Sagel’s POV

After a quick patrol of the area, Sagel decided the wagon had to be moved. He was not sure what kind of protection this set of merged trees had, but having a squad of dark elves throwing fire balls at it was probably not going to be good for it, and that’s exactly what they were likely to do if they should find this place.

Recruiting Eirlathion’s help, he managed to hide it under a pile of vines by having them grow up over it. Of course, it was moved a fair distance away from where they were sleeping first just to be sure. Now for the real deal.

“I’ve still got more than enough energy from being around those humans all day, and the spirit energy in the air is just getting thicker as we approach Heaven’s Scar as well. I do not think I will be sleeping anytime soon.” Sagel informed the elven mage. “I will be scouting ahead on our route for tomorrow, things will only become more dangerous as we approach, so you can never be too careful.”

“I see, well, be careful.” Eirlathion said. “We would be in a tough situation without you.”

“Don’t worry, scouting is something changelings specialize in. So long as I am not foolish enough to become an attractive prey animal such as a rabbit or a deer, I shouldn’t be bothered by anything.”

With those words, Sagel let out a breath and allowed his arms to fall against his side. As he lifted his arms, there was a film of fleshy webbing attaching from his arm pits to the tips of his little fingers. As he continued to lift his arms, his little fingers began to elongate and bend backwad, revealing the same film between his fingers as each digit distorted while his hands shrunk. The little finger became as long as his entire arm, and would be able to touch his own arm pit if it were not for the fact that it was now stuck between two membranes of flesh that was quickly thickening and darkening into leathery wings.

By the end of it, his arms had changed to become a set of giant bat wings. Sagel jumped and beat down with his wings powerfully, kicking up wind and debris from the forest floor and forcing Eirlathion to cover his eyes to protect them. As soon as he was off the ground, his body, and the wings with him, began to rapidly shrink as his “clothing” transformed into brown fur. Finally, he had finished his transformation into a large fruit bat.

Having taken this form, he began to fly circles around the trees that served as their rest house before finding a branch that was the right size for him to hang from. He did not fully understand how it worked, but Sagel had learned that just about all flying animals have some kind of extra sixth sense that allows them to sense the location of an object relative to its position in the world. It seemed to be something like a compass, because he was rather sure he was able to use this sense to detect which direction was north. However, it went much deeper than just that. He couldn’t just sense north like a compass. He could also tell about how far away he was from whatever it was that pulled compasses toward the north. And, he could also sense how far east and west he was. In other words, this sixth sense could detect his exact position on the surface of the planet.

The only down side to this was that he needed to spend some time in the location he wanted to be able to find later. He had to stay and memorize the feeling of north to south and east to west. This normally took dozens of minutes. In this state, he was left with nothing to do but wait. He listened as Eirlathion went back into the tree, and then closed it off to seal themselves inside.

He closed his eyes, not that his eyes would do him much good. A bat’s eyes were not really all that good. They could still see, but it was somewhere along the same lines as a cow’s, goat’s, or cat’s vision. It was somewhat blurry, but unlike those three animals a bat did not have the trade-off of being able to see in the dark. Instead relied on their hearing far more, and a bat’s hearing was incredibly sharp. All he had to do was let out a few clicks, and with the reflected sound he could use his ears to tell where all objects around him were.

Sagel actually liked taking the form of a bat quite a bit. There were a lot of things to get used to, but a bat was actually the third most agile creature in the air. It was only faeries and humming birds that held superior flight ability. Certain hunting birds such as eagles or falcons could beat a bat for speed, but that was only on a dive, and they most certainly could not turn or ascend or descend on short notice anywhere near as smoothly or gracefully as a bat could.

Sagel stretched his wings in anticipation. He felt he had a good idea of the position of this tree now. He was quite certain he could find his way back here once his scouting was done. Now then, the Heaven’s Scar should be south-east of here. Of course, with his strange compass-like sense, he was able to know immediately which direction that was as he dropped from the branch and caught the air in his wings and took off flying.

It would take three more days to finish their journey to Heaven’s Scar on land. However, if he were alone, Sagel could make the entire journey in just over half a day in flight. That being the case, he ought to be able to check the majority of their route for tomorrow in just a few hours, and then the trip back ought to be faster as he will be flying direct without stopping to look for any encamped creatures. He would only have to be on his alert for roving demons which would likely just have moved on by the time they are on the move tomorrow.

After around 30 minutes in flight, Sagel ran up against one of the few flaws of taking this form. His wings were beginning to tire. He would have to stop and rest for a short while and replenish himself. He found the nearest appropriate branch and hung from it. He folded his wings and began to focus his spirit energy into them in order to replenish the tired muscles. As a migratory bird, he would have been able to do this in mid flight without even needing to think about it all that hard. The flight endurance of those creatures was truly top notch. Almost every form he could take had its advantages and its disadvantages. This bat form was especially adept to operating at night and flying below the canopy. It also had some good endurance, but it was nowhere near as good as that of a duck or a goose.

He began to breath in the growing spirit energy in the air. It was nothing compared to what those humans with Eirlathion produced, but it was still starting to feel on par with living in a human city. Sagel could never imagine having this much spirit energy available in the territory of the fey.

Having restored his strength, he dropped from this branch and resumed his flight toward the south-east, letting off his clicks and mapping the locations of every tree and branch in his mind as he was on the alert for anything anthromorph shaped. He had to rest several more times along his journey, but a couple hours later he wound up encountering the exact thing he had been looking for and hoping not to find.

It was just one at first. He flew up to a branch and observed what they would be doing. It was not a creature on the ground. In fact, they were airborne just like him, and had similar leathery wings attached to their back instead of their sides. ‘Fairy class, huh?’ He observed. ‘It’s small, an imp then.’

