Earth
Spectre Base, Canadian Rockies
August 13, 2019
07:58 PDT (10:58 EDT)

My mom stayed for a while, and we continued talking quietly before she was called away. I remained sitting in the chair just holding Vixa and gently petting her very soft fur. Besides having the extra two legs, and the extra tail, it was remarkable how similar she is to foxes on Earth.

My mom gave me some more information on them before she had to go. They lived fairly deep underground, and were very good diggers. They weren’t big enough to deal with most predators, even if they worked together, so they evolved to the point where they could escape and quickly hollow out a new den. She said that a colony of Scyftan foxes could hollow out a thousand square foot den with multiple entrances in a single day. They eat almost anything, which is part of the reason they were such a nuisance when Scyftans first arrived on Nedovis.

Perhaps twenty minutes or so after my mom left, Vixa woke up with a big yawn.

“Hey, girl. Have a good sleep?”

She gave me a little yip and then jumped off my lap and made her way over to a litter box to do her business. Apparently Scyftan foxes are trained to use a litter box, though they prefer teleporting outside whenever possible. Since Vixa couldn’t leave this room, she had to use the litter box. When she finished, she went over to her water bowl to get a drink, and then came running back over to me, carrying the ball we were playing with earlier.

I threw it a few times for her before I got an idea. I stood up, and closed my eyes, navigating to a specific part of my mind. Anytime a different species is scanned, it is added to a sort of database, allowing for easy shapeshifting. This was my first time accessing my ‘database’, and I saw three different forms. There was my human form, Scyftan fox form, and my natural Scyftan form. I was tempted to check out my Scyftan form, but I wanted to try playing with Vixa.

I selected my Scyftan fox form and willed myself to change into it. I could feel my mana coursing through me, and felt my body changing. I expected it to be uncomfortable, but it wasn’t at all. I kept my eyes closed until it stopped, just in case opening them would halt the process. I made a mental note to ask about that later.

I opened my eyes and was surprised by how dark it was. That’s when I realized that I was buried in my clothes. It’s a good thing that I didn’t transform into something bigger, or I would’ve shredded my clothes. I didn’t even think to ask if my clothes were the special ones that my sisters showed off earlier.

I made my way out from under my clothes, and looked around. It was weird seeing everything from a lower perspective. Unfortunately there weren’t any mirrors around, so I couldn’t see what I looked like. I took a few steps, and was happy not to fall over. I was a little shaky, but didn’t think it would take long to walk as if it was natural.

Thankfully, part of the information in the scan is knowledge on how to move on six legs. I hope that any other species I scan also comes with knowledge on how to move. Shapeshifting is pretty nice, but it would suck to have to re-learn how to move every time.

Vixa came over to investigate me initially, and then left me to get used to moving around. I had turned my back to her when suddenly something collided with me, knocking me over. I also heard a set of pops consistent with something teleporting. I looked over to her and saw that she was lying on her side, cleaning herself.

I went back to walking around, and a few seconds later it happened again. I quickly got up and looked over to Vixa. She was lying in the exact same spot, still washing herself. I knew it was her, since this room blocks teleports from outside to inside, or vice versa. Or maybe that was just for Scyftan foxes. I tried teleporting outside of the room and nothing happened, meaning it was definitely her.

I knew as soon as I turned away she would do it again, so I would have to come up with a way to know when she teleports. I was initially at a loss, and then I remembered; ‘My tails!’ I stood there watching Vixa while trying to move my tails in the same rhythmic fashion I had seen her and Imuna do earlier. It took me a little while to get it down, but I soon started to scan my environment.

Walking while scanning took an effort, but I soon had a handle on it as well. I turned my back on her once again while walking around, waiting for her to make her move. I didn’t have to wait long. When she saw that I couldn’t see her, she got up. As soon as my scan showed me that she wasn’t there anymore, I quickly teleported to where she started.

She appeared where I was last and seemed very surprised that I wasn’t there anymore. She looked over to me and made a high pitched growling sound before teleporting at me again. I teleported away and that started a game with each of us trying to catch the other, but being unable to. Apparently we were at it for awhile, because my mom showed up with my friends in tow.

The twins squealed at such cuteness. Each of them ran over and picked one of us up and proceeded to nuzzle us. Vixa ate it right up and began purring while enjoying the attention. I, on the other hand, felt pretty embarrassed. I saw my mom trying not to break into laughter. I teleported out of Anja’s arms and appeared on the floor several feet away from her. She walked over, trying to pick me up again, but I teleported away.

