FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 14 (Snakebite) Written by Leo_Todrius

There were few places in Portland quite as enigmatic as the Ira Keller fountain in the heart of downtown. The word 'fountain' hardly did it justice as the structure took up half a city block. The water collected in small pools before cascading in glistening waterfalls over countless stretched, tall sandy brown trapezoids of all shapes and sizes. The water collected in a lower pool across which cement squares were suspended in overlapping layers, creating a pathway across the water to the other side. It was the perfect blend of nature and architecture, a fusion of everything that Portland held dear... and it was one of the few places where governmental red tape and bureaucracy didn't hold sway.

What made the fountain most compelling, perhaps, was the lack of rules regarding its use. By many residents, the park was called 'the people fountain' due to the sheer number of children and adults that enjoyed the pools in the warmer weather. Lucas thought of all the good times he'd had there as a child as he sat beneath one of the countless shore pine trees that filled the park, lifting a hot dog to his mouth before biting into it, his teeth munching through it with ease, his pierced lips closing as he chewed and remained deep in thought.

Life was fairly good for Lucas, for the most part. Both Kobe and Jay had returned to school after their ordeal as spirits, there had been no sign of the vampire that had changed him and clouded his mind... but still, there was a nagging fear on Lucas' mind, the fear of the prophecy he had given, the fear of Zytu. His memories of it had faded, thankfully... but the notebooks full of predictions still remained. Some weeks Lucas tried not to think about it, others he'd poured back through the books.

There were so many cryptic details packed into the notes... He found riddles about time that no doubt referred to Rerun, he found sketches of a small creature covered in piercings, a three fold shadow roaming the streets, but what concerned him most was Zytu. It had been plaguing him more and more until the only place he felt safe was the Keller fountain... Lucas knew the Ghostbusters had been researching Zytu, they had even found an object linked to the beast, but Lucas had to know more... so he had called Dakota.

Lucas found it almost amusing to think back to his early teens. He'd been a wild child, a true emo punk roaming the streets instead of going to school. He'd been beaten up, robbed, kissed, and hoodwinked and kept coming back to the streets for more. Dakota had been the only oasis until Pioneer school had been built. Dakota had been the sort of big brother that Nico hadn't been able to be... And now both of his 'brothers' were Ghostbusters. It certainly was a strange turn of events.

"Hey kid." Dakota's voice came from behind. Lucas turned to see the tall, broad shouldered man approaching. He wore a gray wife beater shirt and baggy black cargo shorts, a large nalgene bottle of hibiscus juice resting on his hip. He moved to sit down next to Lucas, reaching up to run his fingers over his short Mohawk.

"Hey big man, how's life treating you?" Lucas asked.

"Can't complain... Got turned into a bigfoot, then battled a golem made out of bicycles, then got a cameo role on Portlandia, then had to perform an exorcism on a Max train. All in all, a busy week." Dakota said.

"A bike golem? Were they mountain bikes?" Lucas chuckled.

"Oh all sorts of bikes... Recumbent, road bikes, mountain bikes... The chains were wicked." Dakota grinned, offering Lucas his nalgene. Lucas unscrewed the lid before he tipped it back, taking a sip of the extraordinarily exotic juice before handing it back for Dakota to take a drink.

"How are you settling in with the guys?" Lucas asked. Dakota considered.

"I think I'm... dragging my feet a bit. They're pretty nice guys, which I'm not used to. I think I keep coming off as gruff and mean, though Seth gets my dark humor at times." Dakota said.

"Well you adapted to me alright when I was couch surfing." Lucas grinned.

"Well yeah, but you were a bad ass snotty punk kid until you went to that new school and became mister social." Dakota grinned.

"I guess that's true." Lucas laughed for a bit before he leaned back on his arms, "So... any word on Zytu?" he asked after a moment.

"Well, sort of. Gray has been studying that artifact from the Peoplebuster dimension for some time. It's made out of a metal alloy no one's ever seen before, it acts like stone... When we first got it here, it was putting out a lot of energy, but its mostly inert for the moment. Gray thinks the energy had something to do with passing through dimensions." Dakota said. Lucas tried to absorb it all into his head, but it was pretty far beyond him.

"I just hope... I'll be able to help out more than some vague prophecy. School won't last too much longer for me... When I graduate I really want to make a difference, try to help people. Maybe I should become a buster too. It seems to run in the family." Lucas said.

"There's plenty of time to figure out what you want to do. I mean look at me, I thought I was going to be the last guy left alive with an armory of busting gear for the ghost apocalypse, but so far we seem to be holding it off pretty well. Lucas chuckled.

"I guess you're right at that, I - I..." Lucas trailed off, his eyes rolling into the back of his head a bit. He wobbled, becoming quite dizzy. The water in the pond near by began to slosh and ripple, bubbling before it grew calm again. Dakota looked at the pond before Lucas shook his head.

"Lucas, are you okay?" Dakota asked quickly, reaching over. Lucas blinked before opening his eyes.

"I just felt really weird, like the air pressure changed or something... Like vertigo." Lucas said.

"I think something must be up." Dakota said, rising to his feet, moving over to the edge of the pond, looking past the cement. What he should have seen was brown, tan and black stones cemented together into a foot deep pond floor... but that was far from what he saw. The pool was incredibly deep, over twenty feet deep... and there was light at the bottom, rippling through the water in layers like sun in an ocean... but the water was calm.

Lucas had sprung to his feet and moved over, looking into the water with Dakota, gasping in shock. It was the most peculiar thing he'd ever seen... The pond was bigger on the inside, stretching off to somewhere else... The water was so calm, so clear, it was almost hypnotic. Lucas gazed into it and his vertigo returned. He wobbled and then fell forward. Dakota grabbed onto Lucas' purple shirt, slowing his fall... Lucas reached out to catch himself as if he was falling onto a solid surface, but when his hands touched the water, they were pulled in.

Lucas was tugged forward and Dakota tried to yank him back. He grunted and cursed under his breath, his shoes sliding toward the edge, fighting the pull... before he fell in as well. The water that had been calm all around them began to bubble and turn and spin, swirling. Lucas and Dakota were buffeted around, pulled to the center... and then stuck there. They were in an eddy, two currents fighting one another in the center. The bubbles rushed all around Lucas and Dakota, trapped just as much as they were. Light from both sides spilled all around them. Dakota's cheeks were wide with the captured air of his last breath, but Lucas was not so lucky. Both men felt dizzy, disoriented.

Dakota had tried to remember which side was Portland, but they had been flipped so many times he couldn't tell... and too many bubbles were escaping Lucas' lips. Dakota grabbed Lucas around the waist and pushed off, pulling against the eddy with all his might... and then there was a sudden calmness, the current dying away. Dakota bumped against a smooth tiled wall. He reached out and ran his fingers across it, the texture half way between cement and sand. His eyes studied his surroundings before he looked to the soft light far above. It appeared he had gone the wrong direction, but they still needed air.

Lucas felt a hand grip the cloth of his shirt tighter before he was tugged, the two heading toward the light. They swam upwards before they breached the surface, the water running off of them. Dakota exhaled and then gasped sharply, filling his lungs with a fresh set of air. Lucas, however, hunched over the side of whatever pool they had emerged into, coughing and sputtering over the side, water running out over his lips, drizzling from his snake bite piercings. He looked very much like a drowned cat with his pale skin and his hair clinging to him.

"Are you okay?" Dakota asked again. Lucas nodded weakly, still coughing up water, rivulets running down his cheeks to drip from his chin. Dakota continued to pant, but for the first time he started to look around... and what he saw was far beyond anything he had ever seen before. The two rested on the edge of some sort of long, narrow rectangular reflecting pool with two white obelisks at either side rising high into the sky. The pool was in the center of some vast promenade, paved with four foot wide cement squares. It was like some sort of road designed in a fashion Dakota had never seen before... and the road wasn't the only impressive thing. Even the buildings were alien to Dakota's eyes.

Both sides of the street were lined with large, half-egg shaped structures. Some where white, some were a sand tan color, a few were grey... But all were smooth with ramps leading up to them instead of doors, the ramps ribbed and ridged as if to give better traction. Between the promenade and the houses, there was a bump in the rode, rising up almost like a ridge of its own, though the base was recessed a great deal and the inner lining had grooved teeth. It almost looked like some kind of track for a monorail...

Lucas had started looking around, shocked by what he saw. As far as the eye could see, smoothness. The buildings, the roads, everything was smooth and even, perfectly manufactured. Only the hills past the city line were jagged and showed signs of desert scrub bushes. It was an alien landscape, an alien city... and very strange. Dakota felt a sinking sensation in his stomach before he turned and looked back at the bottom of the pool, the way they had come... and saw only a white tiled pool bottom lined with a few transparent blue and purple plastic discs that looked vaguely like coins.

"Why did you have to lean forward..." Dakota moaned.

"No, this is a good thing! I think I recognize this pool thingy, it was in my notebook!" Lucas grinned, putting his hands on the edge of the pool before he pulled himself out, dripping with water. He pulled off his shirt and rung it out before putting it back on. Dakota climbed out of the pool as well, seeing no reason to stay if the portal had closed.

"So you're saying you 'saw this' event ahead of time?" Dakota asked.

"Well, not the event, no... But some part of this I saw. It's like destiny! Maybe that's the whole reason I kept going to the park. Maybe I was meant to be here." Lucas smiled brightly. Dakota frowned further.

"And what about me?" Dakota asked.

"Well, we always say we should hang out more." Lucas smiled.

"I think I liked you better when you were drowning." Dakota joked, leaning back to look over the pool. The bottom was still solid.

"Well, if this is our destiny, we should go out and meet it, try and figure out what's going on." Lucas said, his eyes studying the horizon before he paused,. His eyes had settled on the largest building in sight, the largest dome of them all. Rather than having a solid roof, the upper roof of the dome was made of gold hexagonal framework holding glass panels in an impressive feat of engineering. Lucas grinned, "Maybe that's their white house, we can go say hi." Lucas said.

"Lucas! Don't... be a fool about this. Think about Nico and Eli, they were nearly busted by the Peoplebusters. Not every dimension is going to be friendly to us. We need to be smart about this, we need to be safe." Dakota said. Lucas sighed softly.

"You're right... I guess I got... excited at the prospect of being useful. We should be safe so we can survive long enough to see destiny." Lucas responded. Dakota gave a nod at that.

"Alright, we're going to get off this main road, navigate around the houses, try to get to that big structure. You might be right, it could be the best place to learn where we are." Dakota said. Lucas smiled at that. Dakota looked around before he started leading Lucas along, heading for the shadows of the nearest house.

****

The journey along the streets had been rather easy even if tedious. There were no tight corners, no narrow paths. The space between each house was wide and very long, with more than ample room to turn around and head back the way you had come or to pass on through, though the fences between the properties still forced Dakota and Lucas to climb over or move back to the street just long enough to round the bend. After climbing several fences, the two had elected to move to the street and back. Wherever they were, the street shad been empty since they got there, and the houses seemed unoccupied.

"Dakota, maybe we should take a break, see what one of these houses has." Lucas said, getting bored with the monotony.

