Morphing 101 (Closed)

[stevie]

Stevie had been watching and listening intently, although the others could have mistaken her for sleeping with her eyes open. She hadn't moved, hadn't spoken... Just watched intently. The story about the spybot had captured her attention, but there were no question's worth asking right now. Anything she could think of would just be extraneous, useless information. The technique that Jullian was talking about, on the other hand, that was useful information. Stevie could count the number of times that would have been useful in all the long since healed fractures.

Mentally, Stevie prepared for some sort of lecture detailing the process. What she got was a half-seagull teacher. Involuntarily, she flinched, her stomach doing a flip or two at the sight. Quickly she pulled it back together, hoping that Jullian hadn't seen her reaction. After all, at some point, she would be in that state... half bird, half human. How could she expect to be trusted to handle doing it if she couldn't even handle watching it? Swallowing down the feeling in her throat, she turned her eyes back to him, hoping that he would hurry up and finish the morph.

The more she looked at him though, the less her stomach turned because, the more Stevie looked at him, the more Jullian's current form reminded her of something. Victoire de Samothrace. If, of course, it had been a boy... and had a head. Well, minus the beak... She had seen the statue in the Louvre many times. It was one of her favorites. She hardly even noticed that a smile was seeping across her face as she looked at a real life representation of a masterpiece. Suddenly the sight wasn't nearly as disgusting as it had originally seemed.

[Jullian]

Unaware that he was replicating a priceless piece of art Jullian quickly finished the morph. Now that he wasn't concentrating on making it go a certain way the remaining changes happened quickly.

His bones hollowed out and he shrank to the seagull's small form. His feet scaled over and a thin layer of skin grew between his toes as they stretched to form the paddling feet of the seabird. The wings shrunk to their normal size and the last few bone changes needed to make them functional appeared with a creaking sound.

His eyes moved to the side of his head and the pupil of each seemed to grow to take over the entire eye. His lips bulged out into a beak and a fan tail grew from his spine completing the spread of the elegant white feathers over his body.

The seagull's ever attention defective and ever hungry mind bubbled up under his own but this was an old morph of his and he controlled its instincts easily.

He flapped in the dead air of the classroom and lifted off the ground to float in the air for a moment before touching back down for lack of a better place to land. Still, he had wanted to show them that the bird he'd become was fully functional.

<<So now I'm the seagull,>> Jullian said, projecting his thoughtspeak to everyone in the room. <<This is thoughtspeak and this is how you will communicate while in morph. It can be directed at everyone or just one person, isn't that right Liz,>> Jullian said, directing the last part of the sentence to her alone.

[liz]

Liz had just sat through the transformation in awe. The tattoo that had spread across his arms then warp into feathers astounded her. Her eyes were wide the whole time. Then the arms became full wings. The "professor" stood there, not flapping his wings or anything. Then he let out a stream of garbled noise. Liz immediately thought of a cult. Is this like some demon-possession or something? I think it's too late to go home now...

Her thoughts trailed off as a more talkative guy told Julian to continue. Then Liz realized that he had been trying to say something. Her shoulders realized and she slouched a bit, enjoying the feeling of tension leaving her body.

Her eyes flew back open as wide as possible as the seagull began taking form. The sight was both beautiful and disgusting. The feathers were cool, but the tail killed the the fifth star rating. But the end result was a seagull, one that tried flying but landed again. The weirdest part was when she heard Julian's voice.

She knew she couldn't actually be hearing his voice, but just to make sure she put a hand over an ear. The voice was as loud as ever. This bit of news surprised her. She'd never heard or heard of thought-speak. It was as strange as the alien battle ship she was on. What was worse was how a question was directed at her.

Liz smiled and shrugged. She was pretty sure it was a ploy to get her to talk, since she had been paying rapt attention to everything so far. But it had been way too obvious, the way he suddenly singled her out. And to everyone else, since they hadn't heard Julian's private thought-speech, it would only look like she was shrugging off what Julian said about thought-speak.

