Newton Zyme hated Mondays. It wasn't that he minded getting up early in the morning. As a child, he had always eagerly gotten up early for school, and later, college. As the head researcher, Zyme's primary job was to see that Megakat Biochemical was run as smoothly as possible. He just hated Mondays because there was always so much to do, and a large majority of it couldn't be done until the other researchers arrived. And what a bunch of layabouts they were! Zyme thought as he fussed about in the main lab, getting things ready for his employees to be able to do their work.
 
What few of them there were, anyway. Megakat Biochemical was horrendously understaffed these days. In the wake of Elrod Purvis' transformation into Dr. Viper, most of the lab's staff had elected to quit their jobs rather than come to work not knowing whether they'd be attacked by a mutated half cat, half snake mad scientist, or worse, eaten by one of the many freaks of nature he created. So despite the building's size, it had a staff of less than 100 people, half of them security personnel. With the exception of Alvie and his friend whose name Zyme could never remember, most of the guards were the only dependable employees of the lab. Alvie and his friend tended to just sit around and eat donuts. Zyme had a feeling they would come to a bad end one day due to their inattentiveness. Thus, aside from the night guards waiting for their shift to change, Zyme was alone in the building.
 
But he wouldn't be for long. Hearing the sound of an approaching helicopter, Zyme glanced up and out the window and saw a lone Enforcer chopper flying towards the building, from the direction of the park where, Zyme knew, some sort of celebration was being held. The chopper flew overhead and Zyme thought it landed on the roof. Idly he hoped it was Commander Feral. Although most of Megakat City, from City Hall to Kat's Eye News, didn't think too highly of Feral, Zyme liked him. He liked his drive, his dedication, and his respect for competency. That and he was a total hunk.
 
Since Dr. Viper's first appearance Zyme had mostly withdrawn from the public. He'd never had much of a social life prior to that, but, since his humiliating rape at the hands of his mutated former assistant, he'd become considerably less buoyant and didn't attend as many conventions or meetings, and completely threw himself into his work at the lab, even more-so than before. He wasn't even aware of the refinery bombings that had happened just yesterday afternoon. His health had begun to suffer as a result. He ate less, and had lost a lot of weight. He was seeing a psychiatrist, and he was the only person in Megakat City apart from Viper himself who knew what actually happened to Zyme that day while they waited for the Mayor. However the therapy wasn't helping, mostly due to Zyme's inability to tell his shrink that he'd secretly enjoyed what Viper did to him.
 
At the thought of Viper, Zyme glanced over at a small table in the far corner. Its lone occupant was an Erlenmeyer flask of water with a rose in it, with a tall glass dome barrier over it. The rose was mutated, possessing a four-fanged mouth and a lapping forked tongue. Zyme had kept the thing as a reminder of the Viper Mutagen project, and kept it alive by feeding it mice every now and then.
 
He heard the sound of the elevator dinging in the hallway, and a moment later a party of four cats came into the room. He smiled. Commander Feral was leading them. Behind him were Mayor Manx, Deputy Mayor Callie Briggs, and an Enforcer whose name Zyme did not know. He was wearing a helmet and a radio headset, so Zyme guessed he was a pilot. They all looked extremely solemn; Manx in particular looked positively terrified. Zyme instantly knew something was wrong. He left the rose's table and walked to the center of the room to meet them.
 
"Good morning, Commander," he said as they approached.
 
"No time for idle chit-chat, Dr. Zyme," Feral snapped, holding up a hand. "We've got serious trouble."
 
Zyme resisted the urge to crack a smile as he idly looked the Commander up and down, undressing him with his eyes. Feral didn't seem to notice. "Trouble?" he said. "What sort of trouble?"
 
"Well--" Feral began.
 
He was immediately cut off by the Mayor who shoved past him and walked right up to Zyme, waving his arms wildly. Zyme had had a lazy erection building in his pants from thinking about Feral naked, but that soon wilted as Manx yelled, "There's these huge purple things and they're headed right this way! I don't even know what we're doing here!" He shot an angry look at Commander Feral. Clearly, Hizzoner disliked having to be at what would soon be ground zero for a monster attack.
 
"Purple things? What on Earth are you talking about?" Zyme said, blinking.
 
Feral stepped up. "We don't know what they are. But they're big and getting bigger every minute. And worse, whenever we shoot them they split apart into more! I found out that out the hard way. Basically, Doctor, we need your help to figure out what they are and how to kill them."
 
The Mayor roughly grabbed Zyme by the front of his lab coat, shaking him wildly, wailing, "You've got to do something, Dr. Zyme! Before those big purple globs destroy my beautiful city!" Feral grabbed the Mayor's shoulders and shook him until he released Zyme, who staggered back a bit, dizzied by Manx's outburst.
 
Feral shooed Hizzoner towards the door. "Why don't you go out and wait in the hall, Mayor? And try to stay calm."
 
"Calm?" Manx said. "At a time like this?! You're crazy!" Gibbering in fear, he turned and ran from the lab, leaving the other four alone.
 
Zyme sighed, rubbing his temples, feelings the first pangs of a headache coming on. He really, really hated Mondays. "How soon until they get here?" he asked.
 
Feral looked past him. "About a minute-and-a-half. Look!" He pointed. Zyme turned and looked out the huge front windows of the lab to see two huge purple-colored organisms stomping down the street, headed right for the lab! They were vaguely humanoid in shape, with arms and legs, and have enormous, black gaping-wide mouths that were...smiling? Both of the huge monsters were grinning, no, leering evilly as they approached. Those smiles gave Zyme the chills. Mustering his courage he approached the window, which ran from floor to ceiling; in fact, this entire wall of the main lab was glass, consisting of two of these huge windows. Zyme wasn't worried, though. Since the incident when the SWAT Kats smashed through one window, then knocked Dr. Viper out the other, Zyme had both windows refitted with shatterproof armored glass.
 
He looked at the two monsters. They looked like giant germs! The one on the left had one huge, cycloptic eye, while the one on the right had two eyes. Never in his life had Zyme seen something so disgusting and terrifying, and yet, at the same time, so fascinating. Only one person could have created these things. Only Dr. Viper had such a knack for these kinds of mutations. Clearing his throat, he turned to Feral, Deputy Mayor Briggs, and the pilot, saying, "They appear to be giant bacteria!"
 
They all frowned in disgust. Callie went over to the window as Zyme walked away from it, going over to Feral and the pilot. He stroked his practically nonexistent chin, thinking. Obviously, the best way to deal with giant germs was with a large quantity of antibiotics. Luckily, the lab had a bulk supply. In fact, there was some in a few flasks on a nearby worktable, which Zyme went to. The antibiotics were part of someone's experiment, but Zyme figured that the impending attack by huge monsters overrode that particular scientist's work. "On such short notice, this is the best I can do," he said, picking up one of the flasks and holding up for the others to see. Feral in particular looked very interested, and leaned in close, eyeing the flask's contents. "It contains the most powerful antibiotics known," Zyme continued. "Hopefully, it should stop them."
 
"It better work," said Callie Briggs over by the window. "Because those things are heading straight for us!"
 
Zyme handed the flask off to Commander Feral, who turned and handed it to the pilot. The pilot frowned, unsure of just what he was supposed to do with it. Zyme walked over to the window, smiling, feeling confident about the building's defenses. Although ineffective against penetration by cat-sized individuals, Megakat Biochemical was impervious to attack from anything too big to fit through the front door. Or at least Zyme thought so anyway. "Don't worry, Miss Briggs," he assured her. She backed away from the window, but he stopped her, putting an arm around her, making her step back up to the glass. "These windows are practically indestructible!" To emphasize his point, he knocked on the glass which made a dull clunking sound. Callie didn't looked convinced, but she'd soon see. Just wait for one of those monsters to try and smash through, Zyme thought.
 
Outside, the two foremost of the laser cannons swivelled around to meet the approaching bacteria monsters. These were Megakat Biochemical's primary defenses against attack. They fired, blasting through the monsters' bodies. This didn't seem to have much effect, though. Apart from their eyes, the germs appeared to lack any vital organs and were just composed of the mushy purple slime all the way through. The lasers passed harmlessly through them. Zyme frowned, and his frown deepened when the one-eyed monster suddenly lifted up its huge gooey hand and smashed the first cannon to bits in one blow! He quickly realized that against these creatures, at least, the building's laser cannons were not going to be effective. He turned away from the window, leaving Callie there, and went over to Commander Feral and the pilot, who was still holding the flask of antibiotics.
 
"How are we going to deliver it?" asked Feral as they heard the muffled explosion that signified the destruction of the second laser cannon.
 
"I have a large hypodermic needle with I think can be rigged to fire from your helicopter," Zyme said said. He grabbed the flask from the Enforcer pilot, making him jump.
 
Feral nodded. "Let's get to it, then. I just hope we have time!"
 
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Dr. Viper waited down in the sewer for the bacteria monsters to finish destroying all of the cannons that defended Megakat Biochemical. Although he correctly predicted they'd be of little use against his creations, better safe than sorry. After hearing the last explosion, he climbed up the ladder and popped the manhole cover, peering out. The coast was clear. Katalyst 99 would be his! All of the cannons were destroyed. Knocking the cover off, Viper literally launched himself out of the manhole and landed deftly on his feet. He only saw two bacteria monsters. Where was the third one, the second single-eyed bacteria? Viper shrugged inwardly. Probably off somewhere else having fun, he guessed.
 
He had to note the irony of this particular sewer access point. Not only was it the manhole he'd used to arrive at Megakat Biochemical immediately following Purvis' resurrection and transformation into Dr. Viper, it had also provided the means for his escape after his first encounter, and first defeat, at the hands of the SWAT Kats.
 
"While the bacteria wreak havoc, I will raid the labsss," Viper hissed, and strutted confidently towards the front entrance of the building. Impenetrable? No. More like ludicrously easy to get into! The defenses of the building were a joke, designed around large-scale assaults, not to mention creatures who could actually be injured by getting shot. Speaking of the bacteria, as he pushed through the front door and entered the lobby, Viper thought about how much easier it would've been had the original bacteria, the one that used to be Morbulus, continued through the sewer and used the manhole outside Megakat Biochemical instead of jumping the gun and popping up in the park. Viper was finding these creatures extremely difficult to control, unlike his other creations. He supposed it was due to what little remained of Morbulus' mind, being defiant to the end, but it didn't matter. Although the first monster leaving the sewer too soon had delayed the robbery and set Viper's schedule back at least a good twenty or thirty minutes, he'd gained three monsters due to the first's unexpected ability to fission into two creatures when hit with enough force. So, he was running late, but it was no matter. Three monsters would keep the SWAT Kats and the Enforcers busy long enough for him to obtain Katalyst 99 and get out of there before anyone could stop him.
 
He wondered whether he'd run into Zyme while he was here. Old Newton did have a habit of coming into work much earlier than the other researchers. There was no one at the front desk. He soon found out why when he heard a toilet flush and a security guard emerged from the men's room. Viper did not recognize him. He was wearing a different uniform from Emil, and was one of the new guards from a new security company who Zyme had hired.
 
"What's all the racket out here?" he demanded. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Viper, and quickly went for the gun on his hip. Viper was faster. One swipe of his tail sent the guard sailing across the lobby and smashing into the far wall with a dull thud. Viper didn't bother with him any more and went immediately to the stairwell. This was way too easy. Viper almost regretted using his biggest, baddest monster to date for something as mundane as a robbery.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
"It's all loaded, Commander!" Zyme yelled, lowering the jack he'd used to attach the three-foot hypo to the bottom of the Enforcer chopper sitting on the rooftop helipad. He stood back, the wind from the already-spinning rotor blades whipping his hair around wildly. He'd rigged the enormous syringe with rocket so that it could be launched like a missile from the chopper. If this proved successful, Zyme had another one just like it. Feral need only to return to reload.
 
Commander Feral stood in the side door of the chopper. The pilot was already at the controls. Feral nodded. "Good," he said, and then turned to the pilot and was about to tell him to take off when they suddenly heard a sudden cry from off to the left. "Wait! I'm coming too" Both Zyme and Feral turned to see Mayor Manx come charging out of the stairwell door and race across the roof. He jumped up into the side of the chopper, but didn't quite make it. He hung there half in and half out of the chopper, legs kicking frantically as he tried, without success, to pull himself up. "I don't want to be around here if this stuff doesn't work!"
 
Zyme scowled, disgusted by the Mayor's lack of confidence in his idea, as well as his cowardice. This was the Mayor of Megakat City who'd somehow been re-elected nine times? Feral seemed to share his sentiments, because, after the Mayor finally managed to pull his chubby self up into the chopper, he growled, "You're a coward, Manx!"
 
Manx held up a finger. "You don't get to be Mayor for ten terms without bein' cautious!"
 
The door closed, and Zyme stood back as the helicopter lifted off and flew away. Once it was safe to do so, Zyme walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. Both of the bacteria monsters were just sort of standing there, milling around, not doing very much. One of them, the two-eyed one, grabbed a parked car and stuffed it into its mouth, eating it in one huge bite. "Ew," Zyme said, grimacing. Suddenly he heard the roar of jet engines and turned to see a black and red fighter jet approaching the scene. The Turbokat, he believed it was called. It was the SWAT Kats! Where in the world had they been all this time? Despite saving him from being mutated by Viper long ago, Zyme didn't really think too highly of the vigilantes. Their methods were far too destructive. There had been enough damage to the lab already, and Zyme wasn't going to stand for any further demolition.
 