[Mom, if you don’t tell her to leave me alone, I’m going to bite her.]

She guffawed and everyone looked at her in confusion. It took her a minute to calm down a little, and then she looked at Anja.

“Anja, Jonathan says if you don’t leave him alone, he’s going to bite you.”

“Jonathan? You mean…” she broke off, looking at me. “Jonathan?”

I nodded my head.

She had a shocked look on her face and then blushed with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”

[Can you tell her it’s alright, and then get everyone to leave the room so I can get dressed? Since I can shapeshift now, I also need some of that special clothing my sisters told me about yesterday.]

[Tell her yourself. As for the clothes, there will be a wide selection up in your room here.]

[Tell her myself? You mean she’s done learning how to Mindspeak already? I thought it was going to take all day.]

[Usually it does. It’s not just her, either. All of your friends went through it a lot faster than we expected. The twins were the fastest, followed by Ben and then Mason.]

[Oh,] I replied. I then tapped on Anja’s shield and waited for her to answer.

[Jonathan?]

[It’s me. About the picking me up thing, don’t worry about it. Just don’t do it again. Can you please ask everyone to leave the room so I can get dressed, as well as let Sonja know Vixa can’t be taken out of this room just yet.]

[Sure.]

[Oh, you might want to allow me to send through your shield, too, and relay that on to everyone as well. I’ve already taken care of it on my end.]

She passed along what I said, and they all filed out of the room. Sonja very reluctantly deposited Vixa on the floor before being the last one out. I dragged my clothes over to the door where I couldn’t be seen, shifted back to my human form, and quickly got dressed. When I was done, I opened the door and everyone came back in. I sat in the chair and Vixa hopped onto my lap.

“I brought them down here since they finished early and you were busy. Since it didn’t take all day, you’ve got a free day to work with. You all need to agree on which three days per week you would like as free days, so we can plan around it.”

“We actually already agreed on what free days we wanted when I was driving home last night. We decided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.”

“Alright, I’ll let Gabriel and Omar know. So what would you like to do today? It’s just past 11:30 on the East coast, so you could spend a good 10 hours or so in the dungeon, or do something else.”

“I’d like to hold off on going back into the dungeon until Saturday like we agreed. We each just got a bunch of skills and perks, so it would give us a few days to level them up, and learn how to use them. It would be nice to level up Teleport and one of my new auras a bit,” Ben replied.

“Yuki asked me to meet with her whenever I have some spare time to teach me more about Precognition. I think I’ll use some of the next few days to do that,” Anja said.

“Only one of my new skills can be leveled outside of dungeons, so I think I’ll go with my original idea of checking out the firing range,” Mason answered.

“I want to work on my shapeshifting, so I’ll continue doing that. What about you, Sonja?”

“I got some really cool new spells, so I want to see what I can do with them. Alexandra, is there somewhere I can go that is wide open and won’t catch fire? Something like an abandoned factory made of steel and concrete?”

“I’m sure we can find something for you. Seems like everyone is set, then. Anja, I let Yuki know that you have some free time. She’s off shift today and Thursday, so you’ll be able to work with her on both days. She’ll be waiting for you at the elevator up top shortly. Mason, you already know where the firing range is, so you can head up there whenever you like. There will be an instructor there to assist you. Jonathan, you can make your way around this floor scanning the various animals you see. When you’re done with this floor, let me know and I’ll take you to some places so you can scan animals that we don’t have here.”

“As for you two,” she said, looking at Ben and Sonja. “Ben, I’ll show you to a large training room we have here where you can practice teleporting. After that, I’ll see if we can’t find somewhere for you to train, Sonja.”

With that, everyone split up and I was sitting there with Vixa still sitting on my lap. I put her on the floor and put the chair in my storage before kneeling in front of Vixa and scratching her head.

“I’ll see you later today, okay?”

She whined a little at that.

“You’ll only need to stay here for two more days. After that, you’ll be able to wander this base as much as you like. You’ll also have some friends to play with when you get out of here.”

She yipped and then teleported over to her bed and laid down. It seemed like she wanted to pass the time by sleeping.

I walked out of the room and made sure the door was closed behind me. When I was sure it was, I left the quarantine ward. I was pretty confident with teleporting now, so I teleported to the hallway between the African and Scyftan enclosures.

I wanted to see how far away I could scan, so I reached out with my mind. As I reached out further and further, I began to detect more and more animals, in both enclosures. I topped out at around six hundred fifty feet in diameter. It wasn’t a lot in comparison to how big the enclosures were, but it was enough.

