This one's a gift for one of my friends!


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In the dead of night, a man named Edmond was walking around in a field beneath a star-filled sky. Edmond was a hobbyist astronomer who periodically came out to the field to stargaze. He hadn’t been able to do it in a while due to inclement weather blocking out the sky, but tonight was finally clear, it wasn’t too warm or cold, and to top it all off…a meteor shower was slated to happen tonight! Overall, it was the perfect night for Edmond to get back to what he enjoyed doing.

Another plus to all of this was that Edmond was one of the only space nerds in town, so that left him with the much of the field as space (hehe) to put his telescope. Choosing no spot in particular, he planted the tripod of the telescope into the ground and looked through it. Edmond was immediately met with the immense, immeasurable beauty of the cosmos. The streams of stars and dust and gravel unfurled before Edmond right before his eyes…it was always a beautiful sight, and in the time Edmond had been away from it, he had almost forgotten just how beautiful it was.

And after a few moments of aimless gazing, Edmond backed up from his telescope and turned his naked eyes to the sky. There were supposed to be quite a few meteors passing by tonight, and it would be best to see them all from afar instead of focusing on one through the telescope.

And right on time…a group of bright, white balls of burning could be seen sailing through the sky. Edmond smiled widely as he listened to sounds of awe coming from a group of stargazers a few feet away.

The spectacle was already eye-catching on its own…but there was something that caught Edmond’s attention more than anything else. It was one of the meteors. It seemed oddly brighter and bigger than the others, and it seemed to be moving slower. Almost as if it were purposefully slowing down to get a better look at the earth beneath. Things would only get weirder when the meteor seemed to stop in place…then get bigger.

Edmond was transfixed on the meteor. As far as he knew, this was something never seen before in astronomy. He and the other people in this field were experiencing a scientific marvel that hadn’t ever been seen before!

But then things started to get worrisome. The meteor continued getting bigger…and then Edmond heard nearby gazers started to yell and panic.

“What the hell is that?!”
“It’s coming closer!”
“YO MAN GET OUT OF ITS WAY!”

Edmond’s eyes widened further as the object descended towards him. He could feel determination from it. An eagerness. And as it got to a mere few feet in front of him, Edmond could see it wasn’t a meteor at all…it seemed to be a large ball of white, almost crystalline fire. It was like an actual star had fallen to Earth…and it wanted Edmond.

Soon…it would reach him. Edmond’s vision would be overcome with white, and oddly…he didn’t feel any burning like one would expect from being engulfed by the fires of a star…it didn’t feel like much of anything. It felt like Edmond was floating through thin air.

[center]~~~



Edmond had no idea he had even fallen asleep when he woke up. He groaned, wondering what the hell he ate that triggered such a weird dream…

Then Edmond sat up. Or well, he tried to. He felt a feeling of being bound by ropes around his neck. Edmond’s eyes shot open and he was met with a horrifying sight.

Edmond found himself in a dark, medieval laboratory. There were assorted tools that Edmond had no idea what they were used for (and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know) scattered about all over the place, as well as multiple easels with star maps, accompanied by the proper drawing tools for such things. And looking through a giant window in front of him…Edmond could only see stars and galaxies.

Edmond pried his eyes away from his surroundings and looked at himself as best he could. His ankles and wrists were bound by ropes, but not the kind of rope one would expect…he seemed to be bound by ropes made entirely out of stars! Edmond couldn’t see his neck to confirm, but he suspected his neck was bound by the star-ropes as well.

“Ah! You’re finally awake!” A cheerful voice sang. Edmond’s eyes darted to the direction the voice came from.

The voice came from a hooded figure with his eyes obscured. When he walked, Edmond could see leathery bat wings coming from the underside of the figure’s arms, as well as large bat ears poking out through the top of their hood.

“Wh-What the fuck are you?! Who the hell-“ Edmond tried to cry out, only to be shushed by the figure holding a hand up in a silencing gesture. For some reason, Edmond couldn’t help but oblige.

“It’s rare that I find someone who loves the cosmos as much as I do!” The figure began. “You’ve got a good eye, my friend. I knew you would be perfect for this experiment when you laid eyes on me travelling by. You were the first to do so, so clearly you see and appreciate space on a much deeper level than others!”

The figure stepped towards the end of the table, and before he could speak again, Edmond piped up with another question.

“What do you mean ‘experiment’?! What are you doing to me?!” He cried.

The figure’s eyes narrowed. “I was about to explain. If you would just have a little patience this would go a lot more smoothly.”

The figure cleared his throat. “Now then…I don’t really have anyone else to examine the galaxies with, nor share my findings with…I have my little familiars, but none with whom I can have proper, intelligent conversations with. So that is where you come in.”

The figure flicked his hand, and the frame and glass of the window began to slide into the wall.