He watched as the Turbokat flew down towards the two-eyed bacteria monster and launched a missile at it. Initially Zyme thought that the SWAT Kats did not know of the monsters' ability to divide, but then the casing of the missile broke apart, revealing an electrical conductor, sparking with electricity. The bacteria eagerly caught the missile in its mouth and wolfed it down. A few seconds later there were bluish electrical bolts surging all over its body, as it convulsed hideously and then finally exploded, and was reduced to a pile of ash. Zyme stroked his chin. "Hmm," he said, "that was effective." He watched as Commander Feral's chopper swooped down at the remaining bacteria monster, the one with a single eye. Wanting to watch this up close, Zyme turned and ran back downstairs to the main lab where he found Callie Briggs still standing at the window. He joined her.
 
Just as he did, the bacteria monster came over and peered in at them, allowing Zyme to see its gruesome visage up close. Callie clung to him fearfully, and her to her, the two of them frozen in place as they giant eyeball scrutinized them like they were bugs in a jar. Suddenly, its attention was grabbed by the approaching Enforcer chopper, and it turned away. Zyme felt a tremendous surge of relief at this. Looking at the creature's eye made him suspect that perhaps it wasn't entirely a germ. It seemed to him that it might have originally been some other kind of animal, or worse, perhaps even another cat, before Dr. Viper mutated it.
 
The giant hypo was launched from Feral's chopper and the bacteria caught it in its mouth. It turned greyish-brown and began to shrivel up. It was dying! Triumphantly, Zyme threw his fists into the air, shouting, "It worked!"
 
Meanwhile, Dr. Viper emerged from the stairwell on the fourteenth floor and hurried down the hall to the open doors of the main lab. He arrived in time to hear Newton Zyme yell, "It worked!" He saw Zyme and that annoying Callie Briggs over by one of the windows, looking out at one of the bacteria monsters which had turned a kind of greyish color and looked like it was a dried-up grey raisin. How odd. Then, he grinned, realizing what was happening. They'd used antibiotics against the monster. He chuckled darkly, knowing the truth. "You were alwaysss an arrogant fool, Dr. Zyme!" he said aloud. Both Zyme and Callie turned towards him, wide-eyed. "My bacteria is immune to antibioticsss!" Indeed, Viper had thought ahead. The effects of the antibiotic formula would last only a few seconds, and then the bacteria would return to normal. Outside, the hardened shell around the creature was already beginning to crumble away.
 
Zyme and Callie were so fixated on Viper that neither of them noticed the bacteria coming back to life. But it noticed them. Zyme, shaking uneasily, stepped back, getting behind Callie so that she was between himself and Viper, and bumped into the window, knocking the back of his head against it. This was the first time he had seen Viper since that fateful day he had raped him right here in this very room, then gotten knocked out the very window he was leaning back against. The cycloptic, grinning visage of the bacteria monster loomed right behind him, but he didn't notice. Viper grinned evilly at this. Zyme blinked, unsure of precisely what it was the mutant snake-cat was grinning about, but then Callie turned and saw the monster behind them. Noticing her look, Zyme spun around just as the huge, slimy purple hand reached up and collided with the window....and shattered the glass!
 
Zyme couldn't believe it! That glass was designed to withstand almost anything! The strength of Viper's bacteria monster was amazing! It wasn't just a giant bacteria; it was a super giant bacteria. Zyme threw up his arms up in front of his face, shielding himself from the flying shards of glass as Callie turned and ran away. When Zyme lowered his arms and looked up, he gave a small cry as he saw the bacteria looking down at him. Unable to move, he simply screamed as the mouth opened, thick strands of purple slime connecting the upper and lower jaws, and then the head bent down towards him. He threw up his arms again in a futile effort to defend himself as the huge shadow fell across him, and he knew he was done for.
 
Viper stood by and watched as the bacteria monster prepared to eat Newton Zyme, and was unsure about precisely how he felt about this. True, Zyme was his enemy, but then he remembered why he had originally spared Zyme rather than killing him himself in the first place.He felt that Zyme's brilliant, but misguided, mind would be a useful thing to have at his disposal once he ruled Megakat City. And if the giant bacteria ate Zyme, that wouldn't happen! He was entertaining the thought of yelling for the creature to stop when suddenly he turned and went over to where the katalysts were kept. He didn't need Zyme. He was brilliant enough on his own.
 
Zyme stood, shivering, face still covered, unable to look. The horrible grinning maw of the bacteria had actually been right over him, upper lip behind him and lower lip in front of him, and had he looked he would've been able to see right down its "throat." But the monster was distracted from its meal by the annoying Enforcer chopper, which it turned and swatted at with its hand. Slowly, Zyme looked. The bacteria monster was moving away, following the retreating chopper. It hadn't eaten him. He was alive. Not wanting to risk his life any further, the middle-aged scientist spun around and ran from the lab. He shoved past Callie Briggs in his panic, charging through the doors and into the hall, making for the stairwell. Behind him he heard Callie telling Dr. Viper he wasn't going to get away with this.
 
Viper, for his part, had been pretty much ignoring the both them, gleefully gathering up an armload of jars containing Katalyst 99. Five, six, seven, he soon had nine in all, and was grabbing a tenth when he heard Callie behind him say, "You won't get away with this, Dr. Viper!" Ugh, that annoying bitch, he thought, turning and glaring angrily at her. Aside from the SWAT Kats, no one annoyed him more than the Deputy Mayor. He'd considered her a self-righteous little cunt even back when he was still Elrod Purvis and she visited the lab with the Mayor. Oh, how he was suddenly filled with the urge to kill her.
 
"No, Miss Briggssss," he snarled, "it'sss you who won't get away!" Before she could react he whipped out his tail and grabbed her with it, dragging the screaming blonde she-kat over to himself. She didn't put up much of a fight. Zyme had struggled harder than she was back when he'd grabbed him with his tail. Nevertheless, she was struggling all the same, and it only annoyed him further, so he tightened his coils, which silenced her. He began to contemplate how he would dispose of her when suddenly the Turbokat shot past the broken window, startling him. He turned, watching it go by. So, the SWAT Kats were here, too, were they? What was this? he thought. A fucking reunion? This changed things. Now, he could no longer afford to kill Callie. Now, he needed her as a hostage, which meant continuing to put up with her bullshit and perhaps even let her go if that was what it would take for him to escape with Katalyst 99.
 
Zyme was nowhere to be seen. Viper figured the bacteria monster had gotten him. He was about to leave with his armload of Katalyst 99 and his hostage when suddenly he turned and looked through the second, unbroken window of the lab and saw the Turbokat flying towards him. Aw, shit! This was not good! Before he could even think about moving the Turbokat flew through the window, completely destroying the day's second set of armored glass, and landed in the middle of the lab. The force of its entrance was enough to both cause Viper to drop both his hostage and the canisters of Katalyst 99, and fling him bodily across the room where he smacked into the wall and slid down into an upright sitting position, dazed. The canopy of the jet opened and T-Bone got out, leaping down and landing beside Callie, helping her to her feet. "Game's over, Dr. Viper," he declared, pointing to Razor who had what appeared to be a rocket launcher covering Viper.
 
Dr. Viper really hated Mondays.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Newton Zyme was so completely out of breath by the time he finally made it down to the ground level of the building, that after charging through the stairwell door he literally fell forwards onto the floor of the lobby, gasping for breath. He lay there unmoving for a while, trying to catch his breath. Suddenly there was a muffled explosion, and the entire building shook as though a bomb had gone off somewhere. Jolted, Zyme looked up, and then saw, through the front doors of the lobby, flaming debris landing out front. What had happened? Glancing over, he noticed one of the guards, named Herb Deemer, lying over by the wall. His compassion for another cat superseding his exhaustion, Zyme rose to his feet and walked over, kneeling down beside the body. He checked his pulse. Herb was alive, just unconscious. He had a nasty-looking bump on his head and his hair was matted with blood. The dent in the wall told Zyme the guard had been flung into it.
 
Grabbing the unconscious Herb and began struggling to drag the larger cat to the front entrance. He wasn't overweight or anything, but very muscular, and therefore heavy. However using all of his strength, Zyme managed to do it. But when he reached the door he found it blocked by the fiery debris. Setting the guard down he tried the door. It opened a few inches before banging into a chunk of concrete. Trapped! They would just have to wait until rescue came.
 
Hearing Herb moan, Zyme turned, and noticed he was starting to awaken, but was still groggy. Suddenly the stairwell door opened. Zyme saw Dr. Viper emerge, a few containers of Katalyst 99 in his arms. His hair was smoking, his fur blackened with soot, and his lab coat was singed. He looked really pissed. Zyme yelped, which got Viper's attention, making him look over. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Zyme, who he realized had managed to escape from the bacteria. He, himself, had just barely managed to escape from the burning lab before the flames reached the stores of chemicals, causing an explosion that, Viper thought, took out the entire fourteenth floor. He'd been forced to sacrifice two canisters of Katalyst 99 in order to ensure that this would happen, by shaking them up and throwing them, which started the fire. It had spread quicker than he thought it would, and he'd only managed to get out with six jars of the stuff. Six was better than nothing, he figured.
 
Now, he eyed Zyme. That muscular guard he'd knocked aside earlier was at his feet. How cute. Zyme was trying to help him. But with the door blocked by debris from the destroyed fourteenth floor, neither of them was going anywhere. And since it would take a while for any rescue attempts to get through all that, Viper could take his time. Composing himself, doing his best to look intimidating even though he was just as exhausted and haggard as Zyme was, Viper walked slowly over to them.
 
"Hello, Newton," he said. "Did you missss me?" He sneered. Zyme gulped. Nothing had changed since their last encounter. Zyme still got weak in the knees shook with terror in Viper's presence. Whether it was because of the rape, or because of his appearance in general, Viper wasn't sure, but he did know that he liked it. He enjoyed putting fear into Zyme. And now, he was in a position to ensure that he'd be able to do this anytime he wanted. He decided, on the spot, that he would take Zyme with him as his prisoner, back to the swamp, and keep him there. He'd force him to be his assistant, just as Purvis had been Zyme's assistant all those years, and make his life a living hell.
 
"Get away from me!" Zyme said, circling around, moving away from Viper who continued on his previous path, stopping at the feet of the unconscious security guard.
 
"Aw, why don't you want to ssspend more time with me?" Viper said, turning around to face Zyme. "There'sss nowhere to run, Zyme. And thisss time, there's no SWAT Katssss to come and sssave you from me. Now, you're all mine!"
 
His tail whipped out and seized Zyme, dragging him over as the older biochemist shrieked and struggled. Yup. He was putting up more of a fight than Callie had, definitely. "No!" he yelled. "Put me down this instant, Purvis! I demand that you put me down, you--you--you...you vile rapist!"
 
Viper chuckled. "Sssso, you haven't forgotten," he said, eyes narrowing. "All the more reason for you to return home with me. We have sssso much to catch up on!"
 
Zyme wiggled fiercely, shaking his head, clearly terrified but determined to resist. He was not going to surrender to Viper, and let him violate him a second time! "I won't go anywhere with you, Purvis!"
 
Viper scowled. Not at Zyme calling him by his old name. He'd long given up on persuading Zyme to refer to him by his new moniker of Dr. Viper. No, he was annoyed at the idea of Zyme resisting. All the way through the sewer, and then all the way through the swamp to his tree. He was getting a headache just thinking about it. He had no doubts he could make Zyme see his point of view once they were completely alone out in the swamp, with not another soul around for miles, but after everything he'd been through this morning he was not in the mood to put up with Zyme's bitching. Suddenly, he got an idea. Grinning wickedly, he lowered Zyme and set him back down on the floor and his coils released him.
 
Zyme looked confused, but then Viper's tail slithered over and wrapped around Herb Deemer's barely conscious form, lifting the dazed guard up into the air. Zyme watched in horror. "What are you doing?" he demanded to know.
 
Viper sneered. "Either you come willingly with me, or he diesss." The coils tightened a bit around Deemer and he groaned in pain.
 
Zyme blanched, covering his mouth, unsure of what to do. If he didn't do as Viper said, then an innocent guard was going to die! He remembered how guilty he had felt about causing Purvis' death, even though it was purely accidental, and he didn't want to have another life on his hands. He had only one choice. He sighed and lowered his head, clenching his fists. "Do you promise not to kill him if I go with you?" he asked.
 
Viper knew instantly that he had won. It was smooth sailing from here on, provided his second captive didn't go ballistic if he woke up on the way home. "Yesss," he answered, pausing to remove the gun from the guard's hip holster with his free hand. It might come in handy, and it was best not left in Deemer's possession, obviously. "I sssswear I will not kill him, if you will cooperate and return to my home with me."
 
Zyme nodded and then looked up, tears welling in his eyes. He was filled with intense dread. His next words sealed his fate. "All right, then. I, uh, I'll go with you."
 
"Grand!" Viper said. Hoisting Deemer a bit more for easier carrying, Viper started across the lobby to a door that led to the basement. "Come on, we can't go out the front. We'll use the sssewer entrance down in the basement." He nudged the door open with his elbow, and turned, looking at Zyme expectantly. "Well?" he said. Giving a great, heaving sigh, Zyme walked over and, at Viper's insistence, went down the short flight of steps first. Viper followed, leaving the door hanging open. There was the manhole cover, right where Viper remembered it was. It led into the building's cistern, and that led to the sewers. "You open it, I don't have any handsss free," he ordered Zyme.
 
