TF Tuseday Tidbit : Throwback..

Heyo! for todays TF Tuseday tidbit I thought Id share a bit of a throw back, I wanted to share my first Tf Story I wrote and published on the internet. Its technically not much of a throw back ( it was published in 2017) but I really shows where my head was and what Tf sites I was lurking on.. It was definitely inspired by the Xanadu shared universe but younger me changed the convention to my home con. Otherwise the premise is fairly similar.

I hope you enjoy!

(TW Blood)

Izzie and the Con-Tastrope 

Isabel rolled her head from side to side, a few small cracks were her reward as she loosed the tension in her spine. sitting in a cheap convention center chair for a couple of hours was probably the reason for all that nonsense. Taking a glance around her as her table mates were in the middle of rolling for initiative Isabel took in the sight of a medium sized conference room that had been filled with long rows of tables. She was in one of the D&d free play rooms of PAX West, She had been coming to this con for a very long time, mainly because she had an inside connection.her dad was one of the main organizers behind the Pc Freeplay room that was across the way in the secondary Seattle conference center building.

Her family had treated it like an annual summer vacation and once she had gotten old enough her dad had helped her find a volunteer's position so that she could attend at no cost ( other than a few shifts helping set up at the Lan Party which really was no cost at all) This event though only part of her family had been able to come though her little brother and sister had sporting events that they had to attend as such it was only her, her (other) little brother, and her father at the event. It was always the highlight of her summer being able to see all the amazing exhibits and just bask in the sheer variety of nerdity that the con offered. If it could feasibly be called gaming or gaming related you could find it here at PAX.

 As evidenced by this D&d free play room! It was a relatively new addition to the con but one she was enjoying immensely! A rotating shift of Dm’s ran 2-3 hour games to hopefully entice some new players away from the flashy worlds of console and PC gaming. It was a good quick little intro to all things D&D, or if you were more experienced ( like Isabel was.) it was just a fun way to get to meet more people in the hobby!

The staff had some premade character sheets available for the newbie players that were just trying things out but most of the more advanced players brought their own from home.

Isabel was in this latter category however she was not playing her regular character today. No today she was playing testing an unusual character to see if it was feasible in her home game. ever a sucker for the more monstrous of d&d races she had made an Illithid Bard. a weird combo she knows but she was of the firm opinion that Bards were always the best class. That and it gave her so many interesting roleplay opportunities! True she was still fine tuning the backstory  seeing as it would be hard to justify a mind flayer running around on the surface or playing music ( illithids being a race very much not noted for their musical skill) but that could come later, right now she just wanted to see if the mechanics worked, This weekend was about having fun and playtesting her character to make sure it wasn't broken or overpowered.

Playing with newbies did, however, bring about its own little challenges. The guy next to her seemed to be taking an eternity to decide on the action for his tiefling fighter, mentally Isabel was praying for him just to pick a weapon and hit the dang goblin.

Idly rolling the dice in her hand Isabel tuned back into the game. The same  newbie was questioning the dm

“ so I roll the d20 to see if hit right?”

The ( rather weary looking) DM simply nodded.he had probably been asked this question a billion times this weekend

“ alright cool. Then what do I do next?”

The dm tiredly but politely said

“Next you roll whatever dice is listed next to your weapon plus any bonuses to see how hard you hit”

“Ah neat.”

Isabel mentally groaned.

 The other newbie across the table had their phone out. Isabel gave a small frown, What horrible D&D etiquette. Finally, the dude next to her stopped waffling and attacked hitting the Goblin with his axe.Isabel sighed in relief finally it was her turn! She pulled out her character sheet and grinned turning to the Dm she started to say

“ alrighty I'm gonna try and hit the bugbear chief with a mind bla-

And then it happened.

At first, she thought that there had been a bombing. A feeling like a pressure wave rushed through the room followed fast by sparkling lights and a bright orange-red wave.it knocked people and players forward, toppling Isabel out of her chair. Everything else seemed unaffected though.

For a second there was complete and utter stillness ……….and then the screaming began.

Isabel watched as the player next to her clutched his head and began writhing in pain. His skin was distorting two large  Bumps seemed to be trying to burst through his skin like an alien chest burster. Isabel could hear the crunchy sound of bone scraping on bone as two demon-like horns erupted from his forehead.

