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Chapter Two - First Contact Initialized

"Did you just hear that?" one of the doctors that had been observing the exchange on the massive viewscreen said as the draconic sabre-wolf laid there completely immobile. The rest of the crowd was awash with murmurs of speculation as they were told to go back to their preparations. Soon the only ones left in the control room besides the technicians that worked to keep the base operational was August, Amaro, and several of the soldiers that had also come to watch.

"I don't see why you all are getting your coats in a flutter," Amaro said as he chewed on the toothpick that had been in his mouth since the beginning of the transmission. "All we got out of him this time was some vague emotions and an outburst that makes me wish that train was better armed."

"He mentioned Dr. Sarkov and the work that he did on the Bal'Kar." August replied plainly while he wrote down his notes.

"So?" Amaro shot back. "He's a hacker, he could have found that information anytime, he might have been inside our systems."

The Siberian tiger resisted the urge to roll his eyes and turned to face the military officer. "Were you not listening to the same broadcast I was?" he asked incredulously. "Did you hear the emotion that was behind that statement, the sheer force of will? This would not have come from someone who knew so little about the Bal'Kar, it came from a core of deep, personal hatred that he had not exhibited at all before that moment. The only thing I can infer is that for those few moments he had connected with whatever psychic phenomenon a Bal'Kar has in order for them to communicate with each other."

"Hrmph, all I heard was another reason why we need to wipe them off the face of the planet," Amaro replied before he turned to the nearest technician and told him to call as soon as their subject awoke. Once he had done that the husky left, which left August alone with his thoughts as he sat at the computer terminal. He would not be alone long, though, as he pulled up some documents he suddenly felt the presence of someone else sit down next to him.

"I figured you had forgotten about eating," Nate said as he handed the saran-wrapped burger to him. "So how's the patient doing?"

"He's out cold," August replied while he ate. "He was starting to lose himself so now we have to wait until the majority of the drugs have cleared his system before we can try again."

"I see, I see," Nate said before his eyes wandered over to the screen. "What's this? Witness statements?"

August nodded, tossing the now-empty wrapper into the nearby trash. "It's from Project Excalibur, the final nail in Sarkov's coffin. It was this witness report that sublimated all my research, which is why I'm sitting here today." Nate looked at him in question and August took the mouse and highlighted one of the sentences. "Why don't you read that and tell me what you think."

The panther looked at him quizzically before he turned to the screen. "I was in the hallway near the containment cell with the breach happened, I thought that the plasma furnaces had exploded and we were all going to die," he read out loud. "When I realized that I was still alive I looked up to see the subject walk out from the containment cell, no longer a monster, but back in his former form. He looked at me and asked which way was out, then when I told him he thanked me and told me he didn't want to get lost in the complex."

"Don't you see?" The Siberian tiger said, huffing slightly when the panther looked at him quizzically. "This isn't some mimicry or other bull that Sarkov spewed, this showed that not only do they have a hive mind, but also intelligence. All this time we think of them as these monsters that are out to get us... but what if this is a new species that has just appeared on our world? What if Sarkov lied about their origins and they're aliens or extra-dimensional creatures that, since they've gotten here, have been tortured and killed by us?"

"Well then, it's good that you're trying to become our Bal'Kar ambassador," Nate replied with a grin as he slid into the tiger's lap, putting a finger to his lips when he started to protest. "Oh shush, no one in their right mind is working right now except you. Let's get you back to bed, as soon as that thief wakes up you're going to have to take another run at him to be your mouthpiece into the hivemind."

August grinned and kissed him deeply. "Only if you promise to tuck me in," the feline said before they walked out of the empty control room, the sound and picture of the draconic sabre-wolf the only thing left in the darkness.

************************************************

Darkness once more enveloped the hybrid as he looked around the void, though everything seemed a bit sharper than before and he felt more aware of himself. As he looked down at his chest he saw that the bullet hole had completely disappeared, as if he hadn't been shot at all. He wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, but now that the pain had ceased as well he was at least comfortable. Once he made sure that nothing else had changed he began to walk forward, and though he didn't know where that would lead him, it was better than just standing around.

Before Serathin could get too far, though, a large rumble shook the very core of his being, which caused him to stop and cower slightly. A pair of green glowing eyes, the same as the ones that he had seen the first place, suddenly appeared before him. "I see you think you've recovered," the booming voice said as those eyes started to go upwards before they hovered far above the hybrid's head.

"I am recovering," Serathin replied, gauging the size of the creature out even though most its body hid in the darkness. "What are you, the Bal'Kar that's going to try and possess me or something? Let me tell you that I've gotten out of worse scrapes before and this one's no different! I'm not dying today!"

