With Beam and Fang Ch. 04-05

Author's Note: This post is a bit unusual for this series. Not only does it havenosex – but it hastwochapters for the price of one! The reason for this is that Chapter Four is relatively short and introduces the first glimpse of the villains of this story. Well, the villains beyond an unknown virus!

And such, views that are not shared by the author of this story – who by and large considers himself an enlightened, 34th century time traveling, shapeshifting, polyamorous dragon.

Chapter Four: Pride
Infected: 85,743,524
Healthy: 7,100,495,167
Day: 12

Bobby Blitzer was hard as a rock. He wasn't a faggot, but listening to the General was...it was...

It was hard to describe, honestly.

"So, the liberals, they say that we're all equal. But, if we're all equal, if we're all the same, why does the liberal government have to start this war onwhites. We're all supposed to be equal, but the liberals give good spots in college to who? To black kids, climbing out of their ghettos, so they can get a degree they can't use, to get jobs they can't work, to run this economy further in the toilet! People might say that that's racist...but is that racist? Is itracistto see what is going on in this country?"

His voice was getting more and more excited, more eager.

Bobby leaned forward.

"BLITZER!"

The voice that rang through the back of the supermarket caused Bobby to leap to his feet, his heart hammering. A huge, swaggering black guy walked into the back of the supermarket, sweeping his gaze around. He saw Bobby and stabbed his finger at him, scowling something fierce.

"Your break ended ten minutes ago."

"S-Sorry, sir, I just-" Bobby started, looking at his boss square in the eyes, trying to not let what was in his head show on his face:Yeah, just keep talking, nigger. You can't boss me around all the time. Just keep taking.

"Listen..." His boss paused, then pinched the bridge of his nose. His scowl vanished. Bobby glared at him.Liar, trying to act like you understand me.His boss continued. "Blitzer, you're a good kid. You work hard, when you got yourheadin the game. But I can't just keep you around if you're going to keep getting distracted and losing track of time. This is your last shot, okay?"

Bobby nodded, curtly.

A moment later, he swept out of the back room, pushing his broom before him. He swept along the fruit section of the shop, pushing the fallen corn husks into the back for the spic in the back to pick up, then pushed around to the wine and bread isle. As he pushed down that isle, he had to pause and wait for some fat bitch-

"Uh, sir, could you help me?" The woman asked, turning to face Bobby. She blinked, looking a tad taken aback by the look in his eyes. Bobby blinked it away, then tried for a smile. She was trying to reach a loaf of sourdough that was at the very top and the very far back of the shelf, hard and out of reach for anyone but the taller folks.

"Sure thing." Bobby stood on his tiptoes, grabbed the bread, and gave it to her.

Pushing his broom, he glanced back, muttering under his breath. "Fatass..."

He got to the corner of the aisle, when he heard the woman's loud, screechy voice ask: "WHAT DID YOU SAY!?"

Bobby's shoulders tensed...and he hung his head forward as the manager came around the corner, hurrying as fast as he could.

"What seems to be the issue, ma'am?" Bobby's manger asked, and Bobby tried to repress the urge to smash his face in with the mop and just run – anything to avoid what was coming up. The woman pointed at Bobby, and Bobby didn't even need to hear her words. Instead, he watched the two of them in silence, seeing only a growing red haze.

Thinks he can push me around...

"Bobby-"

That stupid, ugly, natty haired...

"-you-"

Monkey. Goddamn monkey.

"-are FIRED!"

His manager jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Bobby threw his mop to the ground, angling so that the tip smashed against one of the nearby wine bottles, which shattered onto the ground, spraying expensive wine everywhere. His manager stepped forward, growling, but Bobby shoved him hard, sending the man sprawling backwards. He hit the ground, and his head cracked against it, loud enough to give Bobby a quick jolt of pleasure – his cock got hard and he started to breathe faster.

His manager groaned, and the customers looked at Bobby in shock.

He flipped them off. All of them. Every last liberal, race traitor, subhuman one of them. Yeah, he knew the right words – he had learned them, on the website that his mom and his dad didn't know he visited. Where the General and his podcasts came from. And now, it was time to start ACTING on what he had learned.

He jumped over the manager and ran out of the supermarket.

###

Bobby walked along the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets to try and keep them under control. They were shaking.

He'd done it. He...he had actuallydoneit.

