//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Shaping Man // by PheonixLyrics101 //------------------------------// Now when I say this thing was ugly I'm putting it lightly, I mean this thing has an unnaturally long snout, arms of a primate, what looked like the body and back legs off a dark and light blue lion, and had a tail with a hand on it, a fucking hand! Then there's the eyes, they were in the end of the snout, and right below our was a tiny nose and below that rows upon rows of sharp teeth. It was taking every bit of self control and keep a stone face as I looked around the room, to my left and front were these creatures best described as dogs from looking at them, although they resembled really deformed hunchbacks which made me laugh on the inside. Although there were some that actually stood up straight. To my right were these strange humanoid equines with horns. They were chained by their ankles and wrist to the wall to the right of me and looked utterly exhausted. They were panting heavily and bent over while sparks flew from their horns. After counting there seemed to be a dozen or so in here, hard to say with the lighting and the distance. After about two minutes of looking around the creature in front of me spoke up. “Well you're certainly not what I expected when I read about a being with divine power.” He gave me a scrutinizing gaze as he looked me over. “Frail, thin, barely any fur, no claws, seriously what do I have to work with here! You probably couldn't even take on a diamond dog pup!” ‘ So that's what they're called, whatever I've had enough of this shit.’ I thought as I summon my yellow painted desert eagle and take aim at his head. “Keep talking and I'll rip you a new one.” Short but sweet of I do say so myself. Ahuizotl replies between his laughter “And that...little gun is supposed to be your weapon. It's nothing more than a slab of shiny metal!” He laughs out. As I look around the room again I see one of the dogs guarding the entrance drop and get dragged away by what looks like one of those humanoid equines only it has… wings? ‘Considering the others are in chains at this point I'll play along.’ I think to myself as I discreetly summon my other DE to my left hand. I keep my gun pointed at the creature in front of me as I spoke. “Why did you bring me here?” “Well, I brought you here so you could assist a fellow being off destruction in my plans to take over this pathetic world.” I squinted my eyes and put a bit of venom into my voice with my reply. “Whoever said I would help you? Ever stop to think about what would happen if I didn't cooperate, if I was just a killing machine built to lay waste on every living thing I see?” I say as I flick the safety of and take aim with both guns. He takes a tentative step back as he finally comes to terms with how horribly thought it his plan was. “Now you're going to show me the way out or I'll make you, got it?” “Guards seize him!” When there's no retaliation he turns to see that his guard aren't there, and that's all the opening I needed. I dove and took him to the ground pinning his arms to the side as a put my guns away. Using my left foot I smashed his tail hand with one foot while slamming my right knee into his torso. As he's gasping for breath I put him in a choke hold while holding his body close to mine with my legs. He was thrashing and I'd be lying if I said I came out without a scratch, her tore up my abdomen with punches from those powerful arms but I held on tight knowing I was there for the long hull, after about a minute his thrashing got slower and he went under. I let go of him and went to stand up only to fall back down again. I reached into my inventory and took out a pill and popped out in, it tasted like freshly picked strawberries. I could feel my wounds closing and the bruises fade away as the pills did their work. “Hello?” Came a female sounding voice from behind. I whipped around and took in my surroundings. The thing in front of me was wearing a thin brown jacket, equally brown snow pants, and a safari hat that covered most of her hair. Hey hair being a mix of black and grey was messy and matted to her forehead with sweat. The… well they look like unicorns if they were anthro...so the anthro unicorns were all huddled together no doubt trying to conserve body heat in this frigged cave. Looking behind me I see that the pentagram that was there moments ago had mysteriously vanished. As for the diamond dogs, they were all laid down with various levels of dents in their helmets. ‘Quick and efficient, at least someone here has a brain.’ I think to myself as I look around the cavern. “Hello?” She asks again a hint of annoyance dropping into her voice. “Yes, sorry, just taking in my surroundings. I'm Gary, and you are?” I ask holding my hand out to shake hers. “I'm Daring Doo, but what are you?” She asks a bit of disgust seeping into her voice. “I could all the same about you there Miss.Doo.” I reply not letting her attitude get these best of me. “Well I'm a pony, although I've never seen anything like you during my travels, are you some sort of hairless ape?” She asks, walking around you. She goes to feel your hair but you move away. “No touching, ok?” You reply beginning to be annoyed that she would just feel you like that. But then that reminds you. ‘I could get wings out of this. ‘ An idea starts to form in your head. ‘Yeah, that might just work’ “Hey, do you have any tinder? We could set up camp here. I've got food just no way to keep everyone else warm.” “Yeah, let me just go get my bag, I'll be right back.” “Ok, I’ll search the guards for the keys and do the ol switcheroo so wet don't have to worry about the guards retaliating.” “Ok, be careful with Ahuizotl though, he's a slippery one.” She yells back as she runs down the corridor. As you go to the first guard you think better off or and summon your rope to tie up Ahuizotl first. The unicorns take this time to try and communicate with you. “W-what are you?” A female sounding voice asks you. “I'm a human, though there's no need to fear, Daring and I will take good care of you. Once I'm done tying up Ahuizotl here we'll set you free and help jump-start you on your way back home. How are you all holding up?” “A heck of allot better now that you two are here.” Comes a low resounding voice. “Now that's music to my ears.” As you finish tying up Ahuizotl you then begin to loot the guards. They have various things on them but not much that you need. You did happen to score a pick axe and a shovel though. You left the weapons and assorted goodies for the others though. After finally finding the keys you begin to free them from their steel shackles. After you finish you turn around to be greeted by a hug from one of the female captives. And even if you didn't want to admit it, feeling her breasts press against your chest was amazing. “Thank you so much for saving us, is there any way at all we can pay you back?” She asks as she grips you tighter effectively pinning your arms. “Yes, there is.” You reply. “You can ask her out of here safely and return to your normal lives.” She then let's go off you and strides off to the others. There were in all 12 unicorns there, 8 female and 4 male. “Hey, can any of you help me shackle these diamond dogs too the wall here?” “Come on guys, let's help this feller out.” With that the guy grabs two by levitating them and shackles them up while the others to the same. You however just throw two over your shoulders and walk them over. After you make a couple rounds you walk around the area of the cavern to see if there are any more. After you check you hear the sound of sniffling behind you. You walk up to the cold mare and drape your coat around her shoulders. “Thankyou” She says. “Anytime.” You reply as you summon your blanket. You toys out over to the other mares and you take out your sleeping bag. You unzip the sleeping bag and toys it over to the stations as you set up your tent. The pillow you keep for yourself. So you all wait for Daring to come back as you sit in front of your tent and start to strum a time on your guitar. You had your first modified so it could be expanded into an acoustic and collapsed into an electric, gosh you love technology. As you strum away the sound of shuffling could be heard. You open an eye to see that they've all gathered around you. You chuckle softly as you begin to play Linkin Park in the end on your guitar. The sound of trotting makes you stop as you get up, find drawn pointing at the entrance. “Hey I'm back, sorry it took so long, almost forgot where I hid my bag.” Daring says between pants. You put your guns away and walk over to help her with her bag. As you set it by the tent you take the tinder that's tied to it and look for loose stones to make there's base for your fire. You find those ready enough and make a small circle in front of the tent in the corner of the cave to conserve heat. You take out thirteen pills, one for everyone else since you just had one after your fight, you handed them out to everyone. “What are these for?” Asks a station. “They are nutrition pills, they'll fill you up, trust me.” You say trying to get them to eat the pills. He mumbles something under his breath and swallows the pill. After a few minutes his eyes go wide and he exclaims. “This is amazing! Where did you get these?” “From a friend, although I don't think she'd be able to make more.” “And why's that ol champ?” Asked a posh sounding unicorn. “It's complicated alright, why don't we all get done rest and we'll head out in the morning. You all can share my tent is you'd like, I'll sleep or here by the fire.” “You sure you don't want to join us?” Came a reply from the mare who gives you when you first set everyone free. “Yeah, I'm sure.” You reply with a reassuring smile. She let's out an audible “Eeep!” at the sight of your teeth. “What's wrong?” you ask,wondering what could've scared her. “Your teeth.” She replies taking a tentative step back. “Well I wouldn't be an omnivore if I didn't have canines.” You reply. “You eat meat?” Daring asks. “Yeah, I'd never easy you all though, I usually eat chicken, beef, steak, or pork, and bacon, god I love bacon.” You say as a bit of drool escapes your mouth, you quickly wipe it up and how nobody saw it. But by then they had all backed away a fair distance. “You don't think I'd eat you do you?” No response. “You're all bigger than me too, and I don't hunt for sport, I hung only for what I'd need. And let me tell you, one of you would lay me about a year, and I've got these pills anyways so I won't exactly be hungry any time soon. You all have nothing to worry about.” You day as you