I took a deep breath as the lights faded from my vision, and everyone stepped out into the lab. All of us immediately began to laugh and cheer as the adrenaline started to wear off.

“I don’t want to get anywhere near as close to heroes like that EVER again!” Lucy said with an exasperated laugh. Faye, Eric, and I let out a “whoo” at that.

“After a show like that we should lay low until the next mission.” Taylor said with a sigh, “I think I need a break from action for a while.”

“You said it.” Eric said with a robotic sigh, “If it weren't for my next project I would crash right here and now.”

I groan as I collapse onto the couch in agreement, “I need to finish off perfecting my next form and plan a new heist.”

“Ooh! A heist? For what?” Reed suddenly lands on the couch next to me, “Can I come along?”

“Um…” I shoot a glance to Lucy, “I’m still on recon so I don’t know. Besides, unless your skillset suddenly changes… Light sorta hinders the whole idea.”

I cringed a bit when the words left my mouth, but I had absolutely no idea how to tell him otherwise. Fortunately, he didn’t seem perturbed by what I said… Actually, he looked like I just challenged him to something grand by how a huge smile crossed his face.

“Alright! You take me on your next heist! And I'll show you just how good I am!” Reed shouted out for everyone to hear…

There was more than one concerned look among everyone.

Thankfully, Casper was way too eager to steer the conversation back around to the show and The Saints, and Rose managed to command everyone’s attention when she regaled our encounter with Greenscale. The extreme dramatization of how nasty the other beastman was almost made me want to go back to Chicago and show the other villain up… Almost.

I’m not that stupid… I think.

Eventually, the energy crash started to hit us. Much to my surprise, Taylor was the first one to head home. However, she demanded that we all give her the outfits we had used, so it became a hectic half hour of everyone tracking down a change of clothes and trying to fit into the Doc’s tiny upstairs bathroom.

The next to leave was Faye, to no one’s surprise. She quietly said something about work and turned on her teleporter.

I was the next to leave, and all I did was walk.

There wasn’t a breeze or anything, but the birds were out in force and making the kind of music I could actually stand for a bit. Then my thoughts went in the direction of wondering what they would taste like and I decided that I had spent way too much time as the tiger.

So when I was only ten or so minutes from my sanctum the mask came off. Now that I wasn’t incapacitated by the scar anymore it almost felt nice to stretch my normal muscles.

I think I wasn’t drinking enough water though, two minutes later my legs were cramping up a bit. And I would absolutely hate it if I was developing some kind of pollen allergy. Ragweed is starting to become a thing, so when I started to cough a little bit I brushed it off.

…

I could barely stand by the time I got to my front door. Pain was shooting through my hips and tail, and my vision was starting to blur. I was rubbing my eyes as I grabbed the handle to the door, my claws tinked off of the metal…

Claws?

A pulse of my magic and I saw everything going wrong, and a few seconds later I was back to normal. Extreme concern notwithstanding.

I quickly made my way to my “couch” and made myself comfortable. I needed to see if the healing pad was going to do anything.

“WHY DO I HAVE CLAWS AGAIN!” I whispered to myself. The ends of my fingers no longer had any nails, instead, they were a set of nonretractable claws. Like the kind a dog would have.

And it kept going and going. Ten minutes later I noticed spines along my back. Half an hour after that, I had to get rid of some feathers along my arms. The worst one was when I suddenly couldn’t breathe, as gills had formed along my neck.

I had no idea what was going on, the healing pad was doing nothing other than dull any pain I might have come across. Eventually, I stopped getting rid of every random transformation and only fixed anything that was causing pain or problems.

It was one in the morning when I finally noticed that I had spent the entire time just sitting there, thinking and controlling myself. It was then that I finally figured out what was going on.

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Normally, I only run into this problem when I botched the big spell. When I try to personally pull off what the masks do. By now, I have had enough practice with undoing the spell after way too many attempts.

That didn’t work. After the fifth time trying I couldn’t help but to laugh to myself. I had told PrincesShifter that I had destroyed my ability to become human again. Now here I am, unable to fix myself.

Then I remembered what the conductor had told me not even a few moments later, when I was pondering what to tell the rest of the theater.

He/She had a solution to my problem and would present it to me after the show. The idea of a way to put things back on track, and keep the full truth out of the light... It was something that sparked a bit of hope in me.

