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Aquatic Ambience

By TheSilverSeryn

Author's Note: Simply put, I'm going to try to use a special version of one of my trademark characters that one of my friends and I came up with at one point. Enjoy!

As I pulled into the parking lot of the west section of Green Lake's many beaches, I grabbed my fishing pole, tackle box and a water cooler before heading down to the end of the dock to see what I could catch. I usually came down here every now and then just to see if I could catch something off of the dock, but that area was pretty crowded at times with other would-be-fishermen. But this time, I had managed to convince my dad to let me use his fishing boat so that I could go out onto the open water so I could try a bit more "honest" fishing.

Some of Dad's fishing things were already on the boat, so I wasn't completely on my own this time. I still found it odd to be fishing on a completely different lake than the one I lived on over 20 miles away. Then again, this was the closest lake for my dad to work with and my lake was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so this one was a bit more convenient for him. And as soon as I had loaded my things onto the boat, I started it up and motored it out towards a secluded area of the lake. I had heard that there were plenty of Northerns hiding in that area, so I decided to see what was out there. Once I had reached the swampy, reed-strewn area, I brought my boat to a halt, loaded up my rod with a minnow and cast it out to see what I could catch.

After a while, though, I didn't seem to be catching anything. I hadn't had so much as a nibble in over an hour and I was strongly considering just packing it up for now and heading home. Usually by now I would have at least had a bite, but so far, the bobber hadn't even budged in over an hour.

But something told me that what I was looking for wasn't around the reeds but was actually in the reeds. I wasn't sure how I knew this, but I decided to take that chance and cast out into the algae-covered area surrounding each of the reeds. I was risking my good hooks and line, but a nagging suspicion told me that I was right on the money this time.

However, I ended up getting in over my head when I snagged my line on something in the algae. I didn't appear to have hit anything, but there was something that wasn't allowing me to pull it back as easily as before. I gave it a few firm tugs, but it seemed that I was caught on something. I was just about to give up and cut the line when I gave it one more firm yank and the line came free from its snag. Even more amazing was that I appeared to have hooked something heavy in the reeds that wasn't really putting up much of a fight. Wondering if it was just some garbage, I decided to reel it in and see what it was anyway.

But by the time I had gotten the item over to the boat, the cleaner water had managed to wash off some of the algae and I was left with a rather unusual item on my line. Judging from the amount of blue and green on it, it appeared to be the body of a dead animal, but I couldn't recall ever seeing a creature like that before. I pulled the corpse over to the boat and leaned over to see what it was.

I could make out a large amount of deep-sea-blue scales on the creature's skin, which suggested that it was some kind of fish. However, there were several sea-green "fins" on the creature that seemed a bit too... big for a normal fish. And as I moved some of the fins covering its body away from me, I suddenly recoiled when I saw it move! It was faint, but it moved enough to suggest that it was still alive. I had never seen such an unusual creature before, but Common Sense told me to leave it where it was. But when I located its head and turned it to look at me, something seemed to contradict that. The creature's eyes were barely open, which suggested that it wasn't a fish. It had a kind of "frill" around its neck that was comprised of a number of yellow-green spines and jade-green webbing. It had a small, beak-like muzzle with a pair of pointed fangs sticking up out of the roofs on the sides of its mouth. I could see a small, round, flat, pink tongue inside it since its mouth was partly open. On top of its head was a kind of "mane" of what appeared to be jade-green-colored "head fur" that kind of reminded me of the hairdos you saw in those "Dragonball Z" cartoons. And on the sides of its head was a pair of fin-shaped "ears". I also spotted a pair of small but functional jagged gills on either side of its neck just above its frill but behind its "ears". This suggested that it probably wasn't a good idea to let it stay out of the water, but I couldn't help myself right now.

Moving down its body, I noticed that the creature had an oddly buff build to it. There was a kind of "underside" of moss-green scales that ran from under its frilled neck, down its front, between all four of its legs and down to the tip of its tail, which had leaf-shaped fins on the tip kind of like a mermaid. Its upper two "paws" (since it kind of resembled a mammalian creature) had a set of moss-green pads with a set of three yellow-green talons and a fourth opposable "thumbclaw" on the corresponding sides kind of like a human. There was also another set of jade-green webbing between all of its talons, giving them a "finned" look. Its "footpaws" each had three more webbed talons on them, but they appeared to be more "flipper-like" than its front ones. They kind of resembled the flippers that humans put on when they wanted to go swimming or scuba-diving but more... "natural" since they were on a "living" creature.

But what was the most intriguing part of it was what was growing out of its back. They kind of resembled "wings" in the shape of a kind of "fan" with the "spines" being a bit longer than the webbing. However, there was a rather curious "quirk" about it since I counted not one but two pairs of these unusual fans on the upper and lower parts of its back. I was unsure of the true function of these "wings", but then again, it wasn't like I could read the creature's mind.

The creature was only about ten inches tall from the top of its head down to its finned feet, which allowed me to hold it in my hands like a tiny child. I was unsure if the creature was alive, but I figured that I probably wasn't helping by keeping it out of the water. But as I made to put it back in the water, it seemed to indicate that it didn't really need to be in water to survive. I saw it open its eyes ever so slightly and then turn its head to look up at me. I couldn't see most of its eye areas, but I could tell that there was a faint glimmer of intelligence behind them. This creature seemed to be very intelligent, but it wasn't really in a very healthy state right now. And just as I was about to let it slip back into the water, it seemed to "frown" and let out a small, pleading, chirp-like sound as if begging me not to leave it. I suddenly realized that this creature was probably only an infant given its size. And since it didn't appear to be thriving, its parents were probably long gone, which meant that it was on its own. My heart went out to the little creature and I pulled it back into the boat before holding it up to look at it. I then decided to see if it was intelligent enough to understand me.

"Hey little guy... can you hear me?"

The creature was so weak that it wasn't able to move its head enough to nod, but it let out a weak squeal that was enough for me to figure that it could understand me. Realizing that it was probably at Death's Door, I made the fateful decision to take it back with me and see if I couldn't nurse it back to health. If I was lucky, I could let it swim around in the lake by my house.

But for now, I needed to get it back in the water whether it wanted to or not. I carried it over to the cooler that I had planned on carrying my fish in, but would have to work for now. I let it slip into the water, which seemed to get some of the life back into its body. It spun around in the water and propped itself up along the edge of the cooler. It looked at me with its twinkling eyes, which had finally opened to their fullest and were now looking at me with renewed life and happiness. Oddly enough, its eyes didn't seem to be built like most other aquatic creatures. For one thing, it had eyelids, which ruled out the face that it was a fish of some kind. Another thing was that its pupils and sea-green irises blended so finely together that it was hard to tell where either one ended and the other began. They had their own special light and life to them that no other living creature seemed to possess. They were also filled with a rare kind of intellect that told me that this was a very bright creature and needed to be treated as such.

Now that the creature was in a rather cleaner environment, it seemed to be full of renewed live and vigor. For no particular reason, it dipped below the surface of the water and then leaped high into the air with a rather impressive flip and twist before splashing back down into the water and then looking up at me again.

I couldn't help but chuckle at it. "I take it you feel better now?"

The creature twittered shrilly and rolled onto its back to backstroke through the water as far as it could go. It seemed to be thanking me for bringing it back to life, which was the least that I could do.

Since it seemed smart enough to understand and respond to my questions, I decided to ask it a couple simple questions. "How does this sound? I've got a lake back home with slightly cleaner water than this. Would you like to come home with me?"

The creature twittered and yapped a few times as if it was agreeing with me before it started to climb out of the cooler. "Whoa, slow down there. I don't want you dry yourself out again."

However, it either didn't mind or it didn't care because it climbed up on the edge of the cooler and then leaped right at me. I reacted clean out of instinct and caught it in my arms as it seemed to nuzzle its muzzle into my chest. It seemed to be rather affectionate, but that was nothing compared to how it felt. Oddly enough, it wasn't slimy like a fish and its "spines" weren't as sharp as I had expected. Instead, its scaly skin was smooth and polished as if it had been some kind of oiled silk, emphasis on "oiled". Its spines were also significantly softer than the ones on a fish in a way that they didn't poke me in any painful way and felt like they were merely made of cotton instead of bone or cartilage. Add that to the satin-like feel of the webbing in-between all of its spines and this creature was certainly much softer overall than it should have been.

(Author's Note: FYI, it's been a long time since I used an actual flesh-and-blood creature instead of something Synthetic-based, so consider this a rare treat.)

The creature seemed to warm up to me both emotionally and physically. Its smooth-scaled body seemed to be generating its own internal heat, which wasn't really normal for fish. This seemed to further prove that I either had a hybrid creature or a completely new creature in my arms altogether. It also seemed to show me some pretty warm admiration since it seemed to be making a deep, twittering purr as it rubbed its head up against my chest. I had to admit that it was kind of cute and cuddly and that it certainly didn't feel the way that it looked. It seemed like a shame to just leave it here, so I finally decided that I would take it home with me. Chances were that if it had been suffering in that algae to the point that it was barely alive, its parents were probably long gone, fish or not.

The creature finally looked up at me with a sweet, frictionless smile that stretched between each of its finned ears, its pointed pearl-white fangs glittering in the afternoon sun. However, there was something about that smile that seemed to jumpstart a memory deep in my mind regarding a creature that I had seen before that was similar but not exactly identical to it. I remembered seeing a face like this on the Internet, but I couldn't recall what it looked like or what its name was. All I could remember was that I had seen it before and that was that.

Running a finger over its glossy head fur, I asked it an honest question. "Would you like to come home with me, little guy?"

The creature's eyes seemed to sparkle with admiration as it chirped and nodded nobly. It seemed to understand me enough that it could answer whatever "yes or no" questions that I threw at it. And when it shifted it position in my arms so that it was lying on its back like an infant child, I couldn't help but laugh at its cute demeanor.

"All right then, but until I know otherwise, you're going to have to stay in the water, okay? I don't want you drying up while you're in my care."

The creature made an odd trilling noise that seemed to come out through the pairs of jagged gills on its neck instead of through its mouth, which was a bit different than what I had seen creatures with gills do before. It seemed to be agreeing with me, so I smiled and then lowered it back down into the cooler to let it swim around a little while I started the boat before motoring back to the dock to head for home. The creature didn't seem to want to stay in the water for very long and I had to repeatedly pick it up off of the boat's floor and put it back in the cooler with another concerned remark. I was beginning to believe that it was amphibious in nature, but I didn't want to take any chances until I got back home.

I drove home with the cooler in my back seat. The creature had gotten so daring that at one time, it climbed out of the cooler and tumbled down an extra foot or so from the seat onto my SUV's floor before walking up to the front seat and climbing onto it like a curious dog. When it got to that point, I finally decided to just let it be since it obviously didn't mind being out of the water for extended periods of time. It was rather curious and playful because it eventually propped itself up against the passenger's side window and watched the world go by, its head darting back and forth as it followed something that we passed before finding something else to watch.

Finally, I pulled into the driveway of the only house that I knew of that was on this particular lake. As I did so, the creature seemed to notice the lake behind the trees behind my house and let out a sharp, harmonic shrill that not only made me feel good, but it also sounded oddly familiar as well. I was sure that I had heard that particular sound somewhere before, but I couldn't remember what creature it belonged to.

"Well, my little fishy," I said as I scooped up the creature and exited the vehicle. "Here we are: home sweet home."

The creature didn't appear to like being called a "fish" because it pulled an annoyed frown at me when I said the word and blew a small but distinct raspberry. I realized that this creature had honest feelings like humans did and seemed to know what it was being called.

"Sorry. I just don't know what to call you right now. I think I have an idea, though. Do you want to go in the lake for a while or do you want to come in the house for a little bit?"

The creature looked from the house to the lake on the bottom of the small cliff that my patio rested on before letting out a small yip in the direction of the house. It seemed to have made up its mind, so I guessed it was the house for both of us.

Once we were inside the small cabin that functioned as my house, I set the creature down on the floor and watched as it began to meander around the living room/kitchen in search of some new adventure. Meanwhile, I had gone to my room to grab a large binder full of pictures that I had downloaded off of the Internet and brought it back out to look them over in the living room. True, these pictures were of various creatures and characters that didn't exist in this world, but I couldn't help feeling that I had seen something like this creature somewhere in there. It didn't appear to be a Pokémon or a Digimon, and it didn't ring any bells in terms of being a dragon. It obviously wasn't a furry, but I wasn't ruling that out.

I had over 1000 pictures of over 800+ different characters, but there seemed to be only one that it seemed to resemble. Oddly enough, the creature in question happened to be a furry instead of an aquatic creature, but when I saw that trademark fanged smile, I knew that I had found part of my answer.

Just by comparison, the creature seemed to resemble some kind of Flammie, which was a unique mythological beast exclusive to the "World of Mana" video game series. Ironically, I had played a number of those games and even owned the most detailed of them known as "Dawn of Mana". To date, it was the only true 3D game in the series, which was passed on to Flammie, who had appeared in a few of the cutscenes in unbelievable detail. Even more coincidental was that I suddenly remembered that the Flammie in the game had made a sound virtually identical to the one that the previously unknown creature had made while we were pulling into the driveway.

And now that I compared the two of them together, I saw that this was far more than just a mere coincidence. Flammie and the creature shared similar characteristics just by sight alone. They both had the anime-style mane of head fur on their heads, their faces were virtually identical, including their eyes, smile and fangs, they were both quadrupedal with more digits on their forepaws instead of on their feet, the "plating" on their undersides was similar and I counted four "wings" on each of them despite the different shape.

There were also a couple of key differences between them that clearly set them apart. For one, their ears were different since Flammie's resembled a deer's while the creature's looked like little fins. The shape and composition of their wings was also different since Flammie's looked angelic and had feathers whereas my friend's resembled fans with spines and webbing. It also had some webbing in-between its talons on all of its paws while Flammie's were completely free. Its tail also had a mermaid-like flare to it while Flammie's was pretty much normal. There was also the difference between the plating on their fronts since one had rugged, leathery, goldenrod-orange plates while the other had a fine layer of fine, jade-green scales. The fact that one had either creamy-yellow or pure-white fur while the other had smooth, deep-sea-blue, scale-like skin was also evident. There was also the fact that the creature had gills and preferred to live in water and on land while Flammie was like the lord of the skies. I couldn't tell if it could fly or even if it had any powers like Flammie's pink, energy-beam-like attack that I had personally dubbed its "Flammie Breath", but then again, given its size, it was probably just an infant and, therefore, far too young to be dabbling in such powerful moves.

Almost everything about the creature seemed to suggest that it wasn't a Flammie, but I couldn't think of any other reason why it was this similar in appearance. All of its physical characteristics contradicted the possibility that it was a Flammie, but then again, it had to be. Amphibious or not, I couldn't rule out the fact that it had to be a Flammie. But then again... maybe I could further prove or disprove it with one question.

The creature had found its way onto the couch and was watching me look at my pictures like a curious cat. I was amazed that it had been there for quite a while, but I decided to put this to rest once and for all. Turning to it, I asked it one more question point-blank.

"Say, little guy, can you tell me... are you a Flammie?" And to give it an idea, I pointed to one of the pictures of Flammie that I had in my book.

The suspected Flammie followed my finger and looked long and hard at the picture before turning its head and looking back at one of its extended "wings" before finally looking up at me and nodding. This finally seemed to prove that I had a strange breed of Flammie in my possession, but it was obviously still a Flammie. And to show my thanks for it confirming this, I reached between its collar and under its chin and gave it a little skritch as if thanking it.

"Thank you so much. Now I can sleep a little better knowing what you are. I just have one more question for you." The newly-confirmed "Flammie" looked intently at me. "Are you a boy or a girl Flammie?" And to give it an idea of what to say, I pointed to myself when I said "boy".

It took a moment for it to answer, but it finally gestured to me with a webbed paw before shaking its head and blowing a small but unnecessary raspberry. This was a little different, but it was enough for me to figure out that it was a female, although it was impossible to tell just by looking at it.

Now that I knew "her" gender, I began thinking of a suitable name to give her. Remarkably, only one decent name seemed to come to my head as though it was specially made for her.

"How about I call you "Seryn"?" I said, running my hand over its glossy mane. "How does that sound?"

At this, the Flammie smiled and let out the same harmonious shrill that I had heard in the game and in real life while she spread all four of her wings and pushed herself into a proud standing position for a few moments. This seemed to finalize it. The mysterious water creature was a new breed of female Flammie that now answered to the name "Seryn". That was all the closure that I needed to be happy.

"Okay, "Seryn"..." I said, holding out my hand to shake her paw. "Welcome to the family." Seryn smiled and gently took a couple of my fingers with her small paw before shaking them in response.

Now that I had given her a name and figured out what she was, I began to wonder what to do with her. I was sure that an "Aquatic Flammie" had a million-and-one uses to a human like me, but I wasn't quite sure what to do first.

Seryn seemed to have an idea, though, because she seemed to be eyeing my right hand for a few moments as if she was planning something before she suddenly grinned in a rather wicked way. Before I knew what had hit me, Seryn had lunged forward and had sunk her fangs into my hand just below my thumb joint. She seemed to have an extra set of fangs somewhere in her mouth because I felt the two noticeable ones on top and a couple of the ones in her jaw pierce the flesh and drive themselves deep into my palm.

But before I could even recoil in pain and as quickly as she had done it, Seryn released me and slid backwards to watch the results of her work. It was over before I knew it and all I had to show for it was a stinging pain in my hand and the feeling of stunned shock over what had happened.

"OW!!! Seryn! What did you do that for?" I yelled, stuffing my hand into my shirt to stop the bleeding. Seryn merely looked at me with that frictionless smile on her face as though nothing had happened.

I glared at the Flammie, who didn't even flinch, before the responsibility of being an owner came over me. With a frown and a growl, I scooped up Seryn in my good hand and began carrying her out of the house. She didn't try to fight me as I pried open the door with my still-stinging hand and set her on the front step.

"I don't know why you did that, but you should know better than to bite your owner! And I know you're not a dog or a cat, but you're still my pet, so you can stay outside and think this over until I feel that you're ready to come back in! But just to make sure..."

I went over to the side and grabbed a length of rope attached to a peg in the ground left behind by a previous owner before tying it around Seryn's neck so that she didn't go anywhere while she thought this over. All the while, that trademark smile didn't waver in the slightest. It was as if Seryn was proud of what she had done and was currently gloating in her accomplishments.

Once I was sure that she was secure, I went back inside and went to fetch the first-aid kit that I kept above the fridge. I wasn't sure if Seryn's bite was poisonous given her descent, but I didn't want to take any chances. I wanted to get it disinfected before I made the decision to head in to the emergency room.

Amazingly, by the time I had gotten the hydrogen peroxide and the bandages out, the bite appeared to have already healed over, leaving behind just two pencil-sized white scars on either side of my hand around my thumb joint. It had quit burning, too, which seemed to tell me that it wasn't neurotoxic. But I wasn't taking any chances. I cleaned and bandaged it up before getting my things to head to the hospital.

As I passed by Seryn on my way to my SUV, who was still on the front step where I had left her, I remembered that Seryn was amphibious and needed to be around water if she was going to survive. And since she was tethered up and far from any decent water source, I was pretty much condemning her on the spot. So out of respect and guilt, I grabbed the cooler of water from the back seat of my car and brought it over to Seryn before telling her some serious instructions.

"I don't know what you did to me, but I'm going to the hospital to check it out. I'm leaving you here, but if you need water, just hop back in this cooler until I get back. It shouldn't be very long, but if it is, I'll call someone to come take care of you." I seriously hoped that it didn't have to come to that. Not only would I have to explain all about Seryn existing in the first place, but I would also be setting up someone I knew for another potentially poisonous bite.

So with some heavy reluctance, I hopped in my vehicle and sped away towards town, hoping and praying that Seryn's bite was not venomous and that I would be sent home with a clean bill of health.

A strange thing happened to me on the way there. While my injured hand was on the steering wheel, I suddenly saw that the area around the bite had turned a deep, dark blue almost identical to Seryn's scales. Not only that, but the skin around it had gotten oddly flaky/scaly as if the "venom" was kicking in at last. What happened next was even more startling. The blue area suddenly seemed to take off up my arm like a miniature wave of blue that spread like a small, portable "Wave". The sensation spread all over my body and felt like I was getting hit with goosebumps, but for some reason, as soon as the wave passed any part of me, it left behind perfectly normal human skin in its wake as though nothing had happened at all. It didn't seem to travel past my neck, though, but when it reached that part, I suddenly felt rather lightheaded as if I had stood up too fast again. When it was over, all that was left that showed what had happened was me feeling distinctly chilly without any sign of the blue or the scales at all. And eventually, that chill passed just as quickly as it had happened.

I could recall only one other instance in my life where I had seen something like that happen, and it was kind of a long shot by itself. It had been in the first "Hulk" movie where Bruce Banner's father had been experimenting with himself and had ended up infusing his body with (presumably) starfish DNA. The initial effect was that a small portion of his hand had taken on the color and texture of a starfish, but that had been only been temporary before he had gained the ability to turn his body into a living chameleon and become any material that he touched, including the lightning and ice storm at the end of the movie. And in my case, the effect had passed all over my body like a miniature wave, but I didn't feel any different. My hand was still the same texture and material as it had always been and everything was still the same color. Apart from a slight chill, I hadn't felt any difference in my body composition or texture to suggest that I had been infected with something. I finally made the choice to only tell the doctors about it if they found that I had been poisoned and the worst came to worst. At the very worst, I would probably die from the poisoning since it was highly unlikely that anyone anywhere had any anti-venom made from Seryn's species and she would probably be discovered and turned into an experimental specimen for the government. So I really hoped that nothing was wrong with me, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

When I reached the emergency room, I made up the story that I had found a snake while walking through the woods near my house and I had ended up on the wrong end of its fangs. I lied that I couldn't remember what it looked like, but I strongly suggested that they test me for poison anyway just to be safe. However, I couldn't explain how the bite wound had already scarred over but the skin around the area was still a little red, but fortunately, they didn't pursue the matter. They took a sample of my blood for testing and hooked me up to a machine with an IV drip just to make sure.

