Chapter 2: Test Run: Part 2
"Well, halfway done." Slamming down the faceplate.
The wristband sank into Vivi's wrist as her hands and feet grew gray-blue and slimy as they secreted mucus from her pores and only had four fingers and three toes. The badge symbol grew on her back and the blue spread to the rest of her skin, her eyes grew huge and buggy, taking up the entire upper half of her face as the pupils turned sideways and rectangular and her mouth was filled with sharp teeth. Vivi's nose vanished as she shrunk to six inches tall. Her attire shifted to a blue one-piece bodysuit that fit her body with wraps around her feet. She struck a pose as the transformation finished.
The green flash died down and Vivi approached the lake to see her new form.
Vivi was now a gray bipedal frog-like creature with huge green bug eyes with square pupils. She had sharp teeth and a blue forehead strip that leaned down to blue hair on the back of her head. On each side of the strip were two thin little tendrils. Her outfit was now a blue and black jumpsuit with black sleeves that ended in black fingerless gloves. The badge symbol was now on her back.
But this form's most interesting feature was not its appearance, but its size.
Or, rather, utter lack of size. Because this form was TINY, by Vivi's guess, she was now 5-6 inches tall!
"OK, before I judge this form for its size, I might-" Before Vivi could finish her sentence. She notices something in the corner of her eye.
"Hang on a second, is that Pruritus-Pulvis Fungi! I didn't think you could find that out here!" She noted, before walking towards the fungus.
"How did I know that?" Vivi asked herself.
The heron then got out of the tree and noticed Vivi in her new form. Thinking she was now vulnerable, the heron decided to strike.
Vivi on the other hand was more focused on the fungus. She picked it up and examined it. "Yep! That's Pruritus-Pulvis, But I thought it explodes into white powder when you touch it?"
She then tossed it over her shoulder and it just so happened to hit the heron and exploded into white powder.
"I guess it wasn't," Vivi noted. "But I guess that's a good thing, it's not called the 'Itching Powder Mushroom' for nothing."
At that moment, the heron began to flail around like crazy, rubbing and scratching its body.
"But still how did I know that?" Vivi pondered until it hit her.
"Of course! This form may not have size or strength, but it makes up for it with intelligence." She realized. "That could come in handy, Ingram always said that Knowledge is power."
So Vivi started testing her new intelligence. Quizzing herself, making puzzles, and making little models with whatever she could find. She aced pretty much everything and just as the badge blinked red.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeep!"
Vivi was back to her normal size and wrote in her notebook.
After waiting for it to recharge, she sets the faceplate to the next icon of a muscular creature with four arms.
"Hmm, Now this one looks strong!" Slamming down the faceplate.
The wristband sank into Vivi's wrist and her blood vessels expanded rapidly before spreading across her entire body, which eventually reached her eyes, which he clutched shut. When she shot them open again, they were fully golden and a second pair of eyes grew beneath the original ones. A second pair of arms shot out just below her primary pair and her muscle mass grew exponentially. Vivi's feet morphed themselves only to have two toes and her skin turned red. She wore a blue and black one-piece bodysuit with her hair now in a ponytail before she shot a pose.
The green flash died down and Vivi approached the lake to see her new form.
In the reflection, Vivi was now a tall humanoid creature with well-developed muscles, two pairs of four-fingered arms, and red skin. She had long blue hair tied into a ponytail and four eyes: a main pair and a smaller pair below them, while she lacked ears or nose. She has whisker-like spikes on each forearm and Her outfit was a tight fighting black and blue one-piece bodysuit with black legging with a strap on each foot that reveals her two toes and the back of each foot, a hip skirt, fingerless gloves, gold arm and ankle bands, gladiator-like shoulder pads, and a gold circlet on her forehead. The badge symbol was on her left shoulder.
"Ok! Now let's see what this one can do!" Viv said, eagerly raising her four hands in the air.
She then moves over to a boulder and lifts it with relative ease. She chucks it into the air and catches it. "Now it is gonna be fun…" Vivi smiled.