Isabel tried to yell and jump back from the horrid sight, but crumpled in pain as her back began to make sickly cracking sounds of its own. All around her people were screaming.

She clutched her head as her face seemed to be breaking apart and remolding itself like wet clay.
She could feel her clothes starting to tear as her body grew, gaining height. Around her mouth, strange fleshy protuberances were beginning to make themselves known.

Blotchy purple spots covered her skin and began to grow. she almost choked as her teeth suddenly became inexplicably lose, falling from her mouth even as she continued screaming.

The room around her was in chaos. Chairs and tables had been flipped as those not writhing on the floor were bolting for the door. The screams echoing from outside the room hinted that it was not only their small room being affected by this magical craziness.

Through the pain, Isabel forced herself into a semi-sitting position. She almost got a shin to the face for her trouble as more people tried to flee the area.

A burst of pain made its way up Isabel's spine and into her face as she felt the strange protuberances grow longer. She let out a scream that sounded strange and watery.

On her arms and knees, Isabel clambered over towards the overturned main staff table. It had been knocked over is the panic and right now seemed the safest place.

She curled up behind the table, wave after wave of a pain shooting through her body.
Vaguely she wondered if she was dying. In a burst of panic, she shoved her hand into her pocket digging for her phone. She had to call her dad. She had to make sure he knew she loved him. If she was going to die here she wanted her family to know.

Something was wrong with her hands.they were shaking violently and they were the wrong shape. With immense difficulty, she pushed the buttons to unlock the screen.Her hand shakes even more as she painstakingly plucks her dad's phone number out of her contacts. Isabel brings it up to her ear. She writhes in pain as she waits through the first ring, and then the second, and then finally on the eight ring a voice as ragged and scarred as she feels comes through the line

“ISABEL! ISABEL! OH God Isabel everything's Going Crazy! WHERE ARE YOU!!??”

She tries to answer him but something is wrong with her voice it sounds like screeching watery gurgles! She tries again but her mouth just isn't in the right shape.

“ ISABEL? ISABEL BABY, Whats  Going on! Please Speak to me!! Where Are you? ARE you SAFE!?”

Isabel shudders as the pain pulses through her again, her face feels odd and heavy. She doesn't understand why her mouth has suddenly given up on her.
With trembling hands, she switched over to text.

“Imscared. Lobe you. hurts. “ then in a moment of clarity “ dnd rm”

She shuts the phone off as a particularly vicious wave of pain washes over her. Inside her strange mouth, she can feel new teeth push their way through her gums. She blinks her eyes and suddenly everything seems much too bright she hisses as she curls farther into a ball.

Eventually, the waves of pain lessen, they slowly go from feeling like someone switched her blood with hydrofluoric acid to all over period cramp levels of pain.
Isabel uncurls slightly. Everything feels weird.

The room around her is oddly quiet the forms of many strange beings passed out on the floor. Isabel can't believe her eyes, there are tieflings and minotaurs and satyrs lying all around. Sounds of chaos still flood in from outside but this room is strangely quiet save for the groaning and occasional whimpers of pain.

 Isabel takes stock of herself. Pulling her legs up into a sitting position she slumps wearily against the wall. In front of her, she can now see her legs and feet, her jeans which used to rest at about ankle length now stop mid calf. Lavender colored legs jut out from her pants significantly longer than she remembers them being. her shoes look like they are straining to hold in feet that have grown several sizes, Isabel reaches down to take them off when the sight of her hand stops her. Slightly longer than normal hands greet her vision.They are the same purple color as her legs and in between each finger is a small amount of translucent fishy webbing, a  small but sharp claw juts out of each finger.

She only has eight fingers. Four on each hand.

 Her breathing starts to come in sharp and short. This is wrong. All of this is WRONG. She can feel her heart pick up speed as she starts to panic.

 Slowly, she forces herself to take a breath in. she tells herself to just focus on the task at hand. A small slightly hysterical part of her laughs at that. Haha at hand.

Using her warped fingers it takes far longer than it should to untie the laces. She watches as the final string comes undone and her feet practically jump out of the too small shoes.

Her new feet have only two toes on each.

She gives them a wiggle.

The two toes respond like any normal toes should and Isabel just about loses it. Something was very very wrong with her.