It took well over 30 minutes for the test to come back, not to mention the 20 minutes it had taken me to get there from my house, but lo and behold, there didn't appear to be anything wrong with me. My vital signs were normal, my hand was still intact, albeit a tad swollen and there was no trace of any organic poison anywhere in my system. It seemed that either Seryn's bite contained a poison that was physically and scientifically untraceable or she just wasn't venomous at all. But that still didn't explain the strange event that I had witnessed on my way here. Something told me that Seryn knew more than she was letting on about this and I was probably screwed anyway, but there wasn't anything more that medical science could do for me, so I had no choice but to head back home to confront Seryn with my suspicions.

The return trip was completely uneventful and when I pulled into my driveway, I was greeted by the sight of Seryn sitting on a stump next to the driveway waiting for me. I was amazed that she had gotten off of her leash despite how thick the rope was and that she wasn't anywhere near the water I had left for her to soak in.

As soon as I parked, Seryn came trotting over to me and parked herself at my feet before looking at me with an unchanged smile. She seemed to have absolutely no remorse for biting me and obviously felt justified in what she had done. But maybe I was giving her too much credit. She might have been rare and smart, but she was still an animal.

But at that particular moment, Seryn's smile turned upside-down and she blew another frustrated raspberry at me for seemingly no reason. It took me a moment to realize that she had done that at the exact moment that I had been thinking of her as an animal. And sure enough, when this was "brought up" again, she let out a loud, obnoxious wail as if I had verbally insulted her. And it was that second reaction that made me assume the impossible. And to prove it, I thought of the question instead of speaking it.

Seryn... can you hear my thoughts?

Unbelievably, Seryn nodded without me saying a word. This seemed to confirm that she had obtained some kind of telepathic abilities, but why did they appear now, of all times? I had been thinking of numerous things about her thus far that she would have likely found insulting to her species, but why was she making such a fuss about it now?

To answer this, Seryn reached up around her neck with her paw and felt around it above her frilled collar before reaching up towards my own neck with the same paw. On a hunch, I reached up and felt around my neck, wondering what she could have done to me to gain unwanted access to my mind. I couldn't feel any kind of collar like the one that she had on, but there was definitely something there. There seemed to be an inch-thick ring of something that felt like smooth scales similar to Seryn's around my neck as if the skin there had been changed to take on the same texture and consistency as hers. I wasn't sure if the color had changed, but it was good enough for me. At least it kind of explained the faint dizzy spell that I had suffered moments after the scales had spread from my hand to all over my body. Although, this seemed to confirm that Seryn had literally mess with my head when she had bitten me. However, given the range that the scales had covered, I doubted that that was the extent of the damage.

Feeling rather violated, I looked down at Seryn with a hurt expression while massaging the smooth but scaly ring around my neck. "Seryn... why? I took you in and offered to take care of you... and you have the guts to bite me and then intrude on my most private of thoughts. The way this is going, I don't think I can keep you around if this is the way that you want to treat me."

I was sure that Seryn didn't need to read my mind to know just how much she had damaged my trust in her, but it was still a surprise to see Seryn's smile fade into a look of frightened guilt and she hung her head as if she knew she was in trouble. She then walked closer to me with her head hung and gently rubbed against my leg as if trying to make up for it. She finally seemed genuinely sorry for what she had done and I felt sure that she hadn't meant to violate me so deeply.

"Hey..." I said, lightly tipping her head up so that she could look at me with those bottomless sea-green eyes. "I'm not mad at you. In fact, I've read all about cases like this where a dominant animal binds themselves to a defenseless human. But given how much you seem to care about your actions, I'm sure that you really don't mean to push your limits. I just wish that you could have at least warned me about this before you did it. And if you had found some way to explain it to me, I probably would have agreed with you anyway." When Seryn still looked visibly shaken up, I knew that she was having a hard time believing me. "Seryn... I mean it, too. Not all the cases that I read about ended badly for the human involved, and I trust you enough that you won't overdo it. Just look at me and tell me that you believe me. You can even look into my mind if you want; I really don't mind."

But Seryn didn't need to look into my mind again to know that I was dead-serious about this. So with a slight sniffle, Seryn's smile slowly returned and she began to purr again as she rubbed her head up against my leg while I continued to skritch her.

"See? I told you you can trust me. And I trust you, too, so let's try this again. I'm guessing you haven't had anything to eat yet, right."

Amazingly as if right on cue, Seryn's eyes suddenly bulged out for a split-second as I heard her stifle a rumbling belch in her mouth instead of letting it fly right in my face. And when she opened her mouth to air it out, I detected a faint smell of fish wafting from it, which told me that she had probably just eaten, which meant that she had already been down to the lake since I had left, which also meant that she had probably gotten off of her leash with relative ease after I had left.

"I guess you have. Did you enjoy your swim?" Seryn purred and let out a happy yip, which was more than enough to confirm that she had enjoyed her time in the lake. "I thought so. But I still have to eat, so I hope you don't mind."

As I stood up, Seryn suddenly took off down the lawn and soon reached the patio before leaping clear over the edge of the small cliff before disappearing over the edge. Suddenly worried about her from such a hasty action, I ran after her and stopped short of the stairs that led down to the small beach below. Amazingly, I didn't see a broken carcass on the sand or the dock at the bottom of the cliff, but I did see a long, rippling trail tearing through the water at an alarming rate of speed before stopping a small ways away from the dock before turning to look up at me. Seryn could obviously tell that I was watching her from up here and showed that she was okay by doing yet another clear flip and twist out of the water before swimming off again. The lake wasn't nearly as big as Green Lake, but it was free of reeds, algae spots and lily pads, which seemed to be just what Seryn needed to swim happily on her own. And since she had already returned after swimming once, I trusted her to come back later on when she was done this time.

So for now, I went into the house to make myself some supper for my own consumption. All the while, I could feel a faint trickle of a second presence in the back of my mind that told me that Seryn was watching over me, no matter how far away she was at any given time. And out of curiosity for what she did down there, I set a plate of noodles and leftover meatloaf and brought it down to the end of the long dock below my patio and sat on the small bench built into a spot at the end. And I had barely sat down before I was greeted by the sight of a small frilled head sticking up out of the water to look at me as I ate.

I couldn't help but chuckle at the cute face looking at me. "Hey, stranger. Are you having fun?"

To answer this, Seryn pulled off another flip on the water before landing with a impressive flourish on the dock again. She was really something else.

While I ate, Seryn sat at my side and curled up to go to sleep, which I didn't blame her for in the slightest. She had had a long day of nearly dying and then meeting me and going through everything else we did to date. She deserved a break after a day like today. I ate my meal in silence while keeping an eye on the Flammie just out of curiosity. And when I was done, she stayed behind while I headed back up to the house to clean up.

For most of the rest of the night, I played the Wii that had found left behind when I had moved in. Whoever had lived here last had obviously disappeared without a trace, but it was mine now and their choice of games wasn't half-bad. I was playing some Sonic Unleashed for most of the time, but when I had eventually had enough and shut it off, I realized that Seryn hadn't returned. To date, she hadn't been away from me for this long before, which naturally concerned me since she was just an infant. Out of concern for her, I went back out to the dock and called out for her to come back.

"Seryn...! SER-YN!!! Seryn, come! It's Alex! I'm sorry I left you out here, but I thought you would be just fine down here. Come back, please!"

I waited... and waited... but Seryn did not come. And given how good her hearing probably was underwater, I didn't see why she couldn't hear me. I couldn't even sense her in the back of my mind, either, even though the scaled collar around my neck was still there. I was worried that she had just ditched me, but she just didn't seem like the kind of being that would just walk out on someone that they had already bonded with (literally).

But despite me calling out to her over and over again, she still didn't come back. It seemed that she really had left me. I felt like my whole life was falling apart without her even though she had only been in my life for a few hours. It was as if she had taken a part of my soul with her and I was falling apart emotionally without her. So with a broken heart, I forced myself to head back up to my house and just call it a night. And as soon as I climbed into bed and turned out the lights, the full gravity of what had happened hit me and I broke down and cried into my pillow for well over an hour before I eventually cried myself to sleep. I couldn't believe it; Seryn was really gone...

...

...

...or was she? I woke up late into the night when I heard the front door rattle and open. I froze in spot as I listened to the unknown intruder walk through the living room/kitchen barrier before entering the small hallway where both bedrooms and the bathroom were located. I didn't dare breathe as I heard the doorknob roll and the door opened without me having anything to do with it. And when the door closed after the mysterious figure entered my room, I was suddenly afraid for my life, which only got worse as I heard the figure take its place at the side of my bed. And amazingly, I heard it speak as if it knew that I was awake.

"Are you still awake, Alex?" The voice was soft, sweet and oddly shimmering like the kind of voice that you only heard in your dreams. There was also a kind of other-worldly distortion to it as if it was being spoken from space or from underwater. Strangely enough, it was feminine and oddly familiar as if I had heard it before, but I couldn't remember where I had heard it or if I had heard it at all. All I knew was that it was vaguely familiar and it was the kind of voice that could likely destroy evil dreams with just a few words.

Since the voice had calmed my frayed nerves and made me feel more comfortable in the dark, I whispered in the dark, "Yes. I just woke up."

The voice seemed to make a soft, purring "mmm" noise as I felt something smooth and firm touch me on the side of the face. "I'm sorry that I didn't come when you called. I was undergoing a bit of "training" and I couldn't be disturbed or I would have to start all over again. I promise you that it shouldn't have to happen again and that I can spend as much time with you as I possibly can. And in the morning, I'll have a few more tricks to show you that I learned while I was out."

The figure lightly stroked my cheek with a silky-smooth texture to it, which made me feel somewhat better about the figure's absence. I could even detect a faint smell of something that reminded me of the ocean and fresh-cut grass, both of which were rather pleasant on the nostrils.

Just then, the figure spoke again. "Would you mind if I slept with you tonight? I'm sure you'll have a hard time falling asleep again without me."

It had a point, which I accepted without any regrets whatsoever. "Yes, please. I don't want you to leave me again."

The figure purred as it leaned in close to me enough that I could smell an oddly-familiar scent of fish on its breath. "I won't leave you again, I promise. Now just relax and go to sleep. When you wake up, I will be here for you."

It then climbed into bed and slid under the covers before gently wrapping me in what felt like a thin, leathery blanket. I felt my head being lightly pressed up against it as it gently massaged the back of my head and purred constantly in its throat. The creature's mere presence as well as its throaty purr and its constant stroking soon had me falling asleep again as if I had never woken up in the first place. And as I passed into the Dream Realm, I faintly heard the creature whisper one more thing to me that finally clinched it.

"Good night... my love..."

When I woke up the following morning, I had very little memory of what had happened just hours earlier. It had all seemed like a super-real dream that had fallen apart when I had woken up. All I could remember was the cool, spiritual and otherworldly tone of the voice that had spoken to me and the feeling of pure warmth and comfort as it had curled up next to me, but apart from that, there was little for me to go on. But it all seemed to be just a dream because the figure was gone and I was still without Seryn by my side. My eyes were still sore from having cried myself out last night. I had to wonder if my life would ever get back on the right page now that Seryn was gone, but I knew that I had to get on with my life anyway.

With a heavy heart and sigh, I climbed out of bed and got dressed before heading out into the living room to try to start my day. But almost immediately, I realized that I was not alone. There was another figure in my kitchen that seemed to be in the process of cooking breakfast. There was a smell of eggs and fried fish in the air as it cooked away with its back to me.

Amazingly, the creature wasn't Seryn, but it was just as unusual as she was. It actually appeared that it was a dolphin of some kind except that it was on land and appeared to have a pair of human-like arms and legs growing out of their respective places in addition to its thick, bladed fluke and the small dorsal fin on its back.

But what was really odd was the dolphin's color. Normal bottlenosed dolphins were usually a series of shades of gray, but this one happened to be a deep-sea-blue all over its body with a paler underside from what I could see. Not only was the blue oddly familiar, but there was a long, jade-green stripe that ran from just below the blowhole on the top of its head all the way down to the blades on its tail, the shape of which was a little different even for me. The dolphin wasn't wearing anything and I could see that its waist was a tad slimmer than most anthropomorphic dolphins that I had seen on the Internet. Its feet were mostly plantigrade with only three long, webbed toes on them and its hands had four fingers on them with a similar series of webbing. Most dolphins or aquatic anthro creatures that I had seen or read about online were usually male, so seeing a female one, much less a blue-and-green one was truly something else.

As the "dolphiness" cooked away at the stove, I stood several yards away in silence and watched it work. I wasn't sure what to say. I had just lost one aquatic in my life and almost immediately, another on had just barged in to take her place. In my opinion, this was as bizarre as it was inappropriate. I hadn't even had enough time to get over the loss of one friend and I was already having to deal with another.

Finally, I found my tongue and called out to confront the intruding phin. "Hey! What are you doing in here? You know, it's not really polite to just walk in and start monkeying with my stuff so early in the morning."

The dolphin set down the spatula that "she" had been working with and turned around to look at me with a trademark dolphinic grin. "Now is that any way to talk to someone who never really left you in the first place?" Its voice was a little high and squeaky, but for some reason, there was something else in it that seemed oddly familiar; I just couldn't put a name to it.

"What are you talking about? I don't know you, and the nearest decent habitat for dolphins is in the Minnesota Zoo almost 200 miles from here."

The dolphin's smile turned into a grin of slight mischief. "Whoever said that I was a dolphin in the first place? Just look at me. How many blue and green dolphins have you seen in your life, much less any aquatic with those colors?"

I couldn't shake the feeling that I somehow knew this dolphin, but I couldn't find a name to fit it. "Uh... none, I guess... well... there's only one, but she's a bit of a different species."

However, she wanted me to finish my statement. "Keep going..."

I blinked as I reluctantly admitted what I had hoped to keep quiet. "Well... her name is Seryn and she's a rare breed of Flammie that can survive underwater, but..."

The dolphin rotated her wrist as if demanding more information. "And what's to say that there's more to this "Seryn" than you know?"

It took me a moment to come up with a reasonable question. "Why? Do you know Seryn?"

The dolphin chuckled squeakily in a way that sounded like a regular phin chittering. "Better. I am Seryn. Can't you tell?"

I found this virtually impossible to believe. "That's not possible. You and her are completely different species. Besides, Seryn left me. It's highly unlikely that you and her are the same person."

The self-proclaimed "Seryn" pulled a wry grin and crossed her arms. "Love, it really IS me. I told you that I underwent a little training last night, which was why I didn't come when you called me."

I still wasn't buying it. "Oh, yeah? Well, if you are Seryn, then prove it."

Seryn chuckled mischievously and then shook her head. "I guess this disguise has its limits. Just give me a moment."

She then held her arms out at her sides and I watched something completely unexpected take place. Seryn's body suddenly turned a solid blue that was accompanied by a kind of "elemental shift" from a flesh-and-blood creature into what appeared to be pure water. All of her finer details were lost as the watery figure slowly shifted from that of an anthro dolphin into a slightly more familiar figure. The whole process took less than five seconds and before I knew it, the "water" had turned back into a life-sized version of...

"S... Seryn...?!" I stood in stunned awe as I looked at the newly-recreated aquatic Flammie. Apart from the fact that she was now standing on her digitigrade hind legs and now stood slightly over six feet tall, I recognized the unique form of the Flammie anywhere. The fan-like wings, the frilled collar, the mermaid-like tail, the blue and green scales... they were all there with an obvious size increase. It was Seryn!

"SERYN!!!" I screamed, launching myself towards her before wrapping my arms around her and hugging her for all she was worth. She balked a little from the sudden impact, but she smiled anyway and ran her webbed paw down my back like a loving mother would do to their child. I was crying again, but this time, it was with tears of joy, happiness and relief that Seryn was back in my life. I figured that her excuse for having to undergo "training" was reasonable enough given what she had already showed me she could now do with her body. And the fact that she was now human-sized and could speak verbally only made this "reunion" that much more enjoyable. I was just so glad that she hadn't abandoned me that I was almost hysterical to see her again.

When I had cried myself out, I finally peeled myself off of her smooth-scaled skin and looked at her with a tearful smile on my face. "I can't believe you're still here. I thought you ran away. Where did you go?"

Seryn smiled with her sweet, frictionless smile and gestured to the table. "Why don't you sit down and I'll tell you all about it? I made you some eggs with a bit of fish that I caught, cleaned and cut for you."

I blinked at the odd dish. "Fish and eggs? Not exactly what I had in mind for breakfast."

Seryn chuckled as she picked up the pan of scrambled eggs and shredded fish before bringing it over to the table. "Then you've never tried my fish. Why don't you sit down and try it? I promise that you won't regret it."

Seryn didn't have any reason to try to poison me, so I shrugged and sat down as she tipped a bit of the food onto my plate. She poured a much larger amount onto her own plate, which only made sense given her size, before sitting down and picking up a fork. I was curious to see how a creature with claws and webbed paws was going to handle human eating utensils, but she didn't seem to even notice. She moved her claws around the fork in a way that she was able to use it even without bending them or poking the end of the fork through the webbing. And given the fact that those claws were attached to adjustable padded digits, I supposed that creatures like her learned to adapt to these situations rather well.

After she had eaten a couple successful bites, she looked up at me and chuckled pleasantly. "I haven't poisoned that fish, you know."

Realizing that I was staring and not eating, I quickly tried to make up for it by scooping up a forkful of eggs with a few strands of fish in it and shoveled it into my mouth. But as soon as the food got in there, I froze on the spot as if it had been poisoned. However, Seryn didn't seem to be bothered by my expression as I felt her hover in the back of my mind to get my analysis.

The "fish" in question had been seasoned and prepared so expertly that it was like I was eating actual meat instead of fish. It had a kind of smoky, meaty, slow-cooked flavor to it that kind of reminded me of chicken that was cooked at the finest of five-star restaurants. The flavor seemed to explode in my mouth and leave a lasting impression as the eggy flavors finally kicked in. The aftertaste was probably even more impressive than the initial flavor. It tended to hang around in your mouth with a smoky, wood-fired flavor that had a very faint flavor of fish thrown in. And the eggs weren't half-bad, either.

I did not have to speak to Seryn for her to know what I was feeling. She was linked to my mind after all, so my head was probably screaming at her with joyous feelings and sensations right now. I finally took the fork out of my mouth and asked her a more interesting question.

"How did you do this? I've never tasted fish like this before, much less like the fish from down in the lake."

Seryn smiled and took another bite of food before answering. "Let's just say that I tend to get around when I'm in the water. This particular fish happens to be a rare bluefin tuna from near Japan and I just got creative with your spices."

I blinked and looked down at the fish that was still on my plate. "Japan?! How did you go all the way over there?!"

Seryn chuckled and held out her free paw over the table palm-up as if she wanted it to be read by a fortune teller. I leaned in close and watched as her paw lost its green coloring and turned back to what appeared to be deep-blue water. She slowly turned her liquefied paw over and even made a little dancing motion with her claws. "I'm the living essence of water, love. I can command it as if it were my own body, I can use it to accomplish amazing feats and I can even use the water that I'm made out of to turn myself into virtually any aquatic creature that I desire, which you've already seen. I still haven't been able to get the coloring right, but it's only a matter of time before I completely master it. And if I feel like it, I can use water to mess with you as well," she added as she gently pointed to me with a liquefied talon.

Given what I had already seen her do, I didn't doubt that that was within her range of abilities. However, I was itching to know more about her and if we had been fated to meet or if it had just been coincidence.

"Seryn... what are you?" I asked her point-blank.

Seryn sighed with a smile as she turned her paw back to its original form. She then took a couple more bites of food before finally answering. And what she told me was so incredible that it was almost impossible to believe.

"Well, I guess I can tell you that your original diagnosis that I am a Flammie was pretty darn close. In actuality, I'm only a half-Flammie. I'm actually a hybrid version that was created from a rather unusual set of circumstances. My mother was a real bona fide flash-and-blood Flammie that was bred with what's known as a "Gooey Lugia" in an experiment by the son of the god of gods, Plexadonn Incendus. I was originally bred to be one of the members of his former "Furry Fan Club", but for reasons even I don't fully understand, my egg did not hatch when it was supposed to. Not even Plexie's father, Strato, knew what was wrong with me, but they still believed that I would eventually hatch. So in an effort to protect me, they spirited me away to Green Lake and hid me at the lake's bottom so that in time, I would eventually be born and they could find me a decent home.

"Eventually, I did hatch, but by then, my egg had drifted into an algae-covered area of the lake where the purity of the water was not as clean as where I had originally been left. When you found me, I had barely been two hours old and was about to suffocate in the algae when you hooked onto one of my wings and pulled me out of that reed-covered cesspool. You know, if I wasn't already made of water, that hook would have done some permanent damage." She extended her lower-left fan-like wing and pointed to a seemingly random spot in the lower corner of it. "You hooked me right here and it kinda tore the membrane when you yanked me out of the reeds. Don't get me wrong, I'm eternally grateful for your actions, but the fact that I was hooked, reeled and landed like a meaningless fish kinda stuck with me." She furled her wing again and gave me a flustered smile, which told me that it still bothered her but she wasn't going to hold it against me.

