Ring, ring, ring went the phone.
"She's not answering it," Jon said. "Not that it's probably easy for Biff to answer the phone, what with the paws."
Karyn looked anxious as she continually checked the time.
"Karyn, calm down," Jon said.
"I shouldn't have let you talk me into this. What if it's only temporary for Mikey! What if it's different for me!"
"We timed it at 7 minutes and 7 seconds each time with Mikey, and it's only been 4 minutes Karyn. Just settle down, you have no reason to be freaking out yet."
"YET!" Karyn shouted in frustration. "You're expecting me to have a reason to freak out then!"
"Karyn! Just lighten up! You'll be back to your cat girl self soon, I'm sure of it. And even if it's a little longer than 7 minutes and 7 seconds, that's the point of the test, to see if it's the same amount of time for everyone."
"I'm sorry, but you're not the one who just lost a part of your body you've had for years!" Karyn said, breaking down further. "It's all so wrong, it feels so wrong! My hearing is weird and not working right, I feel like I'm almost deaf now too!"
"You know what you're being like Karyn, you're being like a cat who wants to be fed and can't wait 1 minute for the can to be opened. You want it and you want it right meow."
"No, I'm more like a cat who knows that with every passing second, the odds shrink that she'll ever get fed! Maybe there is no can!"
"Technically I suppose that's true. We've eliminated the possibility it will only last for less than 5 minutes for you, which is a subset of all possibilities where it's temporary for you, which makes the slim chance it's permanent slightly higher. But it's still much more likely you'll change back."
"So you admit there's a chance I won't!"
"Nothing is certain Karyn. There's a chance that a black hole will crash into the Earth in the next 5 minutes and kill us all."
"No there isn't, it would do things long before it got here that would give us plenty of warning, like throwing the planets around out of their orbits, scientists would probably know it was coming for years," she said, "and if we only had 5 minutes left, it would be tearing the Earth in two with tidal forces."
"Whatever. Just calm the freak down Karyn. You're freaking out because you're human again, for a short amount of time, while Mikey and Biff would love to be human again, permanently, and you're losing your mind before 5 minutes of what they most dearly desire. I'm going to try calling Biff again." Mikey was off to meet with her friend Alice and bring her here to test her own power with the magic circle.
Once again, there was no answer.
"I'm afraid Biff is probably in a bad place right now. We can probably hardly imagine the depths to which she has sunk."
"This is so cool!" Sarah cried out, clinging around Biff's body from behind, her paws reaching over Biff's wings, around her body and gripping her Biff's breasts like handles, while the wind rushed over them, and her fluffy wolf tail ruffled like a flag in the wind, the town far below them as they flew. "I'm really sorry about being so cold to you before," she whispered into Biff's left kitty ear. She wasn't sure Biff heard her, with the sound of the wind flowing by them. But Sarah really was sorry. She had felt it wasn't fair for her to be forced into having a sexual relationship with another girl, but at the same time, she knew that Biff must have been near the breaking point, and what if it had been some other serious bodily issue, like if Biff had been hit by a car. Wouldn't it have been a horrible thing to abandon him over that, isn't it terrible in general to abandon someone when they were hurting the most, so what really made this any different? Between these two conflicting things, she was just hoping all this time that Jon would fill in that hole that Sarah's own absence would make, and make it an issue she wouldn't need to worry about. That was the plan. But there came a point, where things don't go according to plan, and plans need to be changed, and one must make sacrifices to help those they care about. Not everything could be perfect. Maybe she couldn't get everything she wanted. But now that Sarah had gotten a taste of what she would be getting into, she decided it wouldn't really be so bad, and was feeling guilty about being so against the idea before. Despite being female, Biff's body was kind of, masculine in a way too. It was strong, and powerful, and the appeal of it to Sarah was there, Sarah just hadn't been trying to see it before. It also helped that being a lion wasn't offputting to Sarah now. It was at first, but now that Sarah had changed as well, she could see the allure of that as well. Sarah really wanted to make this work after all. She no longer saw it as an unpleasantness to only consider out of a feeling of guilt, but as something to look forward to with intrigue.
"I guess I love you after all," Sarah whispered into Biff's ear as they continued flying. The ear flicked. Sarah wondered if that meant Biff had heard her.
Sarah clung extra hard as they landed on a grassy hill at the edge of the city limits. As she got off of Biff, she took a moment to be amazed at what they had just done together. Flying through the air, covering a fair amount of distance in the process. She felt a big force on her thigh that almost pushed her over. Biff had headbutted her thigh, just like a cat, and was purring. Sarah scritched Biff's ears, and the purring got a little louder, and then stopped.
"Thanks," Biff said quietly.
"Biff!" Mikey called, approaching them through the air, carrying Alice in her talons.
"Oh my god!" Sarah cried out, as the harpy landed. "No, don't eat her! You need to remember your humanity!"
