement in the light from the TV and glanced over to see Anais gently gnashing her teeth, and occasionally making a weak, muffled bark. Her hands kept clenching too. She is fully asleep- dreaming so intensely that her physical body is twitching around a bit too. He should ask her what she dreams of- since she can actually answer him now. He smiled at his dreaming doggo and turned the TV off, finally going to sleep himself.

Part 5: A Little Rain Never Hurt

Cimon was woken up by Anais jumping around already on the bed- not trying to actually wake him up but too full of energy to sit still. It was quite early in the morning but Cimon did not feel particularly tired so he just remained up and they headed out. There were scattered clouds in the sky and the air was quite chill today. Cimon certainly did not mind- he has been cooking under his fur lately, the wind ripping past when he is driving the motorbike was the only thing keeping him from passing out with heat stroke. Anais was a bit chilly but now that it is morning she could change into some of her new clothes. She put on a pair of skinny jeans and then a nice charcoal grey cable-knit sweater. It was a bit long in the sleeves but she liked it. She pointed out that there were already holes in the sleeves unfortunately, but Cimon just chuckled at her and informed her they were supposed to be there. The holes are for her thumbs to go through- because the sleeves are deliberately too long.

They loaded their things onto the motorbike again and climbed on, but Anais looked into the distance. "Hmm, rain on the way."

Cimon cocked a brow. "You a weather woman now?"

"I can smell it, silly."

"SMELL the rain?"

"You can't? You have a dog nose too."

"I... guess? I never really thought about what water smelled like to know." He followed her gaze to the north east and seen a higher concentration of grey clouds. "If those are coming this way- it will definitely rain. We are heading east, so we will be under those pretty soon because we have to go that way to get to the ocean. Aaand we didn't pack umbrellas, or rain jackets."

"What is an umbrella?"

"It is a plastic canopy on a metal stick basically- you open it over you to deflect rain, so you can be out in the rain without getting wet. Since we are on a motorbike that won't really work for us till we stop and get off. Rain jackets are water-proof clothing you can wear to stay dry in the rain... I don't even own one though."

"Can we buy them?"

"Y-yea... I could get some. We need to find a shop that would sell them before we find the rain though." He just grinned and shrugged. "We may end up getting soaked today- oh well."

They took off toward the gathering clouds- it did not look like it would rain immediately though. While the air remained cool from the night before without the sun to warm it- the water was not falling from the clouds yet. At a distance rain will look like the clouds blurring downward, and they could not yet see that. The cracks of sunlight became smaller and fewer, but Cimon honestly liked the softer lighting of the sun filtering through clouds; easier on his eyes. Anais was clinging to his back so he broke the wind for her and shared his abundant warmth. In this area there was not a lot of humans, so buildings were few and far between. A radio tower, some gas stations and that was it. The rest was pine-dominated forest and Anais had fun spotting and pointing out animals as they whipped past. Deer, a rabbit and even a fox! At these speeds she could not smell them, but her eyes were sharp. Anais got a good look at an eagle too- it was flying at the same speed they were driving at, so to her it looked like the bird was stationary overhead.

Her eyes turned more to the sky as the gaps between clouds vanished quickly. They are travelling in almost the exact opposite direction the clouds are, making them roll past almost as quickly as the landscape under them. They went from white to grey highlights to grey with black cores. A churning sea of clouds ready to release a downpour. She almost wanted to put her arms out to her sides, but knew better than to let go of her master. Looking up at the clouds passing; it really did feel like she was flying. So much world to discover in every direction, no chain holding her own, just her and her master with an entire world to explore!

Cimon slowed a bit when they approached a town just before lunch. The sky was a very dark grey now, but the rain still had not started. Cimon was driving slowly to try and scout out a store that would sell raincoats for them.

Anais poked him in the shoulder from behind and then motioned to a person waiting at a bus stop. "What is that weird headband thing so many people wear?"

"Oh- those are headphones, they are listening to music in them. The end parts release a sound that was copied to a digital medium. You know- like how the TV works, they are like the speakers on the TV only tiny and directly over your ears."

"Oooh, but... where is the music coming from then? They don't have a TV on them, and the headphones don't look like they are even plugged in..."

"Some electronics are wireless. And there are a lot of different things you can put music on- like my phone is what I always use. I used to know how to play some music myself, heh."

Her eyes went wide. "You can make music?! I want to hear!"

"Aww, well... I didn't bring my guitar. I actually don't entirely know where it even is- it has been in storage for a long ass time."

When they found and stepped into the local mall they both had to squint a moment- the indoor lighting is actually significantly brighter than the ambient light outside with all the clouds. Cimon told her to split up to try and find what they need faster. He doesn't have to worry about Anais getting lost in a new location because they can smell each other; so they can trace back their own scent to the place they divided, and then follow the other's scent trail from there. Cimon cannot identify even half the smells he is capable of distinguishing in this form, but he still smells them and can remember them. He remembers the specific blend of scents that is unique only to Anais, so he cannot lose her.

Anais did not entirely grasp how humans sorted things, so she ended up running up to and peeking into every shop and isle she encountered, darting around rapidly like she was looking for a person- not knowing she was looking for a raincoat in places where there would never be one. Cimon knew better, and so he went in the correct place and found them almost immediately, leaving Anais for the moment to run around blindly on her own. She found her way to a music store and slowed her frantic darting around. Most of the shop was little phone-like but not phone electronics for playing music. But toward the back it transitioned to more physical mediums, large speakers and subwoofers, and finally at the very back actual physical instruments. The shop also repairs and re-strings damaged instruments.

Cimon said he owned a guitar and knew how to play, so she looked over the guitars. She heard music her former master listened to all the time, and seen enough television to know what sounds a guitar made. The money numbers on these guitar look awfully high though, and he already has one. She should just wait for them to return home to hear him play then. She wandered the isles looking at all the musical equipment longingly. As a regular dog she did not think about music at all. It was just a fun noise that came on sometimes that seemed to cheer everyone up, so it was a happy sound and fun to move around to. As a half-human, Anais now understands there are lyrics, meanings, and other emotions contained in the music. It can encapsulate moments as a soundtrack to your memories.

The man behind the back counter where repairs are done was watching her for some time before speaking up. "You, uh, lost pup? Where is your owner girl?"

"O-oh! Aaah, I spaced out!"

"Go find him- go back to your master."

Anais darted off quickly. When she passes the place where they originally split off she has to slow and concentrate on the scents, following his back to where they actually sell the rain coats but he was no longer there. She spent so long looking in every shop she passed and then idling in the music shop that he already made his purchase and wandered off in the meantime. Anais tracked him down to a large hardware and lumber store on the side of the mall. The smell of cut wood was very powerful, making it a bit harder to track him but she still found him fairly easily. He was in a section of screws, nails, springs, door hinges, and other such small metal bits and bobs.

"Whatcha lookin' at?"

He was startled a moment before looking at her and smiling. "There you are- was starting to wonder if one of the mall guards grabbed you or something."

She tilted her head. "Why would a guard grab me?"

Cimon shrugged. "You are technically a dog, walking around solo in a mall. I don't know how anyone would react to either of us these days. I got us some raincoats- er, hooded rain ponchos anyway. Best I could find. Will keep us mostly dry anyway."

She nodded to the bed spring in his hand. "What is that for?"

"Oh- nothing. I was just thinking about something I was going to build. See... before we transformed I was planning to put together an artificial arm for you, or try to anyway. Had a blueprint thought of and everything."

"You can build limbs?! Wait- why didn't you build a new right arm then?"

He chuckled, pointing to the stump. "I can't build anything with my dominant arm missing. But also it wouldn't be very functional... it would be a pretty simple replacement. Essentially it would be shaped like your arm, but be more like a peg-leg... except I wanted to do a simple joint on the front." He heft the spring in his hand. "I wanted to use a bed spring because they are really solid but still meant to bend. It would flex under your weight but not easily enough that it cannot support you." He looked around a moment, a bit lost in thought. "You know what? Maybe I will buy the parts while I am already here, put them together when we get back home again. Because we have no guarantee these transformations are permanent. If we revert back to normal at some point, you will need the limb again."

Anais thanked him preemptively, touched by his effort on her behalf. She still does not understand why he is so willing to go out of his way to help her. She does not seem to be worth the effort in her own eyes, but Anais is very grateful for everything he does for her. By the time they were heading out- it had started to rain finally. They dawned their new rain gear at the end of the hall leaving the mall- they can see the rain hitting the sun roof in the hall and pooling against the glass. Anais told him about where she had been, which made Cimon a bit sad he left his guitar back home. He had not used it in so long he isn't sure if he still remembers how. It did not occur to him that she would be so interested. It is not like he ever wrote any of his own music- he only knows how to play a few songs from other bands. Now he is a bit afraid of when they do get back- she is going to want to hear him play and Cimon isn't sure his talent is worth waiting on. She is expecting more than he is going to be able to pull off.

They approached the front doors they hear the sound of someone else strumming on an acoustic guitar. Cimon slows his walk and grips Anais's right hand tightly, stopping her as well, motioning ahead at the man sitting on the last bench in the middle of the hall, facing the front doors with his back to them. It is Agrios playing the guitar. This time he has torn the sleeves off his hoodie to expose the huge muscles of his arms. Anais and Cimon start to back away slowly, trying to be quiet as to not alert him, but Cimon spotted something else, and realized it was too late for that. Wrapped around Agrios' left forearm was barbed wire, which lead down to the floor. Cimon did not see where at first, but as the mechanical dog sat up and turned to them he seen the other end of the barbed wire was tied around her metal neck- it is her leash. Her ears folded back and she let out a soft but deep electronic growl. Several rows of pixels were removed from the top and bottom of her glowing iris to make it look like she is narrowing her eyes- even though she has no actual eyelids.

Agrios let out a hollow chuckle as he stood up and put the guitar down to turn to them. "Where are you two going? I thought your mutt wanted to hear some music?" Agrios motioned down to the mechanical hellhound. "I believe you already met my dog Lourd." Lourd made several grumbling sounds ending in barks. "Heh, she seems to think your bitch ain't worth the effort." He shrugged. "Can't say I disagree- I just wanted to show you how much better I am at it than you. I even play guitar better than you. And you don't even have your axe with you to defend yourself, heh, because Gods forbid you ever be actually prepared for anything."

Cimon stood his ground for only a few moments as the two enemies approach, before telling Anais to run and turned to bolt himself. Anais ran for the escalator up to the second floor and Cimon ran straight down the hall, hoping to maybe lose Agrios in the crowds of people. Like last time- no one seemed to think anything was odd. No one seemed to even notice Agrios and Lourd were there in the first place, and didn't think Cimon and Anais running away in a panic was unusual.

Anais ran up the down-escalator and Lourd followed immediately. She pulled the end of her barbed-wire leash off from Agrios' arm somehow without so much as leaving a scratch on him. She quickly closed the gap behind Anais, but as soon as Anais got to the top she slapped the red emergency stop button. Because the escalator is going the wrong way for them- as soon as it stopped abruptly Lourd slammed face-first into the steps and tumbled back down! The escalator steps are not wide enough for her to be able to twist herself around and stop tumbling till she got to the very bottom again. She rolled to her feet immediately and glared at Anais. The glowing cyan iris had a diagonal chunk of pixels removed- making it look like it was furrowing its brows in anger... without actually having brows to furrow. It growled at her but only paced back and forth a bit. That is odd... Lourd could walk up the escalator now that it is stopped, or just use the other one right beside it, but doesn't. Lourd isn't actually trying to attack Anais- she is trying to intimidate or outright scare her. Anais went to dash to the stairs a ways further into the upper level but as soon as she left the top of the escalator- Lourd mirrored her on the bottom floor. The mechanical mutt is trying to herd her- keeping Anais on the second level for some reason.

Cimon dashed around and between people trying to lose Agrios but Agrios easily gained on him because he did not move around the people at all. Agrios shoved his way past people, knocking them away and they barely even react to being knocked to the floor! He got to the food court first and dipped behind one of the artificial plant planters. It is elevated into a half-wall so it blocks Agrios' view. Cimon slowly turned around the planter to remain on the opposite side as Agrios.

Agrios just chuckled and shook his head. "Can't even face me, coward? You really just can't do a single thing right in the entire world, can you? At least die with some dignity, holy shit. Starting to think letting you live would be a crueler punishment than anything I could do to you."

Anais called to Cimon from above, warning him. Agrios grabbed the edge of the planter and the tile floor around its base immediately shattered as he ripped it effortlessly from the floor to throw the entire thing out of the way! Cimon dodged out of the way, but no longer had the planter to hide behind now! Agrios sneered at him and lunged forward- he is much larger than Cimon so Cimon was unable to get back fast enough to dodge as Agrios grabbed him by the collar and lifted him right off the floor!

Anais momentarily forgot her own peril and jumped over the side of the upper balcony into the food court! That should have been too far for her to land without snapping her ankles! Instead; the tiles under her cracked from the impact and Anais stood up perfectly unharmed! Lourd was not ready for her to try something so blatantly dangerous to herself, and so she could not react fast enough to stop her when she dashed at Agrios from behind. Agrios wound up his free hand to punch Cimon in the face but Anais grabbed the arm from behind preventing him! A moment later Lourd bit into her lower left leg causing her to wince and collapse forward!

Agrios dropped Cimon and turned to Anais, kicking Lourd back off her. "Get out of the way- I will put this bitch in her place myself."

He raised his foot to stomp on Anais's head before she could get up off the floor! Cimon's vision turned red and he rushed forward and punched Agrios in the side of the head! Agrios was hit so hard he fired through the air like a human badminton birdie, slammed into the glass store front of a shop and shattered the entire front of the store! He flew across the inside and slammed into the counter hard enough to shatter it, before it was finally able to stop his momentum! Cimon jumped across the floor so fast seven random people were yanked into the vacuum created from his movement and crashed into one another! Agrios was barely standing back up before Cimon was already on top of him, grabbed him by the face and slammed him down through the ruin of the counter and shattered the tile floor against the back of Agrios' head, leaving a small impact crater in the floor! He wound up with his other hand and punched Agrios in the face, pounding his head deep enough into the concrete foundation that he split a water pipe under the building, causing water to spray up through the cracks.

Cimon stood up straight again, growling. "Don't you EVER fucking touch my dog."

To his surprise Agrios' body seemed to lift up, melting into a gritty looking vapor and vanishing into the air! Did he... KILL Agrios?! Cimon heard some people weakly cheer him on as they continued to walk past. Wait... so they saw that? Anais wanted to run over and see if he was okay too, but Lourd paced in front of her, blocking the path. Lourd caught her glancing past to Cimon and snapped at her, stepping forward quickly to scare Anais back. Its iris changed to show a pixel image of a man and dog, then it turned its head to show the other eye and an image of a grave. She barked softly, then turned her head and the same image as before- but now the dog and man were turned away from one another, and turning her head back the other side now displayed a heart. It is a threat. If Anais remains with Cimon; Lourd will kill her. If Anais leaves Cimon, Lourd will let them both live. So... she never wanted to kill Anais in the first place; she wants to steal Cimon away from her. Cimon was her actual goal from the start.

Without turning to look; Lourd heard Cimon get up and wander back toward them. She growled at Anais one last time before turning to leave quickly into the rain outside- her barbed-wire leash dragging on the floor under her without a master to hold it. Anais was afraid to run to him till Lourd was out of sight. Cimon groaned and held his head... his mind felt foggy since taking down Agrios. How did he DO that? What is happening to him? What is happening to everything around him these days?

Cimon toppled over onto all fours and groaned in surprise as an odd inward pressure fired through his entire body. A gentle pressure but it existed everywhere on and IN him all at once! Anais stepped forward in concern but then collapsed onto one knee and quickly grabbed the sides of her head as the same feeling inhabited her now too! They are transforming again! Embarrassingly; in public this time.

The destruction caused by the fighting slowly reversed itself, pulling back together like someone rewinding a film, while the two of them turn into yet another new shape. Cimon's hands stretched and became narrower as the devolved further; less like hands and more like paws to match his former feet. His chest let out a rapid-fire set of hollow sounding pops as his rib cage changed to project a bit further forward than it is wide. This shuffled his organs around a moment and caused him to burp several times on accident as trapped air escaped his shuffling guts. His entire body started to shrink!

The transformation caused his body to heat up and unfortunately his thick bushy fur and clothing on top of that trapped the heat in so it could not escape, and he lacked the ability to sweat- forcing him to pant heavily. His neck extended and he gagged several times from his throat shifting around, and suddenly he could no longer speak! He seen something was wrong with Anais too- but when Cimon attempts to ask her what is wrong he just makes odd grumbling sounds ending in a sudden bark- startling himself! Cimon tried to get up but he yelped in surprise from his hips popping loudly, becoming narrow but deep- but also shifting the way his legs socket to the pelvis! His legs were drawn tighter together and his thighs became broader and disk-like, which caused the skin that connects it to his torso to also broaden... preventing him from spreading his legs very far. He could no longer stand on two legs! His shoulder blades cracked and shifted forward covering more of the sides of his shifted chest, then his arms were forced further forward, which helped him draw himself further up off the floor and be level with his hind legs... but again; locked them in a quadruped stance.

Cimon blushed as he felt his foreskin bloat up, causing the outer skin on his shaft to bulk up tremendously and the fur advanced over it as well! It turned into a sheath and he felt the skin divide from inside of it parting with his new phallus, as its shape turned to that of a dog too. Even his manhood converted to that of a beast! Husky are definitely not small dogs, so he did not shrink too much. His clothing oddly seemed to keep up with him- and his pants even had a hole for his tail to escape on its own like Anais' outfits! Cimon was regressed to a normal looking husky! Well, a normal husky with only three legs.

Anais could not even see straight, her vision blurred from vibrations in her skull, but they were happening to constantly that her vision just remained blurred! Outwardly the sound was almost undetectable, but to her the cracks and pops of the bones in her skull was the only thing she could hear. Her head was compressing! Her muzzle is shrinking and drawing back into the rest of her skull! Her ears shrink and the cartilage inside expands to give them a more rigid shape! The splotches on her skin start to fade to a peach toned flesh, and then expand to devour the rest of her skin as well! Her scrawny tail got smaller and chubbier till it was just a plump cone and then regressed entirely!

Her claws regress and the fat deposits vanish from in her pads, then the skin softens and thins to hide them entirely. The paws on her legs compress, shortening and she grows a larger toe to join the others- the others drawing back as the new toe grows forward till they are all even. Even her glossy black lips turned to a diffused red! Anais flinched and rubbed her head from a prickly feeling and gentle pressure on her scalp as hairs started to grow out rapidly. A pale powder brown like the splotches on her fur had been... except this is not fur, it is hair. It did not stop growing till it lightly brushes her shoulders. It just grew in so it is not styled in any way- forcing her to tuck it behind her ears so she can see past the curtain of uncut hair.

