"No!"

The screams of the little girl rang in Bathilda's ears as she opened her eyes and leapt off the floor.

Surrounded by the walls of her base, they had once again grown smaller. Bathilda's head hit the ceiling as she stood up and the low roof forced her to hunch over. She had become too large to fit inside the once perfectly-sized hideout she used for evolution.

Fucking, shitty, stupidly-sized, useless body of a bastard bat. This is bullshit!

Turning to the extremely small entrance, Bathilda stopped to take note of her size.

I'm a lot bigger now. The entrance being tiny proves that fact. My evolution didn't mention anything about size though.

Reaching out to start excavating the small entrance, Bathilda stops when a arm moves forward instead of wing. Covered in hair, she baffled that she didn't notice it before as it's a separate appendage to her wing completely.

Well that's disturbing! I look like I'm Mrs Big Foot, but...

She jests while casting (Echolocation+), not really noticing the significance of what had happened until her skill provided her with a clearer picture. For the first time in while, Bathilda took a good look at herself.

Holy shit! I've got arms and wings now!? Yes, fucking yes! Go, Vampire Bat for the win.

Banging her head on the ceiling once again, Bathilda jumped in joy before remembering that she didn't fit in her own base anymore. She was ecstatic as hairy legs supported her upper body with actual feet on the bottom of them. Her toenails were still claw like, as were fingernails, but beggars can't be choosers.

Yes. Fucking yes. I knew it! Well I didn't know it, but I was definitely hoping for it!

Laughing at the almost-triumph-outcome of her evolution, Bathilda was more happy with her appearance than she originally been after Hiro said she looked worse.

Hey!? Why did you say I looked scarier now?

Suddenly offended by the description she was referred as before going to sleep, Bathilda scolded her hitchhiker at his poor choice of words. Bathilda was over the moon with her newly-acquired appendages, even if they did contain more hair and nail than was necessary.

"Have you looked at your face? It's horrifying!"

She had infact not looked at her face. Bathilda had been too caught up on the fact that she had human-like appendages more than anything.

In her over her human-like he had completely overlooked her head.

After she took a second look, Bathilda was horrified at what she saw and couldn't believe that she didn't notice it the first time.

Well shit! I guess I'm back to not looking at myself again then now.

Human eyes were positioned where you would expect to find them, slightly above the nose of her elongated face. That was about the most normal thing about Bathilda's appearance.

Above those eyes were another pair meaning she had four in total. The top two were not human and were blood red. No pupil, no isis, just red. Below the crooked nose was a ridiculously nonhuman mouth that had rows of teeth leading back. That was only made apparent due to Bathilda's grin when she first cast (Echolocation+).

Her entire body was covered in short, gristly hair, but on the top of her head, Bathilda had actual hair. Not much of it, and it made her look worse for having it, but the novelty of brushing it out her face wasn't lost on her. Finishing off her already-weird appearance were the strangest pair of ears she had ever seen. It was as though they couldn't make their mind up over what they were supposed to be and eventually decided on being both bat and human at the same time. It gave them an almost elfvish appearance.

No one is approaching this face. Not without wanting to slice it up, that is, but I quite like the ears.

"It could be worse."

Hiro attempts to cheer up the dejected and horrific-looking Bathilda.

How, Hiro? How could I look any worse? I might have a few human aspects now... Well, damn. I can actually see and I hadn't even realised. It shows how good I've become at seeing through skills I suppose, but I still can't believe I missed that too. Anyway, back to the subject, how could I look than this? Maybe my next evolution might humanise me some more, but right now I'm the picture that represents scary monsters in children stories. How could it be worse than that?

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Unable to picture anything worse than herself, Bathilda wondered what universe Hiro was living in if he thougt he'd seen anything uglier than her.

"You could be a Brat."

...

Well... I stand corrected. That would actually be worse than this... Vampire-type-himan-thingy, if that's even what it is. Is this what vampires look like on your world?

Hung up over the differences between her current appearance, and what she deemed be vampiresque, Bathilda looked for aid from her leeching stowaway...

"I'm sorry to say that I don't actually know what a vampire is."

And found nothing.

They're supposed to be beautiful and shiny and gorgeous and radiant... And sexy as hell too.

Revealing her large-pointed fangs, Bathilda smiled at the thought of her ideal Vampire before immediately clamping her mouth shut and pouting right after. Or the closest thing to a pout she could pull off with a face like that.