Zyme nodded, and stooped down next to the manhole and, with some effort, grunted and lifted the cover off. A foul stench assaulted his nose. He'd never been down in a sewer before in his life. The smell reminded me of the way Viper had smelled, when he'd forced Zyme to suck his cock. Once again, Viper made Zyme go down first, and Zyme carefully made his way down a ladder. He could hear running water and the squeaking of rats, but beyond the beam of light streaming through the opened manhole everything was absolutely pitch dark. Zyme waited at the bottom for Viper, who simply jumped down, as climbing down while carrying a gun, six canister of Katalyst 99, and an unconscious security guard would've been a real hassle. Luckily Viper was graceful enough that he landed gingerly, without shaking up the canisters. Unlike Zyme, Viper could see in the dark perfectly.
 
He smiled, inhaling the sweet, sweet smell of sewage and grime. This was where he was at home. Up on the surface, inside modern buildings and on city streets, he was not at home, and for more reasons than simply disliking being stared at. His transformation was more than simply physical. It had changed him mentally and psychologically as well. Not only had the relatively mediocre and uninspired scientist Purvis been instantly transformed into a super-genius, but he had also developed certain new instincts and tastes. Among these, was an inexplicable preference for places that were dark, warm and dank. Next to the swamp and his hideout there, the sewer was the next best place.
 
"All right," he said, "let'sss go. We've got a long walk ahead of usss."
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
It was a long walk. Long enough for Herb Deemer to have awakened. His head injury made struggling difficult, so Viper did not have to put up with a lot of kicking and squirming. Here was where the gun came in handy. After explaining things to the guard, Viper told him and Zyme to walk in front of him the rest of the way, following his vocal directions while he kept the pistol pointed at their backs. In this fashion the three journeyed through the sewer and, finally, emerged in Megakat Swamp through a giant corrugated drain pipe that emptied raw sewage into the marshlands. Zyme, walking in front, shielded his eyes from the sudden bright sunshine after spending so much time in the darkness of the tunnels. Behind him, he heard Viper say, "Quit ssstalling, Zyme."
 
He climbed down from the pipe and walked forwards, stopping near the shore where the vast lake of shallow water and mud that comprised the swamps. Immediately his feet sank into the soft mud to the ankles. "Ugh," he said, and pulled one foot free, only to discover that the shoe had come off and was still in the mud. Working more carefully with his other foot, he managed to extract it without the show coming off, and went over and helped Deemer climb down.
 
"Yuck," Deemer said, looking at the swamp.
 
Viper emerged from the pipe last of all and gave a deep, long sigh, puffing his chest out and adopting a regal pose as if he were a king returning his kingdom after years of absence. Finally! He was back in his swamp at long last. He hated leaving it. Even though the sewers were dark and dank to his liking, they couldn't compare to the beauty of his beloved swamp. Here, the light was dim and foggy, like perpetual twilight. There were eerie howls and cries in the distance. It was like another dimension, and Viper loved it. It was one of several reasons why he wished more than anything to expand his swamp into Megakat City. Looking down he noticed Zyme and the guard looking up at him, worriedly but expectantly. Back to business. Getting down, he stood before them, smirking, then motioned with the gun. "My houssse is a few milesss from here. We can make it before sssundown if we hurry. Which meansss no dawdling!"
 
Deemer nodded fearfully, while Zyme went and began trying to dig his shoe out of the mud where his foot had sunk in, but was unsuccessful. To his puzzlement and annoyance, he couldn't find it. All it got him as muddy hands. He grimaced and shook them, flinging most of the mud off, and wiping the rest off on his pants. Viper chuckled, watching him, thoroughly enjoying how obviously uncomfortable Zyme was with his new surroundings. Now the tables were turned, he thought. Now, Zyme was the one who was the freak and stuck out like a sore thumb in his neatly pressed pants and pristine white lab coat.
 
After a few more moments of standing there, they moved on. Again with Zyme in the front and Viper bringing up the rear, they waded into the marsh. Depending on where they were the water could be either ankle-deep, knee-deep, or even chest-deep, as poor Deemer found out when he fell into a small but deep hole in the marsh bed. "Help! Help!" he yelled, flailing, "I can't swim!" Zyme came to his rescue, pulling the struggling guard back into the shallow part of the swamp. Viper chuckled, then motioned with the gun and they moved on. In the distance was Viper's home. It was an enormous, twisted dead tree, one of several dotting the swamp and, in fact, the largest.
 
Midway, Zyme lost his other shoe, and they stopped as Deemer took his off, too. In their socks, they continued until they finally arrived at the base of the tree, which was at least twelve stories tall. Alongside it Viper had build a crude dock of sorts, onto which they climbed. Zyme frowned. He knew, obviously, that Viper lived inside the tree, but couldn't see any entrance. Then he noticed a rope ladder hanging down and looked up. The ladder went up to a large knot in the side of the tree, which served as a natural balcony of sorts. The front door to Viper's home was there, high above the swamp floor.
 
"Now what?" said Deemer.
 
"Up," Viper said, pointing with the gun.
 
Zyme went up first. It was difficult for him, being so out of shape, to hoist himself up. Halfway up he stopped, panting, but Deemer, behind him, pushed up and helped him climb the rest of the way. Viper stood below for a moment, watching them climb, Zyme in particular. He couldn't but notice the older scientist's unusually nice butt outlined in his wet trousers. Looking at the gun, he decided he no longer needed it. Now that they were at their destination, escape was impossible. There was no way either Zyme or the guard could make it through the swamp on their own without him. He tossed the gun aside and it landed with a splash in the water. A huge alligator immediately appeared, ate it, and then disappeared back beneath the murky surface.
 
Using both feet and his one free hand, Viper climbed up the ladder. He made it up effortlessly. Back when he first found the tree, he'd of course had to stock it with equipment to make a lab, and that involved, of course, carrying armloads of things up the rope ladder. Thusly he made it to the top without much effort, to find both Zyme and Deemer sitting down, panting from the climb. Now Viper led the way, his tail tip deliberately brushing across Zyme's cheek fur as he walked past him. After catching his breath, Zyme got up and followed him glumly. Deemer stood, looked out over the vastness of the swamp, gulped nervously, then turned and hurried after the other two.
 
The knot had a knothole, a deep one, which served as a kind of tunnel into the rotted, hollowed-out interior of the tree, which was honeycombed with different "rooms" and chambers, most of which were empty, as Viper lived alone and had no need to furnish every single room. At the end of the tunnel was a small flight of stairs, which Viper had made himself, and the trio climbed up it and into the main hollow of the tree, the biggest one of them all, which served as both Viper's living room and laboratory. There was a ratty couch, two even worse-looking chairs, a crooked, ramshackle coffee table; aside from lab equipment that was about it for the room, surprising given its vastness.
 
Everything else in the room was devoted entirely to Viper's twisted scientific pursuits. There were several tables, each one crammed to overflowing with beakers, test tubes, and retorts, many heating over bunsen burners, causing the room to be filled with an audible bubbly sound as the insidious concoctions cooked. Viper went over to one of these and unceremoniously swept all of the beakers and flasks right off of it and sent them crashing to the floor, making Zyme and Deemer jump. He then carefully set down all six containers of Katalyst 99, one by one, on the tabletop. Mission accomplished. Stretching and popping his joints, Viper sighed and adjusted his lab coat, then turned to his two "guests." He was only interested in Zyme. The guard could've drowned out in the swamp, for all Viper cared, and, for now at least, the snake-cat scientist ignored him completely and focused entirely on Zyme.
 
"Welcome to my humble home," he said, spreading his arms wide, his voice reverberating off the walls. Lowering his arms, he said, "You'll be ssstaying here for quite sssome time."
 
Zyme, in the meantime, was feeling as hollow as the tree they were in. He was stuck, just as surely as both his lost shoes were stuck out in the swamp. He wondered if anyone would ever wonder what had happened to him? Deputy Mayor Briggs was the only one who had seen him last, and had seen that he'd escaped being eaten by the bacteria monster, but even she must have simply assumed he'd been killed in the explosion that had consumed the entire fourteenth floor. It would take them months for rescue teams to sort through the burned-out wreck to discover no sign of a body, and only then would they realize he was missing and not simply dead, but by then it would be too late. He coughed. The air was damp and hot, and made his fur all sticky. His clothes were drying out now, at least. He looked over at Viper, who stood, crossing his arms and smirking, his big tail lashing behind him.
 
Finally, Zyme said, "What do you plan to do with us?"
 
"Whatever I want," Viper said. He then walked towards him.
 
Viper went up to Zyme and stood before him. He couldn't have been happier. His old boss was now, at last, his prisoner, and would remain so for as long as he deemed fit. There so many deliciously evil things Viper wanted to do to him, he didn't know where to start! No, he thought, he shouldn't rape Zyme again. That would only make Zyme hate him. And although normally he didn't care what anyone thought of him, if Zyme hated him it would mean more resistance, and although that was yummy from time to time, Viper knew he'd tired of it pretty soon and begin to desire obedience from his prisoner. He had to make Zyme like him, but also fear him at the same time. It was a difficult balance that he would have to work to maintain in order to, so to speak, heat Zyme to his desired temperature and keep him there, but it was a challenge he was going to enjoy undertaking.
 
"You enjoyed what we did lassst time, didn't you?" Viper said softly, making sure that as he spoke he blew his cool breath across Zyme's face. He knew his breath would not smell very good to Zyme, but it would, he knew, be a good stimulant to start with.
 
Zyme closed his eyes and gasped softly at this, and swallowed. "I....don't know," he lied.
 
Viper chuckled and placed his hand on Zyme's chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat. Man, was he nervous! Viper would definitely have to start small in order to calm Zyme down first, and he from last time that the best way to do this, was with sex. But this time he wasn't going to rape Zyme. This time, he was going to make him actually want it. "You're lying," he said, leaning closer, his nose and mouth inches from Zyme's. He whispered softly, "I could tell you enjoyed it. I remember how you reacted. You resisted me at firssst, but after a while, you really got into it, didn't you? Come on, Zyme. Admit it. Admit that you have thoughtsss about me....thoughtsss of Purvisss. Ones you don't share with anyone elssse."
 
The other scientist trembled. Against his will he could feel his cock hardening in his pants, beginning to make an obvious bulge. Finally he nodded, slowly, giving a small whimper, keeping his eyes closed. Viper leaned even closer, his nose touching Zyme's, his lips against his, but not kissing him yet. He whispered, practically into Zyme's mouth, "I thought ssso." Then, he kissed Zyme, gently. Zyme gave a muffled noise of protest but didn't struggle, Viper's hands grabbing his hips. He gripped them tightly at first, but then his grip softened and he began to caress Zyme's sides. When his hands slid around to Zyme's ass and gripped it, Zyme finally began resisting. Viper, in no mood for this, held him firmly and continued to kiss him, and began grinding his bare loins against the bulge in Zyme's pants. Out of the corner of one eye, he saw Deemer watching them uncomfortably, and smirked into the kiss.
 
Zyme tried to resist, tried to fight, but Viper's tongue was magic. It slithered past his lips and played with his tongue, and, slowly, Zyme raised trembling hands to grab ahold of Viper's shoulders. At first Viper was afraid Zyme was going to shove him away, but he didn't, and he realized, happily, that his old colleague was getting into the spirit of things. Viper's grip on his ass tightened and he continued humping Zyme's clothed erection, pulling his lips away from Zyme's, kissing down over his modest chin and to his neck, Zyme leaning back his head and letting loose a low moan of pleasure in spite of himself. Viper's smirk widened. This was easy. Zyme had so much pent-up lust in him that the slightest hint of sexual activity from any male turned him on immensely. For his part, Viper wasn't getting aroused, at least not physically yet. Since his mutation he had learned to control his new body, and knew how to keep his penis from emerging from his genital slit at inappropriate times. Viper slid one hand away from Zyme's rear and up his back, finally coming to the back of his head and running his clawed fingers through Zyme's hair.
 
Zyme's world was spinning wildly, and, before he knew it, he was cumming inside his pants as Viper brought him to orgasm, giving a small cry. Viper chuckled and immediately pulled away, eyeing him. Zyme stood there, panting, sweaty, feeling his cock stop spurting, cum squishing inside his underwear. His knees buckled and he fell backwards onto his butt. "Oof!" he said, bringing up a hand and palming his perspiring forehead. Viper then turned and walked away from him, once again deliberately making sure that his tail tip slid across Zyme's face, his nose this time. Zyme, in his post-orgasmic stupor, moaned in response.
 
Viper stood in the middle of the room for a moment. Zyme wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, but what about that guard? Deemer still stood where he had been a few minutes ago, shaking, completely weirded out by what he had just witnessed. Viper noted how muscular and fit he was. When it came to other cats, Viper preferred to use athletic ones in good health for his monsters because of their solid build. Up until now he hadn't given it much thought, but as he watched the big guard quivering, he finally decided to mutate him. Once that decision was made, he grinned evilly and walked over to one of his worktables. He perused the apparatus there and finally found a stoppered Florence flask filled with a sickly green liquid. Pulling off the stopper, he then rolled up his sleeve and picked up a scalpel, and cut himself on the back of his forearm, wincing. His green blood dripped down into the flask and mixed with the chemical inside it. The blood wasn't absolutely necessary, but he found it allowed him better control over his creations, and after the way the bacteria monster misbehaved today, he wasn't going to mutate another living thing without adding his blood into the mix.
 
That accomplished, he watched as the cut healed slowly, a benefit of having regenerative mutagen in him. Then, he picked up the flask and walked over to Deemer as Zyme slowly stood, watching, puzzled. Viper's tail suddenly whipped out and wrapped around Deemer's throat, hauling the guard to his knees, gagging. Zyme, horrified, cried, "No, wait! You promised you wouldn't kill him!"
 
