Chapter Nineteen

After Sephie and Tyroth left, Alexandra and Samuel looked around their new quarters.

Alexandra sat on the bed and bounced on it to check the feel of the mattress.

"Hmmm," she mused, "For an underground Cave like home they got good beds! And the furniture looks nearly new!"

Samuel said nothing but had his fists clenched.

"Sam?" Alexandra asked looking worriedly at her boyfriend who looked so angry he seemed tempted to smash everything in sight.

"Sam!" she said standing up and walking over to him before placing her paws on his.

"Sam, please! It's not worth it!"

Samuel took another breath to try and calm down before going over to the mirror and stared at his reflection, taking in his feline features, the fur, the stripes, and his new nose as well as his whiskers.

"Sam?" Alexandra asked again walking over and placing a hand on his shoulder and looked at herself, seeing her new features, the white fur, the muzzle and canine teeth and her shiny more sensitive nose.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"How can I be?" Samuel snapped to which Alexandra flinched.

"Sorry, it was a stupid question really." She muttered.

"I just can't get over this Alex!" Samuel said still staring at himself, he looked at his paws and ran his hands over his black hair.

"Hun...this is a lot to take in." Alexandra comforted yet Samuel turned to look at her.

"Look at us, Alex!" he cried holding up his paws and gesturing to himself and to her.

"I understand they saved us; I do...but at the cost of us being these things and having to give up our whole lives?"

Alexandra looked back at Samuel; her eyes boring into his as she tried to reason with him.

"What choice do we have?" she asked "We got nowhere else to go! We can't go home like this! No-one will see us; they'll just see mutant animals!"

"By doing this, they took the choice away from us!" Samuel cried.

"Sam!" Alexandra snapped "These guys didn't take away that choice! The Mafia did! They stole our lives the moment they shot us down like dogs!"

Remembering that night as well as the death of Jason, Samuel clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I know this is hard!" Alexandra said "It's only been a few hours and I'm still in shock! How things have changed so quickly!"

Samuel said nothing but he kept quiet and listened to Alexandra.

"I'm just as upset as you, but there's nothing we can do, we can't go back, this is us now!"

Samuel looked at his girlfriend not believing what he was hearing that she seemed to accept the fact that they were mutant animals and had to leave their old lives.

Deep down, he knew she was right, but he didn't want to believe it and he still wanted to have hope even though he knew it was impossible.

Alexandra cupped his cheeks and stroked them to calm him.

"This is what it is." She said gently.

Samuel leaned into her hands as he looked at her.

"I'm sorry," Alexandra wheedled "But this is it... what can we do to change it?" she asked.

"It's just what we have to give up that's killing me..." Samuel replied placing his hands on her wrists.

"It's killing me too Sam!" Alexandra retorted.

"So, this is it for us then?" Samuel asked lifting his head and Alexandra's hands slid from his cheeks.

"To just make do here?"

"What do you suggest then hmm?" Alexandra challenged.

Samuel frowned, she was right, they really didn't have any other choice, they couldn't return to their normal lives, or their families, nor could Alexandra return to her hospital job.

Given their new forms, they would never be welcome anywhere, and people would fear them, and some might even want to put them in some kind of freak show or zoo or worse, taken for experiments.

He remembered the movies he watched where those who were seen as alien were taken away for study and analysing and if he knew most humans, it was shoot first, ask questions later.

There really was no other way around it.

"We...we...ugh, we have...no choice..." he struggled before sitting on the chair as the dressing table.

"No, we do not…." Alexandra said.

"This is our life now... whether we like it or not...

"I guess..." Samuel mumbled.

"Also," Alexandra remembered "The Dragon and Gecko said we should consider new names..."

Samuel cocked his head.

"To symbolise our re-birth, but also protect our families." She reminded him.

"I suppose..." Samuel sighed.

Alexandra walked over to the mirror to look at herself again, she looked at her paws, then at her face before touching her hair and looking at her eyes.

Despite the fact she was now a humanoid wolf, she still had her human eyes and her hair, showing she was once human.

Samuel watched her then stood up and stood behind her wrapping his arms around her waist.

They stood there together for a little bit just staring at their reflections. Then Alexandra glanced up at Samuel.

"You know Sam, as a humanoid Tiger, you're still very handsome." She smiled softly.

"Really?" Samuel asked to which Alexandra nodded sincerely.

Samuel then gave a weak smile in response.

"You're still just as beautiful as the day I first met you...always have been, always will be."

"Even as a humanoid wolf?" Alexandra questioned.

"Yes, even now..." Samuel soothed and hugged Alexandra close nuzzling her hair and one of her new pointed ears.

"Despite everything that's happened, at least we still have each other?" Alexandra asked.

"Always..." Samuel whispered in her ear gently and they hugged each other closer.

Again, they stayed like that for a few minutes until Samuel spoke again as something else came to his mind.

"Alex...Alex baby...I'm so sorry...about all of this..."

Alexandra looked at her boyfriend in surprise.

"Sorry? Why are you sorry? this wasn't your fault!" she said.

