For the next two weeks, the twins bided their time, trying carefully to keep up the appearance of the ignorant citizens they'd once been. Things were different though, as Jae, Ari, Varus, and Jarre watched the wizard and his comrades, or minions as Jae had deemed them. Any little thing that could help them, anything that could be made use of was remembered, and logged into the databank that had been set up on Rojarre's personal computing unit.
Each of the four had a vital part to play in this if it were to work out, and they all were to get off-planet, and to wherever Jae and Ari had come from. Jarre had begun, with his brother's help, to set up files, hacking into the main computers at the Touminato Lab, to aid in their gradual transfer of credits from the twins accounts, as well as Umrinc and his minions. Varus worked at one of the credit unions, where the local currency, which was simply called credit, was kept, distributed, and saved. It didn't take too much for him to get the account numbers of those people who would have the most money, though neither he nor Jarre bothered to tell the twins that all the money they were slowly acquiring was not just from the minion's savings.
By day, when he wasn't working with imports, Jae began to hack into the Touminato Lab computers himself, looking for the data codes to access birth files, any sort of records kept on Ari and him. It took a few days of combing through all the different entry commands, and more than a little skimming of mind of the TL's crew, but he finally found the place to locate the passwords, different codes, and other such things.
It surprised him not when he found that neither there was no information about their past under the surname Seibutsu'. Using a dictionary translator, he found that Seibutsu could be transposed as creature. Great, just great, he muttered to himself, how many different animals, cats even, could there be, in how many different languages?? This could take years, and we may not even be listed with the last name of a creature!! Groaning in frustration, he more than anything that his sister has heard a name, seen something... What were those things she saw about the room?? A green and a white lizard-like thing with wings... Oh, if only I had some idea of what they were called, I could do a search of worlds with those things... perhaps turn up something. He sighed, beginning to work, knowing that, between imports and the search, it was going to be a long week.
By night, he and Ari worked at trying to figure out what triggered their shifting. Sure, they usually had to be mad, but there had to be a sensation, a feeling, something to latch onto, that could help them learn how to shift. Ijael, as he was a bit more level headed, decided on his own that he'd have to find a way to make his sister mad, though he hadn't a clue as to how to do that, without her mortally despising him. It didn't take long though, before he'd figured out just the way to do it, and do it well enough that he'd be convincing...
~Ari, you'd better the heck be home working on how to get us out of here!!~ Jae bellowed as he left the Touminato an hour later than normal, spending the extra time pawing through more files, trying to find a link at all as to where they'd come from. He'd had a bad day as it was, and figured that, as irritating as it had been, he wouldn't have trouble dredging up his old feelings towards his sister's best friend, and he'd been right. No sooner had he thought about the man's previous status with him, then his blood started to boil.
Her surprised response came back, cautious, ~I am, what's wrong Jae??~ When she pronounced his name, unlike others, who simply said it as it was spelled, she usually put a zha in front of it, making it sound like zha-A. She was working on provisions, deflecting spells, anything she could find that would make their trip easier, taking a break from her weight sets. In the past week, she'd gained quite a bit of strength, which they all knew would prove necessary should there be any problems.
~Is that leech over there?? He's got better things to do than to make continuous passes at you!!~ He knew that one had hit a nerve, and knew the instant when he'd done it as well, because the gently surprised presence in his mind turned to one of anger. If he didn't know any better, as he hurried back to their quarters, he'd swear she was getting ready to shift any time now.
The air felt different, more so than normal, and the scents which were so familiar faded from his mind, and came back with startling clarity. The bag holding the remains of his lunch, light before, felt as though he carried nothing, and it were only a transparent image sitting on his hand. His eyes refocused, and as he blinked them, he was astounded, as the grains of granite jumped out at him, things he'd not seen before, with such precision.
Inside the living quarters, Keigharia fumed, not even wanting to respond to her brother, for fear that she'd permanently destroy their relationship forever. It's not as though he's not trying to do that already, the jerk!! I thought they'd formed a truce... how dare.... she stopped when she realized what she'd just done. No, it's impossible. Jae means more to me than anyone... doesn't he?? She moved to pick up the books she'd dropped, and jumped at the sight of her hands, err, paws, um... what's going on with me?? I don't remember ever changing halfway before... Her hands were neither hands nor paws, as the fingers had receded only slightly, the nails of the human hand lengthened, in a pointier fashion.
~Jae??~ she thought, a little concerned about this development, as the shift had never halted at half-point, refusing to either finish or withdraw from her, or, as far as she knew, from him. Flexing her digits, which now only possessed one point of movement, instead of two, moved to a mirror they'd hung in the hallway for last minute checks. Now, she did a thorough investigation of the creature in front of her, unsure whether to be alarmed or intrigued. She settled on intrigued as she made her observations, her anger dissipated, or simply shoved to the back burner in the event of the moment.
Black leopard ears appeared in place of, and a bit higher than her human ears were positioned, and she found that she could flatten them, or turn them to take in more sounds with only a thought, a desire to do so. Her eyes... she wasn't quite sure where she'd heard it, but she knew that, from scientific studies, that animals saw in black and white. Normally, she figured that that rule would apply to shifters, should there be any that the scientists could find to run tests on, excluding herself and her brother. However, at this moment in time, she could only wager a guess that she either wasn't cat enough to have the colors fade from her vision, or else she'd never noticed the color retention. Her eyes took in the full shades of the room, from the creamy-beige sofas to the mint green walls, to the oak-colored end tables that matched the frame around the full length mirror she stood in front of.
