No Good Deed

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#1 of No Good Deed

A young fox growing up on a boring, backwater planet gets convicted of a heinous crime gets sentenced to one life cycle as a girl.

Rough draft: General editing. Switching between first person and third person is deliberate but needs to be more controlled and organized. Broken into chapters?


You're a lucid dreamer aren't you?

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, echoing through his brain. It didn't stop him from reloading the clip on his AUG-X twirling around and popping off a pair of headshots into the giant mecha behind him. He barely got out a smile before he heard the light ting ting ting of grenades and did a spinning leap over them, setting the gun to overpower to outrun the blast. He partially succeeded at avoiding the flashing blue nova of light erupting from the outside and even nicked the power suited human who'd thrown it. He slammed the door shut and shot the lock knowing that Boomer would have it open as soon as the guard was dealt with... or more likely would deal with the guard by blowing the door to smithereens.

And you don't think this had any effect on what you did that night? The carnage, the violence? The desensitization to blood and gore?

Ronan thought it was weird that he was ignoring a voice in his head, but half a pair of shield spiders to deal with. He turned the rifle around and smashed its spiked carbon fiber stock through the orange field of hexagonal hard light, knowing that their fancy technology was no match for something as slow and crude as being pounded at a few meters per second. He felt the shield break with a satisfyingly wet POP, using one of the spiders as a club against the other to ram it into the wall repeatedly.

"You hit like a girl vix!" was the only warning he got before a lightly armored human in rocket boots shot down the hallway, backwards, firing off a pair of pistols one after the other and using the recoil to steer.

OH the irony. If only he knew. When you get out of here you should tell him.

WHY DON'T YOU! I shot back angrily, even as I smiled at the joke and threw my last grenade down the hall to cover the inevitable pursuit.

Sorry, you weren't supposed to hear that scribble scribble

"You got the flag I got your ass..."

"As always" the human turned the recoil of his firing pistol into a salute and wheeled about to pick up the flag. The inevitable red alert went out, flashing and clanging through the hall. I ran through the next hall and immediately regretted it as I took an electronet to the chest, knocking me down the hall and on my tail.

"I keep telling you to get a heavier model " he chided me as he laid down some covering fire "Maybe a male one?"

My fur couldn't bristle online the way it could in real life, despite my best efforts to code it in, but the growl came across the com well enough. "Can't do this in that muscle bound ape suit" and dashed down the hall on all fours n a confusing serpentine pattern that Robert was familiar with so I didn't catch a "friendly" round in the back of my head, leaped over a barricade and landed backwards, slashing the plasma bayonet through armor and leaving a smoking trail of molten metal in its wake.

Then the world went black

"Awwww.. what the...." I whined as the link cut from immersive to a 2d view screen. It showed an instant replay of my leap, which I have to admit looked pretty cool, along with the Scout merging from the wall behind me and stabbing me with a chainknife, the crit showering the surrounding area in a sea of blood and organs. I shuddered as I saw myself drop to the ground, dead, and made a mental note to cut the realism setting of that down a few notches. Like I always did.

-Alright guys, thats it for me tonight- I typed in, not wanting to disrupt the critical tactical talk on com

I got the usual cries of "hacker, "There go my easy kills!" and "Its only 3 am local, what gives?"

I sat and watched the battle progress for a few more minutes, with Robert, flag hog that he was of course wracking up an enormous top score as always. I usually managed to eak out a second or third, but my early demise netted me 5ththis time.

Is that really so important?

Is anything?

I made sure to stretch, flex, and reacquaint myself with my body before standing up. I wriggled out of the full body sack, unzipped the tube suit , pulled my my arms out of the nanosilk sleeves. I looked over both small almost paw like hands with thick calloused pads were covered in black that formed a "glove" leading almost to the elbows where it abruptly turned orange. I gave my ears a flick and tilted my head a bit to make sure my sense of balance was back, stood up on a pair of digitigrade feet and gave the toes a wiggle. I tossed my own suit into its pouch and shook the bag upside down, and used a static trap to attract.. well ok. I got most of the fur out. I didn't the next user getting annoyed and leaving another note.

Body image issues from living around humans...?

No. You don't game do you? Nothing says newb like falling over your own feet when you get out of the sack.

Always a surface explanation with you...

Speaking of newbs ...Robert jumped out of his chair in the back of the room as I passed, yelling "YATA!". He had the classic gamers build: overdeveloped biceps, forearms, legs but a paunchy, weak core and chest. He'd gotten his arms free of the sack but hadn't adjusted to sending signals to his real legs yet, so he leaned on me rather heavily. My tail bristled a bit and my ears flattened at the touch but years of close acquaintance kept that the limits of the reaction...

Ow ow..ssssss...Is t us al?

Huh what?

Is that unusual? Not liking him touching you.

No well yes... that's... pretty mild for me. I'm kinda used to him doing that. Its worse with people I don't know.

Is that common for Vulpes? I've only met five or six. The last one I did this with didn't seem to have that problem.

