All Homo (Part 4)
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The chirping of the alarm clock was silenced with a quick flick of a hand, Dawn getting up and fumbling for the light.
Struggling as she did so, the veil of sleep doing its best to claw her back into its warm embrace.
Never she mind, she had to make progress. Wake up, get in the car, drive. Drive hard, drive fast, drain the tank and fill up while it was still dark and people still tired and just carry on. Keep going. Make sure any interactions were made when all the other onlookers were as bleary eyed and tired as her.
The fuzzier her vision, the fuzzier theirs.
Yes, she told herself, as she put on a kettle and poured in some instant coffee granules. She had a plan, a fantastic plan, and the fact that Homons certainly weren't a nocturnal species all helped. But still, she was wanted, they were searching for her, and… -"Dammit," she hissed, pausing as she flicked the switch on the kettle again. Oh, it just had to be busted.
Never mind, she told herself. There was a coffee machine out there. Grab her wallet… -Had they really stocked the safe house with something that big? Never mind, get coffee, coffee into mouth. Reaching up, she grumbled as she opened the handle with a stretch. Stupid old megafauna sized room, she could have sworn they'd at least lowered the doorknob and stuff and… Oh for lambs sake, she could understand them keeping a bear sized hot drinks machine, but no stool on the side or anything? "Seriously?" she asked, looking up to it and jumping up, slamming the select button.
The instruction to input some cash flickered up and, bringing out her wallet, she began filing through the bills. Again, megafauna scaled? She shook her head before pausing, grabbing a contactless prepaid card instead. Yes, leaving a trail, even a non-trail like this was a bad move. But she could get away with one payment, after all she really needed this coffee.
"Can I hel…" someone muttered off to her side, only to trail off.
"I'm good," she moaned, taking a running jump up to slam the card on the reader. There was an electric whirl and a big plastic cup dropped down, boiling hot and weak watery coffee beginning to dribble out into it.
A clatter to the other side and someone came out. "Oh mah gad," she began moaning, only to freeze. "Oh my god!"
"Wake up the whole hotel, why don't you," Dawn moaned, rolling her eyes as she waited for her cup to be ready.
Indeed, in at least two cases that mammal had, two more doors opening, their residents sputtering something before coming to a sudden stop. Just as, finally, Dawn's coffee was ready.
She picked it up, her hooves struggling to hold the cool rim without burning themselves on the thin main body. Stupid fleshy fingers, she thought, taking it up, blowing, before deciding she needed to let it cool down a lot before she could chug it. Still, time enough to change, pack, plan. She turned, seeing a pair of goats, a leopard and a pronghorn staring at her, mouths wide open.
Dawn blinked, looking down at her cup. "It's coffee… From a machine. What's the spectacle?"
"Are we sure it's her, or is she just stupid?" came a voice from behind, and she turned to see the mammal who'd first come out, a wolf, speaking down to a boar of some kind.
"No," she groaned. "I am not stupid you mutt. I am tired, I need my coffee, and if you would stop staring at me!?"
The boar looked back up. "I mean, she could be too stupid to be… you know who. But I mean she's so tired she hasn't even noticed it yet."
"Okay," Dawn hissed, paw to her head and massaging her wool. "I don't know what this fuss is about, I just…"
Wool…
Suddenly feeling, at least partly, very awake, she slowly felt her head and… Yes, very woolly hair. And looking down…
Sheep.
She was a sheep again.
Looking up, she suddenly realised that all the others were mammals once more, and they were looking at her and… "Oh mutton chops," she squeaked, gritting her teeth as her brain frazzled to come up with an emergency plan. "WHAT!? Never seen a dwarf sheep buying coffee before?"
Play it cool, play it cool, walking back to her room, she pulled a big smile as she waved at the leopard and those around him. "Haha, we turned back. Just as I got used to my Homon form. Ah, isn't life what his mother is," she said, pointing back to the wolf. And with that, she slipped into her room, the others slowly crowding around the door.
"I'm pretty sure it's her," one of the goats said, pausing as they heard a crash of glass and the thud of something jumping out into the bushes on the other side, following by panicked hoof clops across the tarmac. "Okay, yeah, it's her."
He brought out his phone, dialling the police as a few of the others raced off after her. "Hello? He…" He scoffed, pushing the phone back and looking to his partner. "Typical. You find a fugitive ex-mayor on the run, and the line's busy."
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"Judy… Judy… Ju…"
"Wha…" she blinked, ears shooting up and paw coming out to poke him in the fluffy red chest. "You're a fox again!"
He poked her back. "You're a bunny again!"
