"David, leave your brother alone. Goliath, I know you're afraid of hurting him but you have to defend yourself. And girls, stop laughing at your brother when he is uncomfortable."

It had been two days now since James had found this little hole in the middle of nowhere and had turned it into his home. Two days since he had saved the ratlings and had begun to raise them.

Leaving their parents' bodies would be unsanitary so he had buried them further down the small tunnel. The other rodents' corpses, those that had been stored in the mechanical spider, had been thrown in the canal. James didn't have the time - nor cared enough - to bury them too and, as far as he knew, cannibalism was an unhealthy behavior even for rats.

He had chosen to keep the robot in the hole, he might have not understood how it worked but it was clearly valuable and he could always find some use for it, in fact, even now it worked as food storage for the babies, currently filled with cockroaches. It was currently on the side of the nest, its legs curled up so that it took as little space as possible.

For his own sanity, James had decided to name the rats, both to make it easier to differentiate them and also to forget the fact that he wasn't babysitting some kids but instead a litter of feral sewer rats. Somehow, like he had been able to know which parent was the mother and which was the father, once he had bothered to focus hard enough he could tell which babies were male and which were female.

The youngest, the runt of the litter, and most importantly the aggressive little gremlin that always found a way to put himself in trouble had been named David, the perfect opposite of Goliath, the oldest, biggest, and calmest of the babies.

The girls were all roughly the same size, Lucille was a light grey instead of her siblings' darker shade, Blanche was an albino and Foudre had a crooked tail, giving it a lightning bolt shape. The three generally stayed together and laughed at the brothers' antics - or ganged up on David whenever he had the bright idea to try messing with them.

And yes, rats laugh. James had read about it online but, as far as he knew, it was only as a response to tickling. Apparently, the rats here had a better understanding of humor.

James had increased the size of the nest, before he could barely fit inside along with the spider whereas now it was easily three times his width and height in Skitter form. Of course, he knew that rats preferred small spaces and had dug small tunnels on the right side of the nest. Apparently, they thought he hadn't done a good enough job and took it upon themselves to expand them.

Digging had been surprisingly easy for James. Sure, he had planned to make "shovels" and "pickaxes" with his tentacles but, since they were only as strong as bone, he thought they would be shoddy at best. Turns out, either these were really weak bricks - a real possibility considering the fact that the walls seemed to be made out of solid dust rather than stone - or he was much, much stronger than he thought.

He couldn't deny that his new body was full of surprises. He had ripped the robot's head off with such ease it hadn't even registered at first. He picked up on a lot of subtilities of his shapeshifting powers so although he was still a regular human a few days ago. Hell, he now spent most of his time as some sort of quadrupedal ball of darkness and it didn't feel wrong.

Were his human instincts replaced with the ones of whatever he had become? Could his personality be affected too?

"SQUEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK !"

James glanced at the rat siblings and smiled - internally. David had, once again, attempted to throw his weight around his sisters and, once again, they had piled on him and were showing him the errors of his ways through a substantial amount of bites and scratches. Ah, youth.

Whatever he was now, it clearly had not taken away his humanity, his ability to do good, to like, to be kind, to love, to care.

Watching the ratlings play had reminded him that he needed to experiment some more - there was always science to be done, after all - and he should take advantage of the fact that they didn't need him right now. He had figured out a way to replicate vocal cords, maybe he could recreate his human body if given enough time?

In the meantime, he was still curious about his gas idea and, as such, decided to start things out with that. If solid and liquid had been left and right, wouldn't gas be up? James "flexed" his "shifting muscles" that way and he instantly felt something change. He was lighter. He pushed the process further and further until he felt like he couldn't anymore, which was logical considering the fact he was now some sort of haze.

Unsurprisingly his gas form was pitch black too, despite the laws of physics dictating that lighter gas had lower density and thus, lower opacity. Oh well, he was way past the point of worrying over how realistic or logical his new life was.

If moving as a solid was like wearing plate armor and moving as a liquid was like walking underwater, then moving as a gas was like moving in space - technically easy, at least as long as you had good balance and surfaces to push yourself from to give you some momentum and control your direction.

The rats spared a glance at him before resuming their game - they had seen him shapeshift so many times they weren't phased any more.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He then experimented with his weight, his density, and how he could incorporate his solid and liquid forms in his gas one and vice-versa. He could now condense, vaporize, freeze, melt, deposite and sublimate. He attempted to reach the Triple point - the point at which a material was all three states of matter at once - but simply couldn't imitate the change in pressure necessary for it to work. A shame.

Though a thought was now nagging at his mind. His shapeshifting had allowed him to change the state of his matter and somehow stay in control of his body. He had gone through all three states of matter with ease, suspiciously so but it wasn't the point right now. He had "flexed" his shifting toward solid, liquid, and gas, but what if, instead of a triangle of matter, his shifting was closer to an x-y axis? He had gone left, right, and up but what about down? What could be on the other hand of gas?