But then he realized what that meant. He had pushed his manager. There had been a crack of head meeting ground. Was that assault? Would they call his parents? His parents, oh, his parents wouldn't believe it. They were blind. Blind like everyone else.

"Kid..."

Blind like...

Bobby stopped. He had walked past an alleyway with a bum in it without even thinking about it – it was a pretty common sight in LA. Looking down, he thought about another one of the General's podcasts, the one about refuse white trash that had to be swept away to...to...

Bobby stepped slowly back.

The bum wasn't white. He wasn't black, either, or Hispanic or one of the slant eyes. No, he was...

A pig. His face had a short, blunt snout, and two tusks thrust out from under that snout, with two tall, wet nostrils opening and closing as he snuffed. His shoulders were stocky and blocky, and he had a bit of a pot belly, his raggedy clothes coming off in patches where new muscle – making him look absurdly like a bodybuilder – were shoving aside the fabrics. His skin was a mottled brown and white, patchy. A pig's skin.

"K-Kid...I need a doctor..." He said, reaching out for Bobby. "I don't know what's-"

Bobby looked around. The streets were nearly abandoned – the hot sun and the middle of the work day made sure of that. Bobby felt a hand grab his foot and snapped his head back down. The pig...the fucking pig, the disgusting, trash eating, impossible pig, looked up at him, wheezing, desperately.

"H-Help-"

Bobby lifted his other foot and brought it crashing down on his nose. He didn't make a noise. He just kicked and kicked and kicked. The pig-thing...not a man, athing, a disgusting, horriblething...squealed and tried to bring hands up. Bobby, grabbing the sides of the alleyway, kicked again and again and again, desperately, hearing a crunch of bone, a breaking sound.

"Die! DIE! DIE! DIE!" He kicked again and again and again, long after the pig-monster had stopped twitching.

Panting, Bobby stopped kicking.

He was hard. Like listening to the General, like watching revenge porn. He was hard like when he thought about those girls at school, who acted like they didn't want it. Violence surged through him and he wasn't just some scared white boy. No, who was the scared white boy now? Not him! Not fucking Bobby fucking Blitzer!

A car drove past, and Bobby's back tightened in sudden fear. The car didn't stop. They didn't see the body. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that he was clear again. He pushed the pigmonster back into the alleyway, turned, and ran. He ran and he laughed as he ran. Things were insane. The world didn't have monsters.

But it did.

Now.

And he had killed one.

And it felt good.

###

Bobby didn't feel so good.

"Are you okay in there?" Mom called through the door. "Don't you have work?"

"N...No...I feel super sick..." Bobby whispered, barely able to talk, shuddering and shivering as he lay in bed, sweating buckets.

"Okay, I'll, uh, I'll call Rick!" Mom said, trying to sound cheery. "I bet he'll-"

"I...I called him already! You don't need to call him!" Bobby shouted, desperately.

Mom paused, then sighed. She moved away from the door and Bobby went to sleep.

###

The door opened and Lisa Blitzer walked into her son's room, her hands shaking with fury and disgust. She had tried, she really hard. She didn't blame Bobby, not her Bobby, for a lot of what had happened. How could she have known that his chosen profession would have completely gone overseas by the time he was out of college? How could she and Barry known that he'd be spending his twenties working a job that didn't even provide healthcare?

But...

BUT...

That didn't excuse what he had done.

She wasn't sure what made her angrier: The police report. The summons for the assault on Rick, one of her best friends. Or...

Or this.

She looked from the lump of pillows to the small credit card report in her hand. Membership fees for Homeland, the most racist, vile, violent web communities on the web. The people who had been behind that terrorist threat against the President. The people who...

No.

She closed her eyes. Anger wasn't constructive. Bobby was justconfused. That was what Barry thought.

She stepped over, and then said: "Bobby, we need to talk."

The mound of blankets grunted, softly.

"Bobby...why are you spending ten dollars a month on Homeland subscription?"

"Mom...I..." He paused. Lisa's brow furrowed. Was her son's voice...deeper?

"Bobby, those people areinsane. And I won't have you giving money to them, not and live under my roof!" She said. Barry had said that anger wasn't constructive. But she was gettingangry. She couldn't help it!

"Don't...talk that way about them!" Bobby's voice was definitely deeper, and worse, he wasn't just talking. He was growling. Lisa, for the first time in her life, actually felt...fear in her own house. Real fear, not the faint starts that came from late night snacking and catching a shadow out of the corner of your eye. She took a half step back as the blankets shifted.