“Listen to my voice. Stare into the beautiful, endless expanses of stars and dust before you…imagine discovering and mapping out the infinite roads of beautiful light and darkness…imagine sharing your findings with someone just as enthusiastic as you…and now imagine you look exactly like them…”

The figure’s voice was oddly relaxing…and entrancing…just like the visuals spreading out in front of Edmond’s eyes…it was all he could focus on…and as he did as instructed, his very body began to change.

Starting with his eyes. Their color shifted to become completely purple, then they started to glow…and from Edmond’s eyes, small pinpricks started to make their presence known…and soon, clumps of soft, purple hairs began to sprout, quickly accumulating into fluffy purple fur. Within a mere few seconds, Edmond’s face was fully enveloped, which allowed for more drastic changes to occur.

His human hair merged with his fur, creating a thick tuft at the top of his head. Afterwards, Edmond’s nose began to tingle before quickly sinking back into the bridge and widening into a vaguely mushroom shape. Edmond’s teeth would then change, all of them grew sharper and longer, but his canines especially felt the effects, leaving him with fangs that visibly poked out from his lips. While that was happening, Edmond’s ears began to grow and move, taking on a larger, triangular shape as they migrated to the top of his head.

Once that was done, the bones and muscle in Edmond’s face began to lengthen. Stomach-churning cracking and stretching noises could be heard as Edmond grew a mammalian snout…but Edmond was deaf to the sound. He was deaf to everything but the marvelous sounds of space…the more he looked at the gorgeous expanses before him…the more Edmond just wanted to fly out the window and travel through the stars and map it all out…but alas…he didn’t have any wings.

Yet.

At this point, the figure deemed it safe to let Edmond out of the restraints. The hypnosis seemed to be working, and for the next few changes, it would be better for Edmond to be standing so the figure telepathically made the restraints vanish.

Just as the figure predicted, Edmond stood up immediately and walked to the window, staring up out of it in awe.

“Yes…so beautiful, isn’t it? You want to explore it, right?” The figure asked. Edmond nodded hazily in response.

The figure chuckled, knowing the next changes were coming.

Edmond’s body squirmed slightly as fur grew all over it, sprouting forth from every inch of his skin. It was primarily purple, but transitioned into black past his elbows and knees. Edmond couldn’t help but run his hands through the fur a few times. It felt so soft and luxurious that Edmond wondered how he ever survived without it…

And speaking of his hands…growing fur wouldn’t be the only changes to befall them, for where sharp, grippy claws sprouted from where his fingernails used to be.

And things would only get better. Edmond could feel pressure in the underside of his arms…and a smile spread across his snout, and his ears flicked in joy as he realized what was going on.

From each of his arms, a membrane started to extend outwards from the underside. It definitely hurt a little, but it was all worth it to watch the leathery wings grow to their full, marvelous size. Once they were fully formed, Edmond held them in front of his eyes to examine them further.

They were thin but sturdy, perfect for flying through space…and not only that, but the membranes displayed constellations and shooting stars. It was marvelous.

Now that his upper body was all done…all that was left to change were Edmond’s legs and feet. His bone structure started to shift, starting with his shins bending inwards and forcing Edmond onto his toes. From there, his heels diminished and fused with his ankle bones, which further began to grow in order to support Edmond’s body. Along with all of that, his feet began to change as well, with his toes sprouting sharp claws similar to the ones on his fingers. And not only that, but they began to lengthen quite a bit.

As one could imagine, this put an extreme amount of strain on Edmond’s shoes, and it wouldn’t be long before they were torn to pieces by Edmond’s brand new paws.

Now Edmond’s body was fully a clone of the figure’s… now all that was left was to do a few edits to Edmond’s mind.

“Wow, Edmond…what a wonderful body you have, right? You look just like me…in fact, you ARE me.” He said. And in an instant, it was like a switch went off in Edmond’s mind. He instantly remembered the figure’s name…Quazar. Edmond then realized he was never a human. He was a cosmic bat, dedicated to exploring the cosmos and learning everything there was to know about it!

With that, Edmond’s outfit began to change as well. His shirt extended and merged with the waist of his pants, and his pant legs also grew and fused together. Then, the hems of his new robe turned a bright blue in a wavy pattern, while the rest changed to a purple color.

On the back of Edmond’s robe, a decal of the constellation Orion etched itself into the back of it. On the front, at the breasts of the robe, two decals of the Big Dipper appeared.

“Heheh…wonderful…how do you feel, Edmond?” Quazar asked.

“Oh I feel just fantastic!” Edmond chuckled. “Why, I feel like I could just fly right out of the window right now!”

“Aha! I think that’s a wonderful idea!” Quazar immediately snatched up a satchel, notebook, and pen before tossing a matching set to Edmond. Right afterwards, Quazar flapped his wings and took to the air, flying out of the window and into the galaxy beyond.

With a wide, almost childish smile, Edmond did the same. He flew out right behind Quazar, allowing himself to sail into the endless, beautiful boughs of space…[/center]