Anais looked at Cimon and the two gawked at each other for several minutes before Anais finally stood up on her feet. Anais turned completely into a human woman! And Cimon entirely into a dog. Their roles have been fully reversed. People passing by cocked their eyebrows at them, but they were confused as to why the two of them were acting weird- not that they just transformed in the middle of a shopping mall. Anais collected all their shopping bags again, but also noticed the guitar Agrios had did not vanish with him, so she took the guitar too. She was able to dawn her new rain coat easily but when it came to Cimon it no longer fit. He whimpered, tucking his ears back. Anais assured him it would be okay, and put the poncho over him popping his head through the hole, and trying to tuck the rest of the excess fabric up over his sides, but when she flapped the material it changed shape! Seeing that; he flapped it several more times till the poncho regressed in the front to cover his collar and the tops of his front legs, and remained long in the back to drape over his body! It reformed to perfectly fit his fully canine form!

A good thing their gear conformed for them too- because the rain was really coming down now. A blue-white light flickered in the crevices of the clouds overhead and occasionally an echo of thunder rattled windows around them. Anais loaded up the motorbike herself since Cimon can no longer help. He trot in a circle just behind her, nervous and not knowing what to do. When she attempted to get onto the bike to drive it though- he nipped her pant leg and pulled her back, then motioned to his rump. After going through various motions to try and direct her without being able to speak properly- he got Anais to look at his driver's license in his wallet. She can't drive his motorbike; she doesn't have a license, she would be arrested. And he can't bail her out of prison because he is a dog!

She has no choice but to take his wallet and use some of their funds to stay here for the rest of today, stopping short of where they could have been by the end of today. They can't leave town without their ride, and neither of them can currently drive it. Camping out also isn't an option because of the storm. Cimon could not see too far forward because of how the hood sits on his canine head- so he just watched Anais' feet as she walked and shadowed her every movement. At least he has pads to walk on. Anais has human feet now- but she doesn't own any socks or shoes, so she is wearing his former shoes since he now cannot. They are men's shoes, obviously, so they do not fit her particularly well and flop against the bottom of her feet with every step. Anais walks slowly with her hands on the handles of the motorbike, but just walks it beside herself as she looks for a hotel. Every time they stop Cimon ends up staring at her unintentionally. Now that she is fully human she is REALLY beautiful. The last surge of humanity seem to have increased the roundness of her thighs, the width of her hips, and thus also the roundness of her butt. Her lips are plump and deep red, and her eyes of gorgeous on a human face.

Anais is disoriented and feels a bit cut off while in this form. Her nose can no longer identify smells. She can still smell most of the same things she used to be able to, but they all blur together now making it impossible for her to tell what they correspond to. Walking on her soles feels weird- her mind keeps expecting it to hurt to put weight on that part of her leg, but then it feels perfectly fine. Her ears also felt strange now that they are rigid and unmoving, making her feel like she lost the ability to emote properly. She doesn't know how to control her facial expressions in this shape. They both felt out of their element in these forms, awkward in everything they do. Their previous state was a halfway point so they gained what the other had without actually losing anything they previously had. In these shapes it was too different for either of them to settle in.

She found a hotel and as soon as she got through the door she tried to shake herself dry to knock the remaining water off her poncho, and Cimon stomped his paws on the carpet to try and knock the water out of his paw fur. The clerk narrowed his eyes, watching the dog try to dry off like a human does, and the human try to dry off like a dog.

Anais slapped Cimon's wallet on the counter, then rang the bell in spite of the clerk clearly already being present and knows she is there- he is looking right at her. "I will take one room for two please!"

He raised one eyebrow, motioning to the wallet. "I... need your money, not your entire wallet. Also... for TWO? The dog want his own bed?"

"O-oh! Uh, hah... no, no I was... uh, habit? Room for... one. One is fine." She took out all of the bills and put them on the counter.

The clerk narrowed his eyes again before turning to his computer to register her. "I haven't even told you how much it costs yet- and it definitely ain't that much."

Cimon just whimpered, lowering his face and head-butting the bottom of the counter. He would help, but he doesn't know how to communicate with her like this.

It was not even quite lunch when they got into their room. Cimon's clothing still fit fine in dog form, but he ended up getting Anais to strip him down anyway- seemed pointless in this form. The rhythmic sound of rain pattering against the window and roof was soothing. The absurdity of it all had started to make their encounter with Lourd and Agrios easier to put out of their minds. They hung out in the hotel room for a bit, just sitting on the bed together watching TV quietly so they could still hear the rain too. Anais used her dainty human fingers to scratch Cimon's neck through his bushy fur. It lets the heat out, and he cannot dig his own claws in that deep, so he cannot scratch himself there. After a while though he plops off the side of the bed and then Anais hears him whimper and growl in the bathroom. She glances over to see him with his front paws up on the toilet seat and the shiny red tip of his penis poking out of his sheath. He needed to pee, but could not figure out how to make it work in this form. Actually aiming into the toilet like that would take a real sharp-shooter. Anais just held up his poncho for him and he groaned, plodding over to her looking rather defeated. She put it on and let him outside to pee into some shrubs at the edge of the lot outside their room.

She pat his head when he returned. "Aww, it's okay Cimon. It is weird now but we will figure it out. If we changed like this twice we can and probably will again, so you could end up fully human tomorrow- who knows. I don't much care for being a human woman, either. But I know it will be okay- because you said so yourself before. And I believe you. You have a sort of bleak outlook on life... heh, I think we both do. But you still face it with good faith, you are an optimist. And you're really earnest."

His tail wagged timidly, and he tucked his ears back and lowered his head a bit looking bashful. Cimon then barked and motioned with his nose back into the room behind her. It took him several tries to get her to realize he was motioning to his wallet. He then motioned for her to come out with him, so she grabbed the keys too and locked the room while tossing her own poncho on and followed him back into the rain. The rain was pounding the ground so hard it also put an earthen scent into the air, making everything smell wet and earthy, a very nice smell. Everything had an aura of mist around it from the raindrops rupturing on impact. The churning sea of clouds over them and the pale blue-white flashes of lightning could be seen reflected in all the water collecting on the ground.

Anais had no idea where he was going, but as a dog at heart; she doesn't need a reason to trust her master. He looked passed several shops all squashed together- no gap between buildings at all. It looked like a rather old area of the town. He barked several times and almost sat down till he remembered how wet the ground is. Anais looked up and seen the names of several movies that were playing. A theatre- a very old and small theatre. Because of the weather; the place was virtually empty. Anais just sort of went along with it, following his nods to figure out what to do on her own, with his wallet in hand. She does not know what a movie theatre is even for- as a dog, she has never been in one. Thanks to watching TV she knows they play movies here, but... the TV plays movies at home, so why would you go somewhere else to do what you can already do at home?

Anais repeated her mistake at the hotel- at first trying to buy two tickets to the movie before the attendant informed her that her dog does not need a ticket of its own. Dogs would normally not even be allowed in theatres in the first place- the fact that she so casually attempted to bring him along made them assume he was a service dog. Which IS allowed. Anais ended up following Cimon, since he knew what he was doing in a theatre. It is very dark so she can barely see where she is going, and her human nose cannot discern smells to help her find her pathing. Everything smells like... butter? Cimon took her down two thirds of the rows of seats and into the middle. They were the only ones here for this movie right now so they had the entire place to themselves. When the screen came on Anais immediately shrank into her seat in surprise, causing Cimon to make an odd sound- a dog's attempt at a laugh. When the sound came on for the before movie adds she put a hand on her chest. The thunderous bass vibrated her bones and made her heart race.

Anais was in awe of the giant movie screen and intense audio that she did not even notice that Cimon was watching her just as much as he was the actual movie. All her emotions seemed so... intense, and animated. It is like she feels life in color, and Cimon had been living life in black and white. They remained in their seats till the screen turned to black- not budging till the credits and music were completely spent. Cimon was glad he spotted this theatre on their search for the hotel. They took their time walking back to their room that afternoon. The lightning and thunder had stopped while they were watching the movie, but the wind had picked up and given the lighter rain a diagonal slant. The clouds have turned from black to pale grey. Anais kept excitedly talking about the movie and rhetorically asking Cimon about it, knowing he is incapable of answering her. His tail wagged as he nodded along with her, just basking in her energy.

Cimon kept having to walk in front of her a bit, getting distracted looking at her butt if he falls behind. She has a human bubble butt, and thanks to him being on all fours and smaller now- his face is basically on-level with it. She is a dog at heart, but she is in an entirely human body- which in spite of his current appearance is still what Cimon is into. When they got back they both jumped back onto the bed together, but Anais noticed the bulge in his sheath. His penis was tucked away, but the knot was slightly engorged deep in the sheath betraying his arousal. She did not mean to look, but was having a hard time not looking as well. Her body may be human, but she is still sexually attracted to other dogs... which Cimon currently is.

Anais put her hand on her forehead as she scoot up the bed a bit to sit up against the headboard. Hot... too hot. Normally she has a pretty low body temperature. She looked at Cimon's doggy bits by accident but then made herself flustered. Then she started thinking about how she shouldn't be thinking about it which is in itself also thinking about it, causing her to be still more flustered. Her body apparently doesn't know what it is anymore, because while it is entirely human in shape- Anais recognizes this downward spiral as the onset of the dreaded 'heat'. She blushed and started to squirm a bit in bed, rubbing her thighs together. She tried to stop thinking about sex but that never works.

Cimon did not know what was wrong, but she obviously looked uncomfortable. He stood up on all fours and went over to her, poking her with his cool wet nose in concern. He could feel the heat radiating off her head! Her blood flow was increased, causing her body temperature to skyrocket in specific places. Her pussy was also engorging, blushing pink itself which put a thick, salty scent into the air. Cimon did not know what it was, but it smelled good to him, and the more he inhaled the more his own thoughts felt like they were swimming, clouding over. Anais started panting even though she was able to sweat in his form and apologized to Cimon saying she needed to get her top off to try and cool down. She quickly pulled it off and tossed it to the floor beside the bed.

Cimon would have looked away normally but Anais' scent had him dazed and his brain was only running at a third of its normal speed, so instead of turn away his eyes locked on her breasts and could not break away. His red rocket started to peek out, the dick swelling in the sheath. Anais then could not stop looking at the shiny red surface of the emerging penis. In swapping bodies they unwillingly became what is most attractive to one another.

"O-oh... we, uh... maybe we sh-ooh- mmm-OOH!"

Anais quickly sat up, squirming her legs even more as she frantically undid her jeans! The pants are tight and the material inflexible, causing it to immediately pinch her crotch! Her vulva was turning back canine! The heat is something that doesn't happen in a human body, so by getting dominated by her primal urges she is also unintentionally waking her canine traits back up. Her labia darken and fatten tremendously and the internal portion of her clit swells massively, shoving her vulva further out off of her torso, projecting the entire mound, which made her quickly outgrow her pants. Once it was out in the open Cimon was really hit with the scent of a bitch and became practically hypnotized, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth and his penis emerging fully.

Anais could not muster an explanation or questions for this odd situation they have found themselves in so she simply rolled over and got up onto her hands and knees with her pants partially pulled down and buried her face into the pillow. She is in position... will he do it? She needs it- she can't think about anything else. The heat is too incessant to allow her to think about anything else. How weird the situation is, how any of this is happening, what is supposed to be acceptable for their relationship. Who is the master and who is even the pet at this point? Cimon's own thoughts were spinning; Anais needs something, he needs something, she is presenting.

He moved almost as if possessed as he positioned himself behind her, smelling her close and then giving her a few licks. Her vulva now returned to fully canine, so a plump, rubbery triangle. He hopped up and thrust into her, shivering from the intense pleasure in her wet passage as he scrambled further up her body to hook his paws around her hips to better hold on! Anais kept her face buried in the pillow, muffling her moans. The heat in her crotch was like an insatiable itch, and the phallus of a fellow canine was the only thing that could scratch it, the deeper he plunges the more satisfying it feels. Harder and faster- mute the feeling of the annoying, incessant itch by completely overwhelming it with pleasure in the same area.

Cimon's knot engorged pulling the sheath uncomfortably tight around it, but then shoving into Anais pushed on the opening of the sheath, shoving it further back each time. When the sheath was over halfway around the knot it instantly popped the rest of the way back, and was held off by the sheer size of the knot of hardened flesh and pleasure nerves. Cimon held on tight to her and had to thrust forward with quite some effort to get the knot in. Anais yipped in surprise and her vision turned white for a second when he finally popped the knot in- now too large to be removed again! When he tries to pull back, rather than actually sliding out of her he just pulls her vulva even further out from the rest of her! The soft rubbery flesh stretches to stay with his dick, preventing him from actually pulling out. The fit is tight enough however to form a vacuum seal- which means the further he draws the flesh back the tighter it collapses inward around his penis till the pleasure causes him to reflexively thrust back in fully. Like a finger trap- the harder you try to pull out the harder it holds you in.

The knot is also the most sensitive portion of the canine phallus as well, particularly the back half as it is the portion that spends the least amount of time exposed to anything- and that is the part that catches on her rubbery flesh first when he draws back- the pleasure turning his leg muscles to jelly, preventing him from pulling back very hard before shoving back in. His thrusts became increasingly rapid and shallow- his instincts completely taking over his actions at this point. He did not notice as they both approached orgasm; Anais was changing more. Ripples of change fired up through her like an echo of her pleasure! Her skin color remained but the splotches from her original form started to fade back in! soft, fine hairs started to grow rapidly on her shins, forearms, upper back and spread from above her engorged vulva! It quickly engulfed her entire body, restoring her white dog fur with powder-brown splotches!

Anais started panting as her ability to sweat was revoked and with every thrust in from Cimon, a tail grew a little bit further out from behind Anais, restoring her scrawny mid-length tail to whip back and forth behind her. She winced at the pressure as her nails changed shape, pushing on the skin around them to make room. Her toes curled from pleasure but then started to change shape as her feet grew longer and longer, devolving back into paws! Anais lifted her head from the pillow so she could breathe properly since she now needs to pant to heavily to keep up. The teeth in her open mouth start to sharpen, her nose darkens and changes shape before a pressure causes the cartilage in the bridge of her nose to pop loudly! Her face starts to grow out again, stretching and expanding into less of a human shape and more of a dog. The discolored dots on her midriff now stiffened and stood from their surface, engorging into six stiff teats!

By the time she hit climax Anais had returned to a half and half form- though she is actually a bit more dog now than before; her genitals remain canine and she now has teats in addition to her breasts, and her entire body is covered in fur again. Though; a whippet's fur is extremely fine anyway, and does nothing to hide the curves under it.

Anais reaching climax also caused Cimon's orgasm, from her vulva rippling and sucking so erratically on his cock. He has been avoiding touching himself with Anais around so it had been a while since he got any release- so his orgasm was strong and took its time tapering off. When his mind started to clear a bit he immediately tried to pull out in embarrassment of what he had done, but could not. His knot is engorged too large and tight to easily drain, and is far too big to pull back out of her. When he tries to pull out all he manages to do is drag her hips back along with his!

The more Cimon's mind cleared the more he started to change too though. His front paw scrunching up and expanding in width as his dew claw grew back into a thumb. His muzzle started to regress back into his head making him groan and softly shaking his head back and forth from the strange feeling of his bone regressing. His entire body grew to its former size and his fur started to fall away to reveal bare skin again! His penis started to transform, which ballooned the glans into a helmet shape while in the same motion regressing the knot away, allowing him to finally pop free from Anais. Cimon fell back on his butt on the lower bed in surprise- not ready to have been released so suddenly. Both he and Anais watched his changes.

His penis seemed to draw into the sheath but the flesh of the sheath also thinned and on the inside the crevice vanished, drawing the two together in this current pose- turning the sheath back into a human foreskin as the hair quickly fell away and dissolved into the air itself. The human glans still had a canine urethral procession on it, but that seems the only phallic trait to have remained from his feral form. In mere moments Cimon had been reverted to a half-form as well... but like Anais it was not the same halfway split as before. His fur is now spotty; only growing in specific places, and he has a perfectly human shaped face again. His teeth are still fangs, his lips are still glossy black, and he now has a short beard across his whole jaw- but it follows the coloration of the fur still. So while the hair on his head is black; his eyebrows and beard are snow white. The fur covers his legs and hips but dips a bit on either side of his crotch, and trails UP in the middle ending at his navel. His forearms are furry but only on the outer facing side- it wraps fully around just under his wrists. Cimon's hand is once again human in shape but adorned with the features of a paw. He has a broad triangle of fur on his chest and a wide stripe on his upper back leading down from his hair- which now once again LOOKS like human hair because of how it grows but is still technically fur.

Cimon and Anais just sat gawking at one another before they both realized they are naked and each scrambled to get back into their clothing

Part 6: The Sound Of Her Heart

The next day the two of them got an early start on the road. Yesterday was cut too short and Cimon was determined to make up for it. Anais was not bothered either way- she just enjoyed the adventure. Every day was like the thrill of a walk- new sights, new sounds, new smells. Getting her fur back helped her keep warmer easier on the motorbike, and now she has her human hair still to feel it blowing in the wind behind her- or what sticks out from under her helmet anyway. Her ears flip wildly back and forth thanks to the slots on the tops of their helmets to let them poke through. The sky was smeared with long narrow clouds but they were white and spread out- the sky is mostly blue today, though the air still smells wet and earthy. They set out early enough that the ground was still sopping wet in spite of the lack of rain because the sun had not had the chance to dry it. The horizon was still a pale pink from dawn when they set out, but quickly faded to a full and proper blue as the shadows shorten with the rising of the sun.

"Hey Cimon?"

"Hmm?"

"I stole Agrios' guitar..."

He chuckled. "I noticed. Looks identical to the one I have back home."

"Can you... play it for me later?"

He blushed- though you could not see past the helmet. "Ah... sorry, but you kind of need two arms to do that. Preferably you should have two arms to drive a motorbike to, but, heh. I haven't played in ages anyway, don't know if I would be any good anymore."

"Why did you stop?"

He shrugged, but kept his eyes head on the road. "Eh, a better question would be why did I start in the first place. I thought it was cool, was interested to see if I could make music myself- found out I could and that was the end of it. I never intended to make a career or anything out of it so it was kind of a waste getting a guitar in the first place."

"Hmm."

