Chapter 3 Human Form

Ludwig wished that he could sleep for longer. He wished that the day hadn't come as fast as it did. He wished he didn't feel exhausted even after getting a full night's sleep. But alas, today wasn't a day where he could have his way. Maybe it was due to his fear from yesterday, but he felt as though he had the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. He felt like the whole world was against him, and that the whole world didn't care about the fact that he had seen something so… horrifying the day before.

He sighed. Sure, he knew that he shouldn't be too hung up about this. The Shadow Seeker would've been frightening to pretty much anyone, so he knew there was no real reason to feel ashamed about his natural response. And sure, he knew that it was okay that he wasn't completely over it right now. Again, it happened literally the night before; less than twenty-four hours ago. But even still, Ludwig couldn't help but squirm under the covers. He also felt a deep-seated shame building in his gut, one that traveled throughout his body and made him feel about ten times worse than he already did.

He shook his head. Maybe he should take it easy today. He should spend time with his siblings, work on some music, maybe play a fun video game or two. If he did that, then he might be able to put all of this nonsense behind him once and for all. He would cleanse his palette, allow himself to calm down, and not feel like his stomach was twisting into knots. Yeah, taking it easy today didn't sound like too bad of an idea.

With this thought in mind, he sat up, opened his eyes, and yawned. He stretched his arms up to the ceiling, and the second he did, he noticed something was wrong. He felt… strange. His skin didn't feel right. His body didn't feel right. His being didn't feel right. And no, this time it had nothing to do with the Shadow Seeker. This time, he felt legitimately and completely… strange.

So, Ludwig lowered his hands, deciding to take a look at them. When he did, his heart stopped. His jaw dropped, and little frightened whimpers and gasps came out of his mouth. Just to be sure that he wasn't seeing things incorrectly, he blinked. He blinked once, then twice. He wiggles his fingers, hoping that his eyes were playing some sort of sick trick on him.

His hands looked like human hands.

Ludwig gawked at this new sight. His scales were gone, as were his sharp claws. Instead of the trademark golden color that most koopas took pride in, his hands were a soft, peach hue. His hands also felt different too, specifically the skin. When he touched his palms, he noticed how soft they were. It was like letting his fingers travel down the surface of a motionless lake.

Needless to say, Ludwig wasn't happy to see this.

"What's going on?" he exclaimed. Despite his fright, he decided to examine the other parts of his body. He felt sick to his stomach to see that everything was the same peachy tone of his hands. His breathing rate sped up, his whole being entered a level of panic that nothing, not even the sight of the Shadow Seeker yesterday, had or really could top. He felt like screaming, shaking, and cowering into a little ball had hiding in the corner, all at the exact same time.

Across the room, Ludwig heard shuffling and yawning. "Good morning, Ludwig," came Lemmy's voice, as it did so commonly in the morning. Ludwig looked across the way at his brother, his jaw dropping even more as he saw Lemmy sit up. This… this… how could this be? How could this… WHAT WAS GOING ON?

Lemmy's face conveyed that he was asking more or less the same questions as Ludwig. When he first laid his eyes on his brother, Lemmy had blinked at first. He even did a double take, as if trying to decide if what he was seeing was really or a dream. However, after that, he stared at Ludwig. His eyes didn't move away, nor did his mouth close. His breathing sped up, so much so that Ludwig could see his chest rising and falling in the most intense, concerning way possible.

"L…L… Ludwig?" Lemmy asked, sounding like he had just witnessed someone getting shot.

"Lemmy?" Ludwig asked. He couldn't take his eyes off of Lemmy, in a similar way to how Lemmy couldn't take his eyes off of him. Ludwig, despite his panicking state, tried to piece together what was going on. Why was this happening? Was this a dream? A hallucination? It had to be, because why else would Lemmy be…

… Why was Lemmy a human?

"Lemmy…" Ludwig said. Even though he had panicked when looking at his own body, he felt so much more strange looking at Lemmy's transformed state. For the most part, he looked like a regular human (albeit one that was much younger than Lemmy's actually age, which was twenty). He had a youthful face, with cheeks the color of ripe cherries. The heterochromia that he had in his koopa form was so much more noticeable now, with the blue left eye and the orange right eye shining in very unique ways. Hair the same color as corn covered his head, with some locks even falling right in front of his eyes. And somehow, miraculously, his trademark rainbow mohawk was still intact. Granted, it was much smaller now, so it looked more like a cowlick than anything else. However, the colors were still there, with a strand of red, a strand of blue, and a strand of yellow. Although Ludwig couldn't see it, he was also willing to harbor a guess that Lemmy's ponytail was still intact as well.

If this had happened under another sort of circumstances, Ludwig probably would've found this really interesting. He would've been awestruck to know that a human version of his immediate younger brother still shared some similarities to his alternate, original koopa counterpart. But now? Now, looking at Lemmy in this form after just waking up, without any explanation as to how his brother got this way… it scared him. It scared him so much that he couldn't even bring himself to say anything.

Lemmy was clearly in a similar state. "Ludwig? How did… why… why are you…?" He tried to get his breathing under control but was clearly having problems.

Meanwhile, Ludwig was left scratching his head as to why this was happening. "Lemmy, why are you… why are you a human?"

Lemmy's eyes grew wide. "You mean we're both humans?"