So down he went, closer and closer to the ground. He became puddle-like for a second but then went even further than that. He was one with the floor. It was... Strange. It felt like he was some kind... Some kind of shadow.

Yes, that was the right word. He had somehow become a living shadow. In this form shapeshifting was even easier, he could be a one-man shadow puppet show. He turned into a bird, a tree, a dragon- and then a man.

Having hands and feet once again was pleasant but... That was it. It didn't feel any better than being in his Skitter form. Maybe because he was stuck in a 2D form? Flat hands didn't feel as good as regular ones, for sure.

Being a shadow surprisingly unlocked another aspect of his shapeshifting: opacity. It only worked when he was a shadow, maybe because it would allow him to slip undetected, a somewhat transparent shadow being more natural and less eye-catching than a pitch-black one? Whatever the case may be, this changed... A lot of things.

So far, James had seen - and done - things that broke the laws of logic and physics, but there was always something somewhat "real". Going from solid to liquid to gas so easily was strange, yes, but the fact that matter could change state was normal. This? An entity simply didn't become the result of an obstruction between the world and light, "shadows" weren't matter, they were an alteration to the propagation of light.

This, combined with his reincarnation, seemed to indicate that, wherever he was, abilities that defied common sense were real - or maybe it was exclusive to him but that seemed very unlikely. In other words, giant crocodiles may not be the worst things roaming in the sewers.

Moving as a shadow was eerily easy. He felt incredibly light but still in control, in fact, he felt more in control of his movements than he ever did as a human. The only downside was the fact that he was limited to a 2D plane, if he wanted to go from a wall to another he had to either pass on the floor or the ceiling or he had to exit his shadow mode to directly go to the other wall.

His gas form had been surprisingly effective in this situation, it appeared that going from shadow to gas carried a momentum that made crossing the distance quick and simple.

This garnered the rats' attention. Weird shapeshifting had become par for the course but this? This was different. To them, it was as though James had simply always been walking and they were now seeing him run for the first time. They were mesmerized. What if, one day, they too could do this?

Blissfully unaware of the new awe that had just been born in his protégés' hearts, James suddenly had a bright idea. Shadows seemed to be the easiest way to move but were limited to a 2D plane, so what if he only used them as a foot?

First, he turned into a blob, which was usual so far. Then, he turned a small part of him into shadows, gluing the blob to the ground. Then, he moved.

He was much quicker than even his Skitter form, hell, he was probably faster than he had ever been as a human. Yes, he could go beyond a human's running pace. Maybe he could go as fast as a bike if he really pushed himself?

But now wasn't the time for speed - and honestly, in this small nest, it wouldn't be a good idea. And so James began to change once more, the blob getting taller and taller until it was twice the height of his Skitter form. Then, two small nubs grew out of the sides, elongating to turn into noodly arms, the bottom of each one inflating to end in a roughly ball-shaped bulb.

The figure turned more precise, thinning near the top, widening at the shoulders, the noodly arms solidifying, and the bulbs dividing into multiple thin appendages. When it was all over, James looked like a small pitch-black humanoid creature stuck in the ground at the waist.

James rolled his head to work out the non-existent kinks in his neck, cracked his knuckles - oh how he had missed them - and tested out how comfortable this form was. Being somewhat humanoid was pleasant, though he slowly made himself "softer" and more flexible than a regular human should be. He had gotten a bit too used to his Skitter form apparently.

Once more the rats were intrigued. They had never seen anything human-shaped and so James' new body was a brand new experience. His new hands quickly found a task to do: rat tickling and cuddling. A few tentacles helped solve the problem of two hands for five rats. The nest was filled with ratty - and human? - laughter for a solid minute.

James decided that now was the time to go even further. He put his hands on the floor and lifted himself up, a humanoid lower body emerging from the ground.

Then he hit his head on the ceiling.

Ouch. Definitely have to expand the nest... Again. Might as well go fully human-sized this time.

He shrunk a bit - all it took was condensing his body - before testing out his range of movement once more. It all seemed fine, he was as flexible as usual, but quickly a problem appeared: walking. His shadow-glue didn't work with regular walking, emerging from the shadows carried a momentum if he was too quick, making him lose his balance, and if he took too long, well... It just looked like he was walking around while wearing metal boots.

Yep, bipedal is proving itself to be a pain once more... Guess I'll have to wait until I get a better hang at the whole shape-shifting thing. I still have trouble with managing details and more defined forms just take so much time to make.

Still, it was a step - eh - in the right direction and he was sure that very, very soon, he would finally find a way to feel somewhat human. For now, he went back to only having a humanoid torso and head, it just felt too weird to just have arms hanging around and doing nothing after getting so used to all his appendages constantly doing something.

Of course, he didn't know that, with time, he would improve upon this head-on-a-torso-emerging-from-the-ground form, and, that one day, it would become a face know throughout the worlds. A face feared and respected among the Super community. The face of Silhouette.

"DAVID! STOP BITING YOUR BROTHER'S TAIL! LUCILLE! BLANCHE! FOUDRE! DO SOMETHING!"

It... Wasn't for today.