"You will be dead in a few hours," the voice answered flatly. The words struck the sabre-wolf in the chest like a hammer, not just the message itself, but the way it was conveyed in such a matter-of-fact tone. He was also scared because by his estimation the creature was huge, seemingly larger than from their last encounter, too, as those eyes bore down on him.

Deep down Serathin gripped the anger he felt at the situation and used it to prop himself up once more. "So what's your angle, is it like that doctor where I either submit or die?" he asked angrily. "I have to give up everything I am just because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, either at your hands or at the hands of the military? You really want nothing else, nothing that I can't offer you in exchange for my life?"

"You have not been listening," the voice growled deeply, the defiant posture of the hybrid cracking slightly from the creature's sheer presence. "I can't tell you what will happen or what is needed, only state that your life on this earth is coming to an end, and the sooner you can accept the truth the better this will be."

Serathin's resolve finally cracked at the resolute words, falling to his knees as a tear began to roll down his face. He wanted to say something else, to try and show that he didn't care or knew that there was a way out, but his future looked as black as the darkness of the void that surrounded him. This was his last day, and he was going to spend it stuck on a stupid train car in the middle of the desert. He was going to die... alone...

As he knelt there he felt something wrap around him, squeezing him gently as whatever it was coiled around his entire body. There was no malice or violence in its grasp, it felt more comforting than anything, like he had wrapped himself in a warm blanket to stave off the chill of winter. "You are not alone," the voice said as the eyes got closer, almost enough for him to see the face of his mysterious comforter. "You just have to wake up and listen. Wake up... wake up..."

"Wake up!" Serathin let out a gasp as his eyes shot open, hearing the familiar sound of the train he was imprisoned in rolling on the tracks. When he regained his bearing he looked towards the monitor to see the face of Dr. Winters' filling the screen, which breathed a sigh of relief and backed away. "Thank goodness, we saw your theta waves begin to peak and thought we had lost you."

"Not yet, tiger," Serathin replied as he tried to adjust his position, only to find his body felt heavier than usual. "What on earth..."

"Mr. Sabertooth!" the Siberian Tiger's voice suddenly caused the hybrid's head to snap back up at the screen. "I think it would be best if you focused on this screen, try not to look down at yourself if possible. While you were sleeping the Bal'Kar extract has been mutating your body, and though we've hooked you up to an anti-transformative it's progressed quite a bit. Let's just focus on your current task, no use stressing yourself out on something that we're going to fix when you get here."

Serathin nodded, but in the back of his mind his curiosity nagged at him to see what had happened to him. He had just seen himself as perfectly fine in what he guessed was a dream, perhaps the doctor was just being dire on his condition he reasoned. As August began to discuss how they were going to have him focus on something different for their session his gaze continued to drift down towards his feet. From the feel of the sheet against them he knew they were covered, so once they were in range he lifted them up to see if he could wiggle his toes.

Except as the cloth fell away from them Serathin's breath caught in his throat when he saw that both his legs had split right down the middle, the fur was completely gone from them and replaced with solid black, rubbery flesh. His toes had also extended outward by several inches and the new tentacles seemed to wiggle when he tried to move them. "No... no way..." Serathin stammered, the heart rate monitor beeping faster and louder as he saw his leg tentacles begin to wrap around the bars that were connected to the bed. "Let me go!"

"Mr. Sab-... Serathin, please calm down!" August shouted as the hybrid began to pull against the restraints. "If we have to dose you again you might not come back out of it!"

Serathin heard the doctor's words enough to try and calm down, though he still breathed rapidly despite himself. He looked down to see that the bandage over his gunshot wound had become so saturated with green fluid that it began to slide off of his body and reveal the solid black flesh underneath. While not as bad as his legs his stomach and chest had lost clumps of fur, and that which was still on his body was matted down from the ooze that seemed to come from the infected sections of flesh. As his gaze went further down still he found his groin to be partially exposed, the sheets around it looked as though they were being dissolved, and what he could see of his member had also turned shiny and black.

"I told you not to look." August chided with a sigh.

The hybrid clenched his fists and jumped when he felt several stabbing pains in his palms and fingers. When Serathin looked down he saw his fingers and hands had lost their scales and that the skin between his fingers had begun to knit together. What caused the pain, though, was the shards of bone that grew out of his palms and fingers, forming into wicked spikes that covered the appendage all the way up to his wrist. "Please doc, tell me that this can all be reversed," Serathin pleaded.

"You have to hold out long enough to get here before we can even think about reversing the damage." August replied. "I know you're undergoing a terrible transformation, but if you can stick it out long enough and help us out I will help you in every way I can. Part of that is the research we're doing now, which means you need to stop reacting to your condition and help me."

Serathin tried to take the doctor's words to heart, his heart rate dropping though it continued to remain elevated. He took a deep breath to try and steady himself, only to hear a sickening gurgle in his lungs and as he breathed out a bit of fluid leaked out down the corner of his mouth. "Alright, let's get this over with," he said once he had shaken as much of the liquid off his face as possible.