Now my lie is real. Now I have to legitimately work around a made-up problem.

I didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t a real way to contact the conductor. They contacted you, and only under very specific circumstances that I didn’t understand.

There was no way I was going to go to the Doc for this either. I know for a fact that he would at least know something that could help me. But the thought of letting him into something so personal was a no-go.

The rest of the theater was out of the question as well. Everyone with some kind of healing gift had taken a crack at my bad legs when we were planning for the show. If they couldn’t do that, I doubt they could fix something like my issue…

Actually, Eric didn’t try, but if he could have healed me, he would have healed himself by now.

The only person who could actually help me at this point would be my father… Or anyone else who knows my school of magic. The problem is, that man was the only wielder of it for the longest time, and he told me that I was the only other one who knew anything about it. Now that he’s dead I’m the last person alive who knows this form of transformation magic…

Ya know, even if he was alive, he had spent his entire life ditching any family he had. The chances of him even wanting to help me were probably nill.

Good riddance.

With a sigh, I got moving again. I was too tired to sleep, so I warmed up some pop tarts and choked them down. The first food I had had in a while. Then I sat myself down at my workstation, cleared something going wrong with my nose, then went to turn on my computer.

Then I noticed my unfinished mask, I needed to start refining the runes, and it could use some details around the eyes…

My phone went off at seven in the morning. I had somehow remembered to plug it in, and a recurring alarm that I forgot to turn off brought me to my senses.

In front of me was not the mask I was working on. Instead, I was in a different section of my workstation, standing next to the random block of green resin I had no idea what to do with.

I guess I had come up with an idea. It was already roughly carved into the vague shape of a snout. My tools were everywhere, but still somewhat organized. Schematics for what I think is yet another new mask was within arms reach, but I already knew that I was the one making it.

I was weirded out, I didn’t really remember what I was just doing, but I knew that all of it was there. I knew that I had an epiphany about my next mask. I knew where all of my tools were. I knew exactly what I was aiming for.

But what threw me off the most was how I wasn’t tired, no pain, no fatigue… Nothing.

My hands were normal. There was no pain, no problem with my breathing. No tail, no horns, no scales, my eyes could see…

Then I saw it. The finished mask was sitting right there. All I needed to do was put it on and activate it for the first time.

I quickly snatched the new mask and walked into the main room, barely holding in my energy as I practically ripped my clothes off.

I made that mistake when I first made the tiger. When making a new body yours, it can get a little weird. So suddenly being surrounded by tattered fabric in a place where I couldn’t readily access new clothes… was not a fun experience. And I have not repeated that mishap since.

But as soon as I was clear the mask was on my face and I was channeling my mana. The space between the mask and my face disappeared as I tried to relax myself.

It took a few moments, as the magic was trying to figure out just what was going on, but soon enough I was just there.

I had to stretch out my new muscles, and try and get myself to a coordinated state. The first few steps are always weird. The body was somewhere between the tiger and the rabbit in build. Lean but buff. Strong, yet flexible.

As soon as I was confident with myself, I made my way to the bathroom mirror.

And I was now, the monkey.

My fur was a deep brown, like the mahogany I had used, but it was interspersed with blond highlights. Nothing to write home about at least. The weirdest part was my feet, however. I was expecting something normal, like what the bull had, but this one had fingers. I basically had hands for feet, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was going to take a bit to get used to.

At least there was my tail, it was sorta like the tiger, but far more control could be put into it.

I really wanted to put the new form into a test drive, maybe try on the Carnival costume to see how it works…

But I also felt like I was covered from head to toe in sawdust. I really wasn’t, but it was an unfortunate side effect with the other three masks as well. On top of that, I hadn't had a chance to clean myself since the day before the show, I was starting to feel icky.

Fortunately, I only have to shower once. For some reason, I can trick my magic into thinking that if I clean myself once, I have cleaned all of my forms. So I get to save a lot of money on shampoo.

I sort of wish that my injuries worked the same way, so that I only have to heal myself up once, but that would mean that I could be taken out for the count way more quickly.

After a clean and some new clothes, I spent some time as the bull, eventually getting that scar to a place where I could manage again. Then around noon, I got a text.

Lucy: hey

- got the stuff for the heist.

- also get your fluffy butt to the lab

- Sable says she got news