I tried to shrug, as I hadn't met even that many, but instead watched myself stand stiffly

I was outside, walking on a clear double crescent moonlit night

Hey wha....

"Shhh.. its ok. Don't worry. Just keeeeep going. You're doing very well so far.. amazingly well actually. I've payed for worse immersives. The colors a little funny but you get used to it. So what are you thinking about here?

I hustled a little fast out the front door, working off a little excess nervous energy from the game and Roberts usual lack the concept of personal space and let my feet carry me home. It was amazing how concentrating on something as gory as the "fight", your position, the gun, blood, gore and cries of your comrades left your mind.. completely Empty. At peace.

The view through campus's immaculately manicured campus paths wound through old old world beech trees was beautiful. Even to his eyes the gloom rendered the bark nearly black, juxtaposing nicely with against dark blue sky and two crescent moons. He breathed in deeply through his nose and enjoyed the fresh loam, wood chips, newly fallen leaves, fresh cut grass, and managed to notice the hint of cigarette butts without letting them spoil the bouquet.

So what were you trying to not think about?

I looked up at the sky and wondered which star my parents had whisked off to, and if I could even see it from this hemisphere. If I'd actually studied for that astronomy test I'd had this morning I might have known. I hadn't done terribly on it, but still couldn't resist feeling like I was wasting my parents money on video games, late night chat rooms, and hanging out talking about nothing instead of studying.

"Thaaats it. Keep up the stream of consciousness. Niiiice and relaaaaxed. Let the thoughts flow. Its even better than what you were doing before, don't worry about the focus.. .niiiice and relaaaxed..

It just seemed so... pointless. Why bother working to learn all this crap? You could look up anything you'd ever want to know in a heartbeat, or even faster if you had a synlink. You didn't have to make euler bricks with a pad and stylus, much less in your head. Machines knew everything. Machines made everything. Computers designed everything, wrote half of everything else and they did all of it very well. Despite what the recruitment vids showed terraforming was a simple matter of sending out some rockets, waiting a few hundred years, and then landing enough colonists not to create an irreparable bottleneck while they literally watched the grass grow. Relationships with the Alzahr. consisted mostly of shipping hand made kitsch and data back and forth. They'd caught up with us technologically centuries ago, so the uplift corps was nothing more than a very expensive interstellar bar tab. Kind of like where he was. If you were an outright genius like his parents you could push the bounds of genetics and neurosciences, and chemistry. If you were dumb life must have seemed great. Food only cost nanocreds. Entertainment was even cheaper . Land was cheap and if you didn't have any the housing settlments were pretty livable and each had their own park.

For someone in the middle though there was nothing left to conquer, or explore.

Or DO.

Its not an uncommon sentiment among young people today, especially males. Men used to explore, hunt, kill, amd make. Especially the first two given your origins. We live in a world with less to do but so much more to BE. Our genetics haven't caught up with the fact that...

His ears perked at the sound of a high pitched yelp of pain.

This has been an excellent start. Maybe we should pause this here and continue next time. Shhh.. niiice and relaaxed

The sound blurred out for a moment , the world started to swirl and darken around the edges. He shook his head and took a few slow steps towards the sound. He looked around to make sure no one would see him and dropped to all fours for a boost of speed. Halfway to another planet or not his mother would kill him for running around like that in public.

Ronan...that was his name. skidded around the corner of the library and almost ran into a towering wall of meat. Almost double his height with broad shoulders , fists the size of canned hams, and tree trunk legs that he almost managed to obscure his view of the young woman lying on the ground behind him. The smell of blood in the air got his hackles up, and the bits of conversation making its way to him didn't help

"Well if you hadn't been nagging while I was trying to read the map...!

"Hey, everything alright?"

Dammit

A human would have noticed the more than copious amounts of alchohol the pair had been drinking and the blood on his fist and shirt, but the fact that he had that build and didn't smell like he'd been to a gym in weeks, if ever, made it pretty likely that he'd had some enhancement done on his genes at some point, possibly military grade.

When he wheeled around to see who'd interrupted him it was clearly expecting someone much taller. It took him a second to look down , scream....

And throw a jab right into the foxes snout that hit with the force of sledge hammer.

Three sets of screams went off in his head. One of his teeth cracked and went flying out of his mouth.

He dropped to all fours, darted between his attackers legs and kicked at the back of the knees. One legbuckled, and it felt like a mountain fell on him. He pressed up against it but it would have been easier to move the building. The man and woman were both yelling. There was a hand around his throat.

"It bit me! It ziken bit me!"

Time slowed to a crawl. The other hand was pulled back to punch, held for what seemed like an eternity by the much slimmer womans hand. His arms were expertly pinned under his weight.

His muzzle was not.

The taste of cloth and salt filled his muzzle as he bit down on the groin. He shook his head left and right left shredding cloth and flesh together. A horrible, high pitched scream filled the air while an even worse cacophony of popping and ripping flesh as blood poured down his throat. The weight rolled off to the side, allowing the Fox to wriggle out on all fours and emptying his mouth and stomach contents across half a block as he ran.