"I owe you my life for saving me, Alex. If I had been left in that algae for just a few minutes longer, i probably would have suffocated. I might be half-Synthetic, but I still need to breathe, and suffocation is one of the few known ways to kill any kind of Flammie." I felt honored and lucky that I had gotten to Seryn at just the right time and that Seryn kind of owed me her life. But I wasn't going to let that rule our relationship, and she seemed to feel the same way.

But there were still a couple of things that bothered me. "But you haven't really explained why you bit me or where you went last night when I was worried sick about you."

Seryn suddenly looked genuinely guilty. "I'm sorry that I bit you, but I had a good reason to. As part of my Flammie/Synthetic lineage, a mere bite from either of them is enough to technically mark you as my human forever." When I suddenly looked pale and looked frightfully down at my scarred hand, she tried to explain. "Don't freak out on me, please. It's just in my Flammie nature to bite part of my owner so that one day, I can be paired with someone of my matching type and species. I can promise you, though, that I still have control over what will happen to you and for now, we're just going to try something out at night for a couple nights before we make any permanent decisions."

I sighed as I looked at the twin scars that I could see on the top of my hand. "So in other words, I'm just going to be a guinea pig to you."

Seryn looked suddenly hurt and guilty. "In essence, yes..." And when I let out a frustrated huff, she added, "But I promise that I'll teach you how to control it like me. I'm not going to leave you high and dry for any reason. Actually, you should consider yourself lucky."

I hardly saw why she would say that. "How do you figure that?"

Seryn sighed and traced a small circle on the table with her claw. "Most humans who are bitten by Flammies can't control when they will be affected by their bites, but the fact that I'm part Synthetic gives me that rare ability to pass on a fair amount of control to you. I swear that I will respect your free will and individuality and not force you to do anything that you don't want to. Please tell me that you believe me, Alex."

I looked up at her and saw that she looked both genuinely sorry for biting me in the first place but also seemed like she meant every word about allowing me to remain in control to some degree. She hadn't lied to me yet, so I figured that she really meant it.

"Okay, Seryn. I believe you. I know that you won't try to take advantage of me." And I didn't need to be influenced by her fathomless eyes to come to that conclusion.

Seryn looked immensely relieved that I believed and trusted her as she sighed with a smile. "Thank you, Alex. You have no idea what this means to me." She then recovered herself and proceeded to answer my other question. "As for where I was last night, after you left me down at the dock, I was finally found by my "former" master, Plexadonn Incendus and he took me away from here for a little while just to catch up on each other. It's been almost a year since he left me in Green Lake and he wanted to know how I was feeling and whether I had already bonded with you and so on. And since I was only a few hours old, he took the opportunity to train me in all the different ways that I could use my body that he had done with the other members of the Furry Fan Club. He taught me so much, Alex, that I'm now more than capable of doing almost anything I put my mind to. Because one of my parents was what was known as a "Gooey", I can manipulate the special water within my body to do virtually anything I desire. I can create things you would never have dreamed of, I can manipulate my body into virtually any form and so much more. And if you're lucky, some of my knowledge might rub off on you."

She looked dead serious about what she was talking about and I believed every word of it. She was truly a wonder of nature and magic put together in one super-capable form. If she said that she could do almost anything with her body, then I believed that she was willing to put her very existence on the line to prove it.

"That's just amazing, Seryn," I said in complete and total respect for her. "What do you say we put some of those abilities to use?"

Seryn looked confused for a moment before her smile slowly returned. "Do you really want to? This might get crazy, even for you."

I nodded. "Sure. I'm game for it. In fact, why don't we start right now? I want to see everything you can do, no holds barred. What do you say?"

Seryn sighed with a smile. "Very well, but don't say I didn't warn you."

And without even finishing our food, the two of us stood up and walked over to the living room to see what Seryn could really do. Once we were standing a few feet from each other, Seryn made the first move.

"So... what do you want me to do first? Gimme an idea, love."

I thought this over for a few moments before an idea came to my mind. Granted, it was kind of unusual and way out there, but given what Seryn had said that she could do with herself, I didn't see why it shouldn't work.

"Well... I once saw another liquid lifeform on this one episode of "Batman Beyond" called "Inque". You don't suppose that..."

But Seryn held up a paw to silence me. She seemed to be thinking about what I was proposing, which was probably helped by the fact that she could see into my mind. She hung her head for a few moments with her paw still raised before she looked up, looking oddly sinister.

"I think that would work. But just for the fun of it, let's mix it up a little. Do you remember reading a book in school called "Raptor" by Paul Zindel?"

It took me a moment to figure out what she meant, but when I did, I suddenly recalled that particular book and one of my favorite scenes in it. However, given the "extremity" of that scene, I had to question Seryn's sanity in the matter.

"Seryn... you're not thinking..."

But when she nodded, I knew that she was. "I am, actually. I think for our first "experiment", we're gonna play a little game. I'm gonna turn into a liquid raptor and you're gonna run into the woods so I can come catch you. But unless you want to relive that rather curious scene, you'll want to do whatever you can to get away or else..." She licked her chops with a jade-green tongue in a way that told me just what she had in mind. "You get the idea. And just to spice it up, I'm gonna throw in that "Inque" concept that you suggested, which means that I could be anywhere attached to anything. We'll play until either you escape from me three times or I catch you and... have my way with you." I gulped hard when I realized just what she had planned. "But just to be fair, I'll give you a five-minute head start before I start comin' for you. Which means you have until..." She looked at the clock. "11:30 to start running."

I glanced over at the clock and realized that that was exactly five minutes from now! That meant that...!

"Yep, your time starts now. I'd start running, love, or else I might get... crazy."

And when I saw her sea-green eyes change color to piercing-yellow and she had suddenly acquired a pair of narrow, black, slitted pupils, I knew that the clock was already ticking. I needed no further encouragement as I darted past Seryn without even grabbing shoes or a coat and dashed out the door before taking off running through the woods. I hadn't liked the look that she had given me and knew that she wanted to get a piece of me once she got the chance. I still trusted her when she said that she wouldn't intentionally hurt me, but I was sure that, given her abilities, there were many, many ways that she could "have her way" with me without harming me.

It was a good thing that most of the woods around the lake were covered with grass or dirt with very few rocks since I was practically going barefoot here. I hadn't had time to grab any socks like I did when I went outside or a coat, so I was on my own this time. And as I darted through the trees while trying to put as much distance between me and Seryn, I realized that this was similar to a scene right from "Raptor" where Zack had been escaping from the mother raptor while trying to protect his own baby raptor named "Honker" (don't ask) from being torn apart. Granted, that scene had taken place at a condemned dam instead of in the woods, but the idea was the same. The main difference, though, was that I was completely on my own whereas Zack had had his Native-American Ute girlfriend to egg him on. I knew that Seryn wouldn't intentionally hurt me, but given how "crazy" she said she would get, I was probably better off running for my "life".

After a couple minutes of running, I suddenly heard a voice in my head that was a breakthrough with my relationship with Seryn. Time's up, love. Here I come. Remember - three times for you or one time for me. Then we'll see who's better off. My heart sunk when I heard this, which only encouraged me to keep running. I wasn't sure how fast Seryn was or how far away I was from her, but I needed to keep running if I wanted to keep my safety in check.

After a few more minutes of running, I finally slowed down to a walk and leaned up against a tree to catch my breath. I had to be a good ways ahead of her by now. Granted, I was at a disadvantage since Seryn could sense my thoughts, but I had a feeling that eventually, she would catch me, which I hoped I could use to try to escape from her and tally up one of my required "escapes". I just hoped that I could find her and have the state of mind to get away before she officially "caught" me.

I had been resting for only a minute when I heard something that made my heart stop. Granted, it was just a twig snapping, but it was close enough to me that made me realize that Seryn was probably nearby. Man, she could move! I somehow knew that while she was in her "raptor" form that she would be behaving like one and would have all of its natural instincts, which meant that it was probably a bad idea to make any noise in case I gave my location away. So as soon as I was sure that things had quieted down, I shuffled off through the trees in the hope that she hadn't detected me yet. She probably had, but I wanted to at least try to put up a fight.

But I had barely gotten more than a few dozen paces before I saw something dart past me out of the corner of my eye off in the distance. And judging from the faint flash of blue that had I had just seen, it was probably Seryn darting ahead to lie in wait for me. Realizing this, I made a quick about-face and headed in the opposite direction. I had gotten a few paces away from her when she contacted me again.

Not bad, love. You seem to be paying attention to your surroundings. That's one. Two more to go. You'd just better hope that I don't catch you first or it'll be game over for you.

This simple evasion and point in my favor gave me a slight confident boost over Seryn and I was able to continue her "game" with a bit more courage and confidence on my part. Knowing that Seryn was probably right behind me, I ran as lightly as I could through some more trees in an attempt to continue to get away. She was probably getting even sneakier and I could only hope that I stayed one step ahead of her.

But after a while, my feet started to hurt after running barefoot through the woods for the past 20 minutes, which meant that I had to take a break. I felt that Seryn was probably watching me right now, but I couldn't take much more of this and decided to head down to the lake just to soak my feet for a little bit. I tried to pace myself, thinking of this as a version of "The World's Most Dangerous Game" except that I wasn't really running for my "life" as much as my "safety". And even though Seryn wouldn't let me intentionally come to harm, given what I had already seen her do, I was probably better off to continue running.

Amazingly, I didn't even need to head all the way down to the lake. I eventually found a large puddle of water in a small group of trees that appeared to be leftover from a recent rain that had yet to be contaminated by the ground around it. Looking around to make sure that Seryn wasn't on my tail, I stopped in front of the puddle and gently dipped my right foot into it, feeling the cool waters instantly soothe my tired foot. It was a little warmer than I had expected, but that was probably because it had been sitting in the sun for a while. Regardless, I was able to provide my foot with what felt like instant relief. And the blue color of the water wasn't that bad of a bonus.

But just as I was about to step all the way into the puddle, I suddenly noticed some troubling inconsistencies. Rain water shouldn't have this much of an effect on human skin and the temperature was actually starting to get quite warm instead of being ice-cold. Also, I had never seen a rain puddle as blue as this one. In fact, I don't remember it ever raining at all these past few days. And as it felt like my foot was slowly sinking into the shallow puddle, it suddenly all made sense.

"Seryn!" I yelped and yanked my foot out of the "puddle" before running away. Sure enough, as I looked behind me, I saw a shape start to rise up out of the puddle as if it was some kind of liquid lifeform, which didn't surprise me considering what I had already seen. I felt so stupid for almost falling for Seryn's "disguise". She had said that she could be anything she wanted while she was following me and I had almost literally stepped right into her trap. It seemed that I had let my guard down just for convenience and it had nearly cost me the game and my safety.

Sure enough, I soon heard Seryn contact me with a kind of "so close" attitude. Ooh... I almost gotcha that time, love. It's a good thing that you didn't put both of your feet in me or this game would have been over. That's two times you've escaped so far. One more and you'll win. But the gloves are of now. I'm comin' straight for ya, so you'd better get somewhere safe or else I might have to get crazy on you.

This time, I knew she meant business, so I had to be on my toes to make sure that she didn't try to pull anything on me. Seryn was likely to pull out all the stops to try and capture me, which meant that I really had to watch my step in case I ended up getting caught. I had a sudden idea to head back to the house so that I would probably be "safe" like Seryn had said, so I started back in that general direction. Fortunately, I had been out this far before, so I pretty much knew where I was without a compass. The lake was visible in the distance and since I had been traveling through the woods around it in a clockwise direction, I merely needed to follow it in the other direction to had back home. I still needed to be careful since Seryn was probably hot on my heels.

Getting back home proved to be more of a challenge than I had expected. Every now and then, I would see a faint blue object streak past me in the distance, which meant that Seryn was on to me, so I headed in a slightly different direction until I was sure that I had gotten away from her before heading back towards home. She seemed to be waiting for me to make that one mistake where she could finally catch me, but I always stayed one step ahead of her and always seemed to throw her off. Why she didn't just pounce on me and initiate a more intense chase was beyond me, but I guessed it was all part of her game. She was obviously waiting for that one crucial moment for when I let my guard down before finally pouncing on me. Hopefully when I got home, I would be safe and the game would be over at last. My heart was going into overdrive over how nervous I was for her to appear since she had already tried to get the jump on me twice, so I needed a break from this game to calm myself down and regroup before finishing it up.

I made it back home relatively intact. I had gone a fair ways without seeing or hearing Seryn in the woods around me. Either she had lost track of me (which I highly doubted given her "reptilian" instincts) or she had called a time-out for me to catch my breath for a few minutes. I soon went into the living room and collapsed on the couch to take a small time-out. Seryn seemed to be enjoying this game, but I wished that I could say the same. And relaxing on this soft, cool, cushiony couch was just what I needed to get my energy back before I resumed playing.

However, I was about to find out that Seryn was more ruthless when it came to the chase than I realized. As I lied down on the couch and closed my eyes, I was unaware that something had just slipped into the house through a crack at the bottom of the door before slinking over to the rug next to the couch. It was the same blue puddle that I had nearly gotten caught in back in the woods except that the consistency of the puddle this time was more "gel-like" than watery and a deeper blue than before. It was like a living version of the monster "Chaos" from "Sonic Adventure (DX)" that Seryn seemed to like to imitate. And when Seryn "saw" that I was unaware of her presence, she decided to make her move. She slowly rose out of the puddle as it was all absorbed into her body and stood over me as a menacing deep-sea-blue raptor with jade-green stripes all over the top of its body. With her current makeup, she seemed to be drooling slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she bared her many, many carnivorous fangs and leaned in close to the side of my head. She then "spoke" in the only way that she currently could to get my attention.

Gotcha.

All of a sudden, my eyes flew open and I realized that I had let my guard down again and this time, she had me cornered. It was game over and she was about to get "crazy" on me. I sat bolt-upright as she hissed menacingly at me, warm spittle dribbling from her impressive fangs. I knew that Seryn was in there somewhere, but given the circumstances, it hardly did any good.

I tried to slide to the side of the couch, but Seryn read me like a book and moved in a way to block me. She was cutting off my only means of escape and I knew that I had lost the game. And given the scene from the book that both Seryn and I had envisioned, this wasn't going to be pretty.

But that didn't stop me from trying to fight anyway. I leaned back on the couch and delivered a double-kick to Seryn's torso, which seemed to stun her long enough for me to scramble off of the couch and run towards the door. However, it had done less damage that I had counted on because before I could reach the door, I was hit in the back of the head by something long, thick, slimy and oddly sticky that clung to me like glue and prevented me from going any further. I was immediately yanked backwards right off my feet and came to rest on the floor directly under Seryn, who detached her tongue for some reason before it had gotten all the way back to her mouth. And before I knew it, Seryn had stepped around and was now hovering over me with her drooling, fanged maw just inches from my face.

The sudden trick had been completely unexpected and completely unfair for Seryn's current status. "Hey, no fair! You pulled a Yoshi on me! Raptors and Yoshis aren't even related!" I was obviously relating to the much more lovable dinosaur from the Mario video game series.

Even though I was yelling at a very hungry-looking raptor, Seryn still had the sense to respond letting out a snarling roar at me, which sprayed me with hot, thick, fibrous saliva, before answering my question in a more "civilized" manner. Wrong, love. If it wasn't for raptors existing in the first place, no one would have even thought of Yoshis in the first place. It's perfectly fair. And consider that a slap on the wrist compared to what I'm about to do to you. The spit that clung to my face smelled unusually real like rotting flesh and rotten breath. It seemed that Seryn was taking this a little too seriously, and I was about to end up as the "victim" here.

As expected, Seryn reached down and grabbed the sides of my arms with her three-clawed paws and heaved me up so that I was in a kneeling position just a couple of inches from her fanged maw. Her breath was unusually vile, which made me gag on the odor. But that was nothing compared to what she did next. She opened her maw and stuck out her long, thick, ropy tongue which, unlike Yoshi's, was rather rough and covered in rugged taste buds. She then ran the saliva-covered tongue over my face and cheeks as if my head was some kind of savory ice cream cone. I gagged and choked on her breath and tried to keep my eyes and mouth closed for as long as I could given what was coming. Seryn curled her tongue around my chin and up the side of my head and tried a couple of times to push it past my lips as if this was some kind of sick taste test. But when I continued to resist her, she grew annoyed and increased the pressure on my arms with her claws, which bit painfully into my skin while somehow preventing from piercing the skin. The sudden burst of pain caused me to yell out, opening my mouth for a brief moment, which was all the time she needed to shove the slimy organ past my defenses.

To this date, I still did not understand why the beast in "Raptor" did this to Zack, but it was still one of my most favorite scenes in the entire book. However, I had never expected it to actually happen to me, so I as kind of unprepared for the texture of the rough, slimy tongue passing past my lips and snaking its way into my throat. This wasn't going to end well and I knew it, but I did whatever I could to stay stable and sane while this warped version of a French kiss took place.

The tongue began to slide down my throat while I still managed to keep breathing. I could feel myself starting to get sick as the disgusting appendage continued down my throat and gently pressed itself into my stomach. As it did so, I felt myself start to vomit, but the thickness and consistency of Seryn's tongue prevented the vomit from heading up my throat. I felt the tongue hover an inch or so inside my stomach as it lapped lightly on the "tasty" slime. It even collected a small sample and for a moment, I thought she was going to pull it out, but somehow, it seemed to be absorbed by her tongue and then traveled up the length as a kind of "knot" as if it was a tube of some kind. And as the tube passed from my mouth into hers, I suddenly felt the process reverse itself and something began to slide back down. This wasn't going to end well, and it didn't as the knot reached the tip and I felt something cold and icy get squirted from her tongue into my stomach. Almost immediately, Seryn started to yank her tongue from my mouth and throat as the icy material started to cause my stomach to convulse violently. And when she finally pulled it back into her mouth and released me, she stepped back as the effects of the material started to spread all over my body. My body was shaking violently and I thought that I was going to throw up while I obviously couldn't. I went into an involuntary seizure as all my limbs seemed to turn to icy lead and cease to move. Soon, my entire body had frozen up and all I could do was think of how excruciating it was. I had no idea what Seryn had done to me, but she didn't seem to be trying to help me, either.

After what felt like an eternity, it all stopped and I felt the blood start to flow back into my extremities as I gasped for breath, still coughing up the raptor slime that had been left in my system. I also became aware that Seryn had a grip on me again, but this time, it was with a more familiar webbed paw and she was squatting at my right side with her paw on my forehead as if checking to see if I had a fever.

When all of the feeling returned to my body and I spit up the last of the slimy gunk, I turned to find Seryn next to me in her original Aquatic Flammie form with a look of honest concern on her face.

"What... did you do... to me?" I managed to gasp out.

Seryn smiled gently and gently rubbed my forehead. "I just laid the foundation for your inevitable transformation."

I gulped hard and looked at her with a fearful look. "T... Transformation... but... why now...? Why do I...?"

But she cut me off by placing a talon on my lips, silencing me on the spot. "Shh... I did not say you would transform now. I said I merely laid the foundation. You see, given the fact that I bit you, you were going to transform sooner or later. This way, I can slow it down with bits and pieces, which will eventually give you more control over your final form in the end. I promised you that I would give you more control over your eventual abilities, and I meant it, so this way, I can help you control your final transformation a little more than you would if the bite had been allowed to progress on its own. Do you understand?"

Amazingly, I did. She wanted me to have more control over my transformation and was helping me do so by giving me bits and pieces of that final ability. "Yes... I do. Thank you..."

Seryn nodded and leaned over to kiss me lightly on the forehead. "You're welcome, love. Just remember that I'm trying to help you with this. It just shows how much I care for you and how much I'm determined to help you. Now what do you say we get you something to eat? I'm sure the last thing you want to do right now is eat, but you need to keep up your strength throughout this, so let me whip up something that you can at least keep down."

It was true that tasting all of that vile raptor slime had kind of killed my appetite, but right now, Seryn was the one who knew what was best for me, so I had no choice but to trust her judgment. She stood up and walked over to the kitchen area to make me something to eat while I remained on the floor to try to get my strength back. I had just gone through a rough ordeal and I was going to need a little rest just to keep up my strength.

But Seryn had barely left before she returned with a tall glass of what appeared to be the same blue liquid that she was made of. It looked like she had taken a piece out of her very anatomy just to feed me. But... why?

"Seryn... what...?" But she cut me off with another talon pressed against my lips.

"Don't worry about this. It's not anything that's going to change you further. I put some special nutrients and minerals into this liquid so that you can get your energy back a little quicker. It's a variation of what's known as "Synthetic Oil" except that it's more water-based than that. Here, I'll help you."

She reached into the glass with a paw and dipped her talon into it, which seemed to act like a hypodermic needle and drain the liquid of the glass. and make her paw appear much chubbier than before. I expected her to transfer her liquid-filled paw into my mouth, but instead, she merely reached up and felt around my head before finally pricking the soft spot on my right temple and injecting the liquid in that way. I had expected it to be cold again, but it simply felt rather neutral as her paw slowly drained and slimmed up again. As she continued the "injection", I tried to speak, but my jaw didn't seem to be working at the moment, so I improvised by thinking of the question, hoping that she could hear it.

I don't get it. Why can't I drink it?

Sure enough, Seryn heard it loud and clear and responded vocally. "Because you're so weak that I have to inject it directly into your system. And since it affects your brain first, I had to use a vein in your head so that it could get there quicker and kick in faster. You should feel it pretty quickly."