"What if they have an alarm, or they're occupied? We can't draw attention to ourselves like that, we're almost there..." Dakota said. Lucas grimaced, not liking the idea of traveling blind so long. They came around the corner and saw the structure they had been advancing towards just on the other side of one more fence. It was huge, far bigger than any warehouse Lucas had seen. Dakota picked up the pace, passing garbage cans by the street before darting back into the cover of shadow between the houses.

As Lucas moved up to the garbage can, he paused, looking around before he lifted the lid. There was only one object inside, a very large object... It seemed to be a sort of crispy, crackly hollow tube made of translucent yellowish white rice paper.... The hollow center was big enough for Lucas to crawl through. It had to be some sort of packing material. Lucas was still at a loss, and now he was well behind Dakota. Lucas moved out onto the street and back intro the shadow, running out of sight, moving along the immense building.

There seemed to be no entrances near the base of the building. If anything, the base was spectacularly reinforced. The cement sides sloped up with ridges and ribs before graduating to a white alabaster circular wall holding up the gold and glass roof, but ear the back edge there was a zig zagging metal ramp snaking its way up the three stories to a door. Dakota had already started moving up the stair carefully, trying to muffle the sound his feet made on the steps. It was just the sort of back door he had been hoping for. Lucas looked around before he started to climb up the steps as well, trying to catch up. He made it to the first landing, then the second... and then he stopped, his eyes widening.

From a mere two stories up, Lucas could see for quite a distance. The round buildings stretched on for miles, though they stopped abruptly as a strange gully.... The edges were weathered and smooth, the sides sloped... and then Lucas realized it wasn't just a gully, it was a dried out river bed. Lucas turned, looking to the craggy hills... then he turned and looked back tot eh river. He recognized the bends in the river, and by seeing the river, he recognized the hills. Lucas bolted up the rest of the ramp, nearly slamming into the back of Dakota.

"This is Portland!" Lucas whispered.

"What?" Dakota asked, focusing on the very complicated door lock.

"I mean, it's dried out and stuff, but the Willamette river is over there, the west hills are over there... It's just the rock part, but this is Portland." Lucas said.

"Well, that's comforting... Lucas and Eli ended up in a flip Portland. They were able to get back, so we should be able to as well." Dakota replied, grinning as the door clicked and eased open. The door frame suddenly illuminated and a beam of light swept over Dakota and Lucas for a moment before turning off.

"No ovapredator detected." An automated voice said. Dakota and Lucas looked at each other for a moment. They'd been caught... but not deemed a threat. Dakota seemed to be looking at Lucas, trying to decide if they should continue. Lucas answered the unasked question by walking past Dakota and into the building. He passed through a short hallway before emerging onto a large metal catwalk that circled the hollow center of the structure, hugging the walls. Lucas' eyes went wide as he moved to the edge, leaning over the guard rail to get a better look. Dakota moved up behind Lucas and slowed, his eyes going wide.

The security system checking for ovapredators now made sense... The catwalks were suspended above the vast floor of the warehouse, and every inch of the floor was covered by a collection of thousands of eggs... The eggs rested on a crimson red rubber like material, keeping them in place as the sun passed through the glass dome and radiated warmth to them. The eggs were large, slightly larger than a football. They were white for the most part, though there was a faint tan sheen to them, almost like metallic sand.

"I've never seen a farm quite like this..." Dakota said, starting to walk along the catwalk, following the curve of the walls, looking at all of the eggs.

"I don't know if this is a farm... I mean, eggs like to be warm, right? That's why birds and penguins sit on them... The dome is sort of like a green house, what if this is... a nursery?" Lucas asked.

"A nursery for what?" Dakota murmured.

"For whatever comes out of those eggs of course." Lucas rolled his eyes. Dakota kept on walking, trying to get a better view, looking at just how many there were. He came to a stop and looked out over the eggs before he looked up around the catwalk. Every so often the wall would give way to short halls like the one they had entered, more access points most likely. Dakota turned around to try and figure out where the nearest one was relative to him, but as he turned, his body went stiff. Two gleaming green eyes bored into his soul from the hallway he had stepped in front of.

Dakota stood motionlessly as a huge muscle bound creature emerged from the shadows. It had the head of a snake, covered in royal blue scales with black detailing, white covering its mouth. A cobra like hood stretched out from its head and neck, cresting out before fanning back. Its nostril slits flared, its mouth opened and a purple tongue darted out, the forked bits tasting the air, tasting Dakota's scent, but the neon green eyes never left Dakota's, keeping him paralyzed.

The creature stood at over seven feet tall, propelled by a massive tail that stretched back into the shadows to an impossible distance... but it wasn't entirely snake. The long neck spread out into muscle bound shoulders, from which arms grew. There was a recognizable chest and stomach, but the waist graduated back into a snake tail. It was as if someone had taken the torso of man and put it between the head and tail of a snake to make a serpentine naga.

Lucas had been distracted by the eggs and the silent advance of the naga had come without warning... When he turned and saw it, he gasped in shock. He looked to Dakota and realized he was stuck in place, whether by fear or something else. Lucas charged forward, but his feet echoed. The guard turned, slashing at Lucas with a clawed hand. The claws cut through his shirt, slicing into his shoulder, but the slash itself was enough to send Lucas through the air, bouncing across the metal ramp.

With the gaze broken, Dakota was freed from his trance. He turned and ran, his feet pounding across the ramp but the naga turned, moving after him, making up the gap quickly. It lunged forward. Two huge fangs came down, piercing into Dakota's shoulder, sliding deep into the flesh. Dakota let out a scream of pain that echoed across the nursery. He stumbled to the guard rail and grabbed on, feeling as if he had been double stabbed. The naga came up behind him, pinning him to the guard rail, not removing its fangs. Dakota squirmed, panting, trying to handle the pain... and then he felt the venom start to flow.

It hit his blood like hot syrup, pumping through his veins, circulating through his body. Part of the naga's throat seemed to pulse as enormous venom sacks were milked. There was so much that green liquid oozed out of Dakota's wound, running down his neck. Dakota shuddered softly, feeling it fill his body. It felt wrong, it felt alien... but it oddly felt good. It wasn't hurting, the pain was numbed... Dakota panted softly, his mouth hanging open... his canine teeth sharpening and stretching. They pushed down, curving forward, honing into points. Dakota's upper lip pushed out to make room for the forming gang before his throat burned, feeling parched... and then a soft squirt of green mist sprayed from his fangs, then thicker drips.

If Dakota hadn't had fangs in his shoulders, he would have fallen to his knees as his fangs sprayed their first venom. It was incredible, like his first orgasm... but the changes were spreading. The venom reached his eyes, causing his vision to blur and throb. The dark brown of his eyes lightened, becoming far brighter before taking on an almost iridescent amber color. The blurriness faded away, leaving crisp vision. The colors were brighter, and walls that had been completely blank before now had writing that he could see in purple script, though he didn't understand the language. Dakota blinked as his irises contorted, narrowing into vertical slits. His nose started to soften, the point melting away, his nostrils sinking into his face. The venom continued to course through his body, filling him steadily. His milk chocolate brown skin began to lighten up as well, taking on a more woody coloring... though almost all of the pigment started to drain away from his throat, the skin drying out and hardening.

Dakota's throat become quite rigid before small cracks seemed to form at perfect intervals. The cracks refined themselves into lines or segments, the start to his scaly hide. The pale underbelly stretched down into his shirt, covering his pectorals and abdomen before sweeping past his groin. The hair he had there soon fell out, leaving his groin smooth... but then a terrible aching came from his legs, his muscles stinging. A soft liquid began to secrete from his pores and the smell of burning cotton soon filled the air. The legs of his shorts melted apart in-between his legs and his underwear was eaten away. His legs came together and the flesh soon fused, the skin growing together. The flesh rippled, the divide and crease between the legs filling in... and then Dakota truly did fall to his knees... or what was left of them.

His legs continued to grow together, moving past his former knees, down to his ankles... and then his feet. The bones contorted and shifted, his feet coming together. His heels touched, his soles fused, his toes grew together... and soon his leg honed down to a single point, narrowing and simplifying. His leg flesh started to expand and grow, pushing out behind him longer and longer. Slowly Dakota rose back upwards, on his tail instead of his legs, coming even with the naga that had changed him. Dakota's underbelly had converted completely, but the scales were spreading out more and more. His shoulders took on an earthy, woody brown lighter than his natural tone, hardening and segmenting into slick scales. The tattoo of an SNES controller on his arm diffused, becoming nothing more than a dark blur.

Dakota continued to revel in his change, feeling it spread back u to his face as his jaw began to push forward, the rest of his teeth sharpening. His face extended, his upper lip stretching to reach his lower lip, his nose widening and flattening until it melted away completely into his blunt muzzle. His nostril slits flared a bit before his lips parted and his human tongue emerged. As it wriggled around in the air, the tip of his tongue split, dividing the flesh back a short distance as the whole muscle turned a bright pink. The tongue moved in and out several more times and Dakota discovered a strange new ability... As his tongue dipped into the air, his vision improved. He could 'see heat' emanating off of the eggs, he could see a rainbow of metallic colors in the shells, he could sense the naga that had changed him. As soon as his tongue retracted, those senses faded, but another slurp of the air and they returned. It was rather like blinking a second set of eyes. Dakota panted harder as the hair sloughed off from his head, revealing a smooth scalp... but his changes were only accelerating.

A thick, almost bon ridge began pushing out along his head, the flesh stretched between. The ridge proved to be Dakota's forming snake hood, flaring out right where his ears were. His ears stretched and simplified, disappearing into the flesh as a whole. The hood filled out nicely, following an even curve from his forehead around, off of the hood and then back down to his elongating neck. As Dakota's hood finished growing in and his muzzle finished its expansion, he was left with the scaled head of a snake, a scale covered torso, and a growing tail... and the change was becoming far more pleasurable.

While the contents of his pants had dissolved away, the cloth still hung around his waist like a battered kilt, but something was moving through that material. From the bottom edge of the short line, a pointed pink cock head appeared... but the cock head was widening and a new cleft appeared down the middle, just like the one that had disappeared on his legs. The cleft deepened and widened, the cock becoming two long ridges before finally they pulled apart. Dakota reached down, using his new claws to slice the shorts, letting them fall away and reveal his large, beautiful hemipenis... The two shafts bobbled from his groin, thick and full. Dakota reached down to stroke his shafts, gasping as he found a surprise.

The flesh around his cocks was stretched over his package, forming the lips to a cock slit so he could hide his anatomy.... But just below his cock was a soft bulge, where his balls had pulled up into his body internally... and just below that, a new orifice had appeared. Dakota traced his fingers over it, feeling the hole quiver before leaking juices. Dakota hissed in surprise and delight, feeling so very complete. He turned, coming eye to eye with the naga that had captured him. He had intended to ask why, but the naga's green eyes bored into his again.

"You are a guard of this placccce. You are charged with the sssafe keeping of our progeny. You know no other loyalty, no other allegiancccce. You are the guardian of our future." The naga hissed before it focused even deeper on Dakota's mind. Dakota's eyes twitched as his very personality was penetrated, accosted, adjusted. The naga was in his memories, placing things into his mind. He saw images of the eggs being brought in, the streets once full of naga and no longer, of the predators that tried to eat the eggs, of the pride and the brotherhood of the guards. He saw himself among them, with them, side by side... and Dakota no longer saw himself as human... He was a naga, a guard. There was no other life.