 Grabbing her phone off the floor she switches it on and uses the front facing camera as a mirror. Where her mouth should be there were four long tentacles protruding from her face. her eyes have become a milky white and the entirety of her skin is light purple. She looks like a cthulhian nightmare. after a moment a word flashes through her mind.

  Illithid.

 She was a fucking illithid.  Her heart began pounding in her now completely flat chest. inky black tears flowing freely down her cheeks and onto said tentacles. Her hands reached desperately up feeling their way around the new facial features. She touched the new additions and shivered in horror at the sensations coming from them. They twitched automatically at her light touch and Isabel nearly screamed when she realized she could control them.

 Oh good this was wrong! This was so wrong! Her breathing came in fast and ragged as the world seemed to enter tunnel vision all around her.she was going to die! she was going to get strapped to a government vivisection table somewhere in area 51 and die! she was going to -

“Its okay, its okay…. Shussh shussh, Help is on the way shussssh.”

She could tell there was someone next to her but in her panicked state, it wasn't really something she could focus on. She felt someone's hand on her shoulder and a calming voice said

“ I need you to take deep breaths for me, can you do that? I swear it's okay nothing is going to hurt you.. Susssh. Deep breaths there we go”

Shudderingly Isabel drew in a deep breath. Then slowly another.

“ that's it! Good job it's gonna be okay, I need you to do that a little more”

Shakily and after a few more moments of deep breathing exercises Isabel had calmed down enough to stop crying. she looked at her rescuer, in a moment of extreme surreality she found herself looking at a woman with robotic angel wings and a mechanical style halo floating above her head. It was Mercy. Mercy from Overwatch.Sensing her confusion the Mercy gave her a strained smile and said

“ pretty strange huh? Don't worry it's okay, you're not imagining thing! Something weird happened here at the convention center. Nobody's hurt but people have been… changed.”

Mercy shifted her position so that they could see each other better.

“I was cosplaying as Mercy when this all hit and now,” she gestured to her body” I seem to have become her. Something similar has happened to you I bet. My name is Brian, And I was actually a registered nurse before all this”

He smiled a little sheepishly

“ that's why my friends convinced me to come as Mercy for this con They told me I “ fit the part”. But enough about me what's your name? Can you tell me if anything hurts?”

Isabel opened her mouth to answer but once again the words she was trying to say came out as a harsh gurgling screech.  For a moment she started to panic again. Brian gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and said

“It's okay,..take your time.”

she tried once again and after a couple of false starts -which Brian waited through extremely patiently- she managed to get out a single word.

“̱́.̳̝̯̪͈͢.͈͓I̲̟͕̹Z̡͇̦͎̼̘s̹͎̖̪̀i̺̫͎̩̹͖͟e.̨̟.̱̼͠”̛̮̟͈̠̻ͅ

Brian gave her a patient smile, making the best out of the strange situation

“ well Izzie, does anything hurt?  You can just Just shake your head yes or no.”

Tiredly Izzie slowly shook her head no, except for the lingering soreness around her shins and shoulders her body actually seemed to be in working order.Brian smiled again his wings actually slightly brightening at the lift in his mood.

“ That's good! I'm glad you weren't trampled over or something with all this craziness. Now to business Did you come here with anybody? Is there somebody who you need to find?”

Isabel pointed to the ground where her phone lay and  with great difficulty said


“"̐ͧ̾̿ͫ͂̑҉̛P̶ͩ̅ͧ̑̍ͫͤ̎h̡ͮ̏͘ȯ̎͗͌̔͘͘ñ̵̷͠ĕ.̢ͦ̀͊̆ͩ͌͐͌̀́.͂̈҉̡̧.̵ͫ͛̊ͯͨ͏.̐͆̽̆҉ ͑ͭ̒̓͘͟Dͩ͛ͬͥ̍̓̿̚ä̶̧́͋̊̀̉̈́̒d̋ͣ͊̓͊ͦ̾͏"̛̇͂́

Catching her meaning Brian turned around and picked up the smartphone.pulling off the short black gloves that he was wearing he turned it on. Next, he looked up at Izzie and asked

“This isn't locked is it?”

Izzie shook her head no

“Good I'll give your dad a call.”

As Brian set about dialing the number Izzie took a good long look at the room she was in. it was a mess. Tables were upturned everywhere and dice and papers were strewn about in the rush to escape. Izzie and Brian seemed to be the only ones left in the room though so Izzie wondered if she had lost some time to the panic attack. one of the walls had a large hole through it as though something fairly large had crashed through it in its desire to escape.


