Joseph Mendele knelt down to the stray dog that approached him in the alleyway. It was a large white dog with matted fur. Its tail was stuck between its legs as its eyes darted around him. As he held his hand out towards it, it slowly came up to him. After it sniffed him a few times, he rubbed it on the top of its head, giving it a warm smile. It meekly licked at his hand.

"Hello there little one," he said. "What are you doing way out here? Where's your family? There's not many stray dogs in the city."

The dog moved towards him, pushing its shoulder against him. He gently rubbed his hand along its side a few times.

"Lost and alone too? Well, why don't we go get you something to eat?" Joseph stood up. "Here, follow me."

The dog looked up at him then laid down on the concrete.

He let out a sigh, took a few steps away, then patted his thigh a few times. "Come!"

It stretched, and then followed after him as he walked down the empty street. After a few minutes of walking, he entered a warehouse, with the dog still following close behind. Rows of metal frames lined the floor, some of them still holding pallets of boxes that were going to be shipped out through the suburbs of the outer districts. Between the walls of shelves, there were large fleshy cylinders of membrane sitting in the dark, with a thick yellow liquid sitting inside them. The dog followed him in, only to jump out and start growling at it all.

"I know it probably smells weird to you. Here, let me..."

He went over towards the fridge he had sitting right inside the door, hooked right up into a generator. He pulled a slice of packaged cheese out, folding it over a few times after pulling it out of its plastic.

"Here girl!" He held it out towards the dog, who was still standing just out of the doorway.

The dog slowly came inside, looking around the warehouse carefully before going straight for the cheese.

Joseph laughed as the dog continued to lick at his fingers after scarfing down the piece of cheese. He ran his other hand down its back a few times before scratching under its chin.

"You probably aren't too used to eating raw meat. You seem too attached to be a proper stray. I'll have to go buy you some kibble for now. Let me set you up with some water."

He stood up, and pushed his hand against a small growth on the wall, melding his skin into it. After a few moments, a few sacs of blue liquid lit up across the warehouse. A new growth sprouted down from where he touched, snaking its way down the floor before a bowl of membrane formed, then began turned from the fleshy pink into a woody brown. A few veins popped over the side and began shooting water out into the bowl.

"That should be clean water, I balanced the pH and minerals, as well as... You don't care."

The dog was already lapping up the water.

"I'm glad I get to see an actual dog. I don't like working with insects, they tend to rapidly lose intelligence after being formed. I need to think of a name for you. Are you like, a Labrador mix? Maybe a Pyrenees? I've never been good with breeds."

He sat there for a while, petting the dog. Once the dog stopped drinking, he got up and headed towards the door. The dog followed behind him.

"No you can't come." He pushed the dog back inside a little, only for it to try to force its way out twice as hard.

"No! Stay!" he yelled, snapping his fingers and pointing inside the warehouse. "Go! Sit!"

The dog just sat down right there, staring at him through the doorway. He leaned down and gave it a scratch under its chin.

"Be a good girl," he said as he shut the door.

Once outside, he reached down into his pocket and pulled out a wallet, stuffed with cards. Inside was an unfamiliar face, staring at him from the ID.

"Let's see how much cash I got in here. A hundred. That should be enough for a good amount of food, at least until I figure out what it's made of. I really need a stove. I suppose I could just produce the methane, but how do I contain a flame..."

He held his hand up to his face, looking down at the picture on the ID. His face quickly shifted under his fingers, changing until it matched the photo.

"Floyd Smith," he quietly repeated to himself a few times as he pushed the wallet back into his pocket.

***

Joseph pushed open the door of the warehouse, only for the dog to start barking wildly at him. He set down the twenty pound bag of food as the dog growled. He touched his face, quickly reverting it to normal. The dog didn't know what to make of this, and instead ran up to try to smell him.

"Down girl! Down! Sit!" He pushed the dog around a bit, before he got it sitting down patiently.

He gave it a few pets, causing it to stand up excitedly. He felt something as he ran his fingers through the matted fur.

"Fleas? Let me..." he trailed off as he started rubbing his hands all across the dog. "That should help for now. You even had a tick and you weren't even scratching at it. I didn't even know those made it to the island."

