***
The creature that was Cassie was forced to watch. A strong wind swirling around Calypso, as the once potent light dimmed to a glow around her changing body. And was subjected to a chorus of various pitched screams that carried within this wind, yet a more powerful, more sinister voice stood amongst the whispers.
Calypso’s own panting… And pleasured laughter.
The once meek girl closed her eyes, let herself sink deeply into this horror. Her head leaned back, to the point she was limp, as her spine violently extended itself—the barbs ribbing out of her growing frame. Her once boring brown hair transmuted itself into a vibrant magenta that overgrew into a mane that hit the tailbone—down to an already exaggerated back. A second, deformed skull that pushed itself out of the top of her head, acting as a literal crown.
Calypso grasped her bulging shoulders with her claws, her swelling arms somehow conveying lethargic movement at exuberant speeds. She parted her claws from being close to one another, to let the erupting spikes synchronize, and let go of said shoulders when their spikes continued to grow.
She let her claws drag themselves down her finalizing body. Her skin flushed pink, egg-white bones forming into shapes that angled themselves, hovering above sections of her frame, as she cleared away anything that was left of her humanity, so to speak.
Her arms went limp, as she went eerily and completely limp as she leaned back further—and seconds later, the bones snapped, fastened themselves into primitive yet beastly armor as she reared her screaming head forward, hunched with a row of razor-sharp teeth flashed a smile, with glowing amber orbs to match. As Calypso literally radiated this afterglow—the dim light color-coded with each section of her body, she swung both arms not to attack Cassie, but to allow for her dual elbow blades to shoot themselves out.
The glow faded back to the dark, blood-red darkness… as Calypso arched a claw at Cassie, beckoning a fight.
“Please…” the croaking, timid vocal tone turned into this sultry, crazed malice as Calypso’s grin stretched further across her matured face. “I’ve been aching to kill you ever since we’ve met. Make this poor, pathetic excuse for a human a hero today…~”
***
Natalie’s transformation was quite different from Calypso’s. A lot more frantic, methodical.
Her fingers were forced to curl into a fist on each hand, as they folded—they changed—turning into pincer-themed claws covered in graying fuzz.
She blinked rapidly as her eyes were forced shut, creating groundwork for her brow to scrunch in pain as her new eyes burst from her temples. Two, massive compound eyes slid out of Natalie’s head “halfway”-- as they created onyx, bleeding cracks that leaked from them and stretched across her face. Natalie forced to look about with her now-near two hundred new eyes in a sense of reclaiming “normalcy”.
Clearly—that was the worst part for her. The rest was relatively easy.
She moved her left arm, as the fur on her hands manifested themselves into gloves—the small prongs that came out of the side of the wrist quickly emerging to give it accents. She did the same with her right, same second-long addition to the transformation.
She felt her short hair starting to tumble down her face, as the cracks across her eyes began to grow both in their reach and in size. The girl becoming a fly slid her gloved hands to cover her changing face, as she leaned forward in a hunch.
Pale, hexagonal cells violently ripped themselves out of her back—shredding her clothes in the process, hovering above her in the air. Revealing that her body was covered in onyx-plated exoskeleton parts that immediately fastened themselves against her now-chalk-white frame-like armor. She was forced to move each leg forward in a casual strut, as a pair of insectoid legs ripped whatever’s left of her bottom wear to position themselves against the front of her exposed legs.
The hovering cells slammed themselves onto the back of her shoulders, the later generations not so much following the lead, but forming a line by snapping with those before.
The final push. Natalie combed her now long, indigo hair back from her face, as her human eyes were covered in a stylish “mask” in shape of a butterfly, it’s abdomen trailing downward into a stinger before her lips.
Stolen story; please report.
As she relished in the change, her chin upward with her claw’s palms outward, she grew a puffy, gray collar of fluff, her “cape” of cells cresting down on her back as the finishing touch.
Natalie separated her cape, forming the cells into separate, jagged wings that twitched in reaction. Her glow dimmed once she fluttered them alive, and took off into the skies.
She knew for sure—Calypso loved the transformation, she knew that Gale might’ve hated it. After slowly going through it over the course of months, she became numb to the whole thing. But Natalie had to admit; as sucky it is to be a fly for a power… It was always a treat to do something that humans could only dream of doing on their own.
***
It was weird to stay calm, when you were surrounded by man-eating monsters. It was weird to stay calm, as you felt your entire body shut down in the most agonizing pain ever. And it was weird to stay calm when all of this was according to plan, as you felt your necklace sink into your body.