"Who said I was going to kill him?" Viper said with a smirk, then upended the flask over Deemer and poured the contents onto his head, then released him.
 
As soon as the chemicals hit Deemer's head they fizzled and bubble, and, immediately, the guard began to undergo a horrifying transformation. Horrifying for Zyme anyway. Viper enjoyed every second of it. Deemer stood, gagging. "What's happening to--Aahhhhh!" Suddenly his arms transformed into thick green tentacles, which split apart his shirt sleeves. His hands ceased to exist. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, Zyme gasped as they glowed blood-red. Soon all of his fur turned green. There were loud cracking and snapping sounds and Deemer's legs suddenly split apart three ways each, shredding his pants, the split legs forming into six tentacles, as big as the ones that used to be his arms. This forced Deemer to become shorter, but then his chest swelled, bursting through his uniform shirt, buttons flying everywhere. One hit Zyme in the nose as he watched, shocked. His mouth became larger, with sharp teeth, widening and stretching to take up almost the entire front half of his body. Last of all, his head expanded into an oversized mushroom cap with cat ears on top.
 
Zyme felt like throwing up. Viper had just turned an innocent guard into a mushroom! He backed away, covering his mouth, completely horrified at having witnessed, firsthand, such a hideous transformation. Taking his hands away from his mouth, he squealed, "No! No, no, noooo! How could you?" Tears flowed from his eyes as he wept for Deemer's horrible fate, watching the awkward-looking mushroom monster he had become trying to move, wriggling its tentacles.
 
Viper's tail slithered around Zyme's waist and he pulled Zyme over to himself. "He was of no ussse to me otherwissse," he said, sneering. "He'll make a wonderful helper, I think. Don't you agree? He guard your lab, and now he can guard mine." He chuckled.
 
Zyme gagged, sickened, and felt faint. He struggled wildly, and Viper indulged him by releasing his hold on him, allowing him to break away. Zyme ran a few feet, stopped, then bent over and vomited. Not much, considering his stomach was empty, but he dry-heaved awfully. Viper came over and patted him on the back, acting as if he were a father teaching his son the "facts of life," and all throughout behaving as though what had just happened to the unfortunate guard was completely normal.
 
"What you've jussst seen is what I'll eventually do to everyone in Megakat City, so hisss fate isn't unusual," Viper said, putting his hand on Zyme's shoulder. "And you're going to help me. You'll be my assistant and help my in my experiments, jussst as Purvisss helped you with yoursss." Zyme looked up at him, wiping his mouth. "Together, we'll change the world! Isssn't that what you've alwaysss wanted to do?"
 
Zyme glared angrily up at him. "Change it for the better, not for the worse! I wanted to help catkind not, not....turn them into some kind of hideous freaks of nature!" He pointed at the mushroom-cat who was slowly getting the hang of moving around using tentacles instead of legs, but was still pretty clumsy.
 
Viper grabbed Zyme by the collar of his lab coat and hauled him to his feet. "Don't missstake my earlier affections for a genuine liking of you, Zyme," he said. "I'll just as sssson make your share his fate if your disobey me! I'll turn you into nothing but a mindless eating machine, to be usssed by me until you're killed by the SWAT Katsss!"
 
"No!" Zyme cried, horrified at the thought. "No, please! I'll do anything you want, just, please, don't turn me into....a monster."
 
Viper grinned. "As long as you obey me, Newton, you have nothing to fear from me." With that, he slid his arm around Zyme's waist and ushered him from the main chamber.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Newton Zyme awoke to find that he was positively sore all over. He was in his "room," which was little more than a narrow enclave just off the main chamber of the tree, lying on a bed which consisted of a mattress held up a couple of feet off the ground by thick roots growing out of the floor. It was tilted at an odd angle, and not very comfortable. As he had his first night here, Zyme had tossed and turned before finally managing to fall asleep, but he slept fitfully, and upon awaking would need some time before his out of shape, middle-aged body could recuperate from such a restless night's sleep.
 
He sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He half-hoped, as he had before, that the past three days had been merely a dream and that he'd awaken to discover himself back in his own apartment, but as he eyes opened and he beheld the dark bedroom, he realized it was all real. He sighed deeply. He was wearing just his boxer shorts, as he found it impossible to sleep fully-clothed; his lab coat and pants were hanging on the back of a chair a couple of feet away, the only other real piece of furniture to speak off in the dingy little room. Slowly swinging his legs out of bed, his feet touched the soft earthen floor, cool despite the warmth of the swamp, and winced as his toes squished in the moistness. He'd gotten rid of his socks his second day here, figuring he had no further use for them what with both of his shoes lost somewhere out in the swamp.
 
He stood, stretched, feeling his aching joints pop, feeling a little better. He also noticed, sleepily, that he had morning wood. That surprised him. The forty-something scientist hadn't had morning wood since his early years as a lab assistant at Megakat Biochemical! The erect penis was there, though, defiantly poking through the fly of his boxers. Gripping it and giving it a couple of experimental jerks, Zyme couldn't remember what his dream was, but for him to have morning wood for the first time after more than twenty years, it must've been pretty erotic. Even worse (or, perhaps, better, depending on one's point of view), it was a piss hard-on. Zyme's bladder felt immensely full; he needed to pee, but he also needed to cum. Gently, he eased the throbbing erection back inside the boxers, which he pulled down a bit, so that the head poked up through the waistband. This had the effect of the waistband holding the cock in place against his stomach, meaning, when he dressed, his arousal would be hidden from Viper. The last thing he was in the mood for today was more taunting from his captor about how obviously he turned Zyme on!
 
Retrieving his clothes, Zyme dressed. Like his socks, his undershirt had been gotten rid of as well, because two layers of clothing, on his upper body at least, was unbearable to the scientist in the heat of the swamp. Now, at least, he understood why Viper insisted on running around half-naked! He pulled his pants on, then slipped his lab coat on and buttoned it up, but left the top few buttons undone, including the one that held his collar together; th coat's collar-ends stuck out humorously from either side of Zyme's neck.
 
Leaving his room, Zyme found the main chamber deserted, and silent apart from the usual sounds of bubbling chemicals coming from the multiple chemical concoctions on Viper's worktable. He walked across the room and ventured down a darker, narrow tunnel opposite the entrance to his "bedroom." Yesterday and the day before he'd done some exploring of his new home, not much, but enough to know that this tunnel at least led to the outside of the tree trunk, to one of the tree's huge leafless branches. Out onto this Zyme walked, and stopped after going out far enough. He hadn't done enough exploring of the "house" to know where the bathroom was, or even if there was one, and he sure as hell didn't want to ask Viper that question! He unzipped his pants, fishing his dick out, and began to relieve himself. A thin stream of piss arced upwards from his almost painfully bent-forwards erect cock, and sprinkled down the side of the tree, to the swamp floor several feet below.
 
When he finished, he released his cock which snapped back, thumping against his paunch, sending a final squirt of piss upwards that hit Zyme in the nose. He spat, sneezed, and wiped his face with the back of his hand, then went back to the entrance in the trunk, but didn't go in yet. Instead, leaning against the side with one hand and gripping his erection in the other, Zyme began to jerk off. He stood there for perhaps five minutes without hitting climax, much to his annoyance. He wasn't actually thinking of any sexy images in particular, which was probably part of the problem; he was trying to cum simply from the physical stimulation of his hand on his cock and it just wasn't working. Sighing, he gave up for now, and after rearranging himself once more so his obvious arousal was hidden, he went back inside. At least his bladder was empty, now.
 
Almost immediately, he ran into the six foot tall, green mushroom-cat monster that was once the security guard Deemer who'd been brought here along with himself by Viper, until Viper had mutated him into his present state. He startled Zyme, who jumped back, yelping, holding up his hands in a reflexive warding-off gesture, even though, following the guard's transformation the enormous, slobbering tentacled monstrosity had been given explicit instructions by Viper to, among other things, not harm Zyme. Remembering this finally, Zyme sighed and lowered his arms, then said to it, "What do you want?" It just snarled loudly. Trying a different approach, he asked, "Where is Dr. Viper?"
 
That seemed to work. Sort of. At least it elicited a response that Zyme could understand. It batted him gently in the shoulder with one of its tentacles, making him stumble a bit, and kept doing this, herding him across the main chamber towards a wide tunnel that Zyme had not explored down yet. Clearly, though, the monster wanted him to go there, and, not wishing to keep getting smacked with that tentacle the whole way, Zyme sped up his walking, muttering, "Okay, okay, okay, I get it, stop shoving!" The creature stopped, but pointed with a tentacle at the tunnel, and Zyme walked into it, the big mushroom wriggling after him.
 
This tunnel winded considerably and seemed to lead all the way down to the base of the tree, or perhaps even deeper. Zyme had no way of telling. It was dark and he stumbled several times. The deeper they went, Zyme started to hear bubbling. Did Viper have another lab down here? He didn't doubt it. Finally reaching the bottom Zyme discovered the tunnel opened into a large chamber, smaller than the main one above but still considerably large. It was lit by several candles as well as a couple of propane lanterns and alcohol lamps, and in the center was a large pit, about eight feet long and six feet wide, filled almost to the brim with what appeared to be mud. It was bubbling, the source of the sounds he'd heard coming down.
 
Dr. Viper was in it, sans his lab coat which hung on a branch nearby that served as a hanger of sorts. He was reclining languidly against the far end of the pool, his arms folded back behind his head, eyes closed. He appeared to be sleeping.However as Zyme walked over and stood at the edge of the pit, his glowing yellow eyes opened and fixated on him, and his previously relaxed, ambiguous expression turned into a wide smirk. "Ah," he said, "good morning, Dr. Zyme. Did you sleep well?"
 
"Hardly," Zyme said, frowning, looking down at the mud pool. He dipped a toe into it experimentally. The mushroom monster entered behind him but didn't come into the room any further. He just stood--well, sat, really, blocking the exit. Zyme eyed him warily, then turned and faced Viper again, crossing his arms. "My bed isn't exactly very comfortable," he said angrily, unsure why he was confronting Viper like this instead of kowtowing to him like he had the past couple of days. "In fact, my living conditions are downright unbearable."
 
Viper took his arms out from behind his head, his smirk vanishing. "In casssse you hadn't noticed, Zyme, we're in a fucking ssswamp," he said matter-of-factly.
 
"I don't mean that," Zyme said. "I just want a regular room and a comfortable bed. You want my cooperation, don't you? Well, you aren't going to get my full cooperation, my full....erm, submission to you by bullying me and treating me like a slave." He half-hoped for Viper to snap his fingers and have the mushroom monster eat him for his insolence. After only three days here he was already filled with a complete sickness of life, at least with the way things were going now.
 
Viper shifted a bit in the pool, stroking his large, pointed chin in thought. Perhaps Zyme was right. He remembered the thinking he'd done, back when they'd first returned here, about how he would have to work to make Zyme like him, if only a little bit, in order to gain the older scientist's compliance. That was before he'd reverted back to "loony scientist" mode and sadistically mutated the captured Megakat Biochemical guard into the monster now hovering behind Zyme. The monster, which had more intelligence than any of his other creations, was turning out to be a worthwhile helper, but Viper wondered whether this benefit was at the expense of any possible relationship he might have with Zyme in the near future, given Zyme's horrified, angry reaction to the guard's fate. It was time, Viper decided, to start building up a trust with his prisoner, Viper realized. "All right," he said finally.
 
Zyme sighed, relieved. "Thank you," he said, genuinely grateful.
 
"But that'sss it for now. If you want anything elssse, then you, Zyme, not me, are going to have to bend a little bit. You'll get a bigger room and a larger bed. We even have running water in this place. I insssstalled the plumbing system myssself. Will that do?"
 
Zyme nodded. "Yes, it'll do. Speaking of which," he said, uncrossing his arms and suddenly looking a bit uncomfortable, rubbing the back of his head, "uh, I've been meaning to ask you, where is the bathroom? I've been wandering all over this place for the past couple of days and I can't seem to find it."
 
Viper laughed, throwing back his head. Unlike his previous laughs, this wasn't a cruel or insane cackle, just a regular old laugh, but one at Zyme's expense nonetheless. "Ah," he said, "so that'sss why you've been poking around."
 
"Among other reasons," Zyme said.
 
"Well, you should be careful. A lot of these tunnelssss go on forever. It'sss very easy to get lost, or worssse." Before Zyme could inquire about what could be worse than getting lost in dark tunnels, Viper added, "There'ssse some big drops in this place. Quite a real danger of falling a long way from a great height if you happen to ssstumble. Ssso, I would advise you to refrain from any further exploring until I can properly give you the full tour. Now, as your the bathroom, it'sss upstairsss." He pointed up at the ceiling as he spoke. "In the crown, up above the main room, where my own living quartersss are. Sssatisfied?"
 
"Yes," Zyme replied, now grateful he'd have somewhere to pee besides off the the branch outside the tree. Idly he ran his fingers through his hair, noticing how matted and grimy it had become. The heat and humidity has caused the hair, which normally curled upwards at sharp angles in the back of his head, to begin to wilt, so that it sort of hung down over his shoulders.
 
