The mountains loomed heavily in the distance, they could only be a few dozen minutes away, Leo guessed. The dark stone contrasting with the pale violet leaves of the short, thin trees; unlike the massive wooden towers edging against the mountains that held deep, almost black purples and blues.

Leo slowed his flight slightly, trying to spot anywhere he could land safely, but also trying to observe any wildlife he could.

At first all he could see were little blobs of varying colors and sizes moving through the foliage below, until finally he caught his first clear look at an honest to God alien.

It was a bipedal, hunchbacked thing, being at least ten feet tall at the shoulder. Its most notable feature being the thick gray wool covering its skin, but while it had hair it also had reptilian characteristics, with a smooth, ebony scaled crocodilian head and three toed feet with curved claws for maiming and possibly climbing. It had thick arms with large hands and claws that mirrored the other pair. To add onto its offensive capabilities, it also had a long clubbed tail.

It was safe to say that it was something you would not want to piss off.

'OH my God, I can't believe I just saw an alien!'

Ignoring the urge to immediately fly down and study the thing closer, Leo kept flying in search of a good place to land, occasionally seeing something.

Now that he was closer, the shapeshifter just realized how vast this mountain range was. Peaks pierced the sky like knives, and towering stones spread as far as the eye can see. Leo believed that the only place he could see anything like this on Earth would be through a T.V. screen.

The crocodilian wasn't the only thing he witnessed. Centipede like beasts the size of buses with pincers to match, swarms of fist sized birds devouring the carcass of something unrecognizable in a feeding frenzy. A thing with a long, boneless seeming neck with razor like protrusions, shredding what looked like a massive rose with root like tentacles. Or perhaps they were tentacle like roots?

'Amazing...'

To say Leo was speechless would be an understatement, he was downright gobsmacked.

Yet none of this compared to what dropped from above the clouds.

It was an avian the size of a whale, perhaps even larger. It had the maw like that of a beast of legend, broad, long, and filled with shredding teeth. Its feathers were as white as snow, and its scales darker than the darkest of ebony. It had four piercing green eyes on each side of its head, no doubt searching for prey. Its claws looked as if they could be torn off and fit right inside a game as some kind of massive sword. Its tail was long and thin compared to its body, with a spade of feathers at its tip.

Suffice to say, there were no words to describe what the biologist felt when he saw it dive from the sky.

'How is something like that even possible!? It spits right in the face of so many laws I couldn't even name them all, something of that size couldn't exist on land, let alone fly!'

Despite his excitement, a darker voice in the back of his head hoped that he was too small to be seen as food for it.

After staring at it for what felt like an eternity, it soon sailed away in another direction, eventually being hidden by the massive thrones of stone and earth as it descended towards its unknown destination.

'If something like that exists, what else could be out there?'

"If something like that exists," He started, "what could I be?"

He left that thought up to his imagination.

After searching for as much time as he allowed himself to, he settled on a large shelf on the side of a particularly wide mountain. It had a small pond off to the side where the cliff curved away. Bushes with odd, spiked berries littered its edge, greedy to the point where they wouldn't even let any grass grow anywhere near them, but somehow not strangling the nutrients out of their neighbors. Perhaps they share a root system?

There was a small crevice where floor and wall met that contained a large cave inside, thankfully uninhabited.

And just by that crevice was Leo, brainstorming as hard as he could on what he should do, or more specifically, what he should be.

'There's just so much, with what I saw, I could be damn near anything. Screw physics! Screw you Square Cube Law! I could be as big as a house or as small as an ant, though that wouldn't be smart. The world of bugs is little better than being in the deepest pits of hell itself.'

He rubbed his feathered chin with his wing.

'There is also the problem of food. Carnivore? Herbivore? Omnivore? Where would I get it from anyway, and how much should I be able to eat to sustain myself? Seeing all of those creatures on the way here has given me the impression that anything that counts a food would be jam packed with nutrients to the point of insanity, but what if I could be wrong? What if I choose to be something massive and immediately starve due to not being able to eat enough to sustain myself?'

He grumbled nonsense under his breath.

"There's just so much."

He kicked a pebble.

'Should I just copy something else from a game or movie?'

"..."

'Naaah. Why would I want to be something that's been already made when I have the power to be anything right at my fingertips?'

He took a deep breath.

"I could take some inspiration at least."

He reigned his thoughts back to his time on Earth and tried to remember what he could about any games or other media involving beasts and monsters.