"But, if we hadn't come here, to the tournament, this wouldn't have happened..."

"But how were we to know?" Alexandra asked "it's not like you could see what would have happened, and we've been to different tournaments with dangerous people before, the most we've had is just some sore losers trying to catch you off guard, but you've always managed to fight them off... it's just this time...it was the Mafia."

Samuel sighed again.

"I just feel like I could have done something, anything...to make sure this didn't happen to you..."

Alexandra turned to face Samuel.

"Sam... there's no point on thinking that..., what's done is done, we can't go back...we'll just have to make do here...at least we're safe." She hugged Samuel close then looked at themselves in the mirror embracing.

"And thinking about what Tyroth and Sephie said...I think I have a name...my new one..." she said quietly.

"You do?" Samuel asked looking down at his girlfriend.

Alexandra nodded.

"When I was young, mum used to call me her little flower..." she said as a couple of tears shone in her eyes thinking about her mother and how she would never see her again.

"Delicate as a Dahlia...she would say..."

"Dahlia?" Samuel asked confused.

"Yeah...Dahlia." Alexandra said softly "I think it works, in remembrance to what mum used to call me."

"I see..." Samuel said looking at Dahlia through the mirror.

"What about you?" Alexandra asked.

Samuel thought for a moment, he looked at himself then at Alexandra through the mirror before he spoke.

"Jun..." he said finally.

"Jun?" Alexandra asked confused.

"Asian origin..." Samuel said "It has many different meanings...ranging from genuine and pure to talented and handsome..."

Alexandra smiled softly as she heard that.

"I think that's perfect, describes you to a T."

"You really think so?" Samuel asked to which Alexandra nodded.

"Whether you be human or a mutant tiger, you are handsome in my eyes all the same."

"Then I'll go with that." Samuel said.

"Jun, my love." Alexandra said with a soft smile turning to her humanoid tiger lover and cupping his cheeks lovingly, looking deeply into his dark chocolate brown eyes, the same eyes he possessed as a human.

"I love you...Jun..."

Samuel leaned close to Alexandra and nuzzled her nose, feeling how cold and wet it was against his own and he saw in her eyes the same girl he knew before she mutated.

"And I love you too..." he said then with some struggling to make himself say her new name, he spoke it.

"Dahlia..."

The lovers looked each other in the eyes, despite their anger and sadness at their situation, they knew they couldn't change it, and thoughts of revenge or getting justice for what happened did entertain their minds, but for now they decided to try and accept that this was now their life, and they had changed their names.

Samuel and Alexandra no longer existed, now they were Jun and Dahlia, new residents of Mutopia.

But one thing they did promise to each other as they held each other, was that they would never let go of their memories of who they were or of their loved ones, even though it killed them that they would never see them again.

"No matter what Jun." Dahlia whispered, "You'll always be my Samuel."

"And you my Alexandra, Dahlia." Jun promised.

Dahlia smiled at Jun then she remembered something and lifted the box she had been given by Tania back in the medical room after she had newly awoken.

Jun looked at it, then he remembered what it was, and the feelings of anger returned when he remembered what he had planned to do before the Mafia had killed them.

"That box?" he asked.

Dahlia nodded.

"The Panda Tania gave it to me when I woke up, yet you were still unconscious." She explained.

"I'm sure you can guess what it was for?" Jun asked.

Dahlia nodded and hugged her boyfriend.

"Oh Jun, it's a yes!" she said tearfully "I would have said yes! Not that it matters now..."

Jun hugged his wolf girlfriend back.

"It does matter." He said "It matters more than you'll ever know! The fact you would have said yes, that means everything to me!"

As he said that he took Dahlia's cheeks and leaned towards her kissing her deeply then nuzzled her.

"There's something else." He said slowly taking the box from her and lifting the padding the ring was on to reveal a silver necklace with a sparkling blue sapphire pendent.

Dahlia gasped when she saw it.

"Jun... what?" she gasped in shock "You didn't!?"

"I did baby, for you!" Jun said, "It matched your beautiful eyes."

"Oh Jun, thank you!" Dahlia cried a smile gracing her face, the first genuine one since mutating.

"But sapphires? How could you afford them?"

"With my earnings from the previous tournaments I won." He confessed returning her smile, his first real one since he mutated.

"It wasn't a problem babe." He said kissing her "You deserve it!" he took the necklace out of the box then put the ring on the chain before carefully placing it around Dahlia's neck.

"It suits you." He spoke.

Dahlia placed her fingers on the necklace and the ring, she felt saddened that it was too small for her new fingers, but she felt happy to feel it against her chest, almost close to her heart that beat within for Jun.

"Thank you, Jun." she said, "I love it."

"All for you babe, I love you so much." Jun whispered as he kissed her again.

"And I love you." Dahlia replied softly.

Despite the darkness they feel in their souls, and how they feel robbed of their lives, Samuel and Alexandra have given themselves new names and have decided to try and get used to what they are now.

Samuel has chosen his name Jun and Alexandra has chosen Dahlia.

Thus Jun and Dahlia have offically come to be...