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Einstein spread himself out on the loamy jungle floor, panting. It broke his heart to admit it, but it was useless. Betsy was trapped.

The three dogs sat around her large prone figure. Ferns reached up to swaddle them all save for a fairly wide trail down the slope whence they came. There the vegetation had been flattened by Betsy's rolling bulk. Trees surrounded them on all sides, lining a rim which raised all around them in a small hollow. Though they had tried, it had proved impossible to roll Betsy uphill in any direction including the way they had come.

Everyone was quiet, trying to recover after the long, slow flight, now seemingly cut short. Everyone except Betsy, that is.

The collie panted, she was tired too, having been using her belly and back muscles to assist with her rolling most of the time. She was shaking her head on her thick neck. "You guys can't stay here. You have to leave me behind." She was saying not for the first time. She put her forepaws on the ground and tried lifting her upper body a little for emphasis. "Look, I'm really glad each of you tried and I don't blame any of you for landing down here." Betsy could not keep the tears from reaching her eyes and her voice grew strained. "But you are all in danger by staying here with me!"

Einstein looked up wearily at Betsy. Being the second fattest of the dogs here by far, he was the most winded for the effort of rolling Betsy along. "I'm not leaving you here, Betsy. And there's nothing you can say that's going to change my mind."

He said this sternly and rendered Betsy speechless for a time. She wanted to get angry at him, to tell him he was being foolish, but she couldn't. In the end, she lowered herself back down onto her wide plump chest and crossed her forelegs before resting her head on her brisket. She sighed miserably; she could really go for some manna disks right now... The old craving miffed her, especially now that she knew what manna really was.

After a time, Bruce began talking about building something to lever Betsy out of the hollow. It sounded outlandish, but everyone listened intently. They had tried for hours to roll Betsy up the gradient, but her weight, as great as three large - non-obese - dogs put together always defeated them. Bruce and Robby even got as far as gathering some building materials before the ants began to turn up.

The scouts came first, naturally. Einstein was vicious in his predation of the insects and keeping any from approaching Betsy. Both dogs hoped that if they avoided contact with Betsy and her immobile girth, the swarm might not follow. It was a futile hope. Bruce was the first to set aside his materials. He himself had admitted that it might take days to build something capable of shifting such a large weight a Betsy. Now it appeared that they had mere hours left. Robby paced around the shallow hollow, smashing ants where he saw them. He had a grim expression on his face. When Betsy told him specifically that he could go, that he wasn't a close associate like the others, he just smiled and shook his head. "Where am I going to go anyways? There's no where to hide on the island."

Nobody, not even Betsy could argue with that. Even their destination of "North" was nebulous and offered only vague promises of safety, now apparently dashed by a slight fold in the earth and Betsy's own excessive poundage.

The pattern of the ants arrival was exactly the same. The hollow began to become more and more saturated with the insects, all apparently just milling about. No matter how many were killed, more continued to arrive. Einstein armed himself with a leafy branch from over the rise and sat down by the dog he loved, brushing ants away as they attempted to mount her.

Betsy was crying. From fear, from anger at the unfairness of the situation and from the love and devotion that Einstein was showing her, indeed that all her friends were showing her. But it was all useless, she knew. "Please, Einny, just go." She begged. "When the ants show up, you're just going to be forced go anyways. I'd rather you not see me like that..."

Einstein turned and looked at her directly, his brown eyes watery with pain. "I'm not letting you out of my sight again, Bets."

"But the ants... they'll make you leave in the end. I just don-"

Einstein interrupted. "The ants can't make me do anything, Bets. I'm staying here with you." There was a burning in his eyes that she saw for the first time. It would have been magnificent, if she weren't facing the prospect of imminent death. Before she knew it, they were kissing, hard and passionately as humans do. Their tongues met and writhed together. Dogs didn't do that naturally, it was a human gift. While he kissed her, Betsy remembered her former rantings against the hideous human nature which had infected the canines on this island and led to madness, she had railed against their lost innocence... But with his breath mingling with hers, a layer of close, hot scent shared between them that made their kiss uniquely canine, Betsy thought that sometimes you just had to take the good with the bad.

Betsy did little but sit there and breath noisily as the ants and their doom came, or so it seemed to her. Bruce had the bright notion of covering their feet with broad leaves tied with vine. Robby complained of the feeling of the new "booties" but the other two willingly tried the invention. Einstein tried putting waxy leaf armor around Betsy, but the ants just ended up crawling underneath and biting her anyways. The booties seemed to work well for a while, until the leaves started to be punctured by their claws. Once ripped the tears quickly spread, so the booties had to be scraped as well.

By that time, soldier ants were making their appearance. Just like at the beach and at the camp, the situation quickly became hopeless. Betsy sobbed quietly. What else could she do? Her mind railed against her inability to help, to depend on others and drag them down into her wretched situation. But that anger did not change the awesome weight she carried nor the 350 lbs of adipose which polluted her body and made her nothing more than a snack for the damnable insects. The dogs went through the same motions with the leaves and the stomping, but it amounted to nothing different. The ants continued to swarm and Betsy felt their bites on her back or her bottom or even between her legs. The ants were invasive and cruel, almost as if they were actually seeking out sensitive areas to attack first.

Betsy attacked them with her forepaws. Sometimes she even hefted up her heavy brisket and flopped it forward, pressing down on it with her paws for a greater smushing area. She did not roll. She didn't not only because she didn't want to expose her more sensitive tummy again to the ants, but also because Einstein was there to keep the worst of the ants off of her. Again, however, they began to pervade the area, drawn to Betsy as if she were coated with honey. The area they were occupying was much smaller than the beach or even the camp. The ants were obviously homing in on the immobile dog. Betsy couldn't stop crying. She wished for a stroke, she wished for a heart attack. Anything to spare her the pain of being eaten alive by ants and to release her friends to save themselves.