"I...B-Bobby?" She whispered.

"Don't talk about them...like...that...you STUPID BITCH!"

The blanket flew aside.

Lisa Blitzer screamed.

Once.

###

Rick Morton sighed as he walked into the back of his supermarket – well not his, but the store that he had taken over management for. His head still ached, but he hadn't needed much more than a few...dozen...stitches. He shook his head as he punched in his employee number, then hit shift end. The time clock bleeped happily and Rick smiled.

"Another day done..." He said, then turned around and found himself face to snout with the most horrifying thing he had ever seen.

The creature was muscular and furred, with pale, silvery white fur that spread along its shoulders and chest. A huge, bushy tail thrust from its buttocks, and it clearly was male – the sheath and furred balls showed that. But it wasn't human. Its snout was long and wolf-like, and a pair of vicious, vicious golden eyes glared directly into Rick's as claws the size of his pinky burst from each fingertips on those massive hand-paws.

"Rick..." The voice that rumbled from the beast's chest, coming out of its inhuman mouth like some kind of perverse earthquake...was familiar. "Who's in charge now, huh?"

"Bob-" Rick started.

He never finished the sentence.

Bobby, looking down at his handiwork, licked blood off his claws.

It tasted good.

It tasteddamngood.

And then...he started to grin.

If human blood tasted good...how might human taste? No. No. He shook his head. He wasn't a cannibal. He was just getting back what he was owed. He was taking revenge. Proper revenge.

Then...

Oh then...

Then something dark and twisted unfurled in Bobby Blitzer's mind.

He wouldn't eat a human, not even a black man. But that hobo, that disgusting pig thing...that was noman, was it?

"I dolovebacon," Blitzer rumbled to himself. He turned, and stepped out through the back door, leaving Rick Morton's body and a single, bloody paw print as the only sign of his passage.

Chapter Five: The Island
Infected: 171,487,048
Healthy: 7,014,751,643
Day: 13

The door to Celia's cell opened. She looked up and grinned at Julia.

"You look good enough to eat!"

Julia's ears – which were quite long and expressive – drooped as her segmented tail whipped from side to side and scowled at Celia.

"We're leaving," she said.

Celia blinked a few times. Over the past four days, she had actually gotten to rather like Julia – enough to go from Dr. Childes to Julia. She had taken the transformation swinging and come out having enough sass to sink a battleship...which suited her frame. Being a mouse had shrunk her somewhat, but she had retained her mass, so Julia's rack had gotten...proportionally bigger, as had her hips. It was a contrast to Celia, who had become lankier, rather than curvier. Still, things did sometimes get tense between them when they looked at one another...and Celia wasn't sure what Julia thought, but a tiny part of her brain said:I wonder what she does taste like.

Still, that part of her brain shut up in a hurry at those words.

"W...We're leaving?" Celia asked.

"Yes," Julia sighed as she rubbed her short, pink tipped nose. "Dynacore's CEO has fled the country, and the President wants the best possible team to go after him."

"S...So why me?"

"Do you know anyotheracclaimed thieves who aren't at risk at getting infected and are willing to work for the government?" Julia smirked, adjusting her shirt with one hand as she stepped back. Celia stepped out with her, nodding.

"Oh, sure. One of them, actually."

"Who?" Julia asked, walking alongside Celia as they headed out of the containment section of the CDC.

"Spencer."

Julia snorted. "He's already on the airplane, Cee..."

###

The plane in question was piloted by a pair of very, very, very brave men in their own, sealed off cabin. The main cabin itself was stripped of chairs, though it had a few seats bolted down at the front, and was instead dominated by a collection of computers, which were hooked together and fed information through a dozen or so antenna that stuck out of the plane's body. Celia didn't have much time to admire the antenna before she was hustled – biohazard suit and all – on board. Once the door behind her closed, the plane lifted off, and she was allowed to strip out of it. AS her helmet slid off, a pair of scaled hands reached around, finding her breasts and squeezing.

"Hey, babe!" Spencer rumbled in her ear.

Celia giggled, and Julia snapped.

"Oi! You two! Stay focused!"

Spencer released Celia's tits, and Celia pouted.

The door at the back of the plane that led to the bathroom opened and out strode a man that made Celia's mouth gape. He was tall, broad shouldered, and built almost as muscular as Spencer had been – though, rather than sleek, lizardlike scales, he was all matte black fur, with pale white fur along his belly and chest, and dappling his forearms, and completely covering his hands like a pair of gloves. He wore a baggy pair of shorts, and his feet – or, well, hooves – were bare.

