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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1820141" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 16: Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Stranger...Ow. Ow said it all for Akan. Ow pretty much described the extent of his existence for the last...the last long time. How long? Wait...the last moment he remembered was Shadow’s claws digging into his neck, then nothing. Then...this. But ow. Why ow? Why anything? That was...death wasn’t it? One shouldn’t feel anything after that. Or...should they? Honestly, how would you know? Sure, there were stories of Force spirits, but Akan doubted they existed in a state of ‘ow’. So again, the question of why ‘ow’ returned to his...mind? Thoughts. Yes, thoughts.    [You’re going to have to move or we’ll be stuck like this...] a voice said. It was in his mind....he’d heard a voice similar to that before, only not in his mind. Thoughts. Whatever. [Its your mind, you are alive you know.] the voice interrupted his thoughts again. So he was alive again, and now completely crazy. Hearing voices. Wonderful. But...Akan could feel other voices. Distant and strange, like thoughts that weren’t his own. He latched onto one for a moment and got an image.    The training room. Blood was still on the floor and wall in places, but the focus was on...a body, face first on the floor.. Off to the side of the body was a pile of clothes. His clothes. Wait...that body...it looked like Shadow’s yet...male looking. And the hair. And...and...the arm moved. Akan could have sworn he did that. Then the image faded and he was left in the nothing of wondering what the Sith was going on.    [I’ll explain after we’re completely separated] the voice said again. That voice. He pinned it. Shadow’s. But why in his mind? Too many why’s. [Our tails are still connected...I can’t do that part on my own.]    Huh...? He felt something in his mind....Shadow. She was searching something out. She found it, and he felt a strange energy growing from where there had been nothing. He could...feel his body again. But it was different. Stronger. Bigger, too. And something...his thoughts trailed down, and he found a series of muscles and bones that had never been there before. That...shouldn’t be there. He moved them.    [Hey! Stop playing with the our tails and move forward!] Akan hadn’t realized he’d been moving that muscle for a few...minutes. It was strangely entertaining. That was awkward. He seemed like he was getting distracted much more easily. Wait. Focus. Task at hand. Tail. Right. But why ‘our tails’? Wait...stuck. He let his min travel farther down, and it all got even more fuzzy. Stuck! Tails were...fused? Connected? Stuck! Why? Not another why...FOCUS! Move. Alright. Forward.    He did. Carefully and with eyes still closed. One arm moved up, and dragged him across the floor while the other did the same. As he did this, he could hear...feel, just generally know that Shadow was doing the same thing in the other direction. Then, it was gone. Well, not completely, but the part of him that somehow understood what was going on figured that the ‘stuck’ problem was solved. He stopped moving. Feeling was ‘returning’ in a way to his entire body, and he was noticing many differences that he’d last checked. Mostly, this was along the lines of muscles that were never there before.     He heard movement and shifted his ear towards it. What? Shifted his ear? How did he...? Hmm...there was another new muscle. And the ears were...different. He could hear better, and was surprised at how much louder the ship was. He twisted the ear the other direction to see if it worked. It did. Another sound behind him, and Akan quickly moved his ear to listen. Shadow. How did he know? He could feel her thoughts, and knew she was moving.    [You’ll get used to the link...can you say anything?] Akan heard Shadow ask him as she stopped moving. Say anything...?    [How’m I s’posed to talk? Everythings all...all...] suddenly Akan realized that was his ‘voice’. He’d just thought about it...at her. In a way. Not in any way that much different from the Force, but...he could tell he wasn’t using that for this communication. He just thought at her.    Akan then felt a hand on his shoulder, then heard Shadow’s actual voice, “It’ll probably be very...um...confusing for a while. Can you open your eyes at all or speak?”    Akan did manage to turn his head so his nose wasn’t crushed on the floor. Or at least, he was pretty sure that was what he’d done. But eyes opening was somehow very hard to do. As was working the mouth at all. [What...happened?]    “Well,” Shadow’s hand left his shoulder, and Akan could feel her thoughts race through how to explain things. She tried sending images, but it did nothing but confuse him more. Realizing this, she sighed and tried explaining it as best she could in words, “You um...I...got a little a carried away. You kind of...well...”    [You killed me?!] Akan’s mind had caught on to that much, and though it had made sense considering, it was still shocking and insane in more than one way.    “No! Yes...well...” her voice became accusing, “You told me to! Argh...look, that’s not the point. Just listen because this is um...important. Before you were completely...gone, I sort of made you a new...well...you.”    Again, this was confirming what he was slowly figuring out on his own(with the help of her thoughts), but hearing it was just more to add on to the current feeling of chaos. [How in the Force did you do that?!]    “Not in the Force...” Shadow trailed off, obviously not catching the expression and taking it literally, “Listen it’s a technique of my...our species.”    [Our species?!] alright, now it was going to far.    He felt a strange emotion from Shadow then. Almost like she was hiding behind a wall and talking quietly around it with large amounts of things in the way to deflect any attacks that were sure to come, “Um...yes? We’re the um...same now. I didn’t...I mean, it was the only way! And...and I didn’t mean for things to get so crazy and I...it was the only way...”    There was a silence. Obviously, she expected him to murder her at this point. Then, he broke the silence. He had spent the time doing a mix of thinking and figuring out how to get his mouth to work. Akan managed it, and his voice even sounded different. This was because he was talking through sharper, slightly longer teeth, “...its okay...”    That got a surprised reaction out of her. Akan could feel Shadow’s mind racing trying to figure out what to do. She’d expected a much harsher reaction. Carefully, she said, “Um...you need to know. We’re essentially the uh...same person now.”    [Its why we can...talk like this] she continued in his mind, which surprised him but at the same time was somehow normal already. [The big thing is that um...well, we’ll live as long as each other, really.] Shadow suddenly noticed that made little sense, and tried again. [What I mean is that...well, when one of us dies the other will too...so we’re kind of stuck in that. But it was the only way...]    Taking this all in, Akan finally managed to get an eye open. He was, in fact, face first on the floor. Shadow was sitting crossed legged on a brown pile of what were most likely his clothes. She was wearing her usual skin-tight suit, but it was smaller than usual. No longer did it cover her entire body(minus feet, hands, and head), but started just above her knees and ended a little below her neck with short ‘sleeves’ on her arms. It also looked...different in a way. Less colour to it.    “My morphsuit was...strained,” she trailed off and he watched her reach over to him. She put her hand on his back, but it felt different, “It split itself, so you have one too. Its sometimes hard to tell you’re wearing it...but it won’t hurt you. Both of them will grow back in time, but they’ll be...small for a while,” she caught onto another thought of his, “Yes, they’re alive. Not intelligent, but alive. Now, its really designed to give you something to wear when you morph....but you should wear it all the time because of the cold.”    Morph? Wait...she meant. But he didn’t know how. Maybe it was simple? No...not right now. Focus. Some things still confused him. [Can you...help me up?]    Shadow nodded and as Akan strained muscles that had never been used before(which was odd in its own right), she helped to pull him to his feet. He nearly fell onto her, but Shadow held him up as he got used to the balance difference.    “Tail for balance...” she said quietly, still sounding slightly worried like she expected him to kill her at any moment.    He managed a nod, but wasn’t sure how to use said tail for said balance. So he just let things happened. In a few minutes, he’d worked it out, and was able to stand up, mostly, straight. There was a large mirror on the far side of the training room, which was a remnant of the old quarters that had never been removed. Shadow caught onto his thoughts, and helped him to walk over to it.    When he got to it, his mind finished computing everything and put the last pieces together. There stood Shadow, looking the same as usual. Not too tall, shoulder length white hair with a black stripe down the center, two feline ears and purple eyes with feline pupils, long tail, and her smaller morphsuit. But next to her, was what Akan knew to be himself but still wasn’t sure of.     He was about the same height as before, but it was obvious he had newer muscles in most places. Of course, the skin tight morphsuit probably helped that some, but it would have been noticeable either way. His hair was about the same length as before, scruffy as usual, but...white like Shadow’s. Except no black stripe. Well, there was a stripe but it was a metallic blue colour. He decided not to ask where that came from. He realized the reason his hair looked so much scruffier was the fact that he no longer had human ears to keep it back more. His ears were now up higher on his head, and feline like Shadow’s. His eyes, too had the same slit...but they were the same blue colour as before. More of an ice blue than the colour of his stripe. His skin was darker, like hers was. In fact, exactly the same colour...almost no surprise. He opened his mouth to confirm that his teeth were in fact much sharper, then looked down. Flicked that muscle that had never been there...a tail flicked, with the same white/blue markings as his hair. Okay...um...    [Now what...?] he asked, not sure if his voice would have managed the confusion that was finally settling.    Shadow looked at him in the mirror, then up at him. She had an arm holding him up still, and it was strange how she was so much...different than before. She managed a shrug, then a grin appeared on her face. Not the dangerous grin from before, but a more friendly one. It almost looked out of place, “Your guess is as good as mine...but um, probably should tell Ansion. And well..welcome back as an Alraxian.”    Alraxian. So now he knew the species name. From Raan the young pilot...to Akan the mercenary Jedi...to...an Alraxian. No knew name. He’d died enough. Reborn was an understatement. A grin started growing on his face. Never had he ever needed to ask for an interesting life. Now, he got to live a second interesting one.</blockquote>

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