"I am the guardian of our future..." Dakota mirrored back, his brain completely saturated with the orders he had received. Every moment that passed, the words seemed to ring more truly. Those eggs were the future; they had to be kept safe... The humans had gotten in too simply. Dakota began moving off on his twenty foot tail, still feeling it grow as he moved, passing a reflective piece of wall. Dakota had become an impressive naga male. The bulk of his scales were almost a cinnamon brown color, while the inside of his hood was horizontally striped ochre brown and the cinnamon brown of the rest of his body. His sandy colored underbelly was almost the same shade as the stone that made up the streets outside.

With Dakota converted and trained, the blue naga moved towards Lucas. As he approached, he could see the intruder moving. Lucas groaned and forced himself onto his hands and knees before spotting that thick tail. He soon sprung to his feet, making eye contact with the naga. The green eyes bored into Lucas' brown ones. Lucas grunted in shock, feeling the pressure on his mind, pushing, probing, trying to get in... It was the sort of invasion Avery had been great at, but after his experiences with the vampire, Lucas was prepared. He furrowed his brows and looked back just as intently. The blue naga shuddered, feeling his own mind being invaded for the first time in his life.

"Who are you?" Lucas grunted, using all his strength to keep his powers up.,

"Anno..." The blue serpent blurted as if it had been squeezed out of him.

"What is this place?" Lucas asked.

"The... hatchery..." The guard replied, feeling Lucas gaining traction in his mind. Lucas resisted the urge to look at the eggs... It made sense. The city was populated by nagas. No stairs, few buildings more than two stories, and a giant hatchery...

"What did you do to Dakota?" Lucas asked. The naga twitched, trying to turn the tables, trying to breach Lucas' mind. Lucas glared even tighter, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FRIEND?!" he roared.

"All intruders will become the guardians of that they try to steal..." The naga replied, "Your friend is gone." He hissed, using that moment of emotional attack on Lucas to break the hold on him. He snapped at Lucas, nearly knocking him over. Lucas ducked out of the way of the serpent and ran, ducking past him and down the hallway, leaping over the blue tail that tried to slap him before he bolted out of the door. His momentum was too great and Lucas went sliding down the ramp like a bumpy slide, bouncing off of the landing before heading the opposite direction.

He tried to correct himself on the way down before he reached the ground, stumbled to his feet and took off running, disappearing into the grid of buildings, hoping he was down wind from the guard that would no doubt be coming after him. Lucas paned, feeling bruises forming on his arms and legs. He had to find help for Dakota, to find some way to turn him back... But he knew what he had to be on the lookout for, and he knew he had one tool in his arsenal... Once more he was indebted to the vampire that had changed his life by further awakening his mind... Lucas knew that his only hope to survive was to become the best snake charmer he could be.

****

Lucas felt like he had been on the run for an eternity. While that wasn't true, evening had started to settle across the valley and the sky was full of an odd, rich green glow. Street lights had snapped on a soft purple, adding to the ethereal air that ensnared everything. Lucas was feeling weary and tired, hoping that the snakes would eventually give up... He'd had some close calls, but it seemed the further he moved away from the hatchery, the less they were worried about him. While survival was chief on his list, Lucas had still been trying to obtain information about the place, anything that could assist him.

At first he had assumed there were no street signs, but over time he had noticed a collection of dots at the center of the wide streets running between the houses, like a sort of brail street sign. It made sense in a way, that they would be able to snake their way across them and know... It also meant their undersides were somewhat sensitive... Perhaps useful. Lucas roamed along before hearing a familiar humming noise. He ducked back behind a garbage can, barely peeking out as a light rail monorail rumbled by, just as empty as all the others. It was a sleep design, looking almost serpentine in nature itself... Automated, empty and lonely like the rest of the town. If it hadn't been for the guards, he could have sworn it was abandoned.

Lucas looked both ways before he moved out of his hiding spot and continued along, walking another block, then another... but in the distance hs aw the first truly unique building he had seen since the hatchery. Unlike the egg shaped houses, the building was very wide, very long and rather flat. It was also the first building that ha 'stairs' of any sort, though they were only a few inches high and seemed more decorative than practical. Textured ramps still ran up the center and two sides, giving easier access for the naga.

As impressive as the architecture was, Lucas would have passed the building by without a second glance if it hadn't been for one detail; through the unobstructed doorways into the building, he could see a holographic display on which a double helix was depicted... The screen changed and filled with icons, then an illegible text before showing the DNA again. Lucas grinned. It was the first lucky break he'd had in ages.

Lucas moved across the street carefully and up the steps before darting into the building, trying to remain unnoticed. The inside of the building was segmented into a variety of rooms along the north and south walls, but the center was spacious and open, almost like a train station... but far cleaner. The display he had seen was one of several in the foyer, depicting all sorts of sciences. He couldn't read the text, but he recognized DNA, geology, a climate chart, and many more curves including one chart depicting a serious decline in something and rather foreboding looking symbols around it.

Each of the side rooms was segmented from the rest by glass and steel, creating oval shapes offices with frosted glass walls between the ovals, creating a thicker outer wall that curved as well, creating a crescent shaped strip of offices on both sides of the building. Lucas moved along, gazing through the glass to the laboratories. Most were empty, but a light near the end was on. Lucas knew it was risky, but he had to try and find someone that could restore Dakota. Lucas crept toward the last office and moved just around the corner enough to peer in before he froze in surprise.

A singular naga occupied the office, his clawed hands moving over a holographic computer interface, but he wasn't at all like the other naga that Lucas had seen... he had hair. The scientist had shaggy light brown hair, cut short just beneath the base of his ears in the back, but his bangs were long and fell in strands across his face down to his rather human nose. In fact, almost his entire face was human, from his lips to his nose to his brow ridge, he even had eyebrows... but he was most certainly still a naga. His ears were long and pointed, almost like Rerun's, his neck was elongated and his hands were just as wide and sharply taloned as the guards. His torso appeared to be covered in human flesh for the most part, but around the waist it graduated to periwinkle, sky blue and parchment white scales. His tail wasn't as wide as the more serpentine naga, but it was far longer. Lucas almost got dizzy following every coil and ring of the tail. He had to guess the tail was at least thirty feet long all bunched up in the office.

While Lucas had been running for so long from the guards, he had to take a moment and appreciate the sheer beauty of this naga's form... He felt a bit bad that it had taken a more human naga to win his favor, but the patterns were amazing... While it could be said for the most part that this naga was snake from the waist down and human from the waist up, it was far too much of an over simplification. Sky blue stripes emerged from the naga's hairline, creating a border line that dipped toward his eyes and then slipped back, moving down his cheeks and neck. In front of the line was human flesh, behind the line was a wider strip of periwinkle blue. The periwinkle flared out into a small crest where his neck met his shoulders before coming back to his spine, then it exploded into a complex pattern across his back almost like wings.

Where the edge of the wing pattern touched his arms, it narrowed into a thick stripe on the front and the back, running down to his elbow where the periwinkle took over, covering every part of the rest of his arm and his slightly over-sized dangerous hands. The wing pattern trailed down to a very narrow stripe that followed his wais the rest of the way down his spine to his serpent tail, connecting with the rest of his scales... But even from the reflection on the wall behind the hologram, Lucas could tell that the sky blue and periwinkle stripes from his forehead and neck traced the outer edge of his chest and stomach before connecting on either side of his hip.

Lucas was overwhelmed by the sublime beauty of the creature and realized perhaps that he had reacted too strongly with a fear response. Perhaps, given that the naga had made a civilization, he would be ale to talk with them, to work everything out in a peaceful way. Lucas took a breath as he prepared himself for a leap of faith. He reached out and slid the door to the office open before clearing his throat.

"Excuse me..." Lucas said, knowing he had heard the security system and the guard both speak English before. The scientist's back arched as he came around to face Lucas with neon green eyes and a black vertical slit iris. The naga backed up in surprise before looking Lucas over with supreme fascination... but then he met eyes with Lucas, trying to defend himself with his hypnotism. Lucas grunted, gritting his teeth as he felt the serpent boring into his brain. It was a lot stronger than before... Much, much stronger. Lucas felt memories running around the back of his head, memories he hadn't pulled up. The naga was reading his mind.

Lucas controlled his breathing and gazed back into the neon green eyes, holding his ground. He pushed back, starting to dig into the serpent's mind. Words, phrases and images began filling his mind... Images of an empty city, of growing up alone, of studying old data files... learning the language. Lucas gasped sharply as he started to understand the meanings of the language on the computers, but in the back of his head he felt his memories of speech being run, spooling out through the link the two were sharing.

Both Lucas and the Naga wobbled gently, unable to close their minds, the link speeding up. Information was transferring between the two faster every moment before it was too much to bear. The naga's neon green eyes rolled up into his head before he promptly passed out. Lucas gave a grin that he had bested another naga, but soon he felt the blackness close around his consciousness and he crumpled to the floor. The lab was enshrouded in silence, both beings having passed out cold.

Consciousness began to return to Lucas, slowly at first. He had no idea how much time had passed when he started to stir a bit. He also felt heavy, weak, limp... and he felt a soft caress across his cock, then over his balls... Then beneath them, almost as if the hand was looking for something. Lucas felt different, a bit cooler... and less encumbered. He opened his eyes, waking up more before looking down, realizing he was naked... and on a couch. His head turned to see the naga scientist next to him. Realizing the human had awoken, the naga's lips parted and a dark purple forked tongue emerged, darting out almost a full foot before snapping back in. Lucas looked down at his groin and then at the naga. The naga looked to Lucas' groin and then back at his face.

"Did you... have an accident?" The naga asked, a look of sorrow on his face as if Lucas had been mangled somehow. His voice was light and peaceful. He didn't elongate the s's like the guards had. Lucas slowly sat up, confused for a moment before he realized that Dakota had developed a split cock. He blushed.

"No accident, I'm perfectly fine, other than being naked." Lucas said.

"Naked..." The naga paused, "Without clothes... Oh, yes." The naga said, realizing that the mammal might have been confused why his garments had been taken, "Clothing is considered rude here, it is an indication that you have something to hide."

"Well, it hid my skin from the elements." Lucas said defensively. The naga's eyes widened in realization at his mistake.

"I'm sorry, I've never seen such a large mammal before... Nor one with so little fur..." the naga said, reaching out to run his hand across Lucas' relatively smooth chest. Lucas blushed again.

"We should get things off on the right foot, er... tail. I'm Lucas..." he said softly..

"Lucas Kingston from Portland, Oregon... A dimension where mammals are the dominant species and the climate is much more moist." The naga replied.

"That isn't fair, you read my mind..." Lucas said softly.

"And you read mine. You have just as much information as I do. What is my name? Where are we?" the naga asked. Lucas' eyebrows furrowed as he concentrated before facts started bubbling into his mind.

"You are... Sepi, a scientist here at the advanced sciences directorate... Working on... dimensional multiplexed imaging and harmonic alignment?" Lucas said, each word sounding stranger than the rest. It was almost enough to give him a headache. Sepi smiled happily, bringing his clawed blue hands together.

