Hell froze over.
For Chase featuring Virmir (also rather rough so I'm only posting it here and going to give it a good reread after TFF and edit it for a published on FA form). As always if you think of anything you want changed feel free to mention .
One day Chase decided to hold a bakesale. It is generally agreed that this was a poor decision and was responsible for all the chaos and destruction that followed.
The worst aspect may have been simply the location; right across the way from Virmir’s out of the way treehouse. Fed up with annoyingly restrictive city permits, Chase came to the conclusion the endeavor wasn’t worth the effort to set up shop anywhere within the overbearing reach of city hall. Hence the move to hold his bakesale in a more pristine, open area. Perhaps it wouldn’t receive the same traffic, but the picturesque surroundings more than made up for the slight remoteness. The customers seemed more than happy to browse through and purchase the many baked goods Chase had been working all week to prepare. The very orange fox himself beamed at the smiles and the success he was raking in. Everyone was happy as could be.
Except for Virmir of course.
It being still winter, the gray fox was already in a thoroughly miserable mood. Snow, cold, cold and snow, more snow, then a plunge in the thermostat into even colder temperatures. Before rising, threatening everyone with hope before dumping another foot of snow atop the already frigid, frozen, and quite thoroughly dead landscape and then plummeting below zero again.
Suffice to say Virmir had already had enough winter and the frozen white “sky vomit” that plagued him during this season.
Fortunately, his primary trade above all else was that of a fire mage.
Unfortunately, launching indiscriminate fireball bursts off to melt enormous swaths of snow at once tended to make neighbors upset.
Fortunately, Virmir had selected a residence in which neighbors were few and far between and reasonably distant from his tree-built abode.
Unfortunately, Chase had just set up his fantastic winter bakesale in the next lot which was now packed with people.
The first inkling the orange fox had that something was amiss were the ecstatic squeals of glee from the children. They saw huge roaring walls of flame gushing out and melting snow en masse and, coming to logical conclusions that half-baked demonspawn often come to, rushed to get as close to the glorious fire as they could possibly witness. Predictably the excited squeals almost immediately gave way to startled shrieks and screams as flaming embers caught onto clothing, bits of fur, and before long a small stampede of half lit children came barreling over the hill.
Immediately parents and adults shrieked just as loud if not louder than the children, racing into the half-flaming horde to scoop up the incendiary devils who proceeded to rub their faces against their parental units and largely anything else flammable that was in reach. It was this scene that Chase now looked up from innocently behind his stall filled with freshly breaked bread. “Loaf’s up!... er...” he blinked before sweating profusely as a small forest fire began to light itself as screaming half baked adults rampaged into the foliage and park. One particularly brightly self-light combustable in the shape of a skunk rampaged up to the table screaming, stopped for a moment, snatched one of the cakes without paying so much as a penny, then proceeded to remember he was aflame and got back to it, cries muffled between stuffing his face full of cake.
“Er...” the orange fox wasn’t actually sure how to immediately respond, before he noticed the figure rising over the crest of the hill. It looked as though it had stepped forth straight from an arctic expedition, covered in so many layers it resembled less a person than a bouncing ball with puffed out limbs and the barest figure of a head sticking out the top. The only other feature that could give away identity was the figure’s miniscule height, barely three and a half feet tall.
Oh and the ball of flame that seemed to rise from the newcomer’s fingertips.
“Virmir?” Chase called out still a bit dazed.
Immediately urocyon eyes of judgement latched upon the intruding orange fox, quickly divining his purpose with all the tables and baked goods lying about. “YOU,” crackled the accusing voice.
Ok, the gray fox was displeased, but still; “Uh, Virmir, can we talk about this later? People are sort of on fire here,” Chase watched with concern as a chastising mother cow chewed out her flaming calves while lighting aflame herself, making remarks about how none of them had better be well done by the time they got home.
“Ah yes, keywords,” Virmir held up a heavily gloved paw with his digits barely protruding and thus visible, “People. Here,” the urocyon’s tail swished angrily. “On my property.”
By this point Chase was no longer entirely paying attention; he was doing his best trying to throw snow onto some of the scurrying self guided candles. Couldn’t the little devils at least roll in the snow to put themselves out?? “On fire!”
Virmir rolled his eyes. “Well of course they’re on fire! That tends to happen when they run straight into my fireballs!”