Two blocks away a police officer was getting out of his car and getting his helmet on.

"Sir...ow. Sirr...?"The Fox called out, and yelped at the pain from my cracked tooth. He held it with one hand while waving at him with the other.

The scene shifted. He was seeing everything from the policeman's point of view. Out of the dark stumbled a furry, blood stained figure strait out of a bad 30s horror vid. In the light of the night vision badgecam his eyes shown in the dark with an eerie incandescence. Its no wonder the officer emptied his stunned five times in the creatures general direction before it dropped belly down to the ground.

Hey.. what?

Just a little stream of consciousness. Your brains.. .missing a few memories. Its filling in the blanks and making connections like a zipped file. Perfectly natural process that happens all the time with your visual blind spot and normal memories even without the procedure. I'm amazed we got this far given the speed of your trial...

The private prosecutor.... sorry, those had been banned for centuries. 'independent victims adjunct to the prosecution' waved the vid screen off. "I'm sure the judges will love to see this. " he slid a piece of paper across the table. "Sign the confession. We'll take infantalising you off the table, and I'll even keep you off the sex offenders registry. My client does insist that you undergo the Y chromosome substitution... a figurative eye for an eye as it were.

"You want to turn me into a woman? For something they can fix in a few months!? "

"Well, technically a girl. The substitution requires a regression cycle, but this is only your first time so it will only be costing you 80 years or so. A blink of an eye all things considered. Or you can go to trial and risk infantalization. Critics say its no different than the death penalty, since you lose all of your memories, all your hopes, all your dreams, everything that makes you... you." and pointed a finger between my eyes.

I threw the paper in his face with a growl "I am NOT letting you do this to me. I am NOT....

"GUILTY"

Three judges sat on the panel but it was Judge MacMillian that announced the verdict. "ORDER" the court erupted with no small amount of both cheering and outcry.

The schools legal defense council performed his most useful function yet in helping me back to my feet. I'd fallen over in shock.

"Ronan Vulpes, Given the copious amount of evidence against you, and the testimony of both eyewitnesses" He paused in his reading to look pointedly over at Miss Kolomnikov

You are hereby found guilty of aggravated sexual assault. Do you have anything to say in your defense?

I turned to the defense table and glared at the young woman I'd seen sprawled out on the ground that night. The one I'd tried to help. The one who had taken the stand and tearfully told the jury that she hadn't fallen on the ground ground at all until after she'd nearly fainted at the sight of some fanged thing popping out of the dark and running right at her.

"You're welcome"

"You are hereby sentenced to Y chromosome replacement therapy to be carried out fort-width. There after you will be a ward of the state and placed on the registry for no less than 100 years, if there are no further objections?"

The private prosector, of all people, did. "Yes your honor, if I may..." and approached the bench. Prompting my alleged attorney to do the same. The judges covered the microphones on their nameplates, but I could still make out some of the conversation.

"... Mr Ulmar and Miss Kolomnikov have every faith that the Y chromosome replacement process and a proper upbringing temper some of mr...miss Vulpes more anti social tendencies.

"Really? This morning you were in my chambers arguing how anything less than full infantalization would be a travesty of justice." he turned his head to the other judge "

"That was before Mr. Acker presented several me with a compelling argument and several case studies indicating the increased effectiveness of the treatment on...

"I did? I mean. Yes. I did. "

Two of the judges argued back and forth, something about a boat for a minute.

My attorney came back to the tabled looking as stunned as I felt, shaking the snakes hand. "Well argued sir. Not many university attourneys can say they got the best of Mr Spencer on the punishment phase. Well done sir." The judge continued to eye the creep like someone that suspected their wallet will be missing before asking the "victims" directly if they were in agreement. After some whispering with their consultant they were.

"So ordered.

The crowd, having been expecting something more dramatic than a pointless procedural matter, refused to quiet down no matter how loudly the gavels were banged as he was cuffed and lead out of the courtroom.

"Miss Vulpes you need to calm dow...

"Then don't call me that you useless sack of skin!

"The second you were sentenced your honorific was legally changed

My growl cut him off. Despite being chained to a hospital bed, in one of those humiliating gowns I must have looked quite scary. Perk of being a convicted felon I guesse.

"R..ronan then They haven't decided on a replacement. Look, first off you're not getting brain whiped. You're welcome by the way, you didn't make that easy. Secondly since you're off the registry 9 10ths of the paperwork involved in interplanetery export is gone. Normally they wouldn't give you back to your parents

"Why not?

"Well, if they'd raised you right the first time " he Saw my hackles going up ".. from the courts point of view. They're not likely to do better the second. Once you're regressed, your sentence is officially over

"So I can leave?

"Not likely. You'll be a child again, physically, legally. The state will have to sign off on you leaving, but they'd probably do it, as long as they don't have to pay for it.

"My parents already had money for me to go...."

"That was for a cryotube. Children can't ride in cryotubes. You'd need a cabin, they cost at least three times as much.

"Its five years to us but to those on board its only...

