NOVEL NEXT 3.26: Shapeshift
After thirty minutes of Maurice blasting poor innocent sharks away as he got more comfortable with his improved abilities, Henry popped him in his Maw and readied himself to teleport them both back to his above-water Shadow.
As much as he wanted to find something tougher than common B-ranks to sharpen his beak against, the wave was still on-going, and now was not the time to meander too far from Thalis, especially with how spent he still felt. After all, it's only been a couple of hours since he'd evolved, and while he was rejuvenated enough, he could still feel some lurking soreness in his soul. It hasn't been that long since the fight against the birds either. Barely hours. So a night of rest would do him well.
As soon as he finished reducing his size, the world blurred and Henry was once more encased in a little cavity he'd created within the abdomen of the human-like shell he'd created. Taking control over the construct, he got up and glanced about. The guest home was empty, and looking out of the glass window, he found the pool to be empty.
He assumed everyone had left and considering the reddish hues he could see from beyond the tree-tops, it must be near dusk, so he'd bet the tables had been set, and that people were either already eating or they were about to start.
Henry began channeling an activation of Maw a couple of inches out of his chest and frowned as he sensed the mana veins in the construct crack. Looking down, he saw parts of his chest flaking off, and he hummed. His current design seemed to be flagging.
Might need to recreate another one with sturdier and wider veins. Or…
Glancing around, Henry considered it for a moment, then shrugged. He did earn the new skill. He might as well test it.
Henry closed his eyes, dissolved the shell around him, and activated Shapeshift.
A burst of information sprang forth in his mind as the world around fell away. Being familiar with the lesser variants of the Skill, Henry had been ready, and as soon as the deluge of information and options began, his Octominds got to work, isolating the forms and organs he'd need and pushing away those he wouldn't, and by the time he was done fashioning his human form, Henry was pretty sure he wouldn't really qualify as human, and that wasn't just because of the four arms he'd shrunk and folded around his chest.
Who knew if he'd needed his arms for a fight or something? He'd grown used to them, and he didn't know if he could do with just two at this point.
Just in case reverting back to my normal form takes time, Henry thought. Though whatever his reasons were, his new body would absolutely give nightmares to any doctor who might examine him.
Or make them really excited if they're the weird, mad kind, he thought with a chuckle.
Basically, he'd kept most of his kraken organs, but just moved them around, shrinking and encasing the most important of them under thick, powerful corded muscles and bones. This new body was mostly bones and muscles, with the Octominds nerve centers spread about.
Taking a deep breath as the remnants of the magic faded away, he looked down and stumbled as his foot jerked at the same time as his head moved.
Uh-oh.
Henry paused, blinking–which made the corner of his lips twitch–and blew up his cheeks.
The nerves are all messed up, Henry quickly realized with a sigh. Trying to move his left hand resulted in one of the arms wrapped around his chest to jerk as well, and as he tested his movements over the next couple of seconds, he found plenty more of other idiosyncrasies, so Henry spent the next fifteen minute casting and recasting the Skill, tweaking, adjusting, cutting off bits and re-shaping others until he got the new body to perform like he wanted. Once he was done, he did a few hops, walked around a bit, then unfurled and enlarged the four arms around his back—which took a couple of seconds–and when they grew large enough to begin pushing against the wood of the guest house around him, Henry hummed.
He might need to levitate when they were this large, because right now, his human-looking legs were struggling to keep him upright under the massive weight of his limbs. Hell, he was pretty surprised they hadn't snapped just yet. His four kraken arms must weigh at least a few tons. Even the wood below him was groaning at the heft it had been forced to burden.
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Shrinking the arms back, Henry nodded. All in all, this will take him a bit of time to get used to and to optimize, and he could always tweak the form or use a shell-construct, but for now, it would do.
With that done, Henry crafted his clothes out of Mimicking Shell and summoned Maurice out of his Maw, and with Telekinesis, he lowered the crab. The wood groaned for a moment, and as Maurice's many legs came out, they sunk a few millimeters into the wood.
"Uh-oh," mumbled Maurice as he stepped to the side, occasionally wrenching a leg out whenever it sank a bit more than the others into the wood. "I don't like how this feels. What do I do, Henry?"
Now that they were both above water and had more reference to contrast their size with, Henry realized Maurice was at least thrice as large as he used to be. Which made sense, considering the evolution. Though he was still pretty small compared to most B-ranks they'd encountered.
Henry took a seat on the side of his bed, and jumped up when he felt something crack under him.
"How's your shapeshifting?" Henry asked, wincing as he examined the bed's broken leg and immediately, he recast Shapeshift and began tweaking his voice box. His voice sounded weird, though he believed he could fix it. "Maybe now you can copy Flowing Form from me? Unless your Partial Shapeshift evolved to do something like it?" he offered as he tweaked the muscles of his larynx.
Maurice looked up and peered at him as he cast his illusory voice. The crab began walking around Henry, looking him up and down as he answered. "Hmm… Yeah. It did evolve to let me adjust my size," he said, voice distracted. "This isn't your usual shell, is it?" he asked as he poked Henry's leg. Maurice looked down at his own claw. Then went to poke Henry's leg again. "This is…"
"A real body," said Henry, finally liking the sound of his voice. "I just made it. And if you can play with your weight and size, then you could make yourself smaller as well. You'd be able to walk without nailing your legs to the floorboard. Otherwise you might need to Telekinesis-yourself and float like I've been doing above water. Is it a full shapeshift like mine?"
Maurice clicked his pincer, smugness radiating out of him. "It is. So I can make myself a real body too? Not just an illusion? That's so cool!"
There was a pulse of mana, and the crab's form began to shrink as he rubbed his pincers together, then he looked up at Henry. "I should do it now, then. That way we can just walk up to the others and be like real humans! Or… Or!"
Henry braced as he saw the crab's limbs begin to tremble as Maurice realized the full spread of possibilities that had opened up to him.
"I could become a bird! Or a dolphin! Or an ape! What if I looked like Zerathstra? Could I—"
Henry let Maurice chatter away and sighed. He'd have to make sure the crab didn't abuse the skill too much.
Speaking of, Henry thought as he raised a hand, which made Maurice pause. "I haven't tested this exactly, but make sure you're careful when you're moving or creating organs. Keep everything you have at first, just… play around with the exterior. If you make an important organ non-functional through a modification, it might be more dangerous than we expect, so make sure you're very careful, okay? Especially with your brain and heart."
Henry didn't think those two organs were as vital at this point to either of them, but better be safe than sorry. He knew for a fact that healing didn't work well on shapeshifted limbs.
"Okay!" exclaimed Maurice, and instant later, there was a pulse of intense magic as a sheen of blues and purples began dancing around the crab. His shell began to shrink along with the rest of his body, while a wave of russet-red skin spread out from under his shell and began engulfing everything else.
Frankly, it was a little disturbing to look at the process, but all of those hours and days of Maurice fighting against the lesser forms of the Skill to create his own Clawminds were showing their results.
It was like watching a master-craftsman molding a statue.
The disturbing blob of skin began to take form pretty fast. Hands and feet sprang out as his torso and head began taking form, and in only a matter of a few minutes or so, a teenager that looked strikingly like the illusion Maurice had been sporting showed up. He took a step forward, as if expecting the ground to drop under him, and stumbled. And Henry knew this wasn't because Maurice had messed up the creation of his nerves. No, there were no jerky movements or anything of the sorts. This was something else entirely, and as a heavy thud rang outside of the guest home and was quickly followed by the boisterous voice of Velistraine, Maurice looked up at him, eyes wide in shock. "How do people stand up on just two legs?!"