Biff huffed in aggravation, her tail lashing as she stalked out of the principal's office, her paws padding softly on the tile. It wasn't the first time she'd been called in, and she'd figured she knew the drill from prior incidents. However, it was clear that once the story had gotten sorted out and the school officials understood what had happened, the conversation took a completely different turn than she was used to dealing with. Apparently they considered it different when she escalated to physical violence over crude sexual remarks than any of the other things that had set her off previously - or possibly it had to do with, well...her being a girl...
Anyway, the end result was that she got off with a severe reprimand and was supposed to begin making regular visits to the school counselor, apparently because they thought this had to do with emotional turmoil from her change (well, no shit, she thought) mixing with new, more aggressive instincts that came with her change and she just had to learn to cope with them. In one sense, this was sort of an improvement over detention-and-threats-of-suspension, but on the other hand, she really couldn't think of anything she'd rather do less than...than sit on a goddamn couch talking about her feelings on this shit. Hell, she didn't even relish the prospect of Ms. Collins trying to talk to her about it, let alone the school counselor.
The rest of the day passed pretty uneventfully, at least by comparison to the morning. Biff mostly spent it trying not to think about Sarah, trying not to think about her predicament, trying not to think about the morning's events, and trying not to notice the way the other students were looking at her once word had got around about her outburst. About the only thing she could let herself think about was her actual classes...which wasn't exactly thrilling, but at least it kept her mind off things...
Finally, at the end of the day, she was standing by her battered locker when she heard someone walk up next to her. She turned to find that Jon kid from earlier; remembering what had happened, she found her ears going back and her fur beginning to bristle. "Fuck off," she snarled.
Jon was visibly taken aback by the growl in her voice, but looked more sheepish than scared. "Look," he said, "I...I'm sorry about earlier. I had no idea that asshole was there."
She frowned. "Well, no shit. I didn't figure you wanted to get on the Internet as some perv ogling a cat's ass."
He bit his lip and shrugged. She really shouldn't think of herself as just some animal, he thought. But she was probably going through a lot right now... "Anyway," he said, "I explained to the school officials about it, and they, um, they said that constituted sexual harassment. They even thought it might be legally actionable. ...So there's that."
Biff's ears went back again. She really had no idea how to feel about that - "sexual harassment" was a thing for girls, and he'd known several guys in his circle who complained about getting tagged with that accusation unfairly. Her knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss it altogether...but then, the idea of that little shit squirming as the cops grilled him about it was a sweet, sweet temptation...but then, there was no doubt that making a big deal out of this would only draw further attention to her...no, that was no good. She gave a noncommital grunt. "I just want that shit off the Internet, that's all," she muttered.
Jon shrugged. "I think they're looking into that, but...I dunno. It's hard to get rid of something completely once it's online." He frowned; he didn't want to sound too hopeless about it. It would be easier if Biff were still a minor, but as it stood... "Anyway, they'll probably get bored with it, if anybody's even paying attention to him in the first place. That kind of stuff is hard to make happen."
Biff turned to leave. She didn't pay half enough attention to Internet stuff to know if he was actually correct or full of shit, but...well, it did make her feel a little bit better about it. "Thanks," she mumbled, almost under her breath, as she padded off.
Jon watched her go. He felt bad for her; the knowledge that he was responsible for the Myst was easier to live with when he looked at people like this version of Karyn, who were capable of learning to make the best of things, but seeing Biff so down over this...that was a lot harder. He hoped she could learn to live with this, at least until...whatever time it was that the stone chose to return to him and he was able to do something about the Myst. After all, he mused as he watched her padding down the hall, it wasn't like she was some hideous monster - she was really quite...
Cripes, he thought suddenly. Am...am I checking her out?
His thoughts in the aftermath of that realization were a confused jumble. He wouldn't have thought he was, it wasn't like he was a furry or anything, he didn't think...but somehow, watching that sleek feline body, those prominent leonine haunches, sauntering away, tail lashing sinuously, wings gently flexing as they clasped to her sides...he bit his lip. Had the stone messed with his brain? He wasn't attracted to animals! But that thought was problematic in its own right, because it wasn't like she or any of the other changed students were mere animals...so in that respect...but it was still weird as hell...and that wasn't even getting to the part where she used to be a guy...
He shook his head and tried to think of other things. Because one thing's for sure, he thought to himself, if Biff ever got wind of that, she'd straight-up murder me.