She wasn't as strong as them, she knew. If she were them, she might have run by now. But they lingered, fighting against a tireless enemy. Even Robby showed no signs of deserting a second time. She didn't deserve friends like that...

It got to the point where ants were crawling onto Betsy from a black puddle on the jungle floor faster than Einstein could brush them off. They were prying bits of skin off of her back. Every-time Betsy thrashed her paws, she killed dozens of ants. It got to the point where she could feel the chitin crushing in layers under her legs. The sensation sickened her, but not as much as the thought that they were actually prying bits of meat off of her body, taking them somewhere to feed this vast army. Poor Einstein was flagging. He needed to sit badly, she knew, because of his weight irritated hip displasia, however, there was literally no where to sit, not without receiving dozens of ant bites in exchange. Betsy was tired too, but she kept on, as long as Einstein kept on.

Just as the tipping point seemed to be swinging in the ants' favor, the assault bizarrely dissolved. The soldiers blanketing the area went from actively storming the fortress of Betsy's body to just wandering randomly. Some even trotted right off of her blobby, bleeding frame. They stopped biting as well, even as Einstein, Bruce and Robby took the advantage to stomp and kill to their heart's content. Betsy was the first to see that someone had joined them.

She was a medium sized dog, about as large as Betsy had been, before manna had distended her frame into its current barrel shape. She sported brown fur curly fur like a terrier's, but her back was yellow and straight, as if a segment of a different dog had been grafted seamlessly onto her body. She had no tail and her eyes were different colors, blue and green. When she stepped down from the rim into the hollow, the ants parted for her like a living carpet. She approached Betsy.

She looked around nervously, but the others hadn't seen her yet, busy as they were crushing ants. Then Betsy remembered that this was a dog that she knew. "Buttercup?" Betsy asked, her voice hoarse with tears and amazement.

The chimeric dog smiled at her. Bruce happened to turn and see their visitor and then the other two as well. They walked stiffly over, treading on ants as they came.

Betsy asked, "What on Earth are you doing here? I thought you were at..." Then she remembered that buttercup, who'd seemed nothing more than a mentally disturbed genetic defect had been left behind at the beach with the addicts. Bruce had made no mention of her when he went to restore the colony. Apparently everyone had forgotten about one small, troubled dog.

Buttercup took a deep breath, she looked tired, Betsy realized. "The beach." She said, though she spoke as if words did not come naturally to her. "I left." She said simply. "Other... things to do."

Einstein cocked his head and looked down at the ants. "Other things? Like... with the ants?"

She nodded. "The One-Who-Is-Many."

The four dogs looked at each other. "Who is that, exactly?" asked Betsy. At the beach, the border collie had spent some time with the troubled chimera, making sure she got water and was out of the sun when she had time. Betsy remembered that she absolutely had refused to touch manna or even be near the delicate crisps. It made more sense now than it did then.

Buttercup looked down. "You see it. They are here."

Einstein shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

The strange dog's lips were a line, she cocked her head as if familiar with communication difficulties. Bruce, however came to the rescue. "Do you perhaps mean that these ants share some sort of hive-mind?"

Buttercup brightened and nodded vigourously.

"What's a hive-mind?" Robby asked.

Bruce explained, "Some animals, especially insects demonstrate a type of shared intelligence when gathered in sufficient quantities. It's still a poorly understood concept, but it is evident in the way the group can coordinate movements as a singular whole. It's been proven that information does not pass from individual to individual. Instead, it is as if, on some level, all of the participants share one mind..."

"I can hear it." Buttercup butted in, still looking down into the stew of non-aggressive ants at their feet.

"You what?" asked Betsy.

She hissed through her teeth, naturally frustrated with having to repeat herself. Buttercup seemed also to be struggling with something else as well. "I can hear it! Them. With my power."

Betsy was afraid to agitate Buttercup further with questions that must seem obvious to her, but she had to ask - though she already had an inkling what with the ants' sudden change in behavior - "What power?"

The chimera turned her snout and snorted. Then she turned to look at Einstein. "I am Omega-one."

The shepherd started as if he'd seen a ghost, almost falling over before catching himself. Betsy could hear the big dog's heart kick up several notches. "What? What is it, Einny?" she asked. The term meant nothing to her.

"God, damnit... Damnit..." Einstein muttered, turning away from the rest of the group. Even Bruce seemed out of the link as he cocked his head at the shepherd, the oldest among them. He shook his head. "It was supposed to be a myth, a halloween joke..."

Betsy struggled but managed to put a paw on Einstein's near flank. "What is it?" she asked plaintively.

Einstein chuffed nervous laughter. "Comic book science. The Omega project supposedly was trying to... to..." he laughed again, "To develop superpowers, of all things. Psychic research and illegal genetic splicing, bad psudo-science if I ever heard it. I've not seen one credible research paper from the supposed division..."

Bruce asked, "Why haven't I heard of this?"

"It was a gag! A hoax!" Einstein stammered. "In the early days, I thought that the researchers were just messing with me when they said I might be a candidate for the Omega project if I tested high enough in certain areas. Then funds were diverted into animal intelligence research and they started making more of us and expanding into different species and I never heard of the Omega project again."

Bruce looked again more closely at Buttercup. "She does show signs of embryonic splicing..."

The newcomer snapped at Bruce when he leaned in too close. Buttercup looked again at Betsy with a strained expression. "I... have to go. Other things to do. Go North-east from here. Humans on beach." That started to raise a racket, but she added. "Tell them, set fires, keep ants away. I can't hold them for long..."