“Around children!”
“Who shouldn’t be here ON MY PROPERTY!”
“That’s not your property!” the orange fox waved frantically at imaginary points on the half burnt snowfield. “Your line begins just before that ridge!”
“The children were over here!”
Chase wanted to tear his fur out. “Who ran over after attracted by your irresponsible fireballs!”
“It’s not my fault they’re stupid!”
“Uuugh!!” Chase actually did pull some of his fur out, and ran over to another drooling youngster, a kitten who starred in fascination at the burning fur on his arm and spun around in circles with it. He threw a bunch of snow on him. The child blinked, lowed his ears disappointed, then ran over and hugged one of his ablaze friends to rekindle his own self destruction, this time all over his body. Momentary glee was very quickly replaced by ear shattering screaming.
Atop the ridge Virmir folded his arms. Or tried to; it was a hard maneuver to pull off with the 7+ layers he was wearing. “What did I tell you,” he scoffed smugly.
Clearly throwing snow wasn’t going to work; a more radical solution was needed. Mind frenetically thinking of possibilities, Chase recalled the book of spells that he kept in his vehicle. Rushing past the random pillars of yawning, screaming or prancing pillars of flame, the vulpine snatched his trunk open and revealed his Fantastic Book of Spells. Carefully, of course; this one was a library rental and obviously he didn’t want anything terrible happening to it. So he whipped it out, cautiously running over to the numerous flaming children screeching around him like banshees. Quickly he brushes his paws through the pages, to the... the water spells! Yes, that was it. Granted they might be a bit cold, it being winter and all, but as long as they warmed themselves up it shouldn’t be bad.
So he muttered under his breath a hope that this wouldn’t go terribly and cast at the nearest youngsters! And.. HISSSSSSSsssssiizzle. A whole bunch of steam burst forth from their confused smoky figures, harmlessly dissipating the offending flames. Right! That worked, it... what spell was it on this page that he had just cast? Er, right, just try that one... and
This time instead of the first thing being noticeable that of a wall of steam, this time there was a rather more noticeable torrent of water, like buckets had materialized from nowhere and extinguished the fires below. Well, ok, they’d have to be warmed and dried immediately lest niggling annoying things like hypothermia set in, but those flames were well and truly drenched. Everything was chipper!
Aside from the fact that some of the nearby onlookers also got drenched randomly; the falling water hadn’t been very precisely aimed.
Oh also Virmir was now also soaking wet.
Immediately conscious of his own mortality Chase took a step back. “Gah, sorry Virmir that was my fau-,” he began.
That might have worked if the gray fox had been in a normal, productive mood drawing cartoons all day. But at this point the waterfall during frozen winter was the last straw for Virmir, who stared intently at Chase before whipping off one of his drenched gloves and began summoning a ball of flame.
Those tended to end badly. In the mood that he was in, Virmir was just as likely to lob a 20 foot fireball as a 5 foot one and blast a whole heck of onlookers out with Chase, something the orange fox considered a rather negative outcome. So without thinking he snapped open the book and read the first spell on the water page he could find. “Alakazamaquamarine-a-floos!”
Somewhat to his surprise, Virmir was not drenched in water. No steam. Nor ice (thankfully, that would have killed him but would have made him even more irate once he respawned). No, instead Chase witnessed Virmir wobble and...
FLOP
One second Virmir was there, in his ridiculously packed ten layers of drenched coats and then he wasn’t. The clothes were all there, but unceremoniously splayed all across the ground. Oh no, Chase hoped he hadn’t!...
Gingerly the vulpine moved toward the crumpled mass, ignoring for now the retreating horde of his former and would-be customers. He couldn’t see anything but there was a smell. Something... fishy? Had Virmir packed a fish sandwich in his coat or something? That didn’t sound like him at all.
Only when Chase pulled up one of the sleeves did the wiggling make itself known. “Virmir?” Chase called again and begin digging through the wet crumpled mess, until his paws bumped into something wet and scaly.
The fish blinked and then glowered at Chase as the orange fox pulled back the coats. “What. Did. You. DO,” Virmir demanded, his fishy tail slapping about angrily.
If there was a witty reply to this situation, Chase couldn’t think of it. Instead he flummoxed and opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Well... glad to say I’m not really hungry for fish right now after all that bread, hehe?” he attempted to joke. The new fish thrashed about wildly and somehow succeeded in smacking Chase in the muzzle. “Alright alright!” he cried out, and spun around to snatch the book.