Immediately, his thoughts gravitated towards the Monster Hunter franchise, one of his favorites. There were so many monsters in it that he would no doubt at least find something to use.

But he decided that he should think about what he wants before he decides how he wants it.

'Alright, first things first. What do I want? I want to be big obviously, with what I've seen being small will just make me an easy meal for practically everything. Flight is a given as well, it's just too big of an advantage to ignore, that giant bird-thing tells me that I have quite a lot of room to work with as well. Should I be an avian or something else? Feathers are nice and work pretty well for warmth and defense, but I'll be damned if I let anything other than the nastiest of bastards take me down due to sub-par armor. Perhaps I could freestyle it, try and make something new? I could modify some scales and try to make them fit for flight and defense? Yes, that could work. What else? Oh, diet! That's important, what should I be? Omnivorous seems obvious, lets me eat from multiple sources without having to worry about starving due to either one having any problems, though I may make it a primarily meat based diet to allow myself to access to more energy.'

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Leo sighed.

'Now for the details. If I am going to be a flying predator that can eat vegetation if need be, then head shape is going to be very important. A long head with a thick neck, and a strong, slightly hooked beak at the end of a mouth filled with broad, curved teeth with two pairs of long canines at the front. Yes, that sounds good. Eyes should be large with layers of eyelids to avoid injury from debris or fighting, and vertical beaded pupils letting me see farther without impacting my short range vision too bad. A good nose is a must, four nostrils, a pair on either side of the snout filled with sensitive hairs and nerves to detect even the smallest of smells.'

He inspected the mental image.

'You know, it reminds me a bit of Odogaron if it had a beak at the end of its maw, but with a bit less teeth and larger eyes. I like it.'

He tapped his foot against the rocky ground.

'As for the body, a thick chest with dense pectoral muscles would be optimal for flight, along with lean shoulder and back muscles. A long tail with a moderate amount of thickness should help as well. Perhaps I can make a fin like structure on it to aid with in-flight turning? Maybe I could add them along the body as well? Hind legs with strong tendons and ligaments with raptor like claws would be important for hunting prey. Maybe I should make my back muscles thicker, so I can thrash anything that survives the initial attack?'

He shuddered.

'Or to fend myself from anything that considers me prey.'

'Next up, wings. They will be modified forelimbs like that of a bat's, with specialized scales made for flight on the membrane itself. Thicker scales on the wrist should act as a decent windbreak, as well as letting me crawl on all 'fours' without it being uncomfortable. I should also have lungs that let me carry as much air as I can. I could possibly make an interlocking structure of bone and muscle around my lungs that lets me keep more air in by pressurizing it, if the laws of this world allows it, that is.'

Leo took a few minutes going over the mental blueprint, trying to find any obvious mistakes or problems, of which he had found none.

"Well, best to get this done. If anything truly is wrong with this design, then I can just change it later. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that."

He bounced on the balls of his feet, hyping himself up for what was to come next.

He breathed in, and focused as best he could on the design. As he did, he could feel a sort of rightness tickling the back of his head, an instinct telling him that yes, this design will work.

'Odd, is this a part of the shapeshifting ability I was given?'

Shaking his head, he went back to focusing, and after a moment of hesitating, shifted.

Bones ground against each other and muscles unbound and rebound in different ways. He grew in several magnitudes of size, from the tip of his new tail to the end of his beak, he was at least fifty feet long, and thirty feet tall at the shoulder. Skin morphed into sandy orange scales on top of inches thick flesh, spines that held fin like membranes ran across his tail and tattered off at the shoulders. His organs were more effective than ever, his liver filtering out what ever his three chambered stomach couldn't digest. His four massive lungs could take and compress incredible amounts of air thanks to the help of a carefully designed system of bone and muscle around them. His chest and underbelly had large, broad pale scales to act as armor. His wingspan was at least seventy feet across, made for hunting and dropping down from the sky onto unsuspecting prey. The membranes had long, thick scales that mimicked feathers with and added bonus for defense and heat retention. His hind legs had three toes and a back facing thumb, all with claws made for shredding.

He added the feather-like scales to run along his neck to the end of his tail, for added amounts of protection, and possibly just a bit of flair. The scales on his neck giving him a sort of mane. The scales on his wrists were so thick and dense they could be used as clubs if need be.

He felt like he could, and probably would, be able to crush boulders within his jaws with how strong of a bite-force he had, the muscles in his body giving him a sort of power he never had felt before.