Vivi then used her newfound strength and stamina to perform various feats, jumping into the air, lifting heavy boulders, and breaking several. She could already tell this form was a powerhouse.
She then throws another boulder in the air. At the same time, the heron jumped into the water to stop the itching. When it came out, the bolder Vivi threw came falling at him. The heron then jumped back into the water.
"Alright, I think I'm really gonna like this one!" Vivi notes as she writes down in her notebook.
After doing more heavy lifting, the wristband then times out.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeep!"
Later when the wristband recharged. She selected the aquatic icon and slammed down the face plate.
The wristband sank into her wrist and covered her arm in grayish-blue scales that traveled up her arm as her fingers turned to claws. Vivi then grew an angler from her forehead. She then grew gills from her neck as her teeth grew and sharpened themselves as the scales finished covering her body and her hair turned into a tall seafoam dorsal fin running down her back. Her clothes turned into a loincloth-like two-piece swimsuit. The badge symbol was on her upper torso.
The green flash died down and Vivi approached the lake to see her new form.
Vivi now has a tall humanoid fish that is mostly gray and has four-webbed-fingered hands with claws, and two webbed two-toe feet. She had visible gills and some patches of scales on her body along with sharp seafoam blue blade-like fins. Her head now resembled an anglerfish with a massive jaw with razor-sharp teeth, an angler lure on her forehead, and a tall seafoam dorsal fin that went from her head down her back. Her outfit was now a two-piece swimsuit that showed her entire midsection with the top and the lower half resembling a black loincloth with thin blue lines on it. The badge symbol was now on the front of her left shoulder.
"Wow! I kinda look like a Fish-Man!" Vivi noted that this new form reminded her of the Fishman people.
"Now let's see how well I can swim." She states as she jumps into the lake.
In the lake, Vivi took a bit to adapt to breathing underwater. But after getting the hang of it she began swimming. She couldn't help but be impressed by her newfound skill.
Being from a country that is a massive desert, Vivi never did any swimming or learned how to. But here she was, swimming like a natural.
As she swam, Vivi looked down and saw that her legs and loincloth merged into a tail.
"A tail too! It's like a Fishman and a Mermaid rolled into one." She notes.
Vivi kept swimming until the visibility got bad. "That might be an issue."
As if on cue, her eyes and the angler lure on her forehead lit up, allowing her to see clearly.
"That's more like it."
Vivi swam around until the heron knocked some boulders at her while getting out.
"Oh no…" She notes.
She tries to swim away but hits a dead end.
"...not good!"
Vivi turned to face the falling boulders. She managed to dodge several of them. But one large boulder managed to come straight at her and there was no time to dodge.
It looked like she was a goner, but fate had other plans. Without even thinking, Vivi extended her jaw very wide, catching the boulder in her mouth, and shattered the boulder by biting down on it!
"Woah!" She thought to herself, feeling both shocked and impressed by her own feat. "I can't believe I can do that!"
Vivi then swam back up to the surface. She then breached the surface of the water. (Imagine she did it like Ariel in The Little Mermaid cause she felt like it.)
She then got to the shore and stretched her leg after being in a fishtail.
"Now that was refreshing," She sighed. "I can't believe I never swam before this."
Then it was at that moment, the badge began to time out.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeep!"
In a red flash, Vivi was back to normal, and surprisingly she was completely dry.
But she decided not to question it and went to write in her notebook until the wristband recharged.
Once it did, she dialed up the next icon. "Ok, this one seems interesting." She notes as she slaps down the faceplate.
The wristband sunk into Vivi's arm and her skin turned black and green lines of energy scrawled their way across her body as her clothes and hair vanished into her body her eyes merged into a singular one and merged into a circle before she struck a pose as she finished.
The green flash died down and Vivi approached the lake to see her new form.
In the reflection, Vivi's new form was a black blob with a humanoid figure and a featureless head with a singular green for an eye/mouth. All over her body were green stripes that covered her entire back. Her front was all blue with black stripes that continued the green stripes patterns. All the patterns end at the badge symbol on her chest.