"Good," Viper said. Zyme noticed there was a wine bottle and a couple of martini glasses on the floor beside the rim of the pool to Viper's right. One glass was empty, the other was filled with the bottle's contents, a dark red liquid. Zyme couldn't tell from here but judging by the label's design it looked like a very expensive brand. Viper sifted a bit in the mud again and suddenly his thick, reptilian tail surfaced and began to slowly lash about, lazily flinging rivulets of muddy water. Viper cocked his head at an odd angle, his smirk returning. "Won't you join me?" he asked.
 
It wasn't really a question. More like a demand with a question mark at the end. Zyme sighed. Viper's intentions were obvious. Why was this damn snake so perverted? he wondered. He simply had to make everything about sex every chance he got. Zyme did still have a hard-on, though, and, despite being mud, the pool did nonetheless look warm and inviting, and now that they had begun cooperating at least a little bit, Zyme figured he didn't really have to worry about Viper doing anything particularly nasty to him. Nodding, he began to undo the remaining buttons of his lab coat, and was in the process of finishing it off when suddenly big green tentacles grabbed his arms. Zyme yelped, but the mushroom monster was only helping him remove the coat, which it then hung on a smaller branch alongside the one Viper's lab coat hung from. He sighed with relief. Goodness gracious, Viper's monsters gave him the willies!
 
Tentacles went for his pants but he swatted them away. "Thanks, I can get the rest myself," he said, and, blinking, the mutant mushroom-cat backed off. With that he sighed and undid his belt, letting his pants drop unceremoniously. He stepped out of them and then suddenly they were swept away by another tentacle and hung up with his lab coat. That monster just didn't give up!
 
Viper, for his part, was watching him and grinning, and noted the tip of the erect penis poking from the top of his shorts. "Morning wood, I ssssee," he said, putting one elbow on the rim of the pool and leaning his cheek against his hand. "Or do I flatter myssself?"
 
Zyme didn't answer. He merely frowned, and slipped his thumbs into the waistband of the boxers. Despite having already been seen naked by Viper before, Zyme was still self-conscious enough that he disliked being in the nude in front of anyone, let alone Viper. He knew, however, that Viper wanted him to get naked, so, he slowly pushed the boxers down off his wide hips, letting them fall the rest of the way down his legs to his ankles. Now, he stood nude before Viper, his physique diminished and scrawny apart from his potbelly, with reddish-brown pubes. Stepping out of the shorts, he reached down and picked them up before the mushroom monster could grab them. He then turned and lightly tossed them at him, and they landed on his nose and hung there. The monster blubbered annoyedly and yanked them off his face. Zyme allowed himself a small smirk, which disappeared when he turned back to Viper and stepped into the pool.
 
Nervously rubbing one arm Zyme waded further in, discovering that, the further in he went, the deeper it got. Less than three free from the edge and already he was in up to his belly button. He was grateful for the modesty this allowed him, though. He also discovered that this wasn't exactly a mud pool per se. It seemed more lick quicksand, but with a bottom to it. There was definitely water beneath the surface; it just had a thin layer of thick, slimy mud on top. It was very warm, too, and bubbling like a jacuzzi. Zyme figured it must be a natural spring of some sort.
 
"That'sss it," Viper urged, beckoning with a finger, "come on in. I won't bite." His tail began lashing a little more excitedly, and he drew up his legs so that Zyme could see the tops of his knees poking up from the surface. He was actually at the deepest end of the pool, where the bottom was about four feet beneath the surface, however he was only in up to his own waist because he was actually sitting on a shelf that was about a foot down from the rim of the pool. As Zyme approached, sinking ever deeper into the mud, Viper casually reached over and picking up the martini glass. He idly fiddled with the drink stir, which had a live, squirming earthworm stuck on it. Finally Zyme arrived right in front of Viper, in up to his armpits now. He was nervously holding both hands up out of the mud, and looking expectantly at Viper. Just looking at him like this, so obedient and submissive finally, made Viper rumble happily. He'd been erect long before Zyme came into the pool, and, like the other scientist, his arousal was concealed by the modesty offered by the mud on the surface.
 
Zyme swallowed, licking his lips, looking up at Viper. The snake-cat merely pointed down between his legs. Zyme looked down. Did Viper want him to pleasure him? Beneath the surface? Zyme couldn't hold his breath for very long, and was about to inform him of this when suddenly, Viper, growing impatient, firmly planted his hand on the top of Zyme's head, and shoved him down. Zyme resisted a bit, managing to gasp, "Wait!" before his head was shoved under fully, and Viper removed his hand and lay back, putting both feet on Zyme's shoulders, forcing him further down so that he was made to kneel at the bottom of the pool with his head at Viper's crotch level. He held his breath, cheeks bulging, and found he couldn't surface with Viper's feet on his shoulders. Deciding to do as Viper had commanded, however, before he drowned, Zyme felt around in the watery darkness until he found Viper's thighs, and followed them inwards with his hands until his fingertips touch what was undoubtedly an erect penis. He heard a muffled groan from up above him, and knew he'd found what he was searching for. Opening his mouth, letting several air bubbles escape, Zyme dove forward and took the cock past his lips.
 
Above the surface, Viper stretched out luxuriously, leaning back, squeezing his eyes shut. He hadn't felt Zyme's mouth on his cock since that first time at Megakat Biochemical years ago. And what a wonderful mouth it was. Despite appearing quite small normally, Zyme could actually open it quite widely. He wasn't a very good cocksucker, though, due, Viper figured, to inexperience. But he'd get better. Oh, yes. Besides, for now, just the mere thought of what was happening was going to be enough to bring him to orgasm. Tilting his head forwards again, he opened one eye to a slit, looking at the martini glass in his hand. Reaching, he pulled out the drink stir and eyed the worm squirming on the end. Out slithered his tongue which, just as Zyme managed to hit a sweet spot just under the head of his cock, slithered out and wrapped around the worm, pulling it off the drink stir, which Viper cast aside. The tongue, worm and all, retreated back into Viper's mouth, and the snake-cat washed his wriggling snack down with the wine, his lips pursing around the rim of the glass as Zyme's efforts improved. After he drained the glass and set it aside, he idly hoped, for Zyme's sake, that the older cat could hurry up and get him off, because he wasn't letting Zyme up for air until he came.
 
Below, Zyme was giving it all he had, learning the ropes the hard way, as it were. He was starting to learn just where Viper's sweet spots were based on the way Viper's body shook whenever they were stimulated. Now knowing what to do, and how to do it properly, he pursed his lips and began rapidly bobbing his head back and forth along the length of the cock, occasionally pausing and sucking on only the head. This, it seemed, was what finished Viper off, as the snake-cat's entire body suddenly began shuddering, cock twitching. Zyme felt something thicker than the water around him getting pumped into his mouth.
 
Viper groaned deeply as he came. "Yesssss," he hissed in carnal delight. Sitting forwards, he took his feet off of Zyme's shoulders and used his tail to wrap around Zyme underneath his arms and hoist him up. Zyme's head and shoulders broke the surface, and he coughed and sputtered, causing great gobs of green cum to dribble copiously from his mouth. His hair was now completely down. Viper admired how it looked when it was this way, and lamented the fact that once dry it would just curl back up into its former, wavy state. Zyme took deep breaths of air, and coughed some more, his hands grabbing Viper's knees for support, rivulets of muddy water cascading off his heaving form. Viper liked him this way.
 
"How did I," Zyme paused to cough, "do?" He sniffed, looking up at Viper for an answer.
 
"You did good," Viper replied. "You were a little clumsssy at first, but that'sss not surprising given how obviously inexperienced you are. But it doesn't matter."
 
He smirked, and wiped most of the mud off of Zyme's face, in particular getting it out of his eyes. Then his tail hoisted Zyme further out and he swapped places with him, setting Zyme on the ledge he'd been sitting on, and then with a grin Viper disappeared beneath the mud. Only Viper's turnip-like hairstyle, the three long strands of spiked-up black hair, could he seen above the surface. Underneath, Viper made certain to grab Zyme's ankles so Zyme couldn't do to him what he'd just done to Zyme, and then began nuzzling Zyme's crotch. He was considerably more skilled in this arena than Zyme, not necessarily due to experience, although Elrod Purvis had sucked his share of cocks, but rather due to the unique shape of his muzzle. That, and his forked tongue, which teased Zyme's member mercilessly for a bit before Viper finally took the entire length into his mouth, mindful of his fangs, and started to suckle. He was glad he had ahold of Zyme's legs, because in response to this the older cat began to violently shudder and squirm. Oooh, he was a wiggler, was he? Perfect.
 
Unlike Zyme, Viper could hold his breath for quite a long time, so, if he desired, he could stay down there for several minutes, mercilessly teasing Zyme, keeping his rival on the brink just to torture him. However, they had work to do today, and even though Zyme thought that sex was the only thing Viper ever thought about, the mutated scientist did, in fact, have other priorities. Like putting his newly-acquired supply of Katalyst 99 to good use. After all, he didn't steal it just to have it. So, he decided to forgo a long, deliciously tormenting blowjob and just go ahead and get Zyme off. He wanted his new assistant's mind to be on their work, not on sex. Whereas Zyme had brought Viper to orgasm using rapid movements, Viper, in his slinky, serpentine way, did it using much slower movements, combing both the sliding motions of his long, perfectly-shaped muzzle with the motions of his lips and tongue, to make Zyme squeal and finally explode in his mouth. That accomplished, Viper mmmed and came to the surface, rising up out of the mud like a god before Zyme who sat back, panting.
 
He still had Zyme's cum in his mouth, and swished it about, tasting it, before swallowing it down with a gulp. Smacking his lips, he sat beside Zyme on the ledge and waited for him to come down from his sexual high. When he did, Viper filled the second martini glass with wine from the bottle and handed it to Zyme, who accepted it with a shaking hand, slopping some of the wine out of the glass. Viper then refilled his own glass and held it up, clinking it against Zyme's. "Here'sss to what will not doubt be an....interesssting partnership, Dr. Zyme."
 
Zyme nodded, head still a bit fuzzy. "Uh, indeed, Dr. Viper," he said, then slowly drank his wine.
 
Viper drank his in one huge gulp, tossing his head back, sending the alcoholic beverage down to mix with Zyme's seed in his stomach. Sighing, he threw the glass aside, shattering it against the far wall, and got up, stepping out of the pool, trailing mud off his snakey body as he went. The mushroom monster, who had stood dutifully by during their entire session, was ready with a pink towel, which he hand Viper. Viper towelled himself off, then turned, facing Zyme, and held his arms out so that the mushroom-cat could slip his lab coat on for him. Adjusting the lapels, he nodded a silent thank-you to the monster, then turned and watched Zyme finish drinking his win and set the glass aside. He then got up out of the pool himself, all wobbly, and almost fell back in. However he regained his balance, and his composure, coughing and thumping his chest with a fist.
 
Then, he suddenly flipped his head to the side, his shoulder-length hair whipping about, shaking the remaining wetness from it. He flopped his head forwards, flipping the hair up over his head, looking for all the world like the women in those damn shampoo and conditioner commercials, then flipped it back again, using both hands to smooth the reddish-brown hair back and down, offering Viper a small smile. Viper smirked at him and threw him the towel. "Get dresssed," he said. "We've had enough fun for the morning. It'sss time that we got to work."
 
Zyme nodded, continuing to fuss with his hair, curling the ends around his fingers and then licking a fingertip and running it across his forehead so his bangs were flattened against it. Then he used the towel to dry himself off and wipe off all of the mud. Viper turned and walked out of the room, followed by the mushroom monster, as Zyme went to grab his lab coat and pants from they hung on the wall. He now felt a little better about living with Viper. He still had serious reservations about actually assisting him in turning Megakat City into one huge swamp, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. In the meantime, as he dressed, he realized that he was awfully curious about just what Viper had wanted Katalyst 99 for. Despite his explosive properties it was also a growth formula. Finishing messing with his hair and clothes, not bothering with his boxer shorts, Zyme trotted from the room and hurried to catch up to Viper. As they went upstairs, Viper began explaining his plans for Katalyst 99, which had something to do with what he called a "spore pod," and that new three-hundred-story skyscraper they were building downtown.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
At three-hundred stories, Megakat Tower was the tallest and most modern office building in the entire city. At least, this was the spin Mayor Manx was putting on it. The gigantic skyscraper had been several years in the making, and begun, actually, back when Manx first took office. It was his personal pet project. Although not hurting economically in the least, Megakat City's had always been a relatively self-sustained economy, and many citizens, including the Mayor, had long desired to attract foreign business. The promise of completing the mammoth skyscraper, the tallest in the world, and using it to attract corporations from other countries, had long been the linchpin of Manx's re-election campaigns. And although, as Elrod Purvis, he had considered the idea to be silly and a waste of money, Dr. Viper now made the Megakat Tower the linchpin of his own scheme to bring change to Megakat City. Although, he intended to change more than simply the economy.
 
In the months following his death, mutation and subsequent resurrection and prior to his robbery of Megakat Biochemical Labs using a horde of giant bacteria monsters, Dr. Viper had been routinely checking up on the Tower's progress. Although by the time he ceased to be Purvis and became Viper it had already been mostly completed, the mutant biochemist had wanted to wait until the building was completed entirely. He needed it to be structurally sound if it was to be ground zero for his grandest scheme to conquer the city yet! Every few weeks or so, he would venture out of his beloved swamp and go down to the Tower. It was now mostly finished, and would be opening in just a few short weeks. Perfect, he thought as he peered through the partially opened manhole cover out front.
 