[Jullian]

Jullian couldn't frown or look concerned as a seagull and he found he missed the ability to express his feelings. The girl in the back of the room had been paying attention but, so far, she hadn't spoken or introduced herself. He didn't want her to feel left out of the group in anyway and he'd tried to draw her into the conversation but it hadn't worked. Instead of saying something to acknowledge that he'd spoken to her and her alone she shrugged.

Maybe he could talk to her after, see if she was having trouble adjusting to the school or having trouble making friends. He knew the school could be stressful. The location alone was enough to throw you off balance and he didn't want her to feel unwelcome.

He turned his beady eyes on someone else instead, <<Can you inform the others that I am speaking to you and you alone?>> he asked.

((Left who he was talking to open so anyone can answer.))

[Stray]

Sable didn’t rush, but he could quicken his pace. Where he did like the cold he was only human, and his body didn’t quite appreciate the teen’s blatant disregard for necessary things like sleep. So he had found himself halfway reading something sitting on the floor in his room before suddenly waking up groggily with a kink in his neck and stiff limbs.

As he walked down closer to the classroom (at least what he hoped was the right one.) He slowed down slightly, his shoes barely making a sound against the metal floor of the blade ship. He wasn’t a rebel or even a slacker; he had never been late for a class before now. Stopping at the wall right beside the doorway he paused again, glancing down with mild distaste at what he was wearing. The requested clothes were supposed to be tight-fitting, at first Sable might have dismissed it but he had been in dancing lessons since he was a boy. And his clothes for such lessons, were form fitting.

Dressed in a solid black pair of tight–calf length pants and a tight black mid-forearm top the boy sighed to himself softly. Skin-tight clothes were just that, and form-revealing. Another thing he disliked. Walking into the doorway of the classroom, pausing when it was oddly silent. Resisting the urge to close his eyes from the oddly patterned rug on the floor he brought his icy blue gaze up from the floor to the people sitting on it only to acknowledge an odd illogical fact.

He was seeing the group of people staring at a seagull. A flicker of confusion sparked in Sable’s mind before it died as he blinked slowly, his expression blank and emotionless. Seagulls didn’t live in Antarctica, or on Alien ships. Meaning the only explanation was that the seagull was the ‘teacher’ of this class. A morphing teacher, who was human before.

He let his gaze slide from the bird wordlessly to the shoes sitting around the open door, kicking his own off quietly he leaned against the wall beside the door. It looked like he was arriving halfway into the lesson, he would have to figure out what he missed.

[jonathan]

Jon tried to keep his expressions to himself, feeling a small wave of disgust rise when Jullian's eyes started to move across his face. The instructor continued to change, finally ending up as a full seagull. After a seemingly failed attempt at trying to fly, the seagull landed and Jon suddenly found the boy's voice inside his head. His immediate reaction was to tense in surprise, blinking rapidly. The last, and only, time that Jon had a voice speaking in his mind was when he had been controlled.

The seagull's attention turned directly to Jon, and he said something about speaking to him only. Grimacing, and wishing he hadn't been singled out, Jon looked uncomfortably to the other students seated around him. "Um. The teacher's talking only to me. With his thoughts." Then his gaze snagged on somebody leaning beside the doorway, shoe-less. Another student? Jon coughed slightly, trying to draw Jullian's attention over to the person.

[Jullian]

Jullian turned his feathered head one way and then the other as the new kid walked in. <<Thank you Jon,>> he said to the whole class. <<Please, come in,>> he said to the new recruit though everyone could hear him. <<We haven't been here long. Is there anyone that wants to volunteer to tell Sable what he missed?>> Jullian asked.

He hadn't had much interaction with the newest recruit but Seiya had informed Jullian of his arrival and the basic facts like names. Jullian wasn't someone who had a problem remembering people's names and he'd seen Sable in the mess hall, though admittedly at a distance, so he had been able to put name to face.

<<Sit down,>> he said to Sable, welcoming him to do so.