Sure enough, she had only injected a small amount of the liquid before it started kicking in and I felt the energy level in my body get a jumpstart back to its original level. And by the time all of it was in my system, I felt even better than I did when I woke up this morning. And when Seryn stood up, I soon joined her surprising quickness effort. I felt great and rejuvenated as I looked at the Flammie face-to-face for the first time since this morning.

"That was amazing, Seryn!" I said, looking over my body as though it didn't belong to me. "I never knew that I could feel this great, ever!"

Seryn smiled and ran a paw along my side with a kind and affectionate purr before saying something completely unexpected. "I thought you would, which means that you have enough energy for when I do... this!"

From completely out of nowhere, Seryn launched herself at me and tackled me onto the couch before pressing her muzzle up against me in soft, warm and oddly inviting kiss. I was completely taken off-guard by her sudden advancement as I tumbled backwards onto the couch with the Flammie's arms wrapped around my back. I had never expected her to be this affectionate with me this early, but as I began to fall under the spell of her kiss, I realized that it really wasn't all that bad anyway. It wasn't anything like kissing a fish since she was neither cold nor slimy and there really wasn't much of a scaly texture to her skin. Oddly enough, her muzzle was like warm, smooth leather with a mixed fragrance of the ocean and fresh-cut grass thrown in. She seemed to be keeping those fangs of hers out of harm's way as well, so I had to give her credit for that as well.

Even more bizarre was that Seryn seemed to be taking a page out of Batman villainess Poison Ivy's book and there seemed to be faint traces of chemicals leeching from Seryn's lips into my mouth. But unlike Ivy's poisonous toxins, Seryn's seemed perfectly harmless and seemed to have a kind of hypnotizing and seductive effect on me. They were pleasant to taste and I could already feel my body loosening up as she lovingly embraced me. I knew that she wasn't trying to poison me, but the longer I remained liplocked with her, the more my mind seemed to wander and allow nothing but her presence into my brain. Soon, all that existed or mattered in my life was staying with Seryn in case something bad happened to me. The fact that I was kissing her didn't seem to hurt her inviting presence, either.

As Seryn continued the kiss, I was barely aware that she was running a clawed paw down the center of my shirt, carefully cutting it open before pulling the remains aside and pressing her warm, smooth-scaled body up against mine. Her normally "below-normal" body temperature seemed to be warming up the longer that she and I remained together until it was like I was taking a bath in the pure warmth that radiated from her body. And as she slowly began to lower my pants and cast them aside, I vaguely realized that she wanted to take this to a whole new level.

However, when Seryn began to remove my underwear, she paused and pawed at the area for a moment before finally breaking the kiss and looking down at the exposed area. As some of the sense came back into my mind, I suddenly realized that she was frowning at my partially-exposed goods and seemed to be doing some heavy thinking. Finally, my mind came back to its full functional level and I looked at Seryn standing over me, her chin in her right paw as she held it with a thumb and foreclaw.

"Something wrong, Seryn?" I said, absentmindedly pulling my underwear back up.

Seryn seemed troubled and upset but not in a way that she was angry or seething with frustration. "I've been doing some thinking..." She didn't finish the statement.

"And...?" I tried to add.

Seryn sighed and put a thumb and foreclaw on the bridge of her muzzle as she closed her eyes. "There's just something that you've got that kinda bothers me. I know it's part of human anatomy, but considering that someone like me is... well... neuter... I really think that some changes need to be made."

It took me a moment to realize what she had in mind, which wasn't exactly easy to bear. "You mean you want to...?" Seryn nodded, which spared me the trouble of finishing the question. "But do I have to...?" She shrugged and looked at me with a kind of depressed frown. "Will it do any...?" She nodded again and sighed.

"But it's completely up to you, love. I know that you and I are lovers, but I really think you have a bit of "excess baggage". If you want, I can give you a bit of an "improvement" and then we can get on with our lives, but if you don't, I guess I can learn to make do... although it bothers me."

I knew that she wanted me to go through with this, but she was leaving the final decision up to me. I was sure that she meant what she said about it being an "improvement", but I wondered what kind of long-term effects it would have.

Sensing this, Seryn answered for me. "There really won't be any. You'll never have to worry about getting hit with low blows, you'll never have to go to the bathroom again and you can actually go..." At this, she suddenly stopped and her cheeks turned a deep, bright violet color in a way that told me she was blushing. I didn't have to think hard to know what she meant and given her aquatic abilities, I couldn't help but blush as well. "You're really nuts, you DO know that, right, Seryn?"

Seryn continued to blush as she nodded. "I know I am, but I'm only as nuts as you'll allow me to be. So what do you say?"

I thought this over for a little while before one more question popped into my head. "Will it hurt?" And when Seryn shook her head and said, "You won't even know I did anything." I finally made up my mind. "All right, then. Do it quickly and get it over with."

Seryn's expression lit up with a hesitant smile before she nodded and held out her right paw in front of her as if examining it. "Thank you, love. You might want to close your eyes since this might get crazy."

However, I had taught myself that it was a lot better if you could see what was happening to you while it happened so some of the fear that you felt would go away. "Not happening, Seryn. Just let me have it."

Seryn stared at her webbed paw for a bit longer before clenching it into a kind of fist as it turned from blue-and-green flesh to solid blue liquid again. "Very well, then. I warned you."

And once she was ready, she suddenly lashed out with her paw even though she was a few feet away. But before I knew what had happened, the liquefied part of her paw stretched out into a long, blue, watery tentacle that slammed into my crotch and immediately punched a hole in my underwear before attaching to the root of the problem. I gasped more from the sudden icy chill that had taken hold of it than from the sight of the unusual procedure. Once Seryn had a "grip" on it and it was completely numb, she yanked the tentacle back with a loud, sharp pop! sound with her "prize" in her grasp. Before I knew what had hit me, I saw Seryn holding the result in her paw, which had completely reformed back into a webbed Flammie paw. And finally, she gave it a hard vicegrip, which suddenly made it swell up and finally explode into a blob of blue slime with a sound like a balloon popping. And as a finale, she let the liquid slip through her paw and splatter onto the floor while she simply wiped it on the arm of a nearby chair.

It was all over in less than ten seconds. It had taken less time than it took for a doctor to inject a needle into your arm and draw blood. It had all happened so fast that I was still bracing for some kind of aftermath to happen. I could hardly believe that I had been completely neutered in less time than it took to even undress. All that I could really feel now was a faint chill from the liquid as it seemed to seep through my now-bare groin and make a few "adjustments" to my internal system.

Finally, I got over the shock enough to ask Seryn just two words. "That's it?"

Amazingly, she nodded. "That's it." And once she had wiped her paw off, she stepped around the puddle of blue goo and sat down on the couch next to me. I noticed that even the goo seemed to be vanishing as it seemed to evaporate into virtually nothing. I couldn't believe that it was all over and I was just as much a neuter as Seryn was despite the fact that I was still male as much as she was female.

In an attempt to make me feel better, Seryn wrapped her upper-left wing around my shoulder and pulled me close to her like a mother trying to comfort their child. I was still in shock over what had happened and was vaguely aware that she was running her tongue through my hair like a reversed form of a cat grooming itself.

Finally, I got my head back on straight and looked up at Seryn, who got her tongue back in her mouth before she gave me another faceful of drool. "So now what? I've been completely neutered and I'm guessing that was another part of my "conversion", right?"

Seryn smiled sweetly and shrugged. "Kinda sorta. It's kind of classified as "extra credit" since you'd probably have been neutered in the end anyway. Besides..." She pointed with a claw to the binder of pictures on the floor that I had originally used to classify her species when I had first brought her home. "Given what I have planned for you tonight, it's probably a bit better than what it was supposed to be."

She suddenly held out her paw again and it was converted back into a watery tentacle again. But this time, it flattened itself out enough to scoop up the binder before bringing it back up to us as she opened it on our laps and began leafing through it, her paw once again completely reformed as if nothing had happened to it. She seemed to be looking for a particular picture as I watched her page through it before running her paw through it as if to check each picture for the one she was looking for. I had organized the pictures into different types of species and then alphabetically in each category including "Furry/Anthro", "Pokemon" and even "Furred and Winged", the latter of which included pictures of Flammie and was far more common than you'd probably think. But given the fact that she was part aquatic, it was no surprise that she went to the "Aquatic" section before slowing down and scanning each of the entries for something in particular.

She finally settled on a pair of consecutive pictures that were a bit odd, even for aquatics. "Here we are... I think you could be this one and the both of us can do this tonight." She pointed to each picture in turn as she said this. I had to admit that she had rare tastes, even for an aquatic, since it was rather tricky to find that particular species on the Internet. I had a similar creature in the "Furry/Anthro" section that was more of a hybrid than anything else, but the fact that Seryn had chosen a "pure-blood" version over the hybrid told me that she wasn't going to pull any punches tonight. And even though the concept of the second picture was a tad more "mature" than it should have been, the fact that both Seryn and I were now neutered seemed to make the idea of picture a bit more pleasant together. (Author's Note: What am I going on about? Just wait and see!)

Seryn turned to me with two claws on the pictures. "Would you mind if I borrowed these, love? I have a photographic memory, but I need to kind of "scan" them into my anatomy first."

I looked nervously at one of the pictures since I hadn't laminated it yet and was worried that it would be ruined if it got wet. "I know you're water and all, but can you handle them without really getting them "wet"?"

Seryn cooed and ruffled my hair a little with her other paw. "No problem at all. Watch this." She then began to extract the tiny pictures from their sleeves with surprising accuracy despite the fact that she was only using the tips of two talons (say that five times fast!). And once she had them out of their sleeves and after sliding the ones on the other side of the clear page back into their spots, she set the laminated one aside and brought the unlaminated one up to her face. She stared at the picture with her eyes glittering before opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue before planting the picture face-first on the now-liquefied organ. I squirmed uncomfortably as the blue water lightly coated the paper-thin picture. I was worried that she was either going to get it wet or crumple it up, and since this was one of the few pictures that I didn't have a backup of on my computer, my concern for the picture's safety was even higher.

As Seryn closed her mouth and "scanned" the picture, I saw her body suddenly turn a solid blue again, but this time, she didn't appear to be made of water. The blue coloring was more of a "flash" than a conversion because it lasted less than a second before she reached in to her maw and carefully pulled the picture out before handing it back to me. Amazingly, not only was it completely intact and bone-dry, but it was now covered with a thin, stiff layer of what felt like genuine clear laminate plastic. It was as if she had sacrificed some of her own "fluids" to give the picture a perfect layer of laminate from out of nowhere, which permanently preserved the picture without a single extra shade of blue to boot.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I tested the corner of the "plastic" seal against my own tongue to confirm it. "Seryn... you will never cease to amaze me, plain and simple."

Seryn merely smiled in mild embarrassment and blushed as she lightly "punched" my shoulder with her balled-up paw. "Oh, you... it's the least I can do for my love. I can guarantee a waterproof seal like that for life or else I'll..." But she didn't get a chance to give me an offer because it was my turn to silence her with a raised hand for once. "You don't have to offer me anything. I know your word is your bond, hands down. Now how about the other?"

Seryn nodded and repeated the process of "scanning" the laminated picture before handing it back to me. Her body flashed blue again, but since the picture was already laminated, there really wasn't anything that she could do to further preserve it. And even though I would occasionally get a laminated picture that somehow got stained with water along the edges, Seryn had been considerate enough to keep it as dry as when it had gone in her mouth. And as I slid the two pictures back into their respective spots, I saw her shudder and wriggle her body all over with a happy trill as if she had suddenly gotten a sudden case of chills.

"What's up, love?" I politely asked her when she had finished.

Seryn smiled and gave my face a full-fledged lick with a slimy, blue, oddly longer rope-like tongue like a cartoon dog giving an over exaggerated slurp. "I guess I'm just feeling happy today. That's why I'm almost always smiling. I'm sure you know the saying for being happy, right?"

She had obviously peeked into my mind again, but I didn't mind this time as I recited one of my self-taught life sayings that I had read in a children's book growing up at school. ""You need a reason to be sad or upset, but you don't need a reason to be happy", right?" Seryn nodded and responded by giving me a warm, loving side hug. "That's right, and don't you ever forget it." Now that we had gotten that out of the way, Seryn asked me a more innocent question. "Do you mind if I look at this for a little bit? I wanna see if I can get any more ideas for us to do from it."

I didn't see the harm in it, but I had a condition. "Only if you show me what you're planning before you scan it, alright?"

Seryn nodded with a chirp. "Fine with me. I'll let you know if I find anything."

And while she began looking through the book for more pictures of creatures to become, I suddenly had a curious idea. Since I was in the presence of a (quote/unquote) "sea monster", I decided to show her one of my all-time favorite movies just out of respect of her.

Seryn frowned playfully and gave my still-naked backside a poke with a talon as I stood up to head back into my room. "Who're you calling a "sea monster"? You know we sea monsters are quite talented in the fields of science and literature."

I scoffed as I waved Seryn off without looking at her. She had just quoted a line straight out of a Spongebob episode involving another "false accusation" by the sponge himself. We both knew that it was just a playful accusation and that there was no hard feelings between us.

I had only gone to my room to get a fresh set of clothes on since Seryn had destroyed all but my pants and my socks from that morning. And once I was clad in a new T-shirt, shorts and underwear, I was about to head back out into the living room when I remembered why I had come in there in the first place and did a double take to grab a large DVD binder before returning out into the room with one already picked out.

Seryn was still looking through the picture binder but seemed genuinely curious about the concept of her first home-viewed movie. "What're we watchin', love?"

I smiled and showed her the disc while it was still on my finger. And the look of awe and amazement on her face told it all. ""The Water Horse"?!?! Oh, somebody pinch me! That movie is legendary with aquatics! Put it in! Put it in! I wanna see it!"

I had obviously made an impression on the Flammie, so I did as she said and put the DVD into the player before starting to switch it on. While it was loading, Seryn continued to look through the binder, although she was much more distracted this time and made much slower progress as she continued to look up at the TV screen. She had obviously heard of this movie, but how she knew about it since I had been with her 95% of her life was beyond me. And I highly doubted that she and this "Plexadonn Incendus" would have discussed it during her nighttime "training". This made me remember that she was a magical being, which meant that she already knew things that I had probably yet to tell her.

As I hit the "Play Movie" option on the title screen, Seryn suddenly produced another picture from my collection for my review and possible approval. "Take a look at this one, love. Do you think you could handle a form like this when your conversion is complete?" I took a look at the picture and my eyes suddenly went wide.

Actually, it wasn't as much as a printed picture as it was an actual trading card from the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" series that I had managed to barter from my brother a while back. Ironically, it happened to be the only Water-Type monster out of my small but distinct collection of similar cards. The monster printed on it also happened to appear "in person" on a particular episode of the second season of "Yu-Gi-Oh! GX" complete with a voice, movements and even a special appearance in a duel in that same episode. The uniqueness and class of the "monster" that was displayed in the episode was what ultimately convinced me to seek that particular card. Ironically, my brother had ended up with that card in his massive collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and had virtually given it away since he figured it was a "common" card. And even though he only had one copy, I had ended up scoring a few more cards whose occupants I had found nice to look at.

I looked from the card to Seryn and then back, trying to make up my mind. "You mean, you don't want to be this one first?"

Seryn made to speak, but then she stopped and closed her mouth before thinking it over. "Are you sure? I'll be a male instead of a female during that time, so my feelings for you might change."

I was pretty sure of the risks, but I was willing to taken them as well just so that both of us were comfortable with her final proposition. "I don't mind. It might actually be fun."

Seryn looked cautiously over at the card before nodding and then plucking it from my grip. "Okay, then. Here goes." And with that, she scanned the card into her anatomy while giving it an extra layer of protection before allowing me to slide it back into its proper place.

By this time, the movie had started and the words "A true tale it is..." had just disappeared from the screen. Seryn finally closed the binder and set it aside and the two of us began watching "The Water Horse" for the first time together. She seemed to be rather interested in the concept of "Crusoe" and I could tell that she wanted to add that to the list of things that she wanted to do with her aquatic body down the road.

By the time the movie was over, it was already starting to get dark and Seryn's eyes and face were practically sparkling with the "knowledge" that she had "absorbed" while watching the movie. She had obviously been impressed by every detail about the movie and not just Crusoe himself. I could tell that she wanted to mess with her watery body to see if she couldn't become a water horse as soon as possible, but I put a cork in her enthusiasm when I reminded her that we already had a separate date planned out for tonight. She knew what she had said and was determined to follow through with her plans when she felt good and ready. And now that it was getting dark, that time was rapidly approaching.

While we waited for our eventual "date", Seryn left the house for a few minutes and returned with a pair of large fish in her possession that I knew hadn't come from the lake we were living on. She had scored a pair of 35-pound king salmon, which I had always thought were in season around the Alaskan area.

"Remember what I said about what I can do with my body? This is nothing compared to that. I just thought I'd get us a decent supper for tonight since we're gonna need all our energy later on."

I knew that I couldn't possibly eat that much fish, but I was sure that Seryn would be able to "pick up the scraps" where I left off once she had prepared them. And as Seryn began to clean them and prepare them, I couldn't help but stand up and walk up behind her to see how she did it. Since she had obviously "laced" my eggs with highly rare and expensive bluefin tuna this morning, I wanted to see how she prepared a pair of massive king salmon. Seryn looked at me out of the corner of her eye and gave me a pleasant grin as she turned back to the fish she had laid out on the counter.

"Curious, love?"

I nodded. "Very."

She giggled sweetly and waved a paw to her side. "Then you might want to step back because this might get a little crazy."

I took one giant step to the left and around Seryn to watch her prepare one of the fish. She held out her paw and I watched as it turned back into its liquid state once again. However, unlike before, all that seemed to happen was that Seryn's claws seemed to extend out to well beyond their normal lengths so that she appeared kind of like one of the X-men, Wolverine. Oddly enough, the webbing didn't go with it and it looked like she had a set of liquid, blue Freddy Krueger-like claws on her paw. She then looked at me with a smug grin as she slowly raised her paw slightly over her head.

"Don't blink."

I tried not to, but even as I did, all that I seemed to see was a flurry of blue slashes and swipes that would not have looked out of place in a cartoon mauling. Seryn was somehow able to keep guts and debris from flying everywhere as she sliced away at the fish before finally stopping as suddenly as she had started while carefully wiping her oversized paw on a towel that she had somehow grabbed during the flurry.

The result of her actions was a pair of large, pink, freshly-and-finely-cut salmon filets that she was now scooping up in her other paw and setting on a plate on the table. The filleted carcass of the king salmon was left on the table as she scooped it up in her over-sharp paw and gently slid down her gullet where she chewed it up, bones and all and swallowed it as if it was she did this all the time.

I was still trying to catch up with how quickly everything had just happened. I had only ever seen this kind of quick "mauling" in cartoons, which was odd since this was real life. And when Seryn's stomach rumbled and she was able to stifle a deep, guttural belch in her throat, she merely looked at me with a sly grin.

"Well, that was tasty. And I haven't even gotten to the other fish yet. I'll just grill one of these fillets up for you and put the rest of the catch away in the freezer. Do you think you can wait a bit longer while I get this cooking?"

Given what I had already seen her do and how well I already knew her cooking, I figured I could wait a bit longer. "That's fine. I can wait."

Seryn smiled and leaned in to give me a small but welcome kiss on the forehead (she was taller than me anyway) before beginning to clean up and cook one of the filets for my supper since she appeared to have already eaten (that was a pretty big carcass that she managed to swallow after all).

While I waited for my meal to cook, I decided to "tempt" Seryn further by firing up my "Dawn of Mana" game for the PS2. Since it probably wouldn't take very long for Seryn to cook the fish, I decided to catch up on my Battle Arena Bouts, which would take less time than if I had played the main game. I also wanted to find a reason to quickly drop what I was doing so I could show her something special for her species.

Soon, the small cabin was filled with the sounds and smells of frying king salmon. Seryn had actually dug out a long, flat griddle for a bit more of a "grilled" feeling to it. And to boost the authenticity of it, she had run her talon across the griddle in uniform lengths, leaving behind a thick and deep line of her blue liquid, which raised the fish up off the griddle and conducted heat enough to make it appear that looked like she was using an actual grill. I couldn't help but smile as I selected my lineup for Bout 15. Seryn really was something else and no one would tell us any different.

I had just finished up the bout when Seryn called to me, "Alex! Supper's on!"

Her timing couldn't have been better. I quickly scrolled through the menus and queued up the videos that I had planned to show her. And since she could read my mind like a book, Seryn merely set the cooked fish on a plate and then walked up behind me before looking from me to the TV screen.

"What's up, love?"

It was my tune to smile as I pressed the button to start the movie without a word. (Author's Note: If you haven't played Dawn of Mana, be warned that I will be giving away some major spoilers when it comes to Flammie, so unless you've already played it or don't care, you should stop reading now.) Seryn looked curiously at the screen as the movie started with Gaia being blown to pieces by the Lorimarian army after Keldric had just finished dealing with the Masked Guru's Wyvern. At first, she seemed confused as to why I was showing her this, but as the ground opened up and the air was filled with a brilliant white light and a familiar shrill, her attention was immediately locked on the screen. And as the music started and the scene came back into focus, Seryn watched in awe as she saw Keldy being carried through the sky by "Flammie's" massive paws with the spirit child, Faye, gripped lightly in her muzzle. I could tell that the movie was having a significant effect on the "real" Flammie as her smile turned to a look of pure astonishment and as she absentmindedly curled one of her fan-like wings in front of her and slowly stroked it. I could tell that the sheer detail of Flammie's entire being was having a significant effect on her.