When they stopped for lunch Cimon was a bit nervous- keeping an eye out; paranoid Lourd or Agrios may show up again, but there was no sign of them so far. The place they stopped for lunch is a real worth-in gas station surrounded by dense pine forest on all sides; Cimon joked it looked like a good setting for a horror movie, if it were night time. They continued on the road, stopping for a brief rest at a lookout. The road curved along the very steep cliff that fell down into a river and a small lake in a valley below. The river water had cut the cliff eons ago, and it is a pretty sheer drop.

Anais put her hands on the metal railing and leaned over- her tail vibrating rather than wagging because she was nervous looking down such a height. Cimon remained a step back and just took his phone out to take a photo of the valley below. There is a camp site that borders the far end of the lake with some log cabins but that is the only sign of civilization in the valley.

"Beautiful view."

Anais giggled. "Yeh! There is so much... world. And we just keep going and there is more and more. I used to think the twenty or so dogs I would see on my walks was a lot but... there must be millions of dogs in the world."

Cimon nodded. "Yup."

"How close are we to the ocean?"

He switched to his map app on the phone to check. "Hmm, probably two more stops, then we will be there. We were not all that far in the first place. We are at the edge of the state right now."

"State of what?"

"Uh... it is a governmental divide. Same country, but each state has a sort of sub-leader, so we are basically entering someone else's territory. It is fine- you don't need a passport to cross state lines. You won't even notice a difference."

By the time they stopped that night the two have arrived in a large city again- it was dark before they got there but the bright lights on the horizon from the city helped guide their path. Cimon wanted to make sure to stop here to stick by his 'two more stops' estimate- this is stop one. Finding a hotel here was easy... finding a hotel within his price range was not. It is a big city, so in order to find a place to pitch their tent would also be hard, without heading a good distance back out of the city limits. Cimon was not worried about getting to the ocean on his saved up funds- it was the return trip that made him nervous. Because they need to re-tread all that land a second time to get home again. He managed to find an old motel at the edge of town that was the cheapest place and got them a room there.

In order to make up some of the money there- he nervously pulled a trick out of his sleeve for their dinner. He had heard his grandfather mention doing this in the past, so as embarrassing as it was; Cimon found a restaurant and attempted to eat for free. He got a word with the owner before their meal and instead of cash; he offered to help in the kitchen, doing dishes or even help cook. He worked as a fry cook for many, many years now after all. It was the dinner rush, so the owner was hesitant to turn away free labor, and actually agreed. Cimon would just work off the money owed. He was honestly surprised it even worked in this day and age- some things are timeless, it seems.

That mean Anais had some time to herself- while he worked in the kitchen after their meal she was left to wander. She made sure not to stray too far and get lost, though with her muzzle and sense of smell restored it would not be easy for her to get lost in the first place. The big city is so loud and the buildings so tall! So many people rushing about and talking all at once. She felt nervous about being alone here, but she knew Cimon was nearby. It was a sort of good kind of being scared. Like she was nervous about being alone in a place that made her seem so very small, but also she was in awe of it all, and eager to see what she can see. Cool graffiti on buildings, new advertisements for stuff they did not have back home or shops that were not available in their home town. All sorts of different people, street performers, subways! She did not go very far in, but she did peek into a subway station from the bottom of the stairs. They definitely did not have those back home! The sky was pitch black but the streets sparked with light, neon signs, streetlights, phone screens- the city doesn't sleep.

Anais started yawning so much that her eyes watered, making the bright neon lights of the city seem to blur. While waiting for Cimon she was alone with her thoughts as she slowly made her way back to their motel. All this is temporary. Tomorrow morning they will pack their stuff up on the motorbike and head out again, but she still loved being here, experiencing this. She loved their present, and would love whatever tomorrow brought too. Anais had been deathly afraid of investing anything in her relationship with Cimon. She thought she would only be setting him up for disappointment for when she inevitably dies on him. She knew what that felt like... she knew it quite well, actually.

Anais has five siblings but she couldn't tell you their names. She started with five, then four, and then three as they were plucked up by humans to serve as their pets. Then it was Anais herself, leaving the remaining two siblings with her parents. What became of them? She will likely never know, because she went to live with Lacy. That was a confusing loss, but... it did not hurt. They were fine- they were off on their own new adventures. But then Anais brushed shoulders with death itself, her body hurt, her arm barely worked, and then the doctors removed it entirely. She was delirious on medications for some time, to numb the pain. Her mind always spinning and cloudy... was she already dying? She heard Lacy talking to her, petting her... telling her it would be okay. Anais did not know, so she just trusted her master.

Anais ended up the one on top and Lacy the one who left. That was the lost that hurt. Not saying goodbye to her parents and siblings... not even losing her own arm. Losing Lacy hurt the most, and Anais did not want to inflict that suffering on anyone else in her own wake. But she came here. She came here to this city to see its sights and take in its scent only to have it ripped away the very next day. She would probably miss it, and wonder what else she could do in this place that she did not... but that did not stop her from doing it. Everything ends eventually; if you didn't do things because of that, you would never experience anything, and then the time you do have would be a waste. Anais was not sure she had it in her to push Cimon anyway anymore, regardless. He is too good of a master, and she has experienced so much craziness with him already, she can't pretend it didn't happen.

Cimon was having thoughts of his own in the kitchen, chuckling with the other chefs there about stories of what that kitchen has seen over the years. Cimon was a new face, so the other workers had fun sharing their stories with him- because he hasn't heard any of them yet. It helped pass the time and made it easier for them to set a rhythm to their work, which made things run smoother. Cimon was having fun, and knowing Anais was waiting for him as soon as he got out made for a good goal to reach. It had him wonder what was different though. The only reason he had any confidence in pulling this off in the first place is because he was experienced already in doing this very thing.

So why was this so entertaining now? The time seemed to go by fast, listening to their tales and listening to them bicker over the details. But this is the same job he ran away from, that he had been doing for years back home. Time went by slowly, and it was incredibly boring and tedious to do, but right now it is borderline FUN. So what was the difference? Did he just need to work with fresh faces? Switch jobs up? Or was it all perspective? To Anais; everything was amazing and she wanted to experience it all. That was the attitude Cimon wished he had, but it was unobtainable as far as he could tell. Maybe the problem was expectation. If he expects it to be fun, he will be disappointed. Maybe just don't expect it to be anything, and then be grateful of anything it happens to be?

Cimon lost his sense of wonder because he already knows, he maps out the entire night in his head before it even happens so when it happens; rather than be surprised, he is just bored. So maybe he just needs to think about it less, stop worrying about how everything is going to go, what he is going to have to do. Just live in the present, do it as it comes. And if that fails; do it for her. Anais' wagging tail is worth all this and more. He isn't just working to keep living to keep working, he is working to keep her smiling. To protect his dog's joy.

When he was done toiling in the kitchen and had earned his dinner free of charge, Cimon hurried back to the motel to see her, relieved that she made it back fine on the night streets. Had she been a normal woman- being on the streets of a big city at night would be real frightening. Anais being a dog at heart made it quite a bit safer for her though- if someone tried to grab her she would literally just bite them, and she is big enough to bite their whole ass arm off. She had already gone to sleep by the time he got in, waking up briefly when he opened the door to bark and wag her tail, inviting him into the bed to spoon with her. They both fell asleep immediately after- it was very late at night at that point, and it had been a very long day.

They woke up a bit later the next morning, but still early enough that Cimon should be able to get them to the next big location- a large town divided from this city by fields of a giant wind farm. Cimon was already up when Anais woke, and he was lost in thought looking over the parts he purchased the other day. When she asked him about it, he started to arrange them to give her a better idea how the artificial arm would have worked. When he motioned over the end to show her where he would have rounded out a socket for the upper part- the wood bent. He furrowed his brows and put the two parts together and motioned his hand up them and the corners of the two formerly squared posts smoothed over- his hand was shaping it like it was made of putty rather than wood!

Cimon quickly put the spring in the front of the ball joint at the back- the lower shaft extended up over the ball joint to act as a stopping point so it could not bend backwards and the spring gave the joint tension so it did not simply flop forward. In only ten minutes time he assembled his envisioned dog prosthetic!

"Yea! Just like this, damn that was easy- haha. If I had known I could magically reshape the material I definitely would have gone with something sturdier than wood. I only went with wood because it is all I can currently work with without getting new tools. Most of my tools are for working on my motorbike, so nothing meant to cut metal."

"But you could cut wood with motorbike tools?"

"Er, well I had to make the garage that my bike is parked in. That wasn't part of the house- I had to make that myself." He put the upper cup over the stump on his own shoulder. "See, the stump fits in here and then I would use a strap t-ah... w-whaat?"

Before Anais could even ask what was wrong- the arm expanded! The cup at the stop reformed even more- spreading over the stump as if to swallow it! A white liquid seemed to sweat from the wood and spread, hardening almost instantly with the air as it covered the prosthetic! The end branched and expanded into a hand and then fingers! The spring expanded and split, turning into metal tendons! The prosthetic transformed itself into a copy of his existing paw-hand! The white liquid turned into a material like white marble or perhaps porcelain. In place of his very simple joints instead were now ball-joints, like the limb of a life-sized doll.

Cimon looked at the limb, just as bewildered as Anais. He could FEEL through the prosthetic! It was not quite the same as feeling things with his other arm, because the material is hard and unrelenting, but he can still feel. He can also move it as if it were his normal arm, even though there is no mechanics inside that should allow it to be able to move like that. So it isn't just Anais. He noticed his own clothing has a tail-hole in it, but he assumed Anais was connected to it somehow just like she unintentionally changed the clothing she was shopping for. But this was blatantly Cimon's own doing, so he can reshape things too. He has no idea how, but he did. He also absolutely obliterated Agrios in their last encounter... Agrios might actually be dead, and that was well outside of Cimon's ability to do. Agrios is far larger than him- there is no humanly possible way for him to hit hard enough to have done that, yet he did. So what else can he do that he shouldn't be able to?

Anais went to get a new outfit for the day on while Cimon practiced using his newly forged limb. Anais darted out of the bathroom immediately only half dressed when she heard Cimon strumming the guitar. Her smile beamed as she gawked at him from the doorway.

"Ooooh!" She danced back and forth on her paws all giddy.

Cimon smiled and groaned. "Aw, don't be like that- you're making me nervous." He concentrated for a moment, remembering when he first learned to play. "I am the fountain of affection. I am the instrument of joy. To keep the good times rolling, I'm the boy, I'm the boy." He pointed to Anais and motioned for her to sit by him on the bed. "You know the world could be our oyster, so just put your faith in me. To keep the good times rolling, wait and see, wait and see..."

He pulled out his best rendition of Great Big Sea's 'When I'm Up - I Can't Get Down'. He fumbled several notes and was not at all good at singing, but Anais did not care in the slightest- she was bouncing on the end of the bed like a kid with a sugar rush. Which made Cimon want to remind her she hasn't put her top on yet so her boobs are wobbling around, but didn't want to ruin the moment.

He chuckled but looked at his reddened pads. "Oooph, fingers aren't used to that."

She tilted her head. "Does it hurt?"

"Sort of. You get used to it when you play a lot but uh, I do not play a lot. You can also use a guitar pick but-" He shrugged. "We don't got one. I guess I could have tried plucking the strings with my claws but that would probably break them. At least the marble paw can't be hurt by it, which is the hand that would normally get messed up the fastest. Unless I was left handed."

"Left handed? Some people only have two left hands?"

Cimon laughed. "There is a hand you are used to using first- it becomes the hand you are better at using and is usually a bit stronger than the other. Most people are right handed- which means their right arm is the one they usually use for everything, but some people use their left."

Now that he thinks about it- Anais hasn't really had a dominant hand. Since she has gotten her lost limb back she has used them both equally. He wonders if that is a side effect of her being a dog, and dog brains just working differently- or if it's because she lost one of her limbs for so long.

Today Anais is wearing jeans again, but a different pair- and a thin purple long sleeve that drapes off one shoulder. She uses a belt with these jeans- not because she actually needs them but because she wants to wear the belt buckle. She found a belt buckle made in the image of a running whippet, and Cimon had actually spotted it for her because he has a similar logo on a pair of shorts. Though the version on his shorts is a copy of a logo from the pokemon franchise; which is a pokemon, but also a pokemon that is based on a race dog. When they hit the road- Cimon gave Anais his phone, telling her to be careful with it- it does contain the map he is using to get to the ocean after all. He showed her how to get to his playlists of music, so she could listen to the real version of the song he played earlier and see how bad his version was. She still thought his was better. She knows him, knows his feelings, so when he puts that into the form of a song it can touch Anais easier than the official version could. So to her- Cimon's rendition is legitimately better.

Cimon does not have headphones so he cannot listen to music on his phone when it's in his own hands but he can still faintly hear it with Anais listening to hit just behind his head. She listened to all of his playlists and Cimon hummed along to several. Maybe Lourd gave up on them now that Agrios is no more- because there was no sign of the deadly duo today, either. When they stopped for lunch Cimon orders fish and chips for Anais to show her how the meal changes between here and their destination. The closer you get the ocean the bigger and fresher the fish get when you order. The portions are actually the same size usually- it's just the further from a body of water you get; the more of its size is breading, and not fish. She ended up letting him have the fries though- she did not care for potatoes. She ended up sucking all the juice out of the lemon wedge separately at the end, so she had lemon-fresh breath.

They actually hit their destination in early evening this time, and when Cimon slowed down to start looking for a place to stay Anais energetically pointed to the side and almost knocked them over.

"Look master! The band is HERE in town!"

Cimon rolled up to the paper notice stapled to the telephone poll and looked it over before chuckling. "It isn't the real band, it is a cover band."

"What... does the band cover up?"

"N-no, cover means they copy another band. They play someone else's music."

"I thought... cover meant to like put something over something else."

"Well, it also means that. English is a stupid language- it means both. They are playing tonight though... we can go if you want."

"Are you sure we can get tickets?"

Cimon laughed. "Anais... it's a cover band in an underground town bar, they aren't selling tickets in the first place, its first-come first-serve, no way in hell we can't get in."

The town is pretty big- an old mining town that took off even after the mines dried up thanks to the train network set through it. The hotel here would be cheaper than their last stop but Cimon figured they should still camp tonight, just because they can. Cimon scouted a good place to set up their tent for the night and Anais fetched a stick to use as a central support. Cimon smiled at her wandering around and getting lost in thought almost constantly. Every few steps she would pause and start sniffing the air again. Lots of critters in the brush, lots of smells to identify. The gentle sound of rustling leaves and song birds around them, getting in one last song for the day before the sun starts to dip behind the horizon. Cimon just rest on a rock he pulled up to use as a seat and watched Anais darting around the woods around them. The train tracks divided this brush from the town itself. They saw several deer- apparently some grains spill from the train cars and the deer like to gather and nip up the buds that sprout from the lost grains.

Cimon is nervous about the consequences leaving abruptly on this adventure will have, but that was a problem for tomorrow's Cimon. Right now he was just enjoying being here, being with her. He used to go on trips with his family when he was little, but costs went up, everyone was too busy working. To avoid the potential problems the costs and lapse in work created; they just stopped going on the trips at all, and forgot how much fun they could even be. In that sense he is like Anais was- shutting out options because of the potential pain it could cause in the aftermath. But if you try to avoid all potential problems... you'll end up never doing anything. Because anything can potentially be problematic.

When evening hit the two of them headed out to the bar where the band was playing tonight and tomorrow. The bar is underground- below a clothing shop that used to be a general store. The building was one of, if not the very first structure that existed in the town so its old, but still active so they kept the place well. There was a bit of a line but not too bad- the bottom of the stairs on the side of the building lead into a long hall of concrete block walls. The walls are absolutely plastered in posters of all sorts and hundreds more corners of past posters still clinging on by the tape that held them up. They could hear the bass of the music from inside just fine from the hall, the closed door only muted the treble. Cimon almost proffered to listen to the music like this; you only ever hear the music like that in a situation like this, so it carries a sort of audio-aesthesis.

Once inside both Cimon and Anais had to bow their ears forward, to try and focus their hearing to be able to listen to each other over the music. Most of the people in the club were bopping and dancing in a mosh pit in front of the stage, leaving most of the tables and chairs to the sides empty and free to take. Cimon ordered himself a lightly alcoholic drink but had to get a regular drink for Anais. He isn't sure if being half human has made alcohol non-poisonous to her or not and did not want to take the risk. He isn't entirely sure it isn't poisonous to himself either, but he knows what to expect so he would catch a problem sooner than she would.

Cimon taught Anais how to play pool, and even showed her a trick-shot to hop a ball over another. It was in doing this that he learned her sight was currently still that of a dogs. She is half color-blind, because Anais cannot tell the difference between some of the balls, she calls out the color incorrectly. Green and red look identical to her, she cannot see the difference. She can see yellow and blue just fine, which actually makes it sort of weird that she cannot see green- because green is made of yellow and blue, so she can see the component colors but not the mix. Because Cimon spent a day as a full dog himself, he also knows that yellows look more washed out in the eyes of a canine too. Blue is the most vibrant color they can see... which is probably why she is so quickly awed by bodies of water, and holds her whale plushy so dearly.

Anais joked about how silly everyone's dancing was- though Cimon informed her it is because there are so many people crammed into the same space; they don't really have the room to dance more energetically. She insisted they show people how to really dance, and took Cimon's hand to lead him toward the state. He tried to stammer out that he hadn't the foggiest idea how to actually dance himself but she just kept grinning- pretending not to hear him over the music. Anais held his hand and lead the dance- Cimon just did his best to mirror her; he has never even attempted to dance once in his entire life so he figured even his dog probably knows better than he does. Anais bumped into a few people who moved aside for her, and caused Cimon to bump a few more. Cimon blushed as the crowd parted to give them space to dance and almost looked like they were clapping for them rather than the band on stage. A man and his dog dancing together in a bar, quite the sight regardless of how you interpret their forms.

When the song ended the band took a breather, preparing for the last leg of the evening and Anais slipped away from Cimon telling him she was going to the bathroom, and so he did not notice when she instead slipped backstage. The band came out after a few minutes for one last song to finish the night and told everyone they had a fan who wanted to join them on stage. Cimon did not think anything of it till Anais slid across the stage and plopped off the front back into the audience to scoot up to him.

Cimon suddenly looked pale. "Wait, no way..."

"Hehe~ come on!" She nudged him forward and the band members smiled and motioned for him to get up on stage with them!

Anais had told them how Cimon also knows how to play a few of the songs of the bad they cover. This band themselves are college kids doing this on their free time- not professionally. Cimon was so embarrassed it felt like his head would catch fire from the heat of all the blood rushing to his head. The longer he took to get up onto the stage the more embarrassing it became though, so he quickly went up regardless. All eyes were on him now as the band leader handed over his guitar for the time being and just kept the mic. Cimon has never performed in front of anyone, even back when he was well-practiced!