[xander]

Thought speak would take some getting used to he decided. It was frustrating not hearing the words echo and having to rely on his eyes to locate the source. Xander figured he’d adjust though, he was good at that. As he waited for something else to happen, he looked over his shoulder as Sable walked in. He gave the boy a glance before turning back to Jullian. The shock had passed and now he just didn’t want to miss something important.

Xander chuckled at Jon and whistled the twilight zone theme and raised and lowered his hand in an attempt to make it look like a space ship. It was appropriate he figured, considering the circumstances.

“Alotta Shit,” he quickly said over his shoulder at Sable before more seriously saying, “He showed us what morphing looks like and half morphing and stuff. And apparently super freaking mind powers. I leave anything out?”

[Stray]

Sable jerked his head slightly to the side when he heard...someone talk to him. But thinking about it there was no vocal sound, more like it was directly spoken in his head. Once he figured it was from the seagull, being as no one else had spoken to him, he blinked his face expressionless. Glancing around the room again where most of the students were sitting on the rug only made Sable want to remain standing all the more.
But this was class and the...seagull was the teacher. He glanced at Xander when he spoke, seeming to tease some other kid before talking to him. So he missed what morphing looked like, he was sure the Teacher was going to morph out eventually. The mind powers he had already been subjected to. Silently he nodded before sitting at the back of the room, but where he could see without any issues, waiting for Jullian to continue. He had already shown up late for class and he didn’t want to miss anything either. Or give anyone a reason to dismiss him.

[gabriel]

Gabriel turned and waved a little at Sable before turning to Xander. "You forgot the part about morphing healing all the wounds we are going to get and the part about morphing saving our butts when we are falling out of planes and shit-uh," he glanced at the seagull that was really Jullian and then around at the kids in the room, "I mean stuff."

He shrugged and looked back at Jullian, wondering what the next step was going to be. He'd seen morphing before but never close up. He had to admit that it was slightly sickening to experience it this close but not because of how it looked. Coming from a generation that had been drugged with realistic looking graphics it was hard to see something that looked odd. But somehow hearing it, hearing the bones crunch and the organs move, that gave the whole process a sickening edge and he hadn't been completely prepared for it. But, in classic Legend fashion, he was hiding his unease behind a blithe attitude.

[xander]

Xander glanced over at Gabe and nodded, “That too, can’t be neglecting that, can we?”

He chuckled at the other recruit correcting himself. It had to be either for the youngers or the teacher who was a kid in some respects. Personally he didn’t believe in treating bloke different from another. Male, female, little, or old, no special treatment or undesirably harsh, all got the same. If anyone had qualms with that he figured they could always relocate.

He looked back at the seagull in front of the class. Mostly wondering what would happen next.

[Jullian]

Jullian ruffled his feathers. He wondered if he should continue to teach from the seagull's body. It certainly provided a very good example of anything he wanted to say. But he supposed it would be hard for them to hear new information from an animal and to keep paying attention so he began to demorph.

He rushed through the process and it only took him about a minute to finish. Unlike when he'd morphed in, Jullian took no real time to try to control the demorph. It most likely looked gross, worse than the original morph, but it didn't look as bad as some of his earliest morphs. It was back then, when all of his morphs used to go wrong in exactly the horrific ways he'd imagine they would, that he began to realize how important your mind and mental picture was in shaping your morph.

When he was human again he sat back down. "Alright, I thought I'd do a lot of theory of morphing stuff before dumping morphing on you but I'm starting to reconsider it. There is no really good way to describe what morphing is like, you just have to do it for yourself so you all will get your powers soon. Just a few tips, things I can tell you now that will help," he said, holding up a finger.

"When you morph you morph the animal's mind too with all of its instincts. Some minds have stronger instincts than others-" he stopped and rethought that sentence. "Well all animals actually have pretty strong instincts but some of them are much different than ours. The things that motivate them were sometimes a surprise to me so I got caught off guard. Its easy to lose yourself in an animal when you morph it the first time so just be careful. And you can only morph skin tight clothing," he said, picking at his own skin tight uniform. He still wore the all black uniform he'd helped design in LA. So many of the people he'd helped design them for were gone but many of them weren't and he didn't want to forget that.

