So I've decided to make another story. Not surprising. Inspired by Fluehatraya. I liked the idea of Shinichi-to-cat, so maybe let's spice it up a little?
"There I was again tonight,
Forcing laughter, faking smiles"
~ Enchanted - Owl City
Blue eyes. They shone with young pride, a sense of duty, accomplishment, and a light of recognition. Every time they blinked, the glow grew brighter. Above them were dark brown-black bangs.
His voice resonated throughout the room. His words were certain as he spoke. One hand was in front of him, pointing at a person. Everyone else looked on with either shock, wonder, admiration, anger, disdain, surprise, and sadness.
But not him. He held his hand in the air with both his eyebrows curving above his eyes, which were narrowed intensely. Whenever someone protested, he would answer with calm authority. When they questioned him, he would reply smoothly, as if he expected every inquiry set before him.
He was young, but he was smart. He had many tactics set up in his mind. Sometimes he would trick people into admitting their mistakes. Sometimes he pointed out proof until no one could deny him. Sometimes he only hinted his deductions, until everyone could understand what he was leading to.
It was a scene that had often repeated itself. It was a game that he played every day. It was a routine that was expected and unpredictable at the same time. It had become a part of his life. A mark on his worn-out calendar.
But no longer.
Shinichi gazed at the moon from within his house. Yes, he was in his house. No, not his large house, not that one. Now he lived in a small apartment, closer to Ran's house. Why?
Well, that would be difficult to explain.
He fell to the ground, knocked out cold. He couldn't move. Red, white, yellow, blue, and green lights flickered on and off within his eyesight. His consciousness dimmed until it was a faint spark of comprehension.
Two men, clad in black, addressed each other. What they spoke of included violence and darkness, of things that should have been kept secret.
Then on of them plopped something in the detective
detective's mouth. It was small. From somewhere, water trickled into the teenager's mouth. Then, in a flash, the men were gone, leaving the detective alone.
The detective woke up to find himself in a hospital. There he found out that he had blacked out because of a wound on his head. It was bandaged now, and he had almost completely recovered from his shock.
He did not speak about the transaction he saw, for he was uncertain of what he had been forced to take. Maybe it was some sort of pill that would kill him... Maybe it was a tracker device that would lead the men to him and lead him to his death... He did not know. Whatever it was, it was taking its time.
He ran to the home of one of his friends, a professor that he knew could help him. He asked about what item he had swallowed, and whether there was a way to get it out of him.
And that was when the pains began. They attacked him like poison-tipped, flaming iron spikes. His heart beat frantically, each birdlike flutter only causing more flares to hurt him. He felt as if he were in a cage, a hot-metal cage where there was no escape, no relief, only torture.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the warmth in his stomach grew into fire, a flaring orb that shot out like lightning. The heat was so shocking that he almost passed out. His belly hurt, his lungs singed. He felt as if he were burning inside. Every breath only made him feel worse, like inhaling toxic smoke.
Pressure developed, almost crushing his lungs. It wrapped itself around him, like a coiled anaconda. Every move he made was strained. He was unaware of everything around him. All that he could think about was how to run away from whoever set this against him. He sucked in more air, and realized that it was as impossible as breathing underwater.
He built a barrier against the pain, which only caused the force to ram into him even more strongly. Like a rhino, it charged ahead and, when impact struck, held still before striking again. It was crushing him, pounding against his weak defense.
He forced his eyes to snap open. All he could see was darkness. He felt like a trapped animal being ripped apart alive. And he could have sworn that he had felt himself falling... falling from the sky. Instead of rushing up to meet him, the ground swallowed him up, bringing him down into an endless void.
But he tried so hard not to give in. He would not be controlled by this unknown seizure. He struggled to fight again, clashing his physical sword against his insubstantial enemy. Like in war, his helmet was crushed, his shield dented, his sword dripping with his own blood. His armor torn, the metal only weighing him down.
But one could only stand for so long before he had to kneel down.
With what he thought was his last, shaky breath, he surrendered to the pain.
He felt like an airplane trying to fly against the wind, one that turned around and followed the current. But he was not the plane anymore, he was the wind, and it was the pain that received the upper hand. It tore him into pieces.
Beginning to awake again, he crept out of his mental cage and opened his eyes, this time seeing. What he saw unnerved him. He saw his friend, the professor, stepping away from him, as if in fear.
Why? He did not know. He tried to speak, but only a short, quiet croak came out. He still felt like himself, but that did not last long.
Suddenly itches spread out across his skin. They were not as painful as the seizure before, but they were very, very annoying. He could not move at all. When he looked again, he felt his skin bunching up, as of hardening. Then, to his utter disbelief, they turned into scales.
The scales were still skin-colored, but they astonished him nonetheless. His mind pulsed thoughts of what he always noted as nonexistent. Then the scales began to darken in color... but that was not all that occurred.
Pain exploded from his spine, shooting up sparks of insincerity. Then he felt something growing from each bone in his spine. He tried twisting to see what they were. He saw them faintly, but they were spikes. Definitely spikes. A long membrane connected each spike to another, creating what looked like a sail on his back, like the ones some types of dinosaurs had. His clothes were now ripped and just hanging from his skin.
Then he could feel his own skull morphing. It pushed his snout forward, which almost made him gape. Only then he realized that his face was also scaled. And the scales were this terrible, horrible black. They had a gradation, growing from his black nose to gray once it reached his cheek. His face was still forming itself. He felt something pushing his cheeks, and he realized that they were spikes. Two under each cheek. Then his head spun, making him dizzy. He was still lying on the floor, so he attempted to get up. He succeed shortly thereafter.