Beside her, Brian was one the phone to her dad

“ hello? Is this Izzy's dad? Yeah she’s right here with me, she’s gotten caught up in all this craziness and she can't exactly speak right now, my name is Brian sir, I'm trying to help. We are up in the d&d room on the second floor where are you? Okay, so the building across the street? You just stay right there.we will come to you.”

A small pause, then Brian handed the phone to Izzie,

“ he says he wants to speak to you,”

Taking the phone in her oversized webbed hand Isabel held it up to where she guessed her ear would be. Her dad's voice came over the line slightly tinny

“ Isabel Thank god you're alright! your brother and I are in the Pc Freeplay room. It's gonna be okay you hear me, I love you and I will always love you no matter what.let's just focus on getting together and staying safe okay?”

Izzie gave a mumbly watery sound of assent.

“ Good, stay safe.. See you soon”

Izzie hung up the phone,

As Izzie put the phone back into the pocket on her ruined jeans Brian looked up at her and said

“ I think we can get over to your dad if we go through the sky bridge. The street outside is absolute chaos. I think the police are setting up a blockade down there so we should probably avoid that.”

Rising to his feet Brian dusted off his white dress and  held out a hand

“ Let's go find your dad okay?”

Despite not having lips anymore Izzie attempted to give Brian a tired smile. taking the proffered hand Izzie pulled herself up into a standing position. A sudden wave dizziness accompanied her ascent as Izzie realized that she was a LOT taller than normal. As a human, she had been no slouch in the height department coming in at an average 5 foot 6 but now she seemed to tower somewhere around the 7-foot mark. She stumbled a little but luckily Brian was there to put a steadying arm on her.

“ Easy there. I know it's kinda disorienting at first, the height thing that is, I was 6.4 before all this”

He put Izzie’s arm over his shoulders right in between the mechanical angel wings that jutted out from his back.

“ let's just focus on the task at hand. Getting out of here.”

Izzie gave a weak nod of consent and slowly the two made their way out of the room.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The expo hall was nothing short of ruined. The large developers' booths had been toppled over or otherwise ransacked by the ensuing mayhem. merchandise was thrown about wildly. Some of the larger exhibits had been utterly destroyed. Despite this, a fairly large group of people still were milling about the hall in small groups. Some of them looked to be Con Staff but others were definitely in the same boat Izzie was in with strange and new features adorning them, as they made their way into the hall they passed Totoro, Master chief, and a large Gyarados lying on the floor.  As they looked around the hall a young woman wearing a Staff badge strode over to them and rather brusquely asked.

“ Anybody hurt?”

They shared a glance and then Brian spoke

“ no ma’am just passing through,”

Brian pointed to Izzie with his staff

“ Her family is on the other side of the sky bridge and the road outside is blocked.”

The staff-woman looked at the strange sight of a 7-foot tall cthulian monstrosity leaning on a small angelic woman and decided that her daily amount of fucks given had run out about five minutes ago. In a matter of fact tone of voice, she said

“ Be careful going over, somebody turned into the incredible hulk on the bridge and made a new skylight. If you see anyone under  the debris come get us.”

She pointed towards a corner of the room that had been a food court when everything was still up and running.

“  we have a first aid station made up over there so if you see anyone else spread the word”

And with that, she turned and went on her way.
Izzie and Brian gave each other a look, then after a moment, they began moving forward.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Together Izzie and Brian picked their way through the destroyed booths, walking over and under and around the wreckage. One of the booths looked like it had been trampled by a dinosaur with large reptilian footprints all over it. Another booth full of t-shirts looked like it had exploded. toys, art, game consoles, and more littered the floor, all around obviously having been knocked over or discarded in the panic. Isabell thought to herself that the place would be prime for looting if she wasn't so against it. That and she had far more pressing things to worry about at the moment.

With tremulous footsteps, Izzie and Brian made their way onto the sky bridge. There was indeed a large hole in the glass ceiling, sharp shiny shards littered the entire walkway and Izzie began to worry about her bare feet.  She stopped right before the sky bridge began and the sudden halt caused Brian to almost walk into her. Recovering from the near collision rather quickly brian looked up at her and said

“ whats wrong?  Why’d you stop?”