"So if everyone has their morphing suit you can come up and touch the box. Everyone except Gabriel that is since you touched it already," Jules said, nodding to the young man.

He turned and pulled out the cube from behind him and then held it out to the class. "Anyone want to go first?"

[xander]

Now that he knew what to expect, sort of, Xander wasn’t mind blown by Jullian’s transformation back to a human. Was it any less impressive? Not in the slightest but he never liked to be the guy gawking at the side show. He did listen as their teacher spoke about animal instincts coming into the play, and by the end of the kid’s second sentence he was humming “Eye of the Tiger”.

“So, we’re never going to get out of our pants?” He asked with mild disgust, pulling at the suit and letting it snap back for emphasis. He could live with the tights at the moment but the idea of permanently. At least he liked the colors, nice dark gray shirt that went down to his wrists and black shorts.

He allowed himself to pout slightly while he waited for someone to volunteer. When no one stood up Xander let out an over dramatic sigh and rolled his eyes before standing. Out of reflex he tried to put his hands in the jacket pockets he currently didn’t have as he walked to Jullian. Xander dropped down in front of the boy and let muttered to himself in Korean.

“Let’s get this over with shall we?” He said before placing his hand on the cube. He remembered vaguely what Kovu had said when he’d used the cube on Gabriel. Put a hand on the box and focus.

He felt slightly stupid placing a hand on the box. Obviously it worked but the concept of a little brick giving you powers sounded, well stupid. His hand tingled as he held onto it, the closest he came to comparing it was the jolt from a shock pen. When he was eight his classmate had shown him one and laughed at his reaction, shortly after that he learned how to ignore the shock and even used it to trick the kid into shocking himself. Had been the first real example that he was capable of any sort of evil. Never thought that experience would ever apply to anything outside of gags.

After holding it for what felt like a minute he pulled his hand back, “That long enough?”

[Stray]

Sable was watching from the back of the room, first he didn’t know what was going on. He had never seen a person or animal morph into the other and as he watched, he felt his expression deaden slightly. But apart from that there was no outward reaction to what Jullian was doing. Internally he was...Perhaps a little disgusted and maybe a bit horrified, but he prided himself in being emotionless. The amount of time and energy one put into expressions could be spent on reacting smartly.

And if you didn’t react, emotionally or with expression then, if a person was the reason, there would be less harassment. It was a trick he learned back in school when everything was normal. He was used to being picked on for his body type and his focuses which were artistic. Here it didn't seem to matter as much...


Once the teacher finished morphing, to which Sable was surprised to see was a boy, He began to speak. Giving helpful information to when they morphed into animals. Things he’d never expect but made sense in a way. Once he was done talking he held out a box, a blue glowing one. Which Sable assumed was the source of morphing powers, obviously....

He sat there, waiting for someone to volunteer to go first, it seemed that no one would. Until the boy from before who had informed him got up with what seemed to be a theatrical sigh before walking forward to Jullian and the blue box. Sable kept his sapphire eyes on the box and Xander, observing with a mildly interested gaze.

[gabriel]

"What, no tingling feeling?" Gabriel asked with a smirk on his face. He remembered what his experience with the blue box had been like even though it had been weeks ago. Kovu had thought he'd hurt himself and the ship didn't have a medic so the blue box had seemed like the only solution. Only he hadn't hurt himself quite as bad as everyone had thought.

At the time he hadn't felt too guilty about the mix up. He hadn't caused it so why should he feel bad from benefitting. Except he hadn't benefitted at all. He'd been walking around with the morphing power for a while now but there were no animals to morph. Not unless he wanted to go outside and try to catch a penguin.

So it hadn't really counted until today. Now that he would finally get to morph he realized how excited he was. This was what he'd come here for.