Ludwig's stomach churned again. Sure, based on what he had seen of his hands, he had expected as such. But somehow, hearing it come out of Lemmy's mouth…

With quick yet cautious steps, Ludwig got up and went over to the mirror. Despite expecting to see himself as a human, he still did a double take anyway. Lemmy came over too, and he gasped when he saw himself.

"No way!" Lemmy felt his face, all while tears came out of his eyes. "How… how did this happen? Why is this happening? Why…. why…" in no time at all, he had burst into tears and was now crying his eyes out.

Meanwhile, Ludwig examined his own appearance. Like Lemmy, parts of his original appearance remained in tact. Sure, his front tooth was gone, but he also had his trademark blue hairstyle. Sure, it was a little flatter than before, but for the most part, it was the same. For the most part, he also seemed to be around the same height as he was normally (similar to Lemmy). Plus, his grayish blue eyes were also bigger, and now they had a shiny luster that Ludwig couldn't remember seeing normally. In fact, the more he looked at his human form, the more… handsome he found it.

But that didn't change how odd and disorienting this whole thing was. Ludwig stared into his own eyes. Like Lemmy, he wondered how this happened, whether or not this was some sort of nightmare. Of course, he wasn't freaking out as much as Lemmy was, as he had gone through several transformations before. From body swapping to turning pink to turning into a cat to taking on the forms of several different TV characters, this was definitely Ludwig's territory. Sure, it was still odd and bizarre, but at the very least, Ludwig was somehow used to this kind of debacle.

However, looking at his younger brother, Ludwig noticed that Lemmy was crying harder than he ever had before. This alerted Ludwig to the fact that Lemmy needed reassurance, that he needed to be comforted and told everything was okay. So, Ludwig decided it was time to enter "big brother" mode.

"Lemmy, it's okay," he said, his tone relaxed and extremely calm for a situation like this. "Don't panic Lemmy, I'm sure there's a perfectly rational, perfectly reasonable explanation for this…"

"Like what?" Lemmy asked as he attempted to dry his tears. "What sort of possible explanation could there be for…" he stopped. His eyes grew wide as he looked at Ludwig. He tried speaking, but his pink complexion told Ludwig that he was having trouble.

Somehow, this whole scene ignited more concern out of Ludwig than he had felt previously. "Lemmy, what's wrong?"

Lemmy's skin tone changed from pink to red. "Uh… um…" he pointed to Ludwig, still not saying anything. Confused, Ludwig looked to where he was pointing…

And shrieked. He was completely naked! Sure, this wasn't anything out of the ordinary for him, as koopas typically didn't wear clothes. But as a human? As a human, this meant that his private parts were on display, allowing anybody who looked at him to get a full view of his genitals.

"AHH!" With his face growing warm, he covered up his crotch with his hands. All the while, he decided to keep his eyes away from the equally naked Lemmy. "This… this might be a problem."

Lemmy nodded. "Yeah." He turned toward the closet. "I'm going to find something to cover me up."

With that, he went into the closet and closed the door. All the while, Ludwig was left embarrassingly bemoaning his new form. This was something he definitely wasn't used to. With koopas, the private parts could slide in and out of the body depending on whether they needed to be used or not. Obviously, humans didn't have this luxury. While trying not to panic, Ludwig looked around for anything, any one single thing, that he could use to cover himself. Unfortunately, he didn't have a lot of clothing, so this meant he was stuck naked.

At least, until he spotted his blue cloak, resting at the foot of the bed. Ludwig breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it, uttering a prayer of thanks in his head. He started to go to it before a question popped up in his mind. It made him stop, made him wonder if what he was thinking was true. He decided that there was no harm in testing it, so he held out his hand, concentrated really hard…

And was instantly met with disappointment. His powers didn't work anymore. Granted, this wasn't a complete surprise, as they hadn't worked in the previous forms Ludwig had been transformed into over the years. But even then, this didn't please the special. This was certain to create a lot of inconvenient roadblocks. Oh man, he hoped he wouldn't have to fight anybody in this form…

Well, whatever. He went over to his bed and put on his cloak, hiding the rest of his body within it. Sure, was it a perfect solution? No, as Ludwig constantly had to keep his cloak closed to not expose himself to the world. But, at least it was something. At least he had a temporary fix until he found a much better solution.

Right as he was thinking this, Lemmy came out of the closet wearing a clown suit. Ludwig breathed another sigh of relief when he saw his brother, despite the fact that said brother's face was still carnation pink. Ludwig smiled at him, sort of as a way to tell him that this was all going to be okay.

"Well. At least we took care of that."

"Yeah, at least," Lemmy muttered. He ran his hand through his new hair, seemingly taking some form of delight out of feeling it. "But that doesn't change anything, nor does it answer any of my questions." He looked Ludwig right in the eye. "How could this have happened?"

Ludwig thought about this. "I don't know…" He thought until, suddenly, a possibility popped up in his mind. A possibility that made him shudder, a possibility that made his stomach lurch at least fifty times. "Maybe… maybe it has something to do with the Shadow Seeker?"

Lemmy's eyes grew wide as grapefruits. "Oh no…" he started to shake. "Oh man, if that's the case…"

"AAAHHH!"

Both Ludwig and Lemmy jumped. They exchanged a concerned look. "That sounded like Larry!" Ludwig said.

Lemmy shook even more. "Wait. Ludwig, do you think this happened to the rest of our siblings?"

Ludwig's heart pumped extra hard. "I don't know." He looked toward the door. "But I think we should find out."