"Ok then, last time we had tried to get you to reach out and connect to these creatures in order to communicate with them," August explained. "This time we're going to take a little bit more of a passive approach, I want you to try and open yourself and let them try to contact you. I'm hoping this will ease the strain on your body so it will be easier for you to concentrate and prevent you from transforming much more. Go ahead and give it a shot."

In the back of his mind the draconic sabre-wolf wondered how much more he even could change, but he pushed those thoughts back and closed his eyes to concentrate. "Just... open my mind and let them in," Serathin said apprehensively while he took another breath. "Let them communicate with me, I just need to listen... listen... I need to listen..."

On the view screen the Siberian tiger watched intently as Serathin's breathing seemed to slow down, his heart rate doing the same though his brain waves began to increase quite a bit. "I... I still can't see or hear anything," Serathin's voice was hushed as he spoke. "But, there's this feeling I can't shake, like the one I felt the last time we did this."

"Alright, good, can you tell me what this feeling is?" August asked.

"I don't know, but it feels good," Serathin replied, licking his lips despite the green ooze that coated them. "It's strong... but not overwhelming this time. It's building though, I can feel it in my limbs, it's like someone's rubbing against them a hundred times over."

Had the hybrid's eyes been open he could have seen the doctor blush as his maleness began to stiffen, tenting what little of the hospital gown was left before the fabric slid away. August gasped at the sight, unlike the rest of Serathin's body it appeared his groin had completely changed to that of the Bal'Kar. The length of it was lined with glowing green rivulets and otherwise completely jet black, and as the appendage continued to grow it appeared to wiggle and twitch almost independently. There was a beep from the nearby machine as the morphine drip increased a level, as well as the other drugs in the cocktail being fed into the hybrid's body.

"Wait, I can feel something else," Serathin suddenly said, jerking August's attention back. "It's one of those things, a Bal'Kar, I think he wants to help me." Serathin moaned and his hips bucked upwards, something that caused August to turn away for a second. "Yes... he wants to help, he thinks I'm in trouble, that I'm being held captive like he was, like they all were."

"Dear God, he's connected," August said in astonishment, his mouth open slightly agape before he got a hold of himself. "Alright Serathin, what else do you 'feel'?"

"I think... yes, they want to take me with them," Serathin said, though it looked like the hybrid was talking in his sleep now the brainwaves he displayed and the still rock-hard erection proved otherwise. "It's hard to say, it's hard to hear, I think it's because I'm... incomplete." There was another beep from the medication machine, the drip that led to the tube accelerating as the hybrid started to squirm. "He's telling me what I can be, what I should be, what I have to be..."

"Who's telling you this?" August asked, his curiosity laced with concern. "What do they want?"

As Serathin's eyes opened once more the Siberian tiger could see that the golden amber that had been the hybrid's irises were now tinged with a bright green, though the pupil remained the same. "He told me how, he said that I just need to feed myself and I can finally be shown true... lussst..." There were several more beeps from the machine before it finally just read 'MAX' on the display as Serathin leaned forward, arching his hips to try and get his now-huge alien member towards his face.

"Try to regain control, that's not you!" August shouted as he looked down, then leaned off-screen to shout. "Does this not go any higher?! Someone override the delivery system!"

Serathin seemed unable to hear him, his focus completely on his own cock that had begun to drip a green, semi-translucent slime. "If I feed on myself I will be complete." He said, his body shaking against the restraints that had started to buckle. "That's all Neox said I had to do... to join them..."

In the background Serathin could continue to hear August shout something as he owned his maw, his tongue reaching out to touch the glistening member. As he stretched to reach it his already slightly deformed tongue began to turn a bright shade of green, starting at the tip before it slowly flowed backwards towards his mouth. The mutating appendage seemed to lengthen as the color retreated into his maw, the tip of it straining out to just get one taste of that sweet nectar that he was told would be his salvation...

Suddenly someone on the other side of the intercom shouted 'gas him!' and before he knew it a bright blue cloud pushed its way through the oxygen tubes still attached to his face. As soon as the smoke hit Serathin's nostrils the tongue slid back into his mouth, leaving a trail of slime behind as his entire body went slack. A bit of the gas leaked out past his lips as the transforming hybrid fell back onto the bed, which buckled slightly under the force as his muscles went limp.

When it appeared that the saber-wolf was down for the count August sighed and shut down the display, then ran his hands through his slightly sweaty hair. The rest of the scientists, those who were brave enough to stay during the entire session mostly sat down in chairs, either to throw up or to hide the erections or other means of arousal from the others. The only one that seemed to be entirely unaffected was Amaro, who finished writing in his ledger before he shut it with such force that August jumped in his seat.