They paused, looking around, feeling their extremities and their re-enhanced sense. Nick's muzzle coiled up. "Dammit, I said that some of the fruit was off."
"Really Nick, don't you think…"
"Fluff, it stinks to high heaven."
"No it…"
"Uh, super schnozzle here," he said, pointing at his nose.
Judy rolled her eyes before her ears shot up. She jumped over and began racing out of the bed. "Kits are awake!" she said, bounding out the door. Nick's eyes wide open in alarm, he raced off to follow her, only to fall flat on his face.
"Grrrrrrrr…" He stood up, slowly balancing himself around. "Okay, little legs, first one…" He moved it. "Then the other." He moved that. "Okay, it's been a while but…" He slowly but surely began walking forwards again. "There," he said, turning to face the door and…
CRASH…
He swung back around again to see a pile of stuff on the floor, knocked off the bedside table by…
CRASH…
He turned back around again, facepawing. If he had an extra set of paws, the sound of the last thing on the first table being knocked out would prompt them into action.
Instead, he just reacquainted himself with a bunch of muscles that had just popped back into existence for him and pulled his tail around to his front. A paw holding it firmly in place, he made his way out to the kits nursery to join his wife.
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"No, no, I am your Mommy Ella…" Judy whispered, her tear-stained face knitted up as the young bunny doe in her paws wailed and complained.
"It's true," Nick smiled, his own paw fussing the head of his purring fox son. "You take after her."
Despite her worry, Judy managed a nice little venomous glare at him. "Not helping," she hissed, only to turn down again as Ella began batting and kicking out again, throwing off her now oversized shirt before giving a big kick with her bunny legs. Out she shot, Judy grasping and clawing to try and catch her, only to come down on her front.
Just as Ella did, unable to control her leap and faceplanting on the ground.
Nick winced, his ears going back, as she began a new set of pain filled wails. He moved over to help, only for a paw up from Judy to stay him off. She'd deal with the bunny daughter first, he'd deal with his fox son who, right now, was sniffing around, eyes wide.
"Yeah," Nick said, pointing at his nose. "These were good at smelling stuff."
"I… I can smell… fifty-seven times more!" he said enthusiastically. "And… I can see in the dark like a supermammal!"
"Oh yeah…"
"But… But why we green?"
"Huh?" Nick asked. Ridley looked down and gave a long, hard, poke into Nick's fur. He winced a bit from the pressure of the claw. "Mind them claws little one."
He gazed up, then back down. "In da pictures, foxes used to be red. But we green now…"
Nick paused, before bringing out his phone, loading up a picture of him and Judy at their graduation. Ridley's head tilted to almost sideways, earning a big giggle from Nick at the canine body language just coming back as it had been there from a start, and looked on at Ridley as he studied the image over and over.
"Why… Why it green too…"
"Well," Nick said. "Our noses are a lot better. And our eyes are much better at seeing in the dark… But there were things we were a lot worse at as well. Can you think of one?"
He slowly paused, trying to work it out, before his ears went up. "I… we no see red?"
"Uh-hu," Nick said, sighing. "Foxes… Well, most mammals, could only see two colours. But Homons, rather than being able to see well in the night, they could see three colours."
"I… What if I wanna see red again."
Nick sighed, before pausing. "Well, tell you what. You can still remember what red looked like, right?"
Ears going up, Ridley nodded, closing his eyes and smiling as his tail wagged. "Y-yeah. I can see it in da black."
"Well," Nick said, "remember it. Remember it and make sure you remember it. And then, when you want, you'll always be able to imagine it."
"Like you could?"
Nick chuckled. "Like I couldn't. I couldn't imagine a whole colour I'd never seen before until I'd seen it. And now, I'll always be able to imagine what it was like, even if I can't see it anymore."
"It's dumb…" he said, pointing at his fur. "Fox can't see that we are red."
Nick smirked. "You know Auntie Chloe? Her species could see red, but they didn't have any red on them."
Ridley giggled. "Dat silly."
"Oh no, no, no," Nick waved off, pausing and smiling as he saw his son look at his pawpad and then down at his own to. "Ridley?" He looked up again. "This is silly." And with that he pulled his ears down against the sides of his head and let his tongue roll out to its full length.
Ridley burst into a fit of laughter and giggles, rolling on the floor.
Nick joined him, only to pause as he saw Ella, her distress broken off a little, looking over and giggling. "Hey, Ella?"
She sniffed a little. "Why… Why you sound like Daddy and Ridley?"
"Because we are Daddy and Ridley, and that's Mommy," he said. "You two are back to being bunnies, and I'm."