Somehow he must have cast a fish transformation spell while digging through the water spells. Well, he just needed to try and find a reverse spell? His paw traced through the page as Virmir flopped angrily behind him. “Is that the spell book? What’s taking so long?” the fish demanded.
“I’m trying!” Chase fumbled through the writing. “This isn't one of my spells so I can only reverse it with one of the book's own spells!” Blast, why wasn’t this book laid out clearly; they couldn’t even lay out separate lines for each spell! So after a few impatient minutes, he just picked one that looked right?
Shazam!... and Virmir blinked, now rather much a trout rather than some generic fish Chase couldn’t identify.
“... why you, you think this is funny, do you even know what you’re doing!?” the trout snarled and hopped on Chase’s lap, slapping a flipper down on the pages. “Aquakadoodle-zam!” he shouted pointing at one line.
“Wait Virmir that-!” Chase started to object.
Of course he didn’t, since he found it a little disorienting having been suddenly shrunk down into the compact shape of a crab.
The two literal fish out of water stared at each other before Chase snapped an irritated claw at Virmir. “HEY!!” the trout snarled, trying his best to summon an angry fireball with those flippers. This went about as well as could be expected; it was actually quite an accomplishment that he managed to produce an ember or two. So it was that he couldn’t do much more than wiggle and thrash as Chase clamped down on his tail hard with his claw. “OOW! Let go!!”
Chase ignored Virmir’s protests, which only led to the trout thrashing more, knocking the book about. “Dang it Virmir, now I’ve lost the page!” Chase huffed irritated as he awkwardly tried to flop his claws through the book.
As much as a trout could roll its eyes, Virmir did so. “You weren’t doing any good on that page anyway, we don’t NEED to be turning into more fishy things anyway! Now hurry up and look for a reversal spell,” he growled.
Chase gave Virmir a good slap to be quiet, while he tried to search and read. And search and read. And search and read. Until finally the trout let out a looong exasperated sigh. “Do you eeeeven know what you’re doing?”
“There’s a lot of spells in here, alright? And it’s laid out like it was written by a clueless intern.”
“Good trees, just let me have it!” Virmir finally managed to squirm free of Chase’s grip and flopped down to try and examine the book.
But the former orange fox wasn’t ready to give up. “Hey I didn’t say I was ready to throw in the towel, alright? I’ve almost got it, I’m sure the reverse transformation spell is somewhere in this index.”
Growling as best as a trout could, Virmir slapped Chase in the face with his tailfin. At this Chase, instead of just snapping with his claws again, immediately slammed down on one of the visible transformation passages in front of him and called it out aloud while pointing at Virmir.
THUMP.
What was... Chase’s crab eyestalks glanced upward, and upward, as the trout was replaced by the white feathery form. “Ba-gawk?” Virmir the chicken blinked several times and then glared down at the offending crustacean...
Chase decided it was a good idea to run, which proved wise as that penetrating beak slammed down where he had been standing a second before. Angry BAGAWKs rang out as the farmbird ran circles around the book, trying to catch the medling crab. Clearly outmatched unless he could snatch a lucky shot with his claws, Chase scrambled around to the front of the book, desperate to try and find a better form for himself! But that second of frantic searching was enough time for Virmir to catch up and stomp him in place, while a feather angrily slapped down to another passage. “Let’s see how you like this!” Virmir shouted while shaking his feathers.
And Chase was left blinking, a touch smaller, though he certainly felt more familiar. More mammalian at least! But things were off...
Squeak!! Chase found his mouse tail snatched up in the air and unceremoniously dangled in front of the disgruntled bird. “Virmir, don’t you think we could just call a truce?” But something told the new rodent that the chicken wasn’t going to leave it at that, so before he could move the mouse slapped down at the pages, starting to read another one of the transformation passages.
Immediately the mouse was flung backward, hard. He had quite the flight before he crashed into the snow bank behind him, dizzily trying to unbury himself.
And immediately spotting Virmir swatting through the pages. “Well, maybe he’s just finally reversing all this...” he thought to himself, before an impatient BAGAWK followed then by a...
“...GAH!!”