Betsy wanted to argue, but the words died when she felt a fresh bite on her flank near the ground. The ants were stirring in a new uneasy way. Deciding to forgo questions about how Buttercup could possibly know these things, Betsy said instead. "Buttercup. We've tried to get me out of this ditch, but I can't move!"

The chimera grinned, "No problem," she said.

The half and half dog stared at Betsy with a familiar dead-eye expression she had often worn on the beach. The others wondered if she'd suddenly gone comatose, but Betsy told them to leave her alone. The collie felt prickles run along the surface of her skin...

Then Butercup's hackles rose, no the hair stood out from her body all around. Then Betsy felt a force. The ground tilted disconcertingly under her and Betsy scrabbled at the dirt, heedless of the ants she was plunging her paws into. But her weight dragged her along. She felt like she were sliding down a sharp incline, but when she caught a glimpse at the others, they were standing right where they had been, staring at her as she "fell" up the slope.

According to Einstein, there is no difference between the force you feel by gravity and that you feel by acceleration. This was no "force-push" from Star Wars. It was as if the world had tilted 45 degrees or as if she were in a spinning carnival ride and glued to the wall... except here there was no wall. Buttercup stared at her, turning her head and following with her dead-pan stare. Her mismatched eyes seemed to glitter.

At the rim, the world righted itself and Betsy was panting for the stressful experience. She looked down at Buttercup and felt fear rather than gratitude. She had no idea at what power might be contained within that little form. The chimera let out a breath and relaxed her face. Einstein was already charging up the slope after Betsy. He threw his neck against her and pawed what he could reach. Bruce, still below chuffed and Robby exclaimed, "That was fucking cool!"

Buttercup giggled. "Go now. Go to the humans."

Bruce turned back to her. "Aren't you coming with us?"

Buttercup shook her head. "No. And don't tell them about me." Her voice deepened a little and she added darkly, "When they ask about me... Tell them I'm dead. Goodbye, friends."

Then, right before their eyes, Buttercup seemed to warp as if seen through a thick lens. The space which her body occupied seemed to twist in an unsettling way and as it came back around, the dog had gone. There was a small pop as air entered the vacuum left where her body used to be.

They would have stared for a long time, and Bruce wanted to inspect the area where she'd been sitting, but as soon as she'd gone the ants seemed to awake from their stupor. They bit at Bruce and Robby who were still down in the hollow and Einstein shouted at them to come up. Together, they rolled the collie - who at this point did not even mind the vertigo she experienced let alone the degradation of the act - in the direction Buttercup had indicated. All of them wondered at the prospect of meeting humans again. As for Betsy herself, she wouldn't mind being a pet and a lab animal again... just so long as she'd never have to see another ant again in her life.

The Tigrewss shut her eyes against the pain. What was happening seemed unbelievable and yet that did not stop the vast army of bugs from marching upon her also vast, though utterly helpless body. She struggled feebly with her buried, useless limbs where they were pinned by flesh and striped fur expanding from her body as she wheezed through her open mouth. There was a lot of area to hurt nowadays.

The pain defined her new dimensions which had been previously nebulous and elusive. The tigress felt pain in areas so remote from the core of her spine and rib cage that she could scarcely believe that they were attached to her body. She was wider than she was long and about as tall now as she would have been standing erect, though she was lying on her belly; well, actually that was measuring from the ground to her eyes, her back was now the highest point of her body, her lumpy shoulders rising several good inches over the tops of her buried ears. The ant army had no problem at all rolling over the vast defenseless area that was the Tigress.

She whimpered softly as they crawled into the folds of her flesh to bite. It was a powerfully invasive and defenseless feeling and the Tigress struggled with her newfound impotence. She could do nothing, -nothing-. They bit and tore at her flesh the way she had done with the mares and yet this was more horrific still because it was not being perpetrated by a single new predator, who would have at least made it quick, but instead thousands of tiny, alien insects. The Tigress was sickened with the feeling of them crawling into every little crease, including the new low overhang of her croup and high between her legs. By using the limited motion of her tail, she was able to keep them away from the sensitive lips of her vulva and anus, but still... it was almost as though she were being raped by the little things, hundreds of times over. She cried, and screamed hoarsely, though she needed most of her breath just for breathing. "Get them off of me!!" she'd squeal either in her mind or out loud.

But she was beyond moving any limb in a constructive manner and actual locomotion seemed like a distant memory never to be dreamt again. They covered her back and flanks in a painful, biting blanket. When they entered her mouth, she bit down and chewed despite the taste and she kept her eyes closed. Her heart seemed ready to race out of her chest with her panic and the stress her tons put it through. A heart attack seemed like a mercy at this point. Somewhere along the way, the mare stopped screaming. If the Tigress had dared open an eye at this point, she would have seen a black writhing mass where the huge immobile horse had been previously. The horror of it all seemed fit to drive her insane. Oh, where was the white tiger now, when she desperately needed him. "Where are you?!" she cried and sobbed, wishing only to an end to her plight, whatever the means.

And then the ants stopped biting her. Her wounds still hurt, but their little pincers stopped digging around in them. She could still feet their disgusting feet ambling over her body, however, despite their sudden pacification. The Tigress heard a sharp inhalation of breath.

"Damnit..." said a voice softly, the tigress, half-deaf, could not tell if the speaker was near or far. Opening her eyes seemed too much an effort. Then the Tigress felt light paws climbing up the front of her, stepping onto her brisket and then scrabbling up her flowing neck flesh. Paws stood on her lower neck while forepaws grabbed at the fat flowing forward of her chin. The new comer felt as light as a feather as she crawled up a lattice of loose cellulite that rightly shouldn't exist within the normal dimensions of a tiger's body. Someone touched her nose. "Hello?" said a high voice. "Are you alive under all that?"