A loud knock came to the door of the warehouse. The dog jumped toward the door, growling and barking at it.

"Oh no. It appears we have an unsolicited visitor. Sit! Stay."

He stood up, looking through the frosted window in the door. There was a shadow in the corner, slightly shifting around. Joseph moved closer, stopping right next to it. He shifted his face around to the one he had earlier and reached up to turn off the bioluminescent lights.

Then, he opened the door.

"Hello? Who's this?" he asked, careful to put on an accent.

At the door was a very muscular man, almost wider than he was tall. He had very dark skin, with very closely buzzed hair and a sharp suit. Joseph recognized him from his encounter with Fetter Young a few days ago.

"Hello, sir. Do you mind if I step inside?"

"Why? Whatcha doing out here?"

"I'm with the IMB. We got word that some criminals are hiding in this warehouse."

"You got a warrant?"

"No, but-"

Joseph shut the door on him. The dog had already wandered off. He picked up pace, walking across the warehouse.

"Dammit, where did that dog run off to already? Come here!" He slapped his thigh a few times. "Come on girl, we've got to go. They're on to me," he muttered to himself while he looked through the rows of shelves and randomly placed vats.

At the end of the warehouse, he spotted the dog sniffing around one of the vats. "There you are!" He dashed over, scooping up the dog in his arms.

As he picked up the dog, a loud crash came from the entrance to the warehouse.

"I've gotcha now shitface!" a loud voice yelled.

"Fetter! Stop!" the muscular man yelled after.

He turned toward the fire exit, hoping to get out before his pursuers caught up, but Fetter landed against the far wall and was already on his way straight towards him. Joseph focused his power on himself, changing the physical makeup of his body to be sturdier in every way he could think of. Adapting more and tighter knit muscles, growing extra support bones, and covering it all with a thin layer of chitinous membrane.

He braced a foot in front of him just in time as Fetter impacted his body. It felt like being hit by a truck, focused onto the small area of his foot. He could only wonder how Fetter's body didn't splatter under these forces, but that thought disappeared as a knife ran through his shoulder blade. Fetter jumped back, with barely any force.

"Dumb fucking child!" Joseph yelled as he struggled to step forward, still cradling the dog in his arms as it tried to squirm away.

"I'm going to kill you for what you did!" Fetter yelled before jumping at him again.

Joseph carried himself forward with the momentum from the next blow, stumbling over to the wall where one of his tendrils had reached. He slapped his hand against it, quickly melding into it. Then he drew in material.

"You already set up this place, for experimenting on more people huh? Maybe that dog? What'd you do to it? Move around all its internal organs so it suffers while breathing? You sicken me!"

"I am sorry, little one, I have not yet even given you a name, yet I need to do this to you so you may survive. It would be too sad for one as innocent as you to suffer from knowing me for only a couple hours."

"What the fuck are you saying?"

"I shall name you-" he paused as Fetter struck him again. "Skoll. Or I guess, Skolla. The wolf who chases the sun."

"Grant! Help me out here!" Fetter yelled.

The dog grew larger as Joseph held it close, hugging it with his arm. It's form shifted a little, as its body grew faster than it's head. It's back legs soon touched the floor, even as Joseph still held it up, but it kept growing. As it grew larger though, so did he, packing on material for later.

"And here, I gift you with all I know to make you stronger, smarter, faster, and more resilient. I hope you understand me enough now to know I want you to run with all your might, swim out of this cage of an island if you have to. For your size and coat, I think Siberia would be great for you, but the lack of people might be depressing."

Grant came around the corner. "Is that a wolf?"

"No. It was a dog. He was just holding a normal dog and he's making it into a monster! He's talking in fucking poetry too. He's really lost it. I don't think we can bring him in safely alive."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Fetter! Calm down!"

He broke off his connection from the tendril, turning around to face Fetter as he talked. "Can a man not talk kindly to his dog? Why are you interrupting me? This might be the last time I get to see her! Dogs are kind creatures, they love people even through all of their misgivings, and you think it's weird that I treat them well? What the fuck?"