Virmir cried out and tried to shiver with his short-ish arms, now a quivering alligator stuck in the snow. “Blasted spell book! That clearly said Carnivora like the Order of Mammals!” The gator thrashed his tail about angrily, and that’s when Chase saw his opening and darted in, scurrying undetected. Virmir blinked and snarled out but Chase had already pounced on the book, spouting.-.. “Lemkazarkle!”
Aaaand zap! Whatever momentary disorientation the former fox was hit by wore off quickly when he saw the Virmir-gator’s glare and the opening of his jaws. So that book was snatched up as was lemur-ly possible as the new primate scurried off, book held tightly.
Chase probably thought that Virmir would have a hard time keeping up. For one, being a gator, his body was rather awkwardly proportioned for speeding through the snow. Second, he was cold blooded and given his already formidable intolerance of cold, this made it even worse. He’d be incapacitated within moments surely.
Unfortunately, while it had most certainly not been Virmir’s first choice of forms, this was the closest during this entire debacle that he had the nearest thing to hands.
Chase didn’t know what was coming until it was nearly too late. Shivering with his tropical primate body, he caught his breath near the base of a tree... only to see a sudden RAGING TORPEDO OF FIERY FURY barrel toward him. Fight or flight instincts rather quickly assumed control and Chase bolted up the tree, only for the whole plant to be rocked near off its roots when Virmir smashed into it full force.
“Virmir just stop!” Chase pleaded while hanging on awkwardly to a branch, having only one hand to hop around while holding the magic book. “I promise I’ll change us both back!”
“What’s that, not listening right now to the person who invited screaming children onto my property~” the gator hissed will visibly dizzy, soon backing up with deliberate intent as he crossed his claws about, his whole reptilian body seeming to light aflame. Gulping, Chase tried to distract him by throwing down small branches, debris of any kind to distract the flaming gator to no avail. Nothing could stop the headbutting gator, the impact crashing into the tree with such force it cracked with an almighty SNAP. And, oh, also managed to be caught up in a rather sizable shockwave of fire that light half the tree aflame.
Letting out a sharp scream of shock, Chase let go of the book before he realized it, but that was momentarily put aside in favor of hanging on for dear life as the tree careeeeeeeeeeeeeeeened and crashed into the ground below. And also as mentioned, on fire; as it was Chase had to throw himself into the snow to keep himself from becoming a rather crispy critter.
Undigging himself dizzily, Chase struggled to come to his senses as he saw the gator perched in front of the flaming tree, snatching up the book and rifling through its contents. “Who wrote this blasted thing!?” he complained as he searched its contents.
Fearing for his safety, the lemur groaned and once again felt no choice but to jump at Virmir. The gator was certainly far more powerful and capable of biting the offending lemur in half, but again Chase was a lemur, and his agility literally wound Virmir's eyes around in circles until the fire mage spun around dizzily. Sadly, this was not enough to incapacitate him to the point where he let go of the book.
Snap! Went the gator's teeth. Swipe! Went the lemur's paws. They rolled over each other in the snow, wrestling awkwardly for control of the book. But in the current environment Virmir was on borrowed time and the alligator knew it. So instead of fighting Chase with all of his formidable might, he started reading. And Chase, fearing for what revenge Virmir might be plotting, snatched and started reading himself. The first non garbage animal that the each could spot, something better than what they were!...
KADOOSH!
Chase felt himself changing, and midair he found his whole form growing out as he WHAMED into the ground behind him, hooves flailing about... uh, hooves? He flailed his hard nubs, neighing like the horse he had become squirming to get a good view. Somehow Virmir had flung him away with great force very suddenly-
“BLASTED TREES, REALLY?”
The new bear stared down at himself, not at his immense rending claws, his impressive bulked up physique; no, he was starring down at his behind, gazing in dismay at the lack of tail that adorned his ursine body. Chase really couldn't help it, he burst out in a chorus of hysterical neighing.
With a mighty roar Virmir slammed all four of his and charged the surprised equine. “No more horsing around!!” he lept forward, leaving Chase scrambling and only juuuust escaping the claws of the enraged bear. But in the enraged process of attempting to swipe at him, Virmir left the book wide open.
Raising up on his hind legs and letting out a mighty neigh, the horse stomped forward into the snowy wastes, summoning up a mighty dustup of snow in his wake. Surely he'd be leaving Virmir in the dust-
Oh right the the whole barrelling firecharge thing.