"You still have more evolutions to go through, right? It should be fine." Trying to help his own chances of survival as much as his ride's, Hiro attempted to encourage Bathilda into action again.

Yeah, I do...

She answered with a lethargic demeanour before slowly building up energy as she went on.

The problem though, is the level requirements keeps rising. This time, I probably need to get to level fifty to reach my evolution and what if I still don't become what I really-really-really want to become? Huh? The level cap after that will probably be a hundred. A hundred! One hundred is a huge number! Especially when I already feel like I've been in this place forever! How much time would I have to put in to reach that number? A fuck load. That's how much! But...

Bathilda sighed before beginning a spell.

What else am I going to do? I'm not going to sit here and starve am I? I'm not stupid. I'm just really, really, really annoyed right now.

Summoning a fresh clone, Hiro found himself forcefully ejected from Bathilda's mind and placed into the smaller body.

"How did you do that?" Worried that he wouldn't be able to return because of force that had kicked him out of his safe zone inside Bathilda's mind, the panic was evident in Hiro's voice. Which had risen a few decibels since her evolution.

Don't worry, you can come back later. For now, four arms are better than two, so get digging.

Bathilda pointed to the small hole that had once been thought of as an entrance to the base.

"So you're not giving up? Yes! I really don't want to die down down here in this place." Happy with the outcome, Hiro horrified Bathilda with a small smile of his own as he moved toward the entrance and began to dig.

Hiro. Please don't smile. Our face is already bad enough as it is without having to see all those teeth.

She winced knowing her own teeth were twice as large as the sets she was looking at.

"I know right. This is a lot of teeth." Hiro smiles again, knowing that he was helping Bathilda by making her want to progress past this evolution as quickly as possible. Not that she needed his help in that department and all his smile earned him was a clap round the head.

More digging, less smiling. Unless you want another one?

Bathilda frowned at the talkative bat with all four of her eyes and Hiro felt a chill run down his spine.

"Yes, mam." With that, Bathilda and Hiro pulled, pushed and forced their way through the hard-packed earth until they finally broke through the entrance of their base. Much bigger than before, both Bathilda and Hiro would be able to come and go as they pleased. That also stood the same for intruders, however.

Finally. At least that's one problem solved. Now, on to the next.

Bathilda stepped out onto the ledge and looked down to the bottom of the pit. The floor was stained red, but there wasn't a single corpse in sight. Not that she had expected to see any. She knew full well that Brats and Barts weren't opposed to eating each other after growing to know the carnivorous monsters over the time spent here.

There was still a ridiculous amount of live Barts, however. Shrieking in outrage at Bathilda's appearance, a hail of stones caused her to step back from the ledge before retreating inside to safety. Eventually the storm subsided and Bathilda peeked out.

"Is that the next problem?" Hiro whispered, following Bathilda's example and staying low by the edge.

No. I thought of it while we were excavating the doorway and I was looking at you. The problem is seeing if these wings fly as well as the last set did. The others were all attached in a different place, but it's too small in there to test.

Bathilda thought about the location of their wings as she looked at Hiro's back. They are at he top of his shoulders, his arms had claimed their original spot.

"Alright! How do we do..." before he could finish his sentence, Bathilda shuffled back and pushed Hiro off the ledge. She was hoping that flying was just like riding a bike. Once you learned how to do it, you never forgot.

It was a good plan, until Bathilda remembered Hiro hadn't had much luck in the flying department recently. His fall down the pit and his injuries afterwards had stunted his growth. Luckily for Hiro, he barely dropped a few feet before righting himself and rising back up to face Bathilda.

"You pushed me!" Sounding more upset than shocked, Hiro tried his best to pout the same way Bathilda had done earlier.

It didn't work.

You'll get over it. Plus, you can't die. Right, if it's that easy, let's go.

Taking off like a bullet, Bathilda wondered to herself why she pushed Hiro over the ledge.

Maybe I'm goin crazy? Meh, that's a problem for tomorrow's Bathilda. Right now, I just need to kill a lot of monsters and luckily, I know just where to find them.

Flying through the air like a bat out of hell, Bathilda released a torrent of (Wing Slash+) at the riled up Barts below. The flightless creatures had stupidly awaited the return of their nemesis and she didn't disappoint. The blades of air tore through the crowded pit and a cacophony of screams rang out in the darkness.

Haha, let the Bartpocolypse begin.

Bathilda thought as a second Bat appeared next to her, releases its own rain of deathly blades on the enemies below. The XP was severely needed as was the revenge.