The scene didn't last long. In fact, I knew that the song that accompanied it, which was a clip out of the original Flammie song "Flight Bound for the Unknown" from "Secret of Mana" was roughly 48 or 49 seconds long, not including the first explosive scene. And when the scene ended, Seryn suddenly looked like she had been robbed of something wonderful.

"Wha... what's going on? That can't be it... There has to be more..." She turned to me. "Please tell me that there's more, Alex. I want to see more, please." She sounded faintly desperate and hysterical, which kind of bothered me, so I decided to keep the movies playing.

"There's a couple more scenes. Just hold on and don't freak out on me."

Seryn continued to run one of her wings as I queued up another movie on the list, which involved the Lorimarian army attacking Illusia Village with Flammie covering things from the air. And even though "he" was outnumbered by all of the Wyverns (where were they when Keldy was fighting one?!) and the Avikrons and such, Flammie didn't seem to be having much trouble on his own. He was able to use a powerful magenta-colored ray-beam-like breath attack to cut through Lorimar's ranks like they were butter. When he first used his patented "Flammie Breath", Seryn put a paw to her own mouth not out of fear but out of curiosity as if trying to figure out if she could use that power.

But when Flammie's enemies started to gang up on him and he was forced to fall back due to an injury, Seryn became even more hysterical as she stood bolt-upright and seemed to be demanding answers. "That's not fair! He was completely on his own! How could they do that to him?! He was putting up such a good fight and they ganged up on him!" I could tell that she was getting really worked up over this, but I sensed it even more so when she rounded on me with a look that kind of scared me. "Please tell me that that's not the end of it! It can't be over! Tell me that there's one more clip!"

The power radiating from both her voice and the "Link Collar" around my neck were making me cringe a little. Seryn was taking this a little too personally even though it was just a game, and I was afraid of what she was going to do if things didn't turn out okay for Flammie.

"Don't worry. There's one more clip, but it takes place over a year later and it's the last time that Flammie appears in the game. Just... sit down and take it easy. You're starting to scare me."

Seryn seemed to become slightly aware of her actions and loosened up a little as she sat back down on the chair while I queued up the last Flammie-related clip in the game. In this scene, Keldy had just finished off Stroud's second-in-command, Grim Golem Generalissimo, and was about to enter the base of the Great Tree to get to Stroud's Nethermanse castle. However, the general's final act of desperation had sealed off the cave, preventing Keldy from gaining access to the tree... from the ground. From out of nowhere, Flammie came down out of the sky, apparently fully-recovered from his fight in the "previous" scene and looked down at Keldy with the same smile that Seryn tended to give me. She even breathed a sigh of relief when Faye even said, "Flammie! You're okay!" And when Keldy made the proposition for Flammie to actually fly him and Faye up to the castle, her eyes became locked on the screen once again as the scene shifted to the Keldy actually riding on Flammie's back as he flew through the castle's airborne defenses. And after utilizing his special "Flammie Breath" a few more times, Flammie left the screen as he dropped Keldy and Faye right through an opening in the castle's defenses for him to make the final assault. And even though Flammie's final exit had been during the climax of the battle, Seryn seemed to have finally calmed down and had her head hung with her eyes closed as the scene ended and went back to the Options menu. She had put her head in her paws and seemed to be thinking over what she had seen in her head. I could sense that she was having a conflict with her own differences to Flammie and what she was going to do about them. I felt sure that she wasn't ashamed of being part-Synthetic or even an aquatic right off the bat, but I was sure that she was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Flammie could fly through the air while her wings didn't appear to be airworthy. And the fact that he had been able to use his Flammie Breath while Seryn hadn't yet realized this power seemed to have rattled her a little. It seemed that she was comparing herself to the deity and trying to figure out which of them was better off than the other.

Finally, Seryn lifted her head up and looked at me with a solemn expression before asking me a very serious question. "Alex... do you regret me coming into your life?"

I could not believe that she would say that after all we had gone through! "Why do you say that?"

Seryn sighed and whimpered slightly as if I was gearing up to attack her self-esteem. "Well... you could've had a perfectly "normal" Flammie in your life complete with fur, feathers and the ability to fly instead of being a scaled, webbed, water-logged freak like me. And you've obviously seen what kind of potential a real Flammie has, which meant that your standards were much different than what you got. You could have easily ditched me back at the lake and let me die in those algae-covered reeds... but you didn't. Why? I must know why you allowed me to come into your life when you could have obviously had better."

I could hardly believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. How could she even think that I would ever choose anyone other than her? "I can't believe that you would ever think that, Seryn. I saved you because I felt that there was a connection between us. True, I could have saved a regular old Flammie, but you're something special altogether. You're the first of your kind, which means that you have a whole range of abilities built into you that a normal Flammie could never accomplish. You can shapeshift, you've got gills even if you don't always use them and you're much smaller than Flammie to boot! Any one of those facts by themselves is reason enough for me to let you stay with me more than anyone else. And while my feelings might have been different with a real Flammie, the fact that I have you at all more than makes up for your "differences". You are my friend, Seryn, and I would never even think of abandoning you when you needed me the most."

Seryn seemed genuinely touched that I hadn't been prejudiced over her even when I found out that she was a completely different breed of Flammie. Her smile slowly returned while her eyes seemed to water as she finally came to terms with my decision. "Alex... thank you... thank you for everything."

I nodded and finally got up to turn the game off, which had been playing in the background for the past several minutes. "You're very welcome. Now how about I try out some of that salmon? It certainly smells good from over here and I'd hate for it to go cold after everything you put into it."

Seryn nodded and stood up to accompany me back into the kitchen area while I sat down to try out her latest dish. I had to admit that it looked pretty good and the fact that she had found a way to "grill" it without a grill certainly improved the specialty of the dish.

The salmon had been cooked so thoroughly that it was practically falling apart as I made to cut it with a knife. It was a nice, deep, rose-pink color and there was a medley of spices and seasonings scattered over it, which gave it a pretty enticing smell, but how did it taste? I had never had salmon before, much less king salmon, so I was itching to try it out. I scooped up a forkful of the fish and sampled it...

...

...

...you know... it wasn't as bad as I had thought. It had a kind of spicy kick to it while not actually being "hot". The juices that it had been cooked in gave it a succulent, meaty flavor mixed with only a faint fishy aftertaste. Somehow, Seryn had done it again and I couldn't help but applaud her lightly with my mouth still full of fish and the fork still in my right hand.

Swallowing, I told her exactly how I felt. "You never cease to amaze me, Seryn. I had never gotten the chance to try salmon because it tends to be so expensive, but you not only got us some for free, but you continue to impress me by cooking the heck out of it to make it taste exceptionally good. Well done!"

Seryn blushed so deeply that it almost made her head look like a plum in terms of coloring as she smiled in flattered embarrassment and tucked her chin into her neck frill while squirming sheepishly. "Aw... you're just saying that. I'm just cooking like practically any Synthetic can cook, of which they do rather well anyway."

I merely shook my head and refuted her claims. "Synthetic or not, you did really well. I could never cook this well, so having you around is like having dating a five-star chef."

Seryn laughed musically, which made the air around her seem to "shimmer" with her gentle power. "Well, then, I'll just have to keep cooking if we're going to keep this relationship up."

We both knew that there was far more to this relationship than just five-star-level cooking, but we didn't say anything just because it was unnecessary to verbally confirm it. Seryn merely watched me eat in peace and silence, her trademark smile stretching across her muzzle like it always did. Even more curious was when I happened to return her gaze and she made a motion kind of like a woman batting their eyelashes except instead of that, she "flared" her gills in a teasing affectionate way that made me snort with laughter and almost choke on my food.

"You're just a riot, you know that, right, Seryn?" I said after I had finally stopped coughing. "You make other women seem..." I broke off, wondering if I dared finish that statement.

Seryn merely grinned. "Go on... say it... get it off your chest... I don't mind."

I sighed and finally spit it out. "You make other women seem... human. There, you happy?"

Seryn merely nodded and returned to watching me eat. I couldn't help but sigh in slight annoyance and shake my head while continuing my meal. I just didn't know what I was going to do with her. She was just - in her own words - crazy.

"Mad, love..." she said, once again picking up on my thoughts. "Just mad, and don't you forget it."

It finally hit me that Seryn was doing all of this because she appeared to be "flirting" with me the way that most human males did to the opposite gender. I found this rather odd, but I let her be. As my dad would say, there was no sense in getting mad at a Flammie for being a Flammie.

When I had finally finished my food, I made to clean up, but Seryn suddenly seemed to be full of energy because she came around the table and grabbed my wrist and immediately pulled me towards the door without a word. Before I knew it, the both of us were outside and the much bigger Flammie was leading me across the front lawn towards the stairs leading down to the lake. I tried to ask her what she was up to, but all she would say was, "It's time." It took me a moment to remember that we had an Internet-inspired date to do tonight and that it was already getting late, which gave us a lot less time than I had expected. But Seryn was clearly a natural at making everything fit into a strict schedule. Already we had gone on a "raptor hunt", made love, watched a near-2-hour movie and watched a bit of Seryn's "family history" and it was just about 8:00 at night, so I was sure that Seryn had a way of making this event fit into her schedule as well.

Seryn didn't stop tugging on my arm until we were all the way down at the end of the dock. And when she released me to stop and look up at the moon, I had to rub my arm to get some of the feeling back into it since she had nearly yanked it out of the socket in her excitement. I watched Seryn looking at the moon for a few moments before I began to wonder what she was up to. She hadn't moved for a couple of minutes and I was starting to worry about her.

But just when I was about to intervene, Seryn suddenly spread all four of her fan-like wings to their fullest as well as her arms as if she was on the tip of the Titanic. However, there seemed to be more to her actions than I had expected because she suddenly started to glow a bright, radiant blue again. The light grew in intensity until she was fully engulfed and it seemed that she was blotted out from the world.

But before anything else could happen, the light suddenly seemed to splinter off from her and a beam of solid blue energy suddenly flew from her and slammed into me. My vision suddenly whited out and I felt the scars on my left hand start to burn with unknown heat. I gasped for breath, but no air seemed to be getting into my body. I was suffocating, but somehow, Seryn would not allow me to die. I gasped for breath and bent over to try to get my wind back, but I soon became so weak that I was soon brought down to my hands and knees as the burning sensation started to spread over my body. I couldn't see anything, but I could feel that something was happening to my hand around the bite area. It felt like something was growing under my skin and was threatening to tear it right off. Not only that, but the feeling was spreading rapidly. My skin started to bubble and burn as something was trying desperately to break out of me. My chest was burning and it felt like my lungs and muscles were on fire.

Finally, my skin reached a critical point and I heard it suddenly tear in my chest with a sound like paper tearing as something broke out from under my skin. Not only that, but as my skin tore, a wave of unspeakable pain tore through me as it seemed like some kind of alien was trying to break out of my body. It was like there was a second body under the one that was currently being torn to shreds and I realized that it was going to continue unless I gave it a "boost". I suddenly got an impossible burst of energy as I started tearing at my skin with my hands, which seemed to have suddenly thickened up and grown long, sharp claws. I went into an uncontrolled fury as I repeatedly tore at my skin, allowing a second, much thicker form to burst forth. This kind of reminded me of the movie "Van Helsing" where "Velkan" was doing pretty much the same thing as he transformed into a werewolf. The only real difference in this case was that I wasn't inexplicably climbing backwards up a wall and my body appeared to be a bit... smaller than his. I doubted that Seryn was turning me into a werewolf, but she was certainly turning me into a were-something.

After what felt like an eternity, the beam of energy connecting Seryn and me together went out and I finally settled down and leaned over the dock, gasping for breath, which finally seemed to come back to me. I felt really... different. I still felt like myself, but something told me that I really wasn't. My body felt much thicker, stronger and - believe it or not - furrier. My vision soon returned and I was able to look down at my hands... only that they weren't really hands. anymore but were now handpaws. My fingers had thickened slightly and my nails had suddenly grown out to become long, thick, sharp, black claws. Even stranger, I seemed to have taken a page out of Seryn's book since the gaps between my fingers were now filled in with a set of thick, leathery, webbed membranes. The only real differences between us were that mine was pretty much the same color as the rest of the fur on my body, which was a dull yellowish-brown color, and they were made of actual flesh instead of Seryn's thin but durable jade-green membrane-like material. My claws were a bit shorter and were black instead of Seryn's long, thick, yellow-green ones, which functioned a bit more like extensions of her normally short and nubby digits.

As I got some of the feeling back into my arms, I slowly managed to push myself back into a standing position where I teetered dangerously for a moment before finally steadying myself. And when I looked over my body, everything suddenly made sense. I was the exact spitting image of one of the pictures that Seryn had scanned earlier this afternoon, the character of which happened to be a golden anthropomorphic... wait for it... wait for it... otter! I was an otter built the exact way that that particular artist had drawn. And now that I looked myself over for the first time, I had to admit that I looked pretty darn good.

My body was covered with a lush, thick, golden coat of what I realized was waterproof fur. The fur on my chest and "underside" was a bit paler than on the "top", but it was still pretty impressive. I had heard that a normal human had about 100,000 hairs on the tops of their heads, but that an otter had about the same amount per square centimeter! And now that I ran my new handpaws over it, I certainly believed it. It was as if I was all fur with virtually no skin underneath. Neat!

Speaking of my body, Seryn had done a pretty good job of bulking me up. Underneath all that lush, heavy fur was a set of thick, sinewy muscles that had been greatly improved from my meager human ones. I felt like I could almost bench press a bulldozer, but that was more of a feeling than fact, which meant that I would still have to watch how far I pushed them. Ironically, my clothes had been reduced to shreds (again!) during my desperate actions to break out of my own skin, leaving me covered in fur but still naked. But since Seryn had removed anything that would normally warrant clothes, there really wasn't anything to worry about. And when I looked down at my feet, I had to give Seryn a couple of extra points for effort. True, my number of toes had been reduced from five to four, but they were spaced a bit further apart and were each tipped with a thick, sharp, black claw similar to the ones on my paws. And as a kind of extra touch, there was a set of thick, leathery, black pads under each of my toes and the balls of my feet, which were now distinctly digitigrade. Also, there was an extra one a bit further up where my "heels" would be.

As a special bonus, Seryn had even included a tail in the mix, which now blossomed out of what used to be my backside. I had always heard that otters' tails were long and thick, sporting the nickname of being "rudders", but I really couldn't remember seeing them in real life. I normally read all about them in the "Redwall" books were otters - next to badgers - were probably the most powerful "good" creatures in the series.

And as a finishing touch, Seryn had improved the outlook of my face. I now had a thick, whiskered muzzle to call my own complete with a thick, wet, black nose on the end. My cheeks were even a bit puffier than they used to be, which was part of an otter's trademark look. And on the top of my head mixed into a thick, short mane of maroon-colored head fur was a pair of short, rounded ears that were a bit more functional than my old, "misshapen" human ones.

But as I ran my paws over my neck, I felt something buried under the fur that I knew didn't belong on an otter. For her own unusual reasons, Seryn had even thrown in a set of gills in this form, which didn't make any sense to me. Otters might have been air-breathers, but they were still perfectly capable of holding their breath far longer than any normal mammal could. Why she would suddenly include gills was certainly beyond me.

Speaking of Seryn, I noticed that the light surrounding her had also gone out and I was left to look at a very different version of the Flammie that I had grown to love. In fact, even her transformed body seemed different than the one from the picture of the two otters that she had scanned earlier. Remember that "hybrid" that I mentioned earlier? Well, it seemed that Seryn had gone behind my back and had scanned an extra picture that involved that particular hybrid, which happened to be a fox-otter hybrid named "Shaledri" The coloring was mostly fox-based, but there were also a number of otter-based traits on it as well. But since Seryn had yet to perfect her other forms' coloring, all that I saw was a mixed mass of blue and green.

Seryn's paws were slimmer than mine and didn't have the trademark webbing on them and all of them had a kind of mossy-green "socked" look that came up to her elbows and knees, which was normal for a fox but with the different coloring. Her underside, which had been a pale, cream-yellow in the picture, was about the same sea-green shade as the scales normally found on her underside. The fur that covered her, though, was as thick as mine with no less than 100,000 hairs per square centimeter, but somehow, hers was much shorter, finer and smoother than mine, which gave her a bit of a "polished" look. Even more interesting was the pair of medium-sized furry breasts that slightly grew out of her chest. They were just big enough to be noticeable but small enough not to be a hindrance.

Her tail and head each contained traits of both foxes and otters. Her tail was long, thick and powerful with a kind of bushy look to it. It was also colored at the end with green dipped-paintbrush-like look on the tip. Her face also sported the puffy cheeks that mine did with the large black nose and her ears looked like they were caught between being pointed and rounded with another dipped-green look. Her eyes had not changed in color and I could still see that her pupils and irises were virtually impossible to tell apart from the other. And as a fine bonus, Seryn had redone her "hair" so that it was slightly curled in the tops of the bangs with a fine, gleaming mane dropping down below her shoulders and two tiny ponytails hanging over the fronts of her shoulders. And sure enough, she hadn't left her gills out of the equation from being buried in the fur on the sides of her neck. She was really quite beautiful despite the fact that she wasn't what I had expected.

"Well, Alex?" she said in that same, spacey, shimmering, otherworldly voice of hers. "Can I accessorize or what?"

I nodded in response. "You certainly did well despite the fact that this wasn't what you showed me." My voice was much deeper, burlier and more masculine than before, but it was still somewhat mine.

Seryn couldn't help but blush, which still turned her face a deep plum-purple even in this limited light. "Sorry. I couldn't help myself. I'm a hybrid in nature, so I figured I would use a hybrid tonight. You don't mind, do you?"

I simply shook my head. "Not at all. I'm just looking forward to our date is all. But why did you include these?" I ran my paw around my neck, lightly touching my gills, which literally felt like I had four cut holes in my neck.

Seryn shrugged. "Why not? I know otters can hold their breath and all, but I want to make sure that nothing interrupts us - not even the need to breathe. Besides, I'm sure you'll figure out how to use them once we get in the water. So in other words..." She bowed lightly and held out her paw as if she was being a gentleman. "May I have this dance?"

I was never one to turn down a pretty face, and since Seryn had been planning this for most of the day, I didn't see why I should refuse her. Besides... she was a lady.

Seryn snorted at this thought but still held her inviting pose. "You should know by now that I'm no more a lady than you are a Synthetic at the moment."

With a smile and a shrug, I took Seryn's paw in my own and she slowly stood up before we joined paws for a moment, staring into each other's eyes for a long while. Finally, we both seemed to come to an understanding of what we were about to do. And without another word between us, Seryn and I turned to face the lake before running as one and then leaping clean off the dock and plunging into the lake and swimming away. And thus began the first-ever "otter ballet", which was the exact name of the "obscene" picture that Seryn had gotten the idea from earlier today.

We swam out into deeper water, my right paw still joined in her left one and our bodies doing most of the work for us. The lake was really shallow near the shores, but as you got out about 200 feet from the edge, it suddenly dropped to an as-of-yet unknown depth. And it was there that Seryn and I took "center stage" and turned to face each other. True to my word, the lake water was significantly clearer and cleaner than the one where I had initially found Seryn. And true to her word, I no longer felt the need to draw oxygen from the surface as my gills seemed to go to work by themselves. Since there were two of them on each side, they worked a little differently than normal fish gills. Water would flow in through one of them and the oxygen it contained would be piped directly to my lungs while the water simply flowed out the other gill without the oxygen it had originally contained. As Seryn and I continued to hold paws, I couldn't help but run my paw over the working gills, which felt oddly like sliding your hand over a thin paper cut where the skin was just barely being held together but without the pain.

"Well, Seryn, you continue to amaze me to no end," I said underwater, my voice seeming to work better since I had gills to filter out any potential air bubbles that I might have expelled had they not been there.

Seryn nodded and flexed her tail playfully. "Then let the amazement continue because I'm not done with you by a long shot. Now..." she added, drifting away slightly while still loosely holding onto my paw. "Shall we dance? I know just the tune, too."

And as she said that, I began to hear a strange, mysterious, aquatic melody being channeled into my brain through the Link Collar that was buried under my fur and gills. It was a soft, sparkling and pleasant tune and I was sure it was one of Seryn's own compositions. I could tell that she could hear the tune as well and that she wanted to dance to it, a task that I was only to glad to take part in. And with the ability to move ourselves in virtually any direction underwater, we began to dance in perfect tune to the slow but sweet melody.

If you had ever seen one of those underwater plays, you can kind of imagine the movements that each of us did but without the need for heavy and obnoxious scuba equipment. I would lead Seryn through the water while still holding onto her paw as though this was a ballroom dance. But since we were underwater, we added a bit more of a "vertical" element to it. At times, we would lightly "climb" to the surface as if we were climbing stairs, and at others, we would both dive down towards the lake bottom with virtually little effort. We would spin, flip and roll with each other, not once losing control of the other. And since I was supposed to be the leading male, I was expected to lead Seryn in the dance through the water, which she copied rather well.

At times, a number of fish would swim through our routine, but we kept right on track as if they were simply part of the act. And at one time, Seryn modified the melody that was leading us so that it played much faster and more intensely, which was supposed to be a kind of mambo or tango. And to spice it up, the both of us reached out and caught a passing fish without even breaking the routine and placed them in our mouths as if they were a pair of roses in a similar situation. I could hardly believe how well I was keeping up with the aquatic female. I had never been really in tune when I had taken dance classes in school, but I had always been good with a beat, both of which Seryn seemed to include in the mental melody as though it was some kind of subliminal message. But unlike those potentially brainwashing messages, Seryn's was just there to help me along as if my body was kind of on autopilot while still allowing me to remain in control.

