(A/N: This is my first piece of writing. Constructive criticism welcome. I do not own any of the franchises/media that are/will be mentioned in this series. Enjoy!)


Hey Pastor Tuck? Remember that sermon about the gleaming white gates of heaven that I attended one time? Remember how you proclaimed our Lord and Savior would meet us in the afterlife? How about a nice heaping dose of "what the fuck" and "fuck you." Hate to break it to you, I didn't get that. All I got was a void. My body was gone, leaving me a floating consciousness in a sea of black nothingness, if that makes any sense. But what about any of this would?

Eventually, I saw… flashes? Visions? Some sort of gray pictures that came and went. The doctors frantically trying to revive me, immediately followed by the scout being arrested. My funeral, of which Clara and Tommie were the only ones in attendance. "Poor girl. She doesn't deserve this." Then a picture of a courtroom, with the- "She's an adult?!" The woman was obviously on trial, the package of cookies I ate out of on display for evidence. The next flash was the woman being led and shut into a prison cell. After that, nothing was shown to me, leaving me in darkness once more.

Not too long after the slideshow, an orange orb of light came into being. Curiously, it was around this time I found I could reach out with my hand. However, in this case, I use the term 'hand' loosely. It was more of an incomprehensible appendage attached to some weird blurb of my body. As I reached out, I could feel the light… beckoning? It was almost urgent in the feeling. Steeling myself, I reached out for it.

"Nothing can beat spending eternity in Limbo, right?" That was the last thought I had before I felt a searing heat course through me, a bright light overtaking my senses, eventually overloading what little of my mind was conscious at that point, passing out amidst the fiery sensations.


A forest. That was the first thing I noticed upon waking up. I was lying down on my back in a forest. The second thing I noticed was that I woke up.

"The hell? Is this the afterlife?" I thought. I went to pinch my arm to test that theory when I noticed something different about my hands. They were bigger, for one, but that's not what caught my attention. My hand, both of them actually, had some kind of metal sigil in them.

"I don't remember having metal tattoos." The sigils were a gold circle with a triangle inside of them, with a sort of wing-looking design on either side of the circle, connected by a line touching the bottom of the circle. "Odd."

There was a gleaming piece of gold… something nearby. I shuffled over and picked it up, unsure of what to make of it. The thing was a metal disc with two parallel prongs sticking out the end of it, with ornate engravings around the rim. On one side was the same mark that was on my hands, but with a paw instead of a triangle. The other side had some kind of city on a floating rock, little dots moving around like it was alive.

"Metal shouldn't move like that." I stopped looking at the thing and set it back down, examining my outfit.

"I didn't die in a trench coat, did I?" I was definitely wearing some kind of trench coat, with a black t-shirt and matching slacks. I stuck the metal thing in one of the pockets, hoping I could sell it later for something. I looked down at my shoes, and instead of the sneakers I usually preferred, I was wearing brown loafers. There was a tightness around my neck, not uncomfortable or chafing, but it was noticeable.

I reached up to feel it and found… "A collar? The hell?!" Yeah, I was not into chokers. I looked around for something to check my reflection, figuring that would give me some idea of what was going on. Upon further inspection, it looked like it had rained in the forest. "Maybe there's a puddle nearby."

Sure enough, after only a few minutes of searching, I found what I was looking for. A small oblong puddle, about a foot wide setting in a muddy patch of grass. I leaned over into it and almost instantly recoiled.

"That's not my hair! That's not my face!" I panicked. "What the hell?! How did that happen? I mean, sure dying-." Then it hit me. I died. As the panic and wonder slowly faded away, I felt a sense of dread build in my stomach as the realization came over me. I died, and I wasn't in a hospital or coffin, and judging by my new body and clothes, I most definitely was not in Kansas anymore.

"Ugh…" I moaned, sitting on my back. "This has got to be the worse trope to get caught into."

Having seen plenty of anime with Clara after our parents left us for drugs and alcohol, I knew more than my fair share of isekais that we enjoyed. I did a mental checklist of all the criteria involved.