"Well congratulations Dr. Winters, it appears your theory on psychic interlinks between the Bal'Kar was correct," Major Amaro said. "Even though those eye-controller things haven't even come out yet, which means you could have used the full-strength version of that anti-transformative on him."

"I saw what that stuff that Sarkov used on project Excalibur did, and I think that would defeat the purpose if we took away his means to communicate," August replied with a hint of anger before he turned to one of the researchers. "Speaking of which, I think he was the one that was referred to as trying to help, try and see if there are any unidentified fliers in the area and to get them flagged down as soon as possible. Also I want everyone to take another look at the Sarkov files marked 'Neox', I know he took a lot of them with him when he got the boot, but it appears that his original experiment is driving this show, so he might be the key to all of this."

"Great, and while you're doing that I'll get the fighter jets to neutralize the specimen," Amaro said as he picked up the phone, only to have it slammed down by August as the feline glared at him. "Your experiment is over, August, you got your data and now my people will get to try the new plasma bombs we've been working on in R&D. The other soldiers will evacuate the train and once they're clear ka-boom, no more thief, no more Bal'Kar."

August continued to hold the phone down as Amaro began to glare at him. "We still have a chance of reeling this in," the Siberian tiger explained, "if we can get a compliant Bal'Kar that will continue to interact with us in a controlled environment-"

"Are you kidding me?!" Amaro shouted as he grabbed the phone and threw it. "You really think that you're going to have it stay in that train car after it transforms?! Look at him Dr. Winters, he's broken! One of them now! That car will not be able to contain him and you won't be able to tranquilize him next time, hell you were hardly able to put him under this time!"

"This is my facility, Amaro!" August shouted back. "I have final say when this experiment gets aborted and that's not now!"

"Um, sirs?" one of the facility coordinators said meekly.

"WHAT!?" both angry anthros turned and shouted at the same time, which caused the female to back up slightly and put the clipboard she was holding in front of her defensively.

"We've just entered into the red zone," she managed to report. "If we don't roll back the military convoy that's following the train, we're going to attract attention."

"Damnit, that came up sooner than we thought," August said as he picked up the remote, switching the main screen from the image of the sleeping male to the view of the train's route. The dot blinked at the edge of a circle that was marked in red, then continued to penetrate inwards. "Call off the jets, tell them to go and refuel then rendezvous with the train on the other side of the zone. Keep a sat feed on the train at all times, if we don't see any movement immediately then our precaution to stay out of the news will turn into a very real disaster. Any non-essential personnel take leave, if our subject wakes up again we may only have one last run at him."

Everyone began to file out of the room aside from several people at the computer banks, including August as he walked out into his room. Once he got into the privacy of his own space he collapsed on the ground, his adrenaline unable to keep him up anymore. To him it felt like he stared into the very heart of madness, seeing the hybrid transform like that, lose himself to the monster that grew within him. He was so distraught that he failed to hear someone knock at the door, followed by its opening slowly.

"Dr. Winters, I have those reports you asked- August!" Nate shouted as he dropped the blank sheets of paper and ran over to the trembling tiger. "Oh my god, what happened?"

August proceeded to explain as Nate helped him off the floor, sitting him down on the bed instead. The tiger told the other feline everything, from the things he heard Serathin say to the point where they had to use the knock-out gas and then Amaro's decision to try and sterilize the experiment. More than once August had begun to cry, and Nate began to rock him back and forth to try and comfort him. Finally, after many scattered tissues and some beer that Nate had smuggled into the base the panther just sat there wide-eyed at the story.

"Well, I guess it's good that the thief got infected first," Nate said with a sigh. "If it had gotten here and the experiment would have proceeded then-"

"I don't want to think about it," August replied, rubbing his arms. "You should have seen his face, even though it wasn't transformed you could see that he was being taken over. If it had gotten here it would have at least saved a life, now someone is suffering because of me."

"Because of us," Nate corrected as he squeezed the tiger's hand. "Don't forget the reason that we even came up with this plan in the first place."

"Yeah, the lengths we go through to protect the ones we love," August replied, the two resting their heads against each other. "I used to think that being a Bal'Kar would be better than being dead, now I'm not so sure."

Nate sighed and held August tight, then the two kissed deeply for a while before they broke apart and looked down at the floor. "So the red zone, huh?" the panther commented. "Looks like Amaro won't get his way unless Serathin tries to break out, blowing up a train where everyone can see it is mighty suspicious, and we're under the media gun after Houston."

"Yeah, I suppose," August replied. "Now we just have to worry about the potential biological nightmare that's being hurdled across the desert that's now within a hundred miles of one the most densely populated cities in the country."

"Well, it is a gamble..." Nate said, the tiniest of smiles on his face. "What better city to do it with than Las Vegas?"