As time passed, she recovered. Eventually, returning to work. But clearly... her gait was still animalistic, yet more human than before the ritual, and she wore sunglasses all the time. Lawton called her in to get DNA testing and stuff, she promised to. She was nervous, but in the end, she soon received a medical report, with the rest of the team. As she sat in her office at work reading it. Entirely non-human DNA. She frowns as she looks at the X-ray of herself. Her tailbone is elongated... mounds of bone near the top of her head. As if ready to form ears. Skeleton half bent back, readjusted to walk differently. Her feet bent to make barefoot physically hurt. It did... she whimpers quietly as she looks at it. Then at her bloodwork, and sees how her blood is oddly perfect. Along with medical scans indicating an utter lack of sickness so profound it's... unnatural. Along with the changes in shape in a few key organs, and the disappearance of appendix. Large structural changes in her vocal tract. She also looks, and sees, "Weird changes in hormonal systems have been found? All signs of hormones related to female ovulation are missing. Along with... hormonal chemicals we can't identify..." They identified them later as hormones used by foxes for... various things, including sexual stuff. Along with... a scan of her eyes. Showing? Interference with the scan. Utter interference. The brain scan is the same, interference is stronger, to such a point raw static is rendered instead of a brain. Her eyes looked like animals, yet human. Animalistic style pupils, they could not scan due to EM interference around them, and her optic nerve. As her pupils glowed with white, black static.
She sighs, as she gets out of her chair, and walks on her heels without a single sign of discomfort. Her high heels clicked against the floor—custom-designed now, to accommodate her unusual gait. It didn't even hurt anymore to walk on her toes. Her feet had changed. Muscles reinforced, bones curved. And her knees bent low, like they wanted to run—like they wanted to pounce. Sunglasses still on. As she arrives at the break room, and pulls out her lunch. She sits carefully, making sure her tail is where it belongs. Karlen is here, he follows her around most of the time, despite being able to return to the fox realm whenever he wished now. But she learned, he stays rather quiet during everyday life. Mainly because there is not much to say. She still allows him to borrow her body, but when he does... it's weirder. Because she becomes the ghost that watches when she gives control. Instead of going unconscious.
"Karlen," she whispered. "Yes?" he replied from a nearby wall, his shadow there, yet invisible. Eyes watching through it. She says, "We should get some pizza later." He replies, "Nah, Chinese food. I want to see what bullshit you Americans call Chinese food after what you did to Mexican food." She chuckles softly. Tom notices from afar, her talking to herself. He frowns slightly. As she eats a sandwich she made specifically for herself, careful control of the spices, and meats. She had issues with a too sensitive nose now after all. Tom got up, and sat down. He didn't smell like fear. Just old printer ink, a touch of cologne. "How have you been... dealing, I guess." She looks at him unsure. She says, "Adapting... it's... hard. I still feel human." Tom sighs, "You are... at least mentally." She goes quiet. That's not even true-true, kind of true now. She remembers how lovely it was in the fox realm a day ago, when she visited, and Karlen licked her ears, and body. As they cuddled, and slept there. She does not need a TV to visit anymore.
She sighs, unsure. "I don't think I'm fully human in mindset either... I... growl... whimper... yip... I can't walk human. I feel weird things." Tom is quiet, and sighs, "That's ok. You still think like a human mostly. Feel real. Alive... human." She smiles at that. "Yeah... I guess so. Just... I... uh... visited Mr. Fox's world. It's... weird... but... so... nice." He goes quiet. "You did!? Was that your few weeks sick a week ago?" She nods. "Yeah... I guess... kind of." It's quiet. "I wish I could stay there... but... now that I see... what Mr. Fox's realm is... I... want Earth to be better. I... want to give better things to Earth." It's quiet. "Yet... I want to stay there too. It's nice there... no bills, no taxes, no jobs, no one looking at me like I'm a freak." Tom nodded. "But you're our freak." She laughed bitterly. "Gee, thanks." He grinned. She noticed the warmth in his eyes. He still saw her. Still trusted her. She sighs, "Whatever. I just hope no one leaks those fucking documents about me... they are very... personal." He sighs. "Yeah..." She sighs, "Mr. Fox... he is more human than you think. He wants the same for Earth. He said to me once... Earth deserves the gift we have, even if it's a hard gift to give. Even if they will fight to avoid it. They need it, hope, vision." She does not finish the statement, how he said, *"I've grown... tired. Old... I'm... less imaginative than before. Too stuck in ways. I'm... angry... and... I want to just say fuck it... and make Earth give in to vision. But... I know that is wrong... immature. So... that is part of the reason I chose you to join me in my dream."*
Her visits to the fox realm are slow. Her fur shifted color, from grey, to a white. Unlike any other fox in the realm. Too pure. Many of the male shadow foxes look at her as if a jewel, and a pretty one with instincts flaring. Though, according to Mr. Fox, *"I had several female shadow foxes attempt to woo me. It's normal, you are the source of reality, their instincts sense that, and it combines with sexual attraction sometimes."* Eventually, Ally Miller is in a training room. As she begins to run, her combat boots hurt her feet, as she does the obstacle course. Her feet walk on her heels, as she jumps 4m, runs at 34mph at some points, as she does the mile in 2 minutes, 11 seconds. Her endurance is insane according to metrics, as she is officially classified as an 'enhanced' in the database. Though, they keep how she is enhanced classified. Some of the military units turn their eyes, and want to recruit her, but she turns them down over email, and Fury seems to protect her.