While seeing how far I could scan, I detected a very large creature in the Scyftan enclosure, so I focused on it and slowly entered its mind. Once there, I started gathering all the information about it I could. It wasn’t as easy as it was with Vixa, but after a few minutes I was done, and retreated from its mind.

It didn’t seem to notice my presence at all while I was in its mind. I’m not sure what species it was, but it was very similar to primates on Earth, though a few times bigger than a gorilla. Like Scyftan foxes, this large animal also had six limbs; four arms, and two legs. I wasn’t sure how prevalent animals with six limbs were on Nedovis, but so far, it’s two for two. Like gorillas, they were heavily muscled and could grasp objects with their hands, as well as their feet. Unlike gorillas, however, they were carnivores. It seemed like it could be a good form to take aspects from when I create my own amalgamation of forms. Two extra arms would be extremely useful.

I spent the next hour or so scanning everything I could in the two enclosures near me before teleporting over to the other two enclosures and repeating the process. I scanned around sixty additional creatures, adding them to my ‘database’ before running out of things to scan. There were a few interesting animals that I was able to scan, like a cheetah, a gazelle, a grizzly bear and a jaguar. It would be interesting to see how long I would be able to run at top speed as a cheetah or gazelle.

I teleported to the elevator, hitting the button so to make it come back down. While I was waiting, I sent to my mom.

[I’m done scanning as much as I could and I’m on my way up to the main floor. Can you show me where my room is so I can get changed?]

[I’ll be waiting at the elevator.]

[Cool.]

The elevator arrived so I went inside and hit the button for the main floor. It took a minute to get to the top. When it opened, I was surprised to see my sisters.

“Hello, girls,” I greeted, stepping off the elevator.

“Hi, Jonathan,” they replied together.

One of them then continued. “Something came up, so Alexandra asked us to show you to your room. When she’s done, she’ll come and find you.”

“Ah, okay. Lead on, and how about you three let me know which is which while I add you to my shield.”

Two of them walked in front of me, while the other walked beside me. The one beside me was the one to speak. “I’m Lucille, that’s Aleena, and that’s Alexis,” she said, gesturing first to the left, and then to the right.

I added all three of them to my shield, and was able to easily differentiate between their minds. It didn’t take long, and then they stopped in front of a door with a mana scanner for security. I sent a pulse of mana and the door slid open.

I went in first, and the girls followed me. The room was quite a bit bigger than I was expecting, with a king size bed and plenty of room for some additional furniture, as well as a large wooden desk, off in a corner. There were two doors as well, one to the left, and one to the right. Checking the right door first, I found a large bathroom, complete with a standing shower as well as a large jacuzzi.

The girls were standing over by the other door. When I got close, they opened it for me. Inside was a large walk-in closet. The walls were divided into two parts. The top part had clothes hanging, and the bottom part was broken up into dressers and shoe cubbies. The room was by no means full, but there was a lot of clothing hanging around the room. All of it looked like clothing that you can buy anywhere.

“All this clothing is made with that material you told me about?” I asked them.

“Yup,” Alexis answered. “Everything, even the shoes will assist with shapeshifting. That’s not all, though.”

She walked over and opened a door I hadn’t even realized was there.

“Here is the more specialized clothing.”

I walked over to her and saw a few suits of clothing similar to the ones I saw the people guarding the portal wearing. Others were pretty different.

“These are various types of armor. You won’t be able to wear most of them right now, since you’re too low level. Even the ones you can wear will be quite a bit better than the leather armor you and your friends are currently using, though. All of them will assist with shapeshifting. They all have mana gems or mana crystals incorporated to give you a reserve of mana for emergencies. They provide varying amounts of protection against piercing and blunt weapons, with protection increasing with the higher level suits.”

“And then there are these,” Aleena said, opening some metal chests around the room.

Each chest contained different melee weapons and other utilities. Other chests had stuff in them that I couldn’t recognize at all.

“What’s in these four chests?”

“Those are the components to customize your own guns. It’s a normal thing for the Scyftan military. Why assign everyone different weapons, when you can give them chests like this and let them customize their own? There are enough parts in these chests to build anything you want. I’ve seen a few people build their own miniguns with what’s in these chests. The first two are barrels and other pieces, the third is the core part of different types of guns, and the fourth is different power sources a gun might need.”

“What do you mean by core part?”