Fetter lunged toward him, knife first this time. Joseph caught the blade, letting it sink into his palm. The giant dog snapped at Fetter, jumping around Joseph.

"Skolla! No!"

He grabbed onto its fur with his other hand. The dog moved back a little as Fetter jumped away, slinking down against the ground as it let out a deep growl.

"Fetter Young, I don't want to kill you. Don't force my hand."

"Don't want to kill me? Are you fucking kidding me? You mutilated my brother. You ruined the bodies of my friends before they could get a proper burial. One of us is dying here today. I thought you were all too excited to test your creations? What's wrong?"

"Shut up!"

"Joseph Mendele, you are under arrest!" Grant yelled, taking a step forward.

"I'm not going back! That place is no different than death. We aren't made to be locked alone in a cell."

Joseph sprinted straight at the sheetmetal wall and pushed the panel over as he burst out onto the other side. The giant dog followed behind him as he ran down the narrow alley. A young girl he didn't recognize was there, with tan skin and brown hair.

"Move!" he screamed at her as he kept running.

The girl didn't move. She was just stuck staring at him with a surprised expression. Fetter was already out of the building behind him, so he kept running straight at her. He tried waving his arm once, but she didn't budge.

As he was right in front of her. A dark figure shimmered in the air for a moment, before clouds of smoke shifted together to form a person. It was the girl, Alcina. As soon as she had appeared, her tentacles lashed forward as they sprung from her back, smashing into Joseph and sending him flying through the wall next to him. He landed in an abandoned clothing store, with only a few items left strewn about the place.

He sprinted back as soon as he could. Skolla was growling at Alcina, with her tail tucked between her legs. It jumped back from every movement she made, careful to stay away from her.

"Skolla! Run! Run!"

The dog didn't listen.

"Run!" he yelled again, waving his arm around.

Alcina turned to Joseph. "We have been ordered to capture you."

"You better not! I'm gonna kill him!" Fetter shouted from the other side.

"You are more than likely incapable, Fetter Young," said Alcina, looking at him blankly. "You will not succeed against us."

Fetter jump kicked towards Alcina, only for it to be blocked by a tentacle. As he buckled his legs to jump away, another one swatted him into the ground. He bounced about a foot in the air, then rolled away in pain.

"If you had attacked a normal person like that, you would have killed them," she said. "We even have such a person here."

"What?" Fetter looked over from the floor with a strained look on his face.

Maria, clicking into action, tried to disappear, but she only shimmered for a few seconds, not even fully turning invisible before she reappeared.

"Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Aren't you Nero's friend? What the fuck are you doing here?" Fetter pointed at her, still lying on the ground. Grant ran over to help him up.

"I was going into the city, and then you all just appeared, and I don't know what's going on, and-"

"Tentacle girl! Calm her down, get her out of here," Fetter said as he got back on his feet.

"Our best chance of protecting her is by keeping her near us. We refuse." She held her arm out as a tentacle reached forward to grab Joseph, who had been trying to lead the dog away.

The dog bit at her tentacle, blocking the path to Joseph.

"Skolla! You are preventing us from getting out of here! Come on!" Joseph yelled.

Instead of backing off, the dog lunged at Alcina, baring its fangs. Alcina smacked it aside, just as she had done the other two. Joseph sprinted over, sliding the last couple feet on his knees.

"You are coming with us."

Joseph pondered for a moment, with Alcina on one side of him, and Fetter on the other. "Fine," he said. "You will all get a fight then."

He grabbed his shirt with one hand, and ripped it off his chest, his body was like a weight lifter's, with a large muscular gut. His once skinny arms were swollen with fats and muscles, rippling behind his oddly smooth skin.

His skin started turning red, as blood flowed through new, extra veins spreading through his outer layers of skin, blue veins raced back underneath of them, occasionally peeking out as a rough speckled pattern. His torso got much thinner, moving most of its mass to his arms and legs, where the fat seemed to just melt away.

