Chapter 20

When the laughter stopped, he clicked past the initial picture where I found disturbingly realistic images of grizzly bear like creatures, wearing ballistic armor and carrying rocket launchers. I nodded, agreeing that this picture was exactly what I was looking for. I conjured a Big T to work from.

“Aren’t you going to mold a Mike?” he asked.

“Too many internal changes and upgrades in a Mike, I’d have to remove them first,” I said, while pulling up pictures of bear anatomy on my tablet.

The legs shortened and thickened, bones growing thicker. The muscles shifted to support the new shape. The werebear dropped to a four legged sitting position. The size of the muscles kept increasing, the neck shifted, and the face elongated. From behind brown eyes, he blinked at me.

“This feels very strange,” he said from across the table.

“I’m not sure if I can give the bears the ability to speak, his sense of smell is about to increase, prepare yourself, it’s going to be even better than the super smell on a Mike.”

I increased the smell and taste senses, and the Big T sitting across from me gagged as the sense of smell flowed thru his collective. “I need a shower,” he said, after getting it under control.

I stored the naked bear, and conjured it back. “This is a great animal intermediary form to work from,” I explained, “Now you look pretty much like a shaved dog.”

“It’s too far in the direction of bear, I think,” he said as the hairless bear tried to stand on two legs. He still had human feet and hands, but the shorter leg bones made him look misshapen and awkward.

I lengthened the leg bones, and he went fully upright as I shifted the hips slightly. He walked around the room, his head topping out at about 3 meters, ears swivelling, head turning, looking around from the new height. “That’s much more comfortable, and I think I can run from this position now.”

“You are right at about 300 kilos, so be aware that it will be a slow start and a slow stop,” I told him.

He tried some flexibility checks, then turned and looked at me. “The chest is too narrow. In a four legged position it is larger from front to back than side to side, I need it more human, wider than deeper. It’s sense of balance is throwing me off.”

I adjusted again, making the beast warrior more human, just with a pronounced size and strength, and a bear’s head and senses. “How’s that?” I asked.

“I’m going for a run,” he said, and ducked through the doorway. My senses followed the beast warrior as it reached the running track, a quarter mile underground loop. It began pounding down the track, building speed slowly.

After two laps the beast came back, breathing heavily and sweating. “I don’t know how I can handle being wrapped in fur and do that,” he commented.

I sprouted a thin layer of under fur across the body. In moments he was coated in a soft brown layer. Big T groaned, “That’s very hot. I know I can’t handle the fur during summer.”

“Bears don’t sweat,” I told him, as I removed the coating of fur. I left just a fine layer of it on the head, because otherwise he looked more like a naked mole rat than a bear. I examined the creation. The bear berserker looked just like a very, very large guy, with a massively muscled frame, and a bear’s head on top.

“I don’t see the advantage yet, other than striking fear into the enemy,” I said.

“It’s so cool though!” was his response.

I just smiled, at his antics. It was pretty cool. I adjusted the throat and voice box back to human. “Try saying something.”

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.” the bear said with sincere conviction.

I practically fell on the floor laughing, when I finally stopped, catching my breath, I gave him a chuckling look, “Quoting Winnie the Pooh will only incite terror in a very small subset of enemies.”

“I’ve been looking up quotes back at my cubical,” he admitted.

I conjured a red robe, and forged it into a very big short sleeve shirt that I slid over the bears head. “Come on Pooh,” I said, making the dark hair on the head turn more golden, “Let’s go show Val.”

Big T started laughing as he saw the back of the bear, which now sported a soft layer of golden fur, completely hiding the butt cheeks. He did an exaggerated woddle as he ducked through the door, saying “Where’s the hunny.”

Val wasn’t impressed. She didn’t even laugh at the Pooh imitation. She did however want a similar upgrade, so I conjured an original Edge, and altered her into a Tigress. They both immediately headed to the battle ring.

I followed along to discover a Valkyrie and a Mike, doing Capoeira in the ring. They were both taking martial arts classes in every available dojo in town. The Valkyrie’s ballet experience showed with a lithesome grace that Mike had yet to find, much less master.

The two bowed to end the match, and hopped off. The two beast warriors entered the raised stone ring. The Tigress leaping lightly onto the platform, the larger and heavier Pooh climbing up the steps. I called out to them, “Don’t start fighting yet, I need to give Pooh his claws, and Tigress needs a tail.”

I quickly made the adjustments, smiling to myself at the way the tail moved in her anticipation of battle. I blink stored them both. Then called out, “This is a no holds barred match, knock your opponent off the ring, receive their surrender, or cripple them, the bout will continue until only one remains standing in the ring.”

I conjured a big comfy chair, and raised it into the air after sitting on it. “Let the match begin!”

Pooh lunged for his opponent, hoping to use his size to immediately push her off the platform. With the grace of a tiger she spun out of his reach, using her claws to leave bloody furrows across his side. He roared and turned, swinging with his larger clawed arms.

Her speed was greater, slipping under his reach, she clawed upward, pushing his arms up while slicing into his arms. She spun, extending a leg, giving her the reach her arms lacked, ripping further gashes across his stomach with toe claws. Then she danced out of the way again.