We danced for what felt like hours. Seryn would occasionally change the pace and tune of the melody playing in our heads so that there was always something new to try. My ability to endure that much dancing surprised even me. I barely seemed to be wearing myself out or even tiring in the slightest, which was probably due to Seryn's mental influence. She seemed to be keeping my energy level at a steady pace as well as the tempo of our dance so that I didn't overexert myself. And even though I probably could have stopped whenever I wanted to, I knew that I was enjoying myself far too much to stop now, which Seryn seemed to more than appreciate.

After a long series of blissful, complex and enjoyable routines, Seryn finally brought the melody to a slow and proper conclusion as we finished by holding our joined paws over our heads and bowed to the other as the dance finally came to an end and we were left looking at each other several dozen feet underwater. We had both gotten our fill of fish during the routine, which was really different when you had the taste buds of an otter instead of a human. We were both full and satisfied with our efforts and we both let each other know how we felt.

"Well done, love," said Seryn as she held her position with a few stationary strokes. "You've certainly lived up to my expectations. I think the two of us set a record for the longest underwater dance."

I nodded and panted slightly, my fatigue starting to catch up with me. I was sure that Seryn had kept me from running out of energy so as not to disrupt our dance, but now that it was over, I was starting to wear myself out just by swimming in place.

"I'm sure that someone somewhere was watching us. I'm just glad that it's over. I enjoyed myself, but it must be past midnight by now. I think I need to turn in for tonight."

Seryn nodded and swam over to me before embracing me in her arms. "Then why don't you just shut your eyes and I'll take care of the rest? Just relax and go to sleep and I'll make sure that you return to your human form and get a good night's sleep while you're at it. Here, let me help you..." She then convinced me to look into her eyes, which immediately started to have a deep calming and relaxing effect on me as soon as I locked onto them. I yawned widely and struggled to keep my eyes open, but Seryn merely encouraged it by gently running a paw over my drooping eyes, closing them and allowing me to slip off to sleep. I trusted her to take care of me and get me back to the house before I technically "drowned". She really was a good person and I knew that she loved me just as much as I loved her. She was really sweet... really...

I woke up the following morning in my own bed in my own room in my own house and in a state of pure comfort. Seryn wasn't there again, but I sensed that she was still near. She would never leave me again and we both knew it. I was sure that she had slept with me for a majority of the night before finally getting up and heading off to get ready for her day. And when I saw that the clock read 10:15, I realized that I had slept away a good portion of my morning already!

I flung myself out of bed and immediately realized that Seryn hadn't redressed me. But then again, I had been covered with fur and I was a neuter, so there really wasn't anything for me to worry about. Still, it was just more proper to wear clothes, so I grabbed a set that Seryn had yet to unintentionally destroy and put it on before leaving the bedroom to greet the new day.

However, that day started off a little differently than normal. Seryn wasn't in the kitchen making me breakfast this morning. Instead, she was sitting in a chair in the living room with a Playstation 2 controller in her paws and appeared to be playing Dawn of Mana. How she had managed to get the game running and handle the controller with webbed paws was a complete mystery to me. But as I watched the scene she was watching play out, I realized that it was one of the same Flammie-based scenes that I had shown her yesterday afternoon. And once the scene finished, it went right back to the Options menu where she would promptly head straight for the next Flammie scene. I had to wonder how long she had been watching those three scenes since she had been up, but I noticed that she didn't seem to be behaving like herself. Her face was completely neutral and I noticed that whenever the scenes would show Flammie flying, she would pull down one of her own fan-like wings and would either stroke it or pet it without looking at it. Common Sense told me that she really wanted to fly, but the fact that her wings weren't built for the skies seemed to be tearing her up inside.

Realizing that Seryn was in some kind of trance and would keep this up unless I said something, I finally walked around to stand next to her and nudged her lightly on the shoulder. She didn't respond at first but when the scene she was watching finally ended, she seemed to snap out of her self-induced trance and look up at me with a somber expression.

I figured that there was no point in beating around the bush. "Do you want to fly, Seryn?"

Seryn seemed amazed that I had figured that out all by myself, but then she hung her head in apparent shame. "Oh, Alex... if only I could experience flying in the air just one time, I'd never ask for it again. But the sad truth is that I'm just about as airworthy as a stone airplane. These wings are made for flying, but it's supposed to be underwater flying, which I can do rather well. I mean, I'm supposed to be a Flammie, who is naturally the lord of the skies, but my crummy wings won't even get me off the ground. They're about as effective in the air as a sieve, which doesn't help out at all." She sighed miserably and put her face in her paws. "It's just not fair! I'd give anything just to experience flying, even if it wasn't really me. Just to be able to soar through the air and feel the air in my wings would be more than enough for me."

She seemed really upset and I had to wonder what I could do to help her. But when I thought about what she had said, I suddenly came up with a simple but not altogether obvious solution. "Then why don't you make yourself airworthy?"

Seryn looked blank for a minute before looking at me. "What do you mean?"

I explained a method that I was surprised that Seryn hadn't yet considered. "Well, given the fact that you can transform your body into virtually any shape, why don't you transform just your wings into something that could be airworthy?"

Seryn paused and looked off to one side as she thought this over, taking a moment to look at one of her wings again and looking at it with a look of stern concentration again. But when her expression fell, I had a feeling that she hadn't been able to accomplish this seemingly simple task.

"Sorry, love. My wings are part of who I am. I can't change just them by themselves unless I change the rest of my body along with it. It's one thing to do it with my paws, but my wings are part of my central nervous system and I would probably cripple myself if I tried to change just them instead of my entire body."

Fortunately, she had just provided me with an alternative method. "Then why don't you?"

Seryn sighed. "Because I..." She broke off, thinking long and hard about what she had wanted to say. And when she spoke again, it was in a tone of uncertain curiosity. "You know, that's a good point. I did say that I didn't care how I got into the air or who I was as long as I could fly on my own. So why shouldn't I do it that way? Flying's flying as long as you're doing it under your own control."

I nodded and placed my hand on her shoulder. "Exactly. So why don't you pick out an airworthy form and we can both go out for a little flight? I'm sure you can find the ideal form in my picture collection if you thought about it."

Seryn's smile had returned and she suddenly seemed far more optimistic. "Sure, why not? Bring it over here, love."

And with that, I fetched my picture binder and brought it over to Seryn, who opened it as I stood by her side and looked over the pictures. She seemed to be mostly interested in the "Dragons" section, but she seemed to be rather picky about what she wanted to become. I saw many potentially good forms for her to take that would get her in the air in nothing flat, but every time I pointed out a potential candidate, she merely shook her head and continued to look.

"These are all good for flying solo, but I want to take you along with me, so I want a more "basic" form that's big enough and capable enough of carrying a passenger."

That was awfully considerate of her and it further proved how much she cared about me, but that didn't make looking for a better candidate any easier. Even when I pointed to a couple of seemingly perfect characters, Seryn continued to refuse, stating that it "wasn't good enough".

Just when she was about to finish up the section, she suddenly backtracked to a previous page and planting a claw on what she felt was "perfect". However, I was worried about her selection. The picture she had selected was of the trademark dragon from the "Inheritance" book series named "Saphira" that had been redrawn by a separate artist. The picture in question was drawn by one "Dragarta" and showed Saphira in a way that "she" should have been in the first "Eragon" movie. Most of her body was covered in what appeared to be fine, blue scales except that they were actually a coat of fine feathers. The shade of blue that she was colored with was uncannily similar to Seryn's own fine, blue scales except that Seryn's coat was much finer and a bit less obvious than the dragon's. The edges of Saphira's wings were also covered in several layers of feathers as well as a couple of extra "spikes" that grew past the edges of them. Her front paws were oddly functional with three main finger-like claws complete with a fourth opposable thumb on the corresponding sides. And as a kind of artist's bonus, there was a smaller, younger dragon drawn in a way that it appeared to be clambering over its "mother's" long, scaly tail with Saphira's head positioned in a way that she was looking over her shoulder at it with one of her paws in the air. It almost looked like she had been drawn in a position that she was leading the tiny dragon on its way.

I had to admit that Seryn's selection was unique since there weren't a whole lot of dragons in my collection that had both feathers and scales. It seemed like a fair choice, but I was naturally worried about how much those scales were going to tear up my legs if and when she got me into the air. In the book, Eragon hadn't exactly fared too well after Saphira had "abducted" him, which ended up with his legs becoming raw and bloody to the point that he could barely walk after she finally let go of him. It wasn't until later when Saphira had been fashioned with a saddle that Eragon actually looked forward to going on flights with her.

Sensing this, Seryn smiled and placed a paw on my arm. "Don't worry about chafing, love. Remember that I can form virtually anything with my body's liquids. A saddle is no challenge at all for someone like me. I just need to scan the picture and we'll be on our way."

I didn't see anything wrong with that, so I gave Seryn the okay to slide the picture out and then stick it in her mouth to "scan" it like she had with the other ones. Since it was already laminated, she did not have to protect it any further and she soon slid it back into its sleeve with the "data" inside her as though this was completely normal. And once she handed the book back to me, she stood up and made for the door as if she wanted to do this right away.

I couldn't help but stare at her sheer determination to get airborne. "You want to go already? What about breakfast?"

Seryn smiled and beckoned to me with a claw. "No time, love. I want to get in the air right away. If you need sustenance, I can give you that once we get outside. Come on, or else I'll leave you behind."

Realizing that she probably meant it, I got up and slipped my shoes on before following her right out of the house as she lead the way into the woods. I wasn't sure why she wasn't changing in the front yard even though there was probably enough room to do it. But she probably knew what was best, so I simply followed after her as she power-walked through the woods with me barely being able to keep up with her. She really seemed determined to get in the air and she didn't seem to want to be hindered by her human "lackey". And since she took such big, long strides, I practically had to jog to keep up with her.

Seryn didn't stop until she reached a large clearing about a ten minutes' walk from the house. I finally caught up to her, gasping for breath at the strict exercise that I had gotten.

"Well... that's my exercise for the day," I gasped as Seryn allowed me to lean up against her. She merely chuckled and rubbed my back for a moment before explaining her actions.

"Sorry, Alex. I'm just so excited to get in the air. But before that, let's get you that breakfast. Hold still."

She raised her paw and lightly pushed her foreclaw into the side of my neck the same way that she had done for lunch yesterday and I felt a cool, gel-like liquid being injected directly into my artery as it spread all over my body. I immediately felt the effects of the liquid like I had yesterday as countless revitalizing vitamins and nutrients filled my system. It also gave my stomach the feeling of being full even though there wasn't any food in there, which was just part of the liquid's effects. I quickly felt full and more energized than I had when we had arrived in the clearing. I was even able to get by breath back.

"Thanks, Seryn," I said as she pulled her claw out of me without even a scar like the ones she had left on my hand. "I needed that."

Seryn smiled and tapped me on the leg with her tail. "Anytime, love. Now let's get this flight off the ground. Wait here."

I waited as she walked forward into the clearing before looking around as if making sure that we were all alone and then turning around to wink at me. The next thing I knew, her body had once again turned into unusual blue watery liquid that comprised her body's chemistry and had literally "melted" into a puddle of herself. She then spread herself out to a much larger circular area before pausing and appearing to rise up out of the ground again. This time, the form she took was that of the image of Saphira that had been in the picture she had scanned just minutes earlier. True, she was currently curled up in a "sleeping fetal position", but once her blueness seemed to crystallize and turn back to its "natural" color, Seryn finally opened her eyes and uncurled herself before stretching herself out like a cat. I noticed that there was virtually no green on her this time primarily because this form didn't call for it and that the blue of her body was pretty much the same whether it was a "real" Saphira or Seryn at all. She had even gotten the details of the scales and the feathers down to a science as though she had been photocopied from the original picture. She had also only created the traditional two wings instead of her normal four, which only made sense since she was only "borrowing" this form, And when she turned to face me, she spoke in a way that was a bit unusual for the original Saphira.

"I never realized how powerful being a dragon could make you feel, especially with one as strong as this one." She spoke using her mouth as if she did this all the time, which was different since the dragons in the books and movie spoke mentally with their "Riders". It was different, but it wasn't anything that I couldn't handle.

"Well, you turned out okay," I told her as I drank in her image. "But how good are you at using it?"

Seryn seemed to take this as a challenge and rounded on me with her legs braced and her head down as if she was ready to confront me. "I guess we'll just have to see, won't we?"

And before I could react, she had bounded across the clearing and snapped me up by the neck of my shirt in her mouth and heaved me up and around onto her back before planting me on a thick hollow on her back. It took me a moment to realize that she had gone a step further and had even crafted a molded saddle onto her body with her liquids, which prevented my legs from rubbing up against her scaly sides, but by then, she had already lurched forward and had spread her wings before taking flight as though she did this all the time. We were soon 500 feet in the air in less than 30 seconds and still climbing before everything finally started to slow down.

I could hardly believe that Seryn was flying, much less having me along for the ride. And while the form she was using was not her own, that didn't seem to bother her in the slightest. She seemed to feel that as long as she was able to fly under her own power, she was just fine with that. And since I was able to fly with her, it seemed to give her confidence a distinct boost as she spread her wings and started to climb even higher.

I was worried on just how high she planned on climbing since I was still human and could pass out and possibly die from the cold and lack of oxygen if she went too high.

Sensing this, I head Seryn speak to me through thoughts, which was both more convenient due to the rushing wind and more traditional from the way that the original Saphira normally spoke. You can stop trying to choke me. I know how much you can take as a human before you pass out and I promise not to push it too far. I realized that my grip around her neck had been a little tight, so with her word as her bond, I loosened my grip and finally took a moment to look around at my surroundings.

We had long since left the lake area where we were living and were now soaring over a long, flat countryside already several miles from home. Seryn had her wings spread wide and I could sense her emotions through my Link Collar. The feeling of joy, happiness and freedom that she felt was almost beyond explanation. Now that she was finally back in the realm where her species thrived, she felt far more at peace with herself and felt like she could almost rule the world. Those feelings were supposedly normal for dragons and flying beasts, but since Seryn had been born without the gift of flight, she was enjoying this far more than should have been allowed. She loved the feeling of the wind blowing through her wings, even if they weren't really hers. Normal winged creatures took flying for granted, but when you were born without the gift of flight even though your ancestry allowed it, the pure feeling of being able to fly at all was truly something that you would never forget.

But Seryn wasn't the only one who was enjoying this time in the skies. I was also having quite a thrilling time up there as Seryn soared through the air, able to turn on a dime and bank at breakneck speeds with virtually no trouble at all. And when Seryn spotted a large ravine in-between two massive hills, she couldn't stop herself from exploiting that opportunity. She turned her head back and asked me a rather obvious question.

How about we try a little speed run, love? I want to see just what this from can do.

I nodded and grinned back at her daring attitude. "Just what I had in mind. Let 'er rip and don't hold back!"

Seryn grinned toothily and chuckled in my mind. Okay, but you asked for it. Here we go!

And with that, she looked forward again and furled her wings before taking off through the air like she had been shot out of a cannon! If we were enjoying ourselves before, then that was nothing compared to what we were feeling now. Seryn easily broke the record for fastest winged animal as she tore through the skies and sped through the ravine, navigating it as though she ate courses like that for breakfast. She was going so fast that if it wasn't for the saddle she had crafted onto her back, I probably would have flown off miles ago. I yelled in excitement and did my best to move with her, leaning in the same direction that she did as she continued to speed through the ravine. It was really something to be riding such a magnificent beast that could move at such an incredible speed with such deadly accuracy.

But when Seryn started to slow down as she pulled out of the ravine, she suddenly closed her eyes and started to glow with that unusual blue light again. It seemed that she was going to morph in mid-air, which seemed rather dangerous, but what she really had in mind was something far more beneficial. I suddenly felt her body liquefy in mid-flight yet she didn't seem to be shifting her form. But a few second later, I suddenly saw two large, watery tentacles rise up out of her back in-between her wing joints and then wrap themselves around my neck as though strangling me. However, she didn't seem to want to harm me, but what she did next made even less sense. All of a sudden, I felt Seryn's body drag me down into her as if she was absorbing me while the tentacles remained wrapped around my neck. I tried to struggle, but my nerves didn't seem to be responding as if the tentacles had seized control of my body. I tried to plead my case to Seryn, but she didn't appear to hear me, either. All I could do was watch and wait as her body pulled me all the way inside her until the liquid had fully surrounded my body like an oddly cool blanket.

Finally, Seryn's body seemed to harden again, which was odd since I was now experiencing it from the inside. It felt like her body was canceling out mine as thick, warm, draconic flesh replaced my soft human body. In fact, my entire body seemed to become neutralized as it was consumed by the flesh while my mind somehow remained intact. I could no longer see or hear anything, but I knew that Seryn wouldn't leave me hanging. And as my body was fully absorbed into hers, I felt my mind migrate north and take a place next to what I realized was Seryn's somewhere in her head. My vision soon returned, but it was significantly different since I could now see everything as if I was looking through a kind of modified heat-vision camera. The only difference was that instead of warm colors like red, orange and yellow, I saw many more "cool" colors like green, blue, indigo and violet, which was on the other side of the known rainbow (instead of seeing "R.O.Y.", I was now seeing "G. B.I.V." of the "ROY G. BIV" name that you learned in school to remember the order of colors in the rainbow.). It was almost as if I was looking at an underwater world while obviously being in the sky.

And when I spoke, I realized that I was using Seryn's voice as if it was my own. "Seryn... what did you do to me?"

Seryn spoke the same way, but this time, she had control of her voice as she did so. "What? Haven't you ever seen the movie "Eragon"? I'm just taking a page out of that sequence and letting you experience it for yourself."

Now that I thought about it, it was oddly similar where Eragon had been riding Saphira and had used a spell to see the world through her eyes... but there hadn't been anything about her absorbing his body to do that. "It's similar, but it's not the same as the movie."

Seryn chuckled and banked to one as the ravine turned sharply to the right. "Then think of the same part in the book except I absorbed your entire body to do it."

Now that she mentioned it, the book had been a little more detailed with the actions of the same scene except that Saphira had "borrowed" Eragon's entire consciousness from his body to let him ride "shotgun" in hers. However, Saphira hadn't been made of liquid and Eragon's body had remained intact. Come to think of it, Seryn seemed to be on to something since she was part-Synthetic and was merely doing what was native to her species.

"Good point. I just wish that you would have told me before you just swallowed me like that. You can put me back in my body when you're done with me, right?"

Seryn and I nodded as one even though she was in control. "Of course. I'm not half-Synthetic for nothing. I can let you have your body back when we head back, but why would you want to go back when we're having so much fun right now? Here, let me give you a little boost."

And with a mental "nudge", Seryn moved my mind into a position that seemed to be directly on top of her so that I could see, hear and feel everything that she could as if I was actually inside her skin (both figuratively and practically). For the first time, I could feel pure, powerful muscles, limbs and joints moving as if I was controlling them with a set of natural instincts as my guide. I could literally feel Seryn's wings moving as if they were my own and I could have sworn that our hearts were beating at the same pace and frequency as the other. And when the pure thrill of being able to fly completely unrestrained crossed over from Seryn's mind into mine, I realized that there was virtually no physical or spiritual way to separate us at the moment. I had gone from being a simple passenger to taking actual control of Seryn's body like it belonged to me. We were moving, breathing and thinking as one, and I was loving every moment of it.

While we were merged, Seryn and I decided to see just how high we could climb now that there wasn't a human "passenger" to hold us back. We pulled out of the ravine and began to climb at a steep angle, pumping our wings hard and rhythmically as we climbed higher into the air than should have been allowed. We could feel the temperature changing and the air growing thin as we passed 10,000 feet, but since we were part-Synthetic, we merely needed to stop ourselves from breathing and bring our vital signs down to nothing while still being distinctly alive. Only Synthetics could put virtually control their vital signs to such a degree since they were neither alive nor dead at any given time. To them, breathing and maintaining a pulse was more of a habit than a necessity that they could control at virtually any time in their "lives".

When we reached 25,000 feet, we could feel ice starting to build up on the edges of our wings, threatening to drag us back down to earth from the sheer weight and limit of our body, but that was easily remedied by shifting our body chemistry from flesh-and-blood back to the same strange watery liquid that we were naturally made of. Since it was clearly not water, the freezing point of the liquid was far lower than normal water. I doubted that even jet fuel could compare to it, which only froze at negative 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

But as the atmosphere started to thin out and we started to see the stars in space, we suddenly realized that we were really pushing it because the "water" in our body was starting to ice over. Our instincts told us that the temperature had plummeted to just under 77 degrees Kelvin, which was the temperature of liquid nitrogen -- a rare but not uncommon high school science material. Both of us knew that if we continued to climb, not only would our body completely freeze, but we would lose consciousness and plummet back to earth as a frozen dragon statue before shattering into a million pieces upon impact. And even though the ice would melt and we would eventually be able to reconstruct our scattered liquids, that was a chance that we weren't willing to take, so we both agreed that this was high enough. We stopped climbing long enough to get a good look at the stars that we could see even though it was only about noon before turning around and flying back down to earth, our movements a little stiff from being partially frozen. Once we got back to warmer altitudes, we would eventually thaw out and go about our lives as though nothing had happened. Besides, at least we both discovered at what point our "Bio-Liquid" body was rendered motionless. And with that knowledge under our belt, we started flying back towards home and our next great adventure.