That was Gale’s reality at the moment.
Breathing and focus. Breathing and focus. It was the only way to survive the pain, that eased the transformation from being outright potent. But more importantly, she needed to focus on her hands,, struggling against each other until they clasped each other. She needed to focus on her hands. She realized that regardless of the level of transformation, her hands… They were easy-to-follow symbols of how far along she is. They were her anchor, her “prayer”.
The skin slowly becoming slimy was the hard part for Gale. She could only breath, feeling the tension of her body, as it was constantly on the edge of turning into a pile of sludge. Through keeping her hands from merging into a big blob, she maintained that sense of individuality throughout her body via exhaling. Whatever she was wearing wasn’t so lucky, but her transforming body managed to keep itself together as it turned into it’s cyan hue.
Then it was the small roots and bramble’s turns, as they grew from inside of her and forced their way out of the surface, Gale being more than aware of their pathways. Gale knew from experience that very deep down, there was very tough earth embedded within, allowing this flora to grow. And grow it did, lost within the body, barely visible from the surface, and mainly out of her limbs as the roots tided the brambles down to her fingers, creating claws.
Gale took a cleansing breath, relaxing in the panic. She raised her hands into the air, letting her moss-green hair gently fall forward as she lowered her head completely.
The roots that were strewn across her body, their harvest becoming plentiful. They formed a massive, dark-green leaf that became a backless dress, the roots that didn’t produce anything quickly fastening the sides to keep it hoisted, as the midrib pulsated on the front. Most of the brambles of her claws grew into thick vines that acted as opera gloves that were in tatters.
Gale huffed through her nose, groaned through her sharpening teeth as she softly shook her head. The craziest part about the last part was that she felt it so vividly, she knew what it looked like before she ever tried looking in a mirror.
Regardless, a massive mushroom grew from her mossy head. Starting small, this red and yellow little jerk started off like a regular toadstool… Before getting bigger, and bigger, to the point that it acted like a weird sunhat for Gale. It couldn’t even handle the massive size-change, as the cap broke into four sections, further transforming into a makeshift flower.
Gale then exhaled, raising her head against her still raised arms. Giving a silent smirk as she lost her light, and the small spores that came from the mush-flower dotted themselves across her skin, giving her glitter.
“Alright boys…” Gale purred as she lowered her arms. “Let’s make this a fair fight~!”
Gale quickly put her claws in the air, as she was miming tearing something apart. But even then, she struggled a bit as she completed the action.
The Subsumed before her were dumbfounded, confused… Until one of their number shouted out:
“SHE’S BREAKING IT! SHE’S PRYING OUR AUDITORUM APART-!”
It didn’t get the luxury of telling his brothers to go and attack Gale. His head was severed via a fast hexagon cell that flew into his neck.
***
Calypso’s soft, crazed giggles were the “soundtrack” to this battle. Cassie tried in vain to match in simple strength, using Melissa’s body in complete recklessness as the two were wrestling each other. No matter how hard Cassie slammed Calypso down into the wooden floors or fling her across the room. There was this glee that this was happening, as she got on all fours to get back into the fray.
The skeletal monster girl rushed back onto two feet, grappling both wrists of Melissa, and crushed them despite the instant spray of blood. Though she did toss the vampire girl back, so hard that it broke the wall she landed on.
“It’s so weird, this paradigm…” Calypso was unusually calm, lifting a sizzling claw to her maw and running her long, red tongue across the molten blood that covered her palms, quickly before it hardened into scabbing. “It doesn’t render us into masochists, not really… But god. Is this pain and fury so fucking delectable.”
“How…” Cassie growled, forcing Melissa to get up and heal her wrists. “HOW DID YOU GET SO STRONG?!”
Calypso smirked in turn, flicking away the hardened blood from both claws in a casual manner. “Why did you try to recruit any of us in the first place~? We always had the potential. All it took was some horrible event, helmed by a very horrible tyrant, that gave us aaaaalll the motivation we needed.”
The skeleton mockingly scratched her own chin, before “realizing” something. Using that claw to point upward.
“Why don’t you see for yourself…~?”
Cassie forced Melissa’s head upward, and her void-like eyes widened at what she saw.
And what it was, simply a book cascading down.
Given what she realized what the book was, Cassie screamed in horror as she shot blood towards the approaching Tome.