"Step one, die. Checked that box. Step two, wake up in another world. Maybe? Leave that one open. Step three, get kickass awesome anime bullshit powers. Huh. Hadn't thought of that. Maybe this new body has something to do with it." Taking several deep breaths, I calmed myself and sat back up to look back into the puddle.

"Hmm… you know, if it weren't 2D, I'd say I look almost like… no it can't be…" I muttered to myself, looking at the reflection of my new body. "The hair is right, but the color is wrong. So are the eyes, but the outfit and collar are unmistakable, sans gloves."

I looked like a real-life Shirou Ogami from Brand New Animal, but my hair and eyes were a golden color, leaning more towards yellow, but still had the shine and lustrousness of gold, for whatever reason. Additionally, it appeared that I had gained a foot, maybe foot-and-a-half in height. "If I'm really Shirou Ogami, then wouldn't that mean I'm a beastman too?" I elected to test that theory.

"So, in BNA, it isn't really described how transformations work, at least until Michiru turns into a human. So would the inverse be true for beast form?" I closed my eyes and started focusing on the wolf form Shirou had like Michiru probably did in Dolphin Daydreams. I focused on how Shirou looked, focused on the intention of becoming that form, and felt… something. The feeling passed quickly, with a feeling like butterflies rushing through my body. When I opened my eyes, my senses felt dialed up to eleven. I could see the individual strands of fur on my hands, golden like my human hair. The sigils were still there, just a part of my fur pattern now. I now had a snout at the bottom of my vision. I soon found if I focused on it too hard, I got a little light-headed from being cross-eyed.

"Better just leave that alone." I turned around, finding a fifth appendage attached to my lower back. "Huh."

It was kinda weird having a tail, being able to move it like an arm and feel everything that touched it. It was wagging slowly, probably reflecting my inquisitive mood. "That's going to take some getting used to."

My senses of smell and hearing were probably the most noticeable. I could hear everything. The wind rustling the leaves, rodents foraging for food, and a small brook nearby. I could smell where everything was too, an almost visible trail I could follow it was so strong. I tried taking a step forward, and promptly launched myself a few feet forward and into the ground. It didn't hurt, but I certainly felt the impact.

"Ow," I muttered on reflex. I slowly stood up, remembering an important detail about Shirou and getting annoyed that I'd forgotten. "Oh, right. I forgot he could dodge fucking bullets."

Shirou in BNA could not only dodge bullets, but fall down skyscrapers and walk it off, heal a shattered arm in seconds, and judo-flip a freaking rhino. Not to mention his Ginrou form.

"Wait. Ginrou." Setting aside my growing excitement and anxiety, I took off my collar, knowing Shirou did it before he went Ginrou. I pictured his glowing, uber-powerful Silver Wolf form, intending to become it. It was the same method I used to go beastman, so it would probably be the same to go Ginrou. I think. I focused for a minute. Then two. Then five.

"Maybe a vocal component? Shirou doesn't say anything except some bullcrap about justice, so… Ginrou! Ginrou, go! Ginrou, I choose you! Go-go gadget Ginrou!" I shouted, immediately feeling stupid for doing so. "Gah! Come on, I get to dodge bullets, but I don't get to be the Silver Wolf?! Talk about a bust!"

I sighed, knowing no one was listening. "Well, its probably for the best. I don't want to freak out the locals if I am in another world."

Deciding to try again later, I put the collar back on. "Let's see if I can't figure out how to at least walk without launching myself."

I started with baby steps, almost tip-toeing, which is funny considering I'm digitigrade in beast form. When I spent about fifteen minutes just walking, I felt comfortable moving at a casual pace. As it would turn out, if I wasn't constantly focusing on my steps, it was fairly easy to just walk around. Feeling confident, I decided to test my luck and run.