Well, at least it was only imps. However, there was something he didn’t like about this situation. This imp seemed to have a large object that it was carying as a weapon. Well, large compared to its small body. The sound reflected off this object was quite crisp, indicating it was solid, and it disappeared depending on the angle he tried to detect it from. This indicated it was probably a lot skinnier than it was wide. A sword, in that case. This thing had a fairy sword. Normally they try and take those away at the first signs of demonization.

Well, it’s still an imp. Imps may be stronger than standard faeries physically, but the transformation of their four gossamer wings into two bat-like leathery ones severely drops their airial agility. It’s not even dropped to the level of a bat even, a bat is maneuverable due to its stream-line form and ability to quickly fold and change the orientation of their wings. An imp has those clunky arms getting in the way of any such fine aerial maneuvering, which means those bat wings are only just able to keep them airborne. In fact, imps are among the worst in terms of aerial maneuverability. Any common bird could fly circles around them.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a great threat this imp still had their fairy sword after all. After all, it was the faerie’s speed and agility that made those weapons such a threat. While an imp had more power, in a contest of a fairy against an imp while both were armed with fairy swords, the fairy would win every time. That loss of maneuverability made imps one of the very few demons to become less of a threat upon their demonization.

There was, however, one thing about imps that they still preserved from their time as a fairy, and this was the single thing that made both of them such a force to be reckoned with. By instinct, they were never alone. Where there is one, you can always assume there are at minimum nine more hiding off somewhere else. Even if they were not all that agile, Sagel did not like his or anyone else’s chances going against them one Vs. the swarm. A dragon with their fire and wind magic could manage it, but most other people would be in a very bad position against such numbers.

He wondered whether or not he should go back having gotten this information for a moment. Imps were dangerous, but there was no real guarantee they would still be in this area by the time they pass it tomorrow. He had to wait and see if there was anything else.

He continued to observe, using his ears to hear everything that he could pick up on, using his nose to detect all strange odors. He could definitely smell more of these imps around. The smell was coming from the direction in which the imp was flying. There was also another smell along with it. Something much heavier, from a larger creature. It was similar to the imp though.

Sagel had never smelled the scent using an odor sensitive animal before, but he was willing to bet these imps were traveling with gargoyles, the next level of fairy-class demons. A gargoyle was not much of a threat during the day, but they often traveled with a large number of imps. Those imps would guard the gargoyle when the sun came up.

This was exactly what Sagel was afraid of. He had still not confirmed whether or not what he was smelling really was a gargoyle, but if it was then this area had to be avoided tomorrow. It is possible he was just sensitive to the idea because it was the thing he had feared, but he really couldn’t get closer in order to confirm his suspicions. This scent would be all he would have to go on. A swarm of imps were something that could easily prove dangerous even for a bat if they happened to get curious after all. He might take the risk normally, but Eirlathion was right in what he said before he had left. That group would be in a very bad situation without him.

Convinced he should prioritize his survival, Sagel took off flying back the way he had come. He allowed himself to rise up above the canopy this time, and took the form of a large goose in order to facilitate faster travel without pauses. He no longer had to check and see what was below the leaves, so the priority went to simply getting back to their base camp for the night quickly.

-

When he got back, Sagel heard something rustling about near by. He quickly transformed back into a bat to scan around quickly. He found something moving, but it seemed… soft somehow, and really low to the ground. He couldn’t quite make out what it was. He flew to a tree close to whatever it was, and upon landing on the branch he shifted his form again, this time to a cat in order to make use of that excellent dark vision this animal had.

He looked down from his branch to see what was below him. It seemed to be an oversized flower, at least as large around as a large tree. No where near the massive girth of a lakira tree, but at least twice the diameter of a very large pine tree. It had large vines the size of an adult man’s thigh snaking their way around everywhere, and protruding from the top of the flower was the upper body of a nude woman.

Alra-une. Now why did there have to be an Alra-une here!? Aside from the higher tier levels of the fairy class demons, Alra-unes were among the most powerful of demons. About the only saving grace about them was that they usually traveled alone. If they were to travel in groups like those imps, these things would be the greatest threat one could possibly face. That was not all. It seemed to have planted itself next to the wagon. Did it detect their scent or something!? This is definitely not good, those things can operate even during the day, and the chances of it moving now seemed pretty small.

Sagel knew there was no way he could take that thing alone. He had to get help, and they had to fight it when their condition was at its best. The imps could probably be avoided, but this thing could not. Well, it seems his scouting trip had yielded more useful information, he likely would not have been out long enough to have seen this otherwise.

He went from cat back to bat again, and flew down to the far side of the three trees they were staying in for the night, giving a quick knock on the side of the tree for Eirlathion to let him in. He was relatively sure that since they were in the same room as those boys he would likely not be sleeping either.

Subscribers' comments of the chapter

"Danger zone!"

                           -Meowing Lexi

"beast boy or maybe BATMAN!"

                           -Roy

Author's note

Yeah, interesting little set-up chapter. This was a bit fun to write. No direct confrontation, just some quick scouting and a wider view of what the world looks like. Sagel seems to be very much turning into my "view of the world" guy.

Anyway, I have always wondered about shape-shifters and their really OP potential as spies and scouts. However, we really never see anything taken from such a changeling's POV. The closest I have ever seen is Mistique from X-men, and she is just kinda appearing on the side every now and then. She's EXTREMELY influential whenever she shows up, but nothing ever really explores just how OP that power really is. It's always with the changeling as the villain and the protagonists catching the changeling in the act somehow. That's not enough to really appreciate everything such a power is capable of.