"Its three months out of the no blast zone. That's very expensive space to take up on a cruiser.

"You seem very well informed on this....

"I had a little... Look. This is going to be my job ok? Your job " he handed me some pamphlets. "Is to get through this. The BEST you can hope for is that your parents can send the money right away.You need to be on your best behavior and go along with the system.... something I understand will be new for you.

I looked at the smiling girl on the cover, ignoring the smell of steak getting closer

"I don't want to be a stupid little GIRL! I don't want them cutting off parts of me, I don't want them playing with my brain to make me some a weak, crying little

The female nurse entering the room with my last meal glared at me, putting one hand on her hip. "Because a girl is the worst POSSIBLE thing to be is it? Well my arms are just too weak from holding up all this here food " and slammed the food down on the tray next to the bed. "Excuse me, MISS vulpes, I need to go cry in the corner..." and stormed out.

"So..." I started but shut my mouth. I would NOT apologize to someone else for hurt feelings when I was about to lose my freedom, my "equipment", and even my self all in one day.

To top it all off, the food had been slammed down out of reach.

I threw the pamphlets across the room, curled up in a ball as best I could, and cried myself to sleep.

"So what are we watching?"

"Attack of the ondines."

"I think I remember this one. Scantily clad genetically enhanced women tearing our society apart one corporate executive at a time? Why'd you pick this one? The scantily clad women? Comedic violence?

"No reason"

I was sitting with my friend in the movie theater. The opening credits seemed.. indistinct. Blurry. One second they were on the screen and the next, gone. Everyone else in the theatre sat quietly, not minding that we were talking.

"I can tell the scantily clad women don't do much for you so...

"Hey! I'm not ... you know. Not that there's anything wrong with that. They're just not my species. Kinda. And its not winter.

"You seem rather defensive...

I passed him the popcorn hard enough to send a few kernels to the floor and watched an ordinary house mom take her kids to school, fix a home made meal instead of using the printers, herd her family to the table, keep up a dinner conversation, clean up, put the kids to bed, and then sit down on the couch with her husband with a well deserved bottle of wine. She answered the phone, telling her husband it was a wrong number while listening to a name and address.

".... thats real popcorn you're eating? Unlike the rest of this place?

He coughed on a kernel. I tried to focus on his face. I got a vague impression of silver hair, glasses, a tall, muscular build . I don't remember turning my head, but I was looking at the screen anyway.

The house wife was in a latex cat suit, using her hydro-static muscles to rip a steel door off its hinges and hurl it like a Frisbee. The camera took the shot from the point of view of the whirling door and as it decapitated a man in a business suit should have left the kit smiling. He shifted a little. The fountain of blood was comically fake but it still seemed kind of.. violent. He also found himself feeling for this poor woman who had to lie to her family every day. What was that like?

I started to feel a little queasy. My friend looked at his watch and started walking me to the lobby. "You had half a semester of the classics, I trust you get the reference?" he said, holding out a hand with a red pill... and another hand with a red pill. "Try to keep breathing..."

The world was dark pink on black. Gooey. I tried to move and felt my limbs twitch and heard a swirl.

Relax. This is how you began life the first time. Relaaaaax...

I felt a mouth full of liquid and tried to hold a breath I didn't seem to have. After a few seconds I started scrambling through the goo desperately trying to reach air but doggie paddling seemed to leave me nowhere. My test tightened like a vice, bursting, I clamped my mouth shut for as long as I could, lungs on fire. I held it as long as I could...and swalled the gel...and exhaled the gel. It half felt like vomit going in and out, but the other half was sweet, life giving oxygen.

Something enormous seized me around my chest and lifted me up into an impossibly bright light. Cacophony of loud beeping , muffled, under water voices. I felt the weight of my own body crushing down on me as I was effortlessly turned upside down and puked out chunks of gel and started to to cough out. A sudden sharp thwap on my bottom made me gasp, taking in cold, sweet delicious air that I started gulping in. I couldn't get enough. The world righted itself around me and I felt multiple enormous hands holding my arms out, turning me like a rag doll and briskly rubbing clothes all over me with and against my fur. Something in the room made a piteous whimper as I was laid back on a smooth, padded surface. My legs were spread and something stroked down my belly over my legs and wiped under my tail with no resistance. The whimpering was replaced with a soft coo, and I felt my body go slack, my breathing even out, and the beeping slow. More rags wiped at my ears and the light slowly went down to tolerable levels.

"Okay, dim the lights, further... yes further. Dr. Occerman and I can handle it from here, Everyone else can go wash up. Nice job people." A high pitched but oddly authoritative voice called out. My ears flattened against m head trying to muffle it a little. I opened my eyes, seeing a blurred shape not that much bigger than me holding up some fingers. Was I free? Did my parents come to get me? A last minute pardon? Had it all been a dream? My tail thumped lightly behind me, spraying a little gel onto the examination table as my vision cleared. I'd resisted it, I knew they couldn't make me...