"Good, that's very good... I never would have thought mammals would have such a developed metaperception." Sepi said.

"It isn't very common on our world, and mine was sort of forced on..." Lucas admitted.

"Well still, you have a very... interesting physiology..." Sepi said, looking Lucas over. His legs were most peculiar, but his muscle tone was excellent and his bone structure was most unique... He even had metal rings through his flesh, a most strange cultural trait. Sepi thought to all the information he had gained from Lucas, "This hyper sexuality you and your brother have is a very fascinating development. It's... rather a shame that our people never developed such a gene... or that your species didn't develop hemipenis" Sepi said softly. Lucas looked baffled at both concepts.

"Why would you want to be horny all the time?" he blurted out. Sepi looked back at Lucas with a thoughtful expression, hesitating. He had lived with the fact all his life, but the mammal had no clue.

"We are on the edge of extinction as a species... We ware the dominate life form on this planet, but there are less than ten thousand of us left on this planet. Our best scientists have tried to devise a solution, but nothing has worked." Sepi said.

"Does your planet need like... Viagra, so you can knock up the ladies?" Lucas grinned. Sepi's brow furrowed in confusion.

"Ladies?" he asked, not following at all. He looked at Lucas, trying to puzzle out the word before he thought back to the information that had filled his mind during their exchange. Sepi's eyes widened in sudden realization, "Females... We have not had any females in many thousands of years." Sepi replied. Lucas nearly fell off the couch.

"How old are you?!" he gasped. Sepi glared.

"I'm twenty one..." he replied. Lucas was confused again.

"How do you make babies without females?" Lucas asked. Sepi sighed before he grabbed Lucas' hand and drew it to a point just below the predominant slit on his abdomen. Lucas felt the scales quiver and a soft drip of moisture escape. Then Sepi drew Lucas' hand up to the main slit where two soft nubs brushed against his hand, barely peeking out of the slit before retracting.

"Perhaps that is easier than explaining..." Sepi said.

"You're both..." Lucas gasped. Sepi grimaced.

"Technically yes, though we identify as males... We merely have the ability to take care of both sides of reproduction." Sepi said.

"But it isn't working?" Lucas asked softly, trying not to be insensitive.

"No, it isn't..." Sepi said. Lucas watched as the naga's tail coiled a bit, pulling in tighter, "Scientists think... it's a combination of elements. Centuries of augmenting ourselves to be resistant to disease and elements created a lack of genetic diversity. On top of that, we suffered great losses to our egg clutches from one of the few other species left." Sepi explained. Lucas grimaced.

"What happened to the other species? I... I noticed there weren't a lot of things around here." Lucas said. Sepi took another breath and coiled a bit tighter, putting his arms around his stomach.

"Many species went extinct due to climate change... The fallout of our long mechanical age before we developed safe fuels, and in -" Sepi paused, feeling a sense of shame, "In the first attempt to solve our population crisis, our venom glands were modified to produce a retrovirus that either turned our victims into naga or killed those incompatible." Sepi said. Lucas' muscles tensed.

"And I see it's still in use, your guards used it on my friend, and then they did something to his mind." Lucas said. Sepi's eyes widened at the sudden anger.

"We are going extinct." Sepi said.

"And one person will change that?!" Lucas asked.

"Yes, you can!" Sepi replied. Lucas was startled.

"Me?!" He asked.

"You are virile, you are potent, you have every gene we need to get back on track. If even a portion of our population could have your... your abundance, we could end this crisis in three generations, and all it would take is a simple bite. " Sepi said. Lucas stood up.

"I don't want to be a naga!" Lucas said. Sepi's lips parted, revealing his fangs.

"And what is wrong with naga?" He asked.

"Nothing is wrong with them as a species, but no one should be forced into something against their will. You already turned Dakota into a mindless muscle head, now you want to change me... I've had my fill of fangs already..." Lucas said.

"Yes, Avery, I know..." Sepi said. Lucas spun on his heel to face the naga again.

"Then you know I was turned against my will, lied to in order to save someone else." Lucas said. Sepi took a deep breath and calmed himself like the rational scientist he was before looking into Lucas' eyes.

"But I haven't lied to you. I told you, didn't I? Yes, my species stands to gain from this... But I haven't done anything against your will." Sepi said.

"But Dakota-" Lucas was interrupted.

"Dakota was changed in the defense of our eggs... But there is a counter agent on file. It hasn't been used in decades, but it exists." Sepi said.

"So... Dakota can be turned back?" Lucas asked.

"And you, if you help us out and want to revert afterwards." Sepi said. Lucas hesitated, his rage and hatred venting away.

"I'm not going to do anything while Dakota is a zombie." Lucas said.

"I'll talk to council, express the opportunity we have. It shouldn't be hard to reassert his personality. I'll start brewing the retroagent as well." Sepi said.

"I haven't said yes yet." Lucas replied.

"I know, but aren't you more likely to if I do those things?" Sepi asked.

"I guess... you're right there, but..." Lucas hesitated, "I don't even know if I can get home. The portal thing closed..."

"Well... There... might be a long shot." Sepi said.

"What is that?" Lucas asked.

"You already know I study dimensional mechanics, but I've been trying to develop a way to tap into other dimensions. I'm almost done." Sepi admitted. Lucas took a breath.

"It's to find more genetic donors, isn't it?" Lucas asked. Sepi nodded gently. Lucas moved to sit back on the couch, "Okay, so all our cards on the table. Dakota and I got sent here by accident. We want to go home as humans when we can. You want genetic donors, especially me... and have a way to change me into a naga, and turn me back. Is that the case?" Lucas asked.

"Yes, that is." Sepi replied.

"Then... If you start on the serum and give Dakota his mind back, I'll... probably say yes. I'm at least thinking about it." Lucas said. Sepi nearly sprung from his position, gliding over in glee to kiss Lucas in delight. As their lips touched, a spark of static electricity jumped between the two. Sepi's eyes went wide as the sensation translated into his brain. As if his instincts took over, his two clawed hands came up and grabbed Lucas' head. Lucas was pinned against the couch as Sepi kissed him frantically, eagerly, with great desire and growing passion.

Lucas moaned sharply in surprise at the voraciousness of the kiss, especially as a forked tongue pushed into his mouth, inch by inch, then a foot of tongue, then more. Sepi's tongue swirled around his entire mouth before it delved into Lucas' throat, bypassing his gag reflex and teasing his muscles. Lucas squirmed in shock, grunting as Sepi's naga body slid up onto his legs, trapping him against the cushions. The kiss was intense and wild... Lucas was amazed, though his tongue started to explore Sepi's mouth, learning the differences.

The naga's cheeks were surprisingly dense but pliable, as if they could stretch a lot... and his fangs were intense, very present despite looking human... but as the kiss lingered, Sepi's venom gland began to spray. The venom squirted into the kiss, tingling like cinnamon but tasting far more acrid. Lucas felt his face ache and throb before his canine teeth started to stretch in his mouth. Lucas reached up to pry Sepi's hands off of his head, breaking the kiss, gasping for breath.

"What was that?!" he gasped, his chest heaving, his voice sounding different with the longer canine fangs. Sepi blushed deeply, though instead of red, his cheeks tinged a bit purple. He pulled off of Lucas and retreated back, his tail coiling around himself into a dense flesh spiral of shame.

"I... I'm so sorry, I've never been... I don't know if it's the bond we shared, but our bodies are more in sync than... anything I've ever sensed before. It was exhilarating, I should have... Oh Lucas, I'm so sorry." Sepi said, pulling his body even tighter.

"No, I can't blame you. It was a pretty hot kiss, and I guess I am... the sexiest guy on the planet after all." Lucas grinned. Sepi stuck out his purple forked tongue at that. Lucas smirked and moved off the couch, "So, how do we get started?"

"A trip to the council, we'll get Dakota's mind released... Though you should stay close to me, there are some who will be afraid to see an alien like you... and a few others that might have bigger eyes than their stomach." Sepi said. Lucas' eyes widened.

"They'd try to eat me?!" Lucas asked. Sepi smiled.

"Let's just try and be diplomatic." He said before leading Lucas along, the two heading through the halls. Lucas stayed close to Sepi, watching his very long blue tail wriggle. It was so impressive, so long, so thick... Lucas felt his cock hardening a bit at how phallic it all seemed. He blushed, trotting down the stairs as they got outside. Sepi looked at him strangely as if he'd just walked across a guard rail before shaking his head. The two came to a stop and waited for a green monorail to pull up. As if sensing them, it came to a stop and the doors opened, allowing them to board. Once all of Sepi's tail was inside, the monorail picked up speed, moving through the night.

****

Lucas' footsteps echoed through the council building of the naga city as the human followed Sepi along. He couldn't stop himself from running his tongue over his new fangs. He was surprised there was even room in his mouth for them, but despite his focus on his teeth, he was studying the architecture around him with great fascination. While most of the buildings in the city seemed to be built in a utilitarian style that was part of their advanced civilization, it seemed the city hall was built in a far more... 'classic' style. The hallways were rounded rather than squared off, curving off as the split. It was all made of the sandstone like substance that the roads were made of. The lights were recessed in the ceiling, sending columns of light down in a peculiar way. It all added up to make Lucas feel as if he had gone underground and was navigating his way through a serpent's den.

The structure was large and complex, but it was just as empty as the rest of the city. It truly seemed as if it had been designed for a much larger population. Lucas kept close to Sepi, making sure not to step on his wriggling tail... though Lucas had to admit, walking naked was still something he had to get used to. The idea of coming before the council naked was hard enough, but realizing that Sepi had thought he was missing a cock and a vagina when they first met made him feel even more embarrassed. Still, it wasn't a time to succumb to such feelings. Dakota needed his help. Sepi slowed to a stop, looking at Lucas. Lucas gave a nod and the two moved into the central chamber.

"Halt!" Came a deep booming voice as two black and red striped full nagas moved out in front of the two.

"It's the intruder!" One shouted as he saw Lucas.

"He will not attack!" Sepi declared.

"You have rendered him harmless then?" came a much softer voice. Sepi and Lucas turned, looking to the center of the room. Four naga had gathered around a table projecting a holographic layout of the city. Two were humanoid like Sepi, and two were serpentine like the guards. The soft voice had come from a violet and red humanoid naga with long lilac colored hair. His neon green eyes moved over Lucas appraisingly.

"He... isn't a threat, but he is immune to our abilities." Sepi said.

"Preposterous." A red serpentine naga snorted, his tongue darting out into the air.

"Perhaps you are out of practice Sepi, let me show you how a true master can-" The lilac haired naga shuddered as Lucas met eyes with him.

"I don't need to be mesmerized because I am here to make a deal in all of our benefit." Lucas said with clear annunciation.

"If that is the case... Then there is no need for hostilities. Mammal, please release Guah, and then we will talk." A green serpentine naga said, though his scales were faded and his eyes seemed somewhat milkier than the others. Lucas blinked and released the lilac naga from his hold. Offended, he moved back over to the table. The guards slithered out of the way of Sepi and Lucas but did not stray far in the event they were needed. The last council member, a yellow and black striped humanoid looked Lucas over before licking his lips gently.

