One Way Doorway (Part 4). . .

B'Elanna

"Whazzat?" Chiana says blearily as she slowly wakes up. "Huh?"

She then mutters something in Nebari and shifts back into her human seeming. With the shift the situation (for the moment) also shifts into a lower, less stressful gear, thanks.

I' take that blearily the new dragoness asked question as a lead in for explaining what I mean while the others attend to Chiana. Explain it to the still somewhat twitchy survivors just what I mean. Forgive me if I don't give a word for word recounting of the discussion, but this'll have to do.

As you know it takes a bit of a magic user's strength to cast magic spells which takes rest to recover from. Too strong of spell can drain the caster of all his stamina, leaving him too weak for even her (or his) heart to beat. There are magical items out there without that drawback, but the Crystallic isn't one of them. Oh, you can cast magicks much stronger than you could normally cast, but there old cliché of "no free lunch" still applies.

Oh, did we fail to mention that we recovered the Crystallic from Minestus' corpse after the fight? No? Oh, should have done that. Had been more concerned about the taboo we'd come upon after the recovery mission, you see.

Yeah, anyway if we're going to be fixing everyone here and now on THIS side of the Door we're going to be draining not only myself, but every OTHER person capable of magic in our group.

But as it turns out the only people who want to be cured of the neo-lycanthropy is Zhora and Fred. That somehow doesn't surprise me. Had this strange elfin feeling (elves learn to trust their strange feelings) such was the case. The volunteers had been, besides to a man being unwed, somehow too comfortable with their situation. They'd gone in on this not on the hope of a cure, but in the hope of killing Minestus. Yeah, for revenge.

Not exactly an enlightened reason, but then again it does my group a world of good. Using the Crystallic to cure lycanthropy (especially the neo kind) is a draining thing indeed! Would be easier by far to transform a target than to cure lycanthropy. The lycanthropy is a very active and powerful magical curse, where a straight transformation . . . isn't really a curse per se. Just nod and trust me, okay?

It surprises Fred the manfox here, but not too much. Think he's feeling the siren call of the Matrix and all that. See, it's sort of the magical equivalent of Newton's law: "Things that are at rest stay at rest". Once the victim's Matrix has been changed (transforming them into another form) IF they don't go insane from it they eventually wish (even if only at a certain level) to remain as they have become. That desire is kissing cousin to the desire to not be transformed in the FIRST place.

Neo-lycanthropy like the demifox and Manimal strains are close enough to that situation that that "law" applies as well.

. . .

Transforming Zhora BACK into her old self (fixing some problems all Replicants have in the process) proves to be too easy because she's NOT infected with neo-lycanthropy. She's a Manimal (not a human transformed by the Manimal neo-lycanthropy curse). That would explain why she's able to wear clothing without screaming in pain. Minestus had created her to be the next step in his mad schemes at creating a new race (which to rule as a god). Following a hunch, I quickly check the other surviving were- creatures and see that their Matrixes are shifting and transforming into what Zhora's had been (that is, into full Manimal configuration).

. . .

That's not how the Minestus of Terra Prime had done it. He'd transported the native Fred to the island of Dragoness Moreau while he'd been in the slow process of changing into a Manimal. Both that and Zhora, however, where the same in being the catalyst in the others of that island: changing them from were-creatures to Manimals.

As for the native Fred . . .

It's the weirdest thing . . . or perhaps not so weird. See, Fred the Manfox (the Terra Prime one) had told us how it had been a long process of finally accepting what he'd become and losing his desire to return to being human when he learned that his Great Kingdom (a thing he'd sworn his life to serve and protect) had been bombed off the face of Terra Prime!

He'd not said it, but I'd been pretty sure he'd been at war with himself. Loving what he'd become but hating himself for loving it. See, this fox man says he wants to become human again, but the way he says it leaves me to say it is faint hearted.

In other words, he says one thing but his heart is saying something else. That said, I'm not too surprised to hear him asking Loam about Alicia.

Fred

"Yes, Alicia is like the rest of us," the manwolf ways softly. "She doesn't want to return to humanity. We just wanted to be free from Minestus and the other evil dragons! I thought you'd already figured that out."

Uh, not really but . . .

This . . . rather puts me in an . . . shall we say an awkward position. With the death of Minestus I have fulfilled my quest. Yes, I should . . . now ORDER this elf woman to return me to human but . . . I still have this problem.

I took Loam's advice. I was to at least try to win Alicia's heart as a woman instead of some kind of object of art. She's too independent of spirit for anything less (and so alluring to me because of that). Yes, honor dictates that I wed her because I left her with child and I still have trouble with her having initially refuse my hand in marriage but . . .

I cannot win her hand as a human being but I do not wish to live my remaining years with a tail!

. . . .

Don't I? I feel so alive . . . different now as a fox man. And thinking back and remembering how I looked . . . turns my stomach? I look so much more handsome with my sleek fur and . . .

I'm still trying to sort that out for myself while the female elf is attending to the dull peasant (but so very not) known as Leon (she muttered something about him being under a curse that shortened his life or some such) when a stab of pain hits my chest.

A red sigil (a stylized set of nine dragons forming a circle) has formed in not only my fur, but everyone else!... That symbol . . . was what was on the bodies of that one mage tower who'd been slaughtered! Them and their entire extended family, rumor had it!

The other dragonslayers had said the mages had been doing my job, slaying dragons and doing a fine job at it (better than a regular dragon slayer) with some kind of new weapon rumor had called "dragon's bane". I'd had thought THOSE mages had been killed by rival mages (or perhaps some of the more conservative types within the Dragonslayer's guild), but now . . . with everything I'd seen today new about dragons . . .

"What the frell?!" one of the gray girls (the dragon female by her scent) shouts. "The Council of Wyrms death symbol?!"

That can't be good! What they and these other say about this mysterious Council . . . kind of decides things for me. Especially when I find out that the Doorway cannot be entered through the other side in returning! See, as a Manimal I'm not endangering my house even if caught and killed. As a human I'd doom them all, if they are as powerful as I'm beginning to believe from these others!

. . . .

Well, I believe . . . I can live with a tail after all, now all considered . . . and I'd always had a taste for exploring . . . Wonder what this Terra Prime place is like . . .

And with that reasoning and rationalization they survivors (after vaporizing the bodies to not leave ghostly haunting entities behind), they vacate this world and slam the Door close! When the Door closes, the sigils fade (much to everyone's relief).

They didn't want to be tracked across the multiverse by any kind of hit squad, thanks!!

Ah, but where did the others end up? Why, on Moya, of course . . . or at least a Moya! A Moya that has a just had a mid-space collision with a smaller, Nebari vessel!

1. "Moya and I should have avoided that collision entirely," Chiana and the others overhear Pilot say over the clamshell from the shadows.

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