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As I come out of the fugue, the injector falling to the ground, I can't feel my legs... because, glancing down, I have no legs.
Instead, behind me, there is a long, sinuous mass of muscle and bone that tenses and shifts as I focus on it.
With a little effort, I manage to get the hang of moving it, enough that I can coil up as I stand in front of a mirror.
And I am immense. Easily the size of Aster Allay from Hadal: Abandoned, and far more suited to above the waves. Exactly how I envisioned the character when I modeled them for Descent.
Raising the second pair of arms as I notice them, I flex them with a certain reverence, running a sharpened nail - a veritable claw - on my original arms across the thick, scaled hide covering my body.
Every muscle, lean or thick, tenses with undeniable strength as I clutch a thick bar next to me, my grip leaving undeniable marks as another arm leaves deep gouges in an easily concealable place.
In a sense, what I feel looking at myself is almost love... with a definite undertone of esteem and accomplishment.
I look inhuman. I look unnatural.
And I love it. Every. Single. Glimpse.
Taking a picture of myself for posterity, I smirk to myself.
"The doctor is in."
Doctor Cambio. Brilliant cytogeneticist. Monster of his own making.
Here, in this sinuous form, he... was me.
All too soon, however, this first taste of my desired, desirous form began to flag as the muscles of my tail went limp, second pair of arms withering away cleanly as my body slumped to the ground to let its legs grow back.
And as I picked myself back up, Reilly Valere once more, I was determined not to let it be the last.