“You need different core parts for your gun, depending on how you want it to work. For example, if you want to make a railgun or gauss gun, the core of your gun will have the workings for the electromagnetics, as well as ammo storage. You can then slot in various barrel lengths, as well as a stock, which contains the power source, and you’re good to go.”

“That’s pretty cool. Do all my friends get something like this as well?”

Lucille nodded. “They’ve all been assigned rooms beside yours, and on the opposite side of the hall.”

“Perfect. I think Mason is going to be pretty happy with what’s in these four chests. Out of the five of us, he’s the one most into firearms. I could easily see him walking around with a minigun.”

“You may be interested in these,” Alexis said, drawing my attention over to her. In her hands, she was holding a short tube, and then what looked like a handle.

“What are those?”

“Want me to show you?”

“Sure,” I answered with a nod.

She stepped back a bit and then stood in a stance like I would with my spear and shield equipped. I didn’t see her press anything, but both the tube and the handle quickly expanded until she was holding a spear and a large shield.

I was speechless for a moment. “How did you activate those? I think I know how the spear works, but what about the shield?”

“Both of them work the same way, so the spear works differently than you’re probably thinking. Both the shield and the spear have small dimensional storages built into them that store the bulk of the weapon. They are activated by channeling a small amount of mana through them. When you channel your mana, those pieces are taken out of the storage and attached to the components you are holding. There are all sorts of weapons that use this mechanic, to make it easier to carry while putting other stuff in your storage.”

“Can you retract them so I can try them out?”

She nodded. They both retracted and she handed to me, then stepped back with her sisters.

I held them in their respective hands and channeled my mana through them. When fully expanded, they were about the same size as the spear and shield I had been using. Both were a little bit heavier, but I would bet they were a whole lot stronger. I stopped channeling mana to retract them, and then put them back in the chest they came out of.

“What is stopping someone else from channeling their mana through them, causing them to retract back into dimensional storage?”

“As long as you’re channeling your mana through them, it will provide a sort of barrier against anyone elses mana. That was a big concern when they were first developed. Originally buttons were used to activate them, but there were concerns about the mechanisms being destroyed, or an enemy being able to hit a button, effectively disarming the user.

“Makes sense. Thanks for showing me around. Can you wait for me in the main room? I want to get changed into some of that clothing, and then I want to try shifting into a new form.”

“Sure,” they all said, proceeding to leave the closet.

I closed up the room with the armor and weapons, and then made my way around the closet, picking out clothes. When I found what I wanted, I undressed and redressed in the new stuff, deposited my clothes in the hamper, and left the closet.

The girls were sitting on the edge of the bed chatting when I came out. I looked around the room and realized something.

“This room probably isn’t big enough for the form I want to shift into. Can you show me somewhere big enough so I can?”

“We know the perfect place. Follow us.” Lucille answered.

They led me out of my room and down the hallway back to the room with the portal entrance and wall of screens. From there, they led me down another hallway and then entered a large padded room.

“This is the sparring room. You can transform in here. Just be sure not to damage the floor if you transform into something with claws.”

“Okay, I’m going to give it a shot.”

I moved about ten feet away and then started transforming. It was quite a bit harder than shifting into a Scyftan fox, but after a minute, I was about three times taller, covered in thick fur, and had four arms.

I looked over to the girls and they all had shocked looks on their faces. Aleena recovered first.

“How did you manage to scan one of the Seotrosses? People have been trying for a long time without having any luck.”

I shrugged and went to talk. Nothing came out, and I realized I would have to send.

[I didn’t have any issues at all scanning it. It was a bit harder than with Vixa, but it only took a few minutes,] I sent to them.

“You didn’t come across a shield?” Alexis asked. “Every time someone has tried to enter one of the Seotrosses’ minds, they’re blocked by a powerful shield.”

[Nope. No shield at all.]

“Amazing. Alexandra will probably want to know about this. You should ask her to come here if she isn’t busy.”

[What room are we in?]

“Sparring Room 3.”

[Mom, can you come to Sparring Room 3 when you get a minute. I want to show you something.]

[Give me about five minutes and I’ll be over there.]

[Okay.]

There were mirrors covering one of the walls, so I decided to see what I look like in Scyftan form while I wait. I selected the form and waited a bit longer than a minute for it to complete. It appears that the bigger the difference in sizes, the longer it takes to shapeshift.