Izzie pointed towards her feet and then to the glass that covered the surrounding area. It took Brian a minute but then it clicked

“ Oh! I see! Yeah, it's probably a bad idea for you to be walking over there in your bare feet. Umm let's see if we can find something to cover them”

Together the two searched through the surrounding rubble for something to cover Izzie's feet. After about 10 minutes they came across a booth that had been selling nerdy clothing items and while it was mostly tee’s they also happened to sell a pair of novelty slippers that looked like the Killer rabbit from. Izzie slipped them on over her misshapen feet and mentally smiled a little at the incongruous footwear. Brian let out a little laugh

“ well, that's something I never thought I'd see, a mind flayer in bunny slippers!”

Izzie nodded her head and winced a little when her tentacles unconsciously curled in a little on themselves in the illithid version of a smile. Brian laughed a bit harder and offered a hand to her

“ come on Izzie! Let's make it over the sky bridge in your dashing new booties!”

Izzie took the hand and carefully the began making their way forward. They tried to avoid most of the glass seeing as while the slippers did have a rubber bottom it wasn't the thickest of soles and they didn't want to worry about it being pierced. At one point as they moved to avoid a particularly large patch of glass they walk close to the sides of the bridge. Through the transparent wall, Izzie could see the street down below. A huge crowd of people stood on the streets many yelling and pushing against a police line that had sprung up at the end of the street. About two-thirds of the crowd seemed like ordinary humans, the other third was like Izzie and varied wildly. Izzie  could see a full size dragon stuck in the crowd. With all the movement below her, the crown looked not unlike the ocean, or maybe an ants nest when you threw a rock at it. Brian stared down through the window as well and let out a low whistle.

“ damn, it looks like chaos down there…. I'm kinda glad we’re up here now.”

Izzie was about to nod her head in agreement when all of a sudden a splitting pain burst through her head. She hissed and stumbled back knocking into the side of a booth. Brian rushed forward surprise in his eyes.

“ Izzie! What's wrong?!” he placed a steadying hand on Her shoulder “ are you alright?”

Izzie clutched her head The hissing growing louder.

She Wasn't! She Couldn't! IT WAS SO LOUD!

She could hear voices screaming in panic! AND her heart was gripped with the overwhelming sense of fear! Why were people screaming!? Who was Screaming?

Brian was scared, something new was happening and he didn't know what. Holding on to Izzie's shaking shoulders he gave her a small shake and yelled

“ IZZIE! STAY WITH ME! WHATS WRONG? WHERE DOES IT HURT? POINT TO WHERE IT HURTS!”

Izzie Screamed

<IT'S TOO LOUD!!!>

Beside her, Brian flinched. It felt like something cold and slimy had just brushed against his brain like a very very loud intrusive thought. Then suddenly it happened again.

< IT'S TOO LOUD! THEY/IM SO SCARED! OH GOD! Help me!  I CANT Hear Myself- where ANd  They/ I? Who is speaking!?>

Brian stood there stunned for half a second. Izzie was talking, Izzie was talking telepathically. Apparently, her transformation wasn't as done as they'd thought and her mental powers had just clicked on full force. Brian looked down below them and realized.oh. Oh no. Izzie’s mental powers had just clicked on over a huge group of very very scared people.  She was being flooded with all of their panics right now. Brians nurse training kicked in and he began to move.

Brian grabbed Izzie’s arm and threw it over his shoulder. He started dragging the confused mind flayer across the sky bridge, hoping against hope that getting her away from the crowd would help. As he pulled he began talking trying to get Izzie to focus on him rather than the pain.

“ Izzie ssshhh it's gonna be okay, Izzie it's me, Brian, you are gonna be okay, Izzie focus on me. I know it's loud. Sssh sssh. Just focus on me, it's gonna be okay. I'm taking you somewhere safe. Ssshhh.”

<Brian? I can't, I ?? what?>

“ that's it, just focus on me.you're gonna be safe it's okay, just lean on me. I need you to walk with me, its kinda hard to pull you when you're so much heavier than I am.”