The mirror showed her the still soft caramel skin, though it appeared to have only remained about her face and neck. The simple catsuit she wore, appropriately named, she mused as she took it in, left her arms free of fabric, though they were hardly bare now with the black fur that sheathed them, covering the tops of her hands with fine peach fuzz, ebony in color, as was the rest about her arms. Her eyes moved back up to stare at the hazel orbs that now took on a cat's shrouded emergence, the pupils large, yet slit in the light of the late afternoon. Shaking her head, her long onyx tresses flew back from her shoulders, appearing to encircle her for mere seconds before settling back down calmly, though she was anything but calm. Stepping back, she found that, even from across the room, she was able to see the few little strands of blackish brown that insisted on being riled up just enough so as not to lay flat about her.
~Jae... are you okay??~ she asked as she heard the keypad being punched... since when does it make that little thudding sound?? she wondered as the key inserted in the lock, it's grooves grinding into place as it opened the door, and the black-haired young man who was her twin walked in.
"I... I think so... what happened to you??" he asked softly, raising an eyebrow. She could not help but laugh at the wild-haired man with cat ears, hair about his arms that fell quite thicker and darker than typical for him, hand that, while they hadn't made it to claws like hers, certainly could be noted to have one less bend in the digits as her did. "Do I look that funny??" she asked, trying to stifle her laughter as her brother went to gape at his reflection in the looking glass.
"No, I think you look quite a bit funnier with that long hair..." he trailed off as he noted the abruptly exiting amusement being replaced by anger as his sister remembered why she'd shifted in the first place. Uh oh, how am I going to explain this one?? he contemplated as his hazel cat eyes took in the mirror images of his sister's as he turned to look at her.
"Alright, I think I figured out why you decided to barrage me about Jarre... you wanted this to happen, did you??" His eyebrows raised as he returned back to the mirror to study his appearance further. "Perhaps... how else were we going to see if we were right, and anger triggered whatever it is that makes us shift??" She snarled under her breath, rolling her eyes.
"Alright, smart guy, this was your idea, right?? I'd like to become fully human again, so if you could just figure out how to get back to that, I'd appreciate it, thank you. If you need anything, I'll be-"
"No no no no," he interrupted, running the word together several times. "You're half of this, if you want out, you gotta get there yourself. Just because I pushed trigger switch doesn't mean that you're innocent here. You had to let me activate it-"
"Whoa!! Back up!! I let you activate it?? What am I, some kind of machine?? And what was I supposed to do, know what you were going to do before you did it?? That's your gift, not mine, buster. I see the past, remember, not the possible future. And I'll have you know..."
Both let out a yelp as they felt themselves being pulled the rest of the way into the shift, the main hall of the entry room now filled with not two humans, but two black leopards, tails swishing, eyes wide. ~Now what?? How are we supposed to get out these, Ari?? It takes two to fight, or I would have been the only one that shifted, as far as I can tell.~ Ijael was able to think-speak without difficulty, which brought on a wave of surprise, as neither had ever been in shifter form long enough to experiment with that. Ari let out a leopardish sigh, and found an idea forming in her head.
~Not so fast... what do you think we can do in cat form??~ Ijael arched his eyebrows. ~Whoa, back up, you're actually thinking about keeping up this cat stuff??~ His sister nodded. ~Yep. Remember when I told you I wanted to see if it were possible to direct our gifts through the shift?? We're going to be stronger this way... maybe it's not so bad.~ She moved to the glass doors that lead to the courtyard, and began to focus, just as she did when she worked with exports. She saw the door opening in her mind, and made herself want that. In a way, it felt like learning to focus all over again. The cat didn't see things the way she did, didn't see a need to actually ask the door to open. Leopards hadn't need of doors, and not plowing through the one in front of her was distracting Ari again.
~Jae, I-~ No sooner had she spoken than she'd heard the padding steps of her brother, felt his acceptance of this. ~You don't like the shifting??~ she asked him, her tail lazily swishing about her, moving only enough to show that she was trying to focus.
~I'd like it better if I knew that we could get out of it any time we wished,~ came his reply as he came up beside her, shoulder to shoulder, head to head. ~You want this door open, right??~ The female leopard snorted. ~That would be the idea, yes,~
The two joined gifts as they always did whenever one was tired, in need of a power-boost, or simply wanted to know that the other was around. As one, they blocked out the instinctive grumblings of the wild cats as they focused on the door knob, concentrating, straining their muscles. ~This isn't working, Ari,~ thought the male halfheartedly, stating the obvious fact that neither had to hear. ~Oookay. Let me think about this. We're going about this like a human would... and I don't think we're that anymore, not at least as far as our gifts are concerned. I don't think leopards want things in the same way we do.~
~Alright, then what do they want, hmmm?? Because I'm fresh outta ideas.~ This brought an anger to Keigharia, making her nostrils flare, her eyes light up in disgust. Oh, so now you're giving up?? It was your idea to make me mad enough to shift, and now, when I need your help with this, you're going to take the coward's way out?? You know, you make me just want to... Arrggggh!!~ This last word, more of an irritated outburst, had an effect that under normal, humanic circumstances, it wouldn't have had. The doorknob moved, unlatching the catch, and the glass door slid open, to both leopards' amazement.
Final Conformation