A sort of black sludge pooled out of his body, before boney plates started growing from it. Red chitin covered the bones, and soon he was coated in a thick armor, modeled after a knight's. From his right hand, bone protruded outward, piercing through his palm, once it touched the ground, spikes grew from the sides, shaped like a sword. It snapped off with a crunch, and he caught it in his hand.

Large wings sprouted out from him in a similar fashion, two sets of them, one from his shoulder blades and one from his lower back. Extra sets of muscles grew across his shoulders and hips, anchoring the wings to him.

"That's more like it, show us what you really are!" Fetter yelled to him.

Joseph launched himself at Alcina, pushing off with both sets of wings. He swung sword first at her, and to his surprise, she actually tried to dodge. She skated backwards with her tentacles, letting the blade swing just inches from her face.

He pushed her back with his swings, until she was nearly up against Maria in the narrow alley. He was careful to keep track of Fetter, who still hadn't thrown anything because of the tight quarters. With another lunge at Alcina, she vanished into smoke.

He jumped back as a wall appeared from a white powder, getting his sword stuck in it. Seeing the opportunity, Fetter jumped in, but Joseph heard him. He caught Fetter in the gut with a swift kick, before sending him back down the alley.

Alcina reappeared, right above Joseph this time. She held her hand to the sky, and a large prism formed beyond the height of the buildings. A laser of sunlight shot across the alley, bisecting Joseph as he struggled to keep his head out of the path.

As soon as it passed, tendrils shot out from one half to the other to pull himself together. Fetter started to run up the side of the building, seemingly inspired by Alcina's attempt. Joseph broke of the tip of the sword just in time to swing it at Alcina, causing her to retreat back into the smoke. Fetter was behind where she had just been, and he was falling quickly. Joseph tried to block him with the flat of the sword, but it snapped the moment he made contact.

Fetter landed on Joseph's chest, knocking him to the floor. The broken end of the sword was sandwiched between them, stabbing into Joseph's chest.

He quickly shifted around his organs, getting them out of the path of the overwhelming crushing force. Fetter jumped away as he tried to swing his hand around to grab him.

As soon as Fetter had left, a section of the wall of the building fell towards him and the dog, with Alcina riding it down. As it fell, each brick in the wall shifted into a spike as parts of them disappeared into the same white flakes. Joseph flapped his wings as he jumped in the path, melding his torso into a sort of fleshy slime as he turned into a cover for the dog.

The rubble fell over him, stabbing into his open back, layering into him like scales. Once the rubble had fallen, Fetter was already on him. He kicked Joseph, sending him rolling across the alley as he reformed into his humanoid shape, this time lacking the wings.

"Oh my god that hurt," Joseph groaned as he pulled out the couple pieces that survived.

Skolla stood up and limped over towards Fetter, growling at him.

"You can't... Fine. I'll focus on the other one," Joseph muttered as he stood back up.

He looked up to Alcina, standing at the edge of the building she had dropped the wall from.

"Come on! Is that all you've got!?" he yelled at her.

She raised up her hand, and a small flame flickered for a moment, before switching to a spark. Joseph barely had time to register before a bolt of blue electricity shot out from her hand, down the alleyway and through him. He could feel his blood vessels exploding inside of him as the massive amount of electricity flowed past. He cut the connections for pain to his body, and started recycling immediately.

A blast of fire came down on him, followed by a barrage of fine stone needles, then a large boulder of force dropped on him from the sky. As he struggled to squirm out from under it, she jumped down.

He opened up a wide cavity in his stomach, and sent out a few tendrils behind him to push him up to standing. He reformed just in time to dodge Alcina's tentacles as they swiped for him. He was more relying on his power to dodge, physically splitting himself out of the way. He swiped back, sending a claw out on a tendril from her blind spot.

It ripped through the bandages on her arm, sending them spiraling to the ground. Dozens of scars and open wounds covered her arm, as though it been cut open dozens of times. The claws left their own marks, rather shallow cuts down the entire length of her arm.

They continued their fight, carefully evading each other's attacks as they jumped and dodged around the narrow alley. Fetter tried to rejoin the fight, but Alcina's constant barrage of powers were too difficult for him to pierce. Grant struggled to hold the dog back as it tried to run over into the fray. Joseph kept careful watch on each of them, confident that if he could wear down Alcina, he could escape.