"What a large mammal..." he murmured, looking at Lucas as if he was a feast.

"I may only have one, but it's more than enough." Lucas said, gesturing to his cock, turning the comment into sexual innuendo. The naga blinked, an eyebrow raising in intrigue.

"Let us also put quips aside..." The elder naga said, "I am Agus, you know Guah. This is Hano," he said, gesturing to the red naga, "And Bien." He pointed to the yellow naga.

"I am Lucas..." Lucas said, looking around at them all.

"To get to the bottom of all of this, I want to ask some questions. May I touch your mind to determine your truthfulness?" Agus asked. Hano and Guah moved to object at touching the human's mind.

"Yes." Lucas said clearly. Agus held up his hands to silence his co-council before he locked eyes with Lucas. The feeling was gentler than any of the attempts that had been made on his mind yet, feeling much more like he was looking into the eyes of his father, someone who could read him like a book.

"Several hours ago, two mammals breached our hatchery's security. One was captured and turned into a guard, the other escaped and evaded capture. Are you that other, or are there more mammals?" Agus asked.

"I am the other. Dakota and I wound up here on accident." Lucas said.

"From where?" Agus questioned.

"Another dimension. I want very much to have Dakota restored to his human form and for us to return there." Lucas said.

"Has Sepi told you why that might be difficult?" Agus asked.

"Yes. The technology needed is incomplete, and the population shortage could benefit very much from new genes being introduced. He believes mine are particularly valuable." Lucas said. Agus turned, looking at Sepi. Sepi's tail tensed as the link was made with his mind. While Lucas had been given the option, Agus seemed to be digging deeper into Sepi's mind. Sepi shuddered softly. Lucas reached over and took his hand, squeezing it. After a moment Sepi relaxed again and Agus looked back.

"Sepi does not have the authority to make such a deal." Agus said. Hano and Bien soon erupted into chatter. Agus again lifted his hand.

"Our needs are very great, and your abilities are very great. We cannot force you to do this... So we will honor the deal." Agus replied, "Bring the converted guard from the hatchery at once. His mind will be unshackled." Agus decreed. One of the guards promptly left, heading out of the door.

"A deal with a mammal, this is absurd." Hano growled. Agus grinned softly.

"But he won't be a mammal very much longer. He's offered to cooperate. Our bio-chemists will ready the reversion serum and Sepi will continue his work to open the gateway between our worlds, but they will be the first to mate." Agus stated, looking back at Sepi, "You will take care of your mate to the best of your ability... To tend to his needs, to care for him, to teach him." Agus commanded. Sepi bowed his head.

"Yes, of course." He replied.

"Given that the security threat to our hatchery is no more, I believe a recess is in order so we can partake of a well earned break." Agus said, leaving the table and slithering off to his office. Guah and Hano shot Lucas a glance before slithering off themselves, leaving only Bien. The yellow and black naga moved over, coming up to Lucas, towering over him by at least two feet. A solid black tongue emerged from his lips, tasting the air.

"A shame Sepi found you first, I'm sure we could have fun together..." Bien said.

"I don't think you'd be deep enough to pleasure him." Sepi said, feeling uncharacteristically daring. Bien turned and opened his mouth... and then kept opening it. His cheeks stretched, his jaws partially unhinging before he hissed at Sepi menacingly. His jaw snapped shut and the yellow naga darted away. Lucas' eyes were huge. With his jaw dislocated like that, Bien could have possibly swallowed him whole... Still, the shock of the moment passed and Lucas turned to grin at Sepi.

"You didn't seem the type to give insults." Lucas grinned.

"I'm not! I'm not sure what came over me..." Sepi said, bringing his tail around him tightly. Lucas grinned.

"Maybe... you were just protecting your mate." Lucas grinned softly, moving to kiss Sepi. Sepi relaxed a bit, moving to kiss Lucas back, their lips meshing as their bodies rubbed tightly... Sepi's hemipenis began to slip out of his slit, his two thick, slick shafts sliding up and down Lucas' abdomen, leaving a musky trail of pre behind them.

****

Dakota shuddered as he felt a fog lifting from his mind, his eyes closing slowly as his brain rebooted itself. He remembered the bike golem, the park, Lucas... wet, alien... It all came back to him. Dakota's eyes snapped open. He saw Lucas in front of him and grinned with relief, but his muscles tensed once more when he felt that his smile... felt very different. His amber eyes moved to his brown muzzle. He lifted his hands up and ran them over his scaled lips, his eyes widening in surprise.

"What issss going on?" Dakota asked.

"You're... temporarily a naga... They were defending their eggs when they changed you, but they are working on ways to turn us back to normal and send us home." Lucas said.

"Us? What did they do to you?" Dakota asked.

"Not much yet... Though..." Lucas opened his mouth, revealing long, curved fangs.

"What is it with you and sharp pointy teeth?" Dakota asked. Lucas rolled his eyes.

"I know... Anyhow, these guys aren't bad, they're just... in need, so I struck up a deal. It's all going to work out." Lucas said.

"I take it getting my mind back was part of it?" Dakota asked.

"Yeah. Sorry it took me so long." Lucas said. Dakota considered.

"Actually, it wasn't all that bad... Very peaceful. I don't remember much, but I knew what I was doing was important." Dakota said.

"Everything you do is important." Lucas grinned, taking a breath, "So, we're going to be here a while still. The serum will take a while to mix up, but I'm going to do my part to help out before we head back. They offered to make up accommodations for you during your stay." Lucas said.

"That's a nice offer, but... I need to get to whatever sort of library or archives this place has." Dakota said. Lucas looked surprised.

"To catch up on their history?" Lucas asked.

"No, to figure out if this is connected to ours. Eli and Nico got an artifact from this lantern ghost thing in the Peoplebuster universe. We need to figure out if there's something like that here, some link. If it wasn't random chance that brought us here, I need to figure out what's going on so I don't miss it." Dakota said. Lucas smiled at that.

"I'm sure they won't object to that, I'll talk to Agus about that." Lucas said.

"So, you're alright?" Dakota asked after a moment. Lucas nodded.

"I've been better than you, I... I should have stayed, tried to save you." Lucas murmured, feeling his guilt well up. Dakota reached out a clawed hand to rest on Lucas' shoulder.

"You did save me, I'm standing here, aren't I?" Dakota said. Lucas smiled at that.

"You're right, I better-" Lucas was interrupted.

"You're naked." Dakota said suddenly, looking down and then back up quickly.

"Uh, yeah, it's the culture here... Anyhow, like I was saying, I better go talk to them about getting you to the library." Lucas said with a smirk before he turned and moved off. Dakota watched Lucas go before he turned, starting to slither back and forth, wondering where he might be able to find a snack.

****

Sepi and Lucas moved along the streets as the sun started to rise in the east, showering the lands with soft pink light. It had been a long night after a long day. Lucas was exhausted and Sepi was as well, though they had been good company. Sepi felt less shy around Lucas than he had been in years.

"The serum will be ready in three days, but the fabrication for the alignment rods for the gateway device is going to take nine days." Sepi said.

"Well... That isn't all bad; it gives Dakota time to look." Lucas said.

"Look for what?" Sepi asked curiously.

"Well, there's this problem facing our dimension... A sort of looming threat that we're not sure about. Some of our friends made it to another dimension and they found a piece of the puzzle there, a ghost that was watching over an old artifact, waiting for them." Lucas said with a smile. Sepi slowed to a stop.

"Did they know how long the ghost had been there?" Sepi asked.

"Uh, I don't know... I don't think so, but a long time... Why?" Lucas asked. Sepi took Lucas' hand and gave it a squeeze before he moved up the street faster. Lucas broke into a jog to catch up, watching more and more of Sepi's long blue tail slither past him. Sepi moved up a ramp to one of the houses, opening the round door inside. Lucas tromped up the ramp after him and into the house. Sepi passed through the bedroom area, past the food area in the middle and finally to the home office in the back. Lucas caught up as Sepi was flipping through a holographic interface before he selected an article. AN image appeared of an ancient ruin, four pillars surrounded by concentric rings made of symbols and script.

"What is that?" Lucas asked.

"One of the oldest sites in our recorded history, it was discovered at the rise of our current civilization. There is a ghost there... The light giver." Sepi said. He pressed a key and the image changed, showing a hazy image of a spirit floating in the mist of the pillars. It was the size of a small beach ball, wrapped in ethereal strips of cloth, two of which hung down at its sides, one curled around a lantern filled with a green flame. Lucas' eyes widened.

"I have to get this information to Dakota... But... it gave light? From its lantern?" Lucas asked. Sepi smiled at the mistake, shaking his head.

"No, more... enlightenment to our people. The light giver gave us our spoken language, math and our understanding that we were like one island in the sea, to which there were many more. It accelerated our development by leaps and bounds... even our first religion, about the symbiont nature of life and death, how they needed each other." Sepi said.

"That's... a lot." Lucas said in awe.

"If it hadn't been for the light giver, I doubt you and I would be able to understand one another." Sepi said softly, "But if that ghost is the reason you're here, I think... I know what threat is facing your dimension." Sepi said softly.

"You know about Zytu?" Lucas asked.

"I don't know that name, but the ancestors knew that the light giver came from another realm. Even after he went silent and remained in his vigil, we were able to study his harmonics... and learn that he existed completely outside of our reality... Trying to trace his harmonics back to other realities became the foundation of my field of research." Sepi said. Lucas paused.

"You'd have to know about other dimensions in order to build a gateway device to them, more than just that they exist..." Lucas said, pausing, "But you said you knew about the... the threat?" Lucas asked. Sepi blushed faintly purple before he started moving through his computer files, entering passwords.

"We really should be at my lab for this, it is much better equipped... But when I came of age, one of my assignments as a researcher was to study a progress of a very exotic entity, so large it was unimaginable... A being made entirely of energy, boring its way through the void between realities. The year I was born, the first dimensional scientists were able to get this image." Sepi said. The hologram flickered before the image appeared, three feet tall and six feet wide.

The center of the image was a large oblong sphere full of flattened out discs with blobs in the center. Lucas recognized the shape as galaxies, and the sphere they existed in had to be the universe itself, or at least one universe. What concerned Lucas was the massive cloud of orange that was wrapped around the entire sphere, with many tendrils and a thick tail. Lucas was stunned beyond words, looking at a tangible existence, realizing how impossibly large the being was.

"And the sky shall bleed frozen drops in the blazing heat; the rivers shall turn to blood..." Lucas whispered. Sepi's green eyes shot wide in surprise. Lucas blushed a bit, "It was part of a prophecy I had about Zytu. A creature came to me because of my mental gift, he knew a darkness was coming to destroy everything. He wanted to use me to figure out how to stop it." Lucas said. Sepi's shoulders slumped a bit.

"Then I think... I know which dimension you came from." Sepi said softly. Lucas looked concerned.

"What... makes you think that?" Lucas asked.

"This energy creature, if it is Zytu, is very slow. It took two decades for him to detangle form this reality and move toward his next target. We tried to track its progress as best we could." Sepi said, flipping through images. They grew grainier as the orange blob moved away from the first reality, becoming quite fuzzy before the image grew clearer again. The sequence of images showed the creature approach, and then reach another universe. Lucas watched with growing horror as it began to cover a portion of the sphere, the first tendrils moving out... and then the sequence of images stopped with the universe half covered by the cloud.

