They sat in comfortable silence for a while, before he turned to her. "All right then, we have quite a list of things you can do. I'd like to figure out some way to actually test some of your limits soon, without either giving your secret away or hurting you, but that can wait. Is there anything else?"
Biting her lip, she looked back, then slowly nodded.
"Those abilities are pretty powerful but they're only the ones I have in human form," she finally admitted cautiously.
Danny appeared somewhat puzzled. "Human form?" he echoed curiously.
"Yes." She tried to think of the right way to put it for a moment. "My tail is the visible part of the Varga, but… It can go a lot further." She remembered some of the visions she'd had of the previous Brain, Princess Luna of the small kingdom of Rimsbell, some unknowable distance in time, space, and dimension away.
"How much further?" he asked, studying her with interest.
"Um..."
He looked worried.
"Is it bad?"
"Not bad, as much as… kind of big."
Danny stared, then closed his eyes for a moment. "How big?" he asked in a tone of voice that suggested he wouldn't like the answer. "Too big to fit in this room?" he added when she didn't respond.
His eyes opened when she snickered. "A bit, yes."
"Come on, out with it," he demanded, rolling his eyes a little. "How bad can it be? Menja or Fenja sized?" Her smirk made him frown. "Bigger?"
She nodded. "Remember that Aleph movie of "Godzilla" from the late nineties?" she asked slowly. He nodded, then his eyes widened significantly.
"About that size. Maybe a little bigger." He was staring in shock, making her slightly nervous as she went on. "I'd guess about two hundred and fifty feet tall or so, maybe a little more? God knows how much it would weigh. It even looks a lot like that version of Godzilla."
There was no response for a while, long enough that she was getting worried.
"I think you may have broken him, Brain," the Varga chuckled. "Incidentally, the form I used with my last brain was not actually the largest possible size. It depends on available power. Our greatest foe, the Dark Varga, was substantially more powerful and noticeably larger, but we did defeat him in the end. More by luck than anything else I'll admit and we lost several good people in the process, not to mention destroying a large city, but we won. I absorbed all his energy in the process. I am quite a lot more powerful than I was when my last brain merged with me."
'Really?' she asked, thinking about some of what she'd been shown as she slept.
"Oh, yes," it confirmed. "We were very effective after that against many other threats but that first one was by far the hardest to deal with. We very nearly lost. If it hadn't been for the willing sacrifice of Lord Yude, we would have done, and it was a near thing even then. I was much reduced from my prime due to the long period of inactivity while the Dark Varga was near the peak of his power. This time I am close to my peak, or possibly even past it. The greater power who you encountered would have appeared to have removed a number of restrictions placed upon me in ages past as well, something that you will find useful I have no doubt. Some of the resulting abilities are interesting."
About to ask what it meant, she noticed her father was trying to say something and returned her attention to him. "Two hundred and fifty feet?" Danny croaked.
She nodded, worry mixing with amusement at his reaction. "Varga tells me he could probably manage something even bigger now."
"No, I think that's big enough." Danny looked stunned. "What… I mean, how..." He seemed to be struggling with working out what question he wanted the answer to.
Taking pity on him, she explained what she currently knew. "Princess Luna used the Varga form quite a lot. When she did it, he was that sort of size, with her kind of growing out of his head between his eyes, her feet and her rear end sunk into his flesh." Danny didn't look much less stunned by this. "It was a little embarrassing for her the first time from what I saw. She had control of the whole body although the Varga could also use it, and she could see through his eyes, hear with his ears, that sort of thing."
"Holy shit," he finally managed to say, making her snicker for a moment. "That makes the Endbringers look tiny."
"I don't know how strong or tough he is compared to them but he's a damn lot bigger," she nodded. "They took on several things as large or even larger just in the first month or so and won against all of them, although the final one was almost too much. It was another of the same type of creature but really evil and really strong."
"How did they fight?" he asked, a little pale. "Just hand to hand? At that size they could pick up skyscrapers and hit each other with them."
"There was a lot of physical combat," she nodded. "But he also has a very powerful attack, one that Princess Luna called Blast Voice. It made things… go away."
"That attack is a manifestation of a matter deconstruction method, Brain," the Varga told her. "The sound is caused by the air being annihilated." She passed the information on to her father, who paled again.
"Matter deconstruction?" he queried, looking appalled. "That sounds like it would be… well, I can't think of many things that wouldn't deal with." After a moment, he asked, "What range would it work at?"