get back to plucking out some more Linkin Park. One stallion exclaims, “Really everyone, I'm sure if he was going to eat us he would've kept us in chains now let's stop acting like scared fillies and stay by the fire.” as he walks back over to the warmth of my abode. A song comes to your tired mind as you thoughtlessly strum away at your guitar. You put your guitar away into its case and place the case into your inventory for safe keeping. You lay your head down on your pillow and fall asleep. The next morning you wake to a wall of fur in your face. You bolt into an upright position and look around. You’re in your tent and your movement disturbed the mare that was next to you. Feeling a bit flustered you quickly yet discreetly exit the tent to get done fresh air. As you look around you see that the dogs and Ahuizotl are all still sleeping. You take this as prime time to get everybody moving and get out of here while you still can. You stick your head into the tent and yell into it, “Alright let's get up everyone, it's time to get moving!” which brings the desired effect. Something itches at the back of your mind, then you remember, I was supposed to try out my powers last night while they were sleeping. You mentally face palm and begin to take apart the tent once they all vacate it. ‘How would I even go about using my powers? “You could always ask me.” Came the voice of yours conscience. ‘Nice to hear from you again. So how would I go another using my powers?’ “Well all youth have to do is think about something you've touched and your body adapts to use those abilities of that being.” ‘Thanks...um… what's your name?’ “You can call me… Cordelia.” ‘Thank you Cordelia.’ “Your welcome Gary” With piece of information you begin to think about Daring, her wings to be precise, you slow your breathing, close your eyes, and sit down. You feel yourself grow warmer. You feel a secondary layer being grown over your eyelids to protect your eyes during flight. Then the cream of the crop comes, you almost falter your concentration as you remove your sweatshirt and take off your dress shirt. Then you continue to concentrate, as you do you feel protrusions come from your lower shoulder blades and mid back on each side. Then you feel the feathers grow. As they do so you feel your frame become lighter, your muscles feel less strain as your bones become hollow yet they remain the weight when you feel what parts of the bone you kept grow denser. When tough feel things have stopped changing you open your eyes to be greeted by Daring sitting in front of you with a confused expression on her face. “Are those… wings?” She asks you. “Yes, you see my powers revolve around copying abilities of others as long as I touch them in some way, like when we shook hands when we first met” “Like a changeling?” She asks you, which in return you shoot her a raised eyebrow. “What's a changeling? Actually just give me a minute, I'm sure it's in my book somewhere.” You say as you summon your book. {30 minutes later} “Yes and no.” You say after reading the chapters containing changelings. “What do you mean?” “What I mean is that I can't copy the form of a specific being, I can only adapt to better suit the new-found ability. Like how you can fly, handle temperatures better, and have more stamina, at least compared to a human.” “That's kind-of creepy… “ “Yeah it kind-of is. But c’est la vie.” You say shrugging your shoulders. “What's that mean?” Daring asks. “It means such is life in a different language back on my world. Speaking of which were are we?” “I was meaning to ask you about that, you seem to be taking this a little too calmly. It's like you were told you were going here and had time to prepare.” “Actually that would be because I was gibbon the chance to prepare. How else do you think I would've gotten all these things packed. The summoning on my size took a couple hours. A couple hours in which I shared a lovely conversation with an omnipotent being that became my conscience. A being that granted me 1 power to help me survive on this world and four wishes pertaining to my arsenal. Let's just say I milked those wishes for every drop.” You both share a chuckle at that. “Why were you going to sleep outside your own tent last night?” “Because after how you all reacted towards my teeth I didn't want to discomfort you more.” ‘Also waking up to a humanoid woman using me as an extra large Teddy bear wasn't exactly good for the hormones’ “Ok, well that didn't stop one of the guys from bringing you in last night.” “So I saw” As I say that I spread my wings so I can take a look at them. They have black feathers with dark purple highlights around the edges. The wingspan is about six and a half feet if you'd have to take a guess. “Is it always this warm for you?” “Yeah, how else would a Pegasus survive while flying?” “True, true. I think we should get going soon though. If my guess is correct it's winter here and we should go before it gets too cold to venture out. “I'll prepare the others while you pack up. We'll meet you at the cave entrance alright?” “Sounds good, I have done things I need to wrap up before we head out. But first take these pills so everyone can have a bit too easy before we head out.” You say as you toss her 13 pills. She nods to you before popping one and walking off to hand the rest out.