Izzie stumbled along still leaning heavily on Brian's shoulder. As they got farther and farther along Izzie seemed to get better and better, With much stumbling and shambling the two managed to make their way to the other end of the sky bridge. Once they had made it to the other side they both sunk to the ground backs resting against a blizzard booth. For a moment they both just sat there breathing heavily. Brian looked over at Izzie who still held a rather shell-shocked expression on her face. Very quietly He asked

“ Izzie? ...You okay?”

Izzie slowly began to nod and then said
< I… I.. uh, Yes??>  a small shudder worked its way up her shoulders <that was…. Intense. I could feel what everyone was thinking… oh god that was weird.>

Izzie adjusted her seating so that she was a bit more comfortable

< I can still kinda feel them… but they're quieter now I just sorta know their over there>

Izzie shuddered

< this… This is so creepy. I am literally talking with my brain right now…. It is like? Yelling? In your head? Oh god this is scary!>

Next to her Brian just shrugged. In the most nonchalant voice he could muster he said,

“ It definitely seemed scary, I mean you went down and I had absolutely no idea what was going on.” He then gave her comforting smile, and put a put a hand on her shoulder  “ but hey! at least we can now talk to each other rather than have to play 20 questions.”

Izzie gave the mental impression of a weak smile ( which brian found very odd)

< yes I suppose this is much easier.. >

Izzie still felt really odd, she could hear Brian's thoughts including the stuff about how odd a mental smile felt. Other people's thoughts felt somewhere between unstoppable intrusive thought and dreamlike voice in her head.  She could also feel the relief coming off of him, it was almost like a wave of color brushing up against her. It was like Brian's mind was a bubble of light and shades and if she wanted to she could push deeper into it. She was scared however and backed away. She didn't want something like what happened on the bridge to happen again. She turned her thought elsewhere.

< now that I can speak I  want to say thank you, you've helped me a lot in the last little bit.>

Brian grinned

“ don't mention it. I did what anybody else who had the capabilities would do.”

< well nobody else even tried. You did. So thanks.>


Brian pushed himself up off the floor and extended a hand to Izzie.

“Helping each other is what makes us human I suppose..even if some of us happen to be not technically humans at the moment. Now come on. Let's get you to the PC room. I'm sure your family is really anxious.”

Izzie accepted the hand up. Together they picked their way through the last of the expo hall and down the escalator to the PC room. The surrounding area showed signs of the panicked stampede but far less than earlier. Izzie rationalized that this was probably because this was the secondary building and had a few fewer attractions in it. Brian stopped to point out a very large hole in one of the immense windows that made up the walls on this level, idly wondering if that was where the dragon they'd spotted in the crowd earlier had made its escape.
As they reached the entrance to the Pc room Izzie suddenly stopped.  Seeing this Brian asked,

“ what's up Izzie?”

< I can feel, u I mean, There's a whole lot of people up ahead. I should probably brace myself.>

Brian took Izzy's hand.

“ Hey it's okay, I don't know if it'll help or not but If you want to can try focusing on my mind? It might help?” he looked up at her with compassion in his eye“ don't worry though you got this, and if not I'll go in and bring you family out to you.”

Izzie shuffled nervously her eyes on her feet like she was afraid she’d fall over then quietly even for a mental voice she said

<thanks>

After a little while, Izzie looked up at Brian determination in her eyes
<  I think I can do this now, let's go in and find my dad.>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  The Pc free play room was indeed crowded. It was always a very popular attraction at the venue with a Byoc Lan party on one side of the room and a Free Play area on the other side where you could sit down and play. A huge number of transformed people were milling about in here. It seems that the Lan party organizers had done a fairly good job at keeping everybody calm in the wake of all the craziness though as most were just milling around, some had even gone back to playing video games!. Tons of different video game characters now walked around in real life, quite a few soldiers were among the group (meaning there had probably been a Modern Warfare tournament going on when the Event happened) as well as quite a few Overwatch characters, there were even a couple of duplicate Mercy’s. Trying to concentrate solely on Brian’s mind Izzie began walking towards the organizer's area.

The organizer's area was a little cube of desks where the servers sat. and quite a few people were running around it still wearing staff shirts. Of course a few of those staff shirts now found themselves being stretched over inhuman frames but generally, a large amount seemed to be human. From what Izzie could see they were doing what they did best, organizing. The Lan Party staff were making calls and placating the people around them, trying their best to help everyone remain calm during this trying time.