When he held the guitar and felt its weight... he looked down and seen his hand of marble caressing the strings. He built that arm with his fricken MIND. If he can do that- what is stopping him from playing this song? The crowd doesn't even intimidate him that much. The band already worked them up, this was the closing number to end the night- show ends after this regardless of its outcome. No, he wasn't afraid of fucking up in front of this crowd; he doesn't want to fuck up because Anais is watching. She believes in him and he never wants to let her down. But at the same time... Cimon isn't sure he is even capable of letting her down. She wouldn't dwell on any errors he made, she would only encourage the notes he did hit. She just wants to hear him, to see him and what he can do. Dogs do not judge- there is no right or wrong. They just take things for what they are, enjoy what they can and move on. In order for there to be a right way there needs to be a wrong way to contrast it, but dogs do not think about what something COULD be, they only think about what it IS; and thus it can never be correct or incorrect.

With Anais' wagging tail in the crowd as she watched him and danced her silly doggy dance; Cimon managed to perform the entire song without error. The band even extended the song a bit, throwing it back to the audience to get them to shout some of the lyrics to the mic too. Cimon's heart was hammering by the time it all ended and breathed a sigh of relief when it finished without any hiccups. Once the music was over, half the people ended up leaving. Cimon and Anais had to set out again early morning, so they dipped out soon after as well.

The walk out to their hidden tent seemed almost deafeningly quiet in contrast to the bar. The only sound the distance swoosh of a vehicle on the road and the occasional cricket chirping. A few fireflies danced out from the taller grass on the other side of the train tracks as they returned to their camp.

Anais looked at him as they walked. "You looked like you had a lot of fun!"

He laughed briefly. "I was SO embarrassed when I got called out of the blue like that though!" She lowered her ears and looked ashamed. "But I did have a lot of fun. Even during the embarrassing parts. As long as you're there with me it isn't so bad."

"If you have fun doing it... maybe you shouldn't leave that guitar of yours in storage."

"W-well, I enjoy it, I wouldn't do it professionally. Music biz is pretty cutthroat. I am not really a social enough person to work together with an actual band or something like that- just the one song tonight took it all out of me, haha."

Anais pouted for a moment, then darted ahead while turned backwards to keep facing him, she stopped him and took his hands into hers. "Cimon. Do you have fun with it though?"

"As just a one-off sort of thing here and there, yea."

"Then you don't need any other reason. You don't have to do anything else with it, just your own enjoyment should make it something worth doing. There doesn't have to be a greater objective, or a profit to be made. Your enjoyment should be worth the effort. You keep going out of your way to make me happy... it is time you start caring for your own happiness too."

He smiled timidly and glanced away. "Easier said than done."

"Mmm, well I will help."

This was another night they went to sleep very quickly, curled up together in the tent listening to the crickets sing in the night and the clack of trains on the tracks. They woke up bright and early and refreshed. Another blue sky day, the morning dew made the fields of grass glisten from the morning light captured in each tiny bauble of liquid, the grass bobbing softly in the warm breeze. They took turns listening to their joints pop from sleeping on the ground on relatively thin sleeping bags, but then piled onto the motorbike and took off again, leaving the town behind but taking their fond memories with them. Cimon might make it to the ocean today- but it is a stretch. If they make it, it will be the dead of night by the time they arrive so they will not actually be able to enjoy the waters till tomorrow regardless. He cannot wait to see Anais' reaction to the great blue sea.

Part 7: Problem Solver

Cimon wove around traffic as they race down the road- much more confident in his ability to maneuver the bike now that he actually has two arms to steer with again. By lunch they stopped at a nice town- not particularly large but oddly spread out. The communities that make up the town are scattered around so it takes up the area of a larger city even though it isn't. You could tell the homes and shops here were old- no concrete, steel, or glass structures here. Just old wood boards and colorful- though fading- paint. The brightly colored homes and fences against the wide open blue sky and sunlight almost made the town look like a panel from a comic book or cartoon.

Cimon got them both ice-creams to finish their lunch before they head out again, once again watching her lick hers rather meticulously. The day really warmed up- and the wind picked up more but the wind was also kind of warm itself. There were occasional clouds but they did not last long- the wind caused them to pass quickly.

Anais looked at Cimon who was looking at her already, then after a few moments he awkwardly reached across the small outdoor table and pat her on the head. She immediately smiled and her tail resumed wagging. He was not sure how the gesture would land with her, but she likes it clearly.

"I was wondering... how to treat you."

"Huh?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"Well- I remembered that time you tried to uh... kiss me?"

"Aaaah!" She put her paw-hands onto her cheeks to hide her blush, forgetting she has her fur back so you can't really see her blush anyway. "Don't remember a thing like thaaaat!"

"But like... I never asked how you wanted to be treated. You were a dog, then a human, then a half dog... so what do I treat you as? Human or dog?"

"I... didn't know there was a difference? I mean, the handshake thing but that is because I never had hands not because I was a dog."

Cimon chuckled. "You didn't have hands because you were a dog! Normally people treats dogs sort of like how they would treat a kid- because normal dogs are about as smart as a human kid. They won't understand the intricacies of human speech and gestures, so talking to them like a normal person would be pointless because they will be incapable of understanding... but, you are half human, and clearly smart enough to understand everything I say."

Anais leaned back in thought for a good half minute. "I... don't think it really matters. Treat me however is easiest for you, I guess? Well... I guess I would proffer human, because I want to learn and experience everything... but, I am also new to the whole thing and there is lots of stuff I don't understand yet, so." She grinned and leaned forward suddenly. "What about you? You are half dog now, so should we find a leash for you? Hehe~"

Cimon groaned. "I could only stand being human, or at least half human if I have to settle. Being a full dog for a bit was... weird."

"Hmm, yea, being full human was unpleasant for me too. I felt sort of isolated, and blind because my senses were so dull in human form. It helped me understand what being a human is like, so I don't regret that it happened but... I am also glad it's over."

"Mmm."

When they took off on the road again; they were both glad their transformed helmets have visors- because the wind is very strong, causing an almost constant soft clicking sound as the grains of sand it kicks up bounce off their helmets. There are very few trees in the area so the wind is unhampered and throws up dust from the road. Anais occasionally glances to the side suddenly, thinking she seen Lourd every time she spots something metallic or cyan. Agrios is defeated but Lourd simply walked away- she is still out there, somewhere. She left with a threat to Anais to stay away from Cimon, but then she proceeded to do the exact opposite. She originally meant to keep her distance but... she can't. Cimon is her master, and she loves spending time with him, and he wants to spend time with her even knowing the loss he will inevitably suffer. Anais is a good girl- she will do whatever makes her master happy... no matter the consequences.

Lourd was nowhere to be seen the last few stops, so Anais had assumed she finally gave up. Her threat seemed hollow- how would she even be able to catch up or track them at all at this point? Which means her doubly paranoid now that she keeps thinking she catches glimpses of the metal mutt. She did not think she would see Lourd again, so then why does she all of a sudden think she sees her? Was her mind playing tricks on her, or is the steel menace actually still tracking them somehow?

Anais also got a little sad thinking about how close they are to the ocean. Their adventure will be over soon. While she wants to see the ocean, she does not want to see the end of their voyage. After the ocean, they will turn around and return home. It will feel weird to just sit in one place again. But maybe that is why adventures like this are so special in the first place. If you had anything all of the time- it would become the normal, and feel boring. The less of something there is; the more special it becomes when you do get it. By doing a bunch of stuff sometimes and splitting your time between them all; they all become a little bit special, and you'd have a hard time getting bored of any of them. Like life- so precious because it is short-lived, and then gone forever, so every moment is precious. Maybe it is a good thing, then; that this voyage is coming to a close. When returning to normal becomes the unusual concept.

Cimon was secretly having his worries too- but not so much at the journey's end but... the consequences waiting after it, in its wake. His family will probably be pissed he just uprooted and left- before they divvied out his aunt's inheritance to boot. Then his dwindling bank account, having paid for this whole trips expenses both to and soon from the ocean entirely on his savings. And no job to resume... they definitely will not take him back after he bailed like that. He was so frustrated with how right Anais was about how stuck in a rut he was, and so eager to show her the world that he basically burned his down to open the path for her. He made an amazing adventure for her, but at what cost? What happens to them afterwards? It was the fun choice, but was it the responsible one?

Cimon was putting his blind faith into the advising of a dog. He fell so deep into a rut he wasn't even able to recognize it as such. His problem is that he knew what to expect- he has been around long enough to know how things work. He doesn't face the day with cautious optimism like a dog will, because he already knows exactly what to expect out of it- and it isn't great. There is no sense of wonder or curious exploration of anything because he already knows how it works. But it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you always expect and prepare for the same thing, that is most likely what you will get. If you never try to change anything, assuming you cannot- you will not. The odds of things going off the rails and something that is both unexpected and pleasant happening are admittedly incredibly low normally- but if you don't try, or open yourself to the possibility, then the odds become zero. It does not matter how unlikely it normally is; even 1% chance is better than 0%.

But that changed when Anais came into his life. He has a white marble golem arm that is somehow linked to his nervous system, he is half dog, and his dog is half human. He punched a man twice his size through the wall of a store and killed him public and no one bat an eyelash. They are somehow able to warp reality, to create possibility where none should exist. Cimon knew what life had to offer- because he dictates what life is. In his life; he is the game master. Now Anais was made a part of his life and she has naively written in some new rules.

It was evening by the time they got to their next stop. As much as Cimon wanted to keep going- Anais told him to just stop here the night, not to risk it. This city got a lot of traffic from people heading to the ocean- there is a mountain range around the inlet and the city at the waterfront is a major port for the country, but is isolated inside the mountains. This city is built over the only passage in or out from there. You could see the ocean from the far side of this city- but only the far side, thanks to the mountains. Cimon groaned at the price for a room at the hotel again... but shrugged it off for now. He could just try to work off their dinner to make up for it again. With Anais by his side it was hard to get caught up on details. If he can forge a new working arm for himself out of spare parts from a random hardware store- paying off a meal doesn't sound that hard. The sky was turning purple by the time they got their room- so the pair slipped out after dumping their luggage in the room to go find a meal.

Anais gasped on the way to a restaurant, jumping away from Cimon's side but then sighing and standing back beside him.

He cocked a brow. "Uh... you okay?"

"I thought I seen Lourd. Paranoid that she is going to try to take you away again."

Cimon furrowed his brows now. "Hrm, what did you see though? Your senses are better than mine, if you think you seen her, we should be on guard."

Anais pointed to the side of the crosswalk pointing to the other street they were beside. She was pointing at the walking man light- that is what she seen. Out of the corner of her eye she seen a green LED light and thought it was the cyan of Lourd's digital eyes. Anais cannot actually see green after all- so a cyan and green light look almost identical to her, except cyan is brighter to her and actually has some coloration she can see. So a lot of digital lights look the same- Anais cannot discern its actual color.

Unsurprisingly; there are a lot of seafood restaurants here, and Cimon found a modest one tucked beside a bar. Like last time, he asked to see the owner so he could offer his trade of service for food again. If it ended up like that time; this might actually be borderline fun. Cimon was brought back to talk to the owner in the far back corner- not as far back as the kitchen, but behind the restaurant floor.

The woman listened to his case, nodded along but then shook her head. "No, sorry. It is our rush time right now and we really can't afford anyone fumbling things in the kitchen."

Cimon's brow twitched. "E-excuse me? I know my way around a kitchen- I worked in a bar and grill for many years..."

"But you never really went anywhere with the job, did you? As soon as they offered a promotion you turned it down. You are not willing to take challenges or step out of your routines. You only did what you did well because it is literally the only thing you ever did. That... doesn't sound like a good fit for our kitchen."

"How... did you know any of that?"

The door into the kitchen opened up beside her and Agrios stepped out wearing an apron over his regular outfit. "Are we having some sort of sanitation issue, what on earth is that stink?" He looked at Cimon. "Oooh- it's just this piece of shit. Yea, sorry buddy I am already working here temporarily, so they don't need you. I am not even doing it in exchange for anything, I just wanted to show them what a real worker looks like."

Agrios stepped toward Cimon, and Cimon started to back away. "I thought you were dead."

"Because you blind-sided me with a cheap-shot once? Pathetic. Victory is so foreign to you that you don't even know what it looks like." Agrios held up his hand and his rings melted into his palm; re-forging his sword 'Truth'. "You have wasted so much time running from your problems. But you've run out of room, haven't you?"

"What are you talking about?" They backed up far enough that Anais gasped and tensed up- seeing Agrios from her place standing just inside the front doors.

"This is the last leg of your 'adventure'. Only the ocean lay beyond here- you've run out of road. You can't run from your problems, you only waste time trying- which in itself is just another problem to the pile. As amusing as it is to watch you dig your grave deeper- it is time I put you out of our misery."

Agrios lunged forward swinging his sword out in front of him! Cimon stumbled back on the edge of a carpet as he backed up to the dining room floor, but still brought his arm up and smacked the sword out of the way! His marble arm deflected the sword blade! It isn't flesh and blood so he can use it as a shield, and if it breaks he could always just build a new one. Agrios punched him with his free hand, winding him.

Anais grunt in frustration how everyone else in the restaurant seemed to ignore the situation entirely, and went to wash over to help herself. Lourd stepped out from around the edge between dining room and foyer. Anais backed up slowly as the mechanical hound lowered its face and continued to confidently press forward. A deep rumble emitting from it like the growl of an irritated wolf. When Anais backed herself against the front doors, Lourd jumped forward, lowered her head and rammed Anais through the doors knocking her onto the side walk outside! Lourd jumped forward a bit and gnashed her serrated steel jaws in a false-attack. Behind her- the very long chain tail lashed wildly, weaving itself through the air. Lourd took a few steps back, not breaking eye contact with Anais. The moment Anais attempted to get up off the ground- the front doors slammed shut between them! Lourd had woven her tail around the handle of both doors, yanking it shut, and effectively tying the two handles together- preventing the door from being opened. She trapped Anais away from Cimon!

Cimon stumbled back further from Agrios, then rolled around the edge of a table to dodge another swipe from the sword! Agrios cleaved the table in half but did not even pause before lurching toward Cimon again, trying to catch him before he could regain his footing. Cimon swung his marble arm and smashed Agrios across the face hard enough to at least stun him for a moment.

Agrios recovered faster than Cimon anticipated and lifted his leg- kicking Cimon in the gut hard enough to smash him through another table behind him, sending the items on it flying in every direction. Stray silverware raining down on several occupied tables still was somehow not enough to gain the attention of any of the restaurant's patrons!

Agrios laughed, taking his apron off and tossing it to the side. "Pathetic worm. You are such a nobody that getting killed by me will be the most noteworthy thing you've ever managed to do."

Cimon growled, slowly getting up- but grabbing the broken central support from under the shattered table secretly as he did it. "Says who?"

Agrios paused his advance. "Hm?"

"Who says I am worthless? Who even has the authority to rate a living person like that?" Cimon got up and immediately swung up with the wooden pillar and cracked Agrios on the bottom of his jaw! "Anais thinks I am awesome, and she is the only person I ever asked in the first place."

Cimon swung it again and shattered it across Agrios' face, causing him to stumble even further back now as the side of his face turned blood red from the hit. Cimon went to kick him in the gut like he had done to Cimon moments before- but Agrios caught that hit, and used the captured foot to throw Cimon back through the air and onto a table! Cimon spun around on the surface of the table, knocking everything off as fur erupted from his body in a single fluent wave from nose to tail as his face stretched into a muzzle almost instantly! He transformed fully into a husky, but retained his full human size! Rather than get off the table first- he used the table to jump off of!

Agrios tried to gouge him mid-air, but misjudged the timing and Cimon bit into his right hand, forcing him to drop the sword after a few moments! He punched Cimon in the head twice before Cimon finally let go of his bloody hand! Agrios tried to stomp on him but Cimon darted around and between his legs, then turned back half-human behind Agrios! Cimon now had an entirely human upper half and entirely dog lower half- split in the middle like a satyr. Agrios turned and growled at him, flicking some of the blood off his hand.

Cimon huffed. "You spit facts about me in my face like they are some big shock I have been trying to keep secret. News flash- I am already well aware of what I am and what I have done."

Agrios chuckled, his muscles bulging even more obscenely. "I don't care if you are surprised by it or not. What you have done is nothing of relevance. I just want you to understand why I am going to kill you."

Agrios lunged forward again, arm drawn back and swung forward so Cimon dodged to his left- but Agrios smirked when he fell for the fake-out. He stomped down from the forward lunge and as soon as he got his footing, he kicked up with his other leg! He kicked with his right leg when Cimon dodged left- right into Agrios' knee! Cimon was winded and flinched to the side in pain- and before he could recover Agrios punched him in the face hard enough to send him flying into another set of table and chairs!

"Whether you are shocked or disappointed in yourself is irrelevant. Your emotional input doesn't change what it IS. The facts are facts whether you accept them or not."

Anais was pounding on the door whimpering to get inside, but Lourd just sat calmly on the inside of the front doors. Her tail is a literal chain, so the doors are chained shut- and she doesn't have to exert any effort at all to keep the path barred for Anais. The howling wind outside drown out Anais' whimpering. The outside was now very cold that the wind remained very strong, but the sun was now absent. The inside was very warm, the carpet nice and soft, and the gentle ambience of the classical music playing over the speakers around the dining room made an odd contrast to Cimon and Agrios brutally beating each other at the back of the room.

After all they have been through together... this was worse than simply attacking her. Anais would rather Lourd physically attack her like Agrios is to Cimon! Being shut out... being shut away and silenced... this was too painful. This was the pain of losing a master, again. But even worse- because Cimon isn't gone. He still lives, so Anais should be with him! She will not abandon her master! She WILL be at his side, even if Lourd kills her, she will die trying.

The double-doors exploded forward; the hinges ripped right out of the doorframe, splintering it instantly! Lourd was slammed by the doors so hard she launched forward through three tables like a cannon ball, ripping the table out from between several seated couples! The fourth table slowed her momentum enough to knock her spiraling into the air before she came back down with a thud on its remains! Lourd and Agrios both looked to the door to see the huge mechanical horse jet steam from its nostrils, standing just behind Anais.

Cimon glanced at it and just chuckled at the absurdity. He immediately recognized the saddle of the cybernetic horse... as the seat of his motorbike. The motorbike itself has joined the battle, transforming into a steed and kicking the door right out of the wall to let Anais back in!

The horse charged forward across the ruins of several tables and the people in their seats scrambled to get out of the way in time! Lourd jumped up over the horse before it could try and trample her, then landed on its back to jump off straight at Anais as she came inside! Anais remains Lourd's primary objective.