The Tigress thought that the speaker meant the ants, but then had a further impression that she rather meant her multiple tons. She... Then the Tiger recalled that she had heard this voice before, but she could not put down exactly where. She drew a rattling breath through her mouth and ventured to open her eyes as much as her inflated cheeks and heavy brows would allow. One blue eye and one green eye met hers.

It was that insane dog from the beach! "What is she doing here?" she wondered.

Before she could ask, the canine sprang up, putting her hind paws on the new fatty shelf in front of her snout and clamoring over her face. The Tigress grunted a complaint, but she was just as helpless against this dog as the ants. She knew enough to keep away from her fangs at any rate. The strange dog then put her forepaws on the Tigress's heavy eye brows, pushing them up.

The Tigress growled at the affront. In days past she would have killed any dog that was doing what she was doing now. "Sorry," said the chimera, "I need to see your eyes."

The Tigress was able to open her eyes fully once the weight was removed from over them. What the crazy dog was looking for, however she couldn't guess. "Look, I didn't...ask for your help-"

The new dog had the gall to interrupt her. "It's touch is heavy on you. I can see it in your mind."

"I don't... have any idea.... what you're-" the Tigress wheezed, but again the dog spoke.

"I knew you had a link. I never imagined though..." the half and half dog seemed in awe of the Tigress's size. "That it would do this. I am sorry."

The Tigress swallowed, short of breath, but that wasn't new. "You ought to be sorry for stepping on my-"

The dog's eyes then seemed to take on a deep quality, almost like looking into a 3-D image. "We need to do this now. In case your heart gives out."

"What're you..." The Tigress managed, but then seemed to lose herself in those deep pools of green and blue. The Tigress felt like she was falling and that was frightening because of her size. She imagined her enormous body striking the ground and splitting open like an overripe fruit, but the fear faded as well. The light faded, the world faded and she kept on falling...

"Sleep..." said Buttercup. "I'll be there shortly."

When the Tigress "awoke" she knew she was dreaming. It was one of her extra lucid dreams she'd been having since landing on the island. The Tigress struggled to move, but was pinned now just as she was in life. For the first time, her dream body reflected the real thing. It was such a perfect recreation - right down to her beleaguered heart beat and her rasping, heavy breath - that the only real detail she could nail down that gave away the dream was the vagueness of her surroundings.

The sounds were muted and the sights blurred, but this was not simply due to her diminished faculties. The Tigress could tell somehow that the world itself was vague, painted with senses now dimmed by the fat welling around her head. The Tigress wheezed as she sat there with anticipation. She thought this might not be so bad, dying in one's sleep while the ants ate her alive in the outside world. She was anxious and tense and she still felt sick all over because of how obese she was, but still there was a glimmer inside of her that remained optimistic and excited. For this was the forest where he prowled. The white tiger came to her here and if he had failed her out in the real world, perhaps she could at least have him one last time in her dreams.

"Won't he be surprised when he sees me like this!" she thought smugly. Somewhere behind her, a cramping hind-leg twitched, setting her massive bulk wobbling. She was more tigress than he'd ever seen anywhere in one time, she was willing to bet. She forced another breath against the huge weight on her diaphragm and it whistled in her constricted wind pipe. "It was all... for him..." she said to herself. Then she waited, because she could do nothing else.

This time she did not have to wait for long. He came out from behind the trunk of a tree directly in front of her, glimmering like a ghost in the gloom. Unlike the rest of the world, she could see him clearly despite her handicap. He glowed.

The white tiger moved with an unreal grace, his gait smooth, almost choreographed. He seemed like everything that the Tigress wasn't anymore. Though it pained her, she held her breath and a tear of joy leaked from her eye onto her round cheek.

"Hello beautiful." he said, the tone of his voice unchanged from what she remembered, _perfect. _ He moved towards her. "You've done such a good job, I'm so proud of you..."

"Really?" said the Tigress breathlessly. She knew it was useless, but she pulled with her legs in a futile effort to get closer to him. She remained hopelessly pinned by several tons of excess flesh, but she managed to at least wobble her flanks a little with her movements. She soon ran out of steam, however, her energy reserves minimal to none.

His silver claws shined in the diffuse light where he walked. "Yes..." he drawled, "You're everything I needed you to be... such a good pet."

To the Tigress, the phrase sounded like an endearment, even though somewhere in the junk-filled corners of her fractured mind she recognized something different in the phantasmal tiger's manner. "Please..." she whined, "I've been... needing you. I did this... all for you... Take me... again."

The white tiger sat and looked at his paw. He chuckled slightly as if at a personal joke. "Oh I will take you, my dear. I'll take all of you... on a silver platter. We're very hungry."

And just like he said, there it was, a massive silver platter under her. She could feel it with her paws. She choked and coughed then, something blocking her throat. She looked in horror as the white tiger seemed to grow before her eyes, or else she shrunk, the background was so indistinct it was impossible to tell. Her eyes watered as she coughed up the thing in her throat, though it immediately became lodged in her jaws; it was an apple. She looked up with terrified eyes at the tiger looking down greedily at her.

"Such a sweet, obedient, naive little thing you are. Such a plump little entree." said the white tiger towering over her now.

The Tigress felt hot. She began to sweat all across her massive body, dampening her fur, except it didn't smell like sweat, it smelled like _grease. _ The Tigress didn't know how much more of this she could take... She struggled with the apple filling her mouth, but her teeth were caught, she couldn't move any of her limbs. She might as well have been a lard filled round pastry to the white tiger. She weeped, utterly broken. She wanted only to die.

"Mmm... I could eat you up!" laughed the white tiger. He lowered his head to her. The tigress thought that he was not so large as to take her bulk in one bite. He was going to have to chew...