Alice, now out of Mikey's grip, rolled around on the ground in hysterical laughter, while Mikey couldn't hold back some giggles herself. "Of course, me, being a giant bird, carrying a rabbit in its talons, I guess it might look that way," she admitted. "Like that youtube video, bunnies can fly, with proof." At that reminder, Alice's laughter intensified even further.
Sarah looked pretty embarrassed at her unreasonable suspicions.
"Anyway, Biff, we need you back at Jon's house, we need to try something, and we need your help," Mikey said.
Biff and Sarah looked at each other, Biff looking up, her eyes being at Sarah's belly level. "I guess," Biff said.
"There, 7 minutes and 7 seconds, just like with Mikey. Are you fine now?" Jon asked Karyn, annoyed.
"Sowwy for fweaking owt," Karyn said through a purr, the end of her fluffy blonde tail in her mouth.
"Now that you know it's temporary, you can even try it in the future. Just a 7 minute long taste of humanity. That's not so bad, is it?"
"No, I guess not," Karyn admitted, swiveling her ears around.
"You just lost your shit, over being human again for 7 whole minutes, when Mikey and Biff might be willing to sell their souls to the devil to be human again permanently."
"Yeah, it looks bad," Karyn admitted.
They waited for the return of Mikey. But she arrived with not just her rabbit friend Alice, but also Sarah and Biff.
"Wow, we've got everyone," Jon remarked.
He got them all into the basement, and Jon, Biff, Mikey and Alice stood around the magic figure at their appropriate positions, and with each new addition, not merely did a new segment light up, but the ones that already were lit up, grew brighter. As they stood there, 4 of the 5 segments of the magic circle intensely glowed like a halogen lamp. They stood back, and it took a while for their eyes to readjust to the lower intensity.
"So, charge is all we need then," Jon said. "Does anyone have any idea who has a 'trick' involving charge?"
"Electric charge? Like static electricity?" asked Alice.
"I don't know," Jon said. "It probably has to be electric charge. What other fundamental quantity of the universe is there than that called charge?"
"Our teacher, Miss Stella, has some sort of electromagnetic powers. Making a bright little ball of light. Do you think that might be close enough?" Mikey asked.
"I don't know. Probably not. Otherwise it would probably say 'light' rather than 'charge'. But maybe, depending on the source of the light. If she isn't making light directly but makes an electric arc in mid air and that generates the light, then she could be just what we need," Jon speculated.
"So you need someone with electrical powers, is what you're saying," Biff asked.
"Like Pikachu," Mikey said. "Or Emperor Palpatine."
"I think that's what we need, except we need someone real, and possibly something even more extreme, someone who can not just generate electricity, but change electric charge," Jon confirmed. "All the same, see if you can get ahold of your teacher. Also, what the hell Mikey. I have not once, ever, considered a connection between those two things, until you said that right now."
"What happens when all 5 of the right people are around that thing?" asked Biff, thinking of another possibility, if not the little kids' teacher. A very risky, dangerous possibility.
"I don't know. Something interesting, supposedly. It had better be pretty damn interesting, with all this lead-up. But I have a feeling it is something that will solve a lot of our problems."
That night, Jon had very intense dreams. Especially after learning that things were going better between Biff and Sarah, he wanted any romantic inclinations of his own to be directed toward Karyn. It just made too much sense. But despite it all, he couldn't help having erotic dreams about Biff.
Jon sighed as he woke up the next morning. He tried to get out of bed, but something was very, very wrong. Jon stumbled and fell out of bed, and narrowly caught... herself... with her front paws.
"Oh shit," she whispered. She slinked on all fours to her bathroom mirror and despite dreading the worst, was absolutely unprepared for what she saw in the mirror. For she was apparently an identical twin for Biff's female form. Jon was a sphinx, and looking just like Biff.
"Oh fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck," she said. This also wrecked their plans. They needed someone to be "life", not two to be "time". Or would Biff's power be replicated as well? Perhaps was Jon still life even if she was physically Biff? "What should I do now?" She resolved to call Karyn. And then got an even bigger surprise. Because as soon as Jon's mental image was focusing on Karyn, her paws reverted back into human hands, and her body to human form. But not to male form. She looked in the mirror. A cat girl looked back at her. "Now I'm Karyn," Jon said to herself. "Wait a minute." Jon concentrated on Biff, and changed back into Biff. Then Jon concentrated on Karyn, and changed back to Karyn. Then she concentrated on an image of Mikey. And now Jon was an identical twin of her bird girl sister. And then, Jon concentrated on an image of his own body. And without further ado, found himself looking at his normal form in the mirror.
"Life," he whispered to his reflection. "I guess, it's a multifaceted power. So basically I'm Shang Tsung now."
Jon tried to be other people, both real and imaginary, but found that he could not. As he suspected, he could only shapeshift into himself, and those changed individuals who he had kissed and temporarily returned to their original forms. Which was still a hell of an ability, especially with 3 different and interesting forms to draw from. Did he pick up their powers as well? That was a test for later. He wasn't sure what he would do with it, but at least it was not a big concern because it probably wouldn't interfere with things after all.
