Return of Kubasa Ngala Letsatsi, the White Lion of Light

Some friends are out hiking on a country trail at sunset, when they see a werewolfish demon step out of another dimension on the trail up ahead of them. They run when it starts to chase them, but are no match for its speed, as it quickly closes in on them. Realizing they can’t outrun the demon, Mike turns to fight in an attempt to protect his friends, but is backhanded very hard in the chest and sent flying several feet off the trail. The demon continues its advance and seems to be going after Kay, as the others are now trying to put up a fight to keep it away from her, but they are being quickly overwhelmed. Their punches and kicks don’t have much effect, and the demon forcefully swats them out of the way with little effort, causing more injuries with each hit.

That hit knocked the wind out of Mike, and as he is getting back on his feet, he winces, realizing he has some broken ribs, and notices he’s bleeding. He yells though the pain, “No! Stop It!” at the demon, and as Mike starts to run back toward the others, he shouts out again, “Stop…” followed immediately by “UGGHHH!”, as Mike felt like he was kicked in the stomach and shocked by a jolt of electricity, causing him to double over and drop to the ground on his hands and knees. He then heard a voice in his head, “You will need strength and power beyond that of a mere human to fight these demons.”, as vivid images of an anthro white lion warrior, fighting demons with incredible skill and supernatural power, flashed through his mind. Mike said aloud, “Letsatsi?” The voice continued, “Yes. You are worthy. Do you want to accept this destiny?” Aware of what this meant, Mike paused for a moment, and then replied, “Yes. I accept!” The voice then commanded, “KUBASA NGALA COMES FORTH!”, and lightning shot down at Mike from the cloudless sky, followed instantly by a loud thunderclap, then a brilliant sphere of light expanded outward around Mike and dissipated several seconds later. The bright flash and thunder startled everyone and paused the fighting.

Mike felt a massive static charge and intense pressure in his head as his vision blurred, and then a burning pain wracked his entire body. He quickly became numb to the pain, but his skin still felt burning hot. Through the numbness, Mike could feel his body changing, and he heard muffled cracking noises, as he vaguely felt the restructuring of bones and other parts. His hands and feet were getting thicker and longer, while paw pads formed and the last joints of his fingers and toes were becoming claws. There were surges of growth in his arms and legs, and his neck and body were growing longer and larger, as Mike felt his lower back extending outward, into a long tail. His head was also getting larger, and as his ears were reshaping and moving upward, he felt his face pushing forward, while his teeth were reforming into a carnivore dentition and large canines grew out from his skull and jaw. Mike straightened his wrists to put his rapidly increasing body weight on the new front paw pads, but remained on his knees, as his ankles and legs continued to become digitigrade. His skin seemed to be stretching to match the changes, while fur and a mane began to grow, and as his chest expanded, his labored breathing got deeper and he began to quietly growl. As the transformation was nearly finished, the voice said, “You have been granted the title and knowledge of Kubasa Ngala, the White Lion of Light, to defend against the darkness. Use your power wisely, Letsatsi.”

Mike had now become Letsatsi. In his new hybrid DNA, lion chromosomes have merged with or supplanted the human ones, and the extra four pairs of his original primate chromosomes have been altered as well, leaving the feline physical traits completely dominant. Letsatsi retained all of his human cognition and some human hybrid anatomy internally, but there were no external signs that this big white lion was once human. In addition to giving him a stronger, tougher body for fighting demons, the genetic manipulation added the needed anthro digitigrade coordination to his brain, along with some lion instincts to make his new form seem almost completely natural. With some time and practice, he will be able to use the fast feline reflexes and raw, big cat strength to their full potential, along with all his supernatural power, which will be fully unleashed once he learns how to control it.

Letsatsi continues to growl for a moment as the numbness subsides, and he begins to regain his now heightened senses and increased strength. Still blurry-eyed, he tries to get up, at first feeling top heavy and uneasy on his new legs, but quickly regains his balance. His sight fully returns as he stands up, “Whooaaa…”, Letsatsi says in a deeper voice, when he sees his hands are now huge paws covered in white fur, and then looks down at his new body and sees a lion’s mane and massive legs. “I’m a…” he pauses, as he now notices the much deeper voice and the muzzle down in front of his eyes, still surprised at the transformation, despite knowing he would become a lion. Letsatsi then senses his ears and tail moving, and notices he smells something burning, now realizing that everything around him is charred and smoldering, and then he could smell the demon and his friend’s fear.

What Letsatsi noticed was the result of his transformation, as the sphere of light had completely incinerated everything surrounding him, creating a small crater and consuming all of the nearby biomass and his clothes as part of the enormous amount of energy released to remake and add mass to his now much larger body. The sphere of light also had slowed down time within it, as the transformation actually took much longer than what appeared to only last several seconds in normal time to his friends.

As the sphere of light dissipated, Letsatsi then quickly remembered the others fighting, and turned to look down the trail at them. He growled as his anger grew and made large leaps directly at the demon, hitting it hard in the chest with his right hand paw, knocking the demon off balance and pushing it away from his friends, who had noticed the lion’s glowing blue eyes and whiskers, and the bright orange glow beneath the fur of his paws. The demon struck back, but the blow seemed weak to Letsatsi as he blocked the hit with his left arm. Letsatsi growled in response, and the demon pensively stepped back, realizing the big lion was unfazed by the strike, and it was now unsure of how to fight a much stronger opponent than the weak humans. Letsatsi then unsheathed his brightly glowing claws as he brought his right arm up and back, and reiterated, “I said…”, then loudly growled out, “STOP IT! GRRRrrrrrrr” as he swung the extended claws down with all his strength in streaks of orange light. The demon yelped and staggered back from the devastating impact of the paw swipe, which had dug deep into the chest muscles and ripped out pieces of fur and skin, leaving huge bloody gashes from below the demon’s left shoulder, down diagonally across its chest.

His friends watched in shock and disbelief at what they just witnessed, while Letsatsi, still instinctively and unconsciously growling, looks down awestruck at his hand paw, with some of the demon’s bloody fur and muscle impaled on his orange-glowing claws, but then he shook the fur off as it started to smolder and give off smoke. He and the others now noticed that the demon’s wounds were also smoking where its fur was ripped open. The demon then stepped back and disappeared, leaving behind a short trail of smoking blood and bits of fur on the ground, which vanished shortly afterward. As Letsatsi calmed down, he stopped growling and the color of his claws and whiskers faded to normal, while his eyes dimmed to a leucistic pale blue-grey.

Myknaki