"This reminds me of that first fight in a game I played recently. Something about an angry guy killing gods." When you see a guy in a movie get thrown through trees or houses, you always say 'ooh, that's gotta hurt,' but you're not the one actually being thrown through solid oaks. I think I stopped moving after the fourth or fifth tree, but at that point, I actually felt a little hurt. There were several loud crashes in the direction I was launched from, probably the trees I smashed into. I heard several groans and pops throughout my body, and instantly felt much better. At least the regeneration carried over. I sat up and inspected the damage around me.

The tree I had landed in had a very noticeable dent in it, the bark stripped off, and the lighter wood underneath exposed and splintery.

In my path of destruction… "Hot damn, that's a mess," I exclaimed. Several trees had not only fallen over but were halfway obliterated. All that was left of the older ones were the stumps and the canopies, the younger trees not even surviving the impacts.

"Note to self, do not try running as a beastman until I can control it," I said, putting a mental pin the size of Texas on that mental note.

I was still ogling my handiwork (footwork?) when I heard an engine in the distance. It was a sort of low rumbling sound, like a mix between a jet engine and a motorcycle. Realizing it was probably the locals coming to investigate, I shifted back to human form, the engine sound fading away. Must be pretty far away if I can't hear it with human ears. I hid behind a tree in the opposite direction of where I heard the sound. A few minutes later and a sort of spaceship arrived, very much telling me I was in a sci-fi world. It was shaped like a push dagger, but the handle had two blocky engines coming out the back of it. It was gold in color as well and had the same mark on both wings that were on my hands. Two bay doors opened underneath it and several uniformed individuals with futuristic weapons jumped down into the clearing, twelve in total. The obvious commander had his helmet off and a scarred left eye, his remaining eye and hair gray. His skin was almost paper white, complimenting his hair and eyes.

"Find the intruder, neutralize them, and bring them in for questioning. Make it clean people, I'd rather bring them in alive. The boss won't be happy if we don't get answers." I heard him instruct the others.

Hearing them start searching, I debated whether I should reveal myself. On one hand, they wanted me alive. On the other, I didn't know how rough they'd be with me. Weighing my options, I decided to show myself, needing answers and feeling these people could give them. I slowly stepped out of my cover with my hands raised, heart pounding with anxiety and fear. One of the men saw me almost instantly, but instead of threatening or arresting me, he actually looked shocked.

"Uh, hi? Could you guys tell me where I am? I'm kind of… lost?" I tried, hoping to convey my confusion to them. The entire team at this point just looked at me, obviously confused about something. The commander recovered more quickly than the others and started walking toward me. I noticed at this point that I had at least a foot of height on the man, confirming that I was taller.

"What House are you from?" he asked with a curious and slightly accusatory tone.

"House? Like, where do I live?" I responded, confused about the question. The man's look shifted from suspicious to concerned, but the only way I could tell was when he relaxed his weapon.

"You're a Gold, aren't you? What House do you belong to? Your family, your sponsor, your House. Every Gold has one." he continued, making me more uneasy each time he asked a question.

"House? Gold? I don't know what those are. I just woke up in this forest with no idea how I got here or why, and all I know is my name. Could you please help me figure out what's going on?" I asked, getting more desperate as the commander started looking concerned, almost panicking.

"Well, if you don't know who or where you are, I think you'd best come with us. We can help you, but it isn't my call. It's my boss's, and he's not the most welcoming person. You're on his property without permission, so you'd best behave yourself. It might be your only chance. And this is my only warning." the commander told me, gesturing to the ship.

A platform was lowered from where it still hovered, the commander issuing orders for his men to get on, constantly eyeing me like I was a threat. I warily followed, ready to shift and bolt at any moment. As I stepped on the platform, the commander pressed a button on a panel I hadn't noticed before and we began to rise. As the last of the forest was shut from view, I turned around and locked eyes with the most intimidating man I'd ever met. Also, his eyes and hair were gold as well.

"What is your name, boy?"


Automated Estate Management Log #11-8156

Begin Log

Notice: Multiple specimens were destroyed in rapid succession.

Action: Send Lurcher team Omicron to investigate the possible intrusion.

Resolution: Undocumented intruder located. The intruder was Gold. Identity is inconclusive.

End Log