She listened to the Varga, then had a brief conversation over unit conversions, until they were both reasonably sure the answer was correct. "He says somewhere between eight and ten miles with maximum power. The visions I saw showed it was like a beam, it left huge trenches in the ground when they used it. The Dark Varga made a real mess of the city they found him in with that attack. Their final fight blew it up entirely, it looked like it got nuked. It was some sort of magical explosion. Princess Luna and the Varga survived even that although they were both weak for a while."
Danny seemed speechless again. It took him nearly a minute to be able to carry on.
"That is… absolutely terrifying," he finally said.
She nodded soberly. "That's one of the things I'm scared about. Just using that form will probably make everyone freak out even if I just stood there. They'll be calling me a fourth Endbringer." Shivering a little, she didn't protest when he put his arm around her.
"It's probably a little much for normal problems," he agreed wryly. "So, basically, you have two power settings, pretty damn dangerous for a more or less normally sized human, and something that can stomp Behemoth flat by stepping on it?"
"I think so," she agreed. "But I don't know if stepping on an Endbringer would actually work. If Alexandria and the Triumvirate can't deal with them, I can't see how I could even with the Varga."
"Hopefully we'll never find out," Danny told her, at the same time the Varga said, "It would be an interesting experiment." The contrast made her giggle again, forcing her to explain. Her father smiled.
"You are not to go picking fights with Endbringers, Taylor," he said firmly. "That goes for you too, Varga."
Grumbling a little, the demon in her head agreed, making her smile. After a moment, she said, "The problem is that I can't see where I could even try that transformation. The Varga is so large you'd see him from space. Anywhere in the city would make it obvious."
"We could utilize the Assassin's Cloak," the Varga suggested slyly. Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Would that work?" she asked out loud. Danny looked curious but said nothing.
"Yes. I can easily power it even at full size, at least for a while," the Varga said smugly.
"But what about footprints?" she asked after a moment's thought. "You're absolutely huge. We'd leave footprints you could park a car in. That would attract nearly as much attention as seeing us would."
Apparently guessing the thrust of the conversation, Danny sighed and covered his eyes. "An invisible Godzilla with my daughter attached to it. Just what this city needs," he groaned, making both her and the Varga laugh. "Please don't."
After a second or two, he asked, "Isn't being exposed right on top of his head a little dangerous?"
Taylor shrugged. "You'd think so, but the memories I have showed that Princess Luna survived being under water for ages with no problem, attacks from demons, a crazy man with a beard and a huge weird sort of ax, and all sorts of things." Curious, she asked the Varga, 'How could she do that?'
There was a long pause, then the demon slowly explained, "I was trying to work out the best way to tell you. You are not exactly human any more."
'What!?'
There was a mental sigh. "When we merged, you took on many of my characteristics, it is the only way to allow you to survive the process. Your tail is the externally visible part of what is basically my body, which you are part of. Or it is part of you. The distinction is essentially meaningless now."
'I feel normal, except for the tail,' she admitted. 'Although even that is feeling normal now.'
"It is, from your new point of view. Your biology is much closer to mine than a normal human now, although the magic means you are still compatible with ordinary humans. But the main point is that, although you look more or less normal, you aren't. That means in the full Varga form you share the same toughness as the rest of the body. In fact, your consciousness in that case wouldn't even be in your human head. Strictly speaking it isn't right now. My type of creature exists outside normal reality in some senses and you now share that. Your body is… modifiable and replaceable. To a point."
'Does that mean I can't be killed?' she asked numbly.
"No. As I explained last night, you are neither immortal nor truly invulnerable, in the true senses of the words. However, you won't suffer any diseases or old age and it would take something fairly exceptional to kill you. You will find that you are difficult to damage, the level increasing when in the full Varga form to an extreme amount, and damage done can be easily repaired unless it is total."
She sat in silence for a while as she considered the words of her head-guest. 'What about you?' she asked in the end. 'Does the same thing apply to you?' There was a pause.
"Anything that would definitely kill me would have killed you and most likely your entire country," it finally replied. "My kind is almost impossible to destroy. It took a number of greater forces, the like of which don't exist in this reality to the best of my knowledge, to manage the feat. Lesser powers could seal us away but not destroy us."
After absorbing the information for some time, she passed it on to her father, who took it fairly well. When he'd finished thinking it over, he smiled a little crookedly and said, "At least I can still have grandchildren."
She giggled at the thought.