She stands at the head of a meeting room. "—As you can see, according to my research, the fox realm seems to be only able to access our world through the fox frequency, or via the shadow foxes he leaves in our realm due to their soul link to the realm." She finishes her presentation. As she sits, and Dill says, "What have you gained regarding the combat power of shadow foxes?" She is quiet. "They have no intentions of attack, I hardly see why that matters, Dill." Dill scowls, "Yeah, and you are compromised. Have a shadow fox under you right now, spying on this conversation. So unless you are useful, I see little reason why Fury keeps you here." She scowls, gritting her teeth. "There is very little way we can fight Mr. Fox. So would you shut it. He is limited in his capacity, but when he does show up, he is unbeatable. Plus, I gravely doubt he will turn on us. He is not that kind of person." Dill is mad. "Person? He is not a person. You are becoming less of one every day. He is an entity with control over a metaphysical realm that can threaten our world should I remind you! He likely is subtly manipulating you. You are not even human anymore. You don't get to define humanity." She gets up, and growls, as she yells, "You are a fucking idiotic bastard!" As the screens nearby flicker, and shadowy ears form on her head, and a shadowy tail. Lawton gets angry. "Shut it, you two." The anomalous interference cuts, the tail and ears fade. "Dill... our analysis has concluded that Ally Miller is still human in mind, and still loyal. Even if she has gained a soft spot for Mr. Fox, and shadow foxes. Fury also thinks they are human, just transformed. So would you shut it, and leave. Honestly, if it was not for your placement in the team by Pierce, I would kick you off. So leave." He scowls, and leaves the room.
Eventually, Lawton and Ally read a report they just received. Most of a gang went missing, all signs point to Mr. Fox doing it. After some research, they find out why. One of his children's foster parents was robbed by the gang. She looks over the footage, and bank records, and sees the foster parent owned a store, and was paying the gang to be ignored, but was barely getting by, and missed a few payments. She saw a recording, of one of the 11-year-old, Mr. Fox's kid working, and helping out his foster mom clean. When the gang went in, she could not pay, the kid said an intelligent remark, his intellect and emotions nurtured well by personalized lessons with Mr. Fox every night, *"If your brain worked half as hard as your fists, you'd know this neighborhood's already dead from your rot."* They took it hard. Then he was beat up, before they left, demanding payment.
Then... the gang disappeared 3 days later during a meeting where most of the members gathered, with survivors yelling in fear about "A fox", a living cartoon on TVs singing a rap song dissing them, while black shadow with glowing purple stylistic eyes, and teeth attacked them, bit their shadows, as their gang members, one by one were pulled into a cartoon, and attacked within a music number. The shadow foxes. She reads the report, and realizes... this is what he means by protection. As she watches security footage, from a lamppost outside their warehouse, a static glow, screams within a warehouse, and a gang member managing to escape, getting into their car in utter fear. A street cam, as a car drives, and then the man in the car's eyes go static as he crashes, and then the man's body disappears in a flash of light a few minutes later. Then... static cracks cover the car, and the crashed car disappears as well. That's... new? Only bodies and clothes normally disappear. The report reached their desk only 2 days after it occurred. SHIELD covered it up of course. Karlen said, as she read the report, "Heh... brutal. As usual for him. I do miss my singing roles back when I was his second in command. I recognize the song style... must be written by Joshen."
She read the reports, and saw not all the gang members disappeared. Some were attacked, taken into the cartoon, ran as animated humans in this realm of foxes, in a music video, and only after it ended, did they just return to their bodies. Mainly because... it seems Mr. Fox spared some of them. Most of the worse gang members just disappeared, as their static glowing eyes sat there, and then disappeared when the broadcast stopped. Of course... none of her team knew she was the tether to the realm, and... according to Mr. Fox, *"You could be equal to me in control of the realm if you learned. For now, you are just like a USB being used like a power port, but if you learned, you could control just like me."* She said nothing like that, he offered to train her... she refused for now. She did not want to learn how to pull people into TVs.
She respects his work... it's better than SHIELD, they go in guns blazing, or with spies, and don't fix these issues. Police are a joke for such issues as well. Not a single gang member technically died. Just... transformed. Some are still human, still in the real world, though traumatized, hopefully they will remember that rap song, and his theatrics, and learn something. She decides quietly to ask Mr. Fox to see those gang members he changed to shadow foxes when she is back in the fox realm. After all, the foxes kept calling her madam, and she was already royalty there. She decided next visit to see how he does these attacks, or his lessons. Lawton asks, "Is Mr. Fox losing restraint? What do you think, Agent Miller. It's unusual... for him to act this loud." She says, "No. He is simply protecting one of his own. He was even moral about it, letting some stay human, and not transform in the realm. Despite still being pulled into the realm for the music video." Lawton nods. "Yeah..." Dill scowls and says, "His power is stronger than we thought. If he ever turns on us, he could kill with just a car radio." Ally scowls at Dill, and replies, "Yeah, you should watch yourself. Karlen keeps mentioning in his letters how tempted he is to speak to Mr. Fox about you." Dill frowns greater, and gives her a stink eye, and leaves. Karlen, a voice only she can hear, says, "Heh... yeah. Fucker."
Tom says, "How many children does Mr. Fox protect now?" Ally looks at the data... "41." Tom says, "I keep looking at the data... there is something wrong. Why does he have so many shadow foxes? When our first detection of him came on September 3, 2012." She pauses... "Karlen... said he was Chinese and been a shadow fox... for 30 years..." Tom frowns. "That should not be possible? Mr. Fox only reached China in his activity range just 3 months ago." Karlen is quiet. Too quiet. She says, "That... is... weird. Mr. Fox's realm seems to run parallel in time to our own, except when Mr. Fox stops time, in that case his realm's time moves several thousand times faster than our own, and within the bubble, the same time rate follows. But it only stays active for a few minutes at most?" She notices clearly Karlen's... silence. He must know about this. This... is weird.