The construction crews had gone home and there wasn't anyone around except for Viper. Well, Viper and his mushroom-cat monster assistant. The large creature was waiting patiently down in the sewer below him. This was the monster's first time out since he had created it out of a hapless Megakat Biochemical security guard, and he hoped it wasn't going to give him any trouble. After taking a quick look around the courtyard to ensure that there was no one else in sight, Viper motioned for the monster to follow and then climbed out of the manhole and slithered in through the front entrance. The mushroom monster followed him silently, the large mutant having proven to be surprisingly stealthy, much to Viper's delight.
 
The lobby was appropriately grand. Viper could care less about the architecture and artwork. He was interested only in the plants. Yes, it seemed luck was more than with him on this venture, for Callie Briggs had decided lots of potted plants on every floor of the Tower would give it a nice natural decorative look. Viper approached one of the plants, a fern, and stroked its fronds lovingly. For some reason, likely due to the Viper Mutagen's origins as a plant growth formula, Viper felt a strange attraction to plants and fungus, more-so than other organisms, even other snakes. It was why his newest creation had been a mushroom. His desire to see all of the plants in the Tower animated as mutants was more than merely a desire of opportunity. If Briggs had, for whatever reason, filled the building with elephants, Viper would've used those. As it stood, though, the fact it would be plants only made it that much more special to him.
 
"Ssssoon, my lovely," he crooned to the fern. "Ssssoon you will leave the confines of your wretched pot and join the resssst of my creationsss in my new Megasssswamp City."
 
He turned and began walking across the lobby, towards the hallway he knew led to the building's basement. There, Viper had been setting up a makeshift chemistry lab with all the chemicals he would need to animate the plants in the building when the time came. However he barely made it three feet when the door of a utility room opened and an elderly cat walked out. He was quite old, hunched over, wearing a baseball cap and a long coat, humming some random tune to himself. Viper had seen him before. He was a gardener hired by the Mayor to take care of the plants in the Tower, although Viper didn't know his name.
 
"Oh, there you go, Sally," he said as he watered a begonia. "Oh, you like that, don't ya? Oh, you're so thirsty. Don't worry, girls, I'll get to the rest of you, too!"
 
At the moment, he didn't seem to notice either him or the enormous mushroom monster, and simply went about watering the potted plants with a small watering can. Viper decided that the old man had poor eyesight, and likely mistook the two green blurs for just two more plants. Deciding to use this opportunity, Viper silently trotted over and ducked out of sight into the hallway leading to the basement. Ordinarily, Viper would've simply crushed the old man in his coils or allowed his monster to eat him, but if he did that, the Mayor and his associates might wonder where the old gardener had disappeared to, and would surely discover his secret lab in the basement while searching for him. Needless to say, Viper didn't want that. He was too close to success for anything to go wrong now!
 
But as he reached the basement door he suddenly realized the mushroom monster wasn't behind him anymore. Turning, he looked back out into the lobby and noticed the creature approaching the gardener from behind. The old fool continued watering the plants and talking to them like they were his children, oblivious to the mutant moving up behind him. Viper sighed, shaking his head as the monster lunged forwards, engulfing the unfortunate cat in one huge bite. Well, almost. As Viper walked over, the mushroom-cat turned to him, smiling stupidly, the gardener's weakly kicking legs sticking out from his misshapen mouth. In a couple of quick swallows, however, the legs were sucked in entirely, and the monster gave a loud belch and patted his tummy happily with his tentacles.
 
"You jussst couldn't help yourssself, could you?" Viper lightly scolded him, bending down and picking up the dropped watering can. "Come on, we've got work to do, and I have to figure out what I'm going to do to keep them from trying to search for the cat you jussst ate!"
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
It was the middle of the night by the time they returned to Viper's tree-lair in Megakat Swamp. Viper felt weary and wanted to just flop right down and go to sleep, but his routine scouting of the Megakat Tower was only the first half the work he had to do today. The rest was to be done in his laboratory inside the tree, with the help of his "assistant," and his prisoner, Dr. Newton Zyme. The cat in question was, to his delight, dutifully waiting up for them when they got back. As he came up the stairs into the main hollow of the giant tree, the mushroom monster right behind him, Viper saw Zyme over by one of the worktables, jotting something down on a clipboard. If there was one thing Viper could truly admire about Zyme it was his dedication to a given project. The older biochemist really knew how to throw himself into his work and give it his all.
 
Zyme turned towards Viper and the monster as they came in, startled by a grunting noise the latter made, relaxing when he noticed it was just them. "Oh, hello, Purvis," he said, turning immediately back to his writing.
 
Although he had begun willingly participating in his former assistant's scheme, he did so grudgingly for the most part, and seemed to, every now and then, enjoy testing Viper's patience by being deliberately insolent or uppity. On the one hand, Viper liked this. He'd since decided it would be best for both of them if he could make Zyme like him and want to assist him, but he had to admit, smacking the guy around for all the years he'd worked under him as Purvis was a lot of fun, and Zyme being an insolent little tart gave Viper the excuse he needed. On the other hand, though, his inability to make Zyme fully like him was maddening, even more-so because, genius though he was, he was having the damnedest time trying to figure out precisely why he wanted Zyme to enjoy his company, beyond the simple fact it would mean less effort on his part to get his colleague to cooperate.
 
Viper came up to him. The mushroom monster stayed over by the stairs. "Been hard at work all day, have we?" he said, standing directly behind him, peering over his shoulder and looking down at the items laid out before Zyme on the table. The six canisters of Katalyst 99, four of them opened and mixing with other chemicals.
 
"Yes," Zyme said flatly. Then, with a little more enthusiasm, he said, "I've been breaking down the Katalyst 99 to make it less combustible. That way, there won't be any danger of it going off before we--uh, I mean, before you want it to."
 
"Good," Viper said, smirking.
 
"It" in this case was Viper's spore pod. It sat off to one side, about the size of a large pile of laundry, lacking any distinct shape and being simply a pulsating dark green blob. Leaving Zyme's side, Viper went over to it. He stroked it softly. Inside it were spores, seeds, specially cultured by Viper over several months in the dank, dark, rotting underbelly of the tree. Each one would grow into a different kind of mutant plant. This was the crown jewel of Viper's scheme to take over Megakat City. Mutating the plants in the Megakat Tower would allow him to take over the Tower itself, sure enough, but even with his ego Viper had no illusions about the invincibility of his creations. He knew that one building's worth of mutated plant monsters wouldn't be enough to take over an entire city. This was where the spore pod came in. As Viper had explained to Zyme roughly a dozen times in the past several weeks since he brought him here, his plan was to place the pod on the roof of the Tower, and let it swell until it burst, showering the city with the seeds inside over a radius of several miles.
 
"Jusssst think of it," Viper said, his grin widening. "All thessse lovely sssspores just waiting to come out and take root in downtown Megakat City." He stroked its surface a little harder, loving the feel of the hard seeds just beneath the malleable surface. "And I couldn't have done without you, Zyme," he added, sneering.
 
Zyme sighed, setting aside the clipboard and pencil. This was his cue to come over and join Viper in basking in the glory of the monstrous thing that sat pulsating in the middle of the floor. Viper's tail swished back and forth. After a moment he said, "Megakat City won't sssstand a chance! Ssssoon it will all be Dr. Viper's Megassswamp City, and all those foolsss will be run out of town on a rail!" He let loose a loud, wheezing cackle.
 
Suddenly from off to one side they heard a hacking noise, and both turned as one to look over at the mushroom monster. Zyme blinked and Viper raised an eyebrow. The monster was lurching forwards, eyes wide, making muffled coughing sounds like a cat about to cough up a hairball, and then, suddenly, he threw up a set of clothes! Viper sighed and Zyme recoiled in shock as a baseball cap, coat, shirt, and one shoe landed on the floor in a thick puddle of drool.
 
Whirling to Viper, Zyme cried, "Did he eat someone?!"
 
"Uh....no," Viper lied. "He jussst ate a whole basssket of laundry."
 
The mushroom-cat moved his lips around as though swishing something around in his mouth, then spat out a second shoe and let loose a burp. Getting an idea, and ignoring Zyme's horror at the idea of the monster having devoured someone alive, he walked over and picked up the coat, examining it. The old gardener had been roughly his height and build, he thought. Picking up the baseball cap, he shook the rivulets of drool off it and put it on, smiling as it fit perfectly. Now he knew how he would make them avoid searching for the gardener and discovering his lab in the basement; he'd pose as him!
 
"Perfect!" he said.
 
Zyme walked over, wide-eyed, mouth agape, heart pounding. "He DID eat someone!" he said, covering his mouth with his hands in horror.
 
"Oh, relax," Viper said, gathering up the clothes. Noticing the pants were missing, he frowned and went over and shoved his arm into the mushroom monster's mouth and felt around down his gullet. "You act like I promisssed no one would get hurt."
 
Zyme threw his hands up, turning away. "I can't do this anymore," he said, going over and planting his hands on the worktable, bending over and hanging his head.
 
Viper scowled at him. Then, his hand came into contact with the pants and he grabbed them and pulled them out of the monster's mouth. Carrying the armload of soaking-wet clothes over to where Zyme was he plopped them down on the tabletop and then stood with his hands on his hips looking the older scientist over. "You really are a wet blanket aren't you? I've explained to you why I have to do thisss already, have I not?" he said indignantly.
 
Zyme didn't respond for a moment. When he finally looked up, there were tears in his eyes. "I don't see why people have to die for it, though!" he said.
 
Viper raised his hand as if to slap him, and Zyme winced, but then he stopped and lowered the hand, and then took Zyme into a hug, stroking him softly. "Now jussst forget about it," he said. "I'm not going to have you getting like thisss every time I mutate someone or let my creationsss eat them! I thought we were making progresss?" He nuzzled Zyme's neck soothingly until Zyme calmed. "That'sss better," he said, and slid out his forked tongue to lick away Zyme's tears. "There'sss no need to get ssso worked up over the deaths of a couple of useless doddering foolsss, casualtiesss in our little war to return Megakat City to way it usssed to be."
 
The redheaded scientist sighed. Under any other circumstances he would've stood his ground on the issue and argued his points, and did whatever he could to make Viper see the error of his ways, but instead he merely sagged in defeat. Viper's arguments in favor of his plan to turn the city into one gigantic swamp were disturbingly convincing, he knew. After all, the city had, years ago, been little but swampland. But that was before Megalith City finally fell into Megakat Canyon, and the survivors had taken it upon themselves to relocate and drain the marshlands to the south. If one ignored all of the death, destruction and misery that would come about as a result of it, Viper's scheme really only boiled down to his desire to return that area of the region back to the way it used to be a hundred years ago.
 
"You should be glad you're going to be a part of thisss," Viper said, kissing Zyme's cheek, his hands beginning to slide a little more possessively over him. "With your help I'm going to change the courssse of hissstory, forever. After all, you helped me create the sssspore pod."
 
He pointed to the pod, and Zyme looked over at it, shuddering. He hated it. Although he had gotten used to most everything in Viper's domain, including Viper himself, this "spore pod" was something he just could not stand. The way it throbbed and made soft squishing noises as it pulsed made his fur stand on end, and the way Viper crooned over it and stroked it like it was a beautiful baby only made things worse.
 
Viper smirked, noting his colleague's discomfort. "You don't like it, do you?"
 
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Zyme said with a frown.
 
His grin widening, Viper took Zyme by the shoulders and steered him over to the spore pod. "Don't you like my loveliesss? They're beautiful."
 
"They're hideous," Zyme replied.
 
"Nonsense! They're gorgeoussss," Viper insisted. "Sssee for yourself!" He suddenly shoved Zyme forwards, forcing him bodily up against the big pulsating spore pod and holding him there. He wasn't rough, but he was insistent.
 
"Ugh," Zyme grimaced, wincing as he felt the throbbing abomination around him as he sank into the soft surface, feeling the hard seeds underneath him. He whimpered, and then he felt Viper's fingers undoing the front of his pants and sighed. Viper's hands slid inside the pants and began caressing his flaccid cock, and despite himself, he was slowly brought to erection by the snake-cat's skilled fingers touching and teasing him in just the right places. He moaned softly. If nothing else, sex with Viper was always enjoyable, at least.
 
Viper had other ideas, though. Having noted the way Zyme looked with disgust at that which he considered beautiful, he suddenly got a wonderful idea. An evil idea. A wonderful, evil, delicious idea. After stroking Zyme to throbbing erection, he let go of his cock and stepped back, leaving the red-haired cat lying on the pulsing spore pod. Slowly, Zyme, started to push himself up off the pod only to be gently pushed back down into it by Viper's hand against his back. Blinking, he turned and looked at him over his shoulder.
 
"Ah, ah, ah," Viper said, wagging a finger at him. "My babiessss are so very ssssensitive. You've gone and hurt its feelingsss by calling it ugly, Newton!"
 
"It's just a sack full of plant seeds," Zyme said in disbelief. This earned him a sudden swat against the rump from Viper's hand. "Ack!"
 
"It'sss my preciousss baby," Viper insisted, "and you're going to show me how sssorry you are." He narrowed his eyes, licking his lips as he gripped Zyme by the shoulders and made him move up and down against the surface of the spore pod.
 
Zyme's eyes widened in horror as he realized what Viper wanted him to do! He gulped. "You want me to--"
 
"Yesss," Viper crooned softly, kissing the back of his neck."Show me how lovely you think my ssspore pod isss. Make love to it. Now."
 