The hands that came into focus were not my own, but they moved when I willed them. While the pattern was exactly the same, they were tiny, slim, thin, and weak. The fur on them was a little thicker than I remembered, the claws small and soft, the callouses completely gone, perfectly smooth and soft to the touch. They were taken by equally small hands and turned upright, gently pressing against each of the 4 digits in turn. Fighting the vertigo I followed the hands up to small boy sitting on the table next to me with blond hair, sparkling green eyes in a too big lab coat with some sort of instrument as a necklace. He'd recently been sterilized of most of his scent, but the lab-coat let me know he had two dogs, a cat, and his breath smelled of.. popcorn? Why did that seem important? Popcorn. This wasn't the weirdest dream or movie I'd seen today. This wasn't real. This wasn't happening. He wasn't a little...

"Can you feel that?Just nod if you can't talk yet.

My attempts to say "yes" resulted in a staccato of half bark, half howls that I couldn't stop making so I just nodded. I tried to put my hands up to my nose, but he took a surprisingly firm grip of my wrists between his thumb and fingers "niiiiice and relaaaxed now. Breathe iiiiiiin... and oouuuut.. iiiiiiin... and out.. nice and relaxed...." I found my breathing had matched his pace without realizing it, and when he slowed it I did as well calming down while my eyes started to droop. "Good g.. very good. I'm Dr. Bernhart. My colleague over there is Dr. Occerman. Don't mind him, he only looks like a wooden fence post" he took a pair of objects out of the pockets of his coat and presented them to me like a circus performer, revealing a slim figurine of a tiger and a crane. "These are readers hon. They go on your head and let me make sure everything is working up there. They don't hurt or do anything else, see?" and placed the tiger up to his own head for a moment.Which one do you want?" when I looked to the tiger he rubbed my forhead for a minute, probably finding a spot where the fur wouldn't interfere so much and placed it on. I closed my eyes but didn't didn't feel any different.. well except having a childish sticker on m head. His glasses lit up green, matching his eyes.

"I still don't see why you insist on going through this." A deep voice from across the room and well outside my tunnel vision noted. " The machine says she's fine."

"We have yet to make a machine as effective at detecting oddities in our own bodies as our own bodies... even when they're brand new. The brain may receive the signal....

"but the mind may miss it, yes yes. Continue to play doctor if you wish, by all means give her some snake oil or a phrenology exam while you're about it. I'm salaried I have all day...." the tone was jovial but there was something... she? I tried to sit up and lift the towel over my thighs only to be stopped again. "Lets.. save that for last shall we? I had my last rejuve about 8 years ago, so I remember some of what you're going through. The old fuddy duddy in the corner hasn't yet but he will soon." He placed my paws down" while talking he placed my paws at my side and taped them twice. They felt...heavy and rubbery and so hard to move.

He took the pendant off his neck and put one end of it into his ears. The disk was placed on my chest and through my fur "Breathe iiiiiiin. And out. Iiiiiin, and out. Niiiice and slow.. good." I felt a warm tingle start in my head, and my tail gave a little swish behind me. I hadn't even realized I was doing as I was told, but the touch was.. comforting. And if something was wrong I had more interest in finding out than anyone after all.

"Normally I would ask a patient which part they wanted checked next, but you're not being very chatty today, and I want to get you through most of this while you're still a liiiitle out of it from the anesthesia OK?" The disk was moved over my heart, and I could hear a little thrum thrum, thrum thrum on a machine somewhere in the room. Dr Cccerman sat up and a yellow light went off on his glasses, but the boy put up a hand and rubbed my neck gently for a few seconds. "Old phrenology trick" he smiled. "Remind me to tell you about the flares of one sixty six. We were down to flit knives and bear skins for a while there. "

" Theere we are. You're doing very good" I wagged my tail at the tingle, but it felt like there could be.. more? Not that the hand petting wasn't amazing. Not that his soft hand pressing against the guard hairs and under coat were unpleasant. far from it "Breathe iiiiin and out again. Just a liiiitle weazy. I think you still have a bit of vat gunk in there. Should pass on its own by morning. " His gentle touches and words had me nodding along. Even the way he talked over my head was oddly reassuring. You have to know what you're doing to do that right? Something very soft and fuzzy was put in my lap, and my arms were brought up to hug it and given a tap. "give this a squeeze every time I touch you ok?"

The doctor shifted a bit and gently tapped my toes, giving his finger a bit of a wriggle. I couldn't help but squeeze the teddybear and gigle "Just like that." Why was I giggling? The doctors kept talking about me while I was poked and prodded

Dr Occerman was staring intently at a data pad "S.. the patient seems awake enough to be talking. Is there something wrong with the vocal cords, or language center? "

"Kin can't really use their lips to form words the way we can, so speaking is essentially some very complicated ventriloquism. If you see them moving their muzzles when they talk they're just doing it to be polite. They need to be fully conscious to do that and I don't think we want them there quite yet....

I squeezed the bear a little as I felt the tip of my tail being tickled and opened my jaws wide "Waa..waaaer...." Ts were really hard with a tongue that felt like it was covered in wax.