"I'M A FOX!" Ridley yelled out, paws up before he slowly fell back, yipping as he lost his balance and fell to the floor. His distress quickly froze though as he saw his tail on his chest and grabbed it with one paw. Pulling it, tugging it a little…
Nick looked at him with a mischievous grin and got up onto all fours. "Hey, kits?"
They both turned to him as he gave a few big sniffs, turned around, let his eyes widen and then narrow and, ears folding back, launched himself after the tip of his tail. The two kits broke down in hysterics as he chased after it, on and on, faster and faster, before catching it and coming to a halt. Trembling a bit on dizzy legs, tail still between his teeth, he looked at a tired but slightly smiling Judy and spoke out the words as best he could. "Now Whafff?"
That did it.
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The ZPD precinct was filled with loud sounds of chatter, mixed with grunts, roars and howls. So many, many, howls.
It hadn't taken long for the emergency signal to come out and, once again, Nick and Judy, kits in the back, came in to help the expected chaos of the day.
Unlike before, at least one mammal figured out what was going on and had come in, expecting to look after all the kits, cubs, fawns, lambs, calves or whatever else there were of the various species newly switched back to how they were.
"Can you guess who that is?" Judy asked, pointing at a tan coloured canine-like mammal coming over. The bunny cop looked down at Ella, the bunny girl still not sure about everything. It seemed to be something a lot of the kits were feeling, by the looks of the impromptu creche. Staring into a few mirrors that had been laid out, feeling around their new bodies, getting used to having a big tail sticking out the one end or something.
Ridley, by contrast, had gotten so excited and refused his father's warnings to calm down enough for the fox to pull out 'the super secret fox parenting technique.' The grumpy looking kit was currently hanging from Nick's right paw, neck scruff clutched between his fingers and the weight on it instinctually causing the young mammal to curl up in on himself, body just turning… Off.
The not-a-canine smiled, leaning down. "You've been naughty, haven't you?"
He squirmed a bit, only for his eyes to widen. He tried to struggle, tried to say something, one of Nick's eyebrows rising. "Oh, want to say something?"
Ridley grunted out an uh-hu, sounding more frustrated.
"Are you going to behave?" Nick asked again, as Judy looked down at Ella.
"Come on, you can guess who that is. You know her voice, right?"
Ella just looked at the mammal. She looked like a taller fox than Nick, but she was all yellowy, with a big fat belly and a long thin tail. And… She stepped forward, pointing up at the darker stripes on that belly, shown out from the bottom half of her shirt, left unbuttoned so the bulge could come out.
"Come on," the larger mammal said, leaning down. "Guess who I am?"
"Uh-hu," came a new voice, a big white fluffy wolf coming over. "You know who my pumpk…" He froze, eyes opening wide as he glanced between Ella and Ridley. "This is the cutest thing ever! Bunny and fox produce bunny and fox! And they are both cute and adorable and…"
Nick groaned, Ridley getting increasingly frustrated as he tried to say something. Finally, his father decided to let him down, just as Ella's confused and slightly scared face widened with recognition. She spoke out, just as a freed Ridley did the same. "UNKIE ELIOT!/AUNTIE CHLOE!"
"Yes," Judy said, walking over. "That's them…"
"Why you so fat now?" Ridley asked, pointing at the big bulging gut on the thylacine. He paused though, looking closer. "Where your bellybutton go?"
Ella though had a different question. "Where Gabby an Danny?"
Chloe chuckled, nudging her bulging stomach. "To answer both those… Come on you two, wakey wakey."
And then, a gap opened up at the top of the suddenly jiggling bulge, Ella and Ridley stepping back in fear before freezing, watching on as two faces popped out of a hole in the top. Chloe smiled before leaning down, giving the pair a push as they slipped out of her pouch and onto the ground. Nick and Judy looked down, smiling, only for their eyes to widen at the sight.
Daniel and Gabriel had grown smaller due to the switch back, just like almost all of them bar Eliot had, and as a result were clad in baby clothes, tails peeking out of roughly made holes. Of course, it was pretty much the same for Ella and Ridley, the adults meanwhile reusing old pre-switch clothes of theirs. What gathered the bunny and fox's attention though was that, unlike with Ella and Ridley, this wasn't one wolf and one thylacine.
Daniel, presuming the larger older one was him, looked very much like his mother's species, until their eyes rested on his big fluffy tail and lack of abdominal stripes. Instead, his ears and tail tip were black, with two smaller stripes of black further up. As he moved about, Nick spotted the tips of two more back stripes peeking out, though by that point it (and the fact he only had four, not his mothers five, digits per paw) confirmed the point. He was a hybrid, between two species even further apart than Nick and Judy's.