Walking closer to the mirror, I estimated that I was at the upper end of Scyftan height, at around four feet. My hair and eyes stayed the same, at black and blue, respectively. My skin ended up looking a little more pink. Looking at my arms, it looked like my muscles evaporated with the change. I opened my mouth and ran my tongue over my needle-like teeth, inspecting them. I thought my large ears looked pretty comical, though I was impressed with how well I could hear. I could easily hear my sisters conversing.

A few minutes later, there was a very loud pop that almost had me covering my ears. I looked over and saw my mom had teleported in.

“Well look at you,” she said. “Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“Nope,” I replied. It was pretty weird how much higher the pitch of my voice was. “I have a question, and then I’ll show you why my sisters said I should call you over here. I flexed. “Where did my muscles go?”

She laughed and then answered. “You’re a bit weaker than you were when you were in your human form, but you should still be quite strong. It seems we forgot to tell you about one of the things that happens when you shift forms. Your stats are based off of your Scyftan form. Whenever you shift into another form, you might gain bonuses or penalties for shifting into that form. For example, when you shift from your Scyftan form to your human form, you’ll gain a strength and constitution bonus, while having your agility, intellect and endurance lowered a bit. Check your phone and you’ll see what I mean.”

I pulled out my phone and navigated to my profile page. Looking over my stats, I could see she was right. My strength and constitution were all quite a bit lower, while my agility, intellect and endurance were all marginally higher. My intellect in particular was about ten percent higher, which adds a bit to my mana regen.

“I guess I’ll be staying in my Scyftan form whenever I can, then. The slight intellect bonus will speed up how fast Abi will rank up. Speaking of Abi, she is rank sixteen now.”

“That mana regen perk must have helped a lot then. She was level fourteen this morning. Alright, what do you want to show me.”

“Gimme a min,” I said, shapeshifting into the form I now knew was called a Seotross. When I was done, I saw that she had an incredulous look on her face.

“No way!” she exclaimed, then teleported away.

I had no idea what had just happened. I wanted to see how much my stats changed, so I took out my phone. It was then that I realized my hands were way too big to handle the comparatively tiny touchscreen. I put it in my palm and lowered my hand closer to the floor.

[Can one of you come over here and let me know what my stats are in this form? My hands are way too big.]

“Sure,” Alexis said, walking over. She navigated to my profile and looked it over.

“Your strength is up by fifteen hundred percent, your constitution and endurance are up by five hundred percent, your agility is down by fifty percent, and your intellect is down by ninety percent,” she listed, then placed it back on my palm.

[Fifteen hundred percent? That’s absolutely insane!] I sent, while putting my phone back in my storage.

There was another pop and mom reappeared.

“I agree with Mason. You really are a lucky bastard. I’ve been trying for years to scan one of the Seotrosses down there, and you do it on your first try! I went down there, and all of their shields are up.”

I shrugged and grinned at her. [Maybe he or she likes me? I didn’t pay attention to what sex it is.]

“They’re hermaphrodites, and are capable of breeding through parthenogenesis, if there aren’t any other Seotrosses around. I want to see what you’re capable of in that form.”

When she finished talking, she began transforming. The form she chose wasn’t much bigger than a human, but it was much, much stronger than a human. She chose a regular gorilla, and stood at around six feet on two legs. I guess I would be receiving some hands on training. I walked over to the middle of the large room and she followed.

It was my turn to be amazed. “You ready?” she said aloud.

[You can talk in that form?]

“Yup. It takes practice. I think you’ll eventually be able to talk in that form.”

[Alright, ready.]

With that, she started running towards me on all fours. When I judged she was close enough, I lunged forward and punched with my upper right arm. She dodged the punch at the last second, running up my arm and launching her own punch, right at my face. I was too slow to dodge, and the punch staggered me slightly, though didn’t seem to do any damage.

I turned back to her and saw the smirk she had on her face. I lunged forward, punching with my upper right arm again. This time, it was a feint as I leaned forward on my upper left arm to maintain balance, and punched with my lower left arm. She attempted to dodge to the right and ended up running right into my large fist. The impact sent her flying a good forty or fifty feet away. I’m not quite sure how strong she was, but I think she was pretty lucky she wasn’t near a wall when I hit her.

She was lying on her stomach, but clearly moving. I went to check on her.

[Are you okay?] I asked.

[Oh, I’m fine. Nice feint.]

She moved faster than I had seen anyone move before, and then I felt an impact under my chin that sent me flying backwards. I groaned and used my lower pair of arms to lift myself up to a sitting position.

[I deserved that,] I sent while rubbing my sore jaw.