"See? There we go. " an enormous hand put a cup of cool water under my snout. My tongue acted on its own and started lapping it up, heedless of a thousand times my mother told me not to drink like an animal. My tail hit the doctor across the side a few times but I didn't care. The easing of the soreness in my throat and lessening of the awful gunk on my mouth made the plain liquid taste like ambrosia. I had my muzzle trailing the rapidly dropping water line until I wound up with my nose pressed up against the bottom licking up the last drops. The relief trickling down my throat and filling an empty belly felt so good I didn't even mind the giggles from the "medical professional" on the table next to me or deeper laughs coming off to my side, somewhere in the irrelevant world beyond the cup.

When the vessel was removed I got a good look at the hand holding it, as well as the enormous being it was attached to. I was used to being smaller than nearly everyone, but my mouth gaped open as I followed the arm up... up.. and up almost strait up to the ceiling. I hadn't realized just how small I was.. tiny. Vulnerable. Helpless My tail frizzed out a bit.

"I get that all the time. Honestly, I'm considering getting shorter the next time around" he put another cup under my nose and lowered it slowly to bring my gaze down. "Sloooowly on this one ok?

I nodded, sat up and tried to drink normally, but he wouldn't tip the cup back far enough. I settled on a slower lapping and didn't lick the bottom of the cup this time. Much. He hmmmed and put an enormous hand across m head. Well.. most of his hand.

"The scanner says she's ice cold but she feels warm if anything"

"Whats that? Did Dr Robot just learn something from TOUCHING a patient?" I laughed, either from the joke or the fact that he tickled my belly near the end. " See the temp the scanner is giving you ? An older model wouldn't be fooled, but these newfangled contraptions are trying to get down to the picodegree. Psfhsaw, they scanning the outside of the fur. Nice work on this one by the way. Its reaaaly soft"

The hand petting between my ears pressed almost strait down on the guard hairs , gently stroking along the back of my head, sending a thousand pleasant little tingles directly into my brain. My eyes closed again in pleasure, not wanting any distractions from the feeling, like my brain had been dipped in butter and wrapped in a cozy blanket.

"I suppose you have a thermometer in your kit to match your obsidian blades?

"Don't knock those.. sharper than anything but a laser scalpel , with less damage and more useful if you're pulling EM shrap out of someone... " something in his tone broke me out of my revalry.

He held a small lighted scope out and put my paws around it. It felt much heavier than it looked , and I brought it into my lap for fear of dropping it. "This is an otoscope. We're going to look into your ears , do you want to do the left or the right one first?" I leaned forward a bit to put my right ear by him and let him take the scope out of my weak grip. "Its important to give a pediatric patient the illusion of choice. If they can't decide anything they'll fuss, and if you ask they may say no and feel you've lied when you have to check anyway" The soft hand pet his ear for a few seconds before gently tugging it up. I felt bad for wriggling , but I couldn't really stop it. The scope slid into my ear with an oddly pleasant sensation of pressure and my tail gave a little twitch. "Liiil bit of gunk in here This is going to be loud ok?" the bear was pressed into my paws and I gave it a hard hug as there was an enormous sucking sound and only a little pain, like getting a good scratch. The scope slid out and I gave my ear a few experimental flicks before turning my other ear to him.

"There we go. You remember this " he steadied my head a little and poked the scope into my nose.I looked around the room as much as I could. There was no sign of the tank where I'd come out of, just re assuring blue tiles on the floor, lighter for the walls and white for the ceiling. The table had been lowered to the floor, probably for the Dr's convinience, making the room's ceilings seem like an opera house. I hadn't noticed how much the gel had muted my hearing, but now that it was gone I could hear people in the next room coming in and out, chatting, washing, and making the occasional awww sound.

I really was this tiny. I started to shake before I realized why. My hand drifted down to the towel over my front. They turned me into a girl.... they turned me into a girl. This wasn't another dream. This was really happening. I tried to flex my sheath, the way I did after peeing felt a slight twitch, further up and in. I reached down to pick up the towel.

"Oookay I think our happy juice is wearing off a little more quickly than usual. Could someone get another dose? Put the towel down you're not ready for that yet....

"N..now...." I growled. The sigh wasn't exactly the reaction I wanted but he moved his hand back. I pulled to towel up Dr Occerman moved to the other side of the room and became very engrossed in the video display. Dr Bernhart shifted to the end of the bed and reached into a drawer to get a mirror that I didn't need. I bent over double , looking between my legs.

The first look wasn't that bad. Soft white fur running between my legs. Whoever had designed my ancestors had no problem tampering in gods domain, yet had apparently been concerned with modesty because not seeing anything wasn't that unusual for me. I put my hand down over over the soft pudgy belly lower, whimpering as I didn't feel anything. I quickly parted my fur with both paws.