"Would they have cute little tails?" she asked out loud.
The Varga chuckled. "Most likely. The line of the demon touched often have reminders. My other abilities would not transfer, though."
Passing this information on as well she smiled when Danny seemed to accept it, although he still seemed a little shocked. That was fair, she was as well. It hadn't been something she expected at all.
"Brain?" the Varga said.
'Yes?' she replied, curious.
"I have been checking what the lowered restrictions mean in practice and I have discovered something you may find interesting." Its silent voice carried a note of sly amusement, making her suspicious.
'Like what?' she asked cautiously.
"Hold out your right hand," the great demon suggested, still radiating an air of someone about to play a practical joke. With a certain amount of worry she did as requested.
A sensation similar to the one she'd felt from the Assassin's Cloak technique went through her hand. She made a small eep sound and stared. Danny, who had been watching her with a curious look, did almost exactly the same. Both of them were silent for a moment or two, until he finally said, "What the hell?"
"I am able to do more than I could with the last Brain, it turns out," the Varga said with satisfaction. She nodded slowly, flexing the taloned, scaled digits of what her hand had become in numb amazement. From the wrist down it looked like it belonged on a lizard of some sort, the scales the same deep blue-black of the ones on her tail, with nearly inch long razor sharp talons tipping each finger. The fingers themselves were long and slender, oddly elegant in fact.
"Are you saying that I'm some sort of shape-shifter now as well?" she asked out loud in a rather overwhelmed voice.]
"Essentially, yes. I can apply a variable transformation to you, rather than the minimum and maximum level only. We can basically mix differing amounts of Varga and Human together in a number of interesting ways."
She absently repeated this to Danny, who was still staring at her hand. Feeling the transformed appendage with the other one, she jumped when her left hand changed as well. "Hey!" she yelped.
"That's… nice," her father managed to say in a weak voice.
Clenching both hands into fists then relaxing them, she wonderingly held them up and inspected them, a grin beginning to form. "Oh, my god," she muttered.
"I have taken the liberty of designing what I think might be a suitable combat form, Brain," the Varga put in with a tone of eagerness. "It is human scale so you can interact with them without too much trouble although obviously we can increase the size up to full scale if required. It combines the best of both our forms."
"Combat form?" she echoed. Danny looked somewhat nervous. "Let's see it." She was, for some reason, finding this all suddenly fun rather than something to be worried about as might have been expected to be the case.
"You should clear a space in the middle of the room," the Varga said.
Hopping to her feet, Taylor looked at her father. "He says we need to move some things around to have some space," she told him.
"Oh, god, why do I have a bad feeling all of a sudden?" Danny sighed, but helped her move the sofa out of the way to the edge of the room, then the two chairs and the coffee table. Taking a seat in his chair, he watched as she moved to the middle of the room.
"Do I have to do anything?" she asked.
The Varga chuckled. "My previous Brain always shouted 'Varga Change!" at this point, but then she had a flair for the dramatic and had grown up reading tales of magic and adventure. It seemed to be something of a trope with her world's literature to call out attacks. It's not necessary, and is a little over the top in my opinion. Just tell me when you want it."
Amused, she nodded. "OK, then, go for it."
The tingle was all over this time and her viewpoint shifted, rising a little and widening significantly to cover much more of the room. She looked around with interest, seeing that she had even better vision now and the thermal part seemed to be mixed with normal vision in a strange but easy to understand manner. Smells and sounds burst in on her as her already superhuman senses became vastly better.
One smell caught her attention, seeming to say 'fear' to her. She sniffed curiously, then followed it around to the side, to see her father staring at her with wide eyes and clenched hands. "Dad?" she inquired. "Are you OK?"
"That is still… you… isn't it, Taylor?" he asked in a halting voice. She could hear his heart hammering away at a rate that sounded too fast to be safe. Concerned, she turned to face him and smiled, which oddly enough made him pale dramatically.
"It's still me, Dad. What's the problem?"
Very slowly relaxing, although still looking and sounding like he was on the verge of fleeing, Danny looked her up and down then pointed at the mirror that hung on the wall between two bookcases full of her mother's books. "You should look," he said weakly.
Puzzled, she walked over and peered into the mirror, then froze. "Holy shit!" she gasped.