In contrast, Gabriel certainly looked far more like a white wolf pup, though the sight of a bunch of stripes, along with five digits on his paws, drove the point home.
"I…" Nick began, finger up. "Okay, how come you got Thylolfs but we didn't get Boxes?"
Judy paused, finger coming up. "Wouldn't it be Wolacines and Funnies."
At least the kits were giggling. "Call them Kaeennah for all I care," Chloe smiled, her tail wagging as she leant down to give them each a kiss. "They're our little angels."
"Uh-hu," Eliot said, smiling as he leant down. "My little Kaeegunta…"
He froze at the sight of a terrifying murderous death glare from his wife. "When I said I wanted to teach them my native tongue and you wanted to help, what did we say about that Oyster Bay crap?"
Nick and Judy watched as Eliot backpedalled enough to win an Olympic medal. Either way, Ridley and Ella were busy playing over with their friends, jumping back as they opened their mouths out in those crazy obtuse thyla-yawns, as if to drive home the point further.
"I got no bellybutton!" Daniel yelled at random, pulling up his shirt and letting the two poke and prod.
Ella meanwhile was quiet, before giving a giant rabbit hop up, clearing over their heads before coming down and shaky paws, much to their entertainment. "Yes," Judy cheered, before glancing over to a smug looking Nick. "Oh come on…"
He waved a paw to her right as Daniel led Ridley to his mother's pouch, pulling it down for him. Chloe rolled her eyes. "Might as well make the most out of it while I can. Ella?" She asked the bunny girl who came over with a curious look. Right as the sound of Chief Bogo beckoned out. "WILDE! HOPPS! FANGHANEL! ANYONE ELSE FOR THAT MATTER!"
"You know," Nick said, smiling. "I missed that."
And with that, off they went, giving a wave to their kits as Chloe started giving them a ride around. "Bye. Be good!"
"I will," Ella said, shying away as her upended brother's tail and legs batted her head.
"-I found da safety rope."
Chloe's eyes widened. "That's not a safety rope!"
"If I pull it…"
"DON'T PU…" She suddenly winced up, eyes half bulging out from the shock.
Nick and Judy paused, turning back, as Eliot shouted out. "What happened Pumpkin?"
Nick smiled. "My son pulled your wife's safety rope."
Silence filled the air for a second before Eliot stepped back, flinching as a fork was thrown into his paw. He held it, trembling a little, as his wife filled in the rest. "You know what to do!"
The wolf turned down to a suddenly very nervous collar-tugging fox.
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"I mean, you did earn that."
Nick, rubbing a bandaged-up eye, sighed. "Maybe. But you do agree it was worth it, right?"
Judy rolled her eyes, only to pause, joining in the banging on the table and whoops in the air as in Chief Bogo came. Unless a mammal had changed in girth for some reason, been born after the switch, or grown a lot, the issue of re-clothing them wasn't much of an issue. After all, most still kept their old pre-switch clothes in storage somewhere.
Chief Bogo was not one of those mammals.
In he came, a pair of swimming trunks stretched to the absolute max over his hips, and a bedsheet with some holes it and wrapped together with bits of tape for his top. He looked about as angry as he did stupid. "I suppose," he grumbled. "It'll be easier this time around. Still, we're putting up emergency food supplies for mammals with specific dietary needs. Most herbivores can go back to flour and bread and don't need straw or hay… So it doesn't matter that that supply line was broken. Still, Outback Island has kicked up a eucalyptus gathering drive in the old orchards for the koalas. I'd also request any and all megafauna to ask their family members to volunteer at an emergency blood bank being set up in the nocturnal district. Suffice to say, if they get extremely short, you'll be ordered to go down directly."
He sighed, scanning through some papers. "Still. There's going to be a lot of angry mammals. Many of the smaller mammal vehicles and so forth were scrapped, and what's left is going at extremely high prices on Z-Bay already. So expect plenty of thieves going out there. Meanwhile, Little Rodentia was not rebuilt after be crushed to nothing after all its populace exploded in size. And now they're homeless, again. I heard that the city council is going to contract toy factories and such to build new homes they can just stack up in there, but until then it's emergency housing centres. These are the locations," he said, pointing at a list. "We need you making rounds, asking about, picking up any rodent in need. Understood?"
"Yes sir!" they all said.
The Chief nodded, before sighing. "And, so help me, if we change back AGAIN! I will personally…"
There was a knock on the door, Bogo turning and pausing as Clawhauser came in.