"That's... Is that the present? Is that what is actually happening?" Lucas whispered. Sepi nodded gently. Lucas looked very forlorn and sunk to his knees. Sepi let out a soft hiss of surprise, moving to grab Lucas around the shoulders.

"It isn't too late, if that is your reality, your people could still evacuate..." Sepi said earnestly.

"Evacuate to where, to here? To become naga?" Lucas asked weakly. Sepi's eyes lowered.

"Would that be so bad?" he asked softly. Lucas looked up at Sepi before he realized how harsh he had sounded. He reached up to caress Sepi's cheek.

"No, not for many..." he said, taking a breath, "We need to get this information to Dakota, and... then we can focus on making sure that your civilization is safe, no matter what happens to ours." Lucas said. Sepi slowly coiled his body around Lucas, bending to come face to face with him on his knees.

"I promise... that I will make sure you enjoy the process as much as possible... and you will always... be welcome here." Sepi said, moving to kiss Lucas again. Lucas met the kiss with his lips, his eyes sliding shut. He wrapped his arms around Sepi, wanting very much to be held. Sepi coiled around Lucas tighter, making the human feel safe, the two kissing more. Sepi shuddered against the kiss before his venom glands began to spray the tingling liquid down Lucas' throat. Rather than pull away, Lucas began to gulp and drink it, feeling the tingling spread down his throat and enter his stomach, his skin almost sizzling.

Blood rushed to Lucas' ears and they started to turn red at the edges, then they took on a subtle shade of purple that grew more intense until it was plum. The color was vivid and strong and grew even stronger as his ear lobes stretched into points. Lucas blinked a few times, his eyes fluttering. As hey closed and opened, a faint metallic pigment settled into his eyelids, making it look as if he had put on plum and rose colored eye liner, though it was entirely natural. Lucas shuddered softly as his brown eyes tingled, the irises brightening and taking on a pure amber color. Sepi broke the kiss and pulled back, panting a bit. He looked up at Lucas and then blushed intently.

"You are magnificent..." Sepi whispered.

"It's all thanks to you..." Lucas whispered, "How about we get that information to Dakota, and then see if we can save your species." Lucas said. Sepi grinned much wider at that.

****

The monorail hovering along its track as light as a feather, leaving the northern end of the Willamette Valley behind, heading south. Dakota rested in one of the cabins, gazing out of the glass window. He thought the empty city had been lonely, but it was nothing compared to the barren desert landscape beyond. The geography all seemed the same, but the climate couldn't have been more different. Still, every so often Dakota would see scurrying bunches of mice or rabbits stirred up by the monorail. There was still life at least, but it was certainly strange. By his guess, he had to be as far south as Lake Oswego or even Wilsonville, but it was impossible to gauge. The monorail was electromagnetic, operating on the same principles as Japanese bullet trains. The speed was impressive to say the least.

"Next stop, the ruins of light." An automated voice announced. Dakota had to smirk to himself. Even in another dimension, some things were all the same. The monorail began to slow, the landscape outside becoming easier to see. It was dusty and dry, the dirt so weathered that it had made particulate like sand, blowing around the abraded bedrock. The monorail eased to a crawl before it finally came to a stop. The doors slid open. The speakers above head chimed before the automated voice returned, "Monorail 84 is now on standby. State destination when ready to depart." The voice said. Dakota was merely glad that he wasn't going to be left behind in the middle of nowhere.

Dakota slithered out of the monorail, shivering as his underbelly felt the hot rock beneath him. Rather than feeling bad, it kind of made him feel more energetic. He picked up his pace, getting his long tail out of the monorail, moving a few feet away before he stopped, letting out a small murmur of awe. He ha seen the pictures, but they hardly did it justice... The pillars looked ancient but intact, made of a stone separate from the region... and the ground was covered in so much writing that it looked like a city block of spiraling symbols. Dakota moved along, feeling the intricate patterns against his tail flesh.

He advanced slowly, taking a sort of spiral direction in, but as he approached, his eyes came across the lantern keeper in the center of the spires, floating in complete silence and solitude, just as Eli and Nico had described. Dakota moved closer, looking at the ghost, at the flickering flame in its lantern. He reached the edges of the pillar and took a breath, then he moved around the outside of the pillars before he was in front of the lantern keeper. Dakota was a bit unsure of what to do.

"Uh, hey. What's up?" Dakota asked. The ghost remained motionless and silent. Dakota reached up to scratch the back of his serpentine head, "I'm a human, from the planet Earth in... another dimension. We met another one of you in a dimension full of ghosts? We were given this little stone thingy, thought it might help us..." Dakota paused, "Against Zytu." He added. For a long moment, the lantern keeper did nothing... but then slowly it raised its arm, holding its lantern up. Dakota was about to ask a question when the light grew more intense than the sun. Dakota held up a clawed hand to shield his eyes, but behind him, his shadow was not that of a naga, but of a human.

The lantern keeper had no eyes, only a visible mouth, but somehow it was able to see the shadow and know that Dakota was saying the truth. It lowered its lantern again, holding it close to the ground. A spark of the green flame leapt out, landing in a dusty grove on the ground. The grove ignited and a spiral of green flame moved out from the pilar, catching others that spread out as well. Dakota quickly tucked his tail against his body, trying to stay clear as the entire ruins began to shimmer and sparkle. The symbols became brighter, until Dakota realized that the outer edge was a circle and through the center was a cross.... Just like the Ghostbusters symbol.

"What does this mean?" Dakota asked quickly, feeling a hot wind pick up. The wind started to blow the dust around, harder and faster, the wind sand lasting Dakota. Dakota closed his eyes, trying to shield himself, barely able to see when he opened his eyes. The ruins had been covered with a fog of sand and dust, but as the wind died down, Dakota tried to see what had happened, tried to keep track of the lantern keeper, but as the dust settled, the ghost was gone... and so was the stone in the center of the four pillars. In its place was a small hole, five feet wide and two feet deep. Dakota moved forward, looking over the edge. Resting in the bottom of the pit was a black obsidian metal alloy piece that looked almost like a rib cage with a central rectangle and then three pairs of curved strips rising out and up from the center. It was perfectly crafted, made of the same substance as the artifact Eli and Nico had.

"I guess this means I came to the right place." Dakota said softly, reaching in to lift the artifact up, looking at it in the afternoon sun.

****

Lucas' chest rose and fell with soft pants of breath, his eyes squeezed shut. His feet were completely bound together by tail, his body pinned to the thick red bed as Sepi rubbed against him, up and down. Lucas was as hard as stone, is cock aching from the weight and pressure and realization of what they were doing. Lucas leaned up and nuzzled Sepi's chin, causing the naga to gasp out in delight. Serpents were very sensitive to chin rubs during mating. Lucas hadn't know that before but he started to lick and rub Sepi's chin more, seeing how much it affected his mate.

Sepi had been carefully rubbing the flesh where his stomach and his scales meshed, using Lucas' cock to stimulate his scutes. A panel of the scales separated, revealing a vent. It was the cloacae that Lucas had felt before. With a deft movement, Sepi plunged his orifice around Lucas' cock. Lucas gasped out sharply, feeling how hot and wet and spongy and deep it was. Sepi hissed, baring his fangs before he started to slide himself up and down on Lucas' cock, trying to drive him wild. Lucas moaned in bliss, never having felt anything like it... It was completely different to a mouth or an ass.

Lucas began to thrust as best he could from beneath Sepi, plunging into him over and over. Sepi came down, gazing into Lucas' amber eyes before they met in a fevered kiss. Sepi grabbed Lucas' head, holding it in place before he began to pump his venom into the human's mouth. Lucas began to gulp and swallow the tingling substance, feeling it fill his stomach and infuse his blood. There seemed to be no end, no matter how much he guzzled down, Sepi had more... and it was affecting him more and more. Lucas felt his nipples grow more erect, his fingers throb and tingle, and his toes went numb. It was all happening.

With each thrust, Lucas' cock started to engorge as more blood flowed into it. The head pushed out to more of a tapered point and the shaft shifted a bit, becoming a more smooth slope from point to base... but that wasn't going to last for very long. Lucas felt portions of his shaft starting to tug and rub on Sepi's passage in new and strange ways, like the base of his cock had developed traction. Rubbery ridges had formed, like smooth edged hooks, grabbing at the flesh, trying to keep him in. More bumps and ridges formed, seemingly a double set on both sides... but the changes were accelerating.

So much blood had flowed into Lucas' cock that it was reddish purple, but the purple seemed to be taking over... and then, steadily, only the blue hue. His shaft was alien, large, engorged... It stretched twice as wide, then a bit more... And then his urethra stung, a tingling spreading down the middle of his cock as a whole. Lucas hissed a bit at the sensation, though it wasn't a snake hiss. He kept thrusting wildly, unable to stop, but as his rubbery ridges grabbed at Sepi's flesh, his cock started to shear in different directions. The cock pulled apart, splitting down the middle. The flesh between was intact, but it had to grow and round out, completing itself as his penis became a hemipenis.

"Oh yes, that feels good, doesn't it Lucassss?" Sepi hissed, loving the feel of two large shafts in him, just as nature intended. Lucas moaned, getting a face full of venom. It ran down his chin and dripped onto his chest, a chest that looked lither and more muscled by the moment. What little fat Lucas had seemed to be converting to muscle. His shoulders were a bit thicker, his arms more defined... His chest glistened with venom and sweat, his body working in over time. Sepi shuddered in pleasure, his tail compressing Lucas' feet tighter, but it didn't hurt... In fact, Lucas couldn't feel them at all. The reason why was the venom, but he had no idea how far his transformation had truly progressed.

Beneath the thick coils of Sepi's periwinkle tail, Lucas' feet had started growing together. His feet were tight together, the flesh fused, his toes growing a webbing between them. The webbing contracted, pulling the toes into one another before they fused. His toenails disappeared slowly, leaving rubbery flesh. Even his bones were being reabsorbed into his body, his ankles going soft, his feet fusing faster. Before long there was no definition to his feet as a whole, merely a spot where his legs grew together, narrowing into a point. The upper side began to harden and dry out a bit, while the back side remained rubbery and fleshy. The feet were gone, but the fusion of his legs started advancing up his limbs as his knees went weak and numb.

Lucas continued thrusting, though his movements were becoming wilder. He bore his fangs, flicked out his blue tongue, his pointed ears twitched... and he seemed to be very flushed. The blood had rushed into his cheeks, turning them reddish purple, then only purple. A pattern was forming in the same shades as his ears. Purple scales crept up his cheeks, curving out of the way of his mouth, curving in across his cheeks to form a point half way to the middle of his nose, then it curved back out sharply, following the line of his sideburns up into his hair line. It was almost as if he had a mask of flesh color around his eyes, nose and mouth. It was a very exotic pattern.

