FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It took a few minutes for Xenia to become calm enough to speak coherently, after having seen the chaos happening between Jackie and the soldiers. The sunlight continued to shine onto Jackie's body, but there were no further visible changes, leaving Xenia to assume the sudden transformation had been due to accumulated changes inside the lab, which had simply been triggered to release on contact with the sun. If nothing else, Jackie seemed quite happy to be outside, unrestricted by a heavy protections suit.

Xenia and the guards were not so lucky. The latter were stranded on the lab's roof their weapons thrown away by Jackie during the earlier fight. Unless they were willing to risk serious injury climbing down, starvation or the Xenophyll would likely get to them first.

With a simple motion, Xenia got Jackie's attention and had herself raised to the guard's height, held onto firmly by the large, red hand. Some of the soldiers scrambled back a few steps at the sight, terrified of Jackie's potential anger. Fortunately for them, Jackie did nothing more than smile, which still didn't lessen their horror. The other soldiers brave enough to stay standing looked towards the two scientists, but none dared to say a word.

Doing her best to make herself loud and clear, Xenia explained the situation. She told the guards what she knew about the Xenophyll, including the various differences between the "worker" and "warrior" strands, as well as the alien life form's known objective of colonization. She explained the decay of resources and time, without going into too much detail, as many of the guards' expressions showed great confusion.

In the end, Xenia laid out the remaining options for them, as well as for humanity in general. The first option was to suffer the same fate as the rest of the planet before them, and to allow the worker strand of Xenophyll to take over. The result would be an agonizingly slow death leading into becoming an empty husk, serving only as a source of nutrients for the alien species. The other option, which she more strongly advocated, was to embrace the warrior strand of Xenophyll, just as Jackie had done before them. From there, life could start over. Humanity would make way for a new hybrid species of human and Xenophyll.

Needless to say, most of the soldiers disapproved of Xenia's ideas. As instructed, only two of the guards stood to the side to remain with Jackie, while Jackie lowered the others to the ground first, so that they could travel back to Antartica. Some were less comfortable being grabbed by the giant hand, as they quickly rushed away towards the nearby hangar as soon as their feet touched the ground. The two remaining soldiers were also lowered to the ground, but showed no sign of wanting to escape. Quite the opposite, one instead fell to his knees and began begging for forgiveness to Jackie, claiming the rest of the soldiers would consider him an enemy too, if he didn't comply. The other immediately followed suit. True to her original personality, Jackie only laughed awkwardly and shook her head, indicating her lack of anger towards them.

Xenia made sure none of the fleeing soldiers would attempt to retrieve their weapons. After losing sight of them, she nodded and opened the door to the lab building, where the two volunteers could start the decontamination process. They were to wait down in the laboratory proper. As for Xenia, she remained outside with Jackie, who had grown too large to fit into the building. By using a pair of two-way radios the volunteers had provided, Xenia had set up a basic communication system for Jackie, whose fingers were unable to manipulate the tiny buttons. Jackie was to wait outside just long enough for Xenia and the two former guards to proceed to a few tests down in the lab, after which they would meet up with her once more. Using the radios, Jackie and Xenia would be able to communicate easily. By the time this precaution had been taken care of, the emergency military jet could be heard taking off nearby, indicating the soldier's escape from the site.

Before long, Xenia had gone through the decontamination chamber and joined the two volunteers in the lab. They introduced themselves properly, having had very little contact until the incident with Jackie. One of them was a tall man named Chris, while the other, to Xenia's surprise, was an average height-woman named Monica. The lack of general contact with the guards as well as the environmental suits earlier had done an excellent job of keeping Monica's gender a secret to Xenia.

The scientist explained the situation to the two former guards, making sure to speak loudly and clearly enough for Jackie to hear through the radio. The plan was quite simple. Using samples taken from Jackie earlier in the lab, Xenia, Chris, and Monica would allow themselves to be infected by the warrior Xenophyll in short, controlled doses. The goal was to proceed with caution and avoid being injected with worker Xenophyll, as much as possible, in case Jackie's transformation had only been a lucky exception to the rule.

Both Chris and Monica appeared quite surprised to see Xenia produce a vial of glowing green liquid, making her seem like quite the mad scientist. Unbeknownst to them, this extremely fragrant sap was the nectar collected directly from Jackie's breasts earlier, which Xenia believed to be an excellent source of nutrients, as well as containing more than enough of the necessary warrior DNA. She performed a series of actions to weaken the potential worker DNA within, such as lowering the sample's temperature to a point where the more resistant warrior DNA could survive whereas the worker strand wouldn't. Once everything had been complete, she separated the samples into six hypodermic needles and mixed the rest with a tiny quantity of saltwater, split into three glasses. Each of the three humans was to first inject themselves with the weaker dose of warrior Xenophyll, followed by the second needle, containing more concentrated DNA, and conclude by drinking the liquid with water, effectively a source of basic nutrients.

The injections were done rather quickly and relatively painlessly, while the nectar-water which proved to have quite the revolting taste. Thankfully for the three humans, it didn't stop them from donning their suits and heading back outside, where they would need to absorb sunlight and various nutrients produced by the worker Xenophyll, once their own bodies had adapted enough to the warrior strand. Sunlight would remain easy to obtain for the next few hours, as the sky was clear other than the occasional passing cloud. To obtain enough nutrients, on the other hand, Xenia decided to head a short distance away from the lab, to a lake which would likely contain various remains of plant and animal life already processed by the worker Xenophyll.