Unbeknownst to them, they weren't the only ones who had discovered at what point Seryn's Synthetic body froze over. There was a third party that had been watching from a safe distance and had been taking notes on the two daredevils as they had been climbing up to the heavens. This strange creature was none other than Plexadonn Incendus, who had been the founder of the Furry Fan Club and the sole creator of his (quote/unquote) "Aquatic Flammie". He had been the one who had trained Seryn in to understand her powers and potential two nights ago and had been keeping an eye on her ever since.

Seryn had been his mysterious "sixth member" that had had kept hidden from even the other members of the fan club mainly because he hadn't been sure if she would have survived. But now that he was sure that she was alive and well, he could finally "honorably discharge" her, but he would keep tabs on her unique traits mainly because she could be the founding creature of an entirely new type of Synthetic altogether. Her ability to manipulate her body's unusual water liquids into virtually any form went beyond even what the super-capable Gooeys could even do. If he could successfully replicate this unusual type of material, he could take the credit as the sole creator of a whole new type of Synthetic. His father, Strato, had already taken credit for six out of the seven known types of Synthetic (with "Gooeys" being the exception), so if he could synthesize his own type, he could finally make his mark in the magical world. True, he was already the son of the greatest physical god on the planet, but he figured that a little extra publicity wouldn't hurt to get his name out in the world.

As he watched the fused human and "dragon" fly off back towards their home, Plexie made a few more notes in his log before disappearing with a loud crack! His father was going to be pleased with his findings, but he was grateful that Strato would let him continue to work with this experimental type of Synthetic. He was always willing to work with people and let them take credit for their work since he was clearly a very accomplished dragon already.

As Seryn and I touched down in the same clearing in the woods that we had taken off from, Seryn finally managed to split our two minds up and reform my body within her. She then made a rather unusual decision to regurgitate me through her mouth as if I was a kind of "dragon pellet". It was really odd to suddenly go from feeling warm, gel-like liquid to hot, moist, living flesh all around you as you slowly passed up the throat of your "captor" before being thrown up onto the forest floor covered in thick, putrid-smelling fluids. But since I had already been "Frenched" by a similarly-built raptor, being thrown up by a dragon was just another day in paradise for me. Seryn even made a scene out of running her long, feather-soft, rope-like tongue over me to try to "clean" me up. And as she did so, I couldn't help noticing the sighing purr-like sounds that were coming out of her, which told me that she was actually enjoying this.

As Seryn finally "deslimed" my face and went to work on my torso, I looked up at her with a strange look. "You know, you seem to be enjoying this to the point that it's almost creepy."

Seryn smiled and deviated from her cleaning to give me one more lick in the face before returning to her work with a toothy smile but without a word. I sighed and wiped the dragon slime off of my face again and allowed her to continue cleaning me before she felt that she was finished. I then decided to take a gamble and "tease" her a little.

"Maybe next time you can eat me instead of turning me into a big dragon pellet if you got that much of a kick out of this."

I had no idea at that moment how seriously Seryn took those teasing words. As I stood up and leaned against me, she looked at me out of the corner of her eye with an indecisive look while I gently stroked her scaly hide.

She finally broke the silence when she turned around and addressed me directly. "Well, it's a little past noon and I'm sure you'll be wanting lunch, huh?"

I nodded. "Sure, if that's not too much to ask. Can we head back and fry up some more of that salmon?"

Seryn grinned toothily and nuzzled her head into my chest. "Sure, love. I can carry you there on my back if you want."

However, I felt that I had to decline her offer. "Not this time, Seryn. I want to have a nice walk through the woods with you by my side for once instead of being dragged along by the arm."

Seryn chuckled lightly and nodded. "If you insist. Stand back."

I did so and Seryn's body turned back into its blue liquid state before she "melted" again and reduced herself to a puddle. This time, however, she merely shrunk her body area back to what it had been when she had previously done it before a familiar Aquatic Flammie form slowly rose out of the puddle and solidified into a very welcome figure. Seryn shook herself out and walked up to me before holding out her paw as if offering me her presence. I nodded and smiled at her gesture and took her hand before locking my arm in hers and the two of us started walking through the woods again back home. All the while, I was unaware that Seryn kept glancing at me out of the corner of her eye and lightly licking or smacking her lips as if I was a tasty treat that she could see but not have.

When we got home, I went to the bathroom to take a proper shower since I still smelled strongly of dragon and the mixed ocean-and-grass smell of Seryn. Seryn, meanwhile, had taken the remaining king salmon fillet and fish out of the freezer and had begun preparing them for our lunch. Since I hadn't exactly eaten anything for breakfast, I could hardly wait to see what kind of concoction she came up with this time.

After about three full latherings and rinses, I had gotten the dragon smell out of my skin, but Seryn's body chemistry had embedded itself so far into my flesh that it was virtually permanent. It wasn't an offensive smell, but I just found it odd to smell the same as the one I loved when I was clearly not an aquatic. But given what Seryn had already done to me, I should have considered myself lucky that I was still human after all of that. It was hard to ignore the fact that I was still neuter while standing naked in the shower, but Seryn had pretty much done me a favor by doing so and I had actually agreed with her in the first place, so I really didn't need to hold it against her anymore.

When I finally got out of the shower, I found dinner already sitting on the table but Seryn was missing in action. I could still sense her in the house, but she was obviously not in the living room. In fact, I had barely gotten out of the bathroom when Seryn came up right behind me with what appeared to be a comic book in her possession, which she seemed to find rather interesting as she sat down at the table and continued to read. I had many comics in my possession, most of which had seen better days, but the one she had selected over all of the others happened to be one of only two of its kind in my collection. It was a special "Digimon" comic that had been taken right from the first season of the TV series and had been put into print. The "episode" that she had selected happened to be called "Garurumon!" and featured one of only two of my most favorite aquatic Digimon, the legendary "Seadramon". When I realized this, I figured that it only made sense why Seryn would show interest in that particular Digimon since it also happened to be a fellow aquatic. True, Seadramon hadn't exactly been "friendly" in that episode, but he was still a pretty cool Digimon in my opinion. And while he wasn't as advanced as his other "Digivolved" forms, I still found him to be the best out of the three Seadramon forms. He wasn't weighed down with extra "accessories" like "MegaSeadramon" and "MetalSeadramon" were, which made me appreciate him a little more. Besides, I liked his "personality" better than the other two just because I could.

I wasn't sure if Seryn was actually reading the comic, but she certainly seemed to show interest in the shots of Seadramon that she could see. And as she flipped back o a previous page with a glum expression, I suddenly had an idea to lighten her mood.

"You know, I have that episode burned on DVD if you want to watch it. It looks better than any comic could ever show, too."

Seryn looked up from the comic with a curious expression. "Would you mind if I watched it? I'm trying to decide whether to use Seadramon or Crusoe later on." When she said "Crusoe", I assumed that she was talking about the "water horse" from the movie that we had watched last night. It seemed that Seryn already had a plan for the two of us for later on in the day but she was just having a hard time choosing one over the other.

"Sure. Let me go get it." But Seryn suddenly held up a paw as she set the comic down on the table and beat me to it. "I can do it. Remember, I can hear your mind loud and clear. You just eat and let me take care of the rest."

I was finding her mood and behavior a little more serious than she had previously been ever since we had returned from our flight, but I knew that she was a big girl and she certainly deserved to do things on her own, so I didn't hold it against her as she went back into the bedroom to fetch the correct DVD out of my massive collection of burned ones in my possession. Meanwhile, I turned to my food to see just what she had prepared this time.

Seryn seemed to have gotten the idea for sushi, but she had prepared it a little differently than normal. She had cut the fish up into pieces and had fried them up just out of respect for me. She had then spread them over a pan of rice that had been covered with what appeared to be lemon-pepper seasoning and a creamy, yellow soup that appeared to be cream of chicken since there was obviously no such thing as "cream of fish". She had soaked the rice in the soup enough that I wouldn't get any that was "flavorless" and she had scattered the fish through it like little "tidbits". There was already a large portion of the dish missing from the pan, which suggested that Seryn had already eaten and had left the rest for me to enjoy. And when I helped myself to the food, I found that she had once again impressed me with her level of cooking expertise. I had had the dish before with chicken instead of salmon, but the effect still seemed to be the same with the fish tasting far better than should have been allowed. In fact, if it wasn't for a faint, sea-salty taste and the fact that the fish was pink, I could have sworn that it was chicken that I was eating since the flavors were so similar. She had continued to amaze me and I couldn't wait to see what else she had planned for me.

By now, Seryn had returned with the DVD that contained the Digimon episode that the comic had been based off of. Amazingly, the episode in question was only the third out of the entire series. Even stranger still, the episode immediately before it had contained another of my favorite aquatic Digimon, the massive pink, blue and gray mollusk Digimon known as "Shellmon". It was kind of ironic how both Digimon starred in back-to-back episodes so early in the series and that both of them happened to be not only two of my favorite types of all time but were also my favorite aquatic types as well. And while Shellmon would make a quick reappearance later on in the series, Seadramon had only appeared in his "original" form in that particular episode. And even though he had appeared as one of the Dark Masters and as a servant of a later villain Digimon, I just couldn't bring myself to admire Mega-and-MetalSeadramon as much as I could with the original, plain and simple.

I had expected Seryn to fast-forward through the episode just to see Seadramon in all his power and glory, but she didn't seem to be in a rush as she began to watch the episode from start to finish. She was very patient since Seadramon didn't appear until the last half of the episode. I had even managed to finish my food just as it was getting to the point where Tai and Agumon were going on night watch, which was just a minute or so before the "golden moment". Seryn looked at me with a pleasant smile as I sat down next to her on the couch and she even wrapped her left wings around my back as the scene started to pick up. A random spark from the fire had been thrown onto what appeared to be a large, flat, red leaf embedded into the ground, but I knew the true nature of that "leaf" all too well as it seemed to set of a chain reaction in the ground and cause Seadramon himself to make his appearance.

As we watched the incident with Seadramon unfold, Seryn didn't seem to be surprised that the red "leaf" had actually been the blade of the serpent's tail. After all, she had read the corresponding comic just minutes earlier. And as Matt tried to swim to the now-stranded island that Seadramon had virtually pulled out to the middle of the lake, Seryn leaned forward as the Digimon surrounded Matt and began to squeeze him like a boa constrictor. But when Seryn looked at me with a rather mischievous smile, I suddenly realized what she might have been planning.

"Don't get any crazy ideas, Seryn," I warned her. "I'm still human and I can get crushed far easier than any cartoon character."

Seryn said nothing as she turned back to the TV. I didn't like the silent treatment she was giving me. She was obviously planning something, but I could only hope that she didn't let her wild ideas go to her head.

The battle sequence between newly-Digivolved Garurumon and Seadramon seemed to have Seryn on the edge of her seat, and when the serpent let fly his "Lethal Ice Blast", Seryn suddenly let out a startled shrill as if she had been hit by that breath herself. She recovered, but as Seadramon was brought down by Garurumon's "Howling Blaster", I heard her huff in annoyance and clench her paws into fists as if his actions had been completely unjustified. But since she knew that she couldn't help the outcome of the show, she swallowed her pride and the two of us finished the episode without any further incidents. It might have been just me, but I could have sworn that she tended to take these prerecorded events a bit too personally.

When the show was over and the next episode started, Seryn switched off the TV and sat back on the couch for a moment to think over what she had just watched. I could tell that she was trying to make the crucial decision of which aquatic she wanted to use later on tonight. She seemed stuck between the water horse and Seadramon as she weighed up the pros and cons of each one. However, she seemed to get frustrated that she couldn't make up her mind because she suddenly groaned in frustration and put her head in her paws.

"AAAUGH! I can't make up my mind!" she yelled out to no one in particular. "I want to do them both, but there's just not enough time to do them both tonight! I don't know whether to go soft and easy or firm and brash!"

I could tell that this was really tearing her up inside, so as an attempt to calm her down, I offered her a fair solution. "If it bothers you so much, Seryn, why don't we do them both?" Seryn lifted her head up and looked at me as if begging for an explanation. "Sure... we can do one now and the other later on tonight. I didn't have anything else planned for today, so why not? I still have more fun with you than I ever do around this old cabin, so let's go out and enjoy ourselves."

Seryn looked at her paws for a few moments while occasionally clenching and unclenching them as if she could read her own fate. She finally clenched them one more time before holding her head up and looking at me with a confident smirk. "I guess that's fine with me. That is... if you really don't mind."

I shook my head. "Not at all. This way, we can get them both done with plenty of time to spare. In fact, why don't we do the water horse first?"

Seryn blinked as she thought this over. She seemed to be considering whether or not this was what she wanted to do, but she apparently figured that my desires outweighed her own, so she nodded and stood up.

"All right. Give me ten minutes and then come to the end of the dock and call to me. I'll come for you and we'll begin."

And with that, she left the cabin and started walking down towards the lake. I had half-expected her to leap off of the overlook and dive down into the lake, but then again, the beach at the bottom was about ten feet long and even if she made it, she probably would have landed headfirst into a few inches of water, even for a cliff diver. Besides, Seryn had said herself that her wings were only good for flying through water and not air, which made gliding out of the question. So it should have been no surprise that Seryn chose to walk down the stairs to the beach below instead of jumping. But it was a surprise when she picked up on what I had expected her to do and looked at me from a distance with a smug smile before winking and heading down the stairs. I sighed and turned to look at the clock, giving her exactly ten minutes like she had said before I headed down to meet her.

It felt like the longest ten minutes of my life to just stand/sit around without Seryn's presence and just wait for the clock to tick away. I felt a kind of sense of loss without her even though she was probably within spitting distance from my house. I had grown to depend on her both as a friend and as a companion in a way that she had broken off a piece of my being to call her own. Granted, she probably wouldn't use my feelings for her to control me, but it still felt like my life was incomplete without her always by my side.

Somehow, someway, I survived exactly ten minutes without Seryn and soon made a beeline out the door straight for the dock down below the overlook. And when I reached the end of the dock, I felt that Seryn was watching over me from somewhere in the lake. She was probably on her way back to me at that moment, but she obviously stuck by her word and she wanted me to call out for her. I decided to give her what she wanted.

"Seryn!" I called out to the calm lake. It was highly unlikely that anyone else would hear me since I was probably the only one living on this particular lake. "It's been ten minutes and I'm waiting for you! You can come out now!"

I waited a few moments for Seryn to return, but nothing happened. Either she was trying to build some kind of suspension or it was likely that the area around the dock was too shallow for a "water horse" to fully emerge. I turned around for a moment to think about if I had waited too long or what, but that seemed to be exactly what Seryn was waiting for. There was a loud rush of water splashing and rushing and I was suddenly aware that water was dripping off of something high above me. And when I turned around and saw the result, I felt just like Angus when he was put in this exact situation.

True to her word, Seryn's latest form was that of a full-grown water horse directly from the movie. However, she still didn't seem to be able to get her coloring right because instead of deep, plum/lavender-purple skin over all of its body, Seryn's body was colored a dark but brilliant deep-sea blue similar to her original form's coloring. And just like it had been when she had been Saphira, there really wasn't any other part of her for her green coloring to fit in. Her entire body was all pretty much the same color with no other varying shades to mix it up.

Seryn's head was now more dinosaur-like complete with her trademark eyes and a pair of short but distinct squared horns on top of her skull. She still hadn't abandoned the need for gills since a pair of them were still on each side of her neck behind her jaw line, but I knew that water horses could breathe underwater regardless if they had gills or not. Her mouth was full of short but sharp teeth and a long, thick, flat tongue that was a distinct emerald-green color, which was kind of a nice touch since she didn't have any green on any other part of her body. Unfortunately, her form didn't allow her to retain her twin pointed fangs that made up part of her trademark Flammie look, but I really wasn't complaining since her newest form was an impossibility in itself.

Even though I was currently looking up at her head, I was sure that the rest of her was just like it was shown in the movie. Her limbs were only numbered at three with two long, flat, triangular flippers on her front while her legs were completely nonexistent apart from a short, bladed, fluke-like tail on the back. In the movie, that was all that Crusoe had needed to get around on land (but stairs had still been a challenge on several occasions), but his home was still in the water. He might have been descended from an plesiosaurus in terms of appearance, but to me, he would always be his own species.

As I looked up at the massive reptilian head that was looking down at me and still dripping water down on me, I had a feeling that I would be able to communicate with Seryn a little better than Angus had been with Crusoe. And as she looked down at me with a somewhat different smile than what I was used to, I decided to put my theory to the test.

"It's good to see you, Seryn," I said as she lowered her massive head down to look me squarely in the eyes. No matter what form she took, it seemed that the shape and make of her eyes would always be the same. "But can you and I still communicate normally?"

Seryn growled in an affectionate way and bumped her nose up against me, which given the current size of it, caused me to be pushed back a couple inches. She then "spoke" to me in a familiar but still uncommon way.

Maybe not "normally", but we can still communicate in an effective manner. Sure enough, I heard her voice loud and clear in my head as if she was speaking directly into my brain.

Now that I was sure that I could talk with her, I decided to ask her a more pressing question. "So, what did you have in mind while you're in this form?" I said, rubbing the side of her face lightly.

Seryn blinked and nudged me again before suddenly reaching out with her green tongue and giving my face a thick, loving lick. I balked slightly at the size of the organ and from the smell of fish and seaweed that was evident on her breath.

I'm going to take you on a little ride around the lake before we take our matters elsewhere. I don't want to overdo it to the point that we have nothing to do later on tonight. She was obviously talking about her other choice of becoming a Seadramon later tonight, which made sense since both of them were mythical sea beasts with similar homes.

I nodded as she lifted her head up and moved her body in a way for me to supposedly climb on her back. "If that's what you want to do, then who am I to stop you?"

I trusted Seryn not to move as I carefully climbed down off the dock and slid onto Seryn's back, which was just as thick and smooth as I had expected, although it was a little different from riding on a scaly dragon's back. I found a nice warm spot on the place where her neck merged into her back and then patted the side of her neck to let her know that I was set.

And with that, Seryn let out a rumbling growl and started off across the lake like what she really was - a water-bound horse. Her movements were a little unpredictable since she had to continuously pump both her flippers and her tail, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Even so, she moved with surprising agility and speed. It was a rather interesting ride, but because of the small size of the lake, we reached the other side before I had even had a chance to fully enjoy it.

Fortunately, Seryn seemed to have a backup plan. Hold on, love. I'm going under.

I wanted to tell her that I didn't have the ability to breathe underwater anymore, but it was too late. She suddenly turned around and reared herself a little into the air before plunging her head into the lake with the rest of her body following afterwards, rider and all. I wasn't one of those special people who could safely open their eyes underwater, so I kind of felt like I was about to pass up a great visual experience.

Not surprisingly, Seryn heard these thoughts loud and clear and came up with a simple but unusual solution. Like what she had done with me back when she had been a dragon, I suddenly felt her body liquefy again and two long, thick, blue tentacles rose up out of her back again. At first, it seemed that she was going to absorb me again, but that didn't seem to be her plan this time. Instead, one of the tentacles took aim at my torso and slapped itself directly into my navel before fusing seamlessly with it and linking my body with hers like some kind of reverse pregnancy. I could literally feel my vital signs slowing way down and eventually stopping altogether. I no longer felt the need to breathe or maintain a pulse since Seryn was now supplying everything that I needed through this unusual version of an umbilical cord. Fresh, clean oxygen was getting into my system, somehow keeping me alive and well despite the fact that I was now fused seamlessly with the rest of Seryn's nervous system. I could feel her body moving like I had this morning, but this time, our minds were separate and I could still sense that my own body was still parked on her back.

Speaking of my mind, that seemed to be the target of the other tentacle as it reared up behind me and then launched itself directly at the back of my head. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my head but without the excruciating pain. I could literally feel a thick, slimy tentacle penetrating my skin and skull and then worming its way into my brain where it attached itself to it like a parasitic leech. However, Seryn didn't seem to want to control me this time. Instead, she merely fiddled with my senses until she had locked onto the ability to control my sight. My eyeballs felt cold for a moment before Seryn gently opened my eyelids and I was able to look at the underwater world without involuntarily squinting. There was now a thin but effective coating of Seryn's liquid over my eyes that seemed to filter out the cloudiness and increasing darkness that seemed to pick up as Seryn continued to dive.

When it was all over, I felt like a mutated version of an unborn child. Seryn had fused herself so well to me that I doubted that I would be able to extract myself from her without killing me. She was welded so finely with my nervous system that if I moved in the wrong way, I would probably suffer permanent brain damage. However, Seryn seemed to have the situation well under her control because I didn't feel any pain and my senses still seemed to be working to her specifications. I was sure that she could safely extract herself from me without damaging anything important when she was done with me, but right now, I tried not to move in case I damaged her hold on me.

As Seryn finally dialed in her connection to me, I heard her voice in my head once again. There we go. This way, you can keep your body and mind separate and you can still survive underwater. And don't worry; I can remove myself from you without you suffering any ill effects when I'm done.

At least she was honest. But one painfully obvious alternative still bothered me. So why didn't you just give me gills again? This must seem like so much work.

Seryn turned her head around as she finally broke level to give me a rough smile. Not really. Besides, I was feeling creative. And gills on a human don't exactly work with an aquatic as unique as me.

She had a point there, so I dropped it and allowed myself to enjoy the underwater world around me. The light down there was so minimal that it didn't seem possible that we were anywhere near our home lake. And even though she didn't need to tell me, I still felt Seryn's symbiotic mind tell me that we couldn't have been further from home. We were somewhere deep in the Atlantic Ocean in an area that Seryn had followed an unknown instinct to. There was something here that she wanted to find, but she wasn't even sure that it was even in the area.

