Raising an army of monsters is never easy. When the authorities and superheroes don't find out about you and shut you down, it's the stupid test subjects rising up in indignation over what you've done to them. But there may be another way...

---

Volunteer Army
By Xodiac

As a claims adjustor for a national insurance company, Dan Walfen had handled plenty of strange cases. There was the time he'd looked into a car caught in a buffalo stampede, and the YouTuber who somehow managed to manufacture a chemical that burned glass in his quest for internet stardom. There hadn't been much left of that house, afterwards. Those and a handful of other cases had gone into the little book of strangeness that he kept in his head.

And it looked like today he might have another chapter to add. The Nebraska farmhouse he was pulling up to looked like it had exploded, but it was a very peculiar explosion. Dan had been around long enough to recognize scorch marks, and this place lacked any. Instead, it looked like the house had burst, somehow. One end was shattered, with missing walls and a slumping roof. Wood and insulation and other bits and pieces were strewn for yards across the grass. It reminded Dan somewhat of tornado damage, except had been no reports of a tornado recently. Heck, it hadn't even rained for the last week.

At least the front door was still present, and with it the doorbell. Though the man who answered was... well. Not a man, exactly. It was a humanoid wolf, about five feet tall and with a distinct hunch on his back.

"This is not a good time," he growled menacingly even as the door swung open. "Master is... upset." The sound of distant shouting and breaking glass punctuated the creature's words.

"I can certainly understand that. I'm Dan Walfen, here to evaluate your insurance claim," he said, and held out the business card that also served as his professional ID. As the wolf took the card he glanced at his paperwork. "This is the home of Dr. Clinton Nefradin, yes?" The name was naggingly familiar. He must have overheard it somewhere. Maybe the office Christmas party.

The wolf peered at the card for a few moments, then sniffed it. Then he ate it. Luckily, Dan had plenty of spares. "All right. Come in and do what you need to do," he said, sounding slightly friendlier. "But try not to annoy Master. It might not go well for you."

"I appreciate your concern."

"Concern, nothin'! If he kills you our insurance is void! You guys are terrible, you know that?"

"I've been told that, yes."

The interior of the house reminded Dan once more of a tornado, or possibly of his teenaged son's room. Okay, no, this wasn't quite that bad. But more walls had been removed by a small bulldozer, by the look of things, and the remnants of smashed furniture were everywhere. "So, do you have a list of damaged–" Dan paused as a tall, thin man in a lab coat entered the room, glaring about from behind thick glasses. "Oh, hello, sir. How are you?" The adjustor offered his hand.

"Fang!" the newcomer fairly screamed. He thrust a finger at Dan, making him step back in surprise. "There is an intruder on the premises! Tear him apart and get back downstairs! I order you!"

The wolf – Fang, evidently – cringed. "But... Master! I can't! This is the claims adjustor! Remember, we were told he was coming today?"

"Aha!" the man exclaimed. "I order you, then, to not tear him apart! I need to recoup something from this disaster, if I am to rise once again from the ashes, like a phoenix rises on flames of justice to consume the world!"

Yes, this was definitely one to remember. "I presume you are Dr. Nefradin?" Dan said, offering his hand once again, a little apprehensively this time.

The man glared. "Do not call me that. That is a name for the normal folk, the mundane. I am Dr. Nefarious!" he declared and struck a dramatic pose.

"Oh, okay." The name-change forms must not have been received back at the office, yet. He made a little note on the paperwork so he wouldn't forget during the visit; people could get testy about their names. "So, I was about to ask, uh, Fang, here, whether you have a list of what was damaged and destroyed."

"I have such a list, yes," Nefra– Nefarious said, and for once it wasn't at the top of his lungs. It still sounded like he was trying out for an old-school melodrama, though. "But it is as yet incomplete." He frowned and muttered to himself. Dan thought he said, "All my work remains incomplete."

"Sorry to hear that. I'll take what you have, for now," he said. "You can send the full list to the office via email later. Just remember, we can't reimburse you for something if you don't add it to the claim."

Nefarious was still muttering. It was Fang who nodded at Dan. "Yes. I will make sure Master lists everything."