The horse turned and bit the chain tail, causing Lourd to abruptly stop mid-air and slam into the floor as Anais lifted a paw and stomped her head into the floor hard enough to shatter the hardwood under the carpet! Lourd's exposed skull is made of solid metal though- so she did not seem particularly phased by the hit. Her digital iris did glitch at the moment of impact, scrambling for a second.

Cimon dove for the sword on the floor when Agrios was distracted by the appearance of the android horse! Agrios tried to stomp on his hand but Cimon was too quick, and stole Truth for himself! Agrios spun around and slammed his fist into Cimon's face as he stood up straight again- firing him back and shattering another table as he landed into it! Cimon swung the sword at Agrios, but Agrios stomped on his arm, pinning his upper arm to the floor, preventing him from being able to swing the sword enough to do harm. Cimon just growled at him, pointing the sword up at him, trying to shove him off but wasn't strong enough.

Cimon's body seemed to ripple and shift rapidly again, this time the husky features spreading and mixing, restoring his original half and half form! "You really think I am beneath you?"

Agrios cocked an eyebrow, motioning around. "Uh... yea? You are literally beneath my foot, like a fucking bug."

Silver thorns grew out from the finger guard on the sword, and in a sudden surge; the blade doubled in length! Because it was already pointed at Agrios- it abruptly jammed itself point-first into his side forcing him to stagger off Cimon!

Cimon quickly got to his feet and flicked the sword once to cast off the blood from its pristine golden blade. "Your values are not mine, and my flaws only exist as objectives to overcome."

Lourd wrapped her tail around the body of the horse yanking it off the floor and tossing it across the room to the foyer again! She squirmed out from under Anais and snapped at her leg, forcing Anais to stumble back out of the way! The tail whipped past and the only reason she was able to lean back far enough to dodge the bladed spade-tipped end is because the chains rattling made enough noise to HEAR the attack coming. The spade tip swung past close enough to leave a thin red line across Anais's muzzle, several beads of blood appear along its length before getting mixed into the surrounding fur.

Lourd jumped up at her, trying to go for her throat but Anais punched her in the chest plate, but the flinched back- several puncture wounds on her fist! The remains of Lourd's barbed wire leash are still wrapped around the base of its skeletal neck- Anais accidentally hit part of the hanging wire. Anais seen Lourd back up and turn, getting ready to jump again... but she also felt the floor vibrating as the horse ran up behind her. Anais ducked as soon as Lourd jumped for her throat again- and the horse pivoted on its front hooves and smashed Lourd with both back hooves so hard she clipped the back counter and tore a chunk out of it as she crashed into the kitchen!

Lourd flying past Agrios' back as fast as a cannon ball startled him, which left him open to attack. Cimon swiped at him with the now double-long blade and split Agrios's sweater across the top- but he had already torn the sleeves off, so cutting from one opening to the other caused the entire shirt to fall away! The single cut ended up being two- because the cleft between Agrios' massive pectoral muscles is so deep the blade just passed over it. Agrios stomped forward undaunted by the weapon and punched Cimon in the face, splitting his loose canine lips over his own fangs, but Cimon gouged his arm before he could pull back! A human forearm has two bones in it- the sword blade passed perfectly between the two bones, lancing Agrios's right arm straight through!

Lourd stumbled back out of the kitchen with bits of broken wood falling off her from slamming through the counter and wall behind it, and Agrios did not even turn around to look at her. Cimon scowled at him. Not even the slightest concern for his dog? Lourd and Agrios attack at the same time but they do not attack together- they are two distinct forces and just happen to be in the same place.

Cimon shook his head as he yanked his sword back out. "And you have the nerve to call me a piece of shit? All you are is superficial bullshit. Trophies and accolades. Money but nothing good to put it towards. Success with no substance. You look flashy, but no one will remember you when you die." Cimon motioned over the people still eating their dinners. "They don't give the slightest shit what you have done, they haven't bat an eyelash at this entire ordeal. What you do doesn't matter to them. But everything you have done has been to look better to them, isn't it? But everything I do- I do for myself, and those I care about. So which one of us is really the successful one, hmm?"

Agrios growled and hunched forward- the muscle in his upper back and arms swelling absurdly huge! He grew overall and his muscles bulged so large and riddled with fat, dark veins that he barely even looked human at this point! Or perhaps this is what he always was, without the shiny coat of paint. Not human; for he has no heart. Now almost three times the size of Cimon he lumbered forward to attack! Cimon slashed across the palm of the reaching hand, but Agrios did not so much as flinch! He grabbed and held the sword back, even as blood trickled out of his enlarged, veiny hand. Still holding the sword in his left hand- he punched with the right and forced Cimon to let go of the weapon as he was slammed right through the wall! The impact caused a strong but blunt ache to fire through his body, before both his fur skin and clothing were cut numerous times from splintered wood as he passed through the breaking wall! He hit the support beam of another wall, landing in some dusty, sealed off crawlspace area between rooms.

Lourd shot across the room, plowing through tables and chairs rather than go around them; breaking them around her metal frame. The horse got between the two and bowed its head, bucking under Lourd to throw her entire body in the air and toss her back, but mid-air Lourd lanced its throat with her tail! She speared the horse's neck through one side and out the other! Lourd twisted to land back on her feet, then wrapped her tail around the horses neck and yank it to the floor and to the side of the room, crashing through several more tables and chairs and displacing several people who had been eating there.

Anais rushed to help the horse, but did not know how to attack. Punching Lourd seemed like it would do more harm to Anais than it will Lourd- she is made of metal and wrapped in barbed wire. Anais grabbed up an empty chair and smashed it to bits over Lourd. Her iris glitched again, flashing red for a moment before back to her usual cyan. Lourd let the horse go and snapped at Anais again instead, but Anais slammed her paw-hand down onto the bridge of the metal muzzle and wrapped her fingers around, holding Lourd's mouth shut and shoving her head against the floor before wagging her other index finger at the mechanical dog.

"Bad! Very. Bad. Girl."

Her glowing iris vibrated, flashed to a red X shape before returning to her normal iris- but this time stuck in bright red. The wretched, high-pitched wail of grinding metal filled the air as her entire body started to grow and shift! The metal is growing, expanding, branching out. Two new limbs started to grow below the existing ones, but these quickly started to look more like skeletal human arms than the forelimbs of a dog. The spine in her upper back started to fork, creating two more necks on either side of the existing one and looked like someone blowing a metallic bubble- another head formed out from the end of the necks! Both new heads were humanoid however, and lacked a digital screen for their eyes- their sockets were empty.

Lourd yanked herself free easily from Anais' grip, and Anais scrambled back in fear. Lourd stood up on two legs, hunched over with two canine limbs and two human limbs in front. The two additional heads hung limp and lifeless beside her existing head- only her original canine head actually shows any signs of synthetic life. Though the two new heads simply look like non-descript metal human skulls; Anais cannot help but imagine one as Cimon and the other as Lacy, like some cruel mockery of her two masters. Lourd now stood like some sort of robot werewolf, her tail lashing around wildly behind her still, and her eyes glowing red in rage.

The horse got up and charged again, bowing its head intending to ram Lourd down and trample her under its carbon fiber hooves. Lourd grabbed its head from the sides with her human arms and braced- getting dragged across the floor several feet before being able to stop the horse- the claws on her rear paws ripping tranches through the carpet. The horse yanked its head up before Lourd knew better than to still hold on- yanking the hellhound off its feet, throwing her against the wall and then charging forward again before she could recover- smashing her right through the wall, through the crawlspace and out into a laneway beside the building!

The wind was still picking up outside- vehicles now rocking in the gale force winds as it threatened to pick them up and throw them away. Though the sky was clear- stars started to blink out of sight in the night sky, creating an increasingly bleak, dark canvas. Lourd grabbed both of the horse's front cannon bones, lifted its entire front half off the ground as she stood- threw it back against the still-intact portion of the wall and then gouged it in the gut with her tail- thrusting forward like a spear!

Cimon seen the hole they made from the crawlspace- and ran down the narrow space to that opening rather than risk a direct-encounter with Agrios as soon as he emerged from the hole he made.

Anais flew through the hole and punched Lourd in her primary head with all she had, slamming her metal skull into the brick wall of the building across the lane hard enough to shatter the brick. Anais did not see the attack coming because she was watching Lourd's eyes in an attempt to read her actions- but her tail swung at her again from the side before Lourd herself started to get back up from the hit. Lourd slashed a gouge through Anais' right breast, causing her to yelp in pain and stagger back, holding the wound with her right hand. Lourd lunged forward as soon as she regained her balance, grabbed Anais in her left human arm and picked Anais up by her face! Anais grabbed the arm with both of hers trying to force its grip open but Lourd is a machine- she does not relent. She grabbed Anais' left arm and pried it out to the side. Anais flailed her legs trying to kick Lourd but doing no damage. Lourd made a sound almost like a chuckle before bowing forward and biting into Anais' left arm just below the shoulder!

Lourd let Anais drop but did not release her bite. Anais flailed against her trying to break free, but the sharp shooting pains overwhelmed her and drained her strength. The squelch of blood as the steel teeth dug deeper into the flesh and muscle and then the splintering crack as she bit straight through the bone!! Anais almost blacked out from the pain- she is losing blood alarmingly fast as Lourd tore her left arm right off!

Lourd tossed the arm to the side- since she has no stomach to fill with its meat. She growled and hunched over Anais as she collapsed to the ground holding her bleeding stump, trying to slow the bleeding- her mind a blank from the shock to her nervous system. Lourd was ready to deliver the finishing blow, till Cimon punched her in the side of the head so hard her launched body smashed the brick corner off the building across the way! She braced all six limbs on the ground and swung her tail around to spear him. Cimon used his marble arm to block and brace against the chain which wrapped around it on impact.

Cimon felt an odd pressure in his marble arm, and his muscles bulged causing the marble to crack open! His flesh and blood arm was restored inside of the artificial one, breaking loose like an insect from its cocoon! The marble now looked like armor around his arm! Cimon swung the arm around, coiling the chain around even worse before yanking on it, ripping Lourd off her six limbs! He swung her entire body using the tail, smashing her into a streetlight and bending the post into the shape of a V before slamming her into the sidewalk hard enough to break the concrete!

He used the momentum of the swing to jump up, and punched down into her chest with his free hand! Her ribs immediately bent, and the screech of grinding metal went off and several sparks exploded out as the connection between her ribs and chest plate broke- and the chest plate tore free and got slammed against the underside of her spine! Cimon punched a hole through her chest! Lourd is great at hunting and hurting Anais... but she doesn't fair well against Cimon. Lourd has no organs to bleed from, but from the breaks in her body the red of oxidization started to spread- rapidly spreading rust.

Cimon rushed to Anais, holding her by the shoulders, though his touch made the giant open wound on her left sting even more.

"Cim-mon... I... ah... I'm sorry, I f-failed to keep up..."

"No, it's okay. Anais... it is fine." He shook her gently to get her to look him in the eye. "Hey. It is okay, you are going to be fine, you didn't fall behind anything."

"But I am bleeding so heavily... it hurts so much..."

"I know." He rubbed his hand down over the wound, making her flinch and tense up but then her expression became confused when it produced no added pain. "But those are old wounds. They cannot hurt you now." He removed his hand- revealing the wound was already healed.

She is definitely still missing her arm, but it looks like she lost it a long time ago- not moments earlier. The only blood is what she already bled, there is no open wound to bleed from now.

"What..? But... how?"

Cimon smiled. "Still asking that? I gave up a while ago. Reality is what we make of it. The life we know, we know through how our senses interpret it. Change your perspective, and change your reality. Now-" He clapped his hands over either of her shoulders. "I believe this is yours, m'lady."

Cimon took his hands away, but the marble armor remained fixed to her shoulder! As soon as he removed his arm from it, the gaps collapsed back in and it reformed to be the other way around! It once again became an animated marble prosthetic- but now it is finally in possession of the one it was originally forged for.

She held up her new hand and flexed the fingers to test it out, but her eyes quickly glanced up past it. "Look out!"

Cimon rolled to the side a moment before Lourd's spear-like tail smashed into the concrete where he had been. As she got up the chest plate rattled around in her bent ribs before falling out the bottom. The plate is already half consumed in rust and holes are collapsing through it, turning the metal into powder. There are several spots on her ribs, but it is progressing slower there. She lunged at Cimon like a beast and he did not have time to get up fully so he rolled onto his back and kicked up just as she came over him- striking her on the spine by kicking through the gap in her ribs and knocked her into the air off of him again.

Agrios finally caught on that Cimon left the building through the wall and smashed his own way out of the building- just punching his way through the wall directly into the lane further in, then came charging down at them the moment he spotted them. Agrios was rushing right for Cimon, so he did not notice Anais get up and charge him from the right before he could join Lourd in attacking him. The claws on Anais' artificial arm are sharp- not blunted like her normal claws. She jumped up, grabbing tree-trunk thick arm for a moment before raking her claws through his right cheek! His left cheek is almost black thanks to getting smashed in the face by part of the table Cimon had been swinging. Agrios stumbled to the side, touching his face a moment but growling more in anger than pain. Gone was his false cool-guy bravado, now he acted more like a cave man, grunting and swinging around wildly.

Agrios punched Anais, slamming her back into the wall hard enough that she bounced back off to be hit a second time in the gut. She was stunned a moment, but not long enough that she did not open her maw and bite into his forearm before he could pull it back! Agrios yanked his arm back but she did not let go- so he yanked her off the ground along with it, shaking her back and forth trying to make her let go! His other forearm already had a sword wound straight through it and a gouge in his hand- he is losing a lot of blood from a lot of wounds at this point, yet doesn't seem to be slowing down any.

Lourd landed on all six limbs then scrambled onto two to rush at Anais from behind but Cimon again intercepted her before she could reach his dog. He grabbed her tail, yanking her back close enough to grab onto the barbed wire around her neck and tangled in her upper ribs and yanked it off- scraping her many times with the barbs as it unraveled. Though the scraps were almost unnoticeable... they all started to bleed rust, spreading further around her body. She spun around, smashing him across the face with one of her human hands before grabbing him by the throat with the other. She placed her front paws on his chest and raked them down- leaving eight gouges down his chest, shredding the front of his shirt.

In an act of desperation, Cimon made a gun gesture with his hand and the moment he pulled the trigger- an ACTUAL bullet hole exploded through Lourd's right head! It roared and its iris started to glitch wildly as it staggered back, stunned. The bullet hole went straight through the entire metal skull, spilling fragments of shattered circuit boards from it before rust started to rapidly spread, turning the metal a dull red before it started to crumble, opening the holes wider as the metal crumbled to dust. Even machines can rot.

Agrios grabbed Anais by the sides of her jaw, squeezing to force her jaw open by the hinges before spinning and slamming her into the wall hard enough to make still another hole... which at this point is just making the existing hole wider. He roared at her, his eyes now glowing. His veins bulged so obscenely it looked like they were going to burst like a mosquito that drank too much.

"I cannot be hurt by you worthless shits! I am perfect! I am the ideal, I am the one that wins."

His muscles started to swell even larger, making his back even more bulbous, forcing him to lean so far over that he had to prop himself up on his knuckles, standing like a gorilla. His skin is stretched so tightly around his grotesque musculature that it looks like it might rip open! Steam started to actually come off his body in the cool wind! Anais got up, surprisingly not that badly hurt. Agrios' attacks don't seem able to hurt her nearly as effectively as they can Cimon. Being slammed through a wall like that should have shattered almost every bone in her body, but it just caused a shooting ache in her body from the impact that faded away after a minute. It didn't break anything other than the wall itself.

Lourd was starting to crumble now, but still did not slow her attack- viciously lunging at Cimon now more frantic in her movements, more like a cornered animal than a conniving machine. Her iris now glitched, flickering around and changing shape erratically. She swiped at his head and he rolled back, making another motion with his hand like a gun that was not there- and again produced an actual bullet wound; this time through her left head! The right head dissolved so rapidly that it was already gone- the rust was corroding the vertebrae now, the actual skull was already completely dust. Now the left head started to rust away rapidly from the new hole!

Her joints started to grind as the rust started to touch them, seizing them up. She swung her tail around and tried to spear him through the head from above, but he dodged back and the pointed tip of the spade-shaped tail shattered off on the ground rather than break the ground like it had been doing! Cimon grabbed the tail before she could pull it back- and she tried to pull back while he pulled forward and several of the links shattered! Rust then started to spread from the breaks in the shattered chain!

Cimon went to rush at her before she could regain her balance from the last shot- but Agrios stomped down in the way, shaking the ground at this point with how giant he has grown! His muscles bulged so tremendously he barely looked human at all, and had problems moving. He slammed his hand down toward Cimon, but Cimon easily dodged back. Agrios has turned into such a malformed, lumbering beast that any movements he makes are clearly telegraphed and easily avoided. You can actually start to SEE his heart beat- as a dim light throbbing in his veins making them glow for a brief moment over and over!

"You are nothing!"

"In your eyes. Glad I never asked for your input."

Agrios slammed his fist down again, and again missed. "I am the perfect being!" He started to swell even larger and even more malformed.

Cimon furrowed his brows. "According to who? Some cookie-cutter opinion that was conceived by some random people you don't even know? Wow, excuse me for not giving a fuck."

He swelled even larger! Several patches of his skin started to darken rapidly and the steam pouring from those areas turned instead to smoke. "I am stronger than you will ever be!!"

Cimon shrugged. "In what way? You are the one so wound up fitting everyone else's mold of what a good person should look like. I know who I am, and I am fine with it. I made my choices, had my mistakes- and I work to improve what I did wrong, a little bit here and there. According to your own words; you were born perfect and remain perfect. Neat, so- essentially you never had to put any work in, and don't know what strife even is. You sound weak as piss to me."

Agrios growled, trying to jump at him in rage but stumbling over his own muscle bulk and falling onto all fours. He growled even louder and embers appeared in the blackened patches of his flesh before his skin ignited! His muscles swelled even larger, but now the skin could no longer keep up- the gaps created by the flames tore wider, causing the flesh to blacken and then ignite faster; spreading the surface area of the flames across his body! His veins glow orange like they were pumped full of molten lava! He is burning alive- from the inside out! Rapid cellular growth... causes heat buildup. He tried to get too big, too strong, too fast. He swung his arms out, trying to reach Cimon but Cimon did not have to do anything more than take a single step back to dodge each lumbering swing. The bigger Agrios tried to get the faster the flames spread, till his entire body was ignited and burning away! The flames turned his flesh to embers which cracked and broke, then burned out to ash and fell away. Still Agrios ignored the state of his body, trying to blindly strike out at Cimon and failing.

Cimon motioned toward where the horse was and his guitar flew to him, transforming as it spun through the air- by the time he caught it; it had transformed into a literal axe!