There facing me was my new reality. It didn't look like much. Small, delicate, almost dainty little mound. Just a soft little slit where his sheath shaft and balls had once been. I was a girl. A was so helpless they could make me a girl. Not just take away my ability to act, but my ability to BE a boy. To think like one? If this is what they did to my mind? To ME. No.no. no. NOOOOOOOO" The door clicked. Now

I flopped over onto the floor. It was slightly bouncy, helping me scramble up to all four feet and darting for the door. I couldn't remember deciding to run, it just happened. The doors swun open just as I reached it, a very surprised looking nurse watching me dart between her legs.

Both doctors scrambled out after me. Dr Occerman quickly took the lead with Dr Bernard struggling to keep up with his short legs "No fair!"

"

I ran past a nursery, a waiting room before coming to a T intersection. I turned left, sliding out and around, claws digging into the floor before bouncing off the wall, falling on my rump into the classic dog "sit" position the wall and stopping nose first at a pair of legs.

My breathe went completely out of me, and not from the tiny bump on the nose I got from the low speed impact. For a second I was back on campus. The hallway seemed to dim. My lip started to quiver and shake, a little whine escaping escaping me. Something warm and wet started pouring onto my tucked tail , seeping into my fur and slowly puddling around my paws as I looked up, expecting to see an angy, square jawed behemoth...

"Well my my my, what have we here?"

I was looking up at a walking marble statue of human perfection. Above some very thick soled shoes were paper white, completely hairless legs with very thick caves. The resonant, melodious voice drew my gaze up past the hem of a blue dress, a light blouse, slim white arms and head as bald as an egg. Her lack of so much as an eyebrow made me very aware of my dingy, feral, coat of fur. I could feel her emerald green eyes looking me over, weighing, measuring, and scrutinizing every inch of me. She was poised, beautiful, collected and had an air about her that said she would (and had) strode through a battlefield without getting so much as a stitch getting out of place. I knew she was looking at a scrawny, gunk covered little boy who'd managed to get himself turned into an even littler girl that lacked even the self control to keep from piddling on himself.

The look said she knew.

Her smile said it was ok anyway.

I was bawling. I didn't want to, I didn't start it, it just was. She bent over to pick me up in one deft motion as graceful as any ballerinas and lifted me into her arms. One hand held me under my damp rump as if I were weightless, the other rubbing my back softly, heedless of what was getting on her beautiful clothes. "Thaaaaaats it. Let it aaaaaal out. A good cry is what you need. Shhhhh... no more being big and tough for a while. You can't pretend with Rabuka child, so don't try. Thaaaats it... keeep it up. Get it aaaal out now" My chest spasmed and coughed, mucas started running out of my nose and.... why was there water running down my face?

Two sets of footfalls came crashing down the hall and stopped, much as I had. I could hear their hearts skipping a beat even over my own crying and their stammers of "....Iemoto Rabuka"

"shhhh." she said, and the two immediately stooped and went quiet.She whispered softly Everything's fine. Meet me in the nursery in half an hour. "

She started walking towards the nursery, swaying me back and forth as we walked, both doctors walking a few paces behind her until they veered off. She snagged something off of the nurses station without slowing. I felt something soft but firm being placed in my muzzle and watched dully as my body started to suckle on it. Suckle...relaaax. Suckle. Relaaaax. Rich. Creamy. Soothing. My little milk teeth held perfectly onto the bottle Suckle.. relaaaax my arms and legs went heavy and limp , my eyes started to droop, my brain felt warped in cotton. What did they put in this stuff?

"Now, we had a little accident earlier didn't we." I couldn't bring myself to take the bottle out to answer, but tucked my tail between my legs and flattened my ears. "Shhh shh shhh....." she started petting my ears, and that warm tingling sensation in my brain returned. "That one at least isn't your fault. It makes no never mind. Just a few minutes, a little water and some soap and thats aaaaaaal gone like it never happened. Well, after we get a little soap and water too." she eskimo kissed me on the nose and I giggled a bit ," But...." " I knew I was getting off to easy. "We can't have you leaving puddles everywhere all day. So how about we do something to keep the floors dry?" I wasn't sure if my head was nodding the bottle or if she was guiding my head up and down, but I was far too embarased to say no.

She brought my paws up to the bottle , fluffed a pillow and put me down on a padded table. I tried to sit up to see what she was doing but one finger to my forehead put me back down. Huh. I'd forgotten about that sticker. She opened a package, took out something crinkly and taped my ankles. "Legs up" she didn't wait for me to comply, I was trying, I was! But my legs felt soo heavy, She took both tiny little legs in one hand and easily lifted them up in the air. "Always forget its easier the other way with kin..." and shimmied something very soft, and silky down my tail and set me back down on an extra layer of padding.

It tickled something in the back of my memory. The smell of lightly scented powder being sprinkled onto my... my.. parts, made my tail twitch side to side, "Just a little different, no better or worse, nooo big deal...." I glared at her over the bottle. I knew it took... what I didn't have any more, but she laughed of my cheek " Hon, I saw you in the tank. I've had one of those and seen thousands more. It wasn't anything to write home about." Oh gods. I wanted to hide behind the bottle. And if someone is embarrassing you enough that hiding behind a baby bottle is your least embarrassing option, you are having a very, very bad day.