Jackie offered to carry Xenia and the two volunteers in her hands. Using Xenia's directions, the massive woman was able to walk to the destination many times more quickly than if they had done so themselves. On the way to the lake, the small group was able to catch a better glimpse of the extent to which the Xenophyll had transformed the land. The landscape had changed dramatically since humanity's very first evacuation. Buildings and electrical power lines remained scattered around the area, covered in the very same moss-like material which constituted the worker Xenophyll. Interspersed among the ruins of the past were also signs of a new world being born, where new alien plants could be seen growing freely. More than once during the short trip, Xenia even believed she could catch the faintest signs of movement among the remnants.

The lake in question was nothing like it had once been. Unlike the clear, flowing waters from Xenia's memory, the lake had become dark and murky, a strange, motionless breeding ground for the new form of life. The result was an excellent source of life for the Xenophyll, providing all the necessary mix of nutrients. The warrior strand would more than likely have already begun its work in the lake, assimilating the DNA of creatures found within.

Jackie lowered Xenia, Chris, and Monica to the ground, careful to place them on stable soil. The three looked at each other quietly in an attempt to decide which of them would go first. As Chris appeared reluctant and Xenia had demonstrated preference to go last, to better observe the results, Monica took a deep breath, and slowly removed her helmet. Like all other living humans, she had been unable to breathe outside air since the evacuation. A sensation of pure happiness was visible on her face, alongside the bright light of the sun.

As various particles of Xenophyll entered Monica's nostrils, the woman began to gasp and choke, causing Xenia to panic slightly. Xenia's attempt to help the volunteer was refused, however, as Monica held out her hand and shook her head, still coughing violently. This lasted for nearly a minute, after which Monica smiled, closing her eyes.

"Don't worry. It's just been too long since I've had un-filtered air, that's all. This is great."

Although Xenia continued to remain worried, Monica looked up to Jackie and nodded, showing she understood just how good of a feeling it was to be free again. As the minutes passed by, the others could see Monica slowly appear taller and taller, something which the volunteer herself seemed unaware of. It wasn't until the environmental suit began to creak and groan, applying pressure to the body underneath, that Monica realized the change had already started.

Rather than work on removing the suit, Monica decided to close her eyes and shift around to reduce the tightening squeeze onto herself. Whenever she managed to gain a few seconds of freedom for one part of her body, all the others soon felt the strain. The smile on her face showed she didn't quite mind the pressure, something which caused Jackie to chuckle quietly.

Although resistant, the suit eventually gave way to Monica's growing body. Starting by the shoulders, soon followed by the hips, and eventually by the arms and legs, the suit split and shred to pieces, leaving Monica to stand practically naked, her athletic body bared. She was too busy removing the tatters of the suit from her body to notice the reactions of the others to her now 7 foot tall body. Whereas Xenia appeared completely fascinated by the incomplete transformation, Jackie continued to giggle as quietly as she could. Behind his semi-opaque headpiece, Chris was blushing fiercely, clearly feeling uncomfortable by his unexpected enjoyment of the situation.

"Try putting your hand in the water. I think you're safe now."

Monica opened her eyes curiously at Xenia's instructions, but did as she was told without hesitation. Although her body was still growing slowly, this changed immediately when the fingers touched the swampy water. Within only a few seconds, Monica's body grew yet another feet taller, which caused her to collapse against the ground and gasp. Her tone and expression indicated no pain whatsoever, however, as she dunked her arm even further, up to her elbow.

While her body's growth remained somewhere between the slow, initial gain, and the sudden rapid spurt, it continued to grow gradually taller. Much like Jackie had during her own transformation, Monica appeared to be growing a tail, which quickly surpassed Jackie's in proportional length. Another change which took a moment for Xenia to notice was the formation of thin smooth scales onto Monica's skin. These appeared sporadically on the growing woman's body, spreading until it was entirely covered by scales. While they hardened Monica's skin considerably, her physical appearance remained very similar to skin, as the scales were very smooth and soft.

These transparent scales began to reflect the light differently once Monica's skin began darkening. Before long, her body became entirely dark green, with varying patterns, such as her front being slightly paler, and a pair of dark red lines along her neck. Her brown hair also changed colour, taking on a dark blue colour whose reflection of the sunlight caused just enough interference to reflect various colours of the rainbow. As for her eyes, the black pupils had become slightly larger, while the colourful brown irises had spread to completely remove the white from her eyes. All in all, Monica had taken on many traits similar to a lizard.

Already quite toned and athletic, Monica's body gained additional muscle mass, like Jackie's had before. The various scales already present on her growing arms and legs seemed to have grown in anticipation of such large sizes, leaving just enough room for other scales to form and fill in the gaps. Monica's original human muscle size seemed to have little impact on the end result, as her musculature grew and swelled only slightly larger than Jackie's, in terms of proportion. Both women displayed incredible physical strength nonetheless. As Monica's growth ended to a height of 15 feet tall, she was only slightly shorter than Jackie, who clapped excitedly once the transformation was complete.

Monica seemed somewhat exhausted when it was over, although this seemed more to be a result of her own excitement rather than the stress of the physical change. She sat on the ground and caught her breath, looking up at Jackie, then to Xenia and Chris standing next to her. Despite Jackie and Chris' amazement at observing the change so closely, Xenia appeared most satisfied among them all. The experiment had gone without harm to Monica, and the conditions of Jackie's own change had been successfully replicated. Monica's transformation into a lizard woman rather than a floral creature like Jackie had been unexpected though, leaving Xenia curious about the reason.