Cimon jabbed Agrios with it, causing him to stumble back, barely able to balance himself at this point, before he lifted the axe. "No more encores this time."

Cimon waited for Agrios to blindly lunge at him attempting to attack again- and slammed the axe down through his head, cleaving his skull in half! Flames erupted from the rift in his skull and burned his head away even faster than the rest of him was already burning away. Agrios burned down to muscle, then nothing but sinew and tendons, then as it burned down to bone; parts of his body just fell away with nothing to hold the bones together, and still they burned. The bones splintered from the heat, cracked, charred, and turned to ash like the rest. In only a few minutes Agrios went from a hulking monstrosity, to nothing but smoldering ash that was picked up and carried away in the wind as quickly as it was created.

Lourd swiped at Anais in a desperate attempt to kill the dog before her own body turned to dust in the wind. Cimon was distracted with Agrios, so unable to protect Anais. She left several cuts up the side of Anais' face with the first swipe, but her second attack failed- she tried to spear Anais on her tail, forgetting that half her tail is already missing. One of her eyes cracked as a hole started to form at its edge as the rust spread now on her face too. The left head was gone and the vertebrae back toward the primary spine was starting to become tainted and turn color.

Lourd swiped at Anais again but this time Anais caught her hand intending to use it to throw her back, but the impact of the two against one another caused two bolts to fly out of the elbow joint, then several springs erupted from the metal as the two sections of her arm were forced apart to let them out. Anais let go quickly in surprise and the hand and forearm simply fell completely away.

Anais shook her head, stepping back. "I want to be with him. I should be with him. That is all there is to it. Why can't you just let us be?"

Lourd opened its mouth as if to roar but produced no sound other than the grinding metal joints of its jaws. It twitched in an unnatural way before lurching forward and stumbling onto its five limbs. More links in the chain tail fell away from the movement as rust claimed them. The glass of her left eye shattered, revealing the mechanical parts of her inner head behind it as they too rusted away, causing sparks and a few electrical bolts to fire off randomly as connections in her head failed.

Lourd tried crawling toward her, but digits broke away, then hands and paws before joints could not support her weight and the ball-bearings blew out and scattered all over the ground. Lourd made one last swipe, managing to scratch Anais' ankle before she skipped back out of the machine's reach again. Lourd's remaining eye blinked off, and as soon as the lights died, so did Lourd. The machine monster fell limp against the ground, but the rust continued to consume her corpse, and the wind ripped away the powder the metal was turned into, till there was no sign anyone had been there at all.

Cimon eventually took Anais by the shoulder and led her back into the restaurant through the gaping holes and absolute ruin their fight left behind. The other patrons started to clap, nodding and smiling at the confused couple.

Anais waved timidly as they walked past. "Uh... th-thanks? I guess?"

Cimon bowed a bit to the manager. "Sorry about all this- I didn't mean for-" He motioned toward the giant hole in the wall but when he glanced over it was perfectly normal. The restaurant looked exactly like it did before they arrived. "Uuuh... never mind, then."

The manager pat him on the shoulder with a smile. "You know what? Go ahead and find yourself a seat for you and your dog. You can eat for free."

"O-o-oh, no, no I can work for it!"

"You have been through a lot, and it is refreshing to see a young go-getter like yourself making your own way, you don't have to work for this."

"Ah, that is very kind of you, but, I think I would proffer to work for it."

He chuckled and pat him on the shoulder again, then motioned back toward the kitchen. "Then by all means, I won't stop you."

By the time Anais and Cimon finished their meal, and he worked a bit to pay off the tab- they shuffled back to the hotel and passed out almost instantly. The two slept like a pair of corpses, and had a hard time even remembering what happened after all the fighting the night before, once they woke again.

What a wild night. It was half action movie half nightmare, and capping off what was otherwise such a... normal day. Both Cimon and Anais felt strange about it. The experience was brutal, and gave them the shivers just recalling it... but, they are both also positive that Lourd and Agrios are never coming back after that. They really are both dead now. Nothing left to worry about. They leave this location knowing they are not running from their problems anymore, they are driving to their goal. The struggle and threat is finally behind them, destroyed.

Part 8: Journey's End

The next day Anais had a few problems underestimating her own strength with her new artificial arm. It works just like her other arm, but is made of unrelenting material so she can underestimate how powerfully she is gripping something. It was not too much of a problem, and soon enough she was only using it to clutch onto Cimon as they piled onto the horse that had been his motorbike. It folded its legs to rest itself fully on the ground while they loaded up their items and hopped on, then stood easily with them already on its back. It is shaped like a horse but is still obviously a machine- so it does not get tired or hungry. By the time they stopped to get some lunch it was pawing at one of the refill stations at the gas station they stopped at- apparently it does still get thirsty... you refuel it by letting it drink the gas.

Cimon was just shirtless today because it was hot as heck, and he had to wear shades because the light shining off his new steed's metal body was a bit hard on the eyes. They could already see the ocean before they stopped for lunch. Once they were on the inside of the mountain range bordering the waters the cool ocean breeze started to blast past- their trip was all downhill to the beaches now! They could already see the port city spread around the water's edge and tons of ships of all different sizes out in the waters. It was a gorgeous sight as they approached the ocean thanks to it all sloping down; they could see the entire surrounding area for many miles.

Anais immediately gasped at it when they crossed the mountain valleys into the coast. The buildings of the coast city were pretty large, and so many of them... yet from there the buildings looked like little toy blocks in the distance. Compared to the mountains surrounding them the forests looked like grass. Compared to the forests the city looked like dust. Compared to the ocean; even the mountains looked like little dirt piles a child would play with, and compared to the sky, the ocean is a mere puddle. The wind whipping past them fluffs their fur, clearing the heat building up in it as soon as it forms, keeping them cool in spite of the searing summer sun. To Anais it felt like Cimon has brought her to the end of the world. The land meets the ocean and simply vanishes- only water beyond this point.

The scenery was a beautiful pallet of different colors- the white caps of the mountain against the dark brown earth, trailing into the blue-green forests before being broken up in approach to the mostly white buildings of the city. The sands of the beach are a pale gold and the ocean water here aquamarine.

They arrived in the city in the middle of the afternoon and Cimon tried to hustle to get them a hotel room so they could rush the beach while the sun is still high. There was music playing in the streets and lots of street vendors Anais kept getting distracted with, pointing out to Cimon, though he had to remind her he was trying to drive. There are banners of cloth fluttering in the wind between buildings, casting a web of shade on the streets. So many people gathered here- both living here and many visiting thanks to the huge port.

The ports were elevated off concrete walls so the waves do not wash the base of the docks out from under them. This meant the beach was in a separate area to the side. The sands were dotted with towels and umbrellas for shade. Anais skittered onto the sands in her scant bathing suit almost stumbling many times because she was a little over-eager and did not get her footing before charging out. The sand is soft and she is not used to walking on soft ground. The fine warm grains against the pads of her paws really felt good though. White foam capped waves of translucent aquamarine- the ocean swallowed the horizon like a colossal gemstone.

Cimon cannot swim so he only patrolled the beach along where Anais dashed out over and over- seeing how far she could go before a wave came in and swatted her back toward the beach, then she would run along the wet sand and dash back into the water again! Her pearly fangs shiny in a goofy grin while her tail whips back and forth relentlessly. Anais felt so happy- her heart was so full it could burst. Their problems utterly destroyed before getting here, her master at her side, the vast expanse of the ocean at her feet and gorgeous scenery around them. Everything was just so perfect she could almost cry!

Cimon felt on top of the world too. Not just for surviving the journey, but keeping his promise and making Anais so happy. Even when he achieved things in the past, he never really cared. It didn't really feel like an achievement. Like he gets an A+ in school... so what? So will millions of other kids around the world, who cares if HE does it? So it set a poor president for things to strive for. Why put in all the effort to do things as good as possible, when there is no discernable difference from doing them normally? In the context of a job usually doing really well just makes the boss assume you can handle more, and increase your workload while still giving you the same pay you have always gotten... making it actively against your better interest to try and do the job well. But for once he actually felt proud of himself. Not even for anything you could tangibly label. Not the trip itself, or making Anais happy... just, being where he is in the way he is. He didn't need to describe this feeling, just to live it.

The two of them remained by the water for longer than anyone else at the beach. They watched the entire population of the beach clear out and refill as the people lounging there during the day went home for dinner, and then after dinner a whole new crowd manifested to enjoy the beach at night. Anais and Cimon did not actually need to leave the beach for dinner- there is a diner on either end of the beach and several vending machine courts and ice cream stands dotting the area between. Once the sky turned purple, framed in metallic orange from the dusklight sun; the calm beach dwellers swapped to the party-goers. Fire pits down the beach lit up the dark and cast the dancing shadows of the people gathered to them. Floating embers joined the stars in the night sky, which the surface of the ocean reflected like a mirror between waves.

Anais sat on all fours in spite of her half human state, and just watched the waves coming in. The swoosh as the larger waves roll in, and the sharp clap and plop sound from the waves hitting the rockier portion at the edge of the beach and being broken up between the stones.

"This has been amazing master."

Cimon nodded, taking a deep breath of the ocean air in the chill of night from his seat at the base of the boulder she sat on. "Yea. I am glad I came here too- but I never would have if it wasn't for you first, heh."

The sight of the mountain peaks cradling the valley to the beach glow orange as the sun set, but as soon as the sun is gone they black out entirely. You can only see the mountains as an absence of stars in the sky- the black of the horizon and sky is indistinguishable. The few scattered clouds here and there in the sky remain visible thanks to the city lights bouncing off their bottoms.

Anais hummed in bemused thought. "You know... I asked myself if ever I had experienced a moment as great as being here. But... when I think about it, I definitely have."

"Oh?"

"This whole trip has been amazing. And even when I was still with my original master Lacy, there was many times where she got really happy, or was celebrating her birthday with me, or my birthday. I mean- she never got the day right, she celebrated the day she adopted me, not the actual day I was born- but I didn't care! Seeing her smile and her energy, and just taking the moment in. When you adopted me... it felt bad how much I wanted it, but didn't allow myself to enjoy it. But then this whole trip happened... sorry I am starting to talk in circles. I just... I guess I am thinking... maybe life is just full of beautiful moments to be had. If only you can allow yourself to enjoy them."

Cimon chuckled. "Yea. You never know what life will throw at you next, even if it seems like it has become predictable." He sighed. "I think everyone's biggest mistake is just... expecting life to be anything in the first place."

"Hmm?"

"Life isn't a singular thing, you can't pick up or manipulate life; it isn't an object. It doesn't have a will or agenda of its own. I always heard my relatives saying 'life is hard' or 'life is cruel'... no, it's not. Maybe your life is, but 'life' itself is not. Life is just... being alive. That is it. Your bad luck has nothing to do with the existence of life. Actions have consequences and there are a whole lot of people and things in this world doing lots of things for those consequences to answer to. Sometimes you get into a dark spot because of consequences from someone else's actions, or events you aren't even aware happened. But, it isn't life or fate or bad luck that is curing you. It is just a situation that happened, no higher being is punishing you for something. You do what you can in the situation and move on."

"Mmm. Humans think too much, I think."

"Of course you think that- you are half human!"

"Oh no!"

They both laughed.

The two of them remained on the beach till even the late night partiers started to thin. They could stay here another day, or two if Cimon really wanted to be risky with his budget. It was a beautiful area and a huge city, so there was a lot of other sights to be seeing here other than the beach too. When they turned to leave though, they both had to squint because of a bright light peeking over the mountains! They were both terribly confused but as the sky lightened, they realized it is the sun. It is dawn!

Cimon looked immediately to his phone in confusion. It said it was...noon?! "What the fuck?" It also said it is Thursday... they arrived at the beach on a Tuesday.

The sky flashed dark a moment and returned to light again. He glanced around wondering what else he could use to tell the actual time by, and as soon as he looked around his chest tightened in worry. All the other people on the beach had vanished. The entire beach is abandoned. All their bags and radios, towels and even vehicles in the parking lot were all still there- but the actual people are missing.

"Anais... can you smell anyone around us?"

"N-no. Can you?"

He sighed. "I still can't really identify most of the things I smell to know if I do or not."

They wandered up to the parking lot and their mechanical horse was still waiting for them thankfully. The parking lot looked... different though. The pavement is cracked and blades of grass are growing up between. There is bird poop and dust caking almost all of the vehicles like they had been parked here for weeks without moving. They mounted the horse and rode into the city, but still could not see anyone. The streets were empty, the concrete slabs of the sidewalk were pushing up from plants and soil deforming them. None of the lights in the city seemed to be on- including the traffic signals! Shops all seemed to have out of business signs on them now, and appeared to be empty of everything except a few barren shelves and the edges of advertisements that used to be there but were torn down.

The silence was the worst part. Being in a huge city like this and not hearing anything but the gulls and the ocean is creepy as hell. Cimon was so startled he almost let go of the handle 'ears' of the horse and fell off, when his phone pinged from an incoming message. The first sound they had heard since the beach that they did not make themselves. It is a message from the hotel they are staying at! It says they have to pay their room fee, and then a message right after that said they were overdue, then another message saying they owe almost 50k, and then a final message saying the hotel is going out of business. All of these messages arrived at the same time on his phone, but the time stamps on each one were wildly different. One was dated... two days from now? The next is in December, the next is a year and a half in the future, and the last message is dated nine years in the future. What the actual fuck.

Cimon steered them to the hotel immediately and the scenery in the city kept getting worse. Cracked and dusty windows, broken up streets, downed powerlines. Parked cars that were rusted in place, doors and tires missing. Anais seen the same thing looking behind them, so it was not that certain parts of the city were worse than others- the entire city is decaying in fast-forward! Cimon kept stopping at street corners looking both ways out of habit- but there are no other vehicles that do not look like they have been abandoned for decades. When they arrived at the hotel; it also looks long-abandoned. Out of business sign up front- the neon letters of the hotel's name have burned out and broken- one of them fell off and is sitting in the parking lot.

Cimon paused by the front doors- you could barely see into the glass doors because no one has cleaned the dust off them in decades. "I don't know what to do... should we just... sleep here anyway? No one seems to be around to tell us not to."

"I am really sleepy... so I guess. What on earth is happening here though? Is any of it really happening?!"

"I have no idea. You know how crazy things have gotten... maybe it will just go back to normal?" He shrugged. "I don't know what else we can do other than hope and wait. It isn't like we have a time machine."

None of the power was on inside of the building, which meant in spite of it being daytime it got quite dark deeper into the hotel. Cimon used his phone to see the locks to open the doors- luckily his key had not vanished like so many other things, so he could still open the doors to their room. Their items are still in the room, still exactly how they left them, but the room itself is dusty and musty smelling like it's been abandoned. Every time Cimon looks at his phone the date and time say something different- jumping forward in random amounts, and only seemingly when he is not looking at the screen.

They had been at the beach all night so they were both exhausted, and got to sleep in their bed together easily in spite of how worried and confused they are at their surroundings. Even from what they could see from the third floor of the hotel- no one lived in the city now. Rusted, dusty and abandoned. The tattered, sails of the ships, yellowed with age made them look like ghost ships out on the waters.

Cimon woke up confused, having no way to tell what time it's actually supposed to be. The sun was doing laps in the sky- day and night rolled overhead every couple of minutes. Anais woke up before Cimon when she heard an outside sound, and pounced on him to wake him put, putting her marble paw over his mouth to silence him, motioning with her other index over her lips for him to be quiet. There were heavy footsteps in the hall... top of the stairs from the second floor- approaching! Someone is humming.

They both scrambled to get dressed for the day quickly and both peeked out the door to see who was coming. As soon as Cimon seen the cloaked figure, he grabbed Anais' wrist and bolted down the other end of the hall. The figure simply chuckled, and continued walking toward them at the same speed he already was.

Anais glanced back at the figure and then to Cimon, trying to keep up with her master. "W-who is he? Do you know him? Maybe we could have asked what is going on??"

"What does his scent tell you?"

"I didn't smell anything."

"Exactly." Cimon burst through the emergency door at the end of the hall into the spiraling fire escape stairs at the back of the building. "No scent- it isn't a normal human. It is like Agrios and Lourd."

They dashed down the stairs as fast as they could. Their things are still in the room so they cannot leave the city yet, but Cimon was more concerned with distancing themselves from the figure. As they were mounting the horse they heard a great crashing sound as a hole rotted through several floors of the building and the figure fell from the third to ground floor and just continued to walk like nothing happened- now on the same level they are again. Rather than open the front doors he just placed his hand on the glass and it fractured- then the edges weathered smooth and the panes of glass almost looked as if they were melting away out from the cracks. The glass aged itself into shiny dust in a matter of moments to allow him to pass through.

"Tick.... tock, Cimon." His voice was thunderously deep and breathy- almost distant sounding.

They quickly rode off before he could reach them- and he did not attempt to run after them, he simply continued to walk at the same unbroken pace. They galloped quickly around several corners trying to make as complicated a path as possible so they could not be followed, then Cimon turned to go to the beach and they immediately stopped- seeing the black cloaked figure wandering toward them up from the beach somehow- still walking at the same casual pace!

"Haven't you grown weary of running already, Anais? This journey... is already on its last leg."

Cimon quickly turned and darted off the other way. Okay, so the guy apparently can just appear randomly without needing to physically walk to the location. So outrunning him won't work. They have to lose him by hiding then. He can't teleport to them if he doesn't know where they are.

Cimon took them to the base of a giant office building and got the horse to wander a few buildings over and lay low. There is only one attacker and two of them- so Cimon and Anais split up in the stairs and went to different floors to hide. If either heard the other get attacked they can ambush the attacker from behind while he is distracted. The elevators in the building unfortunately did not function since there is no power. Cimon stopped at the fifth floor while Anais went to the seventh- so anyone coming up is going to find Cimon before they find or are able to hear Anais.

Cimon wandered the empty office spaces, sighing to himself and catching his breath- trying to settle his heart rate. Who the hell is this new guy and what does he want? He is most likely behind what is happening to the city too- which means he is also extremely powerful. The office is dusty and you can see the outline of where the computers and keyboards used to be but none remain. Old, weathered office chairs by dusty, empty desks in cubicles yellowed with age. The outer walls are glass so plenty of sunlight gets in, but when the sky turns to night for a few minutes at a time the entire floor goes pitch black.

In a bit of desperation Cimon attempted to call his mother but she did not pick up- then called his aunt and she also did not pick up. He did a search online out of fear and immediately found their obituaries. They are both dead... but, one 24 years in the future and the other 38 years in the future. He went to his facebook page and the website apparently doesn't even exist anymore. He had to use an internet archival site to look at the last recorded copy of the site when it still worked and did not even realize who he was looking at on his contact list till he read the name. His cousin- after she graduated university. So he is... travelling through time somehow? Being fired forward in time? In order for this entire city to be abandoned he would need to have been launched a disgustingly long distance into the future.

