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suffocating.

Magpie got back to her talons, shook the dizziness from her head and wiggled
her wings until they reshaped into feathery arms. As her fingers separated
again, she rifled through her discarded clothes and plucked free a sealed
bottle. Taking off the stopper, she strutted over to the furiously wriggling
Yuan-Ti and poured the chloroform into Nice Rack's bosom.

"Do you _mind?_" shouted Nicey. Magpie's replying laugh was like a dawn
chorus with all the nicer birdsong edited out.

She leapt away from the Yuan-Ti as he squirmed furiously, his tail flailing
about, trying to smash his captors. But their cage was also their safe
haven. Panting with exhaustion, the girls kept a tight grip until his
movements became sluggish and dream-like, then cut out altogether.

Rebecca pulled the gun free of the Yuan-Ti's armoured gauntlet and examined
it.

"I don't know about you," she said as she got her breath back, "but this key
looks like it'll open any cell door."

"Or the cell walls, floor and ceiling," said Magpie, her voice pretty much
as squarkish as it ever had been.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sarah skillfully removed the lockdowns on the creature's helmet until she
could remove it, revealing john's peacefully sleeping head. Without the
tentacles visible he looked like any old dozy occupant of a reptile house.
Now able to escape their cell, the girls dragged the creature free of his
protection and tied him to the walls of the cell with his own flexible
limbs, then disintegrated his armour.

Magpie, leaping from one talon foot to another with utter glee, worked out
what shape to make herself. Nice Rack pointed out that the world wasn't full
of straight females, and when she worked out what the hell the Weredeer
meant, grew the feathers over her chest and groin to keep herself modest. At
full human size she couldn't do more than glide and needed to manipulate
stuff anyway, so she kept her hands and arms. The tail feathers gave her
added balance, while her talons and bird face looked really cool, so they
also remained.

"This is sooo weird! I know how to transform, I know how to fly, I know how
to walk with these big talons! Is that how it is when you're a lizard,
Rebs?"

Rebecca nodded, and felt the memories of Figment fight to overcome her.

"She changed you into a Weremagpie months ago," she replied hoarsely.
"Figment felt bad that you wanted to be a bird, and that she could change
you whenever she wanted. But she never triggered the transformation itself
because she wasn't really sure how you would cope with it."

Magpie smiled and hugged Rebecca companionably round her shoulder with a
feathery arm.

"Well, we'll go and show her how well I'm coping."

Rebecca watched that beak wobble around it's owners words. She was so busy
getting used to seeing her supervisor as a giant talking bird that their
meaning was lost for several seconds.

Nice Rack smashed open the locker that kept her confiscated items. She
pulled free an ominous looking guitar case and packed the Yuan-Ti's
Disintegrator into it.

"Why are you carrying a guitar case around?" asked Rebecca.

"It's got my _other_ big gun in it. Now this one'll stop it from being
lonesome."

They left the Detention Centre just as backup finally came. They praised the
reinforcements for saving them from the monster and made a quick getaway.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Embassy had become filled with activity, guns, armour and wary soldiers.
Guards and policemen readied themselves to keep the danger outside from
getting in, so they were too busy to take much notice of Rebecca and co as
they made their way through the thronged crowds to Doctor Jagar's lab. Timid
little eyes glanced about from time to time as child Yuan-Ti followed their
parents.

"They're not children, they're Lesser Serpents," said Amanda as Rebecca
asked why there were so many of the immature snakes. "If you don't believe
in Ssseth and you're A Yuan-Ti, you become one of those little things."

The squirrel paused and grinned nervously with embarrassment as she
remembered what she was talking to. Rebecca looked again at the creatures,
which averaged eight foot long, and tended to wear plastic jewelry, bows and
similar pre-pubescent adornments. Nearly all of them had meek, fawning
expression. As one was rewarded for carrying out some idiotic task with a
pat on the head, Rebecca winced and fought back a sigh. The cheap, colourful
jewelry was starting to appeal to her - it was just as visible as gold and
silver, so why wear expensive stuff?

"What about those who are just turning into Yuan-Ti? What if they don't
believe in Ssseth?"

"Then they... you... turn into a Lesser Serpent instead," said the
Weresquirrel meekly.

Rebecca nodded and sighed. So as well as trying to kill them, she could
thank John for starting her transformation into a munchkin snake.

The crowds thinned out as they entered the medical sector. By the time they
had got to doctor Jagar's lab, there was no-one else around. Except for a
single Yuan-Ti, waiting outside the door.

Nice Rack opened the guitar case, pulled free her new toy and levelled the
disintegrator at the creature. Rebecca cast her eyes skywards, wishing she
had confiscated the thing somehow.

"Rebecca, why do you hunt the doctor?" asked the Yuan-Ti in a
sibilance-free, English accented female voice.

"Dance, snakie!" cackled the deer as she fired a blast, creating a deep
pothole a few feet away from the Yuan-Ti. The serpent didn't flinch.

"Do you mind?" she declared angrily to Nice Rack, and walked around the
crater.

"Please, don't mess with us," said Rebecca with angry determination. "I
don't want you killed."

"I'm grateful for your mercy," she said, smiling fondly. "But I died years
ago. And I'm not letting you pass."

The serpent dug her fingers into her underbelly scutes and tore a hole in
herself. Rebecca stopped walking as beams of light shot out of the widening
split in the Yuan-Ti's belly and coalesced into an enormous, ghostly serpent
head. It crawled forwards through the air, supported by an enormous yet
immaterial body. The spirit Yuan-Ti sloughed off her now empty skin and
floated towards her quarry.

"You shall not murder Ssseth's child, Lesser," she boomed, each word carried
to Rebecca on a great wind that flapped her clothes and dried her eyeballs.

The human stepped back and screamed as she recognised the specter that had
captured her before. She knew she had no chance against such an entity.

By Hedonism

Critter-Man

© Oren Otter

The Scientist, Nice Rack, Amanda Hugnkiss, Beverly Bunny

© Jesse "Karva" Blough

The Yuan-Ti, Ssseth

© ReynardFox

PS : Apologies to anyone waiting for Figment to be released - that will be
resolved next episode, I promise. With Figment's doooom! Hahahaaaaa! Or
maybe not, watch this space :)