“Hello Tenuk, you wanted to…”
Nyssi didn’t finish her sentence, watching in awe as something reptilian but not a Thraki soared around the small, closed off arena. This place was supposed to have been a small stadium for bloodless arena battles, mostly beast-catching stuff, and Nyssi had recently been in it during a stunt to catch a True Thrack. But the arena had been closed off, so that Tenuk could practice in private. The Raptor was very, very happy with the first ever Spast gladiator, and had given him basically whatever he wanted.
Eventually, the being stopped flying around and landed awkwardly in front of Nyssi. Nyssi couldn’t help but admire this specimen of a Temthan. They looked almost exactly like Nyssi except male and slightly taller, and had a pair of wings that would have put most Thraki to shame.
“Hi, Nyssi!” Tenuk beamed as he began to shrink down, returning to his normal Spast form. “What do you think?”
“I’m impressed!” Nyssi smiled back. It was weird to think that the two of them hadn’t been friends for very long. Tenuk had just turned up at her house one day and fallen asleep in her spare bed, while looking exactly like her. He’d survived a massive explosion, she’d survived being stampeded on by rabid monsters. Yet here they were, chatting as if they had been friends for decades. “So you’re like, mixing things up?”
Tenuk nodded, then started changing his form again. This time, he turned into a green-plated and overly tall Skyavok, one that Nyssi recognised to be the Happy Cold, one of the best Skyan fighters to ever bless the Great Arenas. However, the Thraki-like wings also appeared, stretching out wide. Weirdly, the wings seemed a little bit off, a little too pale, compared to the rest of Tenuk’s now grey Skyan skin. Tenuk didn’t hold this form for long though, and, after his skin and eyes flashed white, he returned to normal. Somewhat. He was red and silver now with sapphire eyes, not the familiar blue that Nyssi knew. Tenuk quickly panicked and corrected this, and his two-toned blue fur and red eyes returned.
“I realized, there’s literally nothing stopping me from mixing and matching different parts from different species. It’s difficult to do though because it’s not natural, and I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of small, animal part of my brain that screams at me to stop because it’s also pretty strenuous. But, well, since we’re blessed by the Thantophor of all beings, a lot of the things that would normally hold me back no longer do so. Mostly the headaches and risk of brain damage.”
“Huh…” Nyssi realized she was staring and blinked a couple of times. “So why do you go red and silver sometimes? It… looks nice.”
The little Spast frowned, looking around anxiously, checking that they were alone. He then closed his eyes, reverting to those dreaded colours. Doing so was very easy, perhaps a little too easy.
“These are my chosen colours, the colours I picked for myself when I was ten years old. As all Spasts do. But since Tanos tou Ahvran is supposed to be dead, I can’t really let anyone see me like this. It’s why I wanted this private area to train, so I can avoid flashing colours and giving away who I really am.”
Nyssi blinked some more. “But why were you blue when I first met you? And not your chosen colours?”
“I…” Tenuk didn’t have an answer. Now that he thought about it, it made no sense to him either. “I genuinely have no idea. I guess I hated my life and myself so much that, deep down, I wanted to be different. And when I gave myself amnesia, I guess… I just made myself different.”
“You Spasts are weird…” was Nyssi’s only response.
“Oh, totally!” Tenuk’s smile returned. “We’d probably be a way more dominant race if we weren’t so lazy and didn’t have atrocious population problems. An 80% female population sounds great until you realize most girls don’t want to risk pregnancy because it’ll most likely kill them. It’s a small miracle that my mother survived two pregnancies.”
“But you said you have… oh… I’m sorry…”
Tenuk waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. Hardly knew her. Most Spasts don’t know their birth mothers. Anyway, the winged thing isn’t what I wanted to show you! I, uh, gotta refuel first though.”
Nyssi waited patiently as Tenuk made his way to a large pile of sugary energy drinks. Being a Spast, his diet was weird and mainly consisted of pure sugar, with a small amount of more complex carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Clearly, Tenuk had gotten through a lot of those drinks.
“Saw Kayel earlier, did he tell you Arkay visited him? Recommended that I keep myself topped up on sugar, and who am I to not listen to the Thantophor’s advice? Anyway…” Tenuk downed a whole can in almost one go, pausing for breath briefly. Once he was done, he awkwardly crushed the can, then turned back to Nyssi. “Stand back and watch this.”
Nyssi did as she was told. Tenuk braced himself, then started to shapeshift again. His body ballooned outwards, taking the form of a large, orange-furred Banikan with blue stripes running down his back. Once Tenuk had finished shifting, he took a long, deep breath, then opened his mouth wide, exhaling a stream of flames. The flames crashed into a nearby pillar before fading away.
“Oh you worked it out!” Nyssi clapped.
“I’m not done yet.”
Tenuk’s form changed again. The fur all faded away, Tenuk’s skin turned blue, and Tenuk’s shape turned from a kangaroo-like biped one into something reptilian and on four legs. Those familiar wings appeared on Tenuk’s back. The Spast was now some sort of weird Temthan-Thraki amalgam, but too large to be either. Again, he took a deep breath and spewed a torrent of fire at the nearby pillar, before abruptly cutting out and coughing and spluttering.
“Yeah, that’s definitely impressive!” Nyssi approached Tenuk, reaching up to pat him on the back. As she did so, he started returning to normal again. Once he was a Spast once more, he reached over for another can of energy drink, but sipped it this time, still coughing slightly.
“I’m still not done…” Tenuk finally grunted, handing the unfinished drink to Nyssi.
Yet again, Tenuk’s body began to change. But this time though, he turned into a perfect copy of Nyssi. Except he had a weird pair of black horns on his head, instead of Nyssi’s short, stumpy, rounded white horns. For a third time, Tenuk took a deep breath, but rather than firing a beam of flames, he spat out several small balls of fire.
“I’m still working out the kinks…” Tenuk explained, taking his drink back from Nyssi and downing it in one. “But I have an amazing idea that literally no one is going to expect.”
“You just turned into me and breathed fire!” Nyssi couldn’t help but shout. “That’s… insane!”
Tenuk smiled. “Yeah, it is. But there are far, far scarier things that could potentially also breathe fire.”
“Like…” Nyssi trailed off, realizing what Tenuk was talking about. “That’s… wow, if you can pull it off…”
“I think I can…” Tenuk was still smiling, even as he opened another can of drink. “But I really need to eat more. This extra shapeshifting is insanely strenuous…”