There came a glowing ball of light then. The Tigress saw the white tiger snarl and withdraw from its luminescence. The white tiger's fur shimmered in its brilliance and he showed his teeth, snapping at the air. His black strips widened and deepened until shortly he wasn't white at all, then he grew a red band around his waist.

The light landed weightlessly on the Tigress's head as the white tiger began to undertake a hideous transformation. The light enveloped her as well and she too underwent a transformation. The light penetrated her, she could feel it on her back and on her legs, that is, where her back should have been. The mass of her fat became translucent like a mist, the light cutting through it. The Tigress found she could turn her elbows and knees back in towards her body where before they'd been bowed out around her growing bulk. She felt her weight on her paws and it was not excessive. She breathed in clearly for the first time in what seemed like ages, her head clear and her heart strong and sturdy in her chest. The four or five tons she's been sporting evaporated like so much smoke, leaving nothing left.

Though she was filled with a powerful gratitude and respect for her trim and athletic body (not her past self, but simply her fit and strong), she recoiled at what she now saw before her. The white tiger had mutated into a monster.

Even as she watched feline characteristics dropped away, leaving insectoid parts in their wake. The tiger, now thoroughly black with a single red strip around its middle sprouted an extra pair of chitinous legs in the middle of its torso. Around his jaws, the fangs enlarged and also there grew a great set of deadly mandibles which erupted bloodlessly though the skin of his cheeks. His blue eyes were no more, instead they were solid black and segmented, feelers sprouted from his skull and he emitted a terrible sound, half cat and half alien chittering.

"What have you done?" asked the buzzing alien creature.

The light ball dimmed and lowered from the Tigress's head. inside, she could see a small form nestled. It answered the creature that had been the white tiger where she was unable to even form words to describe the horror at seeing her one true love twisted into something so hideous.

"I've caught you." said Buttercup clearly. As the tigress could see her clearly now, in this place the chimeric dog did not look so half formed and she did not seem to have a problem with her words. In fact, she was beautiful... for a dog and a rather puny one at that.

The black tiger-ant growled and chittered at the small dog before it. It stepped forward aggressively and waved its feelers in the air.

Buttercup turned to the Tigress. "Come on! I've caught it between memes. Now's our chance to hurt it!"

"I don't understand, what's happening-"

Effortlessly, Buttercup rose in the air and twirled, slapping the tigress across the cheek with a luminous tail which she definitely didn't have in waking life. "Just go hit it!" she cried. "You can hurt it more now that I can!"

The monster took another step forward, though it seemed clumsy, as if it couldn't figure out how exactly to work all its legs. The Tigress took a step protectively in front of Buttercup as she lowered slowly to the ground. She lowered her shoulders in an aggressive stance.

The ant-tiger balked. Then it set its shoulders in a way that used to fill her with pent up, half-understood emotions. "What's the matter? Don't you still love me?" it said. It's mandibles clicked as it talked. "It's still me. Don't tell me you are so shallow as to let appearances get between us..."

The thing clicked and shivered and it took another step closer. The Tigress hesitated, wondering.

"Kill it!" cried Buttercup from behind her. "He just wants to eat you!"

"Did I tell you how great you look in the moonlight?" chittered the monster. "I've got a delicious fat horse over here. Aren't you dying for a bite? You look famished..."

The Tigress tossed her head and growled. She couldn't believe how she'd let herself be manipulated by this freak! Her eyes were fiery as she pounced, claws flashing.

She bowled the thing over, although it was heavier than it looked. Where she rent the skin, black goo poured out, however there seemed to be additional chitinous layers under the black fur. It waved its legs around rather clumsily as the Tigress slashed at it. She retreated when it brought those huge manibles to bear.

The Tigress jumped away gracefully as a cat does, but the thing on the ground definitely wasn't a cat. It struggled to rise. One of its extra legs dragged on the ground refusing to work. The tiger-ant seemed to notice and then astonishingly bit off the offending limb with the huge pincers. The leg evaporated before it hit the ground. The thing sneered at her, but said nothing.

The Tigress watched as patches of fur began to fall away from the thing. Slits opened in its back, as if its hide were nothing more than a shabby costume and slender insect wings emerged. The feelers on the tiger-ant's head worked furiously.

"Come on! Kill it before it changes completey!" whined Buttercup who still rested glowing on the floor.

The Tigress wanted to ask her why she wasn't doing anything, but then got the impression that she was already doing more than she could comprehend. She snarled and went at the beast again.

Though missing a leg, it didn't fall down again. Still, the Tigress leapt and grabbed one of the new wings in her teeth. She bit down and pulled. It was tough and the thing screeched as she wrenched it. Broken, it fell to the side, however it was still attached by several strong tendons... or whatever. It hit her with a leg as she tried to pry it off completely. It was amazingly strong and she was sent flying.

The world was continuing to dissolve around them. The tigress feared that she might hit a tree, but she realized that there was nothing really around her to hit. It couldn't even really be called a forest any longer. She rolled onto an indeterminate surface, soft like grass but _not. _ She got to her feet just in time to avoid having her head lopped off by the things mandibles.

"Be with us." it chittered, hardly even sounding like a tiger anymore, as it leaked black goo onto the ground. "We all adore you. This is true. You are our favorite."

The thing's voice had a way of buzzing in her ears. It hurt. She slumped to her knees.

It bowed its head over her. "You gave us new experiences. You are already with us in spirit. Give us your body. Give us your mind. You will live forever..."

The tigress groaned, the buzzing was worse. Flesh dripped away from its face like dross, exposing an ant's face underneath. "No! No... leave me alone..." she cried.

It came closer, its mandibles clacking. She couldn't stand the noise.

So the Tigress lashed out against it. She whipped out her head and took one of those sharp pincers in her teeth. She gripped hard and twisted her head, breaking it off two-thirds of the way down. It screeched and threw its head around.