Staring for a long time she raised her hands and felt her face, or more accurately, her muzzle. Her head bore no resemblance at all to a human now, not a trace of the one she'd had all her life present. It was instead something out of a documentary on dinosaurs, a wedge-shaped head with eyes set more to the sides than normal, although less so than something like a bird. She still had binocular vision. Those eyes were completely orange-yellow and seemed to be glowing slightly, with black vertical slit pupils like those of a cat. Blinking them she found she still had eyelids, unlike a snake, although her head did bear a distinct likeness to such an animal.
Opening her mouth she found it was packed with a totally ridiculous number of extremely sharp teeth, most of them nearly an inch long with a few at the front on the sides close to twice that. It was a mouth that would give an angry lion cause to think twice. Her tongue was long and forked, again like that of a lizard or a snake. Closing her mouth then smiling, or at least doing what would normally be the muscular operation to smile when human, made the corners of her much larger mouth pull up and expose fangs, explaining nicely why Danny had looked very worried.
After a moment, she stepped back and looked down, then over her shoulder, finding in the process that her neck was longer and flexible enough to allow her to turn her head completely around like an owl without effort. "Holy shit," she said again, more faintly.
The rest of her body was best described as a mix between something not entirely unlike a Velociraptor out of Jurassic Park, the memories she had of the Varga's full form, and her own. It was vaguely centaur-like, down to the waist her body was more or less humanoid, although scale covered and showing only hints of a female form. Her clothes had vanished but she didn't need them like this. She had the slightly bitter thought that this was actually a pretty good description of her aside from the scales, then went back to cataloging the changes.
The upper torso was mounted on a scaled down and modified version of the Varga's body minus the head, about where the shoulders would be, which mean she actually had six limbs, seven including the tail. At what she still felt as her waist there was another, larger, set of arms or possibly forelegs, with hands that were much less human although still with an opposable thumb. Flexing them she felt the strength in them, they felt like they could tear armor plate with ease. The talons of her forelegs were much longer than those on her real fingers.
Below all of this was the rest of the bipedal lizard-like body which had extremely muscular rear legs on three toed feet, tipped with the largest talons of all at about three inches or so. She was standing easily on her toes in a way that felt completely natural. Behind her, her tail had lengthened substantially, resting on the floor and balancing her in a rather forward leaning posture with her torso raised and tilted back so that she was from the waist up in a normal vertical position. She lifted a leg to inspect it, balancing without effort, and feeling the interplay of the new muscles and joints.
Her knee was much higher than normal and the joint that looked like a backwards knee was actually her ankle, she found. She also discovered that there was a rearward facing toe on the rear of her foot which normally cleared the ground, but she could flex it and sort of make a fist with her toes, enough to probably let her hold onto a surface. Putting her foot down again she moved her middle limbs experimentally, finding it took no more effort than the arms she'd been born with.
"Does it meet with your approval?" the Varga asked in a way that sounded a little apprehensive. "I can modify it if required to a certain extent. But it should allow the most effective use of the abilities you'd require in combat."
'Can I use the blast voice like this?' Taylor asked curiously, still moving her second pair of arms with interest.
"No, I'm afraid not. The power required for that can only be brought to bear in full Varga form, or close to it, but with time I may be able to work out a method to allow some access to it." the demon told her sounding regretful. "You are limited to physical techniques like this currently. Although it is as strong and tough as I can make it, you will be more than a match for most opponents. Your strength will scale up with size. You can use a sword as well of course."
She held out her hands and the Varga obligingly formed a suitable scaled sword for her, which she posed with. "Hey, Dad, does this look badass or what?" she asked, a laugh in her voice.
He didn't respond for a moment. Glancing at him she saw he was gaping incredulously at her. "Oh, dear," he finally mumbled. "Poor Brockton Bay. I wonder if we could sell the house and move somewhere safer?"
"Dad!" she commented, crossing her secondary arms and glaring. He laughed nervously.
"Just a joke, dear. You look… dangerous."
"Really?" she asked, oddly pleased by the comment. He nodded rapidly.
"Oh, believe me, yes. Like some sort of warrior dinosaur out of one of the old books I used to have. Or something out of a really good fantasy computer game."
Spinning the sword in her hands in a manner than twenty-four hours earlier she'd never have believed she could do, but now seemed instinctive, she grinned to herself. Somehow this form felt comfortable in a way she was having trouble putting into words even in her own head. She wasn't sure why her father was still pale. Sure, the teeth were a little over the top but as long as she kept her mouth closed you couldn't see them.