"What is it?"
The portly cheetah smiled, bowing and waving as a bunch of goats, a pronghorn, a leopard, a wolf and a boar came in, a struggling figure bound up in duct tape hoisted on their shoulders. The wolf smiled, stepping forward and holding a clipboard for Bogo to sign. "Convictgram for Bogo."
"…What?"
"Convictgram for Bogo."
Bogo looked at him, then the bound figure, then back down, smiling. "I like convicts."
"Sign here please," he said, Bogo doing just that. And with that, the wolf took the clipboard, saluted, and then sauntered off with the rest of them, until they were just out of the doorway and looking in with great anticipation.
The buffalo walked over to the bound, very familiar, figure, and ripped off the tape from her mouth.
The whole bullpen looked on at Dawn's fuming face until, finally, she spoke. "Not fair!"
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"No, we should look it up," Eliot said. "Did any bad guys get handed in when we switched around the first time?"
Judy gave a nervous look, poking her fingers together, before sighing with relief as Nick took over. "How would us all looking different make it easier to catch someone?"
The wolf paused, before his paw shot up. "Oooh, I know! Maybe it was a bat who'd escaped from jail. And he'd roosted up in a tall building, and suddenly found himself stuck there. Or maybe the same thing with water and otters and an island. Or maybe it was in the deep chill of Tundratown."
Nick nodded, before pausing. "Yikes, you think they're going to turn that thing on again?"
The wolf paused, scratching his head. "I guess so. Maybe they already have."
"I don't think it's quite as easy as just flicking a switch somewhere…" Judy said. Chances were, the climate system had been left to rot and needed all sorts of repairs. Still, at least it had steered the conversation away from the cause of the first switch, and all the chaos, misery, and all that it had caused.
She still felt guilty sometimes, even when she told herself that of course she didn't know something that mad was going to happen if she said yes to some kind of prank call.
"Either way," Eliot said, paws crossed and smiling. "With this done, Bellwether caught, there's no need for any protective custody. Your kits and my kits can play and fall in love together and I've got everything back and safe and…"
On he talked, Nick getting angry and batting back. All as Judy paused, looking on at the white wolf. No… Had he? She shook her head. If she couldn't have known for her conversation with that mysterious voice on the phone, how could he. Even if, as she was guessing now, he'd been far more enthusiastic about it.
Still, she mused on. What would this mean? Was this the last time it would happen, or would there be more? What would happen to all the new religious groups that sprung up? Would the city now always plan everything in case another set of switches occurred? What would this do to mammals? She'd reacted cynically to old cultural divisions opening up again, even if they were all the same species, but still… Attacks against mammals for who they once were had been practically non-existent. Who on earth could tell if a homon had once been an elephant or a mouse, a wolf or a sheep, a fox or a bunny. Would things go back to how they once were before, or would mammals be different now? Have more appreciation for each other… Her ears went down. What would happen to homons who fell in love but suddenly found themselves so different. Sure, she loved her fox and he loved his bunny, but she wasn't dumb enough to think that such a sudden change wouldn't be a deal breaker for many couples. What about new hybrids that had been created, like Daniel and Gabrielle, or siblings of different species?
All this, all that. It was making her head hurt. Well, at least being a bunny now her stomach wouldn't hurt that much for a few stupid days every month. Honestly, she wanted to find whoever designed that feature for the homon species and slap him… As yes, dear holy frith it could only be a him, twelve ways to sideways.
Either way, she guessed that the challenges would come as they came, and she, her fox, her kits, friends, family and all sorts would tackle each one and try. Try their best.
Try to overcome it.
She stood back against the wall, a long day ended, pausing as she saw Nick and Eliot go up to Chloe. The kits were around her, jumping, giggling, and she waved Eliot over, opening her pouch and gesturing for her husband to lean in.
She had a very glowy look on her, Judy mused, pausing as she saw Eliot stand ramrod straight, a giant grin on his muzzle, before he collapsed backwards. What the…
Nick looked up as she patted her stomach, holding out three digitsp, pointing back at her pouch. The fox was now laughing and, looking down, Judy smiled at the collapsed Eliot. Ah, seemed like there was just enough time to slip some more joeys under the falling net, and somehow Judy figured that his request for a switch had spun around to make his wife more… Ah… Productive, just when it mattered. At the very least, she'd certainly be a lot happier with the process now she was no longer a homon.
Well, Judy mused as she came over to say congratulations and get a nosey at three tiny jellybean-like Wolacine joeys now in her pouch…
For all the trouble that white wolf might have caused this time, a dose back in his direction seemed fair enough.