Then Buttercup appeared, floating in a luminescent shell of light. She struck the thing's head and its carapace burned where she touched it. It screamed louder still, but wherever it threw its head, Buttercup moved with it. Slowly she burned her way into the things head, burrowing into its skull. Buttercup disappeared inside.

For a second, the Tigress thought that nothing had happened, it continued to thrash dangerously around with its many limbs. Then it went stiff and froze. Then the ant-tiger went limp and _dissolved. _ It's body came apart into millions of pieces which flowed over the ground toppling over each other. Each little piece was a single writhing ant. Buttercup touched the Tigress's shoulder. "Come on, let's go." she said.

The Tigress spared a second looked at the pile of crawling ants and then shared a small grin with the little dog. She went with her.

Einstein was lounging in the sand as he had been for the last couple hours. The last few days had been incredible to say the least and he was bone tired. He was glad for the good company.

Her soft flank touched his where it spread widely in the sand under the shade of the palm tree above them. He liked to paw her softness, stroking it tenderly with his paws. He told her that she was beautiful, she almost believed him.

A chubby brown bloodhound sat down next to them, possibly spoiling a potential tender moment. However his presence was always welcome. "I managed to boost the signal for them by 50% or so." He panted happily. He removed a pair of stoppered coconuts stringed together from around his neck. He handed one to Einstein and then popped open the other.

Einstein held the coconut in his mouth up for Betsy so she could drink. He was always worried about her getting enough water, what with inability to fetch it herself. The collie lapped daintily and appreciatively. When she was quenched, she spoke while Einstein slurped down what was left in the primitive container. "Are the fires still burning?" There was a slight nervous fear in her voice

Bruce set down his coconut and replaced the stopper. "Yes. Doug went out and stoked them again this morning. They are still smoldering. Miranda said that they might also double as signal fires and went out to put green stuff on them after breakfast. Anyways, I don't even think we really need them anymore. Robby came back from scouting."

Einstien put down his water container. "Oh really. What did the fellow have to say?"

Bruce shrugged. "He says the ants have largely dispersed on their own. They're still milling about in the jungle, but there's no more swarms, not like we were seeing."

Betsy let out a huge sigh of relief. "I wonder if Buttercup had anything to do with-"

"Shh!" said Einstein, looking over his shoulder to where the huts were. Betsy flashed him a dirty look but remained silent. "Did Robby meet any of the other dogs?" he asked, turning back to Bruce.

"Two, he said." Said Bruce, then he waved his paw. "But apparently they freaked out when he mentioned humans. I think that a lot of the dogs are still not too keen on returning to captivity."

"They'll be more keen when the fish in that little pool runs out." Betsy said. Her tummy let out an opportune growl. "Ugh... The rescue boat can't get here soon enough in my opinion."

Einstein frowned. "We'll just have to tighten our belts until then, sweethart." He said, and gave Betsy a tender pat on the back. "Miranda still hasn't had any luck converting manna into proper food."

Bruce chuckled, "How much is that fellow up to now?"

Einstein grinned, "He was getting close to popping 500 last I saw."

Betsy swatted the shepherd with a paw. "That's not nice making fun of the poor fellow like that! Miranda treats him like her own personal science experiment!"

"But he volunteered for it, Betsy. Besides, he doesn't seem to mind too much how things have gone for him..."

Betsy snorted. "Only because he's addicted to manna and doesn't know any better."

"Why don't we get a third opinion?" said Bruce, indicating the white Bernese who emerged from the first hut which the Lab had pretty much claimed for himself. Everyone let the Golden Lab have the space, seeing as the humans who had built it had outgrown their first shelter and also evicting him now would entail dismantling at least two of the walls.

Robby turned up and sat down his haunches in the sand. His big tongue lolled merrily out the side of his mouth. "He wants to know if any of you can explain why there hasn't been any new manna for the last two days."

The three scientists looked at each other. Betsy and Einstein spoke at the same time. "Migration patterns-" "Climate change-"

They both cut each other off with a look and then burst into laughter. Einstein leaned against his girlfriend's heavy flank and eventually Bruce and Robby joined in as well.

Bruce recovered first. "So you didn't come across any in the jungle, Robby?"

The Bernese shook his great head. "Not a single disc and the one dog who stuck around long enough to talk mentioned the lack as well."

"It seems the curse on the island has been lifted." Said Einstein with mock reverence and a wide grin.

Betsy snorted. "Well, I suppose that starving to death beats what was happening before."

Einstein hugged her, "Oh phooey. The rescue ship will be here in a few more days and then we'll get you a nice juicy porterhouse when we're back in New Zealand."

"Are you kidding me? They're going to take one look at me and put me on carrots and boiled chicken for the next three years!" Betsy scoffed, mouth open wide. Then she jabbed Einstein in the belly which shook in response. "Same for you fatty! Though I suppose you could get away with just one year."

Einstein chuckled. "I doubt it will be quite that bad. We're going to be heros! We'll be able to write our dissertations on what we've seen here. We might even arrange an expedition back here..."

Betsy was already shaking her head. "Uh-huh. You'll have to drag me back here with a steel cable. I want to go back to my nice clean lab and my soft bed under Dr. Lindsey's desk and never have to see dirt again for as long as I live."

"Hear hear!" seconded Robby of all people

Bruce just grinned and rolled his eyes.

After a few moments of silence, Robby spoke again. "The Lab's not going to be happy when he finds out there's no more manna. Miranda used up the last of the store for her latest recipe this morning."

"Oh bother that Lab." Said Einstein, remembering that it was he who had brought the Tigress to the dog camp in the first place. "The porker's going to be up over a quarter ton by tomorrow. He'll last longer than any of us if push came to shove- ow!"