But none of this compared to his sense of sight and smell.

He could make out a tiny bug munching on a leaf several football fields away, and he might as well have had three-sixty degree vision with how much he could smell. He felt like a blind man seeing for the first time. He could smell the scent of blood in the air being carried by the wind from far, far away. He could smell that some kind of beast had passed by on this very same shelf days ago, and there was so, so much more that he couldn't even name them all. It was almost overwhelming.

He closed his eyes and breathed in far more air than he should have been able to, his Compression System as he was going to call it doing its job, a great one at that. Once he breathed out it was like spitting out a hurricane, blowing away rocks the size of a man's fist, though they were less than pebbles at his size.

'This feels,' he thought, 'absolutely amazing.'

He stretched his wings to their full size, having to rise up on his hind legs in order to do so. After a moment of admiring himself, he began to fly, or at least try to do so, still getting used to his new body. His awkward movements eventually led to him being able to gain lift, and quite a bit at that.

In moments he was gaining incredible speed, the feeling of wind against his body, leading under his wings letting him stay in the sky set him alight with joy. He weaved around the peaks of the mountains, and rose above the clouds, taking in sights and smells he could have only experienced in dreams before he had come to this world.

There was another feeling, however, one he did not really understand. Knowing that he could go anywhere. Do anything. Be anything. But after a few confusing seconds of inspecting this feeling, he recognized it.

Freedom.

True, absolute, freedom. Not having to work any other's time but his own, never fearing what others think of him, never having to be anywhere or do anything that others want him to do.

A feeling that no one would be able to take from him. A feeling that put tears in his eyes.

He spent hours flying, thankfully not encountering anything that thought they could take a bite out of him. He could fly for a long as he liked, not needing an ounce of food or a drop of water until the time limit was up.

'Everything looks so small from up here.'

He had seen so many things in his short time here it had put an endless sea of excitement in his heart for what he would witness in the future. Everything was just so different than it was on Earth, nothing made sense.

And you know what?

He liked it that way. There would be an endless stream of knowledge and learning so long as he lived, and he didn't plan on dying anytime soon.

The sun was beginning to set, many hours having passed since he had arrived here. He was hesitant about settling down anywhere until he had his limits put upon him, but aside from some incredibly minute adjustments to his form, he had not needed to change anything to where he assumed it would be a chore to do after his time was up. So with a heavy sigh he turned back and flew to his little shelf upon the mountains.

'There's gotta be something else I can do, right? Maybe I could go hunting in preparation for tomorrow, though I don't really know where I would keep my meal other than my personal spot. I would rather not attract anything there while I'm sleeping, no thank you.'

He looked to the ground far below him, long since losing his fear of heights, knowing the bliss that is flying. He saw the animals of the day getting ready for sleep, small rodents finding there little burrows, pack animals sleeping in formations together, with young in the middle for protection. More specifically however, Leo was more interested in the birds, sleeping in nests and cradling chicks within the hollows of trees or on long branches.

'Making a nest to sleep on doesn't sound like a bad idea, I doubt sleeping on the cold hard stone would be comfortable.'

With a mission in mind, Leo sent himself off to find whatever he could use in order to give himself proper bedding for the night.

Branches and logs made up most of it, with the odd bone in there when he had found the skeletal remain of something humongous, he believed it to be what the flock of tiny birds were eating, leaving behind only what they couldn't.

Time went by as he finished up his bed. It was large, taking up nearly half of the shelf, but with how comfortable it was, the biologist thought it was worth it.

With an echoing yawn, Leo stretched however he could. Physically, he didn't need sleep until the timer that was hanging over him was up, but mentally?

He was exhausted.

With a shimmy and a shake, adjusting whatever litter he had beneath him, and readied himself for sleep.

That is, until he looked at the sky above.

The view he had of the mountain range may have a well been that of a pig's steamy droppings compared to what he saw.

Too enraptured in making his nest earlier, he had completely failed to notice that he could see what looked to be every star in the galaxy. Swirling purples mixed with blues, greens, and other kaleidoscopic colors and patterns. Stars shone brightly, like fireflies amidst a summer night's field. All with a pockmarked moon in view. With light pollution on Earth, seeing anything like this would be impossible, no matter where you were.

But now? Here?

He felt like he was held back a birth right that he didn't realize he was owed until now.

After star gazing for what must have been an hour, he finally laid his head to rest, dreaming of possible tomorrows.