Chimera Rising: Beast King Ascension [How a human-turned-lion went from Zero to Absolute Ruler]

As soon as Dominic had consented to receive the rewards, another odd sensation went through his body. This time, it wasn't like he'd suddenly developed a fever; instead, it was more like he'd imagine a werewolf might feel as his skin started shifting and his bones began to crack and pop. Thankfully, it was painless, almost like he'd been injected with an anaesthetic before an operation. He could still feel the movement, but it didn't hurt. It was very unsettling, though.

He looked down and then regretted it as he watched his bones rearrange themselves under his skin. At the same time, his fur seemed to be shortening and becoming thinner. Feeling abruptly nauseous, he closed his eyes and waited for the changes to end.

When his body felt like it had stopped moving and shifting, he carefully opened his eyes. And then he closed them again, abruptly overwhelmed by a flood of colours.

Slowly, he opened his eyes again, this time little by little. When he finally got them fully open, he found himself amazed at the changes. He hadn't realised how different his vision as a lion had been until it changed back to how he'd seen things as a human.

'So this is how humans see?' Leo asked, for once not sounding contemptuous.

'Yeah,' Dominic confirmed.

'It's more…colourful.'

It was. Apparently lions had a certain level of colourblindness, though it wasn't total. It wasn't that suddenly Dominic was seeing in colour where he used to seeing in black and white, it was just that the colours were much brighter, easier to distinguish. Most of the trees were a far more vivid green than he'd noticed before, and had traceries of red through their leaves – that, he hadn't seen at all.

Sitting up, Dominic stared around. Apparently at some point while he'd been shifting, several of the other Pride members had come to join Jenkins and Sekhmet in their vigil. He looked at them with new eyes.

The lionesses were much as he was expecting – apparently lions could see their own kind well enough. But even with them, there was a sharpness to his eyesight which Dominic hadn't anticipated – he'd thought his eyesight as a lion was better than a human's.

Then again, he could see further and in more detail than he remembered being capable of before he had become a lion so perhaps the System was interfering in some way. Still, he could definitely see more details than he could just a few minutes ago.

As for the other beasts, he hadn't realised that the albuhas were slightly blue-tinged, nor that the grass matched. Their wings were even more beautiful than he remembered them being too. The amesheks were still darkly coloured, but they were a dark red, not the dark brown he had thought they were before.

Yet he'd noticed the red in Selessa's dream world – was that because he had mostly been a human during that time? Except he'd changed into a lion at points…maybe because he already knew it was red, his brain had maintained that impression? There had certainly been no pre-System studies on how eyesight changed when a person shifted from one animal form to another. Maybe there were some now – or would be – if shifting was something that was becoming more commonplace.

Dominic reminded himself to focus – though determining how his eyesight had changed was interesting and useful, he needed to inspect far more than just that – his movement had drawn the attention of his guards and more and more Pride members were looking at him curiously.

The first thing he looked at were his hands, lifting them up and turning them over to inspect them. It was immediately obvious that he hadn't just gone back to the body which was torn apart by Leo.

He had rather more hair than he used to, a sandy covering over his skin which, while it wasn't exactly the fur of his leonine form, was certainly thicker and longer than typical human body hair. It covered even the inside areas of his underarms and the backs of his hands, though was pretty sparse in those areas. His armpit hair, however, was now really long, thick, and very black. And, though his palms were free of hair, there was a black tinge to them, like he'd been creating hand-prints with black paint and it had dyed his skin even after he'd washed it off. Rubbing his hands together, he noted that he had slightly less sensation than he expected, and that they were rougher than he remembered them to be. Perhaps a little like a labourer who had built up calluses on his hands rather than a soft-skinned barista who considered lugging in the deliveries to be hard work.

Fortunately, apart from that, his hands were mostly human with his digits separate and clearly defined. They didn't seem to be exactly like the hands he remembered, but as Dominic made a fist and then stretched his fingers out wide, he registered with relief that they functioned the way he expected them to. The biggest difference was something he only realised when he absent-mindedly made a gesture that in his lion form made his claws extend – it appeared he still had his claws.

Inspecting more closely, he noticed that he had both his fingernails and the claws underneath. Retracting them, he felt how there was still a prick if he pressed underneath the part of his fingernails that extended past the nail bed, even if he couldn't see it exactly. Looking closely through his fingernails themselves, he noticed how there was a faint line which went from about midway up the nail bed.