"A shame about your family, Cimon." He stood quickly from the dusty old chair and turned to the figure as he slowly crossed the room. "But you cannot spend all your time mourning the dead... or your entire life will pass you by."

"W-who are you? WHAT are you?"

The figure finally paused, lifting his arms enough that the sleeves rolled back to reveal skeletal hands with too many fingers on one and far too many finger joints on both. "Me? Why... I am no one. I am nothing." He chuckled, lurching forward a moment as the hood rolled back and bones of all shapes and sizes started to pore out from below the cloak- and impossible amount to have been contained in it in the first place! "I am... the space between stars. I am a blind man's favorite color. I am fate's humor. I am the end of every path, I am what awaits you in the end. I am... nothing."

Death. The physical manifestation of death itself. A force for which there is no counter. The collection of bones writhing together as his body seemed to have no rhyme or reason; some were human, some were animal. He formed a skeleton but it was made up of hundreds of skeletons of different species of different sizes and shapes. The cluster rolled back the cloak and wore it more like a tattered black cape as the bones gathered into the shape of a monstrously hunch backed humanoid figure- though the neck branched into a cluster of random skulls as its head.

He slowly reached an arm out toward Cimon as he approaches- his arm has so many misaligned joints in it that extending it is like watching someone fully extend an accordion. "Time for the fun and games to end, Cimon. I know it seems as though you have only just arrived, but time does fly when you are having fun."

Cimon went to swat the hand away, but it moved suddenly much faster than it has been and snatched his wrist with a death grip! Cimon tried to twist his hand free but its grip would not relent, so Cimon used it to yank Nothing's entire body toward him, punching him in one of the skulls so hard it exploded apart- though was immediately replaced by another folding out of his impossible body. Nothing did not seem phased at all and reaches toward Cimon with his other hand, so Cimon yanks the arm again, turning and using his own body to hoist the huge body up on top of him and then threw him at the window, smashing it and finally making Nothing let go.

Rather than get up, his body writhed and simply re-assembled itself already standing upright again. "Now now, we cannot run from our problems forever."

"I am perfectly healthy and less than halfway through my life. I owe you nothing."

Nothing let out a single, hollow chuckle. "Who said I was here for you?"

Cimon jumped off the floor so hard the cubicles around him collapsed and he fired across the room, slamming into Nothing so hard they both were fired several meters out of the already broken window! The horse looked up startled on the street below to see its master fly across the sky! Cimon smashed Nothing out of the fifth floor of the office building, across the street, and into through the window of the second floor of a downtown home! Cimon hit the floor so hard the floorboards cracked and he gasped for breath as the landing knocked all the air out of his lungs. Nothing rolled across the room and crashed into a dresser before being able to stop. Skeletal paws, claws, talons and hands reach out of its body to clamor back to its feet.

Nothing raised two of the many limbs up in a shrug. "What are you trying to do, exactly? KILL me? I am death. I cannot visit myself."

Cimon lunged forward and kicked Nothing right through the wall he is backed up again. "I don't care what you do as long as you leave us alone."

"Everyone dies, eventually. You already knew this. It is inevitable."

"Eventually, but not now."

"It is not you who says when it is time. Will you be any more inviting had I appeared in a week? A year? A few years? No. This will always be your response. You cannot stop me Cimon, and I know you already know that, which makes this exchange a bit confusing."

"Maybe I can't, but I will try!" His ears flicked back as he heard Anais in the distance.

"But I already have her. I can manifest more than one body, you know? There are as many of me as there are lives to end."

Anais scrambled deeper into her floor of the office building, even though there was nowhere to go. The only other exit is the elevator, but it doesn't work. She tossed desks and chairs into his path trying to slow him down as she went- but Nothing did not even need to move them out of the way. The moment they touch his body they crumble to dust, rotting away in mere seconds. Nothing was in no rush- he simply walked toward her and waited for her to run out of room to run, and tire herself out. She ended up at the elevator and the claws on her marble paw suddenly grew large and sharp- she jammed them between the doors and pried them open enough to slip inside. Anais is hoping the doors clapping shut immediately behind her would protect her somehow.

Nothing simply placed a hand on the metal doors and rust immediately spread and ate holes through it for him, causing his hand to pass through in a cloud of red dust that was formerly the steel door. He stepped inside- his body losing its humanoid shape and simply spreading to occupy the space in the elevator, preparing to wrap around Anais as she crouched in the corner.

Nothing shook several of his heads. "Nothing to fear, my dear. You knew this moment would come. More than most do."

"So- so this... is my end?"

"Yes."

She smirked, putting her front paws to the floor to brace herself harder, then jumped forward hard enough to shatter her way through his bones before spinning around as a chain materialized behind her- following the movements of her tail exactly! She used Lourd's chain tail to spear through the wall just over the elevator doors!

"Because you're the one going down."

He glanced up on hearing the steel cables fraying. "Oh bother..."

The cable snapped before he could get more than his arms out of the elevator- the arms he did manage to reach out were immediately shattered between the elevator roof and the room floor! The rest of him fell to ground level hard enough that the elevator box itself crumpled in on him like someone smashing a tin can. Anais immediately bolted to the doorway to run down the only other way. She doubted getting his body crushed into bone dust would actually stop Nothing for very long, and she needed to get out of the building to actually have somewhere to run. Unfortunately navigating the stairs was very difficult. Everywhere he had walked also rotted away- so there is a path up the stairs from the ground floor that has rotted the whole way through, so she can only walk on the edge of the stairs on either side- the middle has collapsed on itself and crumbled away.

She skittered down the steps as fast as she could, but could hear his voice around her. It echoed in the rooms of the empty building making it difficult to track where he actually is. "You already brushed my shoulder long ago... but I let you go. I let you have your time, and I let you finish your little excursion, but enough is enough. You have already been on borrowed time for a long while now!"

"Yea, well you said it was my end up on the seventh floor too but I am still here."

"Haha... well, I suppose you have me there."

She seen the ground floor finally at the bottom of the long stairs- she was tempted to just jump down through the gaping hole to save time, but really couldn't afford to risk twisting her ankle or something in front of the finish line. Nothing burst through the wall beside her as a colossal snake skeleton! In this form the other skeletons are stuffed inside the giant snake frame, using their arms to help it move along- making its movement more like a centipede than an actual snake.

Anais ducked under the strike and it hit the wall on her other side- but used the wall to turn abruptly and follow her! Nothing did not expect her to quickly turn around and jam her marble claws into the bone at the edge of his right eye socket, yank the head to the side and jump off the stairs! She used the tension in his bone frame to land on ground level and then let him go to dash away, out of the building.

Cimon was smashed through the floor the moment he attempted to run for the stairs to go to Anais. Nothing re-configured his mass into the shape of a massive tiger- the rips in his black cloak over the bone frame looking like the stripes. He pounced on Cimon so heavily they went straight through the floor into the ground level of the home! It is a good thing the power isn't on because he broke many power lines and a water line in the floor between levels. He kicked Nothing back against a wall and dashed the other way, scrambling to his feet and grabbed the handle on a fridge. Nothing roared and pounced at him again with aged bone talons and Cimon ripped an entire sword out by the handle of the fridge which reshaped itself into the handle of the sword! He summoned Truth; Agrios' blade, except unlike Agrios- his version of Truth is more like a giant zweihander rather than a scimitar. The blade struck inside the bone tiger's mouth, striking the hinge of its lower jaw and forcing it away from the force of the swing!

Cimon lunged at Nothing before it could regain its footing and lanced its giant tiger skull and half its body on the length of the huge sword! The body rippled and the bones rapidly shifted around taking on the form of a giant skeletal bear! As soon as the bear skull took over at the fore of the demon, it back-handed Cimon raking four deep cuts through his right cheek, knocking him back. Nothing swiped at him and he blocked with the sword, causing a shower of sparks! Cimon could not see him past the shielding blade though, and Nothing caught him by surprise as it bowed low and dove forward, then bucked its head up and stood- ramming Cimon up into the roof with his skull! Several skeletal rodents darted out from its neck, around the skull and started biting Cimon in several different places as the bear backed off and let him fall. As he was scrambling to throw the tiny skeletons off himself the bear rushed forward again and swung forward with his paw- both slamming Cimon against the front door of the house and skewering him on its claws, which now grew long enough to lance straight through the door and pin him in place.

"Death comes for everyone Cimon. You will join her soon enough without you actively putting yourself into the line of fire."

Lourd's tail speared the bottom of the door, breaking the hinges off from the impact, allowing Cimon to slide off the ends of the claws! Anais ducked as her serpent Nothing lunged at her trying to spear her on its two foot long fangs! It missed with its mouth, but fell heavily onto the ground slamming her against the ground under its collection of bones and the many arms and claws reaching out from inside its ribs started thrashing at her, trying to rip her open! Anais used her marble arm to block her head and upper body but they cut and clawed into her lower and mid body!

Cimon cleaved the skull and upper body of the snake in half with a downward swing from Truth that also split the pavement under them! The bear Nothing charged at him before he could move and slammed him into the other Nothing as both bodies melted together! Cimon was carried up into the tornado of bones getting cut several more times on jagged bone shards before it threw him out violently from one of its forming arms and into the road. Nothing reformed as a colossal heap of jumbled bones- dried sinew and scraps of flesh stretched between some bones here and there to help hold the shape. Only the upper body resembled a giant humanoid- from the hip down it was a writhing mass of bone.

"If you'd rather I took you both- that much, I can arrange."

They looked around as the sky went to night again but this time stuck there. The ocean started to turn a brown-red with blood and the skeletons of billions of dead fish float to the surface. One by one the stars vanish from the sky as they burn out. The earth trembles and the mountains around them start to erode and collapse, rolling over the forests in the valley even as their leaves turn brown and fall away.

"Stars burn out, stone erodes, metal rusts, flesh rots. There is nothing in this whole universe that does not die. You wish for eternity, but you will not have it."

Nothing formed a spear of bone- but so large it equaled the telephone poles nearby! He drew his free hand back, then slithered forward on a bed of a thousand bones, slammed his open palm into Cimon, winding him and smashing him against a streetlight. Blood squirt out the four holes Nothing jammed through his upper torso already. Nothing twirled the spear in his other hand while keeping Cimon pinned in place, but he was not looking at Cimon. He was looking at the reflection in his eyes. Anais lunged at him from behind trying to save her master- only to get skewered herself. Without even turning to face her- the spear stopped spinning in Nothing's hand when it was facing backwards, and he jammed it through her while still looking at Cimon.

She stuttered in surprise, holding the bone shaft before he pulled it back and then she collapsed to her knees holding the gaping hole to keep her organs from immediately spilling out. "Ooughh... oh... n-no..."

Cimon screamed her name and ran over to her on the ground- Nothing made no attempt to interrupt them. Neither of them noticed all of the ambient sound in the area. The sky started to fade back to day at the edges, the mountains stood back up and the forests bloomed again. The world around them was returning to normal- which means the city and its people were appearing again.

"Anais... fuck, I am so sorry maybe we can-"

"N-ugh." She coughed up some blood- her body slowly starting to shift, her human traits fading away slowly to revert her into a normal dog. "No... it... it is okay. We knew this would happen from the very start, remember? I was always fated to die, and leave you behind. I am so sorry. I did warn you though, heh." She stumbled forward into his arms- already having lost so much blood she could barely stay conscious.

The city restored around them, and everyone ignored the presence of Nothing looming over them in the middle of the streets- cars passed through him as if he were not even there. They did not see anything strange, but they did see a man holding a dying dog. They did stop, and watch silently.

He held her shrinking body in his arms, shaking his head as his tears washed some of the blood off her. "Anais... thank you so much for everything. Thank you for being a part of my life, letting me see your smile."

"I should be the one thanking you... for taking me in at... all..." She was struggling to breathe now, barely having the strength to talk, but her tail was still wagging weakly, because her master is with her.

"Just being there... gave me more of a reason to wake up in the morning than any other thing in my whole damn life. You've given me the best time in my life... and I will never forget you."

She weakly opened her mouth- but she was fully a dog again now and unable to form words, and too weak to besides. Cimon was also now a human again. The horse was once again a motorbike, and Anais' marble arm crumbled back into the random bits and bobs he purchased at the store originally. Every fantastical thing from their adventure reverted once again to plain reality.

Cimon could see that she was struggling to keep her eyes open. "Just promise me one thing? Never stop trying." He glanced briefly to his sword Truth as it too crumbled into a golden dust and blew away in the wind.

Anais did not understand quite what he meant, but she would absolutely never consider disobeying any order from her master, so with the last of her strength she just nodded, and closed her eyes. For a few moments she lay there breathing softly, just feeling his touch, before her ability to feel faded and her life blinked out. Her tail finally stopped moving. Never to move again.

Several people who had stopped in the streets to watch offered condolences to Cimon, but Nothing simply slithered back. "Remember Cimon. Everyone fades one day. Her time is up- but your timer is ticking too." With that he faded away from view.

Anais's body turned to a white vapor for a moment and spiraled around itself, reforming into an urn, containing her ashes. Cimon remained stunned and crying, cradling the urn in the sunlight while people respectfully walk around him resuming their own lives.

Part 9: Goodbye

He did not get up till a long while later, and wandered back to the hotel room. He told the man at the front counter he was going to check out later today, so they did not charge him for another night. He plopped down on the bed for a while and just watched some TV- or tried to. He was barely paying attention to the television at all. The sunlight seemed so... harsh. So hot and blindingly bright, he just wanted to be in the cool dark air conditioned room.

*-death is inevitable in this wilderness, the wildebeas-* Change the channel.

*The vet was unable to save her. The surgery went as intended but the dogs condition was too far gone at that-* CHANGE.

*-hundred dead in the recent apartment complex fire in Egypt today.*

Cimon grunt and shut the television off again. Cimon did not really feel like eating, so he skipped lunch. He went to the bathroom one last time before leaving the city to return home- splashing cold water on his face to get rid of the crusty feeling of dried tears.

He looked up to see Nothing's skeletal assortment of faces reflected in the mirror rather than his own. "Oh? Heading back so soon? I thought you were planning to stay another day or two?"

"Mmm, but there is a lot of other things to see too, y'know?"

"W-what?"

"Oh- I am not taking the same route back. So imagine all the sights and experiences I had coming out? Now double it- for the return trip."

"A-ah... I see. I had thought... you may be too depressed, and were packing it in for that."

"I mean, yea- I am also that. But... life is short, right? And Anais would not want me to be sad. That is why she pushed herself away from me at first... she was afraid of making me sad when she died."

"As unavoidable as death itself."

"Mmm, you ain't kidding. BUT, give it a week or so... I should get myself straightened out. And seeing all these sights should help. Only way to know is to try." He nodded confidently- more to himself than Nothing. "I am going to approach this as if she were still with me. Live life for the both of us."

Cimon headed out of the hotel with their things and packed them onto his motorbike. Weird imagining this bike once stood on four legs as a mechanical horse. What a wild time it has been. Crazy, hectic but... he is so glad he could experience it all with her while she was still among the living. Another lone tear fell from his eyes as he packed up her whale plushy- once again reverted to its true size. It was her favorite.

Anais stood in a void of darkness, wandering aimlessly. There was no ground, no sky; nothing but pure darkness for as far as she could see. She cannot see anything but her own body, so she has no idea just where she is walking to... or even if she is moving at all. She moves her limbs like she is doing the doggie paddle and it feels as though she is moving but with nothing to see; it's impossible to know. Several floating skulls of different creatures appeared travelling beside her, trailing a faintly glowing blue mist.

She glanced at Nothing for only a moment before resuming her travel into the void. "So, this is death?"

"Yes and no. Death is nothing at all. You will not feel anything, you will not experience anything. Everything you considered to be 'you' in the first place will cease to exist. Cimon will carry your memory... till he too dies, and then even that will be lost. Eventually even your memory will be gone forever."

She growled. "Get on with it. What is this if it isn't death?"

"Limbo. I guess you could say you are a faint ghost at this point. You will fade though- and I am here to help you make the transition."

A skeletal arm formed out of the void and tapped her right paw and it vanished up to her shoulder! Anais abruptly fell on her face- now she has no front legs! She scrambled her back legs to flop onto her side. "Hey! What the hell, I needed that!"

Nothing chuckled, but stifled himself quickly. "Sorry. But... for what exactly did you need it? You've nowhere to go, other than 'away'. You are dead my dear- there is nothing you need."

He tapped the pads on either of her back legs and they vanished too! She could only squirm on her back haplessly! Ugh... why is she struggling? Even if he did nothing to her at this point- she is already in limbo and can't do anything regardless. Maybe just struggling to buy time for maybe a glimmer of hope to show up somehow? Or just blindly not giving up, like Cimon commanded her. He looked at his sword as if it could help but even that crumbled away before their eyes, it had been part of the craziness that had been happening. Even that massive damn sword could not do anything to stop Nothing.

Nothing touched the tip of her tail and it started to vanish- and then her torso from the bottom up slowly started to dissolve into the void. But Anais only furrowed her brows in confusion. Cimon's sword swatted Nothing around but did no lasting harm. What on earth is immune to the Truth?

Cimon got on his motorbike and grumbled in annoyance as he seen Nothing reflected in the side mirrors. "Really? You stalking me now?"

"Well... just making sure you are alright. I haven't had anyone fight me so vehemently in a long time."

Cimon huffed. "You think I am going to off myself?"

"It is within the realm of possibility, and if you did- it would very much become my problem."

"I didn't cry because she is gone. I will cry tears of joy, because it happened. And you know what, buddy?"

"Hm?"

Cimon smirked. "That is something even death cannot undo. You can't kill the past. We already had so

many beautiful moments and a glorious adventure together. And you can't take that back."

Anais' head fell onto its top- no longer having a neck to link it to anything. Just a disembodied head to be swallowed into the void. Before Nothing could tap her again she interrupted him.

"H-hey, Nothing?"

"Yes my dear? Final words? Only I remain to hear them, but speak your peace."

"You said that... when I fully go- I will be utterly erased, right? No pearly gates; 'all dogs go to heaven' sort of deal?"

Nothing chuckled. "I am afraid not- it is only the void."

"Right." Her body snapped back into place in a shimmer and she kicked one of his skulls into the distance as she jumped back onto all three paws. "So then what the fuck are you?!" The only thing unfazed by the Truth... is a lie.

Nothing sneered at Cimon's taunt, and materialized in person before his motorbike, leaning forward to hold out an hourglass. "Yes well good luck remembering anything when you are also dead. Your timer does not stop ticking; you will have your day too, Cimon." Nothing fumbled the hourglass as he brought his arm back then chuckled. "Oh dear- it seems shaking it causes the sand to fall a bit faster." He shook it deliberately a second time. "See that?"

Cimon rolled his eyes. "You talk big for being a phony."

Nothing closed his fist over the hourglass and grit his many sets of teeth. "Excuse me?"

"Death isn't a thing- it's the absence of a thing. Even if you call yourself Nothing you are still a manifestation- a thing that exists."

Both Cimon and Anais spoke at the same time as reality seemed to collapse in on itself for a moment and snapped back in place as she re-emerged from the void. "You are not death. You are the fear of death."

Cimon re-materialized Truth in his hand. "And I have bad news for you, asshole. I ain't afraid of shit."

Nothing's bones started to crack and crumble, revealing their innards are an odd silhouette. His form still made of bones- but now his body looks like a silhouette- you can see through him but everything viewed through his body looks like the eternally night, abandoned and decayed version of the city. As if his body were a window to that dark world. The void bones re-arranged themselves into a new body, a demon. A huge goat like head with gargantuan ram-like horns. A humanoid body but with four arms with far too many joints in both arms and their clawed digits. He has hooved feet, but still stands upright. He has a tail similar to Lourd's, but his is made of bone rather than metal- and the spade tip of his almost resembles to fishhooks side-by-side. He has bat-like wings but the membrane is what is left of the tattered black robes he had worn before and full of holes still. Orbiting over his head is what appears to be a fractured halo with several nails driven through it- points facing inward. Because the empty sockets that served as his eyes are unseen in this new silhouetted form- he opened two orbs of seething pale blue light floating in the void as his eyes. Narrow slits serve as his pupils.

"Act as brave as you want, the more you thirst for life the more adverse you are to death. And you cannot avoid death. Whether I serve it to you or something else does- it is inescapable!"

He tossed the hourglass into the air and it too crumbled into a void silhouette- and then stretched into the shape of a giant scythe for him to wield as he caught it again. Nothing swung at Cimon but he caught the blade with his own and deflected them both to the side before stepping forward and kicking Nothing in the crotch, launching him back from the force. He would have gone higher but Nothing is almost four times his height in this form. Nothing swiped from the side trying to reap Anais' legs out from under her! Instead of dodging, she rushed forward and her marble prosthetic re-formed and stomped on the ground! The scythe blade swung into it, but was stopped by the marble limb, unable to cut through it! Anais summoned Lourd's tail and speared Nothing through his chest, shattering one of his many ribs in half and gouging a vertebrae. When the fragment of the rib broke off, it crumbled away before even touching the ground- removing part of his body permanently.

He swung at her from a higher angle- seeing Cimon rush him but using his lower right arm to smash Cimon away with an open-palm thrust. Nothing has four arms- he only needs two to swing the scythe.

"Why fight this, Anais? You thought your time was already up long ago. You only prolong suffering! More experiences only means you have more to lose when you inevitably expire! You compound the suffering of those around you and the feeling of loss you will suffer in the end!"

Though she retains her fully feral form- she is still able to speak as a human. She just laughs at him. "For how long? As you have said- death is nothing at all. I cannot suffer anything if I am already dead, now can I?"

She jumped out of the way of his blade as the point smashed into the road where she had been standing, but then he swung down at her with his upper left arm and swatted her down into his lower right arm as he punched her nearly twelve feet into the air and down onto the roof of a parked car hard enough to crush it into the body of the car! She let out a yelp of pain and the air escaped her lungs- she thought she was going to die from the hit... and a hit like that on a body so small SHOULD have killed her. But she would not allow it, and her resolve alone re-hardened her bones. She gasped to refill her lungs and squirmed back onto her four limbs.

"A few days of grief will never outweigh a lifetime of joy. I will gladly drag myself through hell to enjoy even a few days more with Cimon. Your threats hold no weight with me, deceiver."

He lunged forward so quickly it looked like he was slithering through the air, landing in front of the damaged vehicle and grabbing the front of it before Anais could react- he was going to throw the entire vehicle with her still on it! Cimon blind-sided him, turning Truth to the side to smash Nothing in the face with the flat side of the blade with enough force to obliterate the entire front of the bakery they were in front of! Nothing flew through the metal frame of the front of the store in a shower of fractured glass, slammed into the counter hard enough to shatter it and caused him to flip mid-air and land back-first against the back wall. The impacts slowed his momentum enough that Cimon caught up to him again before he even stopped falling back, and punched him in the face hard enough to send them both straight through the back wall into the back of the shop!

Nothing slammed into and crumpled in one of the bread ovens, and Cimon fell over him into the open floor between the rows of ovens. Nothing swung at him once and he dodged, but then Nothing actually stood up from the ruined stove and dashed forward- this time reaching forward with a free hand to grab Cimon by the head and crush his skull like a grape. Cimon's horse smashed its way straight through the concrete wall at the back of the shop and slammed the scythe blade down onto the floor under its front hooves before turning around and kicking with both of its back hooves into Nothing's head! The sparks given off from hitting him with metal hooves ignited the gas leak from the destroyed oven! Rather than simply kick him back; Nothing was launched back out the front of the store swathed in flames from the massive explosion it set off!

Cimon emerged from the flames pouring out of the ruins of the store riding his steel horse. The people who had been inside of the store scramble out looking puzzled, but oddly calm for what is happening right now. Nothing struck a telephone poll on the other side of the street hard enough to fold it in half- bending forward far enough to snap the powerlines and send down a shower of sparks and blue-white bolts.

Nothing growled as he got up, noting several chips in his scythe blade he cannot regenerate. The horse struck him with enough force to break several bone chips out of his spine as well, bending it at an angle it isn't meant to be able to. "You say that even death cannot undo the past... but you will die too. Her memory dies with you. And then who will remember you, hmm? What legacy are you trying to secure exactly? One, two generations later and no one will remember you nor Anais ever existed. One day the sun will go super-critical and this entire solar system will be vaporized instantly in its wake. Every trace that the human species ever existed in the first place will be atomized instantly."

"And I will l be so long removed from the planet at that point I couldn't possibly care if I tried. I don't live in the future- as soon as tomorrow comes, it is the present again. I live in the now- so NOW is the only time that actually counts for fucking anything."

"Your demise will be your present one day, rather than your future."

"Then I die. So what? Already had my life- enjoyed the time I had. Why would I need anything else? We will all die one day- but that day isn't today. And you aren't going to convince us to simply roll over."

Nothing launched himself across the street at them and the horse bowed its front legs to dodge leaving Cimon to deflect the scythe blade with Truth, knocking both blades to his right and Nothing's left. Nothing grabbed the horse's neck with one arm and shoved its face into the street and used his other free hand to rake five gouges across Cimon's chest, shredding his shirt. Lourd's tail shattered one rib on either side of his torso, then as Anais pulled it back it hooked on another one and ripped it out too! Nothing fell back to try and swing at her. She is tiny in comparison though and with her prosthetic restored she can dart around quickly to dodge- she is a racing dog breed after all.

The scythe cannot be swung fast enough to hit her, to he only held it in one hand to free up three other arms to try and crush Anais against the ground like a bug. He could not catch her- but her long chain tail was pinned under a palm, yanking her to an abrupt stop! Before he could attack her again; Cimon rode up and swung Agrios' sword at a full gallop! Nothing had to let Anais go to use his scythe to deflect! The blade of a scythe is curved though- it isn't meant to be able to deflect another blade, so rather than roll off the edge- Cimon's Truth cut into it. With a sickeningly shrill grinding sound sparks rained off from between the two blades and with a loud click and clank; chunks of the scythe chipped off rapidly as the sword blade cut deeper- finally rending the blade of the scythe completely off! As soon as the severed blade hit the ground it shattered into a million pieces like a broken mirror and evaporated into the air!

Cimon rode past- unable to stop the horse easily from the amount of force they had to push forward with, then turned but before he could get his bearings Nothing lunged into him with another attack! The scythe no longer had a blade- but Truth notched the end of the shaft, making it like a spear-point. He lanced the base of the horse's neck and out the other side- straight through Cimon's torso before yanking it back out!

Anais cried out for Cimon as the horse lurched forward, but braced itself before falling completely forward. Cimon winced in pain but still grinned through the sharp, shooting pains from the gaping hole. He did not let go of the horse. You could see his still beating heart in the hole in his chest!

"You'll have to do better than that."

From back to front, the hole started to knit itself back closed! The horse reared up but Cimon bent forward and the metal body seemed to transform rapidly, re-configuring its mechanisms to wrap around Cimon! Cimon reached out to Anais with a machine-clad arm and she quickly took his hand, and merged into the forming amalgam! Human and canine combined and they grew to match Nothing's size! Their back and the outside of their limbs was covered in the black and white fluffy fur of a husky while their underside of their limbs and the entire front of their torso was instead covered with the white and diffused brown of a whippet!

Their legs and hips are entirely encapsulated in mechanical augments- wearing the horse like a mech! This means their feet are steel hooves- and there are small jet thrusters built into their high-raised ankles. Their upper body is repeated- one more lean than the other; the more muscular of the two chests is the one that sits at the top. The one below is adorned with a pair of breasts, indicating it is Anais' influence. The lower two arms are encased in mechanical augments while the upper two are simply huge with muscle. Both sets are flesh and blood and both end in paw-hand hybrids. What had been the horse's head and neck now lay flat up their combined back, linking directly through the skin into their nervous system via their spine. From this the rest of its former body branched out into two giant mechanical wings! Their spine branches at the collar, and both have their own canine head- one husky and one whippet; both necks adorned with a collar and the leash is a short chain that simply connects one collar to the other.

They rushed at Nothing and grabbed his collar bones with one hand, picking his entire body off the ground and slammed him into a van so hard it crushed the van in half! Nothing kicked them several feet into the air with his bone hooves to get up, but their wings spread open. A cyan glow emitted from the ends of each of the plates that make up the body of the wings- revealing that each one is a narrow jet thruster! They launched themselves straight down and punched Nothing so hard in the chest they shattered his entire ribcage open and they all collapsed through the pavement of the street, rending several water mains and fell into the sewers!

Nothing spun the spear in his hand, ready to impale them but Cimon grabbed his wrist with one hand and punched Nothing's arm with the other- shattering it in half at the elbow joint and destroying his weapon in the process! Nothing already put a hoof on their chest, and before they could pull away he kicked them back so hard they smashed right through the street, several feet into the air and back down back on the surface! They collapsed onto all fours trying to stop themselves from sliding back further and Anais projected a blade off either forearm from inside the mechanical gauntlets they wore. One was ivory, forged from her prosthetic, the other is gold, forged from Truth.

Nothing jumped out of the destroyed road, swatting a moving vehicle out of the way as it tried to pass him on the road- absolutely demolishing it against the building across from him without even breaking eye contact from Cimon and Anais.

"Fear will consume you just as quickly as death itself. What do you think awaits you after this? A happily ever after? You've no job waiting for you when you return. Even if you did- it would be right back to the same old grind it has always been. Mundane, irritatingly tedious existence, only underlined by this short blip of joy."

They both smirked, standing up straight again. "It can never be the same."

"What?"

"It cannot be the same, because we are not the same. Our lives are told through our perception of the world around us, and we are not the same people we were before- changing the perspective of everything we interact with. Nothing will become mundane if we continue to change."

Nothing launched himself forward, slithering through the air, beating his wings once just to clear the distance between them! Cimon swung his right arm down and Anais swung hers up- the mechanical gauntlet wrapping around both arms now just as Nothing arrived to land an attack. The jets on their ankles fired, blasting them forward into him and punched him full-force. Nothing punched forward with his own left fist and they hit his so hard the hand shattered into dust, and the arm splintered up into the upper arm- the lower arm crumbled away and dissolved into the air! Nothing now only had his two lower arms- the top two were unusable!

Nothing braced himself as Cimon lifted their wings but he did not launch himself forward! The panels tilted forward and fired them backwards- distancing them from Nothing! He lifted their fused right arm and suddenly all of the vehicles around them pulled in! Telephone poles, cash registers from inside buildings, cars, bikes- everything metal that was close enough to them yanked into them and reformed into the same sort of cybernetics the horse was made from! Nothing's eyes flared brighter in surprise and he rushed forward again, realizing all the machines were fusing into their arm to transform into a cannon! Longer and bigger- a colossal cannon barrel assembled itself off of them, branching several support pillars off the bottom to allow them to hold such a monstrously huge thing off the ground!

When Nothing got too close; Cimon lifted it momentarily and several jet thrusters on the forming barrel itself went off, and the force of the thrust blasted Nothing into the ground and then fired him back away again! In only a half-minute they formed a cannon the length of half a city block and one full lane of traffic in width!

Both Anais and Cimon spoke perfectly in sync. "You were right about one thing, at least."

Nothing growled and charged at them again trying to stop it from firing in the first place. Several lights lit up down its length and long cylinders of fluid emerged from the barrel with a hiss, acting as heat-sinks.

"You really are nothing."

All of the thrusters down the length of the barrel aimed back and fired at full strength, slowly dragging them forward, but then the gun fired and the forces negated themselves. The thrusters were there to keep the force of the cannon firing from blasting them down the street! A beam of light fired through Nothing and off the downward sloping streets, over the beach, the ocean, and off into the horizon! The beam was so bright it made the entire rest of the city appear to go dark in comparison. All of the windows down the street the beam travelled exploded outwards- immediately yanked into the vacuum of its force! Cars and any loose ruins they created in their fight were immediately dragged into the sides of the expanding beam and disintegrated on contact!

Nothing writhed in rage trying to drag himself out of the line of fire but every part of his body that touches it for even a moment is vaporized instantly, and the beam only started a foot wide- it expanded to three feet in width before finally ending. By then Nothing was just a fractured skull and a few shattered bones that were the tips of his wings and one of his arms. The remaining bones squirmed on the ground as if attempting to pull themselves back together, but the cracks continued all the way through and expanded till the remaining void crumbled into nothing and the orbs of seething light that were his eyes burned out.

Like it had all been a crazy dream... everything went back to normal after Nothing was defeated. The people killed by them in the fight were alive and well with no recollection of being killed in the first place. The buildings and streets destroyed by them were mended in the blink of an eye. Their suit was no longer a mech, nor a horse- just a motorbike again. Anais is just a normal three legged dog, she barks instead of talks but... Cimon can still perfectly understand her in spite of this. They decided to head out, finally returning home. Anais no longer afraid to experience life, and no longer held herself back from showing her affection for her dear master. Cimon felt a little bit better about... just about everything. He seen value in the things he did, and thanks to Anais he knew to look out for the little joys along the way. To invest in his own enjoyment, instead of waiting for some other reason to justify it.

The two of them had a wonderful time on the return trip- Cimon charted a whole different route for them to take to return by so the sights were once again all news adventures waiting for them every day, and even after they returned home finally; every time he took her for a walk it was to somewhere new, even if it meant going for a bit of a drive to get to the starting line.

Thanks to the prosthetic he put together for her, the regular exercise and the boundless love shown by her master; Anais would live to fifteen and a half years old- extremely old by dog standards. When she finally left the world, her tail did not stop wagging till she breathed her last. There was no fear of the void beyond, just the final warm embrace of her loving master, and her heart filled with joy to near-bursting from the years of beautiful memories they shared.

Melissa gently pat her daughter Avery's head as the girl sobbed over the grave of her old dog Benson's grave. He was a huge dog with a real droopy face- but he was a wrinkly-faced puppy when she was just a baby herself and the two had grown up together... but humans far outlast dogs.

"You know Avery- my cousin here has had to say goodbye to many dogs himself."

Avery looked up at Cimon who just nodded timidly as he leaned on his cane. His face weathered with age- laugh lines framing his mouth cut deep into his skin, his hair mostly grey now, and he leans heavily on a cane to help him get around, though he is very healthy for his age... he had done a lot of regular walking in his time.

"Yes, you never get over their loss. But. You get on with life, and live happy in their place. Their death was only one brief moment in history- they left you with a lifetime of better days to hold on to instead."

"H-h-how many doggies d-did you have?"

Cimon just chuckled weakly, glancing at Melissa who smirked, and motioned around them. "Honey- Cimon knew this good place to burry Benson because all of these graves are his dogs."

Avery's eyes went wide as she looked around and counted thirteen headstones. Every one of them was one of Cimon's dogs.

Cimon shrugged. "I mean- I didn't have them all at once! But yea... over the years. I don't generally wait all that long before getting another. Never more than one at a time though."

Avery pouted. "No dog could replace Benson!!"

Cimon crouched down, motioning to Anais' grave. "And no dog could replace Anais." He motioned to another stone. "Or Franklin." He motioned to another. "Or Moxie. Just like people- no dog could replace any other dog, because they are all individuals. There is no better or worse dogs, just... different. Moxie could never be what Anais was, but she was perfect at being Moxie." He motioned to another stone, chuckling. "Blotches there was a real idiot- couldn't train him to do a damn thing his whole life but boy did he love to play, and brought energy to the room like no one else." He sighed, glancing at the dark figure looming over Avery's head- swathed in a black robe with scythe in hand. "You can't replace the memories you made with Benson- but you don't need to either. They are still there in your memories. They become a part of who you are, you'll have those forever. But that doesn't mean you cannot have a new set of memories with another cool dog."

"Yea... I guess. Do you have a dog now?"

"Not at the moment- my last dog was Alleiha. Been a few years now."

Melissa slapped her knees as she stood back upright. "Well I have an idea, why don't we all pop by an animal shelter? Don't have to get anything, just, see what sort of dogs there is that need homes."

Cimon stood up straight too. "That sounds lovely." He smirked at the cloaked figure a moment before a twenty meter tall dog smashed him into paste against the ground under its colossal paw- barking with all thirteen of its heads as the combined spirits of all of Cimons dogs. Cimon just chuckled at the dark figure's remains as it melted into nothingness. "Not a chance, buddy."

At the animal shelter Avery was both crying because they somehow all reminded her of Benson but was also smiling because they were all so alive, so cute, so eager to name her their master at the drop of a hat. While Avery and her mother Melissa fawned over the pups, Cimon wandered over to the haggard older dogs. The ones no one wanted. Found an old hound dog, barely lifted his head to acknowledge Cimon- tired of getting his hopes up. His right eye is missing- the socket stitched closed to avoid infections.

Cimon just smiled at him and motioned to the shelter's attendees to open his cage. "So, old man. What sort of things do you have to teach me?" The old dog plodded out slowly, not sure what to believe, though his tail cautiously started to wag. "Welcome to the first leg of your next journey."

The End

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