Dan nodded and took some pictures of the doorway that led further into the house. It looked like someone had driven a small truck through it. All things considered, he wasn't all that surprised to find the ruins of a laboratory that he found there. "So, what happened here, anyway?" he asked, more to make small talk than because he needed to know. They'd have already detailed the cause of the damages on their claim, but other than the name and address he hadn't read most of that since it didn't matter to his job. "It looks like someone went on a rampage or something!" He chuckled.

Nefarious started shouting again. "The fools! Superpowered buffoons! Time and again they find me and ruin my work! Simply ruin it, trashing my lab, destroying my home!"

Dan smiled indulgently. "Oh, come now, Doctor. This is Nebraska! There's nobody with superpowers anywhere in this state!"

Nefarious waved dismissively. "Of course not! That's why we moved here! Those damnable Defenders were a positive nuisance!"

"And the rent's a whole lot cheaper, too," Fang added.

The Defenders? Weren't they– oh. Yes, that would explain why the name was so familiar. "Yes, I hear the cost of living is rather high out on the coasts," Dan agreed. "So you're saying this was due to a home invasion?" He wondered if Nefarious would give him an autograph.

Fang licked his lips. "Well, no," he said. "Not this time. This was from one of the experiments."

"Fools!" Nefarious shouted again. He seemed to enjoy the word. "Don't they understand the gifts I am attempting to bestow upon them? They had nothing before I took them from the streets where they starved, neglected by society! Yet when I give them power, true power, they rebel! And they call me mad!"

Dan took a moment to decipher that. "I... see. One of those 'build a monstrous army by transforming the homeless' type of schemes, was it?"

"You got it," Fang said.

"Well, there's your problem, right there!"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't happen to also be a fool, would you? One of those small-minded fools who adheres strictly to the law? You think it wrong for one man to try to change the world, perhaps?" Nefarious sneered and slid one hand into a pocket of his lab coat.

"Heck, I don't care about that," Dan said honestly. "What a man does in his own house is his own business, right? Keep the government out of my bedroom and, even better, off my land entirely, I say."

Nefarious relaxed a bit, though his hand remained hidden. "What, then, do you mean?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, why are you using homeless people, if I may ask?"

"Because they are the dregs of society! Life has given up on them! Humanity has abandoned them! They have nothing to lose, and only revenge to gain!"

"Maybe. I don't think so, to be honest – think of all those homeless shelters. Doesn't sound like abandonment, to me." Dan shrugged. "Still, even if it was true, most people, even homeless people, don't want to become monsters like Fang, here. Uh, no offense."

"None taken."

Nefarious frowned. "So what would you have me do? I must have test subjects! My serums are excellent, but not yet perfected! Why, just look at Fang!"

"Yes, the hunch is unfortunate."

"What? No, I like the hunch," Fang said. "I was supposed to be thirty feet tall, with three heads."

The insurance adjustor nodded. "A positive Cerberus," he said, imagining the imposing figure described.

"And a hermaphrodite."

Dan immediately stopped visualizing Fang-That-Might-Have-Been. "Right. But why not use volunteers? A volunteer wouldn't rebel. They'd probably even help."

"Aha! You are a fool, after all!" Nefarious declared. "All I approach disdain my offers. Nobody seems willing to be turned into beasts."

"Are you kidding?" Dan asked. "There's corners of the internet devoted to that sort of thing! Just go there and post a want ad or something."

"What! Show me!"

Historians and intelligence agencies would later realize that the first sign of Dr. Nefarious' revolution was a sudden precipitous drop in attendance at furry conventions. And although the revolution itself eventually failed, it certainly wasn't due to any member of his army of anthropomorphic beasts – some gigantic, some seemingly made of latex, some with extra limbs or genders, and a few with all of the above – turning on their creator. And everyone agreed that Nebraska was a much more interesting place, now.

---

1565 words.

Given how many people are into transformations, and what some furries are into, I realized that a mad scientist ought to have a pretty easy time finding volunteers for his experiments. Yet for some reason they insist on drawing attention to their activities by kidnapping people! So I decided to rectify that for at least one scientist out there.

Sorry that there's not any transformation "on-screen," as it were. But there is implied TF, and it's not like there's really any other category that fits better.