Shuddering, Zyme squeezed his eyes shut and began to move his hips as he began to, for lack of a better description, having sex with the spore pod. His throbbing cock slid strongly against the soft surface of the pod as the older scientist moved his body, gripping hands of the lumpy surface, and Viper directed him, gently forcing his head down so his face was pressed into the pod, making him lick and kiss it as he continued to smack his ass with either his hand or his tail. He soon took to using his tail exclusively due to how powerful it was, and he enjoyed how with each swat it made Zyme's body bounce gently off the pod. Growing erect, himself, he gripped his member tightly and jerked off to the sight of his old boss fucking the spore pod.
 
Zyme soon, to his humiliation, that the act of making love to the spore pod was not entirely un-enjoyable. It was soft and filled with hard things on the inside, the seeds, so it felt, more or less, like grinding himself against a beanbag chair. A really big one. The surface was greasy and cold to the touch, but, oddly, it didn't taste badly, so licking it and kissing it as Viper instructed him wasn't that bad.
 
"Unngh, come on, Newton, show my ssspore pod how much you love it, tell it how beautiful you think it isss!" Viper hissed, starting to pump his fist on his cock a little harder.
 
Zyme panted, starting to really get into it now. "It's so beautiful," he said, and found himself not entirely lying.
 
"Then show it how pretty it issss!" Viper snapped, shoving him into the pod harder.
 
Zyme sank in. Viper shoving him harder caused the exterior to fold inwards, enveloping Zyme, causing him to sink into the cold, greasy cleft created by his body pushing into the side. He felt as if it were going to swallow him up! Not wishing to sink in any further and be swallowed entirely by the thing, he started humping his hips harder, panting and gasping, until, finally, he came, shuddering as his cock shot forth its warm seed onto the cool side of the pod. Viper, observing, could tell by the way Zyme's body was jerking that the redhead was cumming, and groaned in delight at the thought of Zyme's cum dripping down the throbbing side of the spore pod.
 
He then let go of Zyme, allowing the soft surface to "bounce back," returning to its original shape and bringing Zyme gasping back to the surface. The snake-cat then stepped back and continued pumping as Zyme turned around so he was lying with his back against the pod and slowly slid down into a sitting position. Viper then stepped up to him, standing over him and the spore pod, his cock, with green hand moving smoothly back and forth along its length, a few inches from him. Initially Zyme thought Viper wanted him to suck him off, but this turned out not to be the case. As he tried to rise to his knees to take the cock into his mouth, Viper pushed him back down onto his ass against the pod, the big mass jiggling against him. Zyme blinked, watching him, wondering what the hell he was doing.
 
He could his answer as Viper suddenly came, himself, and proceeded to shoot his seed onto the front of Zyme's lab coat. Each jerk sent another rope of thick cum flying forth to splatter against Zyme's coat, making him gasp. Viper aimed a bit higher so that the last couple of shots hit Zyme in the chin and neck, and then they stopped and he relaxed, sighing as he released his spent member. Zyme sat there, licking his lips, as the green cum slowly slid down his throat and down into the collar of the lab coat.
 
"All better?" Viper said with a smirk.
 
Zyme hesitated, then nodded quickly.
 
"Good," Viper said, then turned away from him. "It'sss getting late. I think we should turn in for the night. Tomorrow isss a big day..."
 
As Viper turned and walked off, Zyme was suddenly seized by a thick, green lumpy tentacle, and shrieked as he turned and saw the huge maw of the mushroom monster coming towards him. Rather than getting eaten, though, he was merely licked. He squirmed and struggled for a moment before realizing what was happening, then sighed, shaking his head as the mushroom-cat's big, slimy tongue kept sliding out to slather over his face and chest, licking up all the cum.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
The following day at dawn, Dr. Viper took the spore pod with him and left, heading across the swamp back towards the city. Today was the "big day," as he'd put it, and Zyme was left in the lair to await news of his success. At the moment, Zyme was sitting in one of the ratty-looking armchairs in the main hollow, studying a checkerboard on the table in front of him. It was his move. Across from him was the mushroom monster, blinking stupidly. Although Zyme would've preferred chess, checkers was the next best thing, and he was winning hands-down. The television set suspended over by Viper's lab area, turned to the Kat's Eye News Channel, all news all the time, as the motto went. All Ann Gora was more like it, Zyme thought as he finally moved his checker over the board.
 
"King me," he said, smiling.
 
"Blaaaarrrrgh?!??" roared the mushroom-cat angrily, and he smacked the table aside, sending checkers flying everywhere.
 
"Throwing a temper tantrum can't help you," Zyme said.
 
Ignoring him, the monster turned his attention to the couch behind him and began to maul it. Zyme sighed, wishing Viper had taken the monster with him, but Viper left him behind because of how impulsively he'd acted the other day. Besides, Viper had reasoned, his growth formula would ensure more than enough protection in the form of the mutated plants in the building.
 
"This is Ann Gora, reporting live once again from the Megakat Tower, in the aftermath of what has been the closest call this city has had since Dark Kat's attempted bombing not long ago!"
 
Zyme turned, having caught that. Grabbing the remote, he turned the volume up. Aftermath? Close call? Could this mean Viper had failed? Rising, he walked over and stood beneath the TV, looking up at it as Ann Gora appeared on-screen, microphone in hand. Behind her was a flurry of activity, Enforcers and fire fighters running around willy-nilly at the base of the Megakat Tower. Or, at least, what appeared to be the Megakat Tower. It looked like it had been bombed!
 
"Earlier this morning, according to Deputy Mayor Briggs, the fiendish Dr. Viper seized control of the building with an army of mutated plant monsters!" Ann was saying. Zyme scoffed. Fiendish? Whatever happened to responsible journalism? he wondered. "Viper planned to use what the Deputy Mayor referred to as a 'spore pod' to shower the city with the seeds of mutant plants, to transform it into a giant swamp."
 
Right then, Zyme knew that Viper had failed. He didn't know how he should feel. While he was glad for the rest of the city that Viper's plan had been thwarted, he began to worry about himself. When, and if, Viper returned home, he was going to be angry, and Zyme had no doubt he would vent his rage on him. But what if Viper had been killed? Zyme hoped not. He did not hate Viper, at least, not enough to want to see him die. On the TV, Mayor Manx went by in the background, wearing his hideously tacky golf clothes. Ann Gora turned and tried to talk to him, but he shoved the microphone away and grumbled, "No comment!"
 
She had better luck with Commander Feral. "Commander Feral," she said, "could you please give our viewers an update on what has transpired since your attempt to use weed killer against Dr. Viper's plant creatures?" This made Zyme chuckle despite himself. It had been his suggestion to Viper that they make the plantimals immune to weed killer and other pesticides. And now that Viper's plan had failed he felt he could afford to bask in the pride of his idea having proven useful.
 
"Well," said Feral, "the SWAT Kats were able to use some kind of freezing agent against the creatures, but in the process they froze the whole building solid! Here, get a shot of it!" He grabbed the camera, and the view went all wobbly for a second.
 
"Hey!" Zyme heard Ann's cameraman complain.
 
After steadying, the view showed the full destruction of the Tower, a big, frozen mess slowly thawing in the mid-afternoon sun. Fire fighters were hosing it off with water in an apparent effort to speed up the melting of the ice. Zyme figured the SWAT Kats must have used liquid nitrogen, or perhaps super rocket coolant. Only something like that could flash-freeze a skyscraper like that. He shook his head. Just another example of how needlessly destructive the SWAT Kats were sometimes! Hearing footsteps, Zyme turned and gasped involuntarily as he saw Dr. Viper come up the stairs and enter the main chamber. As he had anticipated, Viper was glowering with fury.
 
"Purvis," he said. "Are you all right?"
 
Viper didn't respond. Throughout the entire interview on the TV, the mushroom monster had been obliviously tearing the couch apart. He'd been gnawing on a cushion as Viper came in, but stopped, wide-eyed, as Viper entered.
 
Viper's entire body ached all over. His lab coat hung in tatters off his body, half frozen and half singed. Ignoring Zyme's question, he stormed past him and went immediately to the lab table and stood in front of it, fists clenched, body twitching in barely-contained rage. Those meddling SWAT Kats! This was the second time they had managed to surprise him by finding out a weakness in his monsters he had not known about, despite his careful planning! He hadn't minded when it came to the bacteria monsters previously. Those had only been created to help him steal Katalyst 99, and whether or not the SWAT Kats destroyed them once he acquired the chemical had been beside the point. Regardless, he had found it mildly annoying when they had discovered that they were killable through electricity, something he had not anticipated. And if he found that annoying, then them figuring out how to use cold against his plantimals was positively infuriating!
 
"Curssse you, SWAT Katssss!!!" he snarled, and swept all of the beakers, test tubes and other apparatus off the tabletop, sending it crashing to the floor. "All thosssse months of planning ruined, all becaussse of one little oversssight!" He pounded his fists angrily on the table, making the remaining equipment rattle loudly.
 
Zyme took a step back and discovered the mushroom monster right behind him. The big mutant was shaking in fear, doing his best to conceal himself by crouching down behind the considerably smaller scientist.
 
Zyme turned back to Viper. "Purvis, it-it's not all that bad," he offered.
 
"Ssssilence!!!" Viper snarled, making him jump.
 
He threw a (thankfully empty) beaker at them, and Zyme ducked, letting it hit the mushroom monster in the head, harmlessly. Zyme then ran and hid behind the overturned coffee table, the mushroom monster hilariously doing the same. They peered over the top, wide-eyed, as the snake-cat suddenly lifted the entire worktable up and threw it across the room. It crashed through the wall, ripping a gaping hole in the rotten wood of the tree's exterior, and then fell out of sight. They heard a distant splash. The news was still playing on the TV, so Viper grabbed a microscope from off the floor and hurled it at the TV, shattering the screen.
 
With nothing let to destroy, Viper simply stood there for a few moments, seething and panting, teeth gritted. Then, to Zyme's puzzlement, he took a step forward and staggered a bit and fell, catching himself with his hands. Was he injured? Zyme wondered. He had to be. He didn't look in any real condition to come after him if he decided to flee, so maybe this was Zyme's chance to make a break for it! Despite Viper's claims that he couldn't make it across the swamp without him, Zyme figured if he was careful, he could make it. But even as he was gathering his courage to get to his feet and make a run for it, he found that his compassion for the injured mutant was beginning to make him rethink his strategy. Viper needed help. And so far, he had been merciful towards Zyme and never done anything to seriously hurt him, so what kind of person would he be?
 
Slowly coming out of hiding, he walked over and knelt down beside Viper, and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?" he asked again.
 
"Fuck off," Viper hissed, shoving Zyme away.
 
Zyme frowned. Then he helped Viper to his feet and pulled his arm over his shoulder to help support him, and carried him from the main chamber. There was another flight of stairs at the far end of the hollow, leading up, Zyme knew, to Viper's private bedroom, and it was up these that Zyme helped Viper walk, the snake-cat grumbling all the way. Viper's bedroom was almost as large as the main chamber, and existed at the top of the tree in another hollow. At the top, Viper stumbled and Zyme was forced to lift him up, and he carried him into the bedroom and laid him on the bed which was quite large, big enough for three cats at the least.
 
He sighed as he looked down at the snake-cat who was already drifting off into fatigue-induced sleep. He then went back downstairs and directed the mushroom monster to get a dustpan and broom and help him clean up all the broken glass.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Viper was well enough to get up and walk around later that night. In fact, upon awakening he felt good as new, as though he hadn't just lived through the near-destruction of a three-hundred story skyscraper. One of the benefits of having regenerative mutagen for blood. After sliding out of bed, he immediately took off his torn and burned lab coat and threw it carelessly aside, then went over to a large wardrobe and threw it open to reveal nothing but lab coats, lab coats, and more lab coats, swiped in bulk supply from the city. Grabbing one at random, he pulled it on, then went downstairs in search of Zyme. He found him sleeping in one of the armchairs, and was a bit surprised to see the mess he'd made earlier all cleaned up. Zyme still being here surprised him even more. Why hadn't Zyme left? Viper's healing abilities would've meant he wouldn't be out of commission for very long, but Zyme didn't know that. He'd had every reason to believe Viper would've been crippled from his ordeal and unable to hunt him down if he left, so why hadn't he? Why was he still here, dozing in the chair like he was at home in his own den, after having helped Viper upstairs to his bedroom and cleaned up?
 
Was it fear? Did Zyme second-guess himself and worry about what Viper would do to him if he failed to escape? No, that wasn't it. Zyme wasn't that much of a coward, judging by the number of times the older biochemist had stood his ground against him when they'd argued about something. Viper figured, then, that it must have been pity or perhaps compassion. Zyme always had been an idealistic fool incapable of truly hating anyone, and he figured the guy would help anyone in need, no matter who it was. Or, a second possibility was that maybe, just maybe, Viper's efforts at turning Zyme by being nice to him, or at least as nice as he would allow himself to be, were paying off, and Zyme had done what he did out of a sense of loyalty. Either way, Viper knew, this was a big step for Zyme. A step in the right direction, as far as Viper was concerned, and one to be rewarded.
 
How to reward him was the question. Zyme might consider being allowed to leave the swamp a suitable reward, but Viper had other ideas. He thought back to his original plan for Zyme, which had been to mutate him using Viper Mutagen 368, turning him into a half-reptile felinoid like himself. He'd never truly abandoned that idea, and, indeed, he had some Viper Mutagen he made himself hidden away here in his lair for just that purpose, for when the time came. And what better time than now? And even if Zyme himself didn't consider it a reward, it would be a big step towards bringing his colleague around to his way of viewing things. As much as he found tormenting the idealistic old fool fun, he found the concept of someone like him, almost as intelligent and in full agreement with his ideas rather than accepting them out of fear, very enticing. Smirking, he turned away from the sleeping Zyme and went to one of the remaining worktables. The container of Viper Mutagen, a flask, was hidden in plain inside a box of random brick-a-brack underneath the table. Pulling the box out, Viper reached inside and removed the flask, pulling out the stopper and setting it on the table next to a convenient syringe. Then, he walked back over to Zyme and gently shook him awake.
 