Right as he got into the swing of things, a lead pipe struck him in the back of the head, stunning him just long enough for Alcina to grab his head. White flakes clouded his vision for a moment, before everything turned black.

***

Maria dropped the pipe to the floor as her hands started shaking. The man in front of her started disappearing into flakes of white as soon as Alcina touched his head. As it went along, the rest of his body gurgled for a moment before splintering into cockroaches. She jumped back as they skittered away, with Alcina blasting at them with electricity.

"What the fuck did you do?!" Fetter yelled at Alcina.

"We tried to kill him. You wanted him dead."

"I wanted to kill the fucker! And he got away!"

"If that couldn't kill him, then there is no possible way you could have. Your argument is moot."

"What's... What's going on? What did I walk in to? Who was that?" Maria asked with her voice cracking. While Fetter fumed at Alcina, she looked around cautiously where the roaches had scattered throughout the edges of the alley.

"Fetter! Look out! Dog!" Grant yelled.

"What?"

Fetter spun around and saw the giant dog that Grant had been holding on to broke loose. Fetter jumped into the air, slowly floating up a bit. It snapped its jaws shut right where Fetter's legs had been, before letting out loud bellowing barks at Alcina.

"The hell do we do with this?" he asked. "I don't think animal control knows how to deal with a giant dog."

Grant sauntered over. His clothes had been ripped apart, but he didn't even have a scratch on him. As he tried to tackle onto the dog, it jumped away and snarled at him.

"Do we put it down?" Alcina asked.

"No I don't want to kill the fucking dog. It's a dog, probably just another victim of Joseph playing mad scientist."

"We shall take it with us. It may perhaps be of good use to Cyrus."

"Cyrus? The Cyrus? You?" Fetter said. He ratcheted his head to the side, a few degrees at a time as he stared with wide eyes at Alcina. "You are with him?"

"Why else would we try to capture Joseph Mendele?"

In a swift motion, Fetter pulled his knife from his pocket, covering it in a nearly white light, and slung it at Alcina. The moment it left his hand, it collided with an invisible wall, right in front of Alcina, putting cracks into the air. A sonic boom echoed throughout the alley, followed by a burst of air. What was once a knife clattered the floor, misshapen into a hunk of scrap.

"Fetter Young. You have endangered an innocent. Calm yourself, we do not mean you harm."

"Fetter, calm down!" Grant yelled, still trying to deal with the dog. "You saw her fight earlier! You wouldn't win!"

"Whatever! You're lucky I'm injured tentacle girl! You can take the fucking dog. Let's get out of here Grant." Fetter floated off over the buildings, leaving Grant to try to break away from the giant dog.

Alcina walked up and restrained it, coiling the black misty tentacles around it so it couldn't run. As Grant walked away, she turned to Maria, still holding down the dog.

"Who are you?" Maria asked.

"We are Alcina. You are Nero's friend, Maria?"

"What? How do you know that?"

"Fetter Young said you were Nero's friend, and Nero mentioned a friend named Maria."

Her look of concern changed to relief, and then changed right back to concern again. "How do you know Nero?"

"We talked to him before we came here. He is our friend. He wanted to protect you, but he didn't know how, so we think we will do that for now instead. Please lead the way."

Alcina's face didn't seem to shift, heavily alarming Maria. She could only make out the faintest twinges of emotion. Maria stepped back a few times, with her skin starting to shimmer into a botched invisibility.

"I don't trust you. I know Fetter is actually Nero's friend, and he tried to attack you."

"We have a phone." A black phone materialized into Alcina's hands from the white flakes. "We can just call him to have him tell you- Oh, it is broken. Do you have your phone?"

"I don't have a phone," Maria answered back. "I'm going to go, please don't stop me."

"Do not. We want to protect you." Alcina walked towards her, lifting the giant dog into the air.

Maria completely vanished, leaving only the sound of her footsteps clacking as she ran off through the streets.

"Oh. It seems we have scared her off. This is sad."

Alcina turned around and started petting the dog's giant head as it growled at her.

"You are fluffy."