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Slowly extending them, he saw how they slid out from his skin. Feeling around while extending and retracting his claws, he got an idea of how they worked. They were attached to the bone and used tendons hidden below the skin to extend or retract – tendons which he could control as well as he could bend or extend his fingers. It was just a little extra movement which was awkward to do when he thought about it, but automatic when he didn't.

The claws themselves were significantly smaller than they had been in his lion form – they were only about half the length of the top section of his fingers, if that. But they were definitely sharp.

Dominic continued inspecting his body. He was almost completely naked, of course, which he only started feeling self-conscious about when he realised that his private parts were back to human standard – while a relief in many ways, it made him rather protective of the vulnerable flesh. He still had the gorget on, which had resized itself to close snugly over his neck – it included two pieces of leather that covered the nape of his neck and the first part of his sternum.

His nakedness wasn't as obvious as it might be, though, as the fur-like hair was all over. He doubted that he'd be able to pass himself off even as a very hirsute man with this much short sandy-coloured fur everywhere. The only parts without anything were his elbows, the backs of his knees, his achilles tendons, his palms, and the bottoms of his feet – which like his hands seemed to have been faintly dyed black and were thick enough that he didn't think he needed to worry about walking around barefoot.

At least it appeared that his proportions were human, though when he stood, it was hard to get his balance at first and he had to struggle to get his heels down on the ground – his achilles tendons seemed to have shortened since being a lion. Maybe some stretching could help with that? He also seemed to have claws on his toes, though they were smaller than his hand claws and more difficult to control consciously. If he curled his toes up they came out, though.

He was also significantly more muscular than he ever remembered being, though the muscles were appropriate for a human rather than a lion. It probably looked like he'd hit the gym a bit too much, and maybe taken part in some martial arts competitions – he didn't just look big but tough. Moving an arm in various directions, he watched the play of muscles under his skin – they were obvious in a way he'd never seen them.

Another new feature was that he still had his wings. It took him a little bit of time to notice them because they were on his back and folded – and he was too distracted with everything else – but when he twisted around to check on what he looked like behind, his vision was blocked by a feathery wall. Still sandy-coloured to match the hair all over his body, they were clearly smaller than they used to be.

Controlling them was easy enough – he seemed to have the right muscles, nerves and tendons to do so. Flying, however, was another question. Beating at the air just blew dust into the air and made him cough. He folded his wings again – he'd have to explore those later.

As for his head, that was somewhere else where there was definitely plenty of leonine influence. His teeth were longer and sharper for one thing, his jaw proportions slightly different from before due to canine teeth which were at least double the length. He probably looked like a vampire. And even his non canines were sharper – he'd have to be careful not to bite his tongue, though he did manage that as a lion already. He didn't feel the glands which held his acid, though, nor the ones that held the venom. Had he lost access to those in this form?

At least the rest of his head seemed to be shaped roughly as he remembered it being. His ears were in the right places, though his hearing seemed to be significantly better than it used to be when he was pure human. His sense of smell was also significantly better, though still not as good as it was as a lion. As for taste, he'd have to test that later.

He had even more hair on his head – black locks several inches long extended from lower down on his forehead than he'd ever had them as a human and continued sprouting down his neck to where it met his shoulders. Though he had sandy fur even on his forehead and nose, it probably wasn't so obvious due to the thick beard he had which covered more than half of his cheeks, his neck, his chin, and even gave him a thick moustache. It was hot and Dominic couldn't wait to shave it off.

'Don't you dare,' snarled Leo at him abruptly.

'What? I've never wanted a beard before and for good reason!' Dominic argued.

'This is the closest to a mane we have in this pitiful two-legged form. I won't put up with you shaving it off. Especially since if our mane appears here, what happens if you shave it off and then we go back to our proper shape? What if the shaving accompanies us there?!'

Dominic couldn't help but chuckle, the sound startling him a little as it actually emerged from human vocal cords for the first time in months.

'Alright, in deference to your sensibilities about becoming a shaven lion, I'll bear with having something that feels like an animal crawled on my face and died there,' Dominic allowed.

Though Leo had raised a question there which Dominic would like answered. First of all, what of this body would be transferred to his leonine body? And second…could he easily return to his lion shape. Because if he couldn't, then life might become very difficult, very soon.

Though he didn't want to lose access to a humanoid form so soon after taking it, he needed to make sure that he could return back to his leonine shape. After all, although sharper teeth and claws made his humanoid form more defensible than a pure human would be, it didn't have a patch on the big, heavy, and powerful form he was accustomed to.

Concentrating, Dominic focussed on his desire to become a lion again.

Moment of truth.