"Now this is co-" Vivi tried to say but was interrupted when a boulder fell on top of her.
The heron finally managed to get the drop on the shapeshifting princess and feeling proud, it flew away. Unaware that gelatinous liquid was seeping out from under the boulder.
Vivi uses her new form to get out from under the rock. "Oh, my head…" She groaned but then realized something.
"Wait! Did I just turn into goo?" She focused all her energy on doing that again. As she expected her whole turned back into a puddle and back.
"Alright! If I can do that…" Vivi then turned to her malleable body. "What else can I do?"
She then focused on making something else happen. Vivi does this until she accidentally makes her singular eye light up and fires a laser beam from her eye.
The beam goes flying hitting a part of the rock the heron was sitting on, startling it and sending it flying away.
"I can shoot beams too?!" Vivi was shocked. "I can definitely work with this."
So Vivi began working on seeing the limits of this form. She learns she can change her size, make her hands into various melee weapons, generate green electricity, and have great strength and reflexes.
She kept this up until she timed out.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeep!"
"Well, good to be solid again." She notes as she begins writing in her notebook.
After it recharges, Vivi then dials the final icon that looks like a classic ghost. "Alright, one more to go." She states as she slams down the faceplate.
Vivi's skeleton vanished and she started levitating in the air as her entire body reformed into a ghost-like image. Her fingers turned into claws, her legs turned into a ghostly tail and she gained one singular purple eye that traveled along the stitch-like markings in her skin where the badge symbol poked out of an opening in her chest.
The green flash died down and Vivi approached the lake to see her final form.
In the reflection, Vivi was now what can only be described as a classic ghost. She was covered head-to-tail in pale skin. Long thin arms with claws at the end and black veins covering her entire body. She had a singular pink eye on her face that ran along the black vein. In terms of an outfit, she had black shackles on both her wrists with two chain links in each, another shackle around her neck, and a dark blue capelet hung on her shoulders with a hoodie hanging over her head. The badge symbol was embedded in the lower left part of her chest, peeking out from between the black veins.
"Woah… I look pretty creepy." She noted in a faint whispery voice.
Vivi floats around noting how quick she is when flying. Then she got an idea to try and see if this ghostly form could do things she'd read about in ghost stories.
And low and behold… I did. She practiced things such as phase shifting, invisibility, and even telekinesis.
But there was one ability that she had yet to try and it was nothing like she's ever seen before.
Vivi finished testing out her other abilities when she noticed something about her grey skin. It looks like the skin can peel off at the base of the black vein.
"That's odd…" She reached into the fold and pulled them open.
The Heron at the same time came back to investigate that beam attack. It happened to land in front of Vivi as she opened her skin.
It became face-to-face with the most terrifying thing it had ever seen. Under Vivi's skin was an unspeakable horror made of a mass array of striped black and white tentacles.
Horrified by the sight, the heron finally gives up its pursuit of the shapeshifting princess and flies away in defeat.
Vivi then closes her skin and looks around confused. "What was that?"
After finding nothing she then goes back to training with her new tentacles.
She lifted heavy logs and shattered rocks with fast strikes.
Vivi continued until the badge timed out.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeep!"
"Well, that's the last one." She notes what she learned as she writes down.
-x-
Vivi looked up at the sky and realized it was time to go back.
So she waited for the wristband to recharge before retransforming into her raptor form and speeding back to the palace.
"Well, that was fun!" She noted. "I can't believe how versatile these creatures truly are."
As she reflected on all she had done today, Vivi began to wonder what she was going to do with this power.
She definitely didn't want to waste her new abilities and definitely knew that she could really help her kingdom with them.
But at the same time, she was afraid of what others may think and how that info would spread to anyone unsavory.
So Vivi came up with a compromise she would use her abilities to help her people in secret without anyone ever realizing it was her.
What's the worst that could possibly happen?...
TBC-
Author's note: Let me know what you think and as always. Constructive criticism is allowed. Trolling is not.
Just you wait, Vivi...
So until next time. AutoHunter, Rolling out of the hunt.