"You're right, I'll need to practice, but this feels… fine," she told Danny, lowering the sword. A quick request to the Varga and it vanished. "He said I'm much tougher and stronger than normal like this as well. Not that I know how much stronger I am normally, even, never mind like this."
"We'll have to test it somehow," he replied, slowly regaining his normal color.
"He says I can get bigger as well," she informed him, making him pale again rather suddenly. "Let's see… How about large enough to let me touch the ceiling with my head?" She looked around then nodded. "I think that would fit."
"As you wish," the Varga said happily. The world dropped around her with a creaking sound of stressed wood.
"Be careful of the floor," Danny squeaked, looking up at the now nearly nine foot tall monster that was his daughter. She laughed, requesting a return to normal. Or the new normal, anyway. He sighed in relief when she shrank back to only about six and a half feet tall and much lighter.
"This is great," she exclaimed. After a moment she snickered maliciously. "Oh, god, I just got a mental image of Emma's face if I turned up hiding in her bedroom one night like this. She'd shit a brick." Taylor laughed for a moment, while Danny sighed heavily.
"That's… probably not a good idea, kid," he said patiently. She put her hands on her hips and frowned, which came out as a proper glare with teeth. He leaned back a little.
"You need to work on your body language when you're like that," he suggested carefully. "It comes across as… a little intimidating."
"OK, Dad," she responded, feeling her head with her hands curiously.
Shaking his own head in wonder, he checked his watch. "Nearly eleven. Look, why don't I go and get those cameras so we can see if this technique your huge friend came up with works on them, and also swing by the people I need to talk to. I'll grab some takeout on the way back. When we're sure that going out in public isn't going to cause a riot we can go shopping."
"Shopping?" she asked, puzzled.
He nodded. "We're buying a cell phone each, and I'm getting a better computer for you and decent internet. You'll need it whatever happens for studying and it will be useful for looking up information on the cape scene around here. I'm very out of touch on most of it, Annette was the one who followed that whole thing."
"Are you sure about the phones, Dad?" she asked carefully. He nodded again with a sad sigh.
"I think it's time, and we need them."
"Can we afford all that?" she asked, worried.
"I'll feel it, definitely, but I have money put aside for your future. Not a lot but enough. I think this counts." Danny smiled at her, then flinched when she returned it. "That will take some getting used to," he mumbled, making her laugh.
"What do I sound like?" she inquired, interested in the answer.
"Pretty normal, actually," he frowned, obviously puzzled by this. "I have no idea how a normal voice comes out of a face like that."
"Oh, thanks, Dad," she sighed, making him smile.
"Your voice is quite a lot deeper and there's a sort of strange overtone to it, if I didn't know it was you I'd never guess, but it's otherwise completely understandable and not something that stands out too much," he added.
"That's useful," she commented, pleased.
"OK, then, I'll be back in about two or three hours, Taylor," he stated as he rose, heading for the coat rack. She followed him into the hallway, not even thinking about maneuvering her bulk around in the house, her tail missing everything. She glanced out the window beside the front door.
"Be careful, Dad, it's still snowing," she advised, which got a nod and a smile in return.
"I'll be fine." Looking at her, he said, "Can you change back? I'd like to give you a hug but at the moment..."
She laughed for a moment. "Do I feel horrible?" she asked, holding out a hand. He took it and ran his fingers over the scales.
"No, not at all. It's warm and smooth, quite nice actually. But I'd like to look my daughter in the eyes she was born with."
Smiling to herself, she asked the Varga, and felt the tingle as she reverted to her normal form, complete with clothes provided by her companion. Danny stared, then sighed. "He has a sense of humor doesn't he?"
"What do you mean?"
"Look." Danny pointed to the small mirror next to the coat rack, which she turned to.
Her eyes were still the reptilian, glowing orange-yellow ones.
Sighing herself, she said out loud, "All the way, please," provoking a deep chuckle from inside her head. Her vision flickered a little, an indefinable something going out of it, as her eyes regained human form.
With a laugh Danny hugged her. "If you go outside, please remember to do it in human form," he requested. "If the neighbors see a six foot plus lizard thing wandering around outside there's going to be a lot of talk."
Giggling, she nodded, then watched as he left, getting into the car and driving slowly and carefully away. A snow plow went past spraying snow everywhere just as he got to the end of the driveway and he fell in behind it. Closing the door she went into the kitchen, rummaging around in the fridge for a few seconds and finally coming up with an apple.
Munching it she wandered back into the living room, looking around at the moved furniture. When she finished her snack she spent a few minutes putting everything back where it had come from. Heading up to her bedroom she lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking.