What are you looking for, anyway? I felt I had to ask her.

Seryn remained silent for a moment before finally working up the courage to tell me. I thought that... well... he would be here.

He? He who?

Seryn sighed heavily. My father.

I was amazed at her sudden interest in her family. Your father? You haven't said anything about your family since you could first talk. Why the sudden interest?

Seryn remained silent for even longer before finally answering. I just thought that I could see him before I made any permanent decisions with our relationship.

I was about to respond when I figured that it was pointless to try to argue with her.

Seryn swam back and forth around the area for about ten minutes as if pacing, but no one of any significance came apart from some deep-sea aquatic life. I wasn't sure who or what she was actually looking for, but she refused to answer any of my questions but continued pacing in the hope that her father would show up. However, it seemed that her father had better things to do than meet with his hybrid daughter because he never showed up. Seryn's heart and confidence were breaking and I could tell that she was losing faith that he would ever show up.

But just when Seryn was about to give up hope, something did appear, but it didn't seem to be what Seryn had expected. A small orb of white light was floating towards us like a small messenger. It was too small to be a living creature, but when Seryn reached out with her nose to touch the light, it seemed to turn into what appeared to be a page from a silver book. It was about the size of a sheet of standard printing paper except that it was made up of a soft, fleshy material that looked like it was made up of some kind of silvery skin. However, it seemed to be firm and solid as if it could be classified as "metal" while being far different than that. The page appeared to be covered in writing, but the symbols and signs written on it were beyond my comprehension. They didn't appear to be Chinese or Japanese or any other symbol-like text that I could recognize, but amazingly, Seryn seemed to recognize it as she began to read over it as if it was meant for her.

I waited patiently for her to finish, and when she did, I noticed that her eyes appeared to be tearing up even though we were underwater. Whatever she had read in that letter appeared to have touched her both personally and spiritually, giving her a whole new understanding of some new existence that I couldn't possibly understand. It also appeared to be a message from her father himself even though he couldn't be here in person, which Seryn seemed to understand and come to terms with.

When she was done, she reached out and scooped up the letter in her mouth before swallowing it like a tasty snack. I was confused as to her actions, but I could faintly feel her "storing" it away inside her for now until she could extract it later. She then turned to me with a somber smile.

We're going home, Alex. It's getting late and we still have one more playdate to do tonight.

I couldn't help myself. What did that letter say?

I half-expected her to verbally berate me for invading her privacy, but oddly enough, she merely shook her head and started swimming back towards the "gate" that we had crossed to get here from our home lake.

I'm afraid that I can never tell you, love. You couldn't possibly begin to understand what was in that letter without going insane. All I can tell you is that it was from my father and that it told me all I need to know to be happy with my life. I'm sorry, but that's how it must be.

She obviously wasn't going to elaborate on that topic, so I had no choice but to give up and allow her to ferry back towards home. There was obviously a greater power and understanding at work here that humans would probably never understand, but I guessed that as long as Seryn did, there wasn't really anything I could do to help it.

The sun was already starting to set by the time Seryn resurfaced in the lake and gently ferried me back to the dock. She had been unusually quiet ever since she had read that letter, but I was tolerant of her and allowed her to have some time to her own thoughts. She might have been an animal, but the fact that she had a conscious and comprehensible mind allowed her to have just as much right to keep her thoughts to herself as humans did. And as soon as she had breached the surface, she carefully and comfortably removed the embedded tentacles from my navel and brain, allowing my vital signs to restart and get me back into an "alive" status. And when she dropped me off at the dock, I had barely had my back to her when I turned around and found her back in her Flammie form, swimming gently on the surface with a slightly depressed look on her face.

"What's up, Seryn?" I asked her. "Aren't we going to finish our playdate?"

Seryn sadly shook her head. "Not tonight, love. I need some time to myself to think about what my father told me. Come back down here in the morning and we'll finish this up. Good night..." And with a heavy sigh, she dove into the water and swam away before I could even stop her.

I wasn't quite sure why she had suddenly changed plans at the last minute, but there must have been a good reason if she didn't want to finish them in the first place. And as I watched the ripple that was Seryn's body drift off out into the lake, I knew that there was nothing more that I could do with her tonight and I headed back up to the house for the night. When I got there, I went straight to bed. It was odd, but I seemed to be channeling Seryn's depressed state and I figured it would just be best if I called it a night and went to sleep. I was sure that Seryn would come back when she felt good and ready. She was just trustworthy like that.

But the following morning, Seryn was nowhere to be found, either inside the house or not. I went down to the lake and called out to her to see if she was in the water, but after a few minutes of waiting, I had to wonder if she hadn't taken that letter a bit too seriously. I couldn't sense her through the Link Collar, either, but I couldn't help feeling that something wasn't right. Seryn seemed to be in a mood that was so unusual that I couldn't get a lock on her. It almost felt like she had suddenly snapped, wherever she was, but since I shared her emotions, I didn't feel like I was mentally unstable. It was just that Seryn was somewhere in a strange mood that I couldn't detect.

When I got back to the house, I found a note on the table that I had missed earlier. It was written on a notebook page in an unusual blue ink that seemed to be directly from Seryn's liquid essence. The note was very short and too the point as if Seryn was up to something. There were only ten words total written on it as well.

"Today. Noon. The woods. Start walking. I'll find you. Seryn."

I had never known Seryn to be so vague when it came to telling me things, but it all must have been part of the unusual mood that she was in. I looked up at the clock and saw that noon was still two hours away, which meant that Seryn was up to something in the woods. But since this was out of my hands, I knew that I had no choice but to wait it out and hope that she didn't try to pull something.

I had never gone so long without speaking before in my life. I didn't really have anything to talk about without Seryn around, but I was sure that this was only temporary. I felt that everything would be back to normal when I met Seryn in the woods at noon. I had no idea what she was planning, but I was sure that it would benefit the both of us in the long run.

Finally, it was about 11:55 when I decided to get this over with. I got up and left the house before starting to walk into the woods. I wasn't sure where I was going, but if I just started walking, I was sure that Seryn would find me.

I had been walking for about ten minutes when I suddenly felt a cold chill run down my spine. It had to be Seryn; there was no other reason for me to feel this way on this occasion. But no matter where I looked, I couldn't see her. The woods were sparse and bright enough that I could see a fair distance in every direction, but I still couldn't see the Flammie anywhere. Yet I somehow knew that she was watching me from somewhere nearby.

"Seryn...?" I said out loud. "I'm here, so stop freaking me out. I don't know what you're planning, but whatever you do... please be gentle. I'm still human, you know."

And as if she could hear me, I heard Seryn's voice in my head from somewhere nearby. I'm well aware of that, love, and that bothers me. I think we should remedy that.

I didn't like the pleasure that she was putting in her words. "W-W-What are you going to do to me? You said you wouldn't hurt me."

I know I did, but that's not what I had in mind. However, I'm going to give you a choice right now. I can either make my appearance as I had promised last night or I can appear more... basic. Either way, it's going to be different than what you are used to. Make up your mind.

I had no idea what she was up to, but either way, this wasn't going to end well. I knew that whatever I picked, I probably wasn't going to see the "true" Seryn that I had come to know and love.

"Let's just... stick with the basics. Just be gentle."

Very well. Hold still.

All of a sudden, the ground started to quake as if an earthquake was tearing through the area, but since earthquakes just didn't happen all the way up here, I knew that it had to be Seryn. And as it intensified underneath me, I went against Seryn's orders and started running. And it was a good thing that I did because there was a sound like a drill whirring and a sudden explosion of dirt as something burst out of the ground directly where I had been standing just seconds earlier.

When I had recovered enough to get over one shock, I turned around and was hit by another one. A gargantuan steel-gray, spiral, spike covered shell had appeared out of the ground that was easily 50 feet tall by itself. I noticed that as it fully emerged from the ground, the top two layers of the "spiral" were still spinning as if that had been the drill that I had heard. The "drill" was covered with a number of extra hooked spikes that seemed to be the main boring parts of the shell.

But it was what was on the front of the mysterious shell that was really weird. There was a hole drilled into the side that had a large amount of pink and green "flesh" that looked like it contained some kind of shellfish creature. I had a nagging suspicion that I had seen this kind of object before, but I couldn't get it off the tip of my tongue. But as the drill finally stopped and the ground began to quake again, it suddenly hit me.

"Sh... Sh..." I stammered, trying to say what was on my mind. But it wasn't what you thought it was. Finally, I swallowed and spit it out. "SHELLMON!!!"

As I said this, the pink and green mass within the shell began to push out and grow into a very familiar figure from my countless hours of dabbling in Digimon. The figure that emerged looked like it was way too big to fit through even that ten-foot hole. It come complete with a pair of large, five-fingered hands, a massive, draconic head and most of a muscular torso and a mane of long, thick, slimy-green, tentacle-like "hairs". The head was draconic with a massive maw, although instead of teeth, the lining of its fleshy jaws was shaped with a set of rectangular growths that made it look like it had teeth. And at the backs of each side of its mouth, there was a small bit of flesh separate from the rest of its jaws that looked like muscles that held its jaw together.

The creature's hands were really something else. Each of its ten fingers were easily as long as I was tall, but unlike most digits, they appeared to have had their tips "decapitated" at the first knuckles from the tips, giving it a slight "suction-cup-like" look. I knew that even though its fingers were "shorter", they were still functional enough for it to use them as leverage as it dragged itself along the ground. This seemed to be its only means of transportation on land since what might have been its legs and lower body were all embedded within its shell home.

Shellmon's hot-pink body was covered in a number of blue "speckles" that were kind of an odd touch even for a Digimon. And even though its eyes were normally round and blue, when I saw how seamlessly its irises fused with its pupils, I suddenly realized that I knew this "monster".

"S... Seryn?"

The "Shellmon" turned its massive head to look at me, which made me flinch from the sudden movement. And when it spoke, it was confirmed. *Yes, love. I decided to take things in a bit of a different direction today to please a personal... "taste" that I've been craving for some time."

I did not like the satisfaction she put in the word "taste". "W... what are you going to do to me? You... you promised!"

"Seryn" growled in a menacing manner and suddenly slammed her massive right "hand" down on the ground. It caused the ground to quake hard enough make me stumble and drop to the ground in a rather undignified way. Before I could react, Seryn lowered her massive head and a thick geyser of water shot from beneath her tentacled hair and hit me with enough force to blast me backwards up against a tree. And to follow it up, Seryn dragged herself forward and suddenly brought the same hand down on top of me, pinning me against the ground underneath one of her massive fingers. Oddly enough, the finger was just as fleshy as the rest of a Shellmon's body, which softened the blow, but I was still unable to move under Seryn's incredible weight.

"Seryn, stop!" I yelled out, trying fruitlessly to wriggle out of her grip. "You promised! Why are you breaking your promise?!"

Seryn suddenly seemed to snap out of some kind of trance and shook her head as if to clear it out. Oh, Alex... I'm so sorry! I couldn't control myself! My desires seem to be fueling this form's actions. Please forgive me! Here...

And to show that she hadn't meant me any harm, she gently lifted her hand up off me and backed up a little while hanging her head in a hurt way. But try as I might, I could not hold her accountable for her actions and quickly forgave her as I stood up and walked up to her.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up. I'm sure you didn't mean it."

Seryn smiled as best as she could and gently lowered her head to nuzzle me lightly. Thank you, Alex. But I still have one more desire that only you can satisfy. Will you help me please it?

I smiled and looked up at her. "Sure. Anything for you."

Seryn sighed and looked at me very seriously. I want to eat you. And when my face suddenly went white, she tried to explain. Please listen, Alex. Ever since I tasted you as Saphira, I've had this incredible urge to have you in my mouth one more time. I've wanted to eat you for so long, but I've been able to control my urges up until now. I don't want to make a meal of you, she added when the thought crossed my mind. I merely want to experience the sensation of my Tamer in my mouth and sliding down my throat. I want to savor your unique human flavor and have the satisfaction of having you inside me in a completely different way. I promise you, though, that this is a one-time thing. I just want to experience the feeling of devouring you this one time. If I don't... She suddenly looked scared. I'm afraid that neither of us will be safe from my power. Please, Alex... I'm begging you! Please let me eat you this one time! And to show how serious she was, she brought her head down between her hands and stared at the ground as if pleading for my approval. I could tell that she really meant this and if I were to refuse, I was sure that she would be unable to control her urges for much longer.

Knowing that it was just a matter of time before she got what she wanted one way or another, I decided to do it and get it over with. "Okay, Seryn. Let me have it. I won't fight you."

Seryn raised her head slightly and noticed that I had hung my own head in defeat. In an attempt to make me feel better, she reached out with one of her tentacle-like hairs and lightly touched the side of my head with it.

Don't look so down, love. This is far from permanent. I'll let you out when I've had enough and I promise that I'll prevent my body from trying to digest you. Who knows? Maybe you'll like being inside your lover once you get that far.

I highly doubted that, but I was already jumping to conclusions before they happened, so I sucked it up and decided to get it over with. "We'll see. Now... what do you want me to do?"

Seryn saw that I was trying to be brave and smiled as best as she could. Climb into my mouth and lay on my tongue. I want to take this slowly at first.

And to start it off, Seryn opened her jagged mouth wide so that I could see down her slimy throat and waited patiently for me to begin. With a sigh, I stepped over her jaw and touched down on her tongue, which felt like I was walking on a moist version of a water bed but a little bit more stable. I was hit by a small burst of Seryn's breath, which smelled like rotting meat and fish, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be as I climbed further into her mouth before lowering myself onto her tongue. Apart from a moist feeling, it felt just like a water bed with a bit more stability. And as my bare legs and arms touched down on her tongue, I felt Seryn shudder as if I was tickling her. Once I was completely laid out, Seryn spoke to me again.

That's right, love. Just let yourself go and let me savor your taste. I want you to know what it's like to be prey in a predator's clutches.

Her logic was scaring me, but Seryn remedied this by siphoning some of her feelings and desires into my mind through the Link Collar, which calmed me down a little bit and made me rethink my position. Now that I thought about it, this was exactly what Seryn wanted me to feel. The feeling of being a prey within the clutches of a predator like Seryn, much less a Shellmon, was beginning to make my heart race with adrenaline and excitement. The sheer sensation of being completely helpless in Seryn's mouth was starting to sink in. In a way, this was something that I had always secretly wanted to do, with or without Seryn's influence. This was truly the most exciting sensation I had had with Seryn to date and I was enjoying every moment of it.

Naturally, Seryn picked up on my increasing adrenaline and decided to take this to the next level. Are you ready, Alex? I'm going to close my mouth now. After that comes the swallowing. Do you think you can handle it?

I had come too far to back out now. "Go for it. This is exciting enough as it is. Let me have it and don't hold back!"

Seryn chuckled in my mind and began to close her mouth all around me. The light of the day was slowly diminishing until the gates of her "teeth" locked shut and I was completely engulfed in the darkness. All that I could do was lie on her tongue and listened to her deep, putrid-smelling breath. It wasn't so bad once you got used to it, but I had a feeling that my ride was far from over.

As I lied there, Seryn slowly curved her tongue around me in the darkness so that it was neatly folded against my sides like a warm, moist blanket. I could hear her churring all around me as she savored my unique "flavor" as if I was a tasty morsel. But then she gently raised the tip of her tongue towards the roof of her mouth and I slowly began to slide back towards her throat. I heard her breathing get louder, but I really didn't care right now. I was enjoying this far more that I should have been. And as my head was slowly taken by the soft, powerful muscles of Seryn's throat, I did nothing to fight or resist her. Soon, my shoulders and the rest of my body was taken by her throat and before I knew it, I was fully engulfed by her presence in a whole new way. I was nothing more than prey to her predatory instincts, and I was loving every bit of it in my own unusual way. I was completely at Seryn's mercy, but there was no force on earth that could break us up any longer.

As I was gently coaxed down her slimy throat, I was suddenly aware of a deep, pulsing beat deep inside what must have been Seryn's shell by now. It had to be her heart and nothing else, but the pulse of it was somewhat slower than even I had expected. It was going thump... tha-thump... thump... tha-thump..., taking almost two seconds to complete one pulse. It was oddly soothing and comforting as I continued to slide down her throat.

But even that comforting presence passed me by as my head bumped into a small wall for a moment before it, too, opened up and allowed me inside. I vaguely knew that I had reached Seryn's stomach as I was quickly dumped into the dark, fleshy, slime-filled chamber. However, the smell didn't seem to be entirely... normal. I had expected the familiar smell of rotting meat and fish, but instead, all I could smell was Seryn's familiar scent of the ocean and seaweed. Also, the makeup of the chamber seemed somewhat different as well. Instead of being comprised of numerous folds of flesh that made up a creature's stomach, I found that the walls around me were rather firm and smooth. It was almost like I was in a kind of chamber with crystallized sides, which was weird since I couldn't remember even a Shellmon having this kind of plumbing.

Somewhere above me, I heard Seryn call to me in her mental voice. Are you okay, my love? Still breathing at the moment?

I wasn't sure what was going on, but I still felt okay. "I'm fine, Seryn... but your stomach is somewhat... different than I had expected."

Seryn paused for a moment and then I heard her, of all things, chuckle. Whoever said that I was putting you in my stomach?

This didn't immediately register with me. "But if you ate me... where else could I go?"

Seryn purred deeply and for some reason, the chamber I was in started to fill with a thick, sticky liquid that was nearly impossible to get off of my skin. You're in my birth chamber, love. I'm gonna make you my son.

Suddenly realizing where I was, I felt the walls of the chamber I was in and it hit me. They weren't stomach walls... it was an eggshell! I was trapped in a massive egg! "Seryn, stop! Let me out! I don't want to be digested!"

Seryn laughed humorously and I suddenly realized that the sticky slime was starting to numb up my body, making it increasingly difficult to move or feel anything. Haven't you been listening, love? I never intended to make a meal out of you. I've always had something else in mind for you. I'm gonna turn you into a Liquid Synthetic like me and we're gonna live together forever.

In my efforts to fight, some of the sticky goo splattered over my face, forcing me to close my eyes and mouth for what would be the last time in this life. Knowing that regular speech was now out of the question, I was forced to communicate with Seryn through thoughts.

Why are you doing this to me, Seryn? I thought we had something together. I don't want to die in your gut; I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I don't see what turning me into a liquid lifeform will accomplish.

Seryn seemed to be puzzled. You're not listening to yourself, are you? I never said anything about dying. I'm just turning your body into something a bit more... appropriate. And besides, you'll like being a Liquid Flammie. You'll have total control over water, you'll learn to morph your body into virtually anything you want... and best of all, I'll be right there beside you to help you through it all. You're not dying, love; you're merely trading in your meaningless human life for something with much more purpose. I love you too much to just let you die now that I know that someone appreciates me for who and what I am. You took me in when I was on the brink of death and you've loved and cared for me ever since. And as a reward, I'm allowing you to share what I've been showing you that I'm capable of all this time. There is no force on earth that will let you slip from my grasp now that we are together and I'm determined to pay you back with every drop of my being. Do you understand now why I must do this?

Now that she explained it, I realized that she had a very good point. I had cared for her in her darkest hour and there was virtually no splitting us up ever since. And since I had already experienced much of what she was capable of, it only made sense that she would want to return the favor. And since I couldn't possibly accomplish everything that she could in my "meaningless" human form, she was merely helping me "adapt" to what she could do on a far more meaningful level.

You make a good point, Seryn. I can't believe that I never thought of it that way before.

Seryn purred softly. Of course you didn't. Without guidance, humans are just poor, lost and meaningless individuals. Besides, Synthetics pretty much live forever, so consider that a bonus. Now why don't you take a little nap, love? I promise that when you wake up, things will be much clearer for the both of us.

And with that, I voluntarily surrendered what was left of my free will and allowed the sticky goo to completely consume me and lull me into a deep and comfortable sleep. I was soon vaguely aware that the chamber that I was in was starting to shrink, compressing my liquid self into a far more portable form. And just before I blacked out from this life for good, I was suddenly aware of a familiar melody playing in my head that could only have come from Seryn. It was the same tune that Seryn had played for us when we had done our "otter ballet", which was her way of letting me "die" in peace. She really did care about me... really...

As Seryn's liquefied body slowly returned to its original Flammie form, she felt her human mate breathe his last breath and die within her. When she fully reformed herself, there was a distinct physical difference about her. Her belly was now significantly rounder than before, which showed that she was pregnant with the egg that contained her lover, who was now in a state of suspended animation within the liquid-filled chamber. The liquid inside it was little more than sticky human-based slime, but over time, it would convert into the same mysterious blue liquid that Seryn was made out of and would soon be ready to hatch. And when it did, Seryn would no longer be the only one of her kind. She would not only have a mate to call her own, but she would also have a son and a very dear friend. She would teach him everything that she knew about her body's anatomy and over time, they might be able to continue to reproduce and make their mark on the world. And who knows? Maybe they could expand the range of species that they covered from Flammies to whatever they wanted. She could just imagine the wonder of having numerous Liquid Synthetics in the world in the very near future.

Seryn gently stroked her gravid belly as she began to walk back towards the lake that the woods surrounded. Once she got there, she made her way down to the water before beginning to wade out into the depths. As she slowly dipped below the surface, there was a flash of blue light and she was gone from the area forever. She had used her water-based powers to return to the ocean where she rightfully belonged. She would then find a place to lay her mate's egg and their new lives would begin. Seryn had made her mark on the world and soon, she would begin a whole new era of Aquatic Synthetics.

END