Spotting a familiar face sitting at the table Izzie made her way over to the table where her uncle Greg sat manning the server. She called out mentally

<Uncle Greg! It's me, Isabel! Do you know where my Dad is?>

Quite a few of the staff members and some of the surrounding bystanders jumped and Izzie realized that she had accidentally just done the mental equivalent of shouting her question at top volume. Her uncle, in particular, looked shocked and stunned for a minute or two before he pushed his glasses up and nervously said

“Jesus !.. Izzie, is that.. You?”

Izzie shuffled nervously on the spot feeling all the surrounding eyes watching her. She slumped her shoulders and tried to look as non-threatening as possible.

<ummmmm.. Yeah. It's me, I was caught up in the whole whatever this thing was…… Do you know where my dad is? I'm kinda.. Really scared and looking for him.>

Her uncle to his credit stopped looking so scared after he heard her talking at a more “normal” mental volume. He then put his hand to his temple in a thinking motion and said

“ Last I saw of him he was over thataway” He pointed in the direction of the corner that the bathrooms were in “ your brother uh also changed and he’s having some issues with it. Apparently, He’s having kind of a freak out because of his Asperger's.”

Izzie nodded< I can Imagine. His sensitivity issues must be driving him crazy. Usually, he can't even stand having his hair cut with a buzzer because the sensation bugs him. The pain of the transformation must have felt far worse for him than me… and I know it already was plenty bad for me.>

Izzie eyed her uncle curiously.

< just wondering though… what did he turn into?>

Her uncle grinned.

“ Link from twilight princess. He was playing in the console room down below us when it happened”

Izzie grinned in return

< that's one of his favorite characters! Hopefully, once he calms down a bit he can appreciate that a little more.>

Her uncle gave a shrug and then turned back the business he had been working on. Izzie and Brian began making their way over to the corner he had pointed out. Izzie could feel the tired and controlled panicking of the people around her pressing in, it was sort of like being caught in a riptide.

Izzie focused in on Brian. Feeling his familiar presence near her side was comforting. As they neared the bathrooms Izzie spotted her dad’s familiar bald spot a mile away, Her father was turned away from her helping a Link that looked very shaken. Izzie could see that a couple items of clothing had been removed from the “ Link” obviously stuff that had set off his sensory issues. Mainly it was the boots some of the gauntlets and the chainmail undershirt.

Izzie paused a moment. She knew that her family loved her, but still it was kinda scary… She looked at herself. Her new skin was purple and slightly mucousy like a frog's skins,  she had four clawed and webbed fingers. Her head was a monstrosity. She wasn't human anymore… The thought of going over to her father was suddenly a lot more intimidating. Brian noticed her hesitation and quietly said

“ hey….. what's wrong?”  

< sorry… I.. I know it's stupid to think this and that its probably never gonna happen but I… I'm scared. I'm scared that my dad's gonna see me and scream. I'm scared that he’s not going to want me anymore… like I said silly I know but…>

“ hey, it's okay to be nervous. I may not know your dad but right now he is over there helping your brother who has also been transformed. If he’s over there helping one of his kids out with this then he probably won't mind helping out his other kid as well.”

< I know but….. I'm so much…. worse.>

Brian stared at her. Then he grabbed her hand and held on to it.

“ its okay you're not alone.we can go and do this together if you like.”

<.......Thanks.>


They neared turned figure, tentatively Izzie called out with her mind

<umm.. Hey dad.>


A graying man in his late 40’s/early fifties turned around. With a stunned look on his face, he adjusted his glasses and said

“ Isabel? Is that .. you?”

Isabel squirmed. Her tentacles wound around themselves clutching each other nervously

<heh. Yeah, dad. It's me… I uh..>

The inky tears were flowing again, oh god she was too sensitive! Her father ran to her. He put his arms around the softly crying cephalopod.they stood there together. Shortly the whole family was there all crying and holding each other. Izzie never felt more loved, from her father and brothers minds she could feel the overwhelming relief and joy. They were all here. They were all together. They were all okay.

Brian watched the scene with slightly teary eyes himself, he enjoyed this part of being a nurse, being able to see a family happy. He started to turn away thinking it best to let them have this moment privately.

A purple hand shot out of the knot of hugging bodies, grabbing Brian by his wing.

< nope. Get in here. You saved me, you are required to join in the happy reunion hugging.>

Brian smiled as he was included in the large hug.