The fusion of Lucas' legs had continued past his knees, his underside taking on a soft sandy white colors, but at the edge of his underbelly, two lines of cotton candy pink scales had formed, a narrow margin before the amethyst purple scales that covered the sides and back of his forming tail. Lucas thrusted more and more, his hands tracing down Sepi's back, but they too were changing. For a moment it looked as if he had a deep tissue bruise beneath his fingernails, the flesh turning black... but in reality, the nails were growing very deep into his fingers, practically to the bone. The nails soon turned black before growing out more, stretching into points, honing and sharpening, giving Lucas intense claws... And when the claws were fully grown, the changes to his hand started.

Few parts of the body had as many bones as the hands or feet. While Lucas had lost all the bones in his feet, his hands seemed to be benefitting from the calcium. His fingers stretched longer and thicker, then his palms widened, then his wrists. His hands were growing larger than a human, just a bit over-sized, but not as much as some of the naga he had seen. The skin stretched over the wider hand, but rather than becoming thinner, it thickened and changed, taking on the soft purple hue his tail and cheeks had. The purple covered his hands, then his forearm, growing up to his elbow before the pattern split. On the front and back of his arms, the purple rose in a line, creeping toward his shoulder, leaving the sides a fleshy pink. The purple slipped under his arm, covering his pit before it looped up over his shoulder, connecting with itself at the back before a flare of scales covered the top edge of his shoulders and came down a few inches to a chevron point.

Where the scales had met under his arms, a line dropped down along his ribs, the pink borders starting up. The lines narrowed on both sides before flaring out again, reaching his waist... a waist that was rapidly changing. With each thrust of his hips, Lucas lost a little more of his humanity. His legs had sealed together, the flesh knitting, the cleft of the legs disappearing. The flesh grew over his balls, his organs shifting around inside. Even his ass cheeks had fused, creating a smooth continuation of his tail to his spine; though the purple scales tapered off as they reached his waist, becoming flesh. The only true connection between his two portions came from the lines of scales down his ribs, sinking into his tail, the pink border lines continuing on seamlessly.

Lucas grunted in shock and awe, feeling his organs and muscles changing. He could feel sensation returning to his lower half, but it wasn't anything like before. He had thousands of more muscles, more dexterity, more sensation. His tail wriggled before he began grinding it all around the coils that held it in place... And then Lucas felt the strangest sensation of all. He gasped softly as a portion of his tail below where his balls had been started to open up. He felt the flesh pulling apart wetly inside, diving up into him, a new cavity forming. Lucas shivered, his eyes wide as it all settled into place... and then began to fill with a soft pre, the juices flowing easily. Sepi gasped, sniffing the air, tasting the air with his tongue.

"You are so fertile..." Sepi whispered, his jaw dropping, hanging just a bit dislocated. As much as Lucas was learning to enjoy being a naga, jaw dropping was something he'd have to get used to.

"Wasn't that the point?" Lucas chuckled. Sepi smirked and leaned in to give him a love bite on the neck. Lucas moaned as he felt the fangs pierce his flesh. He shuddered, moving to lick Sepi's face as Sepi pulled back, uncoiling from Lucas. Lucas gazed down at what had become of his legs as Sepi detached and started moving around. He could see his tail growing out longer and lounger, but the change itself had apparently ended. He had the tail, paws, and head of a naga... and he was loving it.

After admiring himself for a moment, Lucas tried to figure out what Sepi was doing. Sepi had turned around, facing away from Lucas, looking down at his tail. Lucas was about to ask a question as Sepi's tail curled around his torso, the tail tip stroking his chin. Lucas twitched and fell back on the cushions, panting softly. Sepi moved, his own thick hempipenis emerging. He gave them each a few good thrusts with his hand before he lifted up his midsection. Lucas felt his shafts once more being encompassed, but then he felt something he'd never imagined before... Two cock heads starting to push into his cloacae. Sepi sak down on Lucas, filling his passage deeply with shafts until their undersides rubbed.

Sepi began to bounce himself, sliding both his cocks and his cloacae up and down. Lucas grunted hard, trying to match Sepi's movements, his eyes roiling into the back of his head. Soon the two were thrashing more than humans could, nearly bucking each other off of their rods, only to come slamming back together a moment later. Sepi basked in the lust, but a wicked grin started to cross Lucas' face. This wasn't just about mating, about breeding. Sepi was his mate now, they were forging a bond stronger than boyfriends... and Lucas was going to show Sepi who was boss. He moved his tail around a bit in experiment, trying to get used to using it... and then he struck.

Sepi grunted as Lucas' tail wrapped around his wrists, binding them together like handcuffs, holding them in place... and there was just enough slack past the wrists for Lucas to move around. The tail tip started to circle Sepi's nipples, his chest, and then it moved up to stroke his chin. Sepi moaned deeply, his eyes squeezing shut as his chin was rubbed, feeling it stroke forward and back... and then the tail plunged into his mouth. Sepi's eyes shot open wide in surprise at the very un-naga like movement.

"Suck it." Lucas whispered. Sepi was surprised, but something about the command was comforting. .. as if his entire life of shyness had been waiting for this moment, the moment he would have his mate there for him, protecting him, guiding him. Sepi began to suckle on the tail tip, completely bound at his hands, their junk slamming together deeply. The two were wild, forceful, deep... Lucas wanted to make the pleasure last as long as possible, to draw it out, but his body seemed even more potent as a naga. It knew his biological drive was to breed, and breed it was going to.

Lucas felt the blinding light of orgasm ripping through his brain like a white hot light. He thrust as deeply into Sepi as he could, feeling his cocks bulge and swell, as if his entire shafts were canine knots. The cocks swelled enough to prevent him from pulling back, and then came the flood. Sepi let out a deep hiss around the tail in his mouth as he felt the hot naga sperm flood his womb, washing over the walls and all of the snake eggs there, fertilizing them with Lucas' seed, Lucas' code. Sepi felt so amazing, so fortunate... That a stranger from another land had shown up on his doorstep, and now he was going to become pregnant with his children... and that thought was enough to send Sepi over the edge.

Sepi shuddered, his muscles tensing as his hemipenis knotted inside of Lucas, sealing tight and then flooding. His cream spurted out thickly, filling the brand new organ Lucas had, but already it was prepared. Several new eggs had been dropped, fertilized in an instant inside of him. Lucas went stiff a second time as he felt a strange flash in the back of his mind, as if his body was letting him know that he had conceived. The lust of the exchange fell by the side for a moment as Lucas suddenly realized what that feeling meant. He looked up at Sepi, at the wing pattern across his shoulders, at his soft brown hair. They... were parents. He was a father.

It was a possibility Lucas had never faced before as a gay man, but now... he was a daddy... Both he and Sepi had eggs forming inside of them. He really was going to save a species. Lucas pulled his tail out of Sepi's mouth, realizing how base it seemed. Instead of the lusty act, he started to lovingly caress Sepi's chin and cheeks, releasing his hands. Sepi returned the affectionate rubs, the two embracing each other in a much more relaxed, intimate embrace. Sepi closed his eyes, leaning into Lucas' tail tip, feeling the love from his mate.

****

Lucas murmured softly as he slipped off of the thick red cushions. He'd slept deeper than he thought possible, so deep that he was still quite groggy. He slithered through Sepi's house, his twenty five foot tail swaying almost hypnotically. Lucas' purple eyelids were closed as he moved, reaching the kitchen area. He opened his eyes and looked around a bit, his stomach rumbling. He started looking around for some food, but there was a soft scraping noise from a white bowl on the counter. Curious, Lucas moved over and peered in.

"Awwww..." Lucas cooed in adoration. Inside the bowl, a half dozen fuzzy gray mice ran around, trying to get up the side, looking at Lucas with their beady black eyes. Lucas reached down to pet one of them, noticing Sepi's tail in the next room. Lucas glanced up, "I didn't know you had pets." He called out. Sepi paused what he was doing.

"I don't have any pets." He said in confusion before he pulled back and moved into the kitchen. He turned his head, looking at the bowl and then back to Lucas, "Oh... you are adorable..." Sepi said softly. Lucas blushed.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"Those are snacks." Sepi replied. Lucas' eyes went wide.

"No..." Lucas whispered, looking at the bowl of mice almost protectively. Sepi crossed his arms.

"They're raised on farms for the express purpose of eating. Don't you eat animals?" Sepi asked.

"Well... yes, but it's not the... Actually..." Lucas paused and sighed, feeling defeated. Sepi moved over and lifted one of the mice out of the bowl, tipped his head back and opened his jaw wide. He dropped the mouse into his mouth and swallowed easily before nodding to Lucas.

"If you don't eat, you're going to get sick... Especially while you're forming egg walls." Sepi said.

"What... are my other options?" Lucas asked.

"Rabbits." Sepi replied. Lucas looked even more dismayed at the idea of eating a live bunny before he looked back at the bowl of mice. He murmured and closed his eyes before lifting one up, feeling it quiver in his hand. Lucas quickly shifted to holding it by its tail, trying not to think about its feelings before he held it above his head, opened his mouth, and dropped it.

For a split second, Lucas felt it pass his tongue, but soon it was in his throat... and then gone. It was a warm, fuzzy morsel and his throat seemed to be doing all the work. Rather than feeling disgusted, Lucas felt a wave of strange pleasure sweep over him. Lucas gasped softly, feeling the pride of being a predator sweep over him. He murmured before looking at Sepi.

"Why did that make me horny?" Lucas whispered.

"You were always horny before." Sepi smiled. Lucas shrugged, Sepi had a point.

"And I guess I'm eating for six." Lucas added, looking back at the bowl contemplatively.

****

Dakota sighed gently as he leafed through holographic pages of Sepi's work in the foyer of the science directorate. Life as a naga hadn't turned out to be that bad, but he was really missing home... And after years of being a solitary soul, it was shocking how fast he'd gotten used to living at the firehouse, being around other guys all the time. The snake city was lonely, especially with Lucas and Sepi so inseparable... but true to his word, Sepi had continued to work on the dimensional gateway. With no way to get word to the busters in Portland and explain what was going on, all Dakota could hope to do was study up on the research Sepi and his predecessors had made, but he was worried he wasn't the best study.

Dakota had gotten a grasp on how Zytu bored through the dimensions, the spatial relation of other realities and how Zytu seemed to cut them off as he ensnared a universe. It reminded Dakota of magnets in a way. Zytu was a dimensional being by his very nature... So he disrupted dimensional gateways of the same frequency, while those that had an opposite charge were made even stronger. It started to explain why the tornado had formed to the Peoplebuster universe, or why the vortex had opened in the Keller fountain... and in both dimensions, there had been lantern ghosts guarding relics, ghosts that had handed them over as soon as a Ghostbuster arrived.

It was too much of a coincidence for Dakota's liking, it had to mean something. From the research on Zytu he branched out, studying anything about the 'light giver' he could. It was true that the ghost's writing shad jump started the naga civilization, sending it leaps and bounds ahead... As if they had to be at a certain point at a certain time... and apparently that time was the present. Dakota shivered as he thought about such an ancient being having such a profound understanding of time... But as Dakota read, what started to draw his attention was not what the lantern ghost had imparted freely, but what the naga had gleaned with more pressure.