"In a few years if you decide you liked them better the other way" she pulled the packaging up and pressed it to my front, pulled the sides up over my hips nice and snug "You can get them put back that way. Hopefully You'll wait till the end of the cycle. When you hit your last one, you may regret going back early."

My mouth opening in shock got me to drop the bottle finally. The fact that it was empty probably helped, but my mouth was still making suckling motions..

"A dia.. dia..di..." She sat me up, and let me shift my tail out behind me.

The thick padding gently but irresistibly spread my legs out a bit. I could feel the soft, smooth inner lining whisking against my fur, the cushy padding in the rear. The entire thing wrapped about my bottom like a constant, re assuring pat. The snugness over of the sides over my hips felt like I was being held. The scent of powder bringing back... not even a memory. The echo of a memory. Happy ones. Lights. Music. Soft touches. Being held. I heard the soft whisk whisk of my tail going back and forth over the examination table behind me

"Mmhmmms.. Yes it is. Now how's it feel? Three words sweety"

"soft. Comfy.Cozy." The thought of fibbing hadn't occurred to me, but my resolve not to answer hadn't even lasted a second. I put my paws up over my muzzle.

"Now how do they make you feel?"

"Soft, com.." she put a finger to my lips

She smiled and put her face next to mine, tickling the top of my head.with one hand while gently pulling my thumb out of my muzzle. "Its a different question Hows it make you feel in here? Three words"she asked, tickling my belly.

"lil. Safe. Secure. Wh...wh..wh..." the word was on the tip of my tongue.

She nuged my elbow to tip my thumb back into my muzzle "threes good enough. Soft, comfy, cozy, safe. Secure" she rubbed my cheek with her own. "Such a terrible price to pay for not getting Fox wee everywhere, but I think you're mature enough to handle it " The embarrassment was almost enough for my tail to stop wagging and tuck. Almost. She ran her fingers along the silky bit poking out over the elastic and stopped at the tapes. "I think we're going to use these for a few days until we can be sure you won't have any accidents. You promise you don't take these off without a grown ups permission , and you can have a bottle of chocolate milk before bed. I promise....."

Damn. Traitorous tail. I wanted to agree because I trusted her, because she was nice, because I was could show I mature enough to see that I needed to wear such an infantile garment. I didn't need to be bribed like a child with sweet, creamy...

"I promiseiwonhyiiiiawhah OMF!" I should have cared that my attempts to talk devolved into into a laughing whine of pleasure, but couldn't. A symphony of sweetness errupted n my tongue in a duet with cream. I didn't even hear my doctors coming in until I saw Dr Bernard standing in front of the door with his hands behind his back, rubbing his foot on the ground like a boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. Giggling was more than hypocritical, but I did it anyway.

"Now... as to the matter of the little foxling running through my hospital. Rona, did you mean to run off?"

I gulped. Shaking a little and managed to take the bottle out. I didn't want to fib but either answer seemed like a fib "D.. dun..dun"

She pet my ears and slipped the bottle back in "You're very brave for being honest. Now, if you had run off because youl couldn't help it, how could we make sure that didn't happen again?"

She turned me a little in her arms, And I pointed to the crib that was now right in front of me.

"Very good. And if you had run off like a naughty child, could you think of an appropriate punishment?

I saw where this was going, pointed to the crib and put my arms up.

"Goood girl"

My belly filled with a warm, tingling sensation spreading up my arms, down my legs and tail and joining between my legs. My body relaxed, going wonderfully limp.I sighed contentedly around the bottle with a dopey grin on my face as I was lowered into the crib atop a wonderfully soft mattress. "there we go sweety. See? Everything fixed in time. How big could your problems be if they can be washed aaaal away with a little chochy milk hmmm?" I nodded in agreement,"There we are. Dry padding. A niiice cool baba. Soooft blankets. Everything a little girl could want"

The bottle in my paws felt as heavy as my eyelids, but I managed to turn a bit to watch miz Rabuka quietely, (for a human), lecturing her staff.

"But the nurse..." Dr. Bernards voice squeeked a little

"Was acting on our instructions. I should have noticed that the digitigrade structure might have allowed more locomotion, and that information on her developmental milestones came from a culture where they don't use TGR as punishment. "

"Alright then. Since she doesn't have anything worse than a skinned knee I don't see the need for anything in your files. Dr Occerman you can take the nurses shift watching Rona tonight. Dr Bernard I want three pages on how this could have been prevented, hand written... LEGIBLY, and you can come in two hours early tomorrow take Miss Silvia's shift and get her a real bath. She's had more than enough excitement for one day, you can give her your slide show tomorrow.

"aww... I mean Yesma'm"

Their voices dropped low enough that I actually needed to concentrate a bit to hear "Dr Occerman, if she wakes up in the middle of the night feeling fussy, feel free to give her a dosing or two. I didn't have to give her anything other than the milk."

Wait whaaa...The lights went down and then my lights went out.