"Mmm, uh, huh, what?" Zyme stammered, and sat up, blinking. "Oh!" he said, seeing Viper. "It's you. You're all better, I see."
 
"Yesss," Viper said, smirking. It was the grin of someone who took delight in knowing something the person they were talking to did not. "The mutagen I have for my blood allowsss me to heal more rapidly than a normal cat. Even after an accident as large as that."
 
Zyme nodded. "I, uh, I'm glad you're all right," he said.
 
Viper tilted his head in an odd way. "Of courssse you are," he said. "Why elssse would you have helped me inssstead of running off when you had the chance? I mussst say, your loyalty is sssurprising, but not unwelcome." He eyed Zyme for his reaction.
 
Zyme smiled a bit and rubbed the back of his curly-haired head, looking embarrassed, as though he were a shy Boy Scout being commended for a good deed. "It wasn't anything," he said. "I just saw you needed help, and I couldn't bear to see anyone lying there like that, even if it was you."
 
That was what Viper had wanted to hear. Zyme was confirming his suspicions that he'd done it out of compassion, but, at the same time, he wasn't denying Viper's suggestion of loyalty, either. "Well, then," he said, "sssuch a display of trussst and dedication certainly deserves a reward."
 
"A reward?" Zyme said, blinking. He didn't think he liked where this was going. Viper's world outlook was incredibly twisted, so his idea of a reward must be just as warped. Testingly, he said, "What sort of reward?"
 
Viper winked at him. "One I've been sssaving ever since I brought you here." Without warning he reached down and grabbed Zyme by the collar of his lab coat and lifted him up out of the chair without any difficulty, the other cat too shocked to struggle, making it child's play for Viper to wrap his tail around him and pin his arms to his side. Only then did Zyme snap back to his sense and begin struggling, but by then it was too late. Viper's tail was too strong. He doubted even someone as physically powerful as Commander Feral would be unable to break its grip. He almost regretted having to be this forceful, but Zyme, being Zyme, wasn't going to accept this gift willingly. He carried him over to the table and, with both hands free while his tail held Zyme, he took the flask of Viper Mutagen in one hand and the syringe in the other.
 
Zyme, still squirming uselessly in Viper's tail, looked at what he was doing and recognized the yellowish green liquid in the flask instantly. "Oh no," he cried, "that's--"
 
"Exactly," Viper said, carefully sliding the six-inch needle into the flask and drawing out a large dose of the contents, filling the hypo to its limit with the mutagen. When it was full, he set the flask back down and turned, pulling Zyme closer to himself and grabbing a handful of his ginger hair to hold his head still. "And now, for your much-dessserved reward," he said, without a hint of irony. Even though Zyme would never have believed it, Viper honestly did firmly believe that being a mutant was something that was wonderful enough to be shared. He then carried the struggling scientist upstairs and into his bedroom.
 
"No, don't!" Zyme begged as he eyed the needle, watching as Viper gave it a little squirt to get out any pesky air bubbles. "Please! I don't want to be a monster!"
 
That made Viper a little miffed. "A monssster? Do you honestly think I'd break my promissse?" he snarled, reminding Zyme of his promise to never mutate him into anything mindless and without a soul as long as he obeyed him. "Or do you mean me?"
 
"Uh, well..."
 
"I'm tired of your sssself-righteousness and moralizing, you doddering idiot!" Viper hissed angrily. "We'll sssee just how revolting I am when you look jussst like me!" Without further ado, he jabbed the needle into Zyme's neck. Zyme struggled, of course, but Viper's grip on his hair kept his head still enough to get the job done as he slowly injected the mutagen into his companion's veins. Zyme slowly stopped struggling and went limp in Viper's coils, but remained conscious, panting. When he'd pumped all of the mutagen into him, Viper removed the needle. "There, all done. Well, with that ssstep anyway. The ressst is up to your DNA."
 
Zyme swallowed nervously and twitched, once, as Viper released his hair and the tail slowly lowered him down to the floor and released him. Immediately his hand went to where the needle had jabbed into his neck and he clutched at it, wincing.
 
"Now," Viper said, "I was dead when my own transssformation happened, so I persssonally don't know what it feelsss like." He then stepped back and waited. He'd worked hard to perfect the formula, so that it wouldn't take as long as it had with him to induce a mutation.
 
Zyme looked at him and started to reply, but felt his throat lock up. He suddenly threw his head back and screamed up at the ceiling, eyes bulging, as he felt a pain in the pit of his stomach that made him feel like he'd swallowed acid. The cry was so sudden that even Viper took another couple of steps back in surprise at it. Zyme squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them, they had turned solid yellow with no pupils and glowed eerily, exactly like Viper's did. Starting with his head, his fur began turning green, his hands contorted into clawed fingers, his feet burst through his socks with two long claws on the ends, and his tail transformed into that of a snake, growing so large it ripped the back of his pants open, shredding them completely, leaving him naked below the waist, his penis and testicles visibly being drawn up into his body. Liquid squishing sounds and hard, sharp bone-cracks accompanied the changes, nothing that injured him, though, just his internal parts changing and certain bones re-aligning. Viper watched all of this with great interest, and not necessarily out of sadistic delight, but rather out of genuine curiosity. He had never actually witnessed the effects of Viper Mutagen on anyone before, since he was the only one who had ever been mutated by it apart from that flower he and Zyme had experimented with back when he was still Purvis, so his scientist side was genuinely interested in how the transformation took place.
 
Soon enough, though, it was all over. Zyme still resembled himself, more or less, especially in the face, but the rest of his body was green and snakey, like Viper's. Sweat was pouring off him, which made Viper lick his lips. Slowly, he raised his hands and looked down at them in horror. "Uh, huh, wh-wha..." he mumbled.
 
Viper stooped down and helped him up, assisting him in standing on his thin, wobbly legs. Zyme's tail reflexively wrapped around his waist. "I've made you beautiful," he said matter-of-factly, then kissed him on the cheek. "Now you can appreciate what I'm trying to do, becaussse you can't afford not to."
 
"I-I feel..." Zyme started to say, blinking.
 
"Mmmmm?" Viper inquired.
 
"I feel....powerful!" Zyme cried. He was visibly terrified however, worried rather than elated at this new development. "Virile, unstoppable!"
 
"One thing at a time, my pet," Viper said, stroking Zyme's hair, which had remained its usual reddish brown. "We'll start sssmall."
 
"Sssmall?" Zyme echoed, covering his mouth in shock at his lips.
 
Viper chuckled. "You'll get usssed to that. Anyway, as I was sssaying, the first ssstep to getting usssed to a new body is alwaysss underssstanding that it'sss the right one for you. In other wordsss, you need sssomeone to convince you of your beauty."
 
Zyme cocked his head, eyeing him. "And how, exactly, do you propossse---ssssuggest...gah..." He stammered, trying to come up with a suitable word without any S's in it, hoping to avoid lisping any further.
 
"The bessst way, of course," Viper replied, and began guiding him over to the bed. Zyme blinked cluelessly at him, then yelped as Viper suddenly shoved him onto the bed. "The mossst basic, natural, primal way," Viper continued, taking off his lab coat and crawling onto him.
 
Zyme stammered, "I don't think--Oh! Ohhhh..." but his words degenerated into groans as Viper's groin rubbed against his, where his own cock and balls used to be, now replaced with a genital slit. Slowly, his snake-cat cock slid free from its home, to rub against Viper's which had also emerged at this point. Zyme's head was swimming, with a look on his face which suggested he was either drunk or high.
 
"Yessss, just let your new body react the way nature intended," Viper purred, rubbing Zyme's chest and belly. Viper began to unbutton his lab coat, the only piece of his clothing still intact, and soon had him totally nude. He chuckled and gripped both their cocks, jerking them together for a bit, careful because he knew Zyme's hyper-aroused state could potentially lead him to cum too soon, and Viper wanted the fun with his new creation to last! Zyme whimpered when Viper's hand left his cock. "Now then," he said, "let'sss try out your tail." He grabbed Zyme's reptilian tail and wrapped it around himself a couple of times like a boa, giving it a couple of nuzzles and licks.
 
Zyme frowned in concentration. Slowly getting the hang of how to use his new tail muscles, he slowly tightened his coils around Viper.
 
"Mmmm, oh yesss," Viper said. "You learn quickly. Ssssqueeze me, ohhh!"
 
Zyme tightened his tail as much as he could around Viper, as Viper's tail moved around and slithered underneath him, entwining around his body, the two mutants coiling about one another in a snakey embrace.
 
"Mmm, yesssss! How do you like thisss?" Viper asked with a smirk.
 
"It's...it's...w-wonderful! Oh, it'ssss soooo intimate!" replied Zyme, panting.
 
"Yesss, and now you can hold me back the way I've held you for ssso long. But remember...." he trailed off and squeezed him tightly.
 
"Unh...!" grunted Zyme.
 
"Never forget who isss in charge, got that?"
 
"Of courssse," said Zyme. "Never. I'll never forget, Purv--I mean Viper."
 
Viper's smirk widened. As far as he was concerned, "Dr. Viper" was his real name, and now that he'd finally gotten Zyme to call him that instead of his old name, he knew he totally owned him now. And now that Zyme was totally his, in mind and body, he could afford to be less forceful, and more tender, as he'd secretly wished to be, leaning down and softly and deeply kissing Zyme on the mouth.
 
As with Purvis before him, the mutation had affected Zyme mentally as well as physically. Everything had become clear to him. Viper's plans for Megakat City now made perfect sense, and, perhaps most importantly, he could finally see that Viper was his better, and therefore he should submit to him.
 
They snuggled for a while like this, naked, aroused, coiled around one another, before Viper decided it was time to take Zyme's new body for a little ride. He uncoiled his tail from around him, directing Zyme to do the same. When they had separated from one another, he motioned with his hand and commanded, "Roll over."
 
Zyme nodded and turned over onto his stomach, looking back over his shoulder at Viper expectantly. Viper grinned, taking Zyme's tail and lifting it up to drape over his shoulder, exposing the newly-mutated snake-cat's anus, just behind his genital slit.
 
"Beautiful," he said. "Jussst beautiful."
 
Zyme smiled, blushing, and then, smirking wickedly, feeling as though he were taking Zyme for the first time all over again, Viper scooted into position so his cock tip was touching Zyme's tail hole, and slowly pushed forwards. Zyme winced, expecting it to hurt, since this form was for all intents and purposes virginal, but found that, amazingly, his new body's anus was surprisingly well-equipped to handle insertions of large size; Viper's cock slid up into him smoothly and without much pain. Viper smoothly hilted in him and grinned, liking this, preferring it to the non-mutated Zyme's annoyingly clenching, resistant ass. He gripped Zyme's now-narrow hips and gives a couple of experimental humps, making Zyme moan. Because of the way their torsos were, they were very, very flexible, so Viper could lie down perfectly flat and still thrust his hips with all their strength. So, he smoothly leaned forwards and lay across Zyme's bare back so his head poked over Zyme's shoulder so their faces are side by side. Breathing deeply, expectantly, Zyme turned to look at Viper.
 
Viper licked his cheek. "Now, let me show you how beautiful you are, my dear, dear Dr. Zyme," he said softly.
 
He gave a sudden, rough thrust of his hips, earning another moan, and and then another, and, soon, it was one thrust after another, Viper working up a steady rhythm, a snakey ass being given a good, proper pounding by the virile Dr. Viper, Zyme moaning underneath him as he fucked him. Viper had fucked Zyme before, but this was different. Now, for the first time, he really owned him. He was humping something he made. He took Zyme and molded him into his own personal idea of beauty. Zyme owed him everything and now he was taking it. And Zyme was all too willing to give it, too. He humped harder, faster, smooth scales starting to glisten and run with sweat, his climax close, eager to consummate this mating - for what else would one call it? For the first time, Viper could mate with one of his own kind, as opposed to simply fucking a normal cat.
 
Zyme, too, was all too aware that this was different from their previous sessions. Although they were still not even close to equals, it was as close as Zyme knew he was ever going to get, and it made him swell with happiness to know he now fit Viper's ideals, and that he could, at long last, have completely consensual sex with him.
 
Finally Viper hit his peak, and went over the edge and fell down into the deep, dark canyon they call carnal joy as his cock erupted within Zyme, filling him with thick green snake seed, hissing loudly and dominantly into Zyme's hear to remind his new mate who is in charge, then following that up with a gentle lick, his forked tongue sliding into the depths of Zyme's ear canal even as the flow of his cum tapered off, Zyme shuddering as he felt that tongue slithering into his ear. He then lay there for a spell. Unlike Zyme, Viper didn't pant after a strong bout of lovemaking, he simply breathed deeply through his nose. Slowly Viper extracted his tongue from Zyme's ear, kissing his cheek, then closed his eyes. There would be no more love play today. He was finished, and he closed his eyes, purring softly, going to sleep atop Zyme leaving him hard and aroused underneath him. Zyme accepted this happily. Although he'd have liked to get off, he figured that could wait. For the time being though, he just enjoyed having Viper atop him, the still-hard snake-cock up his ass, and drifted off to sleep beneath him with a raging hard-on...
 
The End