From his head burst a pair of ridged crusts. They looked like horns, but fully encased by scales. His ears had disappeared. And his tongue... when he stuck it out, it had become long, but not forked like that of a snake's. Now his own face felt strange and reptilian. He could not describe it in any possible way.
Then he turned his head around and saw that his back was now lined neatly with spikes. It was daunting. Then he saw the fact that his shoulders were lengthening... and this time actual wings formed.
At first he thought they were just two scale-clad spikes protruding from his shoulders. Then they grew in size and branched, and soon more think membrane split between them. Only then he confirmed that they were bat wings. But they were grey.
Then something caught his attention; surely he couldn't twist his head enough to stare at his shoulders! Then he twisted his head back, and realized that it was his neck doing all the work. It had grown without him noticing, making him taller.
As if all that wasn't enough, his toes and fingers slowly grew in size and began to throb. Then the skin around them disappeared, revealing bone. It was horrifying. The the bones merged into one, becoming shiny, ivory white claws.
Then an extra limb revealed itself. He refused to acknowledge the fact that he had a tail. But he did. Still with the line of spikes and membrane until the end of this odd little thing.
He tried to speak. Desperately. But instead of words, flame came out. Those dreaded, greedy tongues of heat. They didn't hurt him, however. At least, not on the outside.
Pieces of cloth fell to the floor. He shook himself, realizing what he was now.
I am a dragon.
It had all been like a dream to Shinichi. A dream, one that he was trapped in and could never escape from. He was no longer what he used to be. Plus, his life was threatened. And yet he was not fully dragon. It was a complicated prospect.
He could still change back into a human, which he was thankful for. But he rarely did so, spending more of his time as a winged creature. It wasn't easy being like that, not at all. He felt like he was out of place, the cloud among the many stars, the dandelion among the roses, the jackal in the wolf pack, the tiger in the lion pride.
Life as a half-dragon was odd. He spent most of his life hiding at home, hoping that no one suspected anything strange in him, hiding from the organization. He would have warned the police, but he didn't, afraid of what many chemicals they had. If he was a weredragon, think of all the terrible things they could become.
But why give him this advantage? Surely they didn't choose the wrong pill? Or did they decide to trap him somehow? A dragon flying among the metro skies would attract attention. Unwanted attention. Shinichi would never know.
As a dragon, Shinichi was the same size as he was in human form, minus the wings, long neck and tail. He had an odd pattern, one that was hard to describe.
To start with, he could stand on both two legs and on four. His hands were slightly lengthened. He had a face similar to a crocodile's, but more angled. It was like the head of a scaly horse, but with lengthened ears that were ridged. And the ridges appeared just in front of his eyes. His eyes were still the same, sapphire-purple blue.
His neck was long and armored at the bottom, scaled at the top. From there his sail rose up, and the membrane between them were like cloth. His chest and belly were also armored, and so were the top sections of his arms. His sail followed his tail, and his wings stretched. His wingspan could have been over ten feet.
His scales were mainly dark gray, his armor light gray. Some of his scales were black. The black was like flame, the gray smoke, but his armor was all in one light gray color. His pattern helped at nighttime, but made him easily seen in daylight.
His claws and feet were larger than they were supposed to be, and his strength was undeniably enhanced. He could smash a brick wall as if it were made of paper. He could carry things that would have been too heavy for anyone else to hold, but only in dragon form. He had to make sure that he wouldn't overestimate his strength.
Breathing fire was also added to his list of abilities. And when he was in his dragon form, he could only speak through body language.
Shinichi could control his changing, so that he could spend time as either shape whenever he wanted. But, as days passed, he rarely changed back to a dragon.
After a recent clash with the organization, he met Shiho Miyano. She – other than the Professor – was the only one outside the organization who knew about the transaction, the pill, and pretty much everything else. In fact, she was also able to shape-shift.
She referred to those who could change shape as 'experiments.' It disgusted Shinichi, but the name was set. And every experiment had its own code name. Shiho's was 'Citrus' while Shinichi's, according to her, was 'Silhouette.' For some reason it pleased him.
Shiho could turn into a dragon like him, except that her scales were a dazzling sunset orange. She had yellow armor plates and greenish eyes. Her sail, unlike his, was an entirely different color: dark sunset purple.
The brunette also told him that she could not reveal everything. Shinichi had tried to probe her, but was unsuccessful. He did not even know why she wouldn't talk, not even if he pried her mouth open.
No one else knew about the experiments, nor that Shinichi himself was one of them. Not even Ran. It was hard for him to keep it a secret, as he knew it was something that meant a lot to him.
And when he met a case, Shinichi was still the detective to call, but he never let anyone know that he solved any more cases. No longer did his name appear on newspapers, and no longer that people remembered his name. He was just another high school boy. Your average teenager.
And all that passed through Shinichi as a thought as he gazed at the moon.
But what will happen if conflict arises? The organization are on the move, and there can't be good in that. Shinichi will have to do what he can to do what is right, and, dragon or not, he was still a detective. Only one truth prevails!
A/N : for those who were wondering why I haven't updated Gettin' Back At 'Cha, I can't think up any pranks! Help!
But if you're here for this story, please follow of you like it, maybe favorite, and perhaps set aside two minutes to write a review? Thanks!
I hope you like what I've given you, Agent Glitch out!