"If you have some spare time, I can begin to teach you how to do the transformation yourself, Brain," the Varga said after she'd been lying there for about fifteen minutes.
'I'd like that, thanks,' she responded, a little surprised, but pleased.
"Let's begin, then," the great creature told her, sounding like he was enjoying himself. "The first part is visualization..."
The lessons went on until Danny came back nearly four hours later. When he entered the house, he called up the stairs, "Taylor? I'm home. Sorry it took so long. The traffic was very slow and a couple of the people I needed to see were stuck as well. I've got chinese for lunch."
"OK, Dad," she called back, getting up from her desk where she'd been sitting propped on her tail, making notes. When she entered the kitchen she found him unpacking the takeout, several bags on the table. He looked over his shoulder at her with a smile, which froze. She innocently looked back.
"What?" she asked.
Her father sighed. "He's a bad influence on you, young lady," he said. She cocked her head to the side in an inquisitive manner.
"I have no idea what you mean," she said calmly.
Reaching out Danny took the Varga-produced, very weird looking sunglasses that were balanced on her reptilian muzzle from her, then studied her closely. She currently had the combat form head resting on her normal shoulders, the rest of her body unchanged. "You have no idea?" he repeated. She shook her head, blinking glowing orange eyes at him in a manner that made his lips twitch.
"Nope, not a clue," she chirped, moving past him to peer into the bags. Finding a bag of spring rolls she popped one into her mouth and swallowed. The reptilian head made chewing more or less optional. He sighed, then went to get some plates.
"Is this going to be a habit now?" he asked over his shoulder. She giggled, reverting her head to normal.
"It's not impossible. I need to practice," she told him, taking the plate he handed her.
"Try not to do it where other people can see," he advised, sitting down at the table. She propped herself up with her tail on the other side. Both of them helped themselves, then began eating.
"Did you get everything?" she asked after she'd taken the edge off her appetite.
Danny nodded. "I did. Mike was glad to help when I explained the situation. He has a daughter as well and feels very strongly about bullying. He explained how everything works, but he's going to come over in a couple of days to show us again. I've also talked to some of the boys, there were lots of volunteers. I've got the cameras as well."
They talked about nothing in particular during the lunch, basically just reconnecting after over two years of being virtual strangers to each other, and both of them very much enjoying it. Afterwards, they went back into the living room. Danny opened a camera case he brought in from the hall and removed a quite impressive SLR digital camera from it, looking carefully at it then turning it on. After the startup sound had finished, he motioned to her. "Stand in the middle of the room again," he asked.
When she was positioned correctly, he looked at the viewfinder. "Hmm. No trace on this either. It seems to work with new technology as well. I wonder if it works with tinker tech?"
"Unless we can get some I can't see how we can find out," she said, reasonably. He agreed with a small nod, taking a few pictures as she struck different poses. Reviewing them he shrugged.
"It looks fine. Hopefully that means that at least normal security cameras and that sort of thing won't see it either. Let's try the thermal camera next."
Putting the SLR away he opened another case, a hard shelled thing about the size of a small briefcase, to reveal a device that looked quite unlike a normal camera. Taking it out of the protective foam he held the hand grip and thumbed the power switch, waiting until the small display on the back lit up a few seconds later. "This thing is pretty expensive, but the electricians find it really useful. If a fuse box is overloading this will show it from a hundred feet away just from the heat."
He pointed the silvery lens at her, then frowned at the display. Fiddling with it, he finally nodded in satisfaction. "OK, that's working. Wow, it looks weird. But..." He squinted, motioning to her to turn around with his free hand. "I can't see your tail with this either. Looks like we're probably safe, at least for the moment."
"Great," she sighed, somewhat relieved. "I wasn't looking forward to everyone staring at me and pointing. Being known as the girl with the tail would get old pretty fast."
Grinning as he put the device away again, he placed both cases back into the hall, Taylor following him. "The snow stopped a while ago and the sun's out now. Why don't we go and get a couple of phones, a laptop, and arrange a better internet connection?"
With a smile she reached for her coat, then stopped. A request to her companion and she was wearing a duplicate of the one hanging on the coat-hook. Danny grinned again.
"That will save a lot of money." Putting his own coat on he opened the door, waved her through, then followed, locking it behind him, both of them getting into the car. Shortly they were headed downtown to the nearest mall with a decent phone shop and computer shop.