He was a horse, and Celia tried to not stare.

"General Schaffer, these are the two civilian retrieval experts," Julia said, sitting down at one of the computer consoles.

The General sighed, looking at Celia and Spencer.

"I did not want to bring you two onboard this operation, but I'm afraid that I had little choice. The President wants the contagion prevented from spreading any further than it already has, and unfortunately, we are out of time: More people are transforming every day, the news media is getting informed, and we are about three minutes away from mass panic."

"Great...what's the plan?" Spencer asked, sitting down as well, dragging Celia onto his lap. "I mean, the CDC couldn't even spot the virus..."

The General sighed, rubbing his long, elegant nose. "Listen. If the infection wasn't confirmed at the location, you two would still be in prison. Hell, I would still be in prison..." He grumbled, under his breath – but Celia heard: "Twenty years at the Pentagon, now I'm working with two bit thugs..."

"Hey!" Celia stuck a finger out at him, her claw snicking out – it was a strange sensation, the feeling of a claw pushing out and making her finger longer, sharper, deadlier. It was a bit like tensing the muscles around her knuckle...like bending her finger, without bending it. "We're not two bit thugs! We're highly trained, highly professional, highly skilled thieves."

"Honka honka," Spencer said, groping her breasts twice.

"...goddamn it, Spencer..."

General Schaffer sat down in one of the chairs, his bushy tail twitching back and forth as he started to type away at one of the computers – his mode of typing wasn't the speedy click clack clickity clack that Celia was used too, the kind of hyper texting that Spencer used almost constantly. Instead, he used his fingers – his pointer fingers – to hunt out and peck out the words that he needed. He looked up from the screen and frowned at her.

"We've got proper intelligence on where the CEO of Dynacore is located from one Dr. Redfield..." He paused. "Come over here, and lets start working out how we're going to manage this...operation."

He said the word operation through gritted teeth.

Spencer and Celia moved over, sitting down beside him as Celia adjusted her T-shirt for the third time, trying to get it to feel comfortable against her furred breasts. At least she didn't need to wear a bra – though the thought of doing anything strenuous without a sports bra was really starting to worry her. She leaned forward on her elbows, looking at the satellite imagery of the island in question. It was a small Carrabin island, off the beaten paths of cruise liners, and looked like it had a mansion, a wall, and two patrol boats skimming around it.

She frowned: "We got any better intelligence, Seabiscut?"

"Don't. Start," Schaffer said. "Don't you evendare."

Celia smirked.

The General started to hunt and peck, but then Spencer tapped him on the shoulder, gently. "Uh, General, sir, have you thought about maybe...could I try?"

General Schaffer stood, gesturing. "Might as well."

"All right," Spencer cracked his knuckles, shifted into the chair, wriggled, then turned the chair to the side so that his considerably longer, thicker tail had a place to go. He started to type on the computer, frowning as he did so. "All right, the island was bought in 2003 for eleven million dollars. A private military firm was hired for security for nine million dollars. There was construction from 2003 to the present day...got no details on that, give me a bit..."

Celia sighed, turning as her lover got to work, looking at Schaffer. "So, why us, again?"

"We're still infected. If they stole the-" Julia, who had started to talk, stopped, glancing at the General, who shrugged – as if to sayIt's okay, this whole situation is completely insane anyway, so why not?

Remarkably eloquent shrug, that.

"Well, uh, if they stole the containment device, and the virus acts in the same way it has with the marines' NBC and our biohazard suits, then it is entirely possible that the whole island is infected. Besides, we just so happen to have two world class thieves who are completely infected..." She shrugged. "It's unorthodox, but so is turning into a horse."

Schaffer nodded.

"Got it!" Spencer said.

"Wait, uh, doesn't hacking take longer than that, usually?" Julia asked.

"Yeah. If you're a scrub..." Spencer cracked his knuckles again – the pops seemed rather loud in the cabin, despite the airplane noises that surrounded it. Fortunately, Celia found that her ears – while sensitive in the extreme – seemed to be a bit like her nose was: Able to filter out something once it became constant and ignore it. Like stinking people! Or, in this case, that obnoxious whining drone that an airplane engine made when separated by a thin metal wall and even thinner air.