This time as a 500 pound bear.
A super charged firebear DESTROYED a straight path of snow in front of him, vaporizing it in a trail of roaring steam that clouded up the entire premises. Chase's horsey eyes widened in alarm as he snatched down with his mouth to snatch the book up. Normally he'd be leaving Virmir completely in the dust, but the steam generating ursine was now just barreling thorugh the brush and small trees that were in his way, CRACKcrashing his way through the woods (and presumably also doing a fair number on his own property at this point).
Runing the clearest way he could, Chase ended up leading Virmir toward his own treehouse; surely he wouldn't try and set fire to his own place! Granted, the door was something that Chase as a horse had difficulty using. But a good brute force kick managed to remove that obstacle, though it left him wiggling fiercely to manuever his way inside.
“THAT WAS MY FRONT DOOR!” the bear raged, and Chase was half convinced Virmir would just smash his way through the remains. Instead, silence. Then scratching; why wasn't he just moving in? Was he just too big?
Scraaaatch scratch. Up the wall. That was when Chase remembered bears could climb. He could run again, or he could just fix things with the book. He had to have at least a few seconds!
He silently cursed his clumsy hooves as he slapped the book down, awkwardly flipping through pages and always accidentally turning far more pages than he intended. Was it under this page? Nono, it had to be... blast it, was this under transmutation/transornamentation??
Where was the dang reverse spell listed under!?
CRASH!!! And Chase yelped as a heavy bear shattered the ceiling smashed into the floorboards just behind his hooves, throwing him upward and upside down atop a desk and utterly smashing it.
“Grrrrrr, STUPID FLOORBOARDS!! They're supposed to hold up a greater weight than this!” Virmir slapped at his own pudgy weight, then immediately eyed the book.
Both the bear and the horse lunged at the book, nearly smashing each others faces off with each others claws/hoof. Chase spun around and tried to THWACK Virmir with his back hooves, missing, and succeeding in taking out one of the windows. The bear meanwhile also tried to deliver a powerful blow, also also missing, and leaving a nice smashed hole in the wall where a bookcase once stood.
Immediately both lunged for the book, trying to snatch it, tearing at each other for the pages! “I was almost ready Vir-mmpmhh!” he squirmed as Virmir twirled his body around to pin Chase's head against the wall.
“Do you know how much it's going to COST to fix this place up? All the contractors I'm going to have to put up with for a week or more while I try and work!?” Virmir snarled and clawed at the pages. A spells, H spells!
Claws and hooves smashing against each other. F spells! Spells under D! Virmir started incanting, Chase's eyes widened in alarm and he dove in, trying to read back, both of them speaking over each other in spell-riddled jibberish!..
KaZAAAAM!!!!
The force of the magic shook the whole house, a shockwave blasting apart furniture and shattering all the remaining windows.
Chase blinked, feeling groooggy. Face was a bit different, definitely not equine. He had far more of a tail this time, felt more right? No, it was too thick, and he moved to poke himself.
But his arm was moving not of his accord? It reached down to poke his side, and his right leg tried to push up!? Chase tried to steady himself, to stop the random motions, only succeeding in unbalancing himself and sending himself toppling forward “Ah!”
“Gah!”
Wait what? Why was Virmir shouting at the same time?
Chase's head slammed down, and his first sight was looking down crosseyed at a very distinctly draconic orange scaled snout. Well that was one mystery solved. The other grew worse as Virmir's head fell next to him. Also looking very draconic. “Oh great, you just had to try and make yourself a dragon didn't you?” Chase rolled his eyes.
Virmir growled and moved to try and hit Chase with a claw!
“Ow!” “Yeowch!”
Both blinked after a moment, realizing they both cried out in pain. It was only then that both slowly panned their gaze down, their necks retreating into their bodies. Or rather, body. Virmir's gray dragon scales bled into Chase's yellow right down the center, and the former gray fox cupped his head in his talon.
Chase sighed... blinking as he spotted a cinnamon roll laying on the window sill. Somehow it must have gotten blow all the way up here in the confusion and explosions? Sighing, he snatched it up and ate. Virmir's eyes widened in alarm. “Don't eat that! That's going to go in my belly too!” And Chase, staring Virmir right in the eye took the most deliberate bite out of a dessert he had ever taken in his life and smiled.