Dakota read of the cult of shadows, a group of naga that worshipped the lantern keeper. They had studied his teachings; even spoke with him in person before the great era of silence. It was the cult that had gotten the lantern keeper to speak of more philosophical subjects, of how every light created shadow, and every shadow showed the existence of light. Life and death were connected, necessary, part of the existence of reality itself... And that the absence of either defied the universe as a whole. Dakota was fascinated by the subject, reading through the pages with great interest... until he turned the page and stopped, stunned by an image.

The image had been transferred from a painting, showing a lightning storm in the background with a faint mushroom cloud in the distance. Standing in the center, holding a lantern, was not the spherical ghost he had seen... but a much more archetypal image. The figure holding the lantern was in the shape of a man with ragged black robes, the hood completely hollow. Two skeleton arms extended from the sleeves, one holding the lantern. It looked every bit like a lither, more diminutive version of death himself. Dakota stared at the image for a moment before moving back to the text.

"After a century of silence, the Light Giver speaks during the only test of a nuclear device by the science directorate. His warning reshaped the direction of sciences and reawaken the cult of shadows for fifty more years..." Dakota whispered, looking back to the eerie image, taking a breath, "I wonder what you'd sound like." Dakota whispered.

"What who would sound like?" Lucas voice asked. Dakota turned around with a smile on his face, though once more he paused. Lucas slithered in on twenty feet of purple tail, but what Dakota's eyes went to was the roundness of the young man's stomach. It was distended, starting just below his pectorals and moving all the way down to where his scales started. Dakota looked up at Lucas.

"Long... couple of nights?" Dakota asked. Lucas stopped, grinning, running his clawed hands over his belly.

"They're getting so big already, aren't they? It's really amazing..." Lucas said affectionately.

"It feels okay?" Dakota asked. Lucas grinned.

"More than okay, it feels fantastic..." Lucas smiled, "You wanna feel?" he asked. Dakota's eyes widened. When he had met Lucas, he could have expected the boy to ask him anything sooner than to feel his pregnant belly. Still, Dakota didn't want to be rude. He moved over and held his hand up gently, resting it on the stomach. There was thick tissue between his hand and the contents, but he could felt oblong oval eggs just inside.

"So when are you going to the hatchery?" Dakota asked.

"Sepi thinks another week... It's really promising so far. He says that both of our eggs are thickening with more nutrients than the doctors have seen. It's a good sign." Lucas said.

"That's amazing... Though... a whole week." Dakota murmured. Lucas smiled softly.

"Well, you're not going to have to wait that long. Sepi is assembling the gateway device right now." Lucas smiled.

"Right now? Then... Wait, you mean we can go home?" Dakota asked.

"The first test is going to be this evening. If it works, we'll give you the reversion agent and you can go home." Lucas grinned. Dakota's brows lowered and his tongue flicked out.

"What do you mean I can go home?" he asked sternly. Lucas grimaced.

"I'll come home too, just... later. I mean, I made a deal with these people, and Sepi and I have really grown close. I'm going to do this right. Besides, you guys could use a liaison on the whole Zytu thing. I don't know if we'll ever find any place that can monitor his progress, or try to figure out how to stop him." Lucas said.

"I... know you're right about that. I've been reading for a day, these files are intense. I wish there was some way to make our technologies compatible. I have to much information to take back..." Dakota said.

"I'll see if any of the scientists can whip anything up, but I thought I'd tell you about the test so you could get ready." Lucas said.

"I'm glad you did, and congratulations." Dakota smirked. Lucas smiled, running his hand over his stomach again.

****

The council had gathered at the reflecting pool near the hatchery to witness Sepi's experiment. The naga scientist had ensured several safeguards were in place to prevent catastrophic failure, but Sepi was known for being the best at what he did. Four devices had been set up at the edges of the pond on tripod, plugged into the city's power grid and into Sepi's computer. The pillars shimmered as white laser lines scanned the pool's perimeter and depth, gathering information about the vortex that had formed on its own. Sepi cross checked the information, feeding coordinates into the system.

A few feet away, Lucas stood with Dakota, watching his friend revert. Dakota shivered softly as his body continued to throb. Almost all of his features had returned to normal, though his mouth was still pulling back into his face and his nose was pushing out from mere nostril slits back to its normal shape. His fingernails grew lighter as they shrank back and his tattoo was fully visible again. The Naga had even made him a pair of loose fitting pants and a vest to cover himself when he got back to Portland. The artifact rested in a water proof case hooked to straps.

"Beginning phase two." Sepi called out, pressing the sequence into his computer. The lasers locked in place and a low, barely audible hum began to fill the air before the water began to bubble and slosh, light starting to leak up from the bottom of the pool.

"Dakota, I was wondering if you could give this letter to Nico... It explains why I'm staying behind, and that I'll get my GED as soon as I get back, and... well, a lot of stuff." Lucas said, handing Dakota a rolled up letter. Dakota nodded gently, tucking it into the water proof case next to the data crystal and the experimental interface reader.

"You can count on me... assuming this is going to be the right dimension." Dakota said. Sepi shot a glance over at the human.

"I'm opening this pool back to the last dimension to leak through, which happens to be the one I've been monitoring. Unless the pool has connected to other dimensions too, it should be fine." Sepi said. Dakota smirked.

"Almost wish I'd been a water snake to make it through the vortex easier." Dakota grinned.

"That could be arranged." Agus said with a wry smile from where he stood. Dakota chuckled at that before he moved over to the council.

"I'm sorry we didn't meet each other under better circumstances, but I'm glad that we worked it out. I hope Lucas learns a lot from you, he's got one of the best hearts of our people." Dakota said.

"And I am glad that we were able to reverse our mistakes and work toward a brighter future for both of our people. Good luck Dakota." Agus said.

"And good luck to you all." Dakota said, looking back at Lucas. The fountain began to bubble more furiously.

"The link is established." Sepi replied.

"How will I know that the link is still working after I go through, that Lucas isn't trapped here?" Dakota asked as he approached the pool.

"I'll send a letter in two weeks, a water proof canister... Right around noon." Lucas said. Dakota took a breath before he nodded.

"Don't be late, your brother is already going to kill me for letting you get knocked up." Dakota chuckled.

"Hey, at least it was by another dude." Lucas grinned, moving to give Dakota a hug. Dakota returned it, patting Lucas on the back, but he hated long good byes. He let Lucas go, turned, and dove into the pool. His weight took him down half way and his arms pulled against the water, drawing him through the vortex. The focused energy of the portal seemed to make it easier, that and the light on the other side was a different shade. Green sunsets in the desert world, orange and purple for Portland. Dakota pulled through the vortex, heading in the right direction before he suddenly splashed up to the surface, landing on the edge of the cement. Dakota pulled himself up and out of the pool, coughing and panting for breath. He slowly turned around to look back at the way he had come, but the water was only a foot and a half deep, polished stones forming the bottom of the pool.

Dakota looked up, rivulets of water running down his cheeks to drip from his chin. There was a coolness in the air and a light mist of rain. The street lights glowed a bright orange and the cars rolled along like beasts on a cement prairie. He was home. Dakota rose to his feet and started moving out of the park, heading for the nearest place he could call the firehouse form. The others would no doubt be missing him by now.

****

It was hard to believe that a month had already passed for Lucas, at least in his mind. His body was a far different matter. He moved along with Sepi, his tail propelling him slowly, his belly massive. He could feel his contractions starting and Sepi was no doubt close behind. They had moved down into the lowest level of the hatchery, warm sunlight basking across them both. Lucas navigating carefully between the maturing eggs, finding a spot that had plenty of open cushion.

"How's this?" Lucas asked, looking back to Sepi. Sepi was bringing his tail around, carving out a semicircle with it, a barrier between the eggs and the area they were laying claim to. Sepi smiled, flushed a bit.

"It's perfect." He said with a smile. Lucas nodded, moving to try and close the circle with his body, his tail entwining with Sepi's, their bodies close. Lucas tensed, bringing his groin down lower to the carpet, feeling his muscles moving. Sepi reached over to caress Lucas' cheek with a loving gaze. Lucas looked back to Sepi, feeling better almost at once, at least until he gasped, feeling the scales retract over his vent. There was a rush of clear fluid down his underside as the first egg started to move into position.

"It's coming..." Lucas said.

"I know it is, just relax... and compress your muscles, push." Sepi said. Lucas took a breath and did as he was told... but surprisingly, all the pain went away. Lucas felt his head starting to swim in a strange sensation. The pain was gone, left only with the muscular tightness. He could feel the egg moving, being shifted out of his belly. His lips curled a bit as the front of the egg started to emerge, oozing out, soft and leathery. It felt incredibly gratifying in a strange way... And then the egg suddenly slipped out, oozing onto the cushion, settling into one of the dimples. Lucas gasped, moaning softly, his cocks sliding out of their slit above his cloacae. Laying the egg had been oddly sexual, wonderful and amazing. His cocks inflated with lust as he looked at his first egg.

The egg was far different than he was expecting, not like a chicken egg at all. The shell was softer, longer, more oval in shape. Lucas looked up, watching as Sepi shivered, his first egg slipping out, covered in a thin sheen of juices. Sepi opened his eyes and looked to Lucas before leaning in for a kiss. Lucas was quick to return it, though the kiss became a closed lip kiss as his muscles tensed again. Lucas started bearing down, passing the egg further and further. The bluish white spheroid began emerging beneath his cocks, the muscles working in tandem before it slipped out with a soft, wet pop.

Lucas moaned, breaking the kiss before he returned it frantically. Sepi's second egg emerged, sliding up against the first. Lucas and Sepi slowly slithered around a bit in their tango, making room for the next eggs. They resumed their kisses, their tongues tangling, their hands grasping. This time Sepi beat Lucas at the start of the next egg. Each oviposition seemed to entrance the two more, their cocks quivering in lust as they worked. Sepi's third egg sloshed out and Lucas' started. He bore down, extruding the egg steadily before it was free of him, lying in a heap of juices.

Both Nagas continued their dance, their kisses, their rubs. Each laid their fourth eggs, then their fifth. Ten eggs in total, fertilized by Sepi and Lucas. Lucas had never felt so mature, nor so erotic. He sucked on Sepi's lower lip before bearing his fangs, moving to give Sepi a love bite. Sepi grabbed Lucas' head, holding him to his neck, basking in the pleasure. Sepi's last egg gushed out with the last flood of his nutritious juices before Sepi went limp in Lucas' arms. Lucas held his mate, his eyes clenching as he gave a push, then another, then a third.

Inch by inch, his last egg slid out of his underside, sliding onto the cushion. His belly was no longer stretched or distended, his flesh pulling back easily. Lucas panted hard and gave it everything he had before the last egg slipped out into the pile. The sensation of the thick obstruction leaving his canal was a sudden relief, an endorphin attack, one that his body was quite pleased at. Lucas hissed softly as an orgasm swept over him and jets of cum shot out of both cocks, raining out across the twelve eggs. Lucas moaned before he collapsed against Sepi, the two trying to reclaim themselves as much as possible.

Lucas had never expected the process to be that pleasurable, that extreme. He was a father, a father with Sepi. His life had never felt so important or had such direction... Lucas smiled gently before he moved to give Sepi a groggy kiss. Sepi leaned back, returning it, their tails still entwined, the two circled around their developing babies. They were a true family... and Lucas didn't want it any other way.