The Hunt

[Razor-D-Belphe]

There was a great rumbling then. The entire forest seemed to shake, sending deer running and birds flying.

Snapping his head back toward the source of the rumbling, Grizzly saw the robed figure, his body crackling with an electric blue aura, intertwined with yellow sparks. His face, illuminated by the aura, extended and changed color to a deep azure, his mouth twisting into a maw of fangs. He burst out of his robes, body stretching into the air as great spiked wings burst forth from his shoulderblades. The whole of the shifting being rose into the sky.

The transformation completed, a serpentine dragon with a mane of white hair and whiskers trailing from its snout hung in the air. Its eyes had a glow the same electric blue as its aura.

"Another shapeshifter..." Grizzly said, hand falling to a javelin. "And this one looks like it's looking for a fight. Well, I'm more than happy to oblige!"

But the dragon turned to Ghost and opened its crocodilian mouth, a ball of crackling blue energy forming in its throat.

"Wha- GHOST, LOOK OUT!" Grizzly shouted.

[DragonSong]

Animal instinct nearly overrode her sense as the forest exploded into motion. Ghost started to run, glancing back over her shoulder, then froze.

She remained that way, stock still, until Grizzly's voice snapped her from the paralysis of fear.

She bolted, a white streak darting into the trees, zigzagging back and forth through the trees, desperately trying to find cover.

[Razor-D-Belphe]

The dragon launched the sphere from its mouth. The blast mowed down trees in its way, leaving flaming splinters where they once stood with a great crack. The blast just barely sailed over ghost and impacted the ground. Everything flashed blue as a tremendous shockwave tore up the ground. When the flash subsided, there was a great column of smoke and embers, along with random residual arcs of electricity. As the smoke cleared, it revealed a great crater where the blast had hit.

Grizzly scanned the burning forest for Ghost. Did she escape in time? The dragon appeared to be looming for her too, or perhaps looking for a charred corpse. Neither of them were aware that the blast had mossed just yet.

But Grizzly realized that, assuming it had missed, he had to buy Ghost time before the dragon sighted her and resumed its attack. To that end, he charged and threw a javelin with a feral scream.

But the javelin flew above a rat, where the dragon had once been.

"What the?" Grizzly cocked his head.

Even so, something was starting to dawn on him.

[DragonSong]

The doe was an owl, a wildcat, a wolf, a bear, a deer again as she raced away from the blast, turning and dodging and flashing through forms from one heartbeat to the next.

When she heard Grizzly's voice she skittered to a halt, cloven hooves spraying up dirt and leaves as she panted, looking around wildly.

The dragon was gone.

Still panicked, not lucid enough to regain her human form, Asta bayed nervously and looked around. Where did it go?

[Razor-D-Belphe]

Grizzly stomped. The rat scampered, but its tail was caught under Grizzly's boot. It squealed in protest as Grizzly plucked it up by the tail and dangled it, chuckling.

"Looks like you can't fully control what you transform into. My guess is that stunt you pulled as the dragon took all your focus, amd you defaulted to this form when you could no longer maintain that focus. Whatever you were hoping to accomplish, you failed. Time to die."

"Wait!" it squeaked.

"...Well?"

"I gained my shapeshifting abilities from an experiment, but they're incomplete. I need to consume a true shapeshifter to stabilize my power and be complete. My quarrel isn't with you, so release me!"

"You say you'll be more powerful if you eat a shapeshifter? Unfortunately, this one is my friend now. Go eat a diffetent one and master that dragon form of yours. Then, I'll hunt you down. Now get lost."

Grizzly hurled the rat through the woods out of sight as it screamed.

"An electric dragon should be worthy prey." Grizzly smiled.

[DragonSong]

Asta skittered to the side as the rat flew by her head. Snorting, she picked her way cautiously toward Grizzly, doe eyes wide and steps more than a little nervous.

Hooves changed to human feet between one step and the next and she blinked wide eyes at her strange companion.

"What the hells was that?!"

[Razor-D-Belphe]

"A novice artificial shapeshifter with a poor grasp on his transformations. He needed to eat a true shapeshifter like you to stabilize himself. Though it was tempting for the chance of fighting a dragon, I thought better of leaving you to your fate. He's off to hunt for another shapeshifter. If and when he succeeds, I'm going to find and kill him, sell the dragon hide, and mount the head on my wall." Grizzly summarized.

[DragonSong]

The pale shifter just stared at him. She shook her head slowly and took a step back. "You are not a hunter," she realized softly. "You are a poacher."

[Razor-D-Belphe]

"On the contrary. He's no wild animal, just a power hungry sorcerer. One that just tried to kill you, I'll remind you. And I was caught in the crossfire. In my culture, we don't start fights we aren't willing to finish. He killed himself the moment he attacked, he just doesn't know it yet. What do you care if I kill him and happen to get a trophy out of it? It's predators hunting predators."

Grizzly sighed. "Calling me a poacher, honestly. Half the time I'm the thing keeping poachers out."

[DragonSong]

"Taking a trophy at all makes you a poacher," Ghost responded bluntly. "Hunters kill to eat, to survive. If you take glory from it, you are lesser. A poacher."