trans_9 | Brought Down to "Normal?" [Closed]

||Attention, Attention. The following personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. The following personnel please report to the Observation Deck.

Goliath
Farseer Alastirra
N'tho 'Sraom
Kang
Rainbow Dash
Crematia||

When the summoned gathered, mission information was displayed on the Obs Deck for them to see:

Planet Designation: Hendersus Villae
Status: Terrestrial, H-class
Non-sentient life: Minimal flora, aggressive nonsentient fauna.
Semi-sentient life: No
Sentient life: Yes
Water: 25% of planet's surface
Climate: Primarily volcanic with frequent ash and lightning storms, dry and hot at volcanically active equator, temperate seas to the north and south poles.
Landscape: Variable. Much of the planet's landmasses are constantly being reworked by lava flows.
Air: Normoxic concentration: 31% oxygen, 60% nitrogen, 2% xenon, 4% trace gases, such as hydrogen, krypton, and argon.
Air Pressure: 93.8 kPa (kilopascals) = 13.6 psi (pounds per square inch)
Sky: Pale red, when visible.
Sun: Class G yellow star, distant orbit and dim light.
Warnings: Not suitable for crew incapable of flight, or without superhuman endurance.
Mission: Search and rescue Zarom Ghartha, missing GIA wizard, last seen en-route to investigate severe magical disturbance detected in the area of the planet. Crew is advised that native fauna is likely to be antagonistic, native sentients unfit to assist beyond the offering of information.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kang had felt it, and hadn't had any time to react before he'd been knocked unconscious. When he woke up, he put a hand to his head and paused, feeling skin and hair instead of scales.

He looked down at the rest of him, his clothing and armor dwarfing his human form, and cursed loudly.

"Not this shit again."

When Crematia wakes up, she realizes that she is not in her enormous dragon body. No, she's in the human form that she occasionally uses.

And she is also naked. Hmm.

She gets up, ignoring everyone else as she tries to reverse her shapeshifting to her human form.

Nothing happened.

"I can't change back." She says in a low tone, indicating that she is actually in a state of shock over this.

Rainbow Dash's eyes snapped open, then she rolled over onto her hands and knees -- then slammed face-first into the ground as her limbs just seemed to shoot out from under her. Someone had been expecting to lift effortlessly into the sky.

Groaning, she picked herself up again -- then went utterly still as she noticed that rather than hooves, she had her torso's weight on a pair of hands.

"Wha-a-a-at's going on here?" she said, slowly but with a rising note of alarm.

Suddenly, monitors that were heretofore unseen lit up around them with a single unified image.

A human man reclined on a hovering lounge chair, beverage can in one hand, shotgun in the other, laughed an uproarious cackle that boomed over the loudspeakers.

"Well friends, now I reckon y'all're gettin' a mite worked up 'bout yer sitchy-ation, so let me soothe yer troubled minds with a lil' reminder - y'all coulda turned back."

His cackle died away, and he stared as if to stare each of them in the eyes with utter malevolence.

"Keep that in mind, the longer y'all keep up this lil 'quest -' y'all coulda turned back. If'n any a you had the sense God gave a goose, y'all would have."

"Now I done heard y'all come from one a' them thar starships lookin' for a lil someone by th' name a Zay-rom Ghartha, and well, wouldn'tcha know it - y'all found 'im!"

The cameras panned suddenly to a slight young human male, who was unbound and ungagged, but whose eyes darted nervously around the room until settling on the camera, as if he was trying to convey a very serious message to the crew without actually speaking it.

The cameras whipped back to their captor. "Y'all probably thought'cha could just waltz on into mah propertay an' take what I done rightfully imprisoned, just like all them teams a' monsters what come before -" a sneer darkened his face again - "with yer wings and yer fangs an' alla that unnaturalness, but -" pause for a chuckle - "I think y'all can see now, how very very wrong you were."

In true evil villain fashion, he cackled again.

"I've got Ghartha, and you've got miles a' death traps between you an' us, an' now that yew ain't no more than normal, I daresay it ain't lookin' pretty! So, mah pre-zumptchus friends, mah final message is - you want 'im?"

The man leaned forward in his chair, a sneer of challenge on his features.

"Then see how easy it is to get 'im now."

The video feed switched off.

"...oh sweet Celestia, it's like Applejack and Discord had a foal."

She dropped her head into her hands. Applejack would never forgive her for that mental image and neither would her own sanity.

Quirking an eyebrow, Kang sighed, muttering a few more curses, and began fixing his clothing so it wouldn't get in the way. The leather armor, however was far too large for him and impossible to fight in properly. He paused, thinking, and looked at Goliath, "I think this'll fit you better now. I'd rather not leave it here unless I have to." Hiccup had done an excellent job making it. "Do you know how to use a sword? I won't be able to carry both it and my axe."

After a moment of messing with his belt, he remembered Crematia's state of undress. "I can lend you my tunic, if you'd like."

Goliath frowned at his clawless hands for a moment. As if having his natural form taken from him a second time was not infuriating enough, this time he was not subject to a magically implanted notion that he had always been this way. He felt just as alien in this body as he supposed he ought to have felt, had his mind been fully without enchantment when Puck had first played his shapeshifting mischief on the clan.

"I can wield it." He held out his hand for the sword. "Armor I am less used to, but I will care for it for you."

He tried to growl, but the sound came as merely a sigh in his newly human throat. "It seems our captor has some quarrel with any species not human. What point does he think he is making by taking our natural forms from us?"

And could they ever change back? That was a deeply imperative question.

With Kang's suggestion, Crematia snaps out of her funk and glares at him with as much draconic dignity as she can manage with the primitive muzzle. "I don't need that," she snaps. "What I need is that filthy little worm on a pike. I will break his bones and strip his flesh, carve out his eyes and pull out his teeth . . . "

She goes on this for a while, detailing every single gory aspect of what she will do, how she will do it, when it will happen and how long it will take. She is remarkably creative in dishing out the mathematical equations on how long this man will last while dishing out the worse torture possible.

Somebody, quick, interrupt her. She'll never stop.

"Uh," Rainbow Dash said. "As... creative as all that is, maybe instead of doing horrible things to him, we should get him to change us back instead."

She struggled slowly to her feet, looking down as if she expected to plummet over any second. Curved spines, what is this sorcery?!

Well, Kang hadn't expected Crematia to accept the offer. He had also expected her to be angry, but he was still a little surprised at the details of the torture she was rattling off.

"I don't know, and I don't care. I just want my normal body back and to see him dead," he said, with nothing but seriousness in his tone. The armor was removed, and set on the ground next to Goliath before he went to help Rainbow Dash. "Try to remember to step heel first when you walk. It'll make it much easier."

Dear God, Crematia. For a moment, Goliath was uncomfortably reminded of Demona - if his genocidal ex with her undying hatred had a slightly more vicious streak.

"We cannot kill him immediately. Otherwise we may remain this way forever - or longer than we would have, had we gotten the caster of the spell to lift it."

Goliath knew just enough about magic to know it was too complicated to risk the lifting of their spell for the sake of vengeance.

She took exaggerated steps at first, following Kang's advice on walking, but frowning as her feet found the ground rougher than hooves would have. Fortunately she was in good tune with her own body, and this form seemed to carry a certain level of reflex with it.

"Okay. I think I've got the hang of this," she finally said. "So let's find this guy and make him regret he ever messed with us!"

Crematia huffed and walked off, her steps coming easily to her. She had been human before, after all, when it was prudent to do so.

"Oh, he will regret it."

Brought Down to "Normal?" [Closed]

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