Betsy stepped on his paw, really pushing down with her weight. "That's not funny! He's going to be in a lot of pain over the next few days and Doug's been teasing him that he's going to get diabetes and they'll have to cut off his paws."

Bruce said, "He does present a fairly high risk. Have you smelled his urine lately-"

Betsy clucked her tongue. "Not you too, Bruce. Hmph. Maybe I'll just ask Doug to move me into his hut then. Us bigger dogs ought to stick together against you runts."

Robby laughed. "You haven't seen the inside of his hut, have you Betsy? His sides push against both opposite walls, there'd be no room for a mouse in there with him!"

The three males shared a guffaw and Betsy frowned. "You three are terrible! I am going to ask Doug to move me over there!"

Einstein rubbed his body against Betsy's. "Aw, come on, Bets. We're just having a little fun. We don't really mean it."

She reached up with a paw to push against his hanging brisket, setting it rocking. "I know... I just don't like it when you're making fun of him... because of his weight."

Bruce must had caught a whiff of a change in the general mood, for he stood, leaving his half full coconut. "Come on, Robby. Maybe we can break the news easier to him if we're both there."

Robby was a little slow on the uptake. "Yeah, he ought to respond well to being pronounced fattest surviving dog!"

Einstein kept stroking Betsy until they both left and disappeared into the small hut a short distance away. "What's really bothering you, Bets?" he asked.

She heaved a sigh that shifted the sand at her wide flanks. "I'm worried about returning back to the lab, Einny."

He patted her head, feeling the thick neck rolls behind her skull and rising into the broad, curving plane of her back. "Why is that?"

She shook her head. "We don't know what they'll do to us. They might decide we're more useful as lab experiments than lab assistants."

"We're too valuable for that, Bets." Said Einstein, perhaps more boldly than he felt. "We can shed light on the processes at work here on the island. We have a lot of valuable data."

"But in the end, we're not really scientists... not for real. We're not even legal citizens. By law, we belong to the company as property."

Einstein frowned. "But it's always been like that, Bets." He nuzzled her. "And once our findings get unclassified, there might be changes. That's why we were going to the States remember?"

Betsy sighed. "Freedom... for our pups or their pups maybe, but not for us."

Einstein wanted to ask her why she was suddenly a libertarian, but it sounded wrong in his head, so he kept silent. Eventually Betsy confessed. She turned her head against her thick neck to look up at him. "Einny... What if they separate us? What if we never see each other again once they put us on that ship?"

The big German Shepherd was speechless. It was certainly a possibility and he didn't know how to comfort her. He couldn't refute the truth, it would sound hollow. So instead, he comforted her with his body. He rubbed against her, his fat flank against her fatter one. Her skin had let out some over the last few days, giving her a new softness. She was going to be softer than himself, Einstein knew. He wanted to rub her belly, to lick her nipples, but couldn't ask her the effort of rolling over. Instead he mouthed her ears. She sighed and pressed up against him. He reached over and grabbed a fleshy neck roll, pinching it. Her back wobbled as she shifted her hind legs in the sand behind her.

Einstein nuzzled her flank with his face as he turned and walked behind her. He grabbed her tail in his mouth. She pulled it away and he hopped up a little to grab it again. "Einny! What on Earth are you doing?" she giggled.

The shepherd breathed in her strong female musk. Yes... now was a good time, she was ready, or certainly would be by this time tomorrow. He hoped she didn't mind him barging in early. "Betsy..." he said, loosing her long, bushy tail. "I can't tell you that everything's going to be alright. I don't know how the humans are going to treat us. But I think I... I can give you something."

"What, Einny?" But she already knew.

Einstein hopped up as best he could given his own extreme weight. He got his chest on her croup at least, but had to managed past several false starts before he could climb higher up her back. Betsy, at least, offered plenty of leverage as well as places to grab. So much of her spread out under him, like a black and white plain, a vast canvas he was aching to paint. "Something to remember us, by." He breathed huskily. Oh, he was ready, if only he could get a little higher. "Just in case the worst happens."

Betsy hissed through her teeth when she felt him pressing against her. She made no further pretense at ignorance or did she give any signs of resistance. That was good. Einstein's pent up lust was too large now to stop even if he wanted to. She clenched her teeth, straining her neck to look up... but her fat neck prevented her seeing her lover. "A little higher... You can do it, Einny."

Einstein wasn't so sure. His big gut was getting in the way and his hips were starting to act out by themselves before he was even there. Her tail moved aside for him and Einstein, in desperation reached down past his own paunch and lifted some of his fatty girth onto Betsy's soft, thick tail head padding. He hit pay-dirt.

Betsy moaned and threw her head down, rubbing it against her brisket. Below him, her hind-legs pushed down into the sand. Betsy felt tight and hotter than he would have imagined. It hurt a little at first, but soon was more than anything he had ever thought this could be. Einstein grabbed at her back, pulling on skin and fat rolls wherever he could reach. Under him, his big gut shook, Betsy wobbled under him as well. He couldn't imagine how they must look, but he was ecstatic nonetheless. They were doing it! They were actually doing it!

It didn't last long enough... but that was fine, Einstein was exhausted from what he'd managed to do. Betsy seemed satisfied, at least she was not raising her head or asking him anymore questions. With a grunt, Einstein let himself down. He turned and then stopped. Something was tugging at him. When he pulled it hurt. "What's this?" he asked.

Betsy giggled, "You're stuck. Give it a few minutes, it's alright"

And so they were. Einstein had knotted inside of her. The shepherd had almost forgotten this basic tenant of canine reproduction. However, he didn't fancy standing here for the next 15-30 minutes. His hip was already starting to bother him again.

He leaned against her hips and set his legs in the sand. They both sighed in contentment. Betsy's belly grumbled again, echoing in her vastness and Einstein patted her affectionately as she apologized. "Porterhouse." He said and she giggled.

A few more minutes passed and Einstein could feel the knot loosening. He thought he could slip out, but he didn't want to hurt Betsy.

When Einstein finally managed to slip out and lie next to Betsy again, the collie said. "You know, we better try again tomorrow morning, just in case the first time doesn't stick." She winked at him,

He grinned back. "You just want me so stuck they won't be able to separate us." He teased.

"Would that be the worst thing?" she smiled slyly.

"Not at all." Said Einstein. "In fact, I don't mind being stranded, as long as its with you."

"Stop it, Einny, or you might make me consider staying stranded like the beached whale that I am."

Einstein grinned at her, "Would that be the worst thing?"

The Tigress lay by the edge of a swift flowing and rocky stream. She rested lazily and stared into the water, occasionally catching a glimpse of fish. She could do little else.

"You're cruel, you know." She said aloud, her voice still husky with her several extra tons of flesh swaddling her.

Buttercup lifted her head. She'd been chipping designs into smooth river rocks painstakingly by hand. The Tigress never ceased to wonder why she just didn't use her powers to do the same thing. The chimeric dog turned her head and asked innocently, "How so?"

The tigress shifted her massive weight a fraction, her hind-leg was cramping again. "You only feed me one fish a day. You know a tiger needs more than that."

Buttercup gestured to the stream with her paw. "You're welcome to get more."

The Tigress growled. "You know I can't do that, I can't even walk."

Buttercup shrugged. "Then you should start with that."

The Tigress growled some more, but the little dog ignored her. She was as feeble now as a newborn kitten and the dog knew it. Hell, she was only alive because the psychic dog was acting as a remote pacemaker for her beleaguered and fat drenched heart. She knew now that she was at such a weight that her vital organs would soon fail without Buttercup's proximity. She called them "linked." Sometimes, the Tigress wondered if the connection ever fed-back to the powerful psychic. Sometimes it seemed almost as if their moods bled into each others...

The Tigress could not sustain her rage. She slumped into her own lard. "I'm never going to walk again. You're going to be moving me around for the rest of my life." The Tigress had grown to hate the feeling of her bloated neck pressing against the underside of her jaw as she spoke.

Buttercup looked up from her rock carving. With a sigh, she came over and sat before the Tigress's vast girth. "Even if that's true, you still have a lot going for you."

"Like what?" ranted the Tigress, "Name one thing that worth living for for me at this point. I don't even know why you brought me with you to this island." And indeed, the shift had been dangerous. Buttercup knew that if she lingered on the island, she'd be recaptured by humans. So she needed to leave. The Tigress had begged her to come, and surprisingly, Buttercup had relented, despite the fact that she'd never attempted to teleport so far before, nor even attempted to bring a passenger. She'd risked both their lives with the jump...

Buttercup cocked her head with her overlarge ears. "Well, you keep me company for one." She said, just a touch sadly.

The Tigress felt like she had the wind knocked out of her. She opened her mouth and gulped air.

"Breathe through your nose, you look like a fish when you do that." Butter cup remarked and turned back to her stones.

It irked the Tigress to be reduced almost to this dog's pet, but she was a dependent now... on more levels than she really knew. She closed her jaws and took a deep breath through her nose. It felt good, it felt almost normal.

At that moment, a fish leapt out of the water and landed on the rocks before her paws, stranded. The tigress fetched a glance at Buttercup, but the dog wasn't looking, instead diligently carving her stones. The Tigress grunted against the weight of her brisket as well as the fat enveloping most of her foreleg. She managed to hook her middle claw into the tail fin of the flopping, dying fish and pulled it closer.

The tigress spent the next hour trying to figure out how to get the fish over the huge fatty extension of her chest and neck that covered both forepaws and up to her mouth. She didn't ask Buttercup for help. Both because the sudden appearance of the fish was suspicious and also because the Tigress really did want to do something for herself for once. It took another hour, but utilizing the looseness in her skin and her brisket as something of a thick oven mitt, she was able to get a single tooth into the much abused tail of the fish. She almost cried with her success. Each bite of that fish tasted better than all the fish she had ever eaten combined. Unseen ahead of her, Buttercup grinned and brought her carving stone down on her carving again.

The Tigress sat by the stream and stared into the water. She reached up with a paw and batted the copious quantities of loose skin and fat that hung there. She could do little else.

"Can we go to the beach again today?" asked the Tigress.

Buttercup looked up at her, the fur around her snout was grayer than it used to be, but the Tigress's was no better. "Sure," she said. "Would you like me to carry you?"

"No. I think I'll walk." The Tigress began to strain against the fat spreading around her shoulders, a lot of the skin lying on the ground. "If you'd be so kind..."

Buttercup grinned, "Of course." Where the Tigress sat, it suddenly seemed as if gravity was turned down to about 15% of normal. Gingerly, she staggered to her feet. The Tigress dragged belly and chest fat as she carefully stepped forward. Her aging skin left much to be desired in terms of elasticity. Still, although the soil was rough on her sensitive skin, it felt good to have soil under her paws again... Even if she was still far to heavy and her muscles far to atrophied to support her weight under ordinary circumstances.

Then again, for her, this was ordinary. "Come on, let's go down to the tide pools." Said the Tigress, already leading the way through the tropical wilderness.

"Hold your horses, old gal." Laughed Buttercup who got up crookedly to her own feet. "I'm the one doing the heavy lifting around here.

The Tigress blew a raspberry at the smaller dog and continued on her way. Her striped bulk stretched down to the ground and